Rangers Sale Going Through?

Not that anyone cares that much, but the Rangers are about to do some strange voluntary bankruptcy which will allow Tom Hicks creditors to be paid (I think. Edit: Someone is going to get ripped off.) There is a press conference at 1:00 or so and someone has already used the line, "Prepare for your eyes to glaze over."

But the Morning News did post the above factoid a second ago which is pretty amazing.

Edit: These boys think A-Rod will on see pennies on the dollar as an unsecured creditor.

Edit: Disregard that. As a commenter pointed out, the Player's Union is too strong to let that happen. The new buyers had agreed to payout any player's deferred money. Bottom line: Some creditors are getting screwed if this goes through. Tom Hicks should be ashamed. Woefully ashamed.

Random Monday Morning Thoughts

• Shocking bull fight over the weekend. Warning: Hard to watch.
• I went to the Rangers game yesterday --- first time in about six years. Hot. Fun.
• I was sitting near a guy that looked like the killer in No Country For Old Men. When a Cubs fan nearby was being obnoxious, we pictured that guy pulling out a pneumatic nail gun. Funny visual.
• And a buddy and I had a conversation with an older lady about the virtues of Brett Michaels. Yep.
• And we also debated over whether a freckled girl looked like Linday Lohan. ("She does." "No she doesn't." "Yes, she does!")
• Oh, yeah. I did watch the game.
• That was an incredible story this weekend about Jordan Spieth, the sixteen year old golfer that finished 16th at the Byron Nelson. I heard him on the radio before the tournament and he seemed like a nice, respectful kid.
• I intend to follow the World Cup this year.
• Dead Brittany Murphy's husband found dead.
• I have read two reviews of the Lost finale last night, and I still don't know what happened.
• Not what her parents pictured when she was a little baby: A 15 year old Highland Park student is in ICU with alcohol poisoning (a .40!).
• Saw that a Decatur lady passed away over the weekend. She was 101.
• The new Nike three minute World Cup ad is fascinatingly slick, and I'm not sure I understand it.

I Was Told . . .

. . . that this appeared alongside a senior's photo in this week's graduation edition of a paper from the South side of the county. (Yep, there is a paper down there.)

Sorry for the quality (but thanks emailer.)

A small business jet . . .

. . . takes off at Decatur Airport and uses almost all the runway to do it. Hope no one yells "abort! abort!"

(Thanks emailer.)

Friday Afternoon Pick Me Up

The Cincinnati Bengals ongoing cheerleader tryouts.

OK, You Gun Nuts, Prepare To Meet Your Maker

I probably find this funnier than you will, but I love this guy. He explains the "21 Foot Rule" which is a well known principle that I've never heard of: It takes a man with a gun the same amount of time to draw his weapon and fire as it does for a man with a knife to charge him from 21 feet away and stab.

So, to prove this Rule Of The Street, he demonstrates how fast he can move during those 21 feet and slaughter, and I mean slaughter, a cardboard cutout. And it's the charging that's the gold in the clip. I mean, it's enough to make a marine freeze with fear.

Somebody Get On This For Me!!

Edit @ 1:43: And the Liberally Lean Nation comes through again! (Thanks, Tony)

Kinda Funny

Random Friday Morning Thoughts

• Did everyone in Midlothian have a camera in their hand when the tornado appeared? There's about a 1,000 pictures of it.
• The guy that was struck and killed on 183 in Irving a couple of days ago was in the military and on a layover for the night after landing at DFW. But why was he walking on a highway at 6:00 a.m.?
• Another weird story is a guy found under an overpass in Dallas whose motorcycle is missing. It's like he went over the side of the highway with the exception the motorcycle is no where to be found. He is the son of a Dallas policeman.
• Brett Michaels, who is recovering from a brain hemorrhage, revealed he was at home watching Busty Cops 3 when it happened. (Which, I don't mind saying, is better than the last Batman movie.)
• The most hypnotic video in the history of ever: Red Light Runners Getting In Crashes. [Link fixed.]
• This license plate I saw last night reminded me of a Seinfeld episode.
• The trailer for the new Sex In The City movie has Carrie uttering the line, "We're not in Kansas anymore!" Really? That line? You really want to go with that?
• I'm awful at to do lists and reminders, but I discovered Evernote which is a really, really cool.
• How with all the great minds in this world can we not stop that oil leak in the Gulf? It's bordering on ridiculous.
• I had to make the double trip to the grocery store last night. You know, you get home from the store and realize you didn't buy something you have to have that night. Beating.
• WBAP's Mark Davis, who is losing it lately, went on a rampage the other day with "How dare the Mexican president come to OUR country and criticize one of OUR states. How dare you, sir!" Please. That would be like, heaven forbid, President Obama going to Mexico City and criticizing the lawlessness in the city of Juarez.
• I think over the next 20 years we'll see a huge move away from Windows with programs which run on our desktops to Google's Android operating system where all the programs and data are kept in the clouds.

Back To The $12 Twins: We Made The Dallas Morning News Home Page

Story link. And I don't even get my name in the paper? What kind of media world are we living in?

And how does this non-story get so much press?

This One Even Makes My Head Explode

Can a county inmate legally be denied the access to an abortion clinic if she is willing to pay for the procedure herself? From a legal standpoint, no wonder the ACLU got involved -- it's a fascinating legal question.

Story.

Decatur Postcard 1918

There's a lot of cool stuff on the searchable Portal To Texas History.

Can We Get Their Views On Flag Burning?

"As country music played* and a pack of Marlboro menthols sat idly by, some bar patrons at a local watering hole in West Allis, WI burned an effigy of Barack Obama and cheered. Wisely, they took video. Here it is."

_____________

*actually David Alan Coe's "You Never Even Called Me By My Name" which is the perfect theme music.

Tech News: Google Just Announced "Google TV"

Who knows if this will take off, but Google isn't worth a krillion dollars for nothing. Gizmodo has been updating the news here.

We still don't have flying cars, but everything sure is beginning to feel a lot like the Jetsons. Which reminds me, do you remember those AT&T "You Will" ads from 1993 regarding what technology would hold in the future? It all came true.

Random Thursday Morning Thoughts

• There might be something wrong with the comments making their way to me. Some people say they have to click the submit button twice before they see the "Your comment has been saved" notification.
• Someone write this down to remind me after the November elections: "For more than half a century, the average midterm pickup for the party out of power has been 24 seats [in the House of Representatives.]" That'll be the benchmark.
• The faux hawk haircut is goofy.
• The new mascots for the London 2010 2012 games are creepy. [Edit @ Danny Boy's comment: Ok, that was funny.]
• Had a guy ask me yesterday if I had written anything good on "Dairyland." Funny.
• More cops gone bad: Two Dallas officers were arrested last weekend on DWI charges.
• It seems silly that Lake Bridgeport is still closed. Sometimes I think people in authority exercise power simply because they can.
• How bad were the Mavs? They got beat by San Antonio who then got killed by Phoenix who are now getting destroyed by the Lakers.
• I finally subscribed to a private Texas Criminal Lawyers message board. Verdict: I'd be scared to death if I were the client of some of those guys.
• Is the journey between Bridgeport and Boyd a little junkier looking than it used to be?
• Last week had the lowest number of album sales since Nielsen's Soundscan started tracking them in 1991. And I really don't know why "albums" are produced anymore. Why don't artist just release a decent "single" every six months.
• The Byron Nelson golf tournament kicks off today without one of the top 15 players in the world taking part in it. That thing might die one of these days.

Sheesh: I've Got Investigative Reporters After Me!!

Here's the deal: Among the many non-money making enterprises I run is Wise County on the Web which includes Wise County Free Classifieds. A couple of months ago, someone posted an ad to adopt twins on the cheap. I really didn't notice because I rarely look at the ads.

Well, someone called the Sheriff's Office who starts an undercover investigation. (They tell me because the cops and I are tight.) Never really thought anything else about it.

A couple of days ago the ad is posted again but this time it really infuriated a bunch of people, and I get bombarded with complaint emails. Then, today, KXAS Channel 5 calls me! Good grief. The above screenshot is from their web site, and I think they are even running something on the news about it tonight.

So I check back with the High Sheriff who indicates that the best they could determine was that the offer came from some lady out of the country who wouldn't give up any information. And she kept wanting any potential buyers/adopters to go through a middleman who she referred to as "my reverend." Bottom line: They are very sure there are no children and even surer it's just a scam for money. (Like the Nigerian scam but with a picture of a cute kids.)

Anyway, everyone can calm down. Plus, you know those kids had to be little hellions if they were just worth $6 a piece.

Wow

Fort Worth police shot and killed a distressed 21 year old in Richland Hills this week. It might have been suicide-by-cop. Maybe not. Anyway, the kid's mom comes out yesterday and said the Fort Worth cops were "too trigger happy."

The above graphic is a random tweet that went out afterwards on the Chief of Police's twitter feed.

Wow. Sensitive guy.

(Credit Bud Kennedy. Background on the whole story here.)

Edit: The Ol' Chief decided to take that post down. Thank goodness no one took a screenshot before he got around to it.

Kind Of A Giggle