“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 235

November 20th, 2020

This is another video that I just flat out could not pass up. People who know me well will understand why.

“The Devil’s Cigarette Lighter”, from 1962 and the Red Adair Company, featuring (of course) Red Adair.

Bonus video #1: Remember these commercials?

I have this mental image of Red Adair placing phone calls to get well heads…and charging them on his AmEx card. (In reality, I expect that his company probably had open accounts with everyone who provided equipment: no AmEx needed.)

(Side note: Red Adair’s biography is kind of pricey on Amazon, even in used paperback form. Interestingly, Boots Hansen’s book (affiliate link) is available in a Kindle edition.)

Bonus #2: this is a two-part biographical video about Red Adair. Part 1:

Part 2:

Part 2 does include a brief discussion of Piper Alpha and Adair’s role in putting out the fire.

Posted in Books, Explosives, History, Kindleing | Comments Closed

You’re going down in flames, you tax-fattened hyena! (#68 in a series)

November 20th, 2020

Alexander Sittenfeld of the Cincinnati city council was arrested yesterday.

Prosectors said Mr. Sittenfeld had accepted six checks totaling $40,000 from federal agents posing as real estate investors and had stashed the money in a political action committee that he secretly controlled.
According to a six-count indictment, Mr. Sittenfeld accepted the bribe money in 2018 and 2019, while promising to “deliver the votes” and perform other official acts for the downtown development project, which needed City Council approval.

…

At a meeting in November 2018 set up with Mr. Ndukwe’s help, Mr. Sittenfeld went for lunch at a downtown Cincinnati restaurant and indicated to undercover agents that he would shepherd votes for the real estate project, prosecutors said.
He presented voting data showing that he was politically popular in Cincinnati and said he was likely to be the next mayor, according to prosecutors.
“I can move more votes than any other single person,” Mr. Sittenfeld said, according to the indictment. On another occasion, in December 2018, he said, “Don’t let these be my famous last words, but I can always get a vote to my left or a vote to my right,” according to prosecutors.

Nr. Ndukwe is Chinedum Ndukwe, a former player for the Bengals, who was one of the people behind the downtown development project.

Bonus #1: Mr. Ndukwe was also working with the Feds.

Bonus #2, and I’m embarrassed to admit I missed this: Mr. Sittenfeld is the third member of the nine-member city council to be indicted this year.

The first blow came in February when Tamaya Dennard, the president pro tem of the Cincinnati City Council, was arrested and charged with accepting $15,000 in bribes in exchange for a vote on the Council. She pleaded guilty in June and faces up to 20 years in prison when she is sentenced in federal court next week.
The second landed last week when Jeffrey Pastor, another member of the City Council, was charged with taking $55,000 in bribes in return for promising to help city development projects, including the redevelopment of a downtown building. Mr. Pastor has pleaded not guilty and has resisted calls to step down.

Apologies for linking to the NYT. I prefer to link to local sources whenever possible, but the Cincinnati Enquirer is unreadable and unlinkable without a subscription.

Posted in Law, Politics | Comments Closed

I may have spoke too soon.

November 19th, 2020

This might be the headline of the day:

Rapper with flamethrower in custody over NYC bus stunt

More context:

Authorities said Dupree G.O.D was arrested on charges of reckless endangerment and criminal possession of a weapon. There was no information on when he would be arraigned. He was in police custody Wednesday night.
The musical artist was filmed earlier this month in an unauthorized stunt that he said was part of a tribute video for the hip-hop group Wu-Tang Clan. The clip gained attention on social media after a police union tweeted it as an example of the city becoming less safe.

And of course:

I’m really not sure I see the “reckless endangerment” part of that charge. It seems to me that he was pointing it away from and above people. As for the “criminal possession of a weapon” charge, well, maybe, given that this is NYC.

Posted in Art, Cops, Firings, Hysteria, Law, Media, NYPD | 3 Comments »

“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 234

November 19th, 2020

Travel Thursday!

Where would you like to go this week? Would you like a relatively short trip to someplace that hadn’t become a banana republic at the time?

Okay then. From our favorite defunct airline, Pan Am, “Wings to New York”. circa 1948.

Bonus: I’m probably fudging the definition of “travel” a bit here, but I don’t have a better place to put this. Here’s a Pan Am promo film documenting their history of crisis and emergency response, including the 1979 airlift out of Iran.

Posted in History, Travel | Comments Closed

Headline of the day.

November 19th, 2020

(Though this actually is datelined yesterday.)

Ponzi Scheme Suspect Uses Underwater Scooter to Flee F.B.I.

The story is exactly as it says on the tin:

Tracked by air and trailed by F.B.I. agents and members of the California Highway Patrol, Mr. Piercey, 44, of Palo Cedro, Calif., was seen removing something from his truck and entering the frigid water with it in his street clothes, the authorities said. After about 25 minutes in the lake, part of which he spent submerged, a very cold and wet Mr. Piercey emerged and was arrested, the Justice Department said.

Posted in Cops, FBI, Law, Media | Comments Closed

Obit watch: November 18, 2020.

November 18th, 2020

Vincent Reffet.

A free-flying world champion and avid BASE jumper (involving leaps from towering static objects rather than from a plane), Mr. Reffet had undertaken breathtaking feats including a record-breaking jump of over 2,700 feet from a platform above the Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building, and a midair dive into a plane from a 13,000-foot mountain in Switzerland.

…

In Dubai, the group worked with XDubai, an extreme-sports brand that has been endorsed by the crown prince. In one stunt that went viral, the pair flew with jetpacks above Dubai beside an Emirates Airbus 380, the world’s largest passenger aircraft.

He was 36 years old. According to the NYT obit, he died in a training accident.

Ben Watkins. My feelings about reality TV are well known, but nobody should have that hard a life, and nobody should die at 14.

Posted in Food, Obits | Comments Closed

“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 233

November 18th, 2020

This is an amazing video that popped up in my recommendations, and that I could not pass up.

“Out Of The Sun” is a General Dynamics promo film for the F-16. Unlike a lot of plane specific promo films I’ve run across, though, this one concentrates mostly on air combat history and tactics, building towards a case that the F-16 is the “fighter pilot’s fighter”.

What makes this amazing to me is the interviews in this video:

Aces interviewed include W.C. Bill Lambert from World War 1 (footage of Manfred Baron von Richthofen is also in this segment), the second-ranking American ace of World War I. Lambert claimed 18 air-to-air victories, eight fewer than “Ace of Aces” Eddie Rickenbacker, and won the DFC. Also interviewed is the Luftwaffe’s Adolf Galland who flew in the Spanish Civil War and World War 2; the Royal Air Force’s Douglas Bader and Robert Stanford-Tuck, Norway’s Sven Heglund, American David Lee “Tex” Hill, the WWII Luftwaffe pilot Erich Hartmann; U.S. Air Force pilot Francis Gabreski from World War 2 and the Korean War; USAF pilot Ralph Parr from the Korean War; and Steve Ritchie, the only ace from the Vietnam War.

As best as I can tell, all of these interviews were done specifically for this film. (Mr. Lambert and Sir Bader both passed in 1982: according to the YouTube notes, this dates to 1983, so I think it is possible that the makers managed to get in interviews with both men before they passed.)

While I was checking Sir Bader’s date of death, I ran across this story that I had not heard before:

During one visit to Munich, Germany, as a guest of Adolf Galland, he walked into a room full of ex-Luftwaffe pilots and said, “My God, I had no idea we left so many of you bastards alive”.

Bonus #1: here’s a 1965 interview with Sir Douglas Bader.

Bonus #2: I don’t have any other place to put this, and it is kind of related. The backstory: Saturday night, we were watching “The High and the Mighty” and we noticed the Coast Guard was flying B-17s. This, in turn, led me to research the operational history of the B-17 (and, yes, the Coast Guard did use B-17s, in the PB-1G variant, as late as October of 1959). That in turn led me to this rather remarkable paragraph:

On 28 May 1962, N809Z, piloted by Connie Seigrist and Douglas Price, flew Major James Smith, USAF and Lieutenant Leonard A. LeSchack, USNR to the abandoned Soviet arctic ice station NP 8, as Operation Coldfeet. Smith and LeSchack parachuted from the B-17 and searched the station for several days. On 1 June, Seigrist and Price returned and picked up Smith and LeSchack using a Fulton Skyhook system installed on the B-17. N809Z was used to perform a Skyhook pick up in the James Bond movie Thunderball in 1965. This aircraft, now restored to its original B-17G configuration, is on display in the Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum in McMinnville, Oregon.

As great and good FotB RoadRich said when I brought this up, it’s a wonder that they were even able to get into the air, given the weight of the giant brass balls on everyone involved.

“Fishing from Airplanes for Soviet Secrets: What was Skyhook – Operation Coldfeet?” from Dark Docs.

Posted in History, Planes | Comments Closed

“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 232

November 17th, 2020

There’s a British gent named Guy Martin who has a YouTube channel. He used to race motorcycles, but more recently he’s become a television personality who seems to specialize in engineering and technical stuff.

I thought I’d do two videos today, one short, one longer. The short one: Mr. Martin goes to Japan and forges a sword with a master sword maker. As you know, Bob, I love hot metal and knives, so this is right in my wheelhouse.

The long: this is the first part of a series, “How Britain Worked”.

…getting stuck into six of the country’s biggest restoration projects, bringing some of the 19th century’s most impressive engineering achievements back to life.

This one covers “The Railway”. The other parts are available on his channel.

Posted in Bookmarks, History, Knives, Swords | Comments Closed

“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 231

November 16th, 2020

I’ve got an eye doctor’s appointment today, so I’m being a little lazy again. I thought I’d dabble a bit in true crime.

This is an odd one, as it is from that Canadian program “The Fifth Estate”, but deals with a case in the United States: Dixon Illinois, to be exact, which is a little far south to be considered Southern Canada.

The town’s Comptroller, Rita Crundwell, embezzled an estimated $53 million between approximately 1990 and 2012 (when she was indicted). That seems to me to be an astonishing amount of money, especially for a town with a population of about 15,000. (That’s close to $2.5 million a year.)

And did she spend it on moving to a country without an extradition treaty? Nope. She spent it on…quarter horses. Supposedly, she became one of the leading quarter horse breeders in the US: at least, until she was indicted, tried, and sentenced to 19 1/2 years in prison.

I personally am kind of baffled by this: there’s nothing wrong with raising horses (though stealing money from taxpayers is objectionable) but if you’re going to do it, why not raise whole horses? Why raise just a quarter of a horse? What can you do with a quarter horse?

(Yes, I will be here all week.)

Bonus: True confession, I have not watched this yet, but “All the Queen’s Horses” is a longer documentary about Rita Crundwell and the Dixon fraud.

Posted in History, Horses, Law, Sarcasm | Comments Closed

Your loser update: week 10, 2020.

November 16th, 2020

NFL teams that still have a chance to go 0-16:

New York Jets (bye week)

Next week: the worthless Los Angeles Chargers.

Posted in Loser, NFL, Sports | Comments Closed

“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 230

November 15th, 2020

Science Sunday!

I thought I’d do a variety package today.

First up: from the ” Megaprojects” people, “Project HARP”. Yet another thing that fascinates me, and only in part because who doesn’t like the science of big cannons?

The other reason this fascinates me, of course, is: Gerald Bull.

Next: I’m kind of borderline about including these. The hosts are just on the ragged edge of annoying me. But: fire science is science, and this was actually filmed in Del Valle, near Austin.

From “The Slow-Mo Guys”, a backdraft in 4K and slow motion.

And: “How to avoid a Backdraft”.

Finally: I know this is long-ish and very talking head, but I’ve read a couple of Paul De Kruff’s books, so this is relevant to my interests. Also: medical science is science, even if medicine is magical and magical is art.

“Paul De Kruif: The Microbe Hunter and Author”.

Posted in Books, Geek | Comments Closed

“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 229

November 14th, 2020

Wrapping up this week’s theme, I promise. Tomorrow will be Science Sunday, and after that, I plan to strive for a little more variety.

Since it is Saturday, I don’t feel so bad about doing something a little on the long side: “How The Dambusters Sunk Hitler’s Invincible Battleship”.

Also, as I’m sure I’ve mentioned before, I’m a big fan of the Dambusters and of Barnes Wallis. And speaking of Barnes Wallis, the Barnes Wallis Foundation has a YouTube channel.

So your bonus video for today is: “Dambusters Revealed”.

And your second bonus video for today is much shorter, but from the same source: vintage test footage of Barnes Wallis’s bombs.

Posted in History, Ships | Comments Closed

Obit watch: November 13, 2020.

November 13th, 2020

Paul Hornung.

Hornung, who won the 1956 Heisman Trophy with Notre Dame, could run, throw passes and catch them, block, place-kick and punt, and he returned kicks and played defense too. In nine professional seasons he helped propel the Packers to four National Football League championships and led the N.F.L. in scoring from 1959 to 1961.

…

Hornung scored a record 176 points in the 12-game 1960 season on 15 touchdowns, 41 extra points and 15 field goals. He also passed for two touchdowns that year.Hornung was the league’s most valuable player in 1961, when he scored a championship-game record 19 points (on a rushing touchdown, four extra points and three field goals) in the Packers’ 37-0 victory over the Giants.
All the while he pursued a robust night life of women and drink that seemed to have little effect on his on-field performance. His movie-star looks certainly had something to do with the attention: He was blond and handsome, 6 feet 2 inches and 215 pounds. He wore No. 5 in honor of his boyhood idol, Joe DiMaggio.
But Hornung’s career was marred when the N.F.L. commissioner, Pete Rozelle, suspended him indefinitely in the spring of 1963 for gambling on pro football, including Packer games, over several seasons. Hornung said he had bet on Green Bay only to win, and the league found no evidence to the contrary, but he remained suspended for the entire season. The ban was an outgrowth of an N.F.L. drive against gambling by players that also brought a one-year suspension for Alex Karras, the Detroit Lions’ star defensive tackle.

…

Hornung expressed few regrets about his nightlife.
“I’m sure that during my playing days I wasn’t considered a good role model for the nation’s youth,” he wrote in his memoir. “But the way times have changed, I’d look like an altar boy if I played today. I never beat up a woman, carried a gun or a knife, shot somebody, or got arrested for disturbing the peace. I never even experimented with drugs during the season.
“All I did, really,” he went on, “was seek out fun wherever I could find it. Everything was all tied in together — the drinking, the womanizing, the partying, the traveling, the gambling. And, of course, football made it all possible.”

In other totally unrelated news, Hell is having a busy day today:

Tom Metzger, white supremacist.

Peter Sutcliffe, the “Yorkshire Ripper”.

He was convicted in 1981 in the murders of 13 women over the course of five years in northern England and given a life sentence for each, the maximum permitted. The murders, which occurred between 1975 and 1980, gripped the public and the authorities, and the lengthy investigation was “a source of considerable embarrassment to the police,” The New York Times wrote at the time.

…

A 1981 report into the police investigation’s failings was released under the Freedom of Information Act in 2006. Known as the Byford report, for the official who wrote it, it cited a “curious and unexplained lull” in Mr. Sutcliffe’s criminal activities between 1969 and 1975. The report concluded that it was “highly improbable that the crimes in respect of which Sutcliffe has been charged and convicted are the only ones attributable to him.”

…

Sutcliffe’s 13 known murder victims were Wilma McCann (1975), Emily Jackson (1976), Irene Richardson (1977), Patricia “Tina” Atkinson (1977), Jayne MacDonald (1977), Jean Jordan (1977), Yvonne Pearson (1978), Helen Rytka (1978), Vera Millward (1978), Josephine Whitaker (1979), Barbara Leach (1979), Marguerite Walls (1980) and Jacqueline Hill (1980).
He is also known to have attacked at least 9 other women: an unnamed woman (1969), Anna Rogulskyj (1975), Olive Smelt (1975), Tracy Browne (1975), Marcella Claxton (1976), Marilyn Moore (1977), Upadhya Bandara (1980), Maureen Lea (1980) and Theresa Sykes (1980). Claxton was four months pregnant when she was attacked, and lost the baby she was carrying.

Posted in History, Law, NFL, Sports | Comments Closed

“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 228

November 13th, 2020

I thought I’d take a break from WWI today and go back to something slighlty more contemporary.

I know some folks who are fans of the F-8 Crusader. I never quite acquired that gene myself, but this is a kind of fun (and short) documentary about the F-8 from “Dark Skies”: “The Last Gunfighter”.

Bonus #1: I don’t know where this came from (other than the “AVHistoryBuff” channel) but here’s a second, shorter documentary: “Chance Vought’s F-8 Crusader II and III – the Mig Masters”. It seems very professionally done, like a corporate promotional video.

Bonus #2: Here’s a vintage US Navy training film on the F8U-1P, the photo recon version of the F-8.

Bonus #3: And for those of you who haven’t had enough Crusader yet, “Last of the Gunfighters”. This one’s a bit longer.

Posted in History, Planes | Comments Closed

“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 227

November 12th, 2020

Travel Thursday!

If you’ve figured out what my theme this week is, you’re probably wondering: how do military history and military heroism fit in with travel?

Answer: This is an episode of a documentary series called “True Adventure”, which according to the YouTube notes, ran in the 1950s and 1960s.

This episode is “Return to Guadalcanal”. One of the men in this video, Martin Clemens, was on Guadalcanal when Japan invaded: instead of evacuating, he stayed behind and became a coast watcher. He later wrote a book, Alone on Guadalcanal: A Coastwatcher’s Story (which is available in reprint and Kindle editions from Amazon).

Bonus: from the Kadena Air Base channel, members of the 18th Wing tour Iwo Jima.

Posted in History, Travel | Comments Closed

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