12.02.2016

It's Friday. Let's Get Out Of Here.

Thought those were piranha puppies for a second.
There is the problem of having to eventually leave.
You've got to think things through. Part 1.
Part 2.
There's a right way to do a U-Turn and this is not it.

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Sid Miller News Involving Steak



http://www.statesman.com/news/state--regional/sid-miller-didn-like-his-steak-but-was-his-nasty-note-waitress-well-done/wpnDzo77IyexE8rzOXdt4H/
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Celebrating Brit's Birthday With The Announcement Of Lifetime Movie

Lifetime is set to dramatized Britney Spears’ story — without the singer’s blessing, mind you – and Entertainment Tonight was on the set, dishing out a first look at the TV movie biopic, Britney. Australian actress Natasha Bassett talked with ET about playing Spears. “I have a huge amount of respect for Britney and for her career. I listened to her music so much growing up. I have videos of me as a tween practicing her songs in the mirror with a hairbrush in my hand.” She added, “I’ve watched every video I can. Every interview I can. I just immersed myself into Britneyland.”

 The only tragedy was that I was not called in as a consultant. I'd tell them right away we need to find a new lead actress.
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Random Friday Morning Thoughts





  • The juicy story of the morning is the DFW pastor suing a car dealership because (1) pastor takes nude photos of wife at home, (2) they go to buy a car, (3) he gives the phone to a salesman because of a financing document he has on the phone, (4) the salesman allegedly goes through the guys photos and finds the nude ones and sends them to a buddy, (5) the buddy uploads them to a swingers site. Man, that's a lot to process. Oh, I forgot to mention that the salesman has the very biblically based name of Matthew Luke Thomas. 
  • One of the weirdest thing is that they hired Gloria Allred has their attorney. She's only about one time publicity press conferences and then you never hear anything about the case again. If it is money I was after, I wouldn't hire her.
  • And is the chance of getting money really worth the publicity? There's nothing wrong with taking naked photos of your wife, but I'm not sure I would want to admit I'm dumb enough to keep them on my phone. 
  • Argyle's place kicker makes first team all-district with stats of 32 of 35 PATs and 6 of 8 on field goals. Decatur kicker's stats: 71 or 78 on PATs and 1 for 1 on field goals.
  • Pretty cool: Time elapsed Google earth satellite of the metroplex's growth over the last decade or so. 
  • "Manuel", the fictional character who played a waiter on the BBC sitcom Fawlty Towers, has died. I mention it because Fawlty Towers is one of my all time favorite comedy series. 
  • So let me get this Carrier deal correct: 1,000 jobs are saved, but Carrier will still send 1,300 jobs to Mexico, get $7 million from the government and free publicity. The CEO of Carrier is the guy who needs to be President, not Trump. (And then Trump tells a Cincinnati crowd that he's proven there will be "consequences" for American companies moving operations out of the country.)
  • Hey, Wordkyle: New unemployment numbers this morning show it has dropped to 4.6%, the lowest since 2007.
  • It's the 35th birthday of Official Liberally Lean Girl, Britney Spears. 
  • That's a cute Mercedes commercial of the two kids taken to the movie theater on a snowy night. The boy waits anxiously for his little girlfriend wondering if she will show up. But, in reality, they would have been texting like crazy.

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12.01.2016

Book In Comedy


This is from the Smoking Gun so it's probably credible (and the story is believable.)  And that headline is clever.
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Did Decatur Have Nuclear Reactor Meltdown Or Something?


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Random Thursday Morning Thoughts



  • The final Texas numbers are in:
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  • A former Parker County district judge now advertises a criminal conviction expunction practice on Fox News. (During the block for local commercials.) Edit: He didn't use the word 'conviction" - not that it matters. Expunctions in Texas are basically impossible after any judicial resolution other than a dismissal or acquittal. 
  • I keep hearing from various commentators that Scalia wrote the flag burning Supreme Court opinion. (i.e. Bill O'Reilly last night.) No he didn't.
  • I told Mrs. LL that my cotton dress shirts shrink around the neck as they get older. I'm pretty sure her skepticism was the equivalent, "Are you sure you're not just getting fat?"
  • I'm still trying to verify it, but there might have been a police department in Wise County who forgot about two guys in a holding cell overnight when they should have been taken to the Wise County Jail. And I mean completely forgot about.
  • That three person meal between Romney, Trump and Priebus cost over $700. That before taxes and tip.
  • This Carrier deal is the biggest con. And I fear were in for a ton of them. And when Trump talked about Carrier on the campaign trail, he didn't talk about beating them down with tax breaks to make them stay, he said they needed to suffer "consequences" and "retribution" if they left.
  • Steve Eagar last night about a random story: "He has a rap sheet out of Collin County including theft." First, no one calls it a "rap sheet" anymore. Secondly, if the worst thing on your "rap sheet" is theft, it could hardly be called a "rap sheet." 
  • There was some weird small planes flying around 407 and 287 yesterday in Wise County. It was like they were playing with each other. I saw four of them at one time really close to the ground. 
  • It's almost hard to remember that the Cowboys play tonight. And the most amazing thing we'll see is the Viking's Terence Newman on the field. He was drafted by the Cowboys in 2003.
  • Texas has enacted by rule, not by legislation, that fetal remains after an abortion must be buried or cremated. I thought those boys in Austin said they were only concerned about women's health with past abortion rules and regulations?
  • Odd point about gold theft in New York. In one of the surveillance camera's footage the faces of other people were digitized out. In the other, they were not.  (There wasn't any reason to alter the faces of other people. They were walking on a public street.)


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11.30.2016

Gold Flakes? Do You Use Gold Milk?




That was a bold move.
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Above The Fold


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Random Wednesday Morning Thoughts



  • Hot opinion I've heard more than once: The iPhone reads your text messages and feeds them into apps and browsers behind the scenes to have ads target you even when you get on the computer. That's much different than Googling something and then seeing targeted ads.
  • There is something really fishy about the "kidnapped mom" who was found on Thanksgiving. The husband raised $50,000 on a gofundme page while she was missing. And even news stories refer to her as "allegedly" being kidnapped.
  • Newt Gingrich now turning on Trump for considering Mitt Romney, among other things, is delicious. And Mitt lost his mind last night by doing a complete 180 on Trump after meeting with him.
    "I'm not dining with the Devil. Promise."
  • When you are referring to government (not letters), do you know what the difference is between Capitol and Capital ? (Answer: One is a building of government. One is the center of government.)
  • Trump's has selected a former Goldman Sachs banker to lead the Treasury Department.  Good lord. There are some people who are filthy rich right now who are about to get so rich it will need to be rated NC-17 because it will be so obscene.
  • DFW Talk Radio: (1) Mark Davis said yesterday we need to stop even legal immigration for a while because of guys with Visas were taking our jobs. Oddly, he said, "And employers fire you and give you 30 days notice to train them!" That sounded like something  personal had happened to someone he knows. (2) The WBAP boys talking politics every morning at 7:50 is cringe-worthy when Hal Jay asks a guest a question, (3) I'll give credit to the Ticket: Almost everyone of their on-air personalities has no fear of speaking honestly about Trump come what may, (4) Dennis Prager, who is the absolute definition of pseudo-intellectual, said on Monday that those in schools of "higher learning" have not been taught about Vladimir Lenin because colleges are so liberal and want to hide the truth from its students. Amazing. (5) Let me save you some time: Never listen to Chris Krok. By far, the dumbest man in DFW talk radio.
  • If you don't understand why flag burning is not a crime under the U.S. Constitution, I'm not mad at you. I simply understand that you've never sat down to try and understand the issue. (And the right wing's most conservative Supreme Court Justice ever, Scalia, was in the majority of that famous decision which explained it to us all.)  
  • It's kind of like when people come up to me and say, "How can you defend those people?" I don't get mad. I just cannot possibly understand how someone hasn't taken the time to understand the purpose of the criminal defense lawyer in our system. (And, by the way, "those" people are normally your friends and neighbors.)
  • This Trump "cutting a deal" to keep Carrier in Indiana news is nothing but a con. (And even if true -- details are murky -- Trump and Indiana giving a tax break to Carrier to save some jobs sounds very much like a Obama's government bailout of GM which he took so much heat for.)
  • The Giraffe vs. Lion video was fantastic.
  • That's Dollywood in the foreground below:



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11.29.2016

Girlfriend vs. Boyfriend At Gocart Track: Who Ya Got?

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That's Terrifying




(Language warning -- which I think we can excuse.)
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Is He On Drugs?




He's advocating consequences which have been declared unconstitutional since 1989.

And this general theme that the soon-to-be leader of a country wants to crush and silence any dissent (whether it be by the public or, as shown last night, the media) is frightening.

With all of the things on his plate, why is he taking to Twitter at the crack of dawn to talk about a non-issue?


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Random Tuesday Morning Thoughts



  • A man was found dead in a Dallas hotel room and police are looking for four suspects (pictured below.) I'm guessing something very seedy went very wrong.
  • I'm really beginning to like Megyn Kelly who may be the last sane person left at Fox News. She talked last night how she was a high tone lawyer in Chicago (at Jones, Day then Bickel and Brewer -- two big firms). But all she did was work, hated her job, and basically decided to go into journalism while driving into work one day. 
  • Fox 4 had an incredibly interesting guy on last night who is part of the Texas Electoral College -- he was there to talk about another delegate who had resigned rather than vote for Trump. His position: Although he would vote for Trump, he was under no obligation to do so. And the other guy should have stayed and cast his vote for Hillary. 
  • A seventeen year old from Jacksboro has died. Anyone know why/how?
  • I've seen that truck commercial where the strength of the bed is demonstrated by dropping a heavy toolbox into two trucks for comparison. One cracked the steel and the other and one didn't. I don't know anything about physics or engineering, but that doesn't seem to be the most scientific test in the world.
  • I don't reference Idiocracy because it was a good movie. I reference it because it was so prophetic.
  • Speaking of, Trump went on another child-like Twitter rant last night this time with CNN in his cross hairs. (A reporter had said Trump's claim that he won the popular vote if "you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally" was baseless and not supported by evidence.) 


  • And that first one was the President-Elect quoting/retweeting a sixteen year old boy. (And I've got a separate post going up in a second on the absolutely crazy thing he said this morning.)
  • I've never seen so many lawyers not know what they are doing. It's a growing problem. I wonder if the same is true for other fields (i.e. doctors, accountants, etc.)
  • Greg Abbott is already trying to work the Ohio State stabbings into publicity by bringing up "sanctuary cities" -- He's on Fox and Friends this morning.
  • He might want to worry about Texas Grandmother Crime. One grandmother shot another grandmother over a grandchild in a Dallas Walmart parking lot. 



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11.28.2016

Welcome To Crazyville - Population: You

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The Austin City Council's Agenda Starts Off Devilishly


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Let's Review Black Friday





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He Is 22 Years Old



A criminal trial in federal court and he will do it all on his own.
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Random Monday Morning Thoughts


  • Come on! Give the Random Thought Girls a break! It's post-Thanksgiving!
  • "Trooper hit by stray bullet from Mexico after gun battle on the other side of the Rio Grande." I presume this is 100% accurate. But ... but ... the Director of DPS is notorious for misleading the legislature as he now asks for $1 billion using "border security" as the justification. But knowing that he is a PR genius (make no mistake about it, he plays the legislature like a fiddle), if one of his troopers just happened to have a gun accident, I bet he would play it this way. 
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  • If you don't live your life being skeptical of any piece of "news" you hear these days, you are asking to be conned. And the fact this DPS news was released over the weekend when the media is poorly staffed for the holidays so no legitimate fact checking could occur is what made me cock an eyebrow. Once again, probably a true story but nothing can be taken at face value.
  • The Tweet below comes from a Baylor coach's wife who just happens to be Art Briles' daughter. Man, it feels like that assistant coaching staff is throwing games down there.  And a sports writer at the Waco Tribune Herald absolutely torched that staff unlike anything I've ever seen.
  • Speaking of journalism, let me give a shout out to the Wise County Messenger. It seems to have changed dramatically over the last couple of months. Example: They had two young columnists, male and female, require the other one to watch a movie of their choosing and then write side by side reviews. Funny bit. And one young reporter was given the liberty and the space to write about her disappointment with Trump's election in a county that is 86% Trump loving. (Still trying to wrap my brain around that.)  Keep it up. But bring back Richard Greene's scatter-shooting sports column and lose the space dedicated to what guys talk about in the coffee shop, agriculture columns, and parenting columns -- none of which would dare offend anyone and are read less often than this sentence. (I know a newspaper owner who might have just blown a gasket right now but will quickly calm down and spend the rest of the day wondering if I'm right.)
  • The young reporters just thought: "What's 'blown a gasket' mean?"
  • Mrs LL and I re-watched American Pie the other night which just keeps geting  better with time. In the middle of it I just abruptly said, "Mena Servina is in my top five of hottest women of all time." She turned to me with "that look" which, as time goes by, I tend to get several times a week. I was smart enough to quickly say, "She's somewhere in there behind you."
  • Speaking of movies, Trainwreck is one of the most, if not the most, shockingly funny films I've ever seen.
  • In case you missed it: Trump had an absolute meltdown on Twitter over the recount in three states when he has absolutely nothing to worry about. Anyone scared that he might be mentally unstable?
  • And I love his old stuff: 
  • I put up Christmas lights this weekend, and I went into full Clark Griswold mode.  The clerk at the local hardware store finally started saying, "You're back!" as I kept adding more lights. And she added, "Don't fall off the ladder!" Darlin', you have no idea. 
  • There's is something very weird going on with the head of elections in Denton leaving abruptly (former Wise County guy) and the Tarrant County elections guy doing the same to go to Denton.
     
  • What's up with the one fingernail being painted a different color? 
  • College football: (1) Michigan vs. Ohio State was one for the ages. That third down crazy run in double overtime almost had me screaming. And I still don't know if that was a first down or not on the next play. (2) LSU's new coach may be my favorite coach in the history of ever simply because he is authentic, a good human being,  and has a great Cajun accent, (3) UT might want to rethink that Tom Herman hire -- in the words of former Ticket host The Hammer, "What has he ever done?!" Two seasons at Houston -- a program built by Briles and Sumlin.  (4) The fact Baylor hasn't found anyone to take the job -- it has to have been offered to someone -- means big, big trouble. I'd still hire Charlie Strong, (5) UT's new coach has two sons name "TD" and "Maverick". If you're not first, you're last. 
  • I can't find the link, but Fox 4 reported that a guy was shot in a strip club parking lot in Dallas on Thanksgiving night. Me to Mrs. LL: "If you are at strip club on Thanksgiving night and get shot, your life has gone horribly wrong." Mrs. LL's reply: "If you are working as a stripper on Thanksgiving night, so has her's." 
  • I seriously don't know if ALL CAPS guy is a moron or some brilliant guy doing a bit. 
  • Look at this forecast and tell me it's not Idiocracy. Delkus predicts rainfall up to one hundredth of an inch.
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  • I was watching Fox News yesterday and some drug ad came on for a skin disorder. I wasn't paying attention until I heard "eight out of ten patients have reported a 75% success rate." Huh? Someone do the math for me. (Talk about saying something that is technically true but misleading.)


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11.27.2016

Above The Fold


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