February 11, 2012

Bond pushing to send more troops to Afghanistan, and soon

Senator Kit Bond (R-Missouri) is again asking the Obama administration to quit dragging its feet on the war effort in Afghanistan.

General Stanley McChrystal has asked President Obama to send additional troops to the war front. Obama, who supported the plan at the beginning, has been reconsidering whether to approve sending additional troops.

Bond says the clock is ticking and the longer the U-S holds out, more troops are getting killed and the Taliban strengthens their grip on the Middle East … and America.

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Aftershocks from 1811-1812

A new study suggests the small earthquakes we sometimes feel from the New Madrid fault are not a buildup for another “big one.” The study, in fact, suggests just the opposite. [Read more...]

Wet weather has drastically delayed harvest

Wet weather, both this fall and this spring, has drastically delayed harvest.

A wet spring delayed planting. A wet fall has delayed harvest. According to the Missouri office of the National Agricultural Statistics Service in Columbia, the corn harvest is only 49% complete, 36 days behind normal. Only a third of the soybean crop has been harvested, now 22 days behind normal. Two-thirds of the grain sorghum, or milo, harvest also remains in the field, also 36 days behind normal.

Tommy Sallee with the service agrees that’s not just a little bit behind.

“This year and last year both, we were as much as a month behind the whole season,” Sallee tells the Missourinet. “You’re right, that’s quite a bit behind.”

Add to the wet weather in both spring and fall, cold wet weather this summer, which delayed crop maturity.

In southeast Missouri, the cotton harvest is barely underway, only 17% complete, more than a month behind normal and though the rice harvest is nearly 80% complete, that’s still 25 days behind normal.

Farmers are being pressed. The longer the crop stays in the field, the more the yield deteriorates. The service predicted a bumper crop the first of October; if not record production, near record yields. Delays in harvest reduce yield as plants begin to slump. Some might even rot. The crops won’t simply sit and wait in the field until harvested.

Sallee says a few more dry, warm, perhaps even windy, days will help.

“Of course, as we have bigger and bigger machinery, they can get more and more harvested in a shorter amount of time,” Sallee says. “They just need the opportunity to get into the fields.”

The bumper harvest predicted in October now depends on weather in November so that farmers can get in their fields and get their crops out.

Download/listen Brent Martin reports (1:30 MP3)

DWI summit aims to help get repeat drunk drivers off the road

DWI Summit in Jefferson City

DWI Summit

More than two dozen government officials, prosecutors, and law enforcement officers from throughout the state gathered in Jefferson City on Wednesday to take part in a summit targeting gaps in Missouri’s DWI laws. Governor Jay Nixon opened the conference, telling attendees he wants to make sure that Missourians are protected against those who drink and drive, and that steps be taken to ensure the offenders pay for their crimes.

“Those steps also should ensure that when a law says that offenders should lose their licenses they do,” Nixon told the gathering in his opening comments. “We want to make sure that when police and prosecutors encounter a repeat DWI offender they know it – they have that information – because that offender’s priors are in the system and accessible to those law enforcement officers. The status quo on DWI is not acceptable.”

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Treasurer warns of unclaimed property scam

State Treasurer Clint Zweifel is warning Missourians of a phishing scam in which e-mails request personal information in order to receive unclaimed property from the state.

Zweifel says the e-mails ask for personal information, then request payment. In the e-mail a person or group posing as an assistant to the State Treasurer indicates the recipient might have unclaimed property being held by the office. Zweifel says he isn’t sure whether the scam is after information to be used in an identity theft scheme or whether it simply is trying to make a quick grab for cash or, perhaps, a bit of both. [Read more...]