To be able to say "Noggle," you first must be able to say "Nah."
Is St. Louis building blocks or back breakers?:
Fresh off cinching a blockbuster downtown deal that relies heavily on taxpayer support, developer John Steffen said he hoped there would come a time when projects like his wouldn’t need tax breaks.
As St. Augustine said, “Give me chastity and continence, but not yet.” To which John Steffen says, “Wait until it’s my competition begging for free tax dollars.” Well, that’s implied.
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Searching for drunks triggers a backlash:
Orange traffic cones. Police officers with flashlights. Tow trucks idling.
The sight of a sobriety checkpoint is supposed to be — well — sobering.
But frequent roadblocks on a short stretch of Natural Bridge Road and at least one of its major cross streets this summer have triggered complaints that police are more interested in writing tickets than catching drunks in that part of north St. Louis County. During one Pine Lawn checkpoint in August, for instance, officers wrote 133 tickets — none for drunken driving.
Coming soon: Armed home inspections looking for building violations. In the interest of public safety!
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Here’s a nice, friendly fluff piece on tonight’s Critical Mass bike ride in San Francisco: Critical Mass celebrating 15 years of free-form bicycle advocacy:
Tonight’s Critical Mass in San Francisco marks the 15th anniversary of the rebellious rolling ride that locally has propelled the bicycle movement into the political mainstream and globally has been copied by hundreds of cities.
I guess that means the regularly-scheduled automobile driver story will be tomorrow, then.
And “free-form” activism means “violence,” kinda like “activism” does nowadays. Check.
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Notice the difference between the headline and the actual story: Last of roaming bulls found dead:
The bull was initially spotted in the 3800 block of Gasconade Street in St. Louis. People who spotted the bull called 911 and dispatchers alerted animal rescue workers.
The bull nearly ran onto busy Interstate 55, but crews were able to coax it away from the highway. The bull then took off and ran for about two miles south along railroad tracks. Crews pursued but the bull eventually stumbled down the steep embankment.
Crews tried to free the bull which had its legs twisted and wedged between boulders but the animal quickly went into shock and died.
“It’s very disappointing,” said Roger Vincent of the Missouri Emergency Response Service. “We were hoping to save him and send him on his happy way.”
Oh, you sent him to a better place all right. These Animal Welfare Experts chased this livestock down a hill to its death.
If they were not Animal Welfare Expert Crews and were just normal people, do you think they’d be charged with animal cruelty?
I’m not saying they should be; I’m just saying that they probably could, unfortunately for those of us who are not experts.
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In the worst calming commentary I’ve ever seen, some computer person comments that the theft of computer backup tapes is really only an issue when the person who steals the tapes knows how to get the information from the tapes.
Which means you’re okay if the thief mistakenly thought the backup tapes were DVD players or something else you can sell for easy cash to any fence in the city.
Okay, then.
The danger in stolen computer tapes only happens when the burglar knowingly steals computer tapes.
All clear.
And I feel better.
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Vick Indicted on Dogfighting Charges:
Michael Vick and three co-defendants were indicted by a grand jury Tuesday on state charges related to a dogfighting ring operated on Vick’s Virginia property.
The grand jury passed on indicting the Atlanta Falcons quarterback and two of co-defendants on eight counts of animal cruelty, which would have exposed them to as many as 40 years in prison if convicted.
Vick, who already pleaded guilty in federal court to a dogfighting conspiracy charge and is awaiting sentencing on Dec. 10, was indicted for beating or killing or causing dogs to fight other dogs and engaging in or promoting dogfighting.
Double jeopardy? No, ha ha! It’s different jurisdictions! So he’s being prosecuted for the same action, with the same crime name, but it’s not unconstitutional!
Ah, the innovations in the legal systems since our founding fathers put quill to paper. Not for our betterment, but it does wonders for prosecutors’ conviction rates.
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In Britain, the land of the night of 1000 eyes, 80% of crime goes unsolved. Apparently, the police over there don’t use them to dispatch actual officers to dangerous situations, either:
A SCHOOLBOY has been caught on CCTV brandishing what appears to be an AK47 machine gun on a railway station platform.
The youngster, aged about 15, and a friend got the gun out of a bag and then allegedly aimed the weapon at a terrified crane driver working on the opposite side of the tracks at Newton Station in Hyde, Greater Manchester.
Driver David Wood rang his boss who filmed the incident on CCTV cameras and called police.
But after officers failed to turn up promptly, the youngsters disappeared.
So what are the cameras there for, if not to help solve crimes or to allow the police to dispatch officers to trouble spots immediately?
It’s all about budgets and shiny things for government bureaucracies.
(Link seen on The Other Side of Kim.)
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Alien foe imperils KC conventions:
When the mayor named a 73-year-old grandmother to the city’s park board — which considers issues like off-leash dog areas and outdoor party permits — the move might have gone largely unnoticed.
But Frances B. Semler’s appointment could now cost the city millions of dollars because she is a member of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, a group that advocates vigilante patrolling of the Mexican border and reports illegal immigrants to authorities.
Her membership has drawn sharp criticism from the National Council of La Raza, the nation’s largest Hispanic advocacy group, and the NAACP. Both groups are threatening to show their displeasure by canceling conventions scheduled to be held in Kansas City.
Well, that’s disappointing; instead of a real alien foe, we’ve got the normal victim groups threatening Armageddon over a secure borders advocate, both of which call her a racist no doubt with no self-consciousness that their very groups work to isolate and elevate particular races by name (Colored People and The Race).
I almost wish it were the Skrulls, because at least they shape shift instead of forcing everything else to change shape to accommodate them.
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Now that New York, the state, is planning to issue driver’s licenses without proof of residency:
They were celebrating outside the governor’s office Friday as Eliot Spitzer handed a landmark victory to a half-million illegal immigrants.
The state will no longer require proof of citizenship for driver’s licenses.
“We’re changing our policy with respect to getting more people out of shadows and into the system so people don’t hide they’re here,” Spitzer said.
Can New York be far off from requiring drivers’ licenses to vote?
Seriously, Spitzer is obviously in favor of the national ID card and passing off the costs the state should fund to the federal government.
Worse, states across the country tend to recognize other states’ documents, but as we’re seeing with this and with the gay marriage thing, states are starting to make infantile decisions that will eventually require national initiatives (like national ID cards) to cover things that states could handle. Some decisions by individual states are completely incompatible with federalist principles.
The good news, if there is any, is that Eliot Spitzer will, like Mike Bloomberg, never rise above a city or statewide office in that lunatic asylum on the Eastern seaboard.
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St. George officers get polite reminder:
Police Chief Scott Uhrig has given his eight officers a reminder about courtesy — and some words of warning — after one of his sergeants got fired for berating a motorist on tape.
“They know to be polite and courteous,” the chief said, “and they’ve been advised, ‘Stay on your toes. We don’t know how many other Brett Darrows there are out there.'”
Not, “Don’t be bombastic, treat citizens of other municipalities passing through our tiny one-stop light, city hall is just another house in the subdivision municipality-of-convenience as though they’re the people you’re supposed to serve and protect.”
Just, “Don’t get caught when being bombastic and not treating citizens of other municipalities passing through our tiny one-stop light, city hall is just another house in the subdivision municipality-of-convenience as though they’re the people you’re supposed to serve and protect instead of the mainstay of our city budget and outlets for your own egos.”
Good work, Chief.
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Canadian Dollar Trades Equal to U.S. for First Time Since 1976:
Canada’s dollar traded equal to the U.S. currency for the first time in three decades, capping a five-year run on the back of booming demand for the nation’s commodities.
The Canadian dollar rose as high as $1.0008, before retreating to 99.87 U.S. cents at 4:16 p.m. in New York. It has soared 62 percent from a record low of 61.76 U.S. cents in 2002. The U.S. dollar fell as low as 99.93 Canadian cents today. The Canadian currency last closed above $1 on Nov. 25, 1976, when Pierre Trudeau was Canada’s prime minister.
Because as we all know, the Canadian teams sell tickets in Canadian dollars but overpay their stars with American dollars. If this trend continues, the Stanley Cup will return to Canada where it belongs instead of states like Florida and California.
All economic news is good news for somebody. Funny how half-empty the press is with economic stories where it’s half-full with stories about how criminals and other mal-intentioned people are really just like you and me.
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Leonard Little, defensive end for the St. Louis Rams, kills a woman while admittedly driving under the influence (BAC .19) and is sentenced to 90 days in jail for involuntary homicide.
William Anderson, nobody in particular, kills a police officer while allegedly driving under the influence (BAC .154) and is sentenced to 7.5 years in prison for aggravated DUI.
Just so we plebes are clear, did Leonard Little get a lighter sentence because he was a football player, or did William Anderson get a heavier sentence because the victim was a police officer instead of a suburban mother?
Because these “nuances” of the law kind of look like special treatment for someone.
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But Conrad wasn’t able to acquire the properties targeted for development.
“The city put out the request without having control of any of the land,” [Conrad Properties President Craig] Saur said. “We couldn’t get key parcels under contract at a reasonable price. Sellers wanted higher prices than was economically feasible for us to develop the project.”
He didn’t want to use eminent domain to acquire the land, Saur said.
“We want to be in places we are wanted,” he said. “If the city could get control of the land, they would probably have a lot more developers interested in the project.”
Surely Saur doesn’t think the city can make a better cash offer for the land. What does he expect them to do, use the Scooby Doo method? No, he’s saying that he won’t call for eminent domain, it would just be nice if eminent domain just happened.
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The headline on the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel editorial? Editorial: Too important a job.
The lede?
Retired federal judge Michael Mukasey’s credentials seem to make him ideally suited to be the next U.S. attorney general.
The but:
Mukasey reputedly has an independent streak, but administration officials probably liked what they read in an August op-ed article he wrote for The Wall Street Journal.
In it, he seemed to sympathize with the need for broader investigative detention of suspects (beyond holding them as material witnesses) and the unlawful combatant designation and wrote that a separate national security court deserved scrutiny.
That responsibility for scrutiny now falls to the Senate. It should determine precisely what Mukasey had in mind in that op-ed but mostly whether he is the independent-minded attorney general this country so desperately needs at the moment to guard against excesses from any quarter.
That’s right; it’s an important job, the nominee has the credentials, but the Senate should conduct its regularly scheduled witch hunt to tar or feather this nominee because he thinks differently than the Senate majority party and the editors of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel.
After all, the associative property would seem to indicate that when the political is the personal, then verily the personal is political, and man cannot hold private (or publicly expressed) opinions and still do a job objectively according to the law of the land. Because the personal conscience or lack thereof is the highest law that some people can imagine.
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Well, when it comes down to The Children or the uptight property owners in a “historic” area, we know the “grown ups” favor:
It might seem strange that a new playground would cause controversy, but this one is in the middle of Lafayette Park, a 170-year-old park that’s the heart of a well-organized and active historic neighborhood south of downtown.
To some, the brightly colored plastic structure with a big red fish-shaped tunnel as its centerpiece doesn’t seem to fit in one of the oldest parks west of the Mississippi, surrounded on all sides by Victorian homes and a restored wrought-iron fence.
“It looks like a McDonald’s Playland,” said Larry Dodd, 51, who has lived in Lafayette Square for 25 years and is a member of the Lafayette Square Restoration Committee.
Children must not be exposed to bright, fun colors if it doesn’t fit in with the aesthetic sense of prigs. Right, then.
Coming soon, we shall also take away their smiles because their gleaming teeth hurt our eyes and shrieks of joy hurtses our precious ears.
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It’s kinda dry reading, but this summary of a study indicates that older men who procreate are serving the interests of the human race, not themselves:
Evolutionary theory says that individuals should die of old age when their reproductive lives are complete, generally by age 55 in humans, according to demographer Cedric Puleston, a doctoral candidate in biological sciences at Stanford. But the fatherhood of a small number of older men is enough to postpone the date with death because natural selection fights life-shortening mutations until the species is finished reproducing.
“Rod Stewart and David Letterman having babies in their 50s and 60s provide no benefit for their personal survival, but the pattern [of reproducing at a later age] has an effect on the population as a whole,” Puleston said. “It’s advantageous to the species if these people stick around. By increasing the survival of men you have a spillover effect on women because men pass their genes to children of both sexes.”
. . . .
Human ability to scale the so-called “wall of death” — surviving beyond the reproductive years — has been a center of scientific controversy for more than 50 years, Puleston said.
Only one of our presidential candidates fits that description. Fred Thompson: selflessly vaulting the wall of death to ensure longevity for the children and our children’s children.
(Link seen on Dustbury.)
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Coffee Chain Changes Name Over Concerns It’s An Ethnic Slur:
A small but growing coffeehouse chain is changing its name amid concern that the moniker meant to celebrate the seed of its main product also is a disparaging term for Hispanics.
Beaner’s Coffee, based in East Lansing, Mich., on Friday informed franchisees and employees at its 77 stores in Michigan and eight other states that it would become Biggby Coffee, effective Jan. 31.
“That just doesn’t really fall within our mission to have a name that is derogatory,” Bob Fish, 44, Beaner’s chief executive, told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. “We felt it was important to do the right thing and change the name.”
Also, doo-wop music shall henceforth be known as doo-biggby music.
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After November, Kirkwood Public Library Director Wicky Sleight hopes duct tape won’t be needed to hold the aging library’s heating and air conditioning systems together.
On Nov. 6, Kirkwood voters will be asked to approve Proposition L, a 12-cent tax increase. The current residential tax rate, approved in August, is 16.7 cents per $100 of assessed valuation, down from 19 cents in 2006.
The Kirkwood Public Library Board of Trustees on Aug. 15 voted unanimously to place the tax levy before voters.
Residents Say District To Collect More Taxes Than Needed: School board OKs tax rate for year:
Despite concerns of some residents that the Kirkwood School District is not exhibiting fair financial practices, the Kirkwood School Board on Aug. 29 approved tax rates for the 2007-08 school year at $3.75 per $100 of assessed valuation.
In 2005, voters approved an operating tax levy ceiling of $3.85 per $100 of assessed valuation.
. . . . Board Member Ben Clark said the board could be shirking its responsibility by not taking the $3.85 limit set by the voters.
Each of the government’s priorities get siloed into independent taxes/tax districts and each of them want more, more, more. When it comes down to a single issue, who could say, “No, don’t fix the libraries; no, don’t give the police a retirement plan; no, don’t put air conditioners in the schools.”
Back in the old days, I think they had individual elected officials who made the decisions on the priorities for the town. Now each piece of the town sets its own priorities that never conflict with the priorities of other portions of the government. After all, they can always ask the residents to pay more taxes, even if it’s more than the government needs.
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City to fund part of office building repairs:
The owners of a downtown Milwaukee office building will receive city financing to help with repairs – even though the comptroller’s office questions whether the funds are needed, and even as some aldermen fret that their decision could encourage other building owners to ask for cash.
“We’re setting a very dangerous precedent,” said Ald. Michael Murphy, one of two aldermen who opposed the financing plan.
Supporters say the project will make one of downtown’s oldest office buildings more competitive, while also breathing new life into an adjacent building that’s been empty for several years.
Oh, for Pete’s sake. Correct me if I am wrong, but aren’t these sorts of “initiatives” coming faster and more frequently these days? Are our municipal leaders that eager to hasten the death spiral of their cities finances? Yes, as long as the ultimate crash comes after the municipal leaders have moved onto state or national leadership positions, where they can control bigger economies and initiate bigger five year plans.
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