To be able to say "Noggle," you first must be able to say "Nah."
It wasn’t me, it was my evil twin brother:
Twin brothers Raymon and Richard Miller are the father and uncle to a 3-year-old little girl. The problem is, they don’t know which is which. Or who is who. The identical Missouri twins say they were unknowingly having sex with the same woman. And according to the woman’s testimony, she had sex with each man on the same day. Within hours of each other.
Double ew.
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Now that there’s a name for the honeybees’ disappearance:
It’s called colony collapse disorder.
The surviving honeybee population needs professional, certified help to allow it to feel its pain and to move on.
(Link seen via Instapundit, an academic blogging in Tennessee. Since he sent some traffic my way this weekend, I thought I’d return the favor.)
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Let’s see here:
In all of these cases, the target of the radio talk show host’s ire was of a different race. In one, the radio talk show host was suspended. Because of White Privilege!, he must have been treated differently.
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They told us all along that reelection of George W. Bush would result in the further encroachment of fascism on the American public. Here’s a new proposal in Baltimore to give the mayor the power to set up checkpoints and block off whole sectors of the city for, well:
A city council leader, alarmed by Baltimore’s rising homicide rate, wants to give the mayor the power to put troubled neighborhoods under virtual lockdown.
“Desperate measures are needed when we’re in desperate situations,” City Council Vice President Robert W. Curran told The (Baltimore) Sun. He said he would introduce the legislation next week.
Under Curran’s plan, the mayor could declare “public safety act zones,” which would allow police to close liquor stores and bars, limit the number of people on city sidewalks, and halt traffic during two-week intervals.
Police would be encouraged to aggressively stop and frisk individuals in those zones to search for weapons and drugs.
You know, something’s missing in that story. All the stories on the wire just lack a certain detail whose omission is glaring. What is it? I can’t quite put my finger on it. Oh, wait.
“Desperate measures are needed when we’re in desperate situations,” City Council Vice President Robert W. Curran (, District 003) told The (Baltimore) Sun. He said he would introduce the legislation next week. [Emphasis added, as well as a big blinking D]
I guess we know why some Democrats want the US troops out of Iraq: so they can set up checkpoints, conduct raids, and do their pacification in the United States.
Fortunately, another city councilman takes a bold stand for civil liberties:
Councilman Keiffer J. Mitchell Jr., a mayoral hopeful, said Curran’s idea was an interesting concept but it raised questions about civil liberties.
“We have to make sure we’re not declaring martial law,” he said.[Emphasis added]
An interesting concept? Forget it, we’re done.
And you know, I made a big deal about Curran’s party affiliation, but it’s not so much democratic party as it is the new Aristocratic party:
With strong family ties to politics (his brother is Attorney General J. Joseph Curran Jr., and his niece Catherine Curran O’Malley is the mayor’s wife and a District Court judge in Baltimore City), Curran was one of 10 council members to hire relatives for staff positions. Curran reportedly put a niece on the City Council staff payroll. Hiring a niece was legal, though the council found itself in ethical hot water because of it.
Like the Gores, Blunts, Carnahans, Bushes, et al., our country sure looks to be heading toward a rule by self-selected families instead of citizens, is it not?
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I’m the first to tut-tut the revitalization of downtown St. Louis, but this is a positive step: Schnucks planning downtown store:
Finishing touches are being put on a plan for a 20,000-square-foot Schnuck’s to go into the first floor of the Desco-DFC Group garage development at 9th between Olive and Locust streets, several sources said Thursday. The Century Building formerly was at the location.
I’ve always maintained that an urban core is only as good as its supermarkets. With the inclusion of a Schnucks (no apostrophe) down there, it will help a lot, since the downtown dwellers won’t have to drive out to the suburbs to shop or pay boutique prices.
I will note, though, that it’s a DESCO development, which is the property company owned by the Schnuck family, so it’s not as though Schnucks has to pay going rates, but on the other hand, the DESCO first floor won’t sit empty for years awaiting a tenant. Besides, that’s how the companies operate in the suburban locations, too.
Good work, downtown. It’s a supermarket. If you can keep it.
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Gorilla Injures 4 in Zoo in Brief Escape:
A 400-pound gorilla escaped from his enclosure and ran amok in a Rotterdam zoo Friday, biting one woman, dragging her around, and causing panic among dozens of visitors before he was finally subdued, officials and a witness said.
After all, he’s only fighting for a just cause: he wants to be recognized as a man.
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Public/private redevelopment effort requires more participation from the public portion:
Glendale will have to borrow an additional $16.5 million to pay for public improvements at the Bayshore Town Center, bringing the total spending by the city to $57 million.
Don’t worry, though. As this elaborate scheme is described in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, the private half is getting its own soaking:
RNC Capital Markets conducted a financial study of the city last fall and determined that Glendale could pay an additional $16.5 million toward the financing. The $300,000 or more will be absorbed by the developers as part of the agreement with the city dating back to 2004.
The developers will pay for the study that says the city could pay its millions. And don’t fret, gentle Glendalean; the Journal-Sentinel waves its handy assertions wand to put you at ease:
Home and business property owners in the city will not shoulder any of the borrowing for the project.
Because the city exists independently of your taxes, apparently.
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St. Louis’s Bottleworks District, one of its centrally-planned collections of retail and housing in an already glutted market, has run into trouble. However, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch rah-rahs that in spite of the developers backing away:
The last initiative, announced in September 2005, called for three high-rise condo buildings on the approximately 16-acre site — the tallest of which would be 630 feet. The city pledged a $51.3 million tax break.
At the time, Ghazi Co., based in Charlotte, N.C., was named co-developer and Clayco was the general contractor.
Since then the project has stalled, and Ghazi dropped out about eight months ago, giving rise to speculation that the Bottle District may be dead.
51.3 million dollars given up by the strapped city of St. Louis apparently wasn’t enough. Still, the optimism of the project in the article is based soundly on someone involved in the project saying that the project is recalibrating and is going swimmingly.
Except that no one’s building it.
Probably because the stone doesn’t have enough blood to wring.
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Another Critical Mass in Berkeley, another attack on a motorist. Instead of a mother and her kids, this time the hooligans targeted a 70-year-old man:
A Friday clash between a Berkeley minivan and Critical Mass bicyclists continued to generate conflict Monday as the van driver said the bicyclists placed bicycles under his front tire during the violent melee.
“A certain number of the bicyclists were prepared to do this with malice aforethought,” said Harlan Head, 70, driver of the Chevrolet minivan. “They shoved bicycles under the car and attempted several other things.”
Critical Mass organizer Jason Meggs, 38, who filmed part of the incident on his digital camera, called Head’s accusation “outrageously ridiculous.”
How convenient that the leader of the bihadists had a video to upload to YouTube. So that next month’s Critical Smash event is even more popular amongst the brown jerseys who think they’re not only above the laws of the road, but the laws of the land as well.
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But controversy has erupted because some members of the academy might have been corrupted:
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A rapacious government doing whatever it can to extract money from its citizens to fund dubious programs? The St. Louis Post-Dispatch cannot tear itself off of the legs of the monied political class. Wait, it’s not just poor governance! It’s predatory bullying:
Some homeowners fuming over reassessment left a town hall meeting here Saturday feeling bounced around by government with no way to fight the double-digit percentage jump in home values.
“The politicians create a bureaucratic jungle,” said Bill Powers, 72, whose Ladue home’s assessed value rose 39 percent.
“The county points to the state. The state points to the county — and they all point to the computer system” that compiles the numbers, Powers said. “The system is flawed, and it’s predatory.”
Well, yeah, that’s how the governments that the Post-Dispatch continually rah-rahs work. They take more and more money from citizens to fund the development projects and other goofball projects for which the paper asks us to “Gimme a G! Gimme an O! Gimme a V! Gimme a E!” and so on.
One must wonder how much the landowners at the top of Post-Dispatch masthead got soaked to allow citizens to feel bullied in print.
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Must stand to face the hounds of hell and rot inside a corpsed shell:
Private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management LP likely will be the winning bidder to buy Chrysler Group from DaimlerChrysler AG, and an announcement could come as early as Monday, a company official said Sunday.
Jeez, what marketing genius came up with the idea to name a company after the three-headed hound who guarded the gates of Hades? How would you feel if the company you worked for was from the Greek for Hellhound? Seriously, someone either made a whacked naming decision or they’re telling us something.
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Some people argue that mother fighting is a brutal sport that civilized nations should prohibit, since in many mother fights, the mothers are often wounded mortally or to the point where they are euthanized. While this might be the case, mother fights are conducted in the most humane fashion possible, without the use of spurs or other sharpened implements to increase bloodiness.
While some people don’t like mother fighting, it’s important to recognize the cultural import of the sport to many nations. In some underdeveloped countries, mother fighting provides much need entertainment in relief of hardscabble lives where people lack sports teams that charge $100 a ticket, concert venues where washed-up acts charge $100 a ticket, or functioning democratically-elected legislatures whose entrances cost millions of dollars. It remains an inexpensive sport participated in village greens, small outbuildings, and wherever like minded individuals gather to gamble, drink, and enjoy the spectacle.
And what a spectacle it provides! Brilliantly-plumed hens strutting and preening as they enter the ring, only to circle on another as in a ballet and come together in a whirling, flashing dance of life and death. Tallons, teeth, and elbows fly through the air gracefully, with the sensuous motion of lovers until one triumphs over the other. The arena bursts into applause at that great cathartic moment!
Mother fighting, unlike many of the organized sports of the upper classes, does not require expensive equipment nor time and minivan commitment. All a boy needs is a mother, time to train, some grain, and a dream. And what dreams the boy has; he can feel the warmth of the lights and the lightness of head that comes when his mother enters the ring and emerges victoriously. The boy’s name will live forever, and the boy will become a proud man.
Some opponents of mother fighting think that it’s barbaric and want to institute prohibition. They seek to transmute Mother’s Day, the annual festival of mother fighting and the day of some of the largest, most festive carnivals and biggest mother fights, into a day of peace, a day set aside to preserve and honor the mother. This foolishness cuts to the very heart of tradition and seeks to impose a set of beliefs not held by the majority onto the world at large. We should not let this come to pass.
(Read the Point, Let’s reclaim Mother’s Day for peace, by Jordan’s Queen Noor.)
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Apple’s iPods interfere with heart pacemakers, study shows:
A teenager’s curiosity has uncovered an unsettling side effect of wearing an iPod: It might cause heart pacemakers to malfunction.
The discovery appeared in a study announced Thursday during a research presentation in Denver. The finding, initially reported by Reuters, shows that iPods generate enough electromagnetic interference to hamper effective function of implantable pacemakers, and in some instances cause them to stop working entirely.
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And crony capitalists taketh away:
The Washington County Board has refused to pay a $4 million subsidy to Cabela’s Inc., the world’s largest direct marketer of outdoor gear, for construction of a store that opened in Richfield in September.
A slim majority of supervisors Tuesday voted against borrowing the funds that the board had pledged to Cabela’s in September 2005 as an incentive for building the store in the county.
I know, I rail on crony capitalism in the form of governments giving incentives to certain developers or corporations for selection of one municipality over another, but I’m even more disturbed that governments are becoming brazen in not holding to their words, resolutions, promises, writs, and whatnot.
Pardon me while I synchronize my watch with the continuing countdown to the end of our Western civilization.
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The layering of charges to get around that nasty prohibition against double jeopardy continues unabated. Within this terrible story, note how a death through negligence becomes mass murder:
The couple were found guilty May 2 of malice murder, felony murder, involuntary manslaughter and cruelty to children. A jury deliberated about seven hours before returning the guilty verdicts.
That’s three charges for the death of one individual.
Recognizing the possibility of prosecutorial overreach might have been the only thing preventing additional charges of child abuse, battery, and assault with intent to kill negligently.
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Seen in the current issue of Leatherneck:
“No other aircraft gets Marines into and out of danger like the V-22.”
That’s just climbing into the aircraft.
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So apparently Paris Hilton is going to jail, and here’s the New York Daily News reveling in the brutality behind bars:
Hotel heiress Paris Hilton better watch her back in the Century Regional Detention Facility, visitors who were at the jail yesterday warned.
“If you act like you’re all high-class and uppity,” Denise Chavis said, “you’re done.”
The paper goes on to describe the deplorable nature of life in jail. With glee and a slight taunt. Finally, we’ve brought her down low.
How pathetic. However Paris Hilton emerges from prison, she’ll still be Paris Hilton, and the mean-spirited Daily News West Coast Bureau Chief will still be only that.
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Convicted killer fears his last moments:
Workman said he doesn’t feel much like a person anymore. He has become a pile of legal briefs, appeals, depositions.
And he is angry, sorry, scared and depressed.
Of the officer who was killed, Workman says: “Any loss of life is a tragedy.”
No, sir; the loss of the officer was tragic, but the result of another man’s actions. When that life is lost, it will be justice, not tragedy.
The dead cop didn’t get 25 years to build up a good set of anger, fear, or depression. He doesn’t feel like a person any more, either, because Workman killed him in a Wendy’s parking lot. Poor bastard is nothing but a footnote in a CNN cause célèbre.
Meanwhile, pliable proletariat reader, feel sympathy for some poor soul who’s had 25 years to reflect on what he’s done, and the best he can do is a sideways sorry amid his own turmoil for his punishment.
I’d say shame on CNN and shame on Workman, but there’s no shame any more. Some people have moved beyond it.
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Maybe he doesn’t hate them; maybe they’re just dogs whose blood he wants to suck:
Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle’s plan to double the fee paid by sellers of homes and other property – a fee increase that would cost sellers of property $142 million over the next two years – survived the first attempt by Republicans to kill it Thursday.
No doubt, Jim Doyle’s blue-ribbon BOHICA commission assume that this will not impede real estate investment and rehabbing, particularly in blighted areas in the throes of gentrification. No doubt the crony capitalists in charge of Wisconsin government will redistribute some wealth to favored developers to offset the new fee increases they’re saddling the honest men with.
But cause and effect aren’t tied together when effects are bad and the cause is “more taxes” or “more government.”
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