Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

Revisiting some entries that I have more information on than when I posted them...

That pretty thunderstorm I wrote about this afternoon turns out to have been lethal. I just went to program the VCR and there was an on-the-scene press conference going on regarding a capsized water-taxi near Fort McHenry. Two dead, two in critical condition (I think), a few still missing (presumed dead because of the water temperature), and twenty or so rescued. I kept looking at the text at the bottom of the screen saying how many dead, injured, and missing, and wondering, "Yeah, but tell me how many are okay," until they finally did so. I'm not sure why I needed to hear that, nor why they didn't include it in the on-screen text. Something to ponder.

A couple of people wondered how the heterosexual couple in Ohio not allowed to wed because one is a transsexual ever wound up in court when most people do not have to show birth certificates to obtain a marriage license. I did some further reading on some of the earlier stages of this case, and it turns out that the magistrate who took their license application recognized Mr. Nash because that same magistrate had been involved in his name change. "Through their testimony, Smith also established that if Nash had not completed his name change in Trumbull County, the court would have had no knowledge he is transsexual, and the license probably would have been issued." Whoops.

The really, really big fire that I wrote about, which I couldn't quite pinpoint the location of and wondered whether the television news would bother to report since it was in the part of town it was in, did get reported on television. It went on long enough (and so did the cleanup and investigation) that it affected the morning rush hour -- but it was probably huge enough to get covered anyhow. I think they said it was a five-alarm blaze. It was in, IIRC, an ice-making facility and warehouse, and the presence of large tanks of ammonia made it especially dangerous for the firefighters. The bits of reportage I heard mentioned a complex of several buildings, and I think they said more than one was burning, which might explain why I couldn't narrow the location smaller than a couple of blocks. They also mentioned that the firefighters had serious problems with lack of water pressure in the area, which explains the extremely long hose runs.

The Ukranian ISP where the comment-spam I complained about originated has not answered my email. I may try writing to them in Russian (with the help of a translator, of course). I've gotten reasonable and satisfactory responses from the LJ admins on the matter.

And I think that gets me caught up on recent I left hanging and meant to get back to. But I've still got a lot of comments I've been meaning to reply to.