I showed up at the train station at 5:30 this morning only to be told the train would be over three hours late! There I was: wide awake at 5:30, with a full tank of gas and an empty road ahead of me. I hopped in my car and drove up instead. By the time my train left Raleigh at 9:02 AM I was already north of Richmond.

I don’ t understand how a train could already be three hours behind at 5:30 AM on a holiday, when the freight trains aren’t running. Sometimes I think the government mismanages Amtrak just so they can use them as a bad example.

I’m headed north tomorrow courtesy of Amtrak, to rejoin my family at Kelly’s parents’ house. The last time I rode the train was December 2001, if I recall correctly. The ride should make for good blogging material.

Y’all have a happy Fourth of July!

Who would’ve guessed it? Those mice under the house are still dead.

The Beeb is reporting that the Chinese government suppressed a World Bank report’s findings that smog causes hundreds of thousands of premature deaths:

The move followed pressure from Beijing, which believes the material is too sensitive and could lead to social unrest, said the UK’s Financial Times.

The Financial Times said the Bank report, entitled ‘Cost of Pollution in China’, found up to 760,000 people die prematurely each year in China because of air and water pollution.

High levels of air pollution in China’s cities leads to 350,000-400,000 premature deaths, it said. Another 300,000 die because of poor-quality air indoors

Chinese officials feared this news would cause social unrest, and rightly so. Why, the Chinese people would take to the streets if it wasn’t so dangerous to breathe outside.