I've Got Two Questions

(1) Why were you in the tree? (2) Even though this guy died, can a person be "electrocuted" without dying?

Now It's Gettin' All Asiany Up On The Square

Random Monday Morning Thoughts

• I moved my pitchback backstop further away to make it a little tougher. I've lost three balls over the neighbor's fence already.
• I went to the Ranger's game last night. That new video board has changed the feel of the place -- it is much more alive. But much more Idiocracy.
• And all the road construction because of Cowboys Stadium has made getting in and out of there a lot easier.
• That being said, I remain stunned by the number of people who put up with the hassle and high prices of going to a game when watching the game at home on today's TVs is a better experience. Maybe once or twice a year I can understand, but more than that makes no sense. 
• The stadium has, thankfully, taken affirmative actions to kill "the wave." The video board even had a "no wave" message when the crowd made a half hearted effort to start it.
• They played a clip from The Blues Brothers on the board and, I swear, I noticed Donald "Duck" Dunn in the background. Little did I know he had died earlier that day.
• Some of the Texas Rangers had their mothers introduced at the game. Dereck Holland's mom is smokin'.  (1:50 mark if interested.)
• Mother's Day brunch followed by a late Ranger game on a school night makes for a long day.
• "I was up here at 8:00 a.m. dragging fields, so don't tell me that I don't care." - Softball commissioner's retort to an angry parent who didn't like the rules that allowed his daughter not to play at all during a playoff game.
• Newsweek cover today: "The First Gay President"
• Mitt Romney speaking at Jerry Falwell's Liberty University over the weekend is a weird mix.
• A convenience store off of Western Center Boulevard has sold a $28 million lottery ticket. 
• There was a remote place in my guest bathroom that needed some cosmetic repair that I didn't know if I could fix. After 30 minutes, I fixed an eight year old issue. 
• I know of a Decatur lady who got a ticket for an expired inspection sticker from a trooper after she was leaving the cemetery on Mother's Day.
• If you were an incumbent with an opponent in one of the Wise County races on Saturday, you stood a good chance of being beaten. That's unusual.
• I watched a documentary this weekend about a kid on death row in Texas. Into The Abyss is directed by the guy who made Grizzly Man. Verdict: It's worth it just for the interviews of Texas country folks by a high tone director. 
• After this weekend, The Avenger's is up to $373 million in box office receipts. 

Kate Upton Little Black Dress Taking You Into The Weekend

Lady Absolutely Kills This Anti-Gay Speech

And you've got to love the guy in the background. It' like watching a State of the Union speech without suppressed emotions from the Speaker of the House.

It's Gettin' All Mexicany Up On The Courthouse Square

Menu.

And Another - Oklahoma

Story. We've got a strong year going on.

Random Friday Morning Thoughts

• Edit @ 9:05 a.m.: Nothing newsworthy going on at Carson Elementary. No fire. 
• There was a suicide by a Chico woman at Wise County Park on Wednesday. So even when it happens in a public park it is not supposed to be reported by the media?
• Motorcycle death in Dallas. 
• Watch the parade of people in this Ted Cruz commercial and wait for someone who isn't white to appear.
• Woke up to the weirdest sound in the back yard last night only to find it was water running off the house onto a plastic plant container. It sounded like a war drum. As I moved it, I looked up to see that the Family Cat had decided to sneak out behind me and wander around in the rain. Dumb cat. But I rounded her up and put her back inside.
• Bristol Palin taking a shot at President Obama's stance on gay marriage is bizarre. Perhaps she's just jealous that some kids will have two dads in their life while her's has none. (Ok, I stole that line and, yes, it's a little mean.)
• Mrs. LL's softball team won a playoff game last night to stay alive in the double elimination tournament. She was distraught later when she learned two players will miss the next game because they are going to a school dance instead. Meeting Boys greater than Softball.
• And she's playing her nemesis coach -- the gal I've referred to as the over-ranting Fake Kim Mulkey.
• Hey, I'm a dog lover and I was sickened over the little dog who died after being burned in Dallas. But for a bunch of people to show up in opposition to a potential bond reduction for the teenager accused of the crime is a little over the top. Dead people don't get that kind of support.
• One of the strangest arguments that the kid is guilty was heard on The Fan yesterday: If he isn't guilty then why did he turn himself in?  Uh, because there was a warrant. You can either turn yourself in on your terms or you can wait to be picked up.
• The blog at the Texas Monthly failed to realize that the Wise County Messenger's crime blotter has turned into a bit. 
• I thought Black Hawk Down was about one helicopter crash and the story of how a couple of guys were rescued. Good grief, I couldn't have been more wrong. I've gotten to the end of Day One and we've got a cluster going on!
• I think the best part of the shocking Time magazine cover is the kid's eyes. There's just something funny about him staring at the camera.
• The guy on trial in Wise County for a multitude of crimes chose the judge instead of a jury to assess punishment. He received the maximum. Whenever you have a crime where a jury would probably deliberate around the high end of the punishment range, you don't want to let the judge decide: He or she will always choose the higher number.
• But the defendant and the deputy who escorted him out of the courthouse look alike. 
• I saw a TV commercial for the Texas Railroad Commissioner who promises to "stand up against Obama."  I didn't know he was threatening her.
• I thought the days of "credit default swaps" (which I tried to explain here) were over but news broke last night that JPMorgan has been hit with a $2 billion loss because of them over the last two weeks.
• Hey, even I'll admit the media's reporting that Mitt Romney might have harassed a gay guy while in prep school was completely unfair. The guys is 65 years old. I don't care what he did in high school. 

Time Magazine Pushing The Envelope With New Cover

Heck, I don't even feel comfortable showing all of it.

Someone Has Kidnapped Pete Delkus

National Weather Service says:

And Pete Delkus completely rules out anything happening.  We normally can have a 10% chance of thunderstorms and Delkus will tell us he's on red alert for the potential of damaging storms.  I'm worried about him.

Watch An Injury Prone Guy Flirt With Injury

Random Thursday Morning Thoughts

• In March, ESPN had a feature of how much Britney Griner loves to skateboard. I told Mrs. LL then there is no way I'd allow her to do that if I were her coach. Yesterday, we learned Griner has broken her wrist.
• Heard through some of my Tarrant County buddies that District Judge Sharen Wilson rejected a plea bargain in a child sexual abuse case and forced a trial. The Defendant was then found not guilty by a jury. (You won't see that in a press release from the new Tarrant County DA's office PR gal.)
• Prediction: Josh Hamilton will go on the disabled list within the next 45 days.
• Why in the world would anyone care if gays were allowed to marry?
• And to think George W. Bush wanted a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. History will not treat him well for that. 
• Still a huge fan of Modern Family.
• Lots of people walk out of criminal courts mumbling under their breath. (Side note: "under their breath" is an odd phrase.)
• The Ticket discussed Stephen Kings 11/22/63 book this morning. What a great concept: You can go back in time as often as you like but every time you do (1) you are transported back to the exact same moment in time and (2) your new trip resets everything you did on your previous trip.
• I'd go back to the time of Jesus and follow him and the disciples around. And I'd try to do something that at least would get a mention in the Bible. That'd be cool.
• For all you gals who follow "Men's Humor" on Twitter, here's a secret: Men don't think that stuff is funny.
• The great Megan Henderson missed the start of her news broadcast in Los Angeles. 
• We had are carpets cleaned yesterday which worked out fantastically with the exception of the parts that weren't cleaned.
• I got beat up by a judge at the Court of Criminal Appeals two weeks ago, and I was stunned to learn they decided the case so quickly yesterday. I won. There was one dissent. Yep, by the judge that kept giving me the business. 

Breaking: President Obama Just Went All In For The Gay

Christina Screenshots From "The View" "The Voice"

How I ever even considered replacing her as an official Liberally Lean gal is beyond me.

Did I Do It Again Or Did I Do It Again?

Link.

I told you that story was too fishy to be true. I saw it a mile away and, you know what?  I do this all the time!  Remember the fire in Saginaw at the antique store that I wasn't believing? Turned out to be arson.  Two or three years ago there was a story of a sexual assault in a park in Keller that I immediately labeled a lie. Cops backed me while I was on vacation so I didn't even get to gloat about it here.   The hair-dresser "murder" in north Dallas area where she was found dead in a burned out car when I said "something ain't right about that"? Medical examiner came out and disagreed with the police. And if that over-protective dad in Plano would let his high school daughter fess up to faking her kidnapping to Oklahoma, I'd have another one one my scoreboard. Sheesh, I've probably forgotten about a dozen more.

If I can find a job listing  for "exceptional oracle needed" on cragislist, I may quit this lawyer and blogging gig.

It's a gift.

Trial Update

I sat through the reading of the "court's charge" (the instructions and law the jury receives from the judge) and, man, was it long. Not only were there a million definitions in it, but there was also the law of self defense, reasonable use of force for disciplining a child, and . . . wait for it . . . The Castle Doctrine.  And that became a big part of the defense for the Aggravated Assault case where an adult male is the alleged victim.

First time a jury has ever even considered the Castle Doctrine in Wise County. (And I doubt that the legislature really thought it would be used, in the words of the defense attorney, in a case "involving a couple of drunks," and where the old saying, "some people just got it coming to them" might apply.)

Edit: Guy was found guilty on all three charges (three victims).

Random Wednesday Morning Thoughts

• Normally judges have pretty strict rules regarding campaigning. I'm half asleep as I write this (as always), but I just saw a commercial for Texas Supreme Court judge Don Willett which had such things as he "defended our right to display the Ten Commandments" and he is "the judicial remedy to Obamacare." That just seems wrong for a judicial ad.
• And the ad ended with a child in his lap as he read the Bible. It started with an endorsement from James Dobson.
• I had my very vivid I'm-In-School-But-Can't-Find-My-Class dream last night.
• I also dream about falling but I'm never hurt. Normally I'll bounce off things like tree limbs that launch me into another fall.
• Most people who are arrested in Wise County are locked up for very minor offenses and will be released once they make bond. That bond amount will be set by a Justice of the Peace who, in the past, would arrive at the jail between 9:00 and 11:00 a.m. in the morning. I'm getting a ton of complaints that it is becoming quite normal for the JP to now show up at 3:00 in the afternoon or later. That is unacceptable and certainly not the "efficient" and "responsive" Republican way.
• I've not heard a single negative complaint about The Avengers. In fact, I talked to two different people yesterday who said the audience applauded at the end of the movie.
• Josh Hamilton hit four home runs last night. His brain might be fried, but he can swing a bat. (But I think there were more fans at the softball game I went to last night than in Baltimore.)
• Marcia Clark was on Fox and Friends this morning to "talk about her new book." They hurtin' for guests over there?
• It's getting harder and harder to find: Blood Rush -- the book about Wise County's most notorious killer. 
• I'll take a person who doesn't get worked up over anything versus a person who gets worked up over everything.
• The Ticket had a segment on The Beastie Boys yesterday and, I'll admit, other than Brass Monkey and You Gotta Fight, I really wasn't familiar with their music. And considering I thought those two songs were bad bits, I wasn't expecting much. Verdict: Their other stuff wasn't bad at all.  
• This is not like one of my old single guy weeks: Softball tournament, birthday parties, Mother's Day. A man doesn't even have time to play with a backstop. 
• Couple attacked by a baseball that acted like the bullet that hit Kennedy.
• The Tarrant County DA's new media relations employee has never released a press release about a "not guilty" verdict (and I know for a fact one occurred last week in a child sexual abuse case.) 
• What's up with juvenile crime? We had the verdict last week in the kid that dropped all the F bombs, a bunch of kids last year pushed the kid in front of the DART train, we've got a home invasion and murder in Dallas by kids, and four teens are held in a fatal carjacking in Houston. 
• The Black Hawk Down book is pretty good but I feel like a need a city map of Mogadishu in order to keep up. 

Messenger Above The Fold