Author Archives: Richie

Can You See Them Now?

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Highway Paint Shortage Forces

Use Of Virtual White Lines
Richieville News Service – WASHINGTON, D.C.
An acute shortage of traffic paint has forced state and federal transportation officials to resort to the unusual step of replacing actual white lines on roads and highways with virtual ones. 
“We ran out of paint last week, ” said Martha Vandella, a maintenance supervisor for the California Department of Transportation,”so we contacted Google and asked them to put a stripe on Google Maps.” 
The problem is the result of a shortage of a key ingredient in traffic striping paint, methyl methacrylate. Manufacturers of the compound, including Dow Chemical, are scrambling to increase production. In the meantime, according to Ms. Vandella, drivers will have to use Blackberries, laptop computers or other Internet devices to determine the location of highway lanes.

“Of course, as usual, any phone use while driving must be hands-free,” she pointed out .”And iPhone users  will have to be extra careful about staying in their lane. We all know how spotty AT&T service is. “

For more Richieville humor, read the comic sci fi novel, Rate Me Red. 

Highway Robbery

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New York Cab Drivers 
Dispute Ayn Rand
Have No Ideological Justification 
For Cheating Customers
Richieville News Service – New York City
Hundreds of New York City cab drivers who were caught overcharging customers continued to insist today that they had no self-justifying philosophical or political rationale for their deeds and were, in their own words, “just crooks.”
“No, this has nothing to do with helping the economy grow, or creating innovation in the marketplace,” said Abayomi Ede, a spokesman for the drivers, as he waited for his hearing at the Taxi and Limousine Commission. “We’re just crooks. We don’t have any excuses for robbing people. You must be thinking of bankers.”
New York City has moved to revoke the licenses of 633 taxi drivers who together had overcharged thousands of passengers. Yet the cabbies steadfastly refuse to justify their misdeeds by placing them in the context of laissez-faire capitalism or theories of free market economics.
Mr. Ede did admit that some of the drivers had been tempted to do so. “There was  a bunch of guys in the Bronx who wanted us to read Ayn Rand,” he said. “They thought we could say that charging out-of-towners ten times the legal fare was an example of ethical egoism, but we told them that concept was part of the objectivist fallacy  and suggested they read Michael Sandel instead.”
“I just want to make it clear,” Mr. Ede added impatiently. “That when I tell some Japanese tourist that the shortest way from JFK to Manhattan is through Hackensack, I don’t think the invisible hand of the market is going to balance it out. Do I look like I work for the Heritage Foundation?  We’re not Libertarians, we’re not Milton Friedmanites, we don’t believe in enlightened self-interest. We just like to take other people’s money.”
For more Richieville humor, read the comic sci-fi novel, Rate Me Red.