Archive for September 28th, 2020

You’re going down in flames, you tax-fattened hyena! (#66 in a series)

Monday, September 28th, 2020

Whoa.

A Williamson County grand jury has indicted Sheriff Robert Chody on an evidence tampering charge in the destruction of reality TV show footage that showed deputies chasing and using force on a Black man who died last year.

(Previous background on the case in question from WCD.)

Former Williamson County general counsel Jason Nassour, who was also at the scene of the deadly March 2019 incident, also was indicted on a evidence tampering charge. The charge, a third-degree felony, is punishable by two to 10 years in prison and a fine of up to $10,000.

…

Prosecutors have said they could not disclose what they learned about Chody’s role in the video destruction because of the ongoing case.

But here’s something interesting.

The contract between Williamson County and “Live PD” producers in place at the time of Ambler’s death allowed the show to destroy unaired footage within 30 days unless a court order or other state or federal law required it to be retained.
“Live PD” host Dan Abrams said in television interviews and in a post on his web site that sheriff’s officials initially asked producers to preserve the video. Two months after Ambler’s death, Chody told them the investigation was completed. At that point, Abrams said, producers destroyed the video.

If I understand the story correctly, though, both the WillCo and Travis County DAs offices were still investigating this as a death in custody.

Yadda yadda presumption of innocence yadda yadda “growing scrutiny” of the sheriff’s office.

The charge against Chody comes 39 days before the Nov. 3 election. The first-term sheriff is being challenged by Democrat Mike Gleason, who is retired after serving 24 years in the Williamson County sheriff’s office.

Posted in Law, Politics, WillCo | Comments Closed

“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 182

Monday, September 28th, 2020

Today’s historical video is dedicated to Iowahawk and his fans. Iowahawk may already be aware of this one.

“Wonderful World Of Wheels”. According to the YouTube notes, this is a cut-down version of a longer documentary about car culture in the 1960s. Among other things: Fabian racing go-karts, “Big Daddy” Roth and George Barris, John Derek, and narration by Lloyd Bridges (whose lungs were apparently not bursting for air).

Bonus:

Okay, not really. I just threw that in for giggles.

“Rubber For Industry”, a Firestone propaganda film from the 1940s. After all, you can’t have wheels without rubber, can you? (Well, technically, you can, but they have limitations.)

Posted in Cars, History | 2 Comments »

Obit watch: September 28, 2020.

Monday, September 28th, 2020

A quick round-up of obits I’ve been meaning to make note of over the past few days.

Michael Lonsdale, actor. He was “Hugo Drax” in “Moonraker”, but he did a whole bunch of other work. Some of it was in “avant-garde” films, but he also played “Lebel” in the original “Day of the Jackel”, “Jean-Pierre” in “Ronin”, and a long list of other work “with a Who’s Who of directors, including Mr. Spielberg, François Truffaut, Orson Welles, Luis Buñuel, Jean-Jacques Annaud, and James Ivory”.

Pierre Troisgros, famous French chef.

The Troisgros brothers eventually took charge of their parent’s restaurant and transformed it into a gastronomic destination, at the cutting edge of the culinary revolution known as la nouvelle cuisine. That style was influenced by the austere finesse of Japanese cooking and known, at its extreme, for tiny portions on huge white plates, a caricature in which the Troisgros brothers never indulged.
Their contribution was to showcase the innate flavors of seasonal ingredients, and to pare down some of the overblown creations buried in thick sauces that had come to represent French haute-cuisine.
It earned them Michelin stars and top ratings from other guides. And it put the restaurant high on the list for tourists starting in the 1970s, many of whom, like safari-goers ticking off the “big five,” went to France mainly to experience its top restaurants, collecting souvenir menus along the way.

…

The restaurant’s most famous dish was salmon with sorrel sauce (saumon à l’oseille). In the Troisgros kitchen the sauce was not thickened with starch but depended on well-reduced sauce ingredients and a touch of cream. Mr. Boulud pointed out that the dish was cooked in a nonstick pan, noting that Mr. Troisgros was among the first chefs to use one.
Alain Ducasse, the chef and restaurateur who is part of a generation that followed in the footsteps of Mr. Troisgros, Mr. Bocuse and others, said in a statement that the Troisgros brothers had developed the basis for nouvelle cuisine, but that their food was never austere or posed.

Robert Gore, inventor of Gore-Tex.

Mr. Gore’s billion-dollar invention was born out of failure and frustration. In 1969, as head of research and development for W.L. Gore & Associates, the manufacturing company founded by his parents, he was tasked with creating an inexpensive form of plumber’s tape for a client. The tape was made from polytetrafluoroethylene, or PTFE, known commonly by the brand name Teflon.
Mr. Gore sought to make more efficient use of the material by stretching it, not unlike Silly Putty. But each time he heated and stretched a rod of PTFE in his lab, it broke in two.
“Everything I seemed to do worked worse than what we were already doing,” he told the Science History Institute in a short film. “So I decided to give one of these rods a huge stretch, fast — a jerk. I gave it a huge jerk and it stretched 1,000 percent. I was stunned.”

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Mr. Gore became president and chief executive of W.L. Gore & Associates in 1976 and pursued new applications for his invention. He would stand in a rainstorm to check garments and footwear for waterproofness, and he filled his home with prototypes. He called the company’s 800 numbers to make sure the customer service was up to par.
“Bob was the guy who made things happen,” Bret Snyder, the chairman of W.L. Gore & Associates and Mr. Gore’s nephew, said in a phone interview. “He had a passion not just for the theoretical, but how the products worked in customers’ hands.”

Posted in Food, Geek, Movies, Music, Obits | Comments Closed

Your loser update: week 3, 2020.

Monday, September 28th, 2020

Cincinnati and Philadelphia tied, so both come off the list this week.

NFL teams that still have a chance to go 0-16:

Atlanta
Minnesota
New York Football Giants
Denver
Houston
New York Jets

Posted in Loser, NFL, Sports | Comments Closed