Odd Train Signs

I walked down to the Centerville/Fremont train station this morning to take another shot at collecting train tickets for a future trip from the TVM there. This time it worked, although the first time I tried to print the tickets, it thought I wanted to cancel the reservation, and wouldn't listen to me pressing the "no" button. (I had to wait for the machine to time out and start over.)

As I started to leave, I noticed an unusual message on the electronic message boards. These usually scroll through expected-next-train-arrival information or other notices like "delays due to maintenance," or something like that. This was a message I have never seen before, reproduced below just as I saw it:

centerville turn on your phone

That's it. No other messages. Just this one scrolling over and over again.

Centerville isn't a staffed station, but the Depot Cafe in the same building is an agent for the ACE commuter train. So I went into the cafe and pointed out the sign to the woman behind the counter. She was surprised by this, too, but I think she was going to call ACE dispatch and see if they were trying to get hold of her or something like that.

I do not know the rest of this story.

On The Brink

jaylake and solarbird are among the people commenting (here and here) on the "conservative think-tank" that published (but is now scrambling to erase) a paper suggesting that the current occupant of the White House should become "President-for-life Bush."

As I said elsewhere when smarier tagged this story, I think this is a case of people at any point in the ideological spectrum being susceptible to Authoritarianism, as long as it's their guy in charge, becuase they assume they personally wouldn't feel any effects and that Other People would Get What's Coming To Them.

The sad and scary thing is that I expect these people honestly don't believe that such authority could ever be turned against them, because they are Good People, and only Bad People will be punished. And I'm not just talking about conservatives here -- there are liberal folks out there who could be just as likely to to lapse into authoritarian mode "for the best of reasons."

Yes, I tend to lean libertarian personally, despite despairing over the antics of the most looney ones, especially the ones I've encountered in fandom.