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Briefly noted.
October 28th, 2025Obit watch: October 28, 2025.
October 28th, 2025Prunella Scales, actress. NYT (share link).
Other credits include “The Boys from Brazil”, “Wolf”, and “The Hound of the Baskervilles” (1978).
Obit watch: October 27, 2025.
October 27th, 2025For the record (I got behind over the weekend): June Lockhart. THR.
Other credits include “Babylon 5”, “The John Larroquette Show”, “C.H.U.D. II: Bud the Chud”, three episodes of “Quincy, M.E.”, “Sword of Justice”…and pretty much every other darn thing.
Except she never did a “Mannix”.
Your NFL loser update: week 8, 2025.
October 27th, 2025They don’t call them the Cincinnati Bungles for nothing.
I apologize for being late in getting this up. I had a series of events (the good kind of event, not the bad kind) yesterday that had me out of the house until 7:30 PM. Among those events was driving down to Gruene to meet up with a relative I had not seen in at least 25 years, and maybe closer to 40. While it was fun, it’s also about 90 minutes each way in pretty heavy traffic, so I pretty much got home and went straight to bed.
Anyway, NFL teams that have a chance to go 0-17:
None.
Seriously, Cincinnati? 39-38?
Oh, well. There are still five winless teams in the NBA, and I’ll probably do an update on Friday.
Bonus firing:
Screenshot
Speaking of the war font…story here. ESPN. 34-14 over “four seasons”, but they’ve lost three out the past four games, and got beat 49-25 by Texas A&M on Saturday.
Texas A&M is 8-0. I’m wondering if there’s a chance that we might see a national champion from Texas this year…and it won’t be the one everyone expected at the start of the season.
Edited to add: also out now, LSU offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach Joe Sloan. One story I saw said that the athletic director approached Brian Kelly and told him to fire Sloan. Kelly allegedly said “No, I want to fire these people instead,” and the response was to fire Kelly, then Sloan.
Praise where praise is due.
October 24th, 2025We’re still dealing with the fallout from the July Hill Country floods. I’ve heard that there’s still one family missing a child from Camp Mystic. (The most recent story I could find said there were two people missing, but that’s from mid-September.)
On Wednesday, the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) honored a bunch of game wardens for bravery. Many (but not all) were honored for actions during the flooding.
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That’s not all of them: I just picked a few off the list.
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I hope I’m not invading anyone’s privacy here, so I’ll just say Conner Sumbera is a relative of a close friend of the blog, which is why I singled him out. But you should go read the whole press release for yourself: all of these people deserve mad props, and should never have to pay for a drink when they’re out in public ever again.
Your Friday loser update: week 3, 2025.
October 24th, 2025I had to go to the eye doctor this morning for a treatment, so I’m a little late getting this up. Also, my eyes are kind of messed up, so please to forgive any mistakes: if you leave a comment, I’ll fix them.
NHL teams that still have a chance to go 0-82:
None.
The San Jose Sharks won their first game of the season last night, and are now 1-6. This is the same record as the Tampa Bay Lightning. Just sayin’.
One door closes, another door opens.
NBA teams that still have a chance to go 0-82:
Boston Celtics
Detroit Pistons
Miami Heat
Indiana Pacers
Cleveland Cavaliers
Washington Wizards
Brooklyn Nets
Atlanta Hawks
New Orleans Pelicans
Denver Nuggets
Houston Rockets
Portland Trail Blazers
Sacramento Kings
Los Angeles Lakers
LA Clippers
Dallas Mavericks
“What we know about the Billups-Rozier NBA gambling cases” from ESPN.
Bonus quote of the day (well, yesterday, I think):
Firings watch (plus, bonus legal news!)
October 23rd, 2025I know I’ve been quiet the past few days. There just hasn’t been much going on. But today is shaping up to be interesting.
ESPN is reporting the arrest of Portland Trail Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups. Also arrested: Terry Rozier, guard for the Miami Heat.
According to the NYPost:
Billups, an NBA Hall of Famer, has been charged with partaking in an alleged illegal poker ring tied to the Bonanno, Genovese and Colombo crime families, sources told The Post.
A total of 31 people across the country are charged with running rigged games, which took place in Manhattan, the Hamptons and Las Vegas, sources said.
The players involved were being paid by mobsters to play in card games fixed with technology and card shuffling machines to give the house the advantage, sources familiar with the case said.
The athletes were told to take a dive when they had to and win when they were told. It didn’t appear as if they were attempting to pay off any debts, sources said.
Rozier’s arrest is tied to another case.
ESPN is suggesting this might also be tied to the Jontay Porter case.
Porter pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges and admitted in court to manipulating his performance in two games during the 2023-24 season. He is awaiting sentencing in December.
Four men, including Porter, have pleaded guilty in the case. Two other men have been named as conspirators and have been in plea negotiations, according to court filings.
And I did promise a firing, didn’t I? This is a sports firing, but it’s an odd one: Ken Williamson has been “permanently suspended” as a SEC referee.
…following eleven complaints against the seasoned official and his crew during the Auburn-Georgia game on Oct. 11, sources told Yellowhammer News on Wednesday.
“According to sources, nine of those complaints were validated by conference officials,” the outlet wrote.
The game’s biggest controversy came late in the second quarter, when Auburn quarterback Jackson Arnold lost the ball near the one-yard line during a QB sneak and was recovered by Georgia cornerback Kyron Jones.
Though multiple angles from ABC’s broadcast appear to show Jackson crossing the goal line before the ball was punched out, officials ruled it a fumble — awarding the Bulldogs possession after the recovery.
Your NFL loser update: week 7, 2025. (Plus: firings!)
October 19th, 2025NFL teams that still have a chance to go 0-17:
NY Jets
And the Sharks are 0-5 in the NHL.
Next week: the Bengals in Cincinnati. Cincinnati is 3-4, and a slight favorite at the moment.
The worthless Bills had a bye this week. The game with the worthless Chargers is in progress at the moment, and what is up with that alternate uniform?
In other news: Billy Napier out as head coach of the University of Florida. 22-23 overall in “three plus” seasons, and the team is 3-4 this season. ESPN.
Jay Norvell out as head coach at Colorado State. 18-26 overall, the team is 2-5 this season, and lost to Hawai’i yesterday. ESPN.
And a non-firing, non-loser update that I don’t have room for anywhere else: Curry College is a D-III school. They beat Nichols 71-27 yesterday, and rushed for 522 yards.
Oh, wait: did I say the team rushed for 522 yards? I mean one guy, running back Montie Quinn, rushed for 522 yards by himself. 20 carries, seven touchdowns, and a NCAA record.
Obit watch: October 17, 2025.
October 17th, 2025The archiving service I use has been having issues all day, so I’m going to put this up without some links. If they fix the problems in the next day or two, I’ll go back and add them.
Kanchha Sherpa has passed away at the age of 92. (Paywalled link. Sorry.) He was the last surviving member of the Hillary-Norgay team that climbed Mount Everest.
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Ace Frehley, of KISS. NYT (share link, should be free).
I don’t have much to say about Mr. Frehley, and I feel a little bad. But I was never a fan of Knights In Satan’s Service.
Susan Stamberg, NPR host famous for her “cranberry relish” recipe. Recipe here. NYT (non-archived, paywalled link. Sorry.)
American Handgunner, the print edition. The brand is going to continue in the form of online “newsletters”, and I think Guns is still going to be around.
But to me, this is awful news. AH is one of the few gun magazines I subscribed to, and I’m not sure if signing up for all the newsletters will get me the content I want. Sure, Dr. Dabbs will still be around, but what about the “Ayoob Files” and Ayoob’s monthly column? Will the “Guncrank Diaries” still exist? If not, who’s going to tell me stories, like the one about Elon Musk’s dad killing three cannibals with two bullets? And what if I want to go back and refer to something? The website is a little skirty about pulling up older articles, even if you are a paid subscriber.
I think I understand the reasons, and I still support the AH staff. But the older I get, the more change stinks.
Your NHL loser update: week 2, 2025.
October 17th, 2025NHL teams that still have a chance to go 0-82:
San Jose Sharks
So we’re down to the Sharks in the NHL, and the Jets in the NFL.
It’s like “West Side Story” up in here.
Obit watch: October 16, 2025.
October 16th, 2025Ed Williams, actor. He was 98.
Other credits include “Carnosaur”, “Hooperman”, and apparently there was a remake of “I Want to Live“?
Oh my God, it’s (NOT!) a mirage…
October 16th, 2025This is a story that’s mostly local, but it pushes enough of my buttons to document here.
“Razed”.
I can’t tell if the two halls are connected to the Mirage, or if they are stand-alone entities.
Who?
This is the part that got me.
“unsteady, combustible, illegal, and no place to put 6,000 people”. Sounds like somebody messed up badly. Or else they didn’t bribe the right people.
Yes, I would imagine that not being able to open would be “catastrophic”.
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All of these problems make me think there’s one thing going on…
Obit watch: October 14, 2025.
October 14th, 2025John Searle, philosopher. He was best known (at least to me) as a critic of artificial intelligence: not what passes for AI today, but the entire idea that computers could become conscious.
Professor Searle sought to solve the long-running debate over the division between the mind and the body by dispensing with the duality altogether. He argued that mental experiences like pain, ecstasy and drunkenness were all neurobiological phenomena, caused by firing neurons. Consciousness is not, he said, a separate substance of its own: It is a state the brain is in, like liquidity is the state of the molecules in a glass of water.
That view underpinned his thought experiment about what he called “the Chinese room,” which he made the centerpiece of provocative articles in the early 1980s that interpreted nascent research into artificial intelligence.
Suppose, Professor Searle wrote, that he, who did not know a word of Chinese, was locked in a room with boxes full of documents in Chinese script as well as a rulebook, in English, explaining how to match the various Chinese symbols together. It does not teach Chinese; it just says, in effect, “squiggle-squiggle” goes with “squoggle-squoggle.”
People outside the room pass more Chinese documents inside, and Professor Searle sends other documents back, following the rulebook’s instructions. The people passing him documents call them “questions.” The symbols he gives back they call “answers.” The rulebook they call “the program.” And Professor Searle they call “the computer.”
That situation is equivalent to the workings of A.I., he said. Both involve manipulating formal symbols to simulate understanding.
“No one supposes that computer simulations of a five-alarm fire will burn the neighborhood down,” Professor Searle wrote in his first paper on the subject, published in 1980. “Why on earth would anyone suppose that a computer simulation of understanding actually understood anything?”
Personally, I think that Dr. Searle’s argument that computers can’t think, but at best can do a clever simulation of thinking, somewhat interesting. And if I had ever met the good doctor, I would have told him that I would take this argument more seriously if he could convince me he was actually thinking, as opposed to just engaged in a clever simulation of thinking.
Clark Olofsson, Swedish criminal. I would have skipped this for notability, if it wasn’t for the fact that Mr. Olofsson was one of the two robbers in the “Stockholm syndrome” case. The obit is worth reading, as it casts a somewhat skeptical light on the whole idea of “Stockholm syndrome”.
The term was coined by a Swedish police psychologist, Nils Bejerot, after he was asked to assess the hostages’ curious behavior during the robbery. But Stockholm syndrome has never been included in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the handbook of mental illness in the United States.
Some psychologists have explained the behavior as a coping mechanism, seen in victims of kidnappings and among hostages seized by Middle East terrorists, and in victims of domestic abuse. The captives, psychologists say, find a way to self-preservation by siding with their all-powerful captors.
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Although mental health experts have theorized about Stockholm syndrome for half a century, almost none thought to speak to Ms. Enmark, the bank employee central to the drama and the diagnosis.
One psychologist who did was Allan Wade, a Canadian therapist specializing in interpersonal violence, who, after meeting Ms. Enmark, called Stockholm syndrome a made-up concept meant to shift focus from the stumbles of the Swedish police.
“The whole notion was an accusation,” he told the BBC in 2021. “It was a way to dismiss what an incredibly heroic woman had been doing for six and a half days to resist, preserve her dignity and look after the other hostages.”
Battleship update.
October 13th, 2025A while back, I observed:
But can you get Battleship New Jersey 1911 grips? As far as I can tell, no.
You still can’t, as far as I can tell. (I did check the Battleship New Jersey store.)
But, weirdly, you can get Battleship New Jersey grips for your P365-XMACRO. Or at least, you’ll be able to “soon”: it sounds like this has been announced in conjunction with today’s 250th birthday of the US Navy, but the “grip module” is not actually in stock yet.
I don’t have a P365-XMACRO, but this does remind me that I owe everyone a photo: I did finally manage to get some Battleship Texas 1911 grips, and had them put on this old gun. I think they look pretty nice together, and I’ll try to get a photo up later this week if I can.
Callahan!
October 13th, 2025Brian Callahan out as head coach of the Tennessee Titans.
He was coach for roughly a season and a half. The Titans are currently 1-5. Additional coverage from ESPN.