Apropos of nothing in particular…

March 3rd, 2010

I’m wondering if any of my readers have the same reaction I do:

The more hype you hear for something, the less likely you are to actually partake of that something.

For example, I got so fed up with hearing about ET and Raiders of the Lost Ark that I’ve never seen either one of them. Likewise, I haven’t seen any Star Wars film other than the first.

This isn’t reliable: I have all five seasons of The Wire, but that also has something to do with being into David Simon’s work before Homicide (the TV series).

Really, this doesn’t have anything to do with anything in particular.

Posted in Lazyweb | 2 Comments »

Book notes: March 2, 2010.

March 2nd, 2010

And happy Texas Independence Day, everyone.

The problems with The Last Train from Hiroshima have reached critical mass: Henry Holt, the publisher, is withdrawing the book from circulation. Here’s a link to the NYT article. And here’s a link to a LAT article that I think goes into a little more detail.

There is no evidence that one person who appears in the book actually existed; Pellegrino says that he knew that already because he’d invented a pseudonym and forgot to mention it. Maybe there is as simple an explanation for the concerns over his C.V.: Pellegrino’s website says that he earned a PhD from Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, in 1982, a detail that has not been confirmed.

I find this odd. Pellegrino isn’t exactly an unknown author; if I remember correctly, at least one of his Titanic books was a Times bestseller. So why are these concerns coming up now?

Edited to add: I was going to mention: if you go to Amazon’s page, they still have the book in stock (3 copies as of 11:37 AM Central), but they’ve added a note, and the text of Holt’s statement, to the page.

Also in the LAT: a fun interview with John McPhee, who is finally filling in some of his personal history.

There’s a standing joke about the New Yorker running “a three-part series on corn by John McPhee” or some sort of other essay that sounds equally silly. Funny thing is, I’ll read pretty much anything McPhee writes, including that three-part series on corn; I always know that I’m going to find something in McPhee’s work that I didn’t know but am glad to know now, or that shakes up my world view. In the next couple of days, I’ll try to post a brief review of the most recent McPhee book I’ve read, Uncommon Carriers, which is interesting but a little bit frustrating.

Posted in Books, Clippings | 1 Comment »

Here’s an interesting legal question.

March 1st, 2010

(I’m hoping that the good folks over at Popehat might have an answer for this, but I welcome comments from other sources.)

The Eighth Amendment states:

Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.

Question: Is one million dollars bail on a misdemeanor charge “excessive bail” in the Eighth Amendment sense?

Edited to add: So now his bail is down to $100,000, and he’s scheduled to be released, in return for taking the sign down. This doesn’t change the question, but I did want to make sure that update got in.

Posted in Law | Comments Closed

I heartily endorse this event or product. (#4 in a series).

March 1st, 2010

LaRue Tactical.

I blame my great and good friend Other Brian for this. It all started last week when he pointed out that day’s shirt.woot to me. I figured, “Hey, as long as I’m ordering that shirt, I might as well order some of the other shirts I’ve been putting off, too.” Not that there’s anything wrong with my ThoseShirts shirts; when, over the course of a single day, three complete strangers walk up to you and tell you “I love your shirt“, you know you’re doing something right. But I did need to put some variety into my wardrobe.

Anyway, one of the shirts I ordered was the snazzy LaRue Tactical t-shirt, along with one of the Tactical Beverage Entry Tools. I will confess that I did think the $9.99 for Priority Mail shipping was slightly steep, but, on the other hand, Brownells charged me even more to ship some DVDs, so I could live with that.

So what happened?

  1. I placed the order on Thursday. It arrived on Friday. Granted, LaRue is in Leander, and I’m in Austin, but I would have figured it would take a day or two to get the package together and shipped out.
  2. In addition to the shirt and tool, the good folks at LaRue threw in, for free:
    * a snazzy LaRue Tactical hat.
    * a bottle of LaRue barbecue spice rub.
    * and a couple of LaRue Tactical bumper stickers.

How cool is that? They don’t know me from a hole in the ground, and (as far as I know) they have no idea that I have a blog. Maybe this is something they do for every first time order. I don’t know.

What I do know is this; I have a stripped AR lower in the gun cabinet, waiting for me to decide what I want to do with it. (I haven’t decided between doing some sort of heavy barrel National Match type rifle, or an M4 clone.) I’d pretty much decided that I didn’t want to try to assemble an upper from parts (at least, not this time around) so once I get the lower the way I want it, I’m planning to go looking for an upper that meets my needs.

The first place I’m going to go when I go upper shopping is LaRue Tactical.

Posted in Endorsements | 2 Comments »

Random notes: March 1, 2010.

March 1st, 2010

Obit watch: John Reed, of the D’Oly Carte Opera Company.

…for a generation of fans, Mr. Reed was the memorable embodiment of Gilbert and Sullivan’s “little man” roles, among them John Wellington Wells, the title character of “The Sorcerer”; Major-General Stanley, the very model of et cetera from “The Pirates of Penzance”; Ko-Ko, the nebbish turned lord high executioner in “The Mikado,” a part he also played in the 1967 film version.

The LAT magazine profiles the man who brought Tiki to America: Ernest Raymond Beaumont Gantt. Mr. Gantt is perhaps better known by the name he acquired later in life: Donn E.R. Beachcomber.

Edited to add: I intended to blog this on Friday, but didn’t have anything to put with it, and it slipped my mind when I was preparing these notes: David Parker’s eulogy for his father, Robert B. Parker.

My father, at that moment in a cut-off sweatshirt covered with muffin crumbs, bacon grease, Flintstones Jelly and beer stains replied without dropping a beat–“Yeah, I’d like to see something by Twyla Tharp, I understand she’s quite innovative”.

(Hattip: Confessions of an Idiosyncratic Mind.)

ETA2: Also forgot to blog the most recent entry in Derek Lowe’s “Things I Won’t Work With” series: dioxygen diflouride (also known as FOOF).

The paper goes on to react FOOF with everything else you wouldn’t react it with: ammonia (“vigorous”, this at 100K), water ice (explosion, natch), chlorine (“violent explosion”, so he added it more slowly the second time), red phosphorus (not good), bromine fluoride, chlorine trifluoride (say what?), perchloryl fluoride (!), tetrafluorohydrazine (how on Earth. . .), and on, and on. If the paper weren’t laid out in complete grammatical sentences and published in JACS, you’d swear it was the work of a violent lunatic.

Also recommended: the “How Not To Do It” archives. Especially the story of the liquid nitrogen tank at Texas A&M.

Both the pressure relief and rupture disks had failed for some reason in the past, so they’d been removed and sealed off with metal plugs. You may commence shivering now.

Posted in Clippings, Explosives, Geek, Mixology, Music, Obits | Comments Closed

Art, damn it, art! watch (#3 in a series).

February 26th, 2010

One after the next, they trudged through the horizontal-blowing snow on Thursday, most focusing more on the icy sidewalk than on the body of a naked woman, who stood in a gallery window in Greenwich Village.

Posted in Art, Clippings | 1 Comment »

It’s a long way to the top if you wanna polka.

February 23rd, 2010

I think I’ve mentioned before that I’m a libertarian  (well, 99 44/100ths percent libertarian). For that reason, I fully support the arrest and prosecution of people who make polka videos; I believe the production of said videos violates the non-aggression axiom, much like the production of bagpipe recordings.

(Hattip: Balko.)

Posted in Clippings, Law, Music, Sarcasm | Comments Closed

“Would you say the time has come for us to crack open each other’s heads and feast on the tasty goo inside?”

February 23rd, 2010

As of this moment (7:55 AM Central) snow is falling outside my office window.

This means, of course, that we’re all going to die!

More later.

Edited to add: Statesman. Photo and video to come.

ETA2: More Statesman:

A large band of snow, which should bring more consistent snowfall, is expected to arrive mid-afternoon in Travis and Williamson counties, with snowfall subsiding sometime between late afternoon and after midnight.

But we are getting non-stop flights to Branson. I confess; I’m tempted to take advantage of the $49 special and blog the experience.

ETA3: Did you know “Nanook of the North” was public domain?

Posted in Hysteria | 3 Comments »

Book notes: February 22, 2010.

February 22nd, 2010

Kim Stanley Robinson in the LAT.

Slate has an interesting article by Deborah Blum about the government’s deliberate poisoning of alcohol during Prohibition. Based on Sarah Weinman’s recommendation, I had already ordered The Poisoner’s Handbook; reading Blum’s Slate piece makes me even more happy I did so.

Edited to add: Lawrence suggests that I may have seen this on Megan McArdle’s blog. I honestly do not remember where I ran across Blum’s piece first; it is a top-billed story on Slate at the moment. But I’m always happy to give a hattip to my favorite Certified Netware Engineer.

Edited to add 2: I missed this story over the weekend; The Last Train from Hiroshima appears to have some problems. As in, one of the author’s sources seems to be a liar. (Hattip: Insta.)

Posted in Books | Comments Closed

Obit watch.

February 20th, 2010

General Alexander M. Haig, Jr. (United States Army, ret.) (Washington Post.)

I always felt Haig got a bum rap for his actions when Reagan was shot.

He knew, Reagan’s aide Lyn Nofziger once said, that “the third paragraph of his obit” would detail his conduct in the hours after President Reagan was shot, on March 30, 1981.

Actually, the NYT waits until paragraph four, though that particular statement does come at the end of the third paragraph.

If the NYT obit is to be believed, he wasn’t much of a politician, and managed to irritate a lot of folks. But Ace of Spades has a good post up on Haig’s military record. He served his country with honor in Korea and Vietnam, which is not something I believe was as well known as it should have been.

Posted in Clippings, Obits | Comments Closed

Random notes: February 19, 2010.

February 19th, 2010

For my readers outside of Austin, here’s a link to the Statesman‘s second day coverage of yesterday’s attack.

And here’s a link to a slightly better obit for Jim Bibby from the NYT.

Posted in Clippings, Law, Obits | Comments Closed

Breaker, breaker.

February 18th, 2010

A small plane has hit an office building in North Austin.

The Echelon building complex is where the St. Edward’s Professional Education Center (PEC) is located; I have classes there, and the PEC building is also the location of the local FBI office. According to the current Statesman reporting, the plane actually hit a building in the complex next to the one the PEC uses.

Edited to add: The Statesman is now quoting the FAA as saying this was “a criminal act”.

Edited to add 2: Unconfirmed speculation is that the pilot was a man named Joseph Stack. There’s an anti-IRS rant/suicide note posted here. The embeddedart.com domain shows in WHOIS as being registered to a Joe Stack in San Marcos, TX.

Edited to add 3: Here’s a link to Internet Archive versions of the embeddedart.com web pages.

Edited to add 4: Some people, mostly on the Infowars.com website, are posting what purports to be information about the pilot. I haven’t been able to confirm any of what’s been posted either in the FAA database or the one at Landings.com. The FAA hasn’t released the plane’s tail number yet, so I haven’t been able to check the registration.

Edited to add 5: The Statesman is now stating that Joseph Andrew Stack is confirmed as the pilot. Apparently Stack also set his house on fire before flying into the building. I have not been able to find a pilot named Joseph Stack or Andrew Stack in the FAA database for Texas and California. The FAA is stating the plane came out of an airport in Georgetown, but they still have not released the tail number.

Posted in Clippings | Comments Closed

Poor po-po.

February 18th, 2010

Kevin Leverenz, a sergeant with the Austin Police Department, is going to be promoted to lieutenant.

That’s good news, right? Certainly it is for Sgt. Leverenz. Not so much so for Chief Art Acevedo. You see, Chief Acevedo denied Sgt. Leverenz the promotion; however, the chief’s decision was overturned by an arbitrator.

Even better, this is the second time an arbitrator has overturned a promotion decision by Chief Acevedo in the past two months.

Acevedo said the ruling was based on a technicality, not the merits of his decision.

What, pray tell, was that technicality?

According to Miller’s ruling, Acevedo promoted Leverenz to lieutenant in June, the same day that City Council members cut several vacant positions amid budget reductions.

To legally slash those jobs, however, the city had to first promote officers into those vacancies — state civil service law said they were legally entitled to the jobs — then demote them and place their names on a list for reinstatement.

Leverenz’s lawyer Stribling argued that Leverenz could not be legally bypassed for promotion in November once he had already been elevated a rank and was on that reinstatement list.

So it appears the “technicality” was that he had already been promoted, then the chief changed his mind and tried to yank the promotion. And this is such a minor “technicality” that the arbitrator didn’t even wait for a hearing; he issued his decision weeks in advance of the scheduled hearing, based only on the documents filed by both sides. Some “technicality”.

Now, to be fair to the chief, it looks like there are some questions about Leverenz’s record, and it is possible to argue that he shouldn’t have been promoted in the first place. (To be fair to Leverenz, it is also possible that the charges outlined in the Statesman are trumped-up.)

But…

According to Miller’s ruling, city officials also argued that Acevedo was not responsible for knowledge about Leverenz’s performance and discipline history when he promoted him in June.

What? What?! I cannot believe the chief of police seriously made that argument. “Well, I’m not responsible for knowing the record of my officers before I make promotion decisions.”

That’s over the line.

Posted in Clippings, Law | 3 Comments »

Random notes: February 17, 2010.

February 17th, 2010

Since I have been critical of the NYT in the past, it seems only fair to note when they’ve done something right (in my humble opinion):

The Times has no intention of changing its approach: report results as soon as it can, as prominently as they deserve. “Our job is to report the news,” said Tom Jolly, the sports editor. He said NBC “has made a business decision to show the highlights on a taped basis. We’re not beholden to presenting the news the way NBC does.”

I think the question of “Do the results of sporting events count as ‘news’?” is perhaps worth discussing in more detail, but I still praise the NYT for taking this stand.

Obit watch: Jim Bibby, former pitcher for various teams including the Texas Rangers in those great early days. Bibby actually pitched the first no-hitter in Rangers history; he’s also one of the many memorable characters in Seasons in Hell. (What can I say? I love that book.)

Adult content after the jump…

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Clippings, Media, Obits | Comments Closed

What is the work of bookstores in this country?

February 16th, 2010

In general, I don’t like telling people “Go over to this other guy’s blog and read his stuff”, especially when that’s instead of actual content. In this specific case, however, it will help considerably with context if you read Andy Ihnatko’s blog post about the City Lights bookstore historical reenactment and the comments on that post.

Still with me? Good.

My first reaction to this post was, “Yeah, Andy! Stick it to those snobbish bastids!” My second reaction was great annoyance at some of the comments, especially the one about City Lights as a bookstore with a “strong curatorial voice”. My third reaction was, “Wait a minute, do some of these people have a point?” This post is an attempt to work through those reactions.

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Books | 2 Comments »

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