Daring Fireball is quoting sources as reporting the death of Adam Yauch, aka “MCA” of the Beastie Boys, aka “Sir Stewart Wallace”, aka “Nathan Wind”.
To be honest, I’ve never been a huge fan of the Beastie Boys, with the exception of two songs. One is “Rock Hard”. And the other? Like you couldn’t guess.
No, really, I haven’t been obsessively checking the university’s website waiting for that last grade.
Once every hour half-hour quarter-hour five minutes isn’t obsessive, is it?
The email from the professor came in at 10:29 AM yesterday, about the same time I was checking the website for the 1×101010 time.
As a reminder, the grade I was waiting on was the one for the big final paper; the “Capstone” project as they refer to it, which is supposed to be a summation of what you’ve learned up to the end of your academic career. At least in terms of ethical analysis, critical thinking, research skills, ability to write prose that makes sense, and maybe something to do with your actual major.
And?
Back in January, I noted the indictment of DC Council member Harry Thomas on embezzlement charges. Thomas pled guilty, as expected, and was sentenced today to 38 months in prison. Guidelines called for 41 to 51 months; his attorney was asking for 18 months plus six more in “home confinement”.
I was going to put this in the earlier post, but I forgot, and it fits better here anyway:
11 of those charged were charged with felonies. If the charges are proven, I have no sympathy for those charged, and I hope they draw long, hard time.
I’m not sure what happened here: did I miss the story until Balko drew it to my attention, or has it been buried by the mass media? A Google search for references to “James M. Woosley” specifically on nytimes.com and latimes.com turned up nothing: the same search on washingtonpost.com turned up some references to Woosley’s suspension from his post and the convictions of other people in this scheme, but nothing about Woosley’s conviction.
No?
Of course it quacks, it’s a duck!
Okay. Last offer. Want to buy the Righthaven trademark? Act fast! Supplies are limited!
Obit watch: Junior Seau, former linebacker for the San Diego Chargers, Miami Dolphins, and New England Patriots.
And the Kennedy assassination conspiracy has claimed another victim: Earl Rose, the Dallas County medical examiner who wanted to autopsy Kennedy but was overruled. Dr. Rose also did the autopsies on J.D. Tippit (the police officer Oswald shot), on Oswald himself, and on Jack Ruby.
I am aware of the rumors that I was the winning bidder on Munch’s “The Scream”. At this time, I have no comment.
Yes, we know we are a little late with this week’s TMQ Watch. ESPN has made it incredibly difficult to find TMQ, and we’ve been somewhat overwhelmed with plans for an upcoming party and work-related issues. Let’s jump right into it, shall we?
But not before noting that by publishing on Tuesday, TMQ missed two of the biggest NFL stories so far this year. Of course, he knew what he was getting into when he bought the tickets. We say let him crash.
The NFL has announced disciplinary actions against four players for the New Orleans Saints for their roles in the bounty scandal.
It looks like the the Vilma and Hargrove penalties were harshest because of their level of involvement. Vilma was the defensive captain at the time and allegedly assisted Gregg Williams with the bounty program, as well as offering “$10,000 to any Saints teammate who knocked Minnesota quarterback Brett Favre out of the 2009 NFC championship game.”
Hargrove apparently obstructed the investigation and lied to investigators; his punishment may have been mitigated somewhat because he flipped later on, submitting “a signed declaration that established not only the existence of the program at the Saints, but also that he knew about and participated in it.”
According to Pro Football Talk, all four players plan to appeal. This could turn into an interesting legal battle.
I’m trying to think of harsher player suspensions in the NFL, and I’m not coming up with much; Vick got an “indefinite” suspension that basically worked out to two years (most of which he spent in prison). Albert Haynesworth got five games for stomping on a guy. Plaxico Burress got four games for shooting himself. Roethlisberger got a six-game hit which was reduced to four games. And apparently a few players (Dexter Manley being the most famous) have gotten lifetime bans for multiple failed drug tests.
The notoriously corrupt California city of Vernon is in the news again.
Specifically, the city is accused of classifying some of the attorneys on staff as “public safety” employees. This is typically a classification reserved for cops and firefighters, not lawyers – not even prosecutors. The city argued that the staff attorneys were “primarily engaged in the active enforcement of criminal laws.”
The city also has issues with their former administrator, Bruce Malkenhorst. Mr. Malkenhorst collects the largest pension of anyone in the California public pension system – according to the LAT, more than $500,000 a year.
When he was employed, Mr. Malkenhorst brought in $911,000 in 2006. It is not clear from the article exactly what he was doing at the time. The article does mention that at one point he claimed to hold 10 separate positions in Vernon’s city government, but it it not clear if he held these positions in 2006.
By the way, Mr. Malkenhorst pled guilty to a charge of “misappropriation of public funds” last year. His replacement, Eric T. Fresch, is one of the attorneys who were classified as “public safety” employees; he pulled in $1.65 million in 2008. Fresch is currently employed as a “special consultant” to the city at a rate of $525 an hour.
The former mayor of Vernon, Leonis Malburg, was convicted of perjury in 2009.
I wouldn’t ordinarily make note of the five guys arrested for conspiring to blow up a bridge in Ohio. Terrorist plots are a dime a dozen these days, and it seems that many of them turn out to be a bunch of losers who couldn’t organize a piss-up in a brewery without help from undercover FBI agents.
But I’ve noted before that I have family in the Cleveland area. Some of them live in Sagamore Hills, and I’ve driven over the Ohio 82 bridge many times while visiting them.
Here’s what that bridge looks like in Google Maps satellite view:
And here’s your Google Image Search results for the Ohio 82 bridge. It is a nice looking bridge, I have to admit.
Dereu and Sons Manufacturing Company (aka Spy-Coins.com), who we have previously endorsed in this space, are having a sale.
The hollow spy nickel is on sale for $19.50 (plus shipping). Add it to your cart and use the discount keyword “springfever”.
The hollow spy Kennedy half-dollar (the 1971 to present version, not the 90% and 40% silver ones) is on sale for $16.25 (plus shipping). Use the discount keyword “fervent” at checkout.
I have no connection to the company except being a very satisfied customer who thinks their products are nifty. The sale ends May 3rd.
…
The “Three Cups of Tea” lawsuit (previously noted in this space) has been tossed.
Jesus, Joseph, and Mary. Those poor people.
I previously noted the city of Galveston placing the entire traffic division on paid administrative leave.
By way of the HouChron, the other shoe has dropped: the former head of the division has been indicted on charges of forging time sheets and misappropriation of funds by a public official. Another employee in the division has also been indicted on the same charges.
The HouChron story is a little short on detail: the Galveston Daily News is better. The former division head “was paid more than $390,000 during the last four years in overtime in addition to his $48,279 salary”, while the other employee took in “$37,280 in overtime from 2009 to 2011 above his $40,059 salary”. The specific charges:
When does a murder take place?
In many cases, that’s an easy question to answer; the victim is DRT1 or ADASTW2.
But in some cases, you run into a situation where the victim is wounded, and dies of their injuries at a later date. The law on this varies from state to state; common law held that a death resulting from injuries inflicted during a specific act was murder if it occurred within a year and a day of the act. So if I beat someone badly, and they died 364 days later, that could be prosecuted as murder; if they died 367 days later, it could only be prosecuted as assault. According to Wikipedia, many jurisdictions in the United States have abolished the year and a day rule. California has apparently changed it to a three day and year rule.
But there’s an additional level of complexity to this, which comes up as the result of an article in today’s Statesman about the sad and awful case of Robert Middleton.
Robert Middleton was eight years old on June 28, 1998. He was going to see a friend of his when an older boy, Donald Wilburn Collins (who was 13 at the time) grabbed him, tied him to a tree, poured gasoline on him, and set him on fire. Middleton was burned over 95 percent of his body.
Middleton was treated by the Shriners at their burn institute in Galveston and went through more than 200 surgeries, including skin grafts.
Robert Middleton died a year ago today (April 29th, 2011) at the age of 20. The cause of death was squamous cell carcinoma, which is believed to have been a result of the skin grafts he received, and his death certificate shows the cause of death as “homicide” resulting from his injuries.
The Middleton family sued Donald Collins in civil court, and won a judgment against him of $150 billion dollars. Collins did not attempt to defend himself in the civil case; he is currently in prison on charges unrelated to the Middleton case. (Collins was convicted of sexual assault of an 8-year old boy when he was 16, and did time in the Texas Youth Commission for that offense. Collins has also been convicted of theft and resisting arrest, and of failure to register as a sex offender. His current sentence is for failure to comply with the requirements of the sex offender registry. Middleton also accused Collins of raping him two weeks before the gasoline attack.)
For various reasons, the Middleton case was not prosecuted at the time:
I was reading the print edition of the HouChron daily while this was going on, and followed the case closely. One thing that is left out of discussions of the case (except for the brief allusion above), but which I clearly remember; the police actually arrested another boy before they arrested Collins. The other boy was let go within 24 hours, after a bunch of folks who knew him came forward and said “He’s a good kid; he couldn’t have done this.” (And it turned out that the other boy was also fishing in a creek several miles away at the time of the attack, with a bunch of other kids and his adult Scoutmaster.) That other boy’s name was never released, as I recall; however, Collins name was released not too long after the arrest, even though he was a juvenile.
Anyway, the gist of the legal battle is this: County Attorney Walker wants to prosecute Collins on murder charges. And specifically, he wants to date the murder as having taken place April 29, 2011, the date Middleton died. Why? That way, he can prosecute Collins as an adult for the murder. If Walker goes back to the actual date of the attack (June 28, 1998) Collins was 13 at the time; Walker’s other option is to get a court to agree that Collins should be tried as an adult now for a crime committed as a juvenile in 1998, which seems to me to be a long shot. (Though this is not unheard of; Michael Skakel is perhaps the most famous example of this, but the lawyers still seem to be wrangling over whether he should have been tried as an adult.)
The question is now in the hands of the Attorney General, Greg Abbot, and things are pretty much on hold until he issues a ruling.
Meanwhile, Collins is set to be released from prison in September of this year, barring any new developments.
1 Dead Right There.
2 Arrived Dead And Stayed That Way.