Stuff I missed while I was away

Hello, imaginary readers. I'm back from the partly-sunny shores of South Carolina. Myrtle Beach, that is. Redneck Riviera.

Here are some of the things I apparently missed while I was on the beach.

Transportation meltdown

Some say New York City has the finest public transportation system in the United States, perhaps even in the whole world. Some also say Pat Buchanan has a lovely singing voice. Believe none of them.

From the New York Times:

Heavy rainfall caused by the remains of Hurricane Frances lashed the New York area today, flooding roads and Manhattan's intricate underground subway network at the peak of the morning rush hour. Hundreds of thousands of commuters were forced to overcome delays or negotiate alternative routes to work.

...

In Manhattan, announcements were blared into the cave-like warren of train lines that criss-cross under the city's streets, telling frustrated commuters standing four-deep at empty tracks that several lines were stalled completely or delayed. Those that did pull into stations were so jam-packed with commuters that embarking was impossible.

...

Dina Florez, a 22-year-old event planner for a marketing firm, did manage to catch the N train at 8:30 a.m., even though it was running on the R line heading to Manhattan.

But it stopped between 25th and 36th Streets. "We were stuck in the tunnel for an hour and 10 minutes," Ms. Florez said. "It was horrible. No one could tell us what was going on. People were crying. Some lady passed out."

Sounds fantastic. Similar bullshit happened in 1999, when Hurricane Floyd hit the area.

But I guess I can accept disruptions associated with major hurricanes every five years or so. No big whoop.

What I can't accept is the fact that any rainfall causes the entire system to seize up. It's to the point now that, if I have to use an umbrella on the way to the train, you can bet I'm going to spend the next hour of my life armpit-deep in sweaty strangers.

The inestimable* Jason Mulgrew put it very well:

I never thought I'd look at another human being and think, "So help me god, if you don't let me on this train, I will murder you with my bare hands and fucking eat you right here in front of all these people." I really think this should be a part of training for US Special Forces. Just before going into battle, they should load about 60 on them onto a subway car, make it go four stops (a half mile) in 45 minutes, all the while have people pushing, shoving, and grunting as they move in and out of the car. Then, let them out of the car, give them guns, and just let them go out. We would have the greatest empire the world has ever seen if we did this.

Something about a typewriter

Apparently, the Interblogweb has been ablaze with furious speculation about whether or not a piece of paper that apparently proves that Fuckhead in Chief didn't show up for his super-cushy National Guard duty in the 1960s is actually a fake, and you can prove it's a fake because the t's on it are crossed in a way that they never would have been in the 1960s or because there's a font in the memo that you can only get with Windows XP or because the letters in Dan Rather's name, if translated into Arabic and then rearranged, spell "Candy-Ass Liberal." I don't know. But I have learned a few things from briefly reviewing the "news" articles related to this "story:"

1. People who believe things they read in the Free Republic are douchebags.
2. "Reporters" in the "media" believe things they read in the Free Republic, and thus are douchebags.
3. George W. Bush is a fly-covered donkey anus.
4. John F. Kerry is also a fly-covered donkey anus.
5. This nation is going to hell, immediately to hell, without passing go or collecting $200.
6. I no longer care.

We are all going to die if John Kerry is elected

I'm very sorry I missed the important news, from our Vice President, the extremely evil and nifty Lord Cthulhu, that a John Kerry presidency (God forbid!) would result in horrific terror attacks, probably in which schoolchildren are implanted with uranium and turned into dirty bombs that reduce all theme parks, Build-a-Bear workshops, old folks' homes, nurseries, pre-schools and stores that sell big-eyed puppies into smoking, radioactive wastelands.

Thank you, Lord Cthulhu, for informing me of this! Fortunately, John Kerry will never be elected, because:

1. See lesson #4 in the previous section of this post; and
2. This nation loves it some sweet, sweet fear! Without Lord Cthulhu slithering and grumbling about, without a religious crackpot in the highest office in the land, without weekly terror alerts, without foreign policies that allow and encourage such friendly, stable nations as North Korea and Iran to build nuclear weapons, we won't know what to do with ourselves. We may screw around and do something dumb like elect a President who enjoys pizza and blow jobs, like the last President.

* -- I don't know what "inestimable" means, exactly. I think it means he can't be estimated.