Whipped Cream Difficulties

The Supreme Court heard arguments yesterday in the case of Missouri v. NcNeely.

Tyler McNeely was stopped on suspicion of drunk driving, and had blood drawn from him against his will and without a warrant. The Missouri Supreme Court suppressed the blood evidence. The state is appealing to the Supreme Court, arguing that they shouldn’t need a warrant.

Stop laughing. I’m not kidding. The state of Missouri believes that sticking a needle in someone’s arm and drawing blood is something that doesn’t need a warrant;”exigent circumstances” and all that happy horseshit.

Much of the argument concerned how long obtaining a warrant actually takes these days and whether the Supreme Court should encourage streamlined procedures. In some places, the justices were told, warrants can be obtained by phone in as little as 15 or 20 minutes; in others, the process can take two hours or longer.

Obit watch: Sol Yurick, novelist. His best known work was based on Xenophon’s “Anabasis”, and was turned into a Walter Hill directed movie.

James M. Buchanan, Nobel-prize winning economist.

Dr. Buchanan, a professor emeritus at George Mason, in Fairfax, Va., was a leading proponent of public choice theory, which assumes that politicians and government officials, like everyone else, are motivated by self-interest — getting re-elected or gaining more power — and do not necessarily act in the public interest.

I feel like I should make some comment about the Oscar nominations. Well, here it is: I’m glad “Argo” got nominated, as I think that improves the chances it will come back to the Alamo Drafthouse so I can watch it. Lawrence and I plan to see “Django Unchained”, but haven’t been able to coordinate that yet. I’m also interested in seeing “Zero Dark Thirty”. And “Silver Linings Playbook” got a best picture nomination? I’ll admit I haven’t seen anything but the trailer and commercials for it, but those were enough to turn me off: it seems like yet another “magical pixie girl/gee, isn’t mental illness fun?” movie. No thanks. I’ll pass. For now.

I’m also disappointed that “The Master” didn’t pick up a best picture nod, but it does seem to be well represented in the acting categories. Maybe that will make a comeback as well?

In Austin nightclub news, the liquor licenses for all nine of the bars operated by Yassine Enterprises have been yanked. Apparently, licenses are tied to the building, and there’s a one license per building limit; this meant that nobody else could get a license until the Yassine licenses were revoked. Now that that is out of the way, various enterprises are planning to open new bars in the old Yassine locations. I have to be honest: most of these sound like horrible places. Especially Chicago House, which will be run by the people who run Bikini’s Sports Bar and Grill (a place you go to when Hooter’s is too classy for you), and Bourbon Girl, “a ‘country cool, cowboy chic’ bar that will be operated by Carmack Concepts, owner of Chuggin’ Monkey, Dizzy Rooster, the Dogwood and Molotov”.

(Previous entries about Yassine Enterprises and their legal problems here.)

And I said, “What about ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s’?”
She said, “I think that’s just been added to the National Film Registry.”
“And as I recall, we both kind of liked it.”
And I said, “Well, that’s the one thing we’ve got.”

(For those of you who have forgotten your one-hit wonders, reference explained here.)

(“The Matrix”? Whoa. But I’m pretty happy about “Dirty Harry” and “A Christmas Story”. I have the Criterion editions of both “Two-Lane Blacktop” and “Anatomy of a Murder“, but haven’t watched either one yet.)

The NYT finally got around to publishing an obit for Reinhold Weege, the creator of “Night Court” whose death we noted previously.

Alex Sanchez was the executive director of Homies Unidos, an anti-gang organization, when he was indicted in 2009 on Federal charges of “racketeering and conspiracy to commit murder”. The government alleged he had ties to the MS-13 gang.

Yesterday, the government asked that the charges be dismissed “without prejudice”, which gives them the right to refile those charges in the future.

The action follows a recent court filing by defense attorney Amy Jacks, who demanded that the case be dismissed because prosecutors “presented false evidence to the grand jury, lied to the grand jury and withheld exculpatory evidence,” she said. Her motion was not made public because it deals with sealed testimony before a federal grand jury, she said.