Indicted California Democratic State Senator Leland “Uncle” Yee finished third out of a field of eight candidates for the post of California secretary of state, collecting “more than a quarter-million votes“.
Noted for the historical record.
June 4th, 2014Obit watch.
June 4th, 2014I missed this while I was on the road: Robert W. Sallee died last week.
Mr. Sallee was the last survivor of the 1949 Mann Gulch fire, which killed 12 out of 15 smoke jumpers (and one non-smoke jumper). Mr. Sallee and another man, Walter Rumsey, managed to run uphill and escape the fire: R. Wagner Dodge, the leader of the group, escaped by lighting a backfire and lying in the embers.
I know I’ve said this before, but Young Men and Fire
Experiments in composition.
June 3rd, 2014My great and good friend Marty recommended a Chinese restaurant named Moy’s to me. This is just a tiny hole-in-the-wall place near the Ohio State campus, but Marty was right; it was pretty darn good, and the people were very friendly. If you’re in Columbus, I urge you to give it a try.
It turns out that Moy’s was also just straight up High Street from my hotel. Waze had it at about two and a half miles; I took a cab up to the restaurant. I was going to flag one down when I left, but it was a nice night, so I decided to walk back to the hotel. The walk down High Street takes you along the fringe of Ohio State. I almost want to say High Street is to Ohio State what Guadalupe is to the University of Texas.
I didn’t bring the Nikon with me, but I did take a couple of photos with the iPhone that I thought were compositionally interesting. You might not agree, which is fine with me. I’m just messing around, trying to get better.
Wexner Center for the Arts
Those black spaces actually have quotes on them; if you zoom in far enough, you should be able to read them. I can’t find a site that transcribes them, or I’d link it here. But I do like this one from Edmund Burke: “Law and arbitrary power are at eternal enmity.”
Edited to add: I cropped the Wexner Center photo some, but the law school photo is untouched. I didn’t do anything to the exposure on either of those.
Flames, hyena, etc. (#13 in a series).
June 3rd, 2014Patrick D. Cannon, the former mayor of Charlotte, North Carolina, has pled guilty to one count of “honest services wire fraud”. (Previously.)
Strippers. Always with the strippers.
And this has the potential to be epic for more than one reason:
There’s the whole “prosecutor going to jail and being disbarred” thing. There’s the whole circus surrounding any NYC political figure being charged with a crime. And then there’s the whole “misuse of asset forfeiture funds” aspect, about which Radley Balko and others have written so eloquently.
On the road again…
June 2nd, 2014Heading home. Travel day. In the meantime:
1. Go read this post by Tam. There are echos in it of something some less smart person wrote a couple of years ago.
2. I didn’t realize until the middle of last week that this year is the 50th anniversary of the .41 Magnum. (Ask me about my Model 57.)
3. I took a fair number of photos yesterday while running around with my aunt and uncle (who graciously drove the two hours each way from Cleveland to spend part of the day with me; thanks again, guys!). I’m waiting until I get back to do the post-processing and uploading, but I thought I’d throw one up here that I played with last night.
I took this with the D40X and the 18-55 kit zoom. It was cropped and the exposure adjusted slightly using Shotwell on Project e. I’m actually pretty happy with the end product, though I may make a second pass over it once I’m in front of iPhoto.
If it weren’t for bad luck…
June 1st, 2014I’ve briefly touched on, but never discussed in detail, Philadelphia’s two troubled daily newspapers (the Daily News and the Inquirer). In brief, they’ve gone through bankruptcy, ownership changes, ownership conflicts, and more ownership changes.
Early last week, the papers were bought by a group of investors led by Lewis Katz.
Last night, Lewis Katz and six other people were killed in a private jet crash.
This is sad and awful and I don’t intend to mock anyone’s death. I note it here because it seems like the Philly papers are just one hard luck story after another. Mr. Katz’s son is apparently going to take his place on the board that manages the papers; if you read the linked article about the purchase, though, it doesn’t seem clear that the late Mr. Katz or his partners had a turn-around plan for the papers, or that they even expected to win the bidding war for them. With Mr. Katz gone, I suspect that’s going to complicate things even more.
(Hattip: Jimbo.)
Silly.
May 31st, 2014Our table at the banquet was only about halfway occupied, and some of my fellow diners were trying to scam additional deserts from the server. (“No, really, they just stepped outside for a couple of minutes. They’ll be right back!”)
The server brought over some extras, with the good-humored comment that “I’m not the Cheesecake Police.”
Which got me thinking:
- How do you join the Cheesecake Police?
- Is there a Cheesecake Police Academy?
- Doesn’t “Cheesecake Police Academy” sound like some sort of cheap knock-off movie that you’d see on a low-rent cable channel in the 1980s? Complete with a very low rent version of Michael Winslow?
- What’s the training like?
- Is there a citizen’s ride-along program?
- What do the uniforms look like?
- What’s the duty gun for the Cheesecake Police? (Obviously, it should be some sort of Smith and Wesson.)
Why, yes, I am in a weird mood. Why do you ask?
Still here.
May 31st, 2014Just been busier than a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest since Wednesday (and also having about as much fun as I can possibly have with my clothes on). South Texas Pistolero, I know I owe you an email.
After action report to come, probably Tuesday or Wednesday of next week. Other updates as time and conditions permit.
If you’ll excuse me, I’m going back downstairs for just a little while longer before I return to the room and dress for dinner.
Man, I have missed this (stuff).
Travel day.
May 28th, 2014Light blogging ahead. And just when it seems things are picking up, too.
The good news is, I’m going to get my yearly Smith and Wesson fix. I’ll report in as time permits.
In the meantime, the most recent “100 Episodes” column on the A/V Club site is devoted to “Mannix”, a series that is just at the fringes of my memory, and that I’d love to see again. (I’ve been watching for the DVDs to show up used, but haven’t had any luck yet.)
Beyond the shout out to three of my favorite crime novelists, this is a swell survey of what made “Mannix” interesting; I commend it to your attention.
I don’t like bullies.
May 27th, 2014I have never met Caleb Giddings. We’ve never had any contact. He almost certainly couldn’t pick me out of a police lineup. I know he’s a somewhat polarizing figure in the gun blogging community; there are people who follow him avidly, and people who he rubs the wrong way.
I don’t have a dog in this fight, other than I don’t like bullies and “…they all believed in justice, and when the line was drawn, there was but one side for them all.”
About a year ago, Caleb reviewed a product called “Instant Accuracy” being sold by a man named Patrick Kilchermann. In his review, clearly marked as an editorial, Caleb expressed the opinion that “Instant Accuracy” is a scam: Kilchermann is charging $97 for what basically amounts to a 15-minute dry fire training program, repeated 4 to 5 times a week for four weeks. As Caleb pointed out, you don’t need to spend $97 for dry fire practice; there are good books on the subject available for a third to a quarter of that price. (You can find specific recommendations in that thread at his site.)
Quoth Caleb:
Naturally, Mr. Kilchermann took exception to this, and spent some time in the comments defending himself and “Instant Accuracy”. However, he declined to answer some simple basic questions, like “What are your qualifications?”, and “What three police departments are currently using your program?”. Indeed, Mr. Kilchermann seems to have been silent for the better part of the past year.
Until May 20th, when he contacted Caleb and asked him to either take down the review, or remove the comments about “Instant Accuracy” being a scam. When Caleb refused, Mr. Kilchermann threatened him with a lawsuit.
I am not a lawyer, but it seems to me (based on what I’ve read of the law) that Caleb’s statements were clearly labeled as opinion, and that statements of opinion are not actionable in a court of law. I don’t believe Mr. Kilchermann consulted a lawyer before issuing his bumptious legal threat. And if Mr. Kilchermann managed to find a lawyer who is stupid enough to take the case, or if he chooses to proceed pro se? I’m pretty sure Caleb will have no trouble finding pro bono legal representation – he may not even need to ask for a Popehat Signal.
I’m not sure what state Caleb is in, but many jurisdictions have strong anti-SLAPP laws. If Mr. Kilchermann chooses to proceed with legal action, I feel confident in saying that he will end up paying Caleb’s legal fees.
Mr. Kilchermann is apparently concerned about his Google ranking for “Instant Accuracy”. In my opinion, bumptious threats of legal action are an even bigger sign of a scam. Let’s let Mr. Kilchermann’s words and actions be seen by as many people as possible.
Sir, welcome to the Streisand effect.
Annals of law (#9 in a series)
May 27th, 2014By way of Overlawyered, I found this ABA Journal article. I note it here because I believe this is, literally, the kind of situation you only see maybe once in a lifetime.
Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld was representing a company, LBDS Holding Company, in a lawsuit against another company, ISOL Technology. Details of the suit can be found here, but I’m not sure they’re important. The key point is that Akin Gump won a $25 million judgement for LBDS Holding against ISOL.
ISOL and their legal team filed a motion for sanctions under Rule 11, claiming that “LBDS and its principals manufactured and falsified evidence used in this litigation, testified falsely, and committed a fraud upon this Court.”
Sounds like the kind of routine motion you’d expect the losing party to make, right? Well, Akin Gump had to respond to the motion, of course, so they did their due diligence and spoke with their client.
…when firm partner Sanford Warren discussed the sanctions motion with a client representative on May 15 the rep admitted “that the allegations in the [sanctions] motion were ‘essentially correct,’ ” the Akin Gump motion says. A “Cerner” contract relied upon by the plaintiff at trial “was not authentic,” the motion says, because an actual contract “had been altered and had certain schedules attached to it which were forgeries.”
Additionally, a client representative “said that those on the [conference] call [with Warren] had set up a fictitious domain name and sent emails from that domain name to create the impression that certain emails, introduced into evidence at the trial of this case, were sent by Cerner Corporation, when in fact they were not,” the Akin Gump motion continues.
So let me recap, just to make things clear: the plaintiff knowingly and willfully falsified evidence in their civil suit. That’s not just “case thrown out of court” bad, that’s not just “defendant awarded sanctions” bad; that’s “people are going to prison over this” BAD.
Akin Gump seems to have been unaware of the fraud until the plaintiff’s representatives confessed. At that point, they filed their own motion concurring with the motion by the defendants, providing their own account of what the plaintiff’s reps had said, and withdrawing from further representation. That motion is attached to the ABA Journal article, and makes excellent reading if you (like me) are a connoisseur of legal motions.
I can’t recall ever hearing of another case where the plaintiff committed this kind of serious fraud. (Maybe the Chevron case or the Nicaraguan banana pesticide case, but both of those had elements outside of the United States that influenced events; the LBDS/ISOL case, in contrast, was entirely domestic.) It boggles my mind that they thought they could get away with it. But the scary thing is, they almost did. I do wonder when ISOL found out about the fraud; is it possible that they knew all along, and were just holding back the information? Something like a hidden ace, just in case the verdict didn’t go their way?
More stabbing hypocrisy… I mean cutting journalism
May 27th, 2014Great and good friend of the blog RoadRich sent us an email yesterday. I liked it so much, I’m making it the very first guest post here (with RoadRich’s permission).
I saw yet another article on the USC murder spree. And though I’m not prone to rant, it seems this got me in a ranting mood once again. Of course it helps to preach to the choir.
I give the family lots of credit for earlier trying to get someone to take notice of the violent tendencies of their own son… which by itself is monumental… and I credit the family again for rushing to the developing scene (as the news reports indicate). The family of the murderer tried to save lives, weeks before it came to this.
However, the blame that the father of one victim levies on the NRA, and on politicians for not tightening gun laws, aims to hide the elephant in the room, which of course are the first three victims in this killing spree. Long before a person was killed by Elliot Rodger’s gun, two of his roommates plus someone who apparently had been visiting, were felled by Elliot Rodger’s knife.
By itself, the three stabbing victims may well have been called a ‘mass murder’, perhaps. And if the rampage by an overprivileged, self-important madman had stopped there, it would have still shaken Santa Barbara. But because the rampage moved on and changed to the weapon most feared by an uninformed or misinformed public, we are treated to a blind demand for gun laws. This shamefully ignores those who were killed by means other than bullets as somehow less important deaths. What do gun laws protect the stabbing victims from? What would more laws have done to save /anyone/ from someone who is willing to violate the law against murder? Is the loss by the parents of David Wang, James Cheng and George Chen any less important than that felt at the deaths of Veronika Weiss, Katherine Cooper or Christopher Michael-Martinez?
Of course we know what made the madman stop. It was someone who could defend himself, and whose job it was to defend others. It was someone with a gun, who ended a knife killing spree, a gun killing spree, and very nearly a car killing spree.
I feel bad for all the victims’ families. Yes, even the parent of Martinez, who is rightfully outraged. But between you and me, I would hope that someone Farq’s the article with the headline “Parent seeking tighter gun laws ignores stabbing victims” or “Parent doesn’t see stabbing deaths as victims” or something like that.
Be careful what you promise.
May 24th, 2014I’ve been wanting to write about this for a couple of weeks now, but have had trouble finding a way into it.
Earlier this century, some researchers working with Boston College came up with what became “The Belfast Project”. The idea was simple; do an oral history of the conflict in Northern Ireland by interviewing people on both sides of the conflict.
This was probably a worthwhile idea. But could you convince these people to talk? Sure, if you promised them that what they said would remain confidential until they died.
In the end, “The Belfast Project” interviewed 46 people; 26 former IRA members, and 20 former members of the UVF. Since they were promised confidentiality, many of them spoke freely. Perhaps a bit too freely.
Because BC apparently didn’t think through all of the legal implications. The United States has a “mutual legal assistance treaty” with the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Law enforcement in UKOGBAI became aware of the existence of “The Belfast Project” and decided to subpoena some of the interviews. The US government, under the terms of the treaty, had to cooperate with the request. There was a long legal battle, which BC lost; they surrendered 11 interviews with former IRA members.
As a result of this, Gerry Adams, the former head of Sinn Féin, was arrested as part of the investigation into a 1972 murder. The last I heard, Adams was questioned and released, and so far has not been actually charged with the murder.
Of course, people are upset. Confidentiality was breached! And BC has promised to return the interviews to the participants.
That may be “too little, too late”. Because now the government of Northern Ireland is asking for everything: all the interviews in “The Belfast Project”.
I’m not a lawyer, but I wonder what BC’s chances are at this point. If they return the tapes and burn the transcripts now, after a subpoena has been filed, will they be destroying evidence? Could BC wind up facing obstruction of justice charges?
And it seems that there are a fair number of people, on and off the BC campus, who think BC did a crap job with the project:
And:
Sleep in the daytime, work in the nighttime…
May 23rd, 2014…I might not ever get home.
In the meantime, another musical interlude.
Some more random notes.
May 23rd, 2014Ding, dong, the LICH is dead! Almost. Maybe. Previously.
You know what China needs?
Assailants driving two sport utility vehicles and tossing explosive devices plowed through a crowded vegetable market on Thursday in this city, the capital of the Xinjiang region in far western China, killing 31 people and wounding 94.
…