Archive for October, 2012

As David Letterman always says…

Tuesday, October 30th, 2012

…”Please, no wagering.”

Nine people, including coaches and the president of the South Florida Youth Football League, have been arrested as part of an elaborate gambling operation involving illegal betting on peewee, college and professional sports teams.

Oddly enough, the HouChron has a longer story, which states that “more than $100,000” was bet on the youth football championship.

Coaches routinely met before games and set point spreads, investigators said, but they do not believe the games were thrown or that coaches encouraged players not to complete a touchdown in order to control the outcome. Authorities said they had no evidence that the players were aware of the bets.

Yeah. Wanna bet the players weren’t aware that Daddy was betting on them to cover the spread?

Wait. That was kind of insensitive of me, wasn’t it?

Still. Eight-year-olds, dude.

Star Wars, nothing but Star Wars…

Tuesday, October 30th, 2012

…there are plans in place for not one but three new “Star Wars” movies, the first of which will arrive in theaters in 2015. Lucas, however, will only serve as a “creative consultant” and will not write or direct.

I don’t think Disney is going to have the courage to do what I’d like to see in the last three movies: follow the Rebel Alliance as it takes power and tries to govern, watch the compromises they make to hold the Alliance together and maintain power…

…and, at the very end of the last movie, force the audience to come to the realization that the Rebel Alliance is now completely indistinguishable from the Empire they were rebelling against. Ideally, by having Princess Leia execute Han Solo as a traitor to the revolution. For extra bonus points, have Luke Skywalker gunned down while trying to lead a revolution on another planet in the system, and young people in the new Empire wearing his image on shirts.

What? Me? Cynical? Never!

(Subject line hattip.)

TMQ Watch: October 30, 2012.

Tuesday, October 30th, 2012

The dead walk only to redig the graves, and make them big enough to fit TVs and microwaves. Plus, this week’s TMQ. After the jump…

(more…)

In other news…

Monday, October 29th, 2012

….wouldn’t “Mitt Romney’s Weather Machine” be a great name for a band?

Millions and millions of dollars.

Monday, October 29th, 2012

Bal Harbour is a village in Florida. They have a population of 2,574 people, and a police force of 27 officers.

In just one month, the village’s police helped reel in $3 million — and by the end of the year, they took more dollars from drug dealers than any police force in Florida.

Now they are the subject of a Department of Justice investigation.

“No one’s told me that we’re not in compliance,” said [Bal Harbour Police Chief Thomas] Hunker, who estimated the feds have frozen nearly $30 million.

Yeah. Thirty. Million. Dollars.

For the first time, agents have demanded explanations for the thousands of dollars doled out to snitches, as well as payroll records for two Bal Harbour cops stationed in Southern California and Charlotte County on Florida’s west coast.

1. Wait, “stationed in Southern California“?
2. “Though the village tapped into forfeiture funds to pay the two salaries, federal law prohibits police from relying on those dollars to cover the payroll of cops who work seizures.

More:

In all, the team has helped take in $19.3 million from criminals in the past 3 1/2 years in more than a half-dozen states and Puerto Rico, with the village raking in $8.35 million.

Whaaaaaaat? “in more than a half-dozen states and Puerto Rico”?

In 2010 alone, village cops took part in 23 cases leading to $8.2 million in seizures — all outside of Florida — without law enforcement agents making a single arrest, records show.

This bears a lot more exploration. What are Bal Harbour cops doing operating outside of the village, much less in other states? And how and why are they getting a cut of seized assets for these operations in other states?

And what did the cops do with the money? Well, lots. Computers (Apple computers, no less), beach parties, a boat, a truck, a nuclear submarine, tacos…oh, wait, strike those last two. I was confusing Bal Harbour with Deadpool.

The biggest pay — $624,558 — to snitches over the past four years.

And:

In just one month, records show police plunked down $23,704 mostly on trips to Chicago, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Phoenix, and Tampa — including two first-class flights to California — and rentals of a Cadillac SRX and a Lincoln Town Car.

However, the first-class flights and Cadillac rental were not part of an investigation, but a funeral for a fellow officer’s son and a meeting of law enforcement agents, records and interviews show.

(Hattip: Reason‘s “Hit and Run”.)

(Soccer) Field of Schemes.

Monday, October 29th, 2012

NYT story: “state of the art” soccer field is in progress. Initial cost estimate is $210 million. Current projected cost is $1.4 billion. Primary sponsor has pulled out of the project, leaving local government entirely responsible for the cost.

Punchline: the soccer stadium is in St. Petersburg. As in, Russia.

(Subject line hattip: if you’re not reading the “Field of Schemes” blog, why not?)

More EarthQuest updates.

Sunday, October 28th, 2012

Promoted from a comment left by Heather Dobrott:

The judge in Ohio dismissed the remaining third-party defendants including myself. Holbrook’s bid to attack the Texas taxpayers commenting on Earthquest has been ended in Ohio!

Earthquest and its dubious consultant, Don Allen Holbrook, are getting excellent coverage on Click 2 Houston:

http://www.click2houston.com/news/Where-is-Houston-s-replacement-for-Astroworld/-/1735978/17114488/-/4gxd1yz/-/index.html

http://www.click2houston.com/news/New-questions-arise-about-amusement-park-project/-/1735978/17147970/-/5w8vfgz/-/index.html

I’m delighted that the legal troubles of the folks like Heather asking questions about EarthQuest seem to be ending, and that other media outlets are starting to ask questions about EarthQuest as well.

The Burgess Meredith Catastrophe.

Sunday, October 28th, 2012

Last night, after the SDC, some of us decided to watch movies over at Lawrence’s.

The main feature of the night was “Kiss Me Deadly” (the Criterion edition, with both endings). I’m not sure if Lawrence is going to review that or not, so I’ll hold off on commenting for now. (I may have some things to say later.)

But before we started that, we felt like watching something short. I’d brought over the first season of “Night Gallery“, and Lawrence was curious about their adaptation of “The Little Black Bag“, so we watched that.

Frankly, it wasn’t very good. The parts where they stuck closest to the original story are also the most talky parts, and the changes they made don’t enhance the story; actually, I think they make it weaker. Somebody who is doing an anthology series for television ought to go back and revisit this story. I think you could make a fine adaptation of it today, with a minimal budget, using CGI and a script that sticks closer to the story.

But I digress. The major point here is that “The Little Black Bag” features our old friend Burgess Meredith again. I knew he was a prolific actor, but it seems like he’s showing up everywhere these days in the stuff we watch.

So the idea came to me: how about a Burgess Meredith Video Night some night? After all, the late Mr. Meredith was not only prolific, but he was a fine Cleveland boy, so why not a night devoted to his work?

What would you put in it?

  • I’m kind of embarrassed to admit this, but it turns out Lawrence and I have never actually seen “Time Enough At Last“. In my case, it just never seemed to come around when I could watch re-runs of the original “Twilight Zone”. I believe those episodes are available on Netflix Instant, though…
  • Lawrence suggested “Rocky“. I’ve never seen it, and I have to say that I’m less wild about it than he is. I don’t know why.
  • In that vein, I’m going to say: probably not “Grumpy Old Men” and “Grumpier Old Men”.
  • I am somewhat interested in seeing “Magic“. though. Besides Burgess Meredith, it also has a William Goldman script, which pushes another button of mine.
  • The Manitou“, just because that’s supposedly completely ridiculous at a MST3K level.
  • I’ve never seen “The Day of the Locust“, either, and I’d like to. Plus: it has Donald Sutherland! And William Atherton! And the Voluptuous Horror of Karen Black!
  • Speaking of batshit crazy, “Skiddo“?
  • I’ve never read any of Allen Drury’s work, and I may want to read the book first, but I’d also be interested in seeing “Advise and Consent“. Look at that lineup of actors: they don’t make that kind of movie any more.

That’s probably more than enough for one night. We could always pad things out a bit, too, with episodes of some of the many, many television series he did guest bits on; at least, the ones that are actually on DVD or Netflix.

Any other Burgess Meredith roles I’m missing? Feel free to leave them in comments.

Things I did not know (a continuing series of infinite length).

Friday, October 26th, 2012

Jacques Barzun lived in San Antonio?

Going to Montana soon…

Thursday, October 25th, 2012

“These inmates can make a weapon out of a chewing gum wrapper,” said Steven Kayser, whose company sells a floss product advertised as prison-safe. “Floss is right up there on the danger list.”

And yet, the cries for gun control continue.

In other news: gee, I really miss Frank Zappa.

Just guessing here…

Wednesday, October 24th, 2012

It’s hoped that bite marks on Francisco Javier Solorio Jr.’s board will help determine what kind of shark killed the surfer.

I’m thinking it is the kind with big sharp nasty teeth, myself.

Yo! Omar’s covering up!

Wednesday, October 24th, 2012

Remember James Kwon, “Maritime Director” of the Port of Oakland? Mister “Spent $4,500 on strippers at Treasures”?

New developments: Mr. Kwon has a boss, “Executive Director” Omar Benjamin.

Port officials, however, redacted Benjamin’s name from the copies of the party receipts that were turned over to us and others in response to public-records requests. According to a source close to the investigation, Benjamin insisted he didn’t remember being at the club.

Would you like to guess what Mr. Kwon is saying? Yes: not only was his boss at Treasures, but Mr. Benjamin actually authorized him to pick up the tab. Mr. Benjamin and Mr. Kwon are both on paid suspensions from their positions.

Also, the receipt in question “listed a half dozen directors and vice presidents from BNSF Railway as being in attendance”. This is interesting, because the port claims they followed “‘a standard protocol of redacting the names of all persons that appeared on the reports’ – except the person named in a media public-records request” in explaining why Mr. Benjamin’s name was redacted from the receipt. So if they redacted all the names, how were the BNSF directors listed?

Setting that aside, though, BNSF says that they’ve checked travel records and spoken to their people, and there’s “no evidence its executives were at the party, or even in Houston at the time”. (If they were in Houston, it could have been perfectly legit, as there was a conference going on.)

The way the press is treating this story also strikes me as odd. Both the SFChron and the HouChron seem to be treating this as more of a gossip column item (the HouChron even reprinting, word for word, the SF paper’s story) instead of a story about political corruption, while the Oakland paper seems to be totally silent about the entire issue.

Is it the strippers? Do the papers just not take stories that feature strippers seriously? Remember: it was a stripper that brought down Wilbur Mills.