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Posts for January, 2010
The sovereign international right to blow you up
Vladimir Putin said something interesting the other day: He said the United States' ability to fend off attack is a problem for Russia.
"The problem," he said, "is that our American partners are building an anti-missile shield and we are not building one."
And, so, "to preserve the balance we must develop offensive weapons systems, not missile defence systems as the United States is doing." »Read Full Blog Post(18)
Not a tree falls but that Scott Walker might, somehow, be blamed
How awful, we are now being told, that Scott Walker has neglected the historic old brick-piles designed by Alexander Eschweiler and perched on a hill at the County Grounds.
Chris Liebenthal, a county social worker who's been miffed at Milwaukee County Executive Walker for not being sufficiently deferential to public sector unions, says he took a hike up to the buildings, now empty, and spotted how a falling tree had damaged one. And vandalism! This is what you get for electing Walker.
Right. But a quick flick of the fingers through Journal Sentinel's files turns up interesting chronology. The buildings, long since unused by the county, were already in the process of being boarded up in the mid-1990s, when, the Journal Sentinel reported, it was only the hassle of having to re-route utilities that kept one from being razed. »Read Full Blog Post(67)
The first hit is always free
You know those retrograde governors of backwards states that turned down "stimulus" help? As the Wall Street Journal editorialists pointed out the other day, the decision's looking smarter and smarter:
"In most state capitals the stimulus enticed state lawmakers to spend on new programs rather than adjusting to lean times. They added health and welfare benefits and child care programs. Now they have to pay for those additions with their own state's money.
"For example, the stimulus offered $80 billion for Medicaid to cover health-care costs for unemployed workers and single workers without kids. But in 2011 most of that extra federal Medicaid money vanishes. Then states will have one million more people on Medicaid with no money to pay for it." »Read Full Blog Post(7)
Talk to my firewall, you pesky constituent
The guy who runs the Weyauwega-Fremont schools has decided that no one on his staff must pay any attention to a local woman: Her incoming e-mails will be blocked by the district's computers. Reports the Appleton Post-Crescent:
"The school district administrator, F. James Harlan, defended his decision to filter out her e-mail messages at a recent school board meeting, claiming they should be treated as 'spam.'
" 'It is for abuse of the system,' said Harlan, at the December board meeting claiming he is enforcing the district's e-mail policy to prevent any more e-mail messages from Mary Fitzpatrick, a Weyauwega resident." »Read Full Blog Post(21)
Taxpayer uprising required
Don't miss the brilliant piece in Sunday's Journal Sentinel by John Marshall, who, knowing a thing or two professionally about finance, suggests something more productive for the Milwaukee Public Schools than a mayoral deck-chair reshuffling.
Education aside, the district is a fiscal wreck, as nearly everyone has pointed out. Marshall fingers the cause:
"The key principle that has been stretched here is the notion that organizations, public and private alike, feel it is good policy to provide benefits to people who no longer work for them -- and to pay for these benefits after the employees have departed. . . . This method of compensation is unsustainable." »Read Full Blog Post(9)
I suppose a sofa isn't nearly as evocative
Seen the new billboards around Milwaukee denouncing the idea of babies sleeping with their mothers? They look like this:
It's part of a campaign the city health department's running after a year in which the press started noticing the deaths of babies smothered by sleeping adults. Obviously, sleeping adults can't smother babies if the infant is off in a crib, and so the city, keeping the talking point simple, is just saying no. »Read Full Blog Post(27)
What? He's just trying to beat the summer tourism rush.
Interesting tidbit about Rep. Paul Ryan, who represents southeastern Wisconsin from about Greenfield south:
He's heading for New Hampshire next month, reports CQ Politics.
Ryan, a Republican notable among congressmen for, one, actually understanding money and, two, for coming up with a sensible set of reforms for health care that won't turn it all over to Washington, has consistently brushed off any talk of running for national office. The trip, CQ's Shira Toeplitz says, is at the request of New Hampshire Republicans using Ryan's star power to raise some dough.
Which itself is interesting: A Wisconsin lawmaker with star power -- on the basis of good ideas. Still more interesting is the destination.
Evidence isn't the point. Intelligence is.
So why, when his father warned Americans in advance (as did Britain), was the pantybomber allowed onto a flight into America?
The Wall Street Journal's Gordon Crovitz notes that we were told why, back a month ago when congressmen were informed by the FBI about what it takes to get on no-fly lists. What it takes is comprehensible to lawyers, but the boil-down is, according to the FBI's chief screener, "Mere guesses or inarticulate 'hunches' are not enough to constitute reasonable suspicion."
For pity's sake, why? Well, because the FBI's standard is adapted from a 1968 Supreme Court case on Fourth Amendment protections in traffic stops. Crovitz writes: »Read Full Blog Post(56)
Wow: 245 mph. That's fast. For wheels.
Then there are all the predictions that China's going to leave us in the dust, since it's unveiling a system of the world's fastest trains. Randall O'Toole takes note.
The system will cost China billions, and the fares will be five times what ordinary trains cost, but they'll go 245 mph. Boy, if only we could get around at that. . .
Oh, wait: We get around in America on an even faster form of transportation. It goes about 600 mph. It beats trains on most trips, and it carries Americans 600 billion passenger miles a year, far more than the most optimistic projections for high-speed trains here. And it pretty much is funded out of passenger fees rather than general taxes.
So why, exactly, must we reinvent travel at the cost of untold billions of taxpayer money when airplanes work so well? (43)
If poverty causes crime, why has crime fallen in the recession?
You know the theory -- OK, the unexamined conventional wisdom -- that poverty causes crime. The delinquents in "West Side Story" were already cynical about it, yet there was the New York Times' editorial page bilging on as the recession worsened, urging President Barack Obama to spend more on after-school programs, social workers, make-work. "The economic crisis," the paper opined, "has clearly created the conditions for more crime and more gangs—among hopeless, jobless young men in the inner cities."
Except the data show it's not true, writes Heather Mac Donald. As prosperity broadened in the 1960s, for instance, crime soared. It pretty much hasn't correlated to the economy since then:
"By the end of 2009, the purported association between economic hardship and crime was in shambles. According to the FBI's Uniform Crime Reports, homicide dropped 10% nationwide in the first six months of 2009; violent crime dropped 4.4% and property crime dropped 6.1%. Car thefts are down nearly 19%. The crime plunge is sharpest in many areas that have been hit the hardest by the housing collapse. Unemployment in California is 12.3%, but homicides in Los Angeles County, the Los Angeles Times reported recently, dropped 25% over the course of 2009. Car thefts there are down nearly 20%. »Read Full Blog Post(36)
The all-too-solid ghost of Rembert Weakland
Sykes mentions an excellent point being brought up this morning by SNAP, the group that doggedly demands more repentence from Catholic officialdom over the sexual abuse of children.
The group is wondering why retired Archbishop Rembert Weakland is still hanging around. Specifically, why is he giving a speech at the cathedral on its renovation? Moreover, why is Weakland's face cast in bronze on the pedestal of the Marian shrine in the cathedral -- with the archbishop portrayed as watching over children?
Weakland, you'll recall, is the fellow who sent threatening letters to Catholics who complained to him about rogue priests abusing children. He was disgraced in a sex scandal of his own and, in his new book, appears not to grasp just how wrong he was. »Read Full Blog Post(23)
The problem isn't where you get the beer
Wauwatosa, sensibly, decides that it's not going to turn into Potterville if you're able to buy some Spotted Cow to take home when you stop to buy gasoline.
Good. The problem isn't where you get beer -- Oh, look! They've got beer at the gas station! I think I'll drink and drive! -- but, rather, what you do with the booze after you buy it.
Note, for instance, the other news, about the Kewaskum mother who, police say, figured an unsupervised sleepover of a dozen middle schoolers in a motel room with alcoholic lemon drinks and, for pity's sake, condoms was a good idea.
This isn't a retail problem. It's a judgment problem. (14)
The enemy of your suicidally mortal enemy is still not necessarily your friend
Mark Shea the other day wrote a worthwhile caution to Christians who, like me, admire Christopher Hitchens' writing about jihadism.
Keep in mind, Shea writes, just what cause Hitchens serves. This is the guy who writes books denouncing every sort of belief in any kind of God:
"Many conservative Christians do not seem to grasp that Hitchens scares the crap out of even so vicious an atheist as P. Z. Myers. Myers, despite being the sort of critter who thinks he's really achieved something by piercing a Host with a rusty nail and throwing it in the trash, is appalled by Hitchens's violent hatred of God and those who worship Him -- as well he should be. After attending a conference of atheists in which Hitchens unburdened himself of his views on What's Wrong with the World and What to Do about It, Myers came away sounding like a comparative voice of reason and sanity next to Hitchens: »Read Full Blog Post(19)
KSM and Blackwater rogues and the incredulous rest of the world
There's that adage about "Better 100 guilty parties go free than one innocent person be convicted," writes William Tucker in American Spectator. Regarding that phrase, he explains how it led to Iraqis being justly mad at us for not nailing the Blackwater rogues who shot up a Baghdad street. But first, and brilliantly:
"I found the original reference is Blackstone and the figure is 10, not 100, but the point is the same. If the justice system is to err, it must err on the side of the criminal defendant.
"I once wrote a book on crime and after hearing this phrase for about the 20th time, I came to one conclusion: Whoever said it wasn't planning on living in the same neighborhood with those 10 or 100 guilty criminals." (1)
How Republicans led us to Obamacare
Also in the Spectator, Greg Scandlen explains just how we came to the brink of this monstrosity of Obamacare: It's because Republicans, when in power, didn't understand the first thing about fixing health care.
"It's not that Republicans didn't do anything; in fact they passed a lot of legislation on health care. They enacted the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, the State Children's Health Insurance Program, Medicare prescription drugs, Medicare Advantage, and new waivers for state Medicaid programs.
"But they didn't have any coherent analysis of the real problems in the U.S. health care system. Republicans have never seemed truly interested in the issue, and they enacted these bills in the hopes of deterring Democrat initiatives, not actually improving a dysfunctional system. »Read Full Blog Post(25)
If you don't like suburbs, maybe you shouldn't live in them
I wrote in the Journal Sentinel the other day in praise of a certain attitude: that of accommodating home buyers' actual wants and needs rather than trying to persuade them that their wish for big yards and suburbia was wrong and impossible.
The anecdote I used was to write about Rick Harrison, a designer from the Twin Cities who says he's figured out how to do the geometry of subdivisions better – so even while using less pavement than traditional design, people still can find satisfactory amounts of elbow room, if that's what they want.
I got some interesting e-mail. »Read Full Blog Post(21)
Paul Ryan and the Republican bench
The Republicans needed a makeover, and, writes the Wall Street Journal's Kimberley Strassel, U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan was one of the guys to deliver it:
"What is happening instead is a real (if underreported) effort to reshape the party from the bottom up—to, in effect, repopulate it with a crop of reformist candidates in the midterm. Behind the effort are three congressmen—Wisconsin's Paul Ryan, Virginia's Eric Cantor and California's Kevin McCarthy.
"In 2007, Fred Barnes of the Weekly Standard profiled this trio as the 'Young Guns' of the GOP. Hailing from different parts of the country, from different perspectives, what the three shared was a core belief in fiscal conservatism, a wonkish interest in tackling systemic government failures (budget, entitlements), and an ability to connect to younger voters. »Read Full Blog Post(15)
Obscene and threatening usually don't work too well, socially speaking
My colleague Eugene Kane the other day opined that Bayshore Town Center's new ban on unsupervised teens on Friday and Saturday nights was aimed at black kids.
The mall put on the limits – identical to the ones that recivilized evenings at Mayfair mall – after a ruckus in the food court the day after Christmas. Kane, who is justly dismayed when Milwaukeeans think the worst of people on the account of skin color, wrote:
"Just like with Mayfair, the Bayshore situation seems to have more to do with perceptions rather than any actual threat from the teens. It's also more about the language and demeanor of some African-Americans -- males in particular -- who appear threatening to people not familiar with that particular group. »Read Full Blog Post(36)
That's not a loophole; it's a doughnut hole. Or a couple dozen. Chocolate-glazed.
One of the more baffling but foreseeable outcomes of the Obamacare discussion is this whine:
Pressure groups are upset about what they call a "loophole" whereby insurers selling their price-controlled, government-designed plans via "exchanges" will be able to raise rates for people who are heading for health disasters – the obese or people with high blood sugar, for instance.
Or, as the Associated Press put it: »Read Full Blog Post(32)
It isn't Barack Obama who should be accepting the apology
Or not just President Obama, much less his attorney general. But, in a, geez, huge surprise, the president and his employee say they forgive a critical congressional ally, Senate Dem leader Harry Reid, for having been revealed to have said during the campaign that Obama was electable because he's "light-skinned" for being black and because he had "no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one."
Anyhow, Obama says it's just fine when key Democrats say things like that. At lefty race-obsession sites, they're busily explaining code-switching. It looks like Reid will survive, only mildly scathed. And why not? Being a former leader in the Klan doesn't disqualify you from national politics, as long as you reliably vote Democrat.
Aside from the smallish point of whether the word "Negro" is still usable -- my colleague James Causey made a good case the other day that it's at the very least a kind troublesome antique -- the interesting point here is the notion that it's Obama who was the chief or even only offendee. »Read Full Blog Post(68)
Bargain rate if you make your own bed
Milwaukee County residents, doubtless wanting good parks, must thus pay for them, a new report says.
The report, from the Parks Department itself, looks ahead a decade or two and concludes that the system simply must have some source of money other than the county's exiting budget. The idea the report tosses out: An additional sales tax, presumably atop the county's existing sales tax.
"Told ya!" chortle the backers of the Extra Sales Tax for Various Stuff, an idea that passed muster by a slim margin of 51%-49% in a purely advisory referendum a while back. All right: It passed on the strength of overwhelming margins mainly in the city itself, being defeated almost universally in suburbs. And it included a question about the extra tax funding transit, too. »Read Full Blog Post(4)
The attitude that leads to generosity
Journal Sentinel community columnist George Wagner wrote the other day about how suburbanites ought to pay more to fund Milwaukee. He scolds suburbanites for not wanting to do so:
"Sure, they'll help out on a holiday food drive, but they don't want their taxes raised to lower classroom sizes in Milwaukee's inner city."
Get real. Suburbanites already are paying high state taxes that provide Milwaukee's public schools with four-fifths of their money, and for years that money's gone to steadily reduce the student-to-teacher ratio in MPS. It has produced no visible improvement. That suburbanites have remained as quiescent as they are about such a travesty is remarkable forbearance. »Read Full Blog Post(13)
Whatever Haiti is, it isn't forgotten
The island, wretchedly poor before, would seem to be one of the least equipped places on Earth for coping with an earthquake. But Haiti, for all that it lacks, appears to be anything but forgotten by Wisconsinites.
Just take a look at what emerges in in the wake of Tuesday's earthquake near Port au Prince: The Journal Sentinel calls around to find Wisconsinites who were in Haiti, just back from Haiti, planning to go to Haiti -- and it finds lots of them.
There are churchgoers from Hales Corners taking supplies to midwives. There were Rotarians from lake country building tech schools and a veterinarian nurturing goat agriculture. Episcopalians were back from hooking up Internet service; engineers from the University of Wisconsin were there designing infrastructure. Doctors, nurses, vision screeners, planners of support-the-farmer coffee operations -- all these people shuttling in and out of Haiti routinely, before the earthquake, doing things to make people's prospects better. »Read Full Blog Post(5)
Can you find the apples-oranges function in Excel?
I chuckle every time I think about One Wisconsin Now, the leftist pressure group, saying it's got numbers proving Scott Walker raised Milwaukee County spending more than Tom Barrett raised City of Milwaukee spending.
The Journal Sentinel's Patrick Marley tells you why:
"The analysis compares eight years of data for Walker to six years of data for Barrett, who hasn't led the city as long as Walker's been in charge of the county. Over the last six years, Walker has proposed a 25.5% increase in spending, OWN's numbers show -- 5.7 points below Barrett." »Read Full Blog Post(9)
The 1,000% increase in the state's skim off your stash
Bet you didn't know that Wisconsin taxes mutual funds. It does -- or, rather, it charges a filing fee, which is supposed to fund the state agency overseeing mutual funds.
The state, natch, is increasing the fees. It's increasing them big time, writes James Wigderson for the MacIver Institute: The maximum filing fee is going up 1,000%.
Which might still be tolerable, I suppose, if it were needed to pay for overseeing mutual funds. But, as Wigderson points out, mutual fund regulation is mainly federal. As for the state: »Read Full Blog Post(3)
It's a start at saying 'sorry'
Regarding that piece of art in the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist that has Archbishop Rembert Weakland looking solicitously at children, Amy Pawlak notes that removing it has benefits beyond relieving the eyes of churchgoers.
She notes that Weakland was directly responsible for the kind of supervisory neglect now getting the archdiocese sued. Thus:
"Given that the diocese faces the real possibility of being driven in to bankruptcy by lawsuits of sex abuse victims, and that Catholics must deal with harsh critics who use the sex abuse scandal as a club with which to bash the faith, it would be, at minimum, a gesture of good will to remove the artwork and discontinue any relationships with Weakland. Doing so would signal a break with the ideologies and attitudes that allowed such abuse to infiltrate the Catholic Church." (34)
Not a Kennedocracy
You might have heard that the race in Massachusetts to fill the Senate seat vacated by Ted Kennedy's death has unexpectedly tightened up. You might have heard, what's more, that a moderator in a debate asked Republican Scott Brown, who opposes Obamacare, how he'd feel to "sit in Ted Kennedy's seat" and be the guy who keeps the Senate from nationalizing health care.
You might have heard Brown gave a snappy answer. See the video here. Or read it:
"BROWN: Well, with all due respect, it's not the Kennedys' seat, and it's not the Democrats' seat, it's the people's seat."
And in Massachusetts, no less.
Did somebody suggest a 210% tax?
This from the Detroit News the other day: A new study suggests that, as attractive as the idea of electric cars in a gasoline-short future might sound, battery cars are a long way from making economic sense to buyers:
"The study by Boston Consulting Group ... concludes the cost of electric vehicles is unlikely to drop to the $250 per kilowatt/hour threshold that is cited by many carmakers for these vehicles to be competitive in price. That benchmark is not possible without a major breakthrough in battery technology, and no such breakthrough is on the horizon, said Xavier Mosquet, the Detroit-based leader of BCG's automotive group.
"As a result, the payback time for an all-electric vehicle in the U.S. is about 15 years, and for an extended-range vehicle such as the Chevrolet Volt it would be 19 years, the study finds." »Read Full Blog Post(7)
Yep, those Eurosocialists have it all figured out
OK, so Obama wants to install Eurostyle health care here. And just what's wrong with that, demand his defenders, who point out that Europe is remarkably prosperous.
How prosperous, you ask.
Well, better than West Virginia, at any rate. Mark Perry comes up with actual data. My favorites off his list: »Read Full Blog Post(80)
Somewhere, there's a doll with its foot stuffed into its mouth
Pat Robertson, the TV preacher, seemed to suggest that Haiti's cursed because revolutionary leaders 200 years ago made a pact with the devil.
Ah. Yes. Which is why there are about 599 other TV channels to watch. Mr. Robertson is 79, and so one wonders if there isn't a rocking chair in someplace quiet to which he can harmlessly retire, incommunicado.
Here, by the way, is a brief look at the tale Robertson was talking about. It is, point out historians, utter fiction.
Meanwhile, want to help? Here are places you can pitch in. (31)
Lake water into the Fox River. No, you can't say no.
Look up Fox Lake, Ill., on a map, please. See where it is. Look at the nearby towns of Wauconda, Antioch, Lake Villa, Volo. They're all where the streams don't head back to Lake Michigan.
Now relish this news: These are among the 10 Lake County, Ill., cities applying to draw water from Lake Michigan.
The 10 have wells inadequate to their needs, say officials, so they'd put in 57 miles of pipeline. The pipes would flow one way: The communities would send their treated wastewater down the Fox River and, eventually, to the Mississippi, just as they do now. They would not return it to Lake Michigan. They don't have to. »Read Full Blog Post(3)
Head Start provides no such thing
The feds release at last a study on whether Head Start, the program meant to get poor children out of their mothers' care and into professionally staffed preschools, actually does anything. Jay P. Greene sums up the answer:
"The study found virtually no lasting effects to participation in Head Start," he writes. Nearly every academic benefit it conferred on children relative to those who weren't in Head Start but were in every other way similar was gone by the end of first grade. »Read Full Blog Post(11)
Another stable transit funding source capsizes
Let's talk for a moment about that proposed panacea for Milwaukee-area bus budget woes -- a stable, independent funding source, also known as a sales tax.
We're told that all the cool cities have them and are happy.
Until, as they're seeing in Phoenix, there's a recession and the sales tax revenue hits the skids. Says the Arizona Republic: »Read Full Blog Post(5)
Two ways to cure a deficit: Sense and suicide
Some Republican lawmakers are teaming up with some Democrats -- aw, isn't it nice? -- to propose an independent commission that would fix our federal deficit.
Spare us, writes Peter Ferrara in the Spectator.
You have to understand first how much new government we've got in the past year, he writes. »Read Full Blog Post(7)
Yet one more disturbing, needless bit in the health care sausage
Obamacare, the Wall Street Journal reported the other day, includes a marriage penalty.
It affects people who would get insurance not from employers but through government-run "exchanges," and it works this way: Premiums would be capped, with taxpayers subsidizing any costs over the cap. Only:
"For an unmarried couple with income of $25,000 each, combined premiums would be capped at $3,076 per year, under the House bill. If the couple gets married, with a combined income of $50,000, their annual premium cap jumps to $5,160 -- a 'penalty' of $2,084. Those figures were included in a memo prepared by House Republican staff." »Read Full Blog Post(6)
Tea and pyromania
A commenter on this blog the other day was snarking about whether the Tea Party types were a flash in the pan.
Got your answer, buddy: They're heading outside with matches.
The smaller-government tea party sorts are planning a bonfire near Franksville Saturday afternoon.
It's from 3 p.m. to 4:30 p.m., there will be speakers, and it is, of course, free. And there's nothing to put you in the mood for defiance as hanging out by a bonfire in Wisconsin in January. (48)
The real question isn't who's working the ER but whether ERs will work
By now, you may have heard that the Democrat running for the vacant Senate seat in Massachusetts, Martha Coakley, said the other day that if Catholic doctors are so worried about being forced to give out a drug that may well cause an abortion, they should find another job.
Or, to quote her exactly, "You can have religious freedom but you probably shouldn't work in the emergency room."
Which is an idiot thing to do on a purely political level in a city as heavily Catholic as Boston, beyond the moral repugnance of telling citizens to leave their consciences at home. »Read Full Blog Post(11)
Or you could act like an adult and fix it
It's fascinating, if you can stomach it, to notice the latest hyperventilation about the matter of Milwaukee County Sheriff's deputies. The line essentially goes like this: Deputies might have to take furloughs, so -- see! see! -- Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker's wrong about government spending.
Hmm. Walker points out that it's precisely because deputies' work is different that he exempted them from furloughs in the first place. "They're 24/7, so you don't save any money if you furlough any of those spots," he said.
So how did it come to where the DA is talking about restraining orders being slowed and the sheriff was mentioning early releases? »Read Full Blog Post(6)
Voodoo? Heck no. It was Poseidon who was mad
Actor Danny Glover, deviating from script and thus in trouble, the other day rambled to a television host about how the Haiti earthquake was the result of global warming.
Which would be isolated lunacy on a par with Pat Robertson's bit about pacts with the devil -- except, as Brendan O'Neill at Spiked pointed out, Glover was following a well-trod path.
"The real reason Robertson's comments are shocking is not because he has misanthropically moralised a natural disaster as punishment for people's sinful behaviour, but because he has done so in the name of God rather than Gaia. These days it is not acceptable to present terrible acts of nature as manifestations of God's divine fury, but it is de rigueur to depict them as some kind of climatic payback for our greed and addiction to consumerism." »Read Full Blog Post(16)
Eminent threats
News comes that one Milwaukee business, a school bus company, has been persuaded to part with land that a neighboring business wanted for expansion.
Integrated Mail didn't want to pay the price Bee Bus wanted for the land. Instead of raising its offer, it got the city to threaten Bee Bus with eminent domain, whereby the city would take the land at what price it dictated.
The parties have settled, for a somewhat higher price, with city taxpayers apparently adding some grease via the public purchase of some of the land for a retention pond. Win-win, one supposes, except for Bee Bus' original contention that Integrated wasn't bargaining fairly to begin with, knowing as it did the city could make the seller cooperate. »Read Full Blog Post(1)
There ought to be a . . . well, wait a minute
And we are minutely instructed by ever-multiplying laws in matters of common sense why, exactly? Because, writes Steve Prestegard, of Schoolhouse Rock.
Actually, Prestegard is commending a commendable commenter on another blog. The gist:
"For years it has been the default reaction 'This is an outrage … there ought to be a law!' Why? In the 70s (maybe late 60's) when SHR came out kids across the nation learned in a "short & fun way" how a bill becomes a law. Sadly, they didn't learn the real reason WHY we need laws!"
Or why we need restraint, both in life and in passing laws. Because when people say there ought to be a law and then pass them without hindrance, Prestegard notes, you get all kinds of things: Laws saying blacks can't sit up front on a bus, laws prohibiting beer, laws ordering you to buckle up, laws mandating minimum wages -- all sorts of legal monstrosities. (2)
Family values? Tax like you mean it
Why is our tax policy, for all its admirable cutting of confiscatory rates over the past three decades, still so harsh on families?
Robert Stein in National Affairs explains what's missing from conservative tax-cut theory.
I'd summarize it, but Dad29 already did so quite handily, catching this key passage: »Read Full Blog Post(6)
You know that Jack Bauer is fiction, yes?
No, apparently, writes Marc A. Thiessen at National Review, in a remarkable piece stemming from his sit-down with the CIA guys who interrogated Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
Thiessen got to interview the men because he was writing a speech for then-President George W. Bush and needed to know how interrogations worked. While "24," a cracking good TV show, has its Jack Bauer shocking or amputating or submerging his questionees -- and while critics of the Bush administration seemed to imagine that real-life interrogations work that way -- the fact is that they didn't.
This is critical, since the critics claim that harsh interrogation, even if not legally torture, doesn't work -- that terrorists, being interrogated harshly, will make up any nonsense to make it stop. But, writes Thiessen: »Read Full Blog Post(5)
You pay for free health care by handing over power
Then there are those essays that you think about for days because they're brilliant on core realities. U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan came up with one the other day -- actually, it's a speech, and you can read it here.
In fact, you should. Ryan pinpoints exactly why Obamacare is such a drive-over-the-cliff issue for the left, one they're apparently willing to lose elections over.
Why? Because it solidifies the dominance of goverment over all other parts of society. »Read Full Blog Post(13)
President Obama knows what he is doing
More from Paul Ryan's remarkable speech, which you can read here. He pinpoints why the fight to save health care from government domination is so critical, and why its takeover is so desired by "progressives."
Key passage:
"In a TV interview in mid-December, President Obama said: 'If we don't pass it...the federal government will go bankrupt, because Medicare and Medicaid are on a trajectory that are [sic] unsustainable....if we don't do this, nobody argues with the fact that health care costs are going to consume the entire federal budget.' »Read Full Blog Post(61)
Campaigns as if free speech mattered
The Supreme Court gets a big one right, overturning years of crusted-over attempts to make political campaigns "fairer" by ever more strictly limiting how citizens can spend their money to make their views heard.
Very good. Landmark good.
Justice Stevens, in a 90-page dissent (that I haven't yet had time to read, so I'm relying on journalism), makes the best case for Things As They Are. He said the decision was "a rejection of the common sense of the American people, who have… fought against the distinctive corrupting potential of corporate electioneering since the days of Theodore Roosevelt." »Read Full Blog Post(5)
Now, if it permits unions to give, too . . .
Interesting to note the reaction of unions to the Supremes' ruling opening up campaign finance.
The ruling appears not only to have overturned limits on what corporations -- which includes political groups, too -- can spend in propagating opinions. It overturns limits on what unions can spend, too.
Which is good. Unions frequently have malign, twisted views on political matters, but free speech is for everyone. »Read Full Blog Post(11)
The activism of finding a First Amendment
I guarantee you, btw, that you'll be hearing the partisans of campaign finance "reform" going on about activist judges now that the Supremes have overturned limits on political giving.
After all, what's falling are prohibitions that have been in law for more than a century, and how can justices overturning that not be called "activist," and don't you conservatives hate judicial activism, and aren't you thus shown to be a bunch of hypocritical snakes? (Can you tell I've heard this a bunch of times already?)
Paul Sherman at National Review points out a critical distinction: While limits on corporate spending in campaigns has been limited for more than a century, what was at stake wasn't a corporation's donation to a candidate. Rather, the case was about whether a political group -- legally, a corporation -- could spend money on politics independent of a campaign. Laws against that are much younger, dating from the 1990s. This was hardly settled law. »Read Full Blog Post(20)
The horror of Milwaukee having to ask for help
Interesting how the pizza restaurant fire on Milwaukee's east side supposedly nails the case that the city's fire department has been eviscerated.
Ald. Bob Donovan, who says very many things, lots of them sensible, argues that the big fire shows the fire department cannot possible do with any fewer firefighters. The city has been rotating some "brownouts" -- one-day shutdowns -- of fire companies as a way of cutting staffing costs in the city's current budget pinch.
And the result has been? Not that Pizza Man burned. No one has argued, nor can they, that the fire department lacked either men or equipment at that blaze. The sole claim is that because the fire department's staffing is leaner, the department had to call on neighboring fire departments to briefly man some Milwaukee firehouses. »Read Full Blog Post(11)
You've got to want it
Strange tale, this one told by a news radio station in Wausau about one of the guys running for governor.
It's about how Tom Barrett, the Democratic candidate, came to Wausau. Nothing unusual there. But, writes Chris Conley, the boss at WSAU-AM:
"Everything leading up to yesterday's Barrett appearance was not typical. »Read Full Blog Post(7)
Well, of course they should dread jail -- shouldn't they?
Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke doubtless will unleash a tut-tut torrent when he unveils plans to switch around what the county jail does to try to shape up inmates.
Details aren't out yet, but some on the county board are already deploring plans, presuming they're some kind of boot camp. Interesting reflex there.
All Clarke says is the new program will be called "Discipline-Order-Structure," which seem to be things most thugs lack. He's dumping job skills programs that few inmates bother to take part in. So far, that sounds reasonable. »Read Full Blog Post(11)
How to be completely oblivious to the customers needs, gun sight version
The Michigan maker of gun sights for Marine and army rifles says it'll stop putting Bible citations in tiny type engraved on the equipment and, further, will offer the military free kits to take the citations off existing sights.
It was the least Trijicon could do.
Forget the canard that this somehow turned the Marines into missionaries: For one thing, the citations apparently went unnoticed, not a missionary sort of behavior. Nor did it violate any "wall of separation." The idea this constituted a Pentagon endorsement of religion is risible, especially since the Pentagon didn't ask for or know about it. »Read Full Blog Post(9)
Could Obey be Coakley'd?
Sean Duffy, the Ashland County DA who's running against U.S. Rep. David Obey, thinks the Massachusetts Senate result was inspiring, writes Kathryn Jean Lopez at National Review.
She interviews Duffy, who at 38 wasn't yet born when Obey went to Washington. The lad suggests that such dynastic spans might be falling in voters' esteem. Then he tells Lopez:
"If Scott Brown can win in a state that President Obama won by 26 points, I can win in a district that Obey won by just 20 points against an unknown, underfunded challenger in the Democratic landslide of 2008. It means there is not a single Democrat in the country who is safe. And, as the author of the failed stimulus bill, David Obey will be at the forefront of the debate about jobs, the economy, and wasteful government spending. If he continues to tax and spend our country into bankruptcy, he's going to get Coakley'd." (19)
You may address the president as 'my liege'
Must-read piece by Joel Kotkin in The American on the geography of the Scott Brown win: Massachusetts' new senator won by winning suburbia, the territory that so recently propelled victorious Democrats.
And why the turn? Because, writes Kotkin, the most urban-centric administration in living memory seems determined to push a range of agendas that make life worse for suburbanites -- if not impossible:
"The Obama administration seems almost willfully city-centric. Few top appointees have come from either red states or suburbs; the top echelons of the administration draw almost completely on big city urbanites—most notably from Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. They sometimes don't even seem to understand why people move to suburbs. »Read Full Blog Post(33)
From Massachusetts' lips to Wisconsin's politicians
Massachusetts gets over its Kennedy habit – gets over, apparently, its Obama crush – and sends Scott Brown to the Senate. Is there a message in this for Wisconsin politicians? The question will get batted around on "Sunday Insight with Charlie Sykes."
The guests include wise man Jeff Fleming, editor Mikel Holt, online commentator Owen Robinson and me. See it at 10 a.m. Sunday on WTMJ-TV (channel 4) – or, after the broadcast, online.
Corporations and the real people who use them
After the Supreme Court ruled the other day that the First Amendment really does apply to, of all things, political speech, even if it's an anti-Hillary video, one heard the argument that corporations are not people and, thus, should have no right to free speech (or, for the matter, to donate to political campaigns).
The president was still playing this tune over the weekend, as was, Ed Morrissey points out, a corporation that already had the special and legally sheltered ability to smear candidates it didn't like or promote its favorites (that would be the New York Times Corp.).
The point, however, is nonsense. Ilya Somin, who teaches law and knows a thing or two, points out that it's not quite corporations-vs.-people: »Read Full Blog Post(15)
What happens when one side of an argument believes in reproducing
Last Friday was the 37th anniversary of the Supreme Court decision that overthrew every state's abortion laws on the basis of, well, nothing in the constitution. And, as every year, people who regard abortion as murder showed up in Washington by the thousands.
Actually, about 200,000, said organizers of the March for Life Rally, and about 75,000 "avatars" in a virtual march (one which, incidentally, was big among students at my kids' schools). Interesting part: The demographics. The WashTimes termed it "the mostly college-aged crowd."
And the other paper, the Washington Post, on Sunday offered a bit of mind-opening from columnist Robert McCartney: »Read Full Blog Post(50)
Parents trying to find a good, safe education -- how perverse!
Please do not miss Alan Borsuk's stunning piece in Sunday's paper about Reagan Prep, the few-years-old Milwaukee Public Schools high school on the far south side that's bursting at the seams.
Why is it bursting? Because it's good. It teaches. It's safe. Parents are desperate to get kids in, and if they can't, they choose to pay tuition or to drive to open-enrollment at neighboring districts.
So does the Milwaukee School Board wonder how to replicate such success? Borsuk writes in particular about board member Terry Falk, who represents the area near the school: »Read Full Blog Post(26)
Glaciers melting? It was propaganda, says the propagandist
The story so far: The United Nations' chief global warming agitators, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, issued a report a couple years back. It said, among other things, that the glaciers atop the Himalayas would be gone by 2035.
Now, it turns out there's no science to back that up. The glaciers won't be gone by 2035; the claim was bogus and was based on nothing more than a talking point in an old environmentalist brochure. Experts on the Himalayan glaciers said the claim is baseless.
Now, new twist: The guy who put the claim in the report, according to the Daily Mail, "admitted it was included purely to put political pressure on world leaders." »Read Full Blog Post(44)
Because the supposed-to-be customers don't want it
The man who used to run Denver International Airport wrote something interesting the other day: Don't build easy, modern, convenient, inexpensive, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean and reverent rail transportation to the airport.
Because the supposed-to-be customers don't want it. At least, they don't want it enough to justify the $1,200,000,000 cost: "DIA ridership forecasts are far too optimistic, and that the money could best be spent elsewhere," writes Jim DeLong in the Denver Post.
This is of interest here because the promoters of various rail schemes in Milwaukee frequently map out systems that would, along about Phase II or III, get to the airport. They write panegyrics to how advanced, even European, we could be if only had rail transit to, among other places, the airport. And it makes sense: Airports involve people in need ground transport. Trains would be zippy. Airports are a best case for transit, aren't they? »Read Full Blog Post(27)
I confess to having consorted with internal enemies
When I wrote the other day about the still-boiling tea party movement, it compelled a reader to e-mail his fears.
The people who, at a Franksville bonfire, protested an immodestly swelling government, I wrote, were afraid of overweening government power. Classically American, I wrote, but a reader by the name of Tom Galten said he had fears of his own, powerful enough that graciously let me attach his name to excerpts of his letter.
What does he fear? The tea partiers. Specifically: »Read Full Blog Post(204)
Government bankruptcy in action
So how did our state get into such wretched fiscal condition?
By doing things like buying up vast tracts of the state with money from future years. Read it here, about how the Department of Natural Resources is adding to the already huge Nelson-Knowles Stewardship lands by using a "borrow ahead" provision, in which it spends now money allocated for future land buys.
And as Steve Prestegaard of Marketplace Magazine puts it, is this something we can afford when the state already starts each year $2 billion in the hole? »Read Full Blog Post(5)
Yes, it's the benefits
The non-partisan, good-government scolds at the Public Policy Forum say Milwaukee County's in bad shape financially.
Why? Because Scott Walker won't tax the snot out of you? Well, no. It's pension and health benefit costs, the group reports, "a combined $179 million for 2008 alone and rising -- (that) destabilize the rickety budget and help push the county 'closer to a full-blown financial crisis.'"
So what should be done? »Read Full Blog Post(1)
Does burning dollars count as alternative fuel?
The Wisconsin State Journal reported the other day that your state government — what the hey, it's only your money, not theirs — is overpaying for electricity.
By a lot: $1.4 million extra, mainly so it could "lock in" prices on "renewable" energy, which means mainly from windmills. Oh, but power prices fell after they locked in. Oops. And the really high premium goes to WPPI Energy, the Sun Prairie co-op supplying juice to municipally owned systems in the state.
And state Rep. Brett Davis, Republican from just south of Madison, has some questions about that. Like, why is the state overpaying for power when everyone is short of money? And how funny a coincidence is it that the CEO of WPPI is also "the de facto author and main proponent of the Governor's Global Warming bill"? »Read Full Blog Post(38)
Sit! Stay! Here's a tax credit
Don't get me started on the president's nonsense of last night – other than this:
Mr. Obama went through that part where he boasted of how much tax-cutting he'd done:
"We cut taxes for 95% of working families. We cut taxes for small businesses. We cut taxes for first-time homebuyers. We cut taxes for parents trying to care for their children. We cut taxes for 8 million Americans paying for college." »Read Full Blog Post(5)
About that freeze . . .
One wants to praise Obama for talking about a spending freeze. One wants to believe he woke up.
Never mind, writes Edward P. Lazear in this morning's Wall Street Journal. The freeze only affects one-sixth of the budget anyhow, and it doesn't start until next year (if then). And far more spending growth is already baked into the cake:
"Given the spending agenda that is already in place, we can expect to see large increases in the proportion of GDP that is spent by our government for years to come. »Read Full Blog Post(14)
Alito's silent shout
This time, when our president, um, untruths during his speech, it wasn't a congressman calling out, "You lie."
It was a Supreme Court justice in the front row, moving his lips silently to say, "not true."
And given that the president was, in fact, wrong on his facts – hey, didn't he used to teach constitutional law? – you kind of wish Samuel Alito had stood up to say it. Out loud. »Read Full Blog Post(103)
Water – in a creek – and it's not harmful? Who knew?
It turns out that not only will Waukesha getting water from Lake Michigan not harm the lake – since, of course, they're going to pump back every treated drop.
It won't even hurt the creek in Wauwatosa to which they'll pump it. Thus is the news out of study the city had to commission before it could get regulators' blessing.
The idea that putting the city's treated wastewater into Underwood Creek would hurt the creek was the latest straw at which anti-suburbanites grasped in trying to scotch the deal. Putting all that water in, they argued, would lead to floods – only an earlier study pointed out that, no, the flow from Waukesha would add only a few inches to the height of the creek. Flood control officials in Milwaukee said there would be "no significant impact" from Waukesha's water. »Read Full Blog Post(9)
Blame for the recession, in microcosm
NPR carried this interesting bit of thinking the other day from an unfortunate homeowner in suburban Phoenix. The guy, Thad Salter, was miffed after he benefitted from the government getting his mortgage lender to modify his loan, cutting his house payments in half.
Why was he miffed after seeing his interest rate cut from 6.8% to 2%?
"I call it extortion," Salter said, because, to make the deal work, he now has to pay a $107,000 balloon payment should he ever sell the house. »Read Full Blog Post(25)
'A place with a little class' – Hahahahahaha!
Recall Muhammad Nasir Khan, the Pakistani restaurateur who tried reopening a disused hot dog stand at 27th and Kilbourn about a year ago.
Khan sank $65,000 into re-equipping the place, painting it, stocking it – then got screwed by Milwaukee Ald. Bob Bauman, who manipulated the permit process to shut down Khan. Bauman just didn't want a hot dog place there, and it didn't matter that Khan had a spotless record running other restaurants. Hot dogs are just "inherently" problematic, Bauman said.
Was it fair? Who cares? Bauman wanted something else and he got it. The alderman told me at the time that the site, empty for a year, was too good for hot dogs. "What's wrong with a sit-down restaurant?" he said. "What's wrong with a place with a little class, that shows some respect for your neighborhood?" »Read Full Blog Post(61)
What a marvelous boon this new rail-road thing to Madison will be!
Whee! Wisconsin now will get $823 million of other people's money to build high-speed* train service from Milwaukee to Madison (*OK, middling-speed service that tops out at 110 mph, eventually).
Better yet: It's all federal money – from Obama's stash, so we're not paying for it. Someone, somewhere else is.
OK, we're the someone somewhere else for the $1.1 billion that Illinois is getting for a line to St. Louis. If it doesn't cost 10 times that (which it will, eventually). »Read Full Blog Post(57)
Thou art forbidden to say, 'keep it zipped'
Interesting, what your state senate passed Thursday. Lawmakers passed (and the governor said he'd sign) a bill that would ban all public school districts from teaching children how to resist having sex.
To be specific:
"All public schools that teach sex education would be required to instruct students about birth control," the Journal Sentinel reports. »Read Full Blog Post(14)
Obama, Pubbies give as good as they get
The president was invited to (http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/jan/29/obama-challenges-gop-bipartisanship//print/) come talk to the congressional Republicans' policy retreat, and it ended up sounding, ABC's Jake Tapper says, like the Airing of Grievances. The president, it turns out, has a thin skin about complaints he's Bolshie, while the congressional Rs don't like the way they've been utterly ignored.
The prez says he hasn't been ignoring them:
"The president said he had incorporated many Republican ideas in his proposals: creating a high-risk pool for uninsured Americans with preexisting conditions, allowing health insurance companies to sell coverage across state lines, creating pools where self-employed and small businesses could buy insurance, allowing children to remain covered on their parents' insurance until they are 25 or 26." »Read Full Blog Post(21)
Who is John Galt, aina?
Mike Nichols reminds us that Ayn Rand's heroically shrugging Atlas, John Galt, was a cheddarhead. It's kind of like making amends for spawning the Progressive movement.
Russ Feingold, down in the polls, picks up a sandbag
As you may have noticed, a pollster has again tried out that hypothetical matchup of Russ Feingold vs. Tommy Thompson. Tommy wins, 47% to 43%. What's more, he wins 53% to 36% among independent voters.
It was just part of a bad week, Patrick Dorwin notes: Feingold's appearance on the Earl Ingram radio talk show goes awry in a way that other critics are saying puts Feingold in trouble with black Milwaukee audiences. And the senator voted to raise the national debt ceiling, Dorwin notes, concluding it's past time for the Republicans to recruit a top-notch opponent for Feingold.
Stay tuned: More on the subject of Feingold and his chances in my Sunday Journal Sentinel column. See it in Crossroads in Sunday's paper.


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Inspired by sweetsugarbelle. This is only my second time making cookies and I'm already addicted ; )
I made these for my grandma's birthday
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Awesome: Shining The Holy Ark
Inexact title. See the list below. We don't have an article named Awesome/ShiningTheHolyArk, exactly. We do have:
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If you meant one of those, just click and go. If you want to start a Awesome/ShiningTheHolyArk page, just click the edit button above. Be careful, though, the only things that go in the Main namespace are tropes. Don't put in redirects for shows, books, etc.. Use the right namespace for those.


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The 20 greatest draft steals in Cowboys history
Photo: NGUYEN, Huy
Erik Williams, OL / Draft: 1991, third round (No. 70 overall) / Williams was a backup for his first few years in Dallas before all but forcing Jimmy Johnson's hand into finding him a spot in the lineup. He debuted as a starter in 1992, playing with a mean streak on the line that earned him a reputation as one of the toughest OL to go up against. Though a serious car accident in 1994 might've derailed his career a bit, Williams was still a four-time Pro Bowl and three-time All Pro selection while playing key roles on all three of the '90s-era Super Bowl teams.
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ory of one of the world's largest airlines
The Decatur Public Works Facility was named the 2015 Public Works Project of the Year
New Darla Moore School of Business showcases commitment to the design of high performance buildings.
Stevens & Wilkinson teamed with The Whiting Turner Contracting Company to compete in the 17th Annual Atlanta Canstruction® Competition
At Stevens & Wilkinson we develop forward-thinking strategies for our clients' culturally and socially significant projects. We couple strong design principles with emerging technologies to create sustainable environments that have a lasting and positive impact on our communities.


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Your own personal shopperat your fingertips »
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At A Glance:Two suspended shelves accentuate this end table's repetitive vertical pattern. It's like an island-flavored layer cake of delicious inlaid Walnut burl. An intriguing motif of the beautiful inlaid wood decorates this side table's rectangular top.
Free upgrade to Inside Delivery. This service includes a four-hour delivery appointment and placement inside your room of choice (two flights of stairs max).
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Meath minor hurling manager Stephen Masterson has made two changes in personnel for Saturday's Leinster MHC clash with Wexford in Pairc Tailteann, 3.0.
Masterson introduces Kildalkey's Martin Healy in place of Conor Kearney who scored a goal in the 3-15 to 3-9 win over Wixcklow in round one. Jack Bird also comes into the team at corner-back where he will replace Noel O'Sullivan who will start in goals ahead of Sean Quigley.
Boardsmill's Charlie Bird, who also plays for the county minor football team, will captain the side against a Wexford outfit that lost out to Dublin in the first round and will now have a second bite at the cherry.
Meath (v Wexford) - Noel O'Sullivan; Jack Bird, Luke Swaine, Conor Dempsey; Darragh Brogan, Charlie Bird (capt), Jack Payne; Luke Moran, Luke Martyn; Josh Wall, Ronan Ryan, Martin Healy; Alex Walsh, Ross Ryan, Liam Carey. Subs - Sean Quigley, Conor Kearney, Mark Slevin, Jamie Hackett, Ross Healy, Joey Farrell, Evan Mullally, Patrick Leahy, Fergus Ryan.
Fergal Lynch
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You will need a retaining ring or mounting flange for the shutter(s). I bought a 203 without a flange or ring, and ended up buying a flange from SK Grimes (they didn't have a stock ring for that shutter).
I seem to remember that I had to open up the Copal #1 opening just a bit to fit the 203 flange. And the Copal #0 opening a bit to fit the 105mm Ektar with retaining ring. I used a Dremel with sanding drum= the amount was small in both cases. It doesn't have to be a super-precise press fit.
I ran a test of the 203 Ektar versus a Caltar-II multicoated 210mm (Rodenstock Sironar, I believe). The Ektar was a touch sharper; the Caltar maybe a touch more 'micro-cotrast.' I have stayed with the Ektar. Enjoy the Ektar(s) for a while before worrying about other lenses.


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Tuesday, September 13, 2011
© Copyright 2015 Newton Citizen
COVINGTON -- Criminals who intend to target the Covington Housing Authority had better think twice: There will be an increased police presence there thanks to an agreement reached to hire off-duty officers to work security.
Police Chief Stacey Cotton notified the Covington City Council at its Sept. 6 meeting that Housing Authority Director Greg Williams requested the arrangement due to an increase in criminal activity at the complex off Alcovy Road.
The Housing Authority will pay off-duty police officers to work in four-hour shifts during what are traditionally peak times for complaints, Cotton said. The officers will be paid $35 per hour by the Housing Authority.
Officers will be on foot, on golf carts and at times in vehicles. The Housing Authority will not pay for the use of CPD vehicles, but Cotton said they are needed because of the size of the complex and for safety.
"We benefit if we need to lock somebody in the car or if we need to stop a vehicle, we'll have the blue lights," he said.
As with all side jobs, the shifts will be posted in the Police Department and all officers will have an equal opportunity to work, Cotton said.
There is a recurring problem with trespassing by individuals who have been banned from the property due to past criminal acts. CPD officers will be on the lookout for those individuals and have the authority to ban others when warranted, he said. They will also work with residents to address their concerns.
The CPD previously had a precinct at the Housing Authority that was funded through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Funding was pulled a few years ago, and the precinct was closed.
"Obviously without our attention (the criminals) are out again," he said. But now, "If they're willing to fund it, we're willing to do it."
The council was not required to vote on the matter, but informally expressed support for the arrangement.
MeanMrMustard 4 years, 2 months ago
So, if the housing authority doesn't pay extra for police protection, they don't get ANY police protection at all through regular patrol? Is the location not in the city limits?
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Report: 1,000 injured as meteor falls in Russia
The Russian Academy of Sciences is estimating the meteor that streaked into the skies over the Ural Mountains and caused shock waves that injured more than 1,000 people weighed about 10 tons (11 tons avoirdupois).
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A circular hole in the ice of Chebarkul Lake where a meteor reportedly struck the lake near Chelyabinsk, about 1500 kilometers (930 miles) east of Moscow, Russia, Friday, Feb. 15, 2013. A meteor streaked across the sky and exploded over Russia's Ural Mountains with the power of an atomic bomb Friday, its sonic blasts shattering countless windows and injuring nearly 1,000 people. (AP Photo)
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High winds, king tide slam West Seattle
Birds fly near high tide waves at Alki Beach Park on Tuesday. Sunny skies, with highs only into the mid-40's and lows just above freezing, are expected to continue through the weekend.
Seahawks vs. 49ers | Nov. 22, 2015
Photos from the Seahawks' game vs. San Francisco.
Less than 50K without power in Western Washington
Days after a storm hit Western Washington, thousands are still in the dark.
Satanists attend high school football game in Bremerton
As expected, Bremerton coach Joe Kennedy attended Thursday's football game, hugging players over a fence, and after the game, kneeling down and praying with a group of people in front of the bleachers.
Week in photos
Photos taken by the Associated Press during the week of Oct. 11-17.
Week in photos
Photos taken by the Associated Press Sept. 28 to Oct. 2.
Stargazers treated to supermoon eclipse
Stargazers were treated to a rare astronomical phenomenon with a total lunar eclipse combined with a so-called supermoon.
Week in photos
Photos from the Associated Press taken from around the world.
Four killed in Aurora Avenue Bridge crash in Seattle
The four people killed when a charter bus and Ride the Ducks vehicle collided were students from North Seattle College, The Seattle Times reports.
Big-name business leaders meet China's president in Seattle
Business leaders from Apple, Honeywell, Disney, Microsoft, Starbucks, Dow Chemical, Amazon, IBM, and many more attended a Wednesday morning meeting with the president of China.


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July 1, 2015
Fostering Hope
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You're in the Lifesaving Business
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A Novel Approach
Kids and cats bond over bookes in shelter reading program.
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The Power of Suggestion
Learn how to harness the power of your workers' suggestions for improving shelter operations, without running off the track.
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Learning the ROPs
At Burbank Animal Shelter, kids learn to care, clean and prepare for a possible animal career.
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Step by Step, Pet by Pet
Volunteer Debbie Rappuhn's tireless and tenacious efforts to improve the lives of animals at the Florence Lauderdale Animal Shelter in Alabama are paying off—big time.
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The Courageous, the Polite, the Einsteins
East Bay SPCA in California launched a canine behavior modification pilot program that trains volunteers to help its shelter dogs overcome behavioral issues that might otherwise keep them from finding new homes.
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Frontline 2012 Ltd. has completed its previously announced merger with Frontline Ltd. , with Frontline as the surviving legal entity and Frontline 2012 becoming
Euronav NV announced the sale of its Suezmax Cap Laurent for $22.25 million. The 1998-built 146,145-dwt vessel was wholly owned by Euronav.
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About hcubed
Living in Biloxi MS, have been here since '85 (first Hurricane was Elena).
By: hcubed , 12:26 AM GMT on November 12, 2012
Once again, we recall the paraphrase of an old line: "...Those who forget historical extreme weather events are doomed to proclaim current extreme weather events are unprecedented".
Bill McKibben's claims about Sandy in this LA Times story were just a LITTLE off:
"...Sandy was off-the-charts terrible, a storm that broke every record in the books: for storm surge, for barometric pressure, for sheer size..."
The reality of historical extreme weather events blows his "off-the-charts terrible" claims right out of the water:
First: "...a storm that broke every record in the books..."
Well, not every record - for example, the Great Bhola Cyclone, Bangladesh 1970 (Bay of Bengal) was credited with 500,000 deaths.
One down. Maybe he'll have better luck with the other claims.
Second: "...for storm surge...".
Source: Link
"...The Bathurst Bay Cyclone, also known as Tropical Cyclone Mahina, which struck Bathurst Bay, Australia on March 5, 1899, is generally credited with the world record for storm surge. The cyclone's storm surge is variously listed at 13 - 14.6 meters (43 - 48 feet). The Category 5 cyclone was a monster--with sustained winds in excess of 175 mph and a central pressure between 880 and 914 mb. Mahina killed at least 307 people, mostly on pearling ships, and was the deadliest cyclone in Australian history..." From Dr. Masters, PhD, Director of Meteorology, Weather Underground, Inc.
Missed out on the storm surge.
Third: "...for barometric pressure..."
Depends on whether or not he means Atlantic or worldwide. Either way, he's wrong:
Source: wiki
"...In the available records, a total of 70 tropical cyclones attained a pressure of less than 900 hPa (mbar) (26.56 inHg), most of which occurred in the Western North Pacific Ocean. The strongest tropical cyclone recorded worldwide, as measured by minimum central pressure, was Typhoon Tip, which reached a pressure of 870 hPa (25.69 inHg) on October 12, 1979..."
Ok, not worldwide. Maybe Atlantic?
Hurricane Sandy had the lowest pressure ever recorded for any storm north of North Carolina at 943 millibars just before it came in from the sea and hit the New Jersey coast.
But in the full Atlantic? Wilma, 2005 (882/26.0). Also the last Major to make US landfall.
So in a small sub-set of a small subset of the world (N Atlantic, East coast of the US and north of North Carolina), there's the record. But Sandy was in no way the lowest pressure ever.
And last, "...for sheer size..."
Well, let's start worldwide again.
"...After passing Guam, it rapidly intensified and reached peak winds of 305 km/h (190 mph) and a worldwide record low sea-level pressure of 870 mbar (870.0 hPa; 25.69 inHg) on October 12. At its peak strength, it was also the largest tropical cyclone on record with a wind diameter of 2,220 km (1,380 mi)..."
Seems like Tip (1979) beat Sandy on two counts.
Surely somewhere, there is a sub-set of a sub-set that Sandy comes in first.
Well, yes - the Atlantic - using data from the satellite record (and TIROS1, launched in 1960).
Sandy, 2012 - 945mi, 1,520km.
Tip, 1979 - 1380mi, 2,220 km.
So this one is probable, Atlantic only, and during the satellite record.
But did Sandy break ALL records?
No way.
It's telling that Hurricane Sandy gets a portion of it's wiki writeup about "Relation to global warming", while the most intense storm recorded, Tip, doesn't get that mention.
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Living in Biloxi MS, have been here since '85 (first Hurricane was Elena).


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Patience has been preached for both the Cubs and the White Sox as the young stars in both team's farm systems develop.
But which of the Cubs' prospects can fans expect to contribute this year? And how excited should White Sox fans be for the additions of Jose Abreu and Adam Eaton?
[MORE: Cubs betting on a bounce-back season from Mike Olt]
CSN's Ryan McGuffey is joined by The Score's David Schuster to discuss the biggest headlines for both teams heading into Spring Training.


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In the troubled years following the Civil War, the spirit of a murdered child haunts the Ohio home of a former slave. This angry, destructive ghost breaks mirrors, leaves its fingerprints in cake icing, and generally makes life difficult for Sethe and her family; nevertheless, the woman finds the haunting oddly comforting for the spirit is that of her own dead baby, never named, thought of only as Beloved.
A dead child, a runaway slave, a terrible secret--these are the central concerns of Toni Morrison's Pulitzer Prize-winning Beloved. Morrison, a Nobel laureate, has written many fine novels, including Song of Solomon, The Bluest Eye, and Paradise--but Beloved is arguably her best. To modern readers, antebellum slavery is a subject so familiar that it is almost impossible to render its horrors in a way that seems neither clichéd nor melodramatic. Rapes, beatings, murders, and mutilations are recounted here, but they belong to characters so precisely drawn that the tragedy remains individual, terrifying to us because it is terrifying to the sufferer. And Morrison is master of the telling detail: in the bit, for example, a punishing piece of headgear used to discipline recalcitrant slaves, she manages to encapsulate all of slavery's many cruelties into one apt symbol--a device that deprives its wearer of speech. "Days after it was taken out, goose fat was rubbed on the corners of the mouth but nothing to soothe the tongue or take the wildness out of the eye." Most importantly, the language here, while often lyrical, is never overheated. Even as she recalls the cruelties visited upon her while a slave, Sethe is evocative without being overemotional: "Add my husband to it, watching, above me in the loft--hiding close by--the one place he thought no one would look for him, looking down on what I couldn't look at at all. And not stopping them--looking and letting it happen.... And if he was that broken then, then he is also and certainly dead now." Even the supernatural is treated as an ordinary fact of life: "Not a house in the country ain't packed to its rafters with some dead Negro's grief. We lucky this ghost is a baby," comments Sethe's mother-in-law.
Beloved is a dense, complex novel that yields up its secrets one by one. As Morrison takes us deeper into Sethe's history and her memories, the horrifying circumstances of her baby's death start to make terrible sense. And as past meets present in the shape of a mysterious young woman about the same age as Sethe's daughter would have been, the narrative builds inexorably to its powerful, painful conclusion. Beloved may well be the defining novel of slavery in America, the one that all others will be measured by. --Alix Wilber --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Set in post-Civil War Ohio, this Pulitzer Prize-winning novel concerns a runaway slave and her daughter, whose lives are disrupted by a former slave, a spirit and a woman named Beloved. According to PW, this "brilliantly conceived story . . . should not be missed."
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Awful horrible words can not describe how bad this book was. SO DEPRESSING!!! just don't read itPublished 4 months ago by Atbin Jahandideh
This is not an easy read. But it is a very educational one when it comes to the plight of the African-American population during the time period highlighted in the book, in... Read morePublished 14 months ago by AliKira
This book has no plot, nor does it have much character development. Beloved is written in such a way any reader would find themselves confuse just before the fifth chapter. Read morePublished 18 months ago by Mandeq Jama
I loved it. I saw the movie, book was much more than movie could tell. Heart warming and ver sadPublished on July 7 2013 by Ann L Armstrong
This novel is a religious experience, derived from the Exodus of the Hebrew Bible (deliverance from slavery), the miracle healing stories of the Christian Gospels, the Book of... Read morePublished on Dec 10 2007 by Carol Read
I felt I ought to read this book since it won the recent New York Times writers' and critics' poll for the best work of fiction of the past quarter century. Read morePublished on June 14 2006 by T. McDonell