Double Take

Eerie print ad for Pakistan International Airlines from 1979 promoting their NYC service.

(Source)

No Big Deal

I was all excited when I saw this headline, but the story wasn't very exciting to me. A big corportation supports Phil King? No news there. But I do take exception to the story referring to King as "powerful."

And, as a public service announcement, King's opponent in the GOP primary will be Joe Tison. (Who, unfortunately, may have the worst campaign web site in the history of ever.)

Edit: The web site looks a lot better now.

That's Why I Watch The Today Show

Link.

You know, I'm such a skeptic that I wonder if she planned to do that. Probably not, but she was on the show to promote a new movie and she'll definitely get attention now.

Is This The New DQ Restroom?

Ok, I don't support public drunkenness, but this bit of public drunkenness involves a college girl inside a women's bathroom. That changes everything. It's kind of like looking behind the curtain in the Wizard of Oz - exciting but a little disappointing. But if you can put up with that gal until the 1:15 mark (which, admittedly, is no small feat), I promise you will be rewarded with pure gold.

New Ad Campaign By Local Dairy Queen?

Thanks to elected official & emailer for tipping me off.

That Should Satisfy MADD

Denton County is notoriously conservative and a jury proved it on this one. He was found guilty of intoxication manslaughter (and given the maximum of 20 years), he was found guilty of a different intoxication assault offense (and given the maximum of 10 years), then the judge stacked the sentences on top of one another (didn't have to) and the jury found the defendant used a "deadly weapon" which means he won't be eligible for probation parole* until half of his sentence is served. Sheesh.

There was one other intoxication assault case that the jury convicted him of but gave him probation. They must have felt compassionate.

Story.
------------
*Unforgivable mistake on my part.

A Random . . .

. . . family lawyer.

Tijuana Tony In 2004

At least the Dallas Morning News believes its from 2004.

Tennis News

The Australian Open has begun. This player is Tamira Paszek. She lost in the opening round. I'm just saying.

Polling

Since the Stephenville UFO sighting is all over the news this morning, I put the new poll up.

But I had to change it since my initial question this morning was "Is There Other Life Forms In The Universe." I couldn't edit it once a vote had been cast, but there was no was way [edit: sheesh] I was going to leave it up and take the grammatical abuse. So the four or five voters that voted on the "old poll" have now been disenfranchised. Sorry.

My Own Tuesday News Update

CAUTION FLAGS OUT - An 18 wheeler has overturned between Rhome and the Texas Speedway causing 114 to be shut down this morning. If that's the route of your morning commute, you need to avoid that area and, while doing so, think about getting a different job because that drive every day would be a beating. ROCK CLUB - The Wise County Mineral and Rock Club will meet at Arby's on Saturday night at 8:00 p.m. A Dr. Pepper Social will occur immediately thereafter at the McDonald's in Walmart. GET YOUR LONGJOHNS READY - A cold front is expected to blow through Wise County tomorrow night with the chance of sleet and snow accumulations up to .01". Check in here for all school and business closings.

Quickest. Taser. Ever.

I'm Not Sure I'd Vote In New Hampshire

Ok, this 1 1/2 minute youtube video is a beating, but if you want to see an amazing line of people freezing their butts off in New Hampshire to vote in the primary last week, take a look. (Try to skip to the 1:04 point to see what I'm talking about.)

"It's A Cookbook!!!!"

Story.

(And my headline is from an old Twilight Zone episode which I doubt many of you have seen.)

Edit: This made Paul Harvey this morning although he confusingly referred to it as Stephensville, and ended the story, oddly, with "After all, that is the Bible Belt."

Prankster Almost Causes World War III?

Remember that incident last week where some Iranian boats were taunting some Navy warships? The news reports were that the U.S. got periously close to firing at the boats. "A video and audio of the Jan. 6 incident in the Strait of Hormuz featured a man in accented English saying 'I am coming to you. ... You will explode after ... minutes.'"

Uh, not so much.

Law Stuff

Interesting case heard by the Supreme Court this morning. The Exclusionary Rule "says" that if the police violate the law, any evidence they find as a result of that violation cannot be used the defendant. For example, if the cops search my car without consent or probable cause, anything they find can't be used against me. (Note to DPS: I promise I've got nothing illegal in my car. I keep that stuff locked up elsewhere.)

Anyway, the case heard today had this strange twist: The law in the State of Virginia is that the police can only issue a summons (ticket) for misdemeanor offenses and cannot arrest the person committing the offense. In this case, the cop screwed up, arrested the defendant for a driver's license violation (a misdemeanor), and then searched him incident to the arrest. Oops. The defendant had decided to carry around some dope with him. Cops find it. He gets charged with dope possession.

The Government is arguing today that so long as a cop has probable cause to believe a crime was committed (and it is undisputed that probable cause existed on the driver's license violation), then the evidence should not be excluded. I'm not real sure I understand it, but lots of lower courts around the nation have bought into that argument.

It's amazing we've sunk this low.

But the above snippet from Justice Scalia was gold. Scalia, no friend of civil rights, asked the government's lawyer this hypothetical: If he (Scalia) had probable cause to believe his neighbor was growing marijuana and he went over to the house, searched it, found marijuana, and then arrested his neighbor (which he has no authority to do), then the government's lawyer believes that the marijuana found in the home could be used against the neighbor? Yep, the government's lawyer said.

Then the above occurred.

Our Long National Nightmare Is Over

I was thrilled to hear that Christina Aguilera finally gave birth last weekend. Christina, who would be in The Blog's Hall of Fame if I had a Hall of Fame because of this dance move at around the 1:52 mark, has been dodging the cameras ever since she became pregnant. But with the birth of a boy/girl/who cares, she'll be back in the limelight in no time.

And this world will be a better place.

Final Cowboy Thoughts

- Anyone else think it's odd that "Closing Time" could be heard in the background after the game was over?
- Patrick Crayton is almost as bad as Roy Williams. Edit: Here is what I'm talking about.
- I thought about picking the Giants to win and doing a big post about it, but I didn't believe it would happen.
- I don't know if Wade Phillips is a good coach or not. But I kind of gave up on him after an interview on The Ticket right after the bye week. "What you do over the weekend, coach?" asked host Craig Miller. "Well, my wife and I went to a movie." "Really?" Miller said, "Which one?" Came Phillips response: "I don't remember the name of it but it wasn't very good.". . . . Huh? Don't remember the name?

Edit: The New York Post hired a Triple Fake Jessica Simpson to be in the stands yesterday. Finally found the picture . . .