News Roundup
- From the “Feche le Voche” Department – The French railway system has had a bit of embarrassment. It would appear that their new model of trains is just a tad too wide, and will require modification of the stations along the rails so that the new trains don’t get new dents as they pull up to the old platforms. I’d like to laugh at this, but my government has also had issues when it comes to measurements, so I’ll let this one go.
- From the “Leather Throat Lozenge” Department – A Florida Congressman, who it should be pointed out represents many people who have fled Cuba and other communist/socialist dictatorships, seems to have decided that communism is just fine as a system of government. It would appear that he believes that if everyone would just give up and work for the government, then the scourge of crime would disappear. No word yet on his views when it comes to the millions of human beings killed by Communists in the past 100 years, or the billion or so people around the world who live in fear of homicidal repression if they were to ever voice an unpopular opinion, but hey, at least they have a job.
- From the “Schadenfreude” Department – The Che Cafe, a ‘collective’ coffee shop housed on the campus of the University of California – San Diego, is in trouble and its supporters are as steamed as a soy latte. It would seem that in its 34 years of existence, the cafe, named after Third World hatchetman and tee-shirt model Che Guevara, has run over $1 million in the red and has become a deathtrap of fire and other code violations. Now, the student body of UCSD seems to be balking at continuing to fund the cappuccino dreams of their neo-hippie comrades, and the Little Red Coffee Shop might be on its last legs. To paraphrase Margaret Thatcher, socialism only works so long as you can spend other people’s money, and I guess once the other people decide that your little experiment of a collective coffee clatch isn’t such a good idea, it’s time to either give up or mix a little capitalism in with your morning fair trade, shade grown, hand picked dishwater.
- From the “Pride Goeth Before The Fall” Department – DARPA, the defense agency responsible for the series of tubes that brings me news liberally mixed with cute cat pictures and advertisements for baldness cures every morning, has unveiled a new software suite for a quad-copter UAS, which they claim is unhackable. The claim is supported by exercises in which the HACMS system flew around with a big “Hack Me!” sign taped to its back. While I applaud DARPA’s efforts to head off another embarrassment like the one in which an American UAV was hijacked by the Iranians in 2011, nothing is unhackable so long as it is connected to a data network. Instead of saying that the system has no hackable flaws, it would be more precise to say that no hackable flaws have been found, yet. Given enough time, flaws will be found, and if they prove to be too difficult to exploit, there are always other systems that interface with it that will be easier.
- From the “Your Lying Eyes” Department – The Justice Department has decided to take the awesome technological leap of videotaping interrogations conducted by federal agents. Imagine that, federal law enforcement is going to start doing the same thing that the Hooterville Police Department started doing in 1986. This will help to bolster the allegations of what was done and said during interviews with suspects. Interviews with witnesses, while not mandated, are being encouraged. I suggest that any interaction between federal agents and the public, including routine inspections done by such agencies as the USDA and the ATF, be videotaped. That way when the friendly neighborhood ATF agent decides to become abusive with an honest gun store owner or starts making copies of 4473’s, it’s not a ‘he said – she said’ situation.
- From the “Headline of the Year” Department – In what will certainly become a scene in the next Madagascar movie, a Russian alligator is recovering from injuries he sustained after a bus crash last week. It would appear that Fyodor the crocodile was injured when a 260 pound female accountant was thrown from her seat in the circus bus and landed on him. Fyodor seems to have sustained no permanent injuries, but was reported to have vomited for several hours afterward. To be honest, I can’t blame him. I knew several guys in Moscow who vomited for a while after being jumped on by large Russian women, but that usually involved the bars along the Novi Arbat and quart upon quart of what can be loosely described as vodka.
- From the “Good Kitty” Department – A cat in New Zealand brought home a surprise the other morning, and for once it wasn’t something covered in feathers. Instead, a present of a baggie full of marijuana was presented to her owner. The owner promptly called police, who collected the weed and decided to not charge the cat with trafficking. Since it is common knowledge that a cat brings dead things to humans because it believes that we need to learn to hunt, is this a subtle hint from the feline that her owner needs to learn how to score on her own?
- From the “Games People Play” Department – A young man in Oregon caused a three car pile up when he passed out behind the wheel in a tunnel. It would appear that he was holding his breath while driving through the tunnel, and the short time it took to transit the tunnel was too long for him to stay conscious. Police are not giving out many details, but it has been reported that the man is also a suspect in a case in which a pedestrian was hit by a car whose driver had lifted his feet off the floor while going over railroad tracks. Federal officials are also involved, believing that the young man may be the infamous “Punch Buggy” killer.
Posted by daddybear71 on May 28, 2014
https://daddybearsden.com/2014/05/28/news-roundup-218/
DaddyBear’s Den 
oldnfo
/ May 28, 2014Whatta round up… sigh…
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