…to the United States Marine Corps.
I would tell my favorite Marine joke, but Tam beat me to it.
And I guess I should acknowledge the 35th anniversary of the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, as well. Sadly, I’m not in the distribution area covered by the Great Lakes Brewing Company, but if you are, I highly recommend the Edmund Fitzgerald Porter. (Actually, I recommend all of Great Lakes’ beers. And they’re nice people, too.)
The LAT quotes an internal Department of Justice report: Project Gunrunner, the BATFE’s “ambitious” (LAT description) effort to stop gunrunning to Mexico, isn’t working.
The report states that part of the problem is the program’s focus on “small gun dealers” instead of “large-scale smuggling rings”. Also, the report states that BATFE doesn’t share information with other agencies, including ICE and the DEA.
The BATFE’s response? “We need more funding.”
..that “Linotype: The Film” isn’t scheduled for release until next year.
When it does come out on DVD, I want to do a double bill with it and “Helvetica
The University of Colorado (the one at Boulder) has fired football coach Dan Hawkins.
Hawkins was hired in 2006. His record? 2-10 in 2006, 6-7 in 2007, 5-7 in 2008, 3-9 in 2009, and 3-6 before he was fired this year.
Ever think about just packing it in, guys?
(Hattip: FARK.)
The Ohr-O’Keefe Museum of Art opened in Biloxi, Mississippi on Monday.
Here’s a nice photo of the museum. Can you guess who designed it?
Looking over Wikipedia’s list of completed Gehry buildings, I don’t see a lot of post-1997 that were designed with that intent. The only two I really see as being possible tourist attractions are the Experience Music Project and the Walt Disney Concert Hall; everything else seems to be corporate, college campus, or medical. That just seems like a pointless shot by the NYT.
The University of Texas has acquired Spalding Gray’s archives. I know that Mike the Musicologist is going “squee” with delight at this news.
I also know some folks who tried to go to the “Gypsy Picnic Food Trailer Festival” on Saturday. Their experience was very much like John Kelso’s.
That’s an actual headline in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram (or, as we like to call it around here, the Startle Gram).
Other coverage: Dallas Morning News. ESPN. NFL.com.
I’d love to see Tony Dungy take the job, and interviewing him would be Rooney Rule complaint, but I suspect he’s too happy in his current gig.
How about Brad Childress?
And what will Wade do? Well, I suspect there’s an opportunity opening up in Buffalo soon, and hiring a former Cowboys coach isn’t unprecedented…
Sorry this is late. I wanted to hold off until this morning so I could work in the NBA loser update as well. Tragically, everyone at this point has won at least one game (yes, even the Rockets and Clippers).
So, NFL teams that still have a chance to go 0-16:
Buffalo
In other news, do you hear that noise? The noise of drums? The constant drumbeat, pounding, pounding? “Fire Wade!” “Fire Brad!” “Fire Wade!” “Fire Brad!” The natives are restless.
Edited to add: Breaking! The natives have apparently gotten a sacrifice! More on this as it develops!
When you’re out and about tonight, remember to drink a toast to Guy Fawkes, the only man ever to enter the Houses of Parliament with honorable intentions.
Also remember: if your gunpowder gets damp, don’t stick it in front of a fire to dry out.
Side note: Since I’ve been hammering on the Bell thing, I did want to link to this LAT article: basically, California Attorney General (soon to be Governor) Jerry Brown may have exceeded his authority by suing for the repayment of salaries and surrender of future pension money. Note that this just applies to the civil lawsuit: the criminal cases against Robert “Ratso” Rizzo and the others are proceeding.
“Undercovers“.
Sparky Anderson. I was going back and forth about blogging this; on one hand, my feelings about baseball are well known. On the other hand, well, he was prominent, and someone did email me the obit…
In the end, though, it came down to this: I found video of Sparky’s guest appearance on “WKRP In Cincinnati”. (Hattip: FARK. You’ll have to scroll down close to the bottom of the page to see the video.)
Remember the Vietnam War? It was in all the papers. Anyway, the LAT has an interesting article about the POW bracelets that were popular at the time. Oddly enough, this came up in a recent family discussion…
So let’s see. People living in illegal lofts in NYC get a law passed in an attempt to make their lofts legal, and, in the process, bring those lofts under the same laws regulating other residential housing in NYC (including “rent stabliziation”). Loft owners respond as you might expect. Tenants are outraged. Film at 11.
Speaking of outrage, I usually don’t join in with Internet lynch mobs, but this…this train wreck is just too good to pass up. I’m reminded of something Harlan Ellison once said. Loosely paraphrased: arrogance you can work around. Stupidity you can deal with. But arrogant stupidity? There’s no cure for that.
Edited to add: Oh, yes. I knew there was something else I wanted to mention: this Slate review of The Anthology of Rap
Susan Wright got her sentence reduced from 25 years to 20. Ms. Wright was convicted of tying her husband to a bed and stabbing him. Stabbing him 193 times, that is.
This was actually a somewhat sensational trial; during the trial,
Mostly I wanted to blog this because of Lawrence’s comment: “That’s five days off for every stab wound”.
In other news, who knew that being a fake ICE agent was so financially rewarding? I certainly didn’t.
Sounds like a mall somewhere is missing an idiot a ninja.
Somebody asked me last week, “Why do you do this?”
“This” meaning the TMQ Watch, not the Safety Dance:
It isn’t an unfair question. As I explained in the very first TMQ Watch,
Sometimes, Easterbrook does good work; he spent much of last season discussing the NFL’s response to head trauma among pro athletes, and I felt he was right on target. Sometimes, he uses his column to argue for things like increased Federal vehicle mileage requirements, and I think someone needs to respond to those arguments. Sometimes, he uses his column to go off on various SF TV shows for their lack of plausibility. And sometimes, Easterbrook just goes completely off the damn rails.
I realize that may not be the best possible explanation, but look at it this way: I haven’t found anyone else who’s doing responses to TMQ, and the comments section on ESPN.com almost certainly inspired an XKCD comic. Somebody has to do it; why not me? My regular readers who don’t care about sports, or Easterbrook’s sometimes eccentric beliefs, can skip over these entries. For my irregular readers, I recommend Ex-Lax; Dr. Pepper and, believe it or not, Cherry Coke Zero are also helpful.
Shall we begin?
The more I read about the city of Bell, the more I wonder. It seems clear that they weren’t just corrupt, but blatantly so. How did this go on for as long as it did?
Edited to add: I missed this. The Bell city council met last night. This is significant, since the council failed to make a quorum at their last meeting:
one council member resigned, another failed to make bail and two called in sick
And what was the primary piece of business at last night’s meeting?
You’re going down in flames, you tax-fattened hyenas!
You know, I really, really need to rent (or buy) This Film Is Not Yet Rated
There’s a breaking news story on the northwest side of Austin: apparently, two people were killed in a domestic disturbance, and responding police officers killed a third person. (Edited to add: The Statesman is now reporting only one person and the alleged gunman are dead.)
I’m commenting on this because I had to drive Loop 1 south to get to work this morning: I have never seen this many cop cars in one place, not even in the parking lot of a police station. I swear I saw a dozen police cars parked, nose to nose, on the Parmer Lane exit ramp, and those weren’t the only cars around. There were cars and crime scene tape all the way down to the Baskin Robbins in the shopping center at the Mopac feeder/Parmer Lane corner. Google maps and my eyeball estimate the distance from the off-ramp to there as about 1/2 mile.
(Edited to add 2: From what the Statesman is reporting now, it looks like the APD capped the guy in the parking lot of the Jaguar dealership, which is located right next to that shopping center.)
Combine this with the unfortunate incident on Saturday, where the APD felt compelled to block off two major highways for the better part of a day (not that I’m bitter or anything, just because I was caught up in that mess) and I have to wonder: do Austin police have enough to do?