Category: Misc

They report…you assume and move on

Another example of why you must do your own due diligence when forming opinions and doing research. Taken from News10 this morning:

    Butte County Man Dies of West Nile Virus

“Wow!” you might say, “this is getting out of hand, people are dying left and right.” However, read on a few lines and you find:

    The man who died was suffering from a chronic disease in addition to West Nile.

Now I am not saying this man did or didn’t die of the WNV, but “chronic disease” does sort of mean, well, “Lasting for a long period of time or marked by frequent recurrence, as certain diseases: chronic colitis.”

Keep your green in the right lane

John at Uneasy Rhetoric has some ballsy comments re hybrid cars in the carpool lane.

And SacRagger RonTopofIt just shared with me this quote about gas prices in a News10.net story:

Many are feeling the pain in the pocket. “In my van it’s like every two days 45 bucks to fill it up,” lamented Mary Chicas of Plumas Lakes. “It’s like so crazy.”

Let’s do the math: let’s say she gets 13 miles to the gallon and her tank is 16.5 gallons (using that $2.72 and her $45, and 9th grade Algebra). I think Mary’s real problem is that she’s driving over 100 miles a day. She must commute to Dixon. That’s like so crazy!

Gotta get them skeeters, eh?

With all this talk of Sacramento’s mosquito killers, it’s interesting to note some similarities in how people were warned about mass spraying of pesticides to combat WNV in other jurisdictions.

In Canada, there’s a fight brewing in the province of Manitoba, where local citizens also were given very little warning about the spraying of Malathion (another mosquitocide) over residential neighborhoods (or as we say in Canada, nehbourhoods). While doctors up north have voiced their concerns, the push for large scale fogging is continuing.

It seems the modus operandi of “vector control” people is to give citizens little warning before spraying their property, pets and plants with bug poison.

Ah, the perils of democracy.

We get comments

Kudos to Sac Rag reader Mariellen for finding a nice controversial spin to the spraying story. Together we can get to the bottom of this! We can make the powers that be bend an ear to the little guy because the little guy has the power of 10 bloggers and a handful of readers on his side! Either that, or together we’ll just wait patiently in front of the TV until the spraying is over and then forget about it when football season starts.

“Honey, Stop the Car!”

Our friends over at Plum Win scooped us on this one. With all this pesticide ranting I haven’t had time to comment on this annoying real estate marketing ploy that has been eating at me for weeks. A few months ago a house came on the market on my street with this sign. I thought, “hmmm, that bugs, but I am sure it’s some looney greenhorn realtor’s idea.” Then I see another and another. Then, as if that sign is not horrible enough, I come across the “Talking House! Tune Your Radio to 1460AM” sign right under the Honey sign. Ugh. Have we reached this point, Sacramento?

UPDATE: As web dudes here at the Rag, I must admit that I do think it is rather clever to advertise your house by purchasing the domain for your street address and whipping up your own site to sell your home. Because if you’ve ever tried to navigate through the MetroList service you probably have been frustrated with the lack of details and specifics for the house you may have your eye on.

Not to pile on, but, ok, to pile on

The Sac Rag is increasingly more alarmed with this WNV (yes, you know you are in deep doo doo when the acronym is thrown around) issue. For example, this excerpt from an article on News10.net:

    This morning vector control district officials said they believe they have killed off 40 to 50 percent of the overall mosquito population in the sprayed area and called on residents to eliminate standing water where mosquitoes thrive. “After these applications, it’s not going to do us any good if people aren’t managing their water supplies — if they have unmaintained swimming pools, if they over-water their lawns — because we will see a recruitment of the adult mosquito population,” vector control district manager Dave Brown said.

Continue reading “Not to pile on, but, ok, to pile on”

The Spraying Continues

RonTopofIt turned me on to this map of the spraying area which uses the super cool Google Maps API. (I’m planning to implement that here at SacRag just as soon as I understand how to do that).

Anyway this whole thing is just getting out of control (hence the new category designation). Where was the public notification that there was even an epidemic? I’m sorry, but if there is a super deadly disease spreading through town I don’t want to have to tune in at just the right segment on News 10 to hear it from county health person Glenna Trochet. I want Arnold to freakin break into the news to tell me.

Also, “pyrethrin cancer” on Google yields 6300 results. (Pyrethrin being the mosquito killing pesticide being used.) But not to worry: “chocolate cancer” yields about 1.4 million!

Cropdusting. Literally.

Wait. It seems that SacRag would be in severe neglect if we all forgot to discuss the fact that our whole town is going to be cropdusted today and tomorrow by the Vector Control Department (I’m not sure what that is but it sounds like a department that only sees action when cropdusting neighborhoods is called for). Apparently this will save us all from West Nile Virus. I’m getting the sense it’s kind of a big deal considering a) they’re coating us in poison; b) Good Day Sacramento said we shouldn’t run our AC tonight and we’re supposed to wash down all outside furniture and keep our pets inside; c) it’s being done by this mysterious “Vector Control.” On one hand I’m not quite motivated enough to do even the minimal research that would be required for a remotely well-formed opinion. On the other hand, I’m thinking maybe the joy of blogging is that you can spout off opinions with or without any substantiation for them. Sooo… I guess I’m not liking the cropdusting. Counterpoint?

Number 57, no wait… 56 with a bullet

I have blogged previously about the Top Sites list but I’d like to point out that after only a week or so of membership on the list your friends here at The Sac Rag are up to #56 (as of this writing) on the list. Our next opponent? The Crest Theater. You’re going down, beloved Sacramento landmark! Eat our shorts. I’m serious: first go buy our shorts, then open up the UPS package and eat them.

Sacto’s online scene: Sleazy with a Capitol S

Did you get my punny entry title? Anyway, one of the reasons RonTopofIt and I started this blog was our perception that there was an overall dearth of local Websites that were not of the “pictures of hootchies at the Distillery” variety. Ugh. The non-aptly named Sacramento’s Top 25 list of Websites is full of this kind of PG-13/TV-MA rated crap. What is up with that, Sacramento? we asked ourselves. Why does it seem like it’s either FairyTaleTown.org or BlueCueSkanks.com? Family fun in the hot hot sun or the sleazy Sacto singles scene? Right in the middle is where we wanted to position ourselves.

As we look into it further we’re finding plenty of decent blogs out there covering local stuff. Start with Postcards from Sacramento and work your way around this interconnected network of computers we call the Information Superhighway. And stay away from the benign-sounding site “916 Online.” Nothing that will get you fired from work, but nothing that will make you happy you live in this fair city, either.