Eideard

Police in the southern Taiwan city of Kaohsiung mobilized the bomb squad after a suspicious package was found in a subway station toilet, only to find it contained nothing more dangerous than mooncakes.

A cleaner called police to report the package left on top of a waste bin Saturday. Part of the station, known for its stained glass ceiling, was cordoned off and explosives experts were called in.

TV pictures showed a police officer in a full protective suit entering the toilet carrying specialist equipment while other officers waited outside with more gear. The officer then emerged carrying a bright blue cardboard box full of mooncakes, pastries with sweet fillings traditionally eaten at the Mid-Autumn Festival.

“It was x-rayed first to see what it was and whether there was any chemical or electrical reaction,” local police station chief Cheng Ming-chung told TV.

“Someone must have put it down to use the toilet and forgotten it when they left,” he said, adding that the police would continue to investigate.

Nice fresh mooncakes. Think they’ll end up in “Lost and Found” or shared at the police station?

If I realized these were my mooncakes, the last thing I would do is try to claim them back from the coppers. They might try to bill me for the cost of the security alert.

 
Thanks, Ursarodinia

A New York grocery clerk, fearing he might be late for work, jumped onto city subway tracks to haul an injured passenger to safety after he fainted, authorities said.

The victim was taken to a local hospital after his rescue on Sunday by Carlos Flores, who said he leaped to save the man so he would not be late for work.

“I was thinking, if he gets hit I can’t go to work. It’s Sunday. I can’t miss out. It’s a time-and-a-half day,” Flores was quoted as saying in the New York Daily News.

A Metropolitan Transportation Authority spokeswoman said the incident, while heroic, was dangerous.

“We do not recommend that people jump down to the roadbed,” spokeswoman Deirdre Parker said on Monday.

This dude is entirely too honest.

Turnabout is Fair Play, eh?

The British are coming, the British are coming — to Brooklyn? By subway? Barclays has paid $300 million for the naming rights to the New Jersey Nets arena.

New York’s struggling Metropolitan Transportation Authority has sold the naming rights to the second-busiest subway stop in Brooklyn. The Atlantic Avenue-Pacific Street Station will now have the name of a British bank, Barclays, added to it…

One straphanger said, “A London Bank shouldn’t be the name of this train station; it’s something that belongs to the public domain…”

Though the Atlantic-Pacific subway station is the first in New York for which naming rights have been sold, across the country, there have been several cases of public transportation systems using naming rights to increase revenue.

In 2003, the Las Vegas monorail system signed a 12-year, $50 million deal with Nextel to put its name on the station in the Las Vegas Convention Center. The Cleveland Bus System sold station names to two hospitals for $1.1 million a year.

Selling everything that ain’t nailed down is the American Way. Selling the name of what is nailed down is just another part of the same lack of standards.

Wonder if the county will let me name the perpetual pothole that tops the first rise up our road from the county road? We could name it Eideard Canyon or some such. $20?

The drunk’s lawyer. His name is Smiley.

A Manhattan jury awarded $2.33 million to a man who lost his leg after drunkenly stumbling onto the path of an oncoming subway train.

Dustin Dibble, 25, landed in the subway tracks after a late night watching a hockey game at a bar with friends April 23, 2006. A downtown N train ran over him, severing his right leg. According to Dibble’s lawyer, Andrew Smiley, NYC Transit rather than Dibble bore primary responsibility for the accident because the subway driver had time to stop the train but did not.

Smiley added that Dibble’s drunkenness did not excuse the driver, who said in a court deposition that he mistook Dibble for an inert object.

Dibble’s blood-alcohol level at the time of the accident was .18, according to his lawyer, more than twice the legal limit had he been behind the wheel of a car.

In my neck of the prairie, drunks pass out on railroad tracks with some frequency. Seems like every month or two, somewhere along the East-West rail corridor through New Mexico a drunk is killed or grievously injured – walking on the tracks, sleeping on the tracks, sitting on the train tracks.

Haven’t heard of a jury here yet that rewarded the drunk.

Click for video – WARNING: NSFW

A stripper who danced on the poles of Santiago subway trains to challenge the prudishness of Chilean society has been arrested during one of her lightning performances.

Monserrat Morilles, 26, surprised subway riders all week stripping to skimpy underwear, but she refused tips.

She said she was protesting a lack of tolerance in Chile, one of Latin America’s most conservative societies where the first generation since the Pinochet dictatorship is reaching adulthood.

“This is just a beginning. We are starting an idea here that will grow and be developed further,” she told Reuters as police and subway guards surrounded her.

I’d be happy just to have the mass transit. I could commute without exciting entertainment.