Jalopnik has the crazy, and crazy insane, story of Ed Bolian, who went cross-continent in 28 hours and 50 minutes, shattering the old coast-to-coast record by 2 hours. Reserve fuel tanks, radar detectors (multiple) and radar jamming, GPS, lead cars…. over 2,800 miles with an *average* speed of 98 mph in a Mercedes CS55. Max speed was 158 and his moving average was 100 mph; he got stuck in Manhattan traffic on a Saturday night. But they still made St. freaking Louis before sun-up.
With worries mounting over what could happen if a candidate for President tries to de-legitimize the results (anywhere from bad to very bad) comes a reminder that brutal campaigns don’t have to endanger our Republic.
The 1992 campaign where Bill Clinton unseated incumbent President George H.W. Bush was nasty. They all are, to a greater or lesser extent. Clinton was a philandering liar and Bush was an out-of-touch old man who broke his promises, at least if you went by the attacks. But when it was over, it was over.
On January 20th, 1993, H.W. left this letter in the desk Bill Clinton would occupy in a few hours. Bush willingly walked away from being the most powerful man on the planet, because the voters told him to, and he respected the will of the voters.
“You will be our President when you read this note. I wish you well. I wish your family well. Your success is now our country’s success. And I am rooting hard for you. Good luck – George.”
For 219 years, we’ve survived because we respect the idea of a peaceful transition of power. No military in the streets, no riots. Even in 2000, when the election was decided by the Supreme Court, Al Gore defied the will of his most ardent supporters and accepted the rule of law and conceded the presidency to his bitter rival, George W. Bush, H.W.’s son.
Can we keep it going? 2016 might put the greatest strain on our fragile democratic experiment yet.
I’m going to relaunch this site as an aggregator for stories that you should probably read. Politics, longform pieces, cultural stuff and other weird things I’ve come upon.
Let’s start with this… Non-timewasting timewasters.
A great video, very dryly funny in that Canadian ‘I’m kidding but I’m not’ way about the physics and engineering of the Speed Kills myth. (link)
Non-relevant relevant quote: “I’ll assume this isn’t a fart joke or a Hitler reference, but with the Germans you’re never quite sure”.
Speaking of farts:
Anyone who thinks data isn’t important isn’t looking in the right place. Fivethirtyeight.com, founded by stats guru Nate Silver and usually known for being very accurate in election calls, has put data to a new use: answering science questions from toddlers.
Why might you get arrested? Because your kids left pot brownies in your car and you thought you were stealing their snacks and ate four. (via 538)
An Omaha man ate four brownies that turned out to be pot brownies his kid left in the back of the car. According to a report in the Omaha World-Herald, the police were called after he started freaking out — understandable after Maureen Dowd-ing — and paramedics said he’d be fine. The man is on record as saying incredibly rude things to his cat before taking a nap. This is the greatest news story ever. [Omaha World-Herald]
The Trump campaign reset in animated GIF form
If you really need to know where the picture of the exploding sewage truck came from…. (link)