Friday, July 28, 2006
James Taranto notes this news story:
“Tour de France winner Floyd Landis denied on Thursday taking performance-enhancing drugs during the race and said he would fight to clear his name after testing positive for the male sex hormone testosterone,” Reuters reports.
And makes this quip:
Only the French would consider the presence of testosterone in a man’s system suspicious.
Ooooh…how I wish I’d thought of that!
Hat tip to reader Richard F. for these gems…actual comments that ordinary people made in 1955.
I know a few younger folks that would have trouble believing these!
"I’ll tell you one thing, if things keep going the way they are, it’s going to be impossible to buy a week’s groceries for $20."
"Have you seen the new cars coming out next year? It won’t be long before $2000 will only buy a used one."
"If cigarettes keep going up in price, I’m going to quit. A quarter a pack is ridiculous."
"Did you hear the post office is thinking about charging a dime just to mail a letter?"
"If they raise the minimum wage to $1, nobody will be able to hire outside help at the store."
"When I first started driving, who would have thought gas would someday cost 29 cents a gallon. Guess we’d be better off leaving the car in the garage."
"Kids today are impossible. Those duck tail hair cuts make it impossible to stay groomed. Next thing you know, boys will be wearing their hair as long as the girls."
"I’m afraid to send my kids to the movies any more. Ever since they let Clark Gable get by with saying 'damn' in 'Gone With The Wind,' it seem’s every new movie has either “hell” or “damn” in it.
"I read the other day where some scientist thinks it’s possible to put a man on the moon by the end of the century. They even have some fellows they call astronauts preparing for it down in Texas ."
"Did you see where some baseball player just signed a contract for $75,000 a year just to play ball? It wouldn’t surprise me if someday they’ll be making more than the president."
"I never thought I’d see the day all our kitchen appliances would be electric. They are even making electric typewriters now."
"It’s too bad things are so tough nowadays. I see where a few married women are having to work to make ends meet."
"It won’t be long before young couples are going to have to hire someone to watch their kids so they can both work."
"Marriage doesn’t mean a thing any more; those Hollywood stars seem to be getting divorced at the drop of a hat."
"I’m just afraid the Volkswagen car is going to open the door to a whole lot of foreign business."
"Thank goodness I won’t live to see the day when the Government takes half our income in taxes. I sometimes wonder if we are electing the best people to congress."
"The drive-in restaurant is convenient in nice weather, but I seriously doubt they will ever catch on."
"There is no sense going to Lincoln or Omaha anymore for a weekend. It costs nearly $15 a night to stay in a hotel."
"No one can afford to be sick any more; $35 a day in the hospital is too rich for my blood."
"If they think I’ll pay 50 cents for a hair cut, forget it."
My favorite: “…I sometimes wonder if we are electing the best people to congress."
Hah!
Last night at 6 PM the roadblocks on Lyons Valley Road came down. We were the first ones through the roadblock on the south side, waving to the CHP officer who had been manning it, and now looked very relieved to be done with this duty.
The photo above right is a panorama I made by stitching together seven individual photos. I took this while standing on the eastern edge of the “helispot” that’s along Lyons Valley Road, a mile or so south of the intersection with Japatul Road. Interestingly I saw no evidence that the helispot had been used — even though it was built (at considerable cost) for the express purpose of providing a place to load, unload, and refuel helicopters in an emergency. I could see several other places that did appear to be used for air support, including the large parking lot just south of the helispot. Go figure.
Anyway, you can see (if you click on that panorama) the Secret Canyon area, to the northeast of the helispot, under the clouds. This is in the Pine Creek Wilderness, some very rugged and inaccessible territory.
The leftmost photo below shows the Barrett Honor Camp — it’s an oasis of green amidst the burned area. I’m sure there’s a story there about how they saved that camp…
The next photo is taken from the helispot, looking up Horsethief Canyon. Just out of sight, over the next ridge, is an area full of homes — the firefighters stopped the fire before it got there.
The last two photos show some of the “mop up” operations going on last night (and continuing today). The truck is wetting down a dirt road; the helicopter is looking for hot spots that might flare up again.
We drove all the way to the north end of Lyons Valley Road, where it tees onto Japatul Road. Despite the satellite data and verbal reports to the contrary, our eyeballs tell us that the fire never crossed to the west side of Lyons Valley Road — so the eastern flanks of Gaskill and Lawson Peaks are still green. There’s a lesson in there about how to read the satellite data, though I’m not entirely sure yet what that lesson is…
The piece of good news in all this, at least for Lawson Valley residents, is that a roughly 45 degree swath of our risk aperture (for Santa Ana driven wildfires) has had the fuel removed. It’s the same effect that would occur from a controlled burn, though I can’t imagine any government agency approving a controlled burn of this magnitude. This is a significant reduction in our risk of wildfire…
