Archive for August 17th, 2012

And even more things I did not know….

Friday, August 17th, 2012

An office discussion led to the misguided The Legend of the Lone Ranger movie from 1981. (Not to be confused with the misguided Lone Ranger movie currently in production.)

You remember that one, don’t you? The one where the Wrather Company went after Clayton Moore for making public appearances in a mask? The one starring Klinton Spilsbury?

I’m sure you haven’t been wondering, “Hey, what ever happened to Klinton Spilsbury?” But: what ever happened to Klinton Spilsbury?

Answer: he’s never worked again.

Kind of makes me go “Wow”. I mean, surely he could have gotten a part in some direct to video/DVD piece of crap? Or if they were really desperate, a part in a SyFy channel movie? “Anaconda 5: Anaconda vs. Bigfoot”?

Is it just me…

Friday, August 17th, 2012

…or does P90X sound more like a product of FN (probably a bullpup chambered in .250-3000) or a Volvo sport-utility vehicle than an exercise program?

Updates.

Friday, August 17th, 2012

I’ve added Steven Raichlen’s blog and Twitter feed.

Also added: Mick Vann’s “Gustidude”. Mr. Vann is one of a small number of local food writers I trust: I would say that even if it were not for the fact that he did a nice profile of the SDC many years ago.

And Gustidude came to my attention because he has a blog entry up about eating at Franklin’s BBQ with Raichlen.

Obvious headline is obvious.

Friday, August 17th, 2012

So instead, I’ll link to this:

and this:

and let my readers fill in the blank.

Banana republicans watch: August 17, 2012.

Friday, August 17th, 2012

Haven’t had one of these in a while now. Let’s open up the bag and see what’s inside.

Caltrans, the state transportation agency, owns “hundreds of houses spanning a corridor through Pasadena, South Pasadena and Los Angeles”. These homes were purchased as part of a plan to extend the 710 freeway, and are supposed to be bulldozed when the extension is built. At this point, it looks like the extension is on indefinite hold.

So?

The agency has spent $22.5 million since 2008 to maintain the homes, but transportation officials are “unable to demonstrate that the repairs were necessary, reasonable or cost-effective,” according to the report by the California State Auditor, which was sparked by a Times investigation.

In one case, the agency spent $103,443 on a new roof. That leaked.

“Bees were also coming in,” Jones said. “It was like a plague.”
The shoddy work sparked a fight with state officials that eventually led to Jones’ eviction from the home he and his wife had lived in for about two decades.

But wait, there’s more!

The state is also losing $22 million per year because tenants, including 15 state employees, are paying far below market rates for rent. Other homes, some of which have been recognized as historical landmarks, have been boarded up and empty for years.

And more!

For one of those vacant houses, state officials recently estimated it should have cost $56,000 to repair a roof and replace the garage. But the cost soared to more than $184,000 after it was expended to include “miscellaneous interior repairs” — a coat of paint and upgrades to two bathrooms. “Caltrans could provide no evidence of the need for additional work,” the investigators said.

And even more: auditors traced the money to the Direct Construction Unit of the Department of General Services. The “Direct Construction Unit” apparently does the general repair work for state owned buildings. So basically, this was one branch of the state government taking money out of the pocket of the other branch. Which is fine; even if you’re just taking money from one pocket and putting it in another, you’ve got to account for it, right?

Except that the Direct Construction Unit was tacking on a 20% “management fee”. And they were hiring subcontractors “for minor chores as a kind of window dressing to ‘achieve the appearance’ of meeting goals to include small businesses in state work. ” It looks like the subcontractors may have known people inside the DCU: one particular subcontractor “repeatedly bought the exact items it would sell to the unit days before the jobs were put out to bid”.

And the punchline: this contractor was buying items at Home Depot and selling them to the DCU at an average markup of 35%.

And a by the way: “Four of the state employees found living in the houses worked for the Department of General Services.”

But, hey, LA isn’t the only city in California, right? Right. There’s also San Francisco. San Francisco has a sheriff, Ross Mirkarimi. Sheriff Mirkarimi has a domestic violence conviction on his record; based on my understanding of federal law, that bars him from possessing a firearm. Which is kind of a problem, if you’re the chief law enforcement officer of a major city.

Yesterday, the San Francisco Ethics Commission found, on a 4-1 vote, that Sheriff Mirkarimi had engaged in “official misconduct”.

Apparently, this doesn’t mean that he’s actually fired: the Board of Supervisors needs at least 9 out of 11 votes to terminate him.

Magnets. How do they work?

Friday, August 17th, 2012

The NYT got around to covering the “Buckyballs” story. I put “Buckyballs” in quotes because there are actually other manufacturers involved.

Daniel Peykar, co-founder of Magnicube, said his six-month-old company agreed to voluntarily stop selling its rare-earth magnets, at least temporarily, because it did not want to pay the legal fees associated with an administrative complaint.

And this is priceless:

“There were kind of three portions of the bowel that were stuck together by the Buckyballs,” said Ms. Lopez, who explained that her daughter required two operations and missed a month of school. “Knowing what my daughter went through, I don’t feel that Buckyballs serve any true purpose.”

Ms. Lopez’s child “swallowed four Buckyballs in March while pretending to have a pierced tongue”. Her daughter is 12.