Gun show update.

January 12th, 2013

The Statesman is reporting that the Travis County Commissioners could vote on a gun show ban as early as Tuesday.

However, the paper is also reporting that at least two of the commissioners are “backing away” from supporting the measure:

County Judge Sam Biscoe has said he asked the commissioners court to consider a ban of gun shows at county facilities after receiving emails from 200 people asking for one.
But after Tuesday’s legal briefing from county attorneys, he said the prospect of a ban was “not good.”
Commissioners Sarah Eckhardt and Gerald Daugherty told the Statesman they didn’t think the county had the power to enact a gun show ban. Daugherty, the lone Republican on the five-member court, said he wouldn’t support a ban even if he thought it were legal.

Before we give props to Eckhart and Daugherty, they are also quoted as supporting “background checks for anyone buying a gun at a gun show”. Oddly enough, so is Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson. I suspect that Daugherty and Patterson are just misinformed, not malicious; I’m not sure about Eckhardt.

In any case, now is not the time to back off. Keep those cards, letters, and faxes coming in, people. Contact information for all of the commissioners is right here.

Posted in Clippings, Guns, Politics, Travis County | Comments Closed

Today’s Austin nightclub update.

January 11th, 2013

The whole Yassine Enterprises case is starting to feel like kind of a bust. Yes, they lost their liquor licenses and yes there have been convictions. But those convictions seem mostly mild: money laundering, a single drug charge, and a charge of “transferring a firearm used in a violent crime”. Where are the murders? Where are the “sending money to terrorists” charges? This just isn’t shaping up to be entertaining at all.

Another member of the group has pled out. He was accused of “..conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute over 500 grams of cocaine; possession with intent to distribute over 500 grams of cocaine; and conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute over five kilos of cocaine, which carries a maximum sentence of life in prison.”

He pled guilty to…one charge of “misprison of a felony”. All of the other charges against him have been dropped.

What is “misprison of a felony”? The Statesman describes it as “he was aware a crime had been committed and that he failed to report it to authorities”. That kind of fits in with the actual wording of the US Code:

Whoever, having knowledge of the actual commission of a felony cognizable by a court of the United States, conceals and does not as soon as possible make known the same to some judge or other person in civil or military authority under the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.

From what I’m seeing elsewhere, it isn’t just “he didn’t report the felony”, but misprison also requires an active attempt to conceal the felony.

The gentleman in question also fled the jurisdiction after failing a drug test, but was arrested in Honduras and returned to the United States. I don’t see any indication that he’s been charged with, or pled guilty, to any crime relating to that.

I thought it was worth noting: how often do you hear about “misprison of a felony”?

Not often enough, as I completely missed this unrelated story (until Google turned it up): Karen Parker lived in Jefferson Parish in Louisiana. Ms. Parker had a boyfriend (eventually fiancee, eventually husband, now divorced), Aaron Broussard, who was the Jefferson Parish president. Mr. Broussard wanted to get his girlfriend a good job. But, “once he took over the position of Parish President he could not hire Parker and there would be increased scrutiny as a result of the romantic relationship between Broussard and Parker”.

What to do, what to do? Well, if you’re the Jefferson Parrish president, you call your people together and you say “I want someone to hire my woman”. If you’re the Parrish attorney, Thomas G. Wilkinson, you’re also apparently an idiot. Because Wilkinson hired Parker as a “paralegal supervisor” in his office:

…even though she was not qualified, trained, or certified as a paralegal supervisor. Indeed, according to court records, PARKER did no work as a paralegal supervisor and, in fact, the little work she did perform was not paralegal work at all. According to court records, BROUSSARD and WILKINSON were aware that PARKER did no work as a paralegal supervisor. PARKER’s salary and her raises were approved and known by WILKINSON who, in turn, was retained by BROUSSARD as the Jefferson Parish Attorney. BROUSSARD also approved of substantial pay raises, from 2004 through 2009, for WILKINSON, the Parish Attorney.

Ms. Parker pled guilty to misprison. Apparently, Mr. Wilkinson did as well, and Mr. Broussard pled to “one count of conspiracy to commit bribery and one count of theft”. I can’t find any evidence that they’ve been sentenced yet, as it looks like their cases are also part of the whole Letten/NOLA.com mess.

Posted in Clippings, Law | Comments Closed

More of your tax dollars at work.

January 11th, 2013

A little more than a year ago, I noted the saga of the Turner-Roberts Recreation Center in east Austin: built in 2008, developed structural problems in 2009, closed in 2011 while the city considered how to fix those problems.

Estimates at the time were $2.7 million and seven months to repair, or 10 months and $4.1 million for a tear-down and rebuild.

Today’s Statesman updates the story:

The price tag to rebuild and repair an East Austin recreation center, plagued by structural problems soon after it opened four years ago, has reached $6.4 million — about $1 million more than the original cost to build it.

The city is going to pay $3 million of that cost. The rest will be picked up by the three companies that designed and built the center.

All told, the city will have spent $8.6 million on the building.

The city has also spent another $3.1 million to open a “9,100-square-foot ‘multi-purpose facility; next door that contains a gathering space, restrooms and a kitchen — similar to a rec center.”

I noted above that the three firms involved in design and construction are paying $3.4 million of the cost. That’s based on a settlement between those firms and the city, which didn’t require that the firms admit fault:

City officials wouldn’t provide a copy of the settlement this week and wouldn’t say how much each company had to pay. The American-Statesman has filed an open records request asking for the settlement.

And where’s the city’s share of the money coming from?

The city will pay the $3 million that the settlement didn’t cover using certificate of obligation bonds, which don’t require voter approval and are paid back using property taxes.

Those bonds were also used to pay for the new multi-purpose facility.

Something stinks here, and I don’t think it is the trash I need to take out. (Just to be safe, though, I’m going to do that anyway.)

Edited to add: Well, that’s settled. It wasn’t the trash.

Posted in Austin, Clippings | Comments Closed

Random notes: January 11, 2013.

January 11th, 2013

Not much going on, but I rarely get a chance to use the “Snakes” and “Reptiles” tags. So:

Snake on a plane.

Caiman on a stash.

Obit watch: Evan S. Connell, Jr., noted novelist and historian. (Son of the Morning Star: Custer and The Little Bighorn may be his best known work.). LAT. NYT.

Posted in Books, Clippings, Obits, Reptiles, Snakes | Comments Closed

What could it be, it’s a Mirage.

January 10th, 2013

The Chicago Sun-Times is celebrating the 35th anniversary of the Mirage Tavern stories by rerunning the entire series, one story a day, as they originally appeared in the paper (they also promise extras from their archives and those of the Better Government Association).

For the young and those who don’t remember, the paper and the BGA teamed up, bought a bar (which they named the “Mirage Tavern”), outfitted it with hidden cameras and recording devices, and then proceeded to record a parade of city employees and officials coming in and demanding payoffs. (Wikipedia summary here.)

I particularly like this quote from the Wikipedia entry:

The shakedown amounts were small, typically less than $100, as the reporters learned of what they later called “the supermarket approach to graft–low prices, high volume” that inspectors tended to prefer as the safest way of doing illegal business.

This is backed up by the paper’s reporting: for example, it took $10 to pass a fire inspection, even though there was exposed electrical wiring and other issues in the building’s basement.

The HouChron at the time ran Mike Rokyo’s work a couple of days out of the week, so I kind of knew Chicago was corrupt, but hearing second-hand about the Mirage Tavern investigation was the first time that I realized just how crooked the city was.

(Interestingly, the series was nominated and recommended for a Pulitzer Prize for “Local Investigative Specialized Reporting”. However, the Pulitzer board rejected the jury’s recommendation of the Sun-Times series, apparently because Ben Bradlee and other folks were butthurt over the Sun-Times methods.)

(Hattip: His Jim-ness.)

Posted in Clippings, Law, Media | 3 Comments »

Enough of this Mularkey.

January 10th, 2013

The Jacksonville Jaguars have fired head coach Mike Mularkey after one season.

The team went 2-14.

More from ESPN.

Posted in Firings, NFL, Sports | Comments Closed

Random notes: January 10, 2013.

January 10th, 2013

The Supreme Court heard arguments yesterday in the case of Missouri v. NcNeely.

Tyler McNeely was stopped on suspicion of drunk driving, and had blood drawn from him against his will and without a warrant. The Missouri Supreme Court suppressed the blood evidence. The state is appealing to the Supreme Court, arguing that they shouldn’t need a warrant.

Stop laughing. I’m not kidding. The state of Missouri believes that sticking a needle in someone’s arm and drawing blood is something that doesn’t need a warrant;”exigent circumstances” and all that happy horseshit.

Much of the argument concerned how long obtaining a warrant actually takes these days and whether the Supreme Court should encourage streamlined procedures. In some places, the justices were told, warrants can be obtained by phone in as little as 15 or 20 minutes; in others, the process can take two hours or longer.

Obit watch: Sol Yurick, novelist. His best known work was based on Xenophon’s “Anabasis”, and was turned into a Walter Hill directed movie.

James M. Buchanan, Nobel-prize winning economist.

Dr. Buchanan, a professor emeritus at George Mason, in Fairfax, Va., was a leading proponent of public choice theory, which assumes that politicians and government officials, like everyone else, are motivated by self-interest — getting re-elected or gaining more power — and do not necessarily act in the public interest.

I feel like I should make some comment about the Oscar nominations. Well, here it is: I’m glad “Argo” got nominated, as I think that improves the chances it will come back to the Alamo Drafthouse so I can watch it. Lawrence and I plan to see “Django Unchained”, but haven’t been able to coordinate that yet. I’m also interested in seeing “Zero Dark Thirty”. And “Silver Linings Playbook” got a best picture nomination? I’ll admit I haven’t seen anything but the trailer and commercials for it, but those were enough to turn me off: it seems like yet another “magical pixie girl/gee, isn’t mental illness fun?” movie. No thanks. I’ll pass. For now.

I’m also disappointed that “The Master” didn’t pick up a best picture nod, but it does seem to be well represented in the acting categories. Maybe that will make a comeback as well?

In Austin nightclub news, the liquor licenses for all nine of the bars operated by Yassine Enterprises have been yanked. Apparently, licenses are tied to the building, and there’s a one license per building limit; this meant that nobody else could get a license until the Yassine licenses were revoked. Now that that is out of the way, various enterprises are planning to open new bars in the old Yassine locations. I have to be honest: most of these sound like horrible places. Especially Chicago House, which will be run by the people who run Bikini’s Sports Bar and Grill (a place you go to when Hooter’s is too classy for you), and Bourbon Girl, “a ‘country cool, cowboy chic’ bar that will be operated by Carmack Concepts, owner of Chuggin’ Monkey, Dizzy Rooster, the Dogwood and Molotov”.

(Previous entries about Yassine Enterprises and their legal problems here.)

Posted in Clippings, Law, Movies | 1 Comment »

TMQ Watch: January 1, 2013.

January 9th, 2013

Time for the backdated TMQ watch. What bloodshed and infamy did we miss last week? Let’s open the briefcase and find out.

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Firings, Guns, NFL, Sports, TMQ watch | Comments Closed

Ah, that warm feeling of schadenfreude.

January 9th, 2013

No players were elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame this year in a polarizing vote that reopened the wounds of the steroid era.

The first question I had when I heard this was: are they going to even have a ceremony, if nobody was elected? Answer:

For the first time since 1960, the Hall of Fame — located in Cooperstown, N.Y. — will host a ceremony with no living inductees. The July 28 ceremony will honor the three inductees selected by a committee on baseball’s pre-integration era, but all of those inductees have been dead for at least 74 years.

The Toronto Maple Leafs have fired their general manager, Brian Burke. The Maple Leafs, as I understand it, play an obscure sport known as “hockey” which is popular in Canada.

Posted in Clippings, Firings, Loser, Sports | Comments Closed

Bread blogging: Avery Island Hot Bread.

January 9th, 2013

The recipe came from Brody and Apter’s Bread Machine Baking, pgs. 236-240.

Slight modifications:

  • I coarsely ground some Chinese red chili peppers and cooked those briefly in three tablespoons of chili/garlic oil, and added that to the mix. (The recipe calls for “1 cup chopped red peppers sauteed in three tablespoons of olive oil, OR chili oil”.) Safety tip: after grinding spices, leave the grinder sit for about 15 minutes before taking the top off, unless you like breathing aerosolized spices.
  • For the one tablespoon of chopped canned chiles called for, I used canned chipolte peppers in adobo sauce, and included a fair amount of the sauce. I think the adobo gave the bread an interesting color.
  • I used habanero Tabasco instead of the regular Tabasco called for. I probably put in more like 15 drops instead of 10.
  • I made my own chile honey with a tablespoon of ground chipolte and a eight ounce container of honey, warmed a little in the microwave and left to sit for about two days.

End result? Well, the photo of the loaf I took before cutting it turned out crappy. I’m mostly happy with the way the top crust turned out, but there’s a weird indentation on the bottom at one side of the loaf; almost as if it didn’t rise and expand around the bread paddle. I’m not sure what happened there.

As for the inside:

It has a slightly coarse, but not unpleasant, mouth feel (probably due to the cornmeal). In terms of taste, this is a really assertive bread. It isn’t overwhelmingly hot, but there’s a slight and lingering spice burn to it. I wouldn’t recommend this as a morning breakfast bread, but it tastes pretty good for lunch with some leftover fresh cheddar on top, or just with some butter and perhaps a little honey. I think it’d go well with chili or perhaps something Cajun.

I think I’m going to give this a B, mostly because of the bottom crust problem. I’d make it again, especially as an accompaniment to something that would stand up to the flavor. Next time, I’d take the two teaspoons of salt the recipe calls for and substitute a small amount of ghost pepper salt for part of that. (Trust me: a little ghost pepper salt goes a long way.)

Next up, I was considering making a sourdough goat cheese bread, but the recipe calls for “powdered goat’s milk”. I can actually get that at Sprouts, but they want $13 for a large can that I won’t use all of in eight weeks. I’ll have to see if I can find a smaller size.

Comments and criticisms welcome below.

Posted in Bread, Food | Comments Closed

Obit watch: January 9, 2013.

January 9th, 2013

Film director David R. Ellis. (NYT. A/V Club for all your “Snakes on a Plane” needs.)

Reporter and Pulitzer winner Richard Ben Cramer. Cramer may have been most famous for one of the greatest Esquire stories, “What Do You Think of Ted Williams Now?“

Posted in Clippings, Movies, Obits, Sports | Comments Closed

TMQ Watch: January 8, 2013.

January 8th, 2013

Yeah, we know. We got caught up in a bunch of stuff around January 1st, and last week’s TMQ totally slipped away from us. We figure we’ll do this week’s TMQ tonight, loop back and catch up with last week’s TMQ tomorrow (we’re doing them out of order because there’s some stuff we want to address in last week’s column), and then we should be in good shape all the way through to the end of the season.

At least, we hope so.

After the jump…

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Clippings, Law, NFL, TMQ watch | Comments Closed

Gun show update.

January 8th, 2013

Austin Rifle Club sent out an email late last night stating that the Travis County Commissioners Court was considering the gun show ban today. I didn’t see that email until this morning, otherwise I would have considered going down to report.

According to the Statesman, the commissioners “discussed” the proposal, and heard testimony from residents, but did not take a vote. So you still have time to contact them.

A ban would not apply to an upcoming show on Jan. 26 and 27 and County Judge Sam Biscoe said that if a ban is approved, he would want it to apply three or four months down the line.

So Judge Biscoe thinks gun shows are a threat to public safety, but not one that we need to act on immediately? One that can wait “three or four months”? Option two is that Judge Biscoe is a political hack who wants to be seen as “doing something” when he’s really doing nothing. But that can’t be true: political hackery on the commissioners court? Why, that’s unheard of! (Option three is that Judge Biscoe figures things will blow over in “three or four months”, we can return to the current status quo, and voters will forget his actions. My message to Judge Biscoe: “He’d seen how ‘civilized’ men behaved. He never forgot and he never forgave.”)

…so-called “gun show loophole,” where private citizens selling firearms at gun shows can do so without requiring background checks, something licensed dealers are required to do.

And, again, I’ll make the points that:

  • Any dealer with an Federal Firearms License who sells guns at a gun show has to do a check, just as if they were selling guns in a physical store.
  • Any person who regularly sells guns at a gun show, or any place else, is required to get a FFL. Not getting one is a Federal crime, if you engage in the business of selling guns. If a relative dies and you engage in a private sale of a few of his guns, that’s not a crime. But if you sell guns regularly at the gun show without a license, the BATFE will come after you, and you may do time.
  • Those same private sales will take place in supermarket parking lots, subdivision driveways, and other places even if the county restricts gun shows. There’s nothing the county can do to stop that.

The Statesman does not give a breakdown of how many people spoke at the meeting, nor does it give any indication how many supported or opposed the measure.

Travis County does not have authority to regulate firearms sales, but Biscoe believes it can ban a gun show from being held at county facilities.

And, once again, I’ll mention that Judge Biscoe is wrong, wrong, wrongity wrong! Here’s some legal precedent from the 5th Circuit for you, Judge Biscoe. The tl;dr version: the city of Houston tried something similar and ended up paying $50,000+ in legal fees to a gun show operator.

The commissioners were discussing the possible ban after Biscoe received messages from about 200 people asking for a ban of gun shows at the Expo Center following a similar request at a commissioners court meeting by Ed Scruggs, an Austin Democratic activist.

Keep that in mind. The opposition managed to get 200 people to support their illegal proposal. I think we can do much better.

Edited to add: Forgot something else I was going to mention: I updated the .CSV files of the county commissioners and the city council members with fax numbers, just in case anyone finds that useful. Someone yesterday (and I forget who it was) made the comment that they can ignore emails, but they have to answer the phone and they have to put paper in the fax machine. I am slightly dubious about the latter, what with modern technology and all, but the fax numbers are there if you can use them.

Edited to add 2: Updated story from the Statesman:

Travis County commissioners delayed a vote Tuesday on banning gun shows on county property, as county lawyers appeared to cast doubt on the legality of such a move.

You don’t say?

After emerging from a private meeting with attorneys, County Judge Sam Biscoe said the prospect for a ban was “not good.”
Biscoe added that county lawyers will need to research further whether the county can legally ban gun shows ahead of an expected vote next week. A county gun show prohibition would shut down a regular, well-attended gun show at the county-run Exposition Center. Biscoe declined to comment further on the discussions from the closed session.

The Statesman reports eight people spoke in opposition, and two in favor.

And edited to add again: by way of Lawrence over at Battleswarm, ““If Austin or Travis Co. try to ban gun shows they better be ready for a double-barreled lawsuit.” Click through to find out who said that. Hint: it wasn’t someone who runs gun shows. Hint 2: it was someone who can unleash hell on the city and county.

Posted in Clippings, Guns, Law, Sarcasm, Travis County | 1 Comment »

Random notes: January 8, 2013.

January 8th, 2013

Those of you who have been following Radley Balko and The Agitator know that Balko’s been on the story of Mississippi forensic pathologist Dr. Steven T. Hayne like flies on a severed cow’s head at a Damien Hirst exhibition.

For those of you who don’t follow Balko (I don’t click through as regularly since he moved to the Huffington Post), the NYT summarizes the story:

The filings, based on new information obtained as part of a lawsuit settled last spring, charge that Dr. Hayne made “numerous misrepresentations” about his qualifications as a forensic pathologist. They say that he proposed theories in his testimony that lie far outside standard forensic science. And they suggest that Mississippi officials ignored these problems, instead supporting Dr. Hayne’s prolific business.

More:

In one case, Dr. Hayne performed an autopsy of a young boy and concluded he had been suffocated. Some weeks after the boy was buried, his 3-year-old brother told the police that he had been killed by his mother’s boyfriend. Officials exhumed the body, and Dr. Hayne had a cast made of the boy’s face. By comparing his initial notes of face wounds with the cast, Dr. Hayne testified, he found it probable that the boy had been suffocated by a large male hand. The boyfriend was convicted.

Worth noting for the record: the Innocence Project has also been involved with Dr. Hayne. Dr. Hayne and the project settled a lawsuit out of court last year, and the project paid him $100,000. The NYT article touches on this some: one key point is that, in the process of preparing their defense, the project claims to have discovered new evidence that contradicts Dr. Hayne’s sworn testimony in various cases.

Bob Dylan: The Copyright Extension Collection, Vol. 1. No, that’s the real title.

…the point of the release was to keep the recordings under copyright protection in Europe, where the laws are in flux. Currently, recordings can be copyrighted in Europe for 50 years, a much shorter term than in the United States, where recordings made since 1978 will remain copyrighted until 70 years after the death of the last surviving author.

Posted in Clippings, Law, Music | Comments Closed

Fun. Nasty fun.

January 7th, 2013

Just finished calling all the Austin City Council members (none were available to talk to me, so I left messages with their staff), and sending emails through the forms on the city website.

My message was short and simple:

  • The Martinez proposal is a bad idea that will do nothing to solve any real problem.
  • It will expose the city to legal action under section 229 of the Texas local government code.
  • If the council member votes for this proposal, I will not only vote against them in the next election, but I will also give money to, and actively work for, their opponent.
  • It only takes 38,000 signatures to get a recall election going.

I can be a real mean SOB if I want to be. (“Take a jam to make you think. Take a challenge to make you great.”)

I plan to back this up with physical letters, which will probably go out tomorrow (assuming I can get my printer working).

Here’s something that folks might find useful: a MSWord merge file of all the council members, with addresses and office phone numbers. The email addresses come off the copies of the emails I sent through the contact forms; the “PO Box 1088” physical address is the one they all list on their contact pages. The phone numbers come from their contact pages as well.

(I could add fax numbers, I guess. If anyone uses fax machines these days.)

(Subject line hattip.)

Edited to add: At Lawrence’s instigation, here’s a CSV version of the Austin City Council members. And here’s a CSV version of the Travis County Commissioners Court, both commissioners and their executive assistants, including phone numbers and email addresses.

Posted in Austin, Guns, Law, Politics | 7 Comments »

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