Oh, My

Headline in a story in the Wise County Messenger.

Wise County's (Kinda) Brush With Greatness

I have a faithful reader who swears Paris Hilton was in Denton today at Sally's Beauty Supply to hawk her new products. He says the company sent out an internal email telling the employees not to harass her if they saw her.

Developing . . .

Politics

This is written at 8:13 with 34% of the precincts reporting in New Hampshire:

- If Hillary wins this thing (she is up 40% to 36% over Obama), her acceptance speech will be gold. Thought to be dead in the water, she'll be crazy with glee. To quote Pulp Fiction, "Just be cool, Honey Bunny. Just be cool."
- Fred Thompson has 1% of the Republican vote. Yep. 1%. (For every 66 people that voted for McCain, 1 voted for Thompson.) Did he die earlier today? I think I could have received more than 1%.
- John McCain can smile all he wants. I'm counting him out.
- Mitt Romney did the smartest thing: Be the first one on TV to address his crowd even though he came in second. He knows we have a short attention span and wouldn't be around later.
- Good lord, Ron Paul and Rudy Giuliani are neck and neck at around 10% of the vote. Talk about dead in the water.
- Good grief, John Edwards gave the EXACT same speech as last week - going into stories of three people he had recently met who got screwed by the health care system. The exact same speech. Yeah, I know that happens but could you change it up just a little?

Edit:
- Just watched Obama's speech. Man, when he gets going he gets going. I think, and I can't believe I'm saying this, I had chills. The man may win it all when it's all said and done.
- But Obama's entry music of Stevie Wonder's "Signed, Sealed, Delivered" should have been changed.
- The Democrats seem energized. The Republicans seem, well, defeated and uninspired.

Fox 4 Headline Writer Still Slapping His Knee

Original.

(Thanks to emailer.)

LSU Wins Championship - Kid Probably Misses Daycare

Legal News That Even I Don't Understand

Back in 2004, a verdict was handed down in Wise County for $23.6 million in connection with the death of a "Kim Hughes; her mother, Joyce Watkins, and her two children, Shiloh Hughes and Afton Hughes Royse, all of Paradise. Royse also lost her two unborn children." Last year, the Fort Worth Court of Appeals took away some of the damages but left most of the verdict intact. The defendants then appealed to the Texas Supreme Court that only has to hear the case if it wants to. Normally, the court's web site would say the Defendant's Petition for Discretionary Review was either "granted" or "denied." At least I think that's the way it works, but I haven't practiced civil law in 20 years. But the court's web site is showing that something is going on because it has requested both sides to submit "Briefs on the merits." (Here.) I'm sure someone out there can explain it. Edit: To "Family Friends". Sorry that I couldn't publish the comment.

Dark Days Ahead

Well, the college football season came to a close last night which means my depression is sure to follow. Where's the Paxil online prescription web site? But, as we bring the curtain down, the final AP and Coaches Polls were released with Tech managing to make it in and the Evil Empire even having a Top Ten finish in one of them.

But with only three weeks left of NFL action (and with a very real possibility the Cowboys are down to one week - get ready for my Sport Genius prediction later this week), the dark days of sports are coming. The NBA? Kill me. Baseball? Triple Kill me. March Madness? Ok, don't kill me for the opening weekend.

Mayor Of The Year

And this story comes from Arlington, Oregon where (according to an emailer), former Messenger Editor Skip Nichols is residing (at least nearby.)

Fate

I'm not particularly interested in SMU paying June Jones a fortune to become its new head football coach. But I was reminded that he almost died in this car crash in 2001.

Edit: Additional thought. Jones will be making $2 million per year placing his salary in the Top 20 in America. Amazing. UNT's Todd Dodge makes $266,000. Gary Patterson at TCU makes $1.29 million.

From A . . .

. . . random Wise County emailer this morning:

I was standing in line at a local grocery store this morning and a lady was buying milk, bread, and eggs with food stamps. If that does not take long enough, I became irritated that I was in the "short line" and it was taking a really long time because the lady that was running the check out, had no clue how to use food stamps. Then, to TOP OFF my irritation, the customer, (very nicely dressed I might add) tried to slide in some Camel cigarettes with some "extra food stamps" she said she had..............LORD ALMIGHTY, the checker had to ask the manager, then they tried to "confiscate" the food stamps from the "smoking in line lady."

Random Movie Thoughts

- I watched an old Jimmy Stewart movie (directed by Alfred Hitchcock) last week called Rope. I had never heard of it until Thomas Aaaberg in the County Attorney's office told me about it. Verdict: Not bad (with the exception of a very silly climatic speech by Stewart.)

- Finally saw Shaun Of The Dead. Verdict: Pretty clever. Pretty funny. (And I would mention that a couple of characters from the British version of The Office were in it, but no one cares. Uh, note to County Attorney Greg Lowery: Can I have my DVD multi-set collection of the British Office back? You've had it for three years.)

Poll Closed

Huckabee in a landslide of biblical proportions. [Rimshot.] He'll probably come in third or fourth in New Hampshire (since a Southern Baptist ex-preacher doesn't stand a chance up there), but I think he's in good shape the rest of the way.

(And, by the way, the graphics for the poll results are awful - one thing that Google, who hosts this blog, does poorly.)

You're Not What?

I don't know who Rudy Gay is, but you have to choose your words carefully when you discuss him. And check out the guy trying not to laugh. (It's a quick clip and the zinger occurs about halfway through.)

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.