Archive for February 16th, 2011

TMQ watch: February 15, 2011.

Wednesday, February 16th, 2011

And so we’ve come to the end of our first season doing the TMQ Watch, with the final TMQ of this season: the annual bad predictions review.

No, we said the bad predictions review. After the jump…

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Loser note.

Wednesday, February 16th, 2011

I’ve not been covering the Cleveland Cavaliers for several reasons. One, I don’t much like basketball. Two, the Cavaliers fall is kind of painful for me. (I have family in the Cleveland area.) Three, I don’t much like basketball. Four, I’ve been kind of distracted by other things.

However, Lawrence pointed out this interesting SI article on the worst season-to-season declines in sports history, which covers not just the NBA, but also the NFL, MLB, and the NHL. There’s some surprising stuff in there; I didn’t realize the Houston Oilers dropped that much from 1993 to 1994, but I also really don’t remember the Cody Carlson/Billy Joe Tolliver era.

Does the United States have an extradition treaty with Neptune?

Wednesday, February 16th, 2011

We have previously mentioned the odd case of Triton Financial.

Yesterday, the former head of Triton was indicted on charges of money laundering, wire fraud, and securities fraud.

If convicted of the most serious charges against him, Barton could face up to 30 years in prison.

(I love how the Statesman says he was indicted on “nearly three dozen criminal charges”. Because it’s too much trouble to provide an exact number, like 33.)

Crankery.

Wednesday, February 16th, 2011

This doesn’t really count as “gun crankery”, though guns are somewhat involved.

This 37 Signals essay on the 1972 Chouinard Equipment catalog in turn led me to this NYT piece (from 2008, but I hadn’t seen it before) on George Herter, with particular concentration on his book, “Bull Cook and Authentic Historical Recipes and Practices“.

Every now and then a copy of Bull Cook shows up at Half-Price Books; so far, I’ve managed to snap up two (one for myself, one as a gift). Collins has it right about what makes the book so fascinating; you’re reading along, and you come to an assertion such as the Virgin Mary’s fondness for creamed spinach, and you say to yourself, “What?”. (Herter was not a big fan of sourcing his material.)

I haven’t been able to obtain any of his other books: I’ve never seen How To Live With a B—-h (though here’s a review of it from someone who found a copy), and the one copy I’ve seen of Herter’s safari guide was priced too high for my tastes. Bull Cook seems to be the easiest Herter book to find; if you run across a copy, I’d recommend picking it up.

(Field and Stream also published a longer history of Herter sometime back; if I can find a working link to their profile, I’ll add it here.)