I wonder which of these “AK-47 assault rifles” Whitey had.
I also wonder how “sawed-off” that shotgun was.
Archive for the ‘Clippings’ Category
Noted for the record.
Friday, June 24th, 2011Just one more thing…
Friday, June 24th, 2011Obit watch: Peter Falk. (LAT obit.)
I loved “Columbo” when I was a kid. At least, when my parents would let me stay up and watch it.
Obit watch: June 23, 2011.
Thursday, June 23rd, 2011Bruce Dinkins, Director of Bands at Bowie High School.
This is somewhat personal, as I have a nephew in the Bowie high school band. I’ll probably be posting some more on this in the future.
Edited to add 6/24: Expanded AAS obit here.
Legal update, and other random notes, for June 23, 2011.
Thursday, June 23rd, 2011After 16 years, James “Whitey” Bulger has been arrested in California. Boston Globe coverage. If you go to the front page, the Globe has a quite extensive package, including some of their previous Bulger coverage. Boston Herald coverage. Ditto on the Herald having an extensive package, including commentary by Howie Carr. LAT coverage, but don’t bother. It doesn’t add much.
For those of you who are unfamiliar with the story, Bulger was the leading crime boss in Boston for many years; he built his empire largely through a corrupt relationship with the local FBI office, which covered for his criminal activities because he served as an informant for them. (Bulger’s work as an informant generally involved either providing misleading information, or using the FBI to eliminate his competition and other folks he wanted to get out of his way.)
There are two excellent books on the Bulger case: The Brothers Bulger: How They Terrorized and Corrupted Boston for a Quarter Century
One of the first cases I mentioned here at WCD was the Sedona sweat lodge incident. I am mildly pleased to report that James Ray has been convicted of three counts of negligent homicide. Unfortunately, he was not convicted of the more serious manslaughter charges he was facing, but he could still get 30 years on the negligent homicide charges.
Due to being busy and on the road, I’ve been somewhat neglecting “Spider Man: Turn Off the Dark”. From what I hear, the revised version (which is now open, and getting “official” reviews) is actually a vast improvement over the original. (The NYT review is linked from the article I’m about to link; I’m not posting the link here because I’ve used up my free articles for the month on this one.) Anyway, Patrick Healy and Kevin Flynn have an interesting article in today’s NYT on where, exactly, that $75 million went.
At this point, “Spider Man” is bringing in $1.2 million to $1.3 million a week, per the NYT. However, the show’s operating costs are…somewhere between $1 million and $1.2 million per week. And the show owes roughly $100,000 a week on the construction loan they took out to renovate the theater. (I’m not clear if that’s included in operating costs, or is a separate line item.)
Edited to add: By way of Jimbo:
Meanwhile, you have to dig down to the Bulger page on the “America’s Most Wanted” web site to find any mention of the capture. This seems odd, given the number of times John Walsh ran stories about Bulger, but perhaps they’re holding off until they determine if an “AMW” tip was behind the capture.
Edited to add 2: The LAT coverage on their “LA Now” blog is a vast improvement over the initial LAT story I linked, and is being constantly updated. Kudos to the “LA Now” blog team.
The Mighty Quin(tana).
Wednesday, June 22nd, 2011There are apparently three other charges (misdemeanor assault, criminal mischief and criminal trespass) still pending, related to an incident in 2009. (The charge Mr. Quintana was acquitted on relates to a 2008 incident.)
You may remember former officer Quintana from such hits as this, this, this, this, this, this, this, and this. I may be missing a few.
At this point, I’m tempted to give former officer Quintana his own (sub)category on WCD.
Random notes: June 21, 2011.
Tuesday, June 21st, 2011I go out of town for a few days. I come back, and l’affair Ward is still ongoing.
Today’s update: the head of the police union is “troubled” by the dismissal of the DWI charges. And well he should be; as I noted in the previous post, there’s three possible explanations, and two of those make the cops look bad. I haven’t watched the video yet, and I’m not sure doing so would do any good. I don’t have the level of expertise needed to judge if Mr. Ward passed or failed the sobriety tests. But in any case, the union’s right on this one. The county DA owes the citizens a full and complete explanation of why the charges were dismissed, and if wrongdoing or incompetence on the part of the APD were part of the equation, Chief Acevedo needs to address those issues.
In other news from the Statesman, their editorial board would like for us to know that guns are making their way across the border illegally. The editorial is devoted to lobbying for a plan to have Texas DPS set up checkpoints to stop “illegal weapons trafficking”. There are plenty of interesting questions that this editorial ignores:
- “The weapon used to kill U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent Jaime Jorge Zapata in February made its way south to Mexico from Dallas. Though the gun was legally purchased, it was smuggled into Mexico, where legal possession of firearms is restricted.” I’m trying to dig up more information on Officer Zapata’s killing, but what I’ve found so far is that he was killed by the Zeta cartel. So is the Statesman stating that US citizens who are Zeta cartel members are legally buying weapons in Dallas? Or are they having other people buy weapons for them in Dallas? That would be an illegal “straw man” purchase. And if Officer Zapata was shot with an actual “AK-47”, as I’ve seen in some reports, it is highly improbable that was purchased in Dallas.
- Why do we need to use scarce Texas DPS resources to set up random checkpoints for weapons near the border? Why aren’t the existing checkpoints at the border working?
- It is curious that the Statesman manages to write an entire editorial about illegal traffic of guns to Mexico without mentioning “Operation Gunwalker“.
- “”According to CNN … over 70 percent of the 29,284 firearms recovered from crime scenes in Mexico in 2009 and 2010 were traced to the United States.” As we’ve discussed previously, is that 70% of the total firearms, or 70% of the total firearms submitted for tracing? If you dig deeper into these reports, a large percentage of firearms recovered aren’t submitted for tracing in the first place, because they can’t be traced, because they don’t have identifying markings, because they’re coming from South America or other countries.
I’ve just started listening to this week’s Vicious Circle podcast. (Warning: Vicious Circle is frequently not safe for work. Or basic human decency.) My great and good friend Weer’d Beard, among other folks, has some excellent points. What makes more sense? Cartel members are coming across the border to Houston, Dallas, and other Texas cities, paying $600 each across the counter for truckloads of WASR-10s and other semi-automatic AK-47 clones? And then they’re smuggling those clones back across the border, where they’re converted to full-auto and supplied to the cartels? Or the cartels are using weapons diverted from the Mexican army, and the reason those weapons trace back to the US is that we sold them to the Mexican army in the first place?
As Weer’d notes, it doesn’t take a lot to get folks to defect from the Mexican army; hell, the cartels are putting up “help wanted” signs, promising potential defectors that they won’t have to eat ramen. And somehow Mexico believes that the US is responsible for their lawless society?
I haven’t heard anyone ask the key question, especially in light of “Operation Gunwalker”: why does the BATFE continue to exist? Seriously, why do we need this agency? The tax collection functions can be handled by the Treasury Department, as purely administrative issues. The law enforcement portion of BATFE’s mandate could easily be taken over by the FBI, and BATFE’s budget freed up for something more productive; perhaps providing free ukulele picks to the poor, to steal a memorable line from Roger Ebert.
Edited to add 6/22: Well, this is interesting as all get out. Dave Hardy over at “Arms and the Law” has a link to the PDF of a letter sent by Senator Grassley to acting BATFE director Melson. Nut graph:
Also interesting:
Deadly night, Shade.
Sunday, June 19th, 2011The election results are in…and Kathie Tovo beat Randi Shade, 56%-44%.
Thus endeth our long local nightmare. Now to see the results of the results.
Noted.
Saturday, June 18th, 2011Governor Perry signed SB321, “Relating to an employee’s transportation and storage of certain firearms or ammunition while on certain property owned or controlled by the employee’s employer” (aka the “guns in parking lots” bill) into law yesterday.
(At least, we think that was yesterday. While we are still having the most fun it is legally possible to have with one’s clothes on, we’ve also managed to lose track of time.)
We are amused by how little press coverage this has received. Once the bill passed both houses, we do not recall seeing it mentioned even once; we don’t even remember seeing newspaper coverage of the passage. Consider this article from the Statesman which discusses Perry’s vetos, but makes little mention of the bills he actually signed.
Curious.
(Also, the Shade-Tovo runoff election is today. We’ll try to get you a final update tomorrow morning.)
“—We Also Walk Dogs”
Friday, June 17th, 2011Still busy. Still having fun, thanks. But I did want to mention this WP story about Brighter Days, an anarchist dog walking cooperative.
Yes, you read that correctly. Brighter Days is apparently not the only anarchist dog walking cooperative in the DC area (as the result of a bitter split between the founders), but the WP implies that it is the most successful ($250,000 gross last year: there’s no net figure given, but the collective is apparently able to offer health insurance and paid vacation).
It’s harder still for Seager, because he wears black most of the time.
Hidden Agenda, call your office, please.
On the road again…
Thursday, June 16th, 2011Yesterday was a travel day: I’m in an undisclosed location, doing stuff I can’t talk about right now. Blogging is uncertain; it depends on schedules and what-not.
However, I did want to note the following:
Astros watch.
Tuesday, June 14th, 2011Pitching coach Brad Arnsberg out, Doug Brocail in.
I haven’t been doing the regular updates I did last year (I was planning to do a bottom feeders roundup at the All-Star break) but if current trends continue, the Astros are on track to lose 100 games this year.
Hiliarty ensues.
Tuesday, June 14th, 2011Remember the “Gay Girl in Damascus” story we linked on Sunday?
If you clicked through to the WP link, you may have noticed, but not thought much about, the mention of Paula Brooks, editor of “Lez Get Real”, a lesbian news Web site based in Washington.
You probably see the punchline coming at this point, but we have to carry on.
“Paula Brooks” is actually a 58-year-old male construction worker from Ohio.
We’re kind of wondering if the WP is going to make outing lesbian bloggers who aren’t lesbians (or female) a trend, or if this was just, as “Paula Brooks” puts it, “a major sock-puppet hoax crash into a major sock-puppet hoax”. We kind of hope for the former, as it provides more entertainment than the WP‘s gun coverage.
Art, damn it, art! watch. (#23 in a series)
Tuesday, June 14th, 2011Ben Wilson is an artist in England.
His medium is acrylic enamel…and used chewing gum stuck to the sidewalk.
I’m not mocking Mr. Wilson: the few examples of his work shown with the article are rather pleasing to me, particularly the Millennium Bridge one.
We’re going down the rabbit hole here, people.
Monday, June 13th, 2011Jeff Ward hosts a popular talk show in the afternoons on one of our AM radio stations. I was a pretty regular listener to Mr. Ward’s show for a while (until the AM radio in my car stopped working).
Jeff Ward was also arrested Thursday night and charged with DWI.
Mr. Ward allegedly failed a field sobriety test. It’s not clear if he had blood drawn or was given a breath test, like the 37 people who were arrested on Friday or Saturday night during “no refusal” weekend.
But here’s what makes the story blog worthy, in my opinion. Today, the Travis County DA announced he’s dropping the charges against Jeff Ward.
Either the APD falsely arrested an innocent citizen, they arrested a citizen who was guilty but botched the arrest so badly that the DA didn’t feel like the case was prosecutable, or they dropped a DWI charge against a prominent local citizen for political reasons. There’s no way to spin this so it looks good.
Edited to add 6/14: Second day coverage in the Statesman.
Interesting points:
- He failed a field sobriety test, but refused to take a Breathalyzer. The no-refusal weekend started Friday according to previous Statesman coverage.
- He called Police Chief Acevedo at least twice; once during the arrest, and once from jail.
- Mr. Ward says he had the standard “two beers” (police will tell you that everyone ever arrested for drunk driving had “two beers”) over a four hour period, and was originally stopped for doing 10 MPH over the speed limit.
Shade-Tovo watch: June 13, 2011.
Monday, June 13th, 2011Here’s a mildly interesting set of facts.
Austin’s cab companies have donated $17,500 to three City Council candidates, including $4,550 to Randi Shade for her runoff election (and a total of $10,350 to Shade overall, which the Statesman implies came from cab companies).
Kathie Tovo has received $6,500 total, and $4,500 for the runoff election, “mostly” from cab drivers for one company.
I was not aware of this, but there’s apparently a movement by the drivers for “legacy permits”: that is, after five years of experience, drivers could get taxi permits directly, rather than the permits being issued to cab companies. Tovo says she supports this, and Shade has expressed opposition.
Neither candidate, nor (as far as I know) any of the previous candidates in the race, have come out in favor of abolishing the permit/franchise system and letting anyone who wants to pick up passengers for money.