The Bush administration is re-imposing quotas on three categories of clothing imports from China, responding to complaints from domestic producers that a surge of Chinese imports was threatening thousands of U.S. jobs.

The administration action will impose limits on the amount of cotton trousers, cotton knit shirts and underwear that China can ship to this country. American retailers say that will drive up prices for U.S. consumers.

- posted by Brian J. @ 11:57 AM   0 comments

U.S. Sen. Christopher "Kit" Bond, R-Mo., said during a news conference outside the base gate Friday that he was "stunned" by the recommendation [to split up the area's 131st Fighter Wing at Lambert Field, to relocate the Army Human Resources Command from Overland, and to move the Defense Finance and Accounting Service as part of BRAC] and promised to fight it.

"It has very clear homeland security implications that must be considered and, I do not believe, have been adequately considered by the Pentagon," Bond said.

- posted by Brian J. @ 5:15 AM   0 comments

Kansas City Wizards midfielder Chris Klein, a St. Louisan, told the Star: "If a city shows it's willing to build a stadium and that there's a viable owner that's there, then the league is going to look at it. So far, St. Louis has shown neither of those two aspects."

- posted by Brian J. @ 5:06 AM   0 comments

(And why don't men garden in ads? I know lots of guys who garden, who are proud of their tomatoes. I sure am. Is it twee? Come by the office and say that to my face!)

The score gives you a good clue to the main problem: sometimes it’s grand and epic, at others it’s twee and nudging and determined to jolly along the flattest of gags.

- posted by Brian J. @ 8:20 AM   0 comments

The ordinariness of Freeman is just right for the Dent role. To see him on some dusty lunarscape is to see the essence of Douglas Adams’s paradoxical world: a vast corner of a very foreign galaxy that is forever England — or, as one book title put it, The Long Dark Teatime of the Soul.

- posted by Brian J. @ 8:02 AM   0 comments

Anna Thebeau says her son, 13-year-old Justin Porter, wouldn't be in the hospital recovering from burns and a broken pelvis if the electric tower he scaled on a $5 bet had a warning sign.

- posted by Brian J. @ 7:42 AM   0 comments

St. Louis police detained seven ducklings Wednesday after they blockedHighway 40 and caused a traffic accident, but later released them to custody of their mother. No charges were filed.

Officers gave this account:

A minor collision occurred about 11 a.m. in the eastbound lanes of the highway, which is also Interstate 64, near Kingshighway. Motorists blamed slowed traffic trying to avoid the feathered pedestrians. No injuries were reported, human or otherwise.

- posted by Brian J. @ 8:58 PM   0 comments

He thought of how convincingly he could describe this scene to friends and make them envy the fullness of his contentment. Why couldn't he convince himself? He had everything he ever wanted. He had wanted superiority--and for the last year he had been the undisputed leader of his profession. He had wanted fame--and he had his five thick albums of clippings. He had wanted wealth--and he had enough to insure luxury for the rest of his life. He had everything anyone ever wanted. How many people struggled and suffered to achieve what he had achieved? How many dreamed and bled and died for this, without reaching it? "Peter Keating is the luckiest fellow on earth." How often had he heard that? (p444 of The Fountainhead, International Collectors Library edition, 1968)

Dear whim worshipper:

Ayn Rand represents one of the greatest intellects of all time, so it's certain that your interpretation of her usage of "insure" instead of "ensure" in the passage you quote cannot rival her genius nor that of Leonard Peikoff, author of Ominous Parallels and the Ayn Rand's Official Intellectual Heir®. Regardless, you parasite to the creators of wealth, I shall seek to educate you even though I suspect you would prefer your blessed collectivist ignorance.

By using "insure" instead of "ensure," Rand was illustrating the essentially bankrupt nature of Peter Keating; although he didn't have enough wealth to "ensure" his lifestyle--that is, he could not repurchase all of his meaningless, unearned belongings nor could he recreate his success from scratch without leeching the production of the successful Howard Roark, he could "insure" his wealth by knowing that in the event of a total loss, the State would steal from the real producers in the world to recreate the fantasy of his opulence.

So you see, you second-hander primitivist, Ayn Rand packed meaning into that passage that you couldn't, with your escapist worldview embracing "equality" and "altruism" instead of "egoism," understand. So stick to writing your silly little sentences on the latest pop-fiction book you've read and regurgitate other peoples' opinions without trusting your own judgment.

- posted by Brian J. @ 8:29 PM   0 comments

Marvel sues two sleepers over dreams

- posted by Brian J. @ 7:30 PM   0 comments

It has to be one of the dumbest laws, ever. And I don't even own or like pit bulls. It's nothing personal, only that I'd never keep any animal that eats as much or more than I do.

Still, I can weep for the pit bulls of Denver, particularly for the puppies that never did anything other than get born into the breed.

Yet here we have the city of Denver, newly sprung from legislative and judicial restraint, rounding up pits over the past couple of days and killing them like rats during The Plague.

A uniformed officer arrives at a home. "I'll get him," she announces to her partner. Rather than fight it all, a distraught man emerges, weighs going to jail and a fine, and in the end hands over his dog.

- posted by Brian J. @ 4:34 PM   6 comments

The legislation, sponsored by Assemblyman Louis Manzo, D-Jersey City, authorizes the forfeiture of "motor vehicle, building or premise" if a firearm is found in it that is not possessed legally per state law – "even if the firearm was not possessed by the owner of the motor vehicle, building or premise," states a summary of the bill, A3998. The legislation was introduced Thursday.

Manzo pointed out his bill extends government power now reserved for targeting those in possession of illegal drugs.

- posted by Brian J. @ 8:42 AM   0 comments

MYTH: Most meetings are a waste of time.

FACT: Every meeting -- whether you're a participant, a presenter, or the chairperson -- represents a golden opportunity to increase your visibility as an effective communicator.

- posted by Brian J. @ 11:11 PM   0 comments

She was rushing her son to school. She was eight months pregnant. And she was about to get a speeding ticket she didn't think she deserved.

So when a Seattle police officer presented the ticket to Malaika Brooks, she refused to sign it. In the ensuing confrontation, she suffered burns from a police Taser, an electric stun device that delivers 50,000 volts.

"Probably the worst thing that ever happened to me," Brooks said, in describing that morning during her criminal trial last week on charges of refusing to obey an officer and resisting arrest.

- posted by Brian J. @ 9:54 AM   0 comments

Bissinger challenges Moneyball's analytical argument with unverifiable, splenetic opinions. On-base percentage is the "latest fashion fad." Numbers are less important than human nature. The MBA-carrying thirtysomethings invading baseball's front offices might know their way around Microsoft Excel, but they'll never understand baseball. And so on.

- posted by Brian J. @ 7:57 AM   0 comments

It took 12 snakes and almost five years for Bill Carity to turn raw land into a subdivision.

The Butler's garter snake, a protected species in Wisconsin, was discovered on his property in Menomonee Falls in 1999, and afterward, he struggled to satisfy the competing demands of the Department of Natural Resources and getting his project off the ground.

"The Butler's took me completely by surprise," said Carity, of Carity Land Corp. of Brookfield. "For a long time, it was a painful process."

- posted by Brian J. @ 7:48 AM   1 comments

On the one-year anniversary of the last time she gambled, Pamela Wick was upbeat. She's five months into a 10-year prison term for stealing more than $520,000, then losing it all - and more - at casinos.

"It's a new beginning for me," Wick, a mother of three, said in an interview last month at the Taycheedah Correctional Institution in Fond du Lac County. "It's a whole new feeling that life can be normal.

"I'm really glad that I came here. It was time for me to accept responsibility."

While there are no statistics on how many people run afoul of the law for gambling in the state, anecdotal evidence suggests that people such as Wick and Verbunker are becoming increasingly common, said Rose Gruber, executive director of the Wisconsin Council on Problem Gambling. The number of calls to the council's gambling helpline has nearly tripled since 1996, with callers reporting escalating amounts of gambling debt.

"Every time we turn around, we hear about someone else," Gruber said. "I would say that in the last two or three years, we've seen an increase."

- posted by Brian J. @ 2:05 PM   0 comments

1. Content not locked behind subscription/ads.

- posted by Brian J. @ 10:12 AM   0 comments

Historic renovations to older buildings and a regional boom in infill construction are fueling new design challenges for local architecture firms.

Many of these projects are construction conundrums, such as designing a smaller building to maximize space or following “green” construction standards that call for energy-efficient design codes.

Such challenges require architects to think about the big picture and the little picture when they design, said Michelle Swatek, executive director of the American Institute of Architects in St. Louis.

- posted by Brian J. @ 9:24 AM   0 comments

Healthy people who donate organs to those desperate for transplants enter a world of unknowns.

Even the medical community does not know how big a risk they face.

Some get hurt. Some die. Some need transplants later.

The Post-Dispatch spent a year examining living donations. The newspaper interviewed about 200 donors, family members, transplant surgeons, hospital officials, government officials and scholars, and studied medical records and transplant research.

The newspaper's investigation found:
• No one knows how many donors have died or suffered serious injuries or complications, because donors are not systematically tracked.
  
  
• The lack of comprehensive data makes it impossible for donors to assess the risks of what is portrayed as an ultimate altruistic deed.
  
  
• There is no agreement on who can donate an organ or how to evaluate potential donors. Those approved to donate include children as young as 10, drug addicts, mentally ill people and people who might be selling their organs, which federal law prohibits.
  
  
• The government does not regulate organ donations from living donors. Each hospital that performs transplants makes its own rules, which vary widely.

- posted by Brian J. @ 6:29 PM   0 comments

Mrs Harcombe, who was 28, died shortly after Christmas 2004. She was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2002, nine months after finding a lump in her right breast.

Her family said she had been initially told she was a "low-risk patient" because she was just 26.

She had undergone a mastectomy, but by last year the cancer spread to her liver and she was told she had six months to live.

- posted by Brian J. @ 2:16 PM   0 comments

The Cardinals' contract with KMOX (1120 AM) expires after this season, and team officials have talked with KTRS (550 AM) owners about buying that station and moving the broadcasts there.

If the Cardinals bought KTRS, the team would sell its own advertising as opposed to receiving a traditional rights fee. The Cards then could incorporate the broadcasts into a consolidated marketing plan that includes opening their new stadium next season, and placing their top two minor-league affiliates within a four-hour-or-less drive of St. Louis.

- posted by Brian J. @ 7:44 AM   0 comments