I can’t help it. I’m enjoying this too much.
Hey, remember when folks were saying this was Weiner’s comeback?
We can hope.
“time-honored city tradition”. There’s really nothing I can say here, is there?
I wonder if this is a rejection of the nanny state exemplified by Bloomberg.
Note the paper of record’s use of “post-Bloomberg” there, too. Interesting.
(Edited to add: More on the “Bloomberg backlash” theme by way of Insta.)
Two games in, and we have our first head coach firing of the college football season: Doug Williams is out at Grambling. The team lost the first two games of this season, and was 1-10 last season (0-9 in conference).
The Chicago City Council voted to do away with the city’s gun registry.
Or, as Iowahawk once noted, Chicago blames their violence problem on other states…that don’t have a violence problem. (I can’t find his exact quote. By the way, Twitter’s search features stink.)
Criminal experts say the gun registry database in Chicago, which contains more than 8,000 gun owners and about 22,000 firearms, has helped the police better understand the movement of weapons in the city as they put in place new law enforcement strategies. Adam Collins, a spokesman for the Police Department, said in a statement that officers would be able to use a new online database of permit holders maintained by the Illinois State Police under the law.
“There’s no scenario where this makes the jobs of police easier,” said Jen Ludwig, director of the University of Chicago’s Crime Lab, about having to repeal the registry.
Of course, because Chicago’s criminal class is composed of law-abiding permit holding individuals who register their illegally possessed guns.
Speaking of sad pandas:
Kind of interesting that the paper of record mentions Bloomberg specifically, and not the NRA.
Heh. Heh. Heh.
And among the many things Mexico needs: strict machete control.
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:
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:
Sounds like the title of a Community episode, doesn’t it?
But I’ve been trying to think of television shows, especially 1970s television shows, that reflect libertarian themes, and I’m having a hard time coming up with many. For my purposes, I’m defining “libertarian themes” as: self-reliance/entrepreneurship, distrust of big government, and adherence to the non-agression principle.
I don’t remember how well Little House on the Prairie followed these ideas: the books certainly are libertarian (for obvious reasons) but I just don’t remember the TV show well enough to recall how that translated. (I think I avoided the TV show because I had a perception it was a chick thing. Though I do want to see the episode where Pa and Mr. Edwards do a remake of The Wages of Fear.)
Beyond that, pickings seem slim for the 1970s. I think Gunsmoke may have incorporated those themes, but I don’t remember the show well enough to be sure.
There is one show I can think of that, to me, is a nice example of libertarian thought:
Really, what could be more libertarian than a private space program? How about a private space program that intends to make a profit by selling off discarded government property? I seem to recall that there were frequent conflicts with one officious government p—k or another, always resolved in Andy Griffith’s favor – and without much force or violence.
Any other series I may be missing? Feel free to leave comments. They don’t even have to be series from the 1970s: I’ll take anything from the birth of television all the way up until now. It does seem to me, though, that libertarian thought became more and more mainstream and was better represented on television after the 1980s.
I kind of half-assed my post about gun related bills in the Texas Legislature this morning. I blame the vertical integration of the broiler industry and the fact that I had to rush out the door for an appointment.
Over at Battleswarm, Lawrence has given my post a full ass, with a quick overview of the various bills and their individual statuses, complete with links. I commend his post to your attention.
Back in October, I wrote about the defunct art gallery Knoedler & Company and their troubled relationship with a dealer named Glafira Rosales. Many of the works Ms. Rosales supplied to Knoedler are now considered fakes.
Yesterday, Ms. Rosales was charged with tax fraud.
And:
In other news: the LA County DA plans to retry the Bell city council members. As you may recall, the jury in the first trial completely acquitted one council member (Luis Artiga), convicted the other five members on some charges, acquitted them on other charges, and ultimately hung on the remaining charges.
Texas gun legislation update: things are getting interesting. The concealed carry on campus bill, and the ban on enforcing any new Federal gun laws, are tied up in the Senate. However, the Senate has approved…
This same bill also prevents local governments from outlawing BB guns and Airsoft guns.
My understanding is that the bill to cut back the number of hours of class time required for a concealed carry permit has also passed both houses, and is awaiting the governor’s signature.
More here. I was previously unaware of the TSRA PAC site; the front page summary of legislative events is very useful.
Not news: New York State Assemblyman Vito J. Lopez (D-Brooklyn) has been accused of sexually harassing several women.
News: Assemblyman Lopez is resigning rather than fighting the charges.
FARK: Soon to be former Assemblyman Lopez plans to run for a seat on the NYC City Council.
The Assembly has not expelled anyone since it ejected five socialists in the early 1920s.
About a month ago, I noted the money laundering and gambling charges against Hillel Nahmad, a prominent member of the NYC art scene. Over the past two days, the NYT has run two longish articles going into more detail about the Nahmad accusations:
Meanwhile in Utah, the West Valley City Police Department has problems.
It all started when two undercover officers shot and killed a 21-year-old woman.
More:
And:
More:
And:
Remember Detective Louis Scarcella, aka one of the “likeable scamps” who put David Ranta away for 22 years?
The other shoe has dropped.
More:
And more. I don’t want to quote the entire article, but this is an important paragraph because it illustrates a key point: what you post on the Internet doesn’t disappear.
Ms. Gomez is the crack addicted prostitute mentioned above. She’s dead now.
Have you ever wondered what it is like to manage a motel in the Rundberg/I-35 area? The Statesman has your answer.
(Note to my out-of-town readers: the Rundberg/I-35 corridor is notorious as a haven for drug dealing and prostitution.)
Austin politics note (readers who aren’t into Austin politics can skip this one):
We had an election yesterday. Specifically, we were asked to vote on bonds for the Austin Independent School District.
There were four bond proposals on the ballot, totaling $892 million. That’s right: AISD wanted to issue nearly one billion dollars worth of bonds.
This is one of the few times where I’ve actually seen organized opposition to a bond election in Austin. There were a lot of large “vote no” signs in yards and in front of businesses. Surprisingly, even the Statesman came out and opposed the bonds. (Our local alternative newspaper, the Austin Chronicle, endorsed the bonds. But the AusChron has never met a tax, a bond issue, or a government boondoggle they didn’t like.)
The end result: half the bonds passed, and half the bonds failed. This is kind of a “WTF?” moment: you’d figure the voting would go all one way or the other. Then again…
“a 500-seat performing arts center at the Ann Richards School for Young Women Leaders”?!
Those are the propositions that failed.
Proposition 3, the other one that passed, “provides money for renovations across the district”. Proposition 1 and 3 together total out to $489.6 million, and “will add $38.40 to the property tax bill for a $200,000 home.”
It hasn’t been a good few days for the movies.
Noted documentary filmmaker Les Blank passed away on Sunday. NYT. LAT. Edited to add: A/V Club (they were late in getting their obit up).
My favorite Les Blank story:
Blank’s most famous film is another one involving Herzog: “Burden of Dreams” about Herzog and the making of “Fitzcarraldo”.
Margaret Thatcher: LAT. NYT. Battleswarm. I apologize if I seem to be giving her short shrift: my feeling is that everyone who doesn’t live under a rock is aware of her passing, and I am just linking to the obits here for the historical record.
No kidding: this the actual quotation of the day in today’s NYT:
-Preet Bharara, United States attorney in Manhattan.
Some notes from the legal beat to get things started:
Javaris Crittenton is being charged with murder and “gang activity”. Crittenton is a former NBA player with the Lakers, Wizards, and Grizzlies. You may remember him as “that guy who got into a locker room altercation with Gilbert Arenas that ended with guns being pulled and a 38-game suspension”.
Meanwhile, in Arizona, Louis C. Taylor has been freed from prison. Mr. Taylor served 42 years before his release: he was convicted of starting a hotel fire in 1970, when he was 16, and sentenced to 28 life terms. However, it looks like the evidence used to convict Mr. Taylor was questionable, and (if I read the article correctly) the prosecution withheld exculpatory evidence.
And:
Of course they believe Mr. Taylor was guilty. God forbid they should admit someone served 42 years for what may not have even been a crime.
Senator Smith is accused of trying to bribe his way onto the ballot for the mayor’s race in New York City.
Wait. What?
In case you were wondering, Robert “Ratso” Rizzo’s trial on corruption charges is scheduled for September. Ratso’s former assistant, Angela Spaccia, is asking for a separate trial.
From the department of things that suck: noted SF author Ian Banks is dying. Many of my friends, including Lawrence, are big Banks fans. I never got into his work, personally: the only Banks book I own is Raw Spirit: In Search of the Perfect Dram
Firing watch: Mike Rice out as basketball coach of Rutgers after video of him acting like an a–hole becomes public.