The “First Annual Very Nicest Awards” from Very Nice Website (aka John Moltz, one of the four authentic geniuses the Internet has produced).
Won’t you consider murdering and eating a duck this holiday season?
The Most Wonderful Time of the Year (part 2)
December 22nd, 2014What does it take…
December 19th, 2014…to lose your job as a cop?
If you’re the police chief in Phoenix, the answer is “insubordination”. Specifically, calling a press conference and demanding a new contract after the city manager said “Don’t DO that!” seems to be a sure way to get yourself terminated.
If you’re with the Austin Police Department, the answer is “running your mouth to a reporter”. Technically, Andrew Pietrowski “retired”, but it seems like his retirement was just ahead of “being canned by Art Acevedo”.
The way I read this, it wasn’t like Pietrowski was asked for his opinion; he just walked up to a reporter who was there for another reason and started spouting off.
Obit watch: December 19, 2014.
December 19th, 2014Mandy Rice-Davies has passed away at 70.
Ms. Rice-Davies, you may recall, was one of the central figures in what became known as the Profumo Affair. In brief, she was a roommate and friend of Christine Keeler, who had brief affairs with both Secretary of State for War John Profumo and Yevgeny Ivanov, a Soviet intelligence agent. This was quite the scandal back in 1963.
Notes on film, 2014.
December 17th, 2014Quick takes:
- There’s a good representation of historical stuff on here; I’m interested in seeing “Bert Williams Lime Kiln Club Field Day” and “The Dragon Painter”.
- Also a good representation of horror, with “Rosemary’s Baby” and the 1953 “House of Wax”.
- “Ruggles of Red Gap” sounds like a whole lot of fun. I’d love to see that, too.
- You know, I liked “The Big Lebowski” okay when I saw it. I still think it’s a good movie, and I often quote lines from it, but I really don’t get what seems to be the passionate worship of it. In terms of just Coen Brothers films, I think “True Grit”, “No Country For Old Men”, “Fargo”, and “Miller’s Crossing” are all better movies. (“Fargo” is already on the list, of course.)
- I kind of want to see “Down Argentine Way” for one reason: Carmen Miranda. Same with “The Gang’s All Here”. Maybe we should have a Carmen Miranda movie night one night. (If we do, I’ll try to let everyone know in advance. You might even say I’ll give folks a Miranda warning.)
- Yes, I will be here all week. Try the veal and remember to tip your waitress.
- I’d also really like to see “Rio Bravo” and “Little Big Man”. I saw parts of the latter on TV when I was a child, but I’ve never seen either one start to finish.
- Other things I’d like to see: “Unmasked”, “The Power And The Glory”.
The Taste of Schadenfreude.
December 17th, 2014From the Austin Chronicle‘s runoff endorsements for District 8:
How did that work out for you, Ed?
Oooooooh. Not so well.
By way of Overlawyered, here’s an Orange County Register article on the Costa Mesa PI case, which I wrote about a few days ago.
I was not aware that the law firm had shut down; that’s a good first start, but nothing in the article indicates that any of the lawyers involved have been forced to surrender their licenses.
Even after the phony DUI report, as the union attempted to distance itself form its former law firm – Lackie, Dammeier, McGill & Ethir – and the P.I.’s records show that money continued to flow from the union to the law firm to investigators.
The affidavit shows that even after the union said it fired its law firm, after word of the DUI setup got out, the union continued to pay its elevated retainer rate of $4,500 per quarter to the firm as late as January 2013. Lanzillo and Impola were paid by the law firm through January, as well.
Another thing I’m curious about: why does the Costa Mesa Police Department continue to exist? At this point, given that the department is clearly out of control to the point where they’re threatening politicians, wouldn’t it be better to disband them, fire everyone, and let the county sheriff’s department patrol Costa Mesa until they can build a new department from the ground up?
(Of course, this being California, many of the crooked cops from Costa Mesa will probably end up with jobs in the sheriff’s department or other cities in the area.)
In case you were wondering…
December 16th, 2014The runoff election was today. The polls closed at 7 PM.
According to the Statesman, Mike Martinez called Not Mike Martinez at 7:15 to concede.
Also, in case you were wondering, Steve Adler was the only candidate who responded to my emailed question about Art Acevedo’s future. That’s why you haven’t seen any updates: because Martinez, Sheri Gallo, and Mandy Dealey couldn’t be arsed to answer.
TMQ Watch: December 16, 2014.
December 16th, 2014Since we are seeing some activity, mostly around older TMQ Watch items, we thought we’d throw up a general reminder (along with the sash): TMQ is taking a bye this week, and will be back next week.
Obit watch: December 16, 2014.
December 16th, 2014Fred “Fuzzy” Thurston, former Green Bay Packer.
Thurston was a key element in Green Bay’s implementation of the sweep:
In the sweep, sometimes called the Lombardi sweep for the coach’s fine-tuning of a play that originated in an earlier football era, the two guards are required to pull. That is, instead of pushing forward against the defensive players lined up in front of them, they race in tandem along the line of scrimmage toward one sideline or the other before surging upfield, one ideally blocking a linebacker and the other a defensive back, providing an avenue for the runner behind them.
With Hornung and Taylor carrying the ball behind Thurston and Kramer, the Packer sweep was close to unstoppable, even though opponents often knew it was coming. Generally speaking, guards are among the most anonymous players on the field, but the Green Bay sweep was iconic enough that Thurston and Kramer became well known to football fans.
Kings! Kings of Sacramento!
December 15th, 2014Unconfirmed reports indicate that the Sacramento Kings (who are a basketball team) have fired coach Michael Malone.
Updates to follow.
Edited to add 12/16: It took a long time for the team to make an official announcement, but they finally did.
“Philosophical differences”? So, what, Malone was a Kantian, and D’Alessandro is a follower of divine command theory?
The Most Wonderful Time of the Year
December 12th, 2014Bad boys and losers: December 12, 2014.
December 12th, 2014Woohoo!
The PIs were working for a law firm that represented “more than 120 public safety unions”, including the Costa Mesa Police Association. I’m hoping that they roll, and that this ends with jail sentences and disbarment.
Philadelphia is currently 2-19. However, that might not be bad enough:
Has the NYPD been fabricating gun cases?
But what would be their motivation?
NYPD officers faking information to collect money from Operation Gun Stop? That’s unheard of!
TMQ Watch: December 9, 2014.
December 11th, 2014For reasons we’re not clear on, Lawrence has been giving us a little bit of grief recently about why we continue to write the TMQ Watch. Frankly, we’ve been wondering that ourselves, and the best answer we can come up with is: “Got to. This America, man.”
But it does give us a little bit of pleasure to be able to cross the streams this week:
…and yes I was tossed off the masthead of New Republic by Chris Hedges too! Dear Chris — my Internet column gets 175K unique views/week
— Gregg Easterbrook (@EasterbrookG) December 9, 2014
After the jump, this week’s TMQ…
Obit watch: December 10, 2014.
December 10th, 2014You may remember Ms. Mapp from the landmark court case, Mapp v. Ohio, in which the Supreme Court extended the exclusionary rule to the states.
I noted previously that Ms. Mapp apparently led a hard but interesting life:
Her conviction in the Ohio case was overturned. She later moved to New York, where she was convicted of narcotics possession:
…she pursued a series of appeals, claiming that the search warrant used in her arrest had been wrongly issued and that the police had targeted her because of her role in Mapp v. Ohio.
The drugs seized in the case were found at an apartment that Mr. Lyons apparently rented from Ms. Mapp. She lived several miles away. The police searched her home and found rent receipts that prosecutors argued established her as having aided and abetted Mr. Lyons. The officer who had applied for the warrant to search Ms. Mapp’s home was later dismissed from the police force after he was determined to have accepted about $3,500 from a narcotics dealer.
She served 19 years in prison before the governor commuted her sentence.
Steve Adler.
December 9th, 2014We have our first response on the Art Acevedo question, from the Steve Adler campaign.
Since I didn’t state I would be publishing the replies here in my original email, I don’t feel comfortable doing so now. But I can summarize: as you might have guessed, it was the usual politician glurge.
- The City Council doesn’t hire or fire the police chief, the city manager does. (Perhaps so, Steve, but if the city council says they want the chief gone, I’m pretty sure the city manager takes notice.)
- Police officers need to be held accountable. (Also, apple pie and motherhood are good things.)
- “…we need to work diligently to improvement relations between them and the public”.
- Gratuitous Ferguson reference.
- Steve Adler has spent much of his life fighting discrimination as a civil rights lawyer yadda yadda yadda.
Not very satisfying.
Random notes: December 9, 2014.
December 9th, 2014I’ve emailed the two candidates in my Austin council district and the two that are running for mayor, inquiring about their positions on Art Acevedo. So far, I have not received an answer from any of them.
As a Libertarian, I am generally opposed to foreign military intervention, absent a direct threat to the United States. I am not convinced that it is our job to impose democracy on foreign countries.
However, if we are going to overthrow a totalitarian regime and bring about democracy, can we start here?
Obit watch: Ernest Brace. He was a civilian pilot working for the CIA in Vietnam; in 1965 he was captured by the enemy and spent nearly eight years in North Vietnamese prisons. John McCain was in the cell next to him.
I sent this to Weer’d for the “Gun Death” files, but it seems worthy of note here: Japanese “Black Widow”.
According to the police and news media reports, Mr. Kakehi was just one of six outwardly healthy elderly men who died abruptly over the last eight years after marrying or starting romantic relationships with Ms. Kakehi.
Anyone want to guess what she didn’t use to (allegedly) kill these men? Anyone? Bueller?
Also among the dead: Nathaniel Branden, “writer Ayn Rand’s former devotee, lover and intellectual heir”. I know this is a few days old, but I’ve been waiting for an obituary to be published in a reputable source that I’m willing to link to. (Edited to add: NYT obit.)
Jonathan Yardley has retired from the WP. His last piece was published this past weekend.
I wanted to make note of his retirement here because I liked Yardley’s writing very much. In particular, he was responsible for one of my favorite things ever done by a book critic: “Second Reading”, where he went back and reconsidered books he’d previously read. And he wasn’t a snob: he’d go back and re-read a classic like “Gatsby”, but he also covered Hunter S. Thompson, John D. MacDonald, Josephine Tey, and Charles Willeford. There is a very good book, Second Reading
God bless you, Mr. Yardley. May you enjoy your retirement. And if you’re reading this and happen to find someone whose work you enjoy as much as MacDonald’s, would you drop me a line?
