You Can't Make This Up Archives - Page 4 of 34

Glendale’s Elected Idiots Vote to Give $197 Million Glendale Doesn’t Have to a Dude so He Can Buy the Coyotes NHL Hockey Team for $170 Million – No Joke!

Arizona Republic: “the Glendale City Council approved a $197 million deal to keep the financially struggling Phoenix Coyotes at the city’s arena. . . . The agreement also requires Glendale to wire $100 million to Hulsizer quickly, perhaps in the next few weeks, which would help him purchase the team from the NHL for $170 million. The Glendale council approved taking out a loan”

Five members of the Glendale city council apparently never heard the saying “don’t throw good money after bad.” After investing $300 million to build the palace where the Coyotes play hockey and to give other economic benefits to the Coyotes owners, the city council voted to throw more good money away and bring the city’s total investment in the ever deepening money pit to the half billion dollar mark. Only in government does money grow on trees. Why didn’t Glendale buy the team for $170 million and save $27 million?

See “Phoenix Coyotes deal faces opposition from group.”

California’s High Speed Rail to No Where a Monetary Black Hole for Bankrupt CA & US

Gas 2.0: “California has plans for an 800-mile high-speed rail system running the length of the Golden State, and initial estimates place the cost somewhere around $45 billion . . . . Even a 800 mile journey begins with the first step, and California has been trying to find the area most receptive to the idea of a high-speed rail line. They found that place in the Central Valley, between Borden and Bakersfield, with stations to be built in Fresno and the Hanford area of Kings County. In total, the plan calls for 65 miles of track and stations at a cost of about $4 billion.”

The government idiots spending other people’s money the governments don’t have plan to build the 65 mile rail segment in central California complete with tracks and stations, but let it sit dormant without trains or riders for years until the 500 mile LA to SF segment is complete some time in a future that is far far away. The proposed 65 mile segment between the towns of Borden and Corcoran would truly be the rail system from nowhere to nowhere. There is no guarantee that the remainder of the rail system would ever be built.

In an article called “Subsidy Trains to Nowhere,” the Wall St. Journal estimates the actual cost to be between $62 billion and $213 billion. Wisconsin Governor elect Scott Walker and Ohio Governor elect John Kasich asked the Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood if he would use the $1.2 billion in federal funds allocated to those two states to repair roads in their states, but LaHood reallocated all of the money to high speed rail projects in 13 other states.

Incredibly Stupid Federal Regulation that Requires all Street Signs in the U.S. to Have Upper & Lower Case Letters will Cost Phoenix $11 Million to Comply

If you want the best example ever of how the United States has gone from a country of freedom and limited government to a country that is a nanny state and government control of everything, here it is. The federal Highway Administration issued a regulation that requires every street sign in the United States to contain upper and lower case letters. The bureaucrats say it will make it easier for people to read street signs while driving. I don’t know about you, but I’ve never had a problem reading street signs because the letters were in all capital letters. Whenever a street sign is hard to read it is because the sign is too small, not because of the lack of lowercase letters.

All the street signs in Phoenix, Arizona, are entirely in all capital letters. Big brother says no, no, no. The signs must have upper and lower case letters. For example, CAMELBACK RD is now a violation of federal law. The street sign must read Camelback Rd. The cost to replace all the street signs in Phoenix – over $11.5 million the city does not have to replace 320,000 signs. The cost for all the cities in the U.S. to comply must be in the mega billions. As my beloved cartoon character Pogo said many years ago, “We have met the enemy and he is us.”

Driver Convicted in Teen’s Death Sues Victim’s Parents

Aol News: “A driver convicted of manslaughter for killing a 14-year-old Connecticut boy is suing the victim’s parents for negligence, claiming they let their son ride his bike on a busy road without a helmet.”

Reusable Green Shopping Bags Contain Lead

New York Times: “They dangle from the arms of many New Yorkers, a nearly ubiquitous emblem of empathy with the environment: synthetic, reusable grocery bags, another must-have accessory for the socially conscious. . . . . reports from around the country have trickled in recently about reusable bags, mostly made in China, that contained potentially unsafe levels of lead.”