Shut Down The Book In Photo Contest - We Have A Winner

Bloods gang member arrested after Fresno traffic stop leads to gun, drug bust https://t.co/5Trs9Q5heC pic.twitter.com/aZIihlwwNe

— ABC7 Eyewitness News (@ABC7) March 8, 2016

Gucci?

Naked Lady On Truck Snarls Traffic In Houston

I thought I posted this yesterday but it apparently didn't go through.

There is a lot of media coverage on it. 

Who Amongst Us Has Not Pranked A Co-Worker By Dressing Up As a Bear?

Random Tuesday Morning Thoughts

• Well, I've been up all night in the Liberally Lean Mega Storm Super Center Laboratory studying charts, radars and data that most of you wouldn't understand. I predict more flooding in Bridgeport. I predict more flooding in Paradise. And (drum roll, please) I also predict Lake Bridgeport flooding which will cause the Runaway Bay bridge over the lake to go under water. 
• I ate at Rudy's BBQ for the first time. It was good, and I'm a huge fan of the table side BBQ sauce. The only downside was that I had to listen to some bro-country music.
• Dear Boyd PD: That L3 Communications video recording software. "Flashback" they sold you is the biggest piece of junk I've seen in all my years of reviewing police videos.
• My head exploded when I learned that the verdict in the Erin "You Saw Me Naked!" Andrews case was $55 million. Idiocracy continues to arrive. There are two issues here. First, is the hotel liable at all? No! They simply granted a request of a guy for a specific room. The second is the amount of damages. That is, how harmed was she? If you are a young neurosurgeon who was paralyzed and will also be in constant pain due to someone who was grossly negligent, that might be fair. But for that amount of money to be awarded to someone who was (possibly) humiliated is a joke. Who out there wouldn't take "only" $1 million to be videotaped naked without theirconsent? And I will concede that I'm in the minority on issue number two. Mrs. LL thinks I'm out of my mind. 
• But here is the question of the day: What is your price if someone videoed you naked without your consent? Mine is around $50. I'd go down to $25 if I was caught flexing my muscles and sucking in my gut. 
• There were two lightning strikes near Decatur yesterday around 11:45 which were about as loud as I have ever heard.
• Paradise received almost 4" of rain yesterday? That's insane and was not predicted. 
• Shout out to the one reader who is a Dennis Prager fan: Yesterday he said, (1) Fracking was wonderful and pointed out that its "founder" had died in a car accident and then said "rest in peace"  -- he declined to mention the guy had been indicted the day before and probably committed suicide. (2) Later he actually asked if Iraq  is considered to be in the Middle East. (I'm not making that up.)  (3) And earlier he pronounced Mark Cuban's name as "KEWbawn".   And I get all this by listening to him about 30 minutes every month.
• 60 Minutes had a segment last week where they interviewed Texas death row inmates. I'll say it for the millionth time: In 50 years the public will look back in horror that the government was allowed to kill people.
• Fox 4 fill-in traffic guy Todd Carruth is a faithful reader. Mrs. LL saw him this morning and thought he looked like Gary Oldman in The Fifth Element. She even created a side by side photo.
• I always forget the name of the tree that blooms white every March. This year, unlike the past, has been beyond beautiful.
• I had a fantastic conversation yesterday with one of Fort Worth's most prominent and nicest lawyer there is. He told me things relevant to Wise County that even I didn't know.
• There is a bird that chirps outside every morning and it sounds exactly like "skeet skeet (pause) skeet skeet" which then causes me to have Get Low stuck in my head.

Firing It Up

I'll Be Firing Up The Weather Center Tomorrow

And the officially Liberally Lean weatherman says the next two days are going to bad. This guy has always been more accurate than Delkus.

Kid Tries To Take A Charge - Pays Consequences

I think it is out of Indiana

Pioneer History Of Wise County

I mentioned I had found this book a few weeks ago, and I've been making my way through it. It was written in 1907 and reads like poetry in addition to the fascinating facts it tells. For example, look at this paragraph about the "Peace Party" which may or may have not consisted of Union sympathizers during the Civil War.  This was after the "Great Hanging" in Gainesville:

The trial commissioners occupied the upper story of the Confederate Arsenal [in Decatur], the office of the latter being on the ground floor. Sentinels were placed about the town, one or two on each road leading therefrom. Mysterious midnight searches, investigations and arrests now followed and the county was thrown into a fit of excitement. The trials began with the arrival of the first prisoners and continued until the question of guilt of all the accused parties was settled. Some were found to have rendered only a perfunctory allegiance to the secret order, and these were ordered detained to be sent later to the Confederate Army. Out of the number tried five were adjudged totally guilty and sentenced to capital punishment. The names of these unfortunates were: John Conn, Ira Burdick, Jim McKinn, Parson Maples and — Ward. John Conn had been a member of the Confederate guard sent from Wise County to Gainesville to remain during the trials there. At the ending of their respective trials each of these men were conveyed to a tree which stood in the Swan pasture at the western edge of town, and hanged by the neck until dead.

Anyone know where Swan pasture is?

Random Monday Morning Thoughts

• A couple of months back Texas Monthly had a story of some deer disease called Chronic Wasting. There were a few paragraphs dedicated to how the fear of it effected deer breeders Terrie and Steve Moss near Chico.
• Note to Bridgeport: Do you really need four stop signs and a stoplight in your downtown?
• I got my first official fish over the weekend. That is if you call foul hooking a catfish with a Rat-L-Trap actually catching a fish. 
• What's up with this "Harvest America" Christian gathering that filled Jerry World yesterday? And I had never heard of pastor George  Greg Laurie. (The fact that he has written 70 books makes me suspicious. And for Ticket fans, it reminded my of Carlton Maxwell.)
• Speaking of The Ticket, your weekend programming which consists basically of hockey and soccer coverage is a beating.
• The EMS vehicles of Wise County have the most tricked up emergency lights ever. One of them is a green circle where it loops into four quadrants. 
• Sad to hear of the passing of Nancy Reagan. Her often mocked "Just Say No" campaign was genius because we still remember it. 
• There was a Dallas Morning News story over the weekend about how, in a crazy situation, a young lady died of heroin that she was injected with. I will say this: Meth will ruin you life but heroin will kill you. You should have the right to risk death, but you would be an idiot to mess with that stuff. 
• Trump will win Michigan and Illinois and he has a chance to win Florida. It's over.
• And if the Republicans try some crazy procedural trick at the convention to put someone else on the ballot it will be (1) Chaos, and (2) Cause Trump to go Independent out of spite which will give Hillary a 100% chance of winning. 
• Mrs. LL took a kayak voyage to a small island on Lake Bridgeport this weekend. It was a long way away. And she took The Family Pup with her who was wearing a doggie life jacket.
• I don't understand this "settlement" between FanDuel and Texas where FanDuel agreed to "stop accepting paid entries." Why totally concede? And AG Ken Paxton is out of his mind. If you don't use FanDuel, you don't care. If you do, you know have him in your figurative cross-hairs as a voter. And credit DraftKings who say they will fight Texas because what they are doing is legal under the federal law based upon the Supremacy Clause. 
• "Idaho pastor shot in the skull after praying with Ted Cruz [on Saturday], manhunt underway for former Marine"

It's Friday. Let's Get Out Of Here.

A Corinth Municipal Clerk Might Be In A Little Trouble

"SBI" means Serious Bodily Injury. The reference to "Peace Ofc/Firefight/EMS" might refer to who the alleged victim is because that would upgrade the charge. See Texas Penal Code §49.09(b-1)

Break It Down For Me, Playa!

I'm pretty sure the girl in the background is thinking, "I know MC Hammer. You, sir, are no MC Hammer!"

Credit: Bridgeport Index.

(Reprinted without permission. Don't sue me Mr. Bridwell! I'm giving you an ad here! Everyone go buy a copy of the paper!)

The "Details" Will Be Very Important

UPDATE: LAPD confirms a knife was found on former property of OJ Simpson, more details expected this morning.https://t.co/NDyDE95Ch4

— NBC Los Angeles (@NBCLA) March 4, 2016

Edit: The cops have no idea if it is related but went ahead and held a press conference today. And they been in possession of it for years? How incompetent is that.

And everyone is saying Double Jeopardy prevents reprosecution and they are correct. Question: Why did they try both cases, Ron Goldman and Nicole, in the same trial? Why not just do one back in the day because that would have left another option open. Perhaps California law required it. I don't know.

Random Friday Morning Thoughts

• There are a lot of people who don't know that the actor who played (and plays) Chewbacca, Peter Mayhew, lives in Boyd. Mrs. LL didn't know that until last night and demanded a bullet point because her mother would die to meet him. 
• The First Cat in the House played with my laptop mouse yesterday and it took me forever to find it. After I threatened to kill it for the millionth time, Mrs. LL said, "It is a mouse, by the way. [Pause] I'll exit on that."
• The Romney vs. Trump war yesterday was insane. And why exactly did Romney do that? 
• The Republican debate last night was beyond crazy. I've never seen anything like it. I've been preaching for months that we are watching the implosion of the Republican Party at the national level. I saw that coming and they didn't? And The Establishment cannot stop Trump and it is driving them crazy. 
• The wife in all of the Vacation movies, Beverly D'Angelo, was on The Ticket yesterday and she was great and funny. And they had to keep hitting the dump button because apparently she doesn't have a filter. She even ranked the Vacation movies. The first one was her favorite. Link.
• I saw a Bridgeport Chamber of Commerce flyer yesterday for an annual fundraiser called "Barnett Shale Shoot" which is a shotgun competition. It promotes to come and shoot the Barnett Shale. Uh, I think someone has already killed it. 
• Regarding the Hillary email "scandal" and the guy being "granted immunity". I saw an "expert" on Fox News who said there had to be a federal judge involved because only a judge can "grant immunity".  I'm stunned by the ignorance. Prosecutors offer immunity, not judges.
• The guy who found the debris from the lost Malaysian 370 might be a fraud. It looks authentic, but I've seen at least two news stories which focused on how the American which found the debris overseas was obsessed with mystery for over a year.
• Soccer star Brandi Chastain said she would donate her brain for concussion studies. I'd do that. I wrote a few years back about at least four massive concussions I received as a kid (one caused unconsciousness on the couch for two hours and a Bridgeport doctor who lived across the street came over to check me out --- In this day and time, that would get a person Careflighted). And I served as a tackling dummy running back for the defense on the varsity football team as we ran the other team's offense in practice to prepare them for what what to expect on the upcoming Friday night. I got killed. I'd be in the huddle and the coach would hold up the outline of a play we had never seen before which the other team ran. It might be the triple option -- something we had never ran. Then we lined up and ran it. And oftentimes I'd get absolutely obliterated with head to head contact.
• Maybe that explains everything.
• The facts are murky, but someone cut off multiple fingers by the Fort Worth Colonial Country Club this morning. 
• Shout out to Chico Auto Parts for taking care of my car. The guy who runs the car repair division knows me and is a huge Blog fan but the nice guy at the counter at the front who handles the general merchandise had a very confused look on his face when he saw me walk in with my white shirt and tie. It was one of those, "Are you with the FBI?" kind of looks.
• The ads buried as news shows are now out of control. The national news shows are now getting involved.
• "Baylor University fraternity president charged with sexual assault" I've said it before: President Kenneth Starr should lose his job because he has lost control of that school. 
• Trump had an "off the record" discussion with the New York Times and everyone is criticizing him for not authorizing the release? Does no one understand journalism? In the last two months I've gone "off the record" with at least two reporters. I asked them if I had their word before I began, they told me I did,  and then I talked openly. For me or them to publicly disclose what we talked about would be a betray of trust of biblical proportions. Sure, I know they might talk with other journalists about what was said but those people know the value of trust. "Off the record" means it will not be printed or released to the public.

Trump!

More

Top Notch Parking Job

Might Want To Bring On Back A Little There, Buddy

Link with video.

Random Thursday Morning Thoughts

• Vanity plate fun: (1) Yesterday I saw an older guy in a convertible Corvette with a plate that read, "MAN TOY". Sheesh. (2) Today I saw a black SUV, with black wheels, with tinted windows and with a plate that read, "GDFATHR". I'm keeping away from him.
• In the Texas abortion case argued before the Supreme Court yesterday, Justice Alito asked a question based upon what the Huffington Post had reported. 
• That Euless police shooting is horrific all around. The shooter was sexually abused at age eight (the media has confirmed a life sentence came out of the case) and then he got hooked on meth. 
• Ugh: High winds with a high Mountain Ceder count today. Mountain Ceder is my nemesis.
• I forgot to dog the guy who mocked me for running half marathons because he thought that I quit halfway through a full marathon every single time. 
• DPS has fired the trooper who arrested Sandra Bland. 
• The Ticket had a great segment on time travel yesterday in light of HULU's new Stephen King series 11.22.63. The question proposed was "What would it take for you to be convinced if someone told you they were from the future?" One hypothetical was what if they told you exactly what the Mavericks score would be that night and it turned out to be dead on? That would make me very, very interested, but I would consider it to be a fluke. What if they accurately told you what the box score would be (player by points, assists, rebounds, and minutes played)? I'd be absolutely convinced.
• Mitt Romney will hold a press conference today about the state of the Republican Party. Buddy, you have no clout and no one will listen.
• It was odd that Trump took questions from the media after his appearance on the night of Super Tuesday. You never see that. 
• Shout out to a trooper yesterday who overheard a discussion between a prosecutor and I about the significance of a relatively new Supreme Court case. He told us he felt like he had been in a seminar and appreciated getting to hear both sides of a developing legal issue. 
• WBAP's Hal Jay this morning: "Are there any rules in UFC?" Sports guy Steve Lamb: "I don't thinks so." That's absolutely wrong, and I began to pull my hair out. Then Hal Jay asked, "Why do they even have a referee?" Good lord, man.