photo by SammyDavisDog

To say that in Caracas, Venezuela traffic is a problem would be making a gross understatement. In the Sucre district of the city it has become such a problem that the mayor has turned to mimes to help tame the area’s traffic woes. The 120 specially trained mimes wearing brightly colored “clown-like” costumes took to the streets the past week to admonish traffic law violators. Surprisingly, this isn’t a new idea. A similar program that was successful in Bogota, Colombia prompted Sucre’s mayor Carlos Ocariz to give the mimes a try. Will giving bad drivers the “silent treatment” prompt them to change their ways?

In Venezuela, gas is cheap (like 14 cents a gallon cheap), driving is seen as a right and very little is done to regulate it. In fact, Venezuelan authorities were unable to even suspend drivers licenses until 2008 and they didn’t actually suspend a single license until earlier this year when police stopped a bus driver whose vehicle was overloaded with passengers, speeding and missing a wheel. The driver’s license was suspended for one year. The maximum suspension that the law allows is 5 years, but you need to kill someone to receive that harsh a punishment. With no real penalties for breaking traffic laws drivers are free to do what ever they want on the roads. Speeds on Venezuela’s pothole filled highways routinely exceed 100 miles per hour as drivers weave from lane to lane and motorcyclists treat sidewalks as their own passing lanes. With such little emphasis on traffic safety, it is hard to imagine that putting mimes on the street in will do anything but add to the chaos.

City Hires Mimes to Give Bad Drivers the Silent Treatment

Last night on 60 Minutes NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly shared an interesting piece of information. Apparently, according to Kelly, the NYPD has anti-aircraft capabilities. While Commissioner Kelly was careful to point out that the decision to deploy the cities AA assets would only be made in the most extreme situations, he did say they are equipped and prepared should the need arise.

Because Kelly declined to elaborate on the exact nature of the NYPD’s anti-aircraft arsenal we are left to speculate what exactly that might be. While there are a vast array of AA weapon systems available, my guess is that the NYPD is most likely fielding the FIM-92 Stinger Missile in its man portable configuration (seen to the left being fired by a US Marine). Since the NYPD would most likely need to deploy its anti-aircraft weapons against a single small aircraft, a shoulder fired solution seems like the best choice. In this sort of situation the city wouldn’t need the multi-fire capability of a vehicle mounted system and being man portable, the stinger can be discreetly transported without panicking the public, is quickly deployable and still deadly accurate (ironically the same reason authorities are afraid terrorist may choose to use a shoulder fired missile against a commercial aircraft).

Regardless of the weapons system the NYPD is using, the fact of the matter is that they are capable of shooting an aircraft that they feel is a threat out of the sky. Honestly, I don’t know how I feel about this. On one hand I can understand a municipality to wanting to be able to protect its citizens (and thus its businesses and tax revenue) from every possible threat. However, what we are witnessing is incredibly powerful weaponry being placed in the hands of police officers and I don’t know if that is a good thing. What do you think?

Fighting terrorism in New York City [via Gizmodo]

Quite often animals are dismissed as simple creatures driven by very basic instincts. Occasionally an animal acts in a way that flies in the face of what someone would expect from a flight or fight response and instead exhibits what in humans we would label as bravery. A pet rabbit in Ketchikan, Alaska became one such case when it saved its owners from a house fire. According to fire officials, the homeowner was alerted to the fire when her pet rabbit jumped onto her bed and began scratching her chest. Thanks to the rabbit, the homeowner and her daughter were able to escape the house unscathed. Unfortunately the rabbit was not so lucky and succumbed to smoke inhalation.

Hero rabbit saves owners from house fire [via Gizmodo]