The Astros have reached the 100 loss mark for the third season in a row.
Projections all seem to be hovering around 107 losses this year.
A brief loser interlude.
September 18th, 2013This is intended to enrage you. (#5 in a series)
September 18th, 2013Back in April of 2012, I noted the convictions of five New Orleans police officers on charges stemming from the “Danziger Bridge” incident.
About that:
More from NOLA.com:
And yes, this is a direct result of the anonymous comments scandal that led to Letten’s resignation:
To be clear, I’m not enraged at the judge: I think he made the right decision, especially given the discovery of Karla Dobinski’s activities:
Ms. Dobinski is the third “anonymous” commenter. (Also: “taint team”. Ken White, call your office, please.)
I’m enraged at Letten, and at his office, for f—ing this one up. It looks like there will be retrials. I hope the defendants get a fair second trial. I also hope that Letten, and the other folks in his office responsible for this mess, face their own criminal trials, and receive appropriate punishment if they are found guilty of criminal acts.
Notes from the blotter.
September 17th, 2013I have written previously about Glafira Rosales, Knoedler & Company, the fake Mark Rothko, Jackson Pollock and Robert Motherwell paintings, and the guy in Queens who actually painted them.
Yesterday, Ms. Rosales pled guilty to “charges of wire fraud, money laundering and tax evasion”.
I particularly like the “although her recommended sentence…” part. Ken White, you are doing some good in the world.
I have also previously written about the case of Robert Middleton, and the attempts to file murder charges against the person who burned him (leading to his death from cancer some years later).
From the HouChron:
After countless stops and starts, prosecutors Monday refiled a murder case against 28-year-old Don Wilburn Collins, who was age 13 when Middleton was set ablaze.
“We have located previously unknown witnesses and developed a considerable amount of new information regarding the heinous attack on Robert Middleton,” said Montgomery County Attorney J.D. Lambright, who last year was elected to his first term and assumed office Jan. 1.
Lambright claims that there’s “more than 50,000 pages” of new information. Further, since Lambright is claiming that the assault against Middleton occurred in conjunction with the alleged sexual assault by Collins, the charge is actually felony murder.
And if you want to bid on any of Jesse Jackson Jr.’s stuff – some of the stuff that he spent campaign funds to buy, and that got him convicted of a crime – go here.
Man, this is just compounding the embarrassment. I mean, you use campaign money illegally to buy crap – that’s bad enough. Then it comes out that you’re a Van Halen fan – that’s even worse. Then it comes out that you got taken when you were buying Van Halen memorabilia – how much worse can it get?
TMQ Watch: September 17, 2013.
September 17th, 2013The street finds its own uses for things.
September 17th, 2013WOW MT @mwa4 Globalization: Syrian rebel uses iPad accelerometer to aim homemade mortar http://t.co/ltbIaIz9Iu t.co/2BudEtToni
— Matt McDermott (@mattmfm) September 16, 2013
Hattip on this to Big Bill Gibson and John Gruber.
Onion headline, or New York Times headline?
September 17th, 2013Pullet surprise.
September 17th, 2013More:
Of course, these chickens are not dining on stale loaves from grandmother’s breadbox. On a recent afternoon at the farm, where a few hundred creatures inhabit a peaceful, 15,000-square-foot coop that would dwarf the size of most New York apartments, they clucked and ambled around pans of bread soaked in fresh milk, and white buckets full of leafy trimmings that would make a tremendous tossed salad.
“Some of this is nicer stuff than I have to eat when I get home,” said Mike Charles, a local poultry expert involved in the project.
I could snark on this, but I actually think there’s a lot to be said for chicken that tastes like chicken. (Didn’t Nero Wolfe buy chickens from a farmer who fed them on acrorns? Or was that pigs, and the chickens were fed on something else? I don’t have any of my Wolfe books here at work.)
But:
Yeah, what’s the carbon footprint of these chickens? How sustainable is “driving two and a half hours” to deliver vegetable scraps? Especially since the Amish are likely to have vegetable scraps and day-old bread of their own?
Your loser update: week 2, 2013.
September 17th, 2013NFL teams that still have a chance to go 0-16:
Pittsburgh
Cleveland (Quote blatantly stolen from a family member in Cleveland: “Apparently, the Browns now have to suck for Teddy Bridgewater!” And what’s even worse: “Suck for Bridgewater!” doesn’t even have the ring to it that “Suck for Luck!” did.)
Jacksonville
Washington
NY Giants
Minnesota
Tampa Bay
Carolina
Quote of the day.
September 16th, 2013Bloombergism is the sort of thing the Constitution was designed to prevent.
–“The Dashed Dreams of President Bloomberg”, Jonathan Chait, New York Magazine
(Hattip to Popehat on the Twitter for this one.)
Dear Washington Post.
September 13th, 2013There’s something you might want to go read. Parts of it are engraved on a monument very near your headquarters. Here’s the relevant section:
I hope this helps. If you have any more questions, I recommend an extended session of meditation at the Jefferson Memorial, and perhaps a little bit of reading.
More schadenfreude!
September 12th, 2013I can’t help it. I’m enjoying this too much.
Hey, remember when folks were saying this was Weiner’s comeback?
We can hope.
“time-honored city tradition”. There’s really nothing I can say here, is there?
I wonder if this is a rejection of the nanny state exemplified by Bloomberg.
Note the paper of record’s use of “post-Bloomberg” there, too. Interesting.
(Edited to add: More on the “Bloomberg backlash” theme by way of Insta.)
Noted.
September 12th, 2013Oh, well, there’s always next year.
Random notes: September 12, 2013.
September 12th, 2013Two games in, and we have our first head coach firing of the college football season: Doug Williams is out at Grambling. The team lost the first two games of this season, and was 1-10 last season (0-9 in conference).
The Chicago City Council voted to do away with the city’s gun registry.
Or, as Iowahawk once noted, Chicago blames their violence problem on other states…that don’t have a violence problem. (I can’t find his exact quote. By the way, Twitter’s search features stink.)
Criminal experts say the gun registry database in Chicago, which contains more than 8,000 gun owners and about 22,000 firearms, has helped the police better understand the movement of weapons in the city as they put in place new law enforcement strategies. Adam Collins, a spokesman for the Police Department, said in a statement that officers would be able to use a new online database of permit holders maintained by the Illinois State Police under the law.
“There’s no scenario where this makes the jobs of police easier,” said Jen Ludwig, director of the University of Chicago’s Crime Lab, about having to repeal the registry.
Of course, because Chicago’s criminal class is composed of law-abiding permit holding individuals who register their illegally possessed guns.
Speaking of sad pandas:
Kind of interesting that the paper of record mentions Bloomberg specifically, and not the NRA.
Heh. Heh. Heh.
And among the many things Mexico needs: strict machete control.
Things that make me go “Interesting”…
September 11th, 2013- “… on Friday, after six years of legal wrangling and decades after he wrote the lyrics to the hit song “YMCA,” Victor Willis will gain control of his share of the copyright to that song and others he wrote when he was the lead singer of the 1970s disco group the Village People.”
- Wow. “YMCA” is 35 years old?
- Hey! You kids! Get off my lawn!
- “He added, however, that he is thinking of prohibiting the Village People — the band still exists and is touring this month and next, though with largely different members — from singing any of his songs, at least in the United States.” Is this an example of copyright being used for the public good?
- “‘We hired this guy,’ Stewart L. Levy, a lawyer for the companies that controlled the Village People song catalog, said last year. ‘He was an employee. We gave them the material and a studio to record in and controlled what was recorded, where, what hours and what they did.’ Eventually, though, that argument was withdrawn. If the ‘work for hire’ doctrine can’t be made to apply to a prefab group like the Village People, it stands little chance of surviving a test against other artists who emerged in the 1970s and who always had a much greater degree of autonomy, like Bruce Springsteen, the Eagles, Billy Joel and Parliament-Funkadelic.”