Archive for July, 2012

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Banana republicans watch: July 17, 2012.

Tuesday, July 17th, 2012

Today’s tale is brought to you by the town of San Fernando, where voters are trying to recall three of the city council members.

Fiscal irresponsibility? Criminal acts? Election fraud? No. The oldest motivation in the world.

Councilman Mario Hernandez, who has already resigned (but is still up for recall), was carrying on an affair with Councilwoman Maribel de la Torre. For some reason, he decided back in November to announce this. At a council meeting. In public. With his wife sitting in the front row.

Since then, the relationship has deteriorated, to the point where police were called on June 28th; both parties have restraining orders against each other. Hernandez has asked the DA to drop the domestic violence charges against de la Torre: as you might know from watching “COPS”, or living in California, this decision isn’t up to the alleged victim, and the DAs office states they will pursue charges if the evidence warrants.

More:

If prosecutors refuse to dismiss the case, Hernandez has agreed to testify that police officers persuaded him to pursue the report and get a restraining order.

Former councilman Hernandez may want to be very careful about that. I believe California still has laws against perjury.

Anyway, that’s two down. Number three on the recall parade is the Mayor, Brenda Esqueda, who is accused of having an affair with a sergeant on the police force.

In a memo last year, a police commander claimed he was prevented from placing the sergeant on leave by Esqueda and Hernandez. She told reporters this week, “We might be elected officials, but we still are human beings.”

I’ll have to try the “still are human beings” excuse sometime and see how it works out.

Posted in California Über Alles, Clippings, Law | Comments Closed

For Lawrence.

Tuesday, July 17th, 2012

A 6-foot-long, 25 pound “Nile monitor lizard” is on the loose in a small town near Colorado Springs.

Sheriff Mike Ensminger said that the lizard has not been reported to have bitten anyone, but that it could become aggressive, and those with pets and children should be cautious.

Carry your damn guns, people.

(What gun for lizard?)

Posted in Clippings, Lizards, Reptiles | 2 Comments »

A thought on application development.

Tuesday, July 17th, 2012

As noted previously, I bow to no man in my admiration for John Moltz. It makes me very happy that he’s lined up a lucrative sponsorship deal for Very Nice Website.

But.

This week’s sponsor is a list-making application called “Ita”.

You can drag items to rearrange them, tap to mark items completed, and add multiple items quickly, all from the main list view. If you make lists, you’ll love how fast Ita makes it to collect and complete your stuff.

Well, that’s neat, but pretty much what I’d expect from a list-making application on the iPhone, as opposed to, say, a physical piece of paper. Indeed, I’d be willing to say this is the minimal level of function I’d expect from a list-making application.

Ita is beautiful, taking inspiration from high quality paper notebooks and classic typography.

Well, I’m kind of a type geek, and I think applications should look good…

And as you use lists, they’ll show signs of wear, just like a piece of paper.

Why? For Ghu’s sake, why? Isn’t the whole point of this application that it is superior to a paper list? Then why try to emulate the look and feel and wear of paper? What’s the point?

I’ll admit I haven’t used Ita; I don’t have an iPhone or iPad. I’d try the app if becomes available on Android. But I think the question is legitimate. Why are the developers trying to emulate some of the worst aspects of the thing they intend to replace, rather than…oh, I don’t know, maybe putting efforts into improving the app, or developing something new and cool?

Posted in Apple, Geek | Comments Closed

Obit watch: July 17, 2012.

Tuesday, July 17th, 2012

Some of these have been noted on FARK or elsewhere, but I want to round them up here for completeness:

Stephen R. Covey.

Kitty Wells, noted country singer. (“It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels”) (A/V Club.)

John Lord, keyboard player for Deep Purple.

I also wanted to say a few words about Donald J. Sobol. (NYT. WP. A/V Club. Patrick @ Balko.) I got a great deal of enjoyment out of Mr. Sobol’s work when I was young, and I am saddened by his death (though 87 is a good run).

As regular readers know, I generally do not solicit donations here. But I would like to note that in lieu of flowers, the family has asked for donations to the New York Public Library to support services for kids. You can donate here, if you’d like.

Posted in Books, Clippings, Music, Obits | Comments Closed

Olympic watch: July 16, 2012.

Monday, July 16th, 2012

The LAT would like for you to know that the United States is not fielding teams in all the Olympic sports. Notable exceptions: soccer (the US team was eliminated), men’s field hockey, and team handball.

Interesting aspects:

  1. “Team handball” is apparently a thing.
  2. “…in 2006, the sport’s governing body was decertified by the USOC”.
  3. There is apparently such a thing as “professional handball”, at least in Germany.
  4. “…imagine LeBron [James] and [Derrick] Rose and others like him playing handball. It wouldn’t take long, with proper coaching and funding, to get those guys competing at a level needed to earn a trip to the Olympics.” Maybe, guy, but I’m not sure the skill set that makes you good at basketball translates to being Olympic level at handball, team or solo.
  5. The guy who currently runs USA Team Handball is David Gascon. Perhaps you know him better as LAPD Cmdr. David Gascon, former second-in-command of the department, and the guy who went on TV to announce O.J. was a fugitive. (I wanted to embed video, but I can’t find any on YouTube.)

The WP would like for you to consider what happens to athletes who don’t make the team. Do they defer their dreams until 2016? (Not if you’re a baseball or softball player; those sports ain’t coming back in 2016.) Do you go pro on the woman’s boxing circuit?

“Yeah, I won a gold medal. Big deal,” [Decathlete Bryan] Clay said. “I still have to pay rent, still have to change diapers, still have to mow the lawn. In the grand scheme of things, the gold medal is awesome, but to live a full life, you need a lot more.”

Before enlightenment: chop wood, carry water.

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

Claw shrimp!

Monday, July 16th, 2012

Things I did not know until now:

Darn it. I’m not planning a trip to New England anytime soon, so there goes my chance to make a dent in the glut…

(Hattip: The Price Hike.)

(Hattip 2: Penny Arcade.)

Posted in Clippings, Food, Lobsters | Comments Closed

Banana republicans watch: July 16, 2012.

Monday, July 16th, 2012

Ah, San Bernardino. You may remember that the city filed for bankruptcy, and that city officials say the budget figures were falsified for 13 out of 16 years.

Yeah. Well.

Officials in San Bernardino, which announced last week that it intended to file for bankruptcy, had known for years that the city’s finances were becoming critical.

More:

“I told the council two years in a row that, if this continues, we’re going to be looking at bankruptcy. I got criticized for bringing up the word ‘bankruptcy.’ They called it scare tactics,” said former City Manager Charles McNeely, who resigned unexpectedly in May. “The politics of that place are just impossible to deal with.”

And the county sheriff is looking into “allegations of ‘possible criminal activity within departments of the San Bernardino city government”, just for the record.

Posted in California Über Alles, Clippings, Law | Comments Closed

“History can be well written only in a free country.”

Monday, July 16th, 2012

(Quote attributed to Voltaire.)

A while back, there was a meme going around the gun blogs, asking “Why do you carry?” Answers to that generally fell into a couple of categories: “to protect myself/my family”, “because I can”, “because f–k you, that’s why”.

A kind of related question that I haven’t seen talked about is “why do you own guns in the first place?” Many of the answers are the same: self defense, because we don’t like people telling us what we can and can’t do, and so on. But one answer I haven’t really seen people talk much about is “history”.

Since I got back from the S&W Collector’s Association convention in Boise, I’ve been thinking about history and guns, both together and separate. There were a lot of intersections in Boise with areas of my own personal history, and there are some other things are just simply curious or interesting.

I believe an argument can be made that weapons are actually one of the cheapest ways to establish a connection to history for the common man. You can collect cars, for example, but it takes a millionaire’s pocket to collect anything historically significant. If you’re lucky, you might see a vintage warbird at an air show two or three times a year, but good luck touching one, let alone sitting in the cockpit. And flying one, again, requires a millionaire’s budget.

But I think there’s more going on than just the money element.

(more…)

Posted in Books, Guns, History, Photography | Comments Closed

The mimes are food for the bums underground…

Monday, July 16th, 2012

New York, New York!

Several of the city’s most troubled hospitals are partially or completely uninsured for malpractice, state records show, forgoing what is considered a standard safeguard across the country.

This list includes Wyckoff Heights Medical Center, about which we have written previously.

In 2009, Wyckoff Heights Medical Center, in Bushwick, had $50,000 in its malpractice fund; in 2010, the amount put aside to cover claims had dwindled to “0,” according to its financial statements. Yet the hospital listed professional liabilities of $37 million. Ramon Rodriguez, the chief executive, declined to comment.

On the other hand, are these hospitals better off without insurance?

“Malpractice insurance is a lawsuit magnet,” said a former hospital administrator who did not want to be named to avoid upsetting potential employers. Malpractice lawyers said that underinsured hospitals put them in a tricky position.
“There is some arm-twisting,” said Alan Fuchsberg, a personal injury lawyer in Manhattan, as plaintiffs are told that they will end up with nothing and push the hospitals into bankruptcy if they do not “just take the little bit” that is offered to them.

Today is the 100th anniversary of the murder of Herman Rosenthal. Mr. Rosenthal was a small time crook who ran several gambling dens, and was allegedly paying off politicians and cops. One of the cops he was alleged to be bribing was Lieutenant Charles Becker of the vice squad; Lt. Becker raided Rosenthal’s establishment anyway, leading to a heated dispute between the two gentlemen.

This dispute ended with Mr. Rosenthal being shot outside a Manhattan hotel. Lt. Becker was tried, convicted, had his conviction overturned on appeal (due to alleged bias by the judge in the case), retried, convicted again, and finally executed. Lt. Becker is one of a very few police officers to face the death penalty for crimes committed while a police officer. (Incidentally, I still have not found an execution date for Antoinette Frank.)

The NYT has a retrospective article summarizing the case, and suggesting that Lt. Becker may have been innocent of ordering the Rosenthal murder. (There does not seem to be any question that Lt. Becker was a crooked cop; the main question is, did he order the murder, or were the killers acting independently?)

Historical note: one of the men who pinned the murder on Lt. Becker was Jack Rose. Yeah, that Jack Rose.

(Subject line hattip. Can I just mention that it is awesome that WikiQuote has an entire section of “Sam and Max: Freelance Police” quotes?)

Posted in Clippings, Law, Mixology | Comments Closed

Art, damn it, art! watch (#30 in a series).

Monday, July 16th, 2012

Jeremy Larner is the “business manager” for someone named Rob Dyrdek; as I understand it, Mr. Dyrdek is a skateboarder who has a show on MTV.

Point is, Mr. Larner is apparently fairly well-to-do, and describes himself as an “art geek”. Mr. Larner has several works by Shepard Fairey in his collection.

About 15 months ago, Mr. Larner won an auction for the right to sponsor a Fairey mural in the children’s wing at L.A. County-USC Medical Center, paying $30,000 for the privilege.

Mr. Larner is unhappy with the outcome and the way he was treated, and is suing for his money back.

I could snark on Mr. Fairey, or on the wisdom of paying $30,000 for his work, but it actually sounds like Mr. Larner has some legitimate gripes.

In a timeline in his lawsuit, Larner contended that he repeatedly reached out to the charity for updates on the mural but received no firm information for months. He said that after numerous queries to project manager Eli Consilvio, he received a prank phone call in November from a mutual friend and fellow art collector.

Part of Mr. Larner’s sponsorship included watching Mr. Fairey paint the mural. Unfortunately, Mr. Larner was “on vacation and unable to attend” when the mural was painted. It isn’t clear to me if this was a big deal to Mr. Larner. But:

As the months wore on, Larner grew frustrated that no dedication ceremony had occurred. [Project manager Eli] Consilvio said he told Larner that the administrative issues with the hospital were causing the delays and thought Larner understood. Larner filed a fraud and breach-of-contract suit in L.A. County Superior Court on June 25, detailing the delays and the prank call.

Posted in Art, California Über Alles, Clippings, Law | Comments Closed

Crossing the streams.

Friday, July 13th, 2012

More banana republicans: the LAT today has a longer article about the allegations against Cudahy city officials. This is a doozy. Besides the election fraud I touched on yesterday:

Sex, drugs, bribes, and election fraud. This town was out of control.

[Edited to add: Secret decoder ring: “Silva” = former mayor David Silva. “Perales” = former code enforcement head Angel Perales. “G.P.” = an unnamed “former Cudahy official”. “Conde” = councilman Osvaldo Conde, of the bimbo and the badge.]

Posted in California Über Alles, Clippings, Food, Law, Lobsters, Politics | 1 Comment »

Random notes: July 13, 2012.

Friday, July 13th, 2012

The crawfish of Lake Tahoe.

No snark here: I think this story is awesome for several reasons.

  1. It is an example of the “defeat invasive species by eating them” strategy.
  2. I like crawfish.

Chuy’s is planning a stock offering. I like Chuy’s Mexican restaurants; they’re the most tolerable TexMex I’ve found in Austin so far, if you can deal with the crowd. But there is something I’m curious about:

Chuy’s was founded in 1982 by Mike Young and John Zapp with a single restaurant at 1728 Barton Springs Road in Austin. The company now operates 32 restaurants in seven states.

Are all the restaurants Chuy’s? A long time ago, the Chuy’s holding company ran the Romeo’s on Barton Springs, but they spun that off (and the restaurant closed several years later). I believe Chuy’s still runs the Hula Hut on Lake Austin, but I can’t find any proof of that. I’m thinking the Chuy’s holding company also runs a couple of other non-Chuy’s, but I can’t find a complete list of their holdings online.

Balko and Reason, among others, have been all over the painkiller issue. The government repeatedly and consistently has attempted to make criminals out of doctors who legitimately prescribe high doses of painkillers for patients suffering from intractable pain. Not just that; the government has stomped on the First Amendment by going after patient advocacy organizations, and has even threatened to shut down pharmacies for filling prescriptions.

As a Libertarian, I come down on the Balko/Reason side. Actually, I think if people want to take painkillers, they should be available OTC without a prescription; heck, let’s have the autonomous Glock/heroin/Oxycodone vending robots now!

But this s–t ain’t helping:

Though the X-ray for a German shepherd had the dog’s name, Recon, and the name of an animal hospital printed on it, the doctor wrote the deputy a prescription for a powerful narcotic painkiller and a muscle relaxant, law enforcement officials said.

On the other hand:

How in the frack did this man even have a license to practice?

Posted in California Über Alles, Clippings, Cops, Food, Law | Comments Closed

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