I was introduced to Thorstein Veblen in college while taking that mouthful of a class, “Economics, Industry, and Competitive Analysis.” (Actually one of my all-time favorite college classes.)

I hadn’t heard much about him since, but he turned up in a MeFi post. As it turns out, his seminal work “The Theory of the Leisure Class” was written long enough ago to be in the public domain, so it’s on Project Gutenberg. Check it. It’s not a light read, but it’s interesting.

OC Cops admitted under oath to planting a loaded gun in Tom Cox’s trunk.

The judge reacted appropriately, of course.

Just kidding, he actively helped the police cover it up and blocked the defendent’s lawyer from asking further questions about it.

A police union ally during his past political campaigns for city council in Newport Beach, Bromberg [the judge] also refused to give the public defender access to two key records in the case: a recorded statement made by a civilian who witnessed police behavior at the scene, and, incredibly, a copy of her own client’s statement to a Huntington Beach internal affairs officer investigating the gun incident.

Under Bromberg’s direction, officials redacted huge portions of the interviews. He then issued a protective order to prevent the public, the media or even Bartholomew and Cox from learning the contents.

Said the judge, “It’s important to protect the privacy rights of the officers involved.”

Police in Socal scare me more than crime does.

Woohoo! I finally broke down and got myself a car. Living in LA won’t be the same. I’ve managed to live in LA without a car for ten months, but I decided I was missing out on too much by depending on LA’s public transportation system and my friends’ generosity to get around. It didn’t hurt that I’ve sort of had a soft spot for the Foci for quite some time. When I saw this 2003 SVT Focus I went through my list of excuses for not buying it, but none were very compelling. It got good reviews and it’s extremely fun to drive.