We Have A Liberally Lean Pick 'Em Winner

Here's his bracket (tonight's game will not prevent him from winning.)

The list:

2014 - Chris R (tell me your last name if you want.)
2013 - Tad Billmire
2012 - ????
2011 - Wise County Attorney James Stainton
2010 - Nine year old Blake Cooper (son of former Decatur stationed DPS Trooper Scott Cooper)

And Another - Houston

Strong to quite strong.

Story.

Random Monday Morning Thoughts

• I don't care about NASCAR but I feel bad for NASCAR fans. Normally we have beautiful April days, but not this weekend.
• There was a TV shot yesterday morning at Sundance Square where ESPN's Game Day was set up and it looked like a ghost town.
• I found Bruce Springfield [Edit: Make that Springsteen. Not sure what happened there.]  online last night and I'll give the guy credit: Cold and rainy and he was still giving it the what for.
• “They did everything they were supposed to do to win the game and we hit a ridiculous shot . . . . And the shot they took -- if it banks in, they win."  - Kentucky coach John Calipari explaining that there's not much of a difference between teams.
• "Nobody is better with concrete than Dallas-Fort Worth. It's everywhere and it somehow looks good." - CBS Reporter. I had friends visit from New Jersey a couple of years back, and they remarked on the amount of concrete in the area.
• Death Machine: "After the U.S. Supreme Court reinstituted the death penalty in 1976, the first Texas execution took place in 1982; by the end of that decade, the state was responsible for 33 of the country’s 116 executions." 
• Where's the Right Wing applause?: More than 2 million illegal aliens have been deported under the Obama Administration. 
• There was a high school visitor of the Sophomore in the House this weekend who (1) asked me if the Cowboys used to be good, and (2) remarked "That song is so old!" when she heard Fergalicious in the background on TV.
• I saw a commercial for a ridiculous pillow shaped as a triangle  for the head of the bed. You know, not a bad idea. 
• No one saw it but UT beat Baylor 5-4 in baseball on Friday night when the Evil Empire, with two outs and a full count in the bottom of the ninth, hit a three run double. I was in a fetal position. 
• I have a wheel barrow and use it more than you would imagine
• Mrs. LL and I used to go out on Saturday night like crazy. In the last year we've become home bodies. I'm a little scared to ask her if it's OK. 
• Final Four tickets from $117 on Stubhub.
• Funny picture: Former Auburn coach Gene Chizik in the background of his daughter's prom picture. 
• I don't understand "Geocaching" but Mrs. LL is obsessed with it. 
• Oddest item from the Update this morning: "Funerals - None pending."
• "You're Americans. Act Like It."

Final Four Concert

LL Cool J on the stage. A good crowd out here!! #WFAAFinal4 pic.twitter.com/CWFJJw0XuE
— Ryan Wood (@RyanWoodDFW) April 5, 2014

Not so sure about that second sentence.

Above The Fold

The Final Four Taking You Into The Weekend

Texas School Bus Driver Mocks Crying Girl

Well, we are missing a big part of the story here: What was she crying about? That could change everything.

Have the flu? No mock
Dog died? No mock
Dropped candy? Mock
Just drove by horrific car crash? No mock
The Wiggles were still on when you left the house? Mock
Learned Justin Bieber got arrested? Mock
Learned Liberally Lean won't be updated that day? No mock.

It's all relative. In criminal law, where there is also a lot of crying, we call it "totality of the circumstances."  We need more information.

George W. Reveals His Paintings Of World Figures on Today Show

Putin! Those eyes!

More.

Friday Random Post: Dog Slow Motion Face Plant

I swear The Family Pup did the exact same thing last night.

Random Friday Morning Thoughts

• I caught an old episode of Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations last night where he visited the Ukraine and Crimea in 2011. I learned more about the place on a travel show that I did by watching the news. (Then again, I'm not sure I even knew that Chernobyl is in the Ukraine.)
• Term I haven't heard in forever: Geiger Counter
• I got hail damage to my car in Decatur yesterday -- just enough to bug me. 
• Man, the local affiliates went crazy last night with their weather coverage, but what the heck was that tie that Pete Delkus had on?
• Doing a jury trial by yourself is stressful. The government always has two lawyers at the table. Always. Edit: I always get a comment from the "speaks volumes" guy about my "win/loss" record which I only publish because he has no idea. Visit the courthouse every now and then, hoss. 
• It was Doris Day's 90th birthday yesterday. Talk about a lady who stays out of public view -- so much so I was surprised to learn she was still alive. 
• David Letterman's retirement announcement sure got a lot of publicity for a show which no one has really paid attention to for  20 years.
• Funny moment during the Fox 4 6:00 news when Steve Eager interrupted the weather gal to advise that the Denton County Sheriff's Office had confirmed a tornado had touched down near TWU. She said she wasn't "buying it". Eager, with a hint of irritation, said, "I'll tell the Denton Sheriff the bad news." But I'll give her credit. I'm not sure any sheriff's office is in a position to "confirm" a tornado.
• Was no one in the stands at the minor league park in Frisco concerned about that cloud in the distance?
• There was wailing and gnashing of teeth last night on Twitter when SMU lost the NIT final. Baylor won the thing last year with barely a whisper from the media. Obviously, a vast Methodist media conspiracy.
• Paulina Gretzky on the cover of Golf Digest. "Hey, Now."
• "There were no American troop casualties in Afghanistan or Iraq in March, for the first time since February 2003, ending 133 straight months." Thank you, President Obama, for getting us out of there.
• Guns Galore in Killeen sold the eventual murder weapons to both Fort Hood soldiers (Ivan Lopez and Nidal Hasan) who went on shooting sprees.  Talk about a literal  Merchant of Death.
• Sarah Palin on Hannity last night and she's become a parody of herself. I absolutely believe everything that was written about her in Game Change -- She's a walking Talking Points Memo.
• Crazy story in the Dallas Observer about a wheels off heavy metal small band leader who hung out in strip bars in north Fort Worth: "The Infectious Metal Head and His Dangerous Secret".
• Ticket fans: I have no idea who CBS 11's Whitney Drolen is, but apparently she is not amused by what The Musers said about her. Tweet One. Tweet Two. 
• "Brittni Colleps, the Kennedale teacher found guilty of" being an extreme "And Another", had her conviction affirmed "yesterday" by the Fort Worth Court of Appeals. (I say "yesterday" because all opinions are dated on a Thursday but aren't released on the court's website until Friday morning.)  
• My dad gave me a book entitled "Our White Boy" written by Jerry Craft -- former mayor of Jacksboro and the "first white man to play in the 'West Texas Colored [Baseball] League.'" I'm excited.

Viral Video Of The Day?

So says this news story. But I'm not sure why the comments on youtube and the news story have so much outrage.

But it's a pretty good law school criminal law question (and I'm making some factual assumptions) : Can a cop enter the home of a third person without a warrant to arrest a person for committing a Class C offense (disorderly conduct) when the cop didn't witness the offense?  In Texas, I believe the answer is no. (But it could be argued that the offense of evading detention occurred if the guy opened the door to the cop and the cop asked him to step outside to discuss the incident. I'd like to know what happened before the filming began.)

Hail in Decatur right now

And a lot of it.

Edit: And from later in the afternoon to the East

Several hail stones collected from the northeast portion of Denton. @NWSFortWorth @TxStormChasers #hailhell pic.twitter.com/OlwPYV8a9B
— DFW Scanner (@DFWscanner) April 3, 2014

Not Even Sure How This Idea Was Dreamed Up In The First Place

People ask why we are going to be at the Diadaloso event this year and enforce the law instead of just leaving... http://t.co/vtHAnMLZnX
— WacoPolice (@WacoPolice) April 1, 2014

First Look

Campaign Contribution Rules In The U.S. Are Silly

Yesterday, the Supreme Court struck down limitations that some states and the federal government had  imposed on the total amount of money donors could  give to all candidates. As you can see, that doesn't effect Texas since we pretty much have no limits for big money donors for state candidates.

Then there are "Super PACs" that you can donate to without limitation (Hello, Koch brothers.) They, in turn, can spend all that money in support of a candidate so long as it acts "independent" of that person's campaign.

It's all smoke and mirrors.

Random Thursday Morning Thoughts

• Another shooting at Fort Hood. It's so odd: The last time all I heard was "Islamic Terrorist". This time the narrative seems to be "We need better treatment for PTSD". Edit: "AP-Army secretary says Fort Hood shooter saw no combat in Iraq, was not wounded."
• I saw a broken down school bus on 287 about two miles outside of Decatur this morning. I'm not sure if there were any kids on it. 
• I ended up not obtaining a "not guilty" verdict in the criminal case yesterday, but it was a good fight. And, with an appropriate sentence of two years of probation, it was worth that fight. (But that sure seemed like a whole lot of time and expense over 1/100th of a gram of meth. But, I suppose, it's just another battle on the War on Drugs.) 
• "As a late night comedian I'm begging you. Please make this guy run for President." -- Conan O'Brien, referring to Rick Perry, while broadcasting from Dallas.
• I caught the last part of it, but NPR has a great 12 minute broadcast late yesterday on the total immunity from the IRS that TV evangelists have. They focused on several "preachers" including Kenneth Copeland. Here's a link which includes the text and a picture of Copelands $6.3 million mansion on the property of his church on Eagle Mountain Lake. Good lord. 
• Since Sunday, I have seen Michael Lewis promoting his new book on high speed training on 60 Minutes and The Daily Show and heard him on the aforementioned NPR.  And I'm still not sure what he's talking about. 
• Two nights ago the Rangers, playing their second of 162 games, drew 149,000 viewers in the metroplex while the Mavericks, in a critical game, drew 85,000 viewers.  And Mark Cuban thinks the NFL will implode? He might want to worry about the NBA. (And the Cowboys average a million per regular season game.)
• One of the craziest murder cases and trials in North Texas history will be the feature of 12 episodes on some new show on the Discovery Channel.  A Wylie housewife was acquitted of murder even though she admitted to striking her neighbor with an axe 41 times.  It was the subject of a TV movie, and I even read a book about it. (A quick Google search also revealed this long read from a 1984 issue of Texas Monthly.) Edit: Oops. It's just one of the twelve episodes. That makes more sense.
• This week, Sean Hannity is running video segments where a Fox reporter interviews scantily clad college girls on Spring Break. This, we are told, is a hard news segment to "uncover the wildness." They report. You decide. 
• Amanda Bynes turns 28 today. It's been months since she had an incident of craziness and that is totally unacceptable. 
• I really like Spring. Mrs. LL and I really work a lot on the front flower beds --  And spend a lot of time saying, "I can't believe that died!"
• "Two Dewhurst aides quit amid campaign feuding about tactics".  This guy, who absolutely is the worst politician in the world, is going to screw this up and get trounced by that nutcase Dan Patrick. 

Random Wednesday Morning Thoughts

• The 8.2 earthquake off of Chile yesterday evening is about as big of one as I've heard about.  (And I really hadn't heard much about tsunami's until the one in the Indian Ocean ten years ago, but the entire western coastline of South America was under a Tsunami warning -- until it was cancelled without incident.)
• "Iran has chosen a former hostage-taker involved in the 1979 seizure of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran to serve as its ambassador at the United Nations, Sen. Ted Cruz said Tuesday in vowing to bar him from entering the United States." We get to decide who other countries want as their ambassador?
• Idiocracy: Texas Motor Speedway is now offering a "Big Hoss TV Dinner" at the concession stands. And I'm not sure why a TV dinner is offered at all. 
• According to today's Messenger, Alvord's ISD may not be gone at all. The 3-3 vote not to renew his contract only means that a new contract will become effective "by operation of law" (which is a fancy way of saying "automatically".
• Sports: (1) Watched the end of the SMU NIT game last night and came away from it thinking that Bobby Knight is borderline senile, (2) The Mavs fight to make the playoffs so they can be bounced in the first round took a hit last knight, (3) The Astros beat the Yankees? (4) Tiger Woods has withdrawn from the Masters after "minor" backs surgery. A lot has changed for the guy since Elin took a golf club to his SUV in 2009.
• I'm still in my jury trial but that should end today. The Sheriff was on the jury panel (for about five minutes) in a case that involved an arrest by the Sheriff's office. He joked that he received a jury summons from himself -- which is technically true.
• The funniest moment came when the prosecutor was asking some questions to a retired pastor on the jury panel and brought up the biblical story of Doubting Thomas as an analogy. The pastor gently interrupted him by saying, "You stick to lawyering and let me do the pastoring."
• Other people on the panel: A Bridgeport lawyer, a Decatur lawyer, a DPS trooper, a guy whose daughter I dated over thirty years ago, and two current clients. (None made it onto the jury.) 
• "The debate over repealing this law is over. The Affordable Care Act is here to stay. ... In the end, history is not kind to those who would deny Americans their basic economic security." - President Obama yesterday after news that 7.1 million people had signed up for insurance under the program. 
• "Man swept away in ocean baptism still missing"

Above The Fold