Jerry Jones and the Ongoing Dallas Cowboy Stadium Scandal

Jerry Jones and the Dallas Cowboys are one of those rare gifts that just keep on giving. My 2 longtime readers may remember me mentioning Jerry Jones and the disgustingly scandalous way he and the Dallas Cowboys went about getting a new stadium.

Awhile back the Cowboys announced their new ticket prices, including having to pay up to something like $50,000.00 for a seat license that then allowed you to pay up to something like $500.00 for a game ticket.

Well, there was a lot of squawking from those who can not afford such prices, like the very people who's homes and business were robbed from them so Jerry Jones could build his monument to himself.

Well, Jerry Jones, well known philanthropist that he is, came up with a wonderful solution to the problem of his ticket prices keeping most people from being able to afford to get into his new stadium that is being built on their land.

Jerry Jones is proposing a 'Share a Ticket' concept. You gather together a group of people and buy one ticket. And share it. One person watches for a pre-determined length of time and when his time is up he leaves the stadium and passes off the ticket to the next person.

While you wait your turn with the ticket you will get to watch the game on big screen TVs. I assume in high definition.

It is not known how the 'Share a Ticket' deal is going to work. What if a guy is so caught up in the game that he forgets to share? How many people can share a ticket? Like if it takes 20 people to make it affordable, how would you manage the time sharing? How do you determine who goes in first? How would it be fair if the last person goes into the stadium and then the game goes into overtime?

In an earlier bone tossed to the unwashed masses it was announced that up to 20,000 fans will be able to buy tickets to a standing room only plaza outside the stadium where they can watch the game on TV, thus allowing them to feel like they are part of the game atmosphere, but at a bargain price. It is not known if this plaza will be sheltered from the elements. It is also not known if sports fans will have to buy a standing room license in order to buy a ticket. Or if the 'Share a Ticket' concept will also be used for the standing room only viewing plaza.

I've had feedback from all over the world regarding the Dallas Cowboy Stadium Scandal. You can go here and read them. Some are pretty funny. Some are pretty sad. A few are really stupid. I've not heard from Jerry Jones.

First Texas Tornado Sirens of 2008

Yesterday, sometime around 3 in the afternoon, the Tornado Warning Sirens went off for the first time this year. There is always a little feeling of excitement when the sirens go off. WeatherBug had been going off with various warnings, like Severe Thunderstorms, Golf Ball size Hail in North Tarrant County (I live in Tarrant County, that's where Fort Worth is). And a Tornado Watch that lasted til 2am this morning.

When the Tornado Sirens go off and if you've not lost power you can usually find out from the TV where the Tornado is located. I've had 2 close calls since I've been at my current location. Both occurred in the late afternoon. With the first one it'd been stormy and windy for hours and then suddenly it got dark and the wind picked up. The sirens went off. Turned on the TV to see that a Tornado had touched down in Handley. That is about a mile south of my abode. The tornado was heading my direction. I was preparing to make a run for it when the Tornado turned east via the I-30 freeway and headed towards Dallas. I did not see the Tornado. All I saw was a big black cloud.

My second close call occurred about a year ago. I was at Oakland Lake Park, listening to the radio on my headphones. The Emergency Broadcast System broke in over and over again. When it was reported the line of storms had hit west Fort Worth I knew it was maybe time to head home. And then I started seeing lightning strikes east of downtown Fort Worth. I then realized the storm was moving faster than the reports. I hurried to my van and headed back here. I remember calling Lulu so she could hear the dramatic Emergency Broadcast warning messages. She answered her phone just in time to hear the warning say Tornadoes had been spotted.

By the time I got to my abode the Tornado Sirens were very loud. A forming Tornado passed right over where I live. I did not see this, but others did. All I knew was it was really loud. That particular Tornado touched down just north of my location and tossed around a lot of storage containers. It was a very minor Tornado.

Yesterday's storm quickly passed. The photo above was taken after the storm had passed my location. In the photo we are looking east towards Dallas. When I took this photo the radio was saying there were several rotating cells (tornadoes in the making) above Dallas, along with Hail and a Severe Thunderstorm. The most odd thing about yesterday's Thunderstorm was it created almost non-stop Thunder. But I only saw one Lightning Strike.

Adolph the Cat & the 14 Signs of Fascism

My little sister got a cat named Adolph to join her two poodles, Blue & Max. Blue & Max have a Blog. They are currently whining about living under a Fascist regime that uses Gestapo tactics. No, they are not talking about the regime of King George, they are taking about their human caregivers.

I've tried to explain to Blue & Max that they are not living under a Fascist regime via showing them the 14 Signs of Fascism and suggesting that this pair of overwrought poodles think about it carefully so that they might see that they are not living under a Fascist regime, but instead a benevolent dictatorship. With good food.

Anyway, below are the 14 Signs of Fascism and click here to watch an interesting video that graphically demonstrates the 14 Signs of Fascism.

1. Powerful and Continuing Nationalism - Fascist regimes tend to make constant use of patriotic mottos, slogans, symbols, songs, and other paraphernalia. Flags are seen everywhere, as are flag symbols on clothing and in public displays.

2. Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights - Because of fear of enemies and the need for security, the people in fascist regimes are persuaded that human rights can be ignored in certain cases because of "need." The people tend to look the other way or even approve of torture, summary executions, assassinations, long incarcerations of prisoners, etc.

3. Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause - The people are rallied into a unifying patriotic frenzy over the need to eliminate a perceived common threat or foe: racial, ethnic or religious minorities, liberals, communists, socialists, terrorists, etc.

4. Supremacy of the Military - Even when there are widespread domestic problems, the military is given a disproportionate amount of government funding, and the domestic agenda is neglected. Soldiers and military service are glamorized.

5. Rampant Sexism - The governments of fascist nations tend to be almost exclusively male-dominated. Under fascist regimes, traditional gender roles are made more rigid. Divorce, abortion and homosexuality are suppressed and the state is represented as the ultimate guardian of the family institution.

6. Controlled Mass Media - Sometimes the media is directly controlled by the government, but in other cases, the media is indirectly controlled by government regulation, or sympathetic media spokespeople and executives. Censorship, especially in war time, is very common.

7. Obsession with National Security - Fear is used as a motivational tool by the government over the masses.

8. Religion and Government are Intertwined - Governments in fascist nations tend to use the most common religion in the nation as a tool to manipulate public opinion. Religious rhetoric and terminology is common from government leaders, even when the major tenets of the religion are diametrically opposed to the government's policies or actions.

9. Corporate Power is Protected - The industrial and business aristocracy of a fascist nation often are the ones who put the government leaders into power, creating a mutually beneficial business/government relationship and power elite.

10. Labor Power is Suppressed - Because the organizing power of labor is the only real threat to a fascist government, labor unions are either eliminated entirely, or are severely suppressed.

11. Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts - Fascist nations tend to promote and tolerate open hostility to higher education, and academia. It is not uncommon for professors and other academics to be censored or even arrested. Free expression in the arts and letters is openly attacked.

12. Obsession with Crime and Punishment - Under fascist regimes, the police are given almost limitless power to enforce laws. The people are often willing to overlook police abuses and even forego civil liberties in the name of patriotism. There is often a national police force with virtually unlimited power in fascist nations.

13. Rampant Cronyism and Corruption - Fascist regimes almost always are governed by groups of friends and associates who appoint each other to government positions and use governmental power and authority to protect their friends from accountability. It is not uncommon in fascist regimes for national resources and even treasures to be appropriated or even outright stolen by government leaders.

14. Fraudulent Elections - Sometimes elections in fascist nations are a complete sham. Other times elections are manipulated by smear campaigns against or even assassination of opposition candidates, use of legislation to control voting numbers or political district boundaries, and manipulation of the media. Fascist nations also typically use their judiciaries to manipulate or control elections.

Texas Convention Chaos

Cowboy Barack Obama may have pulled ahead of Hillary in yesterday's District Conventions step in the convoluted Texas method of choosing delegates to the Democrat National Convention.

My 2 long time readers may remember earlier this month when the Texas Two-Step Primary/Caucus election ended in mayhem and chaos. In Texas, in an innovation called the Texas Two-Step, you get to vote twice, once in the Primary and then later that same day you get to go to a Caucus and vote again. Trouble was the Caucus step of the two-step was badly organized and overwhelmed by too many voters. Many, such as me, gave up and went home.

The same thing happened at Saturday's Statewide District Conventions. After hours of frustrations many of the delegates gave up and left the Conventions, which began in the morning, with some lasting well into the night. At District 10, in Fort Worth, thousands were stuck in Will Rogers Coliseum, trying to find food, having music blasted at them, listening to speakers drone on, waiting in lines to sign in and get credentials. More than half of those who showed up in the morning left before voting.

Similar problems occurred all across Texas. By morning it was believed that Barack Obama had won the most delegates with the AP reporting Obama with 59% to Hillary's 41%. Hillary won the Primary vote 51% to Obama's 47%, giving Hillary 65 delegates and Obama 61. There are 67 delegates to be split between Hillary and Obama from yesterday's Conventions. Obama likely will now be able to claim he won Texas.

But who really knows? Texas elections are really confusing.

IX Web Hosting Outrage & Outage

My 2 long time readers may remember me mentioning my Web Host IX Webhosting's Ukrainian Support Center and the absurd responses I get from them when I have a little problem. Like my email not working. Or a couple months ago when tornadoes struck several states, including Kentucky, and my Web Host went down. I submitted a support ticket and was told there had been no downtime. So, I called the toll-free # to Kentucky and talked to a real person, an American, and told him the Ukrainians are claiming there was no downtime and are refusing downtime compensation. He then told the Ukrainians that there had been an outage and to give me downtime compensation.

So, on to today's nightmare. For several months I've been getting emails from the CEO of my web hosting company, Fathi Said, regarding moving their data center from Hopkinsville, Kentucky to Columbus, Ohio. I didn't much care as long as it didn't affect me.

And then a couple days ago in the latest email from Fathi I learned it would affect me. As in, well, I'll just go copy and paste their latest message on their help center webpage....

We are currently relocating all our servers and equipment from our present location in Hopkinsville, KY to our new state-of-the-art facility in Columbus, OH. The server relocation starts at 1am EST Saturday night. If your website or email service is unavailable after this time, please rest assured that our relocation team is working safely and securely to bring your service back up as fast as possible. We are expecting all services, including telephone support, to be back online by or before 8am EST on Sunday morning.

So, now do you see what I'm upset about? My websites all went down at midnight. It is now almost 5pm and they are still down. It was not til I read the above message did I realize they are actually physically moving the servers up to Ohio. I'm picturing a bunch of Kentuckians in pickup trucks heading north with my websites strapped down in back.

IX Webhosting is, supposedly, one of the biggest hosting companies in the world. Supposedly they have over 300,000 websites on their servers. I don't know how many are e-commerce websites that are making zilch today.

You can look at my AdSense stats from today in the above image and see I'm making zilch. Just one big $0.00.

So, I guess if they do ever come back online I'll be submitting a support ticket to the Ukrainians asking for downtime compensation. Again. And they'll tell me there was no downtime, there was no move to a new data center.

Now, usually when I get around to complaining or submitting a support ticket the problem is already fixed. I'll click on my website right now and see if that's the case this time. Nope. Still down. Earlier they at least had the courtesy to put up a page explaining why the websites were down. But, now it's just bringing up the basic "The page cannot be displayed" page.

I'm annoyed.

UPDATE: About an hour later and my websites are back working again, apparently successfully making the trip from Kentucky to Ohio.

Hillary and Harding

I grow tired of the ongoing calls for Hillary to concede to Obama and drop out of the race for the sake of party unity because, apparently, she can not win the nomination unless she wins all remaining primaries by huge margins and gets the votes of a majority of super delegates.

If Hillary stays in it is likely that neither she or Obama will have enough votes to win the nomination.

Now, to me, this would be a good thing, if only for the entertainment value. I'm not at all thinking of it as a good thing in the way Rush Limbaugh and his Operation Chaos does, in that this will tear apart the Democrats and give McCain the presidency.

In my lifetime I've never gotten to watch a brokered/deadlocked convention. There have been a few close ones, like the year of Reagan and Ford, but I've never seen a convention where the nomination did not occur on the first vote count.

In elections before I was born deadlocked conventions happened frequently. With very dubious results. That may have been part of what brought about the current way of trying to nominate a President, so that it is a done deal before the convention.

I'm pretty sure the last brokered, deadlocked convention was the Republican convention of 1920. General Leonard Wood and Governor Frank Lowden were deadlocked, neither with enough votes to win. Warren Harding had run in the race, but had only won the primary in his home state of Ohio.

The night of the deadlock a long meeting lasted til morning in a Chicago hotel. By the time dawn broke it was decided to swing support to Harding and give him the nomination, knocking off the Hillary and Obama of that era. This did not tear apart the Republican party.

Harding was brought to the hotel room and, before telling him the nomination was his, he was asked if he had any skeletons in his closet which might cause a problem. Harding answered "No". Neglecting to mention that he'd had little education, that he had a longstanding affair with the wife of one of his close friends and that he was a heavy boozer in the time of Prohibition.

Harding got the nomination and won the election and went on to being a very popular president who died in office before it was learned he led one of the most corrupt administrations in U.S. history, right up there on the corruption scale with Clinton and Nixon. Had he not died Harding would likely have been removed from office by impeachment or take the Nixon resignation route.

Like Clinton, Harding was also married to a domineering wife who ruled the roost and wore the pants in the family, but turned a blind eye to a lot of his shenanigans, like the drinking, gambling and womanizing.

Harding was the first Senator elected President. This year unless something goes seriously awry we will also be electing a Senator to the Presidency.

So, if Harding could come to the nomination from a deadlocked convention, without tearing apart the party, and then win the Presidency, I don't see why a brokered, deadlocked Democrat convention might not have the same result.

And be a highly entertaining spectacle to watch.

Nipples Airport Security Risk

It might be wise to stay out of the Lubbock, Texas airport if you have any sort of piercings. On February 24 a woman named Mandi Hamlin set off the alarms when she went through the security check on her way to Dallas.

It's my nipples she told the security checker. I have nipple rings.

Mandi was told to remove the nipple rings. She said she wouldn't. She was then told she could not get on the plane. So, Mandi gave in and was taken behind a privacy curtain where she successfully removed the bar parts of the piercings, but she could not get the rings loose.

Mandi began to cry. She told her torturers that she needed pliers to get the rings off. She was given pliers. She was successful. She was scanned again, and again set off the alarms. It was a belly button ring this time. But she was allowed to board without removing the belly button ring.

Apparently belly buttons present much less of a threat than nipples. The Transportation Security Administration is investigating the incident.

Gloria Allred is Mandi's lawyer. I hope she gets a good settlement.

Alma and Obama

This morning I got email from one of the South's Best Songbirds, she being Alma Squillante, currently performing at various venues on the Texas Gulf Coast. Before I make mention of what Alma's email was about I must mention her MySpace page where you can listen to her sing and learn where you can go hear her in person.

My two long term readers may remember me making mention in a couple Bloggings, I think one was called The Soviet State of Texas, of how a person in Texas can get thrown in the Texas Gulag for something as minor as a 6 year old $20 bounced check. Alma would be the person I know who had that happen to her. She writes about it in her MySpace Blog.

Anyway, in this morning's email Alma pointed me to a website where all I had to do was answer 15 questions to learn who I should choose for president. My answers were then analyzed and then the presidential candidates were listed in order of what level of agreement I shared with them regarding the various issues raised in the 15 questions.

Apparently I made a mistake (I sort of already knew that) when I voted for Hillary in the Texas Primary. Apparently I am in more agreement with Barack Obama than I am Hillary. I'm pretty sure I can't change my vote.

Hillary's Brave Combat in Bosnia

Am I the only one shocked to learn that President Bill Clinton sent his wife and daughter and the comedian known as Sinbad into the Bosnian War Zone where Hillary and Company had to duck and dodge bullets from snipers?

What sort of man would send his wife and daughter into such a dangerous situation? Shocking. And where was the Secret Service during this?

Just a couple weeks ago I saw Hillary at the Fort Worth Stockyards with the Secret Service all over the place. She's not even First Lady anymore, but way back in 1996, when she was only half way through her First Lady Days, the Secret Service let the First Lady do a corkscrew defensive landing in a combat zone and then ordered her to duck and run for cover? Were they trying to get her killed? What was Bill thinking? Sending his wife on such a mission. Along with his only child. Shocking. Was this during the time period when Bill was pre-occupied with Monica, one can't help but wonder?

Strangely, in photos taken during this incident, such as the one you see above, Hillary took time from running for cover to greet a little Bosnian girl. Now, one might think that Hillary's maternal instincts might have kicked in, with her picking up the little girl and carrying her to safety from the incoming sniper fire. It must not have occurred to Hillary, at the time, how well such a rescue would have played for us folks back home. But, then again, you do have to sort of wonder what sort of mother would stop to talk to a stranger, even a little girl stranger, when her own daughter is standing right by her, with bullets incoming from who knows how many snipers from who knows how many directions.

Well, obviously Hillary is a very brave girl (Bill has been referring to Hillary as a girl in speeches the past couple days), who has the courage to face any danger, any obstacle. Be it combat fire or climbing mountains. Which is why it is so appropriate that Hillary was named after Sir Edmund Hillary, who became internationally known years after Hillary was born. But somehow her mom and dad knew a man named Hillary was going to climb Mount Everest in 1953 and so they named their only daughter Hillary when she was born in 1947, 6 years prior to Sir Edmund making the Hillary name famous. Hillary has frequently said how proud she is to be named after Sir Edmund Hillary. Just like she is rightly proud to have dodged all those bullets in Bosnia.

The Clinton Pathology

I just finished Barbara Olson's "The Final Days: The Last, Desperate Abuses of Power by the Clinton White House." This book covers in great detail the final weeks the Clintons were in the White House.

Like, Details about Hillary's gift registry that went out to who knows how many people, soliciting gifts, like furniture and china, for the Clinton's 2 new homes. Hillary even solicited for, and got, an expensive cashmere sweater. All this begging at the same time Hillary had received a controversial $8 million book advance.

In addition to the loot the Clintons acquired via the begging route they also hauled off, in the words of permanent White House staff, anything that was not nailed down. Much of what was taken was put in warehouses in Little Rock. When the Clintons were told that much of what they took was government property and should have remained in the White House some of the loot was returned. But, there has never been an accounting of what was taken and what was returned. The Clintons also offered cash for some of what they took. But there has never been a record of that money being paid to anyone.

The biggest scandal in the Clintons final days were the dozens upon dozens of dubious pardons. Clinton wasn't pardoning people who'd somehow gotten a raw deal, like a kid thrown in jail for 10 years for being caught with a marijuana cigarette. No, Clinton pardoned serious criminals. He even pardoned a long sought after fugitive, Marc Rich. The Rich pardon caused the most outrage, first off due to the nature of his crimes and second off due to the fact that his ex-wife, Denise, paid the Clinton's well over a million bucks for their Presidental Library, huge donations to Hillary's senate campaign, huge donations to the DNC, and, of course, she bought Hillary some of the items that were on Hillary's gift registry.

Hillary's brother, Hugh, sold several pardons for $400,000. When Hillary found out she was horrified and insisted her brother return the money. It is not known if he did return the money, or if Hillary scolded Bill for facilitating her brother's pardon for hire scheme. Bill's brother, Roger, who got one of the last minute pardons, was so sure he could get his big brother to do some pardoning for him, pre-sold 7 or 8 pardons to fellow drug crime convicts who Roger had met in jail. Unfortunately for Roger, this turned into one of the rare occasions where Bill did the right thing, leaving Roger in hot water with the cons who'd given him money.

Clinton pardoned several drug kingpins who the DEA had worked years to convict and put away. Bill had no explanation as to why he would pardon drug kingpins. The pardons outraged leaders in South America who had cooperated with the U.S. in fighting the Drug Lords with the president of, I think it was Columbia, saying that if it had been he who had issued such a pardon on his last day in office, the United States would have been outraged and extremely critical and accusatory.

In the words of the Wall Street Journal's Al Hunt the Clinton Pardon Scandal "leaves a stain that is bigger than anything during impeachment which, despite the effort of Clinton haters, really was about awful personal behavior. I think the damage (to Clinton's legacy) is severe. I think it's lasting. It's on Bill Clinton's legacy. It's on Hillary Clinton."

Go to Wikipedia for a short article with more detail about the Clinton Pardon Scandal. Go to this Blog for a list of who was pardoned and what their crimes were. You'll see why Jimmy Carter called this scandalous and Al Gore said he was shocked.