Just on this side of the 25th anniversary of losing Challenger, today is Kansas's 150th birthday. Uhm. Yay. I guess. No, it's okay if you didn't get anything. Wait until 2061 to get worked up. By then Halley's Comet will be back around. There's a reason for festivity. ( 51 pics below.... )

Burning Kansan hit with pepper spray. That's typically more Cajun style.

Speaking of, What went wrong at the Las Vegas Sun and Greenspun Media Interactive: '"The Sun ... took a big gamble on new technology and a bold strategy brought to them by a self-described Internet nerd from Kansas" named Rob Curley.' No, the two stories are not as closely ( Read more... )

Just stuff I've seen flickering past my field of vision lately that caught my eye....

Via midnightvoyager: did you know that the Wichita City Hall had a drive-thru? Neither did I. Missed this when it originally happened; I confess to being a bit shamefully impressed with how well he did; better than I have in most of my similar digital exploits ( Read more... )

"Republicans are struggling right now to find the Great White Hope, and I suggest to any of you who are concerned about that, who are Republican, there are some great young Republican minds in Washington." -- Rep. Lynn Jenkins (R-KS), yesterday.I'm going to cut Jenkins a huuuuuge amount of slack and attribute her comments to ignorance as opposed ( Read more... )

Kansas abortion doc and political lightning rod George Tiller shot dead in his church. The official response from Operation Rescue:
"We are shocked at this morning’s disturbing news that Mr. Tiller was gunned down. Operation Rescue has worked for years through peaceful, legal means, and through the proper channels to see him brought to justice. We ( Read more... )

It takes a special kind of person to rack up $18,000 in parking tickets and $13,000 in interest for not paying them off.

She said she accepts responsibility for the tickets, but nearly eight years later, she questions whether the amount is reasonable ( Read more... )

Power hasn't gone out for over two months. Guess we were due. Posting via iPod difficult if workable. Grrr. Edit: and we're back, just long enough to drain the tiny EPS on the server, so let's see what we lost this time.

Just stopped by the Taco Bell in the Union and the very-overworked guy -- the only guy there -- said that the entire staff'd been fired today and he was treading water until his manager found someone to help him ( Read more... )

The Kansas Department of Health and Environment has confirmed two cases of swine flu involving a husband and wife in Dickinson County. Which, for the uninitiated into Kansas geography, is about 25 miles away from here.

This is karmic retribution for me playing Pandemic 2 the other day, isn't it?

KC Star lays off 50 employees. (Moar info here.) No, this is not a repeat; this is the third time layoffs -- I'm sorry, "an involuntary workforce reduction" -- hit the paper in the last five months. This is not entirely remarkable -- US News & World Report has gone from weekly to biweekly to monthly in the same timespan. Not that US News is the ( Read more... )