Musings from Brian J. Noggle

Another municipality says “Lights, Camera, Revenue!” Or it would, if it can only overcome a couple of obstacles:

The St. Peters project has two big obstacles – its cost and the possibility that tickets generated by the system could be thrown out of court.

Good to know law enforcement works as hard to circumvent the law as lawbreakers.

Lohr dispute heats up as strikers lose jobs:

A labor dispute at St. Louis city beer wholesaler Lohr Distributing Co. has turned uglier after Lohr told strikers that they’ve lost their jobs to permanent replacement workers.

The move complicates any settlement with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, which represents the drivers. They’ve been on strike for nearly five months.

Maybe a couple more instances like this will help fatcat union leaders remember that their slush funds are fatter when they manage to keep their union members employed, and perhaps some concessions might be necessary in that effort. A good job is a good job, and apparently Lohr like Northwest Airlines before it, didn’t have any trouble filling those jobs for lesser terms.

It was bad enough I had to suffer through the American Airlines CEO’s column in the September in-flight house organ, but now the company has commissioned a study to indicate that if it loses its government-enforced monopoly in Dallas, everyone will pay:

A push by Southwest Airlines to increase flights from Dallas Love Field could trigger a reduction of service by American Airlines to Lambert Field and a number of smaller cities in Missouri and Illinois, according to a study made public on Monday.

The study labeled Lambert as at “moderate risk” to lose a small number of American flights.

However, Gerard Slay, deputy director at Lambert, said he doesn’t expect any impact, describing the study’s discussion of St. Louis as a “what-if scenario.”

American commissioned the study by Eclat Consulting Inc., an aviation-consulting firm in Reston, Va., in what has become a bruising battle over a federal law that limits direct flights by Southwest from Love Field to most of the country.

Here’s how American will put the hurt on our particular region:

If American’s hub at Dallas/Fort Worth were to shrink, however, there would be fewer connecting flights, resulting in reduced service to smaller communities that rely on the airline’s extensive network as their link to the world.

Such a development, the study said, would hurt towns such as Kirksville, Mo., and Quincy, Ill. These towns rely on federally subsidized service provided by American affiliates that fly under the banner of AmericanConnection, the Eclat study said.

“Hub degradation would take place, making marginal routes unprofitable,” said Eclat’s president, William S. Swelbar. “Inevitably, those routes would be eliminated.”

Of the 11 daily flights between Lambert Field and Dallas/Fort Worth, five could be lost, Swelbar said. While three of those five flights could be shifted to Love Field, travelers would see a reduction in the number of connection flights, he said.

So that’s the loss of a government-enforced monopoly, increased competition, and a reduction in government-subsidized flights? American The impartial third party Eclat presents this as a nightmare scenario, but to me it looks like a dream come true. Now if the bloated, incapable-of-adapting carrier collapses before sucking off any more government “loans” and without pushing its employee liabilities off on taxpayers, I will awaken disappointed.

UPDATE As Mr. Hill notes in the comments, the threat or promise has been heard elsewhere. Google News helps prove the “reduced flights” extortion has been targeted to:

• McAllen, Texas
• Hell, all of North Texas
• Arkansas
• Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

Flood the zone, AA, flood the zone.

Jesse Jackson:

Jackson said President Bush’s chief political strategist, Karl Rove, is overseeing reconstruction of the Gulf Coast, and that he and others in the White House are using Katrina to push their political agenda. He said black, Democratic-leaning voters have been radically dislocated and are being kept in “permanent exile.”

“Karl Rove is a political reconstructionist” who wants to “change the character” of Louisiana politics from the mayor’s office to its congressional representation.

As if the Rove machine would try a simple diaspora when they could turn the dial to tsunami or earthquake and kill all Democrats in Louisiana.

Magic Marker used in commission of felony:

Students at Kirkwood High School provided information to police that helped lead to the arrests of four teenagers in the scrawlings of a racial slur and a swastika at two schools, police said Friday.

Kirkwood Police Chief Jack Plummer said officers picked up the teenagers, one of whom is a juvenile, on Thursday and Friday on suspicion of vandalism and a hate crime, a felony. Plummer said officers sought one more suspect.

The slurs were discovered Aug. 29 near the south entrance of Kirkwood High and at St. Paul’s Lutheran School in Des Peres. Officers said the scrawlings, made in permanent marker, were a curse word, a racial slur and a swastika at Kirkwood, and a swastika at St. Paul’s. The scrawlings included the phrase “the kings,” a reference to a band the suspects like.

Well, then, it was permanent marker, so lock them all up for five years!

The magic hate crime designation multiplies every crime, no matter how trivial, into a felony. Say nigger, and it’s free speech. Say kike while throwing a gum wrapper on the ground as you pass a synagogue, and you’re penitentiary-eligible.

Owen at Boots and Sabers has the story of an Appleton judge who assigns custody of a minor to an inappropriate institution.