Obit watch: Arthur Herzog III,
(Subject line hattip. Question: was that, or “Jaws: The Revenge”, Michael Caine’s worst movie role?)
Edited to add: Well, Lawrence decided to challenge me. Therefore…
Archive for June, 2010
“Houston on fire. Will history blame me, or the bees?”
Wednesday, June 9th, 2010.mobi dick
Wednesday, June 9th, 2010Was your retirement fund heavily invested in speculating on “.mobi” domain names?
How’s that working for you?
The problem, of course, is that the iPhone and other mobile devices have rendered .mobi useless.
If only someone had told Schwartz that before he shelled out $200,000 for “flowers.mobi” in 2006.
In unrelated news, here’s the latest update I’ve been able to find on progress in building nanoscale violins.
Timeless. Changeless.
Wednesday, June 9th, 2010In my family, there’s a running joke: you know it is a slow news day when the local paper runs a story about the timeless, changeless ways of the Amish.
The NYT covers the sudden Federal interest in changing Amish farming practices. Specifically, cattle runoff from the Amish and Old Order Mennonite farmers around Chesapeake Bay is destroying the bay’s ecosystem; the Feds are trying to persuade the farmers to implement practices that would reduce runoff, and even offering government grants to farmers. Of course…
Persuading plain-sect farmers to install fences and buffers underwritten by federal grants has been challenging because of their tendency to shy from government programs, including subsidies. Members neither pay Social Security nor receive its benefits, for example.
In other news, William Grimes (author of Straight Up or On the Rocks
(That reminds me: has anyone out there read Chasing the White Dog
Yes. I am sure Mr. Duncan arranged his death with the favorable tax consequences to his children in mind.
Oh, guess what? David Lee Powell has filed a new appeal!
Houston attorney Richard Burr said in a 53-page application for a writ of habeas corpus that Powell has been a model inmate, that he poses no threat to society and that to execute him would violate his constitutional rights prohibiting cruel and unusual punishment.
Statesman Eye for the Death Row Guy
Tuesday, June 8th, 2010(Hattip to BlogHouston, where “Chron Eye for the Death Row Killer Guy” is a recurring feature.)
The Statesman seems to have embarked on a pro-David Lee Powell campaign, in advance of Mr. Powell’s scheduled execution on June 15th.
Yesterday, we were treated to a long article about Powell, his desire to live, and whether his execution had “been robbed of its meaning and purpose” after 32 years.
Today, we’re treated to an editorial stating that life without parole would be a fair punishment for Mr. Powell, since, after all, he hasn’t repeated his crimes and has been a model citizen on Death Row for the past 32 years.
Now, why did it take 32 years to get to this point? Well, part of the reason is that Mr. Powell has appealed his conviction twice, and was granted new trials in 1991 and 1999.
And what did Mr. Powell do to justify the death penalty? He killed a cop, Officer Ralph A. Ablanedo. Specifically, he gunned Officer Ablanedo down with an AK-47. (This was in 1978; I’m not sure if, when the paper refers to an “AK-47”, they mean a real AK-47, or one of these AK-47s. However, the APD site refers to a “fully automatic AK-47”, so I’ll give the paper the benefit of the doubt on this one.)
In addition…
There does not seem to be any legitimate question about Powell’s guilt. The whole thrust of the Statesman‘s argument is that Powell’s successfully fought a delaying action for 32 years; and now that he’s managed to delay this long, we shouldn’t execute him because too much time has passed since the crime.
I’m not a blind supporter of the death penalty. I believe there are problems with it (and, at some point, I’d like to do a longer post about that). But Powell is not the poster child for injustice that the Statesman is making him out to be.
I have no joke here, I just like saying…
Tuesday, June 8th, 2010…”Baldenfreude”.
The NYT has at least two things going for it:
- The “Time Topics” blog.
- The ability for readers to get word definitions by double-clicking on a word within an article.
Put those things together, and what do you get? A list of 50 words most looked up by NYT readers.
Number one on the list? “inchoate”. “baldenfreude”, which is actually a MoDo coinage, comes in at #6. “Kristallnacht” ranks 13th. Heretically, “Manichean” comes in at #28.
The takeaway from this?
Still, we should remember that this is journalism, not philology.
“…think it possible you may be mistaken.”
Monday, June 7th, 2010Two of my favorite authors showed up while I was making the Internet rounds this morning.
The San Jose Mercury News has an interview with Tim Cahill, who just finished a semester of teaching at San Jose State. I hadn’t heard much from or about Cahill in a while, and the interview explains why.
Slate has an interview with Anthony Bourdain, specifically dealing with issues of right, wrong, and taste.
I was just in Liberia recently, and although I find certain tribal practices personally deeply repellant, I’d always felt uncomfortable with the idea of these “enlightened humanitarians” going to Africa and lecturing people who don’t have clean water and have been living with these systems for centuries about how to behave. And yet I gotta tell you, Liberia made me ask myself: Are some things just wrong? Genital mutilation would be one. Some of the practices of some of the traditional tribal elders—witch doctors, basically—are another. I really wonder whether there are absolutes in some cases. It’s something I’m wrestling with, clearly.
This interview is part of a series, “The Wrong Stuff“, by Kathryn Schulz, and is tied in to her forthcoming book, Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error
I also wanted to link to this story about a Baltimore shooting involving an off-duty cop (hattip: Balko); not because I want to comment on the story itself (that’s being ably handled at Balko’s site), but because of this:
Baltimore Police Maj. Terrence McLarney, head of the homicide unit, said there is no indication the two men met inside the establishment or knew each other.
Terrence McLarney? Terrence f’ing McLarney? Tell me this can’t be the same Terrence McLarney who was a Detective Sergeant in Homicide when David Simon wrote Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets
(Subject line hattip.)
Edited to add: Well, McLarney and Worden both have entries in Wikipedia, believe it or not. And Worden apparently played “Det. Donald Worden” in a Season 5 episode of The Wire. McLarney’s entry says this:
In July 2008, McLarney was named the official commander of the Baltimore Police Department’s Homicide Unit, a position he had been the acting commander of since May 2008.
So, yeah, seems like the same guy.
Art, damn it, art! watch (#10 in a series).
Sunday, June 6th, 2010Laurie Anderson, my favorite living performance artist, played her latest composition for the first time over the weekend.
The piece is called “Music for Dogs”.
…
Things that make you go “Hmmmmmmmmmmmm…”
Sunday, June 6th, 2010According to the Statesman, yesterday’s gun buyback brought in 343 “guns”:
166 handguns, 96 rifles, two assault rifles and 79 shotguns.
I put “guns” in quotes because it is unclear if this figure includes any BB or replica guns collected.
One of the interesting aspects of this, as you may recall, is that the gun buyback supposedly had a $10,000 budget. However, they actually spent $30,000 yesterday, according to the article; somehow, it appears that the Greater Austin Crime Commission was able to pull an additional $20,000 out of their neither regions in a matter of hours. I would very much like to know where that money came from.
Boom goes the dynamite.
Friday, June 4th, 2010Lawrence is fond of pointing out that the Astros are not the worst team in baseball (at the moment). That honor goes to the Baltimore Orioles, who are 15-39.
And they just fired their manager, in what I believe is the first firing of the baseball season. (I welcome correction if I am wrong about that.)
(So why the Astros obsession? They’re the closest thing I have to a home team, to the extent that I follow baseball. Plus, I want to see how far off the HouChron prediction ends up being.)
Friday Astros update.
Friday, June 4th, 201020-34, .370 winning percentage, estimated 60.588 wins over the 162 game season.
This will probably be the last update I post, now that I’ve added the MLB standings widget to the sidebar for the duration of the baseball season.
Morans.
Thursday, June 3rd, 2010“Identification won’t be required”? That’s interesting. Whenever someone goes to sell books or CDs at Half-Price Books, they’re required to show a photo ID before the clerk will even start processing the sale. My understanding was that this was a legal requirement; does this program get a pass?
There is no limit to how many guns a person can bring in, and Acevedo assures that no questions will be asked, unless it is obvious that a weapon is stolen. He said all guns would be tested to see whether they are linked to criminal activity, and if they are, officers would investigate the case.
I assume when he says “tested” he means ballistic tests. Will they also be checking serial numbers against a list of guns reported stolen, and returning any recovered guns to the rightful owners?
A $100 gift card will be given for each handgun or rifle, and a $200 gift card will be given for each assault rifle. Even air guns, BB guns or replica guns can net $10 apiece.
How much for zip guns?
Acevedo said if the gun buyback is successful, the Police Department will look into having two a year.
Not with my tax money, you clueless bag of crap.
(In this case, I should point out, it looks like the money is coming from private donations raised by the “Greater Austin Crime Commission“, an organization I was previously unaware of, and with a web site that is less than informative. I do like this, from their “Programs” page:
“Supplying equipment to create the nation’s first K-9 chembio and radiation detection programs”.
Yeah, here’s your K-9 chembio and radiation detection programs: you send the dog in and wait five minutes. If it keels over, you don’t go in after it. This is much like AD‘s recommended procedure for dealing with chemical spills, except the K-9s don’t go through as many doughnuts.)
I’m halfway tempted to pull some money out of the bank, go down there, and offer cash money for old S&W revolvers. The only thing that’s stopping me is that other people seem to have had the same idea.
(Subject line hattip, just so people don’t accuse me of being unable to spell.)
Quote of the day.
Thursday, June 3rd, 2010The problem isn’t that this needs to be said. The problem is that it isn’t being said where it needs to be said; in a 9-0 decision by the United States Supreme Court, written by Antonin Scalia.
(Hattip: Insta.)