If you are planning to go into the offices of a financial advisor armed with a gun, it is a good idea to load the gun first.
It is also a good idea to leave the wine glass and wine bottle in the car; you know, so you have both hands free to load the damn gun.
Lawrence points out that Triton Financial, the firm in question, has a somewhat interesting history. (See also.)
Today’s memo from Captain Obvious: scalpers find it hard to sell tickets when the team is awful. And sympathy for the Nets.
So your scam involves taking money for hot tubs from people on eBay, then not shipping the hot tubs? I can’t decide who is dumber; the scammer, for not thinking that he’d be caught, or the people who actually thought purchasing hot tubs off eBay was a good idea.
In other news, we’re all going to die (well, mostly you folks in Houston). Film at 11.
Edited to add: The Observer has a nifty interview with Maj Sjöwall. I’m kind of ashamed to admit, even though I’ve read some of the Martin Beck books, I had no idea Per Wahlöö was dead. (Hattip: Confessions of an Idiosyncratic Mind.)
Hofstra University has dropped their (1-AA) football program. (I know the NCAA doesn’t call it 1-AA any longer, but if you think I’m going to type out “NCAA’s Football Championship Subdivision” every time, you’ve got another think coming.)
As noted in the linked article, Northeastern (also 1-AA, and in the same conference) dropped their program last week.
When is TMQ going to blog about the impending cupcake shortage?
…from your opening loss at Charlotte to losing at home against the Mavericks and setting a new NBA record for futility.
Two other franchises had gone 0-17 to start a season. The Miami Heat set the record 21 years ago as an expansion team. The Los Angeles Clippers, who often look like an expansion team, matched the mark 10 years ago.
The Nets now stand alone, wallowing in despair and self-loathing.
Lawrence gave me some flack yesterday for not mentioning Bobby Bowden. My feeling was that Bowden wasn’t fired, he resigned; Lawrence’s argument is that Bowden resigned in the same way Nixon and Spitzer resigned. I don’t have much to say on the subject, but if you do, here’s your thread.
Obama Ecstasy tablets? Those will go well with my Chia head.
Dear Congressman Lamar Smith: Please be so kind as to consume excrement and thus hasten your demise.
Edited to add: I forgot this one. By way of the Scalz, homeowner’s association tries to tell a 90-year-old Medal of Honor recipient he can’t have a flagpole in his yard. Get the popcorn, folks, this should be almost as much fun as the ongoing situation in what Balko calls Marakafka County.
Place your dates in the comments.
Lawrence has already claimed January 4th.
As your moderator, I won’t be picking a date.
St. Edward’s and Notre Dame are both under the Congregation of Holy Cross, so I have some sympathy for Notre Dame. This firing doesn’t give me any pleasure.
I think Notre Dame’s biggest problem is a need to adjust to the realities of the new world. As TMQ points out, Notre Dame graduates 94 percent of their football players; they’re basically playing an amateur game among professionals. The school needs to decide what’s important; building character and graduating players, or steamrolling cupcakes and getting a share of that sweet sweet bowl money.
The list of the 50 most interesting Wikipedia articles (and 50 more) has been blogged elsewhere. But while I was reading the second list, I stumbled across one of the coolest things I’ve seen on the Web in a while.
You may have noticed that a recurring theme of this blog is failure, mostly sports failures. That’s because failure is a sort of academic interest of mine. I gloat over the Detroit Lions going 0-16, but there’s more to it than that.
I want to know what allowed the network security breech. I want to know why the plane crashed. I want to understand what led up to the refinery explosion. I want to understand these things, because I want to know where the mistakes were made, and how to avoid repeating them. When I see the same patterns that led to the reactor meltdown repeating in my work environment, I want to be the person who steps up and says “Stop.” I want to learn from other people’s failures, so I don’t have to learn from my own.
I’m not the only person who feels that way. Books like Petroski’s To Engineer Is Human: The Role of Failure in Successful Design
So I was very pleasantly surprised to discover, while reading the Wikipedia entry about the SL-1 incident, that NASA has something called the Process Based Mission Assurance Knowledge Management System. As best as I can put it, this is where NASA manages their knowledge of failure, and tries to learn from it.
One of the things you can find there is System Failure Case Studies. These are short PDF documents (about 4 pages) discussing various failures, and what lessons can be learned from them. (These documents include discussion questions, such as “Do you feel that the chronic pressure of aggressive schedules is adequately balanced with attention to safety and quality in your organization?”) Some examples:
, you really need to.)There’s also another series of documents, VITS, which appear to be PDF files of PowerPoint presentations. Some of the SFCS documents have VITS presentations that go along with them; other VITS presentations, such as this one on Hurricane Katrina, stand alone.
TJIC might argue with me (he’d probably suggest that private insurance companies have a strong motivation to do the same thing, and he’d have a pretty good point), but at some level, this is one of the things I want my government to do.
(Edited to add: And the Nets are now 0-17.)
The New Jersey Nets (who, by the way, are 0-16, and two games away from setting an NBA record for most consecutive losses to start a season; and they play the Lakers tonight) fired coach Lawrence Frank. Who says Bruce Ratner cares more about his real estate ventures than the Nets?
(By the way, that is not the firing I was expecting today. I was also not expecting Al Groh to be fired at Virginia quite yet, but when you go 3-9, and can’t beat your arch rival, your days are numbered. Groh apparently has pro experience with the Jets; could he go to the Bills? Or could he possibly be considered for the Notre Dame job?)
I see that the Texans once again managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
This doesn’t really qualify as a “loser” update per se, but last night I was able to have a very nice dinner at my sister’s place and watch the Baylor – Texas Tech game. I’m glad Tech pulled the game out, but it sure seems to me that there were a lot of missed and dropped passes. This victory strikes me as being one for the defense; and, as we all know, you can’t rely on defense to win games.
And the more Avatar commercials I see, the more I root for the movie to be an enormous flop.
The artist Jeanne-Claude, wife of Christo and his collaborator on “The Gates“, has died. (NYT obit here.)
In other news, the Oakland Raiders have benched JaMarcus Russell, their number one draft pick in 2007. Per NFL.com, the Honorable Mr. Russell has a quarterback rating of 47.7 (at the time of this writing) which places him 30th. The only player he outranks at the moment is Derek Anderson of Cleveland, with a 36.2. To quote Gregg Easterbrook, “If every attempt by a quarterback falls to the ground incomplete, his rating is 39.6.”
Fine. Just as long as it stays off my television. (Since I don’t have cable, the Golf Channel is perfectly okay.) The only televised sport I hate more than golf is women’s golf. (I have nothing against playing golf; though I’ve never done it myself, I’m sure it is a fine sport. But watching golf – men’s or women’s – is about as exciting as reading transcripts of Roman Hruska speeches.)
I can’t explain why I dislike the Buffalo Bills. It has nothing to do with the Honorable Mr. Owens; I disliked the Bills before they signed him. It has nothing to do with Buffalo itself, a city that brought us the Buffalo wing, or Buffalo fans; I’m sure they are wonderful people who adopt stray puppies and help old ladies across the street. (I have a friend who used to live in Buffalo; he tells a great story about his experiences during one of the epic Buffalo snowstorms. When he talks about moving down the street with his cow-orkers, all of them roped together so they didn’t get lost in the blinding snow, you gain a new appreciation for Texas.) It has nothing to do with the Oilers and their spectacular collapse; if I was going to resent anyone for that, it would be the Oilers.
No, I really can’t explain it. But it does make me happy that Dick Jauron is the first coach firing of the season.
I thought perhaps it was too much to expect another 0-16 run after last year. I had hopes that the Lions would make it 0-32, but those were dashed. But it hurts that Green Bay lost to Tampa. You see, I have a certain fondness for the Packers; I admire their ownership structure, and I have a certain amount of affection for the silly cheeseheads, among other reasons.
Sadly, the Pack wasn’t able to pull this one out.
NFL teams that still have a chance to go 0-16:
None.
That’s all, folks. Drive carefully, and remember to tip your waitress.
Edited to add: But, hey! The New Jersey Nets still have a shot at going 0-82! Too bad I don’t care about NBA basketball (or, as I like to call it, “our long national nightmare”).
…that you pour money into. But $10 million for a mast? Even a carbon fiber one?
Edited to add: FARK has provided a link to coverage from Sail-World.com which is a bit more detailed than the linked NYT article above.
You’ve probably figured out by now that I’m something of a connoisseur of failure. This leads me in many directions, including savoring Broadway flops. (And that, in turn, reminds me that I need to replace my copy of Not Since Carrie
I also wanted to note the LAT obit for controversial rocket scientist Qian Xuesen. Xuesen is a prominent figure in George Pendle’s fascinating biography of fellow rocket scientist and genuine freaking weirdo Jack Parsons, Strange Angel
Well, well, well. It looks like the hapless Rams actually managed to pick up their first victory against none other than the hapless Detroit Lions in what should have been called the “Who Cares? Bowl”.
Also, in somewhat less amazing news, Tennessee actually managed to win a game against Jacksonville, even with Vince Young quarterbacking. I’m dubious about Young in the long term; we’ll see next week about the short term.
Tampa Bay had a bye this week, so…NFL teams that still have a chance to go 0-16:
Tampa
There’s not a whole lot to say at this point: Tennessee lost to the bye week, Tampa flew to London to get beat (thanks to Andrew for pointing that out), the Rams didn’t go anywhere and still got beat, and Jim Zorn is still employed at Washington (this could change after tonight).
NFL teams that still have a chance to go 0-16:
Tennessee (bye week)
Tampa
St. Louis