Police affidavit: Shia LaBeouf ‘was a danger to himself and others’
I have no joke here, I just wanted to say this:
Ripped from the headlines!
October 13th, 2015Firings watch: October 13, 2015.
October 13th, 2015Steve Spurrier is “retiring” “immediately” as head coach of South Carolina. This may not technically be a “firing”, but his team was 2-4 so far this year, 0-4 in the SEC, and “have lost eight of their past nine SEC games dating to the past season.”
Steve Sarkisian’s indefinite suspension has turned into a firing. Again, this is one of those I’m not getting a lot of pleasure out of: I hope he gets the help he needs.
(Hattip on both of these to Lawrence.)
Your NFL loser update: week 5, 2015.
October 12th, 2015Another jam-packed weekend. A wake, a blogshoot, a gun show, shopping…
Didn’t watch a single minute of a single game (well, I did catch a few seconds of one out of the corner of one eye while we were eating at Denny’s, of all places). But it wasn’t a bad weekend for the loser update.
NFL teams that have a chance of going 0-16:
Detroit
In other news, Randy Edsall was fired on Sunday while I was running around. He was 22-34 at the University of Maryland, and they were 2-4 so far this season.
(Speaking of 2-4 teams, did Charlie Strong save his job this weekend? Discuss.)
This doesn’t exactly count as a firing, and I take no joy in it, but: Steve Sarkisian is on an “indifinite leave of absence” from USC. It sounds like he has a serious problem: I hope he manages to pull himself out of it.
Quotes of the day.
October 9th, 2015There’s not a theme here or anything, just two quotes that tickled me.
Number One:
Looking at the general world situation, I'm thinking about a GoFundMe to buy bulletproof vests for Archdukes. Anybody wanna kick in?
— Tamara K. (@TamSlick) October 7, 2015
Number Two:
I deem it important to direct your attention to Article 2 of the Constitutional Amendments of the United States — “the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” This you should comply with immediately. Every union should have a rifle club. I strongly advise you to provide every member with the latest improved rifle, which can be obtained from the factory at a nominal price. I entreat you to take action on this important question, so that in two years we can hear the inspiring music of the martial tread of 25,000 armed men in the ranks of labor.
—Ed Boyce, president of the Western Federation of Miners, addressing the 1897 WFM convention.
Obit watch: October 9, 2015.
October 9th, 2015TMQ Watch: October 6, 2015.
October 7th, 2015Yes, we know, we’re late again. We have a worse excuse this time: we put off TMQ Watch so we could go to the Alamo Drafthouse and watch “Sicario”.
It has actually been a big movie week for us: in addition to “Sicario”, we watched “Black Mass” with Lawrence on Saturday. We may have some more thoughts on both later on. (And “The Martian” is on our list. We don’t expect that to vanish from theaters any time soon. Yes, this is relevant to TMQ; see below.)
After the jump, this week’s TMQ…
Blog shoot October 10th.
October 7th, 2015I’ve been negligent in announcing this; partly because I figure everyone who reads this blog reads Battleswarm, and partly because it looked like there may be some complications.
Now it looks like the complications have worked themselves out, so: this a general reminder that Lawrence and I are planning a blog shoot at Eagle Peak at 5 PM on Saturday, October 10th. This will be followed by dinner at the Oasis at 7 PM.
More details over at Lawrence’s blog. Contact me here if you have questions.
Your NFL loser update: week 4, 2015.
October 6th, 2015It wasn’t a great weekend for the loser update. Chicago beat Oakland (you had one job, Raiders). New Orleans beat Dallas (we missed that game, but it sounds like it was a thriller). And the Detroit-Seattle game was much closer than we expected. But…
NFL teams that have a chance of going 0-16:
Detroit
In other news: DraftKings and FanDuel may be sleezy? Who’d thunk it?
Number One!
October 5th, 2015Our first firing of the NFL season:
He was 24-28 over those 52 games.
Also, the Washington Nationals have fired their manager, Matt Williams, and their entire coaching staff.
(Loser update tomorrow: have to wait on Detroit.)
105 years ago today.
October 1st, 2015At 1:07 AM on October 1, 1910, a bomb went off at the Los Angeles Times.
The bomb was planted in an area full of volatile chemicals and near natural gas lines. The explosion and fire killed 21 people, most of whom burned to death.
At the time, there was a massive struggle between “labor” and “capital”; Bill James, in his book Popular Crime
The Times of the time was strongly pro-capital and anti-union, which made it a target. Three men – Ortie McManigal and the brothers J.B. McNamara and J.J. McNamara – were charged with the bombing. McManigal rolled on the McNamara brothers, who were members of the iron workers union.
The labor movement engaged Clarance Darrow to defend the McNamara brothers. He agreed to do so, but warned them that he would need a boatload of money ($350,000 in 1910 dollars) to a proper job. The unions painfully raised the money.
The problem was that the McNamara brothers were pretty much guilty. Darrow is supposed to have told them, “My God! You left a trail of evidence a mile wide!” Ultimately, Darrow pled both brothers out in order to avoid the death penalty.
This case came pretty close to destroying Darrow. The plea bargain alienated him from labor, cutting off a large source of his income. In addition, Darrow was charged with two counts of jury tampering for actions during the case: I’ve written about that before. It took a while for Darrow’s reputation to recover.
Historical article with photos from the LAT.
Howard Blum’s American Lightning: Terror, Mystery, the Birth of Hollywood, and the Crime of the Century
TMQ Watch: September 29, 2015.
September 30th, 2015We apologize for the delay. We had a dinner engagement last night at Rocco’s Grill in Bee Cave. Some things are just more important than TMQ blogging, like dinner with family.
After the jump, this week’s TMQ…
Your NFL loser update: week 3, 2015.
September 28th, 2015It wasn’t a bad weekend. Of course, I didn’t watch any of the games, as I was busy all day Sunday (about which, more later), but the teams I expected to engage in good old fashioned curb stompings did, indeed.
NFL teams that have a chance of going 0-16:
Baltimore
Detroit
Chicago
New Orleans
We’re starting to get down there. But at this point, I don’t think there’s a team that’s really bad enough to go 0-16.
Short random notes: September 24, 2015.
September 24th, 2015James Mee has his job back.
I feel sure I’ve written about this before, but I can’t find the post now. Mr. Mee was a deputy with the LA County Sheriff’s Office. He was fired because of his alleged involvement in a police chase that ended when the vehicle he was supposedly chasing crashed into a gas station.
At least, that was the claim. So why was he really fired? Well, Mr. Mee was also one of the officers who arrested Mel Gibson back in 2006.
This one’s for Lawrence: Frank Gehry is working on a project to rehabilitate the Los Angeles River. This has some people upset.
(Obligatory. Plus, the video I’ve linked to before has been taken down, so call this a bookmark.)
Obit watch: September 23, 2015.
September 23rd, 2015Yogi Berra has passed away.
I hope he doesn’t find heaven too crowded.
The NYT obit, in my opinion, is unusually good, though I’m sure it has been in the files for a long time.
TMQ Watch: September 22, 2015.
September 22nd, 2015TMQ Watch? On Tuesday? Yes, we know it is a bit of a shock, but that is our plan and we intend to stick to it.
TMQ Watch will probably go up late in the afternoon, though: we like to run out to DFG Noodles on our lunch hour. And while the noodles are excellent, and the girls are cute (our two big reasons for going) it does cut into our lunchtime blogging.
But enough administration. After the jump, this week’s edited TMQ…