Random Thoughts...
I was trying to decide what specifically to blog about today, but there was simply way too much "stuff" going on to focus on any ONE thing.
So,with that in mind, let's see what shakes out of the old apple tree...
-- From the "Avoid small cars at any cost" Department:
The latest "study" finds that smaller cars (like the YARIS, which makes a good spare in any REAL car's trunk) are more prone to causing severe injury to the occupants... (I'll wait a few seconds for that to sink in...or for you to stop laughing)
Alllllllllllrighty, then.
Looks like another job for CAPTAIN OBVIOUS here, doesn't it?
I mean, do the math. Small cars weight a LOT less than say...a SEMI, so who do YOU think will come out on top when these two vehicles decide to occupy the SAME space at the SAME time on a highway?
Cripes, I drive a Firebird, and the Consumer Reports for that year (1983) said that passenger safety was FIVE stars, and that driver safety was FOUR...damn good reason to get the car, so the survivability factor in my 26 year old car is a HELLUVA lot better than most any car (up through midsize) on the road today. The wife drives a Caprice Classic, and that's a damn tank...well, make that a "light" tank or an APC...LOL!
Now "if" you're ONLY going to allow such small vehicles on ANY road, it's best to keep them INSIDE the city limits, and on roads with speed limits UNDER 45...that would make the cars safer.
Sorry, but I can't see myself clear to owning one of those pregnant rollerskates, no matter HOW "fuel-efficient" they might be. Better to rework larger cars to get better mileage and then retrofit them to all run on HYDROGEN...and YOU heard it here first.
-- From the "It's called the JUDICIAL SYSTEM for a reason" Department:
Looks like we have a new kid on the block when it comes to handing down sentences that (in this blogger's opinion) are way too lenient.
Judge John Surbeck must be having a case of regrets, for he has recently sentenced two murderers to 25 and 35 years (repsectively) for "aggravated" HOMICIDE, when it was outright MURDER. Now, I used to think that when you shoot someone down in cold blood, that WAS murder...apparently no longer.
Now it's "only aggravated homicide".
And that won't get you the death sentence or EVEN life without parole.
How "novel" an idea to hand to the victim's family.
I would suggest that Judge Surbeck take some refresher course at IVY TECH or some other establishment of HIGHER learning that can 'splain to him what MURDER is. And how to PROPERLY sentence a person for COMMITTING MURDER.
-- From the "All or nothing at all" Department:
Fort Wayne is in the running for ALL AMERICAN CITY, and should our city win, it would make the THIRD time it has won the award. Now I was in San Diego back in 1978 when THAT city won the title, and I still have my commemorative Dr. Pepper bottle to prove it, but why FORT WAYNE?
Granted, we DO have a great zoo (south side of the city excluded...that one is definitely NOT for children), and the parks are not all that bad, traffic patterns that beat Philly hands down, and the NORTH and WEST sides of the city have a LOT of amenities that ANYONE living or visiting here would enjoy.
BUT...there are still TWO other sides of Fort Wayne, that are the antithesis of everything GOOD this city is noted for, and that's a heck of a stigma to overcome, isn't it, especially with all the crime around us down here, right?
Check out this link (and watch the video) to a New Orleans TV site for an idea as to what the "scenery" is like in the southeast part of Fort Wayne - the similarities are striking:
http://www.wwltv.com/topstories/stories/wwl041309cbcrimeblight.d09ea600.html
I would suppose that the "requirements" to have the title of ALL AMERICAN CITY has been loosened of late, as have our standards for passing kids from one grade to the next to make quotas.
Well...maybe time to change that too, right?
Now, for some briefs (not boxers)...
-- Phil Spector convicted of murder - About time (bad hair all around anyway)
-- Arlen Spector still a senator (can't win 'em all, can we?)
-- GM worried about bankruptcy - Shoulda thought about that around THIRTY YEARS ago, people.
-- Passenger lands plane after pilot succumbs to heart attack - Another case of an ordinary guy doing some EXTRAORDINARY.
God bless him.
-- Ammo vanishing from gun store shelves at record sales rates - Who says ALL the economy is going down the crapper...not me!
-- CA driver leads police on highway chase, says he wanted to commit suicide after he crashes - Better luck NEXT time.
-- Lastly, there is a nice size SINKHOLE along Clinton Street (a touch of IRONY in that street name and that huge HOLE...funny, yes?), and aside from wondering if those wacky French didn't really create a BLACK HOLE with their super-collider, and somehow send it through the earth to US, I have to admit that there is a powerful lesson to be learned JUST by acknowleging how that hole appeared from seemingly nowhere.
Take a look around the SOUTH side of town, and tell me THAT is also a hole in the city (of the financial kind).
The city dumps money into it (never enough to do any good, mind you), and it keeps getting worse. Businesses fold (and this was before this economic debacle), people move the hell away, and crime increases yearly across the board. Almost a THIRD of the entire FWPD's resources are utilized RIGHT HERE in the south side of town, and not much appears to come of it. Then again, one has to wonder WHY, and I won't go into that...not right now, anyway.
The city has lost (and will continue to lose) revenue down here because, no matter WHAT is done at this point, until the real problems get addressed, it will be more of YOUR tax money being pissed away.
But, situations like this occur in nearly every other major city across this nation.
People have become their own WORST problem.
And only people can SOLVE it.
Relying on "big government" to bail everyone out is never the answer (and never will be).
When regular citizens begin to realize that THEY have the real power in America, they CAN make changes that will be for the betterment of everyone concerned...
And that is something you CAN take to the bank.
In the meantime...
Stay safe out there, America.