respublica

Front page redoux

News items every newspaper seems to be highlighting this morning:

Ruth Bader Ginsberg finds her voice after 15 years on the Supreme Court.  She's begun reading dissents.   Editorials in both the NYT's and the Post-Dispatch this morning on the sad state of a conservative court.  Boo hoo is the gist of both.

How did he get into the country?  Headlines and stories about a man flying around Europe and the U.S. while carrying a bad strain of TB.

Fred Dalton Thompson ready to jump into the republican race for president.  This seems to excite just about everyone in all news outlets which leads to the logical conclusion that the 500 others already in the race have bored the heck out of all of us. 

The Catsup Bottle Summerfest may be back on in a different location and with a different twist.  The associate pastor of Son Life Church on Vandalia, David Amsden, asked the city council for permission to hold the fest on church property.  He told the council that they hope to set a Guinness record for making the largest catsup packet during the celebration.  By charging visitors a dollar to squirt a bottle of catsup into the packet, they hope to raise money as well as to fill a 10 foot by 3 foot, 1000 pound pack.  Ok, so this hasn't been in all the nation's newpapers, but it has been in all the local ones.

Living large

A market for everything and everyone.  A company named Living XL has a catalog which features items for the way overweight person.  Lawn chairs which will hold up to 800 pounds, toilets which are big big big, surviving the weight of a 1200 pound person-"larger than any other toilet seat in the world'' - priced at $124.95.

Not a bad price for a large toilet.

We love our pets

Americans will spend over $40 Billion on their pets this year.  This money goes for food, play, health, and cute little outfits. 

The majority of pet owners, 61 percent, are childless—singles, unmarried couples waiting to have kids, gay couples, empty-nesters.

This sounds insane.

Excuse me a moment while I go down and fill Speaker's water bowl with cold spring water from our water cooler. Poor guy doesn't like water from the tap.

Can you pass the citizen's test?

The Missouri Bar Association has 3 short tests similar to those taken by people wanting to become citizens of the United States.  Each has ten questions.

They all seemed quite easy.  Much easier than questions on "Are you smarter than a fifth grader".

11 speak out

A group of republican congressmen/women recently delivered a warning to President Bush that conditions in Iraq needed to improve soon because public support of the war was crumbling.

One, Mark Kirk is from Illinois and another, Jo Ann Emerson is from Missouri.  Via the New York Times

More traffic headaches

The St. Louis area, both Illinois and Missouri, is slowly but surely being strangled by construction tie-ups.  Maybe it's like the old story about boiling a frog.  Put him in boiling water and he fights, but put him in tepid water and gradually increase the heat and he stays docile.  I doubt this is going to be true for area drivers this summer.

Today we learn Kingshighway just east of Barnes hospital will be the site of major construction and several lanes will be closed as MoDOT workers rebuild two bridges over highway 40.  Ambulance and car drivers are being warned to find different routes.  Ha.

In Illinois IDOT is doing something on 55/70 from 157 to 159 which is backing up traffic before Collinsville's exits.

MoDOT is building a new Tamm overpass on 40 just east of the Clayton exit, closing one lane in each direction.  They are also mucking up 40 traffic near Brentwood/170.  And, no one needs to be told how awful the route at Olive and 170 has become. 

MoDOT is closing one lane near downtown to do something..oh, replacing joints and restriping.

St. Charles county drivers will see construction work at 1-70 and 94 and at Mid Rivers Mall Drive and, and, and

IDOT has been working on 64 on the Illinois side for several years, or so it seems and there is no end in sight.

Route 3...

All in all, only a portion of the construction messes St. Louis area drivers will have to navigate this year.

Mizzou leads the Big 12 in academic progress

The NCAA came out with their Academic Progress Rate (APR) for 2007 which show that the University of Missouri continues to pace the Big 12 Conference with regards to eligibility, retention and graduation of its student-athletes.

Mizzou led the Big 12 in 9 of 20 sports.  Kansas, in second place, had 4. 

Missouri led the Big 12's APR efforts in nine sports, including men's golf, men's swimming and diving, men's indoor track and field, women's basketball, women's cross country, women's golf, women's gymnastics, women's swimming and diving and women's indoor track and field. The Tigers ranked second overall in baseball, men's cross country, men's outdoor track and field and women's outdoor track and field and ranked third in men's basketball.

Mizzou Rah!

Collinsville back in the news

Two rather depressing stories in the Belleville paper today, depressing because they make Collinsville look bad.  The city has had a long history of having to live with stories like these, and the comments at the end of each does nothing to make things better.  I can think of very few cities where unhappy people are so quick to denigrate their hometown like Collinsville does, all the while assigning motives to city officials which are often very wrong.  Not to mention the facts of the matter.

The first is an editorial in the BND which takes the city, Downtown Collinsville Inc, and the Catsup Bottle fan club to task for letting the annual Catsup Bottle Birthday Bash and car show slip away.  The three parties involved could not come to any agreement on who would be in charge this year, hopes of a the DCI and Catsup Bottle group working together fell through.  So the city canceled it.  The paper makes assumptions and paints motivations with too broad a brush.  Then come the comments. 

The second story tells of a resident on Plainview Drive, a street which overlooks the new development on 157 and the possibility of more development which might include areas along Plainview Drive.   Certainly long time  homeowners have a right to fear losing their property or their property values, but it is the comments which detract from any kind of civil debate. 

Holidaymakers throw in the towels

A group of 55 British "holidaymakers" became frustrated with their German counterparts during a stay at a hotel/resort on the Italian Riviera recently.  Seems the German tourists were getting up early in the morning and staking a claim on the best beachfront and poolside sunbeds by laying their towels on them.  They must have then either gone back to bed or off to breakfast.  The Brits complained enough about not getting the lounge chairs that their bus driver took matters into his own hands and was finally arrested.

"The first time the group from South Wales complained to him, he said "Leave it to me" and dumped all of the towels at the end of the pool.

 

Mr Bowden said: "The following morning the Germans put them down even earlier so I did the same - with them shaking their fists at me from their windows."

"The next morning about 20 towels were there again so I collected them up, put them on a pile on the beach - and lit them. All the British tourists were cheering. But just a few minutes afterwards three police officers turned up and arrested me."

The hotel, probably just as fed up with the Germans as the British group intervened on the bus drivers behalf and he was released.  The driver said, "The Germans thought they owned the private beach but I wanted to make sure my tourists got a crack of the whip."

The Germans?  They surrendered.  Do American resort hotels have to deal with this kind of thing?  Chair hoarding?

Another kind of fish story

In England, a five car pileup resulting in some severe injuries is blamed on a driver swerving to avoid a plastic bag filled with goldfish.  The cars behind her couldn't stop. 

This being England, authorities are trying to determine just how the bag of fish ended up in the middle of the road.