Lot Of Buyers And Sellers At The Courthouse This Morning

Texas Property Code Sec. 51.002.  SALE OF REAL PROPERTY UNDER CONTRACT LIEN.  (a)  A sale of real property under a power of sale conferred by a deed of trust or other contract lien must be a public sale at auction held between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. of the first Tuesday of a month.  Except as provided by Subsection (h), the sale must take place at the county courthouse in the county in which the land is located . . . . 

That number of people is really unusual. Based upon some of the participants,  I think we have some tax foreclosure sales going on.

Index - 1969

Fires and beauty pageants. There were a ton of both back then.

Random Tuesday Morning Thoughts

• Jesse Jackson is following Ebola to Dallas!
• Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins is a twofer: Not only does he look goofy, he sounds goofy. 
• So the Supreme Court ruled it would not decide whether lower courts were correct when they declared same sex marriage bans unconstitutional? That allows for same sex marriage in five new states. That's odd because it only takes four votes for the court simply to decide it will hear the case. (And if you want to really be confused, earlier five judges of the court had voted to keep the ban in place until they decided whether they would hear the case.)  Now what are they going to do when the crazy Fifth Circuit (which rules Texas) declares that Texas' ban is constitutional in a pending case? The Supreme Court will have to hear that appeal, right? 
• Ted Cruz immediately did some time-wasting grandstanding yesterday when he announced he would introduce a proposed constitutional amendment banning same sex marriage. Let's see, that would require two-thirds vote in the House and the Senate and then a ratification of three-fourths of the states. That's going to happen when the majority of Americans support same sex marriage? 
• Lots of reports that people are acting nuts in Chico over the last couple of weeks. I mean, it sounds like Zombieland breaks out. 
• Blacks are upset in Dallas over police brutality. Find out that you can carry a long barrelled firearm in public. So they do their own open carry police protest. 
• A great chart showing the number of flights Southwest is adding to new destinations and what they are cutting back on once the Wright Amendment is officially repealed this month. 
• Tom Delay was exonerated by Texas' highest criminal court last week so now he wants to sue his prosecutors. Not a chance. After throwing his weight around forever, he finally learned what it is like "when the rabbit got the gun." And, if the rabbit misses, he just gets to go back in his hole and reloads. 
• There is a real good chance that the Cowboys are selling unsold tickets on Stubhub. I went to a Tennessee Titans game in Nashville once, bought the ticket on Stubhub, and those around me told me I was sitting in the seat of a guy who didn't renew his season tickets. Did the Titans then simply put the seat up on Stubhub since they could even get more than face value? 
• Baylor is 21-1 in their last 22 home games. The last loss: TCU. 
• Speaking of grandstanding: "Gov. Rick Perry today announced the creation of the Texas Task Force on Infectious Disease Preparedness and Response, which will assess and enhance the state's existing capabilities to prepare for and respond to pandemic disease, such as the Ebola virus." That means: (1) Hold a press conference since it's cheaper than buying a campaign ad, (2) Have a committee spend a bunch of taxpayer money preparing a report, (3) Have another press conference releasing the report, (4) Toss the report aside never to  be read again.  

"Manhunt" In Chico Going On Right Now?

Getting some reports of that.

Shouldn't be a problem

	FOX 4 NEWS (@FOX4)
10/6/14, 11:52 AM Call police if you see this man... 22yr old Logan Michael Drumm is wanted for murder... bit.ly/1BITMoh pic.twitter.com/MeUSEm42i3

Download the official Twitter app here

Barry

Arlington PD's Social Media Guy Creates Stuff Like This

Hey, if you want your tax dollars allocated for this, knock yourself out.

Cheating Death

Random Monday Morning Thoughs

• Ken Starr is Baylor's president. Remember him? He's the law and order guy who prosecuted Bill Clinton. Well, it seems scandal is getting a little close to home. Jennifer Renee Jarvis, his executive secretary and her husband, were arrested in separate incidents for DWI. (That fact alone is insane.) Now there are allegations that there was an effort in Waco to bury the cases.  
• One song I grew up with was "Indian Reservation" by the very cooly named Paul Revere and the Raiders. Welp, Paul Revere died over the weekend. 
• 60 Minutes ran their interview of FBI Chief James Comey last night. That guy came across as a modern day paranoid J. Edgar Hoover. But I loved when he was asked if Americans should sleep comfortably at night: "I think they should. I mean, the money they have invested in this government since 9/11 has been well spent." Translation: Give us money = your security. 
• Sports: (1) Katy Perry on College Game Day was funny. And her predictions bested anyone else on the panel. (2) Am I worried about my predication that the Cowboys will have less than 7.5 wins? Of course not. (3) Baylor is a 10 point favorite over TCU on Saturday. Way too much. In fact, I think its a coin flip. I've said for the last four weeks to fear TCU. (4)  "NBA to announce $24 billion/9 year deal w/ ESPN and TNT on Monday. Annual average value nearly 3x current deal." Players, you see this? Especially you top line guys who take a pay cut to get in under a salary cap? (5) If J.J. Watt had connected on that blind side rush yesterday, Romo would be in a wheelchair this morning. (6) C.J. Wilson, paid $16 million this year, got pulled in the first inning last night. Teammate Josh Hamilton, paid $17 million, went 0-13 in the division series loss. 
• The cover of some publication called Dallas Weekly had a very ill-timed cover on Friday. 
• That goofy tweeting judge was on Fox and Friends on Sunday.  I received a message from someone who compared him to Paris Hilton. That is, despite actual public perception, Paris Hilton thinks she comes across as sexy. Similarly, that judge thinks he comes across as clever and witty. 
• "Be the kind of person the dog thinks you are."
• Dallas DA Craig Watkins is considering filing charges for Aggravated Assault against the Ebola patient for Aggravated Assault if there's proof that the patient "intentionally or knowingly" exposed others to disease. What an idiot. Is there any proof Mr. Ebola even knew he had the disease? Is there any proof anyone else has contracted it? (And the fact that Watkins seems to not realize that "reckless" exposure of the disease to another would also be a crime -- at least an arguable position -- is amazing.) 
• A man was shot in the back about 30 times at Club Reeces in Oak Lawn last night. He was pronounced dead at the hospital.  30 times?  (And I tried to look up Club Reeces' web site but it doesn't have one.) 

That's Some Quality Comedy

I'm done. They really went to the Dallas game like this... pic.twitter.com/8KjshxWRXR
— Racial Draft (@TheRaceDraft) October 6, 2014

My Trip Back To The True Death Star: Darrell K. Royal Memorial Stadium

29 years since I came here and watched UT break Baylor's heart, I have returned for revenge. (Please) pic.twitter.com/V3SPnghgjL
— Barry Green (@BSG) October 4, 2014

Twenty-nine years ago, I went down to Austin to watch Baylor play UT. A Baylor win locked up a trip to the Cotton Bowl. It didn't happen. My figurative beat down from the UT fans that day has led to a life-long hatred of the Evil Empire. It's not a malicious hatred. It's like the feeling those who have a love/hate relationship with the Cowboys, Yankees, or (until now) the Heat. I want to beat them, but I'm glad they are around. And it's more fun when they are good.

But as I saw Baylor creep up to a 16 point favorite, I had an internal struggle: Go down there with the expectation of winning to exorcise demons from 29 years ago, or do what I normally do -- stay home and watch the game with low expectations. Hey, I'm a new man: I jumped into the Dodge and headed to Austin on Saturday morning. This is my story. (Dah-dum).

• I-35 is coming along. I had almost no traffic issues.
• If you ever want to remember you're in the Bible Belt, roam around on the AM dial in Central Texas. (I heard a guy tell me to teach my kids that there is a distinct and unwavering line between right and wrong. Would it be OK to steal food to feed you're starving baby? No, he told me. "Once a person steals because of a reason he thinks is right, the next thing you know he is stealing his neighbor's car because it is nicer than his." If you heard me scream, I apologize.) 
• Don't try to pick a restaurant off of an "Austin's Best Breakfast" list and try to get in even at 10:30 a.m. on Texas Game Day and when the Austin City Limits music festival is in town. 
• I spent about an hour or more roaming the campus. I'm not sure I've ever done that at UT. I spent an unusual amount of time looking up at The Tower. 
• I walked into some Student Services building in search of a bathroom. Door open (colleges are soooo wide open).  As I was walking out, I passed by two students who were studying. I heard one say, "when an electron . . . " and then I think every electron in my brain exploded.  The concept of being transported in time back to college is traumatizing. 
• I tried to picture going to school there but I hate the feeling of that campus. (No offense.) There's just a sensation of inside every building there's a group who understands how the Empire works that the average student does not.
• Man, this was the first time I've been in the stadium since the wholesale renovations. Wow. That place is incredible.
• I cringed at "Red McCombs Red Zone" being plastered all over the north end. 
• But my favorite moment was this. I was walking around the stadium before the gates were even open and peaked through the wrought iron fence to try and get a glimpse of Darrell Royal's statue. It was far away, and I was really surprised to see another statute right by it. Mack Brown? "No way", I thought. I'd know that. I saw a guy holding up a sign that said, "Fan Information" so I asked him who the other statue was. "Joe Jamail," he tells me. I replied in righteous indignation, "They've got Joe Jamail's statue next to Darrell Royal's?" He replied, "Yes, sir. Mr. Jamail's name is on the stadium and he has provided much support ,...." I didn't hear anything else because my ears began to bleed. 
• Texas, you have a problem: The University has a statue of your greatest coach ever next to a booster. (Image.) I find that horrifying. And that might be the exact reason for your recent problems. (Some on campus agree that a statue of Jamail -- his second one -- is uncalled for.)
• I walked past a guy training the young volunteers who were to hand out programs (for free!).  "OK, let's get fired up!," he said. "Texas!" he yelled. "Fight!" the group halfheartedly replied. "Texas!" he said again. "Fight," they replied. "Baylor!" he yelled. "Sux!" the group lamely retorted. "We'll have to work on that," the guy said. Above, there's a link about how the concept of a Texas crowd yelling "Sux" in 1985 was appalling to innocent little me and launched me into my lifelong hatred of the Evil Empire. Hearing that on Saturday morning seemed like karma. I was glad I made the trip at that moment. 
• Once inside the stadium, there's a weird haze over the Texas fans. This is a low point in the program's history and they know it. There was no energy.
• And there is a major audio train wreck they have: The team warms up to very loud hip hop music from speakers on the field (Baylor does it at home, too), but the stadium audio system is blaring its own random music at the same time. I promise you, in the middle of the 45 minutes of that mess, I was being whipped by Journey on the stadium PA system and Drake from the field PA system. Simultaneously. It was maddening. 
• I ended up sitting by a sixty-something year old Texas fan who claimed he had been going to games since he could buy end zone seats for a $1. Nice guy. "This is the worst Texas team we've ever had," he said. I felt bad for him. We talked the entire game.
• Don't get me wrong. Some of my best friends are UT exes. But you can't hate people like that. So I was constantly, and successfully, on the lookout for the three types of Texas fans that drive me nuts: (1) The guy who looks like a meth head who couldn't have possibly graduated from high school, (2) The thirty-something seemingly successful douche guy who still thinks he's in a fraternity, and (3) The senior citizen who is so lively that he looks like he's headed to a swinger's party after the game. Boy, they were all around me once I took my seat. 
• "Please stand for the Baylor school song," the PA guy said. A guy right in front of me who fit into category #2 above  sat down and started munching on nachos like it was his last meal. (I pictured myself being a Tex Cobb like character who would grab him by the back of the collar and lift him up while quietly saying, "Why don't you do what the man said, and show a little respect?")
• Another ex-fraternity boy right by him would spend the game shooting the bird to the referee after every call that didn't go his way. His seemingly respectable wife thought he was adorable. 
• There were actually two Baylor women who sat behind me who reminded me of Cagney and Lacey.  Funny ladies.  One of them told me, "You're so tense" after the first play. After the Texas/OU game last year, I take nothing for granted.
• The women laughed when I flinched at the sound of that loud Texas cannon. (For those who know me, I'm kind of skittish.)
• I bought my ticket on Stub Hub. Home side. In the shade. 25 yard line. Perfect. Face value was $100 and I paid $110. The two women behind me bought their seats for $50 from a scalper on game day. 
• "Bryce Petty. You suck!!!! You only have 87 yards of passing!" -- Texas fan screaming as Baylor took a 21-0 lead. That was the kind of moment I came for. 
• The game was scary for a while (Texas has no offense and Baylor tried to replicate them), but it was an easy fourth quarter. I just sat back and took it all in and didn't leave early. I told Mrs. LL six years ago, "There will come a day when we actually beat Texas. It might not be in the next decade, but it will happen before I die. . . . I hope."  Baylor has now won 4 of the last 5.
• I stayed the entire game and made the trip to Austin because I'm smart enough to know one thing: Enjoy the moment. Nothing lasts forever. 
• (And if Baylor's offense doesn't get its act in gear, TCU will throttle them next week. As will West Virginia and OU and OSU. ) 
• Finally, I mentioned in Friday's Random Thoughts how Mississippi was excited with Ole Miss and Miss State getting the spotlight for huge games. Both teams won. Local paper for the win: 

Above The Fold

Kim Kardashian Forgets Kid

Loved her looking into the vehicle and thinking, "Oh, sheesh. Forgot the baby. Be cool. Be cool. You gonna turn around and walk right back in there and get him."

I Think This Is What Is Called "Mixed Messages"

Doctors: "Hey, you morons, we are experts. You cannot contact Ebola without the exchange of bodily fluids. So nothing to worry about here."

And now let's cut to the Ebola patient's apartment:

.@DallasPD: Crews about to clean apartment of individual infected with Ebola. pic.twitter.com/sWpIr5psGG
— FOX 4 NEWS (@FOX4) October 3, 2014

GIF Fun

The ball boy with the pink hair glaring at Oregon's QB for fumbling last night makes me smile.

The TDCAA Article In The "The Prosecutor" Referenced This Morning

Beginning of second page enlarged:

Here's the The Texas Prosecutor I mentioned this morning wherein a prosecutor refers to a defendant as, uh, crazy. (I said this morning that this article was not placed online, but it is there now. I'm not sure if I missed it, or it has been subsequently added to the end of the list despite being the lead article.)

But I'm stunned they didn't take heat for this. For a government employee to call a citizen crazy and incompetent in print is, well, crazy. Everyone I've talked to has the same opinion: How did that get past the editors?

Not to mention that TDCAA thinks that an article written by a prosecutor from a traffic court is worthy enough to get the front page in the first place!!!! "We tried this Class C window-tint case with all the seriousness of a first-degree felony," she wrote. [Insert me screaming.]

And as to my continued assertion that there are too many prosecutors, how much taxpayer money was used to prosecute this traffic ticket? Let's go to the author: "At the end of the day, was it worth it? Six weeks of my life for a $200 fine?"  That county has enough prosecutors that they can dedicate one for six weeks for the prosecution of a traffic ticket. That's just bat s&%$ crazy.

Random Friday Morning Thoughts

• Ben Affleck's Gone Girl opens this weekend. Christina Morris, a girl who went missing from the Shops at Legacy in Frisco a month ago, is still gone. 
• Breaking: U.S. Employment rate falls to 5.9% -- lowest since July 2008. And the Stock Market is on a "six year bull run" according to the Dallas Morning News.  2008? 2008? What changed in 2008? 
• I got hit with a full page pop ad this morning on the Star-Telegram's site advertising tickets for TCU/OU tomorrow. That's not a sellout already? Has to be. 
• Anyone else see the irony of government employee Rick Perry showing up to assure us that government is doing all it can in this Ebola health care "crisis"? (He's known to often say that government shouldn't be in the health care business.) 
• Who is paying for the Ebola Guy's health care? 
• The name of "Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary Catholic Church in Decatur" which is in the Update, made me think of Dan Aykroyd in The Blues Brothers when, before hitting the gas on the blues mobile, said, "Our Lady Of Blessed Acceleration, don't fail me now." 
• I wouldn't mind being arrested for criminal trespass by Denton PD if I had a head of hair like this guy. 
• Whatever happened to Katherine Harris? (She's the former AG of Florida who was instrumental in manipulating the Bush/Gore election).  It sounds like after a brief political career at the federal level, her wheels fell off. 
• The funeral of J.D. Clark's dad began with a ZZ Top song. Heck, that's fine. The service wasn't in a church (it was at the Chico football field) and it meant a lot to the family. (And I'm on record as saying I want my ashes shot out of a cannon from the courthouse bell tower  so who am I to judge?)
• The official journal of TDCAA (that's Texas prosecutors) had a silly article on the prosecution of a "sovereign citizen" for a traffic ticket as it's front feature last month.  Shockingly, the author/prosecutor wrote that the defendant who demanded due process was "bat shit crazy." (I'm not making that up. That's a direct quote. In print.) TDCAA normally posts all the articles of the publication online but that one is mysteriously missing when all the articles went up. No doubt, it's been scrubbed. I'll provide proof of all of this later. 
• Mississippi is excited about tomorrow with the Aggies going to Mississippi State, and Alabama (and College Game Day) going to Ole Miss. All teams are unbeaten. Unfortunately, my college football joy was crushed when I pulled up the Mississippi paper below and saw that the Feds are still taking people's money on the assumption they are drug runners. (The Feds say the guy admitted it. Riiiiight.)

This Dog Killing Is Different

One of my many sources is hearing that the guy came home, found his cat mauled, and then went all Dirty Harry and took off to go track down the perpetrator of said cat mauling. (Not confirmed. But, if true, you heard it here first.)

Story.

Edit: Once again, I'm the most trusted man in reporting rumors that turn out to be true.

Attorney of FWPD deputy chief under investigation for shooting dog Monday says the dog had killed the officer's cat. http://t.co/aUNl1uCzBh
— Deanna Boyd (@deannaboyd) October 3, 2014

Firing It Up

How it looked at 2:19 p.m.:

And Pete tried to scare us:

Keeping eye on Wise Co. storm. Definitely showing some rotation. Impressive hook but winds not completely wrapped up: pic.twitter.com/gzsUH0qRyX
— Pete Delkus (@wfaaweather) October 2, 2014