Patterico's Pontifications

3/22/2008

Kathleen Soliah (a.k.a. Sara Jane Olson) Arrested Again

Filed under: Crime — Justin Levine @ 7:09 pm



[posted by Justin Levine]

Wouldn’t it suck to serve 6 years of a 12 year prison sentence in California, be let out on parole with permission to fly to see your family in Minnesota, and, just as you are about to board the plane, to get nabbed again — and be told that the parole officials screwed up and miscalculated, so you have to be sent back to serve one more year in the pokey?

Yes, it would suck if you were that person. But since I’m not that person, and always thought that she got off too easy to begin with, I can’t say that I’m all that broken up about it.

— Justin Levine

March Madness: Going to the Sweet 16 (Updated)

Filed under: Sports — DRJ @ 7:01 pm



[Guest post by DRJ]

Let’s review the brackets as of Saturday evening:

East.

No real upsets here. The top seed beat the lower-seeded team in every case except #9 Arkansas’s win over #8 Indiana. Washington State beat Notre Dame to make it into the Sweet 16. The remaining 3 teams will be determined tomorrow.

South.

Just like in the East, all the top seeds in the South made it past the first round. In the second round, Stanford beat Marquette by 1 in Overtime to move into the Sweet 16. Michigan State and Pitt are in progress, with the winner going to the Sweet 16. The remaining 2 teams will be determined tomorrow.

UPDATE: #5 Michigan State beat #4 Pitt and will take on the winner of Memphis-Mississippi State next week.

West.

There were a few upsets in the West, including #9 Texas A&M over #8 BYU and #12 Western Kentucky over #5 Drake. But the big news was #13 San Diego’s 1-point win over #4 Connecticut.

In addition, West Virginia made it to the Sweet 16 by ending Duke’s run in the second round. West Virginia will face Xavier, who beat Purdue today. The third Sweet 16 team from the West will be the winner of UCLA-Texas A&M, which is in progress. The fourth team from the West will be determined tomorrow.

UPDATE: Texas A&M was the 6th-ranked team in the Big 12 Conference (it was 8-8 in conference play) and it’s taking UCLA down to the wire. The game is tied at 47 with just over a minute to play. No matter how this game turns out, the PAC-10 looks very weak right now.

UCLA won 53-49 51-49 [see comment 14] but it was close to the end. What’s even more amazing is this was in Anaheim and basically a home game for UCLA.

Midwest.

There were some big upsets in the Midwest, including #10 Davidson over #7 Gonzaga, #11 Kansas State beat #6 USC, #13 Siena over #4 Vanderbilt, and #12 Villanova beat #5 Clemson. The 12-seed Villanova will face #13 Siena tomorrow. You don’t see that every day.

#1 seed Kansas made it safely through the first and second rounds and is off to the Sweet 16, as is #3 Wisconsin. The remaining 2 teams from the Midwest will be determined tomorrow.

Good luck to all.

— DRJ

Healing the Heart

Filed under: Miscellaneous — DRJ @ 6:33 pm



[Guest post by DRJ]

Here’s an amazing article with medical news about the heart that doesn’t involve transplants or stem cells:

“At 28, Salina Gonzales had one month to live. Her heart, swollen to nearly the size of a coconut, could only pump a trickle of blood.

As the schoolteacher from San Antonio lay dying in a Houston hospital in late summer 2006, she worried as much about her toddler’s future as her own. Her best hope, a transplant, didn’t seem practical. What chance was there of finding a new heart in such a short time?

Even that option didn’t offer true salvation, because the average heart transplant patient lives just a decade or so. Gonzales might see her son, Scott — then not even 2 — grow into his teens. But she probably would never watch him walk across the stage for his high school diploma.

So, Gonzales opted for an experimental therapy: She allowed Houston physicians to drill into her heart and implant a propeller-driven pump. Gonzales was young, her doctors said. There was a chance that, if given a breather, her heart might recover on its own.

It did. Eleven days ago, a surgeon at [Houston’s] Texas Heart Institute removed the pump. A few days later, Gonzales walked a mile around hospital corridors — with her own heart, once given up for dead.”

This is a good story for Salina, her family, and hopefully many others like her.

— DRJ

BREAKING: SWAT Draft Report Is Online

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 2:03 pm



You can read it at this link. [.pdf] The blogger posting it explains here that:

The markings on the pages are not mine, and this is not the final draft. There are errors, such as the discussion of not enough African American officers on SWAT (turns out there is a percentage equal to general LAPD staffing, so one wonders about why this was included).

Go read it now. I haven’t read it yet, but wanted to get it out there now.

UPDATE: I’ve read through much of it, but not all. You might be surprised to find that, while I find the affirmative action stuff to be absurd, I actually agree with part of it quite strongly. I’ll probably put up a post Monday, to coincide with Jack Dunphy’s NRO piece.

Don’t Make Assumptions About the Passport Flap

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 11:05 am



Regarding the flap over the passports, the Washington Times reports:

The State Department last night said one of the persons responsible for the inappropriate behavior was employed by an information technology firm headed by one of Mr. Obama’s foreign intelligence advisors.

Of course, this doesn’t establish that Obama was behind the snooping — and people are finding tenuous connections between the two firms and each one of the candidates. Just something to keep in mind: we don’t know who’s behind this yet.

UPDATE: I forgot: thanks to jimboster.


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