Archive for April, 2018

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Ripped from the headlines!

Thursday, April 26th, 2018

Regret blasting Yeti cooler? New one could be tax-free on weekend

That was the actual headline on this Statesman article until a few minutes ago, and is still what the Firefox tab shows.

Anyway:

1. I don’t regret blasting my Yeti cooler…since I don’t have one. I do have a nice Yeti tumbler that I have no intention of blasting, since it was a gift from my beloved and indulgent sister.

2. “a new one could be tax-free this weekend”. Well, actually, no. Unless you can find a Yeti for under $75. And if you’re looking at Yeti equivalents, you could get a new RTIC cooler. Or an ORCA (hatttip to Say Uncle). Or a Pelican.

3. As one of Uncle’s commenters points out, if you really want to hurt Yeti, don’t blow up your cooler: sell it, cheap. Every retail sale you take away from them hits them in the pocket.

4. And thanks to the Statesman for pointing out that this is a tax-free (on certain “emergency supplies”) weekend.

Posted in Guns, Texas | Comments Closed

Obit watch: April 24, 2018.

Tuesday, April 24th, 2018

Speaking of the use of the US Mail to commit crimes, I meant to note this the other day, but it got past me:

Walter Leroy Moody Jr. descended into Hell Thursday night.

Some of you may recall the crime, but not the name. Mr. Moody was a crank who had a grudge against the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. So he sent a bomb to the home of one of the judges, Robert Vance Sr. The bomb killed Vance and seriously injured his wife. To cover his tracks, Mr. Moody sent out more bombs: one of them killed Robert E. Robinson, a lawyer. Others directed at the NAACP and the offices of the 11th Circuit were intercepted.

Law enforcement eventually tracked the bombs back to Mr. Moody, who was convicted of a whole host of federal charges. He was sentenced federally to seven life terms, plus 400 years. However, the state of Alabama prosecuted Mr. Moody for the murder of judge Vance: he was convicted at that level, resulting in his death sentence.

There are two books about the case, neither of which I’ve read: I used to see Priority Mail regularly at Half-Price, but I haven’t seen a copy in a while. Blind Vengeance: The Roy Moody Mail Bomb Murders is the one I wasn’t aware of, but stumbled across while trying to find Priority Mail. Blind Vengence seems to have been published by a university press (which probably explains its obscurity), and both are available used from Amazon relatively cheap. I may have to bend my “one true-crime book per case” policy.

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

I have no joke here…

Monday, April 23rd, 2018

…I just like saying “county-funded fajitas”:

[Gilberto] Escamilla was fired in August and arrested after authorities checked vendor invoices and obtained a search warrant that uncovered county-funded fajitas in his refrigerator.

Mr. Escamilla worked at the juvenile detention center in Cameron County, Texas. This is way down in the south part of the state (Brownsville is the county seat.)

Mr. Escamilla was allegedly ordering fajitas through the detention center, using county money, and then delivering them to his own customers.

His scam was uncovered when he missed work for a medical appointment and an 800-pound (360-kilogram) fajita delivery arrived at the center, which doesn’t serve fajitas.

The state claims this scam amounted to $1.2 million worth of fajitas over nine years. Mr. Escamilla was sentenced to 50 years in prison on Friday.

Edited to add: more from Texas Monthly.

Theft of more than $300,000 is automatically a first-degree felony in Texas. On top of that, Texas treats theft by a public servant differently from other kinds of theft. The theory behind that is that theft committed by a private individual harms the person or people who were stolen from; but theft by a public servant harms the taxpayers who pay their salary, and harms society at large by eroding trust in those who’ve agreed to serve us. In cases where a public employee is accused of stealing less than $300,000, charges involving public servants using their official positions to facilitate the crime are automatically escalated to the next-highest level of felony. In Escamilla’s case, the value of the meat he stole meant that it was already the highest class of felony—which helps explain why his sentence was so high.

Posted in Beef, Food, Law, Politics, Texas | Comments Closed

Obit watch: April 23, 2018.

Monday, April 23rd, 2018

For the record: Verne Troyer.

Posted in Amish, Movies, Obits | Comments Closed

Three Letter Security.

Thursday, April 19th, 2018

Isn’t that what “TLS” stands for?

So I know about the certificate issue. When I follow Bluehost’s instructions to update the certificate for WordPress, I get this:

It’s been like that all morning. I haven’t opened a ticket with Bluehost yet, as I figure if Bluehost is having an issue, they’re probably already aware of it. If this continues through tomorrow, I’ll contact their support.

Your patience is appreciated. UN-altered REPRODUCTION and DISSEMINATION of this IMPORTANT Information is ENCOURAGED, ESPECIALLY to COMPUTER BULLETIN BOARDS.

Posted in Admin | 1 Comment »

Updates.

Thursday, April 19th, 2018

Melina Roberge has been sentenced to eight years in an Australian prison. I missed this previously, but her co-conspirator, Isabelle Lagace, received a seven and a half year sentence.

You may recall Ms. Lagace and Ms. Roberge as the two women who posted photos of their travels to exotic locations on Instagram…right up to the point where they were busted trying to smuggle 95 kilos of cocaine into Australia.

Roberge – who became known as “Cocaine Babe” in headlines – will serve at least four years and nine months, without eligibility for parole; she will eventually be deported to her home country, the AP reported.

The third member of the conspiracy, Andre Tamin, is supposed to be sentenced in October.

In other news, Alex Malarkey is suing the Christian publisher Tyndale House.

I’ve written about this before, but it was brief, inside a TMQ Watch, and the related TMQ (and all the other ones that were on ESPN) has been deleted. So:

In 2004, when Alex was six, he and his father Kevin were involved in a serious car accident. Alex was in a coma for two months, and is a quadriplegic as a result of the accident.

In 2010, Alex and Kevin wrote, and Tyndale House published, a book called The Boy Who Came Back from Heaven: A Remarkable Account of Miracles, Angels, and Life beyond This World. (Link provided for informational purposes only, and should not be interpreted as endorsement of the book.) In the book, Alex and Kevin claimed that Alex had visited heaven and encountered both Jesus and Satan. The book was a bestseller.

In 2015, Alex Malarkey publicly renounced the book:

“I did not die,” he wrote in a blog post. “I did not go to Heaven. I said I went to heaven because I thought it would get me attention.”

Tyndale House took the book off the market after Alex’s admission.

In the current lawsuit, Alex is asking for a financial accounting from Tyndale House. Additionally:

The suit says identifying Alex as a co-author of the book violates Illinois’ Right of Publicity Act, and he is entitled to profits from the unauthorized use of his name, along with punitive damages. Malarkey also seeks an injunction requiring Tyndale House to disassociate his name from the book, which lists his father as a co-author.
The suit also alleges the publisher violated Alex Malarkey’s right to privacy, cast him in a false light, intruded on his seclusion, defamed him, violated Illinois law barring deceptive trade practices, and financially exploited him in violation of an Illinois law barring the exploitation of people with disabilities.

Posted in Books, Law, TMQ watch | Comments Closed

Obit watch II.

Wednesday, April 18th, 2018

Bill Nack, noted sportwriter who specialized in horse racing.

Over nearly a quarter-century at Sports Illustrated, Mr. Nack was one of its storytelling stars, along with Frank Deford, Gary Smith, Sally Jenkins, Leigh Montville and Richard Hoffer. His subjects included horses and jockeys; the boxers Joe Frazier and Rocky Marciano, the racecar driver A. J. Foyt, the baseball players Jackie Robinson and Keith Hernandez, and a football player, Bob Kalsu, the only major professional sports athlete to die in the Vietnam War.

That Bob Kalsu story is a great piece of work.

Mr. Nack also wrote the book on Secretariat.

Starting in March 1973, Mr. Nack spent 40 consecutive days with Secretariat, joining him at 7 a.m., getting to know his team, taking copious notes and once seeing the horse playfully grab his notebook in his teeth and deposit it on a bed of hay.

And:

Mr. Ebert was one of many colleagues who recalled Mr. Nack’s penchant for reciting from “Lolita,” “The Great Gatsby” (in English and Spanish) and some works of H. L. Mencken’s.

Posted in Books, Horses, Obits | 2 Comments »

Obit watch: April 18, 2018.

Wednesday, April 18th, 2018

Carl Kasell. NPR.

I don’t listen to NPR much these days, but I did kind of like Kasell. And:

He loved magic tricks, and at one memorable company holiday party, he sawed Nina Totenberg in half.
“We laid her out on the table, got out that saw and grrrr … ran it straight through her midsection,” he recalled. “She said it tickled and she got up and walked away in one piece.”

Right away, I knew that Carl had far more up his sleeve than his inimitable gravitas and the random playing cards he keeps there for his magic tricks (if you ever want to know true joy, ask Carl to do magic for you).

I have this mental image of Carl and Harry standing around in heaven, trying to top each other with card tricks.

Barbara Bush, for the historical record. WP. (Edited to add: Lawrence.)

Posted in Magic, Obits, Radio | Comments Closed

Bagatelle (#7)

Tuesday, April 17th, 2018

Southwest Airlines is having a bad day.

…passengers cried, screamed, vomited, and sent goodbye texts to their families during the attempted landing.

Crying, screaming, vomiting, and texting? Sounds like every Southwest flight I’ve ever been on.

This, on the other hand, sounds more serious: an uncontained engine failure that sent shrapnel into the aircraft and possibly into the passenger cabin? I thought post-Sioux City the FAA had gotten a lot harder on manufacturers about that sort of thing. RoadRich, care to comment?

Edited to add: reports are now stating that at least one person is dead.

Facebook admits it does track non-users, for their own good

“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”
–C.S. Lewis

Typically a retailer may return unsold merchandise to the manufacturer. But in this case, Dick’s Sporting Goods has decided to destroy them.
“We are in the process of destroying all firearms and accessories that are no longer for sale as a result of our February 28th policy change,” a spokeswoman told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. “We are destroying the firearms in accordance with federal guidelines and regulations.”

A few points:

1. Why does Dick’s still have modern sporting rifles in stock, five years after they announced they were going to stop selling them?

(That actually has an answer: Dick’s apparently fudged the truth, and has been selling modern sporting rifles at their “specialty Field and Stream stores”.)

2. If I were a Dick’s stockholder, I would be seriously peeved at the management for destroying inventory of a perfectly legal product to make a political point.

3. If I were a Dick’s stockholder, I’d also be seeking a sweeping change of management right about now.

Posted in Bagatelle, Guns, Music, Planes | 1 Comment »

Obit watch: April 17, 2018.

Tuesday, April 17th, 2018

Mike the Musicologist and I have a running joke: the decline of Western civilization began when men stopped wearing hats on a daily basis. We’re both doing our part to bring back the hat era.

I bring that up now because one of the great hat wearers of our time passed away yesterday.

Harry Anderson. Asheville Citizen-Times (more of a retrospective than an obit)

Of course, he wasn’t just a guy in a hat:

While he earned critical acclaim and amassed a devoted fan base on “Night Court,” Mr. Anderson never fancied himself an actor. “I’m a magician, or a performer, by nature, and that’s always what I’ve been,” Mr. Anderson told WGN-TV in Chicago in 2014.
“I was never really an actor,” he said. “I was a magician who fell into a part on ‘Cheers.’”

He was a good one, too. And for what it’s worth, I loved “Night Court” then, and I love it now. (I wish I could find video of Harry Stone revealing his custom bowling ball. If I could find someone to make me a bowling ball like that, I’d take up bowling.)

In honor of the late great Harry the Hat, why not go out and pick up a nice hat for yourself, or someone you love? Not a ballcap or a gimmie hat: I mean a real, genuine, honest to God hat, like a fedora or a porkpie or something. Let’s bring hats back, for Harry, and for civilization.

Posted in Hats, Magic, Obits, Rhode Island, TV | Comments Closed

When guns are outlawed…

Monday, April 16th, 2018

…only outlaws will have shivs.

Seven inmates were killed during fights that lasted more than seven hours at a South Carolina prison Sunday night and into Monday morning, according to officials.

…

Though most of the autopsies have yet to be performed, it appears that many of the prisoners died from stabbing or slashing wounds from “shanks,” Lee County Coroner Larry Logan said. The official cause of death will not be determined until after the autopsies.

Seriously? A mass stabbing incident? And not in a school this time, but in a freaking maximum security prison?

More from the WP:

Lee Correctional Institution is one of South Carolina’s highest-security prisons, which means the inmates are generally tightly monitored and their movements inside the facility are limited.

…

Violence at Lee Correctional is not uncommon. During the past year, at least three inmates were killed in separate incidents, while last month, inmates held an officer hostage for about an hour-and-a-half before releasing him, according to the State newspaper.

Lawrence had much the same thought I did: why did it take seven hours to bring this under control?

I want to make it clear: I don’t take pleasure in this, and I’m opposed to extra-judicial punishments for prisoners. But if you can’t keep people from doing harm on a large scale with improvised weapons in a prison, why do you think laws on inanimate objects are going to keep people from doing harm on a large scale in the free world?

Posted in Guns, Law | Comments Closed

Happy (belated?) BAG Day!

Monday, April 16th, 2018

As I mentioned earlier, we were doing a lot of running around yesterday, and I didn’t get home until late, so this is pretty much the first chance I’ve had to make a BAG Day post.

Of course, I’ve sort of advocated extending BAG Day for at least a few days, due to it falling on a Sunday this year, so I’m not sure that this is more than technically late. (“Technically late” is, of course, the best kind of late.)

How did things pan out? Well, we made it down to Cabela’s yesterday, and the thing I was looking at last week was still there. Photos to come, but probably not until this coming weekend. As for other people, I’ll leave it to them to decide if they want to comment or not.

Speaking of comments, thanks to pigpen51 for his kind and gracious comments on the last post. You’re always welcome here, pigpen: you wear well.

And I’ll be glad to host comments and/or photos on other people’s BAG Day purchases, since I don’t see any of the usual suspects doing so. If you just want to leave a comment, you can leave it here: if there’s enough interest, I’ll do a round-up in a few days.

If you want to send photos and comments, stainles [at] mac.com or stainles [at] sportsfirings.com work. Send stuff there, I’ll post it here. Let me know how you want to be identified: pseudonyms are fine.

Posted in Guns | Comments Closed

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