Archive for December 16th, 2013

Eric Frank Russell, call your office, please.

Monday, December 16th, 2013

Colorado’s package of gun laws, enacted this year after mass shootings in Aurora, Colo., and Newtown, Conn., has been hailed as a victory by advocates of gun control. But if Sheriff Cooke and a majority of the other county sheriffs in Colorado offer any indication, the new laws — which mandate background checks for private gun transfers and outlaw magazines over 15 rounds — may prove nearly irrelevant across much of the state’s rural regions.
Some sheriffs, like Sheriff Cooke, are refusing to enforce the laws, saying that they are too vague and violate Second Amendment rights. Many more say that enforcement will be “a very low priority,” as several sheriffs put it. All but seven of the 62 elected sheriffs in Colorado signed on in May to a federal lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the statutes.

Freedom – I Won’t!

Posted in Clippings, Guns, Politics | Comments Closed

New metaphor needed. Apply within.

Monday, December 16th, 2013

Last week, I asked the musical question:

Does LACSD make it a practice to hire and promote deputies who are dumber than a bag of hair?

Apparently, “dumber than a bag of hair” does not even begin to cover it.

Two Los Angeles County sheriff’s sergeants accused of lying to federal investigators by threatening to arrest an FBI agent secretly recorded the confrontation outside the agent’s home, a federal prosecutor said in court Monday.

Yes. Not only did they try to intimidate an FBI agent, they recorded themselves doing it. And the prosecution has those recordings now.

(I did give some thought, for just a moment, to the idea that this might have been an ass-covering measure. But on second thought, that doesn’t make much sense; you want to cover your butt on something like this, you record the supervisor giving the illegal order. You don’t record yourself committing the crime.)

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

Obit watch: December 16, 2013.

Monday, December 16th, 2013

Man, yesterday was a rough day for actors and actresses. I decided to hold off until this morning on posting obits, figuring that would give the various papers of record some time to get their thoughts and acts together.

Peter O’Toole: NYT. LAT. Kenneth Turan appreciation. AV Club. Lawrence.

Noted actress Joan Fontaine also passed away yesterday. NYT. LAT. (ETA: AV Club.)

And finally, Tom Laughlin, of “Billy Jack” fame. LAT. (ETA: Also AV Club.)

Over the years, critics assailed Laughlin’s performances. Leonard Maltin called him “the only actor intense enough to risk a hernia from reading lines.” The New Yorker’s Pauline Kael called “The Trial of Billy Jack” extraordinary — that is, “the most extraordinary display of sanctimonious self-aggrandizement the screen has ever known.”

To be fair, Ms. Kael wrote that line long before Steven Seagal and “On Deadly Ground”.

Posted in Clippings, Movies, Obits | Comments Closed