October, 2012 archive
Mitt the Flip, F Troop Dept. 0
Heh.
“We have these things called aircraft carriers where planes land on them. We have these ships that go underwater, nuclear submarines. And so, the question is not a game of Battleship where we’re counting ships, it’s what are our capabilities?”
Trains Go Nuts 0
I worked for the railroad. The railroad can be a squirrelly place.
Once, I was riding my regular SEPTA train from Narberth to Suburban Station about this time of year. The previous night had been windy, causing a significant fall of leaves. When the engineer tried to slow for Merion, the cover of the leaves on the tracks acted like grease and we slid right through Merion all the way to Overbrook.
I should have known something was wrong when I saw the conductor running towards the rear car . . . .
Then there was the time I slept through a derailment.
I was in the sleeper, which was just behind the baggage car towards the head end.
When the train started to pull in Providence, the rear coach derailed. The crew cut it off and dragged the rest of the train on to Boston, where we arrived on time (there was a lot of fat in the schedule for the overnight train to Boston, so it wouldn’t arrive too early, like at five).
I didn’t even wake up.
But this was truly squirrelly.
The circuit-breaker damage caused an electrical transformer to trip and a signal that guides locomotive engineers to go dark.
The Sky Is Falling 0
In Cali. Where else?
Lisa Webber, 61, found the meteorite in her yard on Saturday, three days after the object fell onto the roof of her home on St. Francis Avenue. She had heard a strange sound at the time but didn’t think twice about it until she read a Chronicle story saying debris from the meteor would be found in a band stretching east of San Rafael toward Napa and Sonoma.
Actually, this is a neat story, especially as no one got hurt and no damage seems to have been done.
Everybody Must Get Fracked 0
You wonder why the frackers want to keep their formulae secret?
Because they are dirty little frackers.
The West Virginia-based group SkyTruth analyzed a database of voluntary industry disclosures and found that diesel fuels were used in fracking on 448 separate occasions in 12 states between January 2011 and August 2012. Fracking involves injecting water and chemicals underground at high pressure to release natural gas from rock formations and has been linked to groundwater contamination.
Next Time He Robs a Bank . . . 0
. . . betcha he gasses up first.
(snip)
Police caught up with Jenkins in Jonesboro as he was pumping gas into a white Cadillac Sedan
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Celebrate All Hallows’ Eve, politely:
In my experience, nine-year-old children tend to be somewhat larger than skunks.
The correlation between gunnuttery and stupid appears to be statistically significant.
Uprooted 2
Unsigned yards; Fabiola Santiago reports from Miami:
I woke up one recent morning to Romney-Ryan signs propped on my neighbors’ lawns.
No surprise there. Many are Republicans, and although I’m not a fan of Romney and my vote is for the sitting president, I was thrilled by the voter spirit.
Shortly after, my next-door neighbor put up his signs: Obama-Biden.
I wanted to break out the champagne. Long live democracy.
Americans who were born with the unalienable right to disagree and dissent may take for granted their elections, but for so many like me who have lived in totalitarian regimes, elections are a cause for celebration.
But my joy was short-lived.
A politically thin-skinned klepto in our small gated community stole my neighbor’s signs — the only ones in support of President Obama.
One of my acquaintances here, a fellow lives in an exclusive neighborhood near the Beachfront, has put up two Obama signs.
Neither one lasted through the evening of the day on which he planted it in his lawn.
The Thrill of Victory, Men Are Pigskins Dept. 0
High school athletics inculcate traditional values.
Principal Rich Kitchens sent out the letter Friday. He said information about the fantasy league came to his attention after the school’s annual freshman assembly on date-rape prevention. That assembly was held in early October.
In the letter, Kitchens wrote that athletes on some of the school’s varsity teams set up the league, “in which our female students (unbeknown to most of them) are drafted as part of the league” and male students “earn points for documented engagement in sexual activities with female students.”
We just won’t say which traditional values.
The rest of the story states that this has been going on for over five years.
Afterthought:
The next time you hear a woman say to a man, “You SOB, this is just a game to you!” remind yourself that she may well have good reason.
RIP Roger Oberndorf 0
Kerry Dougherty, professional curmudgeon for my local rag, someone with whom I usually disagree, is spot on in her remembrance of Roger Oberndorf.
I met Roger over two years ago, at the opening city council campaign event for my friend Andrew Jackson, on the hottest day of the century (well, I might exaggerate slightly, but not much–it was not a good July day for a outdoor fish fry in a backyard notably lacking in shade). We never became close–just casual acquaintances who met from time to time at various events.
It was Roger who explained to me the reasoning behind the screwy system here in Virginia Beach for electing city council; he did it clearly, concisely, and patiently.
He always had time for strangers.
He was a good man.
Droning On 0
According to the first part of this report, every agency wants more fighting robots in the sky, mindless bots that gamers fly.
I wonder how much of that is a “mine is bigger than yours” between the CIA and the Pentagon?
Voting Gangnam Style 0
Via the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
(The first time I posted this, I inadvertently left a caret (“>“) off the end of the code for the embed and it broke the blog. “For want of a nail” etc.)
Hulk Smash (Updated) 2
This crime remains unsolved as yeti.
John Reed tells police that a large, brown, hunched-over bigfoot has been seen nearby. The 39-year-old Reed is a veteran bigfoot hunter, and maintains the Lykens Valley Sasquatch Hunters page on Facebook.
Addendum, the Next Morning:
You can read the police report at The Smoking Gun.
Heh.
Romney’s Bain 0
Froma Harrop documents a history of Etch-a-Sketch moments:
Romney counts himself among the American heroes who built a business, but what his business built above all was an army of crack Washington lobbyists. . . . Forget the malarkey about a blind trust managing his Bain investments. It is run by Ropes & Gray, the Boston law firm that advises Bain.
Follow the link for more Etch-a-Sketch moments.
The Voter Fraud Fraud: Voter Fraud Is a Republican Thing 0
Not Larry Sabato has uncovered yet another occurrence of Republican voter fraud in Virginia. A snippet from the post; follow the link for more:
How is this not a subversive activity?
The Richmonder offers more information here, plus a larger perspective:
