Archive for October, 2011

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Important safety tips (#6 and #7 in a series).

Friday, October 7th, 2011

Number 6: Be very careful using the “reply to all” button in your email client. Indeed, I question the wisdom of even having a self-destruct button “reply to all” button in email clients. You may laugh, but I have seen far too many cases where the “reply to all” button functions very much like a self-destruct button.

Number 7: There are certain words you should probably avoid putting in a professional email. I’m sure everyone has their own list, but I’m also pretty sure that if we merged all of our lists together, “f-cking” and “b-tch”, as well as the conjugate “f-cking b-tch” would be there.

No reason really. Just thought I’d point these out.

(Hattip: Ken over at Popehat.)

Posted in Safety, Schadenfreude | Comments Closed

Was that wrong?

Friday, October 7th, 2011

Should they not have done that?

I tell you, I gotta plead ignorance on this thing. I mean, if someone had told them it was a bad idea for a guidance councilor to strip search students, and that the Supreme Court had ruled it was illegal, then the Atlantic Community School District might not be out $300,000.

You know, cause I’ve worked in a lot of school districts, and I tell you, people do things like sending 12-year-old boys out to act as decoy buyers so they can bust other kids for selling pot all the time.

(Well, you didn’t have to say it like that.)

Posted in Clippings, Law | Comments Closed

Noted.

Thursday, October 6th, 2011

With a hat-tip to Mike the Musicologist:

The Death Factory was released in August. I’m not sure why I didn’t notice this until now.

See here for more on Joe.

Posted in Books | Comments Closed

I want to ride in the car…

Thursday, October 6th, 2011

…John Wayne drove.

Earlier this week, Lawrence noted the Heritage auction of John Wayne’s stuff.

Today, the HouChron kindly informs us that one of John Wayne’s cars, a “1966 International TravelAll”, is for sale on eBay. The “Buy it now” price is a mere one million dollars.

In one of those “only in Texas” things, the car is actually owned by a state legislator from El Paso who says that he only drove it to church on Sunday a few hundred miles.

“It’s got the original seat that John Wayne passed gas on,” Pickett said.

Yeah. I think now we know why Rep. Pickett went into politics instead of sales.

Posted in Cars, Clippings, Movies | Comments Closed

A fool lies here who tried to hustle the yeast.

Thursday, October 6th, 2011

Interesting piece in the LAT about Bacardi, the specific strain of yeast they use to make rum, and how the Bacardi family played “keep away” when Castro took power.

Posted in Clippings, History, Mixology | Comments Closed

Tranströmer! More than meets the eye!

Thursday, October 6th, 2011

Tomas Tranströmer has won this year’s Nobel Prize for Literature.

I admit to being unfamiliar with the works of Mr. Tranströmer. I am sure he is a very nice gentleman and fully deserving of the award.

However, I wanted to make note of Mr. Tranströmer’s win because of this LAT piece from yesterday. Ladbrokes was apparently giving 5-1 odds that Bob Dylan would win this year.

I might have to see about putting a few bucks on Pynchon in 2012.

Edited to add: As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly posted this before FARK posted their headline.

Posted in Books, Clippings, Pynchon | Comments Closed

Obit watch: October 5, 2011.

Wednesday, October 5th, 2011

Because it is expected, even though it is all over the news: Steve Jobs.

LAT obit.

NYT obit.

Edited to add 10/6: Both John Scalzi and Wil Wheaton have nice tributes up at their sites.

ETA2: Ihnatko. Person.

ETA3: I generally don’t solicit charitable donations here. But I would like to note that the Lustgarten Foundation for Pancreatic Cancer Research gets four stars (the highest possible rating) from Charity Navigator. There are worse things you could do with your money than make a donation to them; if not in memory of Steve Jobs, perhaps in memory of Randy Pausch. Or Benoit Mandelbrot. Or one of the other 419 people whose death from pancreatic cancer was notable enough for Wikipedia.

Posted in Apple, Clippings, Obits | Comments Closed

Aiyana Stanley-Jones.

Wednesday, October 5th, 2011

Who was Aiyana Stanley-Jones?

She was a seven-year-old in Detroit. A SWAT team raided her home looking for a murder suspect; in the process of that raid, the police set her and her bed on fire with a flash-bang grenade. Then they shot her.

Sucks, right? But it was an accident, right? It may be the kind of accident that happens all too often these days, but still an accident, right?

Detroit Police Officer Joseph Weekley has been arraigned on an indictment on charges of involuntary manslaughter and careless and reckless discharge of a firearm causing death in the May 2010 slaying of Aiyana Stanley-Jones during a raid.

Well, okay, involuntary manslaughter and “careless and reckless discharge of a firearm” still carry the connotation of accident, right? Sure. But when was the last time you heard of a police officer being indicted for an accidental shooting? The Oakland BART shooting, perhaps? (And note that that officer was charged with second degree murder; the jury convicted him of less serious charges.)

But that’s not the only reason I’m noting this. You see, the SWAT team was being filmed by a crew from “The First 48”, a show on the A&E network. And…

Also charged in an indictment is Allison Howard, 42, of Boston. She is charged with perjury and obstruction of justice. Wayne County prosecutors said Howard was a photographer with “The First 48,” which had a crew following the Special Response Team the night of the raid.

So they’re charging the camera person as well. And note the charges: “perjury”, and “obstruction of justice”. Makes you go “Hmmmmmm”, doesn’t it?

(Hattip: Reason‘s “Hit and Run”.)

Posted in Clippings, Cops, Law, TV | Comments Closed

The Harris County Party Van.

Wednesday, October 5th, 2011

Harris County (which includes Houston) decided yesterday that they were going to get their breath testing services from the Texas Department of Public Safety.

Previously, the county had a contract with Lone Star College.

“So what?” you say. “TXDPS must have made them a better deal.”

The contract with DPS, which began Tuesday, will cost the county $330,000 in the first year, which would be $12,000 less than Lone Star’s contract. State law reimburses the county $22.50 for each DWI conviction it obtains without using DPS technicians; Harris County collected $220,000 from the state from 2008 through 2010.

If convictions were to continue at similar rates, the DPS contract could end up being pricier than the Lone Star contract.

Well, maybe TXDPS has more experience and competence than Lone Star. That’s quite possible…

Because the DPS oversees the Texas’ breath-alcohol testing program, the agency has a broader knowledge base with more experienced personnel who focus solely on breath testing, Durfee said. The district attorney’s office also has a preference for larger regional and statewide institutions in forensic science, he said.

So what’s the issue here? Well, one of the people who works for Lone Star is Amanda Culbertson. Ms. Culbertson was also the person who brought out the problems with the BAT vans. Ms. Culbertson will apparently lose her job once Lone Star’s contract ends. Of course, everyone denies that there was any retaliation involved.

I’m torn. It actually does sound to me like there are good reasons to go with DPS. But the timing is, to put it mildly, suspicious, especially since Lone Star has had the contract for 20 years.

Murray Newman (a former prosecutor) over at the excellent “Life at the Harris County Criminal Justice Center” blog has some more to say on this, and he comes down pretty firmly on the “retaliation” side. Here’s the Lisa Falkenberg column he mentions.

Posted in Clippings, Cops, HCDA, Law | 1 Comment »

Case brief: Katz v. United States.

Tuesday, October 4th, 2011

Not that Katz. This one was Charles Katz, and he was a gambler who got caught “transmitting wagering information by telephone across state lines in violation of 18 U.S.C. 1084”. The Man had attached a recording device to the outside of the phone booth he was using, and his recorded conversations were used as evidence against him.

Katz said, “Foul!” and the Supreme Court agreed. This is actually an interesting and somewhat surprising case; it serves as a very nice example of the Supreme Court changing its mind in a very public way. The government argued that what they had done was A-OK, because the Court had ruled (in Olmstead v. United States, which I understand comes up in the Ken Burns thing) this this kind of activity didn’t violate the Fourth Amendment. The Supreme Court came back and said, “Yeah. You know something? We’ve changed our mind. Olmstead is no longer controlling. Too bad. So sad. You lose.”

There doesn’t seem to be a lot of information about Charles Katz, either before or after his conviction. One of his lawyers on the appeal says he never even met the man.

Anyway, here’s my case brief, for your reading and mocking pleasure.

Posted in Law, School | 1 Comment »

TMQ Watch: October 4, 2011.

Tuesday, October 4th, 2011

One of WCD’s favorite quotes is from the late Arthur Schlesinger Jr.:

The notion that authority is entitled to reverence per se is the most subvervise of all notions in a free society. “There is not worse heresy,” Lord Acton wrote, “than that the office sanctifies the holder of it.” Authority is entitled only to the respect it earns, and not a whit more.

After the jump, this week’s TMQ:

(more…)

Posted in Food, Guns, Neuroscience, NFL, Sports, TMQ watch | Comments Closed

Your loser update: week 4, 2011.

Tuesday, October 4th, 2011

NFL teams that still have a chance to go 0-16:

Miami
Indianapolis
Minnesota
St. Louis

Posted in Loser, NFL, Sports | Comments Closed

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