FIRE, FIRE, Everywhere?!

Ok, so today I am on my way to one of several appointments, and I am sitting in a taxi, riding north on Eighth Avenue in Manhattan. I am minding my own business, and playing "Bejeweled" on my cel phone. All of a sudden I get this feeling that something is wrong. I think, literally, "Something is happening." I hear the cab driver say, "I take 26th to 7th avenue." I say, "Yes, that's right." He repeats his statement. Strange, but not really because cab drivers can never hear you through the plastic divider that separates you from them. I say, "Yes, that should be fine," thinking, "that's where I am going anyway."

I put my game on 'pause,' look up, and realize that the cab driver isn't speaking to me. He is speaking to the cab driver in the next taxi... My driver then says, "Look, there's a fire, it's good we aren't going THAT way!" I look up and see black smoke filling up the entire valley that is eighth avenue up near Times Square. The smoke was so high and so thick, you couldn't see past Times Square (and normally you can). It was frightening.

I arrived at my destination, and asked if anyone had heard anything about an explosion or an accident. It was a HUGE amount of smoke, people. This was not small. No one had heard a thing. Strange. Wait, it gets a little more creepy.

I came home and ate and then got online to check email, and do some work. I thought I would see if there were anything reported on CNN.com about the fire, or explosion, or whatever it was. NOTHING. It took me a good 5-10 minutes to find something, and that was on newsday.com... NY1.com didn't even report it. Why?

I find that a cab "caught on fire" in front of Port Authority, one of the most annoyingly busy and confusing areas of the city. The cab driver would only identify himself as "Z. Rahman," and didn't file a report with the police... uh huh. Here, read the article... and look at the pictures.. http://www.newsday.com/news/local/newyork/am-taxi0922,0,3451557.story?coll=ny_home_rail_headlines

NOTICE (in that article), that two days before this 'incident,' a cab "exploded" in front of NBC Studios at Rockefeller Center... literally RIGHT IN FRONT of the studio's main entrance. Coincidence? Here check that one out too: http://www.wnbc.com/news/14141860/detail.html
They sure went into some SUPER detail on that report, right??

Here's a pic: http://www.wnbc.com/slideshow/news/14141806/detail.html

It just makes me even MORE suspicious of the cab drivers in this town who didn't want the GPS systems in their cars. I know, it's expensive, and they have to pay for it... but not if they rent their cabs for the day, and more than half of the cab drivers in this city do that. The fleet owners would have to pay for GPS in those taxis. You see, that whole strike was, in my opinion, an excuse to rip us off. It's supposed to happen again. The drivers say the GPS thing is a violation of their privacy. I say, if you are a cab driver, living and working here, in Manhattan, and you can't deal with GPS in your taxi because you think it's an invasion of your privacy, then WHAT are you doing that is so private? Where are you planning to clandestinely go? The fact is, that drivers go where the CLIENT tells them. So in reality, it's the clients who are being tracked. That is, if the cab driver isn't doing something wrong.

We live in a city that was victimized by foreign gangsters (terrorists)... if we want to put GPS systems in the cabs to make things a bit easier to track, so be it. I have news for the taxi drivers: they already see you, everywhere... the traffic intersections of this city are ALL armed with cameras... primarily to keep track, and to ticket, drivers who run red lights (a friend recently received a ticket like this in the mail, but it looks like an error, because all three cars in the photo look like they've run the light... it was strange). So there!! LOL