Above The Fold

Cindy Lou: Then And Now

(I'm actually a little late on this. More.)

Pat Robertson Speaking Truth And Speaking Crazy

We start off with a question from a gal in some crazy church. They can't date? At all? Ever? And Pat gives her some pretty good advice: That church is crazy so get the heck out of there.

But before that, for a reason that can't be explained, he throws out the hot opinion that gays will die out because they can't reproduce. Hey, I'm no scientist, but I think there's a flaw in that theory.

Random Index 1969

• Bobcat killer
• Were the "Harlem Stars" anything like the "Harlem Globetrotters"?
• Sudden death of County Clerk

Crazy Russian Ex-Girlfriend Goes All NASCAR

Story.

Random Friday Morning Thoughts

• To me, there's a distinct difference between the hacking of Sony and the threats if the movie was shown. The Interview was pulled because of the threats, not the hacking. The killing of the movie could have occurred because of the threats alone. 
• But all of this North Korea controversy reminded me how shockingly funny Team America: World Police was. I remember talking to a Wise County prosecutor shortly after it came out. He thought the movie constantly made fun of liberals. I thought it constantly made fun of the Right Wing.  It actually did both.
• The way ISIS has been quickly beaten back, they really were the J.V. A vicious little J.V., but the J.V. nonetheless. 
• My outdoor Christmas lights have yet to  blow a single fuse or trip a single breaker. It only took me five years and a billion extension cords to get it right.
• Mark Cuban is spending 90% of his time on social media this week promoting a silly app called Cyber Dust which is destined to fail. 
• I get Slumped Shoulders when anyone involved in American sports yells "We just shocked the world. baby!" after a win.
• The Star-Telegram has an editorial today encouraging a smooth transition between the outgoing and incoming Tarrant County DAs. What's the point of an editorial like that? Is there someone who desires the opposite? It's like encouraging civility during Christmas, respecting your neighbor, or safe driving. Not exactly a hot opinion. 
• The Junior In The House had a female friend over last night and then two boys showed up.  (Ugh.) I was feeling pretty good about them until I went outside and realized they had arrived on skate boards. 
• I'll be throwing up later after I read the new Texas Monthly article on Joe Jamail entitled, "The Greatest Lawyer Who Ever Lived."
• Sports (1) Evil Empire news: I don't know who those two high school kids are, but the fact they announced they were signing with Texas caused my Twitter timeline to blow up this morning. (2) It looks like all the remaining Texas high school championship games will be broadcast on Fox Sports Southwest, (3) The Mavs trade for Rajon Rondo is the equivalent of going all in. If they don't win this year, it will be considered a stupid move. And they only win if Tyson Chandler stays healthy and Dirk doesn't peeter out. Good luck with all that.  (4) Watched the end of the Notre Dame/FSU again last night. Notre Dame got screwed. The announcers even incorrectly guessed at who was called for interference. Edit: The penalty wasn't on the receiver pushing straight back. It was on the receiver running the slant. 
• Hey, they stole my catapult!!!! (If my catapult had turned into a functional monster)  . . .

Pregnant Dancing Gals

Nothing says Christmas like that.

Uh, "Hey, Now"?

"Elizabeth! I'm Coming To See Ya!"*

Two Florida men were dying to own a Barbie car so desperately that one of them faked a heart attack to create a diversion to allow the other to steal it from a Walmart. Tarus Scott, 30 and Gerard Dupree, 27, were arrested after their alleged ploy to steal the girl’s toy was caught on tape, reports Wesh.com. Surveillance footage from the Lake Wales Walmart on Tuesday shows two men loading a cart with a power wheel Barbie car, a Leap Frog tablet, and a Barbie Glam vacation house before trying to dupe store security. Scott appears to roll the stolen goods out of the store as the man who police have named as Dupree fakes a coronary to distract customers and employees from the theft. Concerned passers-by stop to help the suspect in apparent distress and one even appears to make a 911 call.

Story.
______________
*Very dated Sanford and Son reference.

Gal Gets Car Booted. Won't Be Denied.

Random Thursday Morning Thoughts

• If you object to restoring relations with Cuba, you are living in the 1960s. Doing what the President has proposed seems like a no brainer for at least the last 20 years. 
• It will take decades, but Cuba will eventually have a ton of beachfront hotels and casinos which will be huge destinations for Americans. Win-Win. 
• Sony's decision yesterday not to release The Interview came after the top five movie chains announced they would not show the movie. I still think my civil liability theory I proposed yesterday is behind all of this (as opposed to "bowing to terrorists"), but I haven't heard anyone else mention it. 
• A good movie would be one about how the making and releasing of a movie caused an international incident after computer hackers got involved. 
• Mark Davis this morning said that every theater should have released the movie even if it took "six cop cars" around every one of them and if "anyone so much as looked crossways at you they would be taken down." Good grief. Talk about "terrorists winning". 
• Starting today, there will be ten state high school championship games at Cowboys Stadium this weekend.
• It'll probably be in the Update, but southbound 287 out of Decatur was shut down this morning because of a wreck in the construction zone. Completely shut down. 
• The death sentence, even in this era of rare death sentences, was pretty much expected in the trial of the Ex Kaufman JP. 
• I can kind of understand the post verdict "victim impact statements" in that case (although I'd never give one -- what's done is done), but I don't understand a judge grandstanding after the sentencing (which he had no control over.) The judge said, in an effort to pander for the cameras, "You murdered a little old lady, and you would have murdered two other innocent people if you would have had the opportunity. That puts you right there with Charles Manson and Jeffrey Dahmer and Richard Speck. But the people of Kaufman County know you've been scared for the last couple of years. There's no reason to be scared anymore."
• And I'm not sure those last two sentences make any sense. 
• I suspect most people don't know who Richard Speck was. He's been dead for almost 25 years. 
• And the post verdict prosecutor/investigator photo op drives me nuts. There's a great phrase I've always loved for those engaged in public service: "Do your job and then go home."
• Mrs. LL recorded Survivor and watched it when she finally could last night. I woke up near midnight and she was still downstairs. 
• I have no control over whether that crazy Captcha keyword requirement appears for comment posting, but it sounds like it is gone. 
• Beginning right now in 1983, the metroplex would experience 295 straight hours of temperatures below freezing. Man, I remember that. 
• Hey, I don't care about the Armed Forces Bowl in Fort Worth, but how would you like to be a player for the University of Pittsburgh? In the last 24 hours, your coach resigned to go to coach Wisconsin and the school then fired the Athletic Director. Now go out and practice!
• No injuries this morning, but this is a pretty crazy picture after a school bus T-boned a car in Grand Prairie. 
• It snowed on Christmas here about three or four years ago.  I was smart enough to sit back, relax, and watch it realizing I might never see that happen again. 

We've Got Us Some Wise County Heros Right Here If Wise County Were In Alabama

 Pink handle on that gun.

 Hey, now.

Not daughter and father. Also not Mrs. LL and me. 

Someone drives by who you recognize from your surveillance tape as the people that broke into your home. Do you call the cops? Not in Alabama. No siree. You draw down on them.

P.S. Does everyone have surveillance cameras these days?

1982 Channel 4 Christmas Commercial

There's Dale Hanson in there before he got fired.  If interested, [Grumpy] Uncle Barky has some background on this.

Back then, Channel 5 was still with NBC and Channel 8 was still with ABC.  However, Channel 4 was actually affiliated with CBS, while Channel 11 was an independent station.  Then at some point (the 1980s?), Channel 11 become an affiliate of CBS and Channel 4 became a Fox outlet.  So suddenly one day, the Channel 4 news crew had "Fox" instead of "CBS" in its graphics. (I'm pretty sure this video was when Channel 4 was still part of CBS. That Fox 4 News graphic in the corner seems to be added later.)

Deer vs. Bicyclist: Who Ya Got?

I guess that's really not much of a contest.

Random Wednesday Morning Thoughts

• The testimony yesterday from the ex-wife/co-defendant of the ex Kaufman County JP on trial for capital murder was beyond bizarre. Putting aside how she came across as almost happy to have memories of the killings, she fully admitted to assisting in the offense of capital murder. Now she has, at the very least, a guaranteed life sentence without the possibility of parole in her own trial. At worst, she'll get the death penalty. 
• But didn't she have a deal with the prosecutors in exchange for her testimony? She said no. The prosecutors said no. So if a plea bargain is reached for anything other than life in prison, alarms are going to go off. As they should. 
• There is now a threat of a 9/11 like attack of any theater which shows The Interview -- the comedy about a scheme to kill the leader of North Korea.  Don't movie theaters have a huge liability issue here? If a bomb goes off, you can just hear a Plaintiff's lawyer say, "You were warned that a theater would be blown up and you showed the movie any way?" And the only other option is to provide metal detectors and other over the top security -- not exactly conducive to a good movie going experience. Or a profit. 
• When I first heard the premise of The Interview months ago, it made me uncomfortable. 
• The catapult project for the Sixth Grader In The House must be made of one single coat hanger. 
• The Family Cat decided to play basketball with a Christmas tree ball after we went to bed last night. I think her game went into overtime. 
• I was confused that Deion Sanders wife was sentenced to seven days in jail for child custody violations during a hearing on a claim of defamation by Deion. Seems like those would be two separate cases. (At least that's the way it was reported.)
• Nice book-in photo of her, by the way.
• And regarding the defamation claim, the judge granted a temporary injunction against the ex-wife and "ordered her to remove any statements from social media or videos posted online by her or people connected to her that could be construed as damaging to her ex-husband." First, that's a very vague order. Second, I didn't think a judge could order the alleged defamatory material removed but that the only remedy was money damages. But in Texas, at least for now, a judge can do that. However, he can't order the defendant to not repost the same material in the future. It doesn't seem worth the effort. 
• When anyone in the house hands me an Android phone, I might as well be reading Japanese. I don't understand either.
• One thing I forgot to mention about The Reluctant Astronaut: The great Leslie Nielsen was one of the co-stars. If Don Knotts said something crazy, Nielsen would get that confused look on his face which later would become a staple of the Airplane and The Naked Gun movies. Funny. 
• We could have Bush vs. Clinton in the next presidential election. Ah, America. Where anyone can grow up to be president.  Edit: I knew I read that yesterday but didn't remember it was commenter Katy.  The Liberally Lean Editorial Staff regrets this oversight. 
• Texas penalty for abortion providers in 1879. If the mother died or the fetus had been viable, they weren't messing around.

Above The Fold

Bill Clinton Still Livin' Large

Obviously A Case Of Mistaken Identity

2nd suspect arrested in fatal shooting at Fort Worth bar http://t.co/NDcDIW85J0 #txcrime pic.twitter.com/cInaXBXNPP
— Star-Telegram (@startelegram) December 16, 2014

Get Me This Turtle!

Speaking Of . . .

Britney Spears looks nothing like Britney Spears on this magazine cover http://t.co/bA7StYTpUq pic.twitter.com/OJ50fthEsi
— BuzzFeed (@BuzzFeed) December 16, 2014

. . .  What have they done to Britney!!!!!!

Very Generic Announcement

I am excited to announce I will actively explore the possibility of running for President of the United States: https://t.co/luY4lCF2cA.
— Jeb Bush (@JebBush) December 16, 2014

Wise County Scam Alert Update

Just got a call from a friend in Decatur who, this morning, almost had parents scammed in the exact same scheme I almost fell for. (Documented here in October.)

The M.O. was exactly the same: Call a kid's grandparents, pretend to be the grandson, claim to be in jail, ask for money via a special money card, and give instructions of "don't call my parents, please."

Incredible.

Fortunately, the grandparents did call my friend who had read about my experience.  Plot thwarted.

A quick Google search shows this scam has exploded in the last couple of years.

Edit: I'm trying to get the phone number of the scammers.

Random Tuesday Morning Thoughts

• Meant to mention yesterday: There was an arrest over the weekend in connection with the missing Fort Worth girl who disappeared after leaving the Shops of Legacy. That seemed like some pretty slim evidence they have against that guy. 
• "It didn't take long for New York Magazine's story on a 17-year-old stock whiz with a rumored net worth of $72 million to make a splash. But the story's juicy premise unraveled almost as quickly." There sure have been a lot of screwups by major publications lately. Rolling Stone. Boston Globe. New York Magazine. 
• There's nothing more ironic than Ted Cruz trying to jack with the Senate Rules in order to jack with the President only to now be blamed by fellow Republicans that his maneuver allowed the confirmation of 12 judicial appointees of the President. He's got a lot of Mark Cuban in him: Only believing he's the smartest man in the room.
• Speaking of Cuban, he slighted Dallas City Councilwoman Jennifer Staubach Gates in a series of emails.  Dude. She has "Staubach" in her name. You're in Dallas. Do the math.
• I'm no expert in questionnaires, but whoever prepared the official questionnaire for Bridgeport High School students inquiring if they are interested in soccer doesn't want a soccer program. It might as well have asked, "Are you willing to give up everything that is dear and sacred to you in order to have a soccer program?" 
• Did you see the video of the diabetic in Rockwall County who was just driving on the grass alongside the road? I'll give big kudos to the Constable who stopped him for his quick assessment of the situation. So many cops just assume alcohol or drugs are involved in a case like that, but he knew right away he was a diabetic. 
• Bridgeport and Decatur Boys are both in the Top 25 in basketball. 
• The Sandy Hook parents have sued the manufacturer of the AR-15 used in the school shooting because, the best I can tell, it was a perfectly functioning AR-15. 
• A Cowboys thought: It's not probable, but Demarco Murray may have played his last game for the Cowboys. How? His injury keeps him out the last two games, the Cowboys lose both and miss the playoffs, they can't reach a contract with Dez Bryant so they use the franchise tag on him, and Murray goes somewhere else for bigger free agent bucks. 
• Confusion in the Dallas Marathon: A female relay runner shot past the winner of the female full marathon division at the last second preventing the winner from receiving the satisfaction of snapping the tape. And it caused a question mark to form over the heads of the announcers.
• Overnight: The Taliban stormed a school in Pakistan and killed 126.
• Shoutout to a loyal reader (and a stranger) from Bakersfield, CA who sent me a Britney Spears DVD for Christmas. Yes, you read that correctly. 

Outgoing DA Moving Into The Advertising Business?

I'm sure there's an explanation of why the Dallas DA's office is tweeting out a link to an app on the iTunes store.  Link was originally here. We'll see if it stays up.

Supreme Court This Morning: Cops Can Detain You Even If You Did Nothing Wrong

As of this morning, we now have a new rule made up on the fly.

If a cop makes a "reasonable" mistake about what the law is, he can stop you for violating what he believes the law to be even if he is dead wrong. Incredible. Simply incredible.

In the new case, the defendant had only one taillamp working. The cop mistakenly believed that North Carolina law required two taillamps. He was wrong.  It only required one.  Up until this morning, the rule was that if the cops stopped you for a traffic violation that wasn't actually a violation, any evidence they discovered after the stop couldn't be used against you.  Not only would the ticket be thrown out, but anything else they found could not be used against you.

Now, the ticket still gets thrown out, but if other evidence is discovered which is incriminating, the cops and prosecutors still get to use it. (Count down to some goofball who fires off the, "Well, don't have anything illegal in your car and you won't have to worry about it" line.)

But this will give rise to just a ton of more issues. For example, most cops in Texas believe that if you have a broken taillamp that you have committed a traffic violation.  That's not true. So long as there is SOME red light coming from the broken taillight, that's not a violation.  Can they stop you for that now and simply say, "I was mistaken about that law"? Doesn't that sound like a reasonable mistake? However, does it matter that a court interpreted that statute almost thirty years ago to say any red light emitting is sufficient? Do the cops still get a pass? Does it matter that the court case was taught a seminar they attended? Do I now have to find out what a particular cop was taught at a seminar? Isn't it to the cops' benefit that they don't teach/learn about that one court case thirty years ago? Or not to learn details about the law in general?

Rate The Safety Of This

Look, I was suspecting to see this gal bounce off the ground or something but it doesn't happen. That being said, I'd rather stand all day on the solid double yellow line on highway 114 than do that. The odds just seem better.

Coach Launches Player By The Hair For Almost Joining Fight

The most confusing thing is that the girl was suspended. Coach, for now, got a pass.

Random Monday Morning Thoughts

• The hostage situation in Sydney, Australia is bizarre.  The guy wants an ISIS flag? Sounds like a lone wolf. 
• Edit: The hostage taker has been identified: "Monis lost an appeal Friday to have charges against him overturned for sending 'offensive and deplorable letters' to the families of servicemen who died in Afghanistan. Monis was also charged with being an accessory to murder in his ex-wife's 2013 death, and was charged this year with indecent and sexual assault of women in 2002. Monis was hit with an additional 40 charges in October."
• A van rolled over on the freeway early on Sunday morning in Bedford and nine people were ejected? Nine? Ejected? All of them? Is that right? Shouldn't that be pretty big news.
• Last night a guy got kicked out of a bar in Arlington and came back and fired 20 shots into cars and into the bar. 
• Emmitt Smith, after every touchdown, used to keep the football and hand it to a guy who would mark it and put it in a storage case for safekeeping. Whatever happened to all of those?
• For some reason, I re-watched The Ghost and Mr. Chicken and The Reluctant Astronaut over the weekend. (Those are old Don Knotts' movies from my childhood -- I've got a full throttle life going on.) Verdict: Still pretty, pretty funny with some very subtle and shocking adult jokes thrown in. But Mrs. LL did a lot of head shaking. 
• Knotts has been dead since 2006.  I put up a quick post about him at the time and referenced The Ghost and Mr. Chicken. 
• Lake Bridgeport is now officially more than 24 feet low. And sits at a shocking 38% of capacity. 
• What timing: On Friday morning I created a post below criticizing the grand jury system. On Saturday, a Tarrant County Assistant DA penned a column for the Star-Telegram in defense of the system.  He wrote, "The old saying that 'a DA can convince a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich' has never applied in Tarrant County."   If I had the number, I would insert at this point the number of cases the Tarrant County grand jury indicted last year and the number they no-billed. 
• And Another update: DNA comes back negative and kid recants. Case dismissed. She was indicted by a grand jury by the way. 
• The Sixth Grader in the House notified me that she also has a catapult project due. Oh, great. I've still got the one for the Junior in the House but that would give rise to an ethical issue.  But then I learned the new project can't involve the use of wood. Which has me very confused.
• The Wise County Commissioners, or more specifically the new judge, has "added to the agenda a community forum, in which citizens may share comments or observations related to county business. There is a three-minute time limit, and large groups should designate a spokesperson." My guess is that they will rarely hear from anyone.