Whipped Cream Difficulties

Na na na na na na na na BAT van!

Okay, context: the Houston Police Department has six special vans for roadside alcohol testing of drunk drivers, called “BAT vans”. But these vans have issues…

During the hearing, defense attorneys subpoenaed [Amanda] Culbertson, who testified about overheating issues with the vans. She also testified about an electrical glitch in each of the six vans that caused the sophisticated $6,000 machines to reset every time the van’s air conditioner came on, which also cast doubts on accuracy.

Ms. Culbertson used to be an HPD crime lab supervisior…

…she quit because she could not trust the accuracy and integrity of breath alcohol tests from the department’s breath testing vehicles.

At least one DWI case involving the BAT vans has been dismissed, and defense attorneys are looking to have more cases thrown out.

In other news, the LAT has an article on the Grateful Dead’s attempt to step up their licensing and merchandising efforts.

No to caskets, sanitary napkins and rolling papers.

Yes to snowboards, skateboards and wine.

The Dead are also releasing a 73 CD boxed set, “Europe ’72: The Complete Recordings“, which sells for $450 according to the LAT. Copies on Amazon are going for more than double that.

“We needed to sell a minimum of 3,000 units to move forward so we didn’t get killed on it,” Pinkus says. “The great thing is not only did we blow past the 3,000, we got pre-orders for the [total run of] 7,200 in four days.”

Obligatory.

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 8th, 2011 at 7:29 am and is filed under Clippings, Music. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.