Articles for April, 2009
Irving Mayor Herb Gears Tries a Middle Way On Immigration
And ends up getting attacked from both sides. Here’s an indepth look by Randy Kennedy from yesterday’s NYTimes on how Irving’s deportation policy is playing out.
Leading Off (4/6/09)
1. I didn’t support the smoking ban in the first place, but if it’s going to happen, I want it to happen on Friday instead of six months from now, as Tennell Atkins is suggesting. I also want a police escort to work, and would prefer someone on council work on making that happen.
2. Conspiracy theory: Steve Blow is serving up these Mayor Leppert apologist columns (like this week’s, which makes the case that T-Lep is a leader because…he is a leader) solely so Jim Schutze can respond to them, keeping them both in public eye. I may or may not have stole that idea from the first half of the Judd Nelson vehicle From the Hip.
3. The Mavs took the Suns to the woodshed yesterday, effectively ending the Suns’ hopes of passing Dallas for the last playoff spot in the Western Conference. They could still get in, but they’d have to go 5-0 while the Mavs went 0-5. Implicit but rarely mentioned in that scenario is my death.
NorthPark Center Is Suicide Scene
The Morning News is reporting a jumper today at NorthPark Center.
Friday Afternoon Random Question: Best Year Ever, Man
What’s the best year ever? Confining myself to the Zac Crain Era (1974-2051), my list looks a little something like this:
1. 1977
2. 1974
3. 2000
4. 2004
5. 1986
Conficker FTW
Listen, I’m not going to pretend to understand any of this Conficker business. But the folks over at Gizmodo do, and they’re basically saying the following: hold on to your effin’ hat.
“And here’s why that is deeply, deeply scary. As we explained, Conficker has built a zombie botnet infrastructure by registering hundreds of spam DNS names (askcw.com.ru, and the like), which it then links up and uses as nodes for infected machines to contact for instructions. In its earlier forms, Conficker attempted to register 250 such DNS names per day. But with the third version of the software, the Conficker.c variant which has been floating around for the last month or so, the number of spam DNS takeovers was boosted to 50,000 per day—a number security pros can no longer keep up with.
What the April 1 update did was simple: It provided instructions for linking up with the thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of new nodes registered by Conficker.c over the last few weeks, effectively growing the size of the p2p botnet to a point where it can not be stopped.”
Rangers/Stars Owner Tom Hicks: “We Want The Banks To Be Reasonable”
Rangers/Stars owner Tom Hicks has elected not to make the interest payment on a loan of more than $500 million relating to his two sports teams. For the news and Hicks’ exclusive comments, go here.
Leading Off (3/03/09): Twitter Edition
1. TrinityRivPrjct I’m in truble agin! City may not b able 2 use all fed funds to fix me, cuz i’m so broken. P.s., just added @JSchutze as follower. Uh oh!
2. KunkleStud NICE work officer @Quattlebaum!!! U SAVED man @ Anatole trying to k-mit suicide. Needed + pub this week. U pick me up sliders from Nana, LOL?
3. H8hummers Got 5 yrs probation 4 keying HUMMERS in S-lake parking lot. I SHOULD GET A MEDAL! I’M 72! I DRIVE A DODGE STRATUS! kddng last part love bill ferrell.
Marshall’s Top Industry About To Collapse?
Ever since malpractice and product-liability lawyer T. John Ward was appointed by President Clinton to the federal bench in Marshall, Texas, the little town has become a magnet for patent lawsuits. (Some Dallas firms even have set up offices there.) It seems Judge Ward — big surprise — is partial to plaintiffs’ attorneys. In December, the Fifth Circuit allowed one Ohio company to escape the judge’s claim to jurisdiction, spurring some hope of relief in the high-tech industry. Now, at last, the Senate is debating a patent-reform bill that will cut out forum-shopping. But there’s a danger here: that will leave Judge Ward shopping for another industry to target.
AFI Action: Keven McAlester Brings His Corduroy Pants to Dallas
Tonight the missus and I are headed to see The Dungeon Masters (scroll down), a documentary made by my good, close personal friend Keven Archibald McAlester, who is in town tonight for the screening. Eric and I used to work with Keven back in ye olden times at The Met. I don’t think I’ve ever loved to hate anyone more than Keven. He’s too smart, too talented, married way out of his league. So, anyway. Here’s a picture of him taken for a wardrobe makeover he did at The Met, back when he wore corduroy pants every day. [giggle]
Man Watches Train Hit His Ferrari
Have you heard this one yet? The guy gets his car stuck on some railroad tracks and calls 911. His name is Jeff Sabold. He owns Automotive Concepts. My guess: this 911 tape will haunt him for the rest of his life. (Thanks to the FBvian who passed along the link.)
Rogers Hartmann Brings Dystonia to the Masses
Imagine you’re a healthy, attractive woman with a fancy job. Tim Rogers tried to make out with you once back in high school. But besides that, everything is mostly going fine in your life. Then one day you wake up with a strange malady that twists your muscles — your whole body — in a knot and makes it impossible for you to get out of bed, much less take a walk or drive a car or do many other things you’ve taken for granted. That’s essentially what happened to my buddy Rogers Hartmann. She’s a Hockaday grad. Lives out in LA but still has strong ties to Dallas. Her dad is a lawyer at Haynes and Boone.
Rog learned several months ago that she has dystonia. On Tuesday, “dystonia” was the most-googled word on the internets. That’s because Rog was on Oprah (with Michael J. Fox) to raise awareness about the disorder. Tomorrow she’ll be on The Today Show to continue to spread the message. Thanks to many Botox injections, Rog has improved tremendously since her dystonia onset. You can get updates from her blog.
Keep on keeping on, Rog. We’ll be watching.
Update: Zac just asked, “What’s dystonia?” To which Eric replied, “That’s the girl Prince dated during Purple Rain.”
When No News Is Good News
Is it true that “ignorance is bliss”? More and more of us may be finding out. At the Lucky Brand Jeans store in NorthPark Center the other day, a big sign in the window said: “Turn Off News. Turn On Music.” Then there are the local car dealerships that have banned the likes of CNN, Fox and CNBC from their customer-lounge TVs in favor of the History Channel, cooking shows, soap operas, Judge Judy–anything but news. Given the constant drumbeat of negative tidings these days, can’t say I blame ‘em.
DMN To Reduce All Salaries Above $25K
Robert Decherd, himself taking a 20 percent pay cut, sent out the letter this morning. Hold on to your effin hat before you download:
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