Authentic games. Voting. Space: not a frontier, at least for man. All this and more in this week’s TMQ, after the jump…
Archive for the ‘Politics’ Category
TMQ Watch: November 4, 2014.
Wednesday, November 5th, 2014Administrative and other notes: November 5, 2014.
Wednesday, November 5th, 2014Happy Guy Fawkes Day. While you’re out and about, please remember poor Guido, the last man to enter the Houses of Parliament with honorable intentions.
It seems kind of fitting that that the holiday falls today. Beyond that, I don’t have much to say about the elections for reasons of time and inclination. Battleswarm is a good place to go if you’re looking for that.
I will be updating the contact pages on this site, but I’m going to wait until after the runoffs are over, everyone is sworn in, and they actually have pages to link to. If this does get past me for some reason, please yell at me until it gets done.
I’m going to avoid my usual “what China needs” snark here, because this is a little scary: Brittney Griner attacked in China by a man with a knife.
How did Peter Siebold (the other Virgin Galactic pilot) survive a bailout from 50,000 feet without a pressure suit? Bonus: quotes from Bob Hoover. The Bill Weaver story is also touched on briefly: a fuller account can be found here.
Things may be slow from Thursday until Monday. We will see.
Obit watch: October 5, 2014.
Sunday, October 5th, 2014Lawrence clued me in to a couple of obits that might otherwise have escaped me.
Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier. It surprises me a little that he was 63, but I don’t think I knew this:
I haven’t seen an obit from an outside source yet, but the official website is reporting the death of Paul Revere, of Paul Revere and the Raiders.
Obit watch: September 29, 2014.
Monday, September 29th, 2014Don Keefer passed away earlier this month. He was 98 years old.
Mr. Keefer was one of those actors who knocked around a lot; he was in “The Caine Mutiny” and the original Broadway cast of “Death of a Salesman”.
But he was perhaps most famous as Don Hollis, the man who ends up wished into the cornfield by Anthony in the Twilight Zone episode “It’s A Good Life”.
Also: James Traficant.
TMQ Watch: August 12, 2014.
Thursday, August 14th, 2014And so is TMQ. And so is TMQ Watch. The first column of the NFL season is always kind of strange; there’s a lot of short items, basketball coverage, and other things that throw us for a loop. We’re probably not going to hit every one of TMQ’s throwaway quips. And yes, we’re aware that TMQ did a couple of draft columns; we looked at those and frankly didn’t find anything noteworthy in them. One was his usual silly mock draft, the other was his draft analysis, and both contained the recommended US daily allowance of TMQ tropes.
Anyway, back to this week’s TMQ, after the jump…
You will know them by the company they keep.
Thursday, August 7th, 2014Austin mayor Lee Leffingwell (who is also a member of Criminal Mayors Conspiring to Infringe Your Rights) has declared today in Austin “Edwin Edwards Day”.
Yes, that Edwin Edwards, who for some reason came to Austin as part of his campaign for a Louisiana congressional seat. You may also remember him as the former governor of Louisiana who spent eight years in federal prison after being convicted of taking bribes.
What next? I would suggest Albert DeSalvo Day, but the Texas Legislature has been there and done that. Maybe Mayor Leffingwell would go for Lynette Fromme Day.
Noted for the historical record.
Wednesday, June 4th, 2014Indicted California Democratic State Senator Leland “Uncle” Yee finished third out of a field of eight candidates for the post of California secretary of state, collecting “more than a quarter-million votes“.
Flames, hyena, etc. (#13 in a series).
Tuesday, June 3rd, 2014Patrick D. Cannon, the former mayor of Charlotte, North Carolina, has pled guilty to one count of “honest services wire fraud”. (Previously.)
Strippers. Always with the strippers.
And this has the potential to be epic for more than one reason:
There’s the whole “prosecutor going to jail and being disbarred” thing. There’s the whole circus surrounding any NYC political figure being charged with a crime. And then there’s the whole “misuse of asset forfeiture funds” aspect, about which Radley Balko and others have written so eloquently.
More stabbing hypocrisy… I mean cutting journalism
Tuesday, May 27th, 2014Great and good friend of the blog RoadRich sent us an email yesterday. I liked it so much, I’m making it the very first guest post here (with RoadRich’s permission).
I saw yet another article on the USC murder spree. And though I’m not prone to rant, it seems this got me in a ranting mood once again. Of course it helps to preach to the choir.
I give the family lots of credit for earlier trying to get someone to take notice of the violent tendencies of their own son… which by itself is monumental… and I credit the family again for rushing to the developing scene (as the news reports indicate). The family of the murderer tried to save lives, weeks before it came to this.
However, the blame that the father of one victim levies on the NRA, and on politicians for not tightening gun laws, aims to hide the elephant in the room, which of course are the first three victims in this killing spree. Long before a person was killed by Elliot Rodger’s gun, two of his roommates plus someone who apparently had been visiting, were felled by Elliot Rodger’s knife.
By itself, the three stabbing victims may well have been called a ‘mass murder’, perhaps. And if the rampage by an overprivileged, self-important madman had stopped there, it would have still shaken Santa Barbara. But because the rampage moved on and changed to the weapon most feared by an uninformed or misinformed public, we are treated to a blind demand for gun laws. This shamefully ignores those who were killed by means other than bullets as somehow less important deaths. What do gun laws protect the stabbing victims from? What would more laws have done to save /anyone/ from someone who is willing to violate the law against murder? Is the loss by the parents of David Wang, James Cheng and George Chen any less important than that felt at the deaths of Veronika Weiss, Katherine Cooper or Christopher Michael-Martinez?
Of course we know what made the madman stop. It was someone who could defend himself, and whose job it was to defend others. It was someone with a gun, who ended a knife killing spree, a gun killing spree, and very nearly a car killing spree.
I feel bad for all the victims’ families. Yes, even the parent of Martinez, who is rightfully outraged. But between you and me, I would hope that someone Farq’s the article with the headline “Parent seeking tighter gun laws ignores stabbing victims” or “Parent doesn’t see stabbing deaths as victims” or something like that.
Books in brief: The Power Broker.
Thursday, April 17th, 2014This won’t be a review. Reviewing The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York
These are a few random thoughts:
1. The Power Broker deserves all the acclaim it has gotten. Caro’s a great writer, and the story of the rise (and eventual fall) of Robert Moses is a compelling one. I kind of expected it to be slow moving and a little dull; how do you make urban planning interesting? But Caro found a way to do that. I got caught up in the sweep of the book, and found myself wanting to read more about Al Smith and La Guardia and other background characters.
There are a few places where I have reservations about Caro’s conclusions. The largest reservation I have is Caro’s emphasis on mass transit, and Moses’ failures in that regard. I’m not as much of a believer in mass transit as Caro seems to be, but I’m willing to concede Caro might be right. Given the population density (both at the time and projected for the future) mass transit may have been the only workable alternative for NYC’s traffic problems.
2. I haven’t read Caro’s LBJ books. I’m waiting for the series to be completed before I start on them. (I have read excerpts from them in other places.) But I wonder if Caro is drawn to people who were, in some way, corrupted by power. I have the impression that this is a theme in the LBJ books. And as for The Power Broker…
3. You know that quote attributed to Dave Barry? “Someone who is nice to you, but rude to the waitress, is not a nice person?” Robert Moses was a walking example of that. He was an elitist who believed that he and people like him – rich, Ivy League educated – were the only ones who were fit to govern, and everyone else should just get out of the way. He was a racist – he didn’t want the “lower classes” (read: blacks and the poor) using his parks, pools and playgrounds. He treated anyone he considered an inferior like dirt. As for the powerful, his main interest in them was how he could use them to enhance his own power. He destroyed vital and interesting neighborhoods for the sake of new roads, even though those neighborhoods could have been saved by small changes in routes (but those changes would have inconvenienced politicians who were important to Moses). And the new roads and bridges he built were full as soon as they were completed, which Moses saw as a reason to build more. Lather, rinse, repeat. We’re too close to Easter for me to say what I’m really thinking, but you can probably guess.
4. This shouldn’t have surprised me as much as it did: there was (is?) a recent Robert Moses revisionist movement. The central thesis seems to be: yes, he was every bit as big a you-know-what as Caro portrayed him. But. He. Got. Things. Done. And “If the ends don’t justify the means, what does?“
Quote of the day.
Friday, April 4th, 2014As the crucial special session neared, the Times began to resemble a Democratic house organ.
–Robert Caro, The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York
FAQ 2.
Wednesday, April 2nd, 2014“Who’s Packing What: The Weapons in the Leland Yee Scandal”
Or, as we’ve taken to calling him, indicted California Democratic State Senator Leland “Uncle” Yee.
By way of Mike the Musicologist, who observes that indicted California Democratic State Senator Leland “Uncle” Yee and his friends have bad taste in weapons.
Two 9s and a .45? I wonder how loud the clank was as he walked.
Also. (By way of Robb Allen.)
Random notes: April 2, 2014.
Wednesday, April 2nd, 2014Flames! Flames!
Obit watch: Charles Keating, of S&L scandal fame.
More flames!
The most recent mayor, Patrick D. Cannon, was arrested last week on public corruption charges and resigned.
But has Ms. McCabe ever tried to use a $2 bill at a Taco Bell?
I wanted to link to, and comment on, the latest entries into the National Recording Registry, but the LOC didn’t have them up when I was working on this post earlier today. Now that they are up…well, I’m kind of curious about “Only Visiting This Planet” and “Copland Conducts Copland: Appalachian Spring” (I have recordings of “Appalachian Spring” but not that one). I think the original cast recording of “Sweeney Todd” is probably a good choice, and, yes, even though I think it has been overplayed, I can see putting Jeff Buckley’s version of “Hallelujah” on the list.
Also: Shaft!
The only one that I really boggle at is “The First Family”. Not that I have anything against comedy, but is that album really memorable or significant? Especially when compared against some of the other comedy entries? Or is this just folks feeling bad (and perhaps rightly so) for poor Vaughn Meader?
Random notes: March 24, 2014.
Monday, March 24th, 2014What does the fox say?
“I resign.”
Rhode Island Speaker of the House Gordon D. Fox, enveloped by an apparent criminal investigation, announced Saturday that he has resigned his leadership post.
He fell in a lightning-quick series of events that began Friday with investigators, armed with search warrants in a probe of an undisclosed matter, taking boxes of evidence from his State House office and his East Side home.
The paper of record describes agents “carting out boxes and bags labeled ‘evidence.'” This raises some questions, at least for me: did they write “evidence” on the side with a Sharpie? Or do these boxes and bags come pre-labeled as “evidence”? Can you buy “evidence” boxes and bags from your local law enforcement supply store?
(Isn’t it kind of cartoonish when you think about it? Sort of like Scrooge McDuck carrying around a big bag with a “$” on it, only instead you’ve got a neatly attired IRS agent with a bag that says “Evidence”?)
So much for that. Looks like I owe Lawrence $5. See if I buy one of your damn t-shirts now, Gonzaga.
(Still hopeful for those Cubs, though.)
“Squandered Baseball”? Well, I suppose that’s one way of looking at it. Another way of looking at it is that the Expos made unreasonable demands after the 1995 baseball strike and drove fans away.
A double handful of randomness.
Tuesday, March 18th, 2014The arson puppies of Las Vegas. Yes, I know that sounds like I’m just stringing random words together, but this a real story. Plus: puppies!
Hey, you’ll never guess who is running for a Congressional seat in Louisiana. Edwin Edwards. Yeah, that’s right, Edwin Edwards. You know, the former governor of Louisiana who spent eight years in prison after being convicted of bribery, extortion, and fraud? That Edwin Edwards?
Always nice to see a classical reference in the news.