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Your loser update: April 19, 2013.

Friday, April 19th, 2013

I wasn’t planning to do these as a regular thing this season. But I figure with everything else going on, folks could use a distraction while we wait.

Surprisingly, the Astros do not have the worst record in baseball. The Marlins are at 3-13, for a .188 winning percentage. That works out to an estimated 132 losses this season if trends continue: not quite Cleveland Spiders level, but good enough for third on the all-time list.

Houston is at 4-11, for a .267 winning percentage. That works out to an estimated 119 losses, which would be a record for the Astros, and would get them on the list right around where the 2003 Detroit Tigers are.

Posted in Clippings, Loser, Sports | Comments Closed

Breaking!

Friday, April 19th, 2013

Not Boston: Travis County DA Rosesmary Lehmberg has pled guilty to DWI and been sentenced to 45 days in jail.

The Statesman reports she had a 0.23 BAC when she was stopped. The significance of this:

First-offense drunken driving is a Class B misdemeanor, punishable by as much as six months in jail and a $2,000 fine. But last legislative session, lawmakers upped the charge to a Class A misdemeanor if a suspect’s breath or blood test shows a blood alcohol level of 0.15 or above. A Class A misdemeanor carries a sentence of up to a year in jail and a $4,000 fine.

Posted in Clippings, Law, TCDA | Comments Closed

Random notes: April 19, 2013.

Friday, April 19th, 2013

Holy crap!

Heard on the CBS coverage: “How do you lock down an entire city?” (Nobody had a really good answer to that question.)

Ten officers were being evaluated at St. Elizabeth’s Medical Center in Brighton early this morning, according to a source, who said the officers said they were hurt from grenades being thrown from the window of a car during a car chase.

More:

“It was more than gunshot wounds,’’ Wolfe told reporters about 5:30 a.m. today. “It was a combination of injuries. We believe a combination of of blasts, multiple gunshot wounds.”
Wolfe said it looked like the man had been hurt by an “explosive device’’ and that the man was struck by “shrapnel.’’ The man was pronounced dead at 1:35 a.m. The hospital officials said they did not know his name.

(CBS, or the local CBS affiliate – I’m not sure which – just ran a commercial featuring an exploding air conditioner. Bad timing, guys.)

I may come back to this later. I want to do some research and possibly talk to Lawrence. In other news:

As a result of last week’s settlement in the legal battle over Broadway’s “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark,” Ms. Taymor’s directing credit on the musical has been enhanced – and it is now listed above the credit for Philip Wm. McKinley, who replaced Ms. Taymor after its producers fired her in March 2011.

Jimmy Haslam recently bought the Cleveland Browns. Haslam made a pile of money off of the Pilot Flying J chain of truck stops and “travel centers”. Yesterday, the FBI raided the Pilot Flying J headquarters:

A 120-page affidavit for a search warrant filed in U.S. District Court in Knoxville, Tenn., says Pilot Flying J sales employees withheld fuel price rebates and discounts from certain companies to boost the profitability of the company and increase their sales commissions. The affidavit says FBI and IRS agents are investigating charges of conspiracy, mail fraud and wire fraud.

More:

The document says “the rebate fraud has occurred with the knowledge of Pilot’s current President Mark Hazelwood and Pilot’s Chief Executive Officer James A. “Jimmy” Haslam III, due to the fact that the rebate fraud-related activities have been discussed during sales meetings in Knoxville, Tenn., in which Hazelwood and Haslam have been present.”

The Browns just can’t catch a break, can they? It will be interesting to see how this plays out as we get closer to the NFL season.

(Heard on CBS: “I was going into this thinking there was some connection to somewhere.” No s–t, Sherlock.)

Edited to add: Since folks are distracted by Boston at the moment, let me note here: the confirmed death toll in West stands at 12.

The State Firemen’s and Fire Marshals’ Association said Friday morning that it believes 11 firefighters died in the explosion, including four who were emergency medical service personnel.

According to the association, one of those firefighters was from Dallas: all of the others were volunteer firefighters with the West Fire Department.

Posted in Clippings, Explosives, Law, NFL, Sarcasm, Sports, Theatre, TV | Comments Closed

Thanks to the Statesman…

Thursday, April 18th, 2013

…for the reminder that West, Texas was also the location of the Great Crush Crash.

(Technically, the Great Crush Crash actually took place in Crush. But Crush was a temporary city erected specifically for the event, and named after William George Crush, “passenger agent for the Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railroad”.)

“The Great Crush Crash?” you say. Indeed.

On September 15, 1896, the Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad ran two railroad locomotives into each other. Head on. At an estimated 45 MPH. I remember reading an article in the Old Farmer’s Almanac many years ago about staged locomotive crashes; apparently, this was a fairly popular form of entertainment back in the old days. The Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad made a big deal out of this particular crash, which was Crush’s idea; they laid on special trains to the site, with reduced fares and what not. The entire city of Crush was built from the ground up:

In early September 500 workmen laid four miles of track for the collision run and constructed a grandstand for “honored guests,” three speaker’s stands, two telegraph offices, a stand for reporters, and a bandstand. A restaurant was set up in a borrowed Ringling Brothers circus tent, and a huge carnival midway with dozens of medicine shows, game booths, and lemonade and soft-drink stands was built. Finally, workmen erected a special depot with a platform 2,100 feet long, and a sign was painted to inform passengers that they had arrived at Crush, Texas.

An estimated 40,000 people showed up to watch the collision.

So how did that work out for them?

When the two locomotives, one painted bright green, the other bright red, collided at about 45 mph, their boilers exploded, killing three people and injuring a half-dozen more as debris was blown into spectator-filled areas.

In retrospect, this may not have been a smart thing to do. It appears that the railroad’s engineers repeatedly assured officials that there was no way the boilers would explode. But this was 1896:

People began to leave for home, the tents, stands, and midway booths came down, and by nightfall Crush, Texas, ceased to exist. The Katy quickly settled all damage claims brought against it with cash and lifetime rail passes.

And Mr. Crush? “…the railroad fired him that evening but relented and rehired him the next day.”

Why, yes, there is a historical marker. And here’s another article with some photos of the event itself.

Posted in Clippings, History, Trains | 1 Comment »

Firing watch.

Thursday, April 18th, 2013

I was out of pocket pretty much all morning and much of the afternoon for something that didn’t quite pan out. (Lousy Sapril weather.)

However, Lawrence was covering the beat for me.

Lawrence Frank out as head coach of the Detroit Pistons. 54-94 over two “seasons” (in quotes because Frank was hired during the 2011 strike).

Byron Scott out as head coach of the Cleveland Cavaliers. Three seasons, 64-166.

Doug Collins has “resigned” as coach of the Philadelphia 76ers, but is apparently staying on as a “consultant”. So this is probably closer to a real resignation than “jumped before being pushed”, but I note it anyway. Three seasons, 110-120.

Posted in Clippings, Firings, Sports | Comments Closed

Random notes: April 18, 2013.

Thursday, April 18th, 2013

NYT headline:

Gun Control Effort Had No Real Chance, Despite Pleas

(I am still thinking about fisking the NYT Internet sales piece, but I’ve been tied up and haven’t had a chance. I might get to it tonight, if I decide to go through with it.)

The NYT is reporting that Kim Lene Williams, who was arrested yesterday and charged in the Kaufman County DA killings, is rolling on her husband.

According to an affidavit filed by the authorities, Ms. Williams confessed to her involvement in the shootings in an interview with investigators on Tuesday, and told them that her husband had been the one who shot Mr. Hasse in January and Mr. McLelland and his wife in March.
During her interview, she supplied investigators with details of both shootings that had not been made public. One law enforcement official confirmed that Ms. Williams was not a gunman in the murders, but had been the driver, and had also used the storage unit where Mr. Williams had kept a car and more than 20 guns.

I Am Not A Lawyer, but this did get me to wondering. Rule 504 of the Texas Rules of Evidence covers spousal privilege:

In a criminal case, the spouse of the accused has a privilege not to be called as a witness for the state. This rule does not prohibit the spouse from testifying voluntarily for the state, even over objection by the accused. A spouse who testifies on behalf of an accused is subject to cross-examination as provided in rule 611(b).

So she doesn’t have to testify against her husband, but she can if she wants to. And it sounds like she will, especially since she apparently wasn’t the actual trigger puller and can probably make a deal. (It sounds like whatever deal she does make will end up with her dying in prison, since the paper of record reports she’s 46 years old and has chronic health problems.)

Posted in Clippings, Guns, Law | 1 Comment »

Wow. Just…wow.

Thursday, April 18th, 2013

For the handful of my readers who don’t read FARK, here’s cell phone video of the explosion. You may find this disturbing – not so much for the actual explosion video as for the aftermath.

Waco Herald-Tribune (link goes to front page). HouChron. Statesman. Dallas Morning News (as far as I can tell, the DMN does not have their coverage behind a pay wall).

“That whole side of town looks like a disaster,” Bill Manolakis said. “Who in their right mind sticks a damn plant next to houses?”

I wonder who was there first.

Noted: Tuesday was the anniversary of the 1947 Texas City explosion.

Posted in Clippings, Explosives | Comments Closed

Note from the art beat.

Wednesday, April 17th, 2013

Hillel Nahmad owns the Helly Nahmad Gallery in Manhattan. The Nahmad family is kind of a big deal in the art sales world.

Despite sneers from some of their more staid peers who have accused them of unfairly negotiating special terms with auction houses, they are among the most powerful, wealthy and colorful members of the elite global club of fine art dealers.

The Helly Nahmed Gallery was raided by the FBI yesterday. Hillel Nahmed is charged with…

…playing a leading role in a far-flung gambling and money-laundering operation that stretched from Kiev and Moscow to Los Angeles and New York.
The case features a wide cast of characters, including a man described as a Russian gangster accused of trying to rig Winter Olympic skating competitions in Salt Lake City and a woman who once organized high-stakes poker games for some of Hollywood’s most famous faces. In all, 34 people were charged on Tuesday with playing a part in what federal prosecutors described as two separate but interconnected criminal groups — one operating overseas and the other in the United States. Together, they are accused of laundering more than $100 million in gambling money.

Mr. Nahmed is also charged with “defrauding an unnamed person by selling him a painting for $300,000 when it was worth only $50,000.”

Also indicted: “Alimzhan Tokhtakhounov, 64, whom prosecutors describe as the leader of a Russian organized-crime gang.”

In addition to the new charges against him in this case,

Mr. Tokhtakhounov, who remains at large, was indicted in 2002 on charges that he was part of a scheme to rig the results of the Winter Olympic finals in Salt Lake City in pairs figure skating and ice dancing.

More:

According to a criminal complaint filed in federal court in Manhattan in that case, he was accused of working with an unidentified member of a Russian crime gang and an unidentified Russian skating official to rig the competition. He helped secure a gold medal for Russia in the pairs event in exchange for a victory for the French ice dancing team, according to the complaint.

The United States attempted to extradite Mr. Tokhtakhounov from Italy, but the extradition order was overturned by the Italian courts, and Mr. Tokhtakhounov has never been tried on that charge.

Posted in Art, Clippings, Law | 1 Comment »

Random notes: April 17, 2013.

Wednesday, April 17th, 2013

“anyone who has lived in Travis County for six months” and “is not currently under indictment”.

Heh. Heh. Heh. Personally, I would have waited until she was actually convicted, but that’s just my strategic thinking.

(Hattip: Lawrence.)

The “not yet named as a suspect” in the Kaufman County DA shootings had “more than 20 guns” in a storage unit. Or, as we call that in Texas, “just about average”.

And the firearms included two or three handguns and seven assault rifles.

I’d like to see these “assault rifles”; I don’t trust the NYT to know which end the bullets come out of.

Edited to add: Well. Well, well, well. Well. How about that Aryan Brotherhood?

Speaking of trusting the NYT on guns:

With no requirements for background checks on most private transactions, a Times examination found, Armslist and similar sites function as unregulated bazaars, where the essential anonymity of the Internet allows unlicensed sellers to advertise scores of weapons and people legally barred from gun ownership to buy them.

More:

The Times assembled a database and analyzed several months of ads from Armslist

Whooop! Whoop! Journalist with a database alert!

I have to head out the door shortly, but may come back to this NYT article later on.

Obit watch: Pat Summerall.

Posted in Clippings, Guns, Law, Sports, TCDA, TV | Comments Closed

Random notes: April 16, 2013.

Tuesday, April 16th, 2013

So here’s the latest on Travis County DA Rosemary Lehmberg: she says she plans to plead guilty to the DWI charge and accept whatever punishment the court gives her. No word on whether she’s going to hire a lawyer or act as her own attorney.

But. There’s a catch.

Chapter 87 of the state’s Local Government Code lists among the “general grounds for removal” of a district attorney and other county officials “intoxication on or off duty caused by drinking an alcoholic beverage.”
Under that law, a removal petition could be filed by anyone who has lived in Travis County for six months and is “not currently under indictment” for a crime here. The petition would be filed with a district judge, and a trial would be held on the charge — with a jury to determine the official’s fate, according to the law.

“anyone who has lived in Travis County for six months” and “is not currently under indictment”. You don’t say.

And I said “What about ‘Breakfast At Tiffany’s’?”
And Patrick Healy said “Closing on Sunday.”

Boston Globe. Boston Herald.

Edited to add: Joe Huffman, the man behind Boomershoot and someone who knows his way around explosives, has some informed speculation on what might have been used. Short version: it doesn’t look like a commercial or military grade explosive.

Speaking of crimes, remember the Kaufman County DA killings? Remember how people were suggesting the Aryan Brotherhood was involved? Yeah. About that.

Posted in Clippings, Explosives, Law, TCDA, Theatre | 1 Comment »

And speaking of the Beaver…

Monday, April 15th, 2013

Frank Bank, most noteworthy for playing Clarence “Lumpy” Rutherford on “Leave It To Beaver”, has died.

It is somewhat interesting (at least to me) that Mr. Bank was unable to escape his role as “Lumpy”. So he left acting and became a successful broker.

Among his clients were former co-stars Mathers and Barbara Billingsley, who had played Mrs. Cleaver. “Frank is certainly brighter than Lumpy Rutherford, and a very good stockbroker,” Billingsley said in the People magazine article.

Also noteworthy:

A longtime resident of the San Fernando Valley, he wrote a memoir, “Call Me Lumpy” (1997). Subtitled “My Leave It to Beaver Days and Other Wild Hollywood Life,” it drew attention mainly because of a bawdy chapter detailing his “perpetual sexfest” during the 1960s. “I have slept with over 1,000 women,” the chapter begins.

“Call Me Lumpy” is available from Amazon. And, yes, there is a Kindle edition.

Posted in Clippings, Obits, TV | Comments Closed

This is what happens when you’re not hard enough on the Beaver.

Monday, April 15th, 2013

When the man approached the beaver to take a close-up photograph, the beaver suddenly pounced on him and bit him in the thigh.
The bite was a nasty one that severely damaged the man’s artery, and he bled to death before he could receive proper medical assistance.

Posted in Clippings, Obits, Photography | Comments Closed

Boston.

Monday, April 15th, 2013

If you’re looking here for information, don’t. TV and radio are going to be better sources.

If you’re looking here for uninformed or informed speculation, don’t. I have plenty of the former, and none of the later.

These are the two best things I’ve seen so far (both by way of Popehat’s Twitter feed):

Posted in Clippings | 1 Comment »

Phone blogging stinks.

Saturday, April 13th, 2013

Travis County DA arrested for DWI. More later.

Edited to add 4/14: Longer story from the Statesman.

The document indicated Lehmberg participated in a field sobriety test but refused to complete portions of the roadside exam. It was also unclear Saturday whether the arrest was captured on patrol car video.

…

Lehmberg told arresting deputies that she had two vodka drinks and that she had taken 20 milligrams of propranolol, a blood pressure medication. The document said the smell of alcohol on her breath was moderate and that her eyes were “watery, bloodshot and glassy.” Deputies found an open bottle of vodka in the car’s passenger side, the affidavit said.

Posted in Clippings, Cops, Law, TCDA | Comments Closed

Obit watch: April 13, 2013.

Saturday, April 13th, 2013

Jonathan Winters. NYT. LAT. A/V Club tribute.

Posted in Clippings, Obits | Comments Closed

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