"Megakota?" Latest Weird Move To Alter United States Map

A dumb Change.org petition is advocating that North and South
Dakota be merged into one state, called MegaKota. 

People are always coming up with daft ideas to alter the map of the United States.

The latest: Merge North Dakota and South Dakota into one big state, called "MegaKota."

Obviously, this idea will go nowhere, but that's not going to stop people from trying.

A Change.org petition was recently posted by Dillan Stewart of Fargo, North Dakota. This doesn't sound like a fully formed proposal, if you ask me. Stewart wrote: "I think itd (sic) be pretty cool to have a state called MegaKota so yeah.  oh (sic) yeah and then maybe Puerto Rico can be a state and we won't have to change our flag."

Uh, right.

As of late morning Thursday, the petition had nearly 7,000 signatures and it was increasing rapidly,   , so some people like this idea.  A few people think there's zero difference between North and South Dakota, so you might as well merge them. Still, people from both states would beg to differ on that assessment.

If MekaKota came into being, it would be the fourth largest state by land area, the 37th largest economy  and the sixth biggenst farm economy according to journalist David H. Montgomery.

My husband Jeff, originally from South Dakota, points out that "Megakota" is an insult to Native Americans in the region. After all "Dakota" refers to one of several tribes among the Sioux,  others being Lakota and Nakota.

"MegaKota"  to me sounds like a real slap in the face to these tribes.

There's been all kinds of weird merger or secession proposals around. One ballot proposal that might be in the works would make California secede from the union, a Calexit of sort.  Of course, nobody thinks that will get anywhere, either.

It looks like Russia was trying to encourage this, too. Which is something you'd kind of expect from Putin and his ilk.

Another harebrained scheme would split California into three parts - the northern third, coastal southern California and inland southern California. Why, I don't know.

There's also been a weak movement to have Texas secede from the union. That won't go anywhere either. The "logic" behind the Texas movement is the federal government is taking away too many rights for liberty loving Texans, or something like that.

And, wouldn't you know! Russia was trying to encourage Texas secession, too. 

No word yet on whether the Russians will sign on to "MegaKota. Probably not, because the Dakotas are not trying to split off from the Union.

If You're Having A Bad Day, People In These Videos Had It Worse.

The remains of a Turkish mansion after an out of control ship hit
it in the Bosphorus Straight.

Sometimes, things just don't go right during a day on the job.

Lately, quite a few people have had that happen in a huge way.

A lot of what you are about to see look like at least potentially fireable offenses. So keep checking out this post every time you make a mistake at work.

It could always be worse.

First, we go to Denmark, where it was time to demolish an old silo. It was all set up. The giant silo would come down, and tilt to the right and crash into an open lot.

Bummer. The damn thing tilted to the left. Where, of course, there was a building in the way.  Part of the silo landed on a library and cultural center. While that building was badly damaged, most of the books inside were saved, even though they were covered in dust.

Watch:



Next, we go to the Bophorus Straight near Instabul, Turkey, where, unfortunatly, a ship's rudder recently failed.

Which is bad, but it got worse. The out of control vessel smacked into the Hakeimbasi Salih Efendi mansion on a recent afternoon. The opulent place was built in the 18th century and has recently been used to host weddings and concerts. The mansion appears to have been destroyed.

Not after the ship hit it. It was quite an impact, as you can see from the video below. Luckily no injuries were reported



Now we go to our nice close neighbors in Montreal, where, on an icy day in early April, the cargo hold of a truck lifted up as it sped along Highway 40. Nobody is sure why yet, but it sure led to a dramatic crash into a pedestrian bridge

The load of corn went everywhere, and a motorist nearby filmed the whole thing.

Strang truck mishaps seem to be an epidemic. A truck loaded with empty beer kegs plunged off a Pennsylvania overpass recently, spilling the kegs all over Interstate 95 and forcing a temporary closure of one of the world's busiest highways.

Then there's the famous 11 foot, eight inch bridge in North Carolina, which continues to claim the lives of many trucks which are too tall for the low overpass. Despite numerous safety measures and warnings that have been installed there over the years, trucks continue to hit the railroad bridge.

Yeah, people are stupid.

Here's the Montreal crash


Finally, this is what happens when a car stalls out on a California freeway. This video was taken a couple months back.Yikes!

Another Example Of Why You Should Not Road Rage

A stupid road rage incident caught on camera injured
an elderly man who was not involved in the road rage

The video in this post was captured on a California freeway recently.

In it, we see a motorcyclist and a car going at it. The motorcyclist kicks the car, which then intentionally swerves into the motorcycle.

The motorcyclist somehow stays upright, but the car goes out of control, swerves across some lanes of traffic and collides with a pickup truck, overturning it.

The occupant of the pickup truck was injured, and of course that person was the only innocent party in that collision.

The motorcyclist took off, and has not been found yet, though police are looking for him. The driver of the sedan involved in causing the crash has not been charged yet, mostly because police want to talk to the motorcyclist first bfore deciding what to do.

Here's the video:

Truck Drags Car Four Miles Along California Freeway. Truck Driver Shrugs.

An oblivious or cruel truck driver dragged a Nissan
he had collided with up to four miles along
a California freeway. 

I guess anything can be denied nowadays.

A big rig truck driver who dragged a car he had collided with up to four miles along a California freeway says he didn't know the car was stuck to his truck.

Riiigght.

The viral video of all this is at the bottom of the post.

The first part of the incident I can accept. Accidents happen. The truck and/or the Nissan changed lanes, and there was a collision.

The Nissan got hung up on the truck and was dragged along Interstate 15 in Cajon Pass. Other drivers honked their horns and tried to get the attention of the truck driver. The person behind the wheel of the Nissan waved his arms out the window yelling for help.

I get it the truck is much bigger than the Nissan, but the truck driver couldn't figure out his rig seemed to be handling a little weirdly?

Eventually, a vehicle pulled out in front of the tractor trailer and forced it to stop. Luckily, the driver of the tractor trailer didn't try to run that person over, too.

When the truck driver was told there was a car stuck to him he said, "I didn't know it." Again. Riiight.

Not sure why the truck driver didn't stop, though, until forced to.

So far, no criminal charges have been filed, which is also odd. Truck driver must know the local cops or something.  KTLA said California Highway Patrol told them the 62-year-old truck driver showed no signs of impairment and there were no mechanical issues with the truck.

He was allowed to leave after the incident was investigated. The driver of the Nissan wasn't seriously hurt.

Here's the video:

Oddballs With Airhorns The Latest Weird Crime Spree

Here's the entertaining mug shot of John Nuggent
accussed of blaring an air horn for many weeks on end
in the early morning hours in a California neighborhood
in apparent revenge against somebody who lives there.  

There have been a couple of weird incidents involving air horns recently, and I'm hoping this is not part of a trend.  

A guy in El Segundo, California was recently arrested after keeping residents of one neighborhood up at night for weeks with the air horn he blew as he drove through the neighborhood.

The guy's, um, interesting mugshot is at the top of this post.

According to the Los Angeles Times, John W. Nuggent was stopped by police in his air horn equipped car earlier this month:

"On  Sunday, patrol officers heard the blare of a actuated air horn - a device similar to a train horn - as it shattered the pre-dawn silence of El Segundo's west side at about 4 a.m., police said on Facebook.

Officers looked around and saw only one car on the street - a little blue four door 2006 Chevrolet Aveo - and pulled it over, said Sgt. Vincent Martinez.

In the back of the car, officers found an air tank with hoses connected to a device near the car's gas pedal, Martinez said. When an officer tried the car's horn, the sound of 'a big truck or train' blasted from the diminutive hatchback, he said."

Authorities said Nuggent was setting off the airhorn in the predawn hours for weeks in the neighborhood because he was getting revenge on somebody who lives there with whom he had some sort of dispute.

Nuggent is unsurprisingly charged with disturbing the peace.

Meanwhile, Hopatcong, New Jersey had its own air horn crisis this week.

For reasons unknown, other than this guy thought it would be funny, Kevin Hemmerich of Hopatcong arrived at the town's police station wearing a bunny costume and repeatedly blowing an air horn while his brother Jason filmed the episode, says NJ.com.

Kevin Hemmerich was there to turn himself in on an outstanding warrant for not serving community service after he'd been caught driving without insurance.  

Kevin Hemmerich of Hopatcong, NJ inexplicably turned
himself into police on an outstanding warrant wearing
a bunny costume and blowing an air horn.
Police were not amused.  

People at the police station repeatedly asked Kevin Hemmerich to stop blowing the air horn but he kept at it.

That was until two police officer came into the room, punched Kevin and slapped the phone Jason was using to video the incident out of his hands.

That left Jason feeling pretty whiny: "This is my hometown and he punched my brother in the face for no reason,' Jason said.

Well, actually I think there was a reason why your brother got punched, Jason.

Still, the officers involved are under investigation, because it really is improper for police to punch somebody who is not a threat, even if the person in question is incredibly annoying.

Great Idea: High School Runners Team Up To Give Shelter Dogs Exercise

A California high school cross country team holds a practice
run with dogs from a local animal shelter.  

The high school cross country running team at St. Joseph High School in California came up with a great idea to help shelter dogs.

It's one of those brilliant flashes that you hope is copied all over the place.

Dogs need exercise. The pups awaiting adoption at shelters don't always have the opportunity to get as much exercise as they need.

So the cross country team took the dogs, put 'em on leashes and had them join their workout.

This all started when Stacy Silva of Santa Barbara County Animal Services noticed a Facebook post from St. Joseph High School Cross Country Team coach Luis Escobar that practices were starting.

Silva knew Escobar is a dog lover, and broached the idea of a team run with the dogs. The teens got a bit of training to know how to handle the dogs and off they went.

The kids were kind enough to notice if any of the dogs needed a break, so they weren't forced to run more than they could. (One runner ended up carrying Fred, who clearly didn't want to run the full distance.)

So: All you fit cross cross country runners out there: How about it: Does your local animal shelter think this is a good idea?

Check out the video:

Man Billed $143 For Rescuing Three Children, Man Trapped In Rollover Crash

This guy rescued a man and three
kids from an overturned van. He got
billed $143 because of it.  

You gotta like good Samaritans like Derrick Deanda.

As he was driving around in Elk Grove, California, not long ago, a van rolled over.

Inside were a man and three children. They were trapped.  

So Deanda busted out a window of the overturned van and got everybody out. They're all OK.

The local paramedics showed up and made sure everybody was doing OK. They checked Deanda's pulse, noted a small cut he received while he was rescuing the family, and they gave him a bottle of water.

Deanda now has to pay for his heroics because of a $143 bill he received from the Cosumnes  Community Services District, which is the local first responder outfit, says CBS Sacramento. 

All patients the first responders see are billed the $143. Deanda became a patient because the first responders looked at that small cut he had.  

It isn't exactly like the first responders spent hours trying to save Deanda's life. He was in pretty good shape to begin with.

"We're obligated to provide the same level of service, the same billing, the same everything for every patient we encounter," Deputy Chief Mike McLaughllin said.

Deanda could appeal the bill, but why should he go through the trouble? He rescued the damn family from the overturned van.

Actually, McLaughlin would like to get rid of the bill Deanda got, but he can't because he's supposed to bill everybody. "This is a truly unique situation.... In my 28 years, this is the first time I've run into a situation similar to this."

"Our desire is to make this right," McLaughlin said. But Deanda is still going to have to appeal to make that happen.

This kind of situation does seem to discourage other would-be good Samaritans, which the world desperately needs.

"I mean, why would I want to stop to help somebody if I'm going to get a bill for $150," Deanda told CBS Sacramento. 

Landlord Trying To Evict 97 Year Old Woman Because Money

Marie Hatch, 97, who has lived in the same San Francisco
Bay Area house for five decades faces possible eviction
because her landlord wants to sell the house and
make more than $1 million. Landlord claims he's
bound by estate rules. 

A 97 year old woman in the San Francisco Bay area is about to be kicked out of the house she's lived in for 66 years because the landlord wants to sell the house for a cool $1 million or so.

Marie Hatch's friend and landlord, Vivian Kruse, told her decades ago Hatch could live in the cottage until she died.  

Now Kruse is long dead, so is her daughter, and granddaughter, who reported all made a verbal agreement to let Hatch stay at the house until she died.

When the granddaughter died, the final woman in the chain, the verbal agreement to let Hatch stay ended, says her current landlord, David Kantz. He had been married to the granddaughter, Pamela Kantz, until their divorce. Then Pamela Kantz's boyfriend murdered her.

Now, the house where Hatch lives is worth $1.2 million at least, thanks to the skyrocketing rents and property values around the Bay Area that has made the region unaffordable except for the very rich, according to the article that brought this to our attention in the San Francisco Chronicle. 

Hatch, who is retired from a bakery and also has cancer, is not rich. So out she goes. The landlord, David Kantz has to take advantage of the high property values after all. You can't let an old lady get in the way of that!

Though maybe Hatch won't go so fast, despite David Kantz's wishes.

Kantz says his hands are tied and has to sell the house and evict Hatch. He said a trust left behind by his wife expires in July, so he is duty-bound to sell the property on behalf of his two sons, reports the San Francisco Chronicle. 

Says the Chronicle:

"'We have come to this unexpected confluence of events, and I am responsible to do the best I can for the beneficiaries,  - my sons,' said Kantz.......'I just kind of inherited this property and the assumptions that weren't really written down, and now I have to unwind it.'

He said that family lore does indeed contend that his wife's grandmother, Vivian Kruse, told Hatch she could stay for life, 'but there's no contract. There's nothing in my wife's will that directs me to do anything other than what is best for the beneficiaries.'"

"I feel bad for the elderly lady, I feel bad for my sons, I feel bad for me" Kantz said.

Yeah, but you'd think he could find a way to benefit without kicking Hatch onto the street. The whole things still smells like a cruel money grab to me.

After news of this situation broke, people did step in to help, as they always do.

According to an update article in the San Francisco Chronicle:

"Some people offered to pay Hatch's rent at a higher rate, some volunteered legal help, and a few even said they would buy the house from her landlord so she could stay  - a remedy the landlord's attorney said he is exploriing. 

Friends of Hatch started a GoFundMe account and by Monday evening it had raised more than $13,000."

The Chronicle also reported a high powered attorney, Joe Cotchett, stepped in to advocate for Hatch and says the verbal contract that kept her in the home is legally binding. The plan to kick her out is unlawful eviction, he said.

So it's beginning to look like the solution to the more outrageous excesses against people - bad press against the perpetrator - is working in this case, too, and Hatch will probably end up staying where she is.

However, renters in general are kinda screwed in the San Francisco Bay area, and elsewhere. True, most landlords are not ogres, and it's mostly not the fault of landlords that rents have gone sky high. There's lots of economics at play.

But a few landlords are awful, and even for the vast majority whose landlords are nice people, they still can't afford housing.

Only 12 of 482 municipalities in California have rent control, the Chronicle says.

Another big part of the problem is supply and demand. A lot of people want or need to live in the Bay Area, and in other hot spots in the nation. But there's not a lot of places to build more housing, and people understandably want to keep some open spaces and not fill every last grassy or forested patch with apartment buildings.

San Francisco and other municipalities are toying with increasing allowable housing density so that more apartments are built.

But this will take time. And so we might see the spectacle of other elderly people kicked out to the street, or threatened with it, because certain landlords prefer people who can pay outlandish rents.

Woman Casually Gets Out Of Car On Busy Highway, Lets Car Roll Away, Crash

A woman casually gets out of a moiving car
and causes a strange vehicle crash in California.  

I confess when I first saw the video you'll watch at the bottom of this post, I thought it was totally fake.

It's not.

It's a dash cam taken by somebody driving along a fairly busy highway near San Bernardino, California.

At first, everything is normal. The music inside the dash cam car is a little odd, but that's OK.

Then the Hyundai directly in front of the car with the camera comes to a screeching halt and camera car comes THIS CLOSE to rear-ending the suddenly stopped car.

A woman casually gets out of the car and starts to walk down the median. The stretch of highway here goes down a hill, so the Hyundai rolls down the highway, crosses the median into oncoming traffic and causes a pretty nasty crash.

The woman who got out of the car, Jasmine Lacey, 22, of San Bernardino, was taken to a hospital for what police said was a "non injury related reason," reports the San Bernardino Sun newspaper. 

Read between the lines. "Non injury" must mean driving under the influence or a mental health problem.

Apparently, Lacey is pretty much almost going to get away with this. The San Bernardino Sun says Lacey was arrested for driving under the influence, but was later released from custody due to insufficient evidence to support a criminal complaint.

Hmmm.

Still, the video demonstrates why I worry so much about the crazies out there on the roads. Judging from what I see, there's lots of them, and their numbers seem to be increasing all the time.

Heres the video:

Some Idiot In California Wants Ballot Measure To Execute All Gay People

California Attorney General Kamala Harris
totally doesn't want a petition for a terrible
anti-gay ballot intiative but it looks
like she will be compelled by existing
laws to do just that.  

UPDATE: As of Wednesday, a day after I wrote this, it turns out California Attorney General Kamala Harris IS going to try preventing this idiotic "kill the gays" proposal  from going forward.

The Guardian newspaper reports late this afternoon that she is going to ask a judge to step in and prevent the petitions for this weird, odious proposal from being circulated.

Said Harris:

"It is my sworn duty to uphold the California and United States constitutions and to protect the rights of all Californians. 

This proposal not only threatens public safety, it is patently unconstitutional, utterly reprehensible, and has no place in civil society."

PREVIOUS DISCUSSION:

Demonstrating yet again how just one idiot can provoke incredible embarassment, not to mention expense, a doofus in California wants the state residents to pass a law imposing the death penalty on all gay people living in the state.

Quote, unquote "Christian" activist Matt McLaughlin is behind this harebrained scheme.

This moron's proposed legislation demands "any person who touches another person of the same gender for purposes of sexual gratification be put to death by bullets to the head or any other convenient measure."

Well, this guy's touched all right.

McLaughlin has done the easy part in getting this proposal on the ballot. McLaughlin has paid his $200 filing fee.

That means California Attorney General Kamala Harris must put the "Sodomite Suppression Act" proposal on the state's web site, and allow petitions to circulate.

The petitions are the hard part for McLaughlin. He needs at least 365,000 Californians to sign a petition that would force state election officials to put the question to all of the state's voters.

If he finds 365,000 legitimate voters to sign his petition, we're all in trouble.

Of course, Harris isn't exactly happy about putting this out for petition.  But her hands might be tied on this one. According to SF Gate:

"Does she have the power to refuese if the measure is patently unconstitutional? Harris isn't saying; her office did not return repeated phone calls. But some veteran practitioners of election law said they don't think so.

'The statute is clear: That the office has to prepare a summary provided the proponents have paid $200 and followed the right procedures,' said attorney Robert Stern, author of the state's 1974 Political Reform Act. He said he's never heard of a case in which the attorney general refused to issue a tital and summary."

Which of course leaves us with McLaughlin, who's proposed law declares it is "better that offenders should die rathern all of us should be killed by God's just wrath."

I suppose somebody is going to feel God's just wrath. If I were McLaughlin, I'd hide deep in the basement when there's lightning, just in case.

McLaughlin is sure as hell hiding from the public's wrath. He's pretty shadowy, no media has been able to contact him for comment, and he's tough to track down.

Of course, hiding like this will make it hard for McLaughlin and any of his minions to get the 365,000 signatures he needs for the ballot item. After all, you have to go out and public and get people to sign the stupid thing.

I'm guessing, just guessing, that a lot of people would be offended if asked to sign the petition, and that could lead to difficulties as well.

McLaughlin's um, proposal has begotten some other farcical ballot ideas going, at least from one activist.

Late last week, the publication Slate reported this tidbit:

"Frustrated by the attorney general's inability to combat McLaughlin's proposal, Charlotte Laws has decided to fight back with some free speech of her own. On Monday morning, Lewis plans to file the Intolerant Jackass Act, accompanied by the requisite $200, with the California attorney general.

Laws' proposal cleverly mirrors and skewers the Sodomite Suppression Act, explaining that the 'abominable crime known as prejudice against sexual orientation' is 'a destructive view that society commands to suppress.'

Laws' um, law, would force anyone bringing forth a ballot measure suggesting that gay people be killed be forced to attend sensitivity traning for at least three hours per month for 12 consecutive months, and the offender or "Intolerant Jackass" must donate $5,000 to a pro-gay or pro-lesbian organization."

OK, Laws' idea is probably unconstitutional, too, but as you can tell, she's just trolling McLaughlin.

Now if we can only pass a law to make McLaughlin just shut up already and stop wasting everybody's time, and taxpayers' money.

At Least The California Napa Earthquake Improved Skateboarding

Skateboarding on earthquake damaged
streets in California. 

I hate to make light of a disaster like Sunday's earthquake in Napa Valley, California, the one that injured dozens of people and caused such widespread damage.

But there was one teeny, tiny bright side to the quake.

The tremors buckled a lot of streets in the area. On one street, the newly heaved and crooked pavement provided an excellent new skate park for boarders.

Watch:

Worst Disaster Live TV Interview: No Date With Reporter During Wildfire In California Today

A wildfire is threatening a number of homes east of Los Angeles today. 

Reporter Courtney Friel of KTLA-TV in Los Angeles, was much too
focused on reporting on a wildfire today to accept a date from
a weird shirtless guy holding a dog in the fire zone. 

The intrepid reporters from television station KTLA were on the scene, giving live updates, as TV reporters do.

This unfortunate reporter, Courtney Friel, stopped the wrong person to react to the fire.

She should have known better than to stop a shirtless guy carrying a dog, but as a former reporter, I know you take what you can get while reporting at the scene.

Watch the guy, amid all the smoke, say the stupidest thing a witness has ever said to a reporter on live TV.

"Wow! You're super pretty. Want to go on a date sometime?"

Let this be a lesson on what not to say if a reporter pulls you aside to get your reaction to a breaking news story.

To get the full effect, and Friel's perfect, unflappable reaction to our shirtless guy, you gotta watch:

Why Picking Up An Old Rusty Can On Your Property Can Be A $10 Million Good Idea

A middle aged couple somewhere in California were walking along a path on their rural property not long ago.

A lucky California couple found $10
million in gold coins buried on their property.  

They'd lived there for years and walked along the path countless times.  But on this day, the wife glanced down to the edge of the path and noticed the ground had eroded a bit in one spot, exposing part of an old, rusty can.

She examined it further and found a whole bunch of gold coins in and around the mostly buried can.

In all, there were 1,427 coins there, all dating from between 1847 and 1894. They're worth $10 million, and at this point, it's finders keepers, according to CBS News.

The gold in the coins isn't super valuable. But since the coins are in mint condition and some of them are exceedingly rare, numismatist Don Kagin came up with the $10 million figure when he assessed them.

Not surprisingly, everybody is keeping their mouth shut about precisely where the coins were found and who the lucky couple is.

The couple don't want their property overrun by prospectors digging around for more coins, and the couple want to keep their low-key, quiet lifestyle without everybody bugging them for handouts or suddenly becoming their long lost cousin who could stand a few bucks.

According to Kagin, the couple will sell most of the coins and use a lot of the money to give away to charity, which is super cool. They'll keep a few as momentos.

And I bet they'll keep an eagle eye out on their rocks for more rusty cans.

They're so much luckier than me. The strange person who lived in the St. Albans, Vermont house before I bought the place left a whole lot of "buried treasure" around the property.

As I've been digging the past five years creating gardens on my land, I've found dozens of buried tires, for some reason. Also, a few pairs of old boots, some childrens' toys, pieces of pipe, a window frame, too many beer cans to count, and an empty wallet with no ID in it.

But this California find galvanizes me to not get too upset when I inevitably find more buried stuff in my yard as I make new gardens this spring. You never know. I might find something valuable, eventually.

As long as I don't dig up any dead bodies, it's all good.

California Rim Fire Time Lapse Finds Beauty In Awfulness

Everybody, including the people who made the video in this post, can agree that there is nothing good to say about the massive Rim Fire near Yosemite National Park in California.

Rim fire in California in this photo by Don Bartlett
of the Los Angeles Times.  

It has already burned through more than 300 square miles of forest, and the fire rages on. It'll take weeks to fully put out, we're told.

The video, below, though, shows some cool time lapse images of the huge fire taken from a variety of perspectives. The fire has a certain beauty, even if it destroys huge tracts of forest and threatens a lot of property.

Watch: