Category: News

‘Heartbreaking’: Visitor accidentally shatters Jeff Koons ‘balloon dog’ sculpture at Art Wynwood

“Accident” my patootie. All the balloons and balloon-like objects must be destroyed.

U.S. Military Shoots Down Fourth “High-Altitude Object,” This One Over Lake Huron

Who benefits from the United States using $400,000 missiles to shoot down balloons?

China.

How fast are we building replacement Sidewinders?

Objects shot down over US could be ‘alien or extraterrestrials’, Pentagon says.

Who benefits from blaming aliens? China.

(Link via Sarah Hoyt at Instapundit.)

More unhinged speculation here.

Man, I’m sounding a lot like Bill Gertz soundbites these days, but, hey, he’s had a pretty good run for 20 years sounding like Bill Gertz.

Also, I would like to state for the tribunal that although these thoughts occur to me, I only halfway believe them. But it’s getting halfier all the time.

This thought occurred to me the other morning when I was trying to not wake up at 4:00 in the morning.

Borepatch, amongst others asks:

For the life of me, I can’t see what compelling interest the USA has in war with Russia. I can see what the US Military Industrial Complex has with a war like that. And as they say, “War is the health of the State”.

But I don’t see what’s in it for us.

You mean, what is in it for the United State in burning off war materiel by shipping it to Europe? By leaving, what, $7,000,000,000 worth of stuff abandoned in Afghanistan?

I’ve seen people speculate it’s the military industry looking for profits. Meh, I don’t think the military industrial complex has been hurting for money. But you know cui bono from diminished stocks in the United States?

General is right that US, China headed to war over Taiwan by 2025: congressman

Paranoid thoughts in the middle of the night? Or history in the making? Time will tell.

Also, as a disclaimer, I don’t think war is inevitable, nor do I think it is impossible. History is full of currents, trends, and proclivities that are only manifest in events, and then we can argue about why they occurred. So it’s never clear what is to come, and it’s only marginally clearer what just happened.

I know I already covered the story about insurance companies not writing insurance for some easily stolen cars. That was based on something I saw on the St. Louis Post-Dispatch‘s Web site.

Well, the story has made it to Springfield media as we see on this KY3 story: Some insurers refusing to cover cars deemed easy to steal:

Two major auto insurers, State Farm and Progressive, will not be writing new policies on certain older Kia and Hyundai vehicles because they are so easy to steal.

Affected vehicles include those manufactured by Kia and Hyundai between 2015 and 2019 that don’t have immobilizers, which prevent the vehicle from starting if its key is not present. Most vehicles from other manufacturers with the push button start system include that technology.

Which is currently on the home page below this story: MSHP trooper struck by stolen vehicle, two suspects at large:

Three juveniles were taken into custody after a Missouri State Highway Patrol trooper was struck by a stolen vehicle they were driving. Three of them were taken into custody and two remain at large.

On Saturday around 8:45 p.m., an MSHP trooper was asking for a license plate check while conducting a traffic stop for a Kia Optima on I-70 eastbound just west of Mid Rivers Mall Drive. All occupants were juveniles. Shortly after stopping the Kia, authorities say the vehicle struck the trooper and drove away, initiating a pursuit.

Not a Chevy Citation, either.

Major insurance companies halt new policies for Kias, Hyundais amid St. Louis-area theft surge:

Greedy insurance companies:

Two major insurance companies have refused to issue new policies on some Kias and Hyundais in the St. Louis region as theft rates of those vehicles remain high following last year’s surge.

In a seemingly unprecedented move, insurance behemoths such as Progressive and State Farm are declining to open new policies on Kias and Hyundais altogether, while drivers with existing plans are stuck paying increasingly high premiums.

“I’ve been in this industry for 15-plus years. It’s hard to call a precedent for this,” said Michael Barry, spokesman for Insurance Information Institute, a consumer education organization.

Cheap automakers:

Rates of stolen Kias and Hyundais exploded last year — a trend also seen nationally because of a viral TikTok video that shows how to break into and drive off in many 2011-21 models of the South Korean-made vehicles using just a screwdriver and a USB charging cable. The method can be used on some models of those cars because manufacturers did not install engine immobilizers, an electric anti-theft security device.

However, it’s more likely attributable to post-2020 explosion in crime surges and Soros-back prosecutors like the one in St. Louis who “reimagine” prosecution:

Rates of stolen Kias and Hyundais exploded last year — a trend also seen nationally because of a viral TikTok video that shows how to break into and drive off in many 2011-21 models of the South Korean-made vehicles using just a screwdriver and a USB charging cable. The method can be used on some models of those cars because manufacturers did not install engine immobilizers, an electric anti-theft security device.

Thefts of Kias and Hyundais jumped 1,450% last year in the city, from 273 to 3,958. The same was true in St. Louis County, where a jump from 140 to 1,621 marked a 1,157% increase.

Four thousand Kias and Hyundais of this type were stolen last year in the city of St. Louis. Four thousand! In a city of under 300,000 people! I am not a statistician, but I am pretty sure that is a hella lot, although it’s possible it’s the same dozen cars stolen every day.

This is a problem with lawlessness, not greedy corporations. Don’t fall for the indictment of State Farm and Progressive here. They’re not in the business of unprofitably underwriting the failures of governance. That’s what the government expects its job is.

(More coverage on the nationwide story at The Drive as seen on the Ace of Spades HQ Overnight Thread.)

John Kass mentioned on January 10 that he was scheduled for open heart surgery, but his Web site has not provided any updates on his status.

So I searched the Internet for news.

He provided an update on The Chicago Way podcast.

He’s recovering.

Green comet to appear in sky for first time in 50,000 years:

People looking at the morning sky this month might notice a rare celestial body.

NASA says a glowing green comet will make an appearance for the first time in 50,000 years.

It will have streaking tails of dust and could appear fuzzy.

The comet will be closest to the sun Thursday and closest to Earth between Feb. 1 and 2.

Night of the Comet:

The Earth is passing through the tail of a comet, an event which has not occurred in 65 million years and coincided with the extinction event that wiped out the dinosaurs. On the night of the comet’s passage, eleven days before Christmas, large crowds gather outside to watch and celebrate.

If we survive, perhaps on February 3 I will start my screenplay for a mash-up of a zombie movie and Groundhog Day/Edge of Tomorrow.

Michael Williams has a story about how Hasbro/Wizards of the Coast/TSR is trying to screw people over with copyrights, leading to Williams’ rant about IP.

I, on the other hand, remember what TSR did to Game Designers’ Workshop and Gary Gygax over Dangerous Journeys (Gygax talks about it way down in this interview.

Mike, another friend, and I met Gygax at GenCon when he was preparing to or had just settled the lawsuit, so we got to look at the court papers (which Gygax was carrying with him, I guess). TSR was claiming copyright to things like dwarves, elves, and rolling dice.

So it’s not new that they’re playing IP games, especially now that they’re owned by bigger fish. It’s that they’ve always wanted to be the stereotypical Microsoft-style or Google-kind of monopolistic power, but they’re niche.

US renames 5 places that used racist slur for a Native woman

The word is squaw which has only recently come to be a racist slur because some people want a cudgel to beat others. If you look at the etymology of the word, and if you’re looking at an online source if you scroll past all the verbiage describing how this is a racist, vulgar, double plus ungood badthink badmouth, you’ll find this comes from a Massachusett (the tribe for which the commonwealth is named) word for woman or younger woman.

In common usage, I’ve seen the word used to describe a Native American woman (of any tribe–remember, the natives were tribal, and sometimes those tribes slaughtered other tribes–history, anyone?). So it’s a single word to describe a human person of a particular heritage. It does indicate “race,” but I haven’t seen it used much as a slur or to denigrate someone unless you already think that someone of a particular heritage is inferior. Which I don’t because most squaws are not blondes.

In my experience, it’s fallen out of common usage anyway as the cowboys and Indians mythos has fallen out of the common culture. For example, through the 90s, you see the baddest word fairly frequently, but not this other not the baddest but bad word (and if I start using that expression for not baddest word racial descriptions it will get confusing). Of course, I guess I read a lot of urban suspense novels and not a lot of things set in the southwest.

This online source usage note is rich, though:

It can be very offensive when members of the dominant culture appropriate piecemeal bits of language to imitate or perform impressions of an ethnic or racial minority. Borrowed words like firewater, squaw, and wigwam, or imitative words like how were once used for comedic effect, but they are now considered insensitive to Native Americans and their cultures.

My quibbles (which in this sense means complete disagreement with) the usage note (which is much like what you find on other dictionary sites and Wikipedia):

1. English is nothing if not a thief of words from other languages–because if they have a better or more concise way of expressing it, we want to use that. But you don’t see the Greeks and the Romans rising up, much less Hispanics or the Spanish, the Italians, or the French rising up. Well, I am sure the French try.
2. Firewater would be a compound word the natives might have borrowed from the English (I say might have because I have only seen it in pop culture sources, not original or historical documents). So how is it that English speakers would be appropriating it?

Never mind; it’s not about speaking and writing with concision. It’s about beating others with any cosh you can.

Also, if full disclosure, I used firewater in a video I shot some decade ago. Because I’m a racist. Or a pedant. Which some parts of the disculture might think they’re normalizing for me, but they’re not.

Man shot, killed at Maryland Heights tire shop after argument with coworker.

I used that auto shop when I was in Casinoport both times I lived there–it is on the corner of Dorsett/McKelvey, which was about half way between the apartment where I lived before I got married and the house we would later buy. It was in the same plaza as the Gold’s Gym where I was a member for a while between stints at the YMCA (which was down McKelvey). I was a customer there until they recommended I replace the exhaust manifold on my Geo Storm, and I had them do it, but it resulted in the car stalling out on me at times when I was first accelerating from a standstill, like when turning onto busy roads.

Of course, if the shooting had occurred at the ITD shop across Dorsett, I would have been a patron of that establishment, too, briefly, when it replaced the fuel pump in the very same Geo Storm with a fuel pump that I could hear in the cabin. Friends, have you ever heard your car’s fuel pump? Well, I have, and no matter what the shop manager said about how everyone can hear them, I made them replace it with something probably not out of a salvage yard while I watched, standing in the shop with crossed arms, until something moderately better was installed.

So somehow a headline turned into a musing on car shops I’ve known. I haven’t known the mechanics, per se, but the guys out front. And I’ve seen some turnover in the shops, and I tend to stick with a shop until something egregious happens. Knocks on wood. I’ve been with the shop we use now, a nice five mile walk away, for five or six years now. May they continue to not disappoint me.

Official government agencies in the heartland take on the slang based on popular entertainment. Yes, when I was riding the buses to and from the university in Milwaukee, I heard the local police called “the 5-0” from a television series that had gone off the air a decade before (and whose short-lived reboot was still almost 20 years in the future).

This week, I renewed the plates on one of our vehicles, and I brought my oldest son along to see the process as he’s a licensed driver now and might, in the next couple of years, have to license his own vehicle (not the one of our vehicles that he uses now and calls “his” truck).

On the way, I pointed out that Missouri does not have a Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV). Instead, it has License Offices, which are run by charities on behalf of the Missouri Department of Revenue (not the Department of Transportation). But people still call it the DMV because that’s what it’s called in movies and television.

Including headline writers for the local television station.

Ozark License Office (DMV) closed after building collapses nearby on the historic Ozark, Mo., square

::Sigh:: It’s so hard to be right on the Internet.

Bomb cyclone expected to hit US, prompting airlines to issue travel waivers

C’mon, man, “bomb cyclone” was coined by hucksters and headline writers (some overlap) to describe winter weather back in 2019.

If we really want to keep the edge on the hysteria around any weather that deviates from an artificial statistical mean, we have to amp it up.

How about Bomb cyclone psycho tsunami?

Steve Green at Instapundit links to this story: Walmart CEO warns that retail giant could HIKE prices or shut down some stores if ‘historically high’ thefts at the chain continue and prosecutors’ lax approach to dealing with criminals is not corrected.

Meanwhile, here in Springfield: Shoplifter injures greeter at a Springfield Walmart

Not our home Walmart, but when we went to the office supply store next door only to discover it did not have Christmas stationery, I thought about stopping in at this Walmart to see if they had any. But we did not. We were about four hours before this incident, though.

UPDATE: Couple tricks Walmart cashier to get away with $6,400 worth of items, deputies say

Two-for-one: Bowhunter gets antlered deer with extra skull and rack attached in Missouri:

“The deer (Lewis) harvested still had the skull and antlers of another deer locked in its rack,” according to Missouri Department of Conservation’s post on social media in early November.

This could be a prompt for a macabre story, or perhaps a light one: Perhaps a deer hunter harvests a deer with a Predator skeleton still attached.

Roman Coins Once Thought to Be Fake Reveal a Long Lost Historical Figure:

Long dismissed as forgeries, a handful of ancient Roman coins uncovered in Transylvania more than three centuries ago have been authenticated by a new analysis.

It’s not hard to see why the coins – dated to the 260s CE – might have been considered fakes. Where most ancient coinage displays the head of an emperor, one of the artifacts displays a mysterious figure not portrayed in any other known record.

On some the name “Sponsian” is stamped, a figure of Roman authority history seems to have forgotten.

* * * *

“These observations force a re-evaluation of Sponsian as a historical personage,” Pearson and team write. “We suggest he was most likely an army commander in the isolated Roman Province of Dacia during the military crisis of the 260s CE.”

So while he may not have ruled over the entirety of Rome, Sponsian appears to have fashioned his own little empire in a remote gold mining outpost, complete with a crudely minted currency using metals from local mines, probably after the Roman Empire had started to become fractured, the researchers suspect.

“We suggest that Dacia became cut off from the imperial center around 260 [CE] and effectively seceded under its own military regime, which initially coined precious metal bullion using old Republican-era designs, then using the names of the most recent previous emperors who had achieved some success in the area, and finally under the name of a local commander-in-chief,” the team explain.

Of course, they’re gold coins, so I would never have been able to afford them. And my status as a coin collector is so fresh that I do not have a place to put the four coins I own, so they’re awaiting inclusion in a Five Things on My Desk post as we speak.

(Link via Instapundit.)

I mean, one should win the lottery first and then buy all the sports cars second.

Although, as a Packers fan, given their performance this year, I’m just happy to see some Lambo sell out.

Outkick is shocked to learn JEOPARDY MAKES CONTESTANTS PAY THEIR OWN AIRFARE, HOTEL AND FOOD

C’mon, man, we all knew that already. Or maybe just those of us who were in the Jeopardy! contestant pool at one time.

Spoiler alert: They make you pay your own way and for your own lodgings for the auditions, which are generally regional in nature, as well. I had to go to Kansas City for mine. Other times I picked places like Boston because making a Jeopardy! audition would make a good excuse to visit those locations.

I mean, c’mon, man, even if you’re a returning champion for a couple of days, you’re not winning life-changing money. It’s not about the money.