Hot and damp again, although the chance of rain seems to be lessened a bit. We got a couple of spritzes of rain late in the day. Just enough to convince me to put the tarp back on the truck, but not even really enough to get wet.
Among my tasks for today are getting stuff out of the house and out of storage and TO the auction. I also need to arrange and maybe pick up a car trailer for my Thursday adventure picking up my parts truck. Wife was not thrilled btw. Who knew? If I leave it in the lot at my secondary, it will get destroyed, starting with cutting out the catalytic converter, ending with someone breaking windows and using the back seat to fornicate, or defecate. Neither is appealing to me. If I can’t flip it to the repair place it will be in my driveway for a while.
One of my auction stops was for radio stuff, antenna cables mostly but there was some other stuff in the box. The other stop was the county surplus facility. I haven’t been there in a long time so I spent some time chatting with the clerk/admin that runs the office. They are getting crazy high prices for their surplus, mostly from new buyers. This was the case last time I was there too, but has only increased. There are a lot of people trying to be resellers and competition for product is getting intense. While I was there chatting a buyer called in and renounced her lot, offering it to anyone who wanted it. It was radios and chargers. Yep, I’ll have that for free, thanks. Turned out to be FRS/GMRS mostly but also one nice Moto business radio. I officially have far too many of the little radios and should start pairing them up and selling them.
With the radios and antenna stuff, that aspect of prepping gets a few more thing on the stack. I’ve been doing food, and hard to get medical. Now I need some bigger things, like the gennie hookup, whole house water heater, and master bath … since it’s getting cooler, attic work is back on the table. Oh, and I need to get my client sorted.
All while decorating for Halloween, and then the endless stream of holiday preps, including freaking air travel Thanksgiving week. I better get cracking.
Keep stacking.
nick
76F and only 94%RH. Forecast includes the possibility of rain.
Stuff to do.
n
The Halloween candy aisle at our local HEB was completely stripped clean yesterday evening.
We've picked up bags at Costco and Sam's over the last few weeks. HEB sold out last year, but not this early.
I forgot to add that the local Sinclair CBS station was stirring the pot last night running one of their national feed stories about a pumpkin "shortage", featuring footage of rotting fruit in a field.
I'm sure Austin Faux News featured similar footage, but the broadcast was delayed due to baseball no one outside of Houston and Atlanta is watching.
Looks like we actually had a bit of rain, or at least heavy mist as the ground is wet outside.
n
Austin was pounded around 5AM. It is headed your way.
Hertz didn't have to travel too far up I-75 to find a new spokesperson for the EV future. The garage looks like the rental car facility at TPA, about 10 minutes from the new One Yuc Place.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bG2flNE8DBM
One word: Mojiotos.
https://www.docfords.com/
Hertz has Carvana on the hook to get rid of the surplused vehicles as of this morning. Mojitos were probably involved there as well.
Any more unprofitable companies getting in on this party?
Austin was pounded around 5AM. It is headed your way.
–all the phones just lit up with a weather alert, tornadoes in our area. Nothing on the weather radar though
n
I take that back, I turned on the radar layer in windy.com and there is a monster headed this way.
n
Wow, just got the first gust. Gentle breeze was suddenly 11mph. I better check the yard for blowing objects.
n
>> "One report I read quoted a grocery store chain CEO saying that prices in his industry had risen 10% in just the past 60 days. At that rate, we could see prices increase at a rate of 75% or more per year."
Definitely saw this yesterday during every other week grocery shopping. Average spend is ~$75, yesterday was close to $90. Difference a mix of higher prices, having to pick alternate brands due to oos items and lesser sale prices. Receipt shows percent savings and I usually average ~20% but yesterday it was 10. They are heavy into sale items (can only imagine how many people it takes to do the shelf tags every week) but noticing many are less off or 'must buy' a certain quantity to get the sale price. OOS much more noticeable with lots of SKUs missing and minimal efforts to fill in the shelf gaps.
But it's all transitory, right?
Uber!
https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/uber-partners-with-hertz-offer-50000-tesla-rentals-us-ride-hail-drivers-2021-10-27/
Half of the 100,000.
Took a couple of things down. Starting to get the gust front, temps dropped a few deg, RH did too.
I guess if we get a real blow, my neighbor will learn if his shingles will stay in place and if his chimney will continue defying gravity…..
n
Oh boy…
https://okmagazine.com/p/santa-fe-county-district-attorney-prop-gun-misleading-legit-gun-fatal-rust-shooting-alec-baldwin/
ADDED: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theatrical_property
“A prop weapon, such as a gun or sword, can be a replica, a real weapon,[12] or a real weapon which has been modified to be non-functional.”
And here comes the rain. 1/4" in about 1 minute…
n
1/2 inch in 15 minutes, kids school just went into shelter in place for tornado warning.
Bad wind is already past me….
n
I don't envy you the hard rainfalls. We rarely get that here, or not for more than a few seconds. OTOH, we do get snow – picked up my Ego Snowblower on Friday. I'll be interested to see how it does. Pretty massive beast, but then, we seem to get 3-4 pretty massive snowfalls, plus a number of smaller ones, over the course of the winter. I normally *like* shovelling snow, but I was just done, finished, had enough last winter. Then came the last monster snowfall in March.
Lots to do for Spring courses. The worst one: I just completely redid the first-semester programming course for a college I help out at, because the old course was (a) utterly out of date, and (b) really stupid. The course is used for two programs, but one of the programs has decided to adopt the new course *next* year. So this Spring, despite everything, I am supposed to teach the old, out-of-date, stupid course.
The million dollar question: how much can I get away with cheating? Ideally, I'd like to tell the students "just ignore that textbook, we're doing something else". Probably can't get away with that, but I want to come as close to the line as I can get…
@ech
Thanks. Haven’t seen “line producer” in any article, or mention of any other producer on-site. Nor any details on who was in meetings, not calling meetings, etc.
And one puzzling omission is that I have not seen any description of the armorer’s actions the day of the death.
You don't get to pick the textbooks for the courses you teach?
There's that. The LSM makes it sound like she rolled a cart of gubs up to the church and walked away.
Zero Hedge had an article entitled with something like “…Long Term Transitory Inflation…” in it a while back. Made me chuckle..
I avoided commenting on this, hoping that more info was coming that would make it make sense. Doesn't look like that is happening.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10127021/Three-children-abandoned-inside-Houston-apartment-skeleton-sibling.html
n
Not too far from me, yet in an entirely different world. Highway 6 near Westpark.
Yup, the war zone. When I was a teenager, Alief was a nice area for blue collar families and growing like crazy. Several of my church friends grew up over there. But, the 1970s was a long time ago.
@Greg: No, not alone. There are multiple parallel classes, and they are supposed to be more-or-less the same. Hence the work I did for the new version: That sets the textbook, contents and exercises going forward. Individual lecturers have some leeway, of course. The question is: how much?
I'm just ticked that this one department has decided to wait before changing. The old course, aside from being very dated, uses "BlueJ". That's a programming environment that tries to hide all the realities of programming, even really basic things like the "main" method in Java. On top of that, the code in their examples sucks great big green ones. Obviously written by some grad student who had better things to do. It really is pretty horrible – I cannot imagine why anyone would ever have picked it.
I only moved to this area 7 years ago, and outside of the medical center and the greater Katy area, everything else is mostly unexplored territory. A little time shopping etc. in Cinco, in Sugar Land, The Heights, and the theater district, that's all. So I don't really have any idea where the war zones are, just that there seem to be a lot of them.
My girlfriend grew up in Alief but moved out 30 years ago.
Eclipse is pretty much the standard in Java. Students are much more likely to see it than another Java IDE in industry.
IntelliJ was the alternative, but JetBrains tools are all suspect since SolarWinds.
@ldpbw – it's worth learning. Start with the city crime maps. You'll see clusters pretty quickly. The city 311 map, and the online sex offender map shows surprising clusters too- half way houses.
The racial dot map correlates pretty well to high crime areas too, although their base data may be aging. Which is a verboten thing to say, but it's true.
When we're out and about in the truck, I coach my daughters in evaluating the condition of where we are. Is there graffiti? Trash? Unkempt property? Men standing around drinking? Bums? What are the businesses? Are there name brands? How do the vehicles look? In neighborhoods, are there kid toys out? Multiple vehicles in driveways? People parked in the yard? Are there bars on windows? Bars around air conditioners?? Bars around LIGHT FIXTURES????
What about barb wire? Or RAZOR wire?? Are the fences decorative or imposing?
Stuff like that. Most of the things above are negative btw.
n
Used to be check cashers and pawn shops were a good indicator but they've spread to almost everywhere.
The weather blew thru pretty quickly. Sun is out, and temps got down to 68F. It's 74F atm.
I fell asleep with the rain so don't really know how bad it got. Gage says .65 inches, and the potted citrus in the back yard blew over. So it was sporty for at least a short while.
n
Yeah that line of BS fell pretty quickly… https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10132491/Biden-administration-holding-weekly-meetings-try-stem-inflation.html
n
76F and only 94%RH. Forecast includes the possibility of rain.
Stuff to do.
n
Our 0.6 inch forecast turned into 2 or 3 inches of rain. There is now two feet of water in the front ditch at the house. And both ponds at the office are full again of course.
If I hear one more claim that the science of climate change is settled I am going to scream. "Science" is never settled, and that's the whole point!
The one by me had plenty. I was there yesterday to get a Moderna booster to go on top of my Pfizer two-dose. The Good Doctor has done the opposite. The evidence is that it helps boost immunity a bit. Adding mRNA on top of J&J gives a big boost.
I only moved to this area 7 years ago, and outside of the medical center and the greater Katy area, everything else is mostly unexplored territory. A little time shopping etc. in Cinco, in Sugar Land, The Heights, and the theater district, that's all. So I don't really have any idea where the war zones are, just that there seem to be a lot of them.
My girlfriend grew up in Alief but moved out 30 years ago.
Basically any area between I-610 and Beltway 8 is the main war zone. Plus 3rd Ward (University of Houston) and a couple of the other wards. But there are many enclaves in those areas that are safe at the moment, my son lives in one.
https://www.google.com/maps/@29.7423528,-95.3522094,10z
The war zone is trying to expand into Sugar Land and the other areas outside Beltway 8. My son thinks that the invasions will start soon but he is pessimistic.
I live just outside the Grand Parkway (99) in Fort Bend County. Even this area has gang problems outside our little enclave here.
If I hear one more claim that the science of climate change is settled I am going to scream. "Science" is never settled, and that's the whole point!
"World faces disastrous 2.7C temperature rise on current climate plans, UN warns"
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/oct/26/world-wasted-chance-build-back-better-covid-un
"Report says countries must strengthen climate ambitions after wasting chance to build back better after Covid"
“The world is squandering the opportunity to “build back better” from the Covid-19 pandemic, and faces disastrous temperature rises of at least 2.7C if countries fail to strengthen their climate pledges, according to a report from the UN.
Tuesday’s publication warns that countries’ current pledges would reduce carbon by only about 7.5% by 2030, far less than the 45% cut scientists say is needed to limit global temperature rises to 1.5C, the aim of the Cop26 summit that opens in Glasgow this Sunday.”
We are all going to die.
"CDC says some immunocompromised people can get fourth COVID shot"
https://www.axios.com/cdc-immunocompromised-covid-fourth-shot-1b47635c-c464-4d29-9832-3d94ea1cecf9.html
"The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in updated guidelines Tuesday that some immunocompromised people who have received either Pfizer or Moderna's COVID-19 vaccines will be able to get a fourth shot.
Details: People over 18 who are "moderately to severely immunocompromised" and have received three doses of an mRNA vaccine may get a fourth shot (of either the Pfizer, Moderna, or Johnson & Johnson vaccines) at least six months after getting their third Pfizer or Moderna dose, per the CDC."
You have got to be kidding me.
Hat tip to:
https://drudgereport.com/
We finally figured out what the noise that our neighbors were complaining about this weekend. The 50,000+ acre ranch about a half mile away from my house was firing off a four inch cannon and a .308 caliber Gatling gun over the weekend. We did not hear them because of our triple pane windows but my neighbors with their original single pane windows sure heard them.
https://www.georgeranch.org/programs-events/texian-market-days/
The ranch is going to start building thousands of homes on 50 foot wide lots in January. Should make the traffic in our area a complete disaster.
Just now, looking at the ranch in a map online, I saw a tornado warning pop for The Woodlands.
The last time we went to Houston, I noted that the toll lanes on I-10 are soon going to run another 10 miles west of Katy.
I’ve seen the plans for the toll lanes running east from Austin down 71. Sooner or later, the growth is going to meet.
There is a LOT of empty space in between there.
That is my problem speculating on land in the Houston and surrounds, there is so much available, including infill, that the only thing that seems to matter is insider information or being big enough to drive a whole new development yourself.
n
Got my car hauler reserved for Friday pickup. Turns out I can delay another day and get the parts truck on Friday.
Temp now up to 82F in the sun. Still pleasant in the shade.
n
You know people are going to try extreme commuting to the Tonymobile factory. Welcome to LA 2.0.
Working concessions for the band boosters, we met a woman from California who worked at Universal Studios in production and lived in Riverside. She said her commute was three hours each way to/from work.
Her kids were born in the same Burbank hospital where John Ritter was born and where he died after collapsing at the former NBC studios across the street.
One of the guys I worked with in Hollywood had a similar commute, from Riverside. To be at work at 7am, he left home at around 1 or 2, iirc and made the drive in significantly less time, then he slept in his car on the street in front of our shop, until time for work.
He stayed at the location with his wife/partner/gf, don't remember, so that the daughter could attend school there. NOT his biological daughter, it should be noted. In other words, a decent and dedicated guy.
Caught the partner cheating on him. Moved out and into a rental house across the street from our shop that week. Never looked back. His commute went to 2 minutes on foot.
n
You know people are going to try extreme commuting to the Tonymobile factory. Welcome to LA 2.0.
One of my friends lives in Smithville, TX. His wife is a manager for Apple in the Austin office. Before the Koof, she commuted 100 miles back and forth each workday.
My growing puppy, who is quite long for his size, given the dachshund/chihuahua mix, likes to spend part of his day 3/4 of the way thru the doggy door.
He puts his head and forend thru the door into the sun, and keeps his rear hips and back end in the airconditioning. He'll lay like that for long periods of time, just watching the yard and the time go by. I've never heard of or seen any other dog do it….
n
"A Killing Frost (The Tomorrow Series #3) " by John Marsden
https://www.amazon.com/Killing-Frost-Tomorrow-3/dp/0439829127/br?tag=ttgnet-20 />
Book number three of a seven book young adult action adventure fiction series. I read the well printed and well bound trade paperback published by Scholastic Paperbacks in 2006 that I bought on Amazon. The first book in the series was actually published in 1993, this book was first published in 1995. I have purchased used copies of books #4, and #5 in the series for future reading. Books #4 and #5 are out of print so I had to order used copies.
At the middle of their high school senior year in Australia, a group of seven 17 and 18 year old teenagers decide to go camping in the bush for a week before school restarts. They gather up their sleeping bags and supplies and go way out into the bush, actually at the edge of the desert in a place known as Hell. After a difficult trip by Land Rover and a long walk, they camp next to a spring fed stream. When they return to Ellie's farm after a week, her family is missing and the farm dogs are dead on their chains. They find out that Australia has been invaded by an Asian nation and that their families are being held captive at the town fairgrounds. The Asian forces have taken the airports first and then the cargo shipping seaports. The justification of the invasion is that the Asian nation needs the extensive natural resources of Australia.
It has been six months since the surprise Asian invasion of Australia started. In that time, the New Zealand Army with help from the USA and others has beaten back the occupation from eastern seaports of Australia. So the Asians are moving more soldiers, goods, and colonists through the southern seaports. Ellie and her friends have noticed that there is increased shipping going through the local seaport with several convoys of trucks per day. They have already blown up the bridge from the seaport into the town. Now they are wondering if they can blow up the seaport ?
The first book in the series was made into a film of the same name in 2010.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomorrow,_When_the_War_Began_(film)
My rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
Amazon rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars (76 reviews)
I consider Newton's Law of Motion, F = ma, where F is force, m is mass, and a is acceleration, to be settled.
Well that's we we call them laws. But never say never.
Worried about last minute costumes?
I considered this suggestions, a not warning.
https://www.cnn.com/2017/10/27/health/halloween-costumes-2017-offensive-trnd/index.html
~jim, the politicization of climate science is settled.
In other words, a sucker.
In today's United States, marrying a mother and helping to raise another man's children is a fool's move. Sometimes it works out but look at the numbers. The odds are against the "decent and dedicated guy" and the law definitely is.
I consider Newton's Law of Motion, F = ma, where F is force, m is mass, and a is acceleration, to be settled.
— does it work for quantum or atomic level events? Are there any of the caveats and codicils that alot of the other generalizations seem to have when you look very closely? Like acceleration due to gravity, assumed to be a constant, but here on earth gravity isn't constant…
n
BTW that last one came from here
https://americandigest.org/keeping-track-100-racist-things/
best comment
They forgot "People who don't like 'Black Panther'."
Back from my routine colonoscopy, one of life's little pleasures. All checks out and able to 'down-grade' to ColoGuard for the foreseeable future. Time for some solid food.
"Men shot by Kyle Rittenhouse cannot be called ‘victims’ in court, judge rules"
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/oct/27/kyle-rittenhouse-shooting-trial
"But defense attorneys may call them ‘arsonists’ or ‘looters’ judge says ahead of contentious trial over fatal shooting of two men"
I saw the videos. Those men were not victims, they were aggressors.
ColoGuard. Bet that wasn't the UPS man's idea. 🙂
So do I when it concerns billiard tables and planetary orbits.
However, I think it's premature to conclude that man-made CO2 emission is the independent variable in global warming, AKA climate change. That's not natural law, but vain, prejudicial supposition; and not even reasonable given the evidence we do not know.
Re 'offensive' terms…made a web site a while back to collect them – https://www.renamethis.com/ . A slightly ugly site, but it amused me. (Some here might remember the site.)
The site gets almost no traffic. It will go away when the domain name expires. But, still, I am easily amused.
ColoGuard. Bet that wasn't the UPS man's idea.
Who is the UPS man ?
I consider Newton's Law of Motion, F = ma, where F is force, m is mass, and a is acceleration, to be settled.
As are the Laws of Thermodynamics. Even if I do not truly understand the second law which can be restated as order goes to chaos which is why the theory of evolution does not make sense.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laws_of_thermodynamics
"The zeroth law of thermodynamics defines thermal equilibrium and forms a basis for the definition of temperature: If two systems are each in thermal equilibrium with a third system, then they are in thermal equilibrium with each other.
The first law of thermodynamics states that, when energy passes into or out of a system (as work, heat, or matter), the system's internal energy changes in accord with the law of conservation of energy.
The second law of thermodynamics states that in a natural thermodynamic process, the sum of the entropies of the interacting thermodynamic systems never decreases. Another form of the statement is that heat does not spontaneously pass from a colder body to a warmer body.
The third law of thermodynamics states that a system's entropy approaches a constant value as the temperature approaches absolute zero. With the exception of non-crystalline solids (glasses) the entropy of a system at absolute zero is typically close to zero.[2]"
Don’t forget the fourth law.
“The mass of the ass is directly proportional to the heat of the meat.”
You can thank me later.
>> Who is the UPS man ?
Some guy that liked brown shorts with knee socks. Became extinct during the Amazonian era.
The universe tends toward chaos, or entropy increases OVERALL, but local instances abound.
Liquid water turning to crystalline ice for example.
Or any chemical reaction that combines into a more complex molecule….
n
Especially when you have kids.
@Nick
"I don't have any "poor Alec" feelings, and it's insulting to imply that despite all the reasoned arguments I've made here and elsewhere that it's all driven by my love of a sh!tbag hypocrite . "
I did not intend my short formulation
to be insulting and don't believe it reads that way, but if rewriting it as
You appear to have one foot in the "workplace practices shield the actor / poor Alec" camp with the other in the "workplace practices on this set were a shambles".
works better for you, there it is.
And for the record, any opinion I have about Alec's claim to sh!tbaggery does not enter into my part of the discussion, except to acknowledge that some people think karma has landed "good and hard". I don't think he's much of an actor, either, but that is also irrelevant.
What is relevant is that you keep writing about a "workplace shield" that doesn't exist, and probably never did in this case.
Under your formulation, the actor given a "tool" he has good reason to know might indeed be a lethal weapon has no liability for not taking the "due care and consideration" that every other thinking person in every other situation is required to take.
There is no mention anywhere of an exception for actors in NM law. Nor should there be. Some might indeed be found to be non-thinking or legally incompetent, but probably not in this case.
"Due care and consideration" with firearms is is well understood, predating the "four rules" and even my "two rules simple enough that an eight-year-old can understand them".
Your description of the "workplace rules" is at odds with the descriptions provided by a number of other legal and industry professionals. Some of those details seem quite "four rulish" in nature. I'd be interested in seeing the actual standard that is supposed to overrule NM state law. Got linky?
I'm still very interested in where the armorer was that day. I've seen "attention is focusing on the AD" in several stories, and that would seem to imply that the AD didn't get the weapon from the armorer. I've seen no "the actions of the armorer are being scrutinized" at all, only character assassination.
ADDED: If I could get one question answered it would be: Whose fingerprints are on pistol and the shell casing from the round that contained the lethal bullet?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzhREYOK0oo
Avery Brooks complained in some old commercial that in the 21st century, he was promised flying cars. Well, the Jetson One comes close. $90k, 20 minutes endurance and a couple hundred pounds of "cargo" . It is still boutique production and is essentially a drone you can get into. It does fit in a garage. 🙂
Ask and receive:
https://hotair.com/allahpundit/2021/10/27/yikes-armorer-in-baldwin-shooting-drew-numerous-safety-complaints-on-set-of-first-film-n425208
Armorer was on the set.
Fuzzy language and timing make most of the rest of this partial account unclear.
IBM commercial, shot shortly after DS9 ended.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRl_D_CunWA
Lotus Notes was still relevant at the time.
Kevin Smith riffed on the same theme for Jay Leno back in 2000.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXYjqLLQ5KA
In other gub news Springfield Armory has released a modernized Browning Hi-Power clone for a modest $700 MSRP.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gd2u9CgmbdM
Arguably John Browning's last design and an improved 1911. The French specs mandated the magazine disconnect safety (no magazine, no bang!) which messed up trigger pull and appalled Col. Cooper's sensibilities. The Springfield SA-35 dispenses with it from the factory and is reputed to have a very nice trigger feel.
I handled a FN production version in a gub store near half a century ago. Fit my hand, impressively so. At the time, it ran $100 more than a Colt Gold cup when that difference was near a week's pay and removing a "safety" feature, which was an easy gunsmithing job, didn't sound like a good idea, attorneywise. I look forward to finding a Springfield now.
Still, at 2 lb. empty, it would be nice to see a bobbed slide version with a lightweight frame material and some nice checkering on the front and back straps. Maybe next model.
@DrWilliams,
the actor given a "tool" he has good reason to know might indeed be a lethal weapon has no liability for not taking the "due care and consideration" that every other thinking person in every other situation is required to take.
–you keep missing the point or I'm just not as proficient with english as I thought. At work, on set, surrounded by professional crew, playing 'make believe' for money, the actor DOES NOT have good reason to "know" he's being handed a "lethal weapon". He has EVERY reason to believe he is being handed a specially prepared TOOL that is safe to do whatever the scene requires. He was specifically and explicitly told that by the AD, who does have a responsibility and the authority to address safety issues. There's a whole department and a specialist crewmember DEDICATED to just that! THE CREW, specifically the Property Master, or whoever he delegates, in this case an armorer, is the place the responsibility lies. (The AD seems to have massively overstepped his authority and on set responsibilities by handling the prop gun and ESPECIALLY by declaring it 'cold' without any actual determination that it was.)
"Due care and consideration" with firearms
–it's a movie set. Everything there is make believe. The guns are never, to about 8 "9"s, of never, "firearms". Everyone uses the word as a shortcut but the "gun" no matter how it started out, by the time it is handed to an actor on a set is not a lethal firearm, except thru accident. This is demonstrably true given that actors and crew aren't being killed left and right during scenes. NOT LETHAL.
Injury accidents are EXTREMELY RARE , given the actual number of firearm related deaths in the last 40 years of non-stop movie and TV production. That number is TWO accidents including this one, and a third by one of the meat puppets doing something stupid and blowing a piece of his skull thru his brain, which is one of the reasons you don't hand actors ANYTHING dangerous or valuable and why the responsibility for safety lies with the 'competent person' -the armorer.
Unless TBB* himself insisted that some specific real antique firearm be obtained and used exclusively in every shot and rehearsal, he had ever right and expectation that he was handling a PROP, a tool that only looks and partly acts like a firearm. NOT AN ACTUAL LETHAL FIREARM. OR if someone else insisted and informed him about the use of a real firearm.
So 'due care and consideration' doesn't apply to the actor, unless he does something OUTSIDE the requirements of the scene as did the meat puppet who held the prop gun to his head and said "It's just blanks" before removing himself from the scene, and life in general.
The CREW in this case, and the production in general are acting with 'due care and consideration' by developing and adopting the the Safety Bulletins, and by the specific measures they take to be sure that the meat puppet NEVER gets handed a 'lethal weapon'. Clearly there was a whole lot less due care and consideration on this SPECIFIC set, and as long as the weight of the law falls on the correct person, the person who SHOULD have been exercising same, I'm happy.
The 'four rules' don't apply to the actor, unless he knew that there was something special about THIS PARTICULAR GUN, as I mentioned above, and even then, the person that is supposed to render it harmless before handing it to the actor failed to do so. They are the one with the responsibility to act.
No one worries about the flocking four rules with nerf guns, or bananas. As far as the actor, at work, on a set, supported by a crew of professionals, is concerned, s/he's being handed a 'banana' to use as s/he pretends to shoot people.
In movie making, the four rules are OFTEN violated intentionally and with a whole lot of forethought. Hell the COPS violate them in real life all the time without even any particular remorse. The industry has their own rules, going far beyond the four of sainted cooper, that have allowed thousands of productions and millions of fake shots to be fired, with a total of TWO fatal accidents that weren't the direct result of the actor f#cking around. They are both more extensive, and about a million times MORE effective at preventing injury or death.
The relevant rules are covered in Safety Bulletin #1 and #2, which I've linked before, but will again.
All the safety bulletins. Click the Combined PDF link.
Safety Bulletin #1 direct pdf link
Safety Bulletin #2 specifically addresses the limited but sometimes occurring, times when live ammo is used in real guns, and the differences from normal procedure. NONE of that should apply to this case, as none of the prerequisites for using live ammo in real guns were present. And it's specific in that only "on controlled second units" which is NOT the primary shooting that they were engaged in. That the bulletin exists shows that live ammo is used, can be used safely, IF THE RULES ARE FOLLOWED. Just like any other industry's safety procedures. And that it exists separately from normal procedures should emphasize how ABNORMAL it is to have any object that looks like a gun ACT like a gun on set, further supporting the idea that the actor DOESN"T expect to be handed anything other than an object that pretends to be a gun.
The failure to follow the complete and specific rules lies with the crew, not the actor.
. Some of those details seem quite "four rulish" in nature.
–yes they do, OF COURSE they do. The people that end up handling prop guns are usually people who LIKE guns and come from the gun culture. As they apply to actors, they are promulgated because even a blank firing gun can be dangerous and an unintended discharge during the scene costs a ton of time and money. THE CREW takes those precautions, because they DON'T have a group of professionals following rules designed to keep THEM safe, they are the ones doing it for the actors (and coincidentally the rest of the crew.)
I'm not saying, and never said that there is an exemption to the law for actors. There are plenty of examples from industry though where responsibility and authority are limited. The actor's responsibilities are specifically limited. They are specifically not responsible for "firearm safety" on set. The crew has that responsibility.
The quoted NM statue shouldn't apply to TBB* because he had no reason to believe that he was handling anything more dangerous or deadly than a banana or nerf gun.
No one can predict what a prosecutor will do or a judge or jury if it comes to that. Someone, and probably more than one someone WILL and SHOULD be charged with crimes and may even be found guilty in this case. I've tried to make clear, using my specialist understanding of factors that are not obvious if you are not in the industry, why it's very unlikely to be Baldwin.
And if anyone is hoping he'll catch some because of his role as Producer, that is going to come down to whether or not he had any real authority and made any of the decisions that led to the Cinematographer being killed. Producer can be an empty vanity title for someone that brings money to the project or a way to funnel extra compensation to someone. He doesn't have any day to day responsibilities or authority on set, typically.
I really hope that I was finally clear. I'm far from the only one with industry experience with this point of view. The ambulance chaser lawyers I quoted oh so many posts ago who know Hollywood said it wouldn't be TBB. Even the woman's father places the blame squarely on the armorer. Branca is blinded by his feelings for TBB, and should be using his extensive experience with defense to talk about the 'shooter's DEFENSIVE options instead of currying favor with the Baldwin haters. I think less of him every time I read an article. He started out with a sensational 'what if' and he hasn't improved since then.
n
*TBB, my joke calling him "The Bad Baldwin" because pro-gun ADAM Baldwin (no relation apparently) is usually called "The Good Baldwin" in the gun communities. Also it's shorter, and I'm thousands of words into this here and elsewhere.
Fit my hand, impressively so.
— when I was shopping for my first pistol I found that too. It fit like it was made for me. But I went with the new Glock 17 as it fit my hand, and weighed less, fully loaded to twice the capacity, than the high power weighed empty…
I've been happy wth the G17, but if I was looking for a gub for fun, I'd look at this new version…
n
@Nightraker
I had an FN in my hand about 12 years ago. Collector needed cash to pay a tax bill. Yes, I still regret.
Current revie, and some interesting historical in the last 5 min.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNrGy6T2AzY
Looking forward to a test drive.
@Nick
"–you keep missing the point or I'm just not as proficient with english as I thought. At work, on set, surrounded by professional crew, playing 'make believe' for money, the actor DOES NOT have good reason to "know" he's being handed a "lethal weapon"."
I'm not missing the point. As I've said before, it's not relevant as we know the facts in this case. My point as stated before: the actor in this case was in an environment where it was common knowledge that make-believe-gun safety was compromised and the weapon that he had been handed had reportedly been misfired twice by his stunt double.
So yes, "good reason to know".
Unless he can successfully show that he did not know, which is going to be a long heavy haul up a steep slope.
It's all going to come down to knowledge of a potential lethal hazard, and it's not going to matter whether he gained that knowledge as actor or producer.
And if he, or his attorney, tries to claim that he had no duty to follow normal firearm safety because "it wasn't in his job description", then his wife is going to be packing his clothes after the house gets sold to pay the judgement against him.
The last quote I saw from the DA was that manslaughter charges against Baldwin were "on the table". I'd like to see a press conference where she says. "Never mind. Upon further review, he's an actor and cannot be held responsible." Sounds like a winning quote for the next election.
I looked for this
http://i2.wp.com/www.rebresearch.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/G.-wilson-just-wont-fire.jpg
and found this, too
https://lowres.cartooncollections.com/court_case-courts-prosecutors-defence-attorneys-law-order-CC30697_low.jpg
from Master Wilson.
And in tribute to him
https://i2.wp.com/www.dailycartoonist.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/gahan-crabb.jpg
Also found this from Jonathan Turley:
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/alec-baldwin-shooting-civil-criminal-liabilities-jonathan-turley
I don't remember if I posted the link to Alan Dershowitz or not.
https://qz.com/2078902/alec-baldwin-could-still-face-charges-in-fatal-rust-shooting/
The article I read didn't mention any specific charge being considered for TBB, but simply that 'everything was still on the table.'
Even with the slipshod adherence to the rules, and the AD's statement in the search warrant suggests they might have been more adherent than has been put out, you don't have to follow the four rules at all. They are not laws. Following them SUGGESTS or IMPLIES some safety awareness, but people subject to the four rules break them all the time, and ND themselves and others all the time. For ~40 years the movie industry rules, all of them, have prevented all but 2 fatalities including this one, and they added what should be known as the Brandon Lee rule number 5 after one of those deaths… the other was pure stupidity on the part of the meat puppet and no amount of rules beyond keeping them out of the hands of the actors would have stopped that.
The bulletin also clearly assigns responsibility and authority in the workplace, and the actors don't have it. No matter what the actor 'should have known' unless there are memos, how are you going to prove he did? Or that he understood the downstream implications? So what if there were rumors of an AD? Did they get to TBB? Did he understand that it was the same gun? If it was? Or that there might be an issue with the gun? As far as he knows, it was dealt with if there was an issue, and then the person he trusted, who had the responsibility told him it was fine. Bang, right there, he has no reason to think ANYTHING is amiss, and no longer has the 'due care' obligation. It's back to being a nerf gun.
Does the person hanging the transfusion sample the blood in the bag, and personally type the patient before starting the flow? If not, why not? Surely they understand that mistakes get made in medical settings all the time, and that a mistake with transfusion could kill the patient.
Does the pilot drop a dipstick into the wing tank personally, or does he look at the log from the refueling company, and the gauges in the plane? If not, why not? Does he personally put some of the fuel in a little jar and test it for purity, octane (or whatever), or does he trust that it's really Jet A because it came from a truck that said Jet A on the side, and the only thing you put in a truck labeled Jet A is in fact JET A, for 99,999999999% of the time? Is his behavior different when operating from a bush field in Zimbabwe or Chicago?
Airplanes and medical mistakes have killed orders of magnitude more people than prop guns on movie sets, don't they have a higher obligation because they MUST know that?
There are limits to authority and responsibility all over the workplace in every industry.
We'll see what the anti-gun state of NM does with criminal charges. We'll see what NM OSHA does with the production company. We'll see what the INSURANCE companies do, as they'll be the ones paying. This is likely to be an event that still gets talked about in 20 years, just like the last one.
And just like the gun in question isn't what people thought it must be, some or all of the things the discussion to this point has been based on, are certainly going to change.
There are some things that won't. There was a live round in the gun. SOMEONE brought that live round on set. SOMEONE loaded that live round into the gun. Several someones failed in their duties.
n
(and you know you moved the goalposts there, when your argument changed from "he should have checked because guns are killers and everyone knows that" to "he should have checked because there were safety issues on the set and things were not normal, so he should have KNOWN to be extra careful as a result". The second of those has in it the assumption that NORMALLY he doesn't have to check, btw…)
Yes, Baldwin in his role as Producer might have some exposure. Sounds like it was more than a sinecure, but he still doesn't have any day to day responsibilities on the set.
n
Then there is this, which spreads the blame around, but the ultimate failure is still Tatgrrl's.
Assuming there is any truth in the reporting.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10137117/500-rounds-ammo-recovered-Baldwin-set-including-live-rounds.html
Those would be some of the same crew that was afraid because of the poor adherence to proper procedures? I'm not buying it for the moment. Where would they take the guns, where could they shoot them without EVERYONE on set knowing?
n
They're asking the wrong question.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-10136983/How-did-Florida-end-one-best-COVID-19-case-death-rates-US.html
n
HE had the duty and failed.
n
In other gub news Springfield Armory has released a modernized Browning Hi-Power clone for a modest $700 MSRP.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gd2u9CgmbdM
Arguably John Browning's last design and an improved 1911. The French specs mandated the magazine disconnect safety (no magazine, no bang!) which messed up trigger pull and appalled Col. Cooper's sensibilities. The Springfield SA-35 dispenses with it from the factory and is reputed to have a very nice trigger feel.
I handled a FN production version in a gub store near half a century ago. Fit my hand, impressively so. At the time, it ran $100 more than a Colt Gold cup when that difference was near a week's pay and removing a "safety" feature, which was an easy gunsmithing job, didn't sound like a good idea, attorneywise. I look forward to finding a Springfield now.
Still, at 2 lb. empty, it would be nice to see a bobbed slide version with a lightweight frame material and some nice checkering on the front and back straps. Maybe next model.
My XDM .40 is the finest shooting semi-auto that I have ever fired. The only gun that comes close is my nephews Kimber .45 with a six inch barrel and a double stack 14 round magazine that he paid $2,000 for. I scored a 250 out of 250 on the Texas concealed carry test with my XDM. The only problem with my XDM is that it is very subject to the limp wristing misfeed which is mostly my fault due to my bad wrists.
https://www.springfield-armory.com/xd-series-handguns/xd-m-handguns/
Shoot, looks like Springfield dropped the .40S&W round in the XDM. Too bad, it is a great shooting round with the five inch barrel and the double stack mag holds 16 rounds. If, you are man enough to get those last two rounds in the mag.
Interesting, the scanner sounds like they're surveilling a crew getting ready to steal an atm.
I'm going to bed though and will never know.
n
.40S&W has fallen out of fashion, I believe, when the FBI standardized on 9mm. Fewer gun models are produced in that caliber anymore.
I've been lusting after a Wilson Combat EDC, a 1911-ish double stack 9mm but the $3k price is just a bit too much. I console myself with S&W's Performance Center 1911 Commander clone. The slide vents are kinda silly but purty. Puts me in mind of a Buick.
I did see, on the Internet, that total CCW permits in the US has reached 21 million. Thereabout of 10% of adult citizens. And 22 states have Constitutional Carry.
I did see, on the Internet, that total CCW permits in the US has reached 21 million. Thereabout of 10% of adult citizens. And 22 states have Constitutional Carry.
–massive change.
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