At first, I figured this was a late April Fools joke or The Onion hacked Bloomberg. But this is apparently real. Kansas's Self-Destruct Button: A Bill to Outlaw Sustainability "It seems like every time the Sunflower State pops up in my news feed, it’s for something like this: House Bill No. 2366, a proposed law that would make it illegal to use “public funds to promote or implement sustainable development.”" http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-04-09/kansas-s-self-destruct-button-a-bill-to-outlaw-sustainability.html Link to the bill here: http://www.kslegislature.org/li/b2013_14/measures/documents/hb2366_00_0000.pdf At this point, I can only quote the immortal words of Jackie Chan:
Illinois and Indiana need to trade. In exchange for the lakeshore counties Indiana receives all of Illinois from ten miles south of I-80.
I hope not. That kind of stupidity can't be natural. It's gotta be some kind of "28 Days Later" virus thing that's highly contagious. It's already claimed almost the entire Republican Party.
What a timely thread. Of course, some yokel is always putting the ass in Kansass. http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/04/09/county-commissioner-apologizes-for-ngger-rigging-remark/ " Saline County Commissioner Jim Gile in Kansas has apologized for using a racial epithet during a meeting on April 2. The Salina Journal reported that Gile later apologized for using the expression “n1gger-rigging it” while discussing a repair project. He claimed he actually intended to say the phrase “jury-rigged” but accidentally sputtered out the racial slur. “I am not a prejudiced person,” Gile said. “I have built Habitat homes for colored people.” A group of people called for Gile to resign on Tuesday, according to KSAL. One woman said the phrase “tells of a time of hatred and ugliness in our nation, and it hurts my heart” while another woman alleged “what comes from a man’s mouth, comes from his heart.”
He's even more confused, I believe the term he said he meant to use is actually Jerry-rigging, not jury-rigging (that's a felony). Jerry-rigging is of course, a slur against Germans (but we were at war at the time ) that was used to replace the phrase he did use which was becoming passe around WWII, but still in use today.
“I am not a prejudiced person,” Gile said. “I have built Habitat homes for colored people.” Kinda like that poor guy in Alaska who is sad that improved efficiency in agricultural techniques have reduced employment opportunities for **************s. These guys just can't get a break.
When people start telling you they are not prejudiced or racist, that's when you start looking around to see if there are any crosses burning.
Meh, I haven't liked Lifehacker much since a redesign a couple of years ago rendered it more difficult to read.
"Jury-rigging" is a nautical term essentially meaning emergency repairs to a sailing ship. It apparently derives from the French "joury mast;" a mast rigged up for temporary use. Literally, "mast for a day." Clearly he is just participating in Kansas' extensive nautical tradition.
That makes sense - I had heard the other one was a replacement from plenty of older vets who used it, and did not know if the jury- one was actually legit or not. good, I can use it now without worrying
Kansas governors named John Brinkley to the head of the state's Navy for his medical operation that allegedly restored virility in male patients. Here are his yachting jacket and cap, sporting Kansas' Great Seal. http://www.kshs.org/kansapedia/cool-things-yachting-jacket-cap/10302 This guy basically invented Mexican border radio and if you've ever heard of Wall of Voodoo or seen American Graffiti you'll know what I'm talking about.
Intersting link. The article quotes the guy who coined the phrase Tom Frank used for his book that addressed similar issues... Emporia Gazette editor William Allen White saw Brinkley supporters as part of "a moronic underworld" that "can be taught to read and write, but not to think, and it lives upon the level of its emotions and prejudices." A misunderstanding about the phrase "moronic underworld" led to complaints by Brinkleyites, who believed they were being called evil. The response from White: "I didn't mean that you were bad. I only meant that you were dumb." Frank's book is called, "What's the Matter with Kansas?" But I wouldn't be surprised if he ever writes one called "The Moronic Underworld."
I assumed multiple colors at once - otherwise he could have just said black, since in context one would think that's what he meant Skittles-colored people, maybe? I suppose even white people are "colored" in some way
"Jerry-rig" didn't appear until the late 1950's and there seems to be some reason to believe it was adopted by the combination of "jerry-built" and "jury rig," probably by people who wanted to stop using the N word. "Jerry-built" is more interesting, having appeared shortly after the Civil War from unknown origins. I have an unproven theory about it which I like. When Sherman marched on Atlanta, his engineering unit was from Michigan; which means they were likely preponderantly of German extraction. We/I know that Minnesota units were commonly referred to in both armies as "Squareheads" in reference to their Scandanavian origins, and there were New York units spoken of as "Micks." I think it reasonable to think that Michiganders were thought of as "Jerries;" it is after all a usage which developed among English speakers in entirely other contexts at other times. The Michigan engineeers attached to Sherman were among the most prodigious performers in military engineering history. As Sherman worked his way south and downhill from Tennessee toward Atlanta, this extended his supply lines constantly. The Confederates destroyed the railroads as they retreated, expecting to slow and weaken Sherman's advance as he delegated more and more of his force to protecting the wagon trains which would have to supply him over the bad mountain roads that remained. But the Michigan engineers rebuilt the railroads as literally fast as the Confederates could destroy them; if the Confederates spent Tuesday destroying a mile of track and bed and it fell behind Union lines on Wednesday morning, it was passable again by Thursday afternoon. And when infiltrators or local guerillas damaged track or destroyed bridges, well, each train carried a squad of Michigan engineers who could rebuild just about anything in half a day. Sherman's need for detachments to protect his supply routes remained minimal, and he had ample force for the constant flanking detachments that drove the Grey from position after position with no opportunity to make a stand. The point of the story is this-- the engineeers achieved miracles, but they were temporary miracles. They built bridges out of green timber, with ties salvaged from fires or improvised from house or barn beams. They straightened and reset the same rails that the confederates had torn up, heated, and bent around trees. They used fewer ties and fewer spikes than was safe. The lumber wasn't really adequate to the long term demands of the traffic, and the iron was badly weakened by the stresses it was subjected to both in the destruction and the construction phases. The bridges were often built with pegs rather than spikes and bolts, and even in some cases lashed together with vines or ropes or rawhide. When the war ended, it all, hundreds of miles of it, had to be rebuilt properly before it could be commercial infrastructure again, and the responsibility for doing so, for finding the capital and materials and labor, fell on the shoulders of administrators not engineers. To them it was not a military miracle, it was an endless succession of damn nuisances. Just triaging a dozen miles of it must have taken more time than starting over entirely would have, and to a man charged with doing it right rather than doing it today, it must have been one hair-raising sight after another. I can easily imagine the phrase "Jerry built" arising in such a circumstance, as in "Is it prewar or Jerry-built?" Oh well-- its a theory, and I don't know of any other of note.
I love this quote from it: "I didn't mean that you were bad. I only meant that you were dumb." I wish I was in Tijuana, eating barbequed iguana...