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Quickies: October 26, 2017.

Thursday, October 26th, 2017

NYT coverage of the Suffolk County prosecutor indictments, mentioned yesterday.

This is a bit weirder than I expected at first glance. A heroin addict was breaking into cars. One of the cars he broke into was the police chief’s.

From the vehicle, Mr. Loeb stole a duffel bag that contained cigars, pornographic DVDs and sex toys.

Now, perhaps this is victim blaming, but I really can’t see why you’d leave your porno DVDs and sex toys in the car unattended. But I digress. The chief found the heroin addict and beat the crap out of him.

Four years later, after an investigation by federal agents, Mr. Burke [the chief – DB] pleaded guilty to having beaten Mr. Loeb after he was arrested and shackled to the floor of a police station. Last year Mr. Burke was sentenced to 46 months in federal prison for assaulting Mr. Loeb and for trying to orchestrate a cover-up of what had happened.

The charges against the DA, Thomas J. Spota, and his “top anti-corruption prosecutor”, Christopher McPartland, stem from this cover-up:

Federal prosecutors accused them of holding a series of meetings and phone conversations with Mr. Burke and other police officers in which they agreed to conceal Mr. Burke’s role in the assault and to impede the federal investigation.

Everyone knows I’m not a baseball fan. Related to that: I don’t understand baseball. Maybe Borepatch or someone else who’s smart can explain this to me: Joe Girardi out as Yankees manager.

They were in the playoffs, for crying out loud. They almost went to the World Series. What more did they want out of Girardi, and why are people saying it was time for him to go? (See also: Boston.)

Remember the mayor of Lakeway, Joe “John Smart” Bain? (Previously on WCD.)
He was fined $500 by the Texas Ethics Commission and had to pick up the garbage.

The commission, which met Sept. 27 to consider the complaint, considered four posts written by “John Smart” and concluded there was credible evidence that Bain intended to “injure a candidate or influence the result of an election” while misrepresenting the source of the communications, a violation of the election code.
The mayor also did not mark the post containing explicit advocacy as political advertising, another code violation, the commission said. And finally, it said, evidence indicates Bain violated ethics code when he misrepresented his own identity in campaign communications or political advertising.

Posted in Cops, Firings, Law, Politics, Sports, Travis County | Comments Closed

TMQ Watch: October 24, 2017.

Wednesday, October 25th, 2017

“The Falcons are, in every way, the Epic Fails.”

Someone would like a word with Gregg Easterbrook. (Sorry, Infidel.)

All this and more in this week’s TMQ, after the jump…

(more…)

Posted in Firings, NFL, Sports, TMQ watch | 1 Comment »

Your loser update: week 7, 2017.

Monday, October 23rd, 2017

Apologies for this being later than usual, but I was waiting for a couple of things to come together.

NFL teams that still have a chance to go 0-16:

Cleveland
San Francisco

How about that titanic battle of the Browns/Titans offenses, eh? I was actually a little worried there.

And the NBA regular season has fired up, so you know what that means:

NBA teams that still have a chance to go 0-82:

New York Knicks
Chicago
Philadelphia
Dallas
Phoenix

And it is pretty early in the season, but we already have our first firing: Earl Watson out as coach in Phoenix.

The Suns started the season 0-3 and suffered their worst loss in franchise history, losing by 48 points to the Portland Trail Blazers, in the season opener. They allowed 132 points to the Los Angeles Lakers in a two-point loss on Friday and then were blown out by the Los Angeles Clippers 130-88 on Saturday.

He was 33-85 over “two plus” seasons.

Posted in Firings, Loser, NFL, Sports | 1 Comment »

Firings watch.

Thursday, October 19th, 2017

Tom Jurich, athletic director at Louisville, was officially fired yesterday.

He joins Rick Pitino, who was officially fired “for cause” on Monday.

Mr. Pitino, of course, denies that he knew anything about payments to athletes. Even better: he’s suing Adidas. The discovery process in that lawsuit should be interesting.

In other news, another APD officer has been fired. Interestingly, his firing was for “insubordination”: specifically, he didn’t show up for interviews with Internal Affairs.

And why was he being interviewed by IA? He’s been charged with making false statements about his wife and her eligibility to receive SSI. (Previouly.)

According to the Statesman, he and his lawyer said they wouldn’t do interviews with IA until the criminal case was resolved. The rules say: you can’t do that. You have to come in and answer IA questions, or you get canned. Whatever information IA gets can’t be used against you in a criminal case; it can only be used for internal discipline. (This is why officers are required to submit to IA questioning. This is also why some things, like officer-involved shootings, are investigated both by IA and the Special Investigations Unit: SIU handles any possible criminal aspect of the case, can seek charges if warranted, and the subject has the standard legal protections. IA investigates internally: the union contract says officers have to answer IA questions, but any information gathered can’t be used to build a criminal case.)

Anyway, IA said “this won’t be used in the criminal case”, the lawyer apparently said, “okay”, and they still didn’t show up. Twice. Which makes it “you’re fired, do not pass ‘Go’, do not collect $200” territory.

Posted in Austin, Cops, Firings, Law, Politics, Sports | 1 Comment »

TMQ Watch: October 17, 2017.

Wednesday, October 18th, 2017

Every once in a while, instead of being all snarky and stuff, we like to ask you to go out and read something else on the Internet that we think is interesting or important or both.

“the depression thing” by Zach Holman.

Therapy basically got me rubber duck debugging myself. Even when I’m not programming I’m fucking programming, I can’t get away from it, ha. But it’s true: the mere notion that I’d have to discuss my life with someone else later meant that I became far better at self-analysis than I ever had been.
That was one of the many neat realizations I had during this whole experience. Therapy tricks you into becoming better at therapy.

After the jump, this week’s TMQ…

(more…)

Posted in NFL, Sports, TMQ watch | Comments Closed

Your loser update: week 6, 2017.

Sunday, October 15th, 2017

NFL teams that still have a chance to go 0-16:

Cleveland
San Francisco

What the heck, Denver? You had one job.

At least I don’t have to feel that bad for Infidel de Manhatta: it doesn’t look like the Giants will get that first draft pick, but maybe they’ll end up getting a relatively high one.

I still like Cleveland’s chances.

Posted in Loser, NFL, Sports | 2 Comments »

Firings watch.

Wednesday, October 11th, 2017

John Farrell out as GM of the Boston Red Sox.

President of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski, sitting at a dais without ownership, provided no explanation for the dismissal of the five-year skipper who won a World Series in 2013 and just finished in first place in back-to-back seasons.

Gary Andersen “mutually parted ways” (read: you can’t fire me, I quit) with Oregon State on Monday. Anderson and Oregon State:

…agreed to release each other from the remaining contractual obligations. Andersen was under contract through the 2021 season.

Which is noteworthy, because:

Andersen signed a contract extension in December and had more than $12.4 million remaining on the deal. Oregon State owed him $883,332 for the rest of this season, $2.75 million for 2018, $2.85 million for 2019, $2.95 million for 2020 and $3.05 million for 2021.

Posted in Firings, Sports | 2 Comments »

TMQ Watch: October 10, 2017.

Wednesday, October 11th, 2017

Yes, we’re late. We got tied up on Tuesday.

But, in our defense, TMQ isn’t timely this week either.

Last weekend I attended a ceremonial event, and paid no attention to sports. But how can you miss me when I won’t go away? Please note that I wrote today’s column in advance, not knowing what happened last weekend in sports or current events.

After the jump, 2,000 words, no pictures (except the header), and one subject in this week’s TMQ…

(more…)

Posted in Neuroscience, NFL, Sports, TMQ watch | Comments Closed

Norts spews.

Monday, October 9th, 2017

Two quick ones, because I have a doctor’s appointment shortly and probably won’t feel like blogging afterwards:

1) Well covered, but at least one person sent this to me, and it does involve blow (maybe):

Chris Foerster has resigned his position from the Miami Dolphins hours after a video surfaced showing the team’s offensive line coach snorting a white powdery substance off what is believed to be his desk at the team’s training facility.

He apparently resigned in lieu of a firing, so I’m putting this into the “firings” checkbox.

Related: “Just who is this model whose snorting video brought down a married Dolphins coach?”

Obit watch: the great Y. A. Tittle.

Tittle threw for dozens of touchdowns and thousands of yards, won a Most Valuable Player award and was selected to seven Pro Bowls. But he endeared himself to New York not as a golden boy but as a muddied, grass-stained scrapper.
He was a balding field general with a fringe of gray who, at 34, in his old-fashioned high-topped shoes, had undeniably lost a step or two, but kept picking himself up off the ground to find a way to beat you, and New York cheered.

And he was a good Texas boy, too. ESPN.

Posted in Firings, NFL, Obits, Sports | Comments Closed

Obit watch: October 9, 2017.

Monday, October 9th, 2017

Two obits from the past few days that I find sadder than usual:

Connie Hawkins. As a young man, he was a basketball prodigy.

Even as a playground legend, Hawkins had the jaw-dropping flash that superstars like Elgin Baylor, Julius Erving and Michael Jordan would display, turning pro basketball into a national sports spectacular.
“He was Julius before Julius, he was Elgin before Elgin, he was Michael before Michael,” the longtime college and pro coach Larry Brown once said in an ESPN documentary on Hawkins. “He was simply the greatest individual player I have ever seen.”

But he was banned from college ball and the NBA in 1961.

College basketball at the time was engulfed in its second point-shaving scandal after players had received money from gamblers to affect the final score of games. Hawkins was questioned by the New York City authorities about possible connections with one of the fixers, but he was never accused of wrongdoing.

He played with the ABA and the Globetrotters for a while.

Hawkins’s path to the N.B.A. was buoyed in part by a 1969 article in Life magazine by David Wolf. “Evidence recently uncovered,” Mr. Wolf wrote, “indicates that Connie Hawkins never knowingly associated with gamblers, that he never introduced a player to a fixer, and that the only damaging statements about his involvement were made by Hawkins himself — as a terrified, semiliterate teenager who thought he’d go to jail unless he said what the D.A.’s detectives pressed him to say.”
On Hawkins’s behalf, Roslyn Litman, a civil liberties activist, along with her husband and law partner, S. David Litman, and another lawyer, Howard Specter, sued the N.B.A. on antitrust grounds, arguing that the league had in effect illegally barred Hawkins and deprived him of the “opportunity to earn a livelihood.”
They won. The league paid Hawkins a settlement of nearly $1.3 million and dropped the ban. Hawkins joined the N.B.A. in 1969 and became an instant star with the Suns.

He played seven seasons in the NBA, was a four-time all star with the Suns, and was named to the Hall of Fame in 1992.

John Thompson.

Mr. Thompson was arrested in 1985 and charged with carjacking and an unrelated murder.

After being sentenced to 49 years in prison for the carjacking that he insisted he did not commit, Mr. Thompson was convicted of murder and received the death penalty.

He spent 14 years on death row in Angola.

Just 30 days before his scheduled execution, a private investigator hired by his lawyers stumbled upon a forgotten microfiche.
The film included images of a laboratory report that had been received by the district attorney two days before Mr. Thompson’s trial was to begin. The report categorically undermined the prosecution’s case, revealing that the blood type of whoever committed the carjacking did not match Mr. Thompson’s.
Moreover, in a deathbed confession, a former assistant prosecutor admitted he had deliberately hidden the blood evidence from Mr. Thompson’s trial lawyers.
After tests confirmed that Mr. Thompson’s blood type and DNA did not match the perpetrator’s, his robbery conviction was overturned. In 2002, the murder verdict was reversed. A year later, he was retried and acquitted after the jury deliberated for 35 minutes.

Mr. Thompson was awarded $14 million for his wrongful conviction.

But in 2011, an ideologically split United States Supreme Court ruled 5 to 4 that Mr. Thompson was not entitled to damages after all.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who dissented, said at least five prosecutors had been complicit in violating Mr. Thompson’s constitutional rights because “they kept from him, year upon year, evidence vital to his defense.”
But Justice Clarence Thomas, writing for the majority, said Mr. Thompson had not demonstrated that the office of District Attorney Harry Connick Sr. (father of the singer) had systematically withheld exculpatory evidence, particularly from black defendants, or had not trained his assistants sufficiently.
“The role of a prosecutor,” Justice Thomas wrote, “is to see that justice is done. By their own admission, the prosecutors who tried Thompson’s armed robbery case failed to carry out this responsibility.
“But the only issue before us,” he added, “is whether Connick, as the policy maker for the district attorney’s office, was deliberately indifferent to the need to train the attorneys under his authority.”

Posted in Law, Obits, Sports | Comments Closed

Your loser update: week 5, 2017.

Sunday, October 8th, 2017

NFL teams that still have a chance to go 0-16:

Cleveland
New York Football Giants
San Francisco

Wow. When was the last time there was a team as seemingly jinxed as the New York Football Giants? Not only did they lose to hapless the Chargers, but they also lost Odell Beckham Jr.

It seems like there’s only one thing you can say about this:

Posted in Loser, NFL, Sports | Comments Closed

TMQ Watch: October 3, 2017.

Wednesday, October 4th, 2017

We’ve got nothing clever to start off with this week. This is the kind of week that sucks all the clever out of our strategic clever reserves. Let’s just get into it.

After the jump, about 5,000 words of this week’s TMQ…

(more…)

Posted in Food, Movies, NFL, Sports, TMQ watch, TV | Comments Closed

Obits, firings, and random: October 3, 2017.

Tuesday, October 3rd, 2017

I didn’t feel much like blogging yesterday: what the hell was I going to say that everyone else wasn’t saying better? Plus, I was trying to dig myself out of a backlog at work most of the day, and then I had a doctor’s appointment (at least that went well) and then I went down to the cop shop to help with the CPA class (which had been moved from Tuesday)…

…so I really didn’t get a chance to blog Tom Petty, which was a good thing. First he was dead, then he wasn’t dead and the LAPD knew nothing, and now he’s really dead. What a mess.

I probably would have inserted a musical interlude or three, but really, you’ve heard them all.

John Coppolella out as general manager of the Braves in a “resignation”:

…after an investigation by Major League Baseball revealed serious rules violations in the international player market.
The Braves announced Coppolella’s resignation Monday, citing a “breach of Major League Baseball rules regarding the international player market.” Gordon Blakeley, a special assistant to the GM who was the team’s international scouting chief, also has resigned.

Longtime readers know of my interest in baking bread. I just found out about this: Modernist Bread. From those wonderful folks who brought you Microsoft Windows Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking.

Right up my alley? Perhaps. But not no damn $562.50 worth. Though I’m sure it is beautifully photographed, and if you have that kind of money, good for you. I’ll wait for it to show up at Half-Price Books.

Posted in Books, Bread, Firings, Food, Music, Obits, Sports | Comments Closed

Your loser update: week 4, 2017.

Sunday, October 1st, 2017

NFL teams that still have a chance to go 0-16:

Cleveland
Chargers
New York Football Giants
San Francisco

Sorry, Infidel de Manhatta.

Posted in Loser, NFL, Sports | 2 Comments »

Welp….

Wednesday, September 27th, 2017

I was waiting for this to become official. It is now.

Rick Pitino placed on “unpaid administrative leave” at the University of Louisville. This is being described as an “effective firing”:

Pitino may have been put on administrative leave because, under his contract, if he is fired he must be given 10 days’ prior notice and “an opportunity to be heard.”
The contract says he may be fired for a number of reasons, including “disparaging media publicity of a material nature that damages the good name and reputation of the university… if such publicity is caused by employee’s willful misconduct that could objectively be anticipated to bring Employee into public disrepute or scandal or which tends to greatly offend the public.”

Also out: AD Tom Jurich, but his “administrative leave” is paid. More from ESPN.

As I see it, this is only in part fallout from yesterday’s indictments. (And while the university is involved, Pitino and Jurich have not been charged with any crimes yet.) Pitino’s problem is that this was just the latest in a string of issues while he was coach.

In 2010, the coach testified in a federal extortion trial involving Karen Sypher, who went to prison after trying to get money and gifts from him in exchange for silence. The married Pitino admitted to having sex with the woman in a closed Louisville restaurant in 2003.
In 2015, the NCAA launched an investigation into a sex-for-pay scandal organized by former Louisville assistant coach Andre McGee that could force the Cardinals to vacate their 2013 national title and dozens of victories. For that, Pitino would have been suspended for Louisville’s first five ACC games this season. That all came after the school, hoping to soothe the NCAA and temper the sanctions, self-imposed a 2016 NCAA tournament ban.

Could Louisville men’s basketball be facing the death penalty?

I’m going to say “probably not” just because I don’t think the NCAA has the institutional will to impose the death penalty on a large successful program. But it would be fun if they did: much of the NCAA’s operating budget comes from rights fees, especially fees for the men’s basketball tournament. If the federal investigation blows up college basketball, will the explosion take the NCAA down with it?

(Thanks to Lawrence for the heads-up on this.)

Edited to add:

Pitino said he was shocked to learn of the latest allegation, just as he was shocked to learn that his former staffer, Andre McGee, was running strippers into the campus dorm named after the coach’s late brother-in-law to have sex with players and recruits. “Shocked” was a popular word Tuesday when college basketball assistants from Auburn (former NBA star Chuck Person), Oklahoma State (Lamont Evans), Arizona (Emanuel “Book” Richardson) and Southern California (Tony Bland) were charged with taking cash bribes to steer players to financial advisers and agents. Officials at Auburn and USC used the word in statements. Oklahoma State went with the milder “surprised.” Arizona checked in with the stronger “appalled.”

I have to do this. I’m sorry.

Posted in Firings, Sports | Comments Closed

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