Triple Monday Afternoon Pick Me Up

Jennifer Aniston. "Hey, now" does not do thy justice.

That's A Lie, Too

The above is taken from Rudy Giuliani's web site about his stance on "The Second Amendment."

Explain to me how a President can "make sure" that if someone commits a gun crime, they will go to prison for the mandatory sentence?

That's A Lie

Dallas DA Craig Watkins writes an op-ed piece about his first year in office. Although I like the guy, this is crazy talk:

We came to office with the mantra of being "smart on crime." This encompasses vigorously prosecuting and seeking tough punishments for criminals who are found guilty of violent crimes. It also means we employ a method of prosecution that has produced a conviction rate of 98.5 percent over the last year.

98.5%? Absolutely impossible. No way. It cannot be done. If that number concerned only jury trials (which is doesn't), you wouldn't have a conviction rate even close to that. DWI trials alone are historically a 50/50 proposition. If that number involves all cases (including plea bargains) then I bet the number is under 50% when you consider how often deferred adjudication is given (which, by definition, means there is not a conviction.)

"98.5%" is an outright lie.

Edit: Someone wrote that he meant the conviction rate was 98.5% higher than the year before. I don't think that's what he meant at all. I think he is saying "Over the last year, we have a conviction rate of 98.5%" And whoever wrote the caption for the DMN for the photo above, sure read it as I did. (But it was an interesting take.)

Crazy Bob Knight

I know I've got a lot of Tech fans who drive by here. They'll probably be interested in this from the weekend.

Random New York Front Page

And, by the way, it has been 4,027 since the Cowboys last won a playoff game.

Edit: From today's Wade Phillips' press conference about the status of T.O.: “He was still limping [today], and we’ve got a little bit of a dilemma there,” Phillips said. “Looks like it will be a game-time decision. He couldn’t have played if the game was today.” Uh. Oh.

Not A Monday Morning Pick Me Up

Story. And it's odd when a myspace page of the victim is left up and running.

Edit: Found the following picture. And do you think your life has gone horribly wrong if the words "Accused Cannibal" appear by your photo?


Edit #2: Uh, not the best headline . . .

Olan Mills . . .

. . . from days gone bad.

Very Random Observation

While looking at the Decatur High School web site, I stumbled across a bunch of photos from the "Battle of The Big Sandy." (Note: you guys over there might want to think about "sizing" those photos for the web.)

Anyway, do all high school girls have manicured nails?

I Went To Cabo In July

But Tony Romo and Jessica Simpson are there now? We're doomed.

(Generic picture.)

Edit: Someone pointed out the picture was photoshopped. Thank goodness. I thought I was losing my mind - that arch is not along a beach but can only be visited by boat.

Ya Think?

In a page filler story in the Morning News about former Cowboys receiver Tony Hill, 51, who last played in 1986:

Mr. Hill said he follows the Cowboys but has no fantasies about being able to play again, noting that he's 30 to 40 pounds over his playing weight of 210.

Going Polling

I really like the poll on the side. I need to do that more often. And, with 70% of the precincts reporting, it looks like Huckabee in a landslide. I'm mad because I didn't save the results of the very same poll I put up about six months ago, and I'll swear Huckabee didn't finish with even 5% of the vote. Admittedly, I didn't know who he was either back then. (As a sidenote, I search this little blog for "poll results" and came up with quite a few that are here. It's a pretty entertaining look back.)

Out Of Pocket

I'm out of pocket most of today as I'm up before dawn to help referee the above fund raising activity. Gotta keep those cops in line.

Edit: Observations . . .

- It lasted from 8 a.m. until 3 p.m. (Non-stop with no lunch break. Kill me.)
- The tournament was made up of 4 teams with only one being comprised of cops (and only partially at that.)
- It was more of an all-star game of Wise County high school players over the last 10 years.
- And some of those guys were great.
- How's this for crazy. The four teams played a round robin (each team plays the other.) And they used that to determine the 1 through 4 seeding for the championship tournament. So the final two teams played five games (of 40 minutes in duration.)
- The defenses and offenses were very sophisticated (all because of the creation of 7 on 7 summer play for high schoolers. Whatever happened to "go about 10 yards and cut across" or "just get open"?)
- I screwed up a couple of calls. Officiating is hard.
- I told my friends/officials that the key was to make any call "quickly and forcefully." Hey, act like you are a 100% convinced and you'll convince others. They looked at me like I was nuts.
- Former Decatur high school star Cheyenne Redwine broke his arm. I didn't go look at it after a group huddle around him and yelled, "Oh, my god!" The last I saw of him he was being treated by EMTs.
- After the game resumed, one of his Decatur teammates yelled, "Let's win this one for him!" A quick response from another teammate was, "Dude, he's not dead." Funny. Very funny.
- I blew a whistle too quickly on a play which prompted some guy to yell at me. Loudly. I said, "It's an inadvertent whistle. Get off my back." Another player came up to me and said, "Don't worry about that *&^%&, he's from Bridgeport any way . . . [insert awkward pause] . . . uh, are you from Bridgeport?"
- By the way, cussing was a big player. It was F Bomb Central.
- The championship game came down to both teams firing passes into the end zone in the final couple of minutes. I was the back judge with the primary responsibility of ruling on interference and catch/drop. That was not fun.
- The final play came with two seconds left with the offense spending a very long time in the huddle. One lady on the sideline yelled, "There are only two seconds left! How much time do you need to come up with a play?" Maybe the most confusing yell ever.
- Most shocking comment I heard from a fan: "At least [our star player] has a college degree. [The other team's star] was just picked up off the street."

OK, Kids. Shut Up For A Moment

Well, it looks like some crazy liberal Clinton appointed federal judge has lost her way and started making decisions like Scalia.

But a question mark has formed over my head. Do schools in Wise County actual begin with a "moment of silence?" Do we actually follow this crazy Texas law?

Mom Doing Damage Control? Not So Much

The lady that had her daughter write the fake "essay" (which was four sentences long, by the way) about her Fake Dead Daddy in order to win Hannah Montana tickets, was on The Today Show this morning.

So odd. Matt Lauer, because the lady was "very nervous", allowed her to read a statement apologizing for the incident. But more odd was that she appeared with her lawyer and psychiatrist. Psychiatrist?

It was fairly boring until she said that she had explained to her daughter what had happened by being truthful. "I told my daughter the truth. I told her we wrote an essay and they said it was a lie. And I refused to accept the tickets."

"Refuse the tickets or they were taken away?" Lauer asked.

"I refused the tickets," came the reply.

She's still having a little difficulty with that Truth Thing. But good eyebrows.

Friday Morning Pick Me Up

"Sometimes I get bored with reading about the number of car registrations in the Update." - Nadia Bjorlin

I Saw . . .

. . . a Dallas Cowboy "Eastern Division Champs 2007-2008" T-shirt the other day which I think is extremely spare. But the Redskins are selling "Wild Card" T-shirts.

I'm working on some Bridgeport "Runner Up Division 8-3A Football 2007" hoodies.

Edit: Ok, ok. Bridgeport wasn't the runner up. My bad. Tired Head.

Edit #2: Speaking of playoffs, here are the odds to with the Super Bowl

New England Patriots 2/5
Indianapolis Colts 4/1
Dallas Cowboys 6/1
San Diego Chargers 8/1
Green Bay Packers 10/1
Jacksonville Jaguars 10/1
Pittsburgh Steelers 35/1
Seattle Seahawks 40/1
Washington Redskins 50/1
New York Giants 60/1
Tampa Bay Buccaneers 65/1
Tennessee Titans 100/1

Britney Breakdown Countdown

As I slept soundly in a fetal position in the corner last night, we had drama at Britney's house. Seems like she got all liquored up and refused to give up her kids to her ex. For some crazy reason, she was then taken to the hospital.

The gal is crazy. Me loves me some crazy.

Edit: Best pic I could find of her from last night.

Iowa

You know, I'm kinda hooked on watching the caucus results tonight.

For the GOP, it's Huckabee pulling off the win. (And, for the life of me, I don't know why the Rush and Sean Hannity's of the world hate him so much. But I'm glad this win will drive them crazy.) And I didn't know Ed Rollins had been brought in to help on Huckabee's campaign.

For the Dems, with about 70% of the vote in, Obama has a growing lead over Hillary and Edwards who are pretty much tied. For most of the night it's been a virtual three way tie.

Good stuff.