VA’s foray into Internet of Things faced ‘catastrophic failure’
Archive for June, 2017
I miss Hognose.
Thursday, June 29th, 2017You’re going down in flames, you tax-fattened hyena! (#42 in a series)
Thursday, June 29th, 2017Seth Williams is now the former Philadelphia DA.
He also took a guilty plea in his bribery trial. His resignation was part of the deal.
More choice excerpts:
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More quick notes from the legal beat.
Thursday, June 29th, 2017I’ve written previously about the Hillsborough stadium disaster and the 2012 inquest.
Yesterday, six people were indicted on charges related to the incident. Four of them are “former senior police officials”, and one (this is kind of surprising to me) was a lawyer for the police.
David Duckenfield, who is described as “the match commander for the South Yorkshire Police on the day of the tragedy”, is charged with “manslaughter by gross negligence in the deaths of 95 people”. (I quoted the description of his rank because I’m unfamiliar with police ranks in England: i think this means he was in charge of the police presence at the match.) Peter Metcalf, the lawyer for the police, is charged with “two counts of perverting the course of justice”. (Perversion seems to be a theme here today, but I digress.)
Prosecutors say he “made suggestions for alterations, deletions and amendments” that misled the Taylor Inquiry.
Mr. [Norman] Bettison, a former chief constable, was charged with four counts of misconduct in public office. He is accused of lying to the authorities about his role in the aftermath of the disaster and about the culpability of the fans.
Mr. [Donald] Denton, a former chief police superintendent, and Mr. [Alan] Foster, a former detective chief inspector, each face two charges of perverting the course of justice, both in connection with altering witness statements.
The last guy on the list, Graham Henry Mackrell, was a secretary for Sheffield Wednesday Football Club, the people who ran the stadium.
Related: “Why Britain Is Consumed With a 28-Year-Old Stadium Disaster”.
Closer to home: a member of the “F.B.I.’s elite Hostage Rescue Team” has been charged with lying and obstruction.
(Have you ever noticed how it’s always the “elite Hostage Rescue Team”? Never just “the Hostage Rescue Team”, at least on first reference. It’s like “Elite Hostage Rescue Team” is the full name of the organization, and they’ve got “Elite Hostage Rescue Team” on their patches and tactical windbreakers.)
And three Chicago PD officers indicted:
Hey, you know what else seems to be a theme today? Lies and coverups.
This is taking vegetarianism a bit too far for my taste…
Thursday, June 29th, 2017So there’s a story in the Statesman: guy gets life in prison on a tampering with evidence charge. That’s technically true, in that he did get life for the charge, but you have to read further into the article to discover that he also was convicted of meth possession (and got 20 years for that) and that he had nine previous felony convictions.
You don’t have to read that much deeper into the article to get to the truly weird stuff, though:
Shoot, a fellow could have a pretty good weekend in Vegas with all that stuff. But wait, there’s more!
I’d almost have some small amount of sympathy for the guy (meth’s a hell of a drug) if it wasn’t for some of the other things on his record:
Maybe, just maybe, this is the kind of person the habitual offender law was written for?
I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.
Thursday, June 22nd, 2017I’m sorry that I have to blog this, since:
- It is a genuine tragedy, and I don’t mean to make light of it.
- There’s no way that I could not blog this, for obvious reasons.
Ms. Burger is described as a “popular French fitness model”. Link goes to the Statesman and not to Fox News because the Fox News story has really obnoxious auto-play video.
I guess this is another one of those “tomorrow is guaranteed to nobody” stories. At any moment you could be hit by a bus, gored by a bull, hit by a falling beam, or even killed in a “freak whipped cream accident”.
Be careful out there.
Memo from the police beat.
Thursday, June 22nd, 2017Remember a few months ago, we had a guy who shot himself in the back of a patrol car while under arrest, because the cop missed his gun during the patdown? (Previously.)
Chief Slate Fistcrunch Manley suspended the officer for 20 days. This is one of those “let’s make a deal” suspensions: the officer took the 20 day suspension, agreed not to appeal, and in turn the chief agreed not to fire him.
Except he’s not getting paid for it. And he loses benefits for that period. And it is a blot on his permanent record. And he can’t do any part-time work related to law enforcement while he’s on suspension, as I recall. (I think he could mow lawns, or drive for Uber, or other temp jobs, but I don’t think he could work security. At least if I remember the APD discipline policy correctly.)
I hate to seem like I have callouses on my soul. I get that the family is sad and upset, and I get that some people will think I’m a cop apologist. But look: it isn’t like the cop pulled his own gun and shot the guy. It isn’t like the cop killed him in a negligent discharge, or shot him in the back as he was running away.
This man pulled his own gun, held it to his head, and pulled the trigger on his own. What the officer did wrong here was missing the gun in the frisk.
Is that a firing offense? Or is this guy possibly salvageable, and a 20-day suspension, a year of probation, having to go out to the acade4my and tell cadets “this is how I f’ed up, don’t be like me”, and the memory of this incident, is enough? I think maybe it is.
Meanwhile, in another odd story, another APD officer and his wife are being charged federally with social security fraud Specifically, “making a false statement to an agency of the United States and misprision of felony”. It sounds like he lied about having a joint bank account with the wife, and lied about living in the same household with her.
I love that word, “misprision”. Almost as much as I love “barratry”.
But lying about having a joint account – something that’s so easy to check – is such a stupid thing to do, it makes me wonder: were these two just getting really bad advice from a lawyer, or someone pretending to be a lawyer? Or were they desperate and made bad choices? Or were they really trying to scam the system? The Statesman is oddly short on details at the moment.
Bagatelle (#5).
Tuesday, June 20th, 2017No. Actually, it wasn’t Satan at all. It was mass hysteria and a doctor who made a mistake.
I’ll throw this in just for fun: if you are a “dancer” who performs “in paint, latex, wax, gel, foam, film and coatings”, are you a nude dancer in the eyes of the law?
And why does it matter? Because clubs with “fully nude” dancers have to collect a state-mandated $5 entry fee.
Obit watch: July 20, 2017.
Tuesday, June 20th, 2017Bill Dana. Or perhaps I should say “the other Bill Dana”? (Previously.)
In this case, we’re not talking about the legendary NASA test pilot (who passed away in 2014) but the legendary television comedian, perhaps most famous for his portrayal of José Jiménez.
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By 1970, Mr. Dana had stopped performing as José — he even read the character’s obituary at an event in Los Angeles sponsored by the Congress of Mexican-American Unity — though he insisted that he made that decision not because of mounting anger about the character but because some people were misinterpreting his intentions.
He decided to drop the character, he said in an interview with The Los Angeles Times, because of people “who would tell me, ‘Boy I shore love it when you play that dumb Mexican.’’’
After retiring Jose, he continued to work, but more as a writer than performer: among his writing credits was the Sammy Davis Jr. episode of “All In the Family”.
We extend our condolences to Mr. Dana’s family and friends, and to great and good friend of the blog guffaw.
Obit watch: June 17, 2017.
Saturday, June 17th, 2017Helmut Kohl, former German chancellor.
John G. Avildsen, noted film director. Among his credits were “The Karate Kid” and “Rocky”, the movie that shouldn’t have won Best Picture in 1977, but beat out the far superior “Network”.
Not that I’m bitter or anything.
Anita Pallenberg, sometime actress:
She may, perhaps, have been better known for her relationships with Brian Jones (“who was reported to have physically abused her”) and after him, Keith Richards. (“She lived with Mr. Richards from 1967 through 1980, and had three children with him.”)
Finally, there’s an interesting obit for Marine Corps Capt. Arthur J. Jackson, who passed away at 92 last Sunday.
During WwII, Jackson (at the time a private first class) committed serious acts of badassery during the invasion of Peleliu:
Loaded up with grenades, he charged the pillbox, raking it with automatic fire while discharging white phosphorus grenades and other explosives. He was credited with killing all 35 occupants.
Continuing alone and again at tremendous peril, he repeated the same maneuver at 11 smaller pillboxes that contained another 15 Japanese soldiers.
He received the Medal of Honor for his actions. After the war, he became a commissioned officer in the Army and then in the Marines.
On the night of September 30, 1961, as a company commander at Guantanamo Bay, he discovered a Cuban who worked as a bus driver (“even though he expressed openly pro-Fidel Castro sympathies and was under surveillance by naval intelligence”) in a restricted area of the base. Jackson and his executive officer decided to escort the Cuban, Ruben Lopez, off the base. But the gate they were using was locked: Jackson sent his XO to get something to break the lock with. And while the XO was gone, Jackson claimed that Lopez “lunged at him” so he shot and killed Lopez with his sidearm.
Jackson and some other Marines buried Lopez in a shallow grave on base. Cutting to the chase, the truth eventually came out, and Jackson was allegedly “thrown out” of the Marines.
Capt. Jackson, who said he long felt “ashamed” of his Guantanamo killing, did not speak publicly about the incident until an Idaho Statesman reporter interviewed him in 2013.
He said his key concern was his “understanding” of a treaty between the United States and Cuba that could have resulted in his detention in a notorious Cuban prison.
“I hoped no one would find out,” he told the newspaper. “The world found out.”
Department of I Wasn’t Going to Blog This.
Friday, June 9th, 2017Really, I wasn’t. But I tossed off a quick email mention to a few friends last night, and I was surprised at the reaction. Then I saw that the story made the WP…
Terry Thompson was indicted Thursday on murder charges. His wife was also indicted as an accessory.
The twist is: Mrs. Thompson is a Harris County Sheriff’s deputy.
Backstory: On May 28th, Terry Thompson and his kids went to a Denny’s. There, they ran into John Hernandez, who was allegedly urinating in public outside the restaurant. Thompson confronted Hernandez and the confrontation got physical at some point. Thompson took Hernandez to the ground, pinned him down, and put his arm around Hernandez’s neck.
There isn’t video of what led up to the confrontation, but there is about 50 seconds of video showing Thompson pinning down Hernandez. Mrs. Thompson is also shown helping her husband pin down Hernandez. (My understanding is that Mrs. Thompson also tried, or encouraged other people to try, to stop the video, but I can’t find my original source for that. I may have misread or misremembered one of the stories.)
Hernandez eventually stopped breathing and passed out, at which point Mrs. Thompson administered CPR. Hernandez was taken to the hospital, where he died three days later from “a lack of oxygen to the brain caused by chest compression and strangulation” according to the coroner.
The sheriff’s office, rightly (in my opinion) asked the Texas Rangers and Department of Justice to assist with the investigation, and suspended Deputy Thompson. But there was a significant amount of community pressure in this case, including a demonstration in front of the DA’s offices Wednesday afternoon.
Keep in mind: Hernandez passed on the 31st, and the Thompsons were indicted on the 8th. I’m not sure if anyone knows how far the Rangers and DOJ have gotten in their investigation. But the sheriff his ownself today announced that Internal Affairs is looking at eight other deputies who responded.
That’s probably not unusual: from my understanding pf APD policy, this would be considered a “death in custody”. APD’s Special Investigations Division would be tasked with investigating it, IA would probably be involved as well, and they’d be looking at everyone who showed up to the scene.
What is unusual is that this was presented to the grand jury as a “direct to grand jury” case, and the speed with which it was presented to the grand jury. Murray Newman, who I’ve mentioned many times in the past (former Harris County prosecutor, now defense attorney) has a good explanation: briefly, “direct to grand jury” means the prosecutors present whatever evidence they have, but leave the decision on whether and what charges to file up to the grand jury.
HouChron coverage of the indictment. WP story. Both of these include the video.
So is the DA’s office trying to railroad a guy and his wife for acting in self-defense, because elements of the community are demanding it? Or did this guy and his wife the deputy figure they could get away with choking a minority because of their law enforcement connections?
Or does the truth lie somewhere in the middle? I have no idea. This is why we have judges and juries. But it will be an interesting case to follow.
Bookity bookity bookity bookmark!
Tuesday, June 6th, 2017By way of @newsycombinator:
A whole big bunch of free NASA e-books in various formats, including Kindle and PDF.
A few titles that pique my interest:
- Unlimited Horizons: Design and Development of the U-2
- X-15: Extending the Frontiers of Flight
- Breaking the Mishap Chain: Human Factors Lessons Learned from Aerospace Accidents and Incidents in Research, Flight Test, and Development
I’ll admit some of these are a little geeky even by my standards. It takes either a professional or a special kind of person to want to read a history of pressure suit design, or one of the Langley wind tunnel. But guess what: I am that person, and I bet some of my readers are, too.
Besides, who doesn’t love the X-15 and the U-2?
(No, really, who doesn’t? Raise your hands. No, I’m not noting your IP address…)
Quick followups.
Tuesday, June 6th, 2017Jonathan Paul Koppenhaver, aka “War Machine”, was sentenced yesterday. (Previously.)
Yeah, he got life.
Jonathan Paul Koppenhaver will be eligible for parole in 36 years, when he will be 71 years old.
ESPN obit for Jimmy Piersall, which I note here for the following reason:
As far as I can tell, there is no Wikipedia entry, or other comprehensive list, for “People Billy Martin Got Into Fistfights With”. This seems like a failing of the Internet, and perhaps one I need to remedy here. But would it be easier to do a list of people Billy Martin didn’t get into a fistfight with?