Category: News

So when I got a real job (as a printer), I started thinking about getting my teeth fixed after neglecting them for much of my youth. It really wasn’t a thing in our family, and my immediate family was all in dentures by their forties. But I didn’t want that, and I ended up with a couple of appointments with Dr. Gilliam, but his treatment plan was several years in length–well, maybe not so, but a tooth at a time, it seemed. After a couple appointments with him, I got a tech job and moved to the northwestern reaches of St. Louis County–my first residence in Casinoport, actually–and I went to a sedation dentist which was the hotness at the time. They give you some valium and do a bunch of work at once. Smilin’ Jimmy scheduled me for two appointments and did the right side of my mouth at the first. He put a filling on a nerve, though, which left me in quite a bit of pain for a week or two until I got a recommendation for Dr. Dean. I scheduled an appointment with him, and although he did not have time to do a root canal that day, he sent me to an emergency dentist who did. And Dr. Dean took over the dentistry for my beautiful wife and I until we moved to Nogglestead.

I remember telling him that the plan was to keep the crooked teeth I have until we can grow new ones. “Not in our lifetime,” he said.

But I see this story on Instapundit: Humans May Be Able to Grow New Teeth Within Just 4 Years:

If all goes well, Kitano Hospital will administer the treatment to patients between the ages of 2 to 7 who are missing at least four teeth, with the end goal of having a tooth-regrowing medicine available by the year 2030. While these treatments are currently focused on patients with congenital tooth deficiency, Takahashi hopes the treatment will be available for anyone who’s lost a tooth.

Did Dr. Dean predict I would die before 2030?

Come to think of it, I would have, too. But with the help of Dr. Dean, the recently retired Dr. D., and “the big guy,” my oral surgeon, I’ve kept these teeth relatively healthy and clean for a quarter century now. I hope that counts for something.

Walmart axes self-checkouts and switches back to traditional lanes – but not because they care about customer service:

Walmart is showing self-checkout machines the door at additional supercenters as the retail giant’s automation experiment continues to unravel.

The world’s biggest retailer removed the machines from its South Philadelphia store in March, and brought back traditional cashier lanes.

It’s only the latest location to ax self-checkout. A Walmart store in Missouri removed all self-checkout machines after the kiosks led to 509 police calls in just five months.

In 2024, the retailer brought back staffed checkout lanes for Shrewsbury, Missouri, and Cleveland, Ohio storefronts, in an effort to give customers a more ‘efficient’ checkout experience.

Bosses insist the shift is about service. ‘These changes are guided by feedback from associates and customers, local shopping patterns, and the needs of the business in each community,’ the company said.

The change was aimed to ‘improve the checkout experience and enable associates to provide more personalized customer service.’

Sure, sure. Like the aisle widths, which narrowed a couple years ago to the point where it was damned difficult to navigate with a cart when other shoppers were present, widened guided by feedback and customers again, coincidentally the same time that associates wheeling giant online order carts started needing to get through it.

You know, I’ve written some marketing copy and press releases/communications from time to time, but we’ve definitely gone from putting the best face on something to tincturating down one’s lats and expressing precipitation, ainna?

Opinion: The convention center: We aren’t there – yet:

At the same time, I really believe in the people of Springfield. I’ve seen what we can do when we come together. We know how to collaborate, solve problems and do great things together.

He forgives you, Springfield. Please try do do better next time. Soon.

Opinion: Springfield didn’t reject the convention center; it rejected the process

A new process, more money slopped around, and next time it will pass!

Voters reject proposed tourism tax to fund downtown Springfield Expo and Convention Center:

“We respect the decision of our voters and appreciate the time they took to learn about the proposal and make their voices heard. Our next steps will be to take what we have heard and really focus on the priorities of the City Council as reflected by our residents,” said Springfield Mayor Jeff Schrag.

Hopefully more than the last time, one election ago.

I put the over/under on this reappearing on the ballot at 11 months.

Another day, another push to mandate insurance coverage for obscure treatments.

Ah, gentle reader, I feel for the people who need this, for the family whose child’s name is on the law, and for all the sob stories the media, activists, and politicians will dredge up to appeal to our emotions so that we won’t realize that this, and the drive to ever-more mandate ever-more outflows from the insurance companies will create ever-more increases in premiums to pay for the treatments that most people will not and, indeed, cannot use.

Oh, Brian J., you monster! What would you propose? Well, non-profits can gather funds for “increasing awareness” and “engaging with legislators.” Perhaps some of them could help with the treatment payments instead of employing people with humanities degrees, good hearts, and a taste for the finer things in life.

Ultimately, though, health care costs have spiraled for decades because the government has made it happen through legislation and enforcement and businesses have learned how to make the requirements more profitable for themselves.

Here I am, paying $2800 on health insurance (down, actually, since I was dropped from COBRA due to a software bug and went to an unsubsidized marketplace provider). Which is up $24,000 a year from when I paid my whole health insurance bill as a self-employed computer consultant. So, yeah, I am sensitive to the forces which continue to drive this increase year-over-year. Both government mandates and the big insurance company drives for ever-increasing profits and stock price heights.

In Brian J.’s pseudo-libertarian perfect world, health care costs would go down over time with increasing efficiencies and competition in the marketplace. Like you see for unsubsidized procedures like cosmetic surgery and, in the old days, LASIK surgery (they still do it, I guess, but they certainly don’t advertise for it like they used to). More freestanding health care clinics would spring up along with the diagnostic storefronts you can find if you look for them. And maybe I could go to my barber to set a broken limb or get a tooth extracted. I’m only kinda funnin’ here.

But stories like this, and the legislation they trigger, never talk about the tradeoffs. They only talk about the balm for people who are suffering difficulty or suffer a loss.

EUROPE’S WORST NIGHTMARE Terrifying reality of US pulling out of Nato laid bare as Trump’s chilling threat sends security chiefs into blind panic:

The US has the majority of the pact‘s nuclear weapons, tanks, aircraft and troops meaning if Trump was serious about leaving for good then the battle to replace America’s military might would be nigh-on impossible.

The pact’s? The pact’s?

Fascinating.

Gas prices soar past $4 on average for gallon of regular, the highest in US since 2022

Here locally, gas yesterday was $2.97, which is down two cents from the day before and down thirty cents from a recent peak.

But, hey, your reality is formed only by the television news or Internet, by all means panic.

Highest since 2022, when it was that high without a war going on. And “average national” includes gas prices from states with far higher tax burdens and other considerations, so maybe everyone should just leave their houses once in a while (he says, but only superiorly because he’s going to take a break from doom scrolling and do the tour which takes him to locations in Republic and Nixa and a nice country drive with the windows down, maybe, this morning).

CU electrical bills are expected to be higher this summer. Here’s why (paywalled article, so I didn’t actually read it.

The first sentence, the teaser that Gannett thinks will get me to sign up for its little four-page broadsheet “newspaper”‘s online version, says higher fuel costs.

Note the story below though: Higher population. One reason.

Another reason: Industrialization of the area and those loverly, loverly LLM-building “data centers” going in everywhere.

Another reason: State constitutional amendments that say that X% of energy generation must come from unreliable and expensive sources like wind and solar. Which means that to keep within the guidelines, power companies have to cut fossil fuel production, the denominator, so that the limited top number meets that constitutional mandate.

So why is it? Let a 23-year-old only writing here for a while and hoping to move up to a real city explain it.

Presumably, somewhere below the fold, we get the Trump and War in Iran. Or maybe I am just cynical.

Springfield lodging tax increase once again on the ballot to fund convention center

It has not been six months since the last time rejected this same proposal.

The vested interests who will benefit from this source of public funding will not be denied. And presumably the longer it takes to get the funding improved, the more money they will need to recoup in their investment in getting it passed.

According to The Daily Mail:

The Arsenio Hall Show ran for five years between 1989 and 1994 and featured hundreds of celebrities in what Hall hoped would be a house party on TV every night.

Hall made his show the home of hip-hop and helped break rappers like Snoop Dogg, Tupac and Ice Cube while musical guests included James Brown, Whitney Houston, and Luther Vandross.

The show would win two Emmys and lead Hall to star in hit movies like 1988 comedy, Coming to America, alongside Murphy.

Incredible! His show from 1989-1994 lead him to star in a hit movie in 1988! Time travel is real, sheeple!

Also, this photo caption should have alt-text that says, “Explain to me how you’re 23 years old and never say Delirous or Raw“:

Hall became known for his on-screen collaboration with Eddie Murphy, but recalls a boozy, drug-fueled night with the comedian despite the star’s clean-cut image at the time

Ay, child. Explain to me how it was in times I lived in and you did not.

(Link via Ed Driscoll on Instapundit.)

Sword yoga is the hot, new fitness trend turning NYC women into swashbuckling fighters — with the help of a double-edged blade

Pretty girls in movie poses with swords. Okay. Feeling empowered because they move like action heroes do in the movies.

I’m no EMEA expert, but I have fenced a little bit in my time, and I’ve fought in some broadsword bouts, and they were over pretty quick and did not involve spinning the blade. Or moving it far out of a guard position.

Chuck Norris has passed away after MfBJN has mentioned him twice this year: Someone’s Trying To Be A Chuck Norris Superfan in January and a review of Way of the Dragon, the Bruce Lee film that got Chuck Norris, 7 time American Karate champion, into films, earlier this month. The film still from the above article is from Way of the Dragon. The eulogies all mention that he was in Walker, Texas Ranger most likely because those were in syndication when the journalists were growing up two years ago.

Don’t let MfBJN happen to you.

As a reminder, actor Robert Blake and author Larry McMurtry passed away after a mention on this blog. Someone stay with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who costarred in Lee’s Game of Death and maybe Dick Van Dyke since I read a Diagnosis Murder book recently.

And let it be known it was Friar who mentioned Susanna Hoffs in a comment; I did not mention her by name on the blog. Oh, no. What have I done?

‘It’s not safe’: Neighbors raise speeding concerns after car crashes into South St. Louis County home:

ST. LOUIS COUNTY, Mo. — Neighbors along Kingston Drive are calling for changes after a crash sent a car into a front porch, marking the latest in a series of crashes along the busy stretch.

St. Louis County Police said since 2025, there have been 22 crashes on Kingston Drive. Of those, nine involved injuries, totaling 14 people hurt, and one crash was fatal.

That deadly crash happened last month when a man was killed, and police said it was the result of speeding.

In 2023, one woman was killed after her car crashed into a home near the intersection of Kingston Drive and Telegraph Road. At the time, police said the vehicle was traveling southbound on Kingston Drive toward Telegraph Road at an “extremely high rate of speed.” However, police explained that it may have been due to a medical emergency.

That’s just down the road from here because Telegraph Road ran between Jefferson Barracks (and beyond) in the St. Louis area and Fort Smith, Arkansas. However, down here, it’s called Old Wire Road, and when it was a contiguous route beside the telegraph wire poles, it ran through my neighbor’s yard.

I used to live up there in Lemay, where this story takes place. My sainted mother died in a house a couple of blocks away. And my favorite aunt owned two different houses in the area, including the one I lived in with my mother for a time.

The roads have been what they are for a long time. What’s different now is the people driving on them.

US drivers see gas prices jump to their highest level since 2023 as Iran conflict drags on

Oh, I see. So: Gas prices are climbing to a level not seen since the last administration, where they got there somehow on their own without a conflict, and as the conflict drags on which means the conflict has lasted longer than the TikTok videos AP journalists train themselves on, I guess.

What we should think: Trump bad. Never mind that in 2023, gas prices were high for some reason which was not Trump. Maybe the threat of Trump? Go with that.

Two articles about the wonders of the MU Health Care saving lives right next to each other? Mmm hmmm.

I am probably slow to discover this, but newspaper stories about death announcements, especially on the front/home page, come in to flavors.

“Neil Sedaka dies” (and for or five news items about it), and “Iconic Folk Singer and Woodstock Legend dead at 84”:

It’s Country Joe MacDonald who passed away. Have I heard his name? Probably. Would I consider him some sort of legend or icon? Eh….

It’s all about the click-through rates, no doubt. When the name is known, people will click to learn more. When the name is kinda known, maybe, the key is to hype up the person’s fame to get us to click through to find out more.

I wonder if there’s a scoring algorithm for the dividing line, or if it’s still a gut feeling by an editor somewhere.

But, hey, it worked on me. Not often, and mostly in this case because I wanted to write this post.

It’s better than looking at crime stories and finding someone I know, which happens, but I watched this story expecting to see someone I knew: Nixa, Mo., Dungeons & Dragons event raises awareness for multiple sclerosis

And I did, sorta: Christopher Wilson, author of The Wards of Iasos Book 1: The Leftovers, makes an appearance.

This story was easier: On Your Side: Conduent Data Breach: What to do if you got a letter–my oldest son makes an appearance, and he was very excited and told me so.

Walmart switching to digital shelf labels nationwide:

Walmart said the digital shelf labels are controlled through a centralized system and will allow for faster price changes.

The digital labels will also help employees stock shelves and fulfill online orders more quickly.

It’s not about the stocking, and it’s not about the picking.

Hey, did you notice that the aisles in Walmart are wider these days? Remember when they narrowed a few years back, which made it hard for us to get through them, but now they’re wider? I don’t suppose that has anything to do with the giant carts that the online ordering employees have started wheeling around? Of course it has. For your convenience.

You know, an aunt of mine by marriage got a promotion out of being a checker at Walgreens in the 1990s into being a Price Administrator. It was her full-time job, in a Walgreens (not a large department store), to adjust the prices of sales items for the week and to audit the prices on the shelves to make sure that they showed the actual price for the item. A full-time job. The electronic tags would eliminate that position, if it hasn’t already been eliminated.