Sergeant Petry, who was with the 75th Ranger Regiment at the time of his actions, became engaged in a firefight during a raid on an insurgent compound in Paktia. During the course of the firefight, Sgt. Petry was shot through both legs. Another Ranger near Sgt. Petry was hit in his body armor; Sgt. Petry led the other Ranger to a safe position behind a chicken coop and then re-engaged with the enemy.
Where, indeed, do we get such men?
July 12th, 2011All-Star break loser update.
July 12th, 2011So how are we doing?
Oakland’s at .424, 39-53, 93.3 projected losses over the 162 game season.
Baltimore’s at .409, 36-52, 95.7 projected losses.
Kansas City: .407, 37-54, 96 projected losses.
Cubs: .402, 37-55, 96.8 projected losses.
And, finally, your Houston Astros: .326, 30-62. If this keeps up, the Astros are on a pace to lose 109 games, which I believe would be a franchise record.
“Aaron Burr! Aaron Burr!”
July 11th, 2011It just happened to come to my attention that today is the anniversary of the Aaron Burr/Alexander Hamilton duel.
I’m not sure that I knew JPMorgan Chase owned the actual pistols used in the duel. Now that I do know that, I wonder if they have the pistols on exhibit at corporate headquarters, or just locked away in a vault somewhere.
Yes, the site of the duel is in Google Maps.
One of the two reasons I stuck with “Law and Order: Criminal Intent” for as long as I did was that it was just about the only show on television that would be gutsy enough to do an episode based in part on the Burr/Hamilton duel. (The other reason was that I liked D’Onofrio’s acting; at least, before the writers got lazy and resorted to the ever popular tortured Goren effect.)
And, just for grins, as long as we’re talking about Burr/Hamilton references in popular culture…
“The guys get shirts!”
July 10th, 2011I’d like to bring your attention to a couple of t-shirts that I think are pretty nifty.
The first one is from 604Republic. I am not a huge Star Wars fan (I actually haven’t seen any of the movies other than the first one), but I felt like I had to get one of these to go with my Reagan t-shirt from ThoseShirts.com.
Shirt number two is from Sean Sorrentino at “An NC Gun Blog” (also added to the blogroll): the official t-shirt of Project Gunwalker. Sean’s apparently going to the printer on Monday so I’d place an order now if you want one.
(Disclaimer: I’m not getting anything from any party for this post. I paid full retail for these shirts. I haven’t even received them yet, so I can’t swear to their quality.)
The men who pee at goats.
July 8th, 2011According to an AP report picked up by the Statesman (but originally from the Peninsula Daily News), hikers in Olympic National Park (upstate Washington, nearish to Bremerton) are being told not to urinate near trails.
Why? Apparently, hiker urine attracts “aggressive goats”. At least one person has been gored to death in the past year (which gives the Olympic goats a body count equal to the Yellowstone bears).
In addition, park staff plan to implement “adverse conditioning”
…such as setting off sirens and compressed air horns, and shooting rubber projectiles and bean bags.
Actually, I had three reasons for linking to this story:
- Slow news day.
- The use of the phrase “long, linear salt licks“.
- It gives me a chance to ask the question: what gun for goat?
Police professionalism update.
July 6th, 2011We previously noted the case of the LA County Sheriff’s deputies who worked in the county jail, and who were fired for thumping on fellow employees at the Christmas party.
As a followup, and in the interest of fairness, we update the story: the prosecutor’s office has decided not to file charges against the accused deputies.
According to a department spokesman quoted in the LAT, this does not affect the ongoing departmental investigation.
Choctaw bingo.
July 5th, 2011Too weird to pass up. On Friday, the Sunset Valley PD arrested a guy on charges of impersonating a police officer. (Sunset Valley is a small municipality on the outskirts of Austin; most of Sunset Valley consists of strip centers and big box stores. Just FYI.)
I really, really want to know where he got those ticket books.
I also really, really want to know how he came into possession of a car belonging to the Williamson County sheriff’s office. Notice that the list of charges does not, so far, include “car theft” or “possession of a stolen vehicle”.
(I know what you’re thinking: “That might explain where he got the ticket books, too.” Maybe. But the way I read the article, he didn’t just have Williamson County ticket books, but also ones from the Austin Police Department and other local agencies. I don’t think all of those would be in one WCSO car.)
The fake inspection sticker is a nice touch, too. What, he couldn’t swing by one of those 10 minute inspection places? Then again, maybe the WCSO car wouldn’t pass inspection. Perhaps there was a problem with the emissions testing.
I wonder how they know he bought the “Choctaw Police” stickers at Home Depot. Was there a receipt in the car? Heck, I didn’t even know you could get custom stickers for your car done at Home Depot. That gives me a few ideas…
I’m wondering about that “antique handgun” as well.
I don’t have to show you any stinkin’ badges!
(Subject line hattip: Do you really need one? He cooks that crystal meth because the shine don’t sell
What are my interests worth?
July 5th, 2011Over at the American McCarver blog, Michele Catalano makes an impassioned plea to save the New York Islanders:
Yes, Michele, it is. I get that I’m not a Nassau County resident, and the decision isn’t up to me; the voters will decide on August 1st. But the question shouldn’t be “Is $58 a year too much to ask?” It should be “Why should the taxpayers of Nassau County, who I already concede pay some of the highest property taxes in the nation, subsidize this thing I’m interested in to the tune of $58 a year?”
Catalano’s arguments for why seem to boil down to two things:
- It would make Catalano sad if the Islanders left.
Well, if it’d stop “earnest young men in black rimmed glasses” from writing acoustic guitar songs about losing the Islanders, I’m all for it. More seriously, I understand Catalano’s sadness. But the population of Nassau County in 2010 was 1,339,532. The Islanders average attendance in 2010 was 11,060. By my calculations (and assuming the Islanders draw their attendance just from Nassau County, and not the surrounding area) that’s about 0.825% of the population that actually attends games. 100% of the population will get hit by that “only $58 a year”. Even the people who rent will see the property tax increase passed on to them in the form of higher prices for goods and services. Which leads to Catalano’s second point:
- Approving the tax increase will result in net positive economic benefits. That’s a much better argument than Catalano’s sadness. And, to be honest, this stadium deal doesn’t look as bad as a lot of other deals. The excellent Field of Schemes website has been covering the Islanders proposal, and I commend their coverage to your attention. In brief, though…
And…
That’s pretty much Catalano’s attitude: “…if the Islanders go, the Coliseum goes and then the surrounding business community dies.” In short, if you don’t buy this stadium, we’ll kill this pizza parlor.
I’d love it if I could get people in Travis County to pay $58 a year for my obsessions. Think of all the books and Registered Magnums I could buy. But the difference between me and Catalano is that I wouldn’t presume to ask folks in Travis County to subsidize my interests. Catalano, and far too many other sports fans, have the idea that this kind of request is not just okay, but an entitlement. That’s not what “the pursuit of happiness” means.
The people cry “Bread! Bread!”
July 4th, 2011
I encountered this at the local grocery store. In case you can’t tell by the label, this is a chocolate cake made in the shape of a hamburger (complete with little white icing dots for the sesame seeds on the bun). Those are “french fries” on the left: they appear to be made from bread cut into rectangles and darkly toasted. I believe the “ketchup” is actually red icing.
No, I didn’t buy one (they had several of these, in both chocolate and white flavors): it was $20, and not something I’d eat by myself. Frankly, it makes me kind of bilious.
Happy 4th of July.
July 4th, 2011As SayUncle puts it, make sure to buckle up and watch for state troopers while you’re illegally buying fireworks.
In our case, the fireworks are both illegal and not really all that good an idea, to be perfectly honest. I did do a lot of driving yesterday, and saw a fair number of state troopers, but no DWI checkpoints; I did 80 MPH much of the way without incident. Unfortunately, while I was driving this route, I was doing so fairly early in the morning, before Lawrence wrote this post, so I missed out on the best potato chips ever. (Surely someone in Austin sells them.)
So what else can you do to celebrate the 4th? Well, you can hit the gun store, provided you have one near you that’s open on 4th of July Monday. (All the good independent gun stores in Austin are closed Sunday and Monday, but Cabela’s in Buda is open today. Edited to add: And the Cabela’s in Buda was not the Mongolian fire drill I was expecting.)
Or you could go to the range. Provided you can get a slot on the firing line, given that everyone else and his brother has probably had the same idea.
If you have a veterans cemetery near you, you could also go pay your respects.
I don’t actually know Richard Johnson or his family, but I stumbled (almost literally) on that marker, and there’s something striking about it. He would have been roughly 28 years old when the United States entered the war. What was he doing before then? What was life like as a 2nd Lieutenant during World War I? Where did he serve? Did he see action? He lived for 58 more years after the end of the war: what did he do with the rest of his life?
I want to add a nice word here for the VA’s Nationwide Gravesite Locator, which was indispensable. (The gravesite locator at the Houston cemetery was broken when we were there.) It would be nice to have a version of this tool that’s optimized for smart phones, but the existing version did work on my Evo.
Obit watch: July 1, 2011.
July 1st, 2011Robert Morris, computer security expert.
Back many thousands of years ago, I remember going to the university library and digging out old issues of the Bell System Technical Journal just so I could read Morris’ paper, “File Security and the UNIX Crypt Command“. Kids today have it easy.
Edith Fellows. I’d never heard of Ms. Fellows before, but this is a pretty interesting story.
Her grandmother brought her to Hollywood to pursue an acting career at the age of 4. By the time she was 13, she’d appeared in 30 movies, and was the subject of a bitter custody dispute between her grandmother and mother.
Her earnings were put into a trust, estimated to be worth $150,000 in 1939: she ended up with $900.60 when the trust matured.
She went on to pursue a stage career, but suffered a breakdown in 1958 and didn’t act again until 1970.
(Interesting fact: Kathy Fields Lander is married to David “Squiggy” Lander.)
Good cop, bad cop.
June 29th, 2011Good cop:
Between 1977 and 1987, six women in Northern California were killed and dumped. The cases became known as the “I-5 Strangler” killings; Roger Kibbe was convicted of one of the murders in 1987, and pled guilty to additional murders in 2008.
Unfortunately, the body of one of his victims, Lou Ellen Burleigh, was never found, even though Kibbe attempted to lead law enforcement to where he had left the body.
Earlier this year, Napa County Deputy Sheriff Michael Bartlett decided to search for the body on his own time. It took him about a month, but he eventually found a place that matched up with Kibbe’s description, and a bone.
DNA tests confirmed the bone was Burleigh’s.
At least now her people know. Well done, Officer Bartlett.
Bad cop: Houston police officer Mike Hamby.
Actually, make that “former Houston police officer”. Mr. Hamby was “relieved of duty” June 17th.
What gets you fired from HPD? In this case, former officer Hamby was accused of throwing a tear gas canister into another team’s tent during a barbecue cookoff at the Livestock Show and Rodeo earlier this year.
Former officer Hamby can appeal his firing.
Today’s bulletin from the Department of WTF?! (#4 in a series)
June 28th, 2011Mark Davis is a writer in Lynchburg, Virginia.
Mark Davis wrote a book about a writer who gets discouraged over his rejections.
That’s not a bad sounding plot. But Mark Davis decided to take things one step further.
Yeah, I’m going to say the answer to that question is, “Hell, yes!” Either that, or Mr. Davis put on the Bad Idea Jeans that morning. I’m boggled at the fact that a lawyer apparently told him this was legal, or even a good idea.
Apparently, this strategy actually worked, for definitions of “worked” that include “finding a publisher” (Poinsettia Publications, according to the article; the book is available in their online store) but there’s no mention that Mr. Davis has actually secured an agent. Frankly, if I were a literary agent who’d read about this stunt, or received one of those letters, my first reactions would involve a restraining order against Mr. Davis and press-checking my .45.
(Hattip on this: I picked up the story by way of Marko Kloos on the Twitter.)
Obit roundup: June 28, 2011.
June 28th, 2011Some of these are new, some of these I missed, some of these I’ve been intending to blog but haven’t gotten to it.
Randall Dale Adams, wrongfully convicted of the murder of a Dallas police officer, and subject of the Errol Morris documentary “The Thin Blue Line
Margaret Tyzack, noted British actress (“The Forsyte Saga”, “I, Claudius”). (Hattip: Lawrence.)
Martin Harry Greenberg, noted SF and mystery anthologist. I can’t begin to count the number of Greenberg anthologies I’ve read; his death is a huge loss to both communities. The Rap Sheet also has a nice tribute to Mr. Greenberg.
I am a mean person.
June 27th, 2011This is a well established fact.
The latest evidence for my being mean and evil? The fact that I take a great deal of delight in the detail that the Dodgers number one creditor in their bankruptcy filing is…Manny Ramirez, who is owed $21 million by the Dodgers.
For those who don’t follow baseball, Manny no longer plays the game; he retired from Tampa Bay five games into this season after failing a drug test, and hasn’t played for the Dodgers since last year. Tampa Bay doesn’t owe him any money because he failed the drug test. The Dodgers traded Manny to Chicago late in the 2010 season; Chicago doesn’t owe him any money, as far as I know, since he completed his contract. But the Dodgers somehow wound up owing him $21 million?
Other creditors include Kaz Ishii, who is owed $3.3 million, and who hasn’t played for the Dodgers since 2004, and Marquis Grissom, who is owed $2.7 million and who hasn’t played for the Dodgers since 2002.
I think I have a decent understanding of the idea of deferred salary, but come on! You owe all this money to whodats who haven’t played in years? This is your Dodgers management, ladies and Germans.
Lawrence had a good suggestion when we were discussing this at work: someone should buy the Dodgers and move them to a baseball deprived area of the country. Someplace that would be receptive to baseball. Someplace like…Brooklyn.
Edited to add 6/28: There’s a good take on this over at the American McCarver blog. Speaking of that blog, it looks like it might be kind of promising; I’m familiar with the works of people like Jason Snell, Philip Michaels, and (of course) John Gruber from other contexts, and I enjoy reading their stuff. However, American McCarver is pretty baseball-obsessed at the moment, and my feelings on baseball are well known. I’d like to see how the site develops after the season ends.