Liberally Lean From The Land Of Dairy Queen: 1/4/15

1.10.2015

Oh my

	Carson Cunningham (@KOCOCarson)
1/9/15, 8:03 PM Shot of the century by Trevor Booker. #Thunder #Jazz vine.co/v/OpUK9bQhDzI

Barry

1.09.2015

New Jersey Paper Taking You Into The Weekend

Special Weather Report From ESPN

It's frigid in Ft. Worth! David Pollack is doing his best to cope... pic.twitter.com/fdY2HSRSyr
— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) January 9, 2015

Tarrant County Iconic Prosecutor Takes A Shot At New DA

Ex-prosecutor Jack Strickland's stinging letter criticizes @TarrantCountyDA @SharenWilson4DA http://t.co/P1rJq2WhIQ
— Bud Kennedy (@BudKennedy) January 9, 2015

You hardly ever see a former and respected prosecutor take a shot at a new DA. And he's a pretty mild mannered guy.

Something weird is going on. Keep you eye on the DA's office.

Up At The Courthouse All Morning . . .

. . . only to come back and find that the French police went all Rambo on the terrorists.

And to think we once dishonored that country by renaming our tasty fried potato product as "Freedom Fries." We didn't know who we were messing with.

I'm Conflicted By This Bit

Girls pretend to find $100 underneath lady's chair. Lady swears (to God, no less) that it is hers.

But the pranksters were pretty proud of themselves. That was some serious laughing as they fled.

Random Friday Morning Thoughts

I didn't know there was a Texas Music Office which is an actual government entity in Austin. Any way, it has had one director for the last 25 years. Then Gov. Abbott fired him yesterday. (I wonder if Abbott will hire Lawrence Welk IV or someone like that?)
The other day I meant to say Bill O'Reilly didn't really write Killing Kennedy but only slapped his name on it for publicity. I called him a "ghostwriter". Wordkyle pointed out that word means the exact opposite of what I intended. He was exactly right.
The most "diverse" new congress in our nation's history is 80% white, 80% male, and 92% Christian.
The Sixth Grader in the House was doing the "drop an egg from nine feet" without breaking it experiment last night. I think she went through a lot of eggs.
Newsweek had a cover story on the accuracy of the Bible a couple of weeks ago. Stuff like that really interests me but the subject is sure a lightning rod. Last time I checked there were over 2,500 comments.
Elvis Presley played what is now the Fort Worth Cowtown Coliseum in Northside four times while age 20/21.
Ted Cruz reported for jury duty this morning. If he ends up on a criminal jury panel, the defense lawyer should automatically be given an extra strike.
Economic news this morning: Unemployment down to 5.6%.
Things are getting confusing in France this morning. They've got the two remaining terrorists cornered but now we've learned they have a hostage. And now there's a second hostage situation which involves the guy who shot a police officer the day after the Charlie Hebdo massacre.
I read some of the background on the Leroy Burch/John Yarbrough scandal yesterday after I linked to a federal appellate opinion. There was definitely some bad stuff going on, but the U.S. Attorney's really had to shoehorn it through some vague federal statutes to make it a federal case. (Basically every federal crime has to impact interstate commerce for the feds to have jurisdiction.)
Jimmy Johnson is one of the 15 finalists for the the NFL Hall of Fame but most think his career was too short. But hasn't the NFL allowed "other contributions" to count? I mean, he's been a fixture on Fox pre-game for over a decade.
The NFL sanctioned "independent investigation" found that the NFL never had possession of the Ray Rice elevator video. I wonder if the authors wrote their conclusions their first day on the job. What a charade.
Guy saves drone from going in water. Kinda funny. But look closely in the background at 1:24. What is that creature going under the bridge? Alligator? Snake? Loch Ness Monster? That sucker is big.
Kind of odd that the Morning News and Star-Telegram both went with the same old picture today and the same "Frozen in Time" headline:

1.08.2015

That Was One Weird Error!

Wait RT @KySportsRadio: This is a really bad error in Elizabethtown newspaper...I mean really bad: pic.twitter.com/dAgvAO8TKN
— Isaac (@WorldofIsaac) January 8, 2015

From the website:

Misquoted? And the corrected quote is to delete the entire quote?

(And all of that overshadows the very weird statement that most would not be attracted to helping people.)

I Wish Wise County Could Get Funding To Do This

Bexar County in San Antonio has renovated its old historic courtroom

The outside of the Wise County Courthouse is majestic. I can't tell you the number of out-of-towners from over the years I've seen who have stopped to photograph it.

But inside, it's kind of a dump. Every nook and cranny is occupied with some kind of office. And wires (some properly encased and others not) run along the outside of the walls because those walls aren't made up of two by fours and sheetrock.

The district courtroom we have is what I would want restored. I've heard that up until around 1950 or so, it had a circular balcony much like To Kill a Mockingbird. Then a ceiling was put on it and a second courtroom was built on top of it. Obviously, the balcony was removed. It takes a lot of imagination these days to try to picture the way it once was.

Crazy note: I have never seen one single photograph of the courtroom as it used to exist. And I've talked to a ton of folks over the years who are interested in Wise County history that have never seen one as well. That's pretty amazing.

An Actual Public Service Blog Post

Amazon adding more than 500 jobs at Haslet fulfillment center, Six Flags to hold job fair. http://t.co/FYzY99fHnV http://t.co/9JLRoDnMXJ
— Steve Kaskovich (@stevekasko) January 8, 2015

There's a bunch of Wise County folks who work at that Amazon plant, and here's a chance for some more.

Clippers Owner Is Killin' It

Random Thursday Morning Thoughts

Kinky Friedman was on ESPN's Outside The Lines yesterday and referred to Jerry Jones and Chris Christie as being in the "most important latent homosexual relationship since Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson." Host Bob Ley suddenly became very uncomfortable.
There was an allegation last year that a Wise County deputy had photographed registered sex offenders in various stages of dress. Now Wise County has been sued in connection with one of the alleged incidents. (Note to Messenger: That's cause number CV14-12-924). I don't know if the lawsuit has any merit but there's an odd reference in it to former Wise County Sheriff Leroy Burch and Chief Deputy Sheriff John Yarbrough. (History.)
WBAP's Hal Jay brought up some weird study this morning that proclaimed that if you are born during a lot of solar activity you are more likely to die earlier than someone who was born when there was not. When a co-host asked what the solar activity was like in June of 1955, Jay said, "It was June! Of course there was a lot of solar activity!" (He was not joking.)
College Game Day has set up shop in Sundance Square this weekend for the National Championship Game. Might be a tad chilly.
I just learned that The People's Choice Awards was on last night (I wouldn't have watched anyway) but all you need to know is that Best Comedic Actor went to Adam Sandler. Really. Is this the 1990s?
It is almost poetic that Cowboy great Jethro Pugh passed away on a week when the iconic image of him digging in the ground for footing during the Green Bay Ice Bowl game has been shown on TV about a million times.
Troy Aikman said this morning that he wasn't surprised that Jason Garrett went for it on 4th and 6 last week and "kind of expected it." Riiiiighhhhhttttttt.
Let me tell you the conclusion of any scientist studying the earthquakes in Irving: "It could be just natural earth movement. We can't rule out fracking but can't say it didn't contribute to it. And we can't predict the number or the magnitude of quakes in the future."
Yesterday, Senator Majority Leader Mitch McConnell cautioned that terrorists are still out there “and they want to kill us wherever they can find us.” I didn't realize we were that hard to find.
"The pen is mightier than the sword" didn't seem very accurate yesterday.
For a couple of years I dogged the Tarrant County DA's office for hiring a Public Information Officer who seemed to be used as more of a campaign spokesman than a government DA's spokesman. (Although she was really good at her job.) This morning she announced she had quit eight days into the administration of the new DA, Sharen Wilson. Smart move. Smart girl. Someone hire her. She's a former Star-Telegram reporter.

1.07.2015

I Guess It Is Crazy

Hey, I don't know what she is legally entitled to but she thinks it is 1/2 of his $18 billion empire that was built during their 26 years of marriage. As crazy as it sounds, I guess she could be correct.

Story.

Random Wednesday Morning Thoughts

I got an email report from someone I trust who reports that Decatur's "Speedo Man" (he's pictured in the masthead, above) has died. According to the email: "He was a good guy with a good sense of humor. He was one other best dozer operators I've ever met. It was uncanny. He could push a pile of dirt or timber 200 yards and not lose an ounce of the dirt pile or there wouldn't be a teaspoon of dirt in the whole ball of timber if pushing timber or brush. He could barely read or write but he could eyeball grades and cut them to within +/- an inch or two. Again, it was uncanny. Inspectors would take their lunch breaks on the site to watch him work." He never EVER drank water- only coffee no matter how hot it was.
I'm pretty sure that the SMU scientists erected their own seismic equipment within the last week and half at the old Texas Stadium site. Very nice timing considering the last 24 hours of activity.
Big news this morning: At least 12 people killed in Paris in a terroristic attack at a satirical magazine. (I clicked on a "graphic footage" link this morning and wish I hadn't.) They were targeting specific individuals including the editor and a cartoonist. There are already collections on the Internet of the paper's most "offensive" covers -- they are obviously in French but there are explanations in the sidebar in that link.
Does Salman Rushdie still live in fear after all of these years?
There is a Wise County inmate who has been mailing out uh, toilet paper, to various county officials over the past week or so.
I rarely watch MSNBC, but Rachel Maddow last night had the funniest segment as she ran footage of Joe Biden interacting with the newly sworn Senators and their families. It truly is like Christmas to him. And it's so tense watching him because he's so wheels off.
Every friend I have who has ever used Uber loves it.
"DALLAS — A Dallas attorney, Andrew Lee Siegel, faces up to 25 years in prison after pleading guilty in a nearly $1.6 million vodka investment scam." I thought he might be associated with "Sigel's wine of the week" until I discovered is name is spelled differently that the liquor chain.
For the Republicans to take over both houses of Congress yesterday, they sure seemed grumpy.
I had no idea the very wheels off Kennedale "And Another" teacher was released from prison last month. (Credit: BagofNothing for seeing it.) She had been sentenced to five years in August of 2012, but she probably had accumulated a ton of back time. If I remember correctly, all her "victims" were of legal age but she was prosecuted under the teacher/student "improper relationship" statute.
I'm late to this story, but the Assistant Dallas DA who got a arrested for DWI has to be a moron for firing off the "Do you know who I am" card. (But he sure looked "fly" in the Channel 8 video.)

1.06.2015

Above The Fold

Another Irving/Dallas Earthquake At Around 3:10 p.m.

This one sounds bigger based upon initial reports.

I'm checking the Liberally Lean seismic equipment.

Developing . . .

DEVELOPING: USGS confirms quake in Dallas area. Magnitude in order of 3.5 (preliminary/unofficial). More to Come. pic.twitter.com/sWVc4aelsb
— WFAA TV (@wfaachannel8) January 6, 2015

Edit: If you read this on Wednesday morning, you're probably aware there were eight more over the next few hours.

#BREAKING Photo from scene of crash involving a Dallas fire truck. Cement truck rolled over onto the cab of a truck. pic.twitter.com/H4jBjc4IjD
— Ryan Wood (@RyanWoodDFW) January 6, 2015

Firetruck and cement trick collide. Cement truck falls on pickup.

Now This Is Beginning To Make Sense

	Robert Wilonsky (@RobertWilonsky)
1/6/15, 9:46 AM Chris Christie, Jerry Jones and the Port Authority of NY & NY -- now THAT's an unholy trinity share.d-news.co/KzzKVaM pic.twitter.com/1gZ2fMQCLj

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