To be able to say "Noggle," you first must be able to say "Nah."
If the maelstrom of lawsuits comes, will Green Bay Packer safety Darren Sharper testify, as an expert for the defense, upon the theft of an election that was a guaranteed Kerry victory based on the unrelated and certainly non-causual occurrence regarding the Redskins’ wins and losses preceding a presidential election?
If so, the Republicans should call Manny Ramirez to testify that 2004 is an outlier, wherein historical streaks come to an end.
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In an e-mail with a friend, I just referred to Israel as the Middle East’s oldest democracy.
How cool is that? That would be a legacy for a president, ainna?
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I don’t know which is worse, the headline “Dutch filmmaker accused of ridiculing Islam slain“, with its passive voice implication that maybe he had it coming to him since he was, after all, accused of ridiculing Islam, or the first paragraph:
A controversial Dutch filmmaker accused by Muslims of ridiculing their religion was stabbed and shot dead in Amsterdam on Tuesday, shocking the Netherlands where the killing was denounced as an attack on free speech.
Pardon my Midwestern simplicity here, but I think that a more basic right was violated somewhere along the line. But to some people, the metaphor’s more important than the concrete, and the abstract more important than the specific, and you cannot suffer along with the oppressed dead guy if it’s just murder–but if it’s suppression of free speech, it’s just like Bush’s America!
(Link seen on Instapundit.)
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Preposition A: Shall the St. Louis County Charter be amended so that any County assistance of value, whether direct or indirect, to development of a professional sports facility, requires prior to any assistance being given that the County Auditor first prepare a fiscal note and that the governing body proposing to take action to provide financial assistance hold a public hearing and that the financial assistance be approved by a majority of the qualified voters of the County voting thereon?
Jeez, in the last ten years, they’ve built or funded a new hockey/basketball arena, a football stadium, and a baseball stadium. This will pretty much eliminate a new professional dog racing track or perhaps an Olympic venue.
On the other hand, if this passes, it will be funny to see how the politicos in power deal with the trigger in the St. Louis Rams’ current lease that they can leave if the Edward Jones Dome falls out of the top ten facilities in the nation. Undoubtedly, the County and the city will find money to refurbish professional sports arenas without a pesky hearing.
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In the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Bill McClellan favors a draft for important reasons:
The military used to be the Church of the Second Chance. If a youngster got in trouble, he was often given the choice – the military or jail.
I think that’s the only actual reason why he favors a draft. The rest is a ramble.
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It looks like Neil Steinberg said this:
That isn’t enough, however. Christianity never seems happy unless it is on the march, and why be satisfied practicing your faith when you can also try to impose it upon others?
Outrageous. Absolutely outrageous.
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Okay, so read this bit in Ann Althouse’s Dick Cheney’s Hawaiian visit:
5) Another very pretty girl whom I could only conclude was a Secret Service groupie. She came in and as I gave her a lei she held up her Bush Cheney sign and asked where she could get autographs from Secret Service guys. I pointed them out to her but told her I didn’t know if she’d have any luck. I saw her after the event and she had managed to get several!
So here’s the question from your shidoshi of paranoia:
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Note to Pediatrics: Instead of banning BB guns and paintball guns because FOUR CHILDREN A YEAR or fewer die from them, how about we focus first on the more dangerous schnucking STAIRCASES and BATHTUBS, which kill far more?
Because they don’t look like EEEEEEEEVIL GUNS? Okay, then, as long as we understand the real goal here.
Coming soon in this month’s Musings magazine: a study about how deadly raging academic stupidity is. Never mind the study or the methodology, the press release announcing the study is the important thing.
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As some of you know, I was home in Milwaukee this weekend. As some of you in Wisconsin know, John Kerry and George Bush are holding simultaneous rallies in downtown Milwaukee (please don’t anything blow up).
I knew about the Kerry rally the minute I walked down Wisconsin because I was accosted by Kerry volunteers on every corner who wanted my attendance.
On the other hand, I wouldn’t have known about the Bush rally if I hadn’t seen it on the news.
I hope this smacks of a certain amount of desperation to get bodies–that Bush has already filled up the convention center and that Kerry needs street people to fill the plaza outside the Starbucks. But who knows? One sees what one wants to see.
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It’s rumored at Powerline that Brett Favre has spoken:
UPDATE: Hah! It’s true what they say about Karl Rove. Dusty Tryggestad writes:
Actually, my mom recieved a recorded message from Brett Favre supporting Bush. Reference was made to today’s win vs the Redskins. I would imagine this is playing all over Wisconsin.
I think this could make the difference in Wisconsin. I mean, really.
St. Louisians, this is not the equivalent of an Ozzie Smith endorsement; this is Jack Buck and Kurt Warner (2000) telling you to vote for a candidate.
If true.
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Here’s a story in the New York Times: Ethnic Clashes Erupt in China, Leaving 150 Dead. What ethnicities?
Violent clashes between members of the Muslim Hui ethnic group and the majority Han group left nearly 150 people dead and forced authorities to declare martial law in a section of Henan Province in central China, journalists and witnesses in the region said today.
I don’t think China will have a long term problem with Islamicism because it will take extreme measures early. So take some comfort, fellows, that Sharia law will never encircle the globe, for even if we cannot stop it, there are other competing civilizations that can and would.
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Special invective to James Mosby, undoubtedly what Ayn Rand would call a moocher, for this outburst reprinted in a St. Louis Post-Dispatch Business story entitled “Companies can call the shots on office space“:
“It’s an unfair playing field,” said James Mosby, a vice president with the commercial real estate firm Colliers Turley Martin Tucker.
“There’s a lot more office space than there are tenants … I think it will swing back in the other direction in the future,” he said. “But whether it’s 12 months or 24 months, I just can’t say.”
Undoubtedly, Mr. Mosby and his firm desperately need corporate tax incentives and other handouts to continue constructing empty office buildings and parks. Still, Mosby plays to the Post-Dispatch‘s favorite type, that of the wealthy businessman or corporateman who only thinks it’s fair if he holds the scarce resource and can demand exorbitant sums for it, preferably from the poor, widows, and orphans.
However, allow me to speak for my small cadre of small-time capitalists without offices downtown and without commission seats, luxury boxes, or connections with the ruling families of our community–and by small cadre, I mean me–when I say, “Shut up and scratch your own back for crying out loud.”
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I stopped reading an article entitled “Lawyers argue over $50 fee designed to replenish fund that helps poor“, before I got to the “The Internationale”. Actually, I stopped pretty much after the first couple of paragraphs:
What’s $50 to a lawyer? A nice lunch or a designer tie?
For many lawyers, $50 amounts to not even one billable hour.
But a proposal to assess members of the State Bar of Wisconsin $50 to help pay for civil legal services for the poor has led to a pretty strong debate among attorneys.
Without the $50 assessments, the foundation that helps fund legal service programs will be broke and out of business soon, said Deborah M. Smith, past president of the Wisconsin Trust Account Foundation.
I didn’t make it to the part at the bottom where the socialism-loving journalist decides that she’s going to kick in any of her salary to help out. But then again, as a crusading journalist out to reallocate the funds of other people, she’s contributing enough just framing stories in a right-minded fashion.
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Just received this important message in my junk e-mail box:
A week ago, we sent you an email asking for help debunking anti-Bush documents. After receiving hundreds of responses, it become clear that all the documents were actually real: the Bush/Cheney DUIs, the Ken Lay letters, and even the bin Laden memo. For more information visit the documents page:
<link removed>.We also received hundreds of emails from concerned bloggers that eloquently expressed the problems with the Bush administration. And as we traveled across America campaigning for Bush, we learned more than we wanted to know about Bush’s policies. We came to see that this administration is a catastrophe for most people.
As a result, we are abandoning our support of Bush and officially endorsing John Kerry for President. You can read more at the Yes Bush Can web site:
<link deleted>
We deeply regret our misguided support and apologize for our previous email. This will be the last email we will send directly to bloggers. If you want to join us in supporting Kerry, you can find out more here:
<link deleted>.Thank you for your understanding,
Yes Bush Can
I’d blame it on the Democrat counterpart of Karl Rove, but unfortunately this as diabolically genius as they can do. Diabolically third grade.
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Someone in a populous coastal state defends the electoral college:
What should an election system for choosing the president attempt to achieve? Certainly one goal is to reflect the popular will, an outcome that might (or might not, depending on how the system is structured) be achieved with a direct popular vote.
But as the founding fathers recognized, reflection of the popular will is not the only goal.
Another goal is to provide candidates with incentives to broaden their geographic and political bases and to steer toward the center rather than the extremes of the political spectrum.
This, the founders felt, would help reduce the sources of political strife and, in the extreme case, avoid civil war. They understood that passions and irrationalities can afflict mass decision-making under direct democracy.
(Link seen on Roger L. Simon.)
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A Japanese “adventure traveller” is the latest hostage threatened with beheading in Iraq, according to this story:
Japan scrambled Wednesday to win the release a 24-year-old Japanese man taken hostage by Islamic militants in Iraq, dispatching high-level diplomats to the Middle East and launching an appeal for his freedom on Arabic television.
A man identified as Shosei Koda, an adventure traveler from the southern Japanese island of Kyushu, was shown pleading for his life in a video released to a militant Islamic Web site Tuesday and broadcast on national TV early Wednesday in Japan. Under a sign bearing the name of the radical Muslim group led by Jordanian Abu Musab Zarqawi, the hooded kidnappers threatened to behead Koda if Japan did not withdraw its 550 non-combat troops from Iraq within 48 hours. That demand was immediately rejected by Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi.
Unfortunately, it’s more of the same. Although this fellow’s impending beheading is barbaric and deplorable, I’d hate to think that foreign policy of any sovereign nation is beholden to the fate of people who foolishly put themselves in harm’s way for fun. I sympathize more with workers who put themselves in danger for money.
I’m saddened, too, with anyone who thinks that the foreign policy of a nation should change to spare the life of a single person. This thinking begets more kidnappings and more beheadings, but it elevates those who think it above those rabble in touch with reality; that is, those who recognize that uncivilized human nature is a dirty, base, and ultimately despicable thing in many, if not most, cases.
(Link seen on Outside the Beltway.)
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The city of St. Louis is offering tax incentives to keep a heavy-hitting, politically connected law firm downtown: City offers incentives to keep Bryan Cave downtown:
The city of St. Louis is offering one of the area’s oldest and most prestigious law firms up to $25 million in tax breaks to stay downtown.
While the city frequently uses tax incentives to lure or retain businesses, the benefits extended to Bryan Cave exceed “to a significant degree” those that have been offered to other businesses in the past, according to a confidential letter obtained by the Post-Dispatch.
The city is hoping to lure the firm into a new building. In return, the city would give partial tax abatement for up to 25 years, cut in half the taxes due on equipment such as computers and furniture and provide breaks on payroll and earnings taxes.
Additionally, the city is considering using a consultant paid for by Bryan Cave instead of city workers to do the building inspections for the new property. Such a step has never been taken before in St. Louis.
Not that I am trying to tell St. Louis how to handle its business, but perhaps downtown would have more businesses coming to it if it abated that 1% payroll tax and spent its tax revenue on infrastructure instead of sports venues.
But I work in the real world and don’t have an advanced poli-sci or urban planning degree, so what do I know?
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The St. Louis Post-Dipsatch once again deploys the passive voice creatively in a headline: Wal-Mart employee injured after man flees from store security:
Hendricks said the security officials were attempting to stop Taylor from leaving when Taylor put the car in reverse, allegedly causing injury to one of the Wal-Mart employees.
Man, what sort of style guide do they have down there on Tucker that says that injuries done in the course of a crime just happen spontaneously?
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I am a one issue voter.
You can believe Kerry would prove better for domestic policy, and you can almost convince me. You cannot, cannot, convince me that his foreign policy will protect America better.
That’s the most important job of the president.
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From a story in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch entitled “Demolition gets under way on 108-year-old building“:
Demolition of the Century Building downtown began this week, a major first step in the controversial redevelopment of the 1884 Old Post Office.
The first signs are evident. Piles of rubble lay on the sidewalk – the remains of what was a corner of the 108-year-old building.
You know, I’ve been a resident of the St. Louis area for well nigh eleven contiguous years now, and that description–rubble on the sidewalk and whatnot–sounds like how much of downtown St. Louis has looked for as long as I remember. Year after year, the same buildings with scaffolding, safety nets, or closed sidewalks to prevent the unused, crumbling buildings from killing passersby.
First signs of redevelopment? That’s a good and optimistic way of thinking about it.
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