Musings from Brian J. Noggle
Saturday, September 27, 2008
 
A Band Slam 20 Years In The Making (Almost)
Remember the band Color Me Badd?

Me, either.


- posted by Brian J. @ 9:27 PM   1 comments
Friday, September 26, 2008
 
Two Weekends To Reshape Hollywood?
With Fireproof (only one paper reviewed it? Really? I hear showings for Saturday night here in St. Louis are already sold out) opening this weekend and An American Carol next--both to limited release--will boffo numbers for both refocus Hollywood money men on making films that people want to see that portray Christianity favorably or lampoon the taboo subjects of Liberalism?

Who am I kidding?


- posted by Brian J. @ 9:55 PM   8 comments
 
Obama Campaign Wants Radio Station Licenses
For airing anti-Obama advertisements:
    The Obama campaign has written radio stations in Pennsylvania and Ohio, pressing them to refuse to air an ad from the National Rifle Association.

    "This advertisement knowingly misleads your viewing audience about Senator Obama's position on the Second Amendment," says the letter from Obama general counsel Bob Bauer. "For the sake of both FCC licensing requirements and the public interest, your station should refuse to continue to air this advertisement."
More at Snowflakes in Hell, Bitch Girls, and a roundup at Instapundit.

First, the Obama campaign wanted Justice Department investigations and charges for an opposing political group. Then, the Obama campaign warned broadcasters their licenses were in jeopardy for running anti-Obama ads. Then Missouri prosecutors said opposing viewpoints would be prosecuted.

Is this 21st Century America? Is this the Change Happens on November 4 we were waiting/hoping for?

Whatever you imagine the Bush administration's civil liberties failings were, get ready to be prosecuted for your speech under the Obama administration.

- posted by Brian J. @ 10:30 AM   0 comments
 
No, Prosecute Me First!
St. Louis prosecutors, Obama supporters, make their preparations to go after people who make false statements about Barack Obama.

Don't forget I made a bumper sticker intimating he's involved with the Communist Party:

Obama 08: Let's Get This Party Started
Click to buy


It becomes less and less hyperbole every day, doesn't it?

More on this story at Gateway Pundit and St. Louis Metropolitan Area Council of Conservative Citizens.

(Link seen on Instapundit.)


- posted by Brian J. @ 6:42 AM   3 comments
Thursday, September 25, 2008
 
Read This First
Obama-Ayers: Partners in Revolution

(Link seen on Instapundit.)

- posted by Brian J. @ 10:52 AM   0 comments
 
If Chavez Calls You Comrade, You're Doing It Wrong
Chavez says Bush is his comrade:
    "I nationalize strategic companies and get criticized, but when Bush does it, it's OK," Chavez said on weekly television program Sept. 21. "Bush is turning socialist. How are you, comrade Bush?"
(Link seen on The Volokh Conspiracy.)


- posted by Brian J. @ 7:08 AM   0 comments
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
 
Suing the Dead Guy
You know what this story fails to mention?
    Joan Anzalone’s children blame her longtime boyfriend for the helicopter crash that killed the couple, and filed a lawsuit Tuesday claiming he may have doomed them by flying blindly and negligently into a heavy fog.

    The lawsuit was filed in Cook County, Ill., where Anzalone and Alan Sapko began their flight back to Kenosha early Sunday morning, after taking in a Huey Lewis and the News concert at the Horseshoe Casino just over the border in Hammond, Ind.

    Sapko, 54, reportedly played cards until about 4:30 a.m. before lifting off in his Robinson R-44 helicopter, with Anzalone, 45, a mother of children ages 21, 19 and 17.

    Their lawsuit claims Sapko failed to follow federal regulations, failed to verify the weather conditions, failed to abandon his flight plan when he encountered fog and negligently flew into an area with insufficient visibility.
That Sapko's dead:
    A helicopter carrying two people crashed into a Kenosha family’s home early Sunday, the rotor blades slicing through the two-story structure like a loaf of bread as the aircraft tumbled down a stairway before blowing out the front door and coming to rest on a neighbor’s driveway.

    While the two helicopter occupants were killed, a couple and their three young children survived unharmed as the cart-wheeling wreckage blew their bedroom doors off the hinges just before dawn.
Good to see that the children waited to try to dip their hands into their mother's boyfriend's deep pockets a whole two days.


- posted by Brian J. @ 6:30 AM   0 comments
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
 
Book Report: I'm Glad I'm Not Young Anymore by Clarissa Start (1990)
This is the book you wished your grandmother had written.

Part memoir, part musing, Clarissa Start talks about her youth and living on the South Side of St. Louis, and sometimes Florida, as her parents eked out an existence in the 1920s. Those years and her attendance at University of Missouri during the depression were made adventurous by a father with a predilection for the ponies. Then, Clarissa deals with her husband's getting called up for World War II after they buy their first house (just down the road a piece from here; I went looking for it since there was a picture in the book). She details a bit about her job search and finally her placement with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

The book then muses on aging a bit; her first husband dies, she moves out to the country (she lived in High Ridge while I was in House Springs, so we were almost neighbors). It has a wise, even tone to it.

Even retrospectively, Start doesn't apply contemporary standards to history. She mentions internment in WW2 and explains it seemed like a good idea at the time. So that was noteable.

I liked the book enough that I bought another copy to send to my mother-in-law, another UMC graduate. On purpose. So, you know, I liked it.

Books mentioned in this review:


- posted by Brian J. @ 11:21 AM   0 comments
 
This Is Only A Test
University City tests out its property condemnation system after a flood:
    The city condemned about 275 properties in the aftermath of the storm, but nearly all of the condemnations have been lifted. City officials said the condemnations were to protect residents from potential electrical or other hazards or the lack of utilities.
If this had been an actual emergency, such as the need for a strip mall, these condemnations would have stood.


- posted by Brian J. @ 11:09 AM   0 comments
 
Book Report: From Russia With Love by Ian Fleming (1957, 1964)
You know, the book struck me as slightly familiar, and a trip to my library database software confirmed it: I've read this book recently. Well, sort of recently. Between 2000 and 2004: that is, between moving into my house in Casinoport and starting the book report things here on the blog. Oddly, I didn't remember too much about the plot, but certain setups, scenes, and turns of phrase resonated.

SMERSH, a Soviet organization tasked with killing spies, decides to kill Bond. They set up an elaborate trap for him, using an attractive young Soviet for bait, and put into motion the plan to not only kill bond but to also embarrass British intelligence.

The Bond books are straightforward, without the winking and smirking that characterizes the movies. At the same time, they're very pro-Western and anti-bad guys, so red-blooded American readers can enjoy them and hearken back to a time where the West, at least in fiction, hung together.

Books mentioned in this review:


- posted by Brian J. @ 6:44 AM   0 comments
 
Internet Conspiracy for the Day
Would a billionaire financier who has spent beaucoup money in the last eight years opposing the Bush administration, someone like George Soros, say, tank the American economy just before an election to help his client party?

Think about it. Ah, nah, don't think about it, that's too complicated. Parrot it to a couple of friends, maybe mention it in an e-mail or two.


- posted by Brian J. @ 6:05 AM   2 comments
 
Book Report: Murder Spins The Wheel by Brett Halliday (1966)
This is a Mike Shayne mystery without the Castro boosterism. Written in the middle 1960s, it's a throwback to the old style of hardboiled mystery combined with the contemporary laxity in moral values. In it, an underworld associate of Shayne's gets set up. A fixed football game, a horserace gone bad, and a set-up stick-up lead the associate to New York, where he's ultimately set up for a narcotics bust. Shayne has to delve into the complex set of grifters and whatnot to find justice.

It's a good bit of paperback hardboiled mystery. I've read a number of the Shayne series in the past decades, and I'll pick up others I'll find. That's a pretty rousing endorsement from me, except I suppose that I pick up pretty much anything if it's under a buck at a book fair.

Books mentioned in this review:


- posted by Brian J. @ 5:59 AM   0 comments
Monday, September 22, 2008
 
Also, Read This
The steady, marching drumbeat of Marxism in everyday life:
    The drumbeat. It's always there. Day and night. Rain or shine. Winter or Summer. Sunday or Monday. It comes at you from every direction. It comes over the TV, the radio, at work, at school, in music, in the newspapers, from the politicians, in conversation with others, even in church. It wears you down. It robs you of the will to resist its message. Even short-lived victories, which stop it briefly, leave you with the knowledge that it will return; each minor victory bound to be lost to the redoubled efforts of this patient and persistent force. You can't escape it. It never stops. It never gives up. It never ends. It rains upon you from every possible angle, from every possible source.

    It's the drumbeat of the left. It is political, philosophical, theological, and social. It pervades every activity. It is post-structural, post-modern, post-everything in the parlance of the day. It is tolerant, diverse, non-judgmental, non-discriminatory, egalitarian, politically correct, multicultural, globalist, and collectivist. It insists that there are no rights and wrongs, no moral absolutes. It turns everything upside down in its looking glass world. It denies the correctness of all that produced what our culture revered before the deconstruction of the world in accordance with the tenets of cultural Marxism.

- posted by Brian J. @ 1:32 PM   0 comments
 
Read This First
The Smallest Minority reprints a transcript of Mark Levin explaining the current credit crisis.

(Link seen on View from the Porch.)

Remember, there are 2 parties in this country: The ones who go into government or near government to get rich and the rest of us.


- posted by Brian J. @ 9:13 AM   0 comments
Sunday, September 21, 2008
 
Journalist, Whither The Irony?
Loans came easily, then fell apart:
    While earning a salary of $21,000 a year, Leesa Robinson landed on top of the real estate world in 2006, overseeing nearly $1 million in property.

    The 45-year-old single mom started buying houses after watching late-night infomercials and their tales of fast wealth.

    Lenders from across the country wrote more than $800,000 in home loans in 2005 and 2006 so Robinson could buy eight north side rental properties, half of which she purchased with no money down. All but one of the loans came with high-interest, adjustable rates.

    Today, her credit is shot. She lost all eight houses. She went bankrupt.

    Robinson’s story is far from unique.
Far from unique? What does that mean? Common? A lot of people making $11 an hour buying a million dollars in property?

And whose fault is it? None, apparently, on the person who believed too much in infomercials, reached for the American Dream, and failed. Failure is no longer an option; it's something that The Man or Big Mortgage does to you.


- posted by Brian J. @ 12:18 PM   0 comments
To say Noggle, one first must be able to say the "Nah."