Pigskin Job Brings Home The Bacon

The average paycheck for a head football coach in Texas' largest high schools is about $31,000.00 more than that of the average teacher at the same size school the Austin American-Statesman reported today:

Head coaches in Classes 5A and 4A --— schools with 950 students or more — are making an average of $73,804 while teachers in those classifications average close to $42,400, according to records obtained by the Austin American-Statesman through the Texas Public Information Act...

The Austin American-Statesman asked every 5A and 4A school district in the state for the total compensation paid to head football coaches and for salaries of their highest-paid teachers, high school principals and superintendents for the 2005-06 school year.

Did the paper really need to go to all that trouble to discover that in Texas high school football is king? A drive through any small town would tell you that.

Not surprisingly, some teachers aren't happy with the situation. Texas State Teachers Association President Donna Haschke told the Statesman, "In Texas, everybody expects us to have big football programs. In my opinion, yes, we need to emphasize academics over sports more than we do. Sports has its place, and it's an important, positive place in the curriculum. But I think that we should be putting some of that time and money into education."

Personally, I've always been of the opinion that in a free society such as ours, people earn exactly what they deserve. While I may wish society valued my job of Community Blogger more than they do, I've come to grips with the fact that I'll never get close to the pay of Ennis High School's Sam Harrell, who earns $106,004 a year. But hey, a guy can dream.

Party On Longhorns

The University of Texas at Austin is the country's best party school. The Princeton Review surveyed 115,000 students at campuses around the country and bestowed the honor(?) on the school. This is what our tax dollars support?

It's the first time U.T.-Austin topped the overall list. The Princeton Review ranked the school 2nd in the use of hard liquor, 3rd in beer drinking, and 13th in marijuana smoking. U.T. spokesman Don Hale told the Associated Press that campus leaders don't take such rankings very seriously. Maybe they should? Not surprisingly, the university finds itself way back in 47th place in U.S. News and World Report's ranking of "America's Best Colleges".

In December, Phanta "Jack" Phoummarath died of died of acute alcohol poisoning, as a result of fraternity hazing. Mr. Phoummarath's blood alcohol level was 0.50 percent, more than six times the legal limit.

The Search for Significance

While today's web-savvy consumers wants something, "new", apparently, "free" is even better. That's the conclusion of Lee Gomes, writing in today's Wall Street Journal. Last week America Online released information on web-search data from 650,000 of its customers. So the industrious Mr. Gomes took the data set -- all 2.27 gigabytes' worth, and studied how people really use the Web.

Among his findings:

Something for Nothing
Ignoring prepositions and conjunctions, the most commonly used word in the 17.15 million separate searches was "free." The next-most common word was, "new".

A Plethora of Pervs
According to a research paper about the data prepared by an AOL-led team, porn was the third most common activity of Web searchers, behind entertainment and shopping. Mr. Gomes found that 14% of all users made some form of explicit sexual search

You Want Answers?

When it comes to finding the answers to life's questions, some things are apparently better left to the unknown. 35% of those that posed a question in a search engine didn't bother to click on a single link. A random sampling indicated that those that did click on a link could expect to find a fairly accurate answer about 60% of the time.

The Truth is out There
Among the data there were 12 searches for the head of the United Nations, Kofi Annan -- 165 queries for the deceased nun, Mother Teresa -- 1,881 searches for Madonna and 3,279 attempts to find God on the Web. Lest you mistakenly assume that this represents some new found spirituality among AOL users, consider this. With 3,938 searches, more people are trying to find Britney Spears than God.

Do As I Say, Not As I Do

Barack Obama is considered one of the rising stars in the Democratic Party. The following is from News Channel 6:

Illinois Senator Barack Obama warns citizens at his 50th Town Hall meeting about gas guzzling. It was among many points made to the standing room only audience at the Metropolis Community Center. Obama spoke on everything from DC politics to global warming. He says part of the blame for the world's higher temperatures rests on gas guzzling vehicles. Obama says consumers can make the difference by switching to higher mileage hybrids. Today the Senator said, "It would save more energy, do more for the environment and create better world security than all the drilling we could do in Alaska."

After the meeting... Obama left in a GMC Envoy after admitting to favoring SUV's himself.

Al Gore, who is traveling across the country in a private plane to promote his movie encouraging energy conservation could not be reached for comment.

Hurrying to Post This Before my Laptop Burst into Flames

I've been really pleased with my Dell laptop. Until today when I found out that it may burst into flames at any moment. While announcing the recall, Dell tried to pass the buck, blaming faulty batteries it says are manufactured by Sony.

I'll have to wait until tomorrow to find out if my particular model is one being recalled. If mine is faulty, and given my luck with laptops, I'm sure it is, If it's defective, I'll have to wait for Dell to ship me a new battery. Until then, the government says I should only use my laptop with the power cord. Kinda' defeats the purpose of buying a laptop in the first place doesn't it?

This is just another in a long list of problems I've had with laptops. My last laptop was a Toshiba. It quit on me four weeks after the warranty went out. Before that, I had a Hewlett-Packard laptop. After sixteen weeks of ownership, it conked out. No worry. It's still in warranty. That's when I found out that H-P's idea of warranted repair was shipping it off to God-knows where and waiting 6-8 weeks for its return. Who the heck can do without their computer that long? In the mean time, I'm surfing the 'net, looking for an asbestos blanket to lay across my lap to protect me from fire.

San Antonio Lady Turns 108

Happy Birthday! to Audrey Rose Sasser of San Antonio who is 108 years young today. UPI reports that Ms. Sasser celebrated her birthday with friends and family.

While she admitted to a few aches and pains, Ms. Sasser. who was born on a Louisiana plantation in 1898, reports that her her eyesight is still 20/20 and that she still takes a daily walk around her retirement community.

For those seeking her secret to a long life, Ms. Sasser's diet includes oatmeal and coffee daily. Mostly she says that her active childhood in the days before TV and video games are the reason for her good health.

Man Fails in His Attempt to Deal Hurst the Race Card

Willie Hudspeth is mad at the Hurst Police. The Star-Telegram says that the Denton County man claims he is a victim of racial profiling by the Hurst Police Department. He says he was pulled over because he is black. Not so says HPD, which says officer C. Collazo made the traffic stop because Hudspeth was driving 55 mph in a 45 mph zone and because he had improper license plates. The officer says that the license plates on Hudspeth's pick-up were not readable and belonged on another vehicle.

Thankfully for officer Collazo the traffic stop was recorded by the dash-mounted video camera. You can view the whole thing here. While we can't tell how fast Hudspeth was driving, one thing is clear from the video. You can't read his license plate or even tell that he has one.

Despite clear evidence that he was breaking the law, Hudspeth is attempting to play the race card, claiming he is the victim. Puhlease. The S-T says he was let go with a warning. I say he got off easy. He deserves to be pimp slapped.

RadioShack to Send 400+ Employees Packing

Cowtown company RadioShack announced yesterday that it plans to reduce its workforce by around 400 to 450 positions. The company says that the layoffs will reduce the its overhead expense and improve its position in the marketplace. The company says that most of the reductions will come at its fancy new headquarters on the edge of downtown Fort Worth, though the exact number of employees to be let go there hasn't been decided yet.

Sharp Fort Worthians will recall that Cowtown taxpayers forked over about $20,000,000.00 in tax breaks to get the company to build its brand spanking new headquarters on the site of a low-income housing project a few years ago. So much for keeping jobs in Fort Worth.

Fortune ranks Radio Shack 423 among corporations with 2005 revenue of $5,081,000,000.00.

When Life Hands You Lemons...

Make Lemonade!

The Houston Chronicle reports today on one poor college student that did just that during yesterday's terror alert.

At the entrance to Hobby's screening area, where passengers had dumped items including aftershave, shampoo and eye drops into large trash bins, Michael Wilkinson grabbed a half-empty tube of toothpaste and a used bottle of lotion out of the bin.

"It's free," said Wilkinson, a 19-year-old Blinn College student from Bay City who had dropped a friend off for a flight. "All these people are throwing (stuff) away. I might as well."

Via Lone Star Times.

Traffic in East Texas Fowled up by Wreck

You think it's hot? Just imagine how those twenty-four penquins felt when the truck that was carrying them overturned in East Texas. The birds were traveling to Moody Gardens in Galveston when their chauffuer rolled the truck they were in into a ditch alongside U.S. 59 near Marshall.

Three penguins were killed by oncoming traffic, and one suffered a broken wing.

Workers from the Caldwell Zoo in Tyler assisted DPS officers in rounding up the rest of the flight-less birds. A chemical company was called which brought a refrigerated trailer for the animals to ride in. Now that's the way to travel this time of year.

Dial "F" for Frustration

Interesting story in today's Wall Street Journal about a website that provides a "cheat sheet" for those callers wishing to avoid big corporation's phone systems and actually speak to a real live human being. The list comes from gethuman.com and it provides instructions on bypass the phone trees of 415 corporations and get through to an actual person.

Now if someone would just start a website with instructions on getting through to a person that is actually on this continent.

Tax-Free Weekend Puts absurdity of the Nanny-State on Display

The state's annual "tax-free weekend" is now in full swing with the parking lots of area malls and Wal-Marts packed. But not everything is exempt from sales tax and the list can be quite confusing. Looking over the lists of what is tax-exempt and what is not, I can only conclude the list was produced in Boston or somewhere. It certainly could not have come from Austin:

• Belts with attached buckles are exempt, but a belt buckle by itself is not. What self-respecting Texan would dream of going back to school without a big shiny belt buckle?
• Tennis shoes are exempt, bowling shoes are not. This is a clear case of class-discrimination. Buffy can get a good deal on shoes to where to country club whereas Billy Bob as to fork over sales tax on a new pair of shoes to where bowling?.
• Football jerseys are tax-exempt, but not football helmets. As one who has been frequently accused of not wearing my helmut during my football playing days, this angers me. Whut 'bout the childlin'? Don't they deserve all the protection that they can get?
• Dresses are exempt from taxes, but a purse to match is taxable. I've been married for over 20 years, 15 of them happily. If there is one thing I've learned about women, it's that whenever they get a new dress, they have to have a purse to match.
  

Aside from the absurdity of the list is the absurdity of the entire premise that big government should be allowed to tell us what we should and shouldn't buy. If sales taxes are a hardship on families trying to send the kids back to school, then sales taxes are too high. Period.

Here is Cowtown, we struggle with one of the highest sales tax rates in the country. Let's cut the sales tax for all citizens, not just those that meekly do as they are told and buy when and what they are supposed to.

Stop Shooting At Us So We Can Kill You

Iranian Terrorist-In-Chief, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad this week called for an immediate cease-fire to end the fighting between Israel and the Iranian-backed group Hezbollah.

The leader of the out-law country went on to offer his own solution to the crisis in the Middle-East: Destroy Israel.

"Although the main solution is for the elimination of the Zionist regime, at this stage an immediate cease-fire must be implemented," Ahmadinejad said, according to state-run television in a report posted on its Web site Thursday.

And people wonder why there is no cease-fire. Why would any country negotiate with people that are sworn to kill them?

Millions & Millions Served

Mozilla announced yesterday that its Firefox Web Browser had been downloaded 200,000,000 times. Firefox 1.0 was made availible on the net a year and nine months ago. Since then, Firefox has captured 15% of the web browser market in the United States and become the first challenger to Bill Gate's security-plagued Internet Explorer since the demise of Netscape.

Computer Geeks say that Firefox is much more secure that IE. 'Sides that, the tabbed browsing feature is a really handy way to view multiple web pages -- and is a feature still not found on IE.

You can beat the price either. It's availible free.

Deja Vu All Over Again for Texas Golfer

Most golfers dream of making a hole-in-one just once in their life. Lubbock resident Danny Leake got to live that dream recently during the Texas Tech Rawls Course club tournament. Then he got to relive that dream the very next day. On the exact same hole, with the exact club.

No word on whether he was wearing the the exact same underwear, but I'll bet the next time he hits the links, he's wearing the same briefs.

ESPN has the rest of the story here:

...Leake, 53, aced the sixth hole Saturday with a 5-iron from 174 yards. He aced the same hole with the same club from 178 yards in Sunday's final round.

Leake, who has a 14 handicap and was seeded in one of the tournament's lowest flights, quickly became the talk of the clubhouse.

"My 5-iron is becoming my favorite club," Leake was quoted as saying in Monday's editions of the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal. He said he was more than satisfied with his ace Saturday and had no thought of repeating the shot.

Leake went on to win the sixth flight with a score of 87-84-85--256.

"I've always wanted to make a hole-in-one, but I'm nowhere near as good a golfer as most of the people [at the tournament]. That's what make this whole thing crazy," Leake said. "I'll probably never hit another one as long as I live, but I'm OK with that."