Category: News

when Starlink goes completely down for any length of time:

Has the war started?

(That’s my question, not a quote from the article; so far, the articles are not very illuminating–it took a while to see a news mention of the outage.)

The answer has not yet been, uh, answered.

But I have Internet again, so it’s not the satellites. But that’s not the only way to war.

Drug trafficking? Meh; the rural papers are full of tales of drug traffickers.

Assaulting a dog? String him up!

I am not endorsing this view, but it’s been this way a long time. The death of a man is a tragedy, the death of millions is a statistic, and the hurt of a dog is an abomination. I remember sitting in the theater watching Independence Day when L.A. is getting destroyed by aliens-aliens (not, as it actually happened), the buildings are collapsing, cars are getting caught in a blast radius, and the crowd cheers when the dog is safe.

Somewhere on the heat chart of who loves what (family, neighbors, the Other), the spot for animals is probably bright red for both conservatives and liberals.

Beloved Long Island surgeon known for ‘serenading patients’ collapses and dies after triathlon: ‘All around great guy’

The Republic Tiger Tri is next weekend, but I won’t be doing it this year. My multisport training has been…. Well, what’s less than sporadic? Non-existent? I ran on the treadmill and rode a spin bike for a bit to prepare for the YMCA’s indoor triathlon this spring, but not much since even though my beautiful wife told the owner of the local Fleet Feet running shoe store she would do the Tiger Tri this year. Circumstances, though, which include a bounty of contracts for us, have limited our training time, so, maybe next year.

Or maybe not if they can kill you.

Springfield’s forgotten palace: A cautionary tale for today’s convention center dream:

Springfield’s current push to build a modern convention center complex echoes a similar campaign that began 120 years ago and resulted in an impressive, innovative facility.

However, today’s promoters should hope that history doesn’t completely repeat itself, because that early 20th-century convention center was financially troubled and only lasted a couple of decades.

The earlier idea to build a huge auditorium and exhibition space was prompted in part by rivalry with neighboring Joplin, which in 1900 had a slightly greater population than Springfield — 26,000 vs 23,000. By 1905, the two cities were neck-and-neck in size, and Springfield businessmen and politicians began dreaming aloud about what they termed a “convention hall” that would focus attention on Springfield and draw regional and even national organizations to gather here.

Spoiler alert: It will be even boondogglier today, because in decades’ of existence, it will require additional millions in updates.

I just posted my skepticism last week.

Ah, gentle reader. If you’ve been here a while, you know I spit frown upon the convention center arms race racket, where “consultants” come up with projections about how, if only municipalities spent millions of dollars now (and every few years from now), a Periclean golden age would befall their cities. Or, at least, consultants would be paid and municipal managers/elected officials could fail upwards.

Seriously. search the blog and see how I feel.

Welp, it’s that time again New Springfield convention and event center could be ‘community icon’ after study released

Which includes this made up number:

The President and CEO of Visit Springfield shared the findings of the Hunden report with members of the council. It showed Springfield is losing out on more than $125,114 a day by not having an event center with at least 125,000 square feet of space.

Another made-up number:

The study said that over 30 years, it is projected to generate $1.3 billion and a tax revenue of $68.7 million.

Because those of us not in the industry who are over ten years old know that should this thing be built for $175 million dollars, it will require updates and expansion every decade or so “to keep it competitive.”

I’m not sure whether the city ever coughed up the $40 million dollars that the consultants wanted for the existing expo center twelve years ago.

But I do know that $175 million is a hell of a lot to spend for a cavernous empty building that will be underused.

I mean, I have been to some conventions and conferences recently, and the buildings are very pretty, but the conferences and conventions I’ve gone to do not fill them up. Maybe if those cities spent $200 million. As their consultants will surely recommend.

The article mentions, briefly, his role in Tibetan Buddhism, but only in passing.

I imagine it’s akin to calling the Pope the world’s foremost White Sox fan. Kinda missing the point.

Federal judge seeks clarity on whether birthright citizenship order means babies could be deported

Clearly, the babies who crawled across the border on their own can be deported. But, really, what is this all about? The babies not granted birthright citizenship are born to a mother who is not a citizen (or subject to the United States or what have you). So one presumes deportation would include the mother and the baby and to the same place–no sending mothers home and the babies to Ghana or something. That is, the United States would not want to break up families.

I have to assume that the whole exercise seeks headlines like Trump Administration Wants To Deport Babies. I’m also getting the sense that this is less effective as it once was.

Gun-toting woman, 64, sat in lawn chair on busy Texas highway during hours-long police standoff

Well, no, but the headline made me think of this scene from Every Which Way But Loose.

Because I just watched it, you know.

It’s been so hot in St. Louis even the streets are buckling:

Temperatures over the past week have gotten so hot even the streets are buckling from the heat.

As a heat wave gripped the region, at least four streets across St. Louis, St. Charles and St. Louis counties curled, arched or cracked and created spots where roads jutted up into the air like ramps.

It has been hotter in the modern era–I remember in the middle 1980s when the temperature topped 100 degrees for, what, two weeks? We were visiting my aunt’s flat-top roofed brick house with no air conditioning at the time.

I don’t remember stories about streets buckling.

So is it the heat that has changed? Or the streets?

This is not as bad as Alpha-Gal syndrome.

Fitness influencer, 31, left paralyzed from tick bite: ‘My body completely gave up’:

According to the social media star, tiny organisms called Babesia had entered her bloodstream via a tick bite. Her red blood cells were targeted as a result.

“It completely shattered my immune system,” she said on social media. “It became so bad that something as simple as locking my phone or turning my car’s wheel became moments of agony.”

The condition affects fewer than 3,000 people per year in the US, according to the Cleveland Clinic.

It’s a bad year for ticks at Nogglestead. I’ve pulled a walking on me–bad ticks that they are, when you can feel them on you–and I’ve had a bite already. The other evening, I went to the garden and harvested 8 radishes and pulled two ticks off of myself in the house after. I do not like that ratio and hope it does not hold.

I’m not making light of Alpha-Gal syndrome. I have a real fear of it since I know two people who have it/have had it (apparently, treatment is improving).

But I’d rather be paralyzed than allergic to meat. Maybe.

I cannot read this article (Does science have a PR problem? The short answer: Yes.) because the Springfield News-Leader is a Gannett publication, and it thinks I want to pay for its glurge.

But of all the problems science has (direction set by government funding, so it finds what the ruling elite want; replicability crisis; soft “sciences” want to be treated like real sciences; etc.), marketing is not one.

So many “problems” in the modern world are “solved,” experts say (or at least pitch in pursuit of lucrative contracts) comes down to somehow involving people with marketing or communications degrees saying different words about the “problems.”

I think that time is almost over.

Booming demand for vinyl records could increase prices for music lovers

The story basically talks about how hard and expensive it is for a band to release a record which is, well, literally a record these days.

But any of us who have been pawing through crates of records for years know that the price of new albums in the stores is getting up to around $30, and used records by anyone you’ve heard of are $10-$20, and used records by anyone are $5.

But now that the news has discovered it, it has now become real.

Teachers’ union warns of violence from relocating St. Louis schools hit by tornado:

Violence could erupt this fall when students from tornado-damaged schools move into rival buildings, a union leader warned St. Louis Public Schools.

Students in middle and high schools can be territorial and “are willing to defend violently if necessary that claimed territory from students outside their respective neighborhoods,” said Ray Cummings, president of the American Federation of Teachers Local 420 in a letter Thursday to Superintendent Millicent Borishade and the St. Louis Board of Education.

I presume it’s a plea for funding and/or stay-at-home schooling.

But saying that the students are ungovernable delinquents, true or not, is a bad look.

Terry Bradshaw not happy with ‘ridiculous’ treatment at airport:

Terry Bradshaw’s travels are never boring.

Unfortunately, for the former Pittsburgh Steelers star and Fox broadcaster, he was the random traveler caught in the TSA’s crosshairs on Monday morning.

At Springfield-Branson National Airport in Missouri, as the 76-year-old Bradshaw was walking through security, he was selected for an extra diligent search.

He’s done one-night-only shows a couple of times a year down in Branson, and I’ve always learned about them after the fact.

And now he might never come back.

Inside the indoor athletic facility arms race that’s sweeping the Ozarks:

A day after Republic voted to pass a bond issue allowing it to build a multi-million dollar indoor athletics facility, the phones rang at the high school all day.

The calls weren’t from any angry residents who might have attempted to vote the issue down. Instead, they were from athletic directors and administrators all over the state. They wanted to know how the southwest Missouri school district got such a project off the ground, and if they could schedule times to visit.

Many of those same administrators called Nixa High School to see if they could tour its $18 million indoor facility, which is set to open this summer. Other possible tour sites include the facility at Logan-Rogersville High School, 20 miles down the road, or the one that opened at Ozark High a year ago.

A day after I voted against the bond issue, you mean.

Because building it is one thing, but after building it must be maintained. Every year something (and every year more) has to come from the budget which won’t pay teachers or support book, sorry, free laptops for students learning.

Meanwhile, private groups are building for-profit indoor and outdoor sports facilities; non-school are looking to build indoor facilities; and non-school governments are spending millions to acquire indoor sports facilities.

Basically, it’s the convention center arms race again, where “competing” cities overbuild capacity, find them to be financial sinkholes, and then have to upgrade them to remain competitive in chasing a limited market. All so that government officials can burnish their resumes for their next gigs and fail upward.

It looks like Associated Press is taking its cues from more modern “news” sites which are mostly opinion and reporting what people say on social media:

Sure are a lot of for-profits looking for donations these days.

Phone thief has balaclava whipped off face as group screaming ‘w***er’ surround him

I immediately thought wigger, but since it’s Britain, it’s probably wanker.

But it’s getting hard to read news these days with so many words blotted out.

Petition aims to close a portion of a Christian County road to through traffic:

Holder Road has become the center of controversy in the small community near Clever. Those calling for the Christian County road to be closed are speaking out.

I saw this story covered a couple of weeks ago, and I’d not heard of Holder Road. But once a month, I drive from Republic to Nixa and like to take a couple of different routes just to keep things fresh. One is to take Highway ZZ to Highway 14, and the earlier story actually alerted me to this shortcut.

I tried to take it last Friday, but the article did not mention it is impassable in high water–it has a low water bridge–so I had to turn around part of the way along.

It’s a narrow and curvy road, so I don’t expect travelers can get up to a great head of steam on it, but country boys, you know.

But it does get my dander up when residents want the government to take a public good and make it private to them.