Archive for February, 2012

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More Grits.

Wednesday, February 22nd, 2012

Sorry, folks. I had to go to the eye doctor this morning, so I’m getting off to a slow start.

In the latest Scott Henson news (previously) APD has released the video. You can find it at the Statesman‘s site, where it autoplays. (Idiots.)

I haven’t watched it yet, primarily because I got the full monty from my eye doctor, including the drops in my eyes. My pupils are now the size of Rhode Island; thank ghu for those silly sunglasses like things. In addition, work has me in a full-on “Hulk smash!” mode. More later. Maybe.

Posted in Clippings, Cops, Law | 2 Comments »

The most wonderful time of the year.

Tuesday, February 21st, 2012

That would be the time I get to use my “On a stick” category.

Lots of things have snuck up on me in the past few weeks (wow, almost March already?), including the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo.

And with the rodeo comes rodeo food. The HouChron has a (warning! Slideshow!) 84 slide slideshow of food offerings (warning! Slideshow!) starting with the Rodeo Rib.

The rib is an actual cow’s rib, clean as a whistle, not a speck of meat left on it. Then Palmieri sticks a whole chuck steak, with the gristle and fat removed, on the end. As the meat cooks, it shrinks and adheres tightly to the bone, so you have to tear the meat away with your teeth.

There seems to be a fair (ha!) amount of overlap from last year. I don’t remember fried frog legs or fried beef jerky, but the chocolate covered pickle rings a bell (and I still believe the inventors of that should be tarred and feathered). Same applies to the inventors of Bum’s Blue Ribbon Pulled Pork Sundae (back again, I see).

“Nachos made from hand-cooked potato chips.” Uh, isn’t that kind of subverting the very definition of nachos?

There’s some good stuff in the slideshow, too. Now I’m craving a barbecue stuffed baked potato for dinner.

Posted in Clippings, Food, On a stick | Comments Closed

Please pass the popcorn.

Tuesday, February 21st, 2012

And by “popcorn”, I mean “Popcorn Sutton’s Tennessee White Whiskey”.

Microdistilleries are now legal in Cocke County, Tennessee. And a guy named Jamey Grosser is making whiskey in the style of the late great Popcorn Sutton.

Interestingly, one of Grosser’s partners in the venture is Hank Williams, Jr.

Posted in Clippings, Mixology, Music | Comments Closed

And yet…(take 2).

Monday, February 20th, 2012

It wasn’t just Safari.

(Previously.)

Posted in Clippings, Geek | Comments Closed

Quotes of the day.

Monday, February 20th, 2012

“The best way not to die in an avalanche is to stay out of one in the first place,” [John Snook of the Colorado Avalanche Information Center] said.

“…if you make any changes to a backup without a good backup, you’re not only inviting disaster, you’re making it dinner and cocktails and naming your first born ‘epic fail’.”

Posted in Clippings, Geek, Safety | Comments Closed

Annals of law (number 2 in a series)

Monday, February 20th, 2012

Today’s Statesman reprints a lengthy AP article by Kristen Gelineau about the Azaria Chamberlain case, tied to a new coroner’s inquest starting Friday. (This will be inquest number four.)

You remember Azaria Chamberlain? And her mother Lindy Chamberlain? Right?

This one goes out to my friend A.T. Campbell, the world's biggest Meryl Streep fan.

Yes, this is the famous “Dingo ate my baby!” case. For the younger set and the non-true crime buffs: the Chamberlain family was camping at Ayers Rock when Azaria (who was nine weeks old) disappeared. Lindy Chamberlain said she heard a cry, went to check on Azaria, and saw a dingo leaving their tent. Azaria’s jumpsuit was found in the desert; dingo tracks and blood were found in and near the tent.

There was considerable doubt at the time (and for that matter, today) that a dingo could carry off a baby. There was also some forensic evidence that, at the time, suggested Lindy Chamberlain had killed her daughter. (That evidence has since been debunked; details are in the linked article.) Lindy was convicted of murder, and her husband Michael was convicted as an accessory.

Three years after the conviction, Azaria’s jacket was discovered near a dingo den. (Azaria’s body has never been found.) Lindy and her husband were released from prison days later.

This is a pretty complicated case, with strong elements of prejudice. (The Chamberlains were Seventh-day Adventists.) I’ll admit to not having read Evil Angels so I may be missing some details. I do wonder if inquest number four is going to bring any more closure to the case than we already have.

Posted in Clippings, Law | 1 Comment »

APD/Scott Henson update.

Sunday, February 19th, 2012

I was busy much of the day yesterday (and chained to my desk doing schoolwork much of the day today) so this is the first chance I’ve had to blog the Statesman‘s followup to the Scott Henson story.

Basically, Chief Acevdeo showed a Statesman reporter video of the incident – video that hasn’t been released to the public – that he claims contradicts Henson’s story. As far as I can tell, the contradictions amount to:

  • APD didn’t draw Tasers.
  • APD disputes that Henson was “handcuffed roughly”.

I’m glad I waited, since Henson now has a response to Acevedo and the Statesman up at his own blog. In his response, Henson acknowledges the non-drawn Taser error, but disputes the handcuff issue.

Henson also makes another good point by way of an apology:

I was wrong to assume the deputy constable called in the cavalry. With 20/20 hindsight, having reviewed all the materials the chief showed me (which is more than the press has seen so far), she’s the one who did it right, investigating a serious allegation without needlessly scaring a child or applying more restrictive force than was necessary to contain the situation. She also told APD moments before they detained me that she’d spoken to the child, gave them her name, and said I was her Grandpa. My apologies for my original, false interpretation, both to the deputy and Constable Danny Brown’s shop.

To me, that’s sort of the key issue: why did nine APD officers stop, detain, and handcuff someone the deputy constable had already spoken to and cleared?

Posted in Clippings, Cops, Law | 1 Comment »

And yet, Apple is evil.

Friday, February 17th, 2012

…four advertising companies — Google, Vibrant Media, WPP PLC’s Media Innovation Group and Gannett’s PointRoll — have all been using code to work around privacy features in Safari’s iPhone browser. The search engine giant intended to place a temporary cookie on users’ devices to see if they were logged-in to Google services, but the research found that other cookies were also being placed on devices through the workaround.

Google is removing the cookies. Here’s a direct link to the actual work by Jonathan Mayer. And here’s the WSJ report, which does not appear to be behind a paywall.

Edited to add: LAT:

In the wake of evidence that Google Inc. circumvented privacy protections on the iPhone, federal lawmakers are asking if the company violated the terms of its broad privacy settlement with the Federal Trade Commission.

Posted in Apple, Clippings, Geek | 2 Comments »

Noted for future reference.

Friday, February 17th, 2012

All that airline stuff reminded me of a story I’d read a long time ago in Reader’s Digest.

I ended spending far more time than I needed to trying to track down that story (in part because I had both the title and the author’s name mangled). So just in case I want to refer to it in the future, and for the benefit of my readers (full-service blogging experience here, people; also, I think Frankie Housley should not be forgotten):

Wikipedia entry for Frankie Housley.

Knoxville “Metro Pulse” article on Frankie Housley (by way of the Wayback Machine).

MacKinlay Kantor’s “A Girl Named Frankie”.

Posted in Clippings, Heroism, Obits, Planes | Comments Closed

HCDA stuff.

Friday, February 17th, 2012

I missed this last night: the Texas Rangers are asking for a special prosecutor to assist in their investigation of the Harris County District Attorney’s office.

I learned of the HouChron article by way of  The Hon. Murray Newman, who points out this is the fourth special prosecutor appointed to investigate the HCDA’s office since October.

Also, just to make things a little easier, I added a “HCDA” sub-category to the law category, and edited posts appropriately. Now everything I’ve posted (AFAIK) related to the Harris County District Attorney’s office is in one place, for easy review. Just part of the full-service blogging experience here at WCD, no need to thank me.

Posted in Admin, Clippings, HCDA, Law | Comments Closed

Burning airlines give you so much more.

Friday, February 17th, 2012

Another topic of conversation at dinner last night: planes. Specifically, airlines.

Posted in Art, Endorsements, Movies, Planes | Comments Closed

More things you find on the Internet.

Thursday, February 16th, 2012

I was having dinner with a friend tonight, and for various reasons the conversation turned to Las Vegas. We were discussing things like: could you make a go of it with a completely retro-Rat Pack themed casino? Vintage slot machines (or modern electronic reproductions of vintage slot machines), a 50s-style menu (lobster thermidor and baked Alaska?), Rat Pack impersonators giving nightly performances (that already happens to varying degrees at a lot of Vegas casinos these days)?

(I don’t know, but if I had a lot of money to burn, I’d buy the Sahara property and rights to the name and give it a shot.)

Anyway, the question came up: is there a list of Vegas casinos? The answer is obvious: this is the Internet, of course there’s a list of Vegas casinos. That’s no great shock.

More interesting is the list of defunct Vegas casinos. That has a few surprises. (I thought the Hooters Casino was defunct; actually, they filed for Chapter 11 and are up for sale. The Debbie Reynolds Hollywood Hotel also didn’t go defunct: it was sold multiple times (more on this later), spent much of the early 21st century as a dedicated hotel for United and Delta air crews, and is now owned by the Clarion people.)

But my own personal favorite is the list of Las Vegas casinos that never opened. There’s some fun ones here, such as:

  • The World Wrestling Federation/World Wrestling Entertainment had two casino plans, one of which was for the Debbie Reynolds property, and neither of which ever went through.
  • There was a plan for a Titanic themed casino across from the Sahara, but the Vegas city council rejected it. (As my friend said, “How bad does a plan have to be for the Vegas City Council to reject it?”)
  • One of the founders of U-Haul bought a hotel, renamed it the World Trade Center Hotel, and applied for a casino license. The application was rejected when two of his partners in the project were found to have criminal records; the gentleman in question died the following year in a car crash that was ruled a suicide. (All of this was pre-September 11th, by the way.)
  • The Moon Resort and Casino, a proposed 10,000 room, 250 acre resort with a lunar theme. Proposed, but nobody seems to believe it will ever be built because there’s just not that much space available on the Strip.

Those are just a few of the high points. Just think, if things were slightly different, you could be booking a room in the Harley Davidson Hotel and Casino. Or the Montreux Resort (keep an eye out for stupids with flare guns).

Posted in Travel | Comments Closed

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