I come up with a figure of 0.055 percent.
Is it possible that Criminal Mayors Against Guns and other parties are starting to realize that we have plenty of gun regulation already, and one of the problems is that people who violate the laws frequently aren’t prosecuted?
(Remember the WP series “The Hidden Life of Guns“? Remember the WP pointing out that “straw purchasers” and other people who lie to purchase guns are rarely prosecuted? More to the point, does the WP remember?)
Steven Utley, Texas SF writer.
Tributes from Lawrence here and here. Tribute from Rick Klaw here.
Even though it has one strike against it (being written by A.G. “a vegetarian at Arthur Bryant’s” Sulzberger), and even though FARK linked it, I still wanted to tag this article:
Two Men, One Sky: A Flight to the Finish.
Or, the true story of two guys who took off from Zapata, Texas one morning last July in an attempt to set the world record for flying the longest distance…in a hang glider. One of them flew 472 miles in 11 hours (the previous longest flight was 438 miles). And the other one? I’m not going to spoil it for you.
A couple of things I want to bookmark here, even though they’ve been all over the web, for two reasons:
These are mostly bookmarks for myself, so the rest of you can ignore this post if you’d like.
So:
“Here Is What Happens When You Cast Lindsay Lohan in Your Movie“, the absolutely crazy account of what happens when Paul Schrader, Lindsay Lohan, Bret Easton Ellis, and a porn star try to make a low-budget, funded on Kickstarter, movie. Hilarity ensues.
Also: “Snow Fall: The Avalanche at Tunnel Creek“. This is supposed to be an amazing use of interactive media to tell a story, and it is the kind of story that’s right up my alley; I just have not gotten around to going through it yet.
This isn’t really an “article of the year” candidate, but I wanted to point it out and bookmark it for future reference: “The Minimum Viable Kitchen“, or how to cook great food for an investment of under $1,000 in tools. I wouldn’t take this as gospel: while my two favorite kitchen knives are both Victorinox (and I should probably add that paring knife to the battery), I’ve heard some pretty negative things about the accessories for the Kitchenaid mixers. So take this with a grain of salt and do some hands-on work before making a major purchase (or even a minor one: Blood Bath and Beyond should let you fondle that Oxo whisk for a while before you buy it).
Another update: I have previously written about Carolyn Barnes, who was accused of shooting at a census worker, ruled incompetent to stand trial, sent to the state hospital, and continued to practice law while maintaining that she was sane.
Well, she found a judge who agrees with her. Yesterday, she was ruled competent to stand trial. The judge ordered her release from the state hospital to the county jail, and set an early April trial date. He also set a bail of $30,000 and:
The “no remaining assets” part is also worth a little focus here. You see, the Texas Health and Human Services Commission, the people who run the state hospitals, tries to
According to the Statesman, Ms. Barnes was being charged $509 a day, and has been invoiced for “more than $100,000”.
If I were to fly out to New York City next Tuesday and stay for a week, I could get what seems like a pretty nice hotel room for around $350 a night – possibly less than $300. Subtracting that from the $509 a day Ms. Barnes was being billed leaves me with $150 to $200 a day for food, which even by NYC standards sounds fair: get a couple of bagels with lox spread for breakfast, maybe grab a dog from a street vendor for lunch, and you’ve still got enough money to eat someplace decent to fairly nice for dinner. Of course, I’m not including the cost of medication in my calculations, but there’s also no mention in the articles I’ve seen that Ms. Barnes was getting medication, or that medication was included in her bill.
However, the paper is also reporting that at least two of the commissioners are “backing away” from supporting the measure:
Before we give props to Eckhart and Daugherty, they are also quoted as supporting “background checks for anyone buying a gun at a gun show”. Oddly enough, so is Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson. I suspect that Daugherty and Patterson are just misinformed, not malicious; I’m not sure about Eckhardt.
In any case, now is not the time to back off. Keep those cards, letters, and faxes coming in, people. Contact information for all of the commissioners is right here.
The whole Yassine Enterprises case is starting to feel like kind of a bust. Yes, they lost their liquor licenses and yes there have been convictions. But those convictions seem mostly mild: money laundering, a single drug charge, and a charge of “transferring a firearm used in a violent crime”. Where are the murders? Where are the “sending money to terrorists” charges? This just isn’t shaping up to be entertaining at all.
Another member of the group has pled out. He was accused of “..conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute over 500 grams of cocaine; possession with intent to distribute over 500 grams of cocaine; and conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute over five kilos of cocaine, which carries a maximum sentence of life in prison.”
He pled guilty to…one charge of “misprison of a felony”. All of the other charges against him have been dropped.
What is “misprison of a felony”? The Statesman describes it as “he was aware a crime had been committed and that he failed to report it to authorities”. That kind of fits in with the actual wording of the US Code:
From what I’m seeing elsewhere, it isn’t just “he didn’t report the felony”, but misprison also requires an active attempt to conceal the felony.
The gentleman in question also fled the jurisdiction after failing a drug test, but was arrested in Honduras and returned to the United States. I don’t see any indication that he’s been charged with, or pled guilty, to any crime relating to that.
I thought it was worth noting: how often do you hear about “misprison of a felony”?
Not often enough, as I completely missed this unrelated story (until Google turned it up): Karen Parker lived in Jefferson Parish in Louisiana. Ms. Parker had a boyfriend (eventually fiancee, eventually husband, now divorced), Aaron Broussard, who was the Jefferson Parish president. Mr. Broussard wanted to get his girlfriend a good job. But, “once he took over the position of Parish President he could not hire Parker and there would be increased scrutiny as a result of the romantic relationship between Broussard and Parker”.
What to do, what to do? Well, if you’re the Jefferson Parrish president, you call your people together and you say “I want someone to hire my woman”. If you’re the Parrish attorney, Thomas G. Wilkinson, you’re also apparently an idiot. Because Wilkinson hired Parker as a “paralegal supervisor” in his office:
Ms. Parker pled guilty to misprison. Apparently, Mr. Wilkinson did as well, and Mr. Broussard pled to “one count of conspiracy to commit bribery and one count of theft”. I can’t find any evidence that they’ve been sentenced yet, as it looks like their cases are also part of the whole Letten/NOLA.com mess.
A little more than a year ago, I noted the saga of the Turner-Roberts Recreation Center in east Austin: built in 2008, developed structural problems in 2009, closed in 2011 while the city considered how to fix those problems.
Estimates at the time were $2.7 million and seven months to repair, or 10 months and $4.1 million for a tear-down and rebuild.
Today’s Statesman updates the story:
The city is going to pay $3 million of that cost. The rest will be picked up by the three companies that designed and built the center.
All told, the city will have spent $8.6 million on the building.
The city has also spent another $3.1 million to open a “9,100-square-foot ‘multi-purpose facility; next door that contains a gathering space, restrooms and a kitchen — similar to a rec center.”
I noted above that the three firms involved in design and construction are paying $3.4 million of the cost. That’s based on a settlement between those firms and the city, which didn’t require that the firms admit fault:
And where’s the city’s share of the money coming from?
Those bonds were also used to pay for the new multi-purpose facility.
Something stinks here, and I don’t think it is the trash I need to take out. (Just to be safe, though, I’m going to do that anyway.)
Edited to add: Well, that’s settled. It wasn’t the trash.
Not much going on, but I rarely get a chance to use the “Snakes” and “Reptiles” tags. So:
Obit watch: Evan S. Connell, Jr., noted novelist and historian. (Son of the Morning Star: Custer and The Little Bighorn
The Chicago Sun-Times is celebrating the 35th anniversary of the Mirage Tavern stories by rerunning the entire series, one story a day, as they originally appeared in the paper (they also promise extras from their archives and those of the Better Government Association).
For the young and those who don’t remember, the paper and the BGA teamed up, bought a bar (which they named the “Mirage Tavern”), outfitted it with hidden cameras and recording devices, and then proceeded to record a parade of city employees and officials coming in and demanding payoffs. (Wikipedia summary here.)
I particularly like this quote from the Wikipedia entry:
This is backed up by the paper’s reporting: for example, it took $10 to pass a fire inspection, even though there was exposed electrical wiring and other issues in the building’s basement.
The HouChron at the time ran Mike Rokyo’s work a couple of days out of the week, so I kind of knew Chicago was corrupt, but hearing second-hand about the Mirage Tavern investigation was the first time that I realized just how crooked the city was.
(Interestingly, the series was nominated and recommended for a Pulitzer Prize for “Local Investigative Specialized Reporting”. However, the Pulitzer board rejected the jury’s recommendation of the Sun-Times series, apparently because Ben Bradlee and other folks were butthurt over the Sun-Times methods.)
(Hattip: His Jim-ness.)
The Supreme Court heard arguments yesterday in the case of Missouri v. NcNeely.
Tyler McNeely was stopped on suspicion of drunk driving, and had blood drawn from him against his will and without a warrant. The Missouri Supreme Court suppressed the blood evidence. The state is appealing to the Supreme Court, arguing that they shouldn’t need a warrant.
Stop laughing. I’m not kidding. The state of Missouri believes that sticking a needle in someone’s arm and drawing blood is something that doesn’t need a warrant;”exigent circumstances” and all that happy horseshit.
Obit watch: Sol Yurick, novelist. His best known work was based on Xenophon’s “Anabasis”, and was turned into a Walter Hill directed movie.
James M. Buchanan, Nobel-prize winning economist.
I feel like I should make some comment about the Oscar nominations. Well, here it is: I’m glad “Argo” got nominated, as I think that improves the chances it will come back to the Alamo Drafthouse so I can watch it. Lawrence and I plan to see “Django Unchained”, but haven’t been able to coordinate that yet. I’m also interested in seeing “Zero Dark Thirty”. And “Silver Linings Playbook” got a best picture nomination? I’ll admit I haven’t seen anything but the trailer and commercials for it, but those were enough to turn me off: it seems like yet another “magical pixie girl/gee, isn’t mental illness fun?” movie. No thanks. I’ll pass. For now.
I’m also disappointed that “The Master” didn’t pick up a best picture nod, but it does seem to be well represented in the acting categories. Maybe that will make a comeback as well?
In Austin nightclub news, the liquor licenses for all nine of the bars operated by Yassine Enterprises have been yanked. Apparently, licenses are tied to the building, and there’s a one license per building limit; this meant that nobody else could get a license until the Yassine licenses were revoked. Now that that is out of the way, various enterprises are planning to open new bars in the old Yassine locations. I have to be honest: most of these sound like horrible places. Especially Chicago House, which will be run by the people who run Bikini’s Sports Bar and Grill (a place you go to when Hooter’s is too classy for you), and Bourbon Girl, “a ‘country cool, cowboy chic’ bar that will be operated by Carmack Concepts, owner of Chuggin’ Monkey, Dizzy Rooster, the Dogwood and Molotov”.
(Previous entries about Yassine Enterprises and their legal problems here.)
Time for the backdated TMQ watch. What bloodshed and infamy did we miss last week? Let’s open the briefcase and find out.
The first question I had when I heard this was: are they going to even have a ceremony, if nobody was elected? Answer:
The Toronto Maple Leafs have fired their general manager, Brian Burke. The Maple Leafs, as I understand it, play an obscure sport known as “hockey” which is popular in Canada.
The recipe came from Brody and Apter’s Bread Machine Baking
Slight modifications:
End result? Well, the photo of the loaf I took before cutting it turned out crappy. I’m mostly happy with the way the top crust turned out, but there’s a weird indentation on the bottom at one side of the loaf; almost as if it didn’t rise and expand around the bread paddle. I’m not sure what happened there.
As for the inside:
It has a slightly coarse, but not unpleasant, mouth feel (probably due to the cornmeal). In terms of taste, this is a really assertive bread. It isn’t overwhelmingly hot, but there’s a slight and lingering spice burn to it. I wouldn’t recommend this as a morning breakfast bread, but it tastes pretty good for lunch with some leftover fresh cheddar on top, or just with some butter and perhaps a little honey. I think it’d go well with chili or perhaps something Cajun.
I think I’m going to give this a B, mostly because of the bottom crust problem. I’d make it again, especially as an accompaniment to something that would stand up to the flavor. Next time, I’d take the two teaspoons of salt the recipe calls for and substitute a small amount of ghost pepper salt for part of that. (Trust me: a little ghost pepper salt goes a long way.)
Next up, I was considering making a sourdough goat cheese bread, but the recipe calls for “powdered goat’s milk”. I can actually get that at Sprouts, but they want $13 for a large can that I won’t use all of in eight weeks. I’ll have to see if I can find a smaller size.
Comments and criticisms welcome below.