Odds and sods

Just a quick few hitters today with brief comments on things that I'd seen here and there and just never worked into full posts...

• Meth House Nightmare - the crystal meth plague continues to get worse and worse, affecting not just the people who take the drug...don't know how we're going to cleanup the messes left behind - both the toxic waste dumps that are the sites of the meth labs and the disasters that the families and lives are turned into
• Streetcards Work for Portland - Cincinnati is in desperate need of some form of mass transit, and it looks like Streetcars are going to be the option...it's a start, and I hope it actually comes into being...I'll settle for a start from which we can build and expand
• Wordsmiths, Avoid These Words - A pretty anonymous university has come out with a list of overused words from 2007 - all of which I fully agree with. I'll have to check out decimate, because that's the only one of those that I use with any regularity.
• Congress Sends Bill Raising Fuel Efficiency Standards to Bush - Bush has signed the bill into law now, and the simple concept of raising the fuel efficiency to 35 mpg will do amazing things for us...2020 seems a long way off, and it's always possible that things can be changed before that, but here's to hoping that if they are, the mileage is ramped up even further...
• Bush tops 'most admired' poll - an odd thing to read considering his historically low job approval ratings
• Outsource Our Jails to Mexico - I love the willingness of our community newspaper to print just about any editorial. Free speech and freedom of the press doesn't always mean that the people have something revolutionary - or worthwhile - to say.