Radio stations are so well-branded these days — you don’t hear call letters, just whatever their marketing name is — that it was literally years before I realized one of my favorites is actually in Canada. First it was a temperature reported in Celsius, then an ad for a tire store in Windsor, then, just the other day, a news report.
Of course I listened. I love Canadian accents:
“Windsor police released figures indicating they used less violence subduing criminals in 2012. Officers used their batons and Tasers in 10 percent fewer incidents…”
Batons and Tasers? The Detroit River is less than half a mile wide between the city it shares a name with and Windsor. And yet? It might as well be a thousand miles. I wonder if Detroit police even gather data on baton and Taser usage. It’s not like they shoot people willy-nilly either, although it happens.
How is it possible for a country to be so close, and yet so far away, in so many ways?
I have no answers. I barely have bloggage:
Roger Ailes, swell guy:
Not long ago, on a ball field near his place in Garrison, NY, his nephew accidentally hit a baseball through the window of a 2012 Prius parked in a church lot. The owners were Koreans who didn’t speak much English, and they were extremely agitated. “It’s just a damn window,” Ailes told them. “I’ll pay for the damn thing.”
The owner was indignant. “We pray, you curse,” he said.
“Fine,” said Ailes. “Then let’s pray over the fucking window. Maybe that’ll fix it.”
“It was a 10-minute incident that I turned into an hour,” Ailes said when he told me the story. “Hell, it’s lucky they didn’t recognize me. It could have turned into a goddamn international scandal. But I told them I was sorry ” He laughed. “Damn it, though, I was kind of glad that it was a Prius.”
There are a lot of places a person might stash a revolver in a pinch, but this one beats all.
Another Waterloo criminal goes down in history. I remember when this crime happened. I swear, that town is going to have to get some new signs for the city limits.
Sorry for lameness. I’m just bushed.
Dexter said on March 7, 2013 at 1:34 am
Old signage in a bar where I used to booze it up: “Likker In the Front, Poker In the Rear”. In this case, lover beware.
And as for the Waterloo story, I posted this at The News comments line:
I went to Waterloo High School in the 1960s. One day the senior class was pulled out of school to search a yard for a murder bullet; a jealous man had shot his lady’s lover to death. There have been so many cop-shootings and domestic murders since then in that town of 2,000 souls, it would make your head spin to list them…Treesh took his spree on the road; most murders and shootings with a Waterloo by-line stay in the city and county limits.
Link here takes you to another day in wonderful Waterloo, Indiana.
http://media.indianasnewscenter.com/images/Waterloo_stand_off_hostage.jpg
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Dexter said on March 7, 2013 at 1:44 am
Here’s one for fun, for any The Big Lebowski fans and freaks.
http://www.sfgate.com/entertainment/slideshow/The-Big-Lebowski-then-and-now-57974.php
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brian stouder said on March 7, 2013 at 7:29 am
Just for the record, and not being sarcastic – this was very fine post, and not ‘lame’ at all! I didn’t click the link for the stashed revolver, but only put the cursor over it and saw what the link’s name was…which was enough to provoke a guffaw!
And the Ailes anecdote has just the right amount of disdain and humor, too.
Just sayin’; the view from the cheap seats up here is, Nancy makes this daily blog stuff look easy, even though (upon reflection) we know it’s not
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beb said on March 7, 2013 at 7:54 am
Roger Ailes really is a piece of work. While admittedly it’s hard to negotiate with people with minimual English skills there’s no reason for him to throw around the F-bomb. You would think a man of his age, of his generation would have been taught from childhoods not to use fuck except when talking to a prostitute.
That was either one small gun or … well, it still had to be a small gun. I wonder how often the “gun and knife club” – ie, the ER has had to deal with a case where a woman accidentally shot herself in the womb?
And Rand Paul is getting all worked up over whether the President has the authority to target Americans on American soil for death by drone. Oddly enough I have to agree with the little nutjob.
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on March 7, 2013 at 8:05 am
I’m still trying to figure out why Holder didn’t just say “no” and leave it at that. Unless some GOP panel member knew there was some piece of likely to be declassified evidence in the near future that shows we’ve tracked a terror group trying to sneak in over the Mexico border with a member who is an Awlaki-type citizen, and were ready to (or have) fired an anti-personnel load at a clump of people who possibly had a US national among their number.
Otherwise, sure, I know in the end, when the Executive has the tools they do, they might do what they think right. But politically, I can’t think of any other reason why Holder would have given Rand Paul that kind of stick to beat him with.
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Jolene said on March 7, 2013 at 8:35 am
Immediately after college, I worked for a while as the unit clerk on the surgery ward of a public hospital in Seattle. One day, a woman who’d been shot through the vagina was admitted. She said the person who shot her had broken into her apartment, but the details were sketchy. The doctors suspected “gunplay”, which, of course, led to lots of wide eyes and whispering on the ward. Given the frequency of gun accidents, it’s hard to say they were wrong to be suspicious.
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Prospero said on March 7, 2013 at 8:59 am
That woman’s gun totin’ behavior reminds me of a bad old dirty joke from grammar school days, the punchline of which was : If you help me find my keys, we can drive out.
I have a hard time taking Awlaki’s American citizenship seriously. He moved permanently to Yemen and became an AQ bigshot.
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coozledad said on March 7, 2013 at 9:01 am
That there’s an Oklahoma hot pocket. Gets worse in Alabama, where it’s the state vegetable.
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coozledad said on March 7, 2013 at 9:03 am
I’m sorry. Jeff Sessions is the state vegetable. The Alabama hot pocket is the state Friday night.
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LAMary said on March 7, 2013 at 9:27 am
I’m thinking that would be really uncomfortable. That and the plastic bags of meth in her ass crack? Eww.
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Melissa said on March 7, 2013 at 9:30 am
Be sure to listen to Canadian radio today. Canadian patriot and song writer Stompin Tom Connors has died.. You’re sure to hear Sudbury Saturday and the Hockey Song.
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Mark P. said on March 7, 2013 at 9:41 am
Cooz, there is actually a big competition to determine who is the state vegetable of Alabama. The International Association of Lemons has sued to keep their names out of the competition.
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Julie Robinson said on March 7, 2013 at 10:08 am
The policewoman who had to examine the Christie Harris? That has to be one lousy job. Double eww.
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Bitter Scribe said on March 7, 2013 at 10:37 am
I really feel sorry for Ailes’ neighbors. At least I can turn off Fox News. They’re stuck with the fat bastard.
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Prospero said on March 7, 2013 at 11:03 am
This is pretty funny. Tucker “Human Tampon” Carlson gets caught paying people to fabricate the big Menendez sex scandal.
More people have died as a result of gun violence in America since 1968 than have been killed in all of the wars the USA has fought since 1776. That is horrifying.
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Joe K said on March 7, 2013 at 11:09 am
The puck is in the home town wins! The good old hockey game.
Ol the good old hockey game the best game you can name and the best game you can name is the good ol hockey game.
Pilot Joe.
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coozledad said on March 7, 2013 at 11:22 am
I just thought of a great way to recycle old carpet: roll L’il Luke Russert, Bob Woodward and Lanny Davis up in a bunch of it and use it to raise shirmps.
http://wonkette.com/504958/jc-penneys-boys-department-catalog-model-luke-russert-why-is-obama-forcing-louie-gohmert-to-put-him-under-house-arrest#more-504958
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Bitter Scribe said on March 7, 2013 at 11:41 am
Fox News Latino implies Chavez died a coward. This is a day or two after they declared that incompetent Cuban doctors killed him. What a worthy adjunct they are to Ailes’ operation.
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Prospero said on March 7, 2013 at 11:56 am
Really fast bike.
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MarkH said on March 7, 2013 at 12:13 pm
Prospero —
The Americans. Quite the scene with Keri Russell and Margo Martindale, no? I don’t care how bad-ass Keri has become, I had real issues with her being able to fling around 300 pound Margo like that. Definitely hooked now.
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candlepick said on March 7, 2013 at 12:18 pm
Apropos of nothing in the post, but I’m a frequent lurker who’d like to share some a great read about lipreading. The author is a (very young, most impressive) colleague.
http://alumni.stanford.edu/get/page/magazine/article/?article_id=59977
There’s a sidebar; be sure to read it last.
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Jeff Borden said on March 7, 2013 at 12:47 pm
Roger Ailes is almost wonderfully disgusting. Ugly, corpulent, arrogant, nasty, a ratfucker’s ratfucker. He’s also a stone-cold racist cocksucker. His comments about President Obama being lazy and never having worked a day in his life isn’t much of a distance from the shiftless black man stereotype the goobers love to embrace. I guess in Ailes’ world working as a community organizer for very little money or teaching Constitutional law at one of the nation’s preeminent universities doesn’t count as labor, but lying and smearing others for your personal monetary gain and political advancement does.
He’s another guy for whom I find it tough not to root for arterial sclerosis.
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Peter said on March 7, 2013 at 12:49 pm
Prospero, that joke was also in The Smoking Gun’s comments. I laughed when I read it there, and I laughed again when I saw your comment. What can I say, I loves them bad jokes.
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Kaye said on March 7, 2013 at 12:53 pm
Thanks for the lipreading link, candlepick; I found it interesting.
I also read, and enjoyed, the Nora Ephron NYMag story linked in yesterday’s comments.
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Prospero said on March 7, 2013 at 1:06 pm
candlepick@21: That piece is a real treat. Remarkable young woman, with rare insight.
Maggs does best with pizin’d applejack, Mark. I haven’t seen the episode yet.
Surprise, surprise. Strong gun safety laws correlate inversely with deaths by gun violence.
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Prospero said on March 7, 2013 at 1:21 pm
Idiot GOPer says that those of us that ride bikes more than drive are responsible for climate change. Blatherhammers, dumbass.
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Charlotte said on March 7, 2013 at 1:33 pm
Here’s the bike/vehicle I want — it’s 26 miles from town to the cabin, and the electric assist would make this a viable option. http://www.organictransit.com/
Plus, look how cute it is! All the other velocopedes I’ve seen look like recumbent penises.
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Deggjr said on March 7, 2013 at 1:49 pm
On Roger Ailes story, some people say that Ailes did the breaking, using a baseball bat on an Escalade headlight, while his bodyguards watched, and only offered to pay after he received a court summons several weeks later. I don’t know. I wasn’t there but that’s what some people say.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2011/11/21/fox-news-viewers-uninformed-npr-listeners-not-poll-suggests/
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coozledad said on March 7, 2013 at 2:00 pm
Charlotte: Those videos are from my old stomping grounds. Considering how many times I heard “Solar power is ten years away and always will be” from county Republicans, it’ll be hilarious if the hippie transportation revolution comes out of Durham.
I like how the wheels are canted outward. That’s a principle observed by old horsewagon makers, only in reverse. Wagonmakers did it at least partly to increase load capacity. Are they canted that way on the bike to reduce friction?
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Deborah said on March 7, 2013 at 3:22 pm
Charlotte, love, love, love that OTV, thanks for the link. Is that considered a bike? Would you have to have a drivers license to operate it. Little Bird doesn’t drive but does ride a bike, something like this might just be for her.
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Mark P. said on March 7, 2013 at 3:25 pm
Deborah, they answer some of those questions in their FAQ, but in short, they say they are keeping it a bicycle according to the federal definition, but local regulations may vary.
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Deborah said on March 7, 2013 at 3:32 pm
Yeah Mark P, thanks I watched the video after I commented and realized they answered that question. I’ll wait for the price to go down with mass production.
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coozledad said on March 7, 2013 at 4:21 pm
A hundred grand is not enough. Keep suing him until he has to live in the dildo boat:
Has representing James O’Keefe been the most embarrassing case for Mike Madigan since his stint on the old Clinton Whitewater investigation with Ken Starr? Or MORE embarrassing? Can Clark Hoyt, Zev Chafets and the New York Times Magazine suck a cold bag of dicks for legitimizing O’Keefe’s ACORN videos in “the paper of record” YEARS after they were discredited? What would YOU do with a $100,000 settlement?
Read more at http://wonkette.com/505026/wonket-sexclusive-totally-blameless-crime-stopper-james-okeefe-to-pay-100000-to-acorn-criminal#FiTuH6MVXdZgMVVA.99
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brian stouder said on March 7, 2013 at 4:42 pm
? Cooz – in this world of remotely controlled ‘smart weapons’ and precision strikes and all the rest, James O’Keefe is a classic dumb bomb. Somehow, against all odds, he achieved his mission – like the dumb bomb that – against all odds – went down the stacks on the USS Arizona, immediately dooming the ship and her crew.
He’ll wear the judgement against him as a badge of honor; a latter-day self-styled kamikaze….and don’t forget – half of all Republican voters in 2012 believe that ACORN stole the election from Romney, even despite that ACORN hasn’t existed for three years.
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brian stouder said on March 7, 2013 at 4:58 pm
(please excuse the stray question mark above. I actually have no idea how this intertubes thing works)
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Judybusy said on March 7, 2013 at 5:05 pm
Candlepick, that was a great read. I so love learning about others’ experiences. Stop by and comment at nnc more often!
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Jolene said on March 7, 2013 at 5:42 pm
Yes, the lip reading story was great. Really impressive that the author can write so well. Of course, she is an English major and has likely been reading widely all her life, but writing is an area in which deaf or hearing-impaired students often struggle.
Writing well depends heavily on understanding and being able to produce prose that is not only grammatically correct, but also idiomatically correct. That is, writers have to know how language should sound. Students who have communicated only through sign language find writing idiomatically very difficult, a limitation that undermines their employability.
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deb said on March 7, 2013 at 6:07 pm
Re the meth chick (it WOULD be meth, wouldn’t it?), that gives a whole new meaning to “packing heat.” I feel bad for the cop who had to, um, extract the evidence. As well as whoever had to disassemble and bag it. Yew.
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alex said on March 7, 2013 at 10:37 pm
The rationale of one old friend who used her privates as a holding pen for a personal stash of pot on international and domestic flights was that the cops would be too freaked out to touch it or remove it anyway and would hardly consider such a bust a victory when there are people flying with bricks of cocaine surgically implanted on their person. When I read that the cop pulled the gun out by the handle I about ralphed. Just by seeing her mug that’s a lady whose juices nobody wants to deal with even clinically.
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