Results of the Great Backyard Bird Count Are In!

Attention fellow twitchers! The numbers are in! More than 85,000 checklists were completed during this year’s Great Backyard Bird Count. An all-time record by several thousand! And a record 635 species. Most frequently reported bird? The Northern Cardinal. The most numerous bird in America? The Snow Goose. State reporting the most species? TEXAS, with 333! Locality reporting the most species? Corpus Christi with 185. You can view the (anemic) Dallas report here. (Only 33 mockingbirds? Please.) My report, including my bluebirds Bill and Hillary (pictured), here.

Jim Keyes Puts Wage-Earning Faith in Stock-Owning Humanity

Blockbuster CEO Jim Keyes has turned to shareholders to decide how much he and the company’s CFO Thomas Casey should be paid. I think I’ve said before that it was going to take more than a bunch of cookie bouquets to win back the hearts of BBI shareholders after the damage former CEO John Antioco did. But give Keyes credit for making big, huge positive steps.

FC Dallas’ Pre-Season Friendly Isn’t So Friendly

A goal-minding FrontBurnervian points us to highlights of FC Dallas’ 2-1 exhibition win over Brazilian Atletico Paranaense. I’m not going to weigh in on MLS being equal to EPL (except to say that it isn’t). But Davey Wagenfuhr’s goal was a thing of beauty, no matter which side of the pond it took place on. Similarly, the near-riot that erupted after FCD’s second goal was ugly in any language. Check out the highlights. Or, if you like music with your movies, go here.

Reason No. 329 to Get Your Acid-Wash Jeans out of Storage: George Michael Is Back on Tour

Sure, George Michael used to look like this, while lately we’ve been seeing a lot more of him like this. But the part-time Dallas resident can still rock. See? Now you can see him shake it live, in the flesh, on his first North American tour in 17 years. He’ll be performing at the AAC on July 13 to promote his new greatest-hits-plus-a-few-new-songs album, Twenty-Five. Tickets go on sale Apr. 5 here. Go. Enjoy. Throw your panties (or briefs) onstage. Whatever.

FC Dallas Coach: MLS Equal to English Premiere League

A favorite Virginia-based FBvian tips us to this interview with FC Dallas coach Steve Morrow, wherein Morrow says he thinks the American MLS is consistently misunderestimated and critics are ignorant. Look, I admit I don’t know the first thing about soccer, or as they call it in Europe, jai-alai. But something of his comments remind me of my favorite moment in Godfather II.

Mike Fisher on Sandra Crenshaw

I shouldn’t. Because the Crenshaw thread has almost certainly jumped the shark. But anytime a FBvian takes the time to produce an original artwork — well, it warrants the space. A submission from Mike Fisher (click to enlarge):

Update: Not five minutes after I posted that, I got an e-mail press release from Crenshaw. She’s gone to the NAACP. After the jump:

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A Critique of the DMN Redesign

While the Star-Telegram gives the kids the keys to the Interweb and lets them work blue (to great effect), the Morning News today brings us its version of innovation. The paper unveils its redesign. The slogan for the redesign pretty much says it all: “Easier to read, easier to use.” This morning in our kitchen, a few of us were standing around sharing our thoughts. One of our designers liked the new, colorful section headers in their new font; our creative director didn’t much care for them. Me, I take issue with the body copy. They’ve increased the point size, used a bolder font, and aired out the leading. To my eye, it makes the paper look less serious, like less of a read. It’ll certainly make every story in the paper shorter.

Anyway, so as we were going over these changes, Zac walked in to the kitchen, listened to our critiques for a minute, and then asked, “Do they still have the same columnists?” He really is the master of the one-liner.

Hey, man, listen. I know I’m not a good focus group. I read the paper almost every day because I’m a news junkie. Because it’s my job. Because I need my daily dose of irritainment (see aforementioned columnists). But here’s my two cents: I don’t want my newspaper easier to read. I want it smarter to read, more engaging to read. I actually want it more challenging to read.

And the idea of making it “easier to use” is patently silly. It’s not a universal remote. It’s a newspaper. If the DMN is trying to reach people who are having trouble using a newspaper, they are in worse trouble than I imagined.

Your Money is Not Your Business

Want to know how closely the IRS and other agencies are looking at your financial transactions and how crushing civil forfeiture laws are? Former Gov. Eliot Spitzer — whose crash-and-burn few will lament — certainly knows. His outing as Client No. 9 came about because bankers reported him moving his own money around in his own accounts. Moving money around in amounts less than the $10,000 reporting threshold can be a crime if you’re doing it to avoid the reporting threshold. Nice, huh? Purportedly, it’s to help catch drug dealers and money launderers. But, as Forbes points out this month, it also ensnares plenty of innocents. People like the owners of three Dallas taxi services — Allen Mansourian, Barry Sangani and Ahmad Sangani — who own Executive Taxi, Dallas Taxi and Golden Taxi. Feds have seized $330,000 from the three, and they’ll have to shut down if they don’t get their money back. Which is difficult, given that they have to prove they earned the money legally. (Civil asset forfeiture laws presume guilt, and, with a logic more bent than a bag of paperclips, declare that the property is guilty of a crime.)

McDaniel’s Fate in Hands of State Parole Board

A hearing was held yesterday downtown on revoking the parole of James McDaniel, the prime suspect in the disappearance and death of Meaghan Bosch, whose story we explored in the April print version of FrontBurner. McDaniel is on parole for the 1978 murder of a former Dallas cop. In addition to his role in Meaghan’s death, he faces drug charges and he’s been indicted on federal weapons charges. Texas Ranger Sgt. Terry Welch, lead investigator on the case, says that  the board should make its decision in 30 days.

What’s Up These Days?

Apologies for my belated blogging on this matter, but seems to me there’s been some increased and unusual air traffic of late. On Saturday around noon, wife and I noticed the MetLife blimp hovering over the Fair Park area. I couldn’t think of any major event it’d be in town for — no football game at the Cotton Bowl or golf tourney somewheres south. That mystery is now solved. But the other one lingers: Why were there old-looking, loud-flying military planes heading westward late last week and over the weekend? I assume there was some air show, but I couldn’t find an online reference for it. (Granted, I didn’t look very far.) Anyone know anything?

“Unpack My Luggage” Just Became a Go-To Joke For Me

More proof the Star-Telegram gets it: We just screened some episodes of the paper’s “DaFoWo Show,” in which kind, smart, cool local journalist Kristin Campbell and some other guy give us their four-minute stand-up take on the week’s news. Now, I giggled at this, but I went to public school. Everything amuses me. But noted private school snobs Adam McGill and Tim Rogers each gave it their stamp of approval, which was kind of shocking, given their normal reaction to anything purporting to be funny. (”BOR_RING!”) It’s not riotous, but it’s a clever and amusing webcast, and the use of random video clips is perfect, especially the Hoff vid in the second one we watched. Well done, folks. Should just get better with age. Some minor notes:

1. The guy should camp it up, Nathan Lane-style. Just to add some contrast to the understated professionalism of Campbell.
2. Campbell should stick to red sweaters. We were unanimous in our sartorial appreciation of the red sweater.
3. More Tom Leppert jokes, for those of us east of 360.

My Almost Shout-Out on The Ticket

I didn’t hear it, but Stacey just came in and told me I kinda sorta got mentioned this morning on The Ticket. Apparently, it went something like this: The guys were doing their weekly “Biggest Show Coming to Town” segment. Someone mentioned that singer Sara Evans is coming here in concert. (Now, I’m going to try not to get my feelings hurt about this, but I will mention that I thought Gordon Keith and I had bonded on a few occasions, especially this, where he was literally sitting right next to me during the hours and hours (or minutes) of filming. Anyway.) After this observation, Gordon said, “Sara Evans. That sounds like a writer at The Observer.”

[Insert sadface emoticon here.]

Leading Off

1. Farmers Branch doesn’t mind breaking the law in its attempt to get rid of immigrants who have broken the law.

2. NorthPark security cuffed and held some kids who shoplifted sunglasses until store security cameras proved, WHOOPS, heh heh, sorry about that, you did nothing wrong. One of the dads wants the head of security fired. I suggest having this security chief work the floor of Forever XXI for about two hours. That would be teenage revenge.

3. I became very excited when I saw the headline that American Airlines had joined Facebook. Then I realized the company had just added an app called Travel Bag to the site, scuttling my dream of SuperPoking the company into a state of supreme irritation.