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Archive for June, 2012
The continuing chimpanzee crisis.
Friday, June 29th, 2012Well. Well. Well. Isn’t THAT special?
Friday, June 29th, 2012Earlier this week, I noted the goings-on in the notoriously corrupt California city of Vernon. One thing I mentioned was the $1.6 million salary of one Eric T. Fresch, a Vernon city official until this past May and one of the people behind Vernon’s failed natural gas hedge.
Mr. Fresch was found dead Thursday night in Angel Island State Park.
According to the LAT, the coroner’s office does not suspect foul play.
Also interesting: remember that audit?
Vernon, Vernon, Vernon…
Thursday, June 28th, 2012The LAT has a story about a state audit report on the notoriously corrupt city. Some of the things in the audit were touched on the other day, like the natural gas hedge deal. There is some new stuff:
Cop watch: June 28, 2012.
Thursday, June 28th, 2012I have not been able to give a flying flip at a rolling doughnut about the whole Drake/Chris Brown/Tony Parker kerfluffle. (If you are unaware of this, consider yourself lucky.) But there’s an interesting aspect to the story in today’s NYT.
W.i.P (the club where the fight broke out) and Greenhouse (another club) share both the building and a liquor license. Greenhouse has what the NYT characterizes as “a history of violence and other problems”. So…
Yep, that’s right. You go into a club, the club captures your ID, keeps it on file for 30 days, and gives it to the cops if they ask for it.
I’ve written previously about the Patricia Cook case (the woman who was shot by a cop in Culpepper, VA: the cop is now charged with murder). Reason has an interesting article about how the community used Facebook to draw attention to the case: the Facebook campaign led to increased press coverage and the discovery of a new witness. One thing that leaps out at me:
“Comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable,” indeed.
And do you remember Deputy James Mee of the LA County Sheriff’s Department? You might: he arrested Mel Gibson. Apparently, Mee later sued the department, claiming his superiors had tried to pressure him into removing Gibson’s anti-Semetic remarks from his report. Deputy Mee settled the suit for $50,000….
…and now the department is planning to fire him.
Mee’s lawyer claims that the department is also peeved because Mee testifed for one of his colleagues at a disciplinary hearing. The gentlemen in question was accused of drunk driving, Mee testifed as an expert on DWI, and…
I don’t know what to make of this. My reading of the LAT account is that the LACSO is looking to get rid of a meddlesome deputy, but I concede that account is pretty one-sided. It would be interesting to see LACSO’s side of the story, but they probably can’t discuss it.
I hate every ape I see, from chim-pan-A to chimpanzee…
Wednesday, June 27th, 2012Random notes: June 27, 2012.
Wednesday, June 27th, 2012Obit watch: Nora Ephron.
Oh, gee: “business leaders” are threatening to move their firms out of the notoriously corrupt city of Vernon, claiming the cost of business has become too high. Vernon has raised taxes and electricity rates, due to “the recession and a series of ill-fated investments that have cost the city millions”.
Among other bright ideas:
- The city spent $431 million on a hedge for a long-term supply of natural gas. Under the terms of the hedge, the city locked in supply at $7.50 per unit. Last year, natural gas sold for $4 per unit; currently, it is at “just over” $2.50 per unit.
- The city has issued over $1 billion in bonds “to pursue new projects and refinance existing debts”. Vernon has lost more than $130 million in net assets in the past six years, and county auditors say the city has consistently run $20 to $25 million in debt.
- “During the same period, Vernon increased its spending on employee compensation. Between 2006 and 2010, four officials took home annual pay of more than $750,000, including Eric T. Fresch, who made as much as $1.6 million in 2008.” Those same four officials were responsible for the natural gas deal.
- And, in a nice rich irony, many of the “business leaders” who are unhappy now were responsible for torpedoing last year’s legislative effort to disincorporate Vernon.
In other news, Stockton, California plans to file for municipal bankruptcy.
Hmmm.
- The ability to make lemonade is genetically inherited, rather than learned? This might explain why my lemonade isn’t very good. (Then again, it could be that I make mine with bottled lemon juice. Yeah, I know, but I mostly make lemonade so I can mix it with iced tea and make Arnold Palmers; why use fresh lemon juice for that?)
- Lemonade isn’t sweet until you add something like sugar to it. What does Rev. Williams propose to add to the lemonade of bankruptcy?
More details on the Jovita’s heroin bust from the Statesman.
One of the great barbecue related stories of the past quarter century was the Kreuz Market feud. In brief, when the family patriarch died, he left the Kreuz Market building to his daughter; he’d previously sold the business itself to two of his sons. This led to a family fight, and ultimately Kreuz Market moved into a new building on the highway, while the old building became Smitty’s.
What’s news? Well, the owner of Kreuz and the pitmaster at Smitty’s, along with another family member, are opening a new barbecue place: Schmidt Family Barbecue in Bee Cave. I am morally certain we will be going out there for an SDC, as soon as they’ve had time to shake out.
Gratuitous and unnecessary photography (part 2 of 2?)
Tuesday, June 26th, 2012I’ve uploaded a second small set of photos. These are photos I took of Ernest Hemmingway’s grave, and of the Hemmingway Memorial near Ketchum. You can view them here.
Gratuitous and unnecessary photography (part 1 of 2?)
Tuesday, June 26th, 2012I’ve uploaded some photos I took during our tour of the Old Idaho Penitentiary to Flicker. You can find them here.
Smack!
Tuesday, June 26th, 2012Lawrence and I (and others) have often joked that certain establishments, given the amount of traffic they seem to get, stay in business only as fronts for either organized crime or the CIA. (Those of you who want to argue that there is no difference between those two can do so in the comments.)
I just discovered (by way of the TM Daily Post) a possible example of that theory:
Actually, I do believe Jovita’s was an exception to the CIA front rule; it certainly seemed busy whenever I drove past.
And the combination of this raid and the Sixth Street raid in such close proximity makes me go “Hmmmmmmmm”, especially since there appears to be a Texas Syndicate connection to both.
(Apologies for posting this a little late. The story broke while I was in Boise, and I wasn’t checking the Statesman or other papers every day. This did remarkable things for my blood pressure, but was bad for blogging.)
After action report: Boise, ID.
Tuesday, June 26th, 2012This is going to be more like a collection of random notes towards an AA report than an actual report. I do plan on a longer more thoughtful blog post later; probably this weekend, if everything works out the way I want it to. (I’m waiting for something to come in, and I need to go out to my mother’s place to take some pictures.)
- You can do blog posts from the Kindle Fire. I wouldn’t recommend it, and there are some issues with the WordPress interface on the Kindle, but in a pinch it can be done. And it is better than trying to post from a smart phone.
- On the other hand, I was at dinner one night with some friends. One of them was talking about a new gun he’d bought, but wasn’t sure what variant it was. He (and several other people at the table) were very impressed when I whipped out the Kindle Fire open to the appropriate section of the Standard Catalog of Smith & Wesson 3rd Edition
. At least one person said, “That’s it. I’ve got to get one.” Yeah, I like having the Kindle Fire.
- Speaking of books, I started and finished The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl
on the way up. Tam has written about this book previously, and anything I could add except “go read it” would be superfluous.
- Supposedly, according to the TSA, you no longer have to take out your laptop if it is under 12″. At least, that’s what I was told by a TSA agent in Austin (too late to do me any good) and the first TSA agent I spoke with in Boise. The second TSA agent in Boise apparently either didn’t get the memo, or the other two were wrong. Good old government ineptitude.
- I feel obligated to link to this Oatmeal comic.
- I had a lot of good food in Boise. Other than Bar Gernika and the Moxie Java on Chinden, I had a fantastic breakfast (as in, one of the best breakfasts I’ve ever had) at a small place called Goldy’s in downtown Boise, and a very nice meal off the prix fixe menu at Chandlers Steakhouse.
- Speaking of Chandlers, some folks have been talking about martinis, so I thought I’d post this:
Chandlers calls this “The ’33 Plymouth”; it is, of course, made with Plymouth gin and Nolly Prat vermouth. They do warn you that it takes 10 minutes to make one; I consider it worth the wait. - There was a restaurant near the hotel that I (sadly) did not make it to, but was notable for the carved wooden sign out front stating “Famous Prawns”. I am sufficiently geeky that whenever I saw that sign, all I could think of was “No prawns at this altitude!”
- I find that what gets under my skin about travel these days is mostly the minor annoyances. The $3 bottled water in the room. (A buck or $1.50, maybe. That’s gas station price. And what do you suppose the gas station’s markup on bottled water is?) The lack of notepaper and envelopes. (Remember when hotels used to supply those? I know, everyone emails now, but an envelope is still useful to hold receipts and other bits of important loose paper.) Annoying WiFi networks. Etc.
- Minor annoyances aside, I did like the staff and the facility at the Riverside Boise. (And at least the WiFi was free.) The cookie and milk/coffee break provided by the hotel on Friday was a particularly nice touch.
- Anyone ever read Lawrence Block’s short story about Keller the hitman, “Answers to Soldier”? I understand how Keller felt about Roseburg; I feel much the same way about Boise. It reminds me a lot of Austin twenty years ago. (And, much like Keller, I have fantasies about moving almost every place I travel to. And then I end up going back to Austin…)
- I was reliably informed that on Thursday (the first full day I was there, when we spent much of the afternoon tramping around the Old Idaho Penitentiary) the high was 92 degrees. Balmy by Austin standards, but the humidity was 6%. That would explain why I was drinking water like it was going out of style the whole time I was there…
- As small town as Boise feels, it is big enough to have at least three gun stores. (There may be more, but the show host recommended three specifically.) I was able to visit two: the folks at Boise Gun Company were really nice, and have a huge selection. Cliff’s Guns, Safes, and Reloading seems to be a great place for reloading supplies; they didn’t have quite the new or used selection of Boise Gun Company, but did have a couple of interesting used guns. (On the other hand, $2,000 for a Model 16-4 strikes me as high. But I didn’t try to talk them down, what with being an out-of-state resident and all.) And the staff at Cliffs was perfectly pleasant to me, thankyouverymuch.
- Sadly, I didn’t have a chance to search for used bookstores in Boise. I did look for bookstores in Ketchum and along the route between Boise and Ketchum, but didn’t see any. Oddly enough, I also didn’t see any gun stores along the route. (They probably would have been closed on Sunday, but I was specifically looking for both gun stores and book stores, just to satisfy my curiosity.)
- Speaking of Ketchum and the general area around it, can you say “yuppie heaven”? I suspect if you planted magnets on old Ernie’s body and placed him inside a coil of copper wire, you could provide enough power to light all of downtown Ketchum at night.
- On the other hand, the stretch of 51/20 between I-84 and 75 is an amazing drive. This is basically 82 miles of…well, nothing, except high desert country, farms and ranches, mountains, and lots of curvy mountain road. I have a track of the route I took, and may post it later so folks can get a feel for what the country looks like.
- I haven’t been a big KIA fan, but the rental company gave me a KIA Forte, and it turned out to be a pretty swell car. It handled well on the road, got close to 30 MPG, and felt pretty stable at 85 MPH. Plus, it had two 12V sockets, an aux input, and a USB plug up front. I haven’t checked the Consumer Reports repair records, but the Forte might be worth looking at if you’re in the market for a 4-door sedan.
- Boise seems to have nearly as many thrift stores as Austin, Mom. I didn’t see any Goodwill stores, though; the majority of thrift stores seemed to be affiliated with the “Idaho Youth Ranch“.
Back on the train, hey, back on the chain gang….
Tuesday, June 26th, 2012And we have a couple of stories from the municipal beat.
Story #1: The last ballots cast in June’s election in the notoriously corrupt California town of Vernon have been counted…and Reno Bellamy has been declared the winner. Bellamy’s opponent, Luz Martinez, was endorsed by the Vernon Chamber of Commerce. Of course, the Chamber “has vowed to pursue further legal action”.
Story #2: A while back, the town of Moberly, Missouri, agreed to guarantee $39 million in bonds through 2025. The bonds were intended to help a Chinese company, Mamtek International, build a plant to manufacture sucralose in Moberly.
Guess what happened next? If you said, “I bet the project fell apart”, take two gold stars and advance to the next blue square.
The hook here is that Moberly is refusing to make payments on the bonds, basically claiming that they were “misled” by Mamtek. (Mamtek claimed they already had an operating sucralose plant in China; it turns out that plant never opened, and that Missouri state development officials were aware of this before the bonds were sold, but nobody told Moberly officials.)
In a related NYT story:
This is particularly interesting:
If you or I did this, they’d call it a Ponzi scheme, and we’d be going to Federal pound you in the ass prison.
EarthQuest update.
Sunday, June 24th, 2012Remember EarthQuest, the dinosaur/ecology theme park proposed for Montgomery County?
I’m promoting this from a comment left on my “Contact the proprietor” page. The original can be found here.
Awesome blog about Earthquest. Here is an update:
The Earthquest Institute is now defunct and its CEO (as Don Allen Holbrook LLC) is suing John and Jane Does who have dared to comment about this project and his involvement in it. He is also suing the Tribune, Cynthia Calvert, The Houston Press, Craig Malisow, The Pahrump Valley Times and me (Soapboxmom).
Earthquest Adventures will be remembered for this frivolous, harassment suit filed by Holbrook in an effort to stifle public debate about this matter of public concern. Holbrook apparently thinks the taxpayers should have no say in how their tax dollars are spent.
Please also watch for updates on the Earthquest Facebook page.
I was not aware that Holbrook was suing folks. If so, this is a revolting development. Since I’ve been on vacation the past couple of days, I haven’t had a chance to follow-up with soapboxmom on this, so I don’t know if she and other folks involved have legal representation yet. I assume the Houston Press has lawyers on retainer, but I’m not sure about the other folks named.
(soapboxmom, I would like to follow up with you on that. Please feel free to email me at one of the addresses on the contact page.)