Category: News

MfBJN, September 2, 2006:

The two figures on the right; they’re falling forward, arms splayed out and in a grimace of pain as though they’ve been shot in the back by unknown assailants while trying to flee.

Life, Christmas 2006:

A security guard for MetroLink is reported in serious but stable condition today with a gunshot wound suffered at the Delmar Station, police say.

It brings miscreants to quiet suburbs, offers a locus for gunfire, scares off the normal people, and costs tax money for subsidies. Is there anything light rail cannot do?

I don’t know what’s more frightening about this story: Great Lakes live fire a no-go:

Bowing to pressure from a wide-ranging group of critics, the U.S. Coast Guard on Monday backed off from plans to permanently conduct live fire exercises on the Great Lakes.

• The Coast Guard holds live fire exercises and thought it would be fun to do so on waters heavily trafficked by civilians.
• The Army hasn’t publicly said it would not hold live fire exercises in American cities.

Apparently, a recent Missouri court decision has determined that it’s your obligation, after a divorce, to maximize your income to fund your court-anointed financial duties:

If you are well paid, a parent and living in Missouri, pay special attention to this column.

That’s because a recent ruling by the Missouri Court of Appeals seems to invite local courts to compel divorced parents to seek work anywhere in the world if doing so would maximize the payments they could make in support of their children and ex-spouses.

In Payne v Payne, which originated in St. Louis County, the husband had been employed as an oil trader at the time of his divorce. Based on yearly earnings of $141,000, the court set child and spousal support payments totaling nearly $36,000 per year. Unfortunately for Mr. Payne, he lost his job shortly after his divorce.

Four months later, the husband asked the court to reduce his support obligations, contending he had been unable to find a comparable job in his field in St. Louis or elsewhere, despite search efforts that reached across the nation and overseas. To support himself, he had started an antique business but was generating far less income than he had earned previously.

The courts decided that Mr. Payne had to continue working in his highly paid field, even if it meant relocating. The courts were going to dictate Mr. Payne’s career and job choices, under the threat of jail time for contempt no doubt.

The lower court’s decision was overturned on appeal, but still, this intervention of the courts on a citizen’s career choice is galling and chilling. And frighteningly potentially prescient.

Thousands in dark after Northwest storm:

Residents of the Pacific Northwest struggled to stay warm Saturday after the worst windstorm in more than a decade knocked out power to more than 1.5 million homes and businesses and killed at least six people.

More than 600,000 customers in Washington and Oregon still had no power Saturday, and utilities said some might have to wait into next week for their lights to go back on.

Me, I blame those who have sought out the devil of electricity and who now are dependent upon its snug snake-like embrace for their own survival and happiness. Also, I curse the Tennessee Valley Authority some 70 years later for bringing power to those outlying areas that could not hold it through the slightest adversity.

Nicole Ritchie, arrested and released on bail:

According to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Departmentexternal link report, Richie was set free on $15,000 bail. She was listed in her police report as being 5-foot-1 and 85 pounds.

There’s no jail that could hold her, as she could slip between the bars if she wanted to. So it’s good they got bail for her.

In today’s news, an insurgent opened fire in a Chicago high rise today, killing several. Meanwhile, in St. Louis, the crumbling infrastructure continues to pose problems as parts of the metropolitan area suffer from a loss of power in the feared Midwestern winter, where temperatures drop beneath freezing. Corruption remains a problem, as government officials continue to work with the insurgency. Authorities disrupted one plot to blow up a shopping mall but were powerless to prevent a dramatic explosion in an industrial facility.

Take a handful of incidents from across a country, dash in some weighted words, and blend them together nicely, and I guess you can make any kind of meal you want.

Harry Levins of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch rationalizes why the newspapers help Americans forget historic anniversaries:

The bombs had barely stopped falling on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, when Tin Pan Alley produced a tune that was eminently forgettable, except for its title:

“Let’s Remember Pearl Harbor.”

But today, precisely 65 years later, demography has determined that very few of us still “remember Pearl Harbor.”

Most of us have to be 5 years old before news events imprint themselves in our memory. And Census Bureau estimates drawn up last year show that only 26 million Americans are old enough to remember Pearl Harbor.

Funny. I think let’s remember Pearl Harbor is less a directive to think back to where we were than it is to work at not forgetting the lessons of history.

Never mind, there’s column inches to spend on Barry Bonds becoming a Cardinal.

A new scientific experiment to determine the nature of hipsters:

Apple Computer Inc. may be cool and hip with consumers, but it’s anything but a trend-setter when it comes to good environmental policies, according to the activist group Greenpeace.

In its latest report on major electronics manufacturers, Greenpeace ranked Apple dead last on environmental issues because it still uses harmful chemicals in many of its products and because it does a poor job promoting recycling efforts for its iPods and other products.

If the hipster under study receives this news and changes to HP and Zune, he or she is genuinely concerned about the environment; if the hipster under study receives this news and continues with the Macs, iPods, and contributions to Greenpeace, the hipster only cares about appearances or his or her own creature comforts, with the money going to environmental causes as a sop to his or her own conscience. Or, I suppose, the person likes Apple stuff and thinks this is a cynical ploy by Greenpeace to increase donations by conscience-stricken materialist hipsters.

Aw, heck, I guess it could mean anything. I, Mr. Noggle, am a poor scientist. But that’s why I got an English degree.

Brazil Cancels Flights at 3 Big Airports:

Virtually all takeoffs from three major airports in Brazil were canceled Tuesday night after an air traffic communications system broke down, making it difficult for controllers to communicate with pilots and creating air travel chaos.

Hey, it’s [almost] Christmas!

Crass commercial use of the image of a religious icon? Let the riots begin!

Plastic charge-card consumerism and yoga-minded, organic-eating activism — they seem to clash.

But there they are, fused in new Visa credit cards bearing such images as a meditating Buddha and sunlit hands folded in prayer.

Oh, wait, I guess we hold some religions and their adherents to a higher standard.

From an e-mail to Instapundit regarding game systems:

I’m you’re [sic] typical colelge [sic] guy, but bringing it home for thanksgiving [sic], every member of my family played it and loved it.

Three grammatical errors in one sentence. Typical colelge guy, indeed. Sadly.

A man, robbed by a juvenile who snatched his cash as he turned away from an ATM, displays empathy worthy of an educational professional:

Gallagher laughed. “I’m a substitute teacher,” he said. “I deal with these little monsters on a daily basis.”

How come no districts have snatched him up as a full time teacher?

Kirkwood man charged with impersonating a Marine:

The FBI has arrested a Kirkwood man accused of impersonating a U.S. Marine and wearing a Navy Cross and other medals he did not earn.

Michael Gerald Weilbacher, 48, of the 200 block of Horseshoe Drive was arrested by FBI agents last night, the U.S. Attorney’s office said today.

So a guy puts on a uniform and goes to a ball to meet the chicks, and suddenly he’s in Leavenworth?

Pardon me for being a chickenhawk child of two Marines, brother to only one, but damn, doesn’t our federal law enforcement force (and its enabling Congress) have better priorities than to chase down false braggarts?

Well, our society has functionally eliminated shame as a deterrent/retributive factor (Michael Gerald Weilbacher, you’re a lying sissy), so some groups think its necessary to protect the sensitive feelings our former soldiers by incarcerating some nitwit.

Pardon me if I suspect that perhaps this stems from some symbolic gesture sop thrown to our veterans in place of actual, you know, respect for those who served.

Bodies of 3 family members found in Lemay home:

The bodies of three members of a Lemay family, missing since last week, have been found in the basement of their home, police sources said today.

Jeez, Louise, what, was it too spooky down there for the police to go down into the basement sometime last week after they shot dead the man who killed these people? This is Lemay, for crying out loud. If you stumble in the basement, you don’t fall flat on the floor.

UPDATE: This keeps getting more embarrassing for county cops; apparently, it was a family member who found the bodies.

Bookcase ‘trap’ killed US woman:

The body of a missing US woman has been found by her family, wedged upside down behind a bookcase in her room.

Mariesa Weber, 38, is believed to have fallen over and become trapped as she tried to reach behind the bookcase to adjust the plug for a TV set.

Thanks, Ace.