Musings from Brian J. Noggle

Group Pushes Restricting of Cold Medicine:

An association representing more than 36,000 pharmacies is issuing guidelines for possible federal legislation to restrict sales of cold medications containing a substance often used in the illegal manufacture of methamphetamine — or “speed.”

Amphetamines are speed. Methamphetamines are crank.

But that’s just the word on the street, as filtered by a blogger who only hears the silence on the cul-de-sac.

Meanwhile, the media gives play to a group espousing more regulation. Shocker. Put out the Drudge siren. Speaking of which, why does everyone call the rotating light image the “Drudge siren”? Sirens make a sound. The Drudge Siren does not. Why does the blogging world insist upon destroying the semantic difference between light and siren.

The short item in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch today, bearing the innocuous-sounding title “Additional fee on phones starts Sunday“, but it tells a story of the creeping socialism of modern life:

Beginning Sunday, Missouri telephone customers will pay an additional universal service fee to help subsidize telephone service for the poor and disabled.

Not that I am entirely without heart, but when did schnucking telephone service become a right necessitating public subsidy?

Let’s take bets….what’s the next thing that the government will subsidize or force us to subsidize through service fees?

• Cable television?
• Cellular phone service?
• Cellular phone service for The Children?
• Internet connections in every home?
• Trips to the doctor and free prescriptions every time you get a sniffle?
• Professional landscaping services?

Yes, number 5 is very popular, but watch for the others to sneak in while we’re fighting against free health care.

When the missing Georgia woman appeared in New Mexico with a tale of abduction, I scented some fully-processed bovine food. But I didn’t post fast enough, since she’s admitted she was not abducted after all.

Wilbanks, whose disappearance set off a nationwide hunt, called her fiance, John Mason (search), from a pay phone late Friday and told him that she had been kidnapped while jogging three days before, authorities said. Her family rejoiced that she was safe, telling reporters that the media coverage apparently got to the kidnappers.

But Wilbanks soon recanted, according to police.

Ray Schultz, chief of police in Albuquerque, said Wilbanks “had become scared and concerned about her impending marriage and decided she needed some time alone.” He said she traveled to Las Vegas by bus before going to Albuquerque.

I’d recommend that her fiance be skeptical about her new story, too; I expect she’s got something in her Sent Mail folder and IM archives regarding New Mexico or Nevada.

But I’m just the suspicious type. That’s why I have tapped my own phone to see what my beautiful wife is plotting.

What are the odds of that?

The legislation would limit the number of gambling boats in the state to 13 — and all the slots are spoken for.

The state limits gambling boats to 13. That’s rich.

Of course, I oppose the legislation. It’s arbitrary and capricious whimsy on the part of the government. 13, not 14. Why 13? Because that’s how many boats currently exist or are pending.

As a good libertineertarian, I oppose all limits on gambling as long as it’s not run by the state and favor removing the government’s statewide monopoly (the lottery). As for fools who gamble more than they can afford, well, let the wiser help part the fools from their money. Letting fools suffer consequences from foolishness; it will help cure them of their foolishness.

I don’t favor recreational arson and illegal gun possession, but I’m happy with this ruling:

Defense attorneys argued successfully that state Supreme Court rulings dictated that Charles’ 1983 arson and attempted murder convictions could be counted only as one strike, as they stemmed from the same attack. Prosecutors contended that the crimes were separate because Charles had committed arson to destroy evidence that he had drugged his son before setting fire to him.

The man lit his child on fire, and prosecutors charged him with arson and attempted murder. Same thing, but the single action led to two felony counts. This incident occurred 1983. If he tried that today, he’d also get felony counts of using fire in commission of a crime, leaving the scene of a crime he’d committed, possession of arson accellerants, felony child abuse, felony child endangerment, and possibly smoking during the commission of a felony. Needless to say, he’d fall not only under three strikes laws, but also striking out the side which probably demand summary execution.

This ruling would indicate that pissed-off prosecutors won’t get automatic life sentences for the criminal whom they convict if only the prosecutors can find or stretch three felony counts to blanket a single crime.

Because you never know when blogging against law enforcement to incite changes in criminal laws , blogging across interstate lines, and excessive use of italics in blog posts might criminalized, and by a single act that doesn’t neccesarily involve violence or wrongdoing, you might be eligible for life in prison.

(Submitted as an entry to Outside the Beltway’s Beltway Traffic Jam, if only the trackback thing would work.)

Apparently, certain segments of organized labor oppose environmentalism:

Operating Engineers Local 520 in Granite City formed an informational picket Monday at the Jennison-Wright Superfund site on West 22nd Street over the use of non-union labor to clean up the site.

The local began the picket about 7 p.m. and will continue its protest at the contaminated site until cleanup work is completed. That could take about three months. The cleanup is being done by Bodine Environmental of Decatur.

Cost-effective, efficient enviromental clean-up that allows the EPA to stretch its budget and clean more sites? Not if it costs union jobs!

Perhaps following the lead of Washington University protesting students, high school students staged a protriot when the school district superintendent fired their best friend, the principal:

During today’s three-hour protest, students chanted and walked through neighborhoods as well as taking part in fights, vandalizing cars and trying to break into a store as they walked along Chambers Road to the district’s administration office, 1370 Northumberland in Bellefontaine Neighbors.

That, my friends, is a protriot: a riot in the guise of a protest. Get a couple of picket signs and apparently the media, or at least the St. Louis Post-Dispatch will overlook a little assault and battery, a little property damage, and an attempted breaking and entering as long as it serves a cause. Not necessarily even a good cause.

No, gentle reader, I just wanted to demonstrate my superior logic skills, gleaned from the several sessions of Philosophy 001 – Logic classes at Marquette University through which I did not sleep. Ergo, gaze upon the following passage and note the false dilemma:

School officials say Ukaoma was dismissed because of poor performance. However, teachers, parents and students say the School Board is vindictive and that Ukaoma was the best principal the high school has ever had.

It is entirely possible that Ukaoma was both. Given how the student body is inspired by his presence and now his absence, I suspect such is the case.

Some dude in the LA Times thinks Google should buy a newspaper:

It’s only a matter of time before a Yahoo or a Google decides to buy an old media company in order to differentiate itself by offering high-quality, proprietary news. Or a company like Amazon could buy a prestigious newspaper publisher and reinvent itself as a portal, leapfrogging over those that treat news updates as a commodity.

Mickey Kaus disagrees and lists two good reasons why not, concluding:

I’ll invest kf’s retained earnings elsewhere, thank you!

Professor Bainbridge calls it a provocative business plan.

I have one word for them:

AOLTimeWarner

The “authorities” say it was an accident:

According to the City of Los Angeles’ Department of Animal Services, which conducted an investigation, the horse was running when it stepped on its own lead rope and broke its neck. Animal Services is ruling the death an accident.

Don’t believe the whitewash. Ask yourself:

What had the horse seen that would drive it to suicide?

Looks like “Republican” Senator Bond wants to spend lots of money, and those lots aren’t enough:

The Senate has opened debate on a highway bill that would send billions of dollars to Missouri and Illinois for key road and bridge projects over the next six years.

“This bill is long overdue,” Sen. Christopher “Kit” Bond, R-Mo., a lead sponsor the legislation, said as lawmakers began debate on Tuesday. “Our roads are deteriorating, (highway) safety is deteriorating.”

But even as he championed the legislation, Bond and other lawmakers said the $284 billion price tag was not enough to meet the nation’s needs. And they vowed to include more money in the bill, even though the White House has signaled that $284 billion is the maximum the president would accept.

Jeez, spending lots of Federal money is good because it’s spent in Missouri! How short sighted does Bond think we are?

Probably only as shortsighted as we actually are.

Over at Q and O, McQ invokes Orwell describing Zimbabwe’s plan to slaughter animals in national parks to feed the peasants. McQ says:

Rather Orwellian wouldn’t you say? Killing animals in “conservation areas?”

He overlooks the direct Orwellianism in this quote from a Zimbabwe official included in the post:

“Killing of animals for any reasons other than conservation can be very disastrous,” said one National Parks official.

You can kill some animals to save others because All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.

Teachers’ Union Suit Sparks ‘No Bureaucrat Left Behind’:

Dubbed ‘No Bureaucrat Left Behind’ the new plan would address teachers’ union complaints about unfunded federal mandates by removing the mandates, the funding and the federal role in public education.

“When I read the NEA lawsuit,” said Mr. Bush, “I realized that as long as we funnel education money through Washington D.C., we provide teachers’ unions with an excuse for their poor performance. Blame Bush. Blame Congress. Blame the Department of Education. But if all the money is raised and spent at the local level, then taxpayers can hold the unions accountable.”

If only. I suspect Bush would only offer to spend the same money on public or private schools, which wouldn’t be the same thing.