Russian Feeds Bear

Hey, I'll admit this isn't all that remarkable, but look at the size of those paws.

I Had A Bullet Point About A Cyber Attack And Now ...

Ok, so it's not technically a cyber attack. But I wonder if anyone has a pen and paper to take notes.

Random Tuesday Morning Thoughts

• Forgot to mention it yesterday: Kudos to Sarah Palin for willing to make fun of herself on the Saturday Night Live anniversary show. 
• "Every line of this movie should be memorized instead of watching that crap." - Me last night in response to someone in the Family Unit wanting to watch The Bachelor as we were watching the Phantom Of The Opera. I don't know if I should be proud of myself or embarrassed. 
• I didn't hear much about "The American Sniper" trial yesterday, but I thought I saw a Texas Ranger testify who was named Ron Pettigrew. Wasn't he a trooper assigned to Wise County at one point?
• Watched some more of Black Mirror over the weekend.  Can't recommend it enough. I love stuff that makes me think. 
• I received two birthday presents over a week ago which have been sitting there on the kitchen counter unopened. It is driving everyone else nuts that I won't open them. And all I say in response is "Discipline." 
• Chico ISD has called a $7 million bond election.  Question: Is government the biggest employer in Chico? 
• We used to fear the USSR hitting us with nuclear weapons. You know what I fear now? A cyber attack.  I tried to come up with examples of what it would be like but my mind just raced. 
• "Weatherman goes crazy over thunder during snowstorm."  I saw this yesterday and couldn't believe people thought it was worthy of watching.  That's a guy trying way too hard. 
• The Cowboys will end up putting the franchise tag on Dez Bryant. 
• I think Facebook has become a place where everyone posts four year old videos. 
• As I listen to far right wingers on TV and radio, one thing has dawned on me: They want people to be either pure or evil.  They want Chris Kyle to be flawless. They want "Mama Bear" to be beyond reproach. Hey, I'll admit it, I do to. But I don't how you can live in this world past elementary school and not realize every person is composed of grey.

Ummmmkaaay

The #txlege's pastor of the day is a George Washington impersonator: pic.twitter.com/dkjDjDuM0a
— Reeve Hamilton (@reevehamilton) February 16, 2015

Hey, It's A Test

I saw this picture a couple of times over the weekend as people made fun of it.

You know, that guy is exactly right. Can anyone tell me why?

Random Monday Morning Thoughts

• It's Presidents' Day and the courthouse is closed, but I'm here proving, once again, I'm the hardest working man in show business. (I write that as I think, "Good lord, I'm up and writing this junk?")
• I heard that parts of highway 287 froze over in the very early morning hours. 
• Do I dare say that Miley Cyrus performing "50 Ways To Leave Your Lover" on the SNL 40th anniversary show was really, really good? 
• The Junior In The House  received for Valentines a great perfectly folded paper rose along with a hand made matchbox containing one match with a message of "If you don't want the rose, you can burn it." Hey, what did that kid do in Endless Love?
• The mass beheading of 21 people by ISIS over the weekend is beyond words. And a bizarre aspect of all of these horrific videos is how the victims never seem to struggle, panic, or fight.
• 50 Shades of Grey made over $80 million over the weekend. Most of the reaction has been: "Everyone was getting bent out of shape over that?"
• There is no less used tool than the government Open Records Request. Want to know how much and where a Wise County employee spent on his last convention trip? Just ask. 
• Co-Official Liberally Lean Girl, Christina Aguilera, sang the National Anthem at the NBA All-Star game last night. Hey, Now. 
• The lead item in the Update is about a wreck on Friday that killed one teen and hurt another. "Names of the two men are not available at this time . . . ." Not available? On Monday?
• My administrative-assistant-in-charge-of-keeping-me-out-of-trouble has seen Sting, Bob Seger, and went to Chicago to see the art exhibit David Bowie Is. All in the last six months. I'm jealous. And I'm jealous that I don't have that desire to get off my arse in my free time. 
• "7 heinous lies 'American Sniper' is telling America." Preach on.
• Is there any less bang for the buck than a restaurant? 
• Mark Cuban's brother, Brian, has written another book about "living with, and recovering from, eating disorders, drug addiction and Body Dysmorphic Disorder (BDD)." At some point you just need to let it go, right? (That link takes you to a horribly written passage from the book of his previous experience of being in a strip club.)
• The GOP golden boy of the moment, Scott Walker, had this answer as to whether he believed in evolution: “I’m going to punt on that one… That’s a question that a politician shouldn’t be involved in one way or another.” Why is he scared to answer that?
• How do people in the Northeast not wake up today and say, "Screw this, I'm moving South even in that means living in the South"?
• The Cindy Crawford unaltered photo is all the rage. Still pretty hot. 

One Of Two Major Wrecks Last Night

Messenger Facebook post.

Did it involve players from local basketball teams? Nope. I'm guessing that picture was unintentional but some folks weren't pleased.

#HogLivesMatter

(Oh, come on. That was funny. )

The pic is from today's update of the annual Wise County Hog Contest.

My Last "Fifty Shades Of Grey" and Mark Davis Post

Not Mark Davis

I mention him from time to time, but most of you probably have no idea who Mark Davis is.    He was on WBAP until Cumulus wouldn't renew his contract at a price they could agree on, sat out a year, and then ended up on 660 The Answer which has a fraction of the listenership of WBAP.

Hey, the guy is a good talk show host. He's smart. He's logical. And I don't think he says stuff just to rile up his right wing listenership like Hannity, Limbaugh or the mind numbing Dennis Prager. I think Davis believes everything that he says.  That's why I find him so curious as of late.

He's really gone off the deep end over the last five years, and this video blog above is a perfect example.  I've never read the book Fifty Shades, and I doubt if I'll see the movie unless I run across it on cable two years from now. However, I've read a few of the (horribly written) passages so I know the gist. Is the content objectionable? Well, I guess so if you've never turned on Cinemax at midnight. Is it demeaning to women? Only if you think any woman reading the book or going to the movie is too stupid to make decisions for herself. Should people be told to not see it? Only if you think you're a father figure for the population.  What should be put on the big screen for entertainment: Chris Kyle shooting a little boy or a bondage scene? You tell me. Of all things to be angry about in this world, should this movie be one of them? Yes. Right behind running out of paper towels in the kitchen.

My favorite part is around 4:00 when Davis instructs men to "Sit your woman down".

Caption This Photo

Open carry and campus carry bills advance to Texas Senate floor http://t.co/vQodL2KfHr pic.twitter.com/fVilJC54bd
— Dallas Morning News (@dallasnews) February 13, 2015

The halls of the Texas Legislature in 2015.

Ram vs. Cow In Head Butting Contest: You Ya Got?

That cow needs to go through the NFL concussion protocol before being released back into the pasture.

Random Friday Morning Thoughts

•  A Texas Senate committee approved bills yesterday allowing concealed handgun license holders to carry guns on college campuses and to otherwise not require them to be concealed as required by existing law. How is this such a priority in this state? (But some testified in opposition: "[T]here were several survivors of the 1966 UT Tower shooting, including . . .  Claire Wilson, who began her testimony with a jarring declaration: 'I was the first one shot in the Whitman massacre.'” Although I'm not sure what a nutcase with a rifle has to do with the open carry of a handgun.)
• The Fake Tarrant County DA Sharen Wilson twitter account has already disappeared. 
• There's a home on the market north of Decatur on FM 730 for $5.2 million?
• Lots of coverage of New York Times media critic David Carr's death in the newsroom yesterday.  I'll admit that as much as I love the media and coverage of the media, I'm really not that familiar with him. 
• Mrs. LL reminded me last night that I use to send her Valentine's Day flowers at the office on the 10th or the 11th "so I could enjoy them all week".  I told her that I had forgotten that as Every Female In The House looked at me with crossed arms. (In retrospect, I think I was just trying to scoreboard the other husbands.) 
• The American Sniper Trial might makes us realize how screwed up our criminal justice system is. We might see a person who was undisputedly mentally ill but, because a jury determines that he knew "right" from "wrong" (actual legal terms), will be sentenced to live the rest of his life in a cage without the possibility of parole.  Think about that. In 2015, in the land of the free, our only solution to this complicated issue is to lock up someone like Eddie Ray Routh.
• That case will become bogged down when mental health experts begin to testify that Routh was insane or not. They'll use terminology and mental health lingo that will sound impressive. But all of that may be trumped by the fact that Kyle texted that Routh was "nuts" as they drove to the shooting range. We all understand "nuts". 
• There's a new independent report which, in addition to giving you Tired Head, confirms that former UT President Bill Powers basically let unqualified applicants into UT Law School so long as they had influential/powerful parents.  I could only think about a recent case brought by a white UT Law applicant that went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court where she claimed she was denied admission due to affirmative action. Hey, now we know just the opposite was true. It was White Power, not Black Power, that kept you out. 
• WBAP's Hal Jay actually referred to speaking Spanish as "speaking Mexican" this morning. And even his right wing co-workers distanced from him on the air. 
• The more I've thought about it, I am absolutely stunned how anyone thinks "Mama Bear" was protecting her child (who, unbeknownst to her, was sprawled out on the concrete behind her) when she attacked the guy who ran into her. 

Bits Are Fun

Meal Of A Killer

Investigators found Taco Bell receipt in Chris Kyle's truck after it was stolen for 2 bean burritos ($2.26), bought at 6:50 p.m. on Feb. 2
— Melody M. Lanier (@melodymlanier) February 12, 2015

I'm not real sure what the significance of this evidence is. Is the prosecutor going to bash the defendant for getting something to eat? (Hey, it's not like he went to Del Friscos.)

But this could work into the insanity defense. Two bean burritos from Taco Bell for dinner on a Saturday? You crazy?

Parenting 101

Youtube: This is the shocking moment a man strapped his one-month-old baby to the steering wheel of a car .

But social workers in Taiwan say they are not taking any action over the motorist, who was filmed as he turned the wheel of the vehicle while his baby son was attached.

The short video clip, which quickly went viral in Taiwan and China, shows dad Yong Liao, 39, strapping the one-month-old baby to the steering wheel after stopping at a service station in western Taiwan's Miaoli county.

Oh, come on. That kid was loving it. And he didn't even have to do a full spin while going around the corner.

Question: Did that baby's identity really need to be concealed? What'd they think, other kids at daycare were going to give him the business the next time he goes there? 

Random Thursday Morning Thoughts

• Can we tap the brakes on calling Jessica Liesmann, the "Mama Bear" who accosted the guy who hit her minivan yesterday in Dallas on live TV, a "hero."  Your first reaction when you get hit by a car is to immediately go beat the other driver?  She didn't look like she was protecting her child, she looked like she was just pissed off. 
• She's lucky she wasn't killed by confronting him. (He had a gun in the car.)
• And a GoFundMe account (Edit: And a Tilt account) has been set up to raise money to replace her van.  I bet it will reach an astronomical amount.  That is, unless we hear something about her background that makes the average North Texan turn on her. And we all know that doesn't take much. 
• The heat is picking up on the guy who killed three Muslim North Carolina students over a "parking lot dispute." I guess they just happened to be Muslim, but police are looking into it. 
• Vermont Teddy Bears is promoting a "Fifty Shades of Grey" edition for Valentines. 
• Someone emailed me and asked me the origin of the lightning bolts on the Wise County Sheriff's Office decal. Anyone have the history on that?
• The Texas Legislature today is having a hearing today on Open Carry and nutcase Kory Watkins from Tarrant County Open Carry is there. Opponents of the bill should just point him out and ask, "You want a guy like that carrying an open handgun into Taco Bell?"  Edit: The hearing might just be about concealed carry on college campuses.
• One of three Power Ball winning tickets was sold in Princeton, Texas last night.  WBAP Hal Jay, during a live on the scene report this morning, said "We've got the owner of the store here!" Then a co-host, in a racist voice of broken English, said, "I so cited! I so 'cited!"  It might have been TCU play by play man Brian Estridge, but I'm not sure. 
• There will be a bond election in Decatur ISD which will be interesting. Prop 2 is only for an "indoor multipurpose center at an estimated cost of $3.5 million." 
• Picture of four feet of snow on the field at Boston's Fenway Park.
• Sad to hear the death by auto accident of 60 Minutes Bob Simon last night. Whenever he introduced a segment, you had a feeling it was going to be good. (I had no idea he was held hostage in Iraq for several weeks in 1991.)

Car Chase In Dallas Today Results WIth Wreck Into People Who Did Not Appreciate It

#BREAKING Dallas police chase ends in crash and victims wrestling suspect to the ground. Live coverage at 4PM. #WFAA pic.twitter.com/h68tIAA136
— Ryan Wood (@RyanWoodDFW) February 11, 2015

Did one of those guys fake an injury?

Here's a longer version and better quality.

Everyone Is Posting About The Montana Legislator Who Says Yoga Pants Should Be Banned . . .

. . . only to have an excuse to post pics of yoga pants.  I, for one, am better than that.

I'm using a gif instead.

News story.

Edit: Mr. Chairman, I would like the record to reflect that I have changed my position and now support the lawmaker.