Musings from Brian J. Noggle

From Neil Steinberg’s column today, wherein he describes how polarized political society has gotten, we have this:

The electorate is as calcified and entrenched as I’ve ever seen it, divided by those who would vote for Bush if it turned out he was paid by Osama bin Laden to invade Iraq and so hasten the day of Islamic jihad there, and those who would vote for Kerry if photos surfaced of him in Hanoi in the 1960s standing behind Jane Fonda, his fist in the air in the black power salute as she inspected Viet Cong anti-aircraft guns.

I don’t know how I should take that comparison. Right wingers, which I would guess includes me, would vote for Bush even if he were a paid operative of a foreign power actively involved in a conspiracy against the best interests of the United States, whereas more reasonable left wingers would vote for John Kerry if he openly supported, through “protests,” an enemy power currently at war with the United States while he was in that foreign country (which is the key difference, since he only did that here and in Paris, France, but never in North Vietnam).

Message, again: People who support Bush are whackos.

I must be the most whack of the lot since I support Bush and read Steinberg three times a week.

Perhaps Associated Press writer A. Josef Hebert only dabbles in American English as a second language, as he resorts to the dreaded so-called adjective:

In a secret operation, the United States last month removed from Iraq nearly two tons of uranium and hundreds of highly radioactive items that could have been used in a so-called dirty bomb, the Energy Department disclosed Tuesday.

I’m unsure what that particular adjective adds to the sentence. Unless Hebert’s paid five cents a word, in which case it adds a dime to Hebert’s pocket.

(Link courtesy Perry on Politics.)

Whitney Gould, the architectural columnist for the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, muses on what to do with “big box” store buildings after the big box stores have moved on. Go check out her July 4 column.

Me, I read her all the time as a residual effect of too many adolescent readings of The Fountainhead and too much adolescent appreciation of Patricia Neal as Dominique Francon. But you can read her for other reasons, as ye liste.

The mayor of a small newly-suburban outpost in St. Louis County has discovered the joys of property rights infringement: Arnold Mayor declares war on vacant buildings:

Arnold Mayor Mark Powell is hoping that unsightly, abandoned buildings in the city will soon be nothing but an ugly memory. Powell reported that the city is cracking down on building owners who fail to maintain their properties.

“I have reviewed our property maintenance codes and have determined that sufficient authority exists within the code to deal with the maintenance of the boarded-up buildings,” said Powell. “The code provides for buildings to be kept up such that the building looks ready for use. This means no peeling paint, no boarded up windows, no missing shingles, no missing sign faces.”

Or else it will be seized for a new Wal-Mart or New Utopianist mixed use apartment/condo/retail development that will be boarded-up buildings belonging to someone else in twenty years.

Yo, Powell, if you’re so interested in making Arnold something more than a St. Louis-area punchline, how about you reform its ordinances to make it a business-friendly environment, so that the owners of the properties to which you refer would lose money by leaving them in their current states.

Oh, but no. Just seize them, dish them out to friends, and screw the person who put down capital on it in the first place. It’s your perogative as duly-elected despot.

These guys always have sufficient authority, don’t they?

The joke’s set up line, as published by the BBC, begins with the headline Sunspots reaching 1,000-year high:

A new analysis shows that the Sun is more active now than it has been at anytime in the previous 1,000 years.

Scientists based at the Institute for Astronomy in Zurich used ice cores from Greenland to construct a picture of our star’s activity in the past.

They say that over the last century the number of sunspots rose at the same time that the Earth’s climate became steadily warmer.

This trend is being amplified by gases from fossil fuel burning, they argue.

Got that? Driving an SUV causes sunspots. Maybe even space-time distortions that threaten our very existence, or perhaps just the holes that stupid people will punch in November.

On the other hand, global warming has proven to be our main defense against planetary invasion from the venomous snowcrawlers from Dis X. So I guess you have to take the bad with the good.

If I weren’t laughing, I would be crying.

Who knew Mexico’s armed force had automatic weapons? Too bad all dozen and a half of its forces showed up and interrupted a Marine funeral for a Mexican-American:

Mexican soldiers carrying automatic weapons interrupted the U.S. Independence Day funeral of a U.S. Marine and demanded that the Marine honor guard give up ceremonial replicas of rifles they carried.

Hundreds of friends and relatives packed a small cemetery for the funeral on Sunday of 22-year-old Juan Lopez, who was born in this sun-scorched farming town, immigrated to Dalton, Georgia, as a teenager and became a Marine.

Message received, “allies”. Hey, you guys remember when Mexico was a French possession? Ain’t history fun?

Stop the madness! Now there’s a Pro Plan Performance Bar nutritional supplement for dogs!

Just eliminate yourself from the decision-making process if your choices lead to your death, just like this woman’s estate:

The plaintiff, Linda Lou Poag, executrix of Rubick’s estate, claims that Atkins and two other doctors at the Atkins Center were negligent in treating Rubick’s cancer.

In 1995, Rubick, then 39, underwent a lumpectomy of her right breast for treatment of stage two breast cancer, according to court papers. The surgeon – not affiliated with Atkins – referred Rubick to a traditional oncologist for chemotherapy.

Rubick decided instead to pursue “alternative care” with Dr. Atkins, care that consisted of such “quackery” as dietary manipulation, enemas and vitamin therapy, the suit says. [Emphasis mine, since I’m the only one who seems to think “decide” is an active verb, requiring a subject. Unfortunately, I have no connection with the legal system.]

Apparently, Willie Sutton is the patron saint of attorneys.

I am going to write to my Congressman, Todd Akin, and ask him to introduce a bill into Congress that sets a statute of limitation for pillage and other historical wrongs.

In addition to the newly-normal clamor for slave reparations (for an injustice done 140 years ago at the minimum in this country), it looks as though some people are suing Elizabeth Taylor over a painting that’s been in her family for two generations now, which is 41 years in absolute reckoning:

Descendants of Margarete Mauthner allege “View of the Asylum of Saint-Remy” was taken from the German woman during World War II, and are demanding that Taylor returns the painting, which appraisers said could fetch $10 million to $15 million at auction.

Taylor, whose father bought her the painting at a London auction in 1963, has filed a lawsuit seeking a pre-emptive court declaration that she is the rightful owner of the painting, which hangs in the living room of her Bel-Air estate.

After forty years, descendents are suing, which means that no one involved in the pillaging is available for testimony. I understand it’s fifteen million dollars in the balance, but give me a break. Undoubtedly, each dollar and possession that passes through my hands has some unethical heritage in its ancestry if one were to look deeply enough, and with enough imagination, but that does not give others the right to take it from me in the name of their wronged ancestors from millenia past.

From a story in today’s St. Louis Post-Dispatch:

A robber probably figured he found an easy target when he saw a blonde in spaghetti straps walking alone in a Westport Plaza parking lot early Thursday.

But he picked the wrong woman.

The purse he snatched was tucked under the arm of an off-duty St. Louis County police officer who wouldn’t let it go without a fight.

As Fark would say, jailarity ensues. Unfortunately, Fark has yet to coin the term broken-kneecaparity ensues.

UPDATE: From the “I Wish I Would Have Said That” Department, we offer Aaron of Free Will Blog’s take:

At least the Post-Dispatch didn’t run it with the headline “Jobless Man’s Kneecap Broken After Woman Is Mugged”.