Last boat post of the day, and until Memorial Day (I think), just because I think people might be getting tired of me going on about the Texas.
Did the stern, pretty much have to do the bow as well.
One more.
January 23rd, 2023Legal news of the weird.
January 23rd, 20231. The Alex Murdaugh murder trial starts today.
I probably will not be covering it in detail, but I will try to keep half an eye on it, and will link anything I find interesting and not offensive.
(I specify “not offensive” because: there was a story in the media last week which summarized the autopsy reports on Maggie Murdaugh and Paul Murdaugh. It went into enough detail that I decided not to link it, because I felt it was just too much detail for my readers.)
2. Back in 2021, a 15-year old boy hit a mother and child in Venice, California.
The video shows a stolen vehicle speeding the wrong way down a one-way backstreet. It plowed into a woman walking her infant son in a stroller. Then he hit the gas, accelerating away from the scene, where a good Samaritan in a pickup truck rammed the suspect vehicle head on.
Los Angeles police responded and found drugs in the driver’s system and marijuana in the car, according to an incident report obtained by Fox News.
This case was in the news last year:
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Last week, someone shot the (now 17-year old) boy.
Sources close to the investigation told FOX News that he had been at a fast food restaurant earlier trying to “get with a girl.”
“As he walked home alone, a car pulled up next to him and an argument broke out. Someone in the vehicle opened fire, then sped off,” FOX News reported.
The police don’t currently think there is any relationship between the hit-and-run and the shooting. It seems more like a violation of the Rule of Stupids.
3. Former Las Vegas Justice of the Peace Melanie Andress-Tobiasson died by suicide last Friday. She resigned in 2021.
Her problems began when her daughter Sarah, then 16, started working at a clothing store that Andress-Tobiasson claimed was a front for criminal activities and tried to stop it, first by reporting the issue to the police, the Daily Mail reported. She said the store, Top Knotch, was involved with prostitution and trying to recruit her daughter.
She called out Las Vegas cops for ignoring information about the alleged sex trafficking at the store. She claimed that the store was an unlicensed, underage nightclub and added that she was “terrified” of Shane Valentine, who ran the store at the time.
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Andress-Tobiasson said she had to go to the FBI with the information after being ignored by local police — which resulted in officers investigating her for allegedly breaching judicial rules by making an allegation to federal agents.
A complaint filed against Andress-Tobiasson alleged that she failed to comply with and uphold the law, and allowed family interests and relations to influence her conduct, the Daily Mail reported.
I’m not clear on why “judicial rules” would preclude making a complaint to federal agents if you believe there’s wrongdoing or corruption, and can’t get any results at the local level. I understand the “family interests and relations” part, but I wonder how much truth there is to that.
And before you say I’m giving the innocent Mr. Valentine a hard time…
Valentine was later linked to a shooting where a couple was found dead.
They did not officially link him to the killings of Sydney Land, 21, and Nehemiah “Neo” Kauffman, 20, until months later, according to the Daily Mail.
Here’s the Daily Mail article, which includes a photo of Mr. Valentine. Neither article, however, is specific about what “linked to a shooting” means: there’s no mention of Mr. Valentine actually facing any charges.
But Andress-Tobiasson contacted Land’s mother and “began to personally investigate the case” because she thought that Valentine was responsible, the complaint stated.
It added that she used “burner phones” to contact Land’s mother and sent texts to another woman she thought was involved in the murder.
The commission alleged that Andress-Tobiasson stated publicly that she reached out to Valentine’s lawyer at the time and “told him to tell Valentine that if he called her daughter again, she would ‘take care of it herself,’” and that one time she “went to Shane Valentine’s house and kicked in the door.”
Yay, burner phones! Been a while since I’ve seen a case with those.
Detectives learned of Andress-Tobiasson’s activity, according to the charges, and launched an investigation into the judge, going as far as tracking her phone records.
They also alleged that she had links to a man called “Anthony Danna” who was a “known and documented organized crime figure.”
“known and documented organized crime figure”. Again, what does that mean? (As best as I can tell, he’s not in the Black Book.)
It isn’t just steel…
January 23rd, 2023…it is battleship steel.
And it isn’t just battleship steel, it is (I’m pretty sure) low background steel.
Sadly, though, low background steel ain’t what it used to be.
You know, I wonder if you could forge a knife out of Battleship Texas steel…probably, if you could get enough of it from the Foundation. That’d be a cool gift shop item.
On a semi-related note, I find this slightly weird. No shade on Drachinifel: I’ve watched a few of his shorter videos, but don’t have time for his longer stuff. I guess it just seems odd that they’re using him as a draw. Even more so at $100 a head (drinks and “light snacks” extra).
You dry-docked my battleship!
January 23rd, 2023
You don’t really realize how big these things are until you’re standing right next to them.
You also don’t realize just how large the infrastructure supporting these things is until you see it.
(If you live in Texas, or want to make a trip, the Battleship Texas Foundation is doing these tours through April 30th, only on Sundays. You can find details here if you’re interested.)
(This was a Christmas present from my beloved and indulgent brother and his family. Thanks, folks!)
O Canada!
January 23rd, 2023I didn’t get a chance to blog this yesterday, as I was busy pretty much all day (for reasons I hope to be able to post shortly).
Bruce Boudreau out as coach of the Vancouver Canucks. That’s a NHL team, for those who might be wondering: I was a little confused at first myself and thought they were a CFL team.
The Canucks have lost 28 out of 46 games this season.
Boudreau is the second coach Vancouver has fired in under 14 months. Boudreau took over in December 2021 when previous coach Travis Green and general manager Jim Benning were let go 25 games into the 2021-22 season.
The Canucks have missed the playoffs the past two seasons since reaching the second round in the bubble in 2020.
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Firings watch.
January 21st, 2023Former NFL player Ed Reed out as football coach of Bethune-Cookman University.
The question is, does this count as a firing?
He was “hired” less than a month ago, but stated yesterday:
Mr. Reed also went on a rant a few days ago “about the conditions at Bethune-Cookman”.
Ed Reed complaining about the trash at Bethune Cookman 😳
“I’m waking out here with the football team picking up trash. I should leave, I’m not even under contract yet !”
“Theses MFs didn’t even clean my office when I got here !” pic.twitter.com/oiKF8YrHqL
— Unfiltered Media ™️ (@UnfilteredInd) January 15, 2023
Firings watch.
January 20th, 2023Obit watch: January 19, 2023.
January 19th, 2023Yukihiro Takahashi, drummer and vocalist for the Yellow Magic Orchestra.
Mr. Takahashi and Yellow Magic Orchestra, which he founded in 1978 with the musicians Ryuichi Sakamoto and Haruomi Hosono, were often ranked alongside the German electronic group Kraftwerk as pioneers in electronic music and significant influences on emergent genres like hip-hop, New Wave and techno.
Yellow Magic Orchestra was among the first bands to employ in live shows devices like the Roland TR-808 Rhythm Composer and the Moog II-C synthesizer, which they used to complement Mr. Hosono’s funky guitar and Mr. Takahashi’s tight, driving drums.
Unlike their German counterparts, who leaned into the avant-garde nature of electronic sound and referred to themselves as automatons, Yellow Magic Orchestra found ways to bend it toward pop music, blending in elements of Motown, disco and synth-pop.
In a 1980 appearance on the television show “Soul Train,” the band performed a souped-up version of Archie Bell and the Drells’ “Tighten Up,” after which a bemused Don Cornelius, the show’s host, interviewed Mr. Takahashi. Kraftwerk, it might go without saying, never appeared on “Soul Train.”
Jonathan Raban, writer.
Mr. Raban’s literary narratives of the places he visited and the people he met combined travelogue, memoir, reportage and criticism. What he was not, he insisted, was a travel writer.
“Travel writing seems to me a too-big umbrella, full of holes to let the rain in,” he told Granta magazine in 2008. “Anyone commissioned by a newspaper to write up meals and hotels in foreign holiday resorts is a travel writer. Anyone who does a guidebook is a travel writer.”
David Crosby, of Crosby, Stills & Nash and The Byrds. This seems to be breaking news: hattip on this to Lawrence. (Edited to add: NYT obit.)
Arthur Duncan, noted tap dancer.
There were more renowned tap dancers during his long career — Bill Robinson, Sammy Davis Jr. and Gregory Hines among them — but only Mr. Duncan had a regular national television showcase like the one he had on Saturday nights on the popular if square Welk show, from 1964 to 1982.
“‘Lawrence’ was not the hippest show around,” Mr. Hines told The Daily News of New York in 1989, when he was headlining “An Evening of Tap” at Carnegie Hall with Mr. Duncan and other dancers, including Bunny Briggs, Brenda Bufalino and Savion Glover. “But I’ll tell you, when nobody was home, I’d tune in, hoping to catch Arthur.”
He added, “He’s one of the most underrated dancers around, and a lot of that has to do with the association of the show. But other dancers know he’s great — and for a while he was the only one keeping tap in the public eye.”
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“He did a number almost every day, and he could always count on knocking me out when he did ‘Jump Through the Ring,’” Ms. White wrote in her 1995 autobiography, “Here We Go Again: My Life in Television, 1949-1995.”
But broadcast during the Jim Crow era, some Southern stations threatened to boycott the show because of Mr. Duncan’s presence on it, a response that came as a “frightfully ugly surprise,” she wrote.
In the 2018 documentary “Betty White: First Lady of Television,” Mr. Duncan said, “People in the South resented me being on the show, and they wanted me thrown out.”But Ms. White did not yield.
“I’m sorry, but, you know, he stays,” she recalled saying to NBC. “Live with it.”
Quick lazy firings watch.
January 19th, 2023Josh Boyer out as defensive coordinator for the Miami Dolphins. Also out: safeties coach Steve Gregory, outside linebackers coach Ty McKenzie, and assistant linebackers coach Steve Ferentz.
Day of the .45, part 1.5 (Brief random gun crankery)
January 18th, 2023That FOIA request took about five days. The people at Redstone Arsenal (especially “Stephanie”) are a nice bunch of folks.
The following information was found in the Department of Defense (DoD) Small Arms/Light Weapons Registry for M1911A1, .45mm Automatic Pistol, NSN: 1005-00-726-5655, Serial Number XXXXXX.
1. 26 May 1995 - United States Property and Fiscal Office (USPFO) of Michigan (MI) National Guard (MIARNG), Lansing, Michigan performed multi-field corrections on the weapon.
2. 01 October 1996 - Rock Island Arsenal - Joint Manufacturing and Technology Center, Rock Island, Illinois received the weapon from United States Property and Fiscal Office (USPFO) of Michigan (MI) National Guard (MIARNG), Lansing, Michigan.
3. 28 January 1997, 30 November 1998, 18 March 2003, 13 August 2003, 08 October 2003, 07 January 2004, 02 March 2004, 21 April 2004, 01 July 2004, 04 October 2004, 03 January 2005, 22 February 2005, 18 April 2005, 15 July 2005, 31 January 2006, 04 April 2006, 05 February 2007, 22 January 2008, and 11 August 2008 - Rock Island Arsenal - Joint Manufacturing and Technology Center, Rock Island, Illinois performed reconciliations on the weapon.
4. 20 November 2008 - Rock Island Arsenal - Joint Manufacturing and Technology Center, Rock Island, Illinois shipped the weapon to Army General Supply (Logistics Modernization Program (LMP) Stock Records), Anniston, Alabama.
5. 17 April 2009 - Army General Supply (Logistics Modernization Program (LMP) Stock Records), Anniston, Alabama received the weapon from Rock Island Arsenal - Joint Manufacturing and Technology Center, Rock Island, Illinois.
6. 24 January 2010, 06 March 2011, 03 December 2011, 19 January 2013, 07 March 2015, 01 May 2016, 05 March 2017, 04 June 2017, 31 March 2019, 26 April 2020, 25 April 2021 - Army General Supply (Logistics Modernization Program (LMP) Stock Records), Anniston, Alabama performed reconciliations on the weapon.
Yes, I did edit out the serial number, which is plainly visible in the photos. But photos are not text, and I just feel better leaving that information out.
I’m slightly disappointed that the available information only goes back to 1995 (“The DoD Small Arms/Light Weapons Registry history only goes back to 1975 when the Registry was started.”) but that’s not Redstone’s fault. And I can talk myself into believing that this gun sat in a National Guard armory or depot in Lansing for a long time.
I’m not sure what “multi-field corrections” means: it might imply that the pistol was serviced at that time. But since the 1911 was replaced in service in 1985, it seems a little weird that they’d be working on them nine years later. Could be, though, that the military was keeping them in inventory and servicing them, just in case they were needed again. (See: the shortage of 1911 pistols during WWI.)
I am pretty sure “reconciliation” just means that they verified the serial number in question was still in inventory, and hadn’t grown legs and walked off.
Anyway, still a neat gun, and I see nothing in the historical record that refutes my theory this one may have seen action in WWII.
Edited to add 1/19: according to this thread on the CMP Forums, “Multifield Correction” is “Used for correcting erroneous or invalid national stock number (NSN), owner DoDAAC/UIC, or weapon serial number (WSN) on the UIT Central Registry file”. So this seems to be more paperwork corrections than any sort of servicing/rebuilding/reworking of the gun.
Obit watch: January 18, 2023.
January 18th, 2023Lucile Randon, better known as Sister André. She was 118.
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Frank Thomas, one of the original Mets.
...Frank Thomas was an All-Star with the Pirates in 1954, 1955 and again in 1958, when he had his best season, hitting 35 home runs, driving in 109 runs and batting .281.
He later played for the Cincinnati Reds, the Chicago Cubs and the Milwaukee Braves, who traded him to the Mets in November 1961 when they were forming the roster for their National League debut.
Usually playing in left field for Manager Casey Stengel’s 1962 Mets team, which lost a record 120 games, Thomas drove in 94 runs in addition to his 34 homers — a club record that stood until Dave Kingman broke it with 36 in 1975 — taking advantage of the short left-field foul line at the Polo Grounds, the Mets’ home for their first two seasons.
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He later played for the Houston Astros and again for the Milwaukee Braves before rejoining the Cubs, who released him early in the 1966 season, ending his career.
In addition to his 286 home runs, Thomas drove in 962 runs in his career and had a .266 batting average.
I encourage you to click over to the obit so you can read the “Yo la tengo!” story, which I think is too long to put here.
K. Alex Müller, winner (with J. Georg Bednorz) of a Nobel Prize for advances in high-temperature superconductivity.
Jay Briscoe, pro wrestler with Ring of Honor.
He was 38, and died in a car accident. He had two daughters in the car with him, who are currently hospitalized.
Wayne “Gino” Odjick, NHL player. The obit describes him as a “beloved enforcer”. He was 52, and died of a heart attack: he’d been diagnosed with AL amyloidosis in 2014. (Hattip: Lawrence.)
Wear your seatbelts, people. (Hattip: Lawrence.)
At the weird intersection of sports firings and legal news…
January 18th, 2023Firings news (sort of): Matt Weiss, “co-offensive coordinator” for the University of Michigan, has been placed on leave.
Legal news: He’s involved in a criminal investigation.
Weird news: It doesn’t involve domestic violence or any of the usual crimes.
“The University of Michigan Police Department is investigating a report of computer access crimes that occurred at Schembechler Hall during December 21-23, 2022,” University of Michigan Deputy Chief of Police Crystal James said in the statement. “Since this is an ongoing investigation there is no additional information to share.”
An entry from the university police’s online daily crime log on Jan. 5 notes that police received a report about “fraudulent activity involving someone accessing university email accounts without authorization” at Schembechler Hall. It is the only report of police activity at the football facility in the past month.