NBA teams that still have a chance to go 0-82:
Indiana Pacers
Brooklyn Nets
New Orleans Pelicans
And today’s bonus firing for you: Scott Woodward fired as athletic director at Louisiana State University.
As you may recall, LSU fired Brian Kelly and owes him $54 million. This has attracted the ire of many, including Louisiana governor Jeff Landry. Gov. Landry went as far as to state that Mr. Woodward wouldn’t be picking the next football coach.
Additional coverage from ESPN.
Dalya Attar is a state senator in Maryland.
Dalya Attar has been indicted on federal charges of, believe it or not, extortion. Most of the time, it is mail or wire fraud, often in conjunction with bribery. Extortion is so rare, let us savor that for a moment. The indictment was handed down October 23rd, but I’m only seeing reports of it today.
Reports say that there were two people who were “detracting from or negatively influencing her election campaigns”.
This dates back to 2020, when she was working on her re-election to the Maryland House of Delegates. Reports say she had a falling out with a consultant who had previously worked on her 2018 campaign. The consultant became a vocal critic of Ms. Attar, and Ms. Attar wanted her to be “a non-issue in my mind”.
Ms. Attar allegedly conspired with her brother and a Baltimore police officer.
…and others involved in the plot allegedly placed a tracker on the consultant’s car and installed hidden cameras in a smoke detector in an apartment the victim used to rendezvous with her married paramour.
“Damn, I wish I had [the man’s] stamina,” Finklestein stated in a WhatsApp voice message after installing the cameras, according to the indictment.
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In December 2021, Joseph Attar allegedly met with the man who’d had an affair with the consultant at a Baltimore-area shopping center and claimed to have “hours of footage of you in bed with [her] … the only thing you need to do is very simple, is go to [the consultant] and tell her, leave Dalya alone. Don’t bring her up anymore to anyone. Stay out of this election … and make sure she doesn’t do anything against Dalya.”
According to the indictment, Joseph Attar also told the man that if he didn’t do what he asked, “I’ll share this video with everybody you know, everyone she knows, every Rabbi in town, your kids, your wife, her daughters … I already have all her daughters’ phone numbers, right? And every shadchan [matchmaker] in Israel who is trying to set up her daughters, I’ll share these videos with.”
Sen. Attar wasn’t elected to the Senate: she was appointed in January, but she is currently running for the seat.
I’m linking to the Sun’s coverage, but it is kind of thin right now. “This article will be updated.” The NYPost is a little more detailed, but also “This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.”
LaMar Cook is a staffer for Maura Healey, the governor of Massachusetts.
LaMar Cook has been charged with various crimes.
“unlawful possession of a firearm”. As we all know, Bob, Massachusetts never met a gun control measure it didn’t like.
“unlawful possession of ammunition”. See above.
And “trafficking over 200 grams of cocaine”. Way over 200 grams. Try eight kilos of cocaine. Which he had delivered to the state office building he worked in.
As a great philosopher once said, “Cocaine is a hell of a drug.“
Smith and Wesson has a new series on their YouTube channel: “Tales From the Vault”, with Jerry Miculek.
The first episode dropped Tuesday, and it covers the Smith and Wesson Model 76. You may remember the Model 76 from various movies, such as…
As we like to say around here, “If the future was bad, CHeston was there.”
There was a gentleman at one of the S&WCA symposiums some years ago who had a display of Model 76s. As I recall, at the time, you could get a transferable one for about $8K. I checked GunBroker, and it looks like they are going for $18K to $20K now.
My brother sent me an interesting note yesterday: the revived Marlin (a division of Ruger) introduced a new lever gun in their Trapper series. Short barrel, compact, probably quick handling…and chambered in best mil.
I have not seen any lever guns chambered in 10mm until now, but it does kind of make sense. (There may have been some custom or semi-custom low production 10mm lever guns that I don’t know about.) Heck, I don’t even feel like I have a use case for a pistol-caliber carbine, and I find the 10mm Trapper an interesting proposition. I bet this would be a great gun for hog hunting.
I promised a couple of weeks ago to post photos of my old 1911 with the Battleship Texas grips.
I do think they look nice. Of course, I kept the grips that came with the gun, in case I ever want to restore it back to the original config. The gunsmith did have to do some hand fitting on these grips, so I’m not sure they’d go on any other gun.
Preview of coming attractions. As my regular readers know, I am a bore. Either a small bore or a big bore, depending. In this case, I am a small bore.
But: I am also PC.
Over at RevolverGuy.Com, Mike Wood has a nice piece up about the demise of the print editions of Guns and American Handgunner (previously), which includes reviews of several FMG Publications books. Some of those I’ve written about here. There’s also an appearance in the comments by Editor Roy Huntington, who explains the economics: “With the loss of print advertising, it was simply not sustainable to keep the presses rolling.”
RevolverGuy also has an after-action review of Revolver Fest 2025. I wanted to mention that because I thought this, from the comments, was interesting:
So was this:
As your resident unabashed Smith and Wesson fanboy: guys, do better, please.
Bjorn Andresen. There’s a certain lack of notability here, but I think it is offset by the sadness of this story.
Mr. Andresen was 15 when Luchino Visconti cast him as Tadzio, the object of desire in his adaption of “Death In Venice”.
Visconti called him “the most beautiful boy in the world”.
Visconti was also fixated on Mr. Andresen. During the boy’s screen test, the director asked him to strip to his swimsuit.
“When they asked me to take off my shirt, I wasn’t comfortable,” Mr. Andresen told Variety after the release of “The Most Beautiful Boy in the World,” a 2021 documentary about him directed by Kristina Lindstrom and Kristian Petri. “I wasn’t prepared for that. I remember when he posed me with one foot against the wall, I would never stand like that.
“When I watch it now,” he said, “I see how that son of a bitch sexualized me.”
He told The Guardian that Visconti was “the sort of cultural predator who would sacrifice anything or anyone for the work.”
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During the making of “Death in Venice,” Visconti acted protectively toward Mr. Andresen. But the boy felt unprepared when Visconti took him to a gay club after the film was shown at the Cannes Film Festival in May 1971.
In the documentary, Mr. Andresen recalled feeling besieged by “voracious looks, wet lips and rolling tongues” and getting drunk to cope with the unwanted attention. He wondered if Visconti, who was gay, was testing him to see if he was also gay, which he wasn’t.
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Over the last 20 years or so, his flowing hair became gray and he obscured his face behind a beard that made him look something like Ian McKellen as the wizard Gandalf in the “Lord of the Rings” films.
Mr. Andresen continued to act, mostly on television in Sweden but also in films, including a memorable turn in Ari Aster’s 2019 horror movie, “Midsommar.” He was also a keyboard player in a dance band, a composer of jazz and bossa nova music, the arranger of the music for a Swedish production of “The Rocky Horror Show,” and the manager of a small theater in Stockholm.
Lawrence sent over an obit for Pierre Robert, long time Philadelphia DJ. The NYPost ran one as well.
This isn’t quite an obit, but I don’t know where else to put it. I also don’t quite know how to write about it, so I’m just going to do the best I can.
Officer Lauren Craven of the La Mesa (California) Police Department was killed on October 23rd. She was 25 years old, and had joined the department in February of 2024.
She came upon a deadly rollover crash on Interstate 8 northeast of San Diego just before 10:30 p.m. last Monday, officials said.
She reported the incident over the radio before stepping out and walking toward a car that had flipped over.
Craven was struck by another car, which triggered a chain reaction, smashing into the vehicles involved in the initial crash.
David Pearce was sentenced yesterday.
Pearce met Christy Giles, 24, and Hilda Marcela Cabrales-Arzola, 26, at a rave party in Los Angeles and lured them back to his place — plying them with fentanyl-laced coke and drugged drinks and then refusing to call for help when they overdosed.
A witness claimed Pearce said “dead girls don’t talk” when he begged the killer to call 911.
Instead, Pearce dragged their limp bodies into his Toyota Prius and dumped them on the sidewalk in front of two different hospitals.
After the girls were murdered and scumbag Pearce was charged, seven other women came forward and said they’d been assaulted by him.
It came out yesterday, during the sentencing, that one of those women was Ms. Craven.
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Pearce was sentenced to a total of 146 years in prison for his crimes…
She was assaulted by someone who isn’t even worth being called “human”, but she didn’t let that stop her. She worked her butt off to get through the police academy and get sworn in as an officer, and she died a hero.
Anybody else notice that there’s an awful lot of dust in the air today?
Holly Hill. She was 30 years old, a third-grade teacher, and had three kids.
On Valentine’s Day 2023, she went out to a Mexican restaurant in Elgin, Oklahoma, and ordered a margarita.
The margarita was contaminated with a corrosive industrial cleaner that burned a hole in her esophagus. Her death is being attributed to complications from the incident.
“Avoiding Poisoned Alcohol in Foreign Countries” from Active Response Training.
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Prunella Scales, actress. NYT (share link).
Other credits include “The Boys from Brazil”, “Wolf”, and “The Hound of the Baskervilles” (1978).
For the record (I got behind over the weekend): June Lockhart. THR.
Other credits include “Babylon 5”, “The John Larroquette Show”, “C.H.U.D. II: Bud the Chud”, three episodes of “Quincy, M.E.”, “Sword of Justice”…and pretty much every other darn thing.
Except she never did a “Mannix”.
They don’t call them the Cincinnati Bungles for nothing.
I apologize for being late in getting this up. I had a series of events (the good kind of event, not the bad kind) yesterday that had me out of the house until 7:30 PM. Among those events was driving down to Gruene to meet up with a relative I had not seen in at least 25 years, and maybe closer to 40. While it was fun, it’s also about 90 minutes each way in pretty heavy traffic, so I pretty much got home and went straight to bed.
Anyway, NFL teams that have a chance to go 0-17:
None.
Seriously, Cincinnati? 39-38?
Oh, well. There are still five winless teams in the NBA, and I’ll probably do an update on Friday.
Bonus firing:
Screenshot
Speaking of the war font…story here. ESPN. 34-14 over “four seasons”, but they’ve lost three out the past four games, and got beat 49-25 by Texas A&M on Saturday.
Texas A&M is 8-0. I’m wondering if there’s a chance that we might see a national champion from Texas this year…and it won’t be the one everyone expected at the start of the season.
Edited to add: also out now, LSU offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach Joe Sloan. One story I saw said that the athletic director approached Brian Kelly and told him to fire Sloan. Kelly allegedly said “No, I want to fire these people instead,” and the response was to fire Kelly, then Sloan.
We’re still dealing with the fallout from the July Hill Country floods. I’ve heard that there’s still one family missing a child from Camp Mystic. (The most recent story I could find said there were two people missing, but that’s from mid-September.)
On Wednesday, the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) honored a bunch of game wardens for bravery. Many (but not all) were honored for actions during the flooding.
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That’s not all of them: I just picked a few off the list.
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I hope I’m not invading anyone’s privacy here, so I’ll just say Conner Sumbera is a relative of a close friend of the blog, which is why I singled him out. But you should go read the whole press release for yourself: all of these people deserve mad props, and should never have to pay for a drink when they’re out in public ever again.
I had to go to the eye doctor this morning for a treatment, so I’m a little late getting this up. Also, my eyes are kind of messed up, so please to forgive any mistakes: if you leave a comment, I’ll fix them.
NHL teams that still have a chance to go 0-82:
None.
The San Jose Sharks won their first game of the season last night, and are now 1-6. This is the same record as the Tampa Bay Lightning. Just sayin’.
One door closes, another door opens.
NBA teams that still have a chance to go 0-82:
Boston Celtics
Detroit Pistons
Miami Heat
Indiana Pacers
Cleveland Cavaliers
Washington Wizards
Brooklyn Nets
Atlanta Hawks
New Orleans Pelicans
Denver Nuggets
Houston Rockets
Portland Trail Blazers
Sacramento Kings
Los Angeles Lakers
LA Clippers
Dallas Mavericks
“What we know about the Billups-Rozier NBA gambling cases” from ESPN.
Bonus quote of the day (well, yesterday, I think):
I know I’ve been quiet the past few days. There just hasn’t been much going on. But today is shaping up to be interesting.
ESPN is reporting the arrest of Portland Trail Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups. Also arrested: Terry Rozier, guard for the Miami Heat.
According to the NYPost:
Billups, an NBA Hall of Famer, has been charged with partaking in an alleged illegal poker ring tied to the Bonanno, Genovese and Colombo crime families, sources told The Post.
A total of 31 people across the country are charged with running rigged games, which took place in Manhattan, the Hamptons and Las Vegas, sources said.
The players involved were being paid by mobsters to play in card games fixed with technology and card shuffling machines to give the house the advantage, sources familiar with the case said.
The athletes were told to take a dive when they had to and win when they were told. It didn’t appear as if they were attempting to pay off any debts, sources said.
Rozier’s arrest is tied to another case.
ESPN is suggesting this might also be tied to the Jontay Porter case.
Porter pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges and admitted in court to manipulating his performance in two games during the 2023-24 season. He is awaiting sentencing in December.
Four men, including Porter, have pleaded guilty in the case. Two other men have been named as conspirators and have been in plea negotiations, according to court filings.
And I did promise a firing, didn’t I? This is a sports firing, but it’s an odd one: Ken Williamson has been “permanently suspended” as a SEC referee.
…following eleven complaints against the seasoned official and his crew during the Auburn-Georgia game on Oct. 11, sources told Yellowhammer News on Wednesday.
“According to sources, nine of those complaints were validated by conference officials,” the outlet wrote.
The game’s biggest controversy came late in the second quarter, when Auburn quarterback Jackson Arnold lost the ball near the one-yard line during a QB sneak and was recovered by Georgia cornerback Kyron Jones.
Though multiple angles from ABC’s broadcast appear to show Jackson crossing the goal line before the ball was punched out, officials ruled it a fumble — awarding the Bulldogs possession after the recovery.