The Everlasting Phelps

Could Dallas please, pretty please, get a black politician that isn’t on the take?

That’s a bummer, man.  That’s a bummer.

I say that this is pure-D bullshit.

A short-sleeved squabble ended suddenly Thursday when Town East Mall security raided a kiosk and seized a stash of T-shirts that had southeast Dallas business owners up in arms.

Half an hour after the raid, a half-dozen Pleasant Grove business owners gathered at the Southeast Dallas Chamber of Commerce and celebrated a medium-sized victory.

In the center of the room, draped across the back of a chair like a pelt, was one of the vanquished T-shirts:

“Welcome to Pleasant Grove,” it read – below a silkscreen image of a man tossing a body into the trunk of an old Buick.

Yeah, not having T-shirts on sale is going to cause someone to forget getting their car broken into, or make them think that the gun shots in the distance are “fun” shots.

(FWIW, I have one of the “Only the Strong Survive” shirts that I got as a gift a few years ago.  They told me about the Buick one and I told them that I would have rather had that one.)

via Dallas Morning News.

Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins filed court papers late Thursday asking a judge to halt the county’s civil investigation into the employment practices of two constables.

Watkins argued in his request for a restraining order and injunction that county commissioners and their special investigator are exceeding their authority by conducting a criminal investigation of the offices of constables Derick Evans and Jaime Cortes, of Precincts 1 and 5.

Watkins said in the petition that only his office can investigate criminal matters and that investigator Danny Defenbaugh is hindering an investigation his office is conducting.

I’m a big Watkins supporter.  I fully support the Project Innocence work he has been doing, but if he’s going to turn around from that and start playing the good old boy games,  then I’ll do a 180 on him faster than that.

If he really is doing an investigation, and this is interfering with it, then I’m on his side.  If there is anything less than a 100% full court press going on from his office (and I’ve seen nothing to indicate anything like that) then this is bullshit of the highest order, and I hope he gets roped into the investigation.

You don’t get “crime points” for good acts.  You can’t do good things like free innocent men and think that this gives you the leeway to cover up for criminals.  We better see the fruits of the DA’s “investigation” really, really soon, or I’ll be added to the ranks of Watkins haters.  This doesn’t sound like an “investigation” from the DA’s office:

In a status report Defenbaugh wrote to Foster that is attached to Watkins’ petition, Defenbaugh wrote that he is trying not to interfere in any investigation the district attorney may be conducting. He said in the report that of the 52 people he’s interviewed, only two have had contact with the district attorney and only one of them gave a statement.

(My emphasis.)

Because our childhood memories are frozen in time, somehow it seems Mr. Peppermint should be, too.

But the children’s TV icon is ageless only in our minds. The years pile up as usual for Jerry Haynes, the man beneath that candy-cane coat.

It’s jarring to realize he’s 81 now. And it’s even harder to hear that he is dealing with the debilitating effects of Parkinson’s disease.

This sucks. Mr. Peppermint is awesome.  Plus, he spawned the Butthole Surfers, which is an accomplishment in its own right.

Really, Southwest? I understand cutting costs, but killing the coffee at the gates for morning flights is bullshit.

“Its on”? Apparently the fucking coffee and donuts aren’t. Now I’m stuck buying three times as much coffee as I actually want (16 oz “cup”) for $3.00, so you can save what, seven cents on my fare? Maybe twenty five? I would get dropping the donuts, but the coffee is too far. Are you getting kickbacks from concessions?

Leaving coffee and donuts for your business fliers was classy. Dropping it after decades was very much Not Classy.

Whadayadoin?

We need to have a talk.

I know that you are freaked out.  I don’t understand that, because this happens every damned year.

It’s real simple.  Most of the country handles this just fine.

First, turn on your lights.  Okay?  People are more likely to run into you if they don’t even know you are there because they can’t fucking see you.

Yes, I know that the almanac says that the sun is up.  Yes, I know that you can see well enough to make out the stripes on the road and that should be enough for anyone.  Turn them on anyways, okay?  You should really have them on any time you are driving.  You should especially have them on when it is overcast, sleeting and snowing.

Second, forget that you have a brake pedal when you are anywhere near a bridge.  I know that you are only hitting it a little.  See, the problem is, since you are an asshat to start with, there’s fifteen people stacked up behind you, and each one has to hit it a little harder.  Which means I’m having to slam on my breaks at the end of the line because you are a fucking dipshit with no spine.  Drive over the goddamned bridge.  It might have a little ice on it.  It doesn’t have lava on it.  It is very difficult for both to be on the bridge at the same time.  It’s an engineering nightmare.

Third, turn on your fucking lights.

Fourth, we need to talk about that stuff.  You know, the stuff that suddenly appears and causes you to carreen in random directions screaming like a three year old girl being chased by a clown whenever you see it?  Including around the passenger compartment of your car?  That stuff is not radioactive fallout.  It isn’t a secret government nano-car destroyer project gone haywire.  It’s snow.  Your car won’t explode if it hits it.  It doesn’t coat the road with teflon.  Unless you can actually see it once it hits the road, you don’t need to worry about it.  In fact, it is damned near impossible that enough of it will ever fall in Dallas that you need to worry about it, at least not in our lifetimes.    When you see this snow, the correct proceedure is to act like it is raining.  I swear.

Fifth, turn your fucking lights ON you fucking GOON.

Sixth, if your lights still aren’t on, pull over to the side of the road and shoot yourself in the head.  If you don’t have a gun, find a bunny board and beat yourself to death.