"Re: San Jose doings..." joke
Sheldon Scheney sent me this article in response to my post about the competition between San Jose's Mayor's office and San Jose's Police department as to which was funnier.
I had heard about the drug lord wedding sting. I always enjoy a good sting. The pawn shop sting was used successfully in Washington DC a few years ago. One of my favorites, if not quite a sting, was back when truckers were forming convoys to scoff the 55 mile an hour speed limit. Maryland State Police had an 18 wheeler they had confiscated hauling something illegal, so they used it as an unmarked police car. It would infiltrate convoys, identify the trucks, one by one as it either passed them or was passed by them, then the whole convoy was stopped and everybody ticketed.
Another I enjoyed was last December as I was driving up route 95 - a favorite highway up the east coast from Florida past many east coast cities like Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, heavily used by drug traffickers and individuals who dabble in drugs. On a long, straight stretch of highway in South Carolina, there was a big sign that read: SLOW. DRUG CHECK POINT AHEAD. About 2 miles ahead, you could see blue and red flashing lights on both sides of the highway. Just after the sign was an exit.
We were planning to exit there anyway, as we were hunting a place called "Old Sheldon." (My name is Sheldon, and I'm no spring chicken.) I commented to my wife, "That's not too smart - warning people in time for them to exit....unless the check point is down the exit. Sure enough, the exit road twisted back and forth a few times, then we went around a curve and there everybody was - cops all over the place, cars being disassembled, little white bags sitting on the ground, and a lot of very worried looking people standing around.
Since the exit was out in the middle of nowhere, anybody exiting there was a prime suspect. They asked me for identification and why I exited there. (There weren't even any gas stations to give you an excuse.) I pointed out my name was Sheldon and I was looking for a place called Old Sheldon. They told us to stay in the RV. They walked a drug sniffing dog around it and opened the back where the spare tire, electric plug, and sewer hose was, then they waved us through a couple of minutes later. That gave us enough time to observe what was going on.
We have local idiots in Maryland too. Montgomery county (Which I moved out of 5 years ago) is one of the three or four richest counties in the country. Northwestern High School was enlarged at a cost of $2 million. The following year, it was closed due to declining enrolement. A few years later, Blair H.S. needed major renovation because it was one of the oldest in the county. They decided to tear it down and replace it - but not on the same site. They will build the new school on a county run golf course close to where Northwestern was and replace the golf course by buying other land nearby - which is about the only undeveloped land in the area (formerly a country club until a highway went through it - and presently used by the YMCA. And very expensive per acre, I'm sure. And you need more land for a golf course than for a school.) No wonder taxes are so much lower where I live now - and the services as just as good.
Not enough votes...