Category: News

St. Louis Post-Dispatch insightful report: Low-pay jobs outgrow high-pay positions!

The St. Louis area added thousands more “bad” jobs than it did higher-paying “good” ones from 1980 to 2000, according to a report released by the Federal Reserve this week.

Unfortunately, “leaders” will use this as an excuse to funnel taxpayer money to their friends who own businesses.

eBay tightens rules for sellers:

eBay said Monday that sellers could no longer accept PayPal payments from buyers without accepting credit card transactions, thereby avoiding PayPal fees. eBay acquired PayPal in 2002.

Sellers’ practice of restricting PayPal payment methods “was creating a bad buyer experience,” said PayPal spokeswoman Amanda Pires. “It would be like walking into the grocery store and filling up your cart, getting to the check stand with your credit card and being told sorry, even after you saw the credit card logo outside the store.”

Under PayPal rules, sellers can accept payment through bank transfers or PayPal balances for free. But sellers in the United States who accept credit card payments are charged between 1.9 percent and 2.9 percent of the value of the transaction, based on volume.

Pires sought to quell concerns that eBay was tightening the restrictions merely to boost PayPal’s fee collections.

“We got a lot of community feedback, which is why we’re changing this,” Pires said. “And it was a very small percentage of sellers who were doing this.”

Sure. Like they’re responding to community feedback to lower seller’s fees. I used to spend a lot of time selling inexpensive books on eBay, mostly books I picked up for a buck or so at garage sales and sold for five to ten dollars. Eventually, I calculated that eBay was making more money from my effort than I was.

Community that, eBay.

In perhaps a great case of Laphamization, the New York Times is lamenting judicial activism before the judge is even confirmed:

One of the most important areas for the Senate to explore is Judge Roberts’s views on federalism – the issue of how much power the federal government should have. The far right is on a drive to resurrect ancient, and discredited, states’ rights theories. If extremists take control of the Supreme Court, we will end up with an America in which the federal government is powerless to protect against air pollution, unsafe working conditions and child labor. There are reasons to be concerned about Judge Roberts on this score. He dissented in an Endangered Species Act case in a way that suggested he might hold an array of environmental laws, and other important federal protections, to be unconstitutional.

Isn’t it a shame how much power the judiciary has?

Only when it’s wielded by judges of whom the New York Tomes disapproves, apparently.

(Link seen on Michelle Malkin.)

Survey: 25,000 civilians killed in Iraq war:

Nearly 25,000 civilians have been killed since the start of the Iraq war, according to a group that tracks the civilian death toll from the conflict.

The Iraq Body Count — a London-based group comprising academics and human rights and anti-war activists — said on Tuesday that 24,865 civilians had died between March 20, 2003 and March 19, 2005. [Emphasis mine]

Swell. How did this survey come about? Did the anti-war activists ask people if they had been killed in the Iraq war? Close.

“Our data has been extracted from a comprehensive analysis of over 10,000 press and media reports published since March 2003. Our accounting is not complete: only an in-depth, on-the-ground census could come close to achieving that,” the group said.

“But if journalism is the first draft of history, then this dossier may claim to be an early historical analysis of the military intervention’s known human costs.”

At least CNN did add a bit of a rejoinder, some paragraphs down, from people closer to the conflict than press and media reports:

The Iraqi government disputed some of the finding of the report.

“We welcome the attention given by this report to Iraqi victims of violence but we consider that it is mistaken in claiming that the plague of terrorism has killed fewer Iraqis than the multinational forces,” said the prime minister’s office, citing recent terror strikes, including the Musayyib bombing that killed nearly 100 people on Saturday.

“The international forces try to avoid civilian casualties, whereas the terrorists target civilians and try to kill as many of them as they can.”

So it’s really unclear to me why this piece puts the claims of academics activists above Iraqi government officials and U.S. government officials. No, wait, come to think of it, it’s clear.…

A new study questions whether conversion of corn into ethanol actually expends more energy than it stores. When confronted with contrary data, modern scienceocrats do the obvious: they attack the study on merits other than scientific:

Researchers at the National Corn-To-Ethanol Research Center at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville said there are several federal studies that cite the opposite and said the recent study is harming their ability to reduce the United States’ dependence on foreign oil.

“It discourages me,” said Martha Schlicher, director of the research center. “People tend to remember negative news instead of becoming educated in what may not be as interesting. I worry that in a time so critical for energy security and the environment that this detracts from getting accurate information to consumers.”

Forget about the data. How do you feel? The director of the research center nust feel discouraged, because if scientists cannot disprove this data, then something more important than truth lies at stake:

At a time when businesses, state officials and farmers are investing millions of dollars in ethanol research, researchers at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., and the University of California at Berkeley found it takes 29 percent more energy to turn corn into ethanol than the amount stored in the resulting fuel. [Emphasis mine]

If ethanol proves to as effective as mixing snake oil with banana oil, who’s going to want to pay to maintain research facilities to studying the proper ratios, and more importantly, to keep directors salaried?

Allow me to quickly consolidate the new, revised, and more better

Twenty-First Century Scientific Method

1. Observe some aspect of the universe.
2. Determine that the aspect of the universe impacts some large corporation, public policy initiative, or both.
3. Write grant proposals and get funding for research into the aspect of the universe.
4. Organize and attend conferences to confabulate with others who are thinking about the aspect of the universe, or perhaps just related fields, or perhaps unrelated fields–after all, the universe is holistically interrelated.
5. When funding is about to run out, invent a tentative description, called a hypothesis. You can make it all up if you want; it only needs to be believeable enough to warrant more funding.
6. Use the hypothesis to make predictions and as progress report or new grant proposal fodder.
7. Receive more funding.
8. Test those predictions by experiments or further observations and conclude you need more funding to conduct further research.
9. Repeat steps 6 through 8 until retirement age.

Nudity or lap dances in strip clubs? Now illegal!

Adult entertainment businesses plan to ask a judge to block a new law that would prohibit lap dances and full nudity in Missouri strip clubs.

The Missouri chapter of Adult Club Executives plans to seek an injunction next week against the law, scheduled to take effect Aug. 28, said Kansas City attorney Richard Bryant, who represents the group.

The legislation, signed Wednesday by Gov. Matt Blunt, would prohibit customers and employees younger than 21 at strip clubs. It also would ban nudity and require seminude employees to remain at least 10 feet away from customers and behind a 2-foot-high railing. The bill would prohibit employees from touching customers.

Drinking in public? Now legal!

For revelers in Kansas City’s downtown entertainment district, the party won’t have to end at the door.

A law signed by Gov. Matt Blunt will allow patrons to stroll in and out of restaurants and bars without dumping their alcoholic beverages. Kansas City officials are reworking the city’s alcohol ordinance to make it conform with the state’s law.

We Libertarians would rather not trade one vice for another because we just cannot choose which one we like best.

A radio station here in St. Louis suspends two morning personalities who had an on-air discussion of how to fight cops effectively. Yes, that’s crass and abominable, but free speech and all that. The radio station has taken steps and public outcry should lead to outright firings and “you’ll never work in this town again!”-esque corporate blacklisting. None of which is censorship because the government isn’t involved.

This, on the other hand, is very, very bad:

But O’Fallon sergeant Tom Otten is far from satisfied by the punishment. “What does a suspension do? It does nothing. That shows a horrible lack of character and moral judgment”[sic]

If the deejays aren’t fired, Otten vows to write and call his fellow officers to have them contact the KATZ advertisers, and urge them to remove their ads.

Law enforcement officials, even if acting unofficially, should not urge businesses to do anything other than obey the law. Because this police-urged boycott does lend itself to censorship.

A shocking image of a vicious killer about to strike!

BAN THESE MENACES NOW but leave the chows, akitas, dobermans, and dachshunds alone.

Ah, so that’s what Hillary needs 100,000 new troops: Grand Confiscation Video Game.

I am getting my conspiracy theories in place just in case (Heaven forfend!) she wins the presidency in 2008. I don’t want to have to merely parrot the byzantine crackpot gossip of others.

Shark chases pup to hospital!

Newspapers make do with the stories they have: Pit bull chases puppy into house.

Meanwhile, here in the Noggle home, Summer of the Tabby continues as one tabby chases the other around the house. Or is it vice versa?

(Link seen on Ravenwood’s Universe.)

From a story profiling the guy behind Internet Haganah in the Washington Post called “Watchdogs Seek Out the Web’s Bad Side“:

He said he has received thousands of dollars in donations, as well as some ominous death threats. One warning came in a handwritten letter mailed to Weisburd’s house. Another letter on a Web site declared that he should be beheaded and it listed his address. For his protection, Weisburd keeps a loaded 38mm pistol in the house.

That would leave a mark, to be sure.

(Link seen on Free Will.)

10 Lines To Get Republican Gals — Like Ann Coulter — Into Bed.

Geez, I would add, for Republican gals like Ann Coulter, something along the lines of Hey, I see tax policies soaking the wealthy are starving you. Can I buy you a sandwich?

(Link seen on Dustbury, who is currently travelling the country and performing field research on the efficacy of the study.)

In a post on Tech Central Station, Professor Reynolds overlooks certain benefits of surveillance cameras. The professor says:

As a deterrent, at least, they were a failure. Civil libertarians fear these cameras, with some reason (my guess is that they’ll be used more to catch parking scofflaws and to dig up dirt on political opponents than to reduce crime or terrorism) but the real story is their ineffectiveness. Every cop sitting in a control room, eating doughnuts and watching monitors, could be out on the street, looking at things with his or her own eyes and in a position to do something about what he or she sees. Nonetheless, the response to the London bombings will probably include a call for more, not fewer, cameras.

That’s a mistake. As Jeffrey Rosen wrote in a superb essay published just after 9/11 (but sadly no longer available online), London’s “ring of steel” camera network never caught a terrorist…

Professor Reynolds overlooks the following benefits (to the watchers, anyway):

T and A.

It won’t be Puerto Rico:

A University of Alberta professor I know sent me a lengthy article he’s trying to get published, entitled: “Let’s get while the getting’s good.”

In it, Leon Craig, professor emeritus of political science, lays out a case for Alberta to declare unilateral independence. And he lays it out well.

Craig makes no bones about it.

Alberta, he says, should go it alone.

Almost overnight, we would become one of the most prosperous nations in the world.

But — and this is his key point — the main reason to secede is not because Albertans would have more money. Not that there’s anything wrong with money.

More importantly, we would create a country that reflects our own political and social beliefs, values and traditions, and our understanding of the common good.

Canada, says Craig, has been so badly governed since the Trudeau era, it has doomed itself to a Third World, banana republic fate.

When the Quebec referendum was held a decade ago, one of my co-workers predicted the biggest consequence of a free Quebec would not be one more annoying Francophone country in the world, but the states of Saskatchewan, Alberta, British Columbia, and Manitoba.

Just think, we could drive to Alaska without a passport again.

Come home to US, western Canada. You can finally charge American dollars for hockey tickets.

Seen on the Web site of the Animal Protection Association of Missouri:

Click for full size

Good with children, favorite toy is a blanket and

Funny how that sentence trails off, as though the copy writer couldn’t finish it, ainna?

Current standings, Summer 2005:

Pit Bulls: 20
Sharks: 6
Alligators: 1
Sea Lions: 1

(Submitted to the Outside the Beltway Traffic Jam.)

Well, Governor Rod Blagojevich won’t surrender his arms:

Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich put the Pentagon on formal notice Monday that he will not approve its proposed move of F-16 fighter aircraft from the 183rd Fighter Wing in Springfield to Indiana.

In a letter sent to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, the governor argued that under federal law if he does not consent to the realignment, the change can not legally be made.

What do you think it means?

I often disagree with Bill McClellan of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, but when he pans Kelo, who am I to argue? He says:

City Councilman Barry Greenberg was the only city official who attended the meeting. Good for him. On the other hand, it was awkward to see the relationship the people have with the councilman. They had to restrain their anger. He has the power to ruin them. He will be voting for or against the development plans.

I have a duty to look at these plans, he said solemnly.

Why? That’s what I wondered. Since when do local officials have the responsibility to decide whether to use eminent domain to let developers take away homes and businesses? By the way, ideologically, this seems to be an equal opportunity crime. It was the liberal wing of the U.S. Supreme Court that recently declared local governments have that right, but the mayor of Maplewood is a former radio executive who yanked the Dixie Chicks off his station when they criticized George W. Bush. It’s as if both sides of the political spectrum have come together to agree on one thing: Money rules.

Family sets up murder suspect’s surrender:

Kevin Johnson, the suspect sought in the shooting death of a Kirkwood police sergeant, was arrested without incident in north St. Louis County on Friday afternoon, police said.

Johnson, 19, was the subject of an intense manhunt after Tuesday’s shooting of police Sgt. William McEntee. McEntee was responding to a call in Kirkwood’s Meacham Park neighborhood just before 8 p.m. when he was shot several times.

Johnson surrendered at the Ventura Village Apartments on Jacobi Drive and Nemnich Road, police said.

Northwoods Police Chief Greg Moore said Friday night a detective in his department received a call from one of Johnson’s family members just after 5 p.m. Friday.

Moore said Johnson “wanted to turn himself in without any fanfare and without being harmed.”

The detective who received the call and another officer drove to pick up the family member, then headed to Ventura Village Apartments, Moore said.

When they arrived, the relative directed them to an apartment near the back of the complex. Moore said another relative greeted them at the door.

Johnson was sitting on a couch in the apartment with his hands in front of him, Moore said.

Moore described Johnson’s demeanor as “humble and cooperative” as he was taken into custody.

Well, in an alternate universe, the one painted by racial agitators, the cops don’t need an excuse to kill a young black man, and when one is suspected of shooting a middle-aged white police man, the police will surround his hideout and kill him and some nearby blacks in a hail of retaliatory gunfire.

That didn’t happen in this situation; as a matter of fact, the aphrension of the suspect was smooth and without conflict. Perhaps we don’t live in the racial agitators’ alternate universe after all, but this possibility hasn’t inspired any marches.

Jury finds heavy smoking to be grounds for eviction:

In a case that tobacco law specialists say is one of the first of its kind in the nation, a Boston Housing Court jury ruled that a South Boston couple could be evicted from their rented water-view loft for heavy smoking, even though smoking was allowed in their lease.

The landlord who rented the Sleeper Street unit to Erin Carey and Ted Baar ordered them out within a week last November, after neighbors complained of the smoke odors filtering into their apartments.

Carey and Baar, who each smoke about a pack a day and run an information technology sales business out of the one-bedroom unit, fought the eviction, arguing in court that the converted warehouse’s shoddy construction and aging ventilation system were to blame for the wayward odors.

Last Friday, a jury ruled in favor of the landlord and the eviction. Even though the landlord could have written a nonsmoking clause into the lease and didn’t, the jury found that the couple’s heavy smoking violated a more general clause banning ”any nuisance; any offensive noise, odor or fumes; or any hazard to health.”

Beware the word any within your contracts.

Of course, this is not so much a smoker’s rights issue as an issue for all of us. Within any of the standard contracts that govern our rights–from the terms of use for our Web hosts, to the service contracts for ISPs or cellular phones, and into the terms of our leases or mortgages, any number of the clauses are written to make the big corporation with the shrewd attorneys and uninformed, gloss-overish salespeople who only want you to sign the standard contract so they can get their commissions. Those corporations won’t renegotiate the finer points with you because you, individual customer, are not worth the trouble.

But when someone wants to cut you out, revoke your lease, or foreclose upon you, they rely upon these nebulous things within the contract stacked against you to do so.