With a hat-tip to Mike the Musicologist:
The Death Factory
See here for more on Joe.
Archive for October, 2011
Noted.
Thursday, October 6th, 2011I want to ride in the car…
Thursday, October 6th, 2011…John Wayne drove.
Earlier this week, Lawrence noted the Heritage auction of John Wayne’s stuff.
Today, the HouChron kindly informs us that one of John Wayne’s cars, a “1966 International TravelAll”, is for sale on eBay. The “Buy it now” price is a mere one million dollars.
In one of those “only in Texas” things, the car is actually owned by a state legislator from El Paso who says that he only drove it to church on Sunday a few hundred miles.
“It’s got the original seat that John Wayne passed gas on,” Pickett said.
Yeah. I think now we know why Rep. Pickett went into politics instead of sales.
A fool lies here who tried to hustle the yeast.
Thursday, October 6th, 2011Interesting piece in the LAT about Bacardi, the specific strain of yeast they use to make rum, and how the Bacardi family played “keep away” when Castro took power.
Tranströmer! More than meets the eye!
Thursday, October 6th, 2011Tomas Tranströmer has won this year’s Nobel Prize for Literature.
I admit to being unfamiliar with the works of Mr. Tranströmer. I am sure he is a very nice gentleman and fully deserving of the award.
However, I wanted to make note of Mr. Tranströmer’s win because of this LAT piece from yesterday. Ladbrokes was apparently giving 5-1 odds that Bob Dylan would win this year.
I might have to see about putting a few bucks on Pynchon in 2012.
Edited to add: As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly posted this before FARK posted their headline.
Obit watch: October 5, 2011.
Wednesday, October 5th, 2011Because it is expected, even though it is all over the news: Steve Jobs.
Edited to add 10/6: Both John Scalzi and Wil Wheaton have nice tributes up at their sites.
ETA3: I generally don’t solicit charitable donations here. But I would like to note that the Lustgarten Foundation for Pancreatic Cancer Research gets four stars (the highest possible rating) from Charity Navigator. There are worse things you could do with your money than make a donation to them; if not in memory of Steve Jobs, perhaps in memory of Randy Pausch. Or Benoit Mandelbrot. Or one of the other 419 people whose death from pancreatic cancer was notable enough for Wikipedia.
Aiyana Stanley-Jones.
Wednesday, October 5th, 2011Who was Aiyana Stanley-Jones?
She was a seven-year-old in Detroit. A SWAT team raided her home looking for a murder suspect; in the process of that raid, the police set her and her bed on fire with a flash-bang grenade. Then they shot her.
Sucks, right? But it was an accident, right? It may be the kind of accident that happens all too often these days, but still an accident, right?
Well, okay, involuntary manslaughter and “careless and reckless discharge of a firearm” still carry the connotation of accident, right? Sure. But when was the last time you heard of a police officer being indicted for an accidental shooting? The Oakland BART shooting, perhaps? (And note that that officer was charged with second degree murder; the jury convicted him of less serious charges.)
But that’s not the only reason I’m noting this. You see, the SWAT team was being filmed by a crew from “The First 48”, a show on the A&E network. And…
So they’re charging the camera person as well. And note the charges: “perjury”, and “obstruction of justice”. Makes you go “Hmmmmmm”, doesn’t it?
(Hattip: Reason‘s “Hit and Run”.)
The Harris County Party Van.
Wednesday, October 5th, 2011Harris County (which includes Houston) decided yesterday that they were going to get their breath testing services from the Texas Department of Public Safety.
Previously, the county had a contract with Lone Star College.
“So what?” you say. “TXDPS must have made them a better deal.”
Well, maybe TXDPS has more experience and competence than Lone Star. That’s quite possible…
So what’s the issue here? Well, one of the people who works for Lone Star is Amanda Culbertson. Ms. Culbertson was also the person who brought out the problems with the BAT vans. Ms. Culbertson will apparently lose her job once Lone Star’s contract ends. Of course, everyone denies that there was any retaliation involved.
I’m torn. It actually does sound to me like there are good reasons to go with DPS. But the timing is, to put it mildly, suspicious, especially since Lone Star has had the contract for 20 years.
Murray Newman (a former prosecutor) over at the excellent “Life at the Harris County Criminal Justice Center” blog has some more to say on this, and he comes down pretty firmly on the “retaliation” side. Here’s the Lisa Falkenberg column he mentions.
Case brief: Katz v. United States.
Tuesday, October 4th, 2011Not that Katz. This one was Charles Katz, and he was a gambler who got caught “transmitting wagering information by telephone across state lines in violation of 18 U.S.C. 1084”. The Man had attached a recording device to the outside of the phone booth he was using, and his recorded conversations were used as evidence against him.
Katz said, “Foul!” and the Supreme Court agreed. This is actually an interesting and somewhat surprising case; it serves as a very nice example of the Supreme Court changing its mind in a very public way. The government argued that what they had done was A-OK, because the Court had ruled (in Olmstead v. United States, which I understand comes up in the Ken Burns thing) this this kind of activity didn’t violate the Fourth Amendment. The Supreme Court came back and said, “Yeah. You know something? We’ve changed our mind. Olmstead is no longer controlling. Too bad. So sad. You lose.”
There doesn’t seem to be a lot of information about Charles Katz, either before or after his conviction. One of his lawyers on the appeal says he never even met the man.
Anyway, here’s my case brief, for your reading and mocking pleasure.
TMQ Watch: October 4, 2011.
Tuesday, October 4th, 2011One of WCD’s favorite quotes is from the late Arthur Schlesinger Jr.:
The notion that authority is entitled to reverence per se is the most subvervise of all notions in a free society. “There is not worse heresy,” Lord Acton wrote, “than that the office sanctifies the holder of it.” Authority is entitled only to the respect it earns, and not a whit more.
After the jump, this week’s TMQ:
Your loser update: week 4, 2011.
Tuesday, October 4th, 2011NFL teams that still have a chance to go 0-16:
Miami
Indianapolis
Minnesota
St. Louis
Sweet, sweet booze.
Monday, October 3rd, 2011We are amused to note that tomorrow, October 4th, is:
- National Vodka Day.
- The night that the final part of Ken Burns’ “Prohibition” airs. (Well, at least on our local PBS station. We think this is pretty much nationwide, but check your local schedule.)
Things I’ve missed.
Monday, October 3rd, 2011Terry Francona fired by the Boston Red Sox.
Former Broward County Sheriff Nick Navarro passed away on Wednesday. Former Sheriff Navarro is probably most famous for two things:
- Being all over the early episodes of Cops.
- Trying to press obscenity charges against 2 Live Crew.
Obit watch: October 1, 2011.
Saturday, October 1st, 2011Peter Gent, former Dallas Cowboy and author of North Dallas Forty