The Texas Rangers are in the World Series.
Let me repeat that: the Texas Rangers are in the World Series.
Yes, those Texas Rangers.
I blame George Bush.
October 23rd, 2010You’ll shoot your eye out, kid!
October 21st, 2010Unless you live in the City of Chicago, where Daisy (yes, the airgun company) is on the Chicago Police Department “Roster of Unsafe Handguns“.
Note that “Where a model or type is not specifically referenced, all models from the listed manufacturer are designated unsafe.” It seems to me that could easily be interpreted as not only banning Daisy handguns, but even the Red Ryder and other Daisy long guns. I know, it sounds silly, but do you really want to trust the jackbooted thugs of Daley and the CPD?
Hattip on this to Jay G., who also points out that the list bans Smith and Wesson models with “spur triggers”. Smith and Wesson hasn’t made a gun with a spur trigger for over 100 years.
Art (Acevedo), damn it! watch. (#N of a series)
October 21st, 2010I know, two updates in one day about Austin’s police chief, but this is too good not to share.
Remember the APD officer who got fired for DWI? The one who shot an 18-year old back in May of last year? Yeah, this guy.
Remember how Chief Acevedo’s firing and promotion decisions keep getting overturned by arbitrators?
Can you guess what’s happened now? Yes. Officer Quintana has been reinstated by the arbitrator.
Bell update.
October 21st, 2010Robert “Ratso” Rizzo has been charged with two more crimes: conflict of interest, and “misappropriation of funds for a value exceeding $1.3 million”.
If he is convicted of the second count, Rizzo would have to provide a DNA sample.
But he won’t have to provide a DNA sample if he’s convicted of the first crime, or any of the other 53 felonies he’s been charged with?
(Edited to add: Well, according to the California Attorney General’s web site, “Starting January 1, 2009, Prop 69 requires that the Department of Justice begin taking samples for any adult arrested or charged with any felony offense.” So it seems that Rizzo should already have had to give up his DNA based on the previous 53 felony charges; I’m not sure why the LAT felt that it needed to call out #55 in particular. I’m also not going to comment on the whole “any adult arrested or charged with any felony offense” thing.)
And I wanted to note this yesterday, but it snuck past me. Guess where at least some of the money to pay Rizzo’s salary came from? If you said “a fund that was supposed to be used to provide housing for low-income residents“, take two gold stars and advance to the next blue square.
Random notes: October 21, 2010.
October 21st, 2010Links to obits, to keep the record straight: Bob Guccione, Tom Bosley, and Johnny “Boy” Sheffield.
The University of North Texas has fired football coach Todd Dodge.
(Thanks to A.T. for the tip on this.)
And our old friend Art Acevedo has made his decision; the Austin Police Department is standardizing on the Smith and Wesson M&P in .40 as their issue weapon.
I pretty much come down on the side of letting officers carry whatever they can qualify with, subject to minimum power requirements. And I find the argument that it’ll make it easier for officers to share ammo in a shootout somewhat specious; if officers are in a high volume firefight like that, they should be fighting their way to their patrol rifles. Or calling in SWAT. Or the National Guard.
On the other hand, I’m not an expert in police tactics, and I’m willing to acknowledge I could be wrong about this. On the gripping hand, it puts more money in S&W’s pocket (which, as an S&W fanboy, I appreciate), and it may lead to more high-quality former police weapons showing up at the gun shop.
TMQ watch: October 19, 2010.
October 19th, 2010“But the name of the game is be hit and hit back…”
—Warren Zevon, “Boom Boom Mancini”
I come up with a word count of 9,215 words in this week’s “Tuesday Morning Quarterback” column. Of those, I count 1,701 (about 18%) devoted to this week’s helmet to helmet hits and the NFL concussion problem. (I’m not counting the additional concussion material in the reader comments.)
I don’t want to seem like I’m dismissing TMQ’s emphasis on the problem. I agree with his main points; the NFL doesn’t penalize dangerous play, the sports media actively praises dangerous play, and things aren’t going to get better until the NFL cracks down. And I would much rather see him hammering on player safety than on the “blur” offense. The problem, though, is that these points have been made by pretty much everyone, starting with Rodney Harrison on Sunday. Now, TMQ is just preaching to the choir. I think it’s fair to ask TMQ to go beyond preaching.
Gee, isn’t it interesting that Boise State is ranked third, and TCU fifth, in the first BCS standings? Which leads to the possibility that the two schools will play each other in a bowl game, instead of each school playing another school from one of the conferences that automatically qualifies for a bowl?
Who names their child “Jocey”? I’m impressed by the fact that she’s a public defender, which shows she has some intellectual heft. Out of deference for the sensibilities of my mother, who is known to read this blog, I will refrain from commenting on her other assets.
Sweet and sour plays: New England – Baltimore, Green Bay – Miami, Baltimore – New England, Detroit – Giants, Kansas City – Houston.
Speaking of endowments (see Jocey above), another of TMQ’s obsessions is that rich people should stop giving money to Ivy League schools. TMQ’s belief is that the Ivy League schools already have enough money, and that the rich should concentrate on giving to schools like Morehouse, where their money might actually make a difference. Here’s the Vanity Fair article on the fate of Harvard’s endowment.
“Adventures in Officiating”. Favre Favre Farve. “Friday Night Lights”. You know something? I’m sick and tired of hearing about “Friday Night Lights” and how it’s “the best show nobody is watching”. I don’t watch it because I. Don’t. Freaking. Care. Stop trying to ram it down my throat.
Christmas creep. Coach creep. Martz watch.
While WCD appreciates TMQ’s willingness to cover the latest developments in the world of astrophysics, we are getting a little tired of Easterbrook’s constant repetition that “humanity so far knows about 1 percent of what can be known”. Really, Gregg, we get it. So do most of the professional scientists we’re aware of.
Colts run the blur offense, Redskins run the Times Square defense. Chicken-<salad> punts: Baltimore and Dallas.
Offensive linemen. Still. WCD is starting to get offended.
Nick Saban doesn’t like agents who pay college players; he compares them to “pimps”. TMQ points out that the current scandals involve “relatively small” amounts of money. TMQ also calls Saban a “hypocrite” for suggesting that college football “throw the NFL out”, since college football programs “depend on the illusion that most players will make the NFL”. Finally, TMQ asks: how is a college football coach whose program only graduates 55% of the players who come in any better than a pimp?
“Wasteful spending on bodyguards” continues with yet another shot at Rick Perry.
“Dallas is on a 1-5 streak and seeming to play dumber every week.”
Lindenwood 90, Culver-Stockton 19. Trinity (Texas) 17, Sewanee 3.
Reader comments: Saints, free kicks, and concussions.
And, finally, “many readers with good memories” commented that Easterbrook forgot to run his 1972 Miami Dolphins item after the Kansas City loss, so he runs it this week. The Dolphins item is my single biggest yearly annoyance with TMQ.
First of all, it’s lazy writing. Literally, lazy writing; Easterbrook brags about how he has the entire paragraph in his Microsoft Word AutoText, and plans to keep it there “because no NFL team’s going to go 19-0”. I’d root for the Detroit Lions to go 19-0, if it would just shut TMQ the heck up.
Second of all, it’s wrong. Wrong wrong wrongity wrong. I can’t believe readers haven’t written in and told Easterbrook this; it’s on freakin’ Snopes, for crying out loud! Given the amount of time and space Easterbrook devotes to bashing other non-fiction authors and publishers, it seems odd that he continues to knowingly and willfully repeat this error.
Tune in next week. Hopefully, we won’t have any NFL players die on the field between now and next Tuesday.
Random notes: October 19, 2010.
October 19th, 2010Two interesting obits from the police blotter:
Melvin Lane Powers. I meant to note this last week when it appeared in the HouChron, but somehow it got past me. Powers was a prominent developer in Houston, but before that, he was a defendant in the Candace Mossler murder trial.
(Edited to add: for comparison purposes, here’s the HouChron obit.)
P. Basil Lambros, L.A. defense attorney and sharp-dressed man. This didn’t ring a bell with me until I read the obit and realized he was Spade Cooley’s defense attorney. John Marr did a fantastic piece on the Spade Cooley murder in issue 19 of “Murder Can Be Fun“; I commend it to your attention. (No, it isn’t online, but sending John Marr $2 isn’t going to break you.) If you can’t wait, here’s the Wikipedia entry on Spade Cooley, who was a leading competitor of Bob Wills, and actually beat him in a battle of the bands.
Robert Schuller’s Crystal Cathedral has filed a Chapter 11 bankruptcy petition.
Go, go, Gophers!
October 18th, 2010I missed this yesterday, but the Minnesota Golden Gophers fired coach Tim Brewster. The Gophers are 1-6 so far this season.
(Hattip: FARK.)
Obit watch: October 18, 2010.
October 18th, 2010Benoit Mandelbrot. I vividly remember reading about the Mandelbrot set in Martin Gardner’s “Mathematical Games” column in Scientific American back in the day, and then having hours of fun generating Mandelbrot sets on my computer.
When I say “hours of fun”, I mean “hours of fun” as I was using a Radio Shack Color Computer with a blazing fast 6809E processor running at 0.89 MHz (or 1.78 MHz: does POKE 65495,0 mean anything to anyone?) It pretty much took an entire day of processing to generate sets.
Also among the dead: Simon “Manimal” MacCorkindale. When A.T. mentioned this on Saturday, it occurred to me that, with current CGI technology, the time is ripe for a “Manimal” revival on NBC. Lord knows, it couldn’t be any worse than their current programming.
Here’s your Barbara Billingsley obit.
Your loser update: week 6.
October 18th, 2010Jerry Jones says “I would never consider (firing a coach) during the season.” Never?
NFL teams that still have a chance to go 0-16:
Buffalo (bye week)
Carolina (bye week)
Zen and the art of military service.
October 15th, 2010I’m fascinated by Zen.
I don’t practice it. I’ve thought about it, but
- I’m not sure how I would reconcile that with my other beliefs.
- I have problems with some aspects of Zen thought. For example, there’s a precept, “If you pick up a stone, you must be prepared to pick up all the suffering of the world.” What does that mean? Should we not try to help other people, lest we become responsible for their suffering? I’ll tell you truthfully, there are times when that appeals to me, but in the end, I can’t just stand back and not pick up the stone. Even when I suspect it would be better for everyone involved if I left it on the ground.
That said, I love reading about Zen. I’ve particularly enjoyed Shoes Outside the Door
I’ve got a bookmark on my system to Brad Warner’s wonderful “Zen Books That Don’t Suck” page, and will probably check a few more of those off the list as I find them. I’ve got to like a guy who not only practices Zen, but is a fan of monster movies and Ghoulardi.
Anyway, Warner also has a blog, and I wanted to highlight this post in particular (scroll down below the schedule information for the meat). I don’t know why, but there’s something about Warner’s response, and the way he phrases it, that I find deeply moving.
I wish this was not true. And I can wish all I want but that won’t make it so.
“I can wish all I want but that won’t make it so” reminds me of a ha-ha only serious joke I’ve used from time to time in business settings:
Q: How many legs does a dog have, if you call a tail a leg?
A: Four. Calling a tail a leg doesn’t make it one.
Punch!
October 15th, 2010One of the things I’ve noticed in my reading of cocktail history is the emphasis on “punch” during the 18th and 19th centuries. Historically, it seems that the communal drink served in a large bowl was much, much more popular during that time period, and then abruptly dropped off – probably, like many other aspects of 18th and 19th century cocktail culture, killed off by Prohibition.
Frank Bruni, in “The Tipsy Diaries” from today’s NYT, has a nifty profile of David Wondrich, the guy who wrote Imbibe!
There’s a couple of things in the Bruni article that I find interesting. One is that you can apparently still purchase ambergris (I love the description of it as “clotted whale cholesterol”). I was also delighted to read that Wonderich became interested in mixology after reading Barnaby Conrad’s Absinthe: History in a Bottle
War on Drugs watch.
October 15th, 2010Today’s LAT has an interesting article about the “cult of indoor weed“. Basically, consumers have developed a preference for marijuana grown indoors; the result has been a large indoor pot industry, focused in the “Emerald Triangle” region (Mendocino, Trinity and Humboldt counties) of Northern California.
Meanwhile, CVS has been fined $75 million by the Federal government. Why? They weren’t aggressive enough in tracking people who bought cold medication. Meanwhile, since the “Combat Methamphetamine Epidemic Act of 2005” has been in effect, meth production has moved across the border into Mexico, where the cartels can buy pseudoephedrine in bulk.
TMQ watch: October 12, 2010.
October 12th, 2010Amazingly, Easterbrook did not pull out his 1972 Miami Dolphins autotext this week. Oversight? It finally got through to TMQ that the champagne story was wrong? Will we ever know?
In other news, the first 1,070 words of this week’s TMQ can be summarized thusly: Oregon’s “blur” offense is nothing new, but combines four existing ideas, and executes them very fast. There’s nothing revolutionary about it.
“TMQ continues to believe the NFL is merely talking about concussion safety for show, hoping the issue will go away.”
Tracey. Not really my type.
Sweet and sour plays: Tampa – Cincinnati, Giants – Houston, Texas Tech – Baylor, Tony Romo.
Food is not healthy.
The TMQ obsession with asteroids striking Earth goes on.
Green Bay, New Orleans, and San Diego are all playing erratically, even though they were preseason favorites.
Chicken-<salad> punt: Houston.
(Baltimore’s) defense beats (Denver’s) offense.
Christmas creep goes on.
TMQ loves him some undrafted free agents. TMQ hates coins smaller than the quarter, and dollar bills.
Falcons fly, Bengals fall, the obsession with offensive linemen throwing passes continues.
Speaking of offensive linemen, TMQ also weighs in on the Lawrence Academy story (see what I did there?). I’m sure it will come as a great shock to both of my readers that Easterbrook thinks 300+ pound high-school students playing football is unsportsmanlike and unhealthy.
Wacky disclaimer: Dairy Queen.
Instead of paying college players a “living wage”, how about stipends like grad students get?
TMQ avoids mentioning the big Favre story (or is it the little Favre story?), but that doesn’t stop him from Favre bashing. “…like the Jets and Packers before them, the Vikings have become a promotional vehicle for Favre, or rather for Brett Favre Brett Favre Brett Favre, as TMQ once dubbed him.”
TMQ doesn’t like the remake of “Nikita”. And by the way, it isn’t realistic.
Why do four-star generals in the Pentagon need bodyguards in the Pentagon?
Who is the worst team in the NFL right now? TMQ thinks that would be Buffalo.
Hey, let’s bash Randy Moss!
Union of Kentucky 84, Bethel of Tennessee 55. Shenandoah 7, Maryville of Tennessee 6.
Reader comments: Oktoberfest celebrates the start of October, and shouldn’t be part of your creep watch, maroon. NFL Network announcers don’t know the rules. The bounce play goes back prior to 1982. If you think the NFL is bad about concussions, try rugby. The Jerry Rice’s of basketball and cricket. Obscure rules. The free kick. And Rome was founded by the Trojans according to Virgil, so why shouldn’t USC play in the Coliseum, you maroon?
Tune in next week, when, if we’re lucky, Easterbrook will bring up his “pro-nudity, against gambling” theory.
Do they sell earplug futures?
October 11th, 2010Someone has decided to give Fran Drescher a “tryout” for a possible talk show.