Posted on 03/17/2004 4:25:41 PM PST by PeaceBeWithYou
I know it's way off, but that's what I recall the Houston Chronicle finally admitting in their first serious story about the train crashes. ... It was about a month ago, when the count was in the teens.
That just shows the bias of the Comical. Since 1/13, when the rate would have put the number of Wham-Bam-Tram crashes for the year at 56, the rate has climbed steadily. There was a period of 12 days near the beginning of February, when there were no crashes (reported). At the beginning of that period (2/3), the crash rate would have put the annual total at 97. At the end of that period (2/14), the day before the 10th crash, the rate would have put the annual total at only 76. It has not been so low since. In fact, we had a period of about two weeks, immediately following that temporary lull, when there was a crash, on average, every two days, with two crashes on 2/27, so the Wham-Bam-Tram more than made up for that 12 day lull. As I pointed out above, the current rate would put the annual total at 98.3. It actually topped 100 for two days last week. Watching that rate go up and down, it looks like something around one crash every 3.5 days is going to be the long term average, which should put the total figure for the year at around 100.
Personally, I never believe the Comical, until after I have verified all parts of the story from a reliable source.
The dates and location of each Wham-Bam-Tram crash is listed on the Action America Houston Page, just below the Wham-Bam-Tram Crash Counter. Every crash listed there has been verified in at least two major Houston news sources. With that information, you can calculate the current crash rate or the crash rate for any given date and project the annual total.
That page has become one of the more popular pages on Action America, taking over 3000 hits this month, so far. In fact, there is evidence that it has been bookmarked by a lot of people, because it is also one of the most popular entry pages on the site (the first page a person goes to, coming from another site). It seems to be getting to some of the Wham-Bam-Tram supporters, too, because I have begun getting emails from some of those people, complaining about how that counter fails to consider that all of the crashes were ruled the fault of the automobile driver, as if that made a difference, in light of the growing total. Those emails give me a warm fuzzy feeling and are a large part of why I have gone to so much trouble keeping up with the Wham-Bam-Tram crashes. If they are that bothered by it, then it must be having an impact.
I have to admit I like the way Bill White has taken charge, even if he is a democrat.
Lee P. Brown has been in over his head ever since he was Atlanta Police Chief.
Notice how no one can find him these days, he's hiding. Every day something new pops up, like downtown occupancy rates and that tax revenue loss!
That's what my Momma always told me. She said, "Son, don't step in front of a train, or you might get a ticket!"
As he should have done! It's the job of any decent congressman to favor fiscal restraint of all forms including measures to block massive pork barrel handouts to left wing social reconstructionists and their contractor buddies with vested interests in government handouts. He should do that whether it is in his district or not, especially with Metrorail - the single most bloated, convoluted, poorly designed contractor welfare handout in the state of Texas today.
Take a case example: There's a company named Siemens that builds the train cars for Metro and has the exclusive prototype on that car, virtually guaranteeing any future business from Metro is theirs. Siemens dumped over $50,000 into the Metrorail political fund to push through a multi-billion dollar expansion of the thing. The result? As soon as they start building phase II Siemens gets more contracts. But that should be expected of them - they've been whoring themselves out to corrupt governments as a "transportation infrastructure" contractor since Hitler hired them to build rail parts for Auschwitz in the 1930's. Some things never change.
WHAM BAM!!
Your page needs a map of the rail line and little dots showing the accident locations.
The Hewstin Comical already has a page like that at:
http://www.chron.com/content/chronicle/special/04/lightrail/accidents/ltrail.html
We tend not to redo things that is already out there on the net. However, there is an interesting story about that Comical web page. About a three or four days before that Comical page appeared, I got a feedback form from the web site, from someone who did not include his name or email address. That email claimed that certain people at the Comical were aware of our Wham-Bam-Tram Crash Counter and would probably put up their own less critical web page, concerning crashes, in a few days. It seemed that they were concerned that if too many people came to our counter, it would generate undue criticism of the Wham-Bam-Tram, so they wanted to give people a gentler alternative. About three or four days later, I saw the above listed page for the first time.
I never did learn the source of that heads-up email, coming through a feedback for, as it did, so I don't know how true it is. But, I found it interesting that the Comical Crash Counter and Map appeared so soon afterward.
We have recently posted a full length article about the Wham-Bam-Tram, on the Action America web site. You might want to check it out:
The title is "The Wham-Bam-Tram / Houston Mass Transit or Weapon of Mass Destruction".
'Illegal left turn' (across the tracks) seems to be most prominent.
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