We call ‘em speed humps in New Mexico

Santa Fe Sheriff Greg Solano talks about speed humps:

One time in Eldorado I received numerous complaints over speeding in the area. The next day we had deputies giving tickets in the area and I drove up to see how it was going. I stopped to backup one of my deputies and after we approched the car I heard the ladies name and realized she had called me complaining the day before. She was furious as she recieved her citation.

The Sheriff goes on to explain why he dislikes the humps. Two excerpts:

The Sheriff’s office, Fire Department officials and others opposed the humps over the last year citing the problems they cause emergency response in the areas which have them. Officially I oppose humps for those reasons, personally I oppose humps for other reasons.

What makes speed humps effective ? The fact that they reduce the amount of traffic on a street in which they have been installed. People whether they commonly speed or not will avoid roads which have them. This causes side or nearby roads to have increased traffic usually causing the addition of traffic calming devices on these roads as well. It causes congestion on nearby roads by increasing the traffic on side roads and decreasing traffic on the roads with the humps.

And guess what? According to the Sheriff, speed humps decrease home values!

Best line of the day, so far

“For those of us who actually look forward to our weekly dose of dippiness courtesy of future toxicology report subject Paula Abdul, wonderful news: She has renewed her American Idol contract for three more seasons….”

Defamer, the L.A. Gossip Rag

Who is that masked man?

Newest Sweetie Reid, like his brothers, has positive blood. His mother, Jill, official older daughter of NewMexiKen, has her father’s negative blood. Not good. The mother’s blood forms anti-bodies to fight the invasion of the baby’s positive blood. Some of those anti-bodies enter the baby’s bloodstream and attack the baby.

Fortunately, Reid has as little of that as could be hoped. Even so, in the days following his birth last Thursday, he was a little jaundiced and had to go “under the lights” as you see here. His brothers were told he was getting infused with super powers.

Baby and mother are doing fine. In fact, baby and mother attended older brother Mack’s soccer practice Monday evening, just four days after the birth by C-section. Now that’s a Soccer Mom!

Sums it up pretty well

“A leak in the Alaskan Pipeline last week spilled 265,000 gallons of crude oil into the Arctic tundra. British Petroleum, the company that runs the oil operation, said that the spill was too small to be detected by their maintenance equipment. But just large enough to rise the price of gas fifteen cents a gallon this week.”

Jay Leno