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edited by: Ted McLaughlin, Texas Editor

Pete's Place

  • Two improbable/impressive wins by our local pros

    The only thing less likely to happen than a Dallas Mavericks team without Dirk Nowitzki beating LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers was the hapless Dallas Cowboys defeating the unbeaten New Orleans Saints in the Superdome.Yet both happened.Both wins were impressive, although the Cowboys' victory was more infuriating. Who were' [...]
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    Posted: December 21, 2009, 3:08am EST

  • New movies to be released tomorrow on DVD

    (500) DAYS OF SUMMER (2009)Grade: A-There are two words that, I feel, perfectly describe (500) Days of Summer and ought to be words of recommendation. But they are words so debased in common usage that I fear that invoking them might turn some folks away from a fresh and smart [...]
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    Posted: December 21, 2009, 2:18am EST

  • Moneyball

    Think college football is amateur athletics. Thing again. Perhaps the players aren't getting paid, but everyone else is and well, according to this carefully researched and well written story from ESPN.com's Mike Fish.The story fails to make one connection so I will. It begins by noting that Texas coach Mack' [...]
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    Posted: December 21, 2009, 1:59am EST

  • Newsweek predicts White to win governor's election

    No. 10 on Newsweek's "Politics Predictions for 2010" is this doozy: Former Houston Mayor Bill White (pictured right) will narrowly defeat Gov. Hair in next year's Texas gubernatorial election. Here is what the weekly news magazine had to say about next year's heated election:"If Texas is emblematic of America’s proclivity" [...]
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    Posted: December 18, 2009, 7:14pm EST

  • SAG deals a blow to Air's Oscar chances

    Unlike last year, when Slumdog Millionaire was a slam dunk almost from the word "go," handicapping this year's Oscar race is going to be a little bit tougher. Up until today I thought Up in the Air was the distinct leader over The Hurt Locker. Then the Screen Actors Guild [...]
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    Posted: December 17, 2009, 9:33pm EST

  • Maybe it's not so "Precious" after all

    Earlier I admitted I was surprised that Lee Daniels did not recieve a Golden Globes director's nomination for Precious, which I once thought was a prime contender to win many of the top Oscars, including best picture. However, here's what Moviefone's Jack Mathews, a critic I respect, says about whether [...]
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    Posted: December 16, 2009, 12:54pm EST

  • Local film critics announce winners

    The Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics Association announced its year-end awards. The winners are:Best Picture: Up in the AirBest Director: Jason Reitman, Up in the AirBest Actor: George Clooney, Up in the AirBest Actress: Carey Mulligan, An EducationBest Supporting Actor: Christopher Waltz, Inglourious BasterdsBest Supporting Actress: Mo’Nique, PreciousBest Screenplay: Up in [...]
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    Posted: December 16, 2009, 12:26pm EST

  • Bring local brands to Love Field

    Here's an idea the City of Dallas should copy: instead of looking at the same bland concessionaires that now service Love Field, convince some local restaurants -- anything from Mothers and Daughters Diner to the Grape -- to establish locations at the city-owned airport. The Austin City Council is scheduled [...]
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    Posted: December 16, 2009, 12:09pm EST

  • Golden Globe nominations

    I'm looking over the list of Golden Globe nominations as most people do -- a harbinger to what the Oscar nominations might look like, even though the Globes' Hollywood Foreign Press Association has 88 voting members and the Oscars' Motion Picture Academy has more than 5,000.My first reaction is that' [...]
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    Posted: December 16, 2009, 9:56am EST

  • Trying to find the bright side while dancing on the dark side of the moon

    About the only positive side of the Supremes stealing the 2000 presidential election for George W. is the fact that this jerk never became vice president. True, he might not have been as dangerous as Dick Cheney, but he could have wielded even far more influence today. I'm thinking, however,' [...]
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    Posted: December 15, 2009, 2:05pm EST

  • Kinky to run for Ag Commissioner

    The Democratic nomination for governor is shaping up as a two-person race between Bill White, the former Houston mayor and the candidate with all the political clout, and Farouk Shami, the hair and skin products business owner and the candidate with all the personal wealth he needs to buy the [...]
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    Posted: December 14, 2009, 7:28pm EST

  • New movies to be released tomorrow on DVD

    G-Force (2009) **½ G-Force — perhaps the most expensive 3-D house-pet action movie ever made and, I’m willing to concede, probably one of the best — is about an hour shorter than Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, half as pretentious and twice as witty. Call this faint praise, if you [...]
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    Posted: December 14, 2009, 3:35am EST

  • Times finally says car phones should be turned off

    The New York Times is on the bandwagon. Its Sunday edition contained an editorial calling for Congress to enact legislation outlawing using mobile communications while operating a motor vehicle. The editorial even made the same comparison I did a couple of days ago: "It brings to mind that row of" [...]
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    Posted: December 14, 2009, 2:40am EST

  • Thoughts about the pending health care reform legislation

    A number of my colleagues are incensed that the current health care reform bill pending in the Senate doesn't contain a strong public option. Me? I'm more of a half-a-loaf-is-better-than-none type of guy. Let's get a reform bill out of Congress and signed by the President. Once that door is [...]
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    Posted: December 14, 2009, 2:14am EST

  • Random thoughts on college football especially as it involves the Texas Longhorns

    (Truth in advertising: I am a UT graduate with a bachelor's degree in journalism. I was once a sportswriter who covered UT for a daily newspaper. I count two former Texas football coaches as friends. If you slit my wrist, the blood will probably come out burnt orange.)It's been a [...]
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    Posted: December 12, 2009, 1:33pm EST

  • What are yesterday's cigarette marketers doing these days? They're promoting mobile phones

    Regular readers will know that I have been advocating for stricter laws that would prohibit individuals from using mobile communications devices while they are operating a motor vehicle. Researchers at Harvard have estimated that, even seven years ago, drivers using cellphones were causing 2,600 fatal crashes a year in the [...]
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    Posted: December 08, 2009, 9:12pm EST

  • New movies to be released tomorrow on DVD

    The Cove (2009) ****½ When the director Louie Psihoyos slipped into the little coastal town of Taiji, Japan, it was under cover of documenting the degradation of ocean reefs. Once there, however, he proceeded to mount one of the most audacious and perilous operations in the history of the conservation [...]
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    Posted: December 07, 2009, 11:38am EST

  • New movies to be released tomorrow on DVD

    A Christmas Tale (2008) ***** Late in A Christmas Tale Abel Vuillard (Jean-Paul Roussillon), the mirthful, patient patriarch in Arnaud Desplechin’s noisy, cloying and altogether marvelous film, reads aloud from the opening pages of Nietzsche’s On the Genealogy of Morals. His audience is his oldest child, Élizabeth (Anne Consigny), who [...]
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    Posted: November 30, 2009, 11:55am EST

  • My Thanksgiving Toast

    There are many things I have to be thankful for, the principle ones being:My Son.My Granddaughter.My Hero, My Hero's parents (who celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary last weekend -- how wonderful!) and My Hero's children and son-in-law, all of whom have graciously accepted me as part of their family and [...]
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    Posted: November 26, 2009, 3:12am EST

  • New movies to be released tomorrow on DVD

    Angels & Demons (2009) **½ Since Angels & Demons takes place mainly in the Vatican, and is festooned with the rites and ornaments of Roman Catholicism, I might as well begin with a confession. I have not read the novel by Dan Brown on which this film (directed, like its [...]
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    Posted: November 23, 2009, 8:59am EST

  • What were these voters thinking???

    Hoop Dreams was not only the best documentary of 1994, it was also that year's best picture. Just a little more than two weeks ago, film critic Roger Ebert called it "the great American documentary." Crumb, another magnificent documentary from that same year, was superior to four of the five [...]
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    Posted: November 21, 2009, 10:13pm EST

  • It's time to give the area's other football team a little more attention

    I picked up a hard copy of the Dallas Morning News today, something unusual for me. I glanced at the Metro section, then went to the Sports section and quickly realized why I feel hard copies of the Dallas Morning News are largely irrelevant (and I'm a former reporter/writer/editor for' [...]
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    Posted: November 18, 2009, 2:09pm EST

  • Garland Road improvement projects may face insurmountable obstacles

    From what I gather, there's a group of folks, at the behest of former Dallas city councilman Gary Griffith. that wants to convert Garland Road into another McKinney Ave. This is not a new idea. Mr. Griffith's predecessor, Mary Poss, produced a lengthy "Garland Road Master Plan," and, when I [...]
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    Posted: November 17, 2009, 11:13am EST

  • I vote for Brown to replace Chief Kunkle

    Like most folks around here, I was shocked to read of Dallas Police Chief David Kunkle's announcement of his retirement next April. It had always seemed to me that the two most prominent members of the city's staff -- the city manager and the police chief -- were pressured out [...]
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    Posted: November 16, 2009, 12:16pm EST

  • New movies to be released tomorrow on DVD

    Bruno (2009) ** In his various incarnations — Ali G, Borat and now, at feature length, Brüno — Sacha Baron Cohen leads his audience in a two-step of squirming discomfort and smug affirmation. Like Borat, this film offers both succor and sucker bait for liberal-minded viewers who may feel harassed [...]
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    Posted: November 16, 2009, 9:31am EST

  • Big 12 commish does not like the idea of a college football playoff

    Big 12 Commissioner Dan Beebee, interviewed on Fox Sports Southwest during Saturday's Texas-Baylor blowout, said emphatically he would never, ever support a college football playoff. In fact, he said, if there is too much pressure for college football to do away with the current BCS system, that college football would, [...]
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    Posted: November 15, 2009, 12:30am EST

  • New York Times sports pages focus on Metroplex

    Saturday's New York Times had a decidely Dallas/Fort Worth feel to it. The lead story focused on Dallas' Tyrone Davis (left, with the ball), who is currently the star of the Georgia basketball team. This is not the Georgia that goes to war with Southeastern Conference foes but the Georgia' [...]
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    Posted: November 15, 2009, 12:14am EST

  • A BCS fairytale (or nightmare)

    Play a game of "what if" with me here:What if "the ol' ball coach" pulls a rabbit out of the hat and his South Carolina team ambushes Florida this weekend?Then what if Florida defeats Alabama in the SEC title?And, finally, what if Florida and Alabama are the only two undefeated' [...]
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    Posted: November 11, 2009, 12:56pm EST

  • "Precious" to win best picture Oscar?

    That's what In Contention's Kris Tarpley thinks. He's also predicting right now that Gabourey Sidibe and Mo'Nique will win best actress and supporting actress respectively.I'm not that sure. I remember this time three years ago I thought another film with an all-black cast, Dreamgirls, looked like a sure best-picture winner [...]
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    Posted: November 11, 2009, 12:07pm EST

  • Local officials should be finding solutions, not just celebrating, on Veterans Day

    Today is Veterans Day and Dallas City Hall is all festive for the occasion. But city officials and others should take some time out during the day and come to terms with sobering facts about today's veterans. I don't know what the local figures show, but nationally it is estimated' [...]
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    Posted: November 11, 2009, 11:37am EST

  • DeNiro's most famous line actually came from The Boss

    Here's an interesting story -- at least I found it interesting. While preparing for his role in Taxi Driver, Robert De Niro attended a Bruce Springsteen concert during which the adoring crowd kept yelling Bruce's name. At one point, as the crowd is yelling "Bruce! Bruce!", Springsteen turned and said [...]
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    Posted: November 10, 2009, 1:49am EST

  • There goes another great idea

    I was going to yell, to scream, to stand on the mountaintops and hoist the flags from the valleys down below -- in another words I was prepared to raise the roofbeams with my voice-- to emphatically deny -- put all those vicious rumors to rest -- that I was [...]
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    Posted: November 10, 2009, 1:39am EST

  • Why are some council members afraid to think for themselves?

    I spent much of Monday reading, writing and just plain relaxing in my home office. For entertainment I had the Dallas City Council's agenda meeting on the television. I watched them wrangle with the question of "Just how ethical do we want to be?" for much of the morning before [...]
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    Posted: November 10, 2009, 12:32am EST

  • And I thought Texas" criminal courts were corrupt

    Texas can't hold a candle to Florida.Consider the case of Joe Sullivan, a mentally impaired boy convicted of sexual battery, largely on the testimony of two accomplices, both of whom were older than Sullivan, who each were rewarded for their testimony by given light sentences, one of them in a' [...]
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    Posted: November 10, 2009, 12:18am EST

  • October's Oscar Poll

    Last month, I conducted my first poll of the almost 500 Oscar voters representing all the branches who are willing to share with me who plan to cast their nominating votes for in this year's Oscar race. I just finished counting all the returns and here are who the nominees [...]
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    Posted: November 09, 2009, 8:23pm EST

  • SI's college football playoff bracket after games of Nov. 7

    (1) Florida vs. (16) Miami(8) LSU vs. (9) Ohio State(5) TCU vs. (12) USC(4) Cincinnati vs. (13) Iowa(3) Alabama vs. (14) Houston(6) Boise State vs. (11) Oregon(7) Georgia Tech vs. (10) Pittsburgh(2) Texas vs. (15) Utah [...]
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    Posted: November 09, 2009, 2:46pm EST

  • New movies to be released tomorrow on DVD

    Ballast (2008) ****½ There isn’t much talk and not a drop of cynicism in this film, Lance Hammer’s austerely elegant, emotionally unadorned riff on life and death in the Mississippi Delta. Shot with a sure hand and a cast of unknowns, the film doesn’t so much tell a story as [...]
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    Posted: November 09, 2009, 10:39am EST

  • Yesterday's elections

    A lot of pundits are looking at the results of yesterday's elections in New Jersey and Virginia and calling them a rebuke of President Obama and a shot in the arm for Republican conservatism. Those pundits need to look more closely.Gov. John Corzine of New Jersey lost because he failed [...]
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    Posted: November 05, 2009, 9:50pm EST

  • The Kinky and Medina factors

    To me, the surprising result of the University of Texas/Texas Tribune poll unveiled today is not that Gov. Hair leads Sen. Hutch by 12 percent among Republicans, but that Kinky Friedman has a nine percentage point lead over Tom Schieffer among Democrats. Could Kinky win this primary on name recognition [...]
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    Posted: November 04, 2009, 12:56pm EST

  • The Mavs at 3-1

    If anyone told me the Dallas Mavericks would be 3-1, especially after their opening game home loss to the Washington Wizards, which hasn't done a thing since, I would have told them they were crazy. It's not that I was overly concerned about the Wizards game -- it was the' [...]
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    Posted: November 04, 2009, 12:17pm EST

  • Top 25 High School Football teams

    I ran across this nifty Internet set that ranks high school football teams all over the nation and the Texas section offers an option where the teams are ranked regardless of class. Here is its ranking of the 25 best high school football teams in the state (the last number [...]
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    Posted: November 03, 2009, 4:50pm EST

  • New movies to be released tomorrow on DVD

    Aliens in the Attic (2009) ** In Aliens in the Attic, basically a tweener cable movie on steroids, a group of intergalactic travelers comes to Earth with plans for widespread massacre and planetary domination. Most of the battling with the four-armed, knee-high green critters is done by a crew of [...]
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    Posted: November 02, 2009, 4:28pm EST

  • Texas' last hurdle?

    A lot of folks believe tomorrow's game against Oklahoma State is Texas' last hurdle on its way to a regular season undefeated season and a berth in the BCS title game against the SEC champion. I'm not so sure after the way Texas A&M brutalized Texas Tech last weekend, but [...]
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    Posted: October 30, 2009, 5:33pm EDT

  • Senate should model its health care reform bill on House's version

    The House of Representatives has introduced a health care reform bill that accomplishes what this legislation is supposed to do -- greatly reduce the number of uninsured while reducing budget deficits. It includes a public option, but not one as strong as I would like --i.e., the option plan doesn't' [...]
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    Posted: October 30, 2009, 3:08pm EDT

  • How do you feel about a Michael Douglas-Matt Damon love scene in a hot tub?

    Apparently such a scene is supposed to be included in Steven Soderbergh's proposed biopic of flamboyant pianist Wladziu Valentino Liberace with Douglas starring as the diamond-flashing Librace and Damon cast as his companion, Scott Thorson, who was 30 years younger than Librace."Everybody is hopeful that there will be a full-on," [...]
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    Posted: October 28, 2009, 12:34pm EDT

  • First quarter 2010 may be better than average

    Normally the first quarter in any calendar year is a famine period for serious film lovers. That's because producers want to push their quality films to later in the year for awards consideration (figuring Oscar voters, as an example, have extremely short memories).However, I have three reasons to think that [...]
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    Posted: October 28, 2009, 12:04pm EDT

  • Is "Invictus" really a sports movie?

    Up until this morning, I was thinking Clint Eastwood's Invictus was going to be a filmed biography of South Africa's Nelson Mandela. Now, after seeing this trailer, I'm thinking it's going to be a sports movie -- specifically how Mandela recruited one of his country's white rugby players (played by' [...]
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    Posted: October 28, 2009, 11:45am EDT

  • McCoy third in Heisman race, Texas still third in SI's playoff bracket

    Texas quarterback Colt McCoy is current running third in the Heisman Trophy race, according to The HeismanPundit.Com., behind Alabama running back Mark Ingram and Notre Dame quarterback Jimmy Clausen. HeismanPundit.Com polls Heisman voters from around the country. Last year, it picked five of the six top finishers correctly including Sam [...]
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    Posted: October 27, 2009, 4:27pm EDT

  • My take on the constitutional amendments

    Proposition 1: It's not the responsibility of homeowners to subsidize military sprawl and force cities and towns to take on additional debt that could increase property taxes. I'm voting No.Proposition 2: To be honest, I'm not sure what this proposition will do, but political associates in Austin tell me that [...]
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    Posted: October 27, 2009, 3:14pm EDT

  • Don't worry about Texas opting out ... yet

    The current Senate version of the health care reform package contains a public option as well as a mechanism for states, like Texas, which has a history of denying its citizens adequate health care protections, to opt out of the public option.There's no question that a majority of Texas political [...]
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    Posted: October 27, 2009, 2:16pm EDT

  • New movies to be released tomorrow on DVD

    Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs (2009) **½ I am not someone who insists that cartoons obey the laws of physics or stick to the historical record. The Acme Corporation will not deliver a home catapult kit to an unmarked mesa in the desert Southwest, and, Up notwithstanding, even a [...]
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    Posted: October 26, 2009, 11:43am EDT

  • Council committees to be briefed on one-day-a-week garbage pickup, Katy Trail extension

    Monday is usually the busy day for Dallas City Council committee meetings and, I gotta tell ya, I really feel sorry for council members Jerry Allen, Ann Margolin, Vonciel Jones Hill, Angela Hunt, Delia Jasso, Ron Natinsky and Dave Neumann, who, as members of Budget, Finance and Audit Committee, must [...]
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    Posted: October 26, 2009, 11:37pm EDT

  • And then there were 12

    Now that "Amelia" has (pardon the pun) crashed, the 10 Oscar nominated films for best picture will come from this list of 12 films:AvatarAn EducationThe Hurt LockerInglorious BasterdsInvictusThe Lovely BonesNinePrecious: Based on the Novel "Push" By SapphireThe RoadA Serious ManUpUp in the Air [...]
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    Posted: October 25, 2009, 12:13am EDT

  • Orrin needs to close his hatch

    I've been thinking a lot recently about Utah Senator Orrin Hatch and some of his latest outbursts. He doesn't think government should get involved in protecting the health care of its citizens but he does think the feds should interfere in deciding college football's national champion and inflating the population [...]
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    Posted: October 24, 2009, 11:34pm EDT

  • This week's SI college playoff bracket

    (1) Alabama vs. (16) BYU(8) Miami vs. (9) LSU(5) Cincinnati vs. (12) Georgia Tech(4) USC vs. (13) Penn State(3) Texas vs. (14) Oklahoma State(6) Boise State vs. (11) Oregon(7) Iowa vs. (10) TCU(2) Florida vs. (15) Virginia Tech [...]
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    Posted: October 21, 2009, 2:13pm EDT

  • New movies released today on DVD

    Blood: The Last Vampire (2009) *½ Set primarily on an American military base near Tokyo (the action takes place in 1970, but Vietnam references are conspicuously absent), Blood suffers from abusive close-ups, repetitive fight sequences and uninspired demon design. The French director Chris Nahon (adapting Hiroyuki Kitakubo’s animated short film [...]
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    Posted: October 20, 2009, 9:47pm EDT

  • Texas-OU and other hits

    Just to keep the record straight, I am a diehard Texas Longhorn supporter, having graduated from UT-Austin way back when with a journalism degree, spending a large part of my time there on the sports staff of the Daily Texan. Then, when I came to Dallas to work for UPI, [...]
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    Posted: October 18, 2009, 2:56pm EDT

  • The case for public health insurance

    It appears Congress is going to pass some kind of health care reform legislation. The only question is whether the final plan will be more closely aligned to the legislation pending in the House of Representatives, which includes a public option, or the one in the Senate that does not. [...]
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    Posted: October 18, 2009, 2:29pm EDT

  • A couple of random weight loss, baseball observations (and I already know the topics are not related)

    I don't know about you, but I am constantly bombarded about weight-loss programs. Most of them wind up in my spam e-mail box, which is where they belong, but weight-loss advertisements seem to proliferate on television, radio, newspapers, magazines. I wouldn't be that surprised if one of them snuck through [...]
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    Posted: October 13, 2009, 12:49pm EDT

  • New movies to be released tomorrow on DVD

    Adoration (2009) ****½ In Adoration, a profound and provocative exploration of cultural inheritance, communications technology and the roots and morality of terrorism, the Canadian filmmaker Atom Egoyan nimbly wades into an ideological minefield without detonating an explosion. Its story of a high school class assignment that becomes a minor cause [...]
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    Posted: October 12, 2009, 1:05am EDT

  • Florida at LSU: Another reason never to adopt a college football playoff system

    If college football had a postseason playoff in place, ya think Florida coach Urban Meyer would approach tomorrow night's game against LSU differently than he is now. For one thing, I guarantee you Florida quarterback Tim Tebow would not play -- at all, not even a down. Florida would be [...]
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    Posted: October 09, 2009, 9:22am EDT

  • Slumming around

    Have you ever been hanging out with the same old crowd when suddenly a fresh, new face burst onto the scene? This new person brings a new form of energy, a wisp of danger, the very real sense of excitement to an existence that needed to be invigorated. You find [...]
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    Posted: October 06, 2009, 5:14pm EDT

  • The game's a killer

    Reason 434,628 I don't play golf.' [...]
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    Posted: October 06, 2009, 10:56am EDT

  • SI makes Alabama top seed; OU out of tourney for now

    I mentioned last week that Sports Illustrated is pursuing the folly of a 16-team college football playoff and each week will be presenting a bracket reflecting how the tournament would be shaped if the season ended at that time.So, if the season ended after last weekend's games, SI would elevate [...]
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    Posted: October 06, 2009, 1:25am EDT

  • A tragedy of Shakespearian proportions

    I like Don Hill. I have ever since I got to know him beginning over eight years ago now. I always will like him. And the fact that a jury found him guilty earlier today ... or was it yesterday, now ... of some sort of public corruption doesn't alter' [...]
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    Posted: October 06, 2009, 12:38am EDT

  • New movies to be released tomorrow on DVD

    Anvil! The Story of Anvil (2009) ***½ You have to wonder about a movie called Anvil! The Story of Anvil. Is the redundancy in the title self-mocking or just bluntly declarative? It’s a question that lingers around the movie itself, which is either an affectionate chronicle of a Canadian heavy [...]
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    Posted: October 05, 2009, 9:06am EDT

  • This week's major college football matchups

    Here's one of my favorite pieces of trivia: Between 1985 and 1987, Oklahoma only lost three football games and all three were to the University of Miami. In 1985, OU was ranked No. 3 in the country and Miami was unranked when the two teams met in Norman. In 1986 [...]
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    Posted: October 02, 2009, 6:06pm EDT

  • Time to refocus the Polanski arguments

    When Academy-Award winning director Roman Polanski was arrested Saturday in Zurich you would have thought a freedom-loving patriot had been unfairly detained for speaking out against a totalitarian political regime.Petitions for free Polanski were circulated and signed by people in the entertainment community whose work I greatly admire.Here's the deal, [...]
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    Posted: October 01, 2009, 6:39am EDT

  • Why SI's college playoff system will never--ever--see the light of day

    It is economically untenable for the overwhelming majority of university and college presidents/athletic directors.The playoffs would add 15 post-season games to the college schedule, the effect of which would be to kill the current bowl system. Now there are those Utopians who dream you can incorporate the current bowl structure [...]
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    Posted: October 01, 2009, 5:55am EDT

  • SI's college football playoff

    Long-time readers know I have been opposed to a college playoff system for a number of reasons, chief among them being that I think it cheapens what is, without question, the most exciting and meaningful regular season in sports.Sports Illustrated, however, has proposed a playoff system that I find intriguing. [...]
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    Posted: September 30, 2009, 7:03pm EDT

  • New movies to be released tomorrow on DVD

    Away We Go (2009) ** Are we screw-ups? Verona wonders aloud. (I’m paraphrasing.) She and her boyfriend, Burt, expecting their first child, live in a ramshackle, poorly heated house and drive a boxy old Volvo. They are maybe a little scruffy, but they seem, objectively, to be doing all right, [...]
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    Posted: September 28, 2009, 12:09am EDT

  • Thanks for (ruining) the memories, John

    Back in the early 1960s, during my wanderlust days, I found myself living in St. Thomas and I remember my companion and I would often find ourselves on the beach on Friday and Saturday nights, passing around a guitar, a jug, some cannabis and generally being young, stupid, carefree, romantic [...]
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    Posted: September 25, 2009, 7:16pm EDT

  • This week's more intriguing college football games

    The problem with football rankings is that they are based largely on expectations. At the beginning of the season Florida and Texas were ranked the two best teams in the country and, since both have won all their games so far this season, they are still ranked as the two [...]
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    Posted: September 25, 2009, 4:26pm EDT

  • Tax is not a four-letter word

    I'm still trying to get over the spectacle of watching the Dallas City Council, the worst collection of ward-heeling political hacks I've ever seen collected as a single political entity (and I spent a lot of time covering New York and New Orleans councils), pass the worst budget possible under [...]
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    Posted: September 25, 2009, 11:28pm EDT

  • A look at Canadian and its high school football team

    The New York Times has a spread today on the Panhandle town of Canadian and its unifying force, the high school football team, 2007 and 2008 state champions. Here's one paragraph I found particularly telling:"After an energy boom tapped out in 1985, the downtown in Canadian, population 2,233, grew desolate." [...]
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    Posted: September 22, 2009, 5:49am EDT

  • Shana Tovah

    Happy 5770th. Let's celebrate! [...]
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    Posted: September 22, 2009, 5:10am EDT

  • New movies to be released tomorrow on DVD

    Battle for Terra (2009) **½ The movie’s messages are delivered with a heavy hand, but some of the scenes are eye-popping, especially — sorry, peace-loving Terrians — the battle sequences. Grade: CGhosts of Girlfriends Past (2009) ½* A junky-looking romantic comedy that’s neither remotely romantic nor passably comic. Grade: D-Lymelife [...]
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    Posted: September 21, 2009, 6:43am EDT

  • A look at a few competitive college football games this week

    I put the word "competitive" in the headline for a reason. Many will argue that the two biggest games of this upcoming weekend are Tennessee at Florida and/or Texas Tech at Texas. The problem with those games are that neither is going to be competitive. Florida will spank Tennessee by [...]
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    Posted: September 18, 2009, 4:03am EDT

  • NY Times architecture critic doesn't much care for Jonestown

    Architecture critic Nicolai Ouroussoff, writing in today's New York Times, has a few bones to pick with the Cowboys grand new stadium out in Arlington. For one thing, he writes:"Cowboys Stadium suffers from its own form of nostalgia: its enormous retractable roof, acres of parking and cavernous interiors are straight" [...]
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    Posted: September 18, 2009, 3:41am EDT

  • My chief problem with the Baucus health care bill, besides the obvious one

    The obvious one, of course, is that it contains no public option which makes it a bill that absolutely can not be supported. But even if it had contained that alternative, I could still not advocate the passage of the health care reform legislation proposed by Montana Sen. Max Baucus. [...]
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    Posted: September 18, 2009, 3:17am EDT

  • Good night, Mary

    I first set eyes on Mary Travers in 1963. I was living in San Diego, Calif., at the time and Mary and her mates, Peter Yarrow and Noel Paul Stookey, were just about the biggest thing going in popular music at the time. They had recorded two albums, an eponymous [...]
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    Posted: September 17, 2009, 11:51pm EDT

  • Someone please explain to me what exactly the City Council did

    According to this story from the Dallas Morning News' City Hall Blog, the Dallas City Council voted to eliminate some of its own expenses. Here is one paragraph from that story:"The biggest savings comes from an 11-3 vote to eliminate the printing of paper agendas that will save $70,000."But then' [...]
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    Posted: September 16, 2009, 2:07pm EDT

  • Will "Nine" be held for 10?

    The Weinstein Company's acquisition of A Single Man during the Toronto International Film Festival presents the company with a dilemma. The Weinstein's market their films with Oscar in mind and it may just have too many contenders and not enough money to promote them properly.A Single Man is a possible [...]
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    Posted: September 16, 2009, 8:43am EDT

  • TxDot's ulterior motive

    I'm beginning to think the Texas Department of Transportation is taking all this secessionist talk by Gov. Hair and other Tea Party right-win nuts seriously. I mean, if Texas does secede, then there's no more federal highway funds--Austin becomes the federal government (which really is frightening when you think about' [...]
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    Posted: September 15, 2009, 8:24pm EDT

  • The most underrated quarterback in college football

    My nominee is Case Keenum of the University of Houston. Consider: Against an Oklahoma State defense that throttled Georgia the week before, Keenum connected on 32 of his 46 passes for 366 yards, three touchdowns and one interception. He also rushed for one TD. For the season, he is 55 [...]
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    Posted: September 15, 2009, 8:09pm EDT

  • New movies to be released tomorrow on DVD

    Easy Virtue (2009) *** This may have been fertile grounds for satire in 1925, when Noel Coward’s drawing-room melodrama Easy Virtue debuted on the stage, but by now this film version feels rather done. Grade: C+Grace (2009) **½ Grace doesn’t need a high body count to frighten, although its gore [...]
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    Posted: September 14, 2009, 10:58am EDT

  • This week's movie openings

    I Can Do Bad All By Myself ***½ With this film, Tyler Perry is savvy enough to let riveting musical numbers by ringers like Gladys Knight and Mary J. Blige--along with Taraji P. Henson’s deeply empathetic performance--carry the film’s feverish emotions more than his characteristically ham-fisted screenplay.9 *** Sobering stuff [...]
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    Posted: September 12, 2009, 11:23pm EDT

  • I can rest easy now

    Walt Disney studios announced today that Johnny Depp will once again star as you-know-who in Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, scheduled for release in the summer of 2011. [...]
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    Posted: September 11, 2009, 5:23pm EDT

  • Jeffrey Wells really likes "Up in the Air"

    Left Coast blogger Jeffrey Wells has gone all gah-gah over Jason Reitman's film Up in the Air, calling it "the most eloquent, affecting and altogether best film of 2009...so far. Yes, better than my beloved The Hurt Locker.""This is one of the calmest and most unforced this-is-who-we-are, what-we-need and what-we're-all-afraid-of-in-the-workplace'" [...]
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    Posted: September 11, 2009, 3:58pm EDT

  • Looking at this week's big college football games

    No. 3 Southern California at No. 8 Ohio State: This is not only the biggest game of the weekend, it could be the biggest game of the entire non-conference year. And because it's that big means Ohio State is going to lose, even if the Buckeyes are playing at home. [...]
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    Posted: September 11, 2009, 2:26pm EDT

  • One thing for sure: I'm not eating that chocolate muffin on the motel balcony

    Up until today, there were two things I never considered that particularly dangerous. One was catching a breath of nighttime air on a motel balcony and the other was eating a chocolate muffin. [...]
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    Posted: September 11, 2009, 12:35pm EDT

  • Lucy, you got some explanining to do

    If there is anyone playing politics with school children it is the Arlington Independent School District which refused to allow President Obama's speech to school children be broadcast into any of its schools yet will bus school children to Jonestown on Sept. 21 (a school day) to hear a speech [...]
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    Posted: September 11, 2009, 12:29am EDT

  • The cost of doing nothing

    There were a number of great moments during President Obama's health care speech last night before a joint session of Congress, but, to me, this was the most important words he spoke:"Everyone in this room knows what will happen if we do nothing. Our deficit will grow. More families will" [...]
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    Posted: September 11, 2009, 11:18pm EDT

  • Must Keep Smiling

    From the Pundit Kitchen [...]
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    Posted: September 09, 2009, 1:47pm EDT

  • I know there's a subversive political message in here someplace if I could just locate it (Cont.)

    Jimmy Margulies, New Jersey Record [...]
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    Posted: September 09, 2009, 1:41pm EDT

  • Tea Party involved in Dallas bus crash that killed 23 seniors

    I'm guessing you're familiar with those right-wingnuts that call themselves members of something called the "Tea Party." They are the irresponsible idiots who want to keep a majority of our citizens unhealthy, are fanning the flames of Gov. Hair's secessionist talk and are spreading lies among the senior population to [...]
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    Posted: September 09, 2009, 1:20pm EDT

  • Call Missing Persons

    The Sporting News polled 107 "football experts," including "27 Hall of Famers and past and present Pro Bowlers, executives and coaches," seeking to determine the Top 100 players in the NFL. Here is the list, along with a question: "Does anyone notice the omission of a local celebrity/quarterback?" (and I'm' [...]
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    Posted: September 09, 2009, 12:39pm EDT

  • Hunt blames others for problems she helped create

    Displaying the height of hypocrisy, Angela Hunt has a scare piece on her blog today about the city's debt and its ability to repay that debt. The issue is the 2006 bond program and how miserably Ms. Hunt and many other city council persons have handled the sale of those [...]
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    Posted: September 09, 2009, 12:10pm EDT

  • Super Bowl predictions

    It's really a stupid thing to do: To predict the next Super Bowl matchup before the regular NFL season even begins. But Peter King of Sports Illustrated and Rick Gosselin of the Dallas Morning News have leaped into the breach, so, naturally, I'm going to follow. Both King and Gosselin' [...]
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    Posted: September 09, 2009, 11:04am EDT

  • Atkins won't support the Natinsky plan

    The more I get to know Dallas city councilman Tennell Atkins, the more I like the guy. In fact, he may be my first council "hero" since Ed Oakley left. I know. I know. The fashionable thing is to be an ardent follower of Angela Hunt, absorbing every word that [...]
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    Posted: September 08, 2009, 10:53pm EDT
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