Random Wednesday Morning Thoughts

• I'm always on the lookout for ads disguised as news story and there is no question this article about movie and record rankings in the Dallas Morning News is actually an ad for some outfit named "CD Source".  The tip off? This quote from the owner in the article: “Besides music we have a large selection and variety of used and new movies.”
• This isn't breaking news, but if you want to see a map of the massive electrical lines which have destroyed the landscape over the past couple of years in North Texas, and especially Wise County,  here ya go. 
• Funny new nickname I heard this morning for Johnny Manziel: "The Money Badger."
• If I'm the Aggies, I'd have my backup QB taking lots of snaps, but I still don't know if the NCAA will take action and declared Manziel ineligible.  A few weeks back there was huge saber rattling by the biggest five football conferences about breaking off from all other teams and the NCAA altogether. The NCAA is scared to death about that and now they've got to deal with this Johnny Football mess. 
• I'm a third of the way through Empire of the Summer Moon and am still loving it. Yesterday a came across a passage about Bianca Babb, a young girl living "near Decatur" who was kidnapped by the Comanches but ultimately returned after a ransom was paid. (I learned there's a historical marker about her two miles east of Chico on FM 1810). Any of her relatives still in the area?
• And the book is sympathetic to the Comanches but even the author can't candy coat it: They were truly bloodthirsty savages. 
• Lake Bridgeport is becoming infamous. The Star-Telegram has an article today entitled "Part of Lake Bridgeport nearly dry enough to ‘drive across’"
• The Paradise/Bridgeport model is in another Maxim contest.
• The U.S. hit Yemen again last night with another drone strike -- this time killing at least six. We truly are entering the era of the robot war. I mean, if the invasion of  Normandy were to occur today,  it would be ton with 5,000 drones, right? 
• Placed in my "to be read later" file (and I do have one), this New Yorker article about how police and prosecutors abuse forfeiture laws. The author's lead "example takes place 176 miles east of here, outside of Longview, in the little town of Tenaha, Texas.' (Credit: Frontburner)
• If I come across a long article I want to read later, I email it to myself in gMail, put a personalized label on it named "To Be Read Later", and then archive it. When I have time, I go back and look in that folder of stuff to read. 
• The Fifth Grader in the House was eating some kind of candy out of a box yesterday that were formed in a combination of Angry Birds and Star Wars characters. Idiocracy.