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Greg's hijack thread

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/11/u...?_r=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20120911

[h=1]Reclaiming the Title of Fastest in the Land[/h][h=6]By MANNY FERNANDEZ[/h]SONORA, Tex. ? Six years ago, the highest posted speed limit in the country could be found on two stretches of Interstate in West Texas: 80 miles per hour.

To drive one of those stretches ? 544 miles of Interstate 10 between El Paso and San Antonio, a section of which cuts across this rural town ? was a uniquely Texan experience. Sports cars and pickup trucks passed at speeds exceeding 90 m.p.h. in a landscape that at times seemed as flat as the dashboard. They ignored the ?strong crosswinds? warnings on the side of the road and gave new meaning to the antilitter signs declaring ?Don?t Mess With Texas.?

?I love it,? Ted Houghton said in 2006, when as a member of the State Transportation Commission he voted to raise the speed limit (he is now the chairman of the commission). ?It?ll be the Texas autobahn.?

Mr. Houghton?s remarks ? and the speed limit that inspired them ? have been rendered moot, though not by a rival state. When it comes to speeding on the highways, only Texas messes with Texas. Commissioners voted last month to raise the speed limit to 85 m.p.h. on another road, a section of State Highway 130 between the Austin and San Antonio areas that is under construction.

Officials with the Texas Department of Transportation ? which is overseen by the transportation commission ? said the highway was designed and tested for high-speed travel. ?Safety is our top priority,? Veronica Beyer, a department spokeswoman, said in a statement. ?And tests have shown the designated speed is a safe one.?

When it opens in November, the 41-mile toll road will have the highest speed limit in the United States. According to the Governors Highway Safety Association, the only other state with a posted speed limit that rivals Texas is Utah, with 80 m.p.h. zones on parts of I-15.

Texans do not necessarily love speed so much as they hate limits. In a state where legislators repealed a law requiring motorcyclists to wear helmets, granting drivers permission to go 5 m.p.h. faster struck many as a reasonable move, though a number of groups expressed concern, including the governors? association.

The commissioners? decision came after the Legislature approved a bill last year allowing officials to set speeds of up to 85 m.p.h. on some highways. The bill was signed into law by Gov. Rick Perry on June 17, 2011, almost 11 years to the day that he and his driver were pulled over outside Austin for going 75 in a 55-m.p.h. zone.

As Mr. Perry, then the lieutenant governor, approached the state trooper ? the footage from the dashboard camera remains popular on YouTube ? he uttered what has become a kind of motto of Texas driving: ?Why don?t you just let us get on down the road??

But the rising speed limits have as much to do with topography as ideology. As the Works Progress Administration guide to Texas put it, Texas is so big that if it were folded over with its northern line as a hinge, Brownsville would be 120 miles from Canada. It takes 8 hours to drive from El Paso to San Antonio ? following the speed limit ? and 10 hours from Amarillo to Houston. In 2000, Mr. Perry was on a 90-minute trip from San Antonio to Austin, a blink of an eye in Texas time.

?We?ve got miles and miles of miles and miles,? said Jerry Patterson, the state?s land commissioner. ?There?s lots of Interstates going through wide open spaces.?

Mr. Patterson?s comments were transcribed with difficulty, because he and his turbocharged, six-cylinder Ford pickup were speeding on I-10 west of Houston as he spoke on his cellphone. ?I?m right now doing 79, and I?m going with the traffic,? he said. ?The speed limit here I think is 70. If I was doing 70, I?d have cars backed up behind me, I?d have folks that are trying to jump in and out to change lanes to get around me. The majority of the citizenry do not drive 70 miles an hour in a 70-miles-an-hour zone.?

At a gas station off I-10 in Sonora, Mike Curtis, 58, expressed support for the new 85 m.p.h. limit. He had been doing 83 before he stopped to get gas, his mother by his side. It was not so much that Texans are in a rush to get somewhere, he said, but that the somewhere was usually hours away. He was in the middle of a 350-mile trip back home to Sattler, Tex.

?You can?t piddle around at 55 miles an hour unless you want to leave two days early,? Mr. Curtis said. ?We?re not in New York. We?re in the West. There is a world of difference.?

J. Eric Taylor, 59, an I.T. project manager from California who lived in Texas years ago and still works in the state occasionally, remembers the day he was on a two-lane road and saw, in his rearview mirror, a young man in a pickup truck come up quickly behind him. ?He was very eager to get past me,? he said. ?But we came upon a funeral coming the other way. As we approach the funeral, everyone pulls over.?

Mr. Taylor parked behind the pickup on the side of the road and watched the young man remove his cowboy hat and hold it over his heart as the funeral procession drove past. ?And then the moment they took off,? Mr. Taylor said, ?he burned rubber, threw gravel, put his hat back on and took off like a bat out of hell.?
 
Man appears at his own funeral in Brazil | Latin American Headlines | World News | Comcast

Man appears at his own funeral in Brazil

SAO PAULO ? A 41-year-old car washer shocked his family when he interrupted a funeral being held for him at his mother's home in the town of Alagoinhas in northeastern Brazil, police said Tuesday.
Police inspector Roberto Lima said by telephone that on Sunday Jose Marcos Araujo identified a body at the city morgue as being that of his brother, Gilberto.
Lima said that Jose Marcos took the body to his mother's home where a wake was held.
"The confusion started when news started circulating that a car washer had been shot dead," Jose Marcos' wife, Ana Paula, told the UOL Internet news portal. "Police called my husband and told him that his brother had been killed and his body was at the morgue."
Lima said the confusion was "understandable."
"The two men closely resembled each other and both worked as car washers," Lima said adding that the man whose body was in the morgue was named Genivaldo Santos Gama. He said further information on Gama was not immediately available.
A few hours before the Monday burial "a friend of Gilberto's saw him walking down the street and told him that his family was mourning him," he said.
"So he went to his mother's home to let everyone know he was very much alive."
When Araujo showed up at his wake "some people fainted and others were so scared they ran away. It was a big shock," family friend Maria Menezes told the G1 online news site.
Gilberto's mother Marina Santana told reporters "I am overjoyed. What mother wouldn't be after being told that her son is dead and then sees him alive."
 
Former ‘Bachelor Pad’ Twin Gets Head Run Over by a Truck | XFINITY TV Blog by Comcast

Former ?Bachelor Pad? contestant Brittany Taltos, who appeared on season three of the show with her twin sister Erica, isn?t having a Goodyear. Apparently, the reality star was sent to the hospital after a friend backed his truck over her face while she was napping in the front yard.
According to Us magazine, Taltos fell asleep while wearing her headphones in the front yard of her Gainesville, Fla., home, when a friend of hers decided to back his Chevy Silverado through the yard. The driver apparently did not realize that Taltos was even there until he heard her screams.
?I woke up with half a tire in my face,? Taltos told The Independent Florida Alligator. ?I thought I was going to die.?
She subsequently needed 15 stitches on the side of her head and was treated for bruises as well as ear canal injuries, but was released from the hospital shortly after the accident.
 
Do not mess with snapping turtles unless you have a hard shell.

 
Love me some Key West!!
img_3219.jpg
 
Ouch.

The Dirty Dozen Brass Band?s Efrem Towns is recuperating at home in New Orleans after a vicious dog attack that may leave the trumpeter permanently scarred.
Towns was outside baritone sax player Roger Lewis? Atlanta motel room after a gig, he said, in the early hours of Sunday, November 18, when he was blindsided by a large Rottweiler.
?He came over to my room to collect some money,? Lewis said, ?and he was whistling while he knocked on my door. The room next door was open, and the dog just came out and grabbed him in his private area, and started chewing away on him.?
?I didn?t know if it was a dog, wolverine, bear, mongoose or what. I just knew something had me,? Towns said.
?It happened so fast that I was pretty much in shock. I went into survival mode,? he said. ?The adrenaline was pumping, and I grabbed myself and came up with a whole bunch of blood.? The dog?s owner came out of the adjacent room then, he said, and between the two of them, they were able to subdue the animal.

Police and an ambulance arrived and rushed the musician to Atlanta?s Grady Hospital, where he received thirty stitches in his genital area. He?ll see a urologist early next week, Towns said, who will determine whether Towns will lose his left testicle or not. Towns has health insurance through his wife, Tracie, he said.
Friday evening, the rest of the Dirty Dozen was in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, to perform as part of the Bud Light Winter Concert Series. Town was unable to join the band onstage for scheduled gigs this past week at the Maple Leaf and at the Pay It Forward concert to benefit victims of Hurricane Sandy, which took place at the Mahalia Jackson Theater November 21.
The Dirty Dozen Brass Band formed in 1977, and is credited with inventing the contemporary, funk-infused brass band sound. The band has been a featured guest on albums with David Bowie, Elvis Costello, the Black Crowes and other major artists, and has toured over 30 countries on five continents. In May 2012, the Dirty Dozen celebrated its 35th anniversary with the release of the album Twenty Dozen.
The band?s next scheduled gig is December 28, at dba on Frenchmen Street. Towns isn?t sure, yet, whether he?ll be up for performing by then.
?I could probably practice,? while convalescing, ?he said. ?But I?m very uncomfortable right now. I?m basically immobilized ? it?s hard getting around. I?m kind of miserable.?
The experience, horrific as it was, hasn?t soured Towns on dogs. He and his wife own five dogs themselves - three miniature schnauzers, one standard schnauzer and a mixed breed, and when reached by phone Friday evening, the trumpeter?s daughter?s dachshund was also visiting.
?I?m a dog person,? he said. ?And even though I got bit, I hope they don?t put that dog to sleep.?
As he sees it, the moral to the story is this:
?Watch out for the room next door,? Towns said. ?You never know what?s going to come out.?

Dirty Dozen Brass Band trumpeter Efrem Towns is recuperating after a violent dog attack | NOLA.com
 
Anne Hathaway Skips Underwear, Flashes Photographers (? la Britney) at Les Mis?rable New York Premiere | Comcast

Anne Hathaway Skips Underwear, Flashes Photographers (? la Britney) at Les Mis?rable New York Premiere

Oops, Anne Hathaway!

The Les Mis ?rables star attended the New York premiere for the highly anticipated musical-movie adaptation at the Ziegfeld Theatre last night, but in addition to her undoubtedly stellar performance on the big screen, she gave photographers a flash of something else.

Namely, a serious wardrobe malfunction.
http://comcast.eonline.com/news/368...man-and-amanda-seyfried-look-lovely-in-london
Sporting a daring black dress sans underwear, the film's leading lady pulled a Britney Spears and gave photographers a sensational glimpse as she exited her car. The 30-year-old actress seemed completely unaware of her not-so-subtle fashion snafu and went on to the premiere to pose for additional (fully clothed) pics.

Anne's missing undergarments weren't the only thing daring about her look last night. The actress rocked a gothic Tom Ford taffeta gown with bondage boots, slicked-back hair and wine-stained lips.
Here's hoping the L.A. premiere is a little less flashy!

Les Mis?which also stars Russell Crowe, Helena Bonham Carter, Hugh Jackman, Eddie Redmayne and Sacha Baron Cohen?hits U.S. theaters Dec. 25.
 
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