Lots and lots and lots and lots of sirens over the past hour, all heading westward. Sounds more like police cars than fire trucks, but I haven't jumped up to look. Seems extra-loud (or maybe that's just what's left of my headache.
Huh. Most recent one was definitely a fire truck. I heard it grunt.
Maybe I should keep my eyes peeled for a police scanner at a yard sale or something, to satisfy my curiousity about events that require a lot of emergency equipment and personnel but usually don't show up on the television news or anywhere I can find them on the local newspaper's web site.
Still more, while typing this; finally hearing some coming in from other directions (which means they're farther away and thus mercifully less painful to hear).
(Argh. Okay, geting up to look out a window. Can't see any smoke, but I do see a stationary flashing red light less than half a mile west on Lombard. And equipment is still arriving, more fire than police now. Something requiring a huge response but no visible smoke plume rising above the surrounding buildings. I do wonder.)
"Brad DeLong once said that 'Nobody could have foreseen ______ is the Bush administration's version of The dog ate my homework.' [...]
"[...] This excuse is really a serious admission that America's legendary facility with foresight and planning has all but vanished under 30 years of conservative rule. From the very beginning, we've been some of the biggest dreamers and most effective planners the world has ever seen. For better or worse, we settled up a continent, crossed it with railroads and interstates, dammed the West, dominated the skies, got water and power and phone lines into the most remote towns, fought a war in two theaters, and put men on the moon. Say what you will about the consequences of these endeavors; but they are not the achievements of a people who were afraid to look far ahead and imagine big things, who were unable to see all the possibilities, or who were ineffective at bringing those dreams into reality."
-- Sara Robinson, "Stealing Our Future: Conservatives, Foresight, and Why Nothing Works
I just saw the headers of a message my spam filter was chucking into the bin[*], with the subject, "inc your penis". Knowing how often spammers mispell w0rds to attempt to evade filters, I found myself wondering, "Do they mean I should ink my penis by getting a tattoo, or that I should incorporate my penis to take advantage of some tax loophole?"
[*] I was running tail -f on the logfile to spot new messages arriving in various folders while doing something in a different window.
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