A visit to Morgantown…
7 minute read
October 24, 2018, 10:00 AM
On October 8, I went out to Morgantown for the day with Elyse, Brian, and Trent. This was a fun little trip, with the intention of exploring the Personal Rapid Transit (PRT) system and also seeing a few elevators, as the three of them are very much into elevators. I’m not as much into elevators as they are, but I’ve learned a lot from them.
It’s a long drive to Morgantown, that’s for sure. From Montgomery Village to Morgantown took us about four hours, with stops in Frederick, Sideling Hill, Cumberland, and La Vale for various (mostly restroom) needs. I was amazed about how mountainous Interstate 68 was, particularly west of Cumberland. It felt like we were constantly going up a mountain, but the HR-V was killing the hills like a champ. This trip also brought out the roadgeek in all of us. We took I-68 from its eastern terminus in Hancock, and, since we were practically there already, rode 68 to its western terminus at I-79.
Sideling Hill was known territory to everyone. We had all been there before, but the view was still worth a look. However, it was foggy on this particular day:
Continue reading…Categories: Honda HR-V (2018), Transit, West Virginia
I don’t know why anyone expected a different result…
6 minute read
October 11, 2018, 12:11 PM
So in case anyone has been living in a bubble lately, Brett Kavanaugh has been confirmed and sworn in as a Supreme Court justice, after several weeks of hearings, where Kavanaugh was accused of sexual assault by several different women. And then in the end, the Senate voted to confirm him, mostly along party lines.
First of all, I have no reason to think that these women accusing Kavanaugh of some very vile deeds are not telling the truth. Based on various posts from friends on social media who have spoken about their own experiences, not reporting these things at the time that they happen is fairly common, for any number of reasons.
What surprises me is how outraged some people are that this nomination went through. My typical response has been, “What did you really expect would happen?” Think about it. Donald Trump is a Republican. The Senate is controlled by Republicans, and they had enough votes to confirm him to the Supreme Court all by themselves, without any Democratic support. And unlike the Democratic Party, the Republican Party won’t eat their own, so this whole abbreviated FBI investigation and senators’ publicly wavering on whether or not they would vote up or down was all a political stunt designed to appease the constituents at home during an election year. And everyone fell for their song and dance, while they knew that they would confirm him all along no matter what. Brett Kavanaugh could have walked up to Dr. Ford and shot her in the head at point-blank range in front of everyone in the hearing room, and the Republicans would have still confirmed him. The Eleventh Commandment, i.e. “Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican,” still holds true. I wish that it had turned out differently, but I also kept my expectations realistic. I thought it was a bit naive for anyone to really expect that it would have turned out any other way that it did.
Categories: National politics
Please do not put me in a position where I have to defend Donald Trump…
4 minute read
October 4, 2018, 8:04 AM
At 2:18 PM on October 3, a presidential alert went out to everyone’s mobile phones. It was accompanied by the classic emergency tone, and looked like this:
Categories: National politics, News