As you know I am a huge baseball fan and I am a big St. Louis Cardinal fan.
The Birds have been playing mediocre ball for about a week and half. Yesterday the team lost a game in extra innings that it should have won easily. Jason Isringhausen blew a save in the ninth, but he should have never been in that position to begin with. The Cardinals ran themselves out of the inning in the fifth when they pulled a bonehead stunt and passed each other on the base paths. It could have been a big inning, but it wasn't because the screw up ended the rally and they only got one run off of the Pirates. Consequently the lack of scoring came back to bite them in the butt.
The Cardinals media machine keeps talking about what a great team this is and how it will not be happy unless it wins the World Series. Championship teams do not play like the Cardinals have been playing for the past ten days. They played poorly in Tampa Bay but were lucky to sweep three because Tampa is so awful. They lost two out of three to a crappy Cincinnati team, and split a four game set with the Pirates. Ugghh!
This is not a championship team. At least at this point. Somebody needs to kick start them and get them playing again. Or, that media machine and it's promise is going to be just more baloney.
June 27, 2005
June 23, 2005
What were they thinking???
The Supreme Court in it's infinite wisdom today decided local governments may now take property from individuals so corporations may use the property. Stop and think about that a minute. The Supremes say it is okay for your local municipality or county to take your home and give it to a developer so he can put in a shopping mall or high dollar real estate development. It scares the bejeebers out of me.
John Paul Stevens, wrote the majority opinion and said that it is in the best interest of local government to develop property for the benefit of the community. In other words, "the ends justifies the means". Gee, isn't that what Karl Marx wrote about a hundred years ago?
I exaggerate to a certain extent, but no one is safe in their property. Let's say Mega Corp wants to build multi-million dollar condos and that my piece of property stands in their way. Not a problem, the city condemns my home and property and hands it over to the developer and they make big bucks. But, what about me? Not a problem because the Supreme court says it's all OK! It's now the "law of the land".
The minority opinion was written by Sandra Day O'Connor. O'Connor criticized the majority for "abandoning the conservative principle of individual property rights and handing 'disproportionate influence and power' to the well-heeled." She also wrote..."Any property may now be taken for the benefit of another private party, but the fallout from this decision will not be random. The beneficiaries are likely to be those citizens with disproportionate influence and power in the political process, including large corporations and development firms. As for the victims, the government now has license to transfer property from those with fewer resources to those with more. The Founders cannot have intended this perverse result. "(T)hat alone is a just government," wrote James Madison, "which impartially secures to every man, whatever is his own."'
In what may be a silver lining though, the Supreme Court left open the option for states to restrict local municipalities in what they may do in the taking of private property. Let's hope the state legislatures show more wisdom than Justice Stevens.
John Paul Stevens, wrote the majority opinion and said that it is in the best interest of local government to develop property for the benefit of the community. In other words, "the ends justifies the means". Gee, isn't that what Karl Marx wrote about a hundred years ago?
I exaggerate to a certain extent, but no one is safe in their property. Let's say Mega Corp wants to build multi-million dollar condos and that my piece of property stands in their way. Not a problem, the city condemns my home and property and hands it over to the developer and they make big bucks. But, what about me? Not a problem because the Supreme court says it's all OK! It's now the "law of the land".
The minority opinion was written by Sandra Day O'Connor. O'Connor criticized the majority for "abandoning the conservative principle of individual property rights and handing 'disproportionate influence and power' to the well-heeled." She also wrote..."Any property may now be taken for the benefit of another private party, but the fallout from this decision will not be random. The beneficiaries are likely to be those citizens with disproportionate influence and power in the political process, including large corporations and development firms. As for the victims, the government now has license to transfer property from those with fewer resources to those with more. The Founders cannot have intended this perverse result. "(T)hat alone is a just government," wrote James Madison, "which impartially secures to every man, whatever is his own."'
In what may be a silver lining though, the Supreme Court left open the option for states to restrict local municipalities in what they may do in the taking of private property. Let's hope the state legislatures show more wisdom than Justice Stevens.
SBC wants your information!
I get home from work and what do I find. A bulk rate letter from the phone company telling me they are going to share my "proprietary network information" with their other business enterprises.
My response is hell no you aren't giving out my personal info to your other flunky companies. So, I tried to call their toll free number like nine times in a row and got a busy signal. Gee do you think some rocket scientist marketing type decided to set up one phone number and all of the company's customer have to go through that one number to stop this private information sharing? Can you say "yes".
But, you know what really sucks. The phone company can behave boorishly like this, because Congress put the burden of proof on the customer to have to manually opt out, rather than making the big corporation get my permission. Nice job Congress!
My response is hell no you aren't giving out my personal info to your other flunky companies. So, I tried to call their toll free number like nine times in a row and got a busy signal. Gee do you think some rocket scientist marketing type decided to set up one phone number and all of the company's customer have to go through that one number to stop this private information sharing? Can you say "yes".
But, you know what really sucks. The phone company can behave boorishly like this, because Congress put the burden of proof on the customer to have to manually opt out, rather than making the big corporation get my permission. Nice job Congress!
Fast response from Congressman
Last week, I wrote about efforts by Congress to cut funding for the CPB. And when I told you to write your congressman I did the same. I wrote my rep, Russ Carnahan, who represents Missouri's third district. Here is his response:
Thank you for contacting me regarding the recently proposed cuts for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. I appreciate hearing from you.
For decades, the CPB has provided quality television programming for America's families. Shows such as Sesame Street have entertained and educated generations of American children. We must ensure that public television has the funding it needs to continue to air it's wonderful programs.
As you know, the House Committee on Appropriations authorized a $100 million funding cut for the CPB. Please be assured that I will fight to restore funding to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
Once again, thank you for contacting me. Please do not hesitated to contact me again on this or any other issue.
Sincerely,
Russ Carnahan
Member of congress
Well, he is supportive of restoring the funding, but I would be more comfortable if he had said something about Public Radio and NPR in particular. But, still I liked the response.
Stay tuned for later details. Carnahan is a democrat so his response does not come as a surprise. It will be interesting to see what my two Republican Senators, Kit Bond and Jim Talent have to say when or if they respond.
Thank you for contacting me regarding the recently proposed cuts for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. I appreciate hearing from you.
For decades, the CPB has provided quality television programming for America's families. Shows such as Sesame Street have entertained and educated generations of American children. We must ensure that public television has the funding it needs to continue to air it's wonderful programs.
As you know, the House Committee on Appropriations authorized a $100 million funding cut for the CPB. Please be assured that I will fight to restore funding to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
Once again, thank you for contacting me. Please do not hesitated to contact me again on this or any other issue.
Sincerely,
Russ Carnahan
Member of congress
Well, he is supportive of restoring the funding, but I would be more comfortable if he had said something about Public Radio and NPR in particular. But, still I liked the response.
Stay tuned for later details. Carnahan is a democrat so his response does not come as a surprise. It will be interesting to see what my two Republican Senators, Kit Bond and Jim Talent have to say when or if they respond.
June 18, 2005
Local? TV News
I had to laugh this morning. I usually don't watch TV on Saturday mornings, but I had to work this afternooon and I turned on the local CBS affiliate KMOV. I thought maybe I would see something from overnight that had happened in this metropolitan area.
Instead, I saw one local story in the 50 minutes I was watching. One freakin story in almost an hour that pertained to the St. Louis area. The Saint Louis metro area has a population of 2.6 million people and they could find only one story to report.
Oh and the story was about the sale of the Saint Louis Blues hockey team and who might buy them. And guess what? To top it off the story was reported in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch on Friday morning. So, in effect KMOV read Friday's paper and then put it on as news a day later. I guess absolutely nothing else happened in the whole region. Sheeeeesh!
So now you are probably wondering how did they fill all of this time? Well they had a cute weather girl on about five times to tell us it was going to be a nice day. And they repeated their Blues story about five times. And they had Sports and they reported the Blues were going to be sold. And, they showed pictures of Interstate Highways 20 miles from downtown that were wide open and had no traffic problems. Oh, and I almost forgot they ran national news stories from places such as Florida and California and Europe, but not St. Louis. Yep, channel four was right on top of the whole metropolitan area. I would have learned more had I turned on an infomercial on any of the other St. Louis stations at that time. Yep good old channel four really had an award winning nine o'clock newscast!
Instead, I saw one local story in the 50 minutes I was watching. One freakin story in almost an hour that pertained to the St. Louis area. The Saint Louis metro area has a population of 2.6 million people and they could find only one story to report.
Oh and the story was about the sale of the Saint Louis Blues hockey team and who might buy them. And guess what? To top it off the story was reported in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch on Friday morning. So, in effect KMOV read Friday's paper and then put it on as news a day later. I guess absolutely nothing else happened in the whole region. Sheeeeesh!
So now you are probably wondering how did they fill all of this time? Well they had a cute weather girl on about five times to tell us it was going to be a nice day. And they repeated their Blues story about five times. And they had Sports and they reported the Blues were going to be sold. And, they showed pictures of Interstate Highways 20 miles from downtown that were wide open and had no traffic problems. Oh, and I almost forgot they ran national news stories from places such as Florida and California and Europe, but not St. Louis. Yep, channel four was right on top of the whole metropolitan area. I would have learned more had I turned on an infomercial on any of the other St. Louis stations at that time. Yep good old channel four really had an award winning nine o'clock newscast!
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