Guilty Verdict ...

Just handed down in a burglary of a building case in Wise County. Punishment phase to begin. He faces 2 to 10 because he has been convicted of two State Jail Felonies before.

Building was in Paradise. Happened after that huge grass fire a couple of years ago.

Barry (from iPhone)

Edit: He got 10 and a very odd $500 fine (the max was $10,000).

Random Wednesday Morning Thoughts

• CNN keeps replaying an interview of an Oklahoma tornado victim who pronounced "windows" as "winders". I suspect that mispronunciation had something to do with his airtime.
• Greg "The Hammer" Williams will co-host on 105.3 The Fan at midday today for the second day in a row. Yesterday was fantastic.
• He said NBC5's Kim Fischer "kinda had a horse face." She tweeted back that he was a "washed up old sports radio dude."
• I was on 287 headed to Fort Worth yesterday when an 18 wheeler in front of me had a blow out. It was an incredibly loud explosion followed by white smoke that completely obscured my view. I pretended it was like NASCAR and went low.
• Fake hawt Sarah Palin.
• I think the girl who escaped in handcuffs over the weekend in Wise County might be in good shape: Cops don't know who she is.
• I'm hearing about a lot of money being spent up at the courthouse. Not sure how that's going to fly with the upcoming budget crisis the county is about to face.
• Weight loss update: Down 13 pounds. I'm close to sharing my weight loss graph which covers about 70 days.
• Always love this quote about Project Graduation: "Why do we have to bribe kids to do what they are supposed to?"
• Texas High School football announcer disappointment.
• I emailed my a friend yesterday who responded with a fake "auto reply" from her employer saying she was a "former employee" having been fired for doing naughty things. Funny.
• Somebody want to stop that oil spill in the Gulf?
• A plane crashed overnight in Libya killed 103 people, but one boy survived. Makes me think of the movie Unbreakable.

Crime Data: Wow

Here you'll find the most comprehensive database of inmates in Texas prisons available to the public. You can sort by name, county, offense, etc. Incredible.

Here's a place to start: A list of every current inmate sentenced out of Wise County, their crime, sentence length, begin sentence date, and home county.

(Credit: Grits For Breakfast.)

Since We're Talking Schools

HOUSTON (AP) _ A Houston charter school has fired a science teacher after she was seen on videotape slapping and beating a 13-year-old male student. Principal David Jones of Jamie's House Charter School says he reviewed the camera phone video shot by another student. Jones says ``there is no excuse for a teacher to behave in this way with a child.'' A school spokeswoman identified the fired teacher as 40-year-old Sheri Lynn Davis, who had been with the charter school for three years. Further details about the teacher, who was fired last night, were not provided to The Associated Press. AP was unable to secure a phone listing for the teacher for comment. A school spokeswoman says the boy is still enrolled in the school and was attending classes today. KRIV-TV in Houston reports the video was shot in late April. His mother says the boy suffered a black eye and other bruises.

Good grief.

Tuesday Afternoon Pick Me Up: Comedy Edition

Troops?

Meet who must be the most frightened politician in America: John McCain. Fearful of losing his Senate seat in Arizona, he's now prepared to be toughest conservative in the West. (It's a new campaign ad.) And to think the Republicans weren't fired up about him during the presidential election because he was too moderate.

Random Tuesday Morning Thoughts

• Minority owner Ross Perot Jr. sued, in essence, the Dallas Mavericks claiming the club is losing money hand over fist. Mark Cuban responded in his normal annoying fashion. But, man, those guys don't like each other. (That was a small news blurb at 8:00 p.m. last night and then blew up over night.)
• I'm not exactly sure what happened, but a lady was wailing (and I mean wailing) in the Wise County Courthouse yesterday after she lost primary custody of her child.
• There's a burglary of a habitation case being tried in felony court in Decatur this week. Not exactly riveting stuff.
• I really don't have any problem with Elena Kagan, Obama's nominee for the Supreme Court, never having tried a case or been a judge. That Court is bizarrely academic.
• And I love Obama saying Kagan has a habit of "understanding before disagreeing." We could all practice that a little bit more.
• There was a perfect game pitched in baseball on Sunday (by a former Texas Tech player), and I was able to catch the last out on TV simply because I was tipped off by Twitter.
• This is funny: "Fake Yo Yo Trickster Fools Every TV Station Everywhere."
• Betty White is getting wildly praised for her performance on SNL. But it's a lot easier to succeed in this world when everyone watching you wants you to succeed.
• Maybe I didn't give The Pacific enough time since more and more people seem to praise it. But when I watched it there was a time waste with a long dinner scene and sex scene. That's not exactly what I had in mind when I thought I'd learn about the Pacific theater in WWII.
• The death of Lena Horne didn't get my attention at all because I was basically unfamiliar with her. Growing up a white boy in a small town in Texas will do that to you.
• I've had three people within the last week make it a point to walk across the room to tell me how much the like this silly Blog. Two of them were complete strangers. I get sooo uncomfortable when that happens.
• When MzChief goes on a tear, she goes on a tear.
• Dallas Observer's Richie Whitt releases his Top 10 Hottest Women In DFW TV. What? No Fiona? She only makes Honorable Mention? The Bush-Gore vote wasn't this flawed!
• I don't buy Tiger Woods "injured neck" proclamation which allegedly caused him to withdraw during the last round of last week's tournament. You can spot someone with that problem. Anyone remember Barry Switzer during the Cowboys final Super Bowl season? He looked absolutely in pain holding the Lombardi Trophy with Jerry.
• Do you know how many minutes my cell phone bill said I used last month?: 9. I don't do social calls.
• I wonder if the Wise County Sheriff's Office ever found that lady that escaped from a patrol car in handcuffs?

Channel 5 Headline Writer Did Not Go To Sensitivity Training

Link.

More Proof That Those Yankees Don't Understand Sports

This is a clip from UMass's intra-squad spring football game. (Yep, UMass apparently plays football.) So unlike every smart football school in the South, they allow their quarterback to get hit. And not only that, the think it's a good idea to run run some tricked up play which is the equivalent of throwing the QB onto Central Expressway.

Can you image that ever happening to Colt McCoy?

Random Monday Morning Thoughts

• 287 was a mess this morning right outside of Rhome due to a wreck. Northbound cars were being routed on the service road all the way to the Saginaw cutoff. But they were hardly moving at all.
• A female is expected to be nominated for the Supreme Court today who, if approved, would put three women on the Court for the first time in history. (From The Ticket this morning: "How will they ever get anything done?")
• Fox 4 said this morning that since the nominee was Jewish, there would not be one Protestant on the Court (which I find hard to believe but am too lazy to look up.)
• I swore I saw a yellow Lamborghini in Bridgeport on Friday.
• Craziest story of the weekend: A Fort Worth middle school principal leaves her two little kids in a hotel and then gets arrested after being refused admission in a downtown Dallas club.
• Crazier story: A guy is shot dead during a child custody exchange in Denton on Friday in front of his kids. And the shooter is a retired federal law enforcement officer.
• Iron Man 2 pulled in $133 million this weekend. I'll continue to proclaim that real movies aren't made any more.
• Got all dressed for Mother's Day yesterday, got in my car, turned the key and ..... nothing. It then mysteriously started about five minutes later. I've got to get rid of that thing.
• I saw a 17 year old ordered to pay child support in Jack County on Friday. Not the best way to start off your adult life, hoss.
• There was also an indicted handed down over there on the same day where the Defendant's name included "Superman."
• Time Waste: Top 10 Wedding Dances on Youtube.
• Edit: Just checked the Update. If you see a girl in handcuffs running around, you might want to call the Sheriff's office.

Election Results

All of them from the Messenger.

Jack County Chaos: Former Police Officer Running For City Council. Then Indicted.

Story.

Decatur Tattoo

A faithful reader sends in this pic taken at the Decatur Airport last weekend at a fundraiser. He/She seemed to think it was a Crown Royal reference. I'm not so sure.

(Thanks, T.J.)

Libertarian vs. North Texas Cop

I'm still trying to figure out what agency this is. It looks kind of like a DPS Trooper from the uniform (you can see it after the 10:00 mark) and the computer terminal, but that beat up cowboy hat isn't standard trooper wear. The guy in the car is "Pastor Steve Anderson."

Stopped for running 72 in a 70. And then it turns into an inquiry about WMDs. And then it turns into a political discussion instead of a traffic stop.

From May 4. 2010.

Chico High School Locked Down?

Just got an email from someone I trust who says it's true.

Anyone?

Edit: County Canine Unit is there (vehicle in background.)

Edit from the email bag: "Ok just got report from mom on her lunch break. Locked the classrooms down and went room to room patting down kids and making them empty pockets. All administration is there and they are still doing it. Rumor is some kid said another one was selling dope up there so they are trying to catch him with the goods . . . . "

Random Friday Morning Thoughts

• Some Southlake residents believe they are too good for Twin Peaks restaurant. I'm not.
• I bet if you were watching one of the financial channels when the Dow dropped 1,000 points in 15 minutes yesterday, you would have thought the sky was falling.
• And I'll hand it to Jim Cramer, the nutty analyst, who saw that Procter & Gamble was down 30% and yelled, "That can't be right! Buy it!" It quickly corrected itself and shot back up.
• Fox 4 has a new traffic monitoring screen that has shows the flow of traffic around the metroplex (green, yellow, and red moving dashes.) It looks really accurately -- like the iPhone traffic app that uses GPS readings of cars and comparing it to the norm.
• Looked ahead on my jogging trail yesterday to see a four foot snake. That will stop a man in his tracks. And even though I know better, I took a 20 foot loop around him thinking he'd charge me at any second.
• The annual Arizona State Undie Run for charity was last Tuesday. I wonder where a link for that would be? Oh, here.
• There was some CPS case going on up at the courthouse yesterday where, I was told, CPS was seeking to take a kid away from a mom for the fourth or fifth time. And I mean four or five different kids.
• And there were a lot of unhappy deputies out in the hallway who had been subpoenaed to testify.
• This seems to have flown under the radar: Mark Cuban is going to partner with Girls Gone Wild.
• I saw the story on Fox 4 this morning about 10 times concerning a motorcycle crash on Central Expressway last night. But I was so hypnotized by the fact that the bike went a quarter of a mile on its own after the rider fell off that I don't know if he died. (He was racing. Ninja style.)
• Got a court appointed client's case wrapped up in a really good deal yesterday. She left without saying thank you. Happens all the time.
• The Cowboys are set to trade LB Bobby Carpenter. Good riddance. There was nothing more revealing than watching teammates a couple of years ago call him "Barbie" during the filming of Hard Knocks.

Double Fake Wreck

Enlarged: This was staged over in Bridgeport this morning. Some kind of "Every 15 Minutes" program. I bet that turned a lot of heads for those not knowing what was going on. You just don't see the Angel of Death every day.

(Thanks, Lisa.)

Stock Market Drops 1,000 Points

And then turns right back around.

Current.

That was, by the way, the biggest intraday points plunge ever.

Edit: Wow. Reports are coming in that it was all caused by a trading error when someone meant to sell x "million" of Procter & Gamble and accidentally placed an order to sell x "billion."