Another Darwin Award - when will they learn?

Why won't these people learn to read?

A 28-year-old man died early this morning in Pueblo while trying to steal electrical wiring from a high voltage electrical box, the Pueblo police said.

The man, Brian Repinski of Pueblo, was brought unconscious to Parkview Hospital suffering from high voltage burns, said Sgt. Mark Duran.

He died shortly after his arrival.

Nobel Prizes

OK. the Nobel Peace Prize thing was funny, but I hadn't realized that President Obama also has two Grammy Awards.

Also, if we want to make friends with the world, couldn't the USA lighten up a little? The Nobel committee has named the awards in the six categories, with a total of 13 recipients. Of those 13, 9 are Americans, and only 4 went to the rest of the world. Quit being such hogs.

Geography of Jobs

Here is a nice animated visualization of the increase and decrease of jobs in various metropolitan areas from FlowingData.

Writing

Yesterday and today I spent a total of 12 hours writing a draft of a users manual for training people that work under me, and for another state agency. (That sounds more grandiose than it is.) A 36 page document: title page, "version" page, TOC, and 33 pages of useful stuff and appendices.

Remind me again why they cut my contract rate 10%?

How Insensitive

How insensitive can VDOT be? Well, they're all racists, and didn't even realize it.

There's a new turn in the debate over high occupancy toll lanes or HOT lanes.

A lawsuit filed by Arlington County last month claims the lanes benefit wealthy white people and discriminates against minorities. While the only rule to get in the HOV lanes on Interstate 395 is you must have three people in the car, Arlington claims adding HOT lanes would cut out poor and minorities by defacto.

'Cause you can't get three minorities in a car without... I guess I'd better stop right there.

"It is not our intention to play a race card. I think that's a very divisive approach," Favola told FOX5.

But we will, because we think there's some money in it.

The PhD Cook is in the House

Winnie has started to post some of the things she is cooking for us. Yup, we're Cooking with the PhD.

Public Humiliation is Sweeeet

Nope. I didn't do it, but here is a sign that popped up on the edge of the parking lot down the street by some local businesses. Winnie says "better them than us", as we used to find the MD20/20 bottles out in front of our house.

Can anyone tell me how to look up, for free this VA license plate? It might be nice to send her a copy.

Plate Tectonics

650 Million Years in 1 Min. and 20 Sec.

What a scam!

I got my AT&T bill today. $34.99. Out of which $2.57 was actually for 21 minutes worth of calls. The rest was "plan" fees, connectivity fees, cost recovery fees, and tax. Yes, $2.57 for the product, and $32.42 for overhead.