Saturday Insanity

Above The Fold

Cats Taking You Into The Weekend

9,000 Fallen Soldiers Etched into the Sand on Normandy Beach to Commemorate Peace Day

It's from last year, but pretty amazing.

Deer vs. Dog

Face it, those two just had more fun in two minutes than the rest of us have had all week.

(P.S. I could have done without the music.)

Random Smoothness

New Cover Of Dave Campbell's Texas Football

The magazine that sells a million copies by printing a million high school kids' names. As proof, here's a flashback to a post I did a few years back of the 1978 edition with excerpts about the Decatur and Bridgeport teams.

(For Baylor fans, here's a link to the background behind the cover shoot.)

And Another - North Carolina

Story. The book-in photo does her no justice.

And although not a teacher, this next one (link fixed) just got disqualified from the Mother Of The Year competition:

Random Friday Morning Thoughts

• I watched part of The Sixties series currently running on CNN. Not bad. One interesting advertising bit was that Allstate ran a commercial from the 60s in a commercial break completely unedited. 
• There was a scene of JFK giving a commencement speech at American University after the Cuban Missile Crisis which made me wonder why I never hear about American University. 
• One of the little considered aspect of this Bergdahl story is that the Taliban kept their word to release him. 
• The author of the big Fox News report about Bergdahl was on the crazy Mark Levin radio show yesterday and was incredibly reasonable. He said there were still a lot of questions as to why Bergdahl left the base and pointed out that it cannot be ruled out the that the soldier fell victim to the Stockholm Syndrome while in captivity.
• The Feds went after the Gas Pipe for selling their own home brewed K2, but it comes across of more of a money grab with all the property and bank account seizures.
• How does the a/c go out in San Antonio during the NBA finals last night? They just have one unit in that place? (Before the Speaks Volumes guy jumps me, that's a joke.)
• And in the first weekend of football season, high school and college teams will be playing and practicing in 100+ temps.
• In case you missed it, LeBron had to be carried to the bench because of cramps. That gave rise to the running joke of people "LeBroning" last night. 
• "For not being a people person, I deal with a lot of people." - Me to Mrs. LL last night.
• I left early yesterday morning and kissed Mrs. LL goodbye as she was still sleeping. She then said, "I don't want to go to school." I thought she was doing a bit. I later learned she was dreaming.
• The DirecTV "puppet wife" ad is bizarre.
• When President Obama took office, the stock market was at 7,949. Yesterday it closed at 16,870. That is simply phenomenal.  Oh, and the unemployment number was just released and it remains at a healthy 6.3%.
• I don't think all drugs should have been legalized, but pot and ecstasy need to be. Meth does not. Cocaine probably. Heroin probably not. (Ticket Fans: Gordon Keith said this week that X at least needs to be medically available for cancer patients, and, not jokingly, couples therapy. Which gave rise to the funny George Dunham line of: "What are they going to do then? Dance together?")
• You know it was a slow news day yesterday when the Update leads with a weather forecast for Sunday when there is just a 60% chance for rain.
•  "A North Texas husband and wife have died when their vehicles collided head-on near where both work." (Via BagOfNothing) That was just totally accidental?
• It's not a significant opinion, but the Fort Worth Court of Appeals examined yesterday whether a Wise County deputy adequately informed a defendant of his Miranda rights. 
• The Now-Ex-5th-Grader-In-The-House asked me yesterday what D-Day was. I think I did a pretty good job of explaining it. Then she asked me what "D-Day stood for." I've got to admit, that through threw me for a loop.

Someone Threatened Fossil Ridge High School In Keller This Morning On Twitter

And cc'd the cops.

There Was A Huge Crisis At UT (For A Day)

HuffPo - A sign was placed in the hallways at the University of Texas at Austin’s School of Nursing stating that short skirts, low-rise pants and low-cut shirts revealing cleavage were all prohibited.

The sign made it’s way up on bulletin boards at the UT Austin campus Tuesday evening, but were taken down by mid-to-late morning Wednesday, University Communications Director J.B. Bird told The Huffington Post.

The sign read “Revealing clothing MUST NOT be worn while in the School of Nursing Building. It distracts from the learning environment.”

Associate Dean for Academic Affairs Gayle Timmerman issued a statement Wednesday afternoon, saying “The wording of the signs made it sound as though we were worried about women’s clothing as a distraction in the learning environment. This is not the case.”

“We’re not in the business of measuring skirt lengths,” Timmerman said. “We are in the business of educating a new generation of nurses.”

Bird said the associate deans at the school were surprised to see them, and that it is by no means a representation of the school’s policy. It was something put up by a part-time employee who, Bird theorized, had good intentions but ultimately struck a nerve.

Great Moments In Islamophobia

“[I]t is Robert Bergdahl, the father, who is also engendering some controversy. He has learned to speak Pashto, the language of the Taliban, and looks like a Muslim. He is also somewhat sympathetic to Islam, actually thanking Allah right in front of the president.” - Fox News' Bill O'Reilly on Monday.

"When the story first broke it's like, 'Yeah, but we've got to support his family's desire to have their son back'. The hell I do. His dad is an Islamic sympathizer. And I'm sorry, I have no more use for him than I do for his son." - Mark Davis on 660AM The Answer on Wednesday.

Oh, This Will Certainly Work Out

At Lockheed Martin Aeronautics, where Iraq is about to take delivery of first F-16 fighter jet. Enemy now customer pic.twitter.com/I8G8shXrVz
— Steve Kaskovich (@stevekasko) June 5, 2014

And it's the first of thirty-six they have bought -- probably with money we gave them.

Thousands of dead American soldiers. Countless more injured and suffering from PTSD. And Lockheed Martin gets rich.

We'll end up shooting them all down in another war before it is all said and done.

The "Give It All You Got" Baby Goat

Kind of cheered up my morning.

Random Thursday Morning Thoughts

• It's so weird that the Right Wing absolutely refuses to give  Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl the benefit of the doubt. He was a twenty year old who left the base and, even though we don't know why, he is automatically a "deserter" and/or guilty of treason? Anyone want to wait for the facts to come out?
• And wasn't it just a couple of years ago when they were jumping all over the President for "leaving Bergdahl behind" and not doing anything?
• And even if he ultimately is found to be a deserter, you still just want to leave him in the hands of the Taliban? Man, this story is definitely Right Wing crack. 
• That was a crazy Senate race in Mississippi. In a three man race, one obscure guy got 1.6% of the vote. Amazingly, neither of the other two Republican candidates cracked 50% (one got 49.5% and the other 48.9%) so they go into a runoff. 
• "George Jung, whose life as a cocaine dealer was brought to the big screen when Johnny Depp portrayed him in Blow, has been released from prison."
• The guy in the Wise County Injury to A Child case received two years in prison yesterday. I watched the victim's testimony and I have two thoughts: (1) If that guy got two years in prison, the pharmacist who slapped George Bailey around in It's A Wonderful Life deserves twenty, and (2) If that's the standard, over half of the parents in Wise County over sixty years old should be in prison. But maybe there's something about the case I don't know yet. 
• Random education fact: Harvard and Columbia have twice as many graduate students as undergraduate students.
• Don Zimmer died yesterday. I'll always remember him for being justifiably thrown to the ground by Pedro Martinez.
• This is the ten year anniversary of Ronald Reagan's death. 
• Donald Sterling will agree to the $2 billion sale of the Clippers without a fight. That's disappointing. 
• Johnny Football was supposed to throw at the first pitch at the Cleveland Indian's game last night but it got rained out. He was there, though, and threw up the "money sign".  He's slowly crawling up my list of People I Love To Hate. 
• Did you see the video of the biker with a GoPro camera on his helmet which captures the moment he gets robbed at gunpoint?

 

And Another - DeSoto

Story.

Internet Star Of The Day Who Is Grossly Underestimating The Internet At This Moment

WARNING: There's a copious amount of racially-charged foul language in this video. Fair warning for those who may be triggered by that.

This is the video of startlingly casual racism that's been making the rounds on the internet in the past 24 hours. According to the uploader (a man going by the handle OYAB), this incident occurred the previous Friday, May 30th. By his account, he started up his car, prompting his stereo to play automatically. That's when this mother decided to go off in front of her children and throw out the hate speech.

I don't know much about this gal other than she better be careful. She took to Twitter this morning and isn't backing down one iota. She thinks it is funny that reporters are calling her for "speaking the truth." I promise you the KKK twitter account (if there is one), doesn't throw out the shocking things she does. And she's been threatened, violently, and she still doesn't care. (She did throw out one apology and then weirdly asked for her critics' "mixed tapes" so she could "promote" them." But that was after she had gone on a rant about all the n-bombs in rap songs so "if they can do it so can I". I think she's baiting them.)

Edit: Late in the day she claimed it was a parody account and the real person in the video. I'm still not so sure. But if it is a parody account, it was a dangerous prank: She caused so much angst that people were posting the real address of the lady in the video -- or worse -- a mistaken address.

Secret Photos Of The President Crushing Weights In Hotel In Poland

More.

Edit: I this doesn't inspire you as much as Rocky Balboa running through the streets of Philadelphia, you ain't 'Merican.