2/17: UNarmageddon And Lottery Curses
11:30 p.m.
• I feel safer already.
• Boy, we folks from the Keystone State are sure getting our tax money's worth. And Fast Eddie wants to raise them even more.An asteroid may come uncomfortably close to Earth in 2036 and the United Nations should assume responsibility for a space mission to deflect it, a group of astronauts, engineers and scientists said on Saturday.
Gov. Ed Rendell apologized Friday for the state's lackluster response to a massive traffic backup on Interstate 78, saying that hundreds of motorists became stranded Wednesday and Thursday because of an "almost total breakdown in communication" among state agencies.
Calling the situation "totally unacceptable," Rendell announced an investigation into what went wrong - including why it took until 6 p.m. Thursday to close all ramps onto I-78 in eastern Pennsylvania. That was more than 24 hours after the worst of the Valentine's Day storm had passed, leaving 50 miles of jammed traffic in its wake.
"Everyone involved in the state response was a state employee and therefore I am to blame," Rendell told a news conference in Philadelphia. He tapped James Lee Witt, the former director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, to help lead the review.
The mea culpa was an abrupt reversal for Rendell, who had insisted on Thursday that state government responded properly to the storm and that "Mother Nature is the only one to blame," as spokeswoman Kate Philips put it.
The interstate was finally clear of trucks and cars Friday but the highway remained shut down indefinitely as crews struggled to remove ice and snow from the road surface.
State Transportation Secretary Allen D. Biehler said I-78, as well as large portions of I-81 and I-80, would remain closed so crews and salt trucks could attack the icy mixture that coated the pavement and hardened as overnight temperatures plummeted. He could not say when the highways would reopen.
Figures this took place in eastern PA -- this week's snowfall wasn't that bad here. The salt trucks did what they could, but it's not like you can go out and instanly melt away the snow and ice right as it's coming down from the sky. Then again, this whole clusterfuck was pretty damn funny.
And why exactly am I supposed to care about this?Britney Spears appeared in a tattoo parlor in the San Fernando Valley with her head shaved completely bald.
• Damn, a $2.6 lottery payday only amounted to an $871,000 lump sum after taxes and all that stuff. I can't wait until these people claim bankruptcy.
A couple who won a $2.6 million lottery jackpot and spoke of helping young people fight drug addiction and alcohol abuse are facing a lawsuit alleging they held four months of parties with public sex, fights and signs of drug dealing...
...The lawsuit was filed under a little-used chronic nuisance law aimed at ridding neighborhoods of crime-infested properties. The city wants to board the house up for six to 12 months, according to Roland Iparraguirre, a deputy city attorney.
The Howards, who accepted a lump-sum payment of $871,000 from the Oregon Lottery in October 2005, bought the house at the end of a cul- de-sac last July for $285,000, according to city records.
In the first four months after they moved in, police were called to the street 52 times, the lawsuit said. It said children are often used as lookouts and there are frequent, brief visits and multiple locks on the door, all indications of drug dealing.
The Oregonian newspaper said the couple and two sons named in the lawsuit have criminal histories including convictions for drug offenses and robbery.
Howard said the house is on the market. Iparraguirre said the litigation would be dropped if the house is sold and the alleged criminal activity stops.
If I ever won the lottery, I don't know if I'd go with the lump sum or the spread-it-out-over-30-year thing. It would probably depend on how much I'd be getting back. If I won some uber-large jackpot -- you know, those $100+ million Powerballs, I'd probably go with the 30-year deal. Not only would I get more money, but also getting seven figures over multiple years would be a good way to avoid the "lottery curse." If the amount was smaller, say, $2.6 million, I don't know what I'd do -- I'd have to see the 30-year payout. If it's not much more than the $870k, I might have taken the lump sum as well. Then again, I don't play the lottery so it's all a moot point.
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