Archive for the ‘Clippings’ Category
Obit watch: February 11, 2014.
Tuesday, February 11th, 2014Some people call him Maurice…
Sunday, February 9th, 2014…but not “Coach” any longer: Maurice Cheeks out as head coach of the Pistons, in what I believe is the first NBA coach firing of the season.
Cheeks was hired in the offseason last year and coached a total of 50 games for Detroit, with a 21-29 record.
(Hattip: Lawrence.)
Flames. Tax-fattened. Hyena. Etc. (#8 in a series)
Saturday, February 8th, 2014Tony Mack and his brother “had participated in a scheme to take money in exchange for helping get approvals to develop a downtown parking garage. The deal was fictitious and part of a government investigation.”
Mayor Mack was convicted of both wire and mail fraud (a two-fer!) plus accepting bribes, “attempted extortion”, and “official extortion conspiracy”. His brother was convicted on extortion and bribery counts.
Two additional points:
1. Mayor Mack’s party affiliation is mentioned in the third paragraph of the article.
2. Mayor Mack was a member of “Mayors Against Illegal Guns”. I won’t link to it, but a quick Google search will turn up a press release on the MAIG site quoting Mayor Mack and stating he is a member.
Just not feeling it.
Friday, February 7th, 2014Sorry. Nothing much going on, nothing really engaging me, and the Japanese “composer” story was already on FARK. If you missed it: NYT.
(Mike the Musicologist points out that Beethoven was not the only deaf composer in history. Noted for the record.)
The weather here is crap and possibly getting worse and work has been mildly frustrating (thank Ghu for free coffee, though). I’m ready for a battery recharge.
The LAPD eight.
Thursday, February 6th, 2014A brief followup:
More:
And:
From the files of Captain Obvious.
Tuesday, February 4th, 2014You do remember the pickup truck story, don’t you?
And, of course, the unarmed women never fired on the cops or displayed a weapon…
This is priceless:
They shot up a pickup truck with two unarmed women in it, and “high-ranking police officials” wanted them cleared?
Quick gun show update.
Tuesday, February 4th, 2014Only have a limited amount of time before lunch is over and I have to return to the helium mines of Ceti Alpha V, but I wanted to get this up before it disappears behind the Statesman paywall:
Travis County commissioners voted unanimously to allow the Saxet Gun Show to continue at the county-run Exposition Center, only if all gun sales undergo a background check.
With Commissioners Ron Davis and Bruce Todd absent from Tuesday’s meeting, the rest of the county commissioners approved the contract, which now goes to Saxet officials to consider.
So three out of five voted? I guess that’s a quorum. (And I just noticed I missed updating the list of commissioners for Bruce Todd. Fixing that now.)
However, Saxet still has to agree to the contract, and the Statesman represents them as consistently stating they will not agree to a contract that requires background checks. Williamson County is looking better and better all the time.
(I’ll have to see if I can find a breakdown of some of the previous votes for y’all.)
Tax-fattened hyena watch.
Tuesday, February 4th, 2014“a move he said is best for his family”. Is your Spidey-sense tingling yet?
Andrews also allegedly used “a graduation party for his daughter to raise campaign cash.” Both of these things are violations of Federal law, in addition to House ethics rules.
By way of Grits for Breakfast, here’s a mildly interesting story: Aaron Rosenberg is suing his former employer and claims to be cooperating in “an ongoing federal investigation” of same.
So? Mr. Rosenberg’s former employer is Redflex Traffic Systems, one of the companies behind red light cameras.
Aaron Rosenberg, who was the company’s top national salesman, said in a civil defamation claim against Redflex that he was made a “scapegoat” to cover up a long-standing practice of “providing government officials with lavish gifts and bribes” after the Tribune began asking questions about the Chicago contract.
Redflex fired Rosenberg and sued him for damages in Arizona court in February, largely blaming him for the company’s wrongdoing in Chicago. In a counterclaim filed in October, Rosenberg disclosed that he provided information to local and federal investigators as well as to the outside attorney who conducted a damaging private investigation of the company.
And more:
Texas, eh? Would you like to guess some of the cities in Texas that have Redflex contracts? You don’t have to: Grits lists a few of them at his site. And yes, Austin is one of them.
Obit watch: February 2, 2014.
Sunday, February 2nd, 2014I wanted to wait a day to post obits for Maximilian Schell, since I thought that would give the papers more time to go beyond wire service obits. Oddly enough, the A/V Club has nothing, though I can tell they are working this weekend. Anyway: NYT. LAT. (And the LAT does mention that he was in “The Black Hole“.)
Likewise, I think the Philip Seymour Hoffman story needs a day to settle as well, especially since there are details being presented that are a) disturbing and b) attributed to “unnamed sources”. I’ll post a round-up tomorrow morning.
Too bad I have no musical talent.
Friday, January 31st, 2014The Government Series II Les Paul guitar. (Hattip: Sharp as a Marble.)
What I really want is for Oleg Volk (or an equally talented photographer) to do a shoot with this and a Colt Government Model. Why? No reason, really; it just tickles my sense of whimsey.
This day in history.
Thursday, January 30th, 2014Our great and good friend Borepatch has a post up about all the folks who died on January 30th, including Gandhi, Sir Everard Digby, and that guy who crossed the 47 Ronin.
Borepatch’s post, and an email from Chartwell Booksellers, reminded me: Winston Churchill died on January 24th, 1965, but his funeral was today er, on this date in 1965.
A couple of years ago, I read John Keegan’s Winston Churchill: A Life
Queen Elizabeth II attended his funeral.
I know that sounds like something you’d expect for Churchill, and I doubt there was any question about her going. But the royal family almost never attends the funeral of a commoner: they only go to funerals of other members of the royal family. I have this mental image of Elizabeth arguing with her people: “I’m going. I don’t care about tradition. He won the war, you…” Well, I doubt Elizabeth would say “assholes” but she might think it. I know it is fashionable to sniff at England and wonder what they need with the royal family, but it does seem like Elizabeth II is the class act of the bunch.
(And he got a state funeral, too. According to Keegan, the last commoner to get one of those was the Duke Of Wellington. In 1852.)
While I was working on this post, I found that the BBC has a nice archive devoted to remembering Churchill. I haven’t had time to go through it all yet, but I’m bookmarking it here.
Quick random stuff.
Thursday, January 30th, 2014The NYT has a feature on the “industrial musical”.
$3 million in 1956 money works out to about $25,700,000 in 2013 money. Or about a third of the cost of “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark”. The NYT piece seems to be mostly promotion for a new book: Everything’s Coming Up Profits: The Golden Age of Industrial Musicals
Apparently, there was a serious proposal last year to add bass fishing to the list of high school sports which are approved and regulated by the Texas University Interscholastic League. It did not pass. And honestly, I’m a little weirded out by the idea; where would students practice? How? How often? In boats or from the shore? Can you practice bass fishing in Midland? What would the bass fishing championship look like? Would it be televised on one of cable’s many outdoor channels?
(Not making fun of bass fishermen at all. I realize there’s an active bass tournament scene, and if that’s your thing, God bless you. I just think the logistics of doing this at the high school level are strange. Especially since if you’re a high school bass fisherman, you can probably compete in professional tournaments for real money; it isn’t like professional bass fishing is subject to the same sort of size and weight issue that high school football is.)