From today’s news reports:

Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca had to ban off-duty officers who’ve been drinking from carrying their weapons.

Reason:

"[T]here have been too many arrests of deputies for drunken driving, brandishing weapons, shooting people and other crimes."  This from today’s Orange County Register, page A11.

How many DUI arrests of cops?  "At least 61 Los Angeles County deputies," the report continues.  One rookie deputy even got so drunk that he shot and killed his co-celebrant.

I’m not surprised.  Police forces often are left to recruit from the same group of high school bullies and ne’er-do-wells as the criminal class they’re paid to protect us from.

The bevarior of our law enforcement servants (whom do they serve?) is one of the strongest arguments ever in favor of the Second Amendment–protect yourself; no one else will.

Of course, I added the "common sense" part since it doesn’t take much of that commodity for owners and general managers to pass over on a felon waiting to happen, one who also disrupts clubhouses, creates a media circus everywhere he goes and has to be treated his way–or the manager can take the highway.

Not one phone call, passed note or e-mail or hushed conversation was necessary to create this "collusion."

Hark, the world’s bourses and their individual investors are leading the way to this whimpering end. 

An interesting piece in the weekend edition of the Wall Street Journal quoted stock brokers and fund managers as saying almost no one has called about his or her dwindling (vanished?) investments.  The writer compared it to death by freezing.  At first, you’re just freezing cold and scared.  Then you’re numb and accepting.

Maybe the world’s ending in silence rather than even a whimper might be more accurate.

This guy doesn’t belong in Los Angeles, and he should end the charade as quickly as possible.  Sell the damn Los Angeles Dodgers and go somewhere on a small island where you can be a dictator, Frankie baby.  You’re not an Angeleno and never will be.

The experience at Dodger Stadium, unless you have the big bucks to sit in Club or those ridiculous Field Boxes for $400, is a ganbanger’s paradise.  Racial slurs emanate from the stands as in the schoolyards of L.A. Unified, and people are accosted and killed in the parking lot.  Perhaps McCourt can’t control the scumbags he sells tickets to, but if he put a family-first team on the field, instead of a bunch of cheap punks, he might get a better audience (check out the Angels for what happened to the Dodger tradition).

Anyway, what brings up this posting is an itty-bitty piece that I read the other day stating that McGreedy had purchased the Los Angeles Marathon and was moving it to a Monday, on Presidents’ Day.

Strange, let’s see, first he copied the Boston Brahmin Jimmy Fund with his creation of ThinkCure (both are cancer charities), and now he’s copying the Boston Marathon, which is run on Patriots’ Day (a celebration of Lexington-Concord, start of the American Revolution).  To boot, most of his staff are Boston Brahmins with a couple of New York Yankee prodigal sons included.

Find an island, Frank, and disappear.  I know Los Angeles, and you’re no Angeleno.

Nothing, except that the new system doesn’t work any better than on-the-field, instant human judgment.

One camera angle showed the ball foul, the other angle fair, so the ruling on the field of a home run by Alex Rodriguez was upheld.

Elapsed time: 2 minutes, 15 seconds. (Three minutes, 15 seconds if you include the one minute it took to decide to review the play.  Actually, four minutes 5 seconds if you include the 50 seconds of replays on TV after the call before play resumed.)

Time it would’ve taken for Tampa Bay manager Joe Maddon to argue the call and get tossed: Probably about a minute or so.

Loser:  baseball and its fans.

Another example of progress (haha) in the name of knee-jerk reactionism.

MESSAGE TO THE DONALD:  I owe less than 10 percent of that on my suburban, one-family home.  Care to come to my rescue before I lose the place in January?

The report noted that the Lakers had offered Vujachoke one year at $2.6 million and waited while the guard (a misnomer, as I noted) "generated little interest from other NBA teams" (who were wise enough to know a rummy when they see one).

Then–blare of trujpets, lights beaming into the night sky as if calling for Batman!–European teams started offering the Slovenian slacker so-called big bucks.

Oh, yeah, sure.  No doubt, Vujachoke made a few phone calls and got some friends to plant bogus stories in the overseas press, and the Lakers fell for it hook, line and missed hoop.

If the public can rightfully say of Laker forward Lamar Odom that he disappears in big games, it can more easily be said of Vujachoke that he doesn’t show up at any game–unless the other teams put no defender on hiim.

I could do that for $5M a year.

Which brings up the one great thing in the movie–Heath Ledger’s acting.  Ledger takes his character of The Joker to such depths of evil that all other evil figures in film history pale in comparison.  The great genius here, with both the writing and the acting, is that The Joker is a rational evil-doer who is presented as being less selfish and self-centered, so to speak, than those who oppose him.

Quite an accomplishment.

Other than that, the  movie is overly long and a dark night indeed.

LAUSANNE, Switzerland, June 30, 2008–Floyd Landis loses his legal appeal on being stripped of his 2006 Tour de France bicycling championship for doping.

QUESTION:  What does this teach us about athletes who deny using steroids and performing-enhancing substances after being exposed?

ANSWER:  They come in all shapes, sizes and personalities, but one truth fits all–they’re liars to the bone.

I say build it now.  It’s modern and irresistible.  However, I think Buick plans to incorporate parts of its design into upcoming LaCrosse models.  They’ll probably just use the tailight, given the GM track record for boldness.

When you get something this good looking, why not just go for it?