Author: Brian J. Noggle

Pensioner ordered to cut the grass

A pensioner who took his daughter and son-in-law to court to force them to cut his grass has been forced to do it himself.

Paul Mueller, 72, argued he was too old to cut the lawn at the house he shared with daughter Karin and her husband Peter Hoffer.

He went to court to get them to take on the job at the house in Bonn, Germany.

But the plan backfired when the court ruled that the pensioner should be responsible for cutting the grass.

If he fails to do the job, his daughter, 43, is allowed to hire a professional gardener and make the old man pay the bill.

I don’t know whether to laugh or to cry. I suppose I could do both: I could laugh at the absurdity of this silly Eurocrat idea, and cry because I realize by the time I am 72, the situation could be such in this country that I might have to sue my own damn kid to mow the schnucking lawn and lose.

According to a nugget in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Cardinals slugger Albert Pujols did not strike out in spring training. An almost unheard of occurrence:

He is the first player to go an entire spring without a strikeout since the Milwaukee Brewers’ Eric Young in 2003. The Chicago White Sox’ Joey Cora accomplished the feat in 1993 in 72 plate appearances. Outfielder Luis Saturia was the last Cardinals player to go all spring training without a strikeout in at least 20 plate appearances. He did so in 2002; however, he was reassigned before the end of camp.

No other player in Major League Baseball has done that since the year before last and no Cardinals spring trainee attendee has done that since two years ago. And that Cardinals player was demoted to the minor leagues.

If local sportswriters could have it, we know which Cardinal they would elevate to the papacy.

New pope will hail from cardinals

So that puts those of us who are not Catholic and advanced members of the clergy out of the running. I was hoping to be a Cinderella story myself, a dark horse candidate who would bring a sort of everyman’s perspective to the papacy. Ah, well, at least I can console myself with my acelibacy.

I don’t know what’s more frightening; that reporters need to write entire eighth-grade-report style stories on succession in the Catholic church, or the idea that some people impacted by this knowledge might not have it.

Blagojevich orders pharmacies to sell contraceptives promptly.

The Illinois governor also told fast food fry clerks to clean the frier, grocery store utility clerks to restock the bags at the end of the registers, and for the sales clerk at the department store to stop standing around and to straighten her area, for crying out loud she’s lucky she has this job with her being late three times this year and calling in once every three weeks.

UPDATE: Furthermore, Blagojevich ordered pharmacies to bundle unused flu vaccination doses with every purchase of a contraceptive.

After all, he’s federal legislator, so he cannot be seen by the public as Doing Something!!!! on local law enforcement problems. So he gathered up a news conference with local law enforcement and spake:

Sen. Jim Talent, calling methamphetamine “the No. 1 law-enforcement problem facing Missouri,” on Friday outlined a federal plan to increase funding for police and prosecutors and restrict sales of the over-the-counter cold pills used to make the powerful narcotic.

Speaking at a news conference at the St. Louis County Police headquarters in Clayton, Talent called the Combat Meth Act the most comprehensive anti-meth legislation ever proposed.

The bill – sponsored by Talent, R-Mo., and Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif. – would direct $20 million to train police, hire prosecutors and fund programs that help children injured in drug labs. But the bill’s focus is restricting the sale of pseudoephedrine, the active ingredient in scores of cold remedies.

It’s a big problem facing Missouri, so Talent (a name, not necessarily a noun) wants the federal government to gather federal tax dollars, take its cut off the top, and then pass those federally-taken tax dollars to the states to spend as they see fit. Well, maybe pass the money back to the states, if the states jump through the new federal hoops correctly, probably including passing legislation to make it possible to charge someone with DUI for wearing aftershave. But I digress.

My senator co-sponsored this bill with Dianne Feinstein. That says it all.

They’re doing something to make America better and stronger by setting up a vigorish that will fund administration of the tax money redistribution and by making more innocuous behavior (buying too much cough medicine) criminal.

The America they’re strengthening is the federal government. That America and the amalgamated citizens and states of America are often not the same thing.

From the sound of it, the case against Leonard Little was a little weak:

On Friday, the only defense witness that Rosenblum called was Ladue police Officer Keneth Andreski, who was Stork’s backup when Little was arrested and was standing five feet from the defendant when Little was given the sobriety tests.

Stork had testified that Little was windmilling his arms and unable to stand on one foot. Andreski said he didn’t recall seeing Little swinging his arms or holding them outward like airplane wings to keep his balance.

Andreski said he didn’t recall seeing Little swaying or using the Mercedes for support, as Stork had told the jury.

Also testifying Friday was Sgt. Darin McClure. Under questioning by prosecutor Mark Bishop, McClure said he administered a breath test at the arrest scene on a portable machine and it showed that Little had been drinking. McClure said also he smelled alcohol on Little’s breath.

Under Rosenblum’s questioning, McClure said Little wasn’t stumbling, swaying, losing his balance or smelling of alcohol at the Ladue police station, where he was taken 18 minutes after the traffic stop.

“Nothing in this case is consistent with intoxication,” Rosenblum said.

Well, that’s the flipside of fame and the law’s engagement with you. On the first offense, you leave a mother dead and get a slap on the wrist; from there on out, every cop who pulls you over will try to railroad you for DUI.

Cardinals Differ on Who Will Succeed Pope

Pujols is said to favor Matthew Arnold, whereas Matt Morris and some of the relief pitchers back Percy Bysshe Shelley. Jim Edmonds publicly espoused Anonymous, which proves he was either joking, is daft, or has some weird Californiaesque buddhist leanings.

Clinton Supporters Gear Up Against ‘Swift Boat’ Tactics

Fortunately, this still leaves her exposed to deep water navy tactics, including submarine warfare.

Biometric security at work:

Police in Malaysia are hunting for members of a violent gang who chopped off a car owner’s finger to get round the vehicle’s hi-tech security system.

The car, a Mercedes S-class, was protected by a fingerprint recognition system.

(Link seen via Signifying Nothing and The Liquia Blog.)

Sandy Berger, the former National Security Adviser accused of putting documents in his socks, has plead guilty to a misdemeanor charge of stealing classified documents. Of course, dear friends, you realize that stealing classified documents remains a misdemeanor only because only powerful people do it; stealing a couple hundred bucks of rare manuscript or something of comparable size and relative value would land you or I, simple citizens, in jail for a long time.

But in case you’re interested, remember MfBJN provided Stealing Documents In Socks: A Primer last summer to edify you, lawful reader, about how the bad deed is done.

(Story seen on Michelle Malkin.)

Ann Althouse, on a ruling that regarding a landlord who wouldn’t renew the lease for a trangender group because they were tranrestrooming, comments:

This is denying people the right to chose which sex to identify with when they choose whether to use the men’s or the women’s room.

I’ve forgotten. Do I have a penumbra or an emanation?

Loss of Amtrak would derail some travelers’ only ride:

If:

One of 170,000 passengers who use the Missouri Amtrak run each year, Breese may have to find another way if Blunt and the Legislature go forward with plans to cut the state’s $6.4 million Amtrak subsidy.
“It would really be inconvenient if Amtrak wasn’t here,” Breese said Monday afternoon as he and his wife, Clarita, rode the train from St. Louis to Jefferson City. Breese was returning home after a five-month stint in Kuwait.

And:

Ticket revenue is not enough to support Amtrak. The state kicks in $6.4 million to support two daily trains crossing Missouri, one from Kansas City to St. Louis and another in the opposite direction. They stop at eight cities along the way: Kirkwood, Washington, Hermann, Jefferson City, Sedalia, Warrensburg, Lee’s Summit and Independence.

Without the state’s support, the trains would cease to run, according to Jeff Briggs, a spokesman for the Missouri Department of Transportation.

Wouldn’t this problem resolve itself if only Amtrak raised ticket prices?

Oh, bite my tongue and perhaps my nose as well; Amtrak isn’t a service, it’s trainfare, and any increase in ticket rates would adversely impact the poorest among us. Like the poverty-stricken anecdote that kicks off the Post-Dispatch story who works as an IT contractor in Kuwait and earns substinence wages doing so.

By raising the ticket prices and covering its costs, Amtrak would ensure that some people could still ride the trains, but Amtrak is a government entity. Its goal is not to cover its costs. Its goal is to exist. Also, to get bigger and get more tax money budget if possible.

Also, kudos to the Post-Dispatch reporter for leading with the story of someone returning from the Middle East to parallel the contractor with military men and women serving in the area.

Court rules telecommuter must pay taxes:

A telecommuter who lives out of state while working by computer for a New York employer must pay New York tax on his full income, the state’s highest court ruled Tuesday in a case that could have wide implications in the growing practice.

The Court of Appeals said that computer programmer Thomas Huckaby who lives in Nashville, Tenn., owed New York income tax for his full salary, not just the time he spent working at his employer’s New York offices.

Huckaby paid tax on about 25 percent of his income over two years for the time he spent working in New York state. But the court upheld a state tax department ruling that all his income should be taxed. That amounts to $4,387 plus interest. However, the ruling could lead to much greater income for the state as it is applied to the growing field of telecommuting.

I would expect cities used to justify income taxes their non-resident commuters by saying that those people used city services and should pay their share for them, as though public goods were private services. The population accepted that.

Now, though, New York tips its hand. It’s not about commuters paying for their share of services that they use; it’s about New York getting what it thinks is its fair share of your income.

I truly look forward to the day that some innovative, unelected regulator determines that my telecommuting is taxable in his jurisdiction because my Internet communication hops through a server in his city or state.