Archive for March, 2014

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Obit watch and other random notes for March 18, 2014.

Tuesday, March 18th, 2014

Clarissa Dickson Wright. Damn, this sucks. I was a fan of “Two Fat Ladies”.

For the record, here’s your David Brenner obit: I’ve been just a touch busy. Sorry.

Part of that busy has involved visiting various Half-Price Books locations: would you believe I can’t find a used copy of Fatal Vision? It used to be all over the place…

Once again, I don’t care about college basketball. Once again, I’m rooting for Gonzaga just because I like saying “Gonzaga!” I think this might be their year. And, once again, I’ve bet Lawrence $5 that Gonzaga will win the championship.

And baseball season is about to get started as well. Everyone knows what that means: yes, I’ve also bet Lawrence $5 that the Cubs will win the World Series.

Posted in Books, Clippings, Food, Sports, Wagers | Comments Closed

Noted.

Saturday, March 15th, 2014

Gene Weingarten, the subject of previous posts here, has a short but nice appreciation of Joe McGinniss and Fatal Vision up at the WP site.

(Although this is dated March 11th, it only came to my attention today. There’s a note on it that says it originally came from Weingarten’s online chat.)

I am probably shooting a gigantic hole in my credibility as a true-crime buff. But, while I have read many of the “classics” of the genre (and some crap, too), I confess that I have not yet read Fatal Vision. Both Weingarten and Bill James say enough good things about it, however, that I think that will be next on my reading list. After, of course, I finish the true crime book I’m currently reading.

Edited to add: Discussion question for the huddled masses: was the Dreyfus affair really a “true crime” story? I would say “yes”: treason is, after all, a crime. Does the fact that Dreyfus was wrongly accused change that classification? Not in my mind: does the fact that O.J. was acquitted make the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman any less a true crime story? Would it change my mind if it turned out there was no actual treason? I don’t think so; there was still a criminal accusation and trials, which to me qualifies it as a “true crime” story. Which raises the question: could you have a “true crime” story in which, not only is the accused innocent, but the crime itself never happened? For example, a murder charge where the alleged victim actually turns up alive and testifies for the defense? I am inclined to say “yes, and that’s a book I’d want to read”.

Posted in Books, History, Law | Comments Closed

Bad day for rat-like creatures.

Friday, March 14th, 2014

Quiznos has followed Sbarro into Chapter 11.

How about a completely amusical interlude that explains why Quiznos went bankrupt? At least, many people I know date the start of the chain’s decline to this:

(And I had not heard of “Hot Dog on a Stick”, so I wasn’t even aware they’d gone Chapter 11, too.)

Posted in Clippings, Food, On a stick | Comments Closed

Am I crazy?

Friday, March 14th, 2014

I know, I know, but seriously: am I crazy?

John Gruber linked to an interview with “The Setup” (“What do people use to get stuff done?”) by John McAfee. Yes, that John McAfee.

In the photo, it looks like he’s holding one of those GSG MP-5 clones in .22 LR. I’ll admit I could be wrong about that: it may be one of the Umarex guns instead, but I am 99 44/100ths percent sure it is one of those two .22LR clones. (The magazine is a dead giveaway.)

Quoth Mr. McAfee:

My tools for national security consulting are primarily a semi-auto .22 rifle with a silencer. They are virtually completely silent and can pierce car doors and other light armor. They are perfect for urban environments.

I will confess that I have not had a lot of occasion in my life to shoot through car doors. After all, I am not a tactical operator operating tactically in operations with tactics.

But a silenced .22 penetrating one? Yeah, I’m sorry. I’m going to have to see the Box of Truth or somebody shoot through a car door with a silenced .22 before I believe that.

Posted in Clippings, Geek, Guns | Comments Closed

Happy Pi Day, everyone!

Friday, March 14th, 2014

I’ve been messing around a little with QuickPi 4.5 on my free time at work; that’s a fun little program.

And here’s a Pi Day article from the LAT which includes complaints from the usual bunch of whiners who think pi should be replaced by tau. I bet these same people think Pluto isn’t a planet.

These people are why we can’t have nice things any longer.

Edited to add: So apparently, Tau Day is June 28th. Interesting. You know what else June 28th is? That’s right: Gavrilo Princip Day!

Edited to add 2:

o Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-3740QM CPU @ 2.70GHz detected
o Processor speed measured at 2.70 GHz
o Single processor with eight cores and 2-way SMT per core
o 4.0 GB of memory available
o Using custom training data

Computation of Pi to 1,073,741,824 digits
Method used : Chudnovsky
Started : Fri Mar 14 10:07:24 2014

Series size : 75713477 (1,073,741,838 digits)
Computing series, time : 2144.09
Computing final value, time : 397.05

Total time : 2541.15 seconds (42 mins, 21.15 secs)
Total memory used : 4,259,072,015 (3.97 GB)

Total disk space used : 3,319,660,544 (3.09 GB)
Time spent swapping : 198.01 (153.65 reading, 44.36 writing)

Processor utilization : 274.33%

Posted in Clippings, Geek | Comments Closed

Howard Waldrop, call your office, please.

Wednesday, March 12th, 2014

By way of Popehat on the Twitter, NPR’s counterfactual series, “What If World War I Had Never Happened?”

“Do you think Sarajevo is full of assassins?” I can’t lie; this made me smile, as did “a very Austro-Hungarian problem” and “Is this how you greet visitors, by throwing bombs at them?”

(See also. Also, I have to admit to some curiosity; what kind of sandwich?)

Edited to add: Well. Well well well. Well.

Also, wouldn’t “Gavrilo Princip’s Sandwich” be a great name for a band?

Posted in History, Radio | 1 Comment »

Obit watch: March 11, 2014.

Tuesday, March 11th, 2014

Joe “Fatal Vision” McGinniss.

Edited to add: LAT obit. Not sure why I didn’t link this one this morning; I want to say that the obit I saw when I was doing my morning rounds was a crappy AP one.

Posted in Books, Clippings, Law, Obits | Comments Closed

Yet another legal update.

Saturday, March 8th, 2014

Last June, I wrote about the Samuel Kellner case. Summarizing briefly, Mr. Kellner believed his son had been molested by a Hasidic cantor. He collected evidence and managed to get the cantor charged with and convicted of sexual abuse: however, the cantor’s conviction was later overturned, and Mr. Kellner was charged with extortion and bribery.

Yesterday, a judge dismissed all of the charges against Mr. Kellner at the request of the prosecution.

The two key witnesses against him “lack credibility to such a degree that their testimony cannot be trusted,” an assistant district attorney, Kevin O’Donnell, told the court, adding, “The people do not have a credible case.”

Obviously, I wasn’t there, and only know what I’ve read in the NYT. But this smells a lot like a failed attempt at revenge by the cantor’s supporters, possibly with help from the Brooklyn DA’s office.

Last summer, another key piece of evidence against Mr. Kellner fell away. Prosecutors learned that the young man who said Mr. Kellner had paid him to lie had been getting financial assistance from Mr. Lebovits’s supporters.

And:

Shortly after Charles J. Hynes was voted out as district attorney in November, two of his prosecutors called Mr. Kellner’s lawyers to tell them that they lacked evidence to proceed. They were demoted.

Posted in Clippings, Law | Comments Closed

Discuss amongst yourselves.

Friday, March 7th, 2014

Kraftwerk’s “Trans Europe Express” is the most important pop album of the last 40 years, though it may not be obvious.

Posted in Clippings, Music | Comments Closed

Rock rock baby baby.

Friday, March 7th, 2014

Not much going on, but I wanted to drop this in.

The head of the U.S. Border Patrol announced new rules Friday to limit agents from shooting at moving vehicles or people throwing rocks or other objects at agents, reversing a controversial policy that has led to at least 19 deaths.

And this:

1a) Never throw shit at an armed man.
1b) Never stand next to someone who is throwing shit at an armed man.

Posted in Books, Clippings, Cops, Law | Comments Closed

Legal update.

Thursday, March 6th, 2014

I have written several times in the past about the case of Robert Middleton, who was set on fire by a neighbor boy when he was eight years old and died of cancer (possibly related to skin grafts) when he was 20.

Latest update: a judge has ruled that Donald Collins, who set Middleton on fire (and who was 13 at the time) can be tried as an adult for murdering Middleton.

Montgomery County Attorney J.D. Lambright called the ruling a “tremendous victory” for the Middleton family. He said the prosecution will now be turned over to the county District Attorney’s Office, which will try to indict Collins for murder. Lambright’s office is responsible for matters involving juveniles.

It is worth pointing out here that Collins has not actually been charged yet, as Lambright notes. The DA has some hurdles to overcome, since Middleton is dead, and there were no other witnesses to the attack. And if Collins is convicted, his attorney can appeal both the conviction and the ruling allowing Collins to be tried as an adult.

Posted in Clippings, Law | Comments Closed

Obit watch: March 5, 2014.

Wednesday, March 5th, 2014

Noted French film director Alain Resnais. LAT. NYT.

Dr. Sherwin B. Nuland, perhaps most famous for his book How We Die. I haven’t read that, but I did read (and was extremely impressed by) Doctors: The Biography of Medicine.

Posted in Books, Clippings, Movies, Obits | Comments Closed

The Island of Mayor Moreau.

Saturday, March 1st, 2014

That would be Charles D. Moreau, the former mayor of the bankrupt city of Central Falls, RI.

Former mayor Moreau is out of prison now after serving one year. (Previously.)

What’s interesting about this is how his release went down. Mayor Moreau originally pled guilty to a charge of taking “illegal gratuities” from a “friend and political supporter” who was given a contract to board up abandoned buildings.

However, a federal appeals court apparently ruled sometime last year that “accepting gratuities” was not a crime. No, really, I’m not making this up:

…in 2013, the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit found in an unrelated case that it is not a crime for a government official to accept gratuities. A gratuity is a reward for a future or past act, as opposed to a bribe, which is a quid pro quo meant to influence an official.

So Moreau’s people moved to have his conviction thrown out, the prosecution said “Let’s make a deal”…and Moreau got the “accepting gratuities” conviction thrown out, and then pled gulity to a bribery charge.

Yep. You read that right. Why would he do that? Because the sentence on the bribery charge was basically “time served” (see below) so he got to walk away a more-or-less free man, and the prosecution got to chalk up a felony win.

Other penalties from his previous conviction stand, as a result of Moreau agreeing to plead guilty to bribery. That includes the $25,000 fine, which has been paid, three years’ probation and 300 hours of community service that must “redress the harm caused by the defendant’s criminal conduct in Central Falls.”

I think the key takeaways here are: try the veal at Joe Marzilli’s Old Canteen, and remember to tip your government official.

Posted in Clippings, Law, Rhode Island | Comments Closed

You know what China needs?

Saturday, March 1st, 2014

Strict knife control.

A group of knife-wielding men attacked a train station in southwestern China on Saturday, leaving at least 27 people dead and another 109 injured, the official Xinhua News Agency said, making it one of the deadliest attacks in China in recent years.

Posted in Clippings, Guns | Comments Closed

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