At least he wasn’t texting

The last time police arrested Waldo Baca for drunken driving, an officer found him passed out cold in his truck by the side of Interstate 25 near Santa Fe.

It took the officer several minutes to rouse him, but even then Baca was too intoxicated to speak, according to a state police report. The officer found a mostly empty bottle of whiskey, an empty whiskey bottle and an empty beer can inside Baca’s truck, the report says. Later, after refusing to take sobriety and breath-alcohol tests, Baca told a nurse who was drawing his blood at the hospital that alcohol, marijuana and cocaine would be found in his blood, the report states.

His blood-alcohol level at the time was later determined to have been .24 — three times the legal driving limit, according to a spokeswoman for the Department of Health, which oversees the blood testing.

The arrest — which occurred about 6:30 p.m. June 26 — marked the ninth time in the last 17 years Baca, 40, has been taken into custody by police officers from Santa Fe to Los Lunas for drunken driving, according to court records and statistics kept by the DWI Resource Center in Albuquerque.

The New Mexican has more on how Mr. Baca has skirted the system.

Someone just like him may be alongside of you the next time you take the kids to soccer.

Click if only for the mug shot.

Vin Scully

One of the great moments in baseball — not just the story, but the storyteller. Go listen to baseball’s best broadcaster describe the last inning of Koufax’s perfect game in 1965.

Scully talks about virtually nothing but the action in front of him. Even allowing for the drama of this moment, compare and contrast to most current broadcasters who seem incapable of keeping their eye on the ball. And Scully says nothing for 40 seconds after the last pitch. He allows you to savor the moment. It’s not about him.

Link via a fine tribute to Scully at the Bats Blog.

Lightning

A weather front rolls in from the horizon, storm clouds darken the sky, and (at least 1.3 billion times a year) lightning strikes. Last month, the National Weather Service promoted their Lightning Safety Week, with information designed to call attention to safe practices, helping people avoid lightning strikes which kill an average of 100 people every year. While the exact nature of the initial formation of lightning remains a subject of debate, what is known is that lightning strikes are caused by electrical imbalances present in the clouds. Those imbalances correct themselves suddenly, with an often spectacular light show – which I’ve tried to show here, with a handful of recent photographs of lightning from around the world. (26 photos total)

The Big Picture – Boston.com

July 28th

Jackie Kennedy would have been 80 today. She was born Jacqueline Lee Bouvier on this date in 1929.

Bill Bradley is 66.

Sally Struthers and Georgia Engel are each 61 today.

Hugo Chávez, the President of Venezuela, is 55. Venezuela supplies about 6% of U.S. daily oil consumption.

Catherine Howard married Henry VIII on this date in 1540. She was Mrs. VIII number five.

Maximilien Robespierre got nicked with a razor on this date in 1794. Witnesses said Robespierre died within seconds of the guillotine blade severing his head from his neck but, after viewing A Tale of Two Cities, Dr. Senator Bill Frist was certain guillotine victims “respond to visual stimuli.”

Beatrix Potter was born on this date in 1866.

Beatrix Potter thought she might become a scientist, but when she wrote a paper to present to the Royal Botanic Gardens, she was turned away because only men were allowed to present. So she continued to make detailed drawings of animals and plants, and she continued to refuse the suitors her parents brought home for her, because she didn’t want to be a Victorian housewife and raise children and have no time left for her own interests.

In 1893, Potter sent an illustrated letter to the child of her former governess, and it was in that letter that Peter Rabbit made his debut. She liked creating animal characters, writing and illustrating their stories. So she decided to write children’s books, but for years publishers didn’t take her seriously.

You’ll have to read the rest at The Writer’s Almanac (2008).

An earthquake in China killed an estimated 242,000 people 33 years ago today.

What I’ve been and will be reading

After panning Michael McGarrity’s Nothing But Trouble, as being nothing special, I’m pleased to report his Dead or Alive is much better. Yes, all of McGarrity’s good guys are still studly cowboy types, and all his good women are petite hotties. And yes, his bad guys are beyond awful and his victims are too often not worth worrying about. But this one has a good chase and a good resolution. Fun if you like the police procedural genre.

The two food books intervened, but now it’s on to Midnight’s Children, Salman Rushdie’s first classic.

Flag at half-staff today

NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim July 27, 2009, as National Korean War Veterans Armistice Day. I call upon all Americans to observe this day with appropriate ceremonies and activities that honor and give thanks to our distinguished Korean War veterans. I also ask Federal departments and agencies and interested groups, organizations, and individuals to fly the flag of the United States at half-staff on July 27, 2009, in memory of the Americans who died as a result of their service in Korea.

Today is the 56th anniversary of the Military Armistice Agreement at Panmunjom.

Housing: Remember the Two Bottoms!

There will probably be two bottoms for Residential Real Estate.

The first will be for new home sales, housing starts and residential investment. The second bottom will be for prices. Sometimes these bottoms can happen years apart. I think it is likely that we’ve seen the bottom for new home sales and single family starts, but not for prices.

It is way too early to try to call the bottom in prices. House prices will probably fall for another year or more. My original prediction (a few years ago) was that real house prices would fall for 5 to 7 years (after 2005), and we could start looking for a bottom in the 2010 to 2012 time frame for the bubble areas. That still seems reasonable to me.

Calculated Risk

He’s been right so far.

Best line of the day

“If English was good enough for Jesus, it’s good enough for Texas schoolchildren.”

Texas Governor Ma Ferguson while vetoing a bill to authorize Spanish primary grade instruction during the 1920s.

Story told during Stanford University course Historical Jesus available at iTunes U for free. [link opens iTunes] The course consists of 10 audio files; each runs from 90-100 minutes.

The opening lecture in the series is “Call Me Yeshua.” If his mother had called the person we know as Jesus in his native Aramaic, Yeshua is most likely what she would have called. The name Jesus is a Latin translation of a Greek name which was derived from the Aramaic. The modern equivalent of Yeshua is Joshua.

Cause for arrest

Christopher Hitchens with another take on Gates-gate.

For my part, I have tried to make my point of view clear about this incident. Police do occasionally overreact when provoked (unless you think rude driving and flipping the bird deserved my being stopped at gunpoint). But I also don’t think we should decide a police officer is racist because his department may have that reputation.

In other words, I actually doubt Crowley acted as he did toward Gates because Gates is black. I think Crowley arrested Gates because Gates was acting like an asshole.

I just don’t happen to think you should be arrested for acting like an asshole. It’s our god-given right, especially in our own home.

Damn!

Crash

The driver, her daughter and three girl cousins were killed in this formerly red minivan. The driver’s son is in critical condition. Three people were killed in other car. The minivan was going the wrong way on the Taconic State Parkway north of New York City.

Excuse me if I fail to see God’s plan in this.

Photo from the New York Times (cropped).