Irwin Allen Promotional Stunt Gone Awry

It's only months after the premier of the TV show 'Lost In Space' and 'Star Trek' debuts that fall.

The NASA Gemini manned-space program was in full swing and an increasing number of young people were also beginning to experience the "ground Control to Major Tom" effect.

In that vein, this snippet was noted in a historic time line of the northeastern KC suburb of Excelsior Springs, MO. http://www.exsmo.com/museum/timeline.html


1966 Police received reports of UFO's over the city. Flying Saucer Watch Parties were organized, and more than a thousand sightings were reported.

The Backs Some Candidates Ride To Reach Mayorville

Yours truly may be one of the best in the Metro for gathering & reporting breaking SPOT news.

However, I consider the governmental & political news just as if not more important.

Local bloggers are literally tearing the fabric from the established news media in this town.

A fine example is the expose of KC mayorial candidate Becky Nace and her closet supporters/contributers posted on the BlogKC site - http://blogkc.com/archives/2007/01/becky-bartle/.


NOTE: Groucho does NOT trust career politicians, lawyers or ANYONE associated with Matt Bartle - including any pets he may have.

Forty Years Ago - The Orrick, MO Tornado

It was the early afternoon of January 24, 1967 when this deadly twister struck the small community of Orrick in the eastern Kansas City Metro.

Here is a description of that day from my yet-uncompleted book on Kansas City MetroRegion Tornadoes:

"Weather conditions more like April than January that day contributed to a noteworthy tornado outbreak over the Central U.S. and western Great Lakes states. Noteworthy it was ... at the time it was the furthest north a tornado outbreak in winter had occurred in recorded history. Thirty-two tornadoes were reported in Missouri, Iowa, Illinois and Wisconsin. Two of the tornadoes during the outbreak reached F-4 intensity. Four of those twisters ... in MO, IA and IL ... were killers.

The first killer tornado of the outbreak touched down in the noon hour about 20 miles east of Downtown KC,MO ... in JACKSON County ... then moved northeast into southwestern RAY County MO, striking the high school in ORRICK,MO..
The thunderstorm that would spawn the tornado formed about 30 miles southwest of Kansas City just before noon. The storm quickly became severe as it moved northeast near 40 m.p.h.. Around 12:25 p.m., straight-line winds estimated near 60 m.p.h. caused damage to the-then under contruction Metcalf South shopping center at 95th Street and Metcalf in OVERLAND PARK,KS.
The storm moved through southern PRAIRIE VILLAGE, northern LEAWOOD,KS, into KC,MO around 83rd Street and State Line. At Southeast High school across from Swope Park, winds estimated at 50 m.p.h. chased a boy's gym class from outdoor fields. The storm moved on, passing over the Blue Ridge Mall area. Reports of hail up to quarter size began to be received as the storm moved over southern and eastern INDEPENDENCE. There were also scattered reports of damage to trees and power lines there, and at least one unconfirmed report of a funnel cloud near the Lake City munitions plant at Missouri Highways 7 and 78.
At 12:40 p.m., the funnel dropped to the ground about 3 miles southwest of BUCKNER (present-day eastern INDEPENDENCE). The tornado spared a direct hit on BUCKNER, damaging outbuildings and barns in the nearby rural hills. The funnel then moved into the Missouri River plain, just missing the small community of SIBLEY..
As the tornado moved across the river into southwestern RAY County, it reached it's maximum F-3 strength. Around 12:50 p.m., the estimated 250-foot wide tornado with winds as high as 200 m.p.h. slammed into the high school in ORRICK, a town less than a few hundred people shy of 1,000 on Highway M-210.
The winds lifted - then collapsed - the roof of the gym as well as the upper walls of the building. This caused another part of the school's roof to collapse. Debris blew in and rained down onto the more than 200 students and their instructors taking cover in interior hallways, killing two of the students. The number injured was officially reported as 18.
At least three other homes were either damaged or destroyed in town where the remainder of the injuries were reported. Dozens of police, fire units and ambulances responded from a three-county area to assist in rescue and treatment of the injured in ORRICK that day.
The tornado continued on for about another 20 minutes, taking out more barns and outbuildings until it lifted 4 miles west-northwest of RICHMOND in central RAY County."


The ORRICK tornado ... rare as it was that January day ... was not the deadliest. That distinction went to an F-4 twister that moved northeast through the western and northern suburbs of ST. LOUIS,MO., just missing the city's Lambert airport.

Oh Come ON! Please, Give Us A BREAK!!

While I (purposely) missed Bush's talking to the walls - er - HALLS of Congress, the following paragraph in the Associated Press review caught my eye:

"Bush also called on Congress to address the looming financial problems facing Medicare and Social Security, a task made all the more difficult by Bush's failed attempt to create individual retirement accounts two years ago."

Did Bush REALLY say that? The GALL of the man.

Bush: What about the BILLIONS you've spent and continue to spend on this sorry-assed foray of yours into horribly-flawed foreign policy (Iraq "war")?

Ok, ok. I'm not being fair there (HaHa).


Then let me address his empty rhetoric about a "domestic energy policy."

On September 11, 2001 as the World Trade buildings burned, I mentioned to those watching with me that NOW and I meant RIGHT NOW was the time to start a COMPLETE and COMPREHENSIVE energy policy that "gets us off the teat of Middle Eastern oil."

You see, contrary to a stupid-assed anti-drug commercial that ran around that time, it is OIL not illegal drugs that provide a huge percentage of cash to terrorists.

Bin Laden (where IS BL???) is related to Saudi petro sheiks, not Tommy Chong or any of HIS people.

Six years later and nearly out of his 2nd and last disasterous term (there IS a God? No- a constitutional amendment)- Bush NOW mentions that kinda maybe they ought to DO something.


Please refer to the title of this post for this Libertarian's response to that and virtually anything Bush said or says.

Example 1,363 Why The KC "News" Media Fails It's Citizens

VERY interesting article posted by local blogger Joe Miller on TIF's (welfare for the wealthy developers and their friends) titled "more tif" at http://kansascitysoil.blogspot.com.

No Health Insurance? Get Convicted.

Yet another sad commentary on our society, compliments of the Associated Press.

GKM


State Inmates Outlive People on Outside

Jan 21, 5:21 PM (ET)


WASHINGTON (AP) - State prison inmates, particularly blacks, are living longer on average than people on the outside, the government said Sunday.

Inmates in state prisons are dying at an average yearly rate of 250 per 100,000, according to the latest figures reported to the Justice Department by state prison officials. By comparison, the overall population of people between age 15 and 64 is dying at a rate of 308 a year.

For black inmates, the rate was 57 percent lower than among the overall black population - 206 versus 484. But white and Hispanic prisoners both had death rates slightly above their counterparts in the overall population.

The Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Statistics said 12,129 state prisoners died between 2001 through 2004.

Eight percent were murdered or killed themselves, 2 percent died of alcohol, drugs or accidental injuries, and 1 percent of the deaths could not be explained, the report said.

The rest of the deaths - 89 percent - were due to medical reasons. Of those, two-thirds of inmates had the medical problem they died of before they were admitted to prison.

Medical problems that were most common among both men and women in state prisons were heart disease, lung and liver cancer, liver diseases and AIDS-related causes.

But the death rate among men was 72 percent higher than among women. Nearly one-quarter of the women who died had breast, ovarian, cervical or uterine cancer.

Four percent of the men who died had prostate or testicular cancer.

More than half the inmates 65 or older who died in state prisons were at least 55 when they were admitted to prison.

State prison officials reported that 94 percent of their inmates who died from an illness had been evaluated by a medical professional for that illness, and 93 percent got medication for it.

Eighty-nine percent of these inmates had gotten X-rays, MRI exams, blood tests and other diagnostic work, state prison officials told the bureau.

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