According to the WP and ProPublica, lots of folks are getting rich off of BP money.
Unfortunately, it seems like many of those folks were, well…
More:
This is my shocked face:
Corruption and cronyism? In Louisiana?
April 13th, 2011Random notes: April 13, 2011.
April 13th, 2011The Dallas Stars have fired Marc Crawford. I think I speak for many of my readers when I say “People still play hockey? That’s a thing?”
The California Legislature is considering revoking the city charter of Vernon, a notoriously corrupt city in L.A. County. But business owners are worried…
Obit watch: April 12, 2011.
April 12th, 2011Pierre Celis, of Celis Brewery fame. Celis made some swell beers back in the 90’s.
There’s an old saying, “In heaven there is no beer, that’s why we drink it here.”
I think this is wrong, and I think Mr. Celis is sitting on God’s right hand, trying out Heaven’s own homebrew.
Obit watch: April 11, 2011.
April 11th, 2011I wanted to note the passing of Sidney Lumet.
There have been some surprisingly good discussions of Lumet’s career at both FARK and the Onion A/V Club. I don’t have much to add to those, but I did want to link to one of my favorite moments in a movie; a movie directed by Lumet, of course. Those who know me well, or pay attention to my blog taglines, probably already know which moment that is. But there’s more to it than just Howard Beale yelling “I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore.” Note how this opens, with the disheveled crazed prophet walking through the rain.
“…all we say is, ‘Please, at least leave us alone in our living rooms. Let me have my toaster and my TV and my steel-belted radials and I won’t say anything. Just leave us alone.'” How many of us think that?
“You’ve got to say, ‘I’m a HUMAN BEING, God damn it! My life has VALUE!'”
“Things have got to change. But first, you’ve gotta get mad!.”
Much of this is, of course, also attributable to Paddy Chayefsky’s script, and Peter Finch’s acting. But I suspect this would have failed and come off as strident or ridiculous in the hands of a lesser director.
Noted without comment.
April 8th, 2011101 Nook Color Tips, Tricks, and Hacks: The Unofficial Guide to Getting the Most Out of the Newest Nook eReader By William Percy
Link goes to the Kindle edition.
T.R.F. update.
April 8th, 2011We have previously noted the issues at the troubled Thoroughbred Racing Foundation.
The NYT offers a summary of a report by Dr. Stacey Huntington. Dr. Huntington was hired by the TRF to evaluate the horses under the care of the foundation:
(Her report is based on evaluating 860 of the horses.) Continuing:
It looks like these people got trapped by the economy, and by a desire to take care of more horses then they really could (almost like crazy cat ladies, but on a much larger scale). But the NYT also makes it look like the TRF is still in denial that it has problems, while at the same time hoping for someone to bail them out.
Fast and bulbous!
April 6th, 2011Okay, that title is misleading. The Library of Congress did not pick “Pena” as one of the 25 recordings added to the National Recording Registry this year.
They did, however, pick “The Blimp”.
Here’s a link to the complete list with audio samples.
A few things that jumped out at me:
- George Crumb’s “Black Angels (Thirteen Images from the Dark Land)”. I haven’t heard this recording; the only one I’m even vaguely familiar with is the Kronos Quartet
recording.
- Steely Dan! Yes!
- I see that the LoC decided to include a work from Blind Willie Johnson, but has once again neglected the work of the great Delta blues musician Narcoleptic Rutabaga Nixon.
- The story behind Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville and his recordings is rather interesting.
- GOPAC strategy and instructional tapes? Oooooookay…
If not now, Sven?
April 6th, 2011I promised folks an update on the fortunes of spamming scumbag Sven Alstrom in his race for a seat on the Lawrence, Kansas City Commission.
Well, the election was yesterday, and…
…Sven finished fifth in a field of five candidates running for three open seats.
Here’s a breakdown by precinct.
Don’t let the door hit you on the way out, Sven you spamming scumbag.
Random notes: April 5, 2011.
April 5th, 2011The NYT has discovered the underground trade in “loosies”: sales of loose cigarettes. A “legal” pack, with taxes, goes for $12.50 (thus sayeth the Times); the “loosie” dealer profiled in the article sells loose cigs for 75 cents each, two for a buck, or $8 a pack ($7 if he knows you). And business is good, Mayor Bloomberg.
Tilman Fertitta and the Landry’s chain are trying to purchase McCormick & Schmick’s Seafood Restaurants. Good luck with that.
Random notes: April 4, 2011.
April 4th, 2011Should the Chowchilla school bus kidnappers be paroled?
Sagra Italian Restaurant damaged by fire. The SDC ate there, and, well…we wish the owners the best, even if we can’t say we were wild about the restaurant.
I intended to blog this a few days ago: the latest APD suspension is for 90 days. In this case, the officer in question “was rude to a citizen and initially gave misleading statements to investigators”.
Oh, sure, you laugh at me for picking the Cubs to win it all. But I’ll point out that the Cubs have actually won a game this year, unlike certain other teams (cough cough Houston cough cough) I could name.
April 1, 2011.
April 1st, 2011Things that have made me laugh today, as of about noon:
EFFector 24.11. “…undergraduate degrees in Facebook Privacy Settings”.
The PLAYMOBIL ™ Apple ™ Store playset.
The new project from His Scalziness. (The prologue is up at Tor’s site.)
The NYT falls for another April Fool’s joke. Popehat has the details.
Paolo Bacigalupi and the bacterial colony formerly known as Peter Watts are collaborating on a new shared world anthology. “‘We expect suicides,’ said Watts. ‘And maybe a Nebula.'”
Updated about 1:30 PM:
“‘Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark’ Gains Sentience, Hungers For The Flesh Of the Living“. (Hattip: Pope Scalzi the First.) Mostly because this line had me rolling on the floor:
Follow the money.
March 31st, 2011In the comments to this thread, Lawrence notes that former Fiesta Bowl CEO John Junker was a heavy contributor to John McCain and other Republican politicians.
The Fiesta Bowl Special Committee Report (as I also noted in that thread) contains a list of political figures and organizations receiving contributions from Fiesta Bowl employees; contributions that were reimbursed by the Fiesta Bowl. This is, of course, illegal. (The report uses the phrase “a Class 6 felony violation”. If you check out the link, a Class 6 doesn’t sound all that awful; but remember, it is a felony, with all the burdens that come with a felony conviction.)
I want to quote this from the report:
Although we have not interviewed any of these individuals or entities, no one we spoke to alleged that any of these candidates had any knowledge that the Fiesta Bowl reimbursed contributions to their campaigns or related entities.
Which is an interesting statement. Why would the Fiesta Bowl be giving money to these people, if they didn’t want these people to know they were giving money and were looking for something in exchange? That’s also strange in the light of quoted statements such as this one:
John: I spoke with Senator Carloyn [sic] Allen and said we would round-up some checks for her campaign: [¶] Checks should be made out to CAROLYN ALLEN 2006 [¶] The maximum individual contribution is $296.00 [¶] I told her we would have them by Friday. Thanks. GH168
(John is former Bowl CEO John Junker. “GH” is attorney Gary Husk, “an attorney and public affairs professional on retainer with the Fiesta Bowl.” “Husk, and his company Husk Partners, were public-affairs consultants or lobbyists for the Fiesta Bowl.”)
Here’s the list of political figures and organizations that received contributions later reimbursed by the Fiesta Bowl. I’ve added notes of political affiliation when I could find it, along with links to websites.
- Allen, Carolyn (R)
- Arizona Republican Party (R – duh)
- AZ Wins (The only “AZ Wins” I could find was this group, which I’m not sure is political.)
- Bennett, Ken (R)
- Brewer, Jan (R)
- Bundgaard, Scott (R)
- Carpenter, Ted (R)
- Cummiskey, Christopher (D? He appears to have been former Arizona CIO under Napolitano, and now has a management position in DHS with the current administration.)
- Flake, Jake (R – apparently deceased)
- Gardner, Mike (R)
- Hayworth, JD (R – ran against McCain in 2010. Hedging your bets, anyone?)
- Knaperek, Laura (R – sorry for the Wikipedia link, but her campaign site doesn’t seem to be active)
- Kunasek, Andrew (R)
- Kyl, Jon (R)
- Lane, Jim (R)
- Manross, Mary (D – former mayor of Scottsdale, defeated by Jim Lane)
- Martin, Phil (I can’t find anything about this guy.)
- McCain, John (R)
- Mitchell, Harry (D)
- Navarro for City Council
- Pearce, Russell (R)
- Rios, Pete (D)
- Shadegg, John (R)
- Weiers, James (R)
- Wilcox, Mary (D)
Seven against Fiesta!
March 31st, 2011So it may be too early to speculate on the future of the Fiesta Bowl.
At least that’s what Bill Hancock, executive director of the BCS, says.
Oh, by the way…
What is “Fiesta Frolic”?
And the BCS has created a seven member task force to review the allegations against the Fiesta Bowl.
Speaking of the report, I’m slowly going through it. There’s some stuff I haven’t seen reported yet. For example, someone seems to have been a gold bug: there’s an estimated $22,300 worth of gold coins (including $20 gold pieces “ranging in date from 1877 to 1924”) that are supposedly in the possession of the Fiesta Bowl. (I do not see anything in the report, though, that states possession of those coins was actually verified.) In addition, the bowl apparently paid for subscriptions to:
- The Fractal Market Report and The Fractal Gold Report.
- The Shadow Government Statistics newsletter.
- Grant’s Interest Rate Observer.
- Innovomark, which appears to be some sort of marketing consultancy. “The central theme that links all of the products and activities of the company can be concisely described by the formulation of ‘Strategies’ and execution of the appropriate ‘Tactics’.” Yes, that’s a direct quote from their website. No, I don’t know why they put “strategy” and “tactics” in quotes.
- Le Metropole, “where the real gold story has been told for the past 12 years by Bill Murphy, the Chairman of The Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee (GATA)”.
Note that all of these were personal subscriptions for former CEO John Junker, for which he was reimbursed by the Bowl (according to the report).
I’m also amused by the discussion of payments to someone identified in the report only as “Person X”. Mr. “X” was apparently being paid somewhere around $40,000 a year (the amount varied from year to year, but $40,000 seems to be a good average) plus six tickets to the game. And nobody knows what he did for that money. Literally. That’s a direct quote from the report: “I don’t know what he does. Kelly doesn’t know what he does.” The Arizona Republic has managed to identify Mr. X.
Obligatory opening day post.
March 31st, 2011This is to note that once again, I’ve bet Lawrence $5 even money that the Cubs will win the World Series this year.
Also, my bet with Lawrence on Gonzaga has been paid.
Obit watch: March 30, 2011.
March 30th, 2011Here’s the LAT obit for Farley Granger (fixed – thanks, Lawrence).
I don’t have much to add to this, except I seem to have a much higher opinion of “Rope” than most of my friends do: I thought Granger pretty much carried both that movie and “Strangers on a Train” on his back. He was brilliantly twitchy in a way matched only, perhaps, by Anthony Perkins.
I wonder what Frankenheimer’s “Manchurian Candidate” would have been like with Granger instead of Laurence Harvey. Not that I dislike Harvey, but I think Granger could have pulled it off; he was only three years older, and I believe he would have brought an interesting dimension to the role of Raymond Shaw.
I haven’t been able to find an obit in a US paper for H.R.F. Keating, but by way of Bill Crider, here’s the Telegraph‘s obit.
My mother used to subscribe to Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. That was my first exposure to many writers, including Keating: his Inspector Ghote stories were regularly in EQMM. As a critic of the field, his Crime and Mystery: The 100 Best Books
Rest in peace, Mr. Keating.