Musings from Brian J. Noggle
Saturday, May 09, 2009
 
When City Leaders Drunk Dial
Francis Slay repeats call to join St. Louis County.

It's 3am, and he's promising to take the county back and forgive the county for letting the city dump it in the 1870s.

Keep calling, Slay. The Post-Dispatch will continue its breathless encouragement even as the two million plus county residents ignore your pleas to spend our tax money on your city residents.


- posted by Brian J. @ 2:28 PM   0 comments
Thursday, May 07, 2009
 
Apple Is Mandatory
Class lectures? There’s an app for that: Journalism school to require iPod use:
    Kayla Miller isn't sure why she would need an iPhone or an iPod Touch in her courses at the University of Missouri, but she likes the idea of the school requiring students to have them.

    "I don’t really see a need for them, but I think it's cool," she said.

    After all, Miller, 19, said, if the devices are required — as they will be for all incoming journalism majors starting in the fall — many parents will feel like they have to buy them for their teens. Even though she'll be a sophomore next year and won’t be required to have one, Miller said she might urge her parents to buy her one for her journalism courses, anyway.

    The MU School of Journalism is requiring that all incoming freshmen have iPhones or iPod Touch devices to "help students adjust to freshmen year," Associate Dean Brian Brooks said. "It also would allow them to record lectures and review it. Many schools are doing it now, and it seemed like a great idea to us."
See, while you're looking at Halliburton and Blackwater, the corporations favored by the cool and the hep are becoming mandatory.

And the worst part is the well-conditioned student who is in favor of compulsory iPods even though she doesn't see the need for it. She just accepts that the authorities are compelling students for the better.

I'm not saying I fear for the future of this country, because that might imply I think this country has a future. Instead, here are real estate listings for Sandpoint, Idaho. Good luck.

(Hat tip to gimlet.)

- posted by Brian J. @ 9:21 AM   2 comments
Tuesday, May 05, 2009
 
Book Report: Dark of the Moon by John Sandford (2007)
This is the Virgil Flowers book, although the difference between Flowers and Lucas Davenport is in their dress, their vehicles, their off-duty neat things, and that Flowers hasn't married the love of his life and can pursue women. Like Davenport, Flowers is an ass man and spends a lot of the book commenting on women's asses. Of course, I guess when you're dealing with genre material, you really don't get a broad variety of protagonists. And the book really doesn't suffer from the similarities in the characters, unlike in, say, Robert B. Parker's works.

The book takes place outside the twin cities, in small town Minnesota where a series of murders erupts with, dare I say it, ritualistic deaths? In a Sandford novel? Get out! No, really. Flowers works over the town, discovers many motives to kill a rich man who lived a lavish and swinging lifestyle in the early 1970s and earned the hatred of the townspeople in a business scam, and finally discovers the killer with a crack in the case that left me unsatisfied.

An average book, I suppose. At least Sandford didn't feel the need to trash Bush here.

Books mentioned in this review:


- posted by Brian J. @ 7:25 AM   0 comments
Monday, May 04, 2009
 
Book Report: You Can't Get There From Here by Ogden Nash (1957)
This is a later volume from Nash, and it shows. His preoccupation with his children has passed onto his preoccupation with his grandchildren. His poetry is more gloomy amid the humor as he recognizes he's aging and won't be the young man again. Hence, it really doesn't exhibit the playful nature of his earlier works which really is the strength of his poetry. As a Nash aficionado, I'm glad I read it, but it's not a good starting point in his work.

Books mentioned in this review:


- posted by Brian J. @ 7:24 PM   0 comments
 
In Some Bizarro World, It Would Be Called "Raising" Taxes
Obama to crack down on business taxes:
    President Barack Obama plans changes to tax policy certain to be unpopular with corporations with international divisions and individuals who use tax havens.

    Obama's two-part plan, which he is slated to unveil at the White House on Monday, also calls for 800 new federal tax agents to enforce the system.

    The president's proposal would eliminate some tax deductions for companies that earn profits in countries with low tax rates, as well as consider U.S. citizens who use tax havens in the Bahamas or Cayman Islands guilty of violating U.S. tax laws.
It's going to raise $21 billion a year in revenue, minus unintended consequences.

Or, to put it in perspective, 1/100th of the new deficit spending the President and the Democrat-controlled Congress has incurred. Not counting forthcoming cap-and-trade plans and national health care bills. And all unintended consequences forthcoming.

Full disclosure: This change will affect me because I am a capitalist Fat Cat who bought a couple hundred bucks' worth of stock in a Taiwanese chipmaker, and I get to knock off the taxes I pay to the government of Taiwan. You know who else is a corporate Fat Cat in this scenario? Anyone with an International Fund selection in a mutual fund, 401(k), or retirement plan. You know, you.

Candidate Obama promised not to raise taxes on families making less than $250,000 a year or whatever. President Obama, though, has a different scale for determining feline weight.


- posted by Brian J. @ 9:29 AM   0 comments
Sunday, May 03, 2009
 
Have Your Permits In Order Before Breaking Up With Debra
Man charged with illegal dumping of debis

Who knew that the government now actually has laws about ending romances? On the other hand, what's there to stop it now that "rule of law", "contracts", and "The Constitution" are void at the whim of the Elect(ed)?


- posted by Brian J. @ 8:57 PM   0 comments
To say Noggle, one first must be able to say the "Nah."