Oh, look! The WP‘s “Hidden Life of Guns” is back! Unleash the dagron, as they say on FARK!
I am rapidly coming to the belief that the most dangerous things in the world, in order, are:
There are two things I generally avoid.
I do think there’s been a handful of sane voices in the debate: I was really impressed with David Goldhill’s “How American Health Care Killed My Father“, for example.
That being said, Lawrence sent me over to that territory I usually don’t tread in (for this link about what TV shows are popular among Republicans and Democrats) and I stumbled across another Atlantic article there: “God Help You. You’re on Dialysis.”
I’m having trouble finding my way into writing about that, because there’s still some raw emotions involved. Also, what I saw involves the lives of some other people, who may not want their personal business spread all over the Internets.
That being said, much of what’s in that article rings a giant freaking bell. Infection control issues? Yes. “When patients do take on the system, they can pay a heavy price.” Oh, my, yes. Clinics pushing medication that they could charge Medicare for? You betcha. “The expanding grip of DaVita and Fresenius.” Yes, though to be fair, what else would you expect? If the Government is paying 100% of the cost for dialysis, they have an incentive to drive costs down as much as possible. If they drive down costs, the people who can even afford to provide the service in the first place are the ones who can cut costs and consolidate operations.
While I was composing this post, Instapundit linked to the article as well. The comments from the person who works in the industry are particularly interesting, I think.
The NYT – our nation’s national newspaper of record – sees fit to run an article about…wait for it…The Onion‘s Joe Biden parody articles.
I am not making this up.
I would mock this some more, but the article’s actually worth reading, if only for the caption associated with this photo.
Continuing the ongoing saga of Officer Quintana:
He was arrested yesterday and charged with four misdemeanors related to the alleged domestic violence incident. Yes, the one he was fired over. Yes, the one that happened over a year ago.
Look, I’m not in favor of cops thumping on their women, or thumping on other folks for that matter. But something stinks about this story; either the Leander PD covered for Quintana, or someone put pressure on them to press charges over a year after the fact, and in spite of the victim’s initial statement that no assault had occurred. (And, yes, I’m aware that’s not uncommon in domestic violence situations, and probably even more common when the perp is a police officer. On the other hand, the victim is a police officer, too.)
When you’re out and about tonight, remember to drink a toast to Guy Fawkes, the only man ever to enter the Houses of Parliament with honorable intentions.
Also remember: if your gunpowder gets damp, don’t stick it in front of a fire to dry out.
Side note: Since I’ve been hammering on the Bell thing, I did want to link to this LAT article: basically, California Attorney General (soon to be Governor) Jerry Brown may have exceeded his authority by suing for the repayment of salaries and surrender of future pension money. Note that this just applies to the civil lawsuit: the criminal cases against Robert “Ratso” Rizzo and the others are proceeding.
The more I read about the city of Bell, the more I wonder. It seems clear that they weren’t just corrupt, but blatantly so. How did this go on for as long as it did?
Edited to add: I missed this. The Bell city council met last night. This is significant, since the council failed to make a quorum at their last meeting:
one council member resigned, another failed to make bail and two called in sick
And what was the primary piece of business at last night’s meeting?
You’re going down in flames, you tax-fattened hyenas!
For this installment, I’m going to cover the three chat sessions associated with the WP series:
I’m going to go over all three of these chats in some detail, though I only plan to quote parts I find significant or enlightening. Since this is going to be long, I’ll insert a break here…
Officer Quintana has been fired. Again.
Get the popcorn, Ethyl.
Obit watch: Alex Anderson, “the cartoonist who first drew Rocky the flying squirrel and his buddy”, though he was “not directly involved in the production of the television series”.
Speaking of “This time for sure!”, the Austin Police Department has come up with a brand new set of charges that they hope will allow them to fire Officer Leonardo Quintana. (Previously.)
And in another follow-up, Randy Adams, the former police chief of Bell, California, has been accused of suppressing an investigation into corruption in Bell. You may remember former Chief Adams from such classic bits as “hire me for the job of police chief in Bell, then immediately grant me a huge tax-free disability pension.”
Robert “Ratso” Rizzo, the indicted former city administrator of Bell, California, has lost his horse owner’s license. The license was suspended after he failed to appear at a hearing to answer charges of “conduct detrimental to horse racing”.
According to the LAT, Rizzo owned “dozens” of horses
including a thoroughbred named Depenser de l’argent — French for “to spend money”
See also the Daily Racing Form‘s summary, which gives more details on Rizzo’s racing ventures.
Unless you live in the City of Chicago, where Daisy (yes, the airgun company) is on the Chicago Police Department “Roster of Unsafe Handguns“.
Note that “Where a model or type is not specifically referenced, all models from the listed manufacturer are designated unsafe.” It seems to me that could easily be interpreted as not only banning Daisy handguns, but even the Red Ryder and other Daisy long guns. I know, it sounds silly, but do you really want to trust the jackbooted thugs of Daley and the CPD?
Hattip on this to Jay G., who also points out that the list bans Smith and Wesson models with “spur triggers”. Smith and Wesson hasn’t made a gun with a spur trigger for over 100 years.
I know, two updates in one day about Austin’s police chief, but this is too good not to share.
Remember the APD officer who got fired for DWI? The one who shot an 18-year old back in May of last year? Yeah, this guy.
Remember how Chief Acevedo’s firing and promotion decisions keep getting overturned by arbitrators?
Can you guess what’s happened now? Yes. Officer Quintana has been reinstated by the arbitrator.
Robert “Ratso” Rizzo has been charged with two more crimes: conflict of interest, and “misappropriation of funds for a value exceeding $1.3 million”.
If he is convicted of the second count, Rizzo would have to provide a DNA sample.
But he won’t have to provide a DNA sample if he’s convicted of the first crime, or any of the other 53 felonies he’s been charged with?
(Edited to add: Well, according to the California Attorney General’s web site, “Starting January 1, 2009, Prop 69 requires that the Department of Justice begin taking samples for any adult arrested or charged with any felony offense.” So it seems that Rizzo should already have had to give up his DNA based on the previous 53 felony charges; I’m not sure why the LAT felt that it needed to call out #55 in particular. I’m also not going to comment on the whole “any adult arrested or charged with any felony offense” thing.)
And I wanted to note this yesterday, but it snuck past me. Guess where at least some of the money to pay Rizzo’s salary came from? If you said “a fund that was supposed to be used to provide housing for low-income residents“, take two gold stars and advance to the next blue square.
Today’s LAT has an interesting article about the “cult of indoor weed“. Basically, consumers have developed a preference for marijuana grown indoors; the result has been a large indoor pot industry, focused in the “Emerald Triangle” region (Mendocino, Trinity and Humboldt counties) of Northern California.
Meanwhile, CVS has been fined $75 million by the Federal government. Why? They weren’t aggressive enough in tracking people who bought cold medication. Meanwhile, since the “Combat Methamphetamine Epidemic Act of 2005” has been in effect, meth production has moved across the border into Mexico, where the cartels can buy pseudoephedrine in bulk.
So the city of Bell hired a guy named Randy Adams to be their chief of police. Mr. Adams used to be the chief in Glendale; I can’t find exact figures, but according to the LAT, the Glendale force is much larger than the Bell force. Looking over Glendale’s Wikipedia page, it appears their cops are a pretty active bunch.
In spite of Bell’s force being smaller than Glendale’s, and Bell having a smaller population, the city of Bell decided to pay Chief Adams $457,000 a year, which the LAT describes as being more than twice what he was making in Glendale.
Sleazy enough for you? But wait, there’s more!
At the same time Chief Adams was being hired for the post in Bell, he was also filing an application for a disability pension from the city of Bell.
Yes, you read that right. At the same time the city was hiring him, they were also approving his application for disability payments (without any waiting or vesting period), which would have amounted to $411,000 a year. Of that, the first $205,500 would have been tax-free.
In the words of TJIC, “Rope”.