Last week it was Guilford County Schools reaching new heights of asininity. This week it’s —- drum roll please—— Ed Cone.

You’d think the blogfather would at least appreciate the fact that Guarino is making the classic liberal argument that the proposed aquatic center will transfer wealth from hard-working middle -and lower-class property owners in order to benefit the upper middle class and wealthy —- i.e. the Greensboro swim community. But noooo—— all Cone reads is blacks don’t swim.

Whatever. It’s been pretty well established that the taxpayers are going to end up shouldering the burden of this project, especially when you look at what’s happening with other aquatic centers around the state. John Hammer takes note of all the other supposed win-win situations for taxpayers the past few years:

Some of these people who are pushing the pool as a great economic engine also said that Dell Computer would be a great economic engine, and that by this time FedEx would have transformed the entire area. Dell, despite all the conservative projections, is leaving. And FedEx has a new building and a new runway but is waiting for the economy to improve before moving its operations here.

Last but not least, Hammer also notes the argument made by CVB president Henri Fourrier that “youth athletics are recession proof.” I would think —- the ACC Women’s Tournament, NCAA regionals, the Junior Olympics and many of the other events that take place in Greensboro would also qualify as ‘recession-proof.’ If that’s the case, then why is the city having to cover the shortfall in hotel tax revenues?