Musings from Brian J. Noggle
Saturday, August 26, 2006
 
I Do Not Think That Word Means What You Think It Means
Escort squires celebrity authors, finds them down-to-earth


- posted by Brian J. @ 2:36 PM   0 comments
 
L'il Dig?
A large public works project that goes hundreds of millions over budget, leads to suits and counter suits between the city and the contractors, and leads to an unsustainable business model that's freshly-mewling for more tax money. What could make it better? Oh, yeah, brag about the tunnels:
    Instead of burrowing underground like miners, crews ripped open Forest Park Parkway and dug a trench that in some places is 45 feet deep. Reinforced concrete shored up the tunnel walls, and massive precast concrete tops - some weighing up to 30 tons - covered the tunnel.
Oh, boy.

I suspect this one, as only a minor boondoggle, won't collapse, but if it does, we can easily point our fingers at nearby home owners who will have cost lives to maintain their property values.

Also, the ACLU, somehow.


- posted by Brian J. @ 2:07 PM   5 comments
Wednesday, August 23, 2006
 
Number Four, With a Bullet (I Hope)
MfBJN: The #4 source on the Internet for worst kind of popular tripe.

But we're improving every day in our quest to be your best source for the worst kind of popular tripe.


- posted by Brian J. @ 10:08 PM   0 comments
 
ACLU Wants Little Girls To Die
Boy Scouts rescue toddler in river:
    A troop of Boy Scouts on a camping trip saved an 18-month-old girl who had fallen in a river upstream from them and was floating face down, officials said.
James Taranto of Best of the Web Today reminds us:
    The ACLU describes the Boy Scouts as "an organization that will go the way of the Daughters of the American Revolution in losing its place in American life if it does not end its discriminatory practices."
If the ACLU had its way, the intolerant organization wouldn't exist, and that little girl would be dead.

I suppose some secularists and nontraditionalists would say that something would arise to take the Boy Scouts place and to teach young men to love and respect themselves and nature and embraces homosexuality, but I'm not so optimistic. One thing's for sure, though; the Boy Scouts were prepared when they needed to be in this instance (and, no doubt, in many others). Fortunately for the little girl, her family, and for the future people she'll touch in her wonderful life.


- posted by Brian J. @ 9:39 PM   1 comments
 
Chris Lawrence Said It (II)
He wrote: It probably didn't cover this, either:
    A woman was critically injured when she apparently jumped into the path of a MetroLink train early today near the campus of the University of Missouri-St. Louis.
Wow, the enemies of light rail are going all out to sabotage the triumph of this inflexible marvel of modern transit just as its latest, and only second, rail line opens, only a year late and only hundreds of million over budget!


- posted by Brian J. @ 8:16 PM   0 comments
Tuesday, August 22, 2006
 
Chris Lawrence Said It
He wrote: It probably didn't cover this:
    Several passengers suffered minor injuries when equipment on a MetroLink train got tangled and smashed into a window near Forest Park in St. Louis Monday evening.
Remember, friends, you can enjoy this sort of fun on the Shrewsbury-Clayton line starting this weekend!


- posted by Brian J. @ 9:59 PM   1 comments
Monday, August 21, 2006
 
Wherein I Admit That My Offspring Is A Genius
That is correct, my Post Fetal Creature (PFC) is a freakin' genius. He's only six weeks old and he's already talking. Well, he's said his first word, anyway. That is correct, at only six weeks old, my heir said, quite clearly, "a."

What, you noun-and-verb fetishists, an indefinite article isn't good enough for a first word? No, you want "mommy" or "dada" or "absquatulate" before you'll consider it a word.

You're just jealous of my child's obvious gifts.


- posted by Brian J. @ 9:54 PM   3 comments
Sunday, August 20, 2006
 
Unspoken Letters
Cardinals ticket sales are down, and they've got a million theories why, but none of the ones enumerated in the story match my expectation.

Here are two things that have alienated some of the out-of-town fan base:
  • A publicly funded stadium. Remember the signs that said "We'll build a stadium when the Cardinals build highways"? The people who put them in their yards and on their farms do.

  • The Cardinals bought KTRS and moved their broadcasts to the underpowered AM station and a "network" that leaves the radio coverage spotty in St. Louis, much less within driving range of a weekend in St. Louis.
No, certainly the dive in tourism traffic comes from gas prices and the rumor that every game is a sell-out. Good luck with continuing delusions.


- posted by Brian J. @ 10:15 PM   0 comments
 
Northrop Grumman Marketing Material Front Page News in St. Louis Post-Dispatch
We've known it for a long time, but why is the St. Louis Post-Dispatch now running as its Sunday headline, page one, above the fold, Missiles may be next big threat to U.S. airliners?
    The nation's airline industry is a shoulder-launched missile attack away from plunging into a financial tailspin, one that could trigger $1 trillion-plus in financial losses in this country.

    Five years after the devastating attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, U.S. passenger jets still have no response to a shoulder-launched missile that can be purchased on the black market for as little as $5,000 and can hit a target more than a mile away. If beefed-up airline security continues to keep terrorists and their bombs off commercial flights, shoulder-launched missile attacks pose a likely alternative, experts say.

    "Terrorists are a lot like electricity: They take the path of least resistance," said Jack Pledger, an executive at defense contractor Northrop Grumman Corp. "Instead of working out elaborate methods, terrorists go to the next-easiest thing. If you take out these easy things, you drive them to using" a shoulder-launched missile.

    Pledger is director of business development for Northrop Grumman's infrared-countermeasure program, which is testing a system that disrupts a shoulder-launched missile's guidance system. The cost of the system would be less than $1 million for each plane if Northrop were to receive enough orders to warrant high-rate production.
Such a deal! But the government and the airlines are not willing to choke up the million dollars' plus that Northrop Grumman charges for the solution. Ergo, it's time to gin up some outrage so The People force the airlines, hardly awash in slush funds, or the government, too awash in taxpayer slush, to bolster its bottom line.


- posted by Brian J. @ 12:29 PM   2 comments
To say Noggle, one first must be able to say the "Nah."