For starters, they’re liars. I’m not talking about little political fibs. They lie prolifically, tell jaw-dropping whoppers, and embrace fantastical conspiracy theories. They also reject truth: They’re vaccine deniers, climate deniers, and criminal-conduct deniers (e.g., Sen. Ron [...]
Archive for the ‘Misc.’ Category
Funny money
Wouldn’t it be funny if D. B. Cooper bailed out with a satchel full of this stuff? Here’s an idea: Next time one of your loved ones is kidnapped, pay the ransom with a suitcase full of these bills. Another thought: George Santos can use this “money” to pay his debts and post [...]
Let’s see the spaceships and alien bodies
A breathless op-ed in The Hill on Friday, June 9, 2023 (read it here), claimed “the intelligence community inspector general found ‘allegations that there is a [UFO crash retrieval] program [to be] urgent and credible.’” I certainly hope the Pentagon has a UFO crash retrieval pro[...]
June 8th, 2023 - 12:47 am § in Misc.
Thieves are everywhere
Six Seattle residents were arrested and charged with stealing $3.3 million of Covid relief funds by pretending to be landlords and submitting fake leases and eviction notices to the Small Business Administration (see story here). Scammers pretending to be the Everett Animal Shelter are trolling R[...]
June 7th, 2023 - 2:30 am § in Environment, Misc.
PHOTOGRAPHY: Smoke
What the Statue of Liberty looked like on June 6, 2023, because of Canadian wildfires. Return to The-Ave.US Home Page[...]
PHOTOGRAPHY: Rubber ducks
Yes, they’re art, created by a sculptor. The scene is Hong Kong harbor. Read story here. Update: Hot weather deflated a duck, see story here. Return to The-Ave.US Home Page[...]
The commercial real estate crisis
The commercial real estate sector is in trouble for two big reasons: High vacancy rates, and falling property values. Nationally, about 18% of America’s office space lacks tenants. There may have been some overbuilding, but this is primarily due to the switch to working from home. The pandemic[...]
June 4th, 2023 - 8:00 pm § in Misc.
Who paid for this highway?
Not the people who live here. As of 2021, building a rural two-lane highway like this one in eastern Washington probably costs about 1½ to 2 million dollars per mile (source here). The locals can’t possibly pay enough taxes to cover that cost. The gas taxes that built it were paid by Seattle [...]
June 2nd, 2023 - 2:29 am § in Misc.
Yellowstone isn’t a petting zoo
How stupid can people be? A downside of phone cameras and social media is people trying to get eye-catching videos. In the process, they’re falling off cliffs and getting gored by wild animals. The “Yellowstone” series captured this idiocy in a scene here which, while fiction, is r[...]
Step on the scale, ma’am
By government edict, Air New Zealand is weighing passengers before they board airplanes. The country’s civil aviation agency is collecting data on average passenger weights (see story here). It will be used to figure out “weight load and distribution for planes.” “We weigh everyt[...]