Random Tuesday Morning Thoughts

• After poo-pooing Open Carry last week, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick has proven to be a lap dog of the Tea Party as the group dogged him until he was back on board with the proposition.
• "Baltimore Ravens nose tackle Terrence Cody was indicted Monday morning for animal abuse involving a dog and an alligator, according to the Baltimore County Deputy State's Attorney in Maryland." An alligator? He was immediately released by the Ravens. The Ravens, recall, didn't suspend Ray Rice for beating his fiancee until public pressure forced them to. 
• In other heartwarming NFL news, the NFL Network and Hall of Famer Warren Sapp was fired yesterday after being arrested for allegedly soliciting two prostitutes. More specifically, he got in an argument with the prostitutes over money and they then called police. The argument was his second mistake of the night. (When I first saw the headline of his arrest I thought, "Hey, where was that ex-SMU dean at that time?")
• Speaking of the SMU Dean, I speculated yesterday that the only way he could have been arrested was if he solicited an undercover officer off the street. I was wrong. He used an online ad to set up a meeting with whom he thought was a prostitute at a nice hotel in Frisco. It was actually a sting operation by DPS.  I'm stunned they still do that. And if the public wants to pass moral judgment on a guy like that, so be it. But isn't it a little bit crazy that the government makes what he did a crime? Too many cops?
• Sports: (1) Irony. Garrett Gilbert, UT's once proclaimed "Next Great Quarterback" who was soon cast off only to then have a mediocre career at SMU, now has a Super Bowl ring. He was on Seattle's practice squad. (2) I went back and watched the interception at the end of the Super Bowl and it is stunning to see all the time run off the clock before the snap. It was like Belichick thought they would run a play quickly and Carroll thought Belichick would take a time out if they delayed the snap of the ball. (3) It has now become Sports Wasteland time. 
• The Ticket will have Henry Winkler on today and have been promoting his appearance by calling him, "The Fonz."  I almost prefer to think of him as Barry Zuckerkorn of Arrested Development or Chuck from Night Shift. 
• Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky said yesterday that vaccines should be voluntary and believes they can cause “mental disorders.” The GOP is a mess right now.
• I sure am hearing a lot of good things about the TV show Parenthood.
• Whenever I hear of a major corporation being fined by the government, I don't think the executives meet and say, "We'll we are going to have to cut expenses and we're all going to have to take some pay cuts to pay for this." Instead I think they meet and say, "Looks like we are going to have to jack up our prices on the public and fire some low level management." 
• Fox 4 was doing another story on Chris Kyle last night and they showed footage of a guy kneeling over his grave, drinking from a flask, pouring some of the contents of the flask onto the grave, and then taking another swig. It seemed to very ritualistic. Kind of like a "one last drink with my buddy".  I wonder if that's a common thing? 
• In 1999, I mentioned how society's thoughts about marijuana might be changing because I had seen Diane Sawyer of Good Morning America at the time joke about smoking weed on the air. That was kind of shocking back then. Today, I can't tell you the number of people on the Ticket, and on other media outlets, who openly admit to smoking pot.