To be able to say "Noggle," you first must be able to say "Nah."
Because she wasn’t killed by police: Elderly woman struck and killed by car:
An 85-year-old woman was fatally injured Monday evening when she was struck by a car while walking across the street in the 4500 block of Arsenal Street, near Lackland Avenue, St. Louis police said. Louise Dodenhof, who lived in the 3100 block of Portis Avenue, died at 9:52 p.m. at Barnes-Jewish Hospital.
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Contrary to claims of Kelo backlash, Missouri municipalities continue their plans for land seizure and redistribution unabashed. In the latest news, the city of Eureka has annexed Allenton and will raze it for commercial development:
But most of that will be gone soon – not just Janet’s Barber Shop, but most of Main Street, as the core of this one-time farm and railroad community is bulldozed to make way for a 1,000 acre project that includes 1,200 houses and a shopping center. The $539 million Eureka South I-44 Redevelopment also would include parks and land for at least one school and a new Eureka recreation center. The city annexed the Allenton area, directly south of Interstate 44 from Six Flags, several years ago.
The Eureka Board of Aldermen is expected to vote tonight to approve a redevelopment agreement that will allow the project to proceed. The agreement allows the use of eminent domain, if needed. Two weeks ago, complaints prompted the board to postpone a vote to give the residents more time to negotiate with the developers. At the time, Eureka officials estimated that only ten of the dozens of property owners had not signed sales contracts.
Ten of dozens. Which means possibly as many as 10 of 24 (42%) or maybe 10 of 36 (28%). But who cares about the right to private property, as long as the city of Eureka gets more tax revenue to feed its ever-growing gluttonous appetite.
(Submitted to the Outside the Beltway Traffic Jam.)
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One more reason I am not voting for Jim Talent next election: he brings home the bacon.
Just north of St. Louis, the nation’s two largest rivers merge at a spot that few people visit.
That may be about to change.
On Monday, Sen. Jim Talent, R-Mo., announced plans to introduce a bill that would provide a special federal designation for the 200-square-mile area around the confluence of the Mississippi and Missouri rivers that would be known as the Confluence National Heritage Corridor.
“This is an extraordinary natural landmark and this designation is long overdue,” said Talent, of suburban St. Louis.
The designation seeks federal funding for several conservation, heritage and recreational attractions that are part of an organization called Confluence Greenway.
Talent’s legacy:
And I thought it made a difference when I helped unseat Jean Carnahan.
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Another day, another future land seizure slipped into conversation all casual like. The story’s headline? Can Northwest Plaza rebound? The epic tale about whether a dying shopping mall can continue to provide needed revenue for a small St. Louis County municipality.
Even though it’s losing revenue from a failing commercial enterprise, the plucky local government will carry on by seizing homes from its citizens to roll into another commercial enterprise, even though its previous plan to seize the land drew no interest from the commercial community:
The city plans to seek bids to redevelop 227 acres near Cypress Road and Interstate 70 into retail, hotel and office buildings. The project could force the buyout of more than 200 homes.
The proposed development differs from a previously planned business park in the same area, which failed due to a lack of bids during the economic recession following the terrorist attacks of 2001.
I find the “If at first you don’t succeed, seize, seize again” attitude of the duly-elected land robber barons quite inspiring.
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Another high-speed criminal chase ends in an innocent death, and again certain segments of the population of St. Louis uproariously protest police who would try to capture dangerous people who might want to hurt innocent people and who then do actually hurt innocent people.
Fortunately, capitalism provides a liability-free solution: Tag-and track might slow car chases:
Is there a solution to high-speed police chases?
A company in Virginia is proposing one: a sticky dart with a homing device that police can fire at a fleeing car and track electronically at a distance.
Instead of pursuing the getaway car at high speed, police can lay back and set a trap for the fleeing car up the road.
The company believes its product, called StarChase, will save lives and reduce police liability by slowing some hot pursuits and stopping others altogether.
Yeah, liability-free, and the protestors will go home.
Until the police miss the bad guys’ car with the sticky dart and the sticky dart kills/injures/spoils the shirt of some bystander.
At which point the aggrievement machine will once again creak and grind into its public indignation over the dangers of sticky darts, etc.
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Lance Armstrong vs. Sheryl Crow: George W. Bush to Blame?:
Lance Armstrong and Sheryl Crow have said all the right things so far as the speculation for their break shifts gears. One tabloid even examines that it may be President George W. Bush’s fault as Lance is a Bush fan while Sheryl is a Bush basher.
The Star details that a friend of the singer said they knew the bust up was coming.
“Sheryl said Lance didn’t just support Bush, – he’d go off and fight if the president asked him too.
Well, guys, we all know that those hot hippyesque chicks from the English department are kinda exciting, and they tend encouragingly toward the promiscuous, but ultimately, you’re going to want to settle down with a wife and mother….and if you’re cagey about it, you might end up with a hot bicyclist, too.
(Story seen on Ace of Spades HQ.)
Memo to Lance Armstrong: Find your own, mister.
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Once again, the Americans with Disabilities Act continues to prove itself not only to be the Law of Diminishing Returns, wherein American companies must continue to spend infinitely increasing amounts of money to placate an infinite number of aggrieved parties. The latest group to attempt to stretch the law to new frontiers: Blind patrons sue Target for site inaccessibility:
Bruce Sexton says he’s one of many blind individuals who can live more independently because of the Internet.
When it comes to shopping, for example, the 24-year-old college student doesn’t have to get to and navigate brick-and-mortar stores or ask employees for help. Rather, with the help of a keyboard and screen-reading software, he can navigate a Web site and make his purchase.
Or can he?
Sexton, along with a blind advocacy group, filed a class action lawsuit this week against Target, alleging that the retail giant’s Web site is inaccessible to the blind and thus violates a California law that incorporates the Americans with Disabilities Act.
The suit, filed in Northern California’s Alameda County Superior Court by Sexton and the Baltimore-based National Federation of the Blind (NFB), claims that Target.com, “contains thousands of access barriers that make it difficult, if not impossible, for blind customers to use.”
Listen, I know what Section 508 means and I believe that making your products and services available to the widest possible audience is a good thing, but the ADA (like lots of doing-something legislation) adds burdens to businesses which drive businesses from profitablility to “why bother?”
Additionally, if the legalistic fiction of “public spaces” continues to expand, where will it end? Conversations and talks that don’t offer closed captioning or live signing limit accessibility. So do books, magazines, and papers that do not come with audio versions. How about yard sales or home-based businesses without wheelchair ramps?
The world and its litigants are completely destroying the logical fallacy of ad absurdum, turning hyperbole into a game plan and absurdity into inevitability.
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A federal judge has thrown out a lawsuit by a woman who claims she was attacked by a bird at a Lowe’s store in Fairview Heights.
Rhonda Nichols of Centreville claimed that Lowe’s Cos., the nation’s second-largest home improvement retailer, should have warned her of the birds.
But U.S. District Judge William Stiehl ruled Tuesday that a “reasonable plaintiff” either would have noticed the birds or understood that contact with them was possible in any outdoor area with plants.
(Original post. Thanks to Overlawyered.com for the update.)
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I would never work on a job that required, and I would certainly reconsider a position at a company that asked for, implanted RFID chips.
But you probably guessed that about me.
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In the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, former television critic Eric Mink takes a stand on the violence erupting over editorial cartoons elsewhere in the world and, not surprisingly, finds a nuanced view where everyone is wrong but him:
Having made the obvious points, I can’t decide who’s dumber: those who believe that beating people and torching buildings honor Mohammed and his teachings or those who believe there’s something honorable about insulting someone else’s religion simply to prove that they can.
Atta boy, Eric.
Perhaps editorial page apologists, by saying that editorial cartoons and their commonplace commentary are equivalent to violence, burning, mayhem, and bloodshed aren’t so much trying to diminish the immorality of the latter but rather to inflate the importance and potence of their own meager scratchings on the stage of world events. Because deep down, it’s probably very gratifying to see one’s drivel have a visceral reaction and change the world. For better or for worse.
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World has 7 years for key climate decisions: Blair:
The world has seven years to take vital decisions and implement measures to curb greenhouse gas emissions or it could be too late, British Prime Minister Tony Blair said on Tuesday.
Blair said the battle against global warming would only be won if the United States, India and China were part of a framework that included targets and that succeeded the 1992 Kyoto Protocol climate pact.
“If we don’t get the right agreement internationally for the period after which the
Kyoto protocol will expire — that’s in 2012 — if we don’t do that then I think we are in serious trouble,” he told a parliamentary committee.
Arbitrary deadlines and more government spending: Is there any problem that bureaucrats and politicos don’t think they can solve?
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Experts Blame Cop Show For Educating Criminals:
When Tammy Klein began investigating crime scenes eight years ago, it was virtually unheard of for a killer to use bleach to clean up a bloody mess.
Today, the use of bleach, which destroys DNA, is not unusual in a planned homicide, said the senior criminalist from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.
Klein and other experts attribute such sophistication to television crime dramas like “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation,” which give criminals helpful tips on how to cover up evidence.
In addition to knocking these shows off of the air, perhaps law enforcement would also prefer that we cut education spending or perhaps actually insert misinformation into the science curricula to ensure that our population cannot adequately think to prepare for crimes or to do anything, really, without the helping or hindering hand of the government.
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Scientists hail discovery of hundreds of new species in remote New Guinea:
An astonishing mist-shrouded “lost world” of previously unknown and rare animals and plants high in the mountain rainforests of New Guinea has been uncovered by an international team of scientists.
Among the new species of birds, frogs, butterflies and palms discovered in the expedition through this pristine environment, untouched by man, was the spectacular Berlepsch’s six-wired bird of paradise. The scientists are the first outsiders to see it. They could only reach the remote mountainous area by helicopter, which they described it as akin to finding a “Garden of Eden”.
This is excellent news, since it means we can continue our hobby of exterminating species for a few more years than previously thought.
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TCoast deputy fired for using police camera to tape girls on beach:
Martin County deputy used his dashboard-mounted video camera to zoom in on and record bikini-clad girls, including one showering at a public beach, a sheriff’s office investigation reveals.
Martin County sheriff Robert Crowder fired deputy Jack Munsey after the investigation, released Monday, concluded Munsey broke policy by using the video for unofficial purposes, spending on-duty time on off-duty activities and for improper conduct.
But, in the deputy’s defense, the scantily-clad women were not victims while he was watching, proving once again that using cameras to focus on women prevents crime.
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Plan to silence noisy car stereos is pulled:
The city’s get-tough plan to silence booming car stereos was pulled Friday after the mayor and comptroller turned up the political pressure.
Alderman Craig Schmid’s proposal to allow police to impound cars with enhanced stereo equipment was criticized as overly broad and intrusive. The bill would have allowed the city to fine motorists with some sound systems straight from the factory, technically enabling police to take their cars regardless of whether music was pumping or not.
Headlines that focus on the minor bad thing that this legislation would address–annoying loud car sound systems–overlooks the far greater evil in its punishment–government seizure of private property for a small infraction.
Because I’m not so far from my youth to have forgotten how I would occasionally turn up my radio to probably inappropriate levels when a good song came on the radio. A ticket, I could have handled. Taking my car would have driven me to unemployment, as most of the places I lived in my twenties didn’t offer quick or convenient mass transit that could convey me twenty miles to my various places of underpaid employment.
Legislating to eliminate pet peeves by putting down their owners should never pass nor be considered seriously, but with 200 years of legislation and a thousand years of English common law behind them, our legislators have to make busy to citizens’ detriment.
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Time to stop coddling the damn world if this is all the love we get in return:
Iran is the country most widely viewed as having a negative influence in the world, with the US in second place, a new poll for the BBC suggests.
The survey for the BBC World Service asked how 39,435 people in 33 nations across the globe saw various countries.
Freedom: The rest of the world views it negatively, who are we to think otherwise??
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Skier Accused Of Punching Teen Snowboarder:
A man is charged with assault after he allegedly beat a female teenage snowboarder who crashed into his daughter at Steamboat Ski Area over the weekend.
The collision knocked both girls to the ground but neither were seriously injured.
Randell Berg, of Littleton [Colorado], saw the crash and yelled profanities at the teen as he allegedly punched her in the head and neck, Steamboat police said.
Or maybe it’s because of Bush or something. Please, Michael Moore, help me understand how this can take place in Colorado, that microcosm for America.
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Fear of Girls. Yeah, geek, they’re talking about you.
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Back in the old days, the Milwaukee Journal ran a cartoon in its Green Sheet called “There Ought to Be a Law”, whose rejoinder/punchline “TOBAL.” followed annoying day to day situations. One would suspect that many the current generation of revered legislators steeped themselves in this comic strip instead of the Constitution, the Federalist papers, or even the watered-down civics books that public schools offer. For behold, the stupidest St. Louis aldermanic idea since peeing in a trash can: Big stereo could cost you your car
City police would be able to seize cars blasting loud music under an ordinance passed Friday by the Board of Aldermen.
The ordinance, which would take effect once signed by Mayor Francis Slay, prohibits the use and even installation of some enhanced speakers.
Hell, you only own your home at the leisure of the leisurely ruling class. Why not your cars, too? Instead of ticketing you, they’ll take your car. And what will they do with that seized car? Sell it at auction, no doubt.
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Some people were just born to work in fast food:
Then everyone’s attention turned to a woman in line – the one with a shredded sequined purse on the tile floor near her feet.
“She picked up her purse like it was some kind of disease,” explained Shelley White, the store manager on duty.
“I ain’t got no gun,” was the only thing the stranger told the crowd in the restaurant before gathering her purse and teenage daughter from a nearby booth and running out of the place about 1 p.m. Friday.
But she did have a gun, investigators said, apparently a low-quality one that discharged by accident when she dropped her purse.
She had a secret too, one that she might have kept had White not rushed to the window and called out the license number for a customer to jot down. The fleeing woman was an off-duty St. Louis police officer.
After the woman inadvertantly discharged a firearm, fled the scene, and threw the firearm out of her window on the interstate before she was caught, she resigned when the internal affairs department of her police department opened an investigation.
As someone who travels into the city almost daily, I would hope the city of St. Louis would weed these people out before they’re actually, you know, cops.
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