…white courtesy phone, please.
(I apologize for linking to the Statesman, but it is a non-paywalled AP story. I also apologize for the stupid auto-play video; if you prefer, “princess cockfighting” in the Google will bring up other versions of this story.)
(I have a sneaking suspicion Willeford would say, “Come on, you can’t put that in a novel! People won’t believe it, even if it is true!”)
Mark Sutton, best known as “that guy dressed as James Bond who parachuted out of a helicopter during the 2012 Olympic opening ceremonies”, died yesterday while piloting a wingsuit in Switzerland.
Also among the dead: Barbara Mertz, noted author, Mystery Writers of America Grand Master, and Egyptologist. You may perhaps know her better as “Elizabeth Peters” and “Barbara Michaels”. (Oddly enough, I don’t own any Peters or Michaels books, but I think I have a copy of Temples, Tombs and Hieroglyphs.)
And Bert Lance. Remember Bert Lance? Remember the Carter administration? Bank of Credit and Commerce International?
That sounds like something out of a Ross Thomas novel.
The punchline: all of those paintings were done by one guy in a garage in Queens.
(Speaking of art, this has already been on FARK, but I do want to note it here for the “Art, damn it! art watch”:
I also want to make note of it because that’s one of the rare FARK headlines that’s pretty much accurate. If you have any doubts, click through to the article and look at the photo.)
(“a dictatorship of art”?)
Ford stopped making the police variant of the Crown Victoria in 2011. We’re now in 2013, and police departments are starting to retire the last of the Crown Vics.
I have flirted from time to time with the idea of purchasing a former cop car as a backup vehicle. (“It’s got a cop motor, a 440 cubic inch plant, it’s got cop tires, cop suspensions, cop shocks.”) Problem is, the state surplus store wants nearly $6K for used DPS cars; at that price, I could go get a used Miata or Outback instead.
The 1933 double eagle is on display at the New York Historical Society. I’ve written previously about the strange history of the 1933 double eagle, and the linked NYT article contains a good summary, too.
Whitey Bulger: guilty of 11 murders.
Boston.com:
He was also found guilty of “…two counts of racketeering, six acts of extortion, as well as narcotics distribution, money laundering, and illegal firearms charges.”
I would link to the Boston Globe coverage, but they’ve put it behind a paywall, so to heck with them.
Yeah, I know, I’ve been quiet. Much of Friday’s blogging time was eaten by Bluehost instability, and Saturday and Sunday were busy.
But I do have some updates and links.
I’m going to cut things off here for right now. I’m still trying to find links to some of the other presentations I mentioned (in particular, I’d love a link of some sort to Anch’s “Pentesters Toolkit” if anyone has one) and will post updates as they come in. Depending on what I dig up, there may be a second post tomorrow. In the meantime, this should keep you busy.
Look, I don’t like drunk drivers. I don’t like drunk drivers who kill people while driving drunk. If I had my way, they’d be charged with murder.
That said, there’s something wrong with this WP editorial arguing that a bar should bear responsibility for the death of a ten-year-old girl “who liked dogs, horses and dancing”. (Would it have been less tragic if she hated horses?)
So that’s 18 drinks in five hours, or 3.6 drinks an hour on average. The WP doesn’t tell us how much Mr. Eaton weighed, or whether his drinks were evenly distributed over the five hours (as opposed to him being there for 4:30, and then slamming down 17 Coronas and a shot in the last half hour). But assuming he weighed 200 pounds, and the drinks were evenly distributed…according to this chart, he’d be right on the borderline between 0.06 and 0.08. I’m not convinced that’s the sort of visibly drunk that would make the bar responsible for letting him leave.
(It is interesting that none of the articles on this case specify Mr. Eaton’s BAC, but perhaps that has something to do with the fact that he fled the scene and turned himself in 12 hours later. It is also interesting that the WP editorial blaming the bar doesn’t mention Mr. Eaton’s “previous convictions for drunk driving, reckless driving, selling marijuana and speeding “.)
In other news, the Austin PD fired another officer. The twist here is that the fired officer was already on probation and had been suspended for “temporarily ignoring a dispatch and disengaging the tracking system in his patrol car for just over twenty minutes”: even after being placed on probation and suspended, he still turned off the tracking system (and apparently the cameras) in his patrol car another 60 times.
Obit watch: Noted Texas writer John Graves. At some point, I need to read Goodbye to a River
Speaking of Las Vegas, people are coming back. But they aren’t gambling as much, or spending as much money on other things.
And speaking of DEFCON/Black Hat: WP coverage of the NSA director’s speech.
I’m hoping for some good coverage of Black Hat/DEFCON from Brian Krebs, who, by the way, has an interesting tale to tell:
(Also, credit card and PIN skimmers just keep getting better and better.)
Latest update on the “Rebecca” case (previously):
Memo from the Department of “Here’s a Shocker”:
More:
Some bars in West Hollywood and other cities are boycotting Stolichnaya vodka over Putin’s “anti-gay” regulations, “banning ‘propaganda of nontraditional sexual relations,’ including gay pride events and providing children with information about homosexuality.” Fair enough; a boycott seems like a reasonable response, though I don’t know how much good it will do. (I’m not convinced boycotts work against the batshit crazy.) But:
Wouldn’t this be a more effective protest if they actually dumped the vodka? If they are worried about the environmental impact of dumping vodka into the gutter, couldn’t they pour it down the sink instead, like they do with unfinished drinks? Is the environmental impact of dumping vodka that great, especially since I suspect much of the alcohol will evaporate in the storm sewers?
And what are they going to do with the vodka that was in the bottles? Or have they been saving empties for this protest?
This one goes out to Lawrence and a couple of other friends.
I have written previously about NASA’s “System Failure Case Studies” site, where the organizations posts brief analysis of significant failures and the lessons learned from them.
NASA recently redesigned the site: I find it slightly more aesthetically pleasing than I did previously. And one of the things they’ve covered recently is the Piper Alpha disaster.
Some other recent SFCS articles of note:
The Mont-Blanc drifted toward the Halifax shore and then blew apart, with a shockwave equivalent to 2,989 tons of TNT expanding across Halifax at more than 4,900 feet per second and reached across 325 acres. The pressure and temperature (in excess of 9,000 degrees Fahrenheit at the origin) pushed a fireball of hot gas and debris into the sky that rained shrapnel on people in the streets below. The water around the Mont-Blanc was immediately vaporized and a 52-foot tidal wave swept three city blocks deep into Halifax’s Richmond neighborhood. Windows were reportedly shattered over 50 miles away from the epicenter.
Although Xcel and RPI recognized the penstock as a permit required confined space, neither treated it as such during the recoating work…Entry procedures were not developed and the required daily permits were incomplete and lacking detail pertaining to the hazards of the day‘s work activities. Air monitoring was performed almost exclusively at the entrance, about 1,450 feet away from the actual work area within the penstock. Neither RPI nor Xcel provided the CSB with a documented basis for declassifying the penstock space as non-permit required…Xcel and RPI managers did not plan or coordinate the immediate availability of qualified confined space technical rescuers and equipment outside the penstock, although the use of flammable solvent in the open atmosphere of the permit space created the need for immediate rescue because of the potential for Immediately Dangerous to Life and Health (IDLH) conditions
Xcel and RPI killed five workers because of these failures.
On another note, I greatly enjoy the Priceonomics blog, which has covered topics like how does SkyMall work (and their questionable ties to Xhibit Corp), what charities do with those donated cars, and the economics of starting a bike shop.
The latest article has some ties to something I wrote about previously – the pot growers of the Emerald Triangle. Or, as Priceonomics puts it:
Legal Weed is Hurting San Francisco’s Hippies
Some quotes:
Man, this is a day for sad sports stories in the NYT.
George Sauer Jr. passed away in May.
What makes this story interesting is that Sauer, according to people who knew him, was a really smart guy who may have never wanted to play football in the first place; what he really wanted to be was a writer.
On a slightly more upbeat note, there’s an interesting piece by Frank Bruni in the paper of record. Vetri, a very well regarded Italian restaurant in Philadelphia, transformed itself for three nights into Le Bec-Fin, a legendary restaurant that closed (temporarily?) in 2012.
I like the idea of recreating legendary restaurants for a few nights. I’m not sure what Austin restaurant I’d like to see do this; I think that needs some more consideration than I am currently able to give it.
And since this isn’t behind the paywall, i’ll link to it: the Austin Police Department has fired another officer. What did he do? Well…bad guy broke into someone’s home and stole their pickup and gun. Police chased the bad guy. Bad guy wrecked the truck, fled on foot, and broke into another house.
This has gone to the arbitrator:
And the arbitrator said:
I think the take-away here is: hit what you aim at. And always be sure of your target and what’s behind it:
A while back, I wrote about Sutchi Hui. Mr. Hui was crossing a San Francisco street when he was struck and killed by Chris Bucchere, who was on a bicycle at the time. The San Francisco DA charged Mr. Bucchere with felony manslaughter.
Mr. Bucchere has now pled guilty to that charge.
However, according to the article, Mr. Bucchere will not serve any time in prison. Or perhaps I should say the DA is not requesting any under this plea agreement. Mr. Bucchere will not actually be sentenced until August 16th. The SF Chron says that Mr. Hui’s family agreed to the plea, and that Mr. Bucchere will serve three years on probation. And:
After six months, Gascon said, a judge could reduce the charge to a misdemeanor.
Do you remember the “Bait Car” incident? In brief, an LA County sheriff’s detective swore under oath that he’d read a suspect his rights; that testimony was contradicted by video taken of the arrest for the “Bait Car” TV series.
Now:
And what is the DA’s office going to do about this? Not a damn thing.
Meanwhile, in the notoriously corrupt city of Vernon, Bruce Malkenhorst used to be the city manager. He resigned (and was later convicted of misappropriating public funds). As city manager, he took home $911,000 a year; his pension was the largest in California, more than $500,000 a year.
At least it was until the California pension board cut it back to $115,000 a year, stating that some of his salary was improperly obtained.
I was tied up yesterday and couldn’t jump on the Detroit bankruptcy story. Here’s coverage from the NYT, the Detroit Free Press, and Lawrence.
The people who run the hospital want to close it, and are trying to wind down operations. But the unions that represent hospital workers are opposed to closing the hospital.
San Jose State made a deal with the online course provider Udacity to offer “low-cost, for-credit online courses” in “remedial math, college-level algebra and elementary statistics courses”. How’s that working for them? Not well. “Preliminary results from a spring pilot project found student pass rates of 20% to 44%”. SJSU and Udacity have suspended the courses while they re-evaluate. One thing that might have been a factor:
No, not your obedient servant.
The State of Texas has approved a $15,000 a year raise for all local DAs and district judges.
Whether you’re eating Beef Bourguignon and drinking a good Burgundy, or storming a prison to get at the gunpowder inside, I hope your celebration is a happy one.