EarthQuest update.

June 24th, 2012

Remember EarthQuest, the dinosaur/ecology theme park proposed for Montgomery County?

I’m promoting this from a comment left on my “Contact the proprietor” page. The original can be found here.

Awesome blog about Earthquest. Here is an update:
The Earthquest Institute is now defunct and its CEO (as Don Allen Holbrook LLC) is suing John and Jane Does who have dared to comment about this project and his involvement in it. He is also suing the Tribune, Cynthia Calvert, The Houston Press, Craig Malisow, The Pahrump Valley Times and me (Soapboxmom).
Earthquest Adventures will be remembered for this frivolous, harassment suit filed by Holbrook in an effort to stifle public debate about this matter of public concern. Holbrook apparently thinks the taxpayers should have no say in how their tax dollars are spent.
Please also watch for updates on the Earthquest Facebook page.

I was not aware that Holbrook was suing folks. If so, this is a revolting development. Since I’ve been on vacation the past couple of days, I haven’t had a chance to follow-up with soapboxmom on this, so I don’t know if she and other folks involved have legal representation yet. I assume the Houston Press has lawyers on retainer, but I’m not sure about the other folks named.

(soapboxmom, I would like to follow up with you on that. Please feel free to email me at one of the addresses on the contact page.)

Posted in Clippings, Earthquest, Law, Politics | 5 Comments »

Still here.

June 24th, 2012

Just running around and doing some thinking for a forthcoming blog post. In the meantime, here’s something we hope you’ll really like.

Ernest Hemmingway Memorial, near Sun Valley Resort, Ketchum, Idaho.

Grave of Ernest Hemmingway, Ketchum Cemetary, Ketchum, Idaho.

Posted in Books, Photography, Travel | Comments Closed

On the road again…

June 21st, 2012

Spent all day yesterday on planes or waiting on planes. Today looks busy. Blogging will be catch as catch can.

If anyone knows the Boise area, feel free to drop restaurant recommendations in comments. So far I’ve been favorably impressed by Bar Gernika and Moxie Java on Chinden.

Posted in Admin, Food | Comments Closed

Not easy, being a racehorse.

June 19th, 2012

This is:

a) Odd.

2) Makes you go “Hmmmmmmm.” when you start thinking about certain racehorses that may or may not have had a chance to win the Triple Crown.

…more than 30 horses from four states have tentatively tested positive for the substance, dermorphin, which is suspected of helping horses run faster.

Dermorphin apparently originated “from the backs of a type of South American frog” though the version of the substance currently in use is believed to be synthetic. (“There’s a lot out there, and that would be an awful lot of frogs that would have to be squeezed,” he said, adding, “There are a lot of unemployed chemists out there.”)

(“A lot of unemployed chemists out there.” I suddenly have this image of Walter White synthesizing frog juice.)

11 horse in Louisiana, 15 in Oklahoma, and six in New Mexico have allegedly tested positive. Note that there’s no evidence yet that any Triple Crown competitors may have used the substance; but also note that there’s no discussion about whether any of those horses have been tested for dermorphin.

Posted in Clippings, Geek, Horses | Comments Closed

Art, damn it, obit! watch: June 19, 2012.

June 19th, 2012

Barton Lidice Benes died on May 30th, but his obit shows up in today’s NYT.

Mr. Benes was a sculptor “who worked in materials that he called artifacts of everyday life”. For example, he did sculptures using shredded cash. He also did a series of sculptures called “Flood”, using damaged property donated by victims of the 1997 North Dakota floods.

When friends started dying of AIDS, and Mr. Benes himself tested HIV-positive, he began working in everyday materials of the epidemic — pills and capsules, intravenous tubes, HIV-infected blood and cremated human remains.

One of the interesting aspects of this obit is the detail that Mr. Benes, who lived in Greenwich Village, apparently had a close relationship with the North Dakota Museum of Art in Grand Forks. NDMA exhibited his work in the 1990s, and…

…plans to build a replica of his apartment and furnish it exactly as Mr. Benes left it. Among its objects, many of them macabre, are a blackened human toe; a giant hourglass holding the mingled ashes of two of Mr. Benes’s friends, partners who died of AIDS; a gall stone removed from his friend Larry Hagman, the actor; and a stuffed giraffe’s head.

I’m curious how the relationship between Mr. Benes and NDMA developed. It just seems odd that he’d be that close to an art museum in what New Yorkers consider “flyover country”. It also seems odd that he had so much trouble exhibiting his “transgressive” art in NYC.

Posted in Art, Clippings, Obits | Comments Closed

Quote of the day.

June 18th, 2012

“…these apps are nothing but digitally-enabled takeout menus for that ‘It puts the lotion on its skin’ guy from Silence of the Lambs.”

—Tam

(Also, it gives me an excuse to link to this, which I don’t think I’ve linked to before. Kind of a catchy tune, if you ask me.)

Posted in Clippings, Geek, Music | Comments Closed

Random notes: June 18, 2012.

June 18th, 2012

I don’t have anything to say about Rodney King.

I do, however, have a Bell update: Robert “Ratso” Rizzo and Angela Spaccia lost five years of pension credit. CALPERS, the people who regulate state pensions, ruled that the five years of credit Rizzo and Spaccia had purchased was bought using city funds. This is a) not legal, and 2) CALPERS “found no evidence that the Bell City Council had approved making payments”.

According to the LAT, Ratso’s pension has been cut from $650,000 a year to $50,000 a year. Spaccia went from $250,000 to $34,000. Neither of these figures include money both could have received from “Bell’s supplementary retirement program”.

Posted in California Über Alles, Clippings, Law, Obits | Comments Closed

Pine Ridge.

June 15th, 2012

I was eight years old in 1973.

I have vague memories of hearing about the Wounded Knee standoff on the network news, but not much more than that.

What does this have to do with the price of beer in Whiteclay?

Glad you asked.

…the Oglala Sioux tribe has demanded that the federal government reopen dozens of cases it says the F.B.I. may have mishandled decades ago.

The NYT cites several odd deaths: a man found with “stab wounds to his face and neck” was ruled to have committed suicide. A woman who was found with a stab wound in her burnt home was ruled to have died of “carbon monoxide poisoning, acute alcoholism ‘and other factors'”. Another man was killed with a hatchet, but the killer was never prosecuted “because of impairment caused by a mental condition”.

The F.B.I. however, has not disclosed the nature of the suspect’s impairment, why the suspect’s ability to stand trial was not left for a court to decide or whether the suspect was a threat to kill again.

Here’s another good one:

Ms. Aquash’s decomposing body was discovered in a field in 1976. A coroner ruled her death had been caused by exposure to the cold. But after Ms. Aquash’s family demanded a second autopsy, she was found to have been shot behind the left ear. It was not until 28 years later, in 2004, that the first of two men was convicted in her death.

Posted in Clippings, Cops, Law | Comments Closed

Obit watch: special paging Dr. Johnson edition

June 14th, 2012

Dave Boswell won 20 games to help take the Minnesota Twins to an American League division championship in 1969. He pitched in a World Series when he was only 20. But for many he is most remembered as a combatant on the list of Billy Martin’s greatest fights.

NYT obit for Henry Hill.

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

Travel note.

June 13th, 2012

Should you be planning to head out to Las Vegas for DEFCON, to get married, or any other reason, the Gun Store is offering $5 off any machine gun rental.

(Hattip: Lawrence.)

Posted in Endorsements, Guns, Travel | 2 Comments »

Annals of Law (part 6 of a series).

June 13th, 2012

Cast your mind back, way back, to those halcyon days of June, 2011. Remember those times?

Disco was the rage. People were discovering that you could get food out of trailers. And in Liberty County, police were digging up someone’s house based on the claims of a self-proclaimed “psychic” that there were 30 or more bodies buried on the property.

Really. I’m not making this stuff up.

Why this flashback to the era of Herman Cain and Casey Anthony?

The couple who owns the property is suing the psychic, the Liberty County Sheriff’s Office, and various media outlets.

As we often say at WCD, “Quel fromage!”

Posted in Clippings, Cops, Law | Comments Closed

Obit watch: June 13, 2012.

June 13th, 2012

Henry Hill has passed away. In a hospital. Of what I guess could be called “natural causes”.

(You know, I still have not seen “Goodfellas”, though I do have it and want to sit down and watch it soon. I have read Wiseguy, and I think it is a heck of a book.)

Also worth noting: Ann Rutherford, Scarlett O’Hara’s sister.

Posted in Clippings, Law, Movies, Obits | 1 Comment »

Say it ain’t so, José.

June 12th, 2012

Long and fascinating article in the NYT. Apparently, the Zeta cartel has been laundering drug profits by purchasing quarter horses in the United States.

The affidavit said the Zetas funneled about $1 million a month into buying quarter horses in the United States. The authorities were tipped off to Tremor’s activities in January 2010, when the Zetas paid more than $1 million in a single day for two broodmares, the affidavit said.

Way to keep a low freaking profile there, guys.

Edited to add: More from the Statesman.

Posted in Clippings, Horses, Law | Comments Closed

Administrative announcement.

June 12th, 2012

WCD now has an official mascot.

No, not the drama llama: we are content to leave that for other bloggers.

The official mascot of WCD is the slow loris. How can you not like a venomous primate? If only they could be genetically engineered to fly and kill bureaucrats.

Posted in Admin, Primates | Comments Closed

Meanwhile, back at Alcatraz…

June 12th, 2012

Yesterday was the 50th anniversary of the great Alcatraz escape.

Clarence and John Anglin and their friend Frank Lee Morris broke out of the prison and escaped into San Francisco Bay on a raft they made out of raincoats. They were never recaptured, and there is considerable debate to this day about whether they died during the escape or managed to elude capture. (All three would be over 80 today.) More background here.

Anyway, the LAT has coverage tied to a 50th anniversary gathering of various folks involved in the case, including the Anglins’ sisters, federal marshals who are still looking for the trio, and Jolene Babyak, who has written extensively about Alcatraz (one of her books is devoted to the escape).

Posted in Clippings, Law | Comments Closed

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »