Messenger Above The Fold

Random Wednesday Morning Thoughts

• The Messenger has dueling opinion pieces about the Child Abuse Training Session that teachers were subjected to last week. (One was written by the guy that presented it.) . I think I'll take credit for bringing that issue to the forefront -- or those who first mentioned it in the comments should. 
• I'm now coaching a 12 and under girls fast pitch softball team, and  I'm scared to death. (And if any of you know any major deviations from the rules of baseball that are contained in the USSSA rules - which I just heard of last night -- let me know.) I've already spent time figuring out base distance, pitching distance, and ball size. 
• The team was created from overflow players from the other teams when the turnout was greater than expected. This has Bad News Bears written all over it. 
• And I'm sooooo working on my "lollygagger speech." 
• From the Editor in the Messenger last week: "Predictions of our quick demise were greatly over-exaggerated. That which did not kill us has made us stronger, as well as more nimble, and has given us a much broader perspective than the simple confines of Wise County, Texas."  Hey! That's real close to "the humble confines of Wise County, TX" that's in the masthead above.
• The alleged Paradise murder case may involve bondage and chains. 
• TexasLending.com runs the most questionable commercials. For months they have run a radio spot which begins (and I paraphrase): "Mortgage rates have risen above six percent in the last two weeks. Well, they haven't, but that's what you'll hear in the next couple of months so you need to act now." Their "prediction" continues to be false as mortgage rates haven't been over 6% all year (and actually fell in the 3% range a couple of weeks back.)
• Oddly written blurb in the Update today. Decatur ISD's Monday enrollment was 53 more students than last year. Then they casually throw in that attendance grew by 37 from Monday to Tuesday. 
• In looking over the list of people I despise (Hannity, Sheriff Joe, Nancy Grace, etc.) I think I determined the one quality they all have in common: They are selling a persona to the masses which they know is fake.
• Oh, and Sheriff Joe tweeted this morning, "I'm getting ready for a big operation today." Either he's going to roundup a punch of illegals or he's having a colonoscopy. I can't tell. 
• Idiocracy: A bunch of former Hooters executives are not going to open a bunch of Twin Peak restaurants. 
• WBAP's Hal Jay on Minnesota Viking Adrian Peterson this morning: "Is he that good? He's done pretty well for Minnesota but he hasn't set the NFL on fire yet has he?"
• Sports nugget: In last 3 years, Boise State and TCU are a combined 74-5. Two of those 5 losses came to one another.
• Are the local lumber companies still open in Wise County or has Lowe's really hurt them?

If You're Traveling on 114 Through Roanoke This Afternoon, Not So Fast

Tanker carrying jet fuel on fire shutting down 114 both ways near 377.  (Photos stolen from Fox 4 web site that had live coverage ongoing. Go visit them so they won't yell at me.)  It's a bit hard to tell exactly where it is.

Update On Earthquake: Who Is That Guy!!!!!!!!??????

At the exact same moment the guy said he was thankful it wasn't a terrorist attack, look who shows up in the background!!

Take us to DEFCON 5 and get me the President on the horn!!!!!!!

(Edit: Rage chimed in and ruined a perfectly good bit by pointing out the guy is a Sikh and not a Muslim. The day I left facts get in the way of humor is the day I shut down Liberally Lean.)

Earthquake Just Felt In D.C. and New York

Twitter is freaking out at 12:55 p.m.

Edit: And now the comedy comes rolling in . . .

Edit:

Hold the phone!! Fox News says Washington Monument may not be fair and balanced. Could be tilting!!!

"Most Eligible: Dallas"

You won't hate them because they're beautiful, you'll just hate them.

I'm not saying you should watch this show, but you've got to watch this show on the Bravo Channel.  These are real Dallas hipsters that (1) are either acting like [expletive deleted] or (2) are actually [expletive deleted]. It's almost impossible to explain.

However, a pretty funny review (almost a running description) is here.

But I would be remiss if I didn't point out that the guy in the blue shirt is for University of Texas quarterback Matt Nordgren. (He was the guy who sat on the sideline while Major Applewhite brought the UT program from the dead and then watched Chris Simms try to kill it again. For you stat guys, he completed 8 passes in four years.)

The woman in the long red dress, Tara Harper, is somehow in the Dallas 10 Most Beautiful Women competition over at D Magazine.

A Dallas restaurant's sentiment of the characters is expressed below:

Hey, Now: The Lady Behind Mrs. Fields Cookies

Although I'm not even sure Mrs. Fields Cookies exists anymore.

Random Tuesday Morning Thoughts

• The Oakland Raiders have a grandmother as a cheerleader.
• I ate at Chuy's off 7th Street in Fort Worth the other day. Good stuff. But the walls seem to be decorated from a garage sale of the furnishings of every type of closed restaurant. Elvis? Christmas balls? 
• I had to go to a driver's license hearing in Fort Worth yesterday and got in the worst traffic jam I've ever been in. On I-35 at 820 to I-35 and Belknap took just under one hour to navigate. (And by the time I got to the accident scene, it was completely clear. It felt a little wrong to feel that I was cheated out of seeing what the hold up was about.)  
• I think I got talked into being a softball coach when I was deliriously tired late last night.
• In light of the violence at NFL games over the weekend, The Ticket had a discussion yesterday about how a certain "dangerous element" has worked itself into the fan base of pro football games. It seemed like they were talking in an uncomfortable code.
• An interesting moment came when host Corby Davidson asked how "those people" can even afford to go to the game in the first place. "You know they aren't getting up the next day and going to work at Chase Bank."
• One final Ticket note: Host Bob Sturm is taking a month or so off in order to finalize the adoption of a child from Guatemala. Man, that's an honorable act. (But he spoke of how it had been a ridiculously long two and half year process.)
• Hey, whoever/whomever keeps posting comments about the One Stop of Texas in Runaway Bay, you can stop now. You've obviously got a beef with the place which consumes you to no end.
• I need to check with the Rock City burger place in Bridgeport to see if business went up last week after it became the subject of discussion in the comments. One of these days, I'm going to sell ads on this thing.
• I'm kind of surprised there hasn't been a bigger Constable Tom Bishop vs. Commissioners' Court before now. 
• You guys can buy gold all you want, but I'd fear a crash of biblical proportions. That market seems to be full of people that will panic once it starts to go down with a selling frenzy ensuing. 
• A father drowned his two children yesterday but only after (1) the mother, Kametra Sampson, jumped out of his car abandoning the kids to notify a deputy constable she saw, and (2) the deputy constable didn't get involved in a chase due to "no chase policy." Sheesh.
• The Dallas Morning News has a story about that mother's Facebook page but the article is behind a paywall. The only Kametra Sampson I could find is one listed as "Kametra Ibetyaniggawantthis Sampson." Oh, my.
• Fox 4 forecast for the next seven days has the temperature at a least 104 every day. Good grief.
• "And Another." (Texas) Edit: Link fixed

How Can I Not Post This?

A new Dairy Queen sign erected in Wise County? Yep, in Rhome. What a glorious day.

(Thanks emailer.)

If you could get to the Messenger's site .....

I Get Some Strange Emails

I presume this is legitimate, but that sure is a lot of hard drives.(Then again, I just learned the company is traded on the NYSE and had over $1 billion in sales last quarter.)

New Graffiti In Decatur This Morning

Interpretation?

Funny

Animated GIF of Rick Perry stroking some guy's hair. 

Here. (Didn't want to bog down the load time by posting it inline.)

Random Monday Morning Thoughts

• In separate instances this weekend, a stunt plane crashes to the ground and an "air walker" falls to his death while trying to go from a wing of a plane to a helicopter. Good Morning America graces us with video of both this morning. Kind of makes the show ironically titled today.
• I don't think being a "wing walker" is a necessary craft in this world. 
• Former Bridgeport/TCU footballer Colin Jones was drafted as a defensive back but has also been practicing as a wide receiver. I don't know if that is a good sign or bad. 
• That first day of school is a big thing, isn't it?
• Photo from the funeral of the Bridgeport child that was accidentally killed in a gun accident last week. (Facebook, so maybe limited access.) Edit: Available here and here.
• Random jogging thoughts: (1) What are the chances of being mugged in the dark while running, (2) there was an assistant DA in Tarrant County who claimed that his sister was the "Central Park Jogger", (3) I wonder how many people remember the "Central Park Jogger" case. 
• In the Paradise murder case, the Messenger reported over the weekend that the victim had been "positively identified" but that the name was being withheld until next of kin could be contacted. I would think that would have been done by now. 
• Can't remember the name of the new comedy which is being promo'd by some lady saying, "Why do guys wear a jersey when they watch a football game? That's be like me watching CSI dressed up as a dead hooker." 
• In San Francisco, you can take your family to an NFL game and try to avoid two separate shootings in the parking lot and a man beaten unconscious in the bathroom. Sheesh. Here's the brawl in the stands during the game. (Video.)
• Next we'll be seeing a gunfight breaking out in a soccer game in Mexico. (Video.)
• Our new dryer is right out of Idiocracy. It doesn't have a timer on it -- you just set it to "dry" or "less dry" or "more dry" and it stops when it is finished.
• If you saw the biggest baby in the world do a faceplant off of a couch this weekend while his sisters(?) dance in front of him, then you probably saw one of the most bizarre videos ever. I don't even feel comfortable linking to it. 
• Lindsay Lohan and her momma do not look like Lindsay Lohan and her momma.
• The Decatur ISD Superintendent was quoted in the Amarillo paper saying the Texas legislature did not have the "political will" to deal with the budget crisis. 
• I saw a commercial for a big budget movie last night called Contagion which looks a lot like Outbreak. (And did the latter really need that helicopter chase scene?)
• The Messenger's site is loading slowly, isn't it?
• After being beaten senseless for month, the Rebel Force in Libya had a cakewalk into the capital city over the weekend and took it over. I kept thinking it was set up for an ambush, but maybe I'm wrong. 
• #34, here is your fifteen minutes of fame: 

You Remember That You Are Running For President, Don't You?

Hey, I don't care what you build, but if your in the middle of a campaign which is in the middle of a horrible recession, you might not want to file paperwork to demolish you $12 million vacation home so you can quadruple the size of it.

Rick Perry would jump on this like nobody's business but for living in a taxpayer funded $10,000 temporary rent house.

Little League World Series

I'm stealing this line: "The 'sinking ship' feel to the video when the kid goes down is a work of art."

(He's fine.)

Messenger Above The Fold

Dallas Cowboys News

Jerry just let us know that, "In my mind, I'm announcing Drew Pearson, Charles Haley and Larry Allen will go in the Ring of Honor."