Category: News

Here at Nogglestead, we have had some recent run-ins with government-mandated ill efficiency and poor economy in the service of the all-important but apparently impotent Mother Gaia. I mean, aside from the light bulb lament that I post regularly here.

One, one of the boys recently broke the wand portion of a shower head. Remember when these came into all the rage in the latter decades of the 20th century? Now they’re pretty much de rigueur; all the shower heads come with the wand attachment. So I bought a new kit and installed it. Although I had heard of the new low-flow showerheads, I had not experienced them. When I did, I did not care for it; saving water by making it take longer to rinse yourself is definitely government economist thinking. After a week or so, I swapped the old shower head back in and just used the new wand, which has the strictures in place, but the main head still gets it done. Yeah, I know, the way you’re supposed to use the new low-flow showerheads is to use the showerhead and the wand at the same time all the time–it’s not lost on me that the wand mount is now atop the showerhead so you can use them almost like one showerhead which is still weaker than the old showerhead.

The second was another bit of plumbing work. My mother-in-law requested an upgrade to our hall bathroom–a taller commode that would make it easier for her to use. We hadn’t been in a rush with this–it has been a year of nobody going nowhere, after all–but the hall toilet recently came loose, so we figured we’d just have a plumber swap out the toilets instead of reseating the existing one and replacing the wax rings. So we have a new senior toilet which uses very little water and often does not fill the bowl with water. I have not placed a bucket in the hall bathtub to gather water from the bath toilet to assist, but if I have to plunge it a bunch, I will end up doing this.

On the other hand, I guess I should count my blessings that these rites in the service of the nature goddess do not require expensive heavy metals mined in countries without strict environment controls that make it easy for thieves to cause thousands of dollars of damage to American automobiles for a couple dollars of drug money (Metal prices make catalytic converter theft a problem of ‘epic proportions’ in Springfield).

After investigating 95 total instances of catalytic converter theft in Springfield between 2016 and 2019, there were 408 reports of catalytic converter thefts in the city in 2020.

And through the first four months of this year, there had already been 337 reports of thieves shimmying under vehicles to cut out and steal the catalytic converter.

The huge rise in catalytic converter thefts is not unique to Springfield. The New York Times reported earlier this year the nationwide problem has been spurred by a big increase in the price of precious metals that are found in catalytic converters, like palladium and rhodium.

The Times reported that the price of rhodium went from $640 an ounce five years ago to $21,900 an ounce earlier this year (roughly 12 times the price of gold).

On the plus side, the environmentalists got a cheap thrill forty-some years ago in leading us to this place. On the minus side, it’s never enough and it has little impact as the rest of the world industrializes with greater populations without the scruples we’ve drilled into generations of Americans through judicious spacing between passing the mandates and things just aren’t as good as they were in the old days.

So I’m reading a New York Post review of Woman in the Window which looks like Rear Window but with a woman, and I guess it’s a front window, and I come across this:

Days later, she witnesses Jane being murdered across the street by her husband and frantically calls the cops. The man, Alistair (Gary Oldman) rushes over, but — presto change-o — he’s accompanied by an entirely different Jane (Jennifer Jason Leigh) and insists Anna is confused or making it up. The cops think she’s a loon, too.

And then I’m reading about The highs — and astonishing lows — of Angelina Jolie’s film career, I get to the bit on The Changeling:

This Clint Eastwood-directed period picture was Jolie’s last decent movie (I refuse to count “Kung Fu Panda”). She got an Oscar nod for it, and it’s no wonder — she pulled out all the stops. Playing a mother who believes her son has been switched out with a different boy — and who the police think is a loon — she’s sent to a sanatorium and given dramatic electroshock therapy. If wrongful electrocution doesn’t get you an Academy Award nomination, what will?

And I thought, wait a minute, did I already read that just a minute ago? Is it a glitch in the Matrix? Or is the Internet trying to convince me that the cops think she is a loon–who is this she?

Gentle reader, I was pleased when I returned to the first article to discover that Johnny Oleksinski just so happened to recycle the cops think she’s a loon bit in stories with similar plot/twists.

Because I was half believing that it was evidence that I was a loon.

Springfield faces apartment shortage due to a rise in jobs:

It looks like houses aren’t the only hot item in the market. Springfield is experiencing an apartment shortage and a local property manager says it’s because of jobs.

“I think Springfield’s blessed right now with a lot of people moving to town because there are jobs available and as a result of that, apartments are the first place to stop to find a place to live,” said Lonnie Funk.

But:

“I think a lot of people get forced into paying more for an apartment than what they can really afford to pay,” said Funk.

“It’s $900 or $1200 a month, so a single person can’t swing it,” said Bailey. “Rent’s never going to go down. I was amazed at what the rent went up here. I’m to the point where I’m about ready to go back to Florida.”

Not depicted: The Federal Government, particularly the CDC, forbidding landlords from evicting tenants who are not paying rent, which unexpectedly! should be expected to cause rents for new leases to rise and the supply to shrink.

But it looks like England vs. France might just pay out:

BORIS Johnson has deployed the Royal Navy to protect Jersey from the threat of a French blockade.

The dramatic move came after French fishermen – backed by Macron’s ministers – vowed to shut off the island unless they could fish more British waters, a threat branded an “act of war”.

The furious spat erupted after the island – which is under Britain’s protection – slapped French trawlers with post-Brexit fishing licences requirements.

About 100 French fishing vessels are due to sail to Jersey’s port on Thursday as part of a protest against the new rules, the head of fisheries for the Normandy region, Dimitri Rogoff has said.

In the face of increasingly bellicose French threats, two patrol vessels will sent to monitor the situation and protect the islands 100,000 citizens who depend wholly on imports for food, medicine and even electricity.

I did not see that coming!

Okay, now, let’s look through the signs and portents and penumbras and emanations to determine who is the Russian and or Chinese proxy in this fight. Cui bono?

Which does not mean “Alexa, play Sonny and Cher,” by the way.

St. Louis County votes to halt evictions:

Some households in St. Louis County are waking up with a sigh of relief after St. Louis County leaders voted to halt evictions through June.

In a 4-2-1 vote Tuesday night, the county council voted to approve a measure to temporarily suspend evictions until June 30.

Why will it end in June? Spoiler alert: It won’t.

So what is a landlord to do? Raise the rent, or let the properties fall to ruin because they can’t put out people who don’t pay the rent?

Maybe both!

NASA’s Mars helicopter Ingenuity completes third successful flight:

NASA completed the third successful flight of its Mars helicopter Ingenuity on Sunday.

The NASA Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena, Calif., announced the successful flight in a tweet Sunday morning, declaring that the helicopter “continues to set records” flying faster and farther.

C’mon, man, Martian records that we know of are currently pretty easy to break, ainna?

But let’s look to the future: That little thing should have a couple Hellfire missiles on it.

Because later rovers will have that capability (China invokes mythic god of war and fire for its Mars rover name).

(Former link from Instapundit; the latter because I hit the New York Post Web site a couple times a day. Kind of like when I got my first desk job connected to the Web in 1998.)

The current administration is working hard to get teams signed up for World War III: Biden recognizes atrocities against Armenians as genocide

Well, I guess that pushes a NATO member towards the Chinese/Russian side.

Currently, we’ve got the teams as follows:

Allies:	Other Side:
United States	Russia China Turkey

Although we really have to come up with actual allies to call our side “the Allies”. We could add Taiwan, briefly. And we’d need to come up with a name for the other side since Axis is played out and Axis of Evil, too.

Ah, well, the winners will write the history of any future global conflict. Let’s leave it to them.

According to Writer’s Digest, they have limitations on poetry imports:

Due to U.S. Government restrictions we are unable to accept entries from Syria, Iran, North Korea, or Crimea.

One of those is not a country. It’s a part of Russia. Or will be soon because Trump was a Putin puppet who somehow prevented it.

Ted Nugent, who once dismissed COVID-19, gets virus:

In the video shot at his Michigan ranch, the “Cat Scratch Fever” singer repeatedly uses racist slurs to refer to COVID-19 and reiterates his previous stance that he wouldn’t be getting the vaccine because he claims wrongly that “nobody knows what’s in it.”

Nugent, a supporter of ex-President Donald Trump, previously called the pandemic a scam and has railed against public health restrictions. He has repeated a narrative pushed by conservative media and disputed by health experts that suggests the official death count from the coronavirus is inflated.

So much rightthinking in that “news,” I feel mindcleaner for having read it.

UPDATE: Immediately after posting this, I happened over to Facebook and saw one of my now-Internet acquaintances commenting on another medium’s covering of the story with his own, “Haw, haw!” I used to think so much better of people. On the other hand, I vote for Trump twice, so he would think me irredeemable were he to think of me at all.

My beautiful wife, the park board member, attended a news conference this week as Bass Pro Shops donated kayaks and gear for rental at the local lake where my boys and I never catch fish.

You can read the story here: Bass Pro donates kayaks, funds for kids’ programs for Springfield parks.

She is dressed casually because she was told she might get to try one of the kayaks for photos. I think she was disappointed that she did not.

ESPN talkers discuss whether Aaron Rodgers has a brighter future with the Packers or with ‘Jeopardy’ and if he is good enough to be the host:

Aaron Rodgers’ future may or may not be in “Jeopardy.”

He is the only guest host openly campaigning to become permanent host.

“I would love to be the host of ‘Jeopardy!’ yes,” Rodgers said.

Clearly, this sports writer doesn’t know much about Jeopardy! or the current state thereof or he would realize that another person is actively campaigning to be host–but his guest spot has not come into the rotation yet. But the sports journalist is probably rather busy reporting on sports, which means a lot of retread speculation on the NFL Draft currently. It’s myopia coupled with the journalist’s ability to speak ex cathedra about anything, since what journalists don’t know isn’t true or important.

Some of us pay attention. A lot of attention. Some of us could point out that Jeopardy! did not hold its annual online competition for contestants this year. Or maybe some of us were specifically not invited. Which some of us might suspect.

Seen at Instapundit, this just in: Scientists turn beer waste into new protein sources, biofuels.

You know, the Australians have been doing that for 100 years.

Living on a desert island surrounded by salt water pretty much means Australians have had to invent many, many nasty things to eat, or they would starve.

However, one does not get Federal grants now unless one does something “new,” and instead of doing it because they’re going to waste away otherwise, our American scientists are doing it for the environment. Natch.

So my boys were both off of school on Good Friday, and since it was two weeks out from our adventures on spring break, I wanted to take them somewhere if I could think of it. I mean, we have the Springfield places that we’ve either gone often, doesn’t interest them, or is priced for tourists.

So I thought about a road trip.

I thought about going out to Poplar Bluff to have lunch with my brother or nephew, but it’s six hours round trip, and we had church service in the evening. So I looked around for used book stores or places to go that might have interesting things to do. Bolivar apparently has a used book store that is a seamstress’s sideline and a couple parks. But I saw the It’s a Mystery book store down in Berryville, Arkansas. It’s only about an hour and a half away, and it looks like Berryville has plenty of places to eat and a town square to walk around. So I piled the boys into the car with their old road trip Game Boys and, when everyone asked our destination, told them, “It’s a Mystery.” That was about the best part of it.

So they’re guessing as we start down Highway 160. Is it Branson? Is it a museum? And then the youngest, still at the private school, asks, “Is it out of the state?”

“Do you want to go out of the state?” I asked, playing coy.

“If I go to another state, I have to quarantine for two weeks from school,” he said.

Oh, yes, now I remembered that edict from the school. Of course, I hadn’t thought of it because we weren’t “traveling” in the vacation sense; we were taking a day trip on a lark. So I screeched the brakes as we approached the Welcome to Arkansas sign, barely averting the disaster of having him home for two weeks.

Well, it wasn’t quite that dramatic, but I did have to abort the mission and curse the arbitrary PANDEMIC!!!!! protocols which determined that a small town seventy miles away was more dangerous than big cities three hours away on other states’ borders.

So we ended up driving an hour and a half taking the long way around to a diner thirty minutes from our home in Marionville, which did not impress us, and then driving to run a couple of errands in town.

So I basically spent four hours in the car yesterday going nowhere.

It’s not the adventure we’d hoped for, but at least the goal and the result will have been memorable.

Anticipation is building for a boom in US hiring this year

US jobless claims rise to 719K as coronavirus still forces layoffs

The magic of the anticipation far outstrips the reality.

Remember this?

Me, I’m going long on Unexpectedly futures.

Inside the $1.6bn ghost town abandoned in 2008 – before anyone moved in:

The Ozarks region of Missouri was set to become home to a prosperous town featuring a shopping mall, a 390-room hotel, the country’s second-largest indoor water park – and dozens of castle-like townhouses.

But the $1.6bn investment went to waste as the town remains uninhabited almost 15 years later.

The Indian Ridge Resort was hit hard by the 2008 financial crisis hit; resulting in defaulted loans and a halt in the construction work.

As someone who watches the bankruptcy auctions from time to time, I still see a lot of those lots coming available for only the past taxes due.

I am not sure why this is news in England today for some reason. Perhaps the new deadly COVID variants are not as bad as advertised. Like COVID itself.

Bullet strikes window of Dollar General store in northwest Springfield, Mo.:

bullet struck a front window of the Dollar General store at 2535 W. Kearney Street in Springfield, Mo. Monday night.

The bullet did not penetrate the window, right by the front door. Police say the bullet came from a low powered weapon, possibly a BB gun, fired from someone driving by the store.

BB guns fire small round balls powered by compressed air. Not bullets. But one would not expect journalists to know that.

Beverly Cleary, author of children’s book ‘Henry Huggins,’ dead at 104

Larry McMurtry, Novelist And Screenwriter Of The West, Has Died At Age 84

I can’t help but notice that the former article is in the New York Post and features a picture of Beverly Cleary with George W. Bush and the latter article is from NPR, which tops the article with a picture of McMurtry with President Obama. So I guess we know how to feel about the death.

I actually have been reading The Last Picture Show for a couple of days, and I absolutely hate it. McMurtry’s death is only one of the coincidences with my reading of the book. I’ll mention the other in the book report.

Cleary was 104, and McMurtry was 84.