Musings from Brian J. Noggle

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.

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.)

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:

• Turned the Arch pink.
• That Sudafed Protection bill he co-sponsored with DiFi.
• The Confluence National Heritage Boondoggle.

And I thought it made a difference when I helped unseat Jean Carnahan.

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.

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.

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.

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.