Links, not a lot.

Late meeting Monday, no time to blog, but I have a few links:

Only in Canada: A fatal showdown on a downtown street? WITH KNIVES:

Police have identified persons of interest and expect to file charges soon following the Saturday morning stabbing death of a University of Windsor student, one of six men stabbed during a “horrifying” block-long downtown knife fight.

Gautham (Kevin) Kugathasan, 19, was pronounced dead at hospital after being transported from the scene, said Windsor police Staff Sgt. Todd LaMarre.

(Why do Brits and Canadians drop the article before “hospital?” I always wondered that. They also do it with “university.” We say “Bob’s away at college” but not “away at university.”)

The ocean is broken. This one’s a bummer.

Another school shooting. If only those middle-schoolers had all been packing heat. The world would be a safer place.

Tomorrow, see you again.

Posted at 12:30 am in Current events |
 

42 responses to “Links, not a lot.”

  1. del said on October 22, 2013 at 1:16 am

    I witnessed a fight in Windsor once. Two guys were standing in the middle of the street boxing like bare knuckled gentlemen. It seemed, oddly, civilized.

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  2. Henry "Hank" Chapin said on October 22, 2013 at 1:41 am

    What about those protesters “packing heat” at the Alamo? Using the NRA principle, my question is, “how can you tell who are the good guys and who are the bad guys.” Just having one of those guns visible seems like a hostile act to me. How could I be sure they wouldn’t try to plug me full of holes? It’s making me talk like a comic book.

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  3. Deborah said on October 22, 2013 at 1:49 am

    The broken ocean is a sad, sad thing.

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  4. beb said on October 22, 2013 at 8:30 am

    Some things to ponder.

    Did Jim Leyland retire as manager of the Detroit Tigers or was he fired and allowed to say he was retiring?

    Director Tom Burton is said to be interested in making a sequel to “Beetlejuice.” Has his career tumbled that low?

    Does “disturbing the peace” trump one’s second amendment right to keep and bare arms. I say yes because flaunting one’s guns tends to scare the bejebus out of other people.

    Is there any “Grand Bargain” the Democrats can make with the Republicans over anything, that the Republicans won’t repudiate later on?

    Anyone attend the funeral for Walter White?

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  5. coozledad said on October 22, 2013 at 9:00 am

    Just having one of those guns visible seems like a hostile act to me.

    That’s the point. These people have nothing to define themselves except provocation. Got no empathy, got no shame.

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  6. brian stouder said on October 22, 2013 at 9:02 am

    Beb – I say:

    genuinely retired

    no opinion on Burton

    Agreed 100% on ‘disturbing the peace’ as the trump card!

    Absolutely not, or else they’d have made the Grand Bargain NOW – with elections as far away as they ever are. That they chose this moment to throw the most pointless of hissy-fits ever, and came nearer to putting the full faith and credit of the United States into the dumper, shows that that party has much more interest in spending itself on bashing the president and resetting (or regressing) the political culture in the US, and has no interest in doing real governing

    What would Walter White want with a funeral? (actually, all I think I know is that he’s the main guy from Breaking Bad – a show that I watched the final 20 minutes of, and nothing more)

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  7. Deborah said on October 22, 2013 at 9:22 am

    Is this our JC? http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/getting-better

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  8. brian stouder said on October 22, 2013 at 9:27 am

    It sure does sound like him!

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  9. Jolene said on October 22, 2013 at 9:32 am

    At the end of Breaking Bad, Brian, Walter White was dead. Since then, fans in Albuquerque have published an obituary and held a funeral, but they seem to be encountering some problems with the burial.

    http://www.cnn.com/2013/10/21/showbiz/tv/breaking-bad-funeral-walter-white/

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  10. Jenine said on October 22, 2013 at 9:50 am

    I heard a radio story on violence in Russia and how most of it is done with knives (or acid?) rather than in the US where we use the guns our forefathers gave us. Very interesting to compare the differences and similarities. As I recall it all stacked up to result in plenty of violence but fewer fatalities in Russia.

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  11. jcburns said on October 22, 2013 at 10:25 am

    Nah. First of all, I’m a graphic designer, not a programmer (which probably explains a lot.) Also, out of a relentless consistency, everywhere I say anything on the web (which isn’t really that many places), I’m jcburns. Hey, protecting the brand!

    Also, my one-person firm’s health care plan is compassionate and generous to all our employees.

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  12. brian stouder said on October 22, 2013 at 11:39 am

    I still think it’s pretty funny that a national political organization (ie – the Republigoons) would connive to shut down the government, and then be brazen enough to attack a brand new program whose launch-date arrived with that government shutdown in progress!

    And indeed – if there had been no shutdown, the Keystone Cops (or their evil twins) in the Tea Party could have had a very merry time – and been a little more credible – attacking the balky start to the ACA.

    But, you don’t get do-overs when fate serves you up a golden opportunity on a silver platter, and you’re too busy salivating over Sarah Palin and the Canadian Penguin rousing the rabble at some memorial that you closed!

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  13. BigHank53 said on October 22, 2013 at 11:49 am

    Ah, the tribulations of the small-business owner:

    http://www.redmeat.com/redmeat/1998-07-27/index.html

    Safe for work. Honest.

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  14. beb said on October 22, 2013 at 12:15 pm

    Breaking Bad is fascinating as a phenomena because its fans are doing things like organizing a fake funeral for the fictional anti-hero of the series. You just don’t see that kind of devotion very often. It’s not like you had to watch the show – I never did, though my wife was addicted – to appreciate its grip on people. My wife is currently playing an on-line game called Breaking Bad whee you cook meth, sell it and buy things with your money. My wife has just bought the Meth Star and is working on being the Meth Lord of the Universe.

    Well, it keeps her off the streets at night.

    The Teabaggers are currently complaining that the program they wanted to defund has a horrible on-line registration system and that it’s Obama’s fault that he’s not a better programmer. They obviously are blind to irony. Considering that Miscrosoft’s roll-out of Windows 8.1 – basically an emergency patch to the Not Ready For Prime Time Windows 8.0 is itself in need of an Emergency fix because it’s bricking up some platforms it’s supposed to run on. When you consider all the programmers Microsoft has and the single focus of their product and they stick F’ed up – TWICE! I think we can think kindly of the failed Obamacare rollout.

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  15. brian stouder said on October 22, 2013 at 12:28 pm

    Big Hank – y’know, that’ll make a guy go blind.

    Two pop-culch remarks:

    1. We’ve really been enjoying The Voice again this season, although we miss Usher and Shakira.(our understanding is that they will be back next season). The only way to watch it, though, is to record it so you can FF past all the endless ‘previews of what you’re about to see’ – at every commercial break!

    Anyway, and despite the gaudy and incessantly cloying nature of the background videos for the singers (I think the rule is – at least two people in tears on every show), it is a show we will not miss. (used to be Amazing Race, and before that Survivor – all by the same producer)

    2. Thanks to our 15 year old daughter, I’m now a fan of whoever that group is (she could tell you) who sing the Queen Bee song (Royals?)…good stuff

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  16. Prospero said on October 22, 2013 at 1:16 pm

    They ought to load Walt in the Fleetwood RV, drive him out to the desert, douse him with gasoline, and burn him up like Gram Parsons.

    As bad as overfishing by factory ships is, acidification, warming, proliferation of new coral plagues and the ultimate deaths of coral reefs will do the ocean in before MacD’s phony fish sandwiches. Those things are Soylent Green made of fish parts. God only knows what goes in them. I went net casting for shrimp over the weekend and got a meager haul that included a couple of two-headed browns. Didn’t know whether to eat ’em or preserve them. Then there are the hypoxified “dead zones” Doesn’t the Bible say something about being good stewards of God’s creation? Fat chance when there is cash to be made, hand over foot.

    And, speaking of pop culture, Bones and Booth finally got hitched, with Cyndi Lauper singing an estimable version of At Last, but not until after a case interfered and the church burned down. Consistently, some of the sharpest, funniest, macabre and most suggestive dialogue ever on TeeVee.

    That Queen Bee song is a rewrite of Louis Prima’s and Benny Goodman’s Sing Sing Sing. Would have been a good choice for Amy Winehouse.

    Nancy, is the Carrie remake good? Chloe Moretz is a talented actor (I liked Kick-Ass despite the critical blowback, she was superb in Hugo, and Let Me In is a favorite of mine) but she seems young to play Carrie. The original was terrific, and this seemed like a gratuitous remake from the getgo. Trying to match Sissy Spacek’s and, particularly, Piper Laurie’s unhinged performances seems like a thankless task. I guess the conflagration FX might have been improved upon.

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  17. Hattie said on October 22, 2013 at 1:45 pm

    Just to cheer everyone up, I saw a school of spinner dolphins cavorting around off the Kona Coast a couple of days ago.

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  18. brian stouder said on October 22, 2013 at 1:54 pm

    Hattie – that absolutely beats the hell outta’ ‘broken oceans’!

    I don’t think I’ll ever see Hawaii, but I’d definitely do California again (and again)

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  19. Dorothy said on October 22, 2013 at 2:03 pm

    Check out today’s Google Doodle!

    Up, up and away…..

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  20. Prospero said on October 22, 2013 at 2:09 pm

    Brian: Did you know that Shakira is supposed to have a 140 IQ?

    Dead zones in the ocean. Climate change deniers are know-nothings, for sure, but people that want to claim the Gulf of Mexico is not caused by human activity are stupid or lying. Nitrogen runoff from factory farm fertilization is the proven cause.

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  21. Basset said on October 22, 2013 at 2:12 pm

    Meanwhile, this…

    http://blog.hemmings.com/index.php/2009/09/15/land-speed-tractors-oldfield-v-jenkins/

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  22. brian stouder said on October 22, 2013 at 2:16 pm

    Pros – I believe it; we were quite taken with her, last season.

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  23. brian stouder said on October 22, 2013 at 2:28 pm

    Basset – fascinating.

    Scrolling down the article and looking at the photos, one wouldn’t have many clues as to who paid for the show…and then when you read it, it all makes sense.

    Aside from Henry Ford, I think I’d like toread more about Harvey Firestone

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  24. Prospero said on October 22, 2013 at 2:39 pm

    Shakira is an astute commentator on politics in Central and South America, and pretty tireless in advocating for poor populations there. And she’s not a pompous ass like Bono. And she looks better in photos. She’s also polylingual.

    Senator Yertle opens his slimy mouth and proves once again and beyond any doubt he is an ignorant POS that is as clueless as he is odious. Still trying to make Obama a one-term President by wrecking the American economy and preventing new jobs. Nobody needed that $24billion anyway, right?

    And Vitter is holding up Presidential appointees until more pork belly spending. And did everybody notice that GOPers attached earmarks to the CR and debt ceiling deal.comes to Lousy-ana. Hypocrisy as a fine artform.

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  25. brian stouder said on October 22, 2013 at 2:48 pm

    And she’s not a pompous ass like Bono.

    Check out this, from a trade publication, by the Emperor & Crown Prince of Pompous Asses –

    advocating for more nuclear power generation, as the essayist tours the Fukishima disaster site and his own instrumentation tells him he should get the hell out of there. (and of course, the obligatory cheap-shot at now homeless John Q Public, who won’t let his kids play outside in that zone, even while “nonchalantly smok(ing) cigarettes outside their temporary homes”

    http://www.chem.info/articles/2013/10/pandoras-promise-director-talks-about-fukushima?et_cid=3553414&et_rid=44004269&type=cta#.UmbE-PkjJic

    He found himself torn between his rational half which said nuclear energy makes sense, and his emotional half which warned him of radiation and told him he should leave the zone immediately. He compared that reaction to the people he met in Fukushima during his visit, including evacuees who nonchalantly smoked cigarettes outside their temporary homes but refused to let their children play outdoors. The film incorporates such mixed feelings “because those are my own feelings as well,” he said, acknowledging that he used to be anti-nuclear until he decided that the movement against climate change wasn’t going anywhere. His 1987 Academy Award-nominated first documentary “Radio Bikini” was an anti-nuclear film.

    pass

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  26. Prospero said on October 22, 2013 at 2:51 pm

    Do those front wheels and tires on the speeding tractors go completely out of round? That can’t be remotely safe. Looks like something from Speed Racer. Uh-huh.

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  27. Prospero said on October 22, 2013 at 3:22 pm

    I wonder if that movie, Radio Bikini, was Bill Carter’s inspiration when he wrote the SBM song Bikini Red.

    After 60 years of trying, the best recent idea in nuclear waste management from power generation was putting the spent rods in a cooling pond on top of the containment housing the reactor. The containment is a thick concrete shell. Radioactive emanations from uranium and plutonium in spent fuel rods are particularly damaging to concrete, no matter how thick it is, and degrade cenentitious mixes at an alarming rate. . Sixty years of nuke power in and nobody has figured out dick for dealing with spent fuel waste. Not looking good. And those spent rods at Fukushima Daishi 4 are still catching on fire intermittently. Not very promising after six decades of research. Seems like Thomas Edison couldn’t solve this puzzle. The Japanes government is trying to figure out how to safely dismantle the reactor. Good luck with that. Oh, and the design geniuses responsible for putting the spent fuel rods in danger also put the emergency cooling system in a basement below the reactor, ensuring it would flood out first in the event of something unforeseen, like, um, a tsunami.

    So what did they do? They make ammo out of the deadly shit, shards of which are lying all over the ground in Iraq causing cancer right now.

    Anybody that decided as a teen to call himself Vox Bono may well be the king of pompous asses. Bob Geldoff’s snot-nosed personality is less annoying than Bono, although Gordon Sumner could give Paul Hewson a run for the crown. Which would probably make the guy that calls himself The Edge the crown prince. Kidnap the roadies and guitar techs that tune that guy’s guitars, and he couldn’t play.

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  28. nancy said on October 22, 2013 at 3:25 pm

    To whoever asked — Prospero, maybe? — “Carrie” was a disappointment. Too much a do-over, when it needed a reimagining. Not a totally wasted afternoon at the theater, but I wish we’d seen “Gravity” instead. And Americans — or Christians in general — are hardly the worst offenders on the global fishing scene. The Asian countries, Russia and others are far, far worse at taking too much and destroying habitate.

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  29. alex said on October 22, 2013 at 4:21 pm

    Does the mom still refer to boobs as “dirty pillows”?

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    • nancy said on October 22, 2013 at 4:25 pm

      Yup.

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  30. brian stouder said on October 22, 2013 at 4:21 pm

    Read that link at lunch; depressing, indeed.

    This seems to be a human thing – decimation of wildlife wherever we choose to go. (thinking of the roaming buffalo, for example)

    But on the other hand, concerted human restraint has been shown to be effective, too – in the case of birds in urban areas and so on.

    As soon as fishing enterprises figure out that what they’re doing will wipeout themselves – then maybe they will get onboard with sensible guidelines

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  31. Sherri said on October 22, 2013 at 4:22 pm

    We’ve gone from “47% don’t pay taxes” to “47% don’t work” now: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/maine-guv-says-47-percent-of-those-able-to-work-in-state-don-t

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  32. brian stouder said on October 22, 2013 at 4:26 pm

    47 is a funny number.

    With all those syllables, it sounds big; and that it’s in the ’40’s and not a round number makes it sound restrained and precise and truthy

    It is strange that so many people assign so much credibility to the number ’47’

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  33. alex said on October 22, 2013 at 5:57 pm

    No, Brian, it’s strange that so many people are so fucking gullible. Today on the facebook page of an acquaintance, I was dismayed to learn she thinks the GOP’s failure to halt the raising of the debt ceiling is an abomination. What a twit.

    As for the broken oceans, here’s some freaky news.

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  34. brian stouder said on October 22, 2013 at 6:04 pm

    Alex – interesting. Earthquakes? That Pacific plate has been increasingly active over the past 2 or 3 years.

    But HERE’S the best news of the day, by far!

    http://www.wane.com/news/indiana/ritz-sues-over-shift-in-school-grade-calculation_34170890

    Go Glenda!!

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  35. David C. said on October 22, 2013 at 6:36 pm

    I am left to wonder if Obama’s science advisers have told him that it’s game over for the oceans, climate change, etc. It just seems like with more or less letting the energy companies frack at will,and waffling on Keystone XL that he’s been told to just let them have their fun.

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  36. Prospero said on October 22, 2013 at 7:22 pm

    Apple shares climbed 83 cents to $520.70 in after-hours trading after the new products were announced. The stock had closed down $1.49 at $519.87.

    From Brian’s link @34:

    Republicans say the education department is dragging its feet and that the delay is affecting teacher raises and other issues.

    Yeah. Like there are GOPers concerned about fair salaries for public school teachers. And monkeys might fly out of my butt.

    Like the Indiana Legislative Services Agency knows dick about education, or school or teacher performance. But Indiana has transparent legislative government. A transparent, raw power grab. Assholes put an agency in charge of regulating charter school operations in charge of assessing public schools. No chance of a lobbyist induced conflict of interest there, at all. Maybe they should try assessing the charters taking gov’t money and teaching “creation science”, the beneficence of Southern American slavery, and the Ten Commandments first.

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  37. Suzanne said on October 22, 2013 at 8:13 pm

    I am amazed at the national freak out over the ACA website problem. Unfortunate, yes, but not unexpected by anyone who has ever worked anywhere that rolled out a new computer system. Never have I ever seen one work well from the start. Remember Windows Vista? No one does because it was so bad, it was gone shortly after its rollout. This is life with technology.

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  38. alex said on October 22, 2013 at 8:13 pm

    Surprised no one commented today on the passing of Fort Wayne’s Dick Freeland. He was a John Bircher in politics and a nutso fundie to beat all, but he sure knew how to make an otherwise seedy and disreputable fast food chain into a stellar brand in his own region, where he owned all of the franchises. I’m sure any of the Chicagoans here would tell you what a nasty product and a filthy facility you’ll find in any Pizza Hut in Chicago and vicinity. Here in northeast Indiana, the stores are beautifully appointed and as elegant as you’d find in this area’s finest establishments, the service always top-notch and the quality of the food always outstanding. If Freeland’s Pizza Huts set the minimum standard by which the brand existed, it would easily be a thousandfold more successful than it is.

    About six months ago there were rumors flying that Freeland’s wife divorced him, although I cannot find anything in this regard on the internet at the moment. It was the subject of much chatter amongst the upper middle class folk with schmancy professional degrees and titles who envied this uneducated and simple-minded man with a rags-to-riches story that utterly defies the conventional wisdom about the current state of the American Dream. He was best known in recent years for his monument to himself, a house that is said to be anywhere from 19K to 46K square feet and rivals the Hearst Castle in San Simeon in terms of gaudiness and plundered art and architectural treasures from Europe.

    Here’s a vintage article from the Kokomo paper that nails it better than anyone from around here ever did: http://www.newspapers.com/newspage/19947641/

    His plans were to leave the house as some sort of museum or something, but it’s hard to imagine what could be made of it. There are plenty of white elephants around here a fraction of the size that nobody wants; those with the money to have their own bad taste writ large aren’t about to settle for anyone else’s. And what kind of museum upstages its contents? What contents would you display in this sprawling monstrosity? Maybe it will become some kind of high-end conference/retreat center for Republicans if the neighbors don’t pitch a hissy about it being re-zoned for commercial use.

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  39. Joe K said on October 22, 2013 at 8:45 pm

    Ok so mr fee lander was a bit odd, but think what he did, started as a iron worker, started working at Pizza Hut to help pay off a credit card bill, ended up owning I think 57 of them, so what he builds himself a mansion, look at how many people he employes, maybe 30 per franchise times 57 is what 1700 people, plus 90 more working on his house. Sounds to me like he was a smart business man. These are the people we should be learning from, not vilifying.
    Pilot Joe

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  40. jcburns said on October 22, 2013 at 8:58 pm

    Joe, I’d rather learn from a guy who paid hundreds of workers a respectable wage (way way over a minimum wage) and who lived in a house, not a mansion, mc or otherwise. Maybe even a boss who believes in healthcare for employees and their significant others. You know, someone more like Steve Jobs or Tim Cook.

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  41. nancy said on October 22, 2013 at 9:05 pm

    No one’s vilifying Freeland. A lack of boot-licking praise =/= vilifying.

    I remember all the to-do over that stupid house. There’s one here in GP that just went on the market. Similar story, only the guy’s still alive. Rumor has it he hasn’t lived there for years, having left his wife for a younger model a while back. Big-time Catholic.

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