And now a few words from the Too Goddamn Much Information department

At the end of an otherwise uninspired account of the trial of former Blue Lake Police Chief David Gundersen, the Times-Standard quoted District Attorney Paul Gallegos making the following candid admission:

“I don’t get to have sex with my wife whenever she doesn’t say ‘no.’”

While you take a moment to let that sink in, let’s go multiple choice to see if we can come up with an appropriate context for this startlingly personal remark.

Without referring to the article, was our illustrious district attorney:

• A. complaining
• B. man-talking with his buds over shots at the Shanty
• C. discussing a law he’d like to challenge with another of his groundbreaking lawsuits
• D. interrogating an alleged victim of a felony
• E. none of the above.

That’s right!! The correct answer is E–none of the above. Gallegos actually plagiarized the remark from a Jodie Foster film in an attempt to appeal to female voters.

So awesome. Chick-flicks rule!!

Happy birthday, Rose!!

Okay, okay.

Maybe it’s not that funny when a duly elected district attorney misleads a criminal grand jury in order to get an indictment against two police officers–and not funnier still when, after being brutally bitch-slapped by a judge, said district attorney says he needs to think about whether he should continue his campaign of harassment.

But whenever we hear the words “Paul Gallegos” and “unprecedented legal theory” in the same sentence, we know there’s a punchline coming eventually.

You just gotta wait for it…

and wait…

and wait.

After all this time, what we get is another Gallegos moment, another unprecedented, groundbreaking, bullshit case tossed long before it ever gets to trial.

In his ruling Tuesday, Judge Feeney said Gallegos provided inadequate instructions to the grand jury, omitted exculpatory information, lacked sufficient evidence to prevail at trial, and did not appear to understand the legal significance of exigent circumstances.

Feeney added that Gallegos’ case was so weak, he was not persuaded Cheri Lyn Moore was even dead, and for all he knew “could be working the deli counter at Winco.”

Alright, alright. We made that last part up.

But this latest debacle raises a number of serious questions, not the least of which is this stumper:

Why is Gallegos always trying to create new law when he obviously has so little interest in enforcing the laws that actually do exist?

Humboldt County: beyond compare

The California Attorney General’s Office has released its long-awaited medical marijuana guidelines, and–who knew?–Humboldt County’s own guidelines far exceed them.

While the state suggests limits of eight ounces of dried dank medicine and six mature plants, Humboldt County allows three pounds of the good stuff and up to 100 plants.

Maybe Humboldt County growers patients are just sicker than those living elsewhere in the state?

As an aside, we can understand why the Times-Standard failed to include that comparison in its otherwise groundbreaking story today. The local information was unbelievably hard to find. After an exhaustive search of the internets, we happened upon some obscure site called Google, into which we cleverly entered the phrase humboldt county medical marijuana. Then after that, we had to search through like a billion results until we got to the first one.

But hey. At least the Times-Standard reported the story.

Hello Fourth Street? Anyone home?

Times-Standard goes all KKK over Wiggins’ ‘bullshit’ remark

“Cross fire”?

Really??

So awesome!

Oh well. When publishing 11-day-old news, primarily cobbled together from other newspaper reports, spicing things up a bit with colorful typos isn’t a bad idea.

Carson Park Mofo blows gold medal in Olympic blog-neglecting event

Carson Park Mofo, occasional administrator of the Eureka Standard blog, came up short Thursday in his quest for the gold in the Olympic blog-neglecting event.

Mofo went 13 days without a new post, just three shy of the world record set in July by Mofo’s archrivals, the Humboldt Mirror bugs.

“Team Mofo was putting up some pretty big numbers,” an ebullient Humbug said after the medals ceremony. “He went 13 days, which is respectable, but keep in mind I’ve had hangovers last longer than that. “

Veteran Olympic commentator Bob Costas had predicted that the showdown between two of the laziest bloggers in the world would provide one of the defining moments of the 29th Olympiad, and the event lived up to its billing.

“By God, this is what American sport is all about,” Costas effused–”right down to the persistent doping rumors. The bugs certainly set the bar low. The Mofo just couldn’t quite slink under it.”

Good thing we’re not juvenile. Oh. Wait.

How did we miss this?

Fired Blue Lake City Manager Wiley Buck will be replaced on an interim basis by retired Mt. Shasta City Manager Jeff Butzlaff.

That’s right–Butzlaff.

Is having a mildly fucked-up name some kind of requirement for the job?

When good acronyms go bad

Are we effing dyslexic?

Early-morning readers of the Times-Standard’s website were treated to yet another headline error, this one stating that “EDP” officers would be joining the Sheriff’s SWAT team.

When asked if the Eureka Police Department had changed its name, Times-Standard ace reporter Thadeus Greenson said it had not, and explained that the newspaper was “experimenting with a variety of error formats” intended to enhance the readership experience.

“Any newspaper can screw up complicated things,” Greenson explained, “but we’re focusing our efforts on making mistakes that are accessible to everyone.

“I mean fuck,” he said. “We misspelled a fucking three-letter acronym in a headline. It doesn’t get much more accessible than that.”

He added that future flubs could include inadvertently reporting both sides of a story, and continuing to run John Driscoll’s sappy column.

Oh this could be fun

A friendly blogger from Memphis, TN, left a tasty tidbit in the Humboldt Mirror’s mailbox last week.

He wrote, “I’ve been going through financial disclosures of a local CongressCritter John Tanner, and found that he made a contribution to Ms. (Bonnie) Neely, and made a trip to Eureka. I’m trying to find the connection.”

He asked, “Why would a 10-term congressman from redneck Tennessee give money to a candidate for supervisor in Eureka, CA?”

Why indeed.

Does either of our readers know the answer?

The blogger went on to say that in Tennessee the blue bugs are more popular than Elvis, and that our penises are obviously “very substantial.”

Okay, okay. We totally made that part up.

Welcome to the Humboldt Redwood Company. And oh, by the way, you’re all fired.

Business etiquette question of the day:

What is the preferred communication medium for terminating the jobs of a few hundred people–many of whom have worked for a predecessor company for decades?

Is it private conversations? Small- or large-group meetings? Personal letters?

Evidently not.

But if you guessed company-wide e-mail memo, you’d be correct.

Management of the Mendocino Redwood Company, one of two companies that prevailed this week in a takeover bid of the bankrupt Pacific Lumber Company, reportedly sent a two-paragraph e-mail to all employees Wednesday afternoon informing them that their employment had terminated simultaneous with the close of the reorganization deal.

While termination came as no surprise, insiders say that communication between MRC management and HRC employees has been shoddy at best, and that at the big moment Wednesday not a single MRC exec could be found to answer questions or ease employees through an excruciating time.

Job offers to many of the recently unemployed are expected to be extended through the weekend, but there are already numerous reports of demotions, wage decreases and general insensitivity.

Here’s the good news, and it is still very good: Hurwitz is gone, and there is little reason to doubt that MRC will be an improvement. And to be fair, a few bumps in the road should be expected in a transition of this magnitude.

But as a little welcoming gift to MRC, we humbly offer the following:

You’ve talked an awful lot about how you plan to treat the trees, wildlife and watersheds of Humboldt County. We’re watching very closely now to see how you treat our people.