Random Monday Morning Thoughts

• Mrs. LL and I had the best time on Halloween night. We wanted to hand out candy to trick or treaters but soon discovered that The Family Pup and Family Rescue Dog go crazy at a doorbell or if we sat on the front porch without them. So we opened the front door on a beautiful night, put up one of those indoor dog fences, and pulled up chairs to the door on the inside of the house. 
• I sometimes give the impression that my little life is all wonderful, but I am just like you. There can be issues which cause a ton of stress. 
• How far has the country developed? It took until 1972 before the Supreme Court struck down state laws that made it a crime to provide birth control to unmarried couples. (Yes, you read that correctly.) 
• That Twittering Judge will be part of the Texas Supreme Court which will hear oral arguments today on this issue: Is a school district liable if it files truancy charges against a parents who home school their children because the school district believes they were "failing to teach their children educational basics." But the parents justify any teaching deficiencies because they "were waiting to be transported to heaven with the second coming of Jesus Christ." This will be great. A far right conservative court having to make a decision regarding devout Christians. 
• Sports: (1) If a football team can be bi-polar, the Longhorns are Exhibit A. (2) This may be the most dramatic sports weekend ever. College football was bizarre with many crazy finishes and we may have seen the greatest kick return ever. And even I got sucked into the World Series games because of the drama. (2A) I'm worried there may be a guy who is now this generation's Bill Buckner, (2B) ESPN was breaking down the Miami kick return like it was the Zapruder film. There is controversy over whether one of the player's knee was down. He was not called down on the field but they went to replay. You know what the rule is before you can overturn the "non-call"? There must be "irrefutable evidence" to the contrary that convinces the replay official "beyond all doubt." That standard is as high as it can get. The criminal justice system sentences people to death if there is only "no reasonable doubt" they are guilty. (4) I love "Surrender Cobra" photos. 
• The biggest Republican candidate problem right now is that they have to go over the top to appeal to the far right conservative base to get the nomination. At least they believe that's the only way you win the nomination. Then after one wins it, he (or she) has to back off and appeal to all of the electorate to win the general election.  That hacks off the conservative base and the general electorate has seen you act like a Rush Limbaugh or Dennis Prager. That's a problem. 
• Candidate Carley Fiorina may have a figurative self inflicted political wound. She was on one of the Sunday morning shows and (once she stopped talking about the "liberal media") she finally admitted she "misspoke" when she said that 92% of the job losses in President Obama’s first term belonged to women. Is "misspoke" a code word for "lie"? 
• There's news of a woman poisoning her own child in Dallas. That's right out of Sixth Sense if covertly done or Jonestown if overtly done.  
• There's a TV ad I've seen a couple of times for treatment of "relapsing multiple sclerosis ." I had no idea that was a huge problem. 
• I mentioned the Aggie Bonfire Memorial yesterday but here's a cool coincidence: There is part of the Memorial which notes that the bonfire did not occur in 1963 because of the Kennedy assassination. A few weeks back I wrote about going to watch the Aggie Band in downtown Fort Worth. Part of my notes were watching the final stage of the band, glancing over and seeing the Kennedy Memorial, and then going over and looking at it.