I’d been sort of vaguely following the LA arson case. I knew that they had arrested some German guy driving a van with Canadian license plates, and apparently he was somehow upset over his mother’s immigration issues or something. I didn’t realize how messed up things were until this morning: not only is Mom an illegal alien, but she’s wanted in Germany on 19 counts of fraud (and apparently Germany has requested extradition). It appears that she ripped off a bunch of renters and landlords (I think the NYT said something about her pocketing security deposits), and failed to pay for her breast augmentation surgery in 2004. And the LAT hints that she may have been in business as a “sensual Tantric masseuse”.
Obit watch: Ronald Searle.
Firing watch: Bears offensive coordinator Mike Martz and quarterbacks coach Shane Day. The Sun-Times seems to be spinning this as “resignations”, but I’ve seen reporting elsewhere that puts it more in the “you can’t fire me, I quit” category.
NYT headline: “Rangers Coach a Conspiracy Theorist“. Awesome. Does he believe the towers were brought down by the burning mind control agents on the airliners? Sadly, no. His conspiracy theory is much more boring: the officials made bad calls in order to make the game go into overtime.