I'm quite sure it's not your fault, FRiend. There has been lots of "hiccupping" FR software over the past several weeks.
EVERY ping I get from every FReeper is in duplicate or triplicate now. It's ridiculous and very annoying.
Tue column ping
Deval may nix collectors, but he’ll still take your $
By Howie Carr | Tuesday, December 11, 2012 | http://www.bostonherald.com | Columnists
Photo by Patrick Whittemore
Nice try, Gov. Patrick, but you got it exactly backward.
First we get rid of the tolls, then we fire the toll takers.
Eliminating all those nasty toll takers is a nice little Christmas stocking stuffer. Keyword: little. Kind of like a $5 gift certificate to, say, Ben & Jerry’s.
It’s a moral victory of sorts. But the toll money will still be extracted by the hundreds of millions of dollars from Pike drivers, 25 years after the tolls themselves were supposed to end.
The sad thing is, Local 127 has been keeping its nose clean lately. I mean, it’s been more than three years now since one of the International Brotherhood was charged with dismembering and cooking his cocaine dealer.
That case went into the annals of American labor history, along with Samuel L. Gompers and Joe Hill. Talk about a battle cry that will echo down through the ages: “The union grieves his unjust suspension for the criminal allegation of murder.”
Isn’t it great how so many of the Pike hacks now wear rubber gloves? They want to avoid being contaminated by... taxpayers.
Sure, I’ve had my problems with the Pike toll collectors over the years. One time the president of 127 claimed to have seen me spitting on the coins at the Allston tolls before handing them over to him. Does that make any sense? Why would I spit on my own hand when some of it would have probably ended up on my pants?
Actually, the tolls haven’t been nearly as much fun since they got rid of the exact-change baskets. Back then every trip through Allston was like buying a scratch ticket — you could always win, if the bucket had gotten stopped up and all the scaredy-cat drivers just continued throwing coins, and even bills, into the stuffed-up bucket.
Until I arrived on the scene. I would scoop out piles and piles of change and legal tender and toss it onto the front seat. I wasn’t greedy; I always left some for the next driver to steal. So now Deval wants “open road tolling.” Naturally no toll takers would be fired immediately, not even the handful who aren’t related to State House hacks. The changeover to this automated system would cost only $100 million.
What a bargain.
Have you ever gone through the Allston tolls at dawn on a Sunday morning? Most of the time, they have three booths open on each side. Count ’em, three. Good luck finding two booths open in either direction during rush hour. Democrats, Republicans, nothing ever changes.
The toll collectors may be on their way out, but not the tolls, and certainly not Local 127.
It’s the hackerama.
Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/columnists/view.bg?articleid=1061181031
Tue column ping
Deval may nix collectors, but he’ll still take your $
By Howie Carr | Tuesday, December 11, 2012 | http://www.bostonherald.com | Columnists
Photo by Patrick Whittemore
Nice try, Gov. Patrick, but you got it exactly backward.
First we get rid of the tolls, then we fire the toll takers.
Eliminating all those nasty toll takers is a nice little Christmas stocking stuffer. Keyword: little. Kind of like a $5 gift certificate to, say, Ben & Jerry’s.
It’s a moral victory of sorts. But the toll money will still be extracted by the hundreds of millions of dollars from Pike drivers, 25 years after the tolls themselves were supposed to end.
The sad thing is, Local 127 has been keeping its nose clean lately. I mean, it’s been more than three years now since one of the International Brotherhood was charged with dismembering and cooking his cocaine dealer.
That case went into the annals of American labor history, along with Samuel L. Gompers and Joe Hill. Talk about a battle cry that will echo down through the ages: “The union grieves his unjust suspension for the criminal allegation of murder.”
Isn’t it great how so many of the Pike hacks now wear rubber gloves? They want to avoid being contaminated by... taxpayers.
Sure, I’ve had my problems with the Pike toll collectors over the years. One time the president of 127 claimed to have seen me spitting on the coins at the Allston tolls before handing them over to him. Does that make any sense? Why would I spit on my own hand when some of it would have probably ended up on my pants?
Actually, the tolls haven’t been nearly as much fun since they got rid of the exact-change baskets. Back then every trip through Allston was like buying a scratch ticket — you could always win, if the bucket had gotten stopped up and all the scaredy-cat drivers just continued throwing coins, and even bills, into the stuffed-up bucket.
Until I arrived on the scene. I would scoop out piles and piles of change and legal tender and toss it onto the front seat. I wasn’t greedy; I always left some for the next driver to steal. So now Deval wants “open road tolling.” Naturally no toll takers would be fired immediately, not even the handful who aren’t related to State House hacks. The changeover to this automated system would cost only $100 million.
What a bargain.
Have you ever gone through the Allston tolls at dawn on a Sunday morning? Most of the time, they have three booths open on each side. Count ’em, three. Good luck finding two booths open in either direction during rush hour. Democrats, Republicans, nothing ever changes.
The toll collectors may be on their way out, but not the tolls, and certainly not Local 127.
It’s the hackerama.
Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/columnists/view.bg?articleid=1061181031