Words Fail Me category archive

You’ve heard of MscAdamized roads.

Meet Perryfied roads:

The oil and gas boom in Texas has produced an unintended effect: The state plans to covert some roads to gravel to save money.

The oversized vehicles and overweight loads used by energy companies has had a devastating impact on many roads, but the state has not appropriated enough money to fix them.

The Texas Department of Transportation began converting more than 80 miles of paved roads to gravel on Monday, according to the Texas Tribune. The speed limit on the new gravel roads will be reduced to 30 mph.

Based on annual statistical trends, well over 10,000 persons were born yesterday, of which it appears that only one mattered.

Addendum, the Next Morning:

The resident curmudgeon at my local rag gets one right.

Don’t do it in Florida, where it’s okay to stalk and kill someone because you don’t like his looks.

I’m not surprised.

Hell, I grew up under Jim Crow; I know that, in the eyes of some, black lives don’t matter.

It ain’t right, but it is.

And, as long as it is, it soils us all. It is America’s original sin, and it lives on.

I’m not surprised.

But I am disgusted.

This is just strange.

Afterthought:

I think it is a rather unreasonable condition of employment.

I know that, when the Amtrak Police Department first got Tasers, the training involved being Tased, so that officers carrying Tasers would know what they felt like. The idea was that they would use them more wisely if they understood the effects first-hand.

I know this because some of the classes took place in the training center where I was based.

I don’t think the same reasoning can extend to this.

Tales of horror.

A few years ago, Ellen and her husband hosted a christening party for 50 people honoring the new child of her brother and that sister-in-law. The visiting family’s contribution? A few dozen ears of sweet corn. “They drank all our liquor and replaced nothing,” Ellen said. “They never opened their pocketbooks.” When it was time to leave, the relatives wrapped up all the leftover food and put it in their suitcases. Then they asked Ellen and her husband to please mail their gifts and clothing to them. At least they said please.

More guest appearances at the link.

Your tax dollars on patrol in Lakeland, Florida, as the police diligently search for contraband (video below the fold because it autoplays).

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We get goose jams around here all the time; duck jams, not so much.

I’ve never seen anyone do this.

Witnesses told police that “all vehicular traffic stopped” when the ducks began crossing the street, according to a Myrtle Beach Police Department report. But then Robert Allen Willard, driving a BMW coupe, allegedly “intentionally sped up and hit the mother duck and several ducklings.”

The most powerful argument against religion is those who call themselves religious.

I wonder what they would have done to her if she had put Mentos into a Diet Coke.

A Florida teen with an exemplary record is facing federal charges after conducting what a classmate calls “a science project gone bad.”

16-year-old Kiera Wilmot is accused of mixing housing chemicals in a small water bottle at Bartow High School, causing the cap to fly off and produce a bit of smoke. The experiment was conducted outdoors, no property was damaged, and no one was injured.

Not long after Wilmot’s experiment, authorities arrested her and charged her with “possession/discharge of a weapon on school property and discharging a destructive device,” according to WTSP-TV. The school district proceeded to expel Wilmot for handling the “dangerous weapon,” also known as a water bottle. She will have to complete her high school education through an expulsion program.

I am certain that the fact the girl is black has nothing whatsoever to do with this. Nothing at all.

Via Chauncey Devega, who adds excellent commentary.

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Public Shaming has more.

We are doomed.

Neil Izenberg argues that modern kitchens are making us fat by making eating too fun and convenient. A nugget.

Many of the safety issues of yesterday’s kitchens are gone. No one in my family is likely to tumble into an open hearth. But new kitchens pose a more subtle danger to our health by doubling as a comfortable social, entertainment and eating hub. Retail marketers have long known that when tempting food is within close range of our eyes or nose, we tend to eat more of it. In our new kitchens, it’s just too darn easy to get to addictive snacks and calorie-rich drinks.

Move the kitchen back outside to a separate building where God intended!

Better yet, fire circles, like the good old days or let’s just gather nuts and berries.

An accused hit-and-run driver who injured a school crossing guard explains:

Baruchman, 20, told police he was driving fast down the road because he had to make it to his graduation from DUI school, according to the Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office.

Oh, my.

Workers tasked with emptying a Central Texas home set for foreclosure instead dragged away a 16-foot boat, a backhoe, wedding dress and love letters from a neighbor’s barn.

The company, Ohio-based Safeguard Properties, acknowledged the mistake that occurred in broad daylight in December, but has yet to tell Mike and Janine Moors what happened to about $150,000 in possessions including family heirlooms and keepsakes.

(snip)

The Williamson County Sheriff’s office, where the couple filed a report, agreed that while the situation wasn’t right, it wasn’t a crime. A detective told them it happens all the time.

Police continue to investigate fatal Friendship shooting.

Really.

It happened in Friendship, Pa.

Some persons are not cut out for a life of crime.

Then police got to work. They noticed fresh tracks from an ATV. They also saw tire tracks from a boat trailer.

They followed the tracks out of the yard. The tracks ran through woods and directly onto another property on Dorset Avenue.

There, they found the stolen boats . . . .

It reminds me of the case back in Delaware some years ago when someone knocked over a convenience store.

The cops followed his footprints in the snow right to his place.

(I just did a web search for “robber tracked in snow.” It’s more common than one would think.)

A massive spill at a Chivas plant has sent the smell of spirits flowing through a Scottish sewer and sorrow coursing through the hearts of Scotch whisky fans.

I weep.

Romance is zucked.

Bang With Friends is a controversial app that, as the name implies, is supposed to be no-nonsense way to learn which of your friends is interested in having sex. The app’s logo and introductory screen shot leave no doubt about its intent.

Since launching on Jan. 23, the app has “already hooked up over 100,000 couples,” according to an e-mail from the three California college students who created the app.

Tumblr is a very strange internet place.