Shortly after my previous post, word came out: the Chicago Bulls have fired general manager Marc Eversley and “executive vice president of basketball operations” Arturas Karnisovas. Tribune. Sun Times. ESPN.
…
More firings!
April 6th, 2026Firings watch.
April 6th, 2026Patrick Roy out as coach of the New York Islanders.
Amaka Agugua-Hamilton out as head coach of the University of Virginia women’s basketball team.
This is mildly interesting: UVA got as far as the women’s sweet 16 this year.
Agugua-Hamilton led the Cavaliers to the Sweet 16 for the first time since 2000. She went 70-58, including a 29-42 mark in ACC play.
Virginia became the first double-digit seed to reach the regional semifinals since 2022 and pulled off the upset of the tournament, knocking off No. 2 seed Iowa on the road in double overtime in the second round.
It became the first First Four team to advance this far, before falling to TCU.
But: the backstory seems to be that she “created an environment where her support staff had feared for their jobs due to abusive behavior towards them and threats to fire them”.
Happy April Fool’s Day!
April 1st, 2026…
Page 39 introduces the concept of a “firearm-adjacent device,” which the document declines to define, but notes that such devices “may be subject to future rulemaking.”
The document also helpfully clarifies that forced reset triggers are not machine guns, except when they are.
My brother sent this over. It is an oldie, but a good one.
By way of Revolver Guy, the NAA Plug:
I can’t tell if this is an April Fool’s joke or not: Smith and Wesson is giving away third-generation autopistols. (Explained.)
Not gun related, but I do find today’s XKCD kind of clever, if theologically unsound. (Who would be there to ask for dark mode support? Humanity wasn’t created until the sixth day.)
Your loser update: April 1, 2026.
April 1st, 2026MLB teams that have a chance to go 0-162:
None.
There are currently five 1-4 teams (and one 1-3 team) as I write this:
Boston
Minnesota
White Sox
City Unknown Athletics
Colorado
San Diego
Is there any team likely to set a new record this year? Reply hazy, ask again later. I feel like it is too early in the season. But right now, I’m watching Colorado and the White Sox.
Obit watch: March 30, 2026.
March 30th, 2026Dr. Henry C. Lee, forensic scientist. He may have been most famous for testifying at the OJ trial.
Dr. Lee testified for the defense, saying that there was “something wrong” with the way the Los Angeles Police Department had handled the blood that was collected as evidence.
His testimony supported the defense team’s suggestion that the evidence could have been tampered with and that officers might have planted Mr. Simpson’s blood at the crime scene.
…
…
In 2007, the judge in the murder trial of Mr. Spector ruled that Dr. Lee, a consultant for the defense, had removed something from the crime scene and hidden it from the prosecution.
Prosecutors contended that it was a piece of fingernail that would have shown that the actress Lana Clarkson had resisted having a gun placed in her mouth before being shot at Mr. Spector’s California home. The defense claimed that she had shot herself.
The judge did not hold Dr. Lee in contempt, and Dr. Lee denied taking anything from the crime scene. After the first trial ended in a hung jury, Mr. Spector was convicted of second-degree murder in 2009.
In 2023, Connecticut’s attorney general agreed to a $25 million settlement with two men who had spent three decades in jail after being convicted of murder. Those convictions, which were overturned in 2020, had been based in part on testimony by Dr. Lee regarding the supposed presence of blood on a towel. A federal judge ruled that Dr. Lee had fabricated the evidence, saying that there was no corroboration that he had conducted any blood tests on the towel.
Dr. Lee defended himself in a statement, saying, “I have no motive nor reason to fabricate evidence.”
Mary Beth Hurt. Other credits include “Law & Order”, “Law & Order:SVU”, and “Lady in the Water”.
James Tolkan. Other credits include “They Might Be Giants”, “Bone Tomahawk”, “Serpico”, “Prince of the City”, and “The Hat Squad”.
Letizia Mowinckel, historical footnote. She bought clothes for Jacqueline Kennedy.
Among the clothes she bought: the pink Chanel suit.
Can you cache a small Czech?
March 28th, 2026Thanks to a tip from FotB pigpen51, we have learned that J&G Sales also has CZ 82 pistols for $199.95. Or about four cents cheaper than PSA before they raised the price in my cart. For an extra $30 (or about $10 more than PSA’s increased price) J&G will “hand select” one with a nicer finish for you.
And it looks like they allow you to provide your own C&R license at checkout, too.
It’s too late for me, though they also have spare magazines (and I plan to order a couple) but if you’re interested in a CZ-82, I’d recommend shopping J&G.
Your loser update: March 27, 2026.
March 27th, 2026MLB teams that have a chance to go 0-162:
Toronto
Tampa Bay
Kansas City
Minnesota
White Sox
City Unknown Athletics
Houston
Texas
Seattle
Miami
Atlanta
Pittsburgh
Cincinnati
Cubs
Colorado
Arizona
San Francisco
San Diego
In other news, the Houston Astros lost to the Los Angeles Angels 3-0 at Daikin Park yesterday. As we all know, that means the Astros won’t be able to sell beer there for the rest of the season…
…because they lost the home opener.
(Thank you. I’ll be here all season. Try the veal and remember to tip your waitress.)
Do as I say, not as I do. (PSA update)
March 26th, 2026I can be very stubborn sometimes. Especially when someone is trying to frustrate me.
So even though I said, “Don’t do business with Palmetto State Armory” (and I stand by that, for reasons that I’ll get into below) I continued pursuing the CZ82.
I resubmitted my C&R FFL…and finally got an answer back, asking me what SKU I wanted to purchase. I provided all the information and PSA got back to me saying it was approved for C&R purchase. In order to do that, though, I had to:
- place the order
- select a FFL from their list when I placed the order
- once I placed the order, I had to email PSA back with my order number, and then they would replace the FFL I had selected with my C&R FFL
This seems to me like a convoluted and stupid way of doing things. When I ordered a C&R gun from Collector’s Firearms in Houston, I specified in the order notes that I had a C&R FFL: Collector’s contacted me in a day or two, gave me the email address I could send the FFL to, and shipped the gun with no problems. Even ordering non-C&R guns from GunBroker is smoother than this.
But, anyway, I did the dance. And, by the way, PSA raised the price of the gun in my cart by $20 since I had started the process. PSA sent me an order confirmation with the number, I provided the order number to the appropriate people at PSA, they subbed in my C&R FFL, and sent me an order confirmation with a tracking number.
Shortly after I got the tracking number, I got another email from PSA’s “Compliance Department”:
In an ongoing effort to protect our customers and our business, we systematically evaluate every order that is placed. Your order has been flagged our internal assessment system. This is a comprehensive process that covers multiple data points so we are contacting you to confirm you placed order (#########) on (##/##/####).
I replied to the email. Never got any acknowledgment. Called PSA customer service again the next day (and, I’m pretty sure, talked to the same person I talked to last time). She said the order had been approved and shipped and I didn’t need to worry about the compliance department…
…and the final punchline to this is that the gun did arrive yesterday. It looks pretty nice: I think “very good”. PSA threw in what looks like a cheap generic nylon holster, but I only got one magazine. I need to get a couple more CZ82 mags. And some 9×18 ammo: none of my local gun stores seem to have any.
Would I go through this again? No. I’m sorry, but PSA seems disorganized, and I resent they jacked up the price of the gun in my cart $20. After all this frustration, I can’t see dealing with them again, no matter how attractive the offer is.
Firings watch.
March 25th, 2026Hubert Davis out as men’s basketball coach at the University of North Carolina.
He was 125-54 in five seasons, and went to the NCAA Tournament four times. But the consistent theme seems to be: he couldn’t produce results. (Does that sound familiar to anybody? Lawrence?)
UNC lost to VCU in the first round this year, and blew a 19 point lead while doing so.
ESPN.
Obit watch: March 25, 2026.
March 25th, 2026I read The Soul of A New Machine, but in a Reader’s Digest condensed version, back in the day. I should really pick up a copy and read the real book.
(For those who may not know, Soul did win a Pulitzer.)
Obit watch: March 24, 2026.
March 24th, 2026For the record: NYT obits for Valerie Perrine and Brian Doherty.
Burning in Hell watch: Kermit Gosnell. I have my own opinions about abortion, which I’m not going to impose on anyone here. But the Gosnell case, as I recall, made even people who were pro-abortion sit up and say, “Hey, wait a minute, this is going too far.”
Obit watch: March 23, 2026.
March 23rd, 2026Valerie Perrine, actress. Other credits include “Homicide: Life on the Street”, “Walker, Texas Ranger”, and “W.C. Fields and Me”.
For the historical record: Robert S. Mueller III. WP.
Obit watch: March 20, 2026.
March 20th, 2026Chuck Norris. THR. “The World Bows: Remembering Chuck Norris 1940-2026” from Black Belt.
Other credits include the bad “Hawaii Five-0”, “Sons of Thunder”, and “Firewalker“.
Ed Bernard, actor. Other credits include “Hardcastle and McCormick”, “Shaft” (the movie), “Cool Million”…
…and “Mannix”. (“A Question of Murder”, season 7, episode 22. He was “Bull Evans”.)
Jane Lapotaire, British actress.
For the historical record: NYT obit for Alvin Greene. (Previously on WCD.)
Peeves petted. Axes ground.
March 18th, 2026This is not a shot at Dr. Christopher A. Sims. I never met the man. For all I know, he helped old ladies across the street, nursed sick puppies, and fed feral cats.
But:
Christopher A. Sims, 83, Dies; Won Nobel on Ways to Steer the Economy
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As the NYT acknowledges in paragraph four of the obit, the prize is the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel. This prize was created in 1968, 72 years after Alfred Nobel’s death. It is not a Nobel prize, and it is wrong and misleading to state that it is one. The only real Nobel prizes are in physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature, and peace.
Yes, I know this is a small thing. But it is one of my pet peeves.
Vatican Justice!
March 17th, 2026Cardinal Giovanni Angelo Becciu, former chief of staff to Pope Francis, was convicted by the Vatican’s criminal court in 2023 of various financial crimes.
Today, his conviction was overturned on appeal.
The NYT article is mostly bullet points:
Most charges related to a London real estate deal that cost the Vatican millions of euros.
In a 16-page ruling, the appeals court said that Vatican prosecutors committed procedural errors that warranted a new trial.
The court ruled that the prosecutors had unfairly withheld evidence.
One of Pope Francis’s secret law changes let prosecutors act without judicial oversight. The appeals court said the defendants should have known of the change.
The NYPost also has a story that is less bullet-pointy and more sensational.
…
The case had as its main focus the Vatican’s investment of $413 million in a London property. Prosecutors alleged brokers and Vatican monsignors fleeced the Holy See of tens of millions of dollars in fees and commissions to acquire the property, and then extorted the Holy See for $16.5 million to cede control of it.
The original investigation spawned two main tangents involving Becciu, once a leading Vatican cardinal and future papal contender. He was convicted of embezzlement and sentenced to 5½ years in prison. The tribunal convicted eight other defendants of embezzlement, abuse of office, fraud and other charges and imposed tens of millions of dollars in restitution to the Holy See.
This whole thing seems kind of crazy. And I’m looking forward to the true crime book.
By the way: Catholic Answers explains papal infallibility for you.