Patterico's Pontifications

12/21/2008

Readers’ Representative Blog Not Publishing Comments Saying Why Hiltzik Lost His Column?

Filed under: Dog Trainer,General,Hiltzik — Patterico @ 9:02 pm



I told you Friday night that noted sock puppet Michael Hiltzik is getting his business column back. In her blog entry titled Michael Hiltzik to return to writing Business column, the Readers’ Representative makes no mention why Hiltzik lost his column in 2006 and took a little vacation to Sports and elsewhere. (In fairness, she is quoting an internal memo by an editor who also fails to mention it.)

So my pal Marc “Armed Liberal” Danziger left the following comment on the entry:

It’s somehow perfect timing that a dishonest reporter is brought back to cover business at a time when dishonesty is so much a part of the story.

Look, I’d kind of like the LA Times to survive; when will it become apparent to the powers-that-be there that what you are selling me is credible information.

And reporters like Hiltzik – who have shown that they have a – broad – set of values about candor and honesty don’t help convince people like me that the apples in your produce stand don’t have worms in them.

Oh – and were you not going to mention why?

MD

No, they were not. Nor does it seem likely that they are going to post Marc’s comment. He left it Friday evening. It’s been 48 hours now, and there’s still not a single comment on the item.

Oh well. Maybe nobody approves comments on the weekends. We’ll take a look at it tomorrow.

Marc has more here.

In the meantime, leave a comment of your own, if you feel so inclined. Go here to express your thoughts.

JRM Poses Another Hypothetical

Filed under: Crime,General — Patterico @ 6:27 pm



Over at my new reader-written blog The Jury Talks Back, California Deputy District Attorney JRM has a third set of criminal law hypotheticals.

He also gives his answers to his second set of hypotheticals, having to do with felony murder and self-defense.

It’s an excellent series that I hope he will continue. Go answer his most recent hypotheticals, here.

Zzz-Mail

Filed under: Blogging Matters,Humor — DRJ @ 4:59 pm



[Guest post by DRJ]

Sleep researchers at the University of Toledo report a woman has been emailing in her sleep:

“The 44-year-old woman, whose case is reported by researchers from the University of Toledo in the latest edition of medical journal Sleep Medicine, had gone to bed at around 10pm, but got up two hours later and walked to the next room.

She then turned on the computer, connected to the internet, and logged on by typing her username and password to her email account. She then composed and sent three emails.

Each was in a random mix of upper and lower cases, not well formatted and written in strange language.

One read: “Come tomorrow and sort this hell hole out. Dinner and drinks, 4.pm,. Bring wine and caviar only.”

Another said simply, “What the…….”

Researchers believe the incidents were triggered by a specific prescription medication. The abstract in Sleep Medicine is here [it’s a fee-based site] as well as links to articles that report incidents of sleepwalking and similar behaviors caused by the same medication.

Can sleep-blogging be far behind?

— DRJ

Terrorists Decapitate Nine Men and Dump Bodies

Filed under: General,Terrorism — Patterico @ 12:44 pm



Officials suspect that the victims were soldiers. It’s not the first set of mass decapitations this year.

The death toll in the country is 5300 for the year.

And the country is right on our border.

UPDATE: The story has been revised. Make that twelve decapitated heads.

In Which Our iPod Creeps Us Out

Filed under: Real Life — Patterico @ 12:23 pm



Last night we were headed home and had the iPod on shuffle mode. A live version of a song called “Precious Moments” by the Posies popped up:

Every time you dig that grave
Why do you bother trying to fill it in?

I don’t have a particularly morbid collection of songs (an assertion you may doubt as you read on), but I like the Posies, and their lyrics can be bitter. Then came “Silent City,” a B-side of a Matthew Sweet single:

I’m taking you to the silent city
Underneath the broken stones
I will hold you for eternity
Here among the dirt and bones

“We seem to have a theme going here,” I said to Mrs. P.

And the very next song was by ex-Long Ryders songwriter Tom Stevens. The title: “Graveyards.”

Graveyards — time it takes its toll
One foot above ground, one foot down in that hole

Mrs. P. thought I had planned it out somehow. But I assured her that I hadn’t.

It was a little spooky. Was my iPod trying to tell us something?

Emanuel-Blago Contacts Sound Like A Lot of Nothing

Filed under: Obama — Patterico @ 11:59 am



There are now more details of what Obama plans to reveal regarding Emanuel-Blago contacts. The part conservatives will seize on is this:

Sources also confirm that Emanuel made the case for picking Obama confidante Valerie Jarrett during at least one of the conversations. In the course of that conversation, Harris asked if in return for picking Jarrett, “all we get is appreciation, right?” “Right,” Emanuel responded.

Ed Morrissey says:

That question from John Harris to Rahm Emanuel may not be explicit enough to qualify legally as an offer to bribe, but it clearly shows that Harris wanted a better deal than gratitude for the Senate seat. After making that clear to Emanuel, did Emanuel tell Obama what was going on in Illinois? And more to the point, did he pick up the phone and inform the FBI and/or Patrick Fitzgerald?

If he did, then he and Team Obama should be commended. If he didn’t — if he knowingly ignored the fact that Blagojevich had put up the Senate seat for sale and put out a bid request for it — then Obama and his team are off to a disastrous start, ethically speaking.

I don’t know. If that was the question, it could be nothing more than a request for favor-trading — which is, after all, politics as usual and not particularly startling.

I think it’s quite possible that there is no scandal here.


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