‘Hog Apocalypse’: Texas has a new weapon in its war on feral pigs. It’s not pretty.
I have no joke here. I just want to embed this:
Bagatelle.
February 23rd, 2017Obit watch: February 23, 2017.
February 23rd, 2017Noted Japanese film director Seijun Suzuki.
Haven’t watched Tokyo Drifter yet (do have it) but Mike the Musicologist and I watched Branded to Kill a while back. I think that would definitely fall in my top ten strange movies list…
Musings of a cigarette smoking man…
February 23rd, 2017Working from an office suite behind a Burger King in southern Virginia, operatives used a web of shadowy cigarette sales to funnel tens of millions of dollars into a secret bank account. They weren’t known smugglers, but rather agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
The operation, not authorized under Justice Department rules, gave agents an off-the-books way to finance undercover investigations and pay informants without the usual cumbersome paperwork and close oversight, according to court records and people close to the operation.
Hmmm. Hmmm. Hmmm. That rings a faint bell. It reminds me of something BATFE did during the previous administration. Give me a moment, it’s on the tip of my tongue…
Memo from the police beat.
February 23rd, 2017A quick roundup of some police related news, mostly for RoadRich, but perhaps of interest to my regular readers.
APD’s latest officer-involved shooting. There don’t seem to be any updates since late last night, but so far this is sounding like just another sad story: police responded to a call in South Austin, a woman in her 20s fled, tried to run over offices, crashed, exited her vehicle and brandished a knife at one of the responding officers, and…
By way of Hognose over at Weaponsman: the chief of the Punta Gorda, Florida police department has been charged with “culpable negligence” and one of his officers has been charged with felony manslaughter. This is related to the citizen’s police academy shooting that I’ve discussed previously in this space.
(Interesting note: my mother and I started the Lakeway Citizen’s Police Academy last night. The officer who was teaching last night (also the second-in-command of the Lakeway PD) mentioned the Punta Gorda incident in the context of “things we won’t be doing in this class”.)
(I might discuss the Lakeway CPA in more detail at some point down the road. My initial impression is that there are a lot of differences between it and the Austin CPA; some of those are probably do to the relative size of the departments, the available resources, and the length of time the programs have been in operation. My class is the 14th for the Lakeway CPA: my Austin CPA class was the 87th, and I’m currently helping out with the 91st class.)
(Hattip: Tim Cushing.)
I wish there was more context in this article. $13.2 million over 26 months sounds like a lot of money, but how does this compare to other cities over the same time frame? How much have cities like Chicago, New York, and Austin paid out over the same period? How does this break down on a per capita or per officer basis?
(Wikipedia estimates the current population of Cleveland at just under 400,000. Let’s take that as a base number. That’s $33 per citizen. “More than 1,600” people are on the police force: just for grins, let’s round up to 1,700. That’s $7,764.70 per employee, which would include both sworn and non-sworn.)
(The population of Austin was about 931,000 in 2016, and there’s about 1,800 people on the APD staff, both sworn and non-sworn. It’s interesting that the Cleveland PD has somewhere between 100 and 200 fewer officers for a city with less than half the population and a third of the area. But I digress. Unfortunately, I don’t have a figure for settlements paid out by the city since November 2014. But I will note, since I haven’t previously: last week, the city agreed to pay $3.25 million to the family of the naked 17-year-old shot by an APD officer.)
Obit watch: February 22, 2017.
February 22nd, 2017The Statesman is reporting the death of Gary Cartwright, one of the best of the Texas Monthly stable of writers and author of several true crime books.
I’d been reading Cartwright’s work for TM since…well, since my family first moved to Texas and started subscribing to Texas Monthly, and that was (mumble mumble) years ago.
I don’t see an actual tribute on their website yet, but I’m sure one is in progress and I’ll link it here. About 2 1/2 years ago, when Cartwright turned 80, they did run a tribute to him which contains links to other TM writers favorite stories. (Some of my favorites from that list: “Leroy’s Revenge”, which you should not read if you love dogs, but has a sort of gonzo feel to it. “Otis Crater was late for the fanciers’ organizational meeting at the Cherokee Lounge for good reason. He had just stabbed a U-Totem attendant following a discussion of the economic impact of a five-cent price increase on a six-pack of beer.” Also, his profiles of noted stripper Candy Barr and private investigator Jay J. Armes.)
I confess: I haven’t read Blood Will Tell yet. I probably should, but the main reason I haven’t is that I was reading Cartwright’s coverage of T. Cullen Davis in the magazine as it was happening. I have read, and endorse, Dirty Dealing, his book on the Judge John Wood killing and the Chagra family.
Even though I think TM has been going downhill recently (my mother dropped her subscription last year after (mumble mumble) years), I always found Cartwright’s work a high point in any issue. He can’t be replaced.
Edited to add: tribute by John Spong.
Edited to add 2/23: also from TM, “23 Writers and Editors Remember Gary Cartwright”.
Silly season.
February 22nd, 2017A few random items, some more silly than others.
- “I like pineapples, just not on pizza. I do not have the power to make laws which forbid people to put pineapples on their pizza. I am glad that I do not hold such power. Presidents should not have unlimited power. I would not want to hold this position if I could pass laws forbidding that which I don’t like. I would not want to live in such a country. For pizzas, I recommend seafood.”
(I don’t have strong feelings about pineapple on pizza, but I like this guy.) - Wayne Shaw is a backup goalkeeper for the Sutton United soccer team. “His own team referred to him as the Roly Poly Goalie. He is 46 years old, 6-foot-2 and somewhere around 322 pounds, or 23 stone as the British papers usually put it.” During their game against Arsenal on Monday, Mr. Shaw ate a meat pie on the sidelines. There was a spot bet that he’d do this, which paid off at 8-1.
Problem: Mr. Shaw admitted that he was aware of the spot bet; and, while he didn’t bet personally, he was aware of other people who had. This could be considered “spot fixing”.(For the record, it was a “meat and potato” pie. The paper of record does not report the pussy content of the meat pie. Also, note that this silly article already has two corrections appended.)
- I haven’t been following this story closely (the Atlanta newspapers aren’t part of my nutritious media breakfast) but the NYT has a rundown of the Atlanta city contracting scandal, which includes bricks through windows and dead rodents left on doorsteps.
Obit watch: February 20, 2017.
February 20th, 2017Norma McCorvey. You may know her better as the “Roe” in ‘Roe v. Wade”.
Noted: Omar Abdel Rahman, the “blind cleric”, is burning in hell.
We are eating Gamera….
February 14th, 2017Art quickie.
February 13th, 2017I don’t feel like this justifies a full “Art (Acevedo) Watch”, but noted:
Police Chiefs Say Trump’s Law Enforcement Priorities Are Out of Step
Related:
Also quoted: Kim Ogg, the new Harris County DA.
Obit watch: February 13, 2017
February 13th, 2017Raymond Smullyan, author, mathematician, and logician.
Quote of the day.
February 9th, 2017Obit watch: February 8, 2017.
February 8th, 2017Professor Irwin Corey, “the world’s foremost authority”, has passed away. He was 102.
The lead isn’t the only thing that was buried.
February 3rd, 2017I’m kidding. Mostly.
But there’s a story in the NYT about the archaeological excavation of what turns out to be a 19th century brewery, that makes me go “Hmmmmmm.”
Not so much for the excavation itself, but for some of the surrounding details. Either this guy was really unlucky, or the past really was a different country. Or maybe both.
Damn. I hate it when I confuse the arsenic and the baking soda.
Another time, a man who had been staying in Schnaderbeck’s house died in bed. The Brooklyn Daily Eagle said the coroner attributed the death to natural causes until a packet of strychnine was found “in the bed he had lain on.” The cause of death was changed to suicide.
“Apparently, Schnaderbeck had known about the packet,” Dr. Bergoffen wrote in one of her archaeological assessments, “but ‘kept mum’ as he said, ‘It was bad enough to have the old scoundrel die in my bed without having any more bother about him.’”
I know it sounds mean, but really, killing yourself in someone else’s bed and home is kind of inconsiderate, don’t you think? Schnaderbeck probably had to get all new sheets and bedding, and probably a new mattress as well. And this was the 19th century: it isn’t like he could just have ordered a new mattress from one of those Internet mattress sellers that I won’t give free advertising to here.
(Seriously, I feel a rant coming up in the not so distant future about the internet mattress/prepackaged meal delivery/website hosting based economy of podcasting. But that’s another subject for another day, after I finish updating some lists.)
Speaking of Travis County…
February 2nd, 2017I’ve updated the county commissioners page as much as I can. Jeff Travillion’s page still has staff and contact information “coming soon”.
As always with any of these pages, if you detect errors or omissions, please contact me.
Half a million dollars.
February 2nd, 2017This is slightly old news that I’ve been meaning to note for a couple of days now. I still think it’s worth mentioning, because it seems to me there’s something buried in the press coverage.
The Travis County Commissioners Court has voted to pay Judge Julie Kocurek $500,000.
“Does this have something to do with her being shot?” you might ask.
Indeed, it does.
“But why? The county didn’t shoot her. The cops didn’t shoot her. She was shot by a bad guy.”
Indeed, this is true. The money is being given as a settlement for “any claims against the county that Kocurek could have sought in a lawsuit”. Some of this is spelled out in the Statesman stories, and some of this is me reading between the lines, but it looks like the argument is:
- There was a credible tip that Chimene Onyeri was targeting a judge.
- The tip was investigated by the Travis County DA’s office.
- Apparently, the investigators thought that the judge being targeted was both a male judge and one that wasn’t in Travis County.
- It isn’t clear to me if the investigators knew that Onyeri had an appearance coming up in Judge Kocurek’s court (where he likely would have been sent back to prison) and ruled her out as a target because she wasn’t a male judge, or if they weren’t aware of his upcoming appearance.
- In any case, they decided there was no “credible threat to any Travis County district judge”.
- Judge Kocurek was shot three weeks later.
It’s hard for me to tell if anyone was wrong here. On the one hand, it seems like there was a credible threat: was it dismissed because the investigators screwed up and didn’t realize the subject of the threat might not have a been a male judge? And a big question is: why didn’t they warn all the judges? On the other hand, there’s an argument that the investigators did the best they could with limited information. And if they sent out warnings to all the judges every time some jackhole shot his mouth off, pretty soon it’d be “The Boy Who Cried Wolf” all over again.
No matter what, though, taxpayers are going to be out $500,000. I don’t begrudge Judge Kocurek the money: if you offered me $500,000 to let someone shoot at me, my response would be three words (two of those being “go” and “yourself”).
But it still bothers me.