In The Shadow Of Mt Hollywood

In Sunday's post , I mentioned Tim Donaghy, a former NBA referee who in 2007 pleaded guilty to federal charges of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to transmit wagering information across state lines. After his inbitial plea in 2007 but before his sentencing in 2008, he made a number of allegations regarding overall corruption in NBA refereeing. According to Wikipedia , On June 11, 2008, Donaghy alleged in a statement through his lawyers that several series in the NBA Playoffs had been improperly refereed according to the NBA's instructions. He alluded specifically to a playoff game where "personal fouls [resulting in obviously injured players] were ignored even when they occurred in full view of the referees" because "it was in the NBA's interest to add another game to the series." . . . Donaghy also referred to a playoff series where "Team 3's Owner alleged that referees were letting a Team 4 player get away w...

Yesterday, the president of the American Federation of Government Employees posted on the AFGE website: This week, Congress pushed our nation into the fourth week of a full government shutdown – an avoidable crisis that is harming families, communities, and the very institutions that hold our country together. Both political parties have made their point, and still there is no clear end in sight. Today I’m making mine: it’s time to pass a clean continuing resolution and end this shutdown today. No half measures, and no gamesmanship. Put every single federal worker back on the job with full back pay — today. Illinois Sen Dick Durbin, the Senate Democratic Whip, who is second in leadership to Sen Schumer, replied with a rambling and equivocal statement : “It has a lot of impact, and they’ve been our friends and we’ve worked with them over the years,” Durbin told reporters on Monday, adding that he has talked to representatives with the union and recognizes t...

Over the weekend, I saw two conflicting versions of the demographic at the No Kings rallies on October 18. The most common was that those who attended were retirees accompanied by a smaller contingent of younger, male "furries" dressed in animal suits. This essay from a retail store manager serving protesters stocking up on poster board goes into more depth: [O]nce we got so busy that I needed to jump on a register to help move the lines along, I was able to speak with a 60-something lady with a yellow cap (covering the proverbial “Karen” haircut) about the meaning of all the yellow. She shared with me that yellow was the color of “resistance” . . . . she was a walking stereotype of the retired Boomers that made up a large portion of the people who were participating in these protests. Boomers who like Bruce Springsteen [want] to relive their “glory days” when they protested the Vietnam War or marched for civil rights. Let's recall that the civil right...

Via CNN , A sprawling FBI probe into mafia-linked gambling and sports rigging schemes led to the arrests this morning of Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier and Portland Trail Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups, according to federal law enforcement officials. The NBA says both men have been placed on leave. . . . Among the defendants in the dual operations are members of four major American crime families, as well as current and former NBA players and coaches, New York City Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said. Via The Gateway Pundit, Former mobster Michael Franzese reacted to the FBI’s raid on an NBA gambling ring tied to the Italian Mafia. Michael Franzese worked for the Colombo crime family in the 1980s and made a fortune in the gasoline business. His father, Sonny Franzese, also a notorious mafioso, was the underboss for the Colombo crime family. . . . Rudy Giuliani indicted Michael Franzese five times in the 1980s – and Franzese beat the government f...

Via The Guardian , An artificial intelligence system (AI) apparently mistook a high school student’s bag of Doritos for a firearm and called local police to tell them the pupil was armed. Taki Allen was sitting with friends on Monday night outside Kenwood high school in Baltimore and eating a snack when police officers with guns approached him. “At first, I didn’t know where they were going until they started walking toward me with guns, talking about, ‘Get on the ground,’ and I was like, ‘What?’” Allen told the WBAL-TV 11 News television station. Allen said they made him get on his knees, handcuffed and searched him – finding nothing. They then showed him a copy of the picture that had triggered the alert. “I was just holding a Doritos bag – it was two hands and one finger out, and they said it looked like a gun,” Allen said. Recently, Chrome added an "AI mode" to its search feature that has a prompt, "Ask anything". Unlike Chat GPT, this ...

I've already said that I'm staying away from the female Archbishop of Canterbury story, but this latest quasi-ecumenical gesture is mostly unrelated, and it has me scratching my head: King Charles III and Queen Camilla prayed Thursday [October 16] with Pope Leo XIV in an historic visit to the Vatican to forge closer relations between the Church of England and the Catholic Church, a welcome spiritual respite for the royals from the turmoil at home over sexual misconduct allegations against Prince Andrew. Charles, who is the titular head of the Church of England, and Camilla sat in golden thrones on the raised altar of the Sistine Chapel, in front of Michelangelo’s “Last Judgment,” while Leo and the Anglican archbishop of York presided over an ecumenical service. Although one of King Charles's titles is "Supreme Governor of the Church of England", as the UK constitutional monarchy has developed, his role vis-a-vis the Church is exclusively to appoi...

BREAKING: FBI releases new info, offers $500,000 reward for suspect who planted pipe bombs near the DNC on January 5, 2021 pic.twitter.com/GUbAI8Mzev — Breaking911 (@Breaking911) October 22, 2025 There's been a flurry of new stories about the FBI releasing video footage of a person who appears to be planting pipe bombs next to the Republican and Democrat National Committee headquarters buildings the evening before January 6, 2021. Actually, there seems to be little new. The FBI has a web page on its site dated September 8, 2021 , only eight monthd after the incident, that includes nearly all the information about the suspect that media claims to be "new" in the latest release. This includes still shots from the video and essentially the same description as in the renewed appeal, including, The person who placed these bombs wore a face mask, glasses, a grey hooded sweatshirt, gloves, and black and light grey Nike Air Max Speed Turf shoes with a yellow lo...