And Another - New Jersey

Story.

These teachers are putting up record breaking numbers quicker than Josh Hamilton.

The Story . . .

. . . says the city attorney prepared a three page contract regarding the coin flip. That got me thinking. What rules or contingencies would you need covered. Let's see . . .

• When
• Where
• Type of coin
• Who gets to make the call
• What happens if coin doesn't land flat (i.e. rolls and ends up leaning.)
• Who flips the coin
• Does the coin need to be tossed to a certain height

What else?

College Football Going Old School

The SEC and Big 12 just announced an agreement to have its conference champs play a bowl game on New Years Day.  The site is still undetermined but Jerry World has to be in the mix somewhere.

The only down side, if you can call it that, is that there will be a four team national championship playoff in a format that is yet to be determined. If the Big 12 Champ or SEC Champ it in the top four, they'll bypass the new bowl game. The last time that the Big 12 and SEC (combined) did not have a team in the final top four in the polls was 2001, so this new game will probably have a conference champ runner up in it every year.  Still, it's great.

Edit: Someone pointed out that they announced this game for prime time on New Years Day and they don't even have a television contract for the bowl. No worry. They'll come lined up with sacks and sacks of money.

Edit: Here's the matchups the game would have produced over the last ten years or so.

Mark Cuban Rolling Big Time At Some Restaurant Named Blowfish

He throwing down the Duck Face?

Source.

Right Now, You Can Own A Portion Of Facebook

Google opened at $100 in August of 2004.  It is trading at $626 when I last checked.

So this is a sure bet, right?   Then again, as someone once told me, "There ain't no free lunch."

FB on Nasdaq.

Edit:

Random Friday Morning Thoughts

• A homeless man steals food from the Marriott in Southlake and breaks into a car. Sitting in jail, to poor to make bond, he is found hanged to death. Now police think the accused capital murderer of a pastor may have killed him.
• If you are the Harris County (Houston) DA, why have a trial in that cop-beating-black-kid case right before an election? There are a million ways a prosecutor can dodge a trial (dismiss the case and refile it, for example). Now the predominately Democratic Harris County electorate is fired up about turning the DA out.
• Funny moment in my trial yesterday. Right in the middle of jury selection, a guy just walks in and wanders around. He finally looks up and asks, "Is this the courtroom?"
• Funny moment #2 after the prosecutor ask the jury panel if they had ever had a bad or good experience with police: A lady, with a thick British accent, said, "I was stopped once by not one but by two policemen and they were both very good looking. [Laughter.] You asked if I had a good experience with police and that was a very good experience." Prosecutor: "OK, anyone else been stopped by a couple of Chippendale dancers?"
• Mrs, LL and I played catch in the back yard last night. That was fun until she took over my backstop/pitchback.
• I don't know exactly what happened between George Zimmerman and Trayvon Martin, but the news of Zimmerman's injuries yesterday makes the prosecution's case a lost cause.  It's all about reasonable doubt.
• I think Fox 4 spent 15 minutes with the SMU women's rowing team last night about a viral video they made that doesn't look interesting enough to watch. 
• It's official: Decatur Middle School will receive 750 iPads for students and 50 for teachers. Are there 750 students in the middle school?
• I received a spam comment from this law firm calling themselves "DWI Sharks". If they are resorting to spam, I'll call them a bunch of spares. But the women are hot. 
• A donation was made to Baylor yesterday to build a bridge across the Brazos to connect the campus to the new football stadium. The undisclosed amount came from Walter Umphrey who was part of the  “Tobacco Five” lawyers who shared a $3.3 billion fee from the tobacco companies when the State of Texas sued them, using private lawyers, over a decade ago. What a scam. What an embarrassment. (Former Texas AG Dan Morales even ended up in prison for falsifying documents in an attempt to get a lawyer buddy part of that fee. )
• Can you ever quote any parts of the Old Testament since Christ brought forth a new covenant? (It does have some rather bizarre rules. Can you ignore those without ignoring all of it?)
• A faithful reader who attends college out of state posted this pic this morning on Twitter saying it was outside her window and asking "What is this?" It looks like a 25 pound squirrel.
• Skinny, "Hey, now."
• Why spend so much to capture a U.S. Senate seat? A vacancy hardly ever occurs and once you are elected, you'll never be defeated.

Trial Over

I normally do this exact same victory dance if I win but I didn't get to today. But I didn't lose either. We had a mistrial* followed by a mutually agreed upon resolution. I'll take it. Fair result for everyone.
_______________
* For you DWI lawyers, it was an "Emerson" error. That is the fourth trial I've had where that problem occurred.

I Was In Trial When Michael Jackson Died, Too

Random Thursday Morning Thoughts

• You save a file by hitting the floppy disk icon - an icon that depicts an item that a whole generation is unfamiliar with. 
• A flight attendant has a few glasses of wine and goes home to bed after taking two Ambien. Later, she will leave her apartment barefoot and dressed in her "sleeping clothes" and drive several miles with a flat tire before crashing into another vehicle and severely injuring an 18 month old. The verdict in San Antonio here on the charge of Intoxication Assault.
• John Edwards is a bad man, but I'm not sure he's guilty of campaign financing laws. And I'm surprised his lawyers were able to convince him not to testify.
• For the first time ever this week, I ate some of those golden tomatoes. I'll be dang if they don't taste exactly like red tomatoes.
• I think Mrs. LL woke up and watched The Office at 3:00 in the morning last night.
• For the first time ever, a baby born in the U.S. is more likely to be non-white than white. 
• The would-be Paradise model was in New York to become a HowardTV girl.
• One of my favorite actors, Nick Stahl, is missing. He starred in Terminator 3, Sin City, Bully, and In The Bedroom to name a few.
• I think that "Did Texas Execute An Innocent Man" story does have legs. And people are also beginning to remember Justice Scalia's famous concurrence where he said there had not been “a single case—not one—in which it is clear that a person was executed for a crime he did not commit. If such an event had occurred in recent years, we would not have to hunt for it; the innocent’s name would be shouted from the rooftops.”
• I'm in a DWI trial today so it may be slow around here. And the preparation for the trial made me completely miss a "not guilty" verdict in a drug case in the district court yesterday.
• This lady hung herself?

Mugshot Of The Day

Smith appears to be something of a Latin enthusiast. His forehead includes the sayings “Cogito ergo sum” (“I think therefore I am”) and “Alis grave nil” (“Nothing is heavy to those who have wings”). And he also had the word “Articulate” inked below those phrases.

Latin? This man has style. At least when he's not stabbing his girlfriend for cheating on him at the Econo Lodge.

P.S. I wonder if he's a member of the Latin Kings but didn't quite get the Gang Member's Introduction Manual?

I Think Houston Just Had Its Own Rodney King Verdict

Some cop accused of beating a 15 year old black kid just got a acquitted by an all white jury.

Warning: That page has so much crap on it (photos, video, rolling twitter feed) that it caused my browser problems. But it's good stuff if you can load it consistently.

Wheel Of Fortune Misfortune

Go ahead and make fun of this kid, but I'm on his side. One you have the "and" stuck in your head (as in "hand"), you can't get it out of there. Why is is spelled "wand" anyway? Shouldn't it be "wond"? That "a" shouldn't even be there. Should be an "o" as in bond, song, donkey, and kong.

English is a tough language. I prove that every day.

I'm Still Confused

So this is like a party van?

Edit: Direct link for those that can't see it.

Random Wednesday Morning Thoughts

• There was a wrong way driver on Central Expressway last night, but I'm not sure the car hit anything.  
• Even boxers are no match for an angry ex of a girlfriend swinging a (probable) golf club. (Graphic pics.)
• When I saw the picture (below) of the Trinity River alligator, I thought of those concerts last summer where folks would float in the Trinity on inner tubes as the band played.
• I don't know if the story has legs, but there's the possibility that an innocent man was executed in Texas. 
• Yesterday, GM pulled its $10 million a year ad campaign off of Facebook claiming those ads don't work. House of cards?
• I kept seeing reports yesterday that the Boyd ISD Superintendent "cleaned out his desk" but I have no idea if that is true. 
• I had to look up the status of that silly Roger Clemens perjury trial only to find out that there have been two jurors dismissed by the judge because of sleeping during the proceedings. The federal government must be putting on a heck of a case. 
• That Big Tex discussion yesterday was pretty thought provoking.
• Ted Cruz is the highest profile candidate who is a golden boy of the Tea Party, but it looks like he doesn't stand a chance. Is the Tea Part relevant anymore?
• Senior Prom is still overrated, isn't it? 
• Someone explain to me why the Bridgeport City Council voided almost a quarter of a million dollars of "underbilled" debt to Bridgeport Tank Trucks, Bridgeport Independent School District and LaQuinta Inn?
• When will the under 30 crowd give up that goofy "sideways peace sign" when they are photographed?
• There is more student debt in this country than credit card debt or auto loan debt. But here's the kicker: You can't get rid of that debt by bankruptcy, collection fees are astronomical, and the government can garnish a portion of your income and all of your IRS refund. That sounds like the Next Big Financial Crisis.

Look What They Just Pulled Out Of The Trinity River In Fort Worth

Source.

Coincidence?

More.

Yesterday I mentioned in Random Thoughts that I had watched a documentary over the weekend called Into The Abyss - a documentary that focused on two young guys accused of capital murder in Texas. One received the death penalty and the other received a life sentence. The guy who received life? He was named "Jason Burkett". (Obviously a different Jason Burkett, but still weird.)

Opening It Up To The Masses: Should "Big Tex" Be Banned?

So what do you think? I've never banned anyone, but this guy is just completely over the top. I normally let about half of the average "n" word comments in from Liberally Lean Nation because of my "reveal that racism is still alive" policy, but I he's proven his point.

Heck, if I'm beaten down by him, I suspect you guys are, too.

Edit:

Should "Big Tex" Be Banned?
Yes No
	Results

1%-er Driving His Car Like Danica Patrick

You know what makes a good video? Putting words like "crash" in the title and then waiting and waiting for it to happen.  As I heard on "The Simpsons" once, "Better than the deed, better than the memory: The moment of . . . anticipation."