Category: News

Here in Missouri, it’s a Sales Tax Holiday weekend:

By state law, the sales tax holiday begins on the first Friday in August and continues through the following Sunday. In 2012, the three-day holiday begins at 12:01 a.m. on Friday, Aug. 3, and runs through Sunday, Aug. 5. Certain back-to-school purchases, such as clothing, school supplies, computers, and other items as defined by the statute, are exempt from sales tax for this time period only.

Now, as you Missourians head out to the shops to get school supplies this weekend to save a couple percentage points on your purchases, you’re engaging in strategic thinking and behavior to minimize your tax liability, to increase your personal cash flow, and to use your capital as you want instead of maximizing your contribution to the collective good as ministered through the various levels of government entities that collect and disburse that revenue.

In short, you’re just like Mitt Romney.

And Harry Reid, and Nancy Pelosi, and Barack Obama, and George Soros, and Charles Schumer, and the dreaded Wall Street cartoon villains, the Koch brothers, Sheldon Adelson, and so on and so forth.

The difference is that this rational behavior is somehow portrayed as bad when Republicans or businesspeople do it. But a lot of people do the same thing every day and, in Missouri, every first weekend in August.

In New York City, a new program is called Latch On NYC Initiative.

Strangely, it means it literally, not figuratively.

Still, it’s the best program name for an overweening (ahut*) government program I’ve ever seen.

(Link seen Hot Air.)

* ahut represents a vocalization my sainted mother used to make whenever she made a pun or some bit of humor. It was a sort of throat semi-clearing rimshot she used to signify pun intended.

The BBC has an alarming report from where environmentalists gather to eat, live it up, use more resources than they would normally have access to in their native lands, and issue alarming reports, complete with scary infographic about how things are running out. The text sez:

If we fail to correct current consumption trends, then when will our most valuable natural resources run out?

As the world’s population soars, so does its consumption, and as a result we are stretching many of our natural resources to their limits.

. . . .

The hope is that talks at the Rio+20 Earth summit will help to steer the world economy on a more sustainable path.

Oh, spare me the Jeremiads. No, that’s not a meteor shower; it’s a type of sermon. Make no mistake about it, those fellows who want to create a “sustainable path” have in mind some very basic controls that The World will have to do to save the planet from the infestation of humans. As though the planet were some weak sister who needs the help of her acolytes to regulate systems whose complexities and subtleties are not yet understood to any great degree by man. But I’m getting off onto my stock climate change rant here. Let me switch back into my limited resources rant.

Any projection of resource usage based on current consumption relies on the misconceptions that what we use now is all we’ll ever use and what we have now is all we’ll ever have. Let’s take each in turn.

What we use now is all we’ll ever use.

As the headline suggests and history shows, humans and civilizations have relied on different resources at different times. In the Bronze Age, they used bronze. In the Iron Age, guess what? They advanced and discovered iron. Even in more recent history, in spans of less than 100 years much less epochs, resource needs have changed. In the 18th century, whale oil fueled lamps for interior lighting. Then they discovered coal oil, also known as kerosene, and that illuminated homes into the 20th century. Anyone rending garments about the limited supply of whale oil would have proven less-than-prophetic in predicting a dark age around 1880 because the whales were gone.

Similarly, buildings were built with brick and wood, but now we see a lot of construction from steel and other materials. Household furniture used to be wood, but a lot of it is now plastic and particle board (which is wood, but used more efficiently).

Take a look at this timeline of battery technologies and see how fast the resource combinations for energy storage have changed. And this is a survey of commercial products.

Now, tell me how someone is going to prognosticate the future resource needs based on today. Especially when one looks at the resource needs and their evolutions in the future.

What we have now is all we’ll ever have.

Take a look at the recent discoveries of petroleum resources in the Bakken formation. Revel in how the estimated amount of recoverable petroleum keeps going up. Or look at the new discoveries off of the coast of Israel. Does the alarmist image take those into account? I looked at the source document, but it doesn’t give the source for its fossil fuel claims, but other claims are made on data from 2010 or before. So we can probably assume that the alarmist icon does not include the new discoveries.

Additionally, the report probably does not take into account discoveries of rare earth metals after 2010, such as Japan’s find in sea beds which could essentially double the earth-bound amounts estimated by the US Geological Survey.

Why do I say earth-bound? Because there’s that Planetary Resources company that has a business plan of mining asteroids. A company. With a business plan to profitably mine asteroids.

So any alarmist paper or icon coming from a transnational or international concern designed to create “sustainability” really does not recognize human ingenuity or the way the human race has acted in the past when confronted with scarce resources or just more efficient ways to use resources.

Undoubtedly, the path to sustainability requires some sacrifice on our part. Because here in the United States, we have a very high standard of living, and certainly we somehow “should” give something up to make sure that natives in Cameroon get to rise to some level of sustainable living. Not the same easy lifestyle we have, mind you, where large portions of the population have the leisure time to collect on resource-intensive devices and computer networks to lament the unsustainability of the lives they enjoy. Some top-down solution must be imposed, something like a potentially hazardous, expensive form of lighting replacing energy-intensive but inexpensive, pleasing, and technologically proven forms of lighting. Something like that. And maybe an energy-efficient stove for a Ugandan family.

The BBC post I linked to above does throw a sop to human ingenuity:

Of course, the assumption is that human ingenuity and market forces will prevent supplies from running out: we could create better or cheaper extraction methods, recycle materials, find alternatives to non-renewable sources, or reduce consumption.

But that is probably just a sop. Do you think the people at the Rio+20 summit are in favor of the free market to find these solutions? Do you think the journalists covering them believe individuals and corporations should mine asteroids, or do you think they more believe that the asteroids are pristine, people-free environments that should be protected because of their intrinsic value qua rocks floating through interplanetary space much like the earth has some intrinsic metaphysical value qua rock with atmosphere floating through space? Me, too.

In lieu of embracing an environmental hair-shirt and hemp-based computer architecture required for a sustainable world, how about we just go on doing what we as humans have done for millennia and really well since the Enlightenment and innovate our way to greater shared prosperity?

Sure, it’s a friendly, happy story about how high-income hipsters want an Ikea store to come to St. Louis:

Perhaps no other store has been rumored more often to be coming here soon than that elusive retailer whose very name gives many residents heart palpitations: Ikea.

The absence of the Swedish retailer — whose hulking blue and yellow stores are filled with sleek bookshelves, modern bedroom sets, and eclectic knickknacks— is a sore spot among many St. Louisans. As one of my colleagues put it, it’s one of the last bastions of our retail insecurity.

We now have Trader Joe’s, Crate & Barrel, Nordstrom Rack, American Girl, H&M, Ross Dress for Less, and buybuy Baby (which recently opened a store in Ballwin).

To be sure, there are still some left on our retail wish-list: Zara, American Apparel, Bloomingdale’s, and Room & Board, to name a few.

But there is no bigger Holy Grail than Ikea.

As you can probably guess, I have never been in an Ikea. I’ve done my share of assembling particle board furniture, including a huge honking desk that cost me almost a thousand dollars, more than a dozen Sauder bookcases, many laminated storage cabinets with doors hanging awry, and a couple Sauder printer stands that even today function as major pieces of furniture in my domicile. I’ve bought none of them because of the logo on the box, though, so I can’t understand how prestige and status stem from furniture you have to put together yourself.

But I digress.

So the crowd that we would have called Yuppies thirty years ago want their Ikea in St. Louis. Even though this will put small businesses out of business:

As I wrote last year, there are a handful of businesses that have sprouted up around town that take orders and pick up items from one of the stores in Chicago and then bring them back to St. Louis. One of them is Expedite STL.

Another such company popped up earlier this year called Blue Square Delivery. It was started by brother Dave and Bill Carruthers of Des Peres as a side business. They take a big moving van to Ikea about every three to four weeks.

Sorry, I guess that’s brother-and-brother businesses. But still.

So, how does this differ from Walmart?

Mainly in that hipsters like Ikea, and hipsters do not like Walmart.

Don’t worry, yuppies. Some municipality in St. Louis County will eventually throw enough tax credits, special taxing districts, and other perks to draw Ikea to town.

(Hey, aren’t you a yuppie? No. I’m not that young anymore, and I live in the country.)

Some residents of downtown St. Louis are growing older:

The scene picks up pace on weekends, with the streets even busier and the bars even fuller — offering regular proof of how the neighborhood has transformed in the last 15 years.

But the changes have also brought simmering tension that has now come to the forefront. Residents, business owners and police acknowledge that crime is steadily increasing along Washington, and that cruising on the strip has gotten out of hand. They’ve complained about motorcyclists revving engines, cars blaring music, fights, loitering by teenagers, even some shootings.

They’re just not sure what to do about it.

In the last month, police have experimented with closing off the street to vehicle traffic, circling the area with a helicopter and enforcing a curfew for those under 21.

The Partnership for Downtown St. Louis has helped form a task force to come up with a “code of conduct” for the area, hoping to crack down on noise, littering and congestion.

“We all wanted this growth,” said Tammika Hubbard, alderman for the 5th Ward. “We just didn’t know how we were going to handle it.”

At a residents association meeting two weeks ago, the consensus from speakers was that the area had become a victim of its own success.

The residents moved to the lofts from their quiet suburban homes because they wanted that. Now they’re getting older a couple years later and are outgrowing the party-all-night mentality and want to get some sleep, so they want governmental recourse.

It’s akin to the people who claim that The Simpsons isn’t funny any more. The cartoon hasn’t changed. They have.

Prediction: If they succeed in pushing out the bar and clubbing crowd (who preceded the residents and most of the other businesses), the businesses will follow, as they won’t survive without that crowd. Washington Avenue and other parts of downtown St. Louis will not be a shopping destination (see also Union Station and St. Louis Center), and the hundreds or small thousands of people scattered among the lofts will not support them. Eventually, Washington Avenue will become quiet again, and the loft dwellers will move on.

And the cycle will repeat in 2033 or so. Maybe.

(No, I am not a downtown booster, especially when it comes to centrally planning a Renaissance. It hasn’t worked in downtown St. Louis in the thirty or more years that government officials have been applying the paddles. The minute they lay off with the defibrillator of taxpayer cash, the city or neighborhood flatlines again. The government cannot will a self-sustaining reaction and revitalization through its action, but it sure can put the pillow over the face of one when it tries too much to help or to inspire its citizens.)

• Stick shift puzzles St. Louis robber
   
  I’ve always known my manual transmission protects my truck from thieves. And my wife.
   
• Feds expand Toyota fire probe to 1.4 million autos
   
  In a stunning turn of events, the chief competitor to a government crony enterprise is under investigation. Again. And maybe it’s not politically calculated, but in this modern brave new world, who doesn’t have a full bank of cynicism?

You know the first thing that runs through my head when I read something like “Uncommon white deer seen near Murphysboro“?

That makes it easier for the Murphysboro Monster to see.

In an article about football helmets in the NFL, the journalist terms the death of Junior Seau an “unsolved suicide.”

An unsolved suicide?

I read too many murder mysteries to make sense of that turn of phrase, and the writer doesn’t really explain what he means.

Protesters arrested in downtown St. Louis:

At least 10 people were arrested Thursday night after protesters spray-painted graffiti on a downtown bank and skirmished with officers, police said.

A St. Louis police bicycle officer suffered a minor injury to his hand when confronted by protesters, police said. A property manager at the Fifth Third Bank at 10th and Olive streets also was assaulted after approaching the people about the graffiti.

Protesters were demonstrating against police violence, specifically the actions of police in Chicago at the NATO summit, one of the protesters said.

One graffiti message on the bank’s glass windows read “Solidarity with all who resist.” More graffiti on Peoples National Bank at 826 Olive read “Burn the banks.”

All righty, then. We have two assaults, vandalism, and a call to arson to protest violence.

Kudos to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch for its even-handed treatment of the subject. Undoubtedly, its professional journalists could find some supporters to defend a puppy’s piddling on the carpet, too.

In 2010, I said:

I have a great new idea for a non-profit organization, and I’m going to get in on the ground floor and get rich. My stunning idea:

An Urban Chicken Rescue Organization.

Throughout Missouri and probably the nation, people are deciding that they want to raise chickens in their suburban and urban backyards (see stories in St. Louis and Springfield). These people are doing it as part of an environmental nutbar fad and they’re doing it with a bit of Internet research and without any experience in farming or treating livestock qua livestock instead of livestock qua food-providing-pet.

Yesterday’s New York Times says:

Hindus regard the chicken as a vessel for evil spirits. The Chinese cook them to honor village deities. But here, chickens are a symbol of urban nirvana, their coops backyard shrines to a locavore movement that has city dwellers moving ever closer to their food. And the increasingly intimate relationships have led some bird owners to make plans for their chickens’ unproductive years. Hence a budding phenomenon: urban chicken retirement.

While many Portlanders still pluck aging birds for the broiler, others seek a blissful, pastoral end for them. Because most chickens lay the majority of eggs early in life, and can live about 10 years, the quest for a place where chickens can live out their sunset years has brought a boom to at least two farm animal sanctuaries and led Pete Porath, a self-described chicken slinger, to expand the portion of his business that finds new homes for unwanted birds.

You want to know how I augured this two years ago? No, you don’t.

UPDATE: Thanks for the link again as two years ago, Ms. K.

The price of gas is down four cents after remaining at $3.59 a gallon here in Springfield for weeks.

The Associated Press and some scribe at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch are thrilled with the happy days ahead:

The worst appears to be over. Gasoline prices are going down.

After a four-month surge pushed gasoline to nearly $4 per gallon in early April, drivers, politicians and economists worried that prices might soar past all-time highs, denting wallets, angering voters and dragging down an economy that is struggling to grow.

Instead, pump prices have dropped 6 cents over two weeks to a national average on Friday of $3.88. Experts say gasoline could fall another nickel or more next week.

Drivers might also get to say something they haven’t since October 2009 _ they’re paying less at the pump than they did a year ago.

“It’s nice, much more manageable,” said Mark Timko, who paid less than $4 per gallon Wednesday in the Chicago suburb of Burr Ridge, Ill., for the first time since March. “I wasn’t sure how high they were going to go this year.”

On the other hand, gas prices are still over $3.50 a gallon (locally), which is about double what they were four years ago. Someone who says that $3.99 a gallon is more manageable than $4.05 a gallon is either not very smart or wants to see his name in the paper.

The headline sez: Romney Visits Empty Factory to Mock Obama

The lede sez:

Mitt Romney, shadowing President Barack Obama on the campaign trail, went to the battleground state of Ohio to appear at a shuttered industrial warehouse to dramatize his complaints about the incumbent’s economic policies.

A warehouse is not a factory. Maybe those blue collar locations where things are made and stored/shipped all look the same to a professional journalist or editor. To be fair, the story calls it a warehouse. Only the headline says differently.

(Link seen on Instapundit.)

New treatment for prostate cancer gives ‘perfect results’ for nine in ten men: research.

As Brian Fantana reports, sixty percent of the time it works all the time.

(Link via Instapundit.)

So I was telling the five-year-old about freshwater carnivorous threats to man the other day, one of many such educational conversations we have on a daily basis, and I mentioned that the United States really only has the alligator, since the crocodile is African. We talked about the gar, which is not really a threat, and we talked about the muskie and the northern, which are carnivorous, but not a threat to man. Heck’s pecs, I even brought up the catfish and educated not only my children but also my beautiful wife on Noodling (that is, sticking your hand in a catfish hole and getting the catfish to bite you so you can pull it out of the water hanging from your extremity–my wife didn’t believe me and had to look it up).

Then, because my son is friends with a young man from Brazil, I brought up the piranha.

Speaking of piranha:

Thousands of flesh-eating piranhas have infested a Brazilian river beach popular with tourists, biting at least 15 unwary swimmers.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2062819/I-lost-tip-toe-Thousands-flesh-eating-piranhas-infest-popular-Brazilian-river-beach.html#ixzz1e1CD9A1n

…

Elson de Campos Pinto, 22, who was bitten on Sunday, said: ‘I took a dip in the river and when I stood up, I felt pain in my foot.

‘I saw that I had lost the tip of my toe. I took off running out of the river, afraid that I would be further attacked because of the blood. I’m not going back in for a long time.’

Firefighter Raul Castro de Oliveira told Globo TV’s G1 website: ‘People have got to be very careful. If they’re bitten, they’ve got to get out of the water rapidly and not allow the blood to spread.’

Authorities said the beach would remain open because it is an important draw in Brazil’s Pantanal region, known for its ecotourism.

I have explained to my child that I would not go swimming in the Amazon. I’ll add the Paraguay to my list.

You’re saying, “Hey, Brian, you forgot to tell the child about the Candiru. I didn’t forget; I didn’t bring it up on purpose. Because the father in this situation can talk scientifically, calmly, and dispassionately about the aforementioned piranha, crocodiles, alligators, and so on. But the candiru makes Daddy whimper.

UPDATE Ms. Harris corrects me and tells me that American crocodiles do exist. Be that as it may, if I change my answer know to my child, he will never believe me about anything ever again.

The obvious solution to this dilemma: Poaching party!

To Create the Perfect Machine, Soldiers Build a Robot Out of Robots:

Over at Fort Benning, soldiers at the Army Expeditionary Warrior Experiment aren’t waiting for military robot makers to come up with the right mix of robotic capabilities. Putting that military penchant for improvisation into practice, soldiers there are mashing up their military robots to give themselves the capabilities they want, piggybacking one robot on top of the other until they get the right mix of gear.

All right, maybe it’s not so much Voltron as Capsela. But you have to crawl before you walk.

(Link seen on Instapundit.)

In a facile letter to the editor, a Christian of some sort, amid the regular blurrings of doctrine, uncovers the emanations and penumbras of the Ten Commandments:

So, when the conservative politicians say they are going to do away with Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid, then as a Christian I must speak out and say this is wrong to bring hardship and shorten the lives of people.

Christians, if you support the conservative movement because of abortion, then I wish to point out that Jesus says nothing about abortion or murder in his admonishment in Matthew, and there are nine other commandments, too. If you cause a person to lose their income and cause a person to lose their way to pay for a doctor you are murdering them.

I say regular blurrings because this fellow talks about the early Christian church, a voluntary organization of like-minded individuals (come to think of it, that describes Christian churches even today) coming together and sharing their goods voluntarily and compares, not contrasts, that with the government’s compulsory behavior, where like-minded or not, individuals must sacrifice their time, talents, efforts, and goods to others who have less for whatever reason (sometimes hard luck, sometimes bad choices) as legitimized by a Rousseauan “Social Contract” foisted on them without their implicit consent.

Oh, yeah, also he says violating 10% of the Ten Commandments is okay, apparently. And then goes onto say that laying someone off from a job is the equivalent of murder.

Strangely enough, in so many interpretations of Christianity, Jesus’s lessons were for all people to behave just as the interpreter does already.