Posted on 01/29/2014 1:46:20 PM PST by Dick Bachert
As this is written, Atlanta is still in the throes of another winter weather situation. The TV is filled with images of major highways littered with abandoned vehicles. Many of their owners are stranded in make-shift shelters until warmer weather makes the roads passable again.
The governor and other officials just concluded a news conference to explain how the mess unfolded and that they've learned much from this experience.
One of the lessons they “learned” is that, once the potential severity of this event became obvious, dismissing public and private employees all at once to try to get home was a really bad idea as it is many of their abandoned vehicles now clogging the roads, making it impossible for the salt and sand trucks to do their thing.
How unfortunate that so many of these state officials and private business management folks seem to be slow learners. We've had a number of these events in years past and the result is the same: Hundreds of thousands of gallons of expensive fuel burned, multiple thousands of people stranded, some folks even dying in accidents or from exposure, etc.
There IS a sensible solution for at least SOME of these folks and the problems they faced, a solution that could also seriously curtail the massive and growing year round Atlanta traffic rush hour gridlock and, just incidentally, conserve that precious fuel and reduce the CO2 and other emissions the Algore and the other “climate change” charlatans insist causes “global warming” (despite growing evidence that they're nuts).
In the 60s and 70s, Tom Peters, an American writer on business management practices, wrote and spoke extensively on what he called the “Electronic Cottage.” It was a very sensible proposal made possible by the coming of age of the electronic revolution.
In a nutshell, his proposal, even MORE sensible now that the electronic revolution has had 50 years to mature, is that, unless a worker's occupation absolutely required that he leave his home each day to drive to where he performs his duties, the need for him to do so was becoming unnecessary. If he or she was one of the growing number of INFORMATION workers from whom an employer needed mainly or only an INFORMATION WORK PRODUCT, that product could just as easily be created in an “electronic cottage” in some small portion of his or her home.
If I have to explain the societal benefits of that, please stop reading now as you may be one of Obama's no/low information folks and wouldn't grasp how it would save vast amounts of valuable energy resources and human time as folks no longer would need to sit in stop and go rush hours breathing noxious fumes for several hours each day. If you are one of those whose job requires you to navigate a rush hour twice a day, try to imagine how YOUR rush hour experience might improve with half or more of the vehicles removed from the highways?
Speaking of noxious fumes, I sincerely believe that these big city rush hours and those noxious fumes are damaging our brains, exacerbating the dumbing down begun in the government schools to the point where 47% or so of us actually believed the BS laid down my Obama and put an unvetted, unqualified, Marxist community organizer in office – TWICE – and still haven't noticed that his every act is designed to destroy America.
(I'm tempted to raise the issue of school busing but that's a topic for another rant.)
There is another reason why Peters' common sense proposal has not gained more traction. That is the ego driven flaw that dictates that the corporate guy who makes it up the food chain to a corner office feels the need to be able to periodically stroll from that office and gaze around at a mass of cubicle enclosed fellow humans and know that they are “his” people. Their absence from his sight would cause him to feel less important and secure.
And, speaking of security, it COULD come to pass that those above him in that food chain might begin to question just why HE is in that corner office. Can't have that sort of thing now, can we, lest it ripple up and down the entire food chain.
So, while I don't hold out much hope that the electronic cottage with all its many benefits will get any serious consideration, it is possible that coming events here might force it upon us.
The biggest problem is that Atlanta is one little fender-bender away from a major traffic snarl on a good day. As one trucker stated on the CB a few years ago, “too many cars, not enough asphalt”.
It’s a problem when the population density becomes too great. Too many high-rise offices that the road system just can’t feed.
Atlanta’s too big.
Did I mention that I HATE driving through Atlanta?
Naw, I run new snow tires in the winter and then use the older ones in the summer as they make good rain tires.
Just not Blizzaks.
I even have qa set of studded snow tires for the sates where they are allowed. I just pull the studs from the worn tires to use them in the summer 'till they are done.
Naw, I run new snow tires in the winter and then use the older ones in the summer as they make good rain tires.
Just not Blizzaks.
I even have a set of studded snow tires for the States where they are allowed. I just pull the studs from the worn tires to use them in the summer 'till they are done.
Having two identical vehicles helps to make full use of a multiplicity of tire/wheel sets.
OMG, you talk as if that was a good thing. Probably think it's great that "we" got the lead out of paint, too. Next, you'll be suggesting that we should get the lead out of the pencil.
You must be young -- product of the modern public schools, no doubt. See tagline.
Lead is really not all that good except for ammo and fishing weights.
and again you obviously live in an area where severe weather is the norm. Snow tires are in fact more expensive than a regular tire. All weather tires (as advertised) really aren’t.
Even those need to be managed to use up their lower tread depths in the better conditions. So multiple wheel/ties sets need to be on hand.
This obviously mandates owning vehicles for a decade or so. No leasing here.
Yeah, well, I was referring to another meaning [evidently now lost] of lead in the pencil.
and most people here do not have four wheel drive vehicles... AND they have no clue as to how to drive in this weather. Those all weather tires do not give you jack when you are on roads that are nothing but glazed ice.... that’s true even in snow country....even chains may not give you enough traction
And again I say you obviously live in an area that is subject to sever weather.
Great for GDOT. ALDOT done good too. Atlanta wasn’t the only one struggling. Birmingham was also as big a mess, with people stranded overnight on the interstates, and in Montgomery, there was more ice and less snow, and it was a mess there, too. In other Georgia areas, Macon was a mess, as was Columbus.
I also lived in Ala. a couple of times.
Now I live pretty much North of 40 deg. at various longitudes all year.
Living in a place like Fairbanks, Alaska or International Falls, Minn. is a whole different and serious thing.
northern Georgia is snowed and iced in.... we are pretty much always an after thought but that’s okay
Lead hasn't been used as a writing instrument since the 16th century. That's when it was replaced with graphite.
Oh indeed Fairbanks or International Falls is a challenge of an entirely different magnitude.
Almost all tires are mud and snow rated these days.
They have no effect on the roads.
Lesson?
BUG.
OUT.
BAG.
That’s what it’s for: wherever you are, whatever the situation, you’re on your own and you MUST get home, or otherwise survive for up to 3 days, under adverse conditions.
and none of them do you any good on glazed ice
When Glenn Burns comes on the night before and tells you the sky is falling stay the eff home. He’s only been doing this for over 30 years. He’s always right.
The fact that any schools were allowed to open yesterday is insane. We don’t have the equipment or obviously the brains to deal with snow. Its the South.
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