Less than two months after they were installed, the county has decided to remove the huge boulders that were strewn about in front of the county office building in an effort to protect Albemarle from terrorists. Large planters will take place of the boulders, intended to serve the same purpose. The rocks are going to be moved to county parks, where presumably they will protect trees and streams from coming under attack. WINA has the blurb.
News and meta-news about Charlottesville, VA, since 2001.
Sideblog
Police announced this afternoon that their investigation into what was initially believed to be a fatal fire on Rugby Avenue is now a homicide investigation. #
The Virginia Supreme Court has denied George Huguely’s appeal. His second-degree murder conviction will stand, WRIC reports. #
In a carefully worded story, and not citing specific sources, WTVR reports that forensic evidence belonging to Jesse Matthew Jr., the main suspect in the disappearance of Hannah Graham, matches forensic evidence collected during the investigation of Morgan Harrington’s 2009 murder. #
In the wake of Hannah Graham’s disappearance, and the evidence that came from private security footage, city officials are revisiting the question of installing security cameras on the downtown mall. #
Both Charlottesville Registrar Sheri Iachetta and former Electoral Board member Stephanie Commander have turned themselves in to the police on
four six and four felony counts of embezzlement, respectively. #Ten years ago, the National Institutes of Health budget doubled and schools like the University of Virginia built massive new research facilities. A decade later, those buildings remain largely underutilized. NPR visits UVA in this story on the effect of federal binge and spurge spending in the sciences. #
In 2012, Council approved a new student housing complex on West Main—now some council members are questioning whether what they were shown matches what was built. #
The Architectural Review Board has approved a bike-themed mural on West Market, below the McGuffey Art Center, although at least one member expressed concerns that it might look like the bicyclists were riding away from Charlottesville’s downtown. #
City Police Chief Tim Longo is meeting with city leaders to work on protocols regarding the use of military surplus police weapons in Charlottesville. #
A 100-year-old Colonnades resident received military honors for her service in the WWII Women’s Army Corps #
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I just put a potted plant in my window. Al Qaeda will never get in now!
What a boondoggle this Homeland Security© is. [see today’s article in the NYTimes, for example]
It is just an excuse to spend money on outrageous things. S/he who authorized this spending of public money for boulder placement and removal and planter placement should be humiliated in public and then fired.
Bruce Schneier, one of the world’s leading security experts, has written a lot about homeland (god, how I loathe that word) security in the past few years. The back issues of his monthly newsletter provide a sampling of his topics — in just about every month’s issue, he explains simply and clearly why our approach to security is ludicrous and useless — nearly everything that this nation has done after September 11th is almost entirely worthless in keeping anybody in any way safer.
What it reminds me of is people who drive big SUVs because they “feel safe.” The data all make clear that you are significantly less safe driving in these things — the accident data demonstrate that deaths are for more frequent per-collision in SUVs than in smaller, more well-constructed automobiles. But people feel safer in SUVs, and so people keep buying the things.
That’s our approach to security. People feel safer if there are a bunch of flower pots in front of the county office building. What’s keeping somebody from driving a car full of explosives up to the side of the building — you know, the part with the road a few feet from the building? Absolutely nothing. Crashing a Cessna laden with plastic explosives into the building? Not a thing. Using a rifle to snipe people from the hill between McIntire and High, across the street? There’s nothing stopping anybody from doing that. Walking right into the building Matrix-style, laden with rifles, pistols, and hand grenades and killing everybody in sight? Not a problem.
But, hey, we’ve got planters.
I don’t think I could do that matrix thing. I could never get the hang of those flips.
"humiliated in public and then fired."
or…………… "fired in public and then humiliated"
Belle, we send it to Congress and they divvy it up as opposed to letting us divvy it up locally.
There was little said when the boulders went in, probably because it was Federal money and if it wasn`t then federal taxes or some other manipuluation offset the cost.
The big question is, as you proposed, what happens to the dummy?
I am always incensed when I hear the phrase "Federal Funds" GDI – It is our money.