Archive for January 26th, 2013

Gun control works!

Saturday, January 26th, 2013

Most of those killed in Port Said on Saturday died of bullet wounds, hospital officials said. It was unclear who shot first, but witnesses said some of the civilian protesters brought shotguns or homemade firearms [Emphasis added – DB] to attack the prison.

(Hattip: TJIC on the Twitter, though he didn’t draw the same conclusion I did.)

Hot off the presses!

Saturday, January 26th, 2013

There were long lines and crowds at the gun show, according to the Statesman.

(Before today, I’ve never had to wait in line to get into a gun show, except maybe the one time I went with Borepatch and we had to wait for the doors to open. It took me about 40 minutes in line to get into the show; I got there around 10:30 AM. Two friends of mine got there later and reported the wait was much the same, even at 1 PM.)

Edited to add: Lawrence was there as well; here’s his report.

Banana republicans on trial: January 26, 2013.

Saturday, January 26th, 2013

As noted previously, the trial of six former city council members from Bell has begun. The jury has been seated, opening statements have been stated, and the first testimony has been testified.

The first witness was Rebecca Valdez. Ms. Valdez was the former city clerk of Bell. The LAT notes that she has been granted immunity from prosecution in return for her testimony.

And what did she have to say? Basically, as city clerk, she was supposed to take notes on the council meetings,

including marking the start and end time of the various boards on which council members served, such as the Solid Waste and Recycling Authority.
“Were there City Council meetings where only some of the authorities met?” Deputy Dist. Atty. Edward Miller asked.
“Yes,” Valdez said.
“Were there City Council meetings where none of the authorities met?”
“Yes.”

(This is significant because the charges against the members involve “taking huge salaries to serve on board and commissions that rarely met and did little, if any, work.”)

Valdez also verified salary documents for former council members. One listed former Councilwoman Teresa Jacobo’s monthly salary as $7,666. Another showed an increase that bumped her salary to $8,083 a month.
In contrast, [Deputy Dist. Atty. Edward Miller] then showed the most recent contract for Lorenzo Velez, who was on the council when the salary scandal broke. Velez, the lone council member not charged in the case, was appointed to the council in 2009 and given a salary of only $673.

And:

Later, Valdez testified that at Rizzo’s request, she knowingly gave a document listing incorrect salary information for city officials to a resident who had filed a public records request.

The defense attorney for one of the former council members got Valdez to admit that Robert “Ratso” Rizzo, the city manager, loaned her $48.000 for a down payment on a house; he also asserted that the $48,000 was city money, not a personal loan from Ratso.

Later, [Alex] Kessel [defense attorney for former Councilman George Mirabal] said Rizzo “insulated himself from the council members. Any wrongdoing was done without their knowledge.”

It is still early in the trial, but it looks to me like the defense strategy is going to be “it was all Rizzo! We didn’t know what was going on! Ratso hid stuff from us!” We’ll see how effective this is. I’m thinking it probably won’t be very effective; if you’re taking $8,000 a month for meetings of boards that never meet, you’ve got to know something is up, and throwing Ratso under the bus isn’t going to help.

If I were Ratso, right about now I might be thinking about making a deal with the DA to testify against the council members, in return for a lighter sentence. If I’m the DA, I want Rizzo and Spaccia to do time, but I might be willing to make a deal with Rizzo (or Spaccia) if it means I can nail a bunch of corrupt elected officials. Ideally, I want everyone involved in the Bell scandal to be introduced to the joys of busting rocks, but sometimes you’ve got to make a trade. Personally, I’d rather send elected politicians to jail than appointed city officials, if I have to make a choice.

Bread blogging: French Onion Bread.

Saturday, January 26th, 2013

This one is from Laurence Simon. So finally you have a recipe that you can follow at home without purchasing a book from Amazon.

I followed Simon’s recipe more closely than I have any other recipe recently, even making several special trips to find date sugar. Sprouts didn’t have it. The Gateway Whole Foods didn’t have it. HEB, of course, doesn’t have it, even at Central Market.

(As a side note, I think the downtown Austin Whole Foods is the best place to go if you’re looking for unusual stuff. I griped previously about getting powdered goat’s milk; actually, both Sprouts and Whole Foods have it in large cans, as does Amazon. The recommendation is to use the can up within 8 weeks of opening, and I wasn’t going to use that much in 8 weeks. Amazon has smaller packages as well, but the shipping costs more than the product. It turns out the downtown Whole Foods also has the smaller packages, and date sugar too. So: shop the downtown Whole Foods. Thanks, Egon.)

Anyway, the only significant variation was that I used shredded Gruyère instead of Swiss or Emmenthaler. That’s what I had on hand, and I think that’s more traditional for French Onion soup. (Also, my machine doesn’t have a fruit and nut hopper; it beeps instead to let you know when to add fruit or nuts, so I threw the cheese in during that part of the cycle.)

How did it come out? I’m going to put the rest of this behind a jump; those who are bored with my bread blogging are cordially invited to skip to the next post, or for that matter the previous post. If you don’t like this one, just wait; there will be another one coming along shortly.

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