2 years, 7 months ago,,
by Fred (,
baseball, cardinals
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The Cards sure seem to like the friendly confines of New Busch. After getting swept in Wrigley, they’ve returned home to post two straight wins, including last night’s 8-3 win over the Brewers. The offensive key was Jim Edmonds’ bases-clearing double in the fourth. Edmonds was the beneficiary of some very favorable scoring on that play, which featured two errors, the latter of which allowed him to score as well.
More encouraging for the Redbirds was the performance of Juan Encarnacion. Coming into the game in a miserable 4-for-26 slump, with no extra-base hits, no RBIs, and 23 runners left on base. Last night, however, Encarnacion had two singles in four at bats, including a hit-and-run single moving David Eckstein to third in the two-run third inning and a single in the fifth ahead of Edmond’s Little League grand slam. Encarnacion may be ready to settle into the two hole in the order - up to now, he’s just looked lost, leading to some calls to move someone else into that spot in the order (perhaps Skip Schumaker, hitting .316 with an OPS of .855).
Jason Marquis had six fairly strong innings, giving up all the Brewers’ runs on Carlos Lee’s three-run homer in the fourth that cut the Cards’ lead to 4-3. Braden Looper pitched a scoreless seventh, suggesting he may be ready to fill the setup role LaRussa envisioned when he was signed. Brad Thompson pitched out of trouble in the eighth, as a single, error by Scott Rolen and hit batter loaded the bases for Prince Fielder. Thompson induced an infield popup to end that threat. Josh Hancock then pitched a scoreless ninth marred only by a throwing error by Aaron Miles.
Next up: the Cards go for the sweep in an afternoon start at Busch. Jeff Suppan (0-1, 7.20) gets the start for St. Louis, facing the Brewers’ Doug Davis (0-1, 4.91). It’ll be my first personal taste of the new stadium.
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2 years, 7 months ago,,
by Fred (,
abortion, drugs, politics
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The next front in the pharmacy wars? Bitter Pill
Cedar River Clinics, a women’s health and abortion provider with facilities in Renton, Tacoma, and Yakima, filed a complaint with the Washington State Department of Health this week alleging three instances where pharmacists raising moral objections refused to fill prescriptions for Cedar River clients. The complaint includes one incident at the Swedish Medical Center outpatient pharmacy in Seattle. According to the complaint, someone at the Swedish pharmacy said she was “morally unable” to fill a Cedar River patient’s prescription for abortion-related antibiotics.
The complaint also alleges that the Swedish pharmacy refused to fill a prescription for pregnancy-related vitamins. These sorts of cases cause mixed feelings for me. On the one hand, it is outrageous for these pharmacists to try to impose their moral beliefs on others. Why stop at sex-related drugs? Refuse to sell AIDS drugs to homosexuals, or contraceptives to singles - both of these groups are considered immoral by some.
On the other hand, it is equally outrageous for government to tell private businesses what they can and cannot sell. A pharmacy need not stock condoms if it is morally opposed to contraceptives, after all. But once it decides to stock a pharmaceutical, it certainly shouldn’t discriminate based on who wrote the prescription (which is what is alleged in this case).
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2 years, 7 months ago,,
by Fred (,
evolution, science
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Want to see how short humans’ time on Earth has been, comparatively? Check out the scrollable Evolutionary Timeline, where each horizontal inch (on a 1024×768 display) represents 2 million years. The entire thing is 135 feet wide.
Note: the timeline is incomplete, and the Notes section under the timeline is utter bunk (”I think the process of evolution emphasizes the magnificance of life-energy, or creationary power.”). But it’s still cool.
[via Pharyngula]
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2 years, 7 months ago,,
by Fred (,
baseball, government, taxes
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Boston politicos are bent out of shape over private parking fees at Fenway
Mayor Thomas “Mumbles” Menino issued a statement saying he’s going to seek a city ordinance capping how much private lots can charge for parking. One of those city councilors called the rates “criminal,” and city officials are looking at ways to punish the lot owners — such as rigorous inspections, citations, and even pulling their parking licenses.Pardon me, but when the hell did “cheap parking” become a Constitutional right? Especially “cheap parking to go see a baseball game?”
Here’s a simple test for the parking socialists: check out the lots that charge the most on game day. If they’re full, then they’re not charging too much. People who can not or will not pay that much will say “screw it” and find another way to deal with it. The lot owners are not sending armed attendants out into the street to force people to park there.
The real issue here is not that the prices are too high, but that the city isn’t getting their piece of the pie. They see some people making really good money, and are infuriated that they can’t get their hands on it. To be financially successful is a bad thing, and must be punished.
Jay Tea’s absolutely right. This is free enterprise at work. If the prices are too high, the lots will be empty. Don’t want to pay $90? Drive a little further and walk. Or find alternative transportation. It’s none of the government’s business what these private landowners charge for parking. Or what private businesses charge for anything, for that matter, absent abuse of monopoly power or price fixing. But you never go wrong in Massachusetts defending the wallets of Red Sox Nation.
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2 years, 7 months ago,,
by Fred (,
Kirkwood, Missouri, nanny state, politics, smoking
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Kirkwood residents who think Citizens for a Smoke-Free Kirkwood’s proposed smoking ban will have no lasting economic effect better think again.
Restaurants in Ballwin, which in January banned smoking in public places, are suffering adverse economic effects, a survey by the chair of the Kirkwood Special Business District board has concluded.David McArthur, chairman of the Kirkwood Junction Special Business District Advisory Commission, said he visited seven restaurants along Manchester Road March 30 and conducted an impartial survey.
“Six of the seven reported losses in the bar of 35 to 50 percent,” McArthur told the Kirkwood City Council April 6. “The one exception, Mi Lupita, is a small restaurant with a six-seat bar area that likes the ban because it increased his non-smoking seating table capacity by five tables in the bar area. Restaurants like Longhorn Steakhouse reported bar losses of over 50 percent. No increase in restaurant sales and they now close an hour earlier every day. Also, one bar and two restaurants have closed since the ban.”
State and county-wide bans are bad enough, as they interfere with the right of a business owner to decide what legal activities are permissible on his property. Local bans like the one proposed for Kirkwood are just economic suicide, as smokers will just choose to go to a neighboring community that values freedom more highly. And it’s not like non-smokers are deprived of smoke-free environments - 16 of the 25 restaurants in the Kirkwood SBD are already smoke-free.
A city should like Kirkwood should be especially careful when considering business-killing ordinances. Kirkwood relies heavily on sales and gross receipts taxes; the General Fund receives no revenue from property taxes. In 2005, Kirkwood took in $4.1 million in sales tax revenue and $3.2 million in utility gross receipts tax revenue. General Fund expenditures were $15.9 million. Any business lost to the smoking ban would have a serious impact on sales and utility gross receipts tax revenue, and the Mayor is relying on an increase in the sales tax rate to fund some of his proposed $2 million in new spending.
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2 years, 7 months ago,,
by Fred (,
firearms, Missouri, psychiatry
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Court overturns denial of gun permit to man once detained in mental ward
As a Missouri corrections officer for more than 10 years, David Nelson is authorized to carry a gun on the job. But a year ago, he was denied a state permit to buy one.The contradiction became a court dispute that reached all the way to the seven judges of the Missouri Supreme Court, who ruled unanimously Tuesday in Nelson’s favor.
The issue dates to Sept. 11, 2003, when a judge in Callaway County ordered that Nelson be detained, evaluated and treated at a mental institution for 96 hours, against his will, because a Fulton police officer alleged that Nelson had talked about suicide.
In that period, the Mid-Missouri Mental Health Center determined that Nelson did not suffer from mental illness and needed neither medication nor psychiatric care. He never got a court hearing to protest the police officer’s claim.
When Nelson applied for a permit to purchase a concealable weapon, the Callaway County Sheriff’s Department said no. Sheriff Dennis Crane, and later Prosecuting Attorney Robert Sterner, cited a state law that denies permits to felons or people having been committed to mental institutions. But Nelson’s “commitment”, which he did not have the opportunity to contest and which was based on the testimony of a police office whom Nelson did not have the opportunity to rebut, was for the minimum period under the law, and the doctors prescribed neither medication nor psychiatric treatment.
Nelson sued, and ended up before the same judge that issued the original detention order. Needless to say, he lost that round. It took a unanimous opinion from the Missouri Supreme Court, which drew a distinction between detention and commitment, to allow the corrections officer to obtain his permit.
This story points out the flaws in both the civil commitment law, which allows an individual to be held against their will for 96 hours without an opportunity to be heard or to challenge the detention, and Missouri’s gun laws, which deny permits to people too crazy to own a gun but not crazy enough to be committed.
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2 years, 7 months ago,,
by Fred (,
courts, crime, Duke, lacrosse
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The embattled Duke lacrosse team is rolling out the Kobe Bryant defense
By releasing embarrassing details about the stripper who claims she was raped at a party held by Duke University’s lacrosse team, the players’ attorneys are employing the same strategy used successfully to defend NBA star Kobe Bryant against rape charges: publicly attack the accuser’s credibility.”This is what the defense does, is try to smear the victim in the public and make it impossible to get a jury,” said Eagle County, Colo., District Attorney Mark Hurlbert, who charged Bryant.
No one has been charged in the Duke case, and defense attorneys said District Attorney Mike Nifong should drop the investigation after DNA test results revealed no connection to the stripper on Monday. But Nifong has said all along that he didn’t need a match to pursue the case against the players, and experts agree.
It’s too early in the process to draw any conclusions. The lack of DNA evidence proves next to nothing. It’s the CSI Effect again - we’re so conditioned by the TV police procedurals to expect DNA evidence that we consider lack of DNA evidence proof of innocence. But there is no DNA evidence in the vast majority of crimes, and most sexual assault cases are prosecuted the old fashioned way, with witness testimony and medical evidence from a rape kit.
So nothing that has come out to date proves these loutish youth are innocent. But neither does it prove they are guilty. But attorneys for the not-yet-defendants are pulling no punches, pointing out the victim’s 2002 misdemeanor charges stemming from an incident in which she stole the taxi of a man to whom she was giving a lap dance.
Given Nifong’s position, defense attorneys have stepped up efforts to portray the accuser as a liar whose story doesn’t add up.
Over the weekend, they told reporters that photos taken at the party show the woman was injured even before she arrived, and impaired, too. And while answering questions about their clients’ legal troubles — about a third of the current team has been charged in recent years with public urination, underage possession of alcohol and disorderly conduct — they have suggested that the woman’s own criminal past undermines her credibility.
I don’t buy the victim’s defenders’ arguments that if the perpetrators’ and victim’s races were reversed, the boys would already be in jail. But we sure do love us some athletes in America, and it’s certainly true that these frat boys are getting preferential treatment because they are jocks. Just like they got preferential treatment on their drunken, louytish behavior in the past. Just like Kobe Bryant was able to beat his accuser into submission because he had an army of supporters who backed him because he can shoot a jump shot.
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2 years, 7 months ago,,
by Fred (,
environmentalists, Forest Park, parks, St. Louis
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Barnes may build on Forest Park
A push to let Barnes-Jewish Hospital build over a part of Forest Park has critics worried it could set a troubling trend: private development over St. Louis’ most storied landscape.For the city, the need is clear: money to preserve the rest of the park.
Seeking a way to provide park upkeep for years to come, the St. Louis parks department has proposed leasing an isolated, 12-acre swath of the park to the hospital, which would eventually put a medical building on the land.
Handing over a such a large piece of land to the hospital would be an unprecedented step in the 130-year history of Forest Park, a regional gem that is among the nation’s largest urban parks.
The deal concerns some who warn that eliminating open space - even if it is aimed at helping the park - could have broader, unintended consequences.
The environmentalists that oppose leasing the land to the hospital raise the tired old warhorse argument of the “slippery slope.” Lease this 12-acre plot, and the next thing you know, there’ll be a car dealership in Turtle Park. Funny how that slippery slope argument works - it’s great when it’s on your side, but ridiculous when it’s not.
This is a perfect opportunity for the city, which would be foolish to give it up. Most people don’t even know the parcel east of Kingshighway is part of the park. It’s not green space - it contains tennis courts and four racquetball courts. Leasing part of the park is not unprecedented - the parcel in question already sits on top of an underground hospital parking garage. Leasing this plot, which will bring in $180 million over its 90-year term, makes fiscal sense. The city is not in a position to pay for the upkeep of the 1,280 acre park, and the lease will pay for half of the annual park maintenance cost. Lease 1% of the park space to pay 50% of the maintenance cost? How can that not be a good idea? Only to “environmental activists”, who believe government largesse is unlimited.
More at Talk of the Day.
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2 years, 7 months ago,,
by Fred (,
crime, Illinois, Madison County
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Police: Man became burglar to nab impounded pooch
Police said that Thomas Carroll, 20, of Glen Carbon, broke into Madison County’s animal control facility and left with his pet Weimaraner, Titus.Police said Carroll could not come up with the $125 needed to retrieve the dog, which had been picked up as a stray. Now Carroll, of the 100 block of South Main Street, is charged with two felony counts of burglary and is being held in the Madison County Jail on $50,000 bail. He will need $5,000 to make bond.
I can’t decide which is worse. Is it that someone is so stupid that they would risk a sentence of 3-7 years in prison and a $25,000 fine to avoid paying the $125 fee to retrieve a stray dog? Or is it that the government charges you $125 to retrieve your stray dog? Apparently, it is better that this dog be put up for adoption (and put to sleep if adoption fails) than that the dog be returned to his owner without payment of the Madison County Dog Tax.
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2 years, 7 months ago,,
by Fred (,
Ayn rand, objectivism, Oprah, TV
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Oprah channels Rand
Winfrey, 52, who is reportedly worth more than $1 billion, said she doesn’t feel guilty about her wealth. “I was coming back from Africa on one of my trips,” she said. “I had taken one of my wealthy friends with me. She said, ‘Don’t you just feel guilty? Don’t you just feel terrible?’ I said, ‘No, I don’t. I do not know how me being destitute is going to help them.’ Then I said when we got home, ‘I’m going home to sleep on my Pratesi sheets right now and I’ll feel good about it.’”
Unfortunately, Oprah doesn’t encourage others to feel the way she does about wealth. Still, any progress is welcome. Next up, The Objectivist Hour with Oprah.
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