Police are investigating whether sabotage to an underground fiber optic cable in south San Jose caused a widespread phone service outage in southern Santa Clara and Santa Cruz counties this morning that included disruption to 911 emergency phone service, according to law enforcement officials.
John Britton, a spokesman for AT&T, said it appears somebody opened a manhole in South San Jose, climbed down 8 to 10 feet and cut four or five fiber-optic cables.
San Benito county is also affected. Even cell phones are reported to be offline.
The possum was introduced into New Zealand from Australia and is an ecological pest. 90 million of them are munching through 21,000 tonnes of vegetation every night. Possum culling is endorsed by the WWF and GreenPeace.
Are we supposed to feel good about reducing the possum threat? Good enough to spend $60 for a hat?
Also lost amid the outcry: how the same legislation that cranked up the tobacco tax also gives long-overdue powers back to the FDA to regulate Big Tobacco — powers, by the way, that Bush twice vetoed, in the name of corporate cronyism and general immoral idiocy.
Is that the real smokers’ lament? “Damn you, Obama administration, working to regulate the chemicals in my poisons and trying to make me marginally safer! Can’t I just get lung cancer and emphysema and be a massive burden on my friends, family and the health care industry in peace, without government meddling?” Wait, that can’t be right.