Obamacare Gets The Big Stage

Some are talking about how a decision before the November, 2012 election could alter the political landscape. But even though Anthony Kennedy the Court could hand down a decision by June (before its summer recess), it doesn't have to.

And stupid question: Have any of you been directly impacted by the health care law? Or have its most significant provisions not gone into effect yet? Edit: Some big brain legal scholars think that because no one will been forced to purchase insurance under that law until 2014, that no one has "standing" to bring the law suit yet.  And the Supreme Court did mention the question of "jurisdiction" today when it agreed to hear the case. That would be a way to punt the case without a real resolution.

Mrs. LL Would Be Very Bored With Mine

(Forbes) – Most divorces require spouses to part with some of their property, but in Connecticut, a soon-to-be ex-husband and wife are being asked to give up more than just investments, cars, TVs, kids, and pets. They have to hand over their social networking passwords. At the end of September, Judge Kenneth Shluger ordered that the attorneys for Stephen and Courtney Gallion exchange “their client’s Facebook and dating website passwords.” Everyone knows that evidence from social networking sites comes in handy for lawsuits and divorces. Attorneys usually get that material by visiting someone’s page or asking that they turn over evidence from their page, not by signing into their accounts. But judges are sometimes forcing litigants to hand over the passwords to their Facebook accounts.

Random Monday Morning Thoughts

• Fox News demographic watch: Mike Huckabee's show last night was from Branson with special guest Tony Orlando.
• Lots of complaints about the Decatur players conduct during Friday nights game. Legitimate or just haters?
• The beginning of the Penn State/Nebraska game was pretty moving but whoever/whomever led the spontaneous prayer needed to look at his watch. 
• How in the world did Texas Tech beat OU in Norman a few weeks back?
• The young hairdresser who was found in her burning car in Dallas a week ago has always been said to be a murder victim. Yet the police say she was alive before the car was set on fire. So exactly how do they know it was a murder?
• Almost ever story on the home page of the Dallas Morning News web site this morning is behind a paywall. It started off at about 50% but it's become worse with each passing month.
• Jason Garrett sure does like to say "We'll have to look at the tape" a lot.
• Mrs. LL survived her Girls Night Out although I'm not sure she's eager to do it again. 
• Decatur's Trevor Brazile won his 15th "world championship" in the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association this weekend, but I'm not sure how that is different than an "all around" title which he holds eight of. 
• I'm not sure how a woman got shot six times in the back in Dallas yesterday and survived. 
• I already paid a guy to put up our Christmas lights. And he's already done it. I'm not getting on that roof.
• A kid from Rhome, Texas started at quarterback this weekend for UNLV. Unfortunately, the team lost to New Mexico which had held the longest losing streak in the country.
• And it's a little hard to understand how a guy accidentally left his six month old child in its car seat in a barbecue parking lot in Roanoke yesterday. 
• The Family Cat is pretty much status quo but over the last week she's decided she needs to run from one end of the house to the other at the speed of light. And she's so fat she sounds like a dog when she does it. 
• I heard Sister Christian on Saturday night and realized I can't help but think about Boogie Nights and a Chinese guy with firecrackers when it comes on.
• You knew it was a matter of time before they would start attacking the judge who set the $100,000 bond in the Jerry Sandusky case. 

Odds Of Producer/Cameraman Expecting This?

100%

This Kid Is Going To Be More Despised Than Craig James' Son

I'll post a video of this when someone (certainly) posts it. Texas Tech got beat 66-6 by Oklahoma State in Lubbock and the cameras zoomed in on this kid auditioning for Dance Fever at the end of the game.

(Other football news: Unfortunate caption. And Miami class. Baylor almost gave me a heart attack trailing 24-3 to a horrible Kansas team in the 4th. TCU beats Boise by going for 2 and then survives a horrible penalty. The Aggies give away more games than Santa.)

Edit (thanks to the comments):

Hey, Hans, I Bet You're A Real Joy To Be Around

From Star-Telegrams Cheers and Jeers.

Messenger Above The Fold And A Little More

And find this lost puppy dog!!

Boyd Excluded, That Was Quick

Oh. my.

Oh, my again.

Box.

Taking You Into The Weekend

Movies Of The New Century

I've fallen out of the movie watching business over the last year of so, but I'm doing my best to catch up.  And, in the past,  I've fired off hot sports opinions  about how movies aren't movies anymore. We've got cartoons and sequels -- TV on the big screen it seems --but that's it.

Anyway, I was roaming the Internets today and saw a few articles about what has been produced since 2000 that will stand the test of time. A classic, that is. Dramas, to me, are those movies where I didn't necessarily get blown away as I walked out of the theater but which caused me to think about it time and time again over the next few weeks.

Those I've seen suggested so far in the drama category that I agree with:

There Will Be Blood (2007)
No Country For Old Men (2007)
Sin City (2005)
Slumdog Millionarrie (2008)
Grizzly Man (2005) <-- Yeah, a documentary but I'm not leaving it out.
Gladiator (2000)
Lost in Translation (2003)

Black Swan (2010)

List of movies here for your suggestions. Man, this is hard. 

Random Friday Morning Thoughts

• Bridgeport and Decatur always played Whitesboro when I was a kid, but I had no idea they had never made the football playoffs. A streak which lasted until this year.
• I wonder if the town has ever thought about changing its name. 
• Trophy Club Byron Nelson high school made the playoffs in its second full year of play. And they won a playoff game last night. Throw in Southlake and we've got a White Boy 114 Football Corridor going on.
• Fox 4 did a feature on the new Omni hotel in Dallas. Man, that thing looks cool (i.e. a night light kicks on when your feet hit the carpet when getting out bed). But is that the one financed by the city?
• I've listened to a ton of sports talk radio over the years, but I've never heard the level of vitriol that I have this week over the Penn State scandal. 
• I saw a shot of Central Park this morning on one of the news shows. The trees have turned beautiful. I'll jog through that place within the next five years.  At least that is on my ever shrinking Bucket List. 
• 11/11/11
• Mrs. LL is going on a Girls Night Out tonight. Oh, my. (And I actually heard her on the phone say something about a "flash mob".)  I'm raising my own Terror Alert. 
• Baylor has a course called "Homosexuality as a Gateway Drug."  Gateway to what?
• I've been dreaming non-stop for the last three days. The type of dreams that aren't scary, but leave me stressed and exhausted when I wake up.
• If someone told me I had to re-live Middle School, I'd ask for a list of horrible alternatives and then choose one of them.
• It would take some miracle marketing, but it's possible Rick Perry could turn his memory lapse gaffe into a See-I'm-A-Regular-Guy-Just-Like-You positive. His campaign is at least smart enough to try and pull that off right now. 
• On CNN this morning, John McCain's wife, Cindy, said "there are over 18 suicides a day in our veteran's community."  If true, that would be more killed in one year than the Iraq War to date.
• Then again, she also said the GOP had a "great field of candidates" this year.
• The Fort Worth Court of Appeals yesterday affirmed the throwing out of a lawsuit against Wise County about a bridge. I lasted about four sentences before I got Tired Head. 
• There has been a Sports Illustrated reporter "embedded" all year long with Joe Paterno and Penn State in preparation for a book he was writing about the man and the program. Man, what timing. (But he wrote a column yesterday which indicates he may be too close to the situation.) 
• I changed how early I get to work about two years ago so I no longer get to see the beginning of The Today Show.  That's why my Ann Curry references have trailed off. 
• How not to run from the police. 
• Edit: Forgot to mention that the cat-in-the-wall guy in Dallas was found "not guilty" yesterday. I saw the prosecutor on the news talking about what a high bar "beyond a reasonable doubt" is.  Smart prosecutors think about that before they file a case. The bad ones only think about it after an acquittal. And then forget it just as quickly.

Cops Whoop Up On Cal-Berkeley Students

What the heck was that about? All that club-to-the-ribs just to get them to back up one foot? Am I missing something?

And the one guy in the grey hoodie reminds me of someone:

"Seven Minutes In Texas"

*facepalm*

Edit: I have updated reaction . . .

I Don't Even Know This State Any Longer

Story

Online Dating

What could possibly go wrong?

Random Thursday Morning Thoughts

• The press conference announcing the firing of Joe Paterno was good stuff last night. (CNN was the only station I found that was covering it with video.) That guy at the mic, Vice Chairman of Trustees John P. Surma, did a fantastic job in a hostile environment. He is also the CEO of United States Steel. Very appropriate.
• But the female CNN anchor left a little bit to be desired -- especially when she asked a correspondent if he knew when Penn State's next college football game was.
• Ashton Kutcher tweeted that Paterno's firing was an insult and done with no class. That is, until he apologized profusely after admitting he has been living in a cave and hadn't heard about the scandal. 
• A newspaper columnist in Pennsylvania six months ago predicted all of this in a column entitled "Sandusky a State secret".
• Wise County girl's picture in Oklahoma barber shop? [Link fixed]
• If you've ever seen Requiem For A Dream, you know it may be the best anti-drug movie ever made. Now the director has made a couple of PSA's for the the anti-meth campaign. Oh, my. 
• (For you extreme legal types who have argued about the Castle Doctrine, Texas highest criminal court handed down an opinion yesterday regarding the "new" law and how a jury should be so instructed. Knock yourselves out.)
• The Supreme Court considered this week whether the government can put a GPS tracking device on your car without a warrant. Justice Stephen Breyer asked/told the government's attorney, "“If you win this case, then there is nothing to prevent the police or the government from monitoring 24 hours a day the public movement of every citizen of the United States . . . . So if you win, you suddenly produce what sounds like 1984 from their brief.” Preach on, brother. 
• Fox 4's Tim Ryan sucked on Chip Waggoner's lollipop this morning. Video. Oh, yes. The cornerstone of any nutritious breakfast. 
• The Boyd School Board is considering some kind of football rock like the Clemson players touch as they take the field with a slogan on it similar to Notre Dame's. You know, not a bad idea. 
• Former Decatur volleyball player Sara Oxford received an honor at Abilene Christian. 
• See Rick Perry's official response to his gaffe last night. It doesn't help. In this day and time, you just want to get through a debate without something bad happening. If you don't, that's all the public will remember. #oops
• Mrs. LL bought some weird head warmer which looks like a cross between something you'd see in Fargo and a bear's head. 
• Miranda Kerr in a $2.5 million bra last night at some Victoria's Secret even. 

I'm Going To Bed. When I Wake Up, State College Might Be Burned Down

Penn State coach Joe Paterno was fired tonight. Crazy college kids at Penn State are taking to the streets.

You see that picture up there? That's what they did on a Sunday night around midnight when it was announced Osama Bin Laden had been killed. (More.) And that's when they are celebrating.

Tonight? They are angry. Oh, my.

Updates at this newspaper twitter feed.

Perry Meltdown Tonight In The Debate

I  can see how it happens, I've just never seen it happen.