Not much going on, but I wanted to drop this in.
And this:
1a) Never throw shit at an armed man.
1b) Never stand next to someone who is throwing shit at an armed man.
Rock rock baby baby.
March 7th, 2014Legal update.
March 6th, 2014I have written several times in the past about the case of Robert Middleton, who was set on fire by a neighbor boy when he was eight years old and died of cancer (possibly related to skin grafts) when he was 20.
Latest update: a judge has ruled that Donald Collins, who set Middleton on fire (and who was 13 at the time) can be tried as an adult for murdering Middleton.
It is worth pointing out here that Collins has not actually been charged yet, as Lambright notes. The DA has some hurdles to overcome, since Middleton is dead, and there were no other witnesses to the attack. And if Collins is convicted, his attorney can appeal both the conviction and the ruling allowing Collins to be tried as an adult.
Obit watch: March 5, 2014.
March 5th, 2014Noted French film director Alain Resnais. LAT. NYT.
Dr. Sherwin B. Nuland, perhaps most famous for his book How We Die
The Island of Mayor Moreau.
March 1st, 2014That would be Charles D. Moreau, the former mayor of the bankrupt city of Central Falls, RI.
Former mayor Moreau is out of prison now after serving one year. (Previously.)
What’s interesting about this is how his release went down. Mayor Moreau originally pled guilty to a charge of taking “illegal gratuities” from a “friend and political supporter” who was given a contract to board up abandoned buildings.
However, a federal appeals court apparently ruled sometime last year that “accepting gratuities” was not a crime. No, really, I’m not making this up:
So Moreau’s people moved to have his conviction thrown out, the prosecution said “Let’s make a deal”…and Moreau got the “accepting gratuities” conviction thrown out, and then pled gulity to a bribery charge.
Yep. You read that right. Why would he do that? Because the sentence on the bribery charge was basically “time served” (see below) so he got to walk away a more-or-less free man, and the prosecution got to chalk up a felony win.
I think the key takeaways here are: try the veal at Joe Marzilli’s Old Canteen, and remember to tip your government official.
You know what China needs?
March 1st, 2014Free Bubble-Up.
February 28th, 2014You may be wondering why this boxcar is so important to preservationists. After all, aren’t there plenty of boxcars in the world?
Yes. But this isn’t just any boxcar: this is Merle Haggard’s childhood home.
I wanted to drop some Haggard into this post, but I had a lot of trouble finding a performance of “Rainbow Stew” or “Fighting Side of Me” on YouTube that allowed embedding. So how about this: Merle Haggard in 1978 on “Austin City Limits”.
Banana republicans watch: February 27, 2014.
February 27th, 2014Somebody has been looking very closely at California police departments.
The criminal indictments appear to be a result of this series of events:
Razzak and Yick are also accused of falsifying incident reports.
Other high points:
- Razzak, Elias and Yick were sued by “two men and a woman” for violating their civil rights after a 2012 arrest. “The suit was settled earlier this year for an undisclosed sum.”
- “Furminger was one of three police officers named in a 2005 lawsuit in which a man said officers caught him urinating in the street, then forced him to kneel down and use his hair to mop up after himself. The city settled the suit for $83,000.”
- Furminger also received the Gold Medal for Valor as a result of a 1998 shooting.
- Former officer Vargas was fired by the SFPD “for putting in for overtime while testifying in court cases during regular hours”, and has a lawsuit pending against the department.
- “In 2002, Vargas was suspended for six months after being accused of gouging a man’s face with a broken crack pipe after he took him off a cable car for fare evasion. He admitted in 2005 to using excessive force, and the city paid the victim $60,000 to settle a lawsuit.”
- The San Francisco Public Defender has a YouTube channel. You can watch excerpts of their surveillance videos at the above link.
Leadership Secrets of Non-Fictional Characters (part 11 in a series)
February 26th, 2014Yes, this is a gossip column in a NYC paper. As much as I dislike Piers Morgan (and hope he spends time in prison for phone hacking), I would recommend taking the report itself with a grain of salt.
It does, however, give me an opportunity to make a point.
I don’t remember who originated this quote: I want to say it is a Dave Barry-ism, but I could very well be wrong.
Anyway: “If someone is nice to you, but rude to the waitress, they are not a nice person.”
You come at the King (City), you best not miss.
February 26th, 2014The LAT has a second-day story on the King City PD arrests, noted in this space yesterday.
There are several interesting new aspects to the story:
- The charge against Officer Jaime Andrade is “possession of an assault weapon and illegal storage of a firearm“. Specifically, “Criminal complaints accuse Andrade of possessing a semiautomatic Colt AR-15 and storing it in a manner in which ‘a child was likely to gain access to it.'” The possession charge is interesting; I’m no expert on the gun laws of California and other places outside of the United States, but I would have expected there to be an “only ones” exemption. I’m not sure how to feel about this; happy that a California cop got hoisted on his own petard? Or should I be upset over this in the same way that I would be if it was someone who wasn’t a cop?
- Sergeant Mark Allen Baker, who is apparently the sixth man from yesterday, is charged with making criminal threats.
- The charges appear, at least in part, to have spun out of an ongoing investigation. Allegedly, members of the King City PD were confiscating cars from residents and profiting from the impounds:
- More:
Miller Tow is owned by Brian Miller, who was also arrested. Brian Miller is not a King City PD officer; he is, however, acting chief Bruce Miller’s brother.
- This has “stupid” written all over it:
- King City is, according to the LAT, “more than 80% Latino”. Not explicitly stated in the LAT article, but my guess (and I think it is probably a good one): members of the King City PD thought they could prey on illegal immigrants and get away with it.
- Still no coverage that I see in the San Francisco area papers.
GMR 4×4 update.
February 26th, 2014Linoge has posted a follow-up on his dealings with GMR 4×4. In brief, he filed a complaint with the Vermont Consumer Assistance Program, GMR was given the chance to respond…and pretty much lied through their teeth.
And apparently Linoge isn’t the only person they’ve burned. Once again, I encourage you to read the original post, and Linoge’s update, and then carefully consider whether GMR 4×4 is the kind of company you’d like to do business with.
Lord of the I Told You So Dance.
February 26th, 2014The Saxet gun shows in the Austin area are on again.
Note my careful phrasing there. Saxet did not make a deal with the Travis County commissioners. Instead, the gun show is now in Hays County; specifically, in Dripping Springs.
Travis County has lost over 100 thousand dollars with the shift of Saxet’s contract.
The next show is March 29th and 30th; Saxet does not currently have any shows listed other than that one, so we’ll see how things play out.
(And Dripping Springs is a little less convenient for me than the Travis County Expo center. But I used to drive out to Dripping on a regular basis, so it isn’t a deal breaker.)
Banana republicans watch: February 25, 2014.
February 25th, 2014Former chief Chief Nick Baldiviez is being charged with embezzlement. Bruce Miller, who was serving as the acting chief, is charged with bribery. Bobby Carrillo, who was a sergeant with the King City PD, is charged with “conspiracy to commit a crime and bribery by a public officer”. Officer Mario Mottu Sr. is charged with “embezzlement by a public official”. Officer Jaime Andrade was also charged, but the charges against him are not stated, and it is unclear if he has been arrested. There are also claims that a sixth officer, who has not been named, is also charged. The King City PD, according to the LAT, has 17 officers.
I’m trying to find information from sources closer to King City, but neither of the San Francisco newspapers seem to have anything. (King City is a little south of Salinas, putting it closer to SF than LA.)
However, I did turn up this story that I’d previously missed: Stephen Tanabe is going to serve 15 months of federal time. Tanabe was a deputy with the Contra Costa Sheriff’s Department: he was convicted of “multiple felonies including conspiracy and extortion” in the “Dirty DUI” case, which I have written about previously.
Random notes: February 25, 2014.
February 25th, 2014Harold Ramis obits: NYT. LAT. A/V Club.
So what? This is the “opulent Gold Cost estate”. You may recognize it:
More on Samuel Sheinbein.
Russell Erxleben is going to prison for 90 months. (Previously. The 90 months figure comes from the Statesman whose coverage is behind a paywall.) (Edited to add: story from KLBJ-AM.)
We’ve got questions.
February 24th, 2014I was going to leave this as a comment on Lawrence’s blog, but then I thought it’d be more fun here.
Sadly, it turns out that the gold toilet exists, but it didn’t belong to Yanukovych. Here’s another example, just to motivate discussion. Anyway, questions:
1. Why a gold toilet? I admit, I’m not exactly the dictator type, or even the guy with more money than sense type. But I’m thinking, if I have that much money, I just don’t see the utility of a gold toilet. I’d rather have one of those fancy Japanese toilets, though I’d think about disabling Bluetooth on it first.
2. Where do you go to get a gold toilet? Is this something that’s commonly stocked in plumbing supply stores in Kiev? I’m guessing this is a special order item, but who do you order it from? I didn’t turn up any on Amazon. Do you perhaps get a goldsmith to make one for you? And do you trust your plumbing to a goldsmith, rather than experts? Like an actual plumber and a company that specializes in making toilets? This seems to me to be another argument for going Japanese with your high-end plumbing.
3. How do you clean a gold toilet? Do conventional bowl cleaners attack the gold? Can you put those cleaning tablets in the tank? If you have a gold toilet, you’re probably not using a bowl brush you bought at the Dollar Tree, so where do you get a matching brush and other accessories? Perhaps you commission those with the toilet, so you get everything from the same source.
But all of this seems like a huge pain in the butt, frankly. Even if you are a dictator and have people to manage these things for you.
Obit roundup: February 24, 2014.
February 24th, 2014There will be more to say about this tomorrow, but Harold Ramis is dead. I liked this line from the Chicago Tribune:
Ramis also left behind a reputation as a mensch and all-around good guy.
I didn’t post this yesterday, because I couldn’t find any obits I wanted to link to. While this has been well covered, I wanted to mention the passing of Maria von Trapp, last of the singing von Trapps.
And I missed this earlier in the week, but Richard Cabela, founder of the eponymous chain, passed away.
Mr. Cabela was a vocal supporter of the National Rifle Association. In a video posted on the group’s website this week, Mr. Cabela was asked what he would say to someone who identifies as a hunter but who does not belong to the N.R.A.
“How are you going to hunt without a gun?” he responded. “These guys protect your right to own a gun. That’s what it’s all about.”