To be able to say "Noggle," you first must be able to say "Nah."
But I am holding my breath awaiting a Spanish court’s war crimes indictment of journalist-targeting Iraqi terrorists.
I anticipate losing consciousness long before we get any such officialesque sanction, much less disapproval.
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‘More than half survive’ Nigeria crash:
The wreckage of a passenger jet that crashed in central Nigeria has been found, and more than half of the 117 people on board are reported to have survived, officials said.
As Quality Assurance professional who’s extremely conscious of the contingencies required to successfully keep a tube of people aloft, I’m not encouraged that aviation in the United States has seen its safest three years in history nor am I comforted that we’ve not had a major airline crash domestically in years. Because when one of those birds comes down….
A fifty-fifty shot at survival in the rare event that an airline crashes? That brightens my flying mood considerably. Because an aircraft crash that is not an automatic death sentence is much better than an aircraft crash that is. No matter how rare they remain.
Update: Ah, man. Headline amended to 117 killed in Nigeria plane crash
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I oppose the Miers nomination.
And you gentle readers might have wondered if I even care about national or international politics given the recent topic matter on this blog. With the neophyte nature of this nominee, her closeness to the Bush administration, and the better choices available, I can’t help but think she got the job for reasons other than she’s the best choice.
See also:
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US planning invasion, says Chavez:
Washington officially sees Hugo Chavez as an unfriendly leader
Venezuela’s President, Hugo Chavez, says he is in possession of intelligence showing that the United States plans to invade his country.In a BBC interview, Mr Chavez said the US was after his nation’s oil, much as it had been after Iraq’s.
But he stressed that any invasion would never be allowed to happen.
Some circus is one clown short.
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What can local and state governments expect for $17,000,000 in giveaways to large corporations to keep their plants open?
Two years ago, Ford Motor Co.’s assembly plant in Hazelwood survived plans to close it after an intense state and community campaign persuaded the company to keep it open through 2007.
Now, the Hazelwood plant may be forced to run a similar gantlet after Ford rolls out a restructuring plan late this year.
Excess production capacity continues to weigh heavily on the automaker. The plant in Hazelwood, where about 1,450 people work, is among the company’s most vulnerable facilities.
Never fear, though; the local and state governments are ready to spring into spending to throw bad taxpayer money after bad:
Still, it’s too early to speculate about the Hazelwood plant’s future, said Hazelwood Mayor T.R. Carr. He’s a member of the Ford Hazelwood Task Force, the group of state and local politicians, business and labor leaders formed in 2002 after Ford announced it would close the plant.
“What is ‘obvious’ is not necessarily true,” Carr said. “There are a lot of decisions that are up in the air for Ford right now.”
The region needs to focus on building a business plan that will encourage Ford to bring a new vehicle to replace the Explorer at the Hazelwood plant, he said.
We’ve spent $12,000 per employee already to keep those employees working for a coouple of years; soon, we will have spent the equivalent of a full college education for each (in state tuition for public universities, but hey, it’s an education). What equivalent amount of money will be enough? Masters degrees? Doctorates? Eventually, Ford will close the plant, and the money will be just as lost.
Not that it’s the government’s job to develop business plans, but I’ll help, no consulting fees attached: you know what kind of business plan calls for spending more and more money on a failing proposition? A bad business plan.
Let’s return to Carr for the most appropriate, although inappropriately so, metaphor:
“It’s kind of like (Cardinal baseball player Albert) Pujols … the game’s not over, and we’re going to stay at bat until we secure a future for this plant,” he said.
Timely, sir, and it connects with the little people too unintelligent to see what bull you’re selling.
Unfortunately, Albert Pujols’ ninth inning home run in game five of the National League Championship Series only saved one game, forestalling the Cardinals eventual loss to the Houston Astros by a single game and a couple of games. Much like your business plan and next set of tax incentives will delay Ford’s decision to close the plant for another short interval; but if it’s in Ford’s best business interest to close the plant, it will close the plant.
Perhaps it’s time to let the air out of the Keynesian tires and abandon the plant on the side of the road.
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What could make telephone conversations better? Commercials:
In a few short years, consumers can expect to make telephone calls for free, with no per-minute charges, as part of a package of services through which carriers make money on advertising or transaction fees, eBay’s chief executive said Wednesday.
I assume that’s how the advertising would work. Of course, carriers already make money on transaction fees–like charging you money for each call you make–but I’m not the one trying to make a press release out of an expensive acquisition that won’t really revolutionize communications as much as one would hope to convince shareholders.
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And you probably wouldn’t believe it if you did:
Police said the woman had spent Monday at the house on Mimika, and on Tuesday morning she went on her way and homeowner went to work. The woman obviously returned, and broke out a kitchen window, unlatched it and tried to crawl through, police said. But the window had a second latch that permitted it to raise up only so far, and the woman became wedged and later died, police said.
In her struggle to free herself, her pants came off, police said.
Right.
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Man, bird flu needs Tamiflu. For four years, I’ve been stocking the Cipro for nothing….
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I mean, for crying out loud, it’s obvious. But the tabloids won’t tell you because they’re in bed with the celebrities they cover, regardless of whatever they tell you. And the stars’ publicists won’t let the tabloids reveal the real secrets.
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The street is, in fact, rising up and attacking popular propoganda’s convenient targets: neo-Nazis:
A crowd protesting a white supremacists’ march Saturday turned violent, throwing baseball-sized rocks at police, vandalizing vehicles and stores, and setting fire to a neighborhood bar, authorities said.
When Mayor Jack Ford and a local minister tried to calm the rioting, they were cursed for allowing the march, and Ford said a masked gang member threatened to shoot him.
At least 65 people were arrested and several police officers were injured before calm was restored about four hours later.
Ford blamed the rioting on gangs taking advantage of a volatile situation. He declared a state of emergency, set an 8 p.m. curfew through the weekend, and asked the Highway Patrol for help.
Funny, but isn’t this the reason why Hollywood changes villains in movies from actual threats in today’s world–such as radical Islamists (think The Sum of All Fears)–to Nazis? Because the better-minded amongst us don’t want hooligans and vigilantes to attack the people depicted in the movie as unrepentant evil?
Well, I guess Hollywood might be right about its impact on popular sensitivities, and it can rest assured that the themes it espouses don’t deal with contemporary evils, but instead continue to dish propoganda which demonizes a movement which has caused sporadic violence but which was last a credible global threat sixty years ago.
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Another municipality says “Lights, Camera, Revenue!” Or it would, if it can only overcome a couple of obstacles:
The St. Peters project has two big obstacles – its cost and the possibility that tickets generated by the system could be thrown out of court.
Good to know law enforcement works as hard to circumvent the law as lawbreakers.
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Lohr dispute heats up as strikers lose jobs:
A labor dispute at St. Louis city beer wholesaler Lohr Distributing Co. has turned uglier after Lohr told strikers that they’ve lost their jobs to permanent replacement workers.
The move complicates any settlement with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, which represents the drivers. They’ve been on strike for nearly five months.
Maybe a couple more instances like this will help fatcat union leaders remember that their slush funds are fatter when they manage to keep their union members employed, and perhaps some concessions might be necessary in that effort. A good job is a good job, and apparently Lohr like Northwest Airlines before it, didn’t have any trouble filling those jobs for lesser terms.
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It was bad enough I had to suffer through the American Airlines CEO’s column in the September in-flight house organ, but now the company has commissioned a study to indicate that if it loses its government-enforced monopoly in Dallas, everyone will pay:
A push by Southwest Airlines to increase flights from Dallas Love Field could trigger a reduction of service by American Airlines to Lambert Field and a number of smaller cities in Missouri and Illinois, according to a study made public on Monday.
The study labeled Lambert as at “moderate risk” to lose a small number of American flights.
However, Gerard Slay, deputy director at Lambert, said he doesn’t expect any impact, describing the study’s discussion of St. Louis as a “what-if scenario.”
American commissioned the study by Eclat Consulting Inc., an aviation-consulting firm in Reston, Va., in what has become a bruising battle over a federal law that limits direct flights by Southwest from Love Field to most of the country.
Here’s how American will put the hurt on our particular region:
If American’s hub at Dallas/Fort Worth were to shrink, however, there would be fewer connecting flights, resulting in reduced service to smaller communities that rely on the airline’s extensive network as their link to the world.
Such a development, the study said, would hurt towns such as Kirksville, Mo., and Quincy, Ill. These towns rely on federally subsidized service provided by American affiliates that fly under the banner of AmericanConnection, the Eclat study said.
“Hub degradation would take place, making marginal routes unprofitable,” said Eclat’s president, William S. Swelbar. “Inevitably, those routes would be eliminated.”
Of the 11 daily flights between Lambert Field and Dallas/Fort Worth, five could be lost, Swelbar said. While three of those five flights could be shifted to Love Field, travelers would see a reduction in the number of connection flights, he said.
So that’s the loss of a government-enforced monopoly, increased competition, and a reduction in government-subsidized flights? American The impartial third party Eclat presents this as a nightmare scenario, but to me it looks like a dream come true. Now if the bloated, incapable-of-adapting carrier collapses before sucking off any more government “loans” and without pushing its employee liabilities off on taxpayers, I will awaken disappointed.
UPDATE As Mr. Hill notes in the comments, the threat or promise has been heard elsewhere. Google News helps prove the “reduced flights” extortion has been targeted to:
Flood the zone, AA, flood the zone.
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When “team of architects, urban designers and engineers charged with making the city’s downtown shoreline more than just the space underneath the Gateway Arch” get together to spend the public’s money, you know the result is going to be absurd:
“The theme of the design is really to put the people in contact with the river,” said Diana Balmori, a New York-based landscape artist who led the design project. “As much contact as possible.”
Her design certainly provides that – any more contact with the river would require a snorkel.
The vision is to have the riverfront extend into the river itself onto two groups of floating islands that reach into the water like a pair of giant butterfly wings. The islands, which would be connected by floating bridges, would feature walking paths, bike trails and even a swimming pool that would be converted to an ice skating rink in the winter.
Purple, green, red and yellow lights could illuminate the islands, with both island groups shaped in a curve mimicking the Arch. Eero Saarinen’s monument would then be literally and figuratively reflected in the river.
The hope, Balmori says, is to bring people back to the river that played a defining role in shaping what St. Louis is today.
Balmoni said that whenever people find themselves surrounded by water, it’s “magical.”
Of course, the defining role the river played and the contact people had was industrial and logistical. Loading barges, unloading barges, and acting as a hub for agricultural and manufactured goods as they came into or left the middle of the country.
But urban planners who concoct revitalization plans around entertainment venues, sports teams, and shimmering parks on the hill might not know why these things continue to fail to revitalize urban centers. Perhaps they instinctively create money-wastrels that will fail, as their continued struggle against urban decay does keep the money flowing into the teams, the commissions, and the districts from which they draw their own paychecks.
You want to revitalize downtown St. Louis? Remove onerous restrictions on business, reduce taxation, and rebuild the infrastructure. You know, smooth streets, better fire and police and fire protection, and the other things only government can provide. But the governors, too, know that they don’t get as many contributions from individual citizens as they do from the unelected Elect, nor do they receive luxury boxes and buffets for schools that maintain accreditation without a revolving door of administrators.
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Jackson said President Bush’s chief political strategist, Karl Rove, is overseeing reconstruction of the Gulf Coast, and that he and others in the White House are using Katrina to push their political agenda. He said black, Democratic-leaning voters have been radically dislocated and are being kept in “permanent exile.”
“Karl Rove is a political reconstructionist” who wants to “change the character” of Louisiana politics from the mayor’s office to its congressional representation.
As if the Rove machine would try a simple diaspora when they could turn the dial to tsunami or earthquake and kill all Democrats in Louisiana.
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Missouri: State Spies on Drivers Through Cell Phones:
The Missouri Department of Transportation will spend $3 million annually on a program to monitor the movements of individuals on highways via their cell phones — without their knowledge or consent.
Delcan NET, a Canadian company, developed the system which triangulates the location of each driver by monitoring the signal sent from the cell phone as it is handed off from one cell tower to the next. Each phone is uniquely identified and the information is compared with a highway map to record on what road each motorist is traveling at any given time. The system also records the speed of each vehicle, opening up another potential ticketing technology.
I don’t know how trustworthy of a source this is, but apparently Radley Balko believes it. Even if this story isn’t true, it’s only a matter of time.
Makes the picture below more appropriate, no?
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More fun with government units suing each other to prevent funding cuts, with a twist: this time it’s the courts themselves threatening to sue:
Chief Judge Kitty Brennan is telling Milwaukee County supervisors that they could face a lawsuit on court funding unless they restore judicial and court staffing that County Executive Scott Walker has pegged for elimination in 2006.
Perhaps I’m not really up on the Wisconsin constitution, but the way I thought it was supposed to work is the legislature raises and allocates funds with some discretion to the executive branch.
But I’m not a power-grabbing judge.
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Magic Marker used in commission of felony:
Students at Kirkwood High School provided information to police that helped lead to the arrests of four teenagers in the scrawlings of a racial slur and a swastika at two schools, police said Friday.
Kirkwood Police Chief Jack Plummer said officers picked up the teenagers, one of whom is a juvenile, on Thursday and Friday on suspicion of vandalism and a hate crime, a felony. Plummer said officers sought one more suspect.
The slurs were discovered Aug. 29 near the south entrance of Kirkwood High and at St. Paul’s Lutheran School in Des Peres. Officers said the scrawlings, made in permanent marker, were a curse word, a racial slur and a swastika at Kirkwood, and a swastika at St. Paul’s. The scrawlings included the phrase “the kings,” a reference to a band the suspects like.
Well, then, it was permanent marker, so lock them all up for five years!
The magic hate crime designation multiplies every crime, no matter how trivial, into a felony. Say nigger, and it’s free speech. Say kike while throwing a gum wrapper on the ground as you pass a synagogue, and you’re penitentiary-eligible.
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Owen at Boots and Sabers has the story of an Appleton judge who assigns custody of a minor to an inappropriate institution.
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Mongol General: “What is best in life?”
Conan: “To crush your enemies, to see them driven before you, to hear the lamentations of their women, and to protect their children from video games that depict serious injury to human beings in a manner that is especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel.”
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