When you gotta go...

According to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, former Badger and current Seahawks offensive lineman John Moffitt has been banned from a Seattle mall for urinating in the parking lot. Yet he returned to the mall, and once again urinated in the parking lot:

According to police, Moffitt had been banned from Bellevue Square mall — and all Kemper Freeman properties — for a year starting on Jan. 21, 2012. But Moffitt returned to the mall on June 14, and was spotted by Bellevue Square security allegedly urinating near a vehicle parked near Paddy Coyne’s bar, according to an incident report. 

Security called police, and officers looked for Moffitt near the Washington Square condos, where he was known to often hang out, according to the report. Police found two “very large males” running along the street, and one officer yelled for Moffitt to stop, the report states. Moffitt allegedly looked directly at one of the pursuing officers, then ran into the building. 

A week later, police showed photos of Moffitt to the Bellevue Square security officer who said Moffitt had urinated near a car, and made a positive identification of Moffitt as their alleged perp. Moffitt was later charged with criminal trespass and obstruction, both misdemeanors. 

Court records also indicate that Moffitt was caught trespassing again on Aug. 25, this time at Lincoln Square mall in Bellevue — another Kemper property. In that incident, officers escorted Moffitt out of the bar at Pearl restaurant without incident before taking him into custody., and now faces charges of trespassing and disorderly conduct.

There is really only one explanation:



[Cross-posted at Adam's WI Sports Blog]

Whatchu talkin'bout Perfessor?

I have been reading The Passage of Power: The Years of Lyndon Johnson, Robert A. Caro's fourth volume in his biography of former President Lyndon Baines Johnson. It is fantastic as are the other three volumes that have been published so far.

On page 352 of the book there is a scene in which President Johnson gets angry at Horace Busby. Mr. Busby was a longtime aide of President Johnson. What had Mr. Busby done?  He had questioned the conclusions reached by two economists on President Johnson's staff, Kermit Gordon and Walter Heller. Unlike Mr. Busby, Mr. Gordon and Mr. Heller did not work for President Johnson before he became president. Instead, Mr. Gordon and Mr. Heller were brought into government by President Kennedy. President Kennedy favored hiring people from Harvard because he felt "you can't beat brains."

Hoping for a speedy recovery.

A friend of mine is an obsessive worrier.  If anything good happens to him, he immediately begins to worry about what bad thing might come along and wreck the good times.  I have not directly asked, but I think thing is based on a belief that low follow highs in life the way they seem to with the weather.

My friend will undoubtedly point to David Lillehaug as an example of this.  As we noted back in March, Mr. Lillehaug was recently appointed to the Minnesota Supreme Court.  He is to start his duties as an associate justice on Monday.  A pretty high moment in a person's career, right?  Here comes the low, MinnPost has the story today that Mr. Lillehaug has been diagnosed with throat cancer.  Mr. Lillehaug's statement says that the disease has been caught early and that the treatment will not prevent him from taking a seat on the court or performing his duties ans associate justice.  I hope those things are all true and I hope that Mr. Lillehaug makes a speedy recovery.  Although there is never a good time to be diagnosed with cancer, I imagine that the diagnosis and treatment will take some of the luster off the excitement one normally would feel at starting such a prestigious job.

The Future is Here

In case you were wondering, flying cars exist—and they are crashing into things.

Sexting Scandal on Evanston Township High School's Baseball Team

My local Twitter feed blew up today with news that the Evanston Township High School (ETHS) baseball team has canceled the remainder of its season because of a sexting scandal of some sort:

On the eve of regional playoffs at Evanston Township High School, the athletic director told parents in a letter that the baseball team would forfeit the season, following allegations that players were sending indecent photographs via text message.

I don't really know what to make of this. Is sexting really so terrible? Even if it is, why not just suspend the evil-doers? Why "forfeit the season"? What is the lesson here?

I don't care at all about local high school baseball, but this possible overreaction to teenage sexuality seems like a troubling trend.

Penny Pritzker is Rich Beyond Your Wildest Dreams

President Obama has nominated Penny Pritzker to be Secretary of Commerce. She has a reported net worth of $1.85 billions dollars. That's billion, with a B. Her wealth is mainly inherited, as she is a member of the famous Pritzkers of Chicago, who made their fortunes in the hotel industry—specifically Hyatt Hotels.

But Ms. Pritzker is not merely an heiress. She makes tons of money on her own. In fact, she makes so much money that, in filings with Congress, she accidentally understated her income over the last decade by 80,000,000 dollars. To be clear, she didn't understate her net worth; she understated her income. The mistake was chalked up to "a clerical error," and she has corrected it.

So, how did Ms. Pritzker make all this money? Basically, it looks like she got paid a fortune for managing the fortune:

Documents released last week show Pritzker received $32.2 million for a decade’s worth of consulting on the restructuring of domestic trusts. The filings released yesterday show she earned at least $80 million for that work, according to Bloomberg’s compilation of the data. The revised total is in addition to the amount reported last week, according to Anderson.

Pritzker, whose family founded Hyatt Hotels Corp, ... disclosed last week that she earned $54 million in consulting fees last year for a similar restructuring of trusts based in the Bahamas, also over 10 years. The Bahamas’ income wasn’t changed in the amended disclosure document.

* * * 

“Ms. Pritzker was engaged by the U.S. trustee of trusts for the extended Pritzker family for advice on restructuring trust investments for the purpose of dividing assets along individual family lines,” Anderson said. They included investments in Hyatt, Marmon Holdings Inc., Union Tank Car Co. and non-hotel real estate investments including the Hyatt Center office tower in Chicago, she said.

So, if I'm reading this right, Pritzker has "earned" about $165,000,000 over the past decade for "managing various trusts." [CENSORED.]

About the only controversy regarding Ms. Pritzker's nomination is that her family owned bank failed back in 2001. She testified that "ya know, I feel very badly about that." But she asserts she had no management role in the bank so bears no responsibility. Honestly, what could she have done? She was too busy earning $31 per second (every second of every day of every year for a decade) managing those pesky trusts.

The Green Mountain State

The state motto for Vermont is "freedom and unity."  The motto raises the (unintentional) question about whether one is free to not be part of the unity in Vermont.  One thing that judges in Vermont are not free to do is serve as long as they are able.  Like many states, Vermont has a mandatory retirement age for judges.  For most states the mandatory retirement age is either 70 or 75.  Vermont, however, has a mandatory retirement age of 90.  That is a somewhat interesting choice by the Vermont legislature given that it is 11 years longer than the average life expectancy for someone living in Vermont.  I could not find anything that showed how many Vermont judges, if any, have served until they were 90.  But I guess that it is good that Vermont judges have more freedom to chose how long they serve than judges in our states.

Apple's taxes

Tim Cook, Apple's CEO, testified in front of Congress the other day about Apple's tax-avoidance strategies. One of the main topics was the so called "Double Irish" scheme, which Joe Nocera describes:

This strategy, which was the primary focus of Tuesday’s hearing, involves setting up a shell subsidiary in an offshore tax haven — a k a Ireland — and transferring most of Apple’s intellectual property rights to the dummy subsidiary. The subsidiary, in turn, charges “royalties” that allows it to capture billions of dollars in what otherwise would be taxable profits in the United States. In Ireland, according to Apple, it pays an astonishing 2 percent in taxes, thanks to a deal it has with the government.

Nocera thinks this is bad business for Ireland, somehow:

Question for the government of Ireland: Do you really want your country to be known as an offshore tax haven? Indeed, at a time when your citizens are dealing with the pain of an austerity program, how can you justify allowing Apple to pay virtually no taxes on a subsidiary established solely to avoid taxes in the United States? Just wondering. 

These kind of rhetorical questions often mask stupid arguments, and that is true here. In fact, Ireland has nothing to lose by allowing Apple to do this. As noted in Nocera's column, Apple has no employees and no offices in Ireland. Yet it pays taxes there! Nocera says it is "an astonishing 2 percent," which he later calls "virtually no taxes." But two percent of a very big number is a very big number. Apparently Apple pays 2 percent of its IP royalties to the government of Ireland. I would say that is astonishing indeed—and a great deal for Ireland.

So to answer Nocera's question directly: Ireland can justify allowing Apple to pay virtually no taxes because virtually no taxes is better than actually no taxes. Isn't this pretty obvious? Just wondering.

Is king of latex a desirable nickname?

Continuing our coverage the misadventures of Michigan circuit court judge Wayne McCree (see here, here, here, and here) we report, thanks to Mlive.com, that Judge McCree's judicial misconduct trial has started.  According to the testimony, Judge McCree when presented with a claim that he impregnated his mistress responded by saying he was the "king of latex."  I assume this means that Judge McCree used condoms and not that he dressed like the gimp in Pulp Fiction.

Umbrella Umbrage

A few days ago, Mr. Gillette posted about a sort of strange photograph taken of a Marine holding an umbrella for President Obama during an outdoor press conference. Mr. Gillette mused:

[T]he first thing I thought when I saw the picture was, why do they use a member of

the United States Marine Corps to hold an umbrella over the President?  I'm reasonably confident that the President himself doesn't decide who holds an umbrella for him.  I wonder how it was determined that umbrellas should be held by members of the Marines?

It turns out, however, that the President does indeed choose his own umbrelladiers. The Washington Post reports:

Slogging through a drizzly Rose Garden news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, President Obama took a break to ask for some rain protection.

“I am going to go ahead and ask folks, why don’t we get a couple of Marines — they’re going to look good next to us — just because I’ve got a change of suits but I don’t know about our prime minister,” he said as two Marines appeared at the lecterns with umbrellas. “There we go. That’s good.” He gestured to the soggy press corps, adding, “You guys I’m sorry about.”

According to the Post, conservatives are unhappy about the President's little joke. For example, Lou Dobbs tweeted:

Obama expects our troops to hold damn umbrellas rather than go inside: It's disrespectful, inconsiderate, classless.
— Lou Dobbs (@loudobbsnews) May 17, 2013

There also appears to have been a breach of protocol because apparently male Marines are not allowed to carry umbrellas. That said, title 10 of the U.S. Code also states that Marines are to "perform such other duties as the President may direct." So perhaps the conscription into umbrella duty was an appropriate exercise of executive power after all.

The Gillette-Torvik Blog will continue to cover this breaking story, which I've code-named "Umbroglio."