February 20, 2019

Seem to be missing Andrew Yang in the choice of candidates

to get started. Disappointing.

February 19, 2019

A Wisconsin School District Shrugged After High School Coaches Body-Shamed Cheerleaders

The cheerleaders at Tremper High School in Kenosha, Wisconsin, looked forward to the annual spring banquet as a time to celebrate their hard work in the company of over 100 friends and family members. What they never expected was for the banquet to become a humiliating exercise in body shaming.

In the banquet hall of a Kenosha restaurant in March 2018, the cheer coaches presented some squad members with “most improved” and “hardest worker” awards as the crowd applauded and snapped photos. Yet not all of the awards celebrated the cheerleaders’ hard work and athleticism.

The coaches also presented a “Big Booty Judy” award to the cheerleader with the largest buttocks, “Big Boobie Strube” award to the cheerleader with the largest breasts, and “String Bean” award to the thinnest cheerleader. In video footage obtained by the ACLU, the coaches proclaimed, “We love her butt. Everybody loves her butt” as the recipient of the Big Booty Judy award made her way to the front of the crowded room.

These three young women were not the first to receive objectifying awards. The Big Boobie Strube and Big Booty Judy award were also handed out during the 2017 cheer banquet. Additionally, a cheerleader with brown hair received a blonde wig as an award because she was deemed a “ditzy girl.”

https://www.aclu.org/blog/womens-rights/womens-rights-education/wisconsin-school-district-shrugged-after-high-school?fbclid=IwAR2pa_66XToCVKmVgv2EesAYx4_QdcXsX1VVQqcrqfdkpWygZc5ugcaC-rc

February 18, 2019

No Drugs, No Crime And Just Pennies For School -- How Police Use Civil Asset Forfeiture

This story is part of a collaborative-reporting initiative supported by the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. All stories can be found here: https://taken.pulitzercenter.org/

In the past two decades, the federal government took in $36.5 billion in assets police seized from people on America’s roads and in its poorer neighborhoods, many of whom never were charged with a crime or shown to have drugs.

Most of the money seized by this civil asset-forfeiture process returns to the law-enforcement agencies that seized it, providing funds for a variety of law-enforcement needs and desires, including exercise equipment, squad cars, jails, military equipment and even a margarita maker.

Many of the seizures occur along corridors that carry drugs east to big cities and cash back west. The Interstate-44 corridor through southern Missouri, Interstate 70 through St. Charles County and the network of interstates that connect in Illinois across from the Gateway Arch are prime locations for asset forfeiture and drug traffic.

https://news.stlpublicradio.org/post/no-drugs-no-crime-and-just-pennies-school-how-police-use-civil-asset-forfeiture

February 18, 2019

Ameren Missouri To Invest $5 Billion To Improve Statewide Electrical Grid

Ameren Missouri is planning $5 billion worth of improvements to its energy grid, company officials announced Friday.

The Smart Energy Plan includes 2,000 electric projects to be completed during the next five years, including a new substation in Hazelwood and upgrades to the underground grid that serves downtown St. Louis. The utility also plans to spend $1 billion on wind energy in 2020.

“We’re modernizing this grid to benefit customers today as well as future generations to come,’’ Ameren President Michael Moehn said. “We’re engaging in over 2,000 projects, building a smarter, more reliable, cleaner energy grid.’’

The plan would be Ameren’s largest upgrade in its 100-year history, Moehn said.

https://news.stlpublicradio.org/post/ameren-missouri-invest-5-billion-improve-statewide-electrical-grid

February 15, 2019

Report: Payless expected to close all 2,300 stores after filing for bankruptcy

More headwinds in the Retail Sector.


(Meredith) - Payless Inc. is expected to close all of its roughly 2,300 stores when it files for bankruptcy later this month, according to reports.

The Topeka, Kansas-based company has been unsuccessful in finding a buyer and is planning to run going-out-of-business sales as early as next week, Reuters reported, citing sources close to the matter.

This would be the retailer's second trip to bankruptcy court. In April 2017, Payless filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection to slash $800 million in debts. A group of creditors then took ownership of the company.

https://www.kmov.com/news/report-payless-expected-to-close-all-stores-after-filing-for/article_57d170da-87d3-59fe-b938-6f8de73446f3.html?fbclid=IwAR1DnIUVHvVWMFnsOAN1b8gRbQvpcwryvZog4NbvwXg0nAkNSMjphNCCprs

February 14, 2019

While Celebrating 🥳 Valentines Day

Please also take a moment to remember it is Ferris Wheel 🎡 Day!

🙃🙃🙃

February 14, 2019

A Happy Valentine's Day & Thank You for the Hearts

given over this last week.

February 13, 2019

How Allied Flyers Used Monopoly to Escape From German POW Camps

https://militaryhistorynow.com/2012/12/20/how-allied-fliers-used-monopoly-to-escape-from-german-pow-camps/

For captured Allied flyers in World War Two, Monopoly was more than just a way to kill the long hours of idleness in German POW camps — it was a veritable tool box for helping them escape. That’s because beginning in 1941, British military intelligence rigged thousands of boxes of the popular board game with tools, compasses, European currency and even tiny maps that prisoners could use to make their way to freedom. All the equipment was miniaturized and pasted into the board, hidden within the bundles of game money, crammed into the tokens, or even packed into the tiny houses and hotels. What’s more amazing is that the games containing these secret escape kits were unwittingly distributed to POWs as part of care packages right under the nose of German prison guards.

According to a 2009 story on ABC News, MI9 (the wartime military intelligence division concerned with helping prisoners escape) worked with the British game maker Waddingtons to craft the equipment-laden copies of the game. For its part, the publisher was sworn to secrecy, lest the Germans get wind of the scheme. Once the specialized copies of Monopoly were ready to be shipped, Allied flyers were advised that if captured, they should watch for the top secret escape kits. Those containing tools would be specially marked with an innocuous looking red ink blot on the Free Parking space.

Aside from the tiny two-piece screw-together metal file and the miniature compass hidden in the game, perhaps the most incredible accomplishment of the escape kits’ designers were the tiny maps packed into the game’s hotels. Printed on silk, as opposed to paper, the maps could be folded and unfolded without tearing or wrinkling and could be very easily concealed. According to the article, the maps were possibly the most vital element of the kit — once POWs were outside of the wire, the maps would show the flyers how to get to friendly or neutral territory.

February 10, 2019

Thoughts on the "Horse Race" that we will be witnessing in the coming months in the media

I've had a couple of requests to repost this as an OP so here we go. This is how I saw the 2016 campaigns and what I expect for the upcoming Primary Season.

The narrative is designed to keep everyone worked up, agitated and distracted, worried that "their" candidate is up or down according to the polling and lasted whatever. It is rarely if ever a discussion of the issues. It is offers a wide variety of what-ifs, conjecture and high pitched noise.

It goes like this......

This week She is up until there is a hiccup of some small issue blown way out of proportion in the Breathless 24/7 Cable Noise Infotainment. Next Week He's up and doing well in some obscure poll with 12 people and a cat responding, but Oh Noes, by week end a new face has entered the run and all the oxygen is taken out of the room. Followed by the discovery that as a child the fresh face pushed another kid in the hall way in grammar school so that will take several news cycles between the pharmaceutical ads to discuss. Week 4 She will make a strong speech and return to the top of the polling, but will it be enough to overcome the whispered stories of her 3rd cousin 14 times removed being addicted to Snickers Bars? In the meantime He will get tongue tied during an interview having not had enough sleep and there will be questions of his age and can he really serve? The Fresh Face will suddenly soar to the top on word of a fundraiser far exceeding its goals of $12.47.

Rinse and repeat but be sure to allow time for more ads for drugs we never knew we needed and the anchors hawking their latest books on The Crisis in the Media.

February 2, 2019

Missouri Sen. Gina Walsh responds to Governor's 2019 State of the State Address

By SEN. GINA WALSH
(D-Bellefontaine Neighbors)
Jefferson City – I want to thank the Governor for sharing his policies and goals with the Legislature as we work together to pass a balanced budget and make our state a fairer and more equitable place for all.

About a year ago, things were a lot different around here. We had a different governor leading the state, one who chose to put personal ambition and partisan politics before all else.

Now, with a new governor, it is our hope that those old problems are behind us. But simply being better than Eric Greitens is too low of a bar to set for any of our leaders, too low for the kind of change we need. Missouri deserves better.

Being done with a bad politician isn’t enough if his bad policies remain, policies that denied too many Missourians basic health care, policies that attack working families and undermine their constitutional right to organize, and policies that turn out tax code upside down so that the middle class gets squeezed while special interests laugh all the way to the bank.

https://labortribune.com/missouri-sen-gina-walsh-responds-to-governors-2019-state-of-the-state-address/