Musings from Brian J. Noggle
Saturday, May 14, 2005
 
Compare and Contrast: IDs in Wisconsin
Gentle reader, compare and contrast the use of the photo ID in Wisconsin:

Buying cold medicine? ID required!

Voting? No ID required because that oppresses someone!

Pardon me whilst I bangst my head upon my laminate desktop even as I thank Sean at The American Mind for the link.


 
Government and Developers
Over at Boots and Sabers, Owen's done his homework to spell out the beginnings of a land grab wherein shady government officials working with developers and with local neighborhood associations will eventually run the middle class owners out of their neighborhood:

A Den of Thieves

The worst part of the whole story is the sense I get that it's not a vast conspiracy of long-range plans to incrementally drive the homeowners out, but rather that the government officials have nothing else to do but try a variety of approaches to meet their goals of stripping citizens' property rights. Patience and not having to live a freaking life while fighting city hall and its developer overlords tip the balance of power from the citizens to those who live only to rule them.


 
White House Thinks Your Clothes Are Too Cheap
In a move undoubtedly designed to stimulate the economy, the White House has determined that you should pay more for your clothes:
    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.
Higher prices and diminished sales always benefit consumers, retailers, and the economy. Or so this administration thinks when it starts slapping around the tariffs. Perhaps the Bush administration can only replicate the success of Smoot-Hawley in the twenty-first century.


 
Senator Bond Battles Fiscal Responsibility
Once again, Christopher "Pork" Bond promises to fight fiscal responsibility if it, you know, impacts his voters:
    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.
Because, you know, the Pentagon has overlooked homeland security and military considerations which a senator, whose job involves bloviating on all sorts of unfocused topics, sees immediately. The important homeland security functions provided by the Human Resources Command, you see, which only possible Bond voters can provide adequately.

Perhaps Bond means his homeland job security implications, which puts him in the chorus of local democrats (William Clay, Charles Dooley, and Francis Slay). Excellent company you're keeping, Senator. Those of us who value fiscal conservatism in our federal legislators have taken note.


 
No MLS for You
Major League Soccer has looked to St. Louis for an expansion team and it doesn't look promising:
    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."
Thankfully. After three publicly funded sports venues in St. Louis itself over the last decade, including the new Busch stadium which is still a skeleton fleshing out downtown and the most unpopular spending on sports yet, perhaps Missourians are growing weary of blowing money on sports facilities instead of vital public infrastructure. Particularly venues for the fold-by-night soccer teams.

Probably not. Politicians love getting their pictures taken with athletes. But with upcoming spending on Columbia and Kansas City facilities, perhaps this particular field has had its seed corn eaten already for a couple of years.


Friday, May 13, 2005
 
Word of the Day: Twee
Today's word: Twee: Overly precious or nice.

I don't normally do words of the day, but I've encountered this word twice already this morning.

Neil Steinberg of the Chicago Sun-Times wrote:
    (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!)
Mark Steyn wrote:
    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.
Weird, huh?


 
Fanboy Attack!
In his review of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Mark Steyn makes a gaffe:
    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.
But The Long Dark Teatime of the Soul is a Dirk Gently novel, not one of the five books (and one short story *) in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy trilogy.

* Of course, the short story is "Young Zaphod Plays It Safe" which is available in the anthology editions. You did know that, didn't you?

Mark Steyn, who has a British-sounding accent, should have known better. He's trying to pass as informed but, :: sniff ::, he is obviously not.


 
Mother Displays Ignorance of 13-Year-Olds
The blame for the 13-year-old who climbed an electrical tower, touched a 19,700 volt transmission line, and fell lies not with the child, for his lack of common sense, nor with parenting that didn't hone his instincts, nor with the friends who had five dollars to bet him he wouldn't do it. Of course not.
    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.
It's Illinois Power's fault for not having a sign. Lawsuit countdown begins.

Because teenagers heed all signs and obey all posted rules. Perhaps Justin is an anamoly, but somehow, I doubt it.


Thursday, May 12, 2005
 
But They Still Have Drivers' Licenses
18 Percent Of Florida Seniors Flunk FCAT [Florida's Comprehensive Assessment Test].

Oops, wrong seniors. They meant those damn kids in high school seniors.


 
Good Thing There Were No Fatalities
Fowl play on highway:
    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.
Because once ducks cause a couple of fatalities, the city of Denver will kill them all.


 
To Be Clear
You know the unnamed capital-O Objectivist in the post below?

A complete and utter fabrication. If blogvestigators hit the streets and the lawns of the Ayn Rand Institute, looking for someone who even heard of Musings from Brian J. Noggle, they would find no one to fit the description. Then they would pressure me to give up my position here for misleading The Public, or just you, gentle reader. I don't want this to happen to me.

So please understand that here at Musings from Brian J. Noggle, we got no truck with reality. We do however, got truck with bad sixties slang that continues to live on into the twenty-first century for some reason or another.

(Link seen on Michelle Malkin.)


Wednesday, May 11, 2005
 
The Utter Fallibility of Ayn Rand
Ayn Rand, the father of the Objectivism philosophy, was not infallible. Observe:
    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)
You see, gentle reader, Ayn Rand used insure, that is to provide or arrange insurance for, instead of ensure, to make sure of. Granted, English was her second language and all, but it's important to note that Ayn Rand could make errors.

UPDATE: A capital-O Objectivist responds:
    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.
Okay, I made it up, but that's how sanctioned Objectivists sound, ainna?


 
All the News I Can Imagine (I)

Marvel sues two sleepers over dreams

LOS ANGELES — Marvel Enterprises is suing two individuals who've slept because it claims that the individuals had dreams with Marvel characters "Spiderman," "Rogue," "ShadowCat," "She-Hulk," "Dazzler," "The Scarlet Witch," and other heroes and, quite frankly, a lot of heroines.

The lawsuit claims that St. Louis resident Sean Wilson and Cahokia, Illinois, resident Sam Jose violated Marvel's trademark characters in their dreams on the nights of May 4, 2005 and May 6, 2005 respectively. Marvel seeks unspecified damages and an injunction against the two young men to stop using its characters.

REM-sleep enables participants to emulate superheroes' look and abilities and then battle against other dream characters in a virtual city. Like similar so-called personal entertainment media, dream offer a myriad of combinations so that no two dreamers' plots are exactly the same.

But in its lawsuit, filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court, Marvel argues that the dreamers' imaginations easily allows them to portray themselves as its superheroes, including "Cyclops" of the X-Men in that one scenario involving "Dr. Jean Grey" of which the Comics Board would not approve.

The New York-based company also took issue with the ability of dreamers to go so far as to use the names of Marvel comic book characters in their dreams.

Marvel claims the two men are responsible because the the dreams occur in their minds, raising the question of whether a person is responsible for his or subsconscious behavior even while unconscious.

Marvel also claims the men have disrupted its "existing and future" business prospects for licensing its characters in stories similar to the plots of their dreams, as the men might not buy those comic books that pale in comparison to their own nocturnal experience.

Neither of the defendants in the lawsuit would comment.

The Marvel lawsuit appears to be the first to raise this question in the scope of individual dreams. But early copyright infringement lawsuits brought by recording companies against people who hummed tunes successfully argued the hummers were responsible for license fees owed to the music publishers because they performed the songs, often in public venues.

The argument can still be made that the dreams are only empower dreamers to the same degree that an establishment like Kinko's enables customers to make paper copies of copyrighted material, said Lou von Fredericks, senior intellectual property attorney with the Nighttime Frontier Foundation.

"Is it a violation of copyright to make up a character in the dream world or is that fair use?" von Fredericks said. "This is really untested ground in the courts."

 
Denver Pit Bull Genocide
One more reason not to live in Colorado: Denver has declared all Pit Bulls illegal and is now rounding them up and killing them:
    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.
Well, there you have it again. The government confiscates and destroys things which are abused, mishandled, misbehave, or misused by a few. For the Children, no doubt. Soon, the government will only allow us to have nice foam (not polyurethane, which is flammable, but something more spongebobby). For everything.

(Link seen on The Agitator.)

UPDATE: Wait! I have a sudden bad governance inspiration! Couple your pit bull confiscation with this lunacy, and it's own an illegal pit bull, lose your house!

Vote for me. I am worse than the rest of them.


 
Book Review: The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand (1943)
I wanted a good reading copy of The Fountainhead, so I cruised eBay for one. I mean, I have the first edition, but I don't want to spill beer and danish toppings on it. I also have my first paperback copy from college, but I'm a hardback snob. So I cruised eBay and found a nice International Collector's Library edition ca 1968, complete with heavy paper, leatheresque binding, and attached ribbon for book marking. Oh, yeah. And for such a low price (shipping and handling extra)!

So once I bought it, I put it on my to read shelf. And now I have read it for the fifth time.

What can I say? I like the book. I read it first, a library copy, before my freshman year of college. I'd been challenged by the startlingly-literate machinist next door to elevate my reading habits if I wanted to be an English major. So I remembered flyers for the ARI's The Fountainhead essay contest scholarship and figured it was Literature. So I consumed it at the most formative time, that summer when a young man leaves his boyhood home and tries to become a man.

The book seemed very long back then when I was used to 175 page crime thrillers, but now that I have graduated to 1000 page Stephen King books, it seems almost like a quick read. I'm surprised every time how approachable the book is; the book avoids the speechifying that sank Atlas Shrugged. Rand also had a better hero in this book, Howard Roark, with whom the reader struggles throughout the years that pass in their epic sweep.

Howard Roark, architect. He's thrown out of architecture school for being a nonconformist and has to strive through a series of setbacks to be the man he is and to be an active architect without compromising his ideals. He won't, of course, because he's a Randian hero, but it continues to inspire me each time I read the book. So I've read it again for the first time in five years, and I'll read it again in another five years, when I need a reminder of the freshness and vitality I felt and feel about my ideals when I read this book.

It's not much of a book review, but let the fact that I paid eBay shipping and handling for a copy of this book so I could read it a fifth time speak for me.


 
New Revenue Stream in New Jersey
Bill: Seize homes that contain 'illegal' guns:
    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.
Behold the slippery slope. Hey, asset seizure of this fashion has all but eliminated the scourge of illegal drugs. Why not extend it?

Because I'm eventually looking forward to handing over pinks because a speed camera clocked me at two miles per hour over the speed limit.

(Link seen on Ravenwood's Universe.)


Tuesday, May 10, 2005
 
First Hand Second-Handing
From the bizjournals.com: Mastering meetings:
    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.
Remember, bureaucrat, meetings are not to do something, nor to reach a decision: they're all about increasing your visibility.

So please pipe up with your eloquent digressions and anecdotes of personal achievement. Because that will serve the real purpose of the meeting.


 
Comment Policy
All right, have at it, gentle reader, but understand that I can and will arbitrarily remove comments for any reason I want.

Because that's my name at the top of the page.


 
Otherwise, They Would Have Had To Shoot Her

Police used Taser on pregnant driver:
    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.
She did not attack the officers, so they should not have feared for their safety. We can assume is that the officer who tasered her would not have shot her dead, which is the decision for which the taser provides an alternative. Instead, he used it as a people prod when she resisted.

An attitude adjustment, if you will. But don't worry, citizen, you only have to worry if you ever might have a difference of opinion with a police officer.


 
MBA Defends Decline of Baseball

In a book review for Slate, Josh Levin takes issue with a book's nostalgia for baseball traditionalists versus number crunchers:
    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.
As I have asserted recently, the MBAs in baseball are destroying the tradition of baseball from the front office. So let sportswriters capture the tradition and mystique of baseball without worrying about the detailed statistical analyses. Let managers go by gut sometimes instead of the actuarial charts.

When it comes down to mere statistics, why play the games at all when you can simply do the calculations on an expensive calculator? Or have the MBAs forgotten that statistics capture past behavior and that past behavior might not predict future success or failure? Isn't that what business school teaches them to put on the bottom of financial reports?


 
If Only The Snakes Were Citizens

Note the double standard that this story reveals:
    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."
If only they were humans who legally owned the property and had constitutional rights; then Menomonee Falls could simply have used eminent domain to remove the squatters from the government's land--and with eminent domain, gentle reader, all land is government land--and could have given the land to developers.

But since the Butler's garter snakes are reptiles with their bellies in the soil, the government will protect them from rapacious developers.


 
Fun with Headlines

Embrace the imagery of this St. Louis Post-Dispatch headline:

Mo. House panel guts anti-abortion bill

Monday, May 09, 2005
 
The Root of the Problem: Not Enough Money for My Organization

Horror: Compulsive gambling fuels criminal habits: Mother of 3 stole $520,000 to keep playing, and lost it
    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."
Accept responsibility after she got caught. Oh, she's saying the right things for the parole board hearings to come.

Stories like this make me angry, because the helpful government wraps us all in stifling protective legislation to keep the few knuckleheads like this safe. People so consumed with stupid pursuits of destructive pleasures that they break the law and inspire new regulation to prevent the impetus the person had for breaking the law.

Let's get to the nutty graph, where science and statistics are cast aside in favor of the almighty anecdote:
    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."
Ah, yes, an organization that exists to study and fight the problem tell us that the problem exists and is increasing. "I would say" hardly merits new rules, new funding, and any sympathy for burglars and embezzlers who are really just sick people with an addiction and no adultness to combat it.


 
Number of Ways the Huffington Post Differs from Salon

  1. Content not locked behind subscription/ads.

 
Back to the Quarry, Howard

Designing inside the box:
    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.
You have no choice, Howard. Give in, compromise!


 
The Rules

At great danger to himself, Chuq at Teal Sunglasses has posted the long-hidden rules for cats.

Now that we know them, though, we can expect the cats to change the rules.

(Link seen on BucciBlog.)


Sunday, May 08, 2005
 
Predicting Next Month's Crisis Today

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch spends a lot of pages in it's A1 section today, including two thirds of the front page, thumping on the desk with this shoe: Lives on the line: Organ donors which tells the horror that can befall live donors. Live donors are people who give blood marrow, kidneys, and whatnot without having a motorcycle accident first.

The gripping lead:
    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.
Excellent work, Post-Dispatch. As a result of your fearmongering, perhaps we can look forward to you treating us, in a couple months or a year, to a fearmongering expose on the declining number of live donors.

With a clear conscience, of course. Organizations don't have consciences, and some don't even have consistency.


 
The Unasked Question

Because I'm just crass enough, I'll ask this question: Would Helen Harcombe be alive if she lived in a nation with a free market health system?

Michelle Malkin links to the BBC weepy about a woman who died from cancer and left instructions for her husband on how to raise their daughter. However, amid the tissue-sopping prose, we get this glimpse of her health care decisions:
    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.
Nine months from lump to biopsy, friends. Because "she had been initially told"--by her government health care provider, no doubt--that she was low risk.

In America, we can still get that second opinion and get that damn thing checked out in a week or two. Before it gets the opportunity to gestate into a death sentence. Whether you're a "low risk" patient or not.

Well, most of us have that chance for the second opinion. Until the government ensures that all of us get a chance at its provider's opinion. For The Children. The Children of everyone but the Helen Harcombes.


 
Pocket Change

Rumor has it that the St. Louis Cardinals baseball team will leave the radio station that has broadcast them for over 50 years to purchase, yes, purchase, the other leading AM talk station in the area:
    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.
It's good to see that the impoverished Cardinals, who couldn't build their new baseball stadium without tapping government funds, have enough money in reserve to buy and run a baseball station while fielding a competitive team. I'm also looking forward to public/private "partnerships" in the future to build transmission towers and buy outrageously-painted vehicles with the call letters on the side. Memo: Please just change your name and mascot now to the St. Louis Crony Capitalists. The corporate fans for whom you're building new boxes and clubs into the new stadium at the expense of inexpensive seats for families will enjoy the joke.

Here's my bet: they will buy the other radio station. How am I sure? Because in every instance where the new MBAs running professional sports organizations must choose between tradition and business-school pabulum like:
    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.
Building the brand through a consolidated marketing plan by putting the broadcasts on a small radio station that most Cardinals fans cannot hear? The MBAs love it!

And when the fans in Iowa, Kansas, Tennessee, and Indiana can't get the broadcast on KMOX, don't spend money for satellite radio, and eventually stop making the pilgrimage to Busch stadium, the MBAs won't understand how the loss of tradition in a longstanding sport franchise ultimately hurts more than it makes hip.


To say Noggle, one first must be able to say the "Nah."