Too Good To Be True

I'm not even going to bother researching this, because I don't care if it's true or not. It just mirrors my preconceptions about modern art, and that's all that counts.

A giant inflatable dog turd by American artist Paul McCarthy blew away from an exhibition in the garden of a Swiss museum, bringing down a power line and breaking a greenhouse window before it landed again, the museum said Monday.
The art work, titled "Complex S(expletive..)", is the size of a house. The wind carried it 200 metres (yards) from the Paul Klee Centre in Berne before it fell back to Earth in the grounds of a children's home, said museum director Juri Steiner.

The inflatable turd broke the window at the children's home when it blew away on the night of July 31, Steiner said. The art work has a safety system which normally makes it deflate when there is a storm, but this did not work when it blew away.

Those Who Can't Do Math, Take The Train

The local paper has a story about all of the people switching to riding Amtrak.

Imagine lines of passengers waiting for departure, baggage sprawled about, sold-out tickets and chaos in the parking lot.

This is the scene at the Newport News Amtrak Station throughout the week at any given departure time.
With high gas prices and tough economic times upon us, it's no wonder why many people are deciding to park their vehicles and board a train.

Karina Romero, an Amtrak spokeswoman, said that as of June, the company reported an 11 percent increase in ridership across the country.

This picture shows the Newport News station. Chaos in the parking lot? How is that possible? It only has 50 spaces.

"My husband and I were just noticing that it is a lot more crowded than we expected," she said. "I think more people are riding the train because it is less than flying and because gas has gotten so high. Gas is terrible."

Obviously we have a situation where these people can't do simple math. Or, they drive real gas hogs. Or both.

Let's do the math, shall we? I just priced the cost of a round-trip from Newport News to NYC on Amtrak for a three day trip. The cost of the fare is $220 for two.

Now my thrifty little Civic gets 40 mpg with just me in it. Let's assume it gets only 35 mpg once I add in the spouse and baggage (Sorry, honey.) So, for $220 I could buy 55 gallons of $4 gasoline, and travel 1925 miles.

Problem is, the distance to NYC is only about 400 miles, so the price of gas for a round-trip would only be about $92. Granted, they won't be paying the cost of parking once they get there ($65/day at the Holiday Inn in SoHo, for example), or tolls on the NJ Turnpike, but still, gas prices are no excuse folks.

It is better as you travel further. The roundtrip for two to Denver would be about $1000, and it takes 48 hours one-way to make the trip. Gas for my car would run about $440 for that distance, plus an undoubted need for an oil change when I was done.

Still, jeez, I've driven that same run in about 36 hours. Can you imagine being on trains continuously for 2+ days? No chance to wash decently or anything.

Au contraire! Those classic private cabins are still available on the train. They do bump up the cost though, to about $2950 for 2 people.

By the way, the same trip via Orbitz is about $1038 for two people, packed in like sardines, but for only 9 or 10 hours, not 48. First class tickets are available from about $2050 for two.

I'll Give Him One Thing...

...and he'll give her another.

One positive point to John Edwards admission of having an affair. At least he appears to know which end of the girl it goes in.

Did They Think This Through?

Olympic Trivia: The 2008 Olympics in Beijing were designed by Albert Speer.

Just by coincidence, or maybe not, Albert's father, also an Albert Speer, designed the 1936 Olympics for Adolph Hitler. The elder Speer server as Hitler's Minister of Armaments, and later spent 20 years in Spandau prison after his conviction at the Nuremburg war crimes trials.

It's almost enough to make me wished I had watched the opening ceremonies.

Almost.

Recall Update

They're doing pretty well with the petitions I wrote about earlier.

An estimated 2,000 to 3,000 signatures have been gathered by a grass-roots group of volunteers seeking to remove from office four members of the Gloucester County Board of Supervisors.

In the third full day of collecting signatures across Gloucester, residents were lining up at tables from Gloucester Point to Gloucester Court House to sign petitions seeking to oust supervisors Teresa Altemus, Bobby Crewe, Michelle Ressler and Gregory Woodard.

To put that in perspective, Gloucester County has a population of under 39,000 of whom about 30,000 are of voting age. In the election that brought these critters to power, there were only about 1,700 votes cast in my precinct (Crewe won by 218 votes). In the one Supervisor race that was at-large there were under 9200 votes cast (Ressler won by 1,642 votes).

My understanding is that in order for a recall to be authorized, they have to get signatures equaling 10% of the votes cast in the last election. So, 170 or so for Crewe, and 920 for Ressler. Sounds like they'll have that to spare. Which is good, as the judges will throw out the signatures on any technicality.

But, looks like we'll be voting again soon.

Recall

After the great time we've had with our supervisors here, the recall process has begun.

Just after noon Friday, Garr Johnson walked into Burke's of Gloucester on Main Street with copies of 250 petitions that seek to remove four members of the county Board of Supervisors from office.

Within an hour, the petitions hit shops and sidewalks in Gloucester, and residents were already lining up to sign them.

Winnie and I signed this morning. They were set up at a card table in the parking lot of the post office, and they were keeping a line about 5 deep in the few minutes I was there. Shouldn't take too long.

My office

Yes, it's pretty awesome. I really do have my own office. I think this was my reward when my boss couldn't get my hourly rate raised, or get me hired permanently. Of course, I do get to share it when there is other testing to be done (you can't see the other computers in the corner), but that seems a small price to pay.

My suggestion would be...

...never talk to a judge this way.

$5,900,000,000 more = "budget woes"

The Governor has announced a hiring freeze (damn!) because of falling general fund revenues.

This year, Kaine implemented a series of cuts based on forecasts of reduced revenue. As a result of those cuts, the state finished fiscal 2008 on June 30 barely in the black -- $5.4 million in a general-fund budget of $17.2 billion.

But, when you look at the budget for previous years, you see the general fund expenditures have increased by a quarter billion dollars just over the previous year ($16.96B), and are still a little above those from two years ago ($17.03B).

The article also whines about the difficulty of making the state's $77B two year budget, when the previous two years totalled $71.1B. Gosh guys, an extra $5.9B from 7.7M residents (~$375/person/year) isn't enough of an increase? Who's getting the money? The state employees aren't seeing any pay raises.

Stephen, you naughty boy!

The Barenaked Ladies are one of my favorite bands. However, Stephen was bad.

Barenaked Ladies singer arrested on drug charges

07/16/2008 5:13 AM, AP


The singer and guitarist for the band Barenaked Ladies has been arrested on drug charges in upstate New York.

Police say Steven Page was charged with fourth-degree criminal possession of a controlled substance on Friday in the Syracuse area.

Authorities say the arrest occurred at about 2 a.m. after police noticed a suspicious car with its driver's side door left open. They say they found Page and two women in a nearby apartment, along with cocaine and marijuana.

Barenaked Ladies' manager Terry McBride confirmed the charge to the Post-Standard of Syracuse but declined to comment further. The singer, released after paying $10,000 bail, is due in court Thursday.

Page helped form the band in 1988. The group, know for hits such as "One Week" and "Pinch Me" recently released their debut kids CD "Snacktime."

Gosh! And only a few days ago, they were announcing their upcoming concert with Disney.

I love this quote from a Canadian news story.

"I do not think it's going to hurt them in the long run," said Arsenault, whose client roster has included children's entertainers Sharon, Lois & Bram, Fred Penner and large music events including the Junos.

She noted that other celebrities with wholesome images have weathered far worse scandals, such as Jamie Lynn Spears and her teen pregnancy, and teen queen Miley Cyrus who appeared in a suggestive photo spread.

The problem, guys is that Jamie Lynn and Miley apparently sex, or got naked. Not quite the same as smokin' and snortin'. And, both are American citizens. Stephen is a Canuck, and if convicted of felony possession, even if he doesn't go to jail, he could be banned from entering the country for life.

The last month

It's been a month since my mom passed away. Almost everyone in the family was there. It all still seems a little unreal. I miss talking to her.

Electric Cars

Hey, if you want to go green, how about buying a new Tesla?
It's all electric.
It does 0 to 60 in 3.9 seconds.
Gets 220 miles on a single charge.
"Fuel" costs are under 2 cents per mile.

They're taking reservations now, and the first production models are delivering.

Cost? Oh, the base price is $109,000, and delivery is in 12 months. If you want to lock in an earlier delivery date, that can be done for an additional $55,000. Full payment being due 3 months before they deliver your car.

New Energy Sources

I've heard quite a lot lately in the news about "why don't energy companies invest in technologies like solar, or wind?" Even so, progress is being made.

In Massachusetts, the Patrick administration's Commonwealth Solar rebate program, implemented in January, is part of a push to increase the amount of solar energy used from 4 megawatts to 250 megawatts over the next decade. (By comparison, the Pilgrim nuclear plant has a generating capacity of nearly 700 megawatts.) A novel program included in the state's new energy bill would allow utilities to own solar panels for the first time.

Uh, whoops. Wait a minute. Did you say the electric company was prevented by law from owning solar panels? So what was supposed to be their interest in seeing solar technology prosper?

It makes me wonder what other dumb laws like this exist. Probably designed to 'level the playing field', but in fact preventing those with capital from using it.

I'd love to hear an oil company exec actually say "Senator, we are pursuing all alternative forms of energy. We look forward to a day when the use of oil is banned. And when it does, with the technologies we will own, you can bet your booties we'll jack the price sky high."

Hat tip to Ace of Spades.

Blowing her nose

This girl nearly got her nose blown of.

A delicate moment

I've told a story similar to this to family members.

A report of a family fight Wednesday afternoon in New Castle didn't turn out to
be what police expected.

A nine-year-old girl called 911 after she awoke from a nap and heard her mother screaming. She went to her mother's bedroom and thought her mother was being attacked.

Turns out, her parents were just enjoying marital relations.

But the New Castle Police Department responded to the little girl's call, and even filed a report, noting "Mom and Daddy were involved in a romantic moment and daughter mistook them as fighting."

"Enjoying" being the operative word.

Too Good To Ignore

Some stories are too good to ignore.

Would-be car thieves could learn from a New Bedford man's mistake: If you're going to steal a car, avoid the idling state police cruiser — especially if two troopers are inside.

Jose Alvarez Nieves was arrested Monday night after he allegedly tried to break into three cars in a convenience store parking lot, including an unmarked state police cruiser, according to state Trooper Paul Gifford.

"It was one of those once-in-a-lifetime stories," Trooper Gifford said.

Not quite a "Darwin" story, but close. Give Jose some time.

Ah, small town life!

It's so fun to live in a small community, where everyone gets in everyone else's business.

Four members of the Gloucester County Board of Supervisors and the Gloucester sheriff were indicted on a total of 15 misdemeanor charges by a special grand jury Tuesday.

In addition, a Gloucester developer faces 10 felony charges in connection with the forgery of county documents.

Supervisors Teresa Altemus, Michelle Ressler, Robert "Bobby" Crewe and Gregory Woodard each were indicted on charges of transacting public business in private, unlawful warrantless search and computer trespass. Crewe and Ressler also faces charges of coercing and intimidating a county employee as a result of a closed-door meeting on Jan. 8 with former Planning Director Jay Scudder.

Sheriff Steve Gentry faces a single misdemeanor count of malfeasance or misuse of office for conducting unlawful searches and seizures related to the entry of the offices of former county employees Bill Whitley and Danny Stuck.

Developer George Woodhouse, who was Crewe's largest campaign contributor and who also contributed $500 to Gentry's campaign, is accused of forging county certificates of occupancy, which are documents that certify that a structure complies with county ordinances regulating building.

We've all been waiting for this ever since these four decided they were going to personally remake all of Gloucester's government.

I sneer at $4 gas

Yeah, because it only hits me a few bucks at a time, spread out over the entire year.

But, this house gets hot water for taps and baseboard heat from a fuel oil fired boiler. Fuel oil prices are about 20 cents per gallon higher than last year, and to get a discount price I have to pay in a lump sum for the year up front. That'll be around $3500 - 4000. I'm not sneering at that.

Jim Webb - not VP

So, our senator says he doesn't want to run with Obama.

Freshman U.S. Sen. Jim Webb, in a statement just released by his office, said he's told presidential nominee in-waiting Barack Obama, "Under no circumstances will I be a candidate for vice president."

Given that he only won his Senate seat by 0.5%, I don't see that he would have been that much of an asset anyway. Or, since it's Virginia, was that supposed to prove he's a centerist?

Stay Strong Lou

One of my favorite bloggers, Lou Minatti, is going through some rough times. Having lost both my grandmother and mom this spring I've got some idea. Stay strong, pal.