You know, when your city is being compared unfavorably to a fifth-world dictatorship, maybe it is time to shut everything down and start over from scratch.
Archive for February, 2013
Quote of the day.
Wednesday, February 13th, 2013The further on the edge, the hotter the intensity.
Wednesday, February 13th, 2013
(This isn’t an actual F-16 cockpit, but a “cockpit egress trainer”.)
(We would also have accepted “You ever been in a cockpit before?”)
Banana republicans on trial: February 12, 2013.
Tuesday, February 12th, 2013Teresa Jacobo wrapped up her testimony yesterday in the Bell trial, and indicted former council member George Mirabal is testifying now.
Mirabel is pretty much echoing Jacobo: I didn’t know I was doing anything wrong, I thought it was okay because the city attorney said so, and I did a lot of work outside of meetings for the city.
Random notes: February 12, 2013.
Tuesday, February 12th, 2013This Statesman story is notable because it avoids answering the key question: how does it smell?
Followup on the Tesla story: Elon Musk claims that the story is fake, and that the vehicle logs show something different than the NYT writer claims. The NYT vigorously denies this claim. Summary of the back and forth, with links, at Jimbo’s site.
The International Olympic Committee has decided to keep modern pentathlon in the 2020 Olympics. This makes me happy, as I have a fondness for modern pentathlon, the sport George S. Patton competed in. It strikes me as being a true test of all-around athleticism; the sort of sport true gentlemen compete in.
But wait, there’s more to the story: the IOC is keeping modern pentathlon…and dropping wrestling as a “core sport”. Yes, wrestling, a sport that was part of the first modern Olympics in 1896, and one that dates back to the ancient Greeks. I’m not a big wrestling fan, but this decision seems strange to me. Especially since the 2020 Olympics are also keeping taekwondo and field hockey.
The only thing we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history, continued:
Sounds like a great guy, right? 105 years old, charismatic teacher, hangs with Leonard Cohen?
More:
Kübelwagen!
Tuesday, February 12th, 2013
(I have a short list of cars that I wouldn’t want as a primary daily driver, but would love to have as a second car just to knock around in. On that list: a VW Thing. Which I know isn’t strictly the same thing as the Kübelwagen, but close enough for a Nobel Peace Prize winner to order a drone strike.)
A quick movie review for Valentine’s Day.
Monday, February 11th, 2013This post over at Andy Ihnatko’s site reminded me of something I’ve been wanting to blog about. I’m going to put that after a jump, and politely suggest that you read Mr. Ihnatko’s post first, because what I’m going to discuss will ruin his elaborately set up punch line.
S’awright? S’awright?. S’awright? S’okay.
(You know, as a kid, I didn’t get Señor Wences. As an adult, I miss him.)
Random notes: February 11, 2013.
Monday, February 11th, 2013Benny’s stepping down from the Papacy is going to be one of the biggest news stories of the year. I wanted to note it here because it gives me a chance to plug a book I really liked: Thomas J. Reese’s Inside the Vatican: The Politics and Organization of the Catholic Church
Reese devotes a fair amount of space to discussing questions about the papacy, such as: what happens if the Pope develops Alzheimer’s? What happens if he becomes totally incapacitated, say by a stroke? Or if he goes crazy? What happens if the Pope is in a coma (I know it’s serious)? And, can the Pope resign? I guess we have an answer to that last question: “Yes”.
I missed the 70th anniversary of the sinking of the troop transport Dorchester on February 3, 1943. You remember the story of the Dorchester, right? Or if you don’t remember the name of the ship…
They were:
- John Washington, a Catholic priest. (“…Washington was asked by one player to bless his hand.
‘What?’ the father asked in mock outrage. ‘You want me to waste a blessing on a lousy pair of treys?'”) - Rabbi Alexander Goode.
- Dutch Reformed minister Clark Poling.
- Methodist minster George Fox.
I didn’t get a chance to post an update from Friday’s Bell trial, so let me do that now: Teresa Jacobo is still on the stand, and they’re still going over the “working full time for the city” thing.
In addition, nobody told Jacobo that “a certain number of meetings of those authorities” needed to be conducted at city council meetings, or that the meetings needed to last for a certain amount of time. Jacobo also claims that she gave out business cards with her home and cell numbers to her constituents; “Residents would often call her at all hours, she testified, for help with city issues.”
As I’ve said previously, a lot of the defense seems to be “it was all Rizzo”, as well as “nobody told me”, and “I assumed it was okay because the city attorney didn’t say it wasn’t”. I’m still thinking we’re going to end up with acquittals for the council members, and the bus is going to run over Rizzo, back up, and run over him again.
Important reminder.
Monday, February 11th, 2013The ejection seat is not a toy.
(Top: my sister’s youngest boy. Bottom: the middle boy, who you may remember from here. Not shown: the oldest boy, Sir NotAppearingInThisSketch, who had a band thing going on and didn’t make the trip with us.)
Weasels ripped my flesh!
Sunday, February 10th, 2013
Random notes in haste: February 9, 2013.
Saturday, February 9th, 2013I’m a little tied up at the moment: my sister and brother-in-law are away, and my mother and I are riding herd on my three nephews. Today’s agenda included a field trip to the Texas Military Forces Museum. (Photos to come.)
Thing one: The LA County Sheriff’s Department had a program called “Friends of the Sheriff”. No, really. (It still exists, but the name has changed.) The basic idea was that applications to LACSD from people who knew the sheriff, or other department officials, would be reviewed through this program.
Among the people hired through this program: Justin Bravo, Sheriff Lee Baca’s nephew.
He was hired anyway. Wanna take a guess as to why this coming up now?
A while back, I wrote about the case of Reverend John J. Hunter, who was transferred to the Bethel AME church, except Bethel didn’t want him for good and sufficient reasons.
Shoes are now dropping. Bethel AME officially fired Hunter. His petition to go back to his previous church, First AME in LA, has been rejected. And…
And First AME, in turn, is suing Hunter, “alleging that Hunter, his wife and a small ‘cabal’ of church leaders misappropriated millions of dollars in church and nonprofit funds.”
Not ready for prime time motors.
Saturday, February 9th, 2013I’m with Tam: I don’t care that much about a car’s power source, as long as it can do what I want it to do.
That said, I find this pretty amusing: a NYT reporter sets out to drive a Tesla Model S from Washington to Boston. Hilarity ensues.
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Administrative update.
Friday, February 8th, 2013In the approximately 24 hours I’ve had WP-Ban in place:
- It has blocked 874 IP addresses associated with spam. One specific IP address associated with spam attempted to access my blog 211 times, and there are two others that made well over 100 attempts.
- I am still getting some spam comments, but the total in the past 24 hours was probably just under 100, as opposed to the 600+ I had yesterday. I can manage that. I’m also still actively adding spam IPs to the WP-Ban list, so I am hopeful that the count will go down.
- I have not had anyone complain that I am illegitimately blocking them from accessing the site.
Emu meat!
Friday, February 8th, 2013The one thing we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history:
…
Banana republicans on trial: February 8, 2013.
Friday, February 8th, 2013Yesterday’s developments:
Former councilman and assistant to the food bank administrator, Victor Bello, wasn’t just a rat. He’s also crazy, at least according to his lawyer.
It has been mentioned previously that Bello was banned from City Hall. But the reasons haven’t been discussed until now:
It could also have had something to do with the condom incident. Moving along, the first witness for the defense was Teresa Jacobo, one of the indicted council members.
And then one magic day, according to Jacobo, Robert “Ratso” Rizzo and Edward Lee, the city attorney, called her in and told her…
But Jacobo testifies that Ratso didn’t tell her how much she’d be making. I’m sorry, but if someone told me I could devote all my time and effort to the community and I’d be making a full-time salary, I’d freaking ask what that salary would be.
Who would have thought it?
Thursday, February 7th, 2013You can get botulism from prison wine, aka “pruno“, aka “that stuff that’s frequently fermented in a cell block toilet or other places just as disgusting”.
(You know where else you can get alcohol from, with less risk of botulism? Sourdough starter. No, really; the liquid that separates out and rises to the top if you leave it sit is somewhere between 12% and 14% alcohol. I haven’t tried drinking any of it, but I suspect it tastes a little better than pruno.)
Let my people eat bread.
Thursday, February 7th, 2013My mother sent along an article from the WP that I had missed, “Better bread starts with a sponge“, which discusses some sourdough techniques for home bakers.
I appreciate her sending that along, and have already sent her some comments. But since they’re easy blog fodder, I’ll repeat them here. I don’t really have any problems with Marcy Goldman, or her article; I want to try her “Favorite French Bread“. But there are some questions I have and comments to make.
- Goldman quotes Cook’s Illustrated as saying home bakers should “forgo a starter to save time and simply add vinegar for that characteristic acidic taste”. This is, so far, the dumbest thing I’ve read in 2013. To her credit, Goldman does not endorse this, but I expect better from CI and that tweedy little bow-tied jackass.
- Why is this dumb? Because anyone can make a starter. It is not the nuclear rocket brain surgery. It isn’t hard. I have made starters and baked with them, and I’m not Thomas Freaking Keller in the kitchen. All you need is flour, water, and time; that’s how the original Alaskan sourdoughs were made. Yeast is a possible addition, but isn’t strictly needed. (I’ll touch on that in a minute.) As far as time goes, you can get a starter going in 72 hours, and it will keep indefinitely with reasonable care.
- Goldman’s stater recipe calls for a cup of spring water, 1 1/4 cups of unbleached bread flour, 2 tablespoons each of whole-wheat and rye flour, and 1/2 teaspoon of instant yeast. The starter recipe I’ve been using calls for 3/4 cup of milk, “heated to a simmer and cooled to 100°F”, 1 cup flour (white, whole-wheat, or rye) and 1 1/2 teaspoons of yeast. Both make enough starter for one loaf in their respective recipes; I’ve doubled the recipe amount for my starter, and am feeding it with 1 cup heated milk and 1 cup rye or whole-wheat flour whenever I pull some starter out. That way, I always have enough starter. (I keep it in a crock on the back of my stove.)
- Here’s the thing, though: if you’re starting your starter with yeast, aren’t you just…growing more of the same yeast? I mean, if I want Fleischman’s, I can go buy that stuff all day long at the HEB. Or do the natural yeasts in the air eventually overwhelm your starter yeast? I have heard it said that’s what happens with packaged sourdough starter, like you might get as a souvenir in San Francisco or Alaska; you may get it home and bake some bread, but eventually the original strain will get overwhelmed by your wild local yeasts. (That doesn’t mean I don’t want to try baking with one of those starters; I do.)
- The one starter I’ve found that doesn’t call for added yeast is Nancy Silverton’s in Breads from the La Brea Bakery
. I’d like to try that, but it takes 14 days to get to the point where you’re ready to bake with it, and it seems very fussy. While I was looking up Silverton’s starter, I found this starter recipe from Michael Ruhlman, which doesn’t take 14 days, doesn’t call for added yeast, and also looks like something worth trying.
- Speaking of Ruhlman, he’s probably worth a post of his own at some point. (I’ve been reading Ratio: The Simple Codes Behind the Craft of Everyday Cooking
and The Making of a Chef: Mastering Heat at the Culinary Institute of America
, the latter of which I paid $1 for at the Austin Public Library bookstore. At one point in Making, Ruhlman mentions a CIA chef who has a starter he’s kept going since 1985; the book came out in 1997, so that was at least a ten-year-old starter.)
Administrative note.
Thursday, February 7th, 2013The volume of spam comments has gotten out of control again; there were more than 600 waiting to be cleaned out this morning. Akismet does a fine job of stopping the spam from being posted (and I can count the number of false positives since I started this blog on the fingers of one hand), but I still have to go through the queue and empty it at least once a day.
In an attempt to mitigate this problem, I have installed the WP-Ban plugin and will be configuring it to block IP addresses, or IP address ranges, that are a source of spam. I feel slightly bad about doing this, but in the 30 minutes I’ve had WP-Ban installed, it has blocked 15 spam attempts.
If anybody runs into problems with this, please let me know. I’ve added my contact email address to the WP-Ban page as well. We’ll see if the Beats by Dr. Dre scumbags, or any of the other spammers, try to contact me.
LAPD watch.
Thursday, February 7th, 2013I’m not going to snark here, because this first story is sad and awful.
Christopher Jordan Dorner used to be an LAPD officer. He was fired in 2009. Dorner claimed that his training officer kicked a suspect; the LAPD found that claim was false and terminated Dorner.
Dorner has apparently been nursing a grudge since that time, both against LAPD and specifically against one of the people involved in the review process that led to his firing.
Dorner is believed to have shot and killed two people at an apartment complex on Sunday; one of those people was the daughter of the review officer he had a grudge against. (The other was her boyfriend.)
Dorner is now also believed to have shot three police officers earlier this morning, killing one. He has not been captured yet.
But LAPD and the Torrence Police Department have been involved in two shootouts with “vehicles matching the description of the one sought in connection with Dorner”.
In other news, the LA County Sheriff’s Office wants to fire seven deputies for their alleged involvement in a secret “clique” called the “Jump-Out Boys”.
The other side of the story:
School’s in.
Thursday, February 7th, 2013I’ve mentioned previously my belief that higher education will fundamentally change in the next decade, especially with the growth of online courses. The biggest thing that folks have been waiting on is college credit: almost all online courses that I’ve seen so far (with the exception of university specific correspondence programs) did not offer credit for course completion.
The LAT reports that Coursera, one of the major online course providers, and the American Council on Education have reached an agreement. ACE will recommend that colleges accept four Coursera courses for college credit:
The four courses in the Coursera/ACE agreement are:
- a pre-calculus class offered by UC Irvine.
- a calculus class offered by the University of Pennsylvania.
- two classes offered by Duke in genetics and biodiversity.
ACE is also recommending that universities accept an algebra course from UC Irvine for “pre-collegiate remedial or vocational credit”.
This gives me a chance to mention something else that’s been going on. I previously noted that I was taking the Stanford University/Class2Go online course, “An Introduction to Computer Networks“. The course wrapped up at the end of November, but I’ve been waiting on various things before I posted about it.
I’m glad I took the course. I learned a great deal from it, especially about the lower levels of IP, TCP, UDP, and routing protocols. There was a lot of sweat in this course; I am willing to say that it was probably more difficult for me than any course I took at St. Edwards. Part of the difficulty may have been the self-paced nature of the course; I got a little behind at a few points and had to work hard to catch up. I think the course would also have been easier for me if I had purchased the suggested, but not required, textbook when I started the course. I didn’t do that at the time because the text was going for more than $100; I found a used copy at Half-Price about halfway through the course and paid about $25 for that.
Unfortunately, the Class2Go presentation of this course was also very buggy. You’d watch videos of lectures, interspersed with multiple-choice questions. Except sometimes the questions wouldn’t pop up. You could also watch the videos without the questions, and answer the questions in a separate window; except even then, some of the questions wouldn’t pop up until the third or fourth pass through.
The actual lecture videos, for the most part, played back okay. There were optional guest lecture videos that you could download as well. I did that, but some of the videos are huge, and don’t have smaller versions available. The Jim Kurose video is 1.7 GB and 1:16 long; by comparison, the 720p version of Top Gear’s “The Worst Cars In the History of the World” is 1.24 GB and 1:13 long. This may not be so bad if you’re on the Stanford campus and plugged into your dorm room’s Ethernet, but over a DSL connection? Not so hot.
One of the things I’ve been waiting on is the final “grade”, for want of a better word. This wasn’t a for-credit course, but you could get a “certificate of completion” from Stanford if you scored above a certain point on the two exams for the course. The two exams had a total of 960 points between them; the final decision by the instructors was that a certificate would be awarded to anyone who scored over 500 points.
So I struggled and I sweated and I waited for the light…and I scored over 500 points on both exams. I won’t say how much over 500, but it was enough, and I finally got my certificate of completion a few days ago.
Having said that, I’m not completely happy with how well I did. I’m seriously considering retaking the course when it is offered again this fall, just to see if I can do better with a textbook in hand.
Banana republicans on trial: February 7, 2013.
Thursday, February 7th, 2013Here’s a surprise from the Bell trial: former council member Victor Bello, mister “$100,000 a year as assistant food bank coordinator” was a rat.
Here’s a great exchange:
$3,900 a month is what Bello expected to receive as his pension from Bell.
According to the LAT, Grimaldo is the final prosecution witness, so I guess we can expect the defense testimony to start soon. I’d recommend popping a fresh batch of popcorn for that.
Your Austin nightclub trial update: February 6, 2013.
Wednesday, February 6th, 2013Hussein Ali “Mike” Yassine, previously sentenced to 12 years and 7 months in prison for money laundering, has pled guilty to tax fraud.
The maximum term Yassine could get is three years in federal prison and a $250,000 fine.
Of course, that’s based on Federal sentencing guidelines and it is possible that he will get less time than the maximum term.. I don’t want to speculate on how much he will get; unlike the fairly straightforward case Ken uses as an example, “Mike” Yassine’s case is complicated by his previous conviction, and I suspect also complicated by the “offense level”. (I am assuming the government places a higher severity on cases involving drug dealing, as was alleged against the Yassines, than it does on cases involving whale meat. I’m also assuming the government will argue that “Mike” was the leader of the conspiracy, and not just a flunky.)
It is also unclear, until the judge rules, if “Mike” will serve the tax fraud and money laundering sentences consecutively or concurrently. Heck, at this point, it is unclear if he’ll even be deported after he serves his time:
And a couple of other updates that I didn’t post to keep from boring folks:
- “Mike”‘s lawyer wants out, and says that he’s $165,000 in the hole. The lawyer has been asked to provide documentation of what he’s already been paid.
- Brother Mohammed Ali “Steve” Yassine is suing a guy. Apparently, “Steve” had an energy drink company, “Kowabunga Energy LLC”. Dude, what are you: 12?
Notes from the police blotter: February 6, 2013.
Wednesday, February 6th, 2013On August 27, 2011, Javier Benitez Jr. stabbed Octavio Olivarez, severely injuring him. Benitez shot and killed Cynthia Olivarez, Octavio’s wife.
Yesterday, Benitez was found “not guilty by reason of insanity”.
One of the reasons I find this significant is that insanity verdicts in Travis County are extraordinarily rare.
Meanwhile, in California, Bobby Joe Maxwell is charged with killing three men. Why is this case interesting? Maxwell was originally charged with the murders back in 1984, but the jury deadlocked on those charges, and two other murder charges. The same jury acquitted Maxwell on three other murder charges, and convicted him of two murders. Maxwell spent a considerable amount of time in prison on those two murder charges, but the convictions were overturned in 2010.
The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Storch perjured himself at Maxwell’s trial, and that the DA’s office “failed to disclose to Maxwell’s attorneys Storch’s work as a sophisticated informant who had secured benefits from authorities in exchange for his help.” Storch was charged with perjury, but died before he could be tried.
Banana republicans on trial: February 6, 2013.
Wednesday, February 6th, 2013Among the witnesses: Bell resident Roger Ramirez. In 2008, Ramirez put in a public records request for the salaries of the mayor and council members.
Also, Ricardo Gonzalez:
The significance of this is that former council member Victor Bello was being paid $100,000 a year as “assistant food bank coordinator”.
And Lorenzo Velez:
Velez is the only council member who hasn’t been charged; his salary was $310 every two weeks.
TMQ Watch: February 5, 2013.
Tuesday, February 5th, 2013Today’s the last TMQ of the season!
Hurrah, hurrah!
No more “cosmic thoughts”!
Hurrah, hurrah!
The readers will cheer and the blogger will shout!
And we’ll all feel happy after the last TMQ of the year…
Over The Hump to La Tuna.
Tuesday, February 5th, 2013A long time ago, I noted the scandal over the Santa Monica sushi restaurant, “The Hump”, which closed after it was discovered they were serving whale sushi.
A few days ago, Typhoon Restaurant Inc. (“The Hump”‘s parent company), chef Kiyoshiro Yamamoto, and chef Susumu Ueda were indicted on federal charges. Specifically, “nine counts of conspiracy to import and sell whale meat from 2007 to 2010, a violation of the Marine Mammal Protection Act.”
Quoth the LAT:
Other sources reported other possible sentences, like 77 years and even “life in prison”.
So? Well, beyond the followup aspect, Ken over at Popehat has the kind of brilliant post that only Ken can write, using this indictment to explain how sentencing in the federal system actually works.
I encourage you to go read the whole post, as it shines a huge frigging spotlight on a little understood area of federal law. Cutting to the chase, Ken (who has worked both as a federal prosecutor and a defense attorney; he’s a for-real lawyer, not just someone with an Internet GED in law like me) figures that the defendants are probably looking at 24 to 30 months, and that’s if their lawyers can’t make a good argument to the judge that they should serve less time.
(FCI La Tuna.)