Category: News

St. Louis Post-Dispatch dramatic headline: Bush rallies crowd to back war. However, the story indicates this might be an understatement:

President George W. Bush used his visit to St. Louis on Wednesday to make his case to local soldiers and supporters that the nation must persevere in Iraq and Afghanistan to safeguard America’s security.

His approach, he declared, is “not based on political polls or focus groups,” but on the belief that “we must stay on the offense in order to protect America.”

“The American people expect the government to protect them,” Bush told an enthusiastic crowd of 500 at a fundraising dinner for U.S. Sen. Jim Talent, R-Mo., at the Ritz-Carlton in Clayton. [Emphasis mine]

Yeah, this was more Henry V at Harfleur than Mark Antony at The Forum.

Sure, insurance against RIAA lawsuits sounds good, until you realize that the RIAA could just subpoena the insurance company and sue all of its customers on the presumption of guilt. Who would buy this insurance besides those who need it?

(Link also seen on Dustbury.)

Let me, prognosticator of unintended consequences, tell you what this Supreme Court decision means:

The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that President Bush overstepped his authority in ordering military war crimes trials for Guantanamo Bay detainees.

The ruling, a strong rebuke to the administration and its aggressive anti-terror policies, was written by Justice John Paul Stevens, who said the proposed trials were illegal under U.S. law and international Geneva conventions.

If the executive branch and the military must apply United States constitutional protections to enemies captured on the battlefields of foreign wars, it will capture fewer enemies.

The Supreme Court has sentenced those who would have been captured to death.

From the dramatic story entitled "Suspect steals county patrol car in Berkeley; suspect, officer injured", we have this suspenseful episode:

The suspect drove the stolen police car for some time while surrounding police agencies attempted to stop him. The police car stopped for a short time at Suburban and Mueller streets in Ferguson. Then the suspect suddenly put the car in reverse and rammed a Cool Valley police car. At that moment officers from more than one police agencies fire shots at the suspect, all missing.[sic]

Fortunately, the suspect was acting aggressively and elusively with anyone he met, but he could not run 35 mile per hour, and both of these criteria must be met for instant execution.

New Surgeon General’s Report Focuses on the Effects of Secondhand Smoke:

“The health effects of secondhand smoke exposure are more pervasive than we previously thought,” said Surgeon General Carmona, vice admiral of the U.S. Public Health Service. “The scientific evidence is now indisputable: secondhand smoke is not a mere annoyance. It is a serious health hazard that can lead to disease and premature death in children and nonsmoking adults.” Secondhand smoke contains more than 50 cancer-causing chemicals, and is itself a known human carcinogen. Nonsmokers who are exposed to secondhand smoke inhale many of the same toxins as smokers. Even brief exposure to secondhand smoke has immediate adverse effects on the cardiovascular system and increases risk for heart disease and lung cancer, the report says.

To quote Dean Yeager, “Your theories are the worst kind of popular tripe, your methods are sloppy, and your conclusions are highly questionable. You are a poor scientist, Dr. Venkman!”

Science is the most pragmatic of human endeavors, in that one only believes something is true because even if overwhelming evidence is in favor of a conclusion, science should only be 99% sure, reserving that 1% in recognition of human fallability. I’ve not seen all the data nor all the studies–like many, I’ve only seen the big exclamations from the studies which support the claim about second hand smoke and the vital italicizations of studies that dispute it which were funded by Big Tobacco!

But one thing I’m sure of: I doubt the "scientist" who says he has indisputable proof or an inarguable conclusion because that sort of scientist has mounted a bank and is trying to sell something.

(As some of you know, my beautiful wife vigorously disagrees with me, and I might be sleeping on the couch for the foreseeable future.)

Charles Krauthammer, "Why I Love Australia":

God, I love Australia. Where else do you have a shadow health minister with such, er, starch? Of course I’m prejudiced, having married an Australian, but how not to like a country, in this age of sniveling grubs worldwide, whose treasurer suggests to any person who “wants to live under sharia law” to try Saudi Arabia and Iran, “but not Australia.” He was elaborating on an earlier suggestion that “people who … don’t want to live by Australian values and understand them, well then they can basically clear off.” Contrast this with Canada, historically and culturally Australia’s commonwealth twin, where last year Ontario actually gave serious consideration to allowing its Muslims to live under sharia law.

Meanwhile, Australia, the beloved, features strict gun control and sword control policies. Let’s not forget that while we laud the plucky Australians for their collective spine.

In this post, I explain why random events outside of the home make me afraid to leave my house. Now, thanks to Ace, I have a new irrational fear:

Knock, knock.
Who’s there?

Ali.
Ali who?

Jeez, folks, dial my number from your cellular phone when you’re on my porch, otherwise, I’ll think you’re coming to give me the death roll in my own front yard.

Over at Boots and Sabers, Owen applauds the lowering of the threshold at which the government can seize property from individuals: if it’s annoying. Owen says:

This could be a good idea.

Wherein “this” is this:

Frustrated by a weekend cruising ritual that gridlocks intersections and gobbles up officers’ time, some Milwaukee leaders are pushing for new tools to fight the problem, boosting fines and letting police seize cars by declaring them a “nuisance.”

Geez, maybe I’m just a jack, maybe it’s just because I’m young enough to remember engaging in car-seizure yielding nuisance behavior–whether playing my car stereo too loud or getting into a car with friends to ride around on a Friday night– or maybe I just don’t want the government to seize private property based on a subjective call of one of its functionaries, but I think it’s a really, really bad idea to keep lowering the bar for reasons why the government can take your property. And a nuisance crime isn’t it.

Unfortunately, Owen doesn’t elaborate on how high a lawn would have to get before the government could take a house–but it’s a nuisance when neighbors let their lawns go to seed. It’s a matter of degree, not a matter of kind, that prevents the government from doing so once we’ve allowed the State to start stripping property based on arbitrary and subjective judgments of “nuisance.”

To allow this abuse of government power because it punishes that which annoys you leaves you no sympathy and no quarter when the government wants to take something from you because you’ve annoyed someone else.

Highway Patrol can’t probe most deaths of mentally ill:

Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt declared last week that the Highway Patrol would be told of every death and assault in a state mental health facility, but the patrol says it doesn’t have the manpower to investigate a majority of those cases.

“We don’t have those types of resources,” said Capt. Chris Ricks, the Missouri Highway Patrol’s spokesman.

One would assume that it’s because most of those deaths were not, you know, on highways.

Why is this a story?

The acknowledgment came a week after a Post-Dispatch investigation found failures in every level of a system that is supposed to ensure the Department of Mental Health and police adequately investigate allegations of mistreatment of mentally retarded and mentally ill residents.

Because the Post-Dispatch wants to keep up a crusade and maybe get a journalism prize or something.

And if it has to further empower state law enforcement, who cares? The story of overreaching government authority, that’s a story–and a new outrage for media to discover and cover–for another day.

Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville have reported that over $100,000 vandalism has occurred in the last several years in Carbondale, but are quick to pin the tail on someone other than the students in the area:

Campus Police Chief Todd Sigler says vandalism and other cases of damage haven’t noticeably spiked over the past several years. And he says he believes that not all damage to property is criminal or caused by students, suggesting that visitors may be responsible for some of the problem.

Those "visitors" have, no doubt, been known to be aggressive and elusive — capable of moving up to 35 mph — with anyone who gets too close.

No dollar figure was cited related to the damage caused by police firing willy-nilly on flightless “visitors” to the campus.

A new nugget of fact in this story about the Carbondale Emu:

Police are searching for the bird’s owner.

He or she had better not act aggessive or elusive–running up to 35 mph (in short bursts, as Grygrx pointed out)–otherwise it’s skybusting time on the ground.

Fortunately, though, the ultimate pet is the ultimate protector:

Well, honestly, he wasn’t exactly bulletproof. Just really, really hard to bring down.

(More on the Carbondale Emu here and here.)

Hey, I could easily save the county government some time and money for any topic that it commissions committees or outside firms to study by cutting right to the answer: higher fees or taxes:

After studying the issue for more than two years, St. Louis County is finally ready to talk trash.

St. Louis County Health Department officials met this week with the County Council to begin discussing updates to the existing solid waste ordinance. The Health Department wants to increase recycling by requiring trash companies to include such services in their minimum bill.

By raising the trash rates to encourage recycling, the County hopes to…..what? Educate people? I guess they reason that, since they’re compelling residents to pay, unvisibly, monthly, that residents will change their daily behavior.

Let me help the county skip the next two year study, and get right to where they’re going to go anyway: criminal penalties and fines for throwing glass into the garbage can.

Errant emu shot, killed by police in southern Illinois:

Police in this university town say they hadn’t dealt with an emu on the loose before. So when the big bird was found running rampant, officers pulled out the big firepower.

Cornered in a residential area Wednesday, the flightless cousin of the ostrich took five blasts from an officer’s shotgun before being finished off by three more rounds from a police rifle.

Police say they had no other recourse in dealing with a species known to be aggressive and elusive — they’re capable of moving up to 35 mph — with anyone who gets too close.

That might sound like a bit much, but when an emu comes to town in body armor, you know he’s only looking for trouble. He ain’t comin’ to drink, he ain’t comin’ to whore, he’s come to break an ostrich out of jail or something equally non-neighborly.

Perhaps he backed up a little too quickly, and the police panicked to the tune of five shotgun shells and three rounds from a rifle, but let’s remember that these birds can weigh up to 130 pounds before the body armor and twenty-five pounds of M249 and ammo it likes to carry into college towns.

But today’s necessary harvesting of the excess southern Illinois emu population begs a couple of questions, particularly in light of the dedicated expenditure of ordnance used to bring the beast down:

• Shouldn’t Carbondale have a SWAT team to handle emergency emu situations with automatic weapons?
• The newspaper story says that there was a shotgun and a rifle, but what if there were two rifles? Who was the second sniper?
• What did the emu know that the government had to kill him to keep him from squawking?
• Five shotgun blasts and three rounds from a rifle? The police didn’t just leave the emu lying there while they turned around and radioed it in, because when they turned back, the undead emu would be gone, leaving room for the sequel.

Sure, you might be amused, but me, I am going to have emu nightmares tonight.

Now that the city of St. Louis has driven Praxair out of the state for its intolerable crime of having accidentally caught fire while in the city limits, the city and its residents can now rest easier that they will not be in danger of the hell of burning.

Or not:

St. Louis fire and police officials were investigating two suspicious blazes this morning that heavily damaged unfinished construction projects in the Lafayette Square neighborhood, south of downtown.

No doubt the revered leaders of the neighborhoods and of the city will now rise up to drive construction and residences out of town to prevent them, too, from catching fire. And how the city shall then rejoice when its employment base and its tax-draining resident base live elsewhere, and there’s no chance of fire.

Or at least of fire that will be shown live on the cable news.

You know what I find stunning about this article, entitled "Shrine to Hitler unnerves community"? Not that some nutty 87-year-old farmer who claims to have been SS has made a shrine in the first place. No, it’s this excessive display of journalistic objectivity:

It’s a beautiful location for a memorial to a man who most believe started World War II, in which 50 million people died, including more than 6 million Jewish people in the Holocaust – that’s all part of what Junker disputes as bunk. [Emphasis added]

So the softening of our collective memory continues; most believe that Hitler started World War II, but since it’s not unanimous, we have to temper our assertion. After all, it could have been Churchill, or Roosevelt, or Karl Rovinski who tricked the Germans into invading Poland, or the aliens who would later crash at Roswell.

Maybe our current leaders are like Hitler, because he apparently wasn’t so bad after all.

Capital projects might cost more than expected:

The county’s capital improvement projects, including the building of a new juvenile detention center and administration building, may cost more than county officials anticipated.

Although county commissioners hoped to complete the projects for less than $8 million, that objective looks grim. Executives at the Paric Corporation, the firm hired to manage construction, anticipate the cost of projects may exceed $10 million.

Isn’t it funny how the only people who tend to be caught off-guard by these unexpected cost overruns are the government officials in charge of authorizing the initial outlays? I mean, we taxpayers come to expect it and the companies who end up receiving the extra money no doubt count on it.