Flaming hyena update.

December 2nd, 2025

There’s been a major shakeup at a Houston-based hospitality company…

“hospitality company”. RCI Hospitality Holdings owns various businesses, including Bombshells Restaurant & Bar, Rick’s Cabaret, Chicas Locas, and Club Onyx.

Two weeks ago, the company announced a “strategic partnership” with Jonathan Joseph, owner of Yellow Rose Cabaret and Red Rose Nightclub in Austin. Joseph acquired a 49 percent interest in Rick’s Cabaret Austin for $1.8 million as part of the partnership.

Anyway:

RCI Hospitality Holdings Inc. announced Friday that Eric Langan and Bradley Chhay have stepped down as president and CEO and CFO, respectively.

The HouChron says it is “unclear” why they stepped down, but suggests it might be related to their criminal indictments for bribing a tax auditor.

And if that rings a bell with you now, yes, I covered this back in September. Remember “dance dollars”?

…accused of supplying a former New York Department of Taxation and Finance auditor with “at least 13 complimentary multi-day trips to Florida where he was given up to $5,000 per day for private dances at RCI-owned strip clubs, including Tootsie’s Cabaret in Miami,” plus other forms of alleged favorable treatment over a 14-year period.

Still no evidence of cocaine being involved in this case, though, alas.

Posted in Law, Politics | 2 Comments »

Firings watch.

December 1st, 2025

Mark Stoops out as head coach of the University of Kentucky.

Stoops, 58, went 72-80 during his time in Lexington (82-80 if including the 10-win 2021 season that was later vacated) and leaves as the winningest coach in school history. Bear Bryant is No. 2.

They were 5-7 this season, and 4-8 last season.

Stoops is owed 75% of his remaining salary, which is approximately $37.7 million. That falls within the top five buyouts in college football history, four of which have come this year (the first three were Brian Kelly, $54 million; James Franklin, $49 million, though that was reduced when he took the job at Virginia Tech; and Jonathan Smith, $33 million).

Before Stoops’ tenure, Kentucky had not won 10 games in a season since 1977. Stoops ended that streak with a Citrus Bowl victory over Penn State in 2018. He added a second 10-win season in 2021 with a Citrus Bowl win over Iowa, but the NCAA later vacated the victories from that season due to a scandal involving football players being paid for hours they did not work in university hospital patient transport jobs. The investigation found no evidence Stoops knew of the rules violations.

Posted in Firings, Sports | Comments Closed

Obit watch: December 1, 2025.

December 1st, 2025

Daniel Woodrell, author.

He’s one of those guys who I’ve wanted to read, but haven’t yet. I’ve heard good things about Winter’s Bone. I’ve also heard the movie is great, but I haven’t seen it yet.

I also haven’t read Woe to Live On, but I have seen the Ang Lee Ride With the Devil and thought that was an interesting movie.

Mr. Woodrell took a somewhat fatalistic attitude. He told the magazine that the Ozarks were a place to mind your own business, go off the grid, avoid the law, hide. Even meth, he saw, had its use, giving families a profitable line of work in a place with few of them.

He was 72. Pancreatic cancer got him.

Fuzzy Zoeller, golfer.

Posted in Books, Movies, Obits, Sports | 1 Comment »

Obit watch: November 30, 2025.

November 30th, 2025

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead.

So is Sir Tom Stoppard. THR.

Stoppard received his first Academy Award nomination for co-writing Brazil (1985) with director Terry Gilliam and Charles McKeown, adapted John le Carre‘s novel for The Russia House (1990) and did an uncredited revision on the screenplay for Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989), with director Steven Spielberg noting that “Tom is pretty much responsible for every line of dialogue.”

Colleen Jones, curler and curling commentator.

As a curling skip, or captain, Jones directed her teammates and devised strategies in a sport that is sometimes referred to as chess on ice. So adroit was she at gracefully sliding a granite stone weighing around 40 pounds with decisive precision that she was inducted into Canada’s Sports Hall of Fame in 2016 and named the second greatest athlete from Nova Scotia, behind only the hockey star Sidney Crosby, by the province’s sports hall of fame in 2017.

She won two world titles and six Canadian national championships.

In 1986, she joined the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation as the first female sports anchor in Halifax, Nova Scotia’s capital. Over her nearly 40 years with the network, she also worked as a reporter, commentator and weather presenter. In 2022, Jones was named a member of the Order of Canada, one of the country’s highest civilian honors.

…

Although Jones never qualified to compete in the Olympics for Canada — the most decorated nation in curling, with six gold medals and 12 in total — she served as a commentator and analyst for nearly a dozen Winter and Summer Games for the CBC.

Posted in Movies, Obits, Sports, Theatre | Comments Closed

Happy Thanksgiving! Have some short random gun crankery!

November 27th, 2025

Over at the GT Distributors web site, they have a historical look at two very rare revolvers.

Two rare Smith and Western revolvers. That’s not a typo.

On a totally unrelated note, the latest video in the Smith and Wesson “Tales From the Vault” series is up: “Project Spitfire 9mm Carbine”.

Posted in Guns, Smith and Wesson | 1 Comment »

Obit watch: November 26, 2025.

November 26th, 2025

NYT obit for Udo Kier.

Michael DeLano, actor. Other credits include “Cover Up“, “Hardcastle and McCormick”, and “Banacek”.

Posted in 1970s, Movies, Obits, TV | 1 Comment »

Flaming hyenas update.

November 24th, 2025

The charges against James Comey and Tish James have been dismissed.

The reason is pretty much the usual one:

… interim US Attorney Lindsey Halligan was improperly appointed to her position and “had no lawful authority” to secure indictments of either of President Trump’s longtime adversaries.

The charges were dismissed “without prejudice”, meaning they can be re-filed. I assume they will be if Judge Cameron Currie is overruled in this matter.

However, the ruling by senior US District Judge Cameron Currie comes after the expiration of the five-year statute of limitations against Comey, meaning the case against him cannot be reopened.

It would seem to me that, if the charges were filed before the statute of limitations expired, and the judge’s ruling is held to be in error, the charges should be able to be reinstated. But I Am Not A Lawyer.

Posted in IANAL, Law, Politics | Comments Closed

Obit watch: November 24, 2025.

November 24th, 2025

Udo Kier, actor. THR.

275 credits in IMDB, including “Iron Sky: The Coming Race”, “Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far on Foot”, and “Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated”.

Jimmy Cliff. THR.

Mr. Cliff won two Grammy Awards over his decades-long career: best reggae recording in 1986 for “Cliff Hanger” and best reggae album in 2013 for “Rebirth.” But his breakthrough in the United States came when he starred as an actor in “The Harder They Come,” a 1972 movie about a struggling Jamaican musician who turns to crime.

That film became a cult favorite in the United States, running for years in midnight slots at theaters. It won Mr. Cliff a wide base of fans, many of whom bought the movie’s soundtrack, which included “You Can Get It If You Really Want” and “The Harder They Come” as well as Mr. Cliff’s “Many Rivers to Cross” and “Sitting in Limbo.”

Lee Tamahori, New Zealand director who went on to a Hollywood career. IMDB.

I never saw any of his Hollywood films. But I did see “Once Were Warriors” in a theater, and it blew me away. I highly recommend that, but be warned: it isn’t a light and happy movie.

Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin, who was also known as H. Rap Brown.

Before converting to Islam and changing his name in the 1970s, Mr. Al-Amin was one of the most incendiary orators among the Black Power activists who emerged in the late 1960s to challenge the leadership and nonviolent strategy of the civil rights movement.
An admirer of the Cuban revolution, he preached armed resistance and separatism, declaring: “Violence is necessary. Violence is a part of America’s culture. It is as American as cherry pie.”
With his trademark black beret and sunglasses, dexterous mind and imposing 6-foot-5 inch frame — 7 feet, with his Afro — he was a persuasive and charismatic figure to many, adept at rallying Black audiences to his cause while alarming many white listeners.
Elected chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in May 1967, he made an immediate mark by getting the word “nonviolent” removed from its name, persuading the organization’s leaders to change it to the Student National Coordinating Committee.

He had a long history of “involvement”, so to speak, with law enforcement.

Enmeshed in court proceedings resulting from federal and state charges he faced in five cities, Mr. Al-Amin went into hiding in 1970 and spent 18 months on the F.B.I.’s Most Wanted list. He resurfaced in Manhattan on Oct. 16, 1971, in dramatic fashion — wounded in a shootout with the New York City police. The police said he and several accomplices had tried to hold up an uptown Manhattan tavern and exchanged gunfire with officers who were pursuing them.
Mr. Brown, who denied the charges, was convicted on charges of robbery and assault with a deadly weapon. He served five years of a five-to-15-year sentence at the Attica state prison in upstate New York.
By the time he was released on parole in 1976, he had converted to the Muslim Sunni sect known as Dar-ul Islam. By his account, he had become a new man with a new name. He moved to Atlanta, where his wife, Karina, had established a law practice, and publicly renounced the revolutionary ambitions of his youth.

He was convicted of shooting two sheriff’s deputies – killing one – in 2000, and died in a federal medical center.

Posted in Movies, Music, Obits, TV | Comments Closed

Firings watch: November 24, 2025.

November 24th, 2025

Shane Bowen out as defensive coordinator of the New York Football Giants.

The Giants are 2-10, and blew a big lead to the Detroit Lions on Sunday.

Chip Kelly out as defensive coordinator of the Raiders. He’d only been with the team for 11 games, and the Raiders are 2-9 this season.

Las Vegas has fired an offensive coordinator midseason for the second straight year. Luke Getsy was let go after nine games in 2024, with Scott Turner taking over in an interim role under then-coach Antonio Pierce.

The California Golden Bears have fired head coach Justin Wilcox. 6-5 this season, 48-55 over nine seasons with the team.

Posted in Firings, NFL, Sports | Comments Closed

Leadership Secrets of Non-Fictional Characters (part 14 in a series)

November 21st, 2025

You may have already seen this. I got it from Bayou Renaissance Man, who got it from CDR Salamander. Army Times and Task and Purpose both picked this up too.

Don’t care. It is still a damn fine memo.

Posted in Leadership | 1 Comment »

Noted.

November 20th, 2025

Today, in “The New York Times discovers…”

…high power rocketry.

Actually, this is a pretty respectful and fun story.

“You’ve got to show these young people respect,” he said, “because this stuff is no joke.”

Posted in Science | Comments Closed

Obit watch: November 20, 2025.

November 20th, 2025

Col. Robert L. Stirm (USAF – ret.). He was 92.

You may not recognize the name, but you probably recognize the photo.

That’s his 15-year old daughter Lorrie in front. His wife is wearing the corsage. The photographer, Slava Veder, won the 1974 Pulitzer Prize for feature photography.

His will to survive as a P.O.W., he later said, was built on memories of his domestic life and the hope of returning one day to his family. Those thoughts sustained him after he was shot down and forced to eject from his F-105 Thunderchief during a bombing mission over North Vietnam on Oct. 27, 1967, and they continued to sustain him in prison camps, including the notorious “Hanoi Hilton,” where he was starved, tortured and subjected to mock executions.
He held the rank of major at the time he was taken prisoner and was eventually elevated to colonel. He was among 591 American prisoners of war released as part of Operation Homecoming after the Paris Peace Accords ended the United States involvement in the Vietnam War.

The photo sort of hides what was really going on.

Three days before he landed at Travis Air Force Base, he was handed what he described as a “Dear John” letter from his wife.
“I have changed drastically — forced into a situation where I finally had to grow up,” his wife of 18 years wrote. “Bob, I feel sure that in your heart you know we can’t make it together — and it doesn’t make sense to be unhappy when you can do something about it. Life is too short.”
“I love you — we all love you,” she continued, “but you must remember how very unhappy we were together.”

Her daughter says she had an affair while Col. Strim was in captivity.

Despite the painful letter to her husband, Loretta Stirm offered to try to make her marriage work, her daughter said.

They divorced in 1974.

Colonel Stirm kept several copies of the picture autographed by Mr. Veder, but, while his children displayed them, he did not.

…

He said little about Vietnam after returning home, Ms. Stirm Kitching said, but he told a story about a fellow P.O.W., John S. McCain, the Navy pilot and future U.S. senator, who told a joke by tapping on the wall in code to Colonel Stirm in an adjacent cell. “My dad said it was the first time he laughed in jail,” she said, adding, “I wish I knew the joke.”

Posted in Heroism, History, Obits | 1 Comment »

You’re going down in flames, you tax-fattened hyena! (#155 in a series)

November 20th, 2025

Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick is a Democratic congresswoman from Florida.

Ms. Cherfilus-McCormick was indicted yesterday.

This time around, it isn’t mortgage fraud.

The allegations, announced by the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Florida, are related to the family healthcare company where Cherfilus-McCormick and her brother worked in 2021. According to the Department of Justice, their company received a $5 million overpayment of federal covid relief funds.
Prosecutors allege that a “substantial portion of the misappropriated funds” were then redirected back to Cherfilus-McCormick’s congressional campaign through straw donors and by passing the money through family and friends. “Using disaster relief funds for self-enrichment is a particularly selfish, cynical crime,” Attorney General Pam Bondi wrote in a statement announcing the indictment.

Also charged: her brother Edwin Cherfilus, Nadege Leblanc, and Ms. Cherfilus-McCormick’s tax preparer David Spencer.

More coverage from the NYT.

Posted in Law, Politics | 1 Comment »

Are you a pelican or a peliCAN’T?

November 15th, 2025

In some haste, because I am on the road for a wedding. But:

Willie Green out as head coach of the New Orleans Pelicans. ESPN:

Green was in his fifth season as Pelicans coach, and he finishes with a 150-190 record, including postseason appearances in 2021-22 and 2023-24.

The team is 2-10 to start the season. Which, sort of surprisingly, isn’t the worst record in the NBA so far this season: Brooklyn, Indiana, and Washington are all 1-11.

Posted in Firings, Sports | Comments Closed

You’re smoking in a no-smoking zone, you tax-fattened hyena!

November 13th, 2025

And I’m looking forward to full on flames.

Headline on the front page of the NYPost:

Dem rep’s $1.2 million DC home target of DOJ mortgage fraud criminal referral

We’re almost getting to the point where “politician charged with mortgage fraud” is the new “car bomb explodes in Beirut”.

But this one is special.

Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) was hit with a federal criminal referral for alleged mortgage and tax fraud related to his purchase of a $1.2 million home in Washington, DC, that he claimed as a primary residence, The Post has confirmed.

You may remember Eric Swalwell for such hits as “banging a Chinese spy”:

In January 2023, former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) kicked Swalwell off the House Intelligence Committee, following reports three years prior that a suspected Chinese spy had infiltrated the congressman’s campaign — and got close to him.
Fang Fang, also known as Christine Fang, was a purported honeytrap who entered the US from China as a college student in 2011 — but allegedly spent the next four years wooing state and federal lawmakers to potentially obtain sensitive government intelligence.
At least two mayors of midwestern US cities had a romantic or sexual relationship with her, a US intelligence official and former elected official told Axios in 2020.

You may also remember Rep. Swalwell for threatening to use nuclear weapons against gun owners.

If Rep. Swalwell is convicted (and as much as I despise the man, he is still entitled to the presumption of innocence) he will, of course, lose all rights to own guns. I assume this includes any access he may have to nuclear weapons.

Posted in Guns, Law, Politics | Comments Closed

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