Category: News

Sink or swim: Neighborhood pools struggle to compete with public facilities:

Chesterfield, Manchester, Ballwin, Des Peres and other West County communities have built elaborate aquatic centers in recent years.

Those facilities are among the factors swamping some neighborhood and subdivision swimming pools, once the staple of the suburbs but now finding it tough to compete with the publicly funded pools.

You know, certain people condemn Wal-Mart for this sort of behavior. Local governments want to prove that their micromunicipality is as good as the next, so they waste tax money on these wet amusement parks and “invest” in a future of rising costs of maintenance for these facilities. Meanwhile, they raise our taxes to fund pension plans for police and government employees and to take care of other ongoing expenses for which the local government is short of funds.

All this to duplicate services offered by these private groups, local gyms, and the YMCAs.

When did the equation building waterparks = governance enter our civics textbooks? Probably when the governments found that they could just write it in.

Nugget from this story: Skydiver Dies After Striking Plane in Fla.:

Skydive DeLand, which organized the jump, said Saturday’s accident was not common. The death was the second involving the company this year.

Two deaths this year by April, and the accident wasn’t common? Brother, that’s too common to us consumers.

Ladies and gentlemen, watch what the authorities do to child molestors, because they will eventually take those same measures with other offenders.

• Registries and posting their names on the Internet? Already crept to prostitution and arsonists.
• Permanent institutionalization beyond the sentence imposed by the court.
• GPS tracking of previous offenders.

Because the crimes are so repellent, citizens will accept these measures and parents will clamor for them. But as the first item shows, once these rights are abrogated to protect the children, law makers and law enforcement officials will use those mechanisms to persecute other criminals who might commit the same crime in the future.

Sure, Westchester County only wants sex offenders to wear a bracelet; but sex offenders can take those off. Countdown to mandatory microchipping has begun.

O’Connor Dismisses Ado Over Int’l Law:

O’Connor, a Reagan appointee, participated in a lively one-hour discussion at the National Archives with Justices Antonin Scalia and Stephen G. Breyer. She said if there is no controlling U.S. precedent or the viewpoint of states is unsettled, “of course we look at foreign law.”

“This is much ado about nothing,” she said in response to a question by moderator Tim Russert of NBC. “Our Constitution is one that evolves. What’s the best way to know? State legislatures — but it doesn’t hurt to know what other countries are doing.”

Our constitution has a mechanism in it for evolution. It’s the amendment process.

Any other evolution, a la reading the penumbras, emanations, and secret codes inherent in interpreting the rights derived from reading the third letter after every punctuation mark isn’t constitutional evolution. It’s judicial creationism.

(Link seen on Althouse.)

More women’s bodies protected by security cameras:

A San Francisco police officer is facing possible disciplinary action for allegedly using surveillance cameras at San Francisco International Airport to ogle women as they walked through the terminal, according to San Francisco Police Commission documents.

Oddly enough, he’s in the most trouble because apparently it wasn’t his turn at the cameras:

Police share the surveillance system with several agencies. When the Police Department traffic substation is controlling a camera, none of the other agencies is able to use that camera, the charging documents note.

Rossi allegedly spent a total of three hours manipulating six of the cameras.

He ignored coworkers’ warnings that he should not be using the cameras, saying “he did not care since he was not assigned to the substation he would not get in trouble,” according to the charging documents.

Here’s a feel-good story with a happy ending:

At first, Charles Kulage suspected a buddy was playing a joke by calling to verify his address and then saying his $4,296 federal tax refund check had been found at St. Peters’ recycling center.

But it wasn’t a joke. While sorting paper, a worker at the recycling center spotted the check Monday and saved it from destruction.

A happy ending until you consider how much attention workers pay to papers in the recycling bin.

This message brought to you by someone too paranoid for a shredder.

Ladies and gentlemen, I want a new organization. I want People for Ethical Treatment By Animals. Because I don’t think it’s right that people are treated this way by animals:

74-year-old animal lover was found dead in her home after what police believe was a brutal attack by the woman’s two mixed-breed dogs.

Animals shouldn’t treat people this way. Join us next week when we splash some red paint on a chow to protest that breed’s tendency to bite off the hand that feeds it.

US sent banned corn to Europe for four years:

All imports of United States corn have been stopped at British ports following the discovery that the US has been illegally exporting a banned GM maize to Europe for the past four years.

It’s all part of the long-term Bush plan to alter the genetics of Europeans using genetically-modified corn to make Europeans lazy and unself-determined and to suppress their sex drives, yielding a lower birth rate so that Europe has to rely on radical, non-integrating Islamic immigrants for population stability. Ultimately, the Bush administration wants to generate a rationale for the Second Crusades which will begin in twenty years when Empress Barbara I invades Europe to liberate the Cradle of the Enlightenment from the Heathen.

That’s why the United States, as a nation and a single entity, shipped genetically modified corn to Europe. Those who think it might have been a single company’s error swallowed in the bureacracy are simplistic and lack the imagination for proper conspiracy-mongering.

Spokesperson spokes:

The TSA won’t comment on the specifics of the reports until they are released, spokesman Mark Hatfield Jr. said.

But, he said: “When the political posturing is over, rational people will see that American screeners today are the best we have ever had and that they are limited only by current technology and security procedures that are significantly influenced by privacy demands.”

Handy thumbnail translation for those of you outside of the government:

“We need more money and less oversight to increase our productivity.”

Three quick hitz from the last week’s Shepherd Express, which we picked up in Milwaukee but didn’t actually use to find activities downtown:

• Something Doesn’t Add Up: Did John Kerry Win?
  

  Five months after the election of George W. Bush on Nov. 2, 2004, something still doesn’t add up.

  Although the election results have been accepted by the majority of the country, a nonpartisan group of university-affiliated statisticians and other experts found that something may have gone very, very wrong—so wrong that the wrong man may be sitting in the White House.

  This group, USCountVotes, looked at the exit poll results taken throughout Election Day by Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International. The exit polls indicated that Democratic nominee John Kerry would win by 3% of the popular vote. Nevertheless, George W. Bush officially won the national popular vote by 2.5%. This type of discrepancy is the largest to ever occur in a presidential election. Exit polls are conducted with those who have just voted—they are not a sampling of “probable” or “eligible” voters before the election.

  Five months after the election and a non-partisan but named group has analyzed the exit polls and determined John Kerry won the presidency. If only we could get the damn constitution and its means for determining the presidency out of the way. What’s next for these people? In 2000, they wanted to selectively recount ballots from only certain areas; in 2004, they want to use exit polls instead of ballot counts. What’s next for 2008? I’m less than eager to find out.

• In a piece entitled "Destroying Dorothy: How a media tycoon got even with a Hollywood actress", the author poses this question:
  

  How much, if at all, was newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst to blame for the shocking fate that overtook the brilliant young Hollywood actress Dorothy Comingore?

  The author then spends two pages recounting what happened to Comingore, but the only evidence presented against Hearst is that she starred in Citizen Kane and that Hearst was rich and powerful. Ergo, or Ogre as the case may be, Hearst was behind it all. Because that’s the only reason it could have happened.

• But, on the other hand, I am what Media Musings columnist Dave Berkmann calls a blogosphere enforcer:
  

  You have to wonder—five years out, will any expression that a right-wing administration and its blogosphere enforcers object to be considered acceptable?

  I would bust Berkmann’s kneecaps, digitally and metaphorically of course, were he worthy of the attention. Because columnists among real papers know they’re inconsequential in 2005 unless the blogosphere either loves them or hates them. But Mr. Berkmann, I don’t think of you.

Since 2000, a large number of publications have become largely unreadable, with every article and column somehow bemoaning the controlling force of the Administration in Washington. Harper’s, Time, The Shepherd Express….

Funny how these sorts of publication laud more intrusion helpful participation from the Federal government in daily lives, whether through free health care that will determine who gets what care, to regulation that makes it harder for new pharmaceutical products that will help many come to market because it will harm a few, to what words the FCC will ban from television (whether it’s racial epithets that are banned or swear words). Unfortunately, its the growth of this encroachment benevolent despotism that makes the occupant of the White House too damn important for daily life and for overemotionalism in daily, weekly, and monthly publications.

Here in Missouri, we’re not blessed with sharks, so the media needs to latch onto slightly more, um, mundane trends to carry it through the summer.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch has seized upon just such a pattern of natural disaster with its second story in two days about marauding birds. Today’s entry: Boy feels the effect of goose nesting season:

Five-year-old Chase Standefer wanted to get a fishing lesson but instead got schooled about another type of wildlife.

As he set foot on tiny Jolie Isle in Lake Saint Louis on Sunday afternoon with his stepfather, Robert Price, a nesting goose attacked the boy, causing a small but deep gash on his scalp.

I cannot wait for the in-depth local television news investigating if the birds around your house will attack you.

(First story about bird attacks here.)

As he explains:

…there is rising anger among Republican activists and donors with the perceived dithering on judges in the Senate. It has been five months since the sweeping wins of November and three months since the Senate convened. But only one of the filibustered appeals court nominees has even cleared committee –a second might do so today– and despite Majority Leader Frist’s repeated declarations that he has the votes to end the filibuster, no clear schedule has been laid out that details when that vote will occur, and the MSM is doing its best to raise doubts about the reliability of Senator Frist’s 50 votes. Reports of compromise discussions and senators’ worries over “tradition” have become a staple of the political press.

The result is that the GOP is in real danger of alienating a significant slice of its activist base –a base that has gladly contributed to the campaigns of new senators John Thune, Saxby Chambliss, Jim Talent, John Cornyn, John Sununu, Norm Coleman, Lindsey Graham, Jim DeMint, Mel Martinez, Richard Burr, David Vitter, and Tom Coburn because it understood the need to add Republicans if the body was going to work. They gave to the individual campaigns and to the Senate Republican National Committee, and thousands volunteered long hours throughout the last two cycles.

Hewitt pooh-poohed the thought of the Republicans losing support because of substantive issues such as fiscal irresponsibility, excessive FCC fines and, coming soon, jail time for minor infractions of “decency,” McCain-Feingold, Sarbannes-Oaxley, Medicare prescriptions, whistling past the Social Security graveyard, or any of the other hubristic party-in-power lapses.

No, in Hewitt’s view, what is leading to this crackup is essentially a procedural matter in government. Whereas the non-rank-and-files Hewitt wouldn’t be sad to see leave the Republicans worried about the content of the party’s convenant with the country, Hewitt’s worried about a particular comma in the fourth paragraph.

Note the slant of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch headline: "Lifting of limits in Dallas could cost AA":

A push by Southwest Airlines to lift restrictions on its flights from Love Field in Dallas could cost American Airlines at least $250 million a year in revenue, including a 39 percent revenue drop on flights between Dallas/Fort Worth and St. Louis, according to an industry report.

You know, I think this increased competition would be good for consumers, you know, the little guy. But the St. Louis Post-Dispatch is not his champion; it’s the fierce cheerleader of government meddling in markets to benefit one company over another or over the citizen.

Today’s lesson in how to make yourself a punchline in one lawsuit or fewer: "Woman sues store, claims she was attacked by bird":

A Centreville woman claimed in a suit filed Wednesday in Madison County Circuit Court that a bird attacked and seriously injured her while she was shopping at a hardware store in Alton.

Rhonda Nichols, 40, alleges in the suit that a bird flew into the back of her head while she was at the outside gardening area of the Lowe’s Home Center, 1619 Homer Adams Parkway.

Nichols is seeking damages against the store in excess of $50,000.

Shocking new AARP study: Harder to swallow: Prices for seniors’ brand-name drugs rising fast, study finds

Wholesale prices for brand-name drugs commonly used by seniors rose an average of 7.1 percent last year, far outpacing the general inflation rate, according to a study released Tuesday by AARP.

The association representing seniors found that the 2004 price hike marked the largest one-year increase relative to inflation in the five years that AARP has sponsored the study. The U.S. inflation rate, as measured by the consumer price index, was 2.7 percent last year.

“I don’t see how it can incite trust in drug companies when they’re seeing the same drugs going up in prices, so much higher than inflation, year after year,” said David Gross, senior policy adviser with AARP’s Public Policy Institute and one of the study’s authors. “It’s not like these are different or better drugs. These are the same drugs.”

What, oh what, could cause price increases?

Painkiller Bextra pulled from shelves
Chicago Law Firm Files Bextra Class Action Lawsuit Against Pfizer
Merck Announces Voluntary Worldwide
Withdrawal of VIOXX®
Idaho lawsuit filed against Vioxx
Schatz & Nobel, P.C. Announces Class Action Lawsuit Against GlaxoSmithKline plc
Wyeth to Pay $5.5 Mln in Two More Fen-Phen Cases
Indian passage of patent law slammed
US’ Largest AIDS Group Seeks Improved Access to Life-Saving AIDS Drugs in Mexico
Connecticut mulls drug reimportation
Pharmacists fault Maine drug reimportation plan

The obvious answer, to fAARP, is greed on the part of the pharmaceutical companies, not the increased costs of business spurred by increased government scrutiny, media hysteria, and class action litigation.

Instead of using its members contributions to agitate for nationalization of the drug industry–which is the pit at the end of the slope, gentle reader–perhaps the fAARP could buy drug patents or perhaps develop some pharmaceuticals on their own.

Oh, but no. That would require actual work instead of commissioning studies, holding meetings, and having lunches.

(Submitted to the Outside the Beltway Beltway Traffic Jam.)

Professor Bainbridge reports that, like Washington University students, some UCLA students are striking for higher tuition.

Who else suspects those who strike like this are also the sorts who would never bring a child into this miserable world, so they won’t have to pay ultimately for their own success?

Another surveillance camera triumph, as reported in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune and posted at Power Line:

According to the criminal complaint filed Monday in Hennepin County District Court, the victim boarded the bus at 7th St. and Nicollet Mall in downtown Minneapolis. Six to 10 young males in the back of the bus surrounded him and taunted him, making repeated references to his race (the victim is white, the suspects black). When the bus stopped at 34th and Fremont, they grabbed him and pulled him off, the complaint said. They punched and kicked the victim, breaking his wallet chain and fleeing with the wallet, which contained $17.

He ran to a nearby convenience store and called 911. He suffered scrapes and bruises to his face, forehead, hands and back, the complaint said.

Video surveillance from the bus shows the group dragging the victim onto the sidewalk, according to Metro Transit police.

“It was outrageous,” said Metro Transit police Capt. Dave Indrehus. “The victim in this case was totally innocent, had nothing to do with these parties.”

The video shows that other bus passengers did not try to intervene, Indrehus said. “Quite frankly, I don’t know if I would blame them,” he said. “You may end up becoming a victim yourself.”

Remember the benefits of video surveillance:

• It’s cheap.
• It provides evidence.
• It puts no law enforcement personnel at risk.

Doesn’t help that poor kid much, though, does it?

Also, special kudos to the police captain for praising the non-intervention of the citizens on the bus. Keep ’em docile.