Andy Griffith: NYT. NYT appreciation. LAT. LAT appreciation by Ron Howard. Another one from the LAT. Onion A/V Club.
Morning obit roundup.
July 4th, 2012Useless without pics.
July 3rd, 2012Though given my expressed aesthetic opinion, perhaps the lack of pictures is just as well. This is also noteworthy as a possible exception to The Journalist’s Guide to Firearms Identification:
Random notes: July 3, 2012.
July 3rd, 2012I think I’m going to wait until later tonight or tomorrow morning to do a roundup of Andy Griffith obits. In the meantime, how has the Criterion Collection not come out with an edition of “A Face In the Crowd”?
Here’s something I’m wondering about. There’s a story in the HouChron: I’ll link to it, but I won’t mention names. The gist of the story is that the sister of a state representative was arrested yesterday after a police raid found drugs and guns in her home. Reading between the lines of the honorable gentleman’s statement, it appears she has issues, if not a lifetime subscription and a complete set of bound volumes.
Question: why is this news? Would it have been newsworthy (outside of Corpus Christi) if her brother wasn’t a state rep? Does it matter that her brother happens to be a Republican? (I like to think I’d be asking the same question if he was a Democrat.)
In news that might actually be news: a while back, the Landry’s corporation got a tax abatement to build “The Inn at the Ballpark” . This was supposed to generate a certain number of jobs. According to a city audit, it didn’t generate the specified number.
So how did the Houston City Council respond? If you said “they voted not to ask Landry’s for the taxes they were previously exempted from”, take two gold stars…and you know the drill.
(Hattip: Lawrence. I’m aware that post has nothing to do with Landry’s, but I’ve been wanting to link it for a while.)
If it saves just one finger…
July 3rd, 2012The California legislature is considering a bill that would require all new table saws sold in the state to be equipped with something called “injury mitigation technology”. The basic idea behind this technology is that the saw will stop, instantly, whenever it encounters human flesh (or something like human flesh, but more on that later).
That sounds like a good idea if you’re not a libertarian like me, right? Who can be opposed to protecting fingers?
Well, the problem is that there’s only one company that makes saws equipped with “injury mitigation technology”, SD3, who markets the SawStop.
And the inventor of this technology holds 90 patents on it. By the way, he’s also a patent attorney. So no other company can use this technology without paying for the patents.
And the way the SawStop works is that it basically fires a stop into the blade, which kills the rotation almost instantly. However, every time the SawStop goes off, you’re looking at a $175 replacement bill for the blade and other parts of the device.
And because of the way the SawStop works, it can be fired even without fingers being present; for example, if the wood is wet. (The wisdom of cutting wet wood is debatable, of course.)
Overlawyered has been covering the SawStop, and attempts to make it mandatory for table saws. It is interesting to see the LAT pick up on this issue.
My take?
- Stupidity should hurt.
- If the government wants to make it mandatory on table saws, fine; let them do so after the patents expire, or require the inventor to license the patents for free. After all, what’s more important; safety, or money? Come to think of it, if he was really concerned with safety, he’d already have made this offer to saw makers. Right now, this looks like rent-seeking.
Wind power…and hand grenades?
July 3rd, 2012This is an odd story.
Charles Anthony Malouff used to be a cop; he worked for both the Bosque County sheriff’s office and the Bertram Police Department. In 2007, he was convicted of “unlawful transfer of a firearm” and got three years probation.
It is not clear to me if he resigned or was fired, but in either case he stopped being a police officer.
Malouff and Mary Jo Woodall have been indicted on various fraud charges; the two are accused of trying to fraudulently obtain federal stimulus funds for a wind farm near Jonestown.
Back in October, search warrants were served at Malouff and Woodall’s homes. In the process, two gun safes were found at Woodall’s home. Woodall said they belonged to Malouff. The safes were opened, and…
According to the Statesman, the “destructive devices” were registered to the two agencies Malouff worked for. Malouff has pled guilty to the weapons charges; the plea agreement specifies a 2 1/2 year sentence, subject to judicial approval. The Statesman article raises a whole host of questions:
- What, exactly, were the “destructive devices”?
- I think we know eight of them were grenades. But what kind of grenades? Did Malouff have more flash-bangs left over from his previous work? Or were these real grenade grenades?
- If they were real grenade grenades, why did the two agencies have them? What does a police department do with a hand grenade?
- If they were flash bangs, I think the same question still applies. I’ve been to Bertram a few times, and it isn’t a place where I think they’d have a lot of use for flash bangs in SWAT raids.
- “Malouff remains under indictment in state District Court on charges of securing execution of a document by deception and misapplication of fiduciary property, both first-degree felonies punishable by up to life in jail.” Wow. So he gets 2 1/2 years on the gun charges, but the fraud charges can put him in prison for life?
Obit watch: special Heidi Hedi Ho edition.
July 3rd, 2012Julian Goodman, former NBC executive.
I haven’t been able to determine for sure if he was responsible for canceling “Star Trek” (which would be enough to make him one of nature’s noblemen in my book), but:
Just like a row of dominos.
July 2nd, 2012First, Stockton. Now the California city of Mammoth Lakes has filed for bankruptcy.
Interestingly, this does not appear to be a municipal pension or bond problem. Instead, the city lost a lawsuit against a developer, who was awarded $43 million in damages. The developer agreed to make improvements to the local airport (Mammoth Yosemite Airport) in return for rights to build a $400 million hotel on part of the airport property, along with an option on the land.
However, it seems that the city discovered there were issues with FAA policy with respect to the airport improvements, and decided they’d delay the hotel project, at which point the developer sued and won. The LAT specifically mentions that both parties wanted to extend the airport runway to handle 757s. Looking at this document, I think we’re talking roughly 2,500 meters or about 8,200 feet as the bare minimum runway length needed to handle a 757. (The actual takeoff and landing distance depends on airport elevation, atmospheric conditions, weight, and a host of other factors. as shown in the charts. According to various sources, Mammoth Lakes is at an altitude of about 7,900 feet, though the airport is at 7,135 feet according to AirNav. AirNav also shows the two active runways at 7,134.8 feet and 7,061.4 feet. So we’re talking probably a minimum of 1,200 additional feet of runway, maybe more if you want to have some margin.)
Obit watch: In Japan, the hand can be used like a knife…
July 2nd, 2012…but that doesn’t give you immortality.
Barry Becher, one half of the team that brought you the Ginsu knife, passed away on June 22nd, though his death was not widely reported until Saturday.
The continuing chimpanzee crisis.
June 29th, 2012More:
Well. Well. Well. Isn’t THAT special?
June 29th, 2012Earlier this week, I noted the goings-on in the notoriously corrupt California city of Vernon. One thing I mentioned was the $1.6 million salary of one Eric T. Fresch, a Vernon city official until this past May and one of the people behind Vernon’s failed natural gas hedge.
Mr. Fresch was found dead Thursday night in Angel Island State Park.
According to the LAT, the coroner’s office does not suspect foul play.
Also interesting: remember that audit?
Vernon, Vernon, Vernon…
June 28th, 2012The LAT has a story about a state audit report on the notoriously corrupt city. Some of the things in the audit were touched on the other day, like the natural gas hedge deal. There is some new stuff:
Cop watch: June 28, 2012.
June 28th, 2012I have not been able to give a flying flip at a rolling doughnut about the whole Drake/Chris Brown/Tony Parker kerfluffle. (If you are unaware of this, consider yourself lucky.) But there’s an interesting aspect to the story in today’s NYT.
W.i.P (the club where the fight broke out) and Greenhouse (another club) share both the building and a liquor license. Greenhouse has what the NYT characterizes as “a history of violence and other problems”. So…
Yep, that’s right. You go into a club, the club captures your ID, keeps it on file for 30 days, and gives it to the cops if they ask for it.
I’ve written previously about the Patricia Cook case (the woman who was shot by a cop in Culpepper, VA: the cop is now charged with murder). Reason has an interesting article about how the community used Facebook to draw attention to the case: the Facebook campaign led to increased press coverage and the discovery of a new witness. One thing that leaps out at me:
“Comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable,” indeed.
And do you remember Deputy James Mee of the LA County Sheriff’s Department? You might: he arrested Mel Gibson. Apparently, Mee later sued the department, claiming his superiors had tried to pressure him into removing Gibson’s anti-Semetic remarks from his report. Deputy Mee settled the suit for $50,000….
…and now the department is planning to fire him.
Mee’s lawyer claims that the department is also peeved because Mee testifed for one of his colleagues at a disciplinary hearing. The gentlemen in question was accused of drunk driving, Mee testifed as an expert on DWI, and…
I don’t know what to make of this. My reading of the LAT account is that the LACSO is looking to get rid of a meddlesome deputy, but I concede that account is pretty one-sided. It would be interesting to see LACSO’s side of the story, but they probably can’t discuss it.
I hate every ape I see, from chim-pan-A to chimpanzee…
June 27th, 2012Random notes: June 27, 2012.
June 27th, 2012Obit watch: Nora Ephron.
Oh, gee: “business leaders” are threatening to move their firms out of the notoriously corrupt city of Vernon, claiming the cost of business has become too high. Vernon has raised taxes and electricity rates, due to “the recession and a series of ill-fated investments that have cost the city millions”.
Among other bright ideas:
- The city spent $431 million on a hedge for a long-term supply of natural gas. Under the terms of the hedge, the city locked in supply at $7.50 per unit. Last year, natural gas sold for $4 per unit; currently, it is at “just over” $2.50 per unit.
- The city has issued over $1 billion in bonds “to pursue new projects and refinance existing debts”. Vernon has lost more than $130 million in net assets in the past six years, and county auditors say the city has consistently run $20 to $25 million in debt.
- “During the same period, Vernon increased its spending on employee compensation. Between 2006 and 2010, four officials took home annual pay of more than $750,000, including Eric T. Fresch, who made as much as $1.6 million in 2008.” Those same four officials were responsible for the natural gas deal.
- And, in a nice rich irony, many of the “business leaders” who are unhappy now were responsible for torpedoing last year’s legislative effort to disincorporate Vernon.
In other news, Stockton, California plans to file for municipal bankruptcy.
Hmmm.
- The ability to make lemonade is genetically inherited, rather than learned? This might explain why my lemonade isn’t very good. (Then again, it could be that I make mine with bottled lemon juice. Yeah, I know, but I mostly make lemonade so I can mix it with iced tea and make Arnold Palmers; why use fresh lemon juice for that?)
- Lemonade isn’t sweet until you add something like sugar to it. What does Rev. Williams propose to add to the lemonade of bankruptcy?
More details on the Jovita’s heroin bust from the Statesman.
One of the great barbecue related stories of the past quarter century was the Kreuz Market feud. In brief, when the family patriarch died, he left the Kreuz Market building to his daughter; he’d previously sold the business itself to two of his sons. This led to a family fight, and ultimately Kreuz Market moved into a new building on the highway, while the old building became Smitty’s.
What’s news? Well, the owner of Kreuz and the pitmaster at Smitty’s, along with another family member, are opening a new barbecue place: Schmidt Family Barbecue in Bee Cave. I am morally certain we will be going out there for an SDC, as soon as they’ve had time to shake out.
Gratuitous and unnecessary photography (part 2 of 2?)
June 26th, 2012I’ve uploaded a second small set of photos. These are photos I took of Ernest Hemmingway’s grave, and of the Hemmingway Memorial near Ketchum. You can view them here.