That's A Heck Of An Endorsement

Web site.

I was going to title this "I'm Calling This Election For Pierre!" but then I noticed the election was yesterday. So I went and found the results:

Been Monitoring These Lately

Ever since Dallas Cowboy Josh Brent was charged with Intoxication Manslaughter in the death of his friend who was a passenger, I've been looking for news reports of similar situations. Things can get weird when a victim's family urges a DA's office for leniency.

I've got a new one: This girl out of Austin pled guilty to "intoxication manslaughter with a vehicle and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon in the death of 22-year-old Christopher Johnson Peart, who was thrown out of the car she was driving in a wrong-way wreck". In exchange for the plea, she received two ten year probated sentences stacked on top of one another and 120 days in the county jail as a condition of the probation. (The 120 days is mandatory by law if she receives probation.)

I think there is a double jeopardy issue of being charged both with intoxication manslaughter and aggravated assault, but it might be a situation where the defense lawyer didn't complain so long as he could keep her out of prison.

Random Wednesday Morning Thoughts

• Headline in the Dallas Morning News today: "Scandal removed from Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson’s Wikipedia page." Seriously? Does anyone over there know how Wikipedia works? Anyone can change it in thirty seconds. 
• Channel 8 had a brief story last night that the police had "recommended" that the Bridgeport substitute teacher (who played overly aggressive dodge ball with a kid's head) be prosecuted. That's really the wrong word. That just means they turned the case over to the prosecutor for a determination -- something that was guaranteed to happen from the beginning. 
• An unusually ill-prepared Fox 4 Steve Eager interviewed some MADD mouthpiece last night about the possibility of a change from .08 to .05 in DWI cases.  At one point Eager said that "10,000" people a day die in the U.S. from alcohol related incidents. That was an error of biblical proportions. But, of course, the MADD representative let that information go through uncorrected.
• I set off an ear splitting office alarm this morning as I scrambled to put in a four digit code. That'll wake a guy up. 
• How has White House Press Secretary Jay Carney kept his job? That man is awful on his best of days. 
• The Update today leads with the Murder-On-Mother's-Day story like this is the first we've heard of it. (By the way, the guy in the second story has a neck tattoo that reads, "Rednexican.")
• Maybe the only thing I find interesting about the NBA playoffs: "In his last 8 games, Jason Kidd has no points on 0-16 field goal shooting and 0-10 in three point shooting."
• Mrs. LL asked last night whether that "gene screening test" that Angelina Jolie had was available to everyone and how much it cost. Good question. 
• Pretty interesting blog post about the day reporter Scott Pelley came to Bridgeport in the early 1980s.
• I always heard the name Billie Sol Estes growing up as a kid, but I really had no idea who he was. He died yesterday. 
• I bet there's a heck of a lot more to the story than what is being reported about the Irving teen who was accused of "human trafficking" yesterday. 
• The current political "scandals" sure has pulled Right Wing Talk Radio/TV out of its collective depression. I haven't seen them this happy in almost ten years.
• Did you see the video of the Dallas jailer slamming a handcuffed girl to the floor causing "shattered and broken teeth" because she wouldn't stay on a line (and might have gotten mouthy?)  After a while other jailers gathered in the background and you can just tell they have that "that wasn't good" look. 

Above The Fold

We Could See Lots Of This Over The Next Few Months

Grass Fire (Wise Co. - Boyd) 105 CR4791 - Boyd FD responding to a reported grass fire with lots of smoke visible... fb.me/UR9qV9dY
— DFW Scanner (@DFWscanner) May 14, 2013

Good Grief

Link.

But I'm not sure if that "recommendation" has much weight.  Basically every state has a .08 threshold right now because in the 1990s the federal government told the states that if it didn't use that standard then federal highway funds would be withheld. (See how that works? They couldn't make a federal law of .08 that could be imposed on the states so they just blackmailed them into doing the functional equivalent.)  Unless Congress does the same thing this time, I don't think you'll see much change. That is, unless MADD starts bullying lawmakers.

Tailgating At Kenny Chesney Concert At Cowboys Stadium: You're Doing It Wrong

Not sure what the back story is. Just found here on the Dallas Observer web site.

And Another: Vegas

Link.

Edit:

Random Tuesday Morning Thoughts

• Benghazi? It's still nothing. IRS auditing conservative groups? Jolting, but it's also something we've always suspected. A broad sweep of AP reporters phone records? Hey, even I'm drawing the line on that one.
• It's not been a good week for the President, but rumors of his demise are greatly exaggerated.
• Bryce Harper crashing face first into the wall last night was nasty. 
• "A Kaufman County Sheriff's Deputy was hospitalized after being ejected from his squad car during a pursuit."
• I don't know anything about the Facebook Phone other than it is a disaster. ATT originally priced the phone at $99 but a couple of weeks ago lowered it to 99 cents. Really. Now it has announced they won't sell them at all. 
• Talk show host Mark Davis said the other day that it would be "years" before his 10 year old son had access to his own cell phone. If true, that's a little crazy, right?
• One valuable lesson that I took forever to learn: Don't correct someone unless absolutely necessary. 
• Back over Christmas I found a bunch of 8 millimeter homemade films in my parents' house that were made before I was born and when my brother was two years old. (They were labeled.) They were two brittle to play so I took one to see if I could find a company to convert it to DVD. Mrs. LL found a place and mailed it off in January and told me "they said it would take a while." Yesterday we received a box containing the film roll and a DVD. I've not watched it yet. I have no idea what to expect, but I feel like the guy about to open up the Holy Grail in the first Indiana Jones movie. 
• I went to Fort Worth for a driver's license hearing yesterday. On I-30 between Camp Bowie and University, I saw four different police traffic stops.  
• Dick Cheney was pimping a new book everywhere yesterday. Well, that is if "everywhere" means every show on Fox News and Fox News Radio.
• There was an old Seinfeld episode where George was caught gawking at the young daughter of an NBC executive. ("Get a good look, Costanza?")  I've seen that scene ten or more times and never realized the girl was Denise Richards.
• The Fourth Grader in The House announced that she had determined I'm in the process of wearing a suit for twelve straight days. Mrs. LL was afraid of immediate depression on my part.
• Mrs. LL didn't know of Bruce Jenner other than through the Kardashians. Think about that: Jenner competed in the Olympics 37 years ago. 
• I read this morning that Angelina Jolie had undergone a double mastectomy. Pretty big news. Then I read it was a "preventive" procedure, and I thought she was a nut. Then I read that she had undergone genetic testing which revealed there was an 85% chance she was going to contract breast cancer. That's a fascinating story. 

Somebody Beat This Man Over The Head, Say, With a "Smartphone"

This isn't earthshaking, but it is amazing in its own way. This was published on Newt's Youtube channel three days ago.

It's not a phone. It's not a computer. What should we call this thing?

Hate Map

Montague County leads the region in both racist and homophobic comments on Twitter. Wise County 2nd most racist twitter.com/BudKennedy/sta…
— Bud Kennedy (@BudKennedy) May 13, 2013

You have to click on "Racist" at the top of this map to see it. (We don't win any medals in the categories of making derogatory tweets about homosexuals or cripples.) But someone in Montague must be a Twitter Hitler.

Well, this is strange

	WCMessenger.com (@WCMessenger)
5/13/13, 12:51 PM New details in the case of a son accused of murdering his mom on Mother's Day wcmessenger.com/?p=62346

Still Images Of New Orleans Mother's Day Shooter

Ugh

SPRINGTOWN - A boy was killed after he tripped and fell and was run over while attempting to catch a school bus Monday morning in a Parker County town, authorities said in a statement. More.

Get Me These Baby Ducks

And that's some fine parenting right there. You kids better get after it and take that leap of faith. We can't build bridges for you all your life.

Random Monday Morning Thoughts

• Nineteen shot at a Mother's Day Parade in New Orleans. Two things: (1) it's amazing no one died and, (2) what an odd way to honor mom..
• I've said for years and years that Kenny Chesney is positioning himself as the next Jimmy Buffet.  And he's doing it well based upon the huge crowd that turned out to see his shtick at Cowboys Stadium on Saturday night. 
• It struck me as funny to see Pete Delkus was tweeting photos from Chesney's concert. Just the thought of Delkus dancing with a fist pump in the air brings joy to my heart. 
• Update over the weekend: "Teen injured in ATV wreck." I thinks it's odd they used the phrase that she was "passed out" when found. And we use helicopter ambulances for "precautionary reasons" these days?
• Yep, the IRS targeting conservative groups is notagood.
• Bangladesh death toll: 1,127.
• The Little Puppy In The House may be the cutest thing I've ever seen. I've never owned a puppy in my life.
• Man, if you listen to sports talk radio in the metroplex, Boyd's Greg Williams is going scorched earth on his blog.
• Mrs. LL and I are almost caught up with Breaking Bad. Over the weekend we watched the train robbery episode named Dead Freight. Oh, my.
• Funny tweet from someone after Sergio Garcia put two shots in the water on the 17th whole yesterday: "Give me another ball, Romeo." That's a Tin Cup reference. (Side note: If I'm ever arrested for murder, I assure you the victim will be someone who constantly shouted, "Get in the hole!")
• Paraphrasing from a funeral I attended on Saturday: "Accumulating a lot of stuff really doesn't matter much in the end." 
• Some very spare sounding company called InvestingMakesMeSick.com has been advertising for the last year on the radio about how dumb it is to invest in the stock market.  They've finally abandoned that approach because it was not making them look very smart.
• Bryce Harper [Edit: Make that Bryce Reed -- maybe one of my strangest screw-ups ever], the guy arrested for bomb making materials in West, is an odd duck. The Dallas Morning News published an article about him over the weekend which is worth the read. No one is saying he is connected to the blast, but there is a weird history of fireman who also like to be arsonists.

Line At Joe T. Garcias

That's from tonight based upon a pic from twitter that was just posted. Unless I've been fasting for forty days and forty nights, there's no way I'm waiting in that line for food. 

Edit: Another picture from during the day . . . 

Above The Fold