Unfair Park

University Park's All-Seeing Automated Parking Enforcement SUV Is Terrifying

Wed, 19 Jun 2013 12:27:57 -0600

University Park's old system of parking enforcement relied on humans and was, therefore, fallible. In un-metered, high-traffic areas like Snider Plaza and the Miracle Mile on Lovers Lane, an officer would mark car tires with chalk so it was easy to tell which ones had exceeded the two-hour parking limit. As city spokesman Steve Mace explained in an email this morning, that approach wasn't terribly effective. "Vehicle owners were erasing the chalk marks or 're-parking' the vehicles to hide the chalk mark."

And so, in 2010, the city purchased the vehicle you see above, which can best be described as the T-1000 of meter maids. It has four cameras on the back and at least two more on the front, all casting their cold, unblinking gaze upon you and your vehicle. It's a wonderful machine, Mace writes, that "has drawn praise from merchants and customers alike."

The State Senate Approved a Massive Anti-Abortion Bill

Wed, 19 Jun 2013 12:06:12 -0600

Photo courtesy of Planned Parenthood of Greater Texas

Protesters wearing Mad Men garb protest the ass-backwardness of the new restrictions.

And there it is: late last night, the Senate approved SB 5, a massive set of abortion restrictions that combine all the worst parts of most every anti-abortion bill filed in the regular session of the legislature. Well, all the worst parts, with one notable exception: the bill's author, Republican Senator Glenn Hegar of Katy, agreed to drop a proposed ban on all abortions after 20 weeks.

The measures that the Senate approved include a requirement that all abortion clinics meet the standards of ambulatory surgical centers, one that doctors performing abortions have admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles of the abortion facility; and a requirement that doctors administering RU-486, the "abortion pill," force their patients to have a sonogram beforehand, take both pills in front of a doctor and see their physician for a follow-up within two weeks.

None of this stuff is recommended by the American Medical Association, or any other credible medical body. In one instance, as the Texas Tribune reported, Hegar rejected an amendment by Senator Leticia Van de Putte, a pharmacist in her day job, that would have removed a requirement that doctors follow the FDA guidelines in administering drug-induced abortions. Why would a pharmacist suggest such a thing? Because the FDA guidelines are outdated, and most doctors, backed by medical associations, now administer much lower levels of the drugs.

Happy Juneteenth from a Land Where Old Times are Forgotten

Wed, 19 Jun 2013 10:36:21 -0600

Interesting story in The Dallas Morning News today by Selwyn Crawford about growing national popularity for Juneteenth, a holiday originally thought to be strictly a Texas thing. Juneteenth marks the official emancipation of slaves in Texas in 1865, two years after Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation.

My family just visited a part of the Old South, where we toured the home of a slave-owner. Slavery was described by our tour guide in terms I took as morally neutral. The spiel focused on the wealth of the slave-owner. In mid-19th century, steamy hot, coastal South Carolina he could afford imported ice for his wine. The slave quarters were off-limits to visitors.

Crawford's piece accurately describes a debate over Juneteenth as strictly a black thing. Should Juneteenth be the big holiday, or does that overshadow and diminish the importance of Lincoln's historic proclamation?

Walmart is Suing the DFW Union Workers Who Have Been Protesting Their Stores

Wed, 19 Jun 2013 08:58:07 -0600

Danny Hurley

Protesters picket the Walmart at 3155 Wheatland Road on Black Friday.

For almost two years now, like an angry minnow nibbling at a whale, a coalition of labor groups operating as OURWalmart has been organizing nationwide protests against the retail giant, complaining of low wages, terrible benefits and the company's general hostility toward organized labor.

It started in late 2011, when activists plastered the shelves and displays of an Irving store with some 2,000 flyers. Then there was that walkout last October, then the Black Friday strike.

But it seems to have been the group's "National Week of Action," which took up the first part of June, that caused the whale to resolve to finally crush the minnow.

As Drone Journalism Takes Off, UT-Arlington Researchers Offer a Glimpse of the Future

Wed, 19 Jun 2013 08:00:32 -0600

Two years ago, after their cameras were denied entry to a secretive government immigration camps on Christmas Island, the Australian version of 60 Minutes piloted a small, unmanned aircraft above the island detention center. A few months later, activists in Poland dispatched a drone to document the abuses of riot police. In Dallas last year, there was the local drone hobbyist who shot video of of pig's blood pluming in the Trinity River, sparking a media firestorm and, ultimately, the indictment of Columbia Packing Company and its owners.

And so begins the inevitable rise of drone journalism.

Here's the Six-Story Parking Garage Proposed for the Dallas Arboretum

Wed, 19 Jun 2013 07:30:00 -0600

WFAA

Arboretum officials were understandably cautious when they unveiled early plans for a Garland Road parking garage last night. The memory of the public uprising and PR debacle that greeted a proposal to park cars on Winfrey Point is no doubt fresh on their minds, so they made clear that the parking garage meeting would only be open to residents of the three neighborhoods that abut the botanical garden, Forest Hills, Little Forest Hills, and Emerald Isle.

At least, they made that clear in an email to Hal Barker, the man whose public records requests ignited the Winfrey Point protests. It doesn't seem to have been enforced very strictly, particularly when it came to the media.

A Texas Herpetologist Was Arrested for Smuggling Peruvian Snakes onto a DFW-Bound Plane

Wed, 19 Jun 2013 07:00:58 -0600

Atlanta Botanical Garden
You can see the frog, but can you spot the snakes renowned herpetologist Bill Lamar is wearing?
William Wylly Lamar is something of a rock star amongst readers of sites like HerpNation.com and WildHerps.com. His reptile-capturing skills -- we're talking herpetology here, folks -- are unparalleled, as is his knowledge. He wrote the book on venomous snakes. Several books, actually, including his magnum opus, the two-volume The Venomous Reptiles of the Western Hemisphere.
Needless to say, Lamar knows what's safe to put where. So before boarding a plane from Lima, Peru to DFW, he felt perfectly comfortable stowing the seven Peruvian snakes he had with him in his jacket for the seven-hour flight.

We don't know what kind of snakes they were. They could have been harmless, for all the detail provided by the federal prosecutors who went after Lamar for illegally smuggling the reptiles. Or they might have been so venomous that, had they escaped, they would have taken the plane hostage, pending the arrival of a dutifully exuberant Samuel L. Jackson.

Richie Whitt is Writing an Epic Tell-All Blog on How Greggo Got Them Fired From The Fan

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 16:57:45 -0600

Facebook
Greggo, left, and Richie Whitt, during happier times.
Richie Whitt and Greg "Greggo" Williams have now had two months to reflect on CBS's unceremonious cancellation of The Rage, their drive-time sports talk show on 105.3 The Fan, and they've come to starkly different conclusions.

Greggo chalked it all up to ratings, which he says had dropped. Whitt, a former Observer columnist, has another theory: "I was the baby that got thrown out with Greggo's dirty bathwater."

See also
-Richie Whitt and Greggo Were Fired by 105.3 The Fan Today
- The Hard Lie

Plan Commission Will Consider New Gas Drilling Regs This Thursday

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 14:29:45 -0600

It's been more than a year since a task force sent the Dallas City Council its recommendations for retooling the city's gas drilling ordinance. But the first step toward updating city code will finally be taken at the Plan Commission. The city attorney's office will brief commissioners at this Thursday's meeting. That's where the rules governing how the city develops its natural gas -- generating no shortage of controversy and headache for prospective drillers -- will begin to take shape.

It was only three months ago that commissioners voted to deny drilling permits to Trinity East, which had paid the city nearly $20 million for the right to drill along the Trinity River. The fact that the city council had yet to take up task force recommendations that would prohibit Trinity East's proposed wells was a sticking point for commissioners like Paul Ridley.

Dallas Cabbies Are Taking Fight Over Natural Gas Taxis at Love Field to the Supreme Court

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 13:22:25 -0600

Patrick Michels
The scene at City Hall on the morning of January 27, 2011.
It's been more than three years since the City of Dallas first began moving CNG-powered cabs to the front of the line of taxis at Love Field. The protesters have long since vacated the City Hall plaza, and the city's attention has inevitably drifted. But through it all, the cabbies have never lost hope that their gas guzzlers might once again be allowed at the front of the queue, nor have they given up their legal fight, even after having their asses handed to them in federal court.

The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals dealt their dreams a possibly fatal blow last week when a three-judge panel emphatically denied the appeal filed by the Association of Taxicab Operators, agreeing with the lower court's decision to grant the city's request for summary judgment.

Texas Congressman: Masturbating Fetuses Are Proof That Fetal Pain Is Real

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 13:18:46 -0600

It's always reassuring to know that no matter how stupid things get in the state legislature, things are just as dumb, if not more so, in Congress. Perhaps "reassuring" is the wrong word. In either case, in order to fully grasp the import of this story, you should know that U.S. Congressman Michael Burgess, in addition to representing the 26th District, was once an actual, practicing OB-GYN. He did his residency at Parkland and had a practice in Lewisville for 26 years. His medical license is still active. And he wants you to know that because male fetuses appear to masturbate, he'd like to see an extreme and very early ban on all abortions.

How did Burgess get the elbow room to expound publicly on his chicken-choking theories, you may ask? As RH Reality Check reports, the House is gearing up today to debate a bill outlawing virtually all abortions in the United States after 20 weeks. Authored by Rep. Trent Franks, H.R. 1797 has been dubbed the "Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act."

Sound familiar yet? Yep, the same shitty science that has led your anti-abortion state legislators to claim that fetuses can feel pain at 20 weeks gestation has also taken hold in Congress. As the AP reported, the legislation will likely pass the House today, then be ignored entirely by the Democrat-controlled Senate. And even if it did somehow make it through there, the White House has said they'll veto the bill if it gets anywhere near them.

Hiking and Biking Trails Along the Trinity Blocked by Evil Ghosts of Toll Roads Past

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 11:41:08 -0600

Oh, tinfoil hat, all that stuff about how I'm paranoid, go ahead, say it, get it out of your system. I've got to be ready for it by now, right? But let me tell you something: There's a big difference between paranoia and clairvoyance.

And in the matter of the Trinity River toll road, I can actually see ghosts. No, really. I can see the way in which the ghost of the highway along the river -- not a stick of it built after 15 years because it's such a dumb idea -- is already there. It's sitting right there along the river, the ghost of it, hunkered down, screwing up and blocking every good thing the city could accomplish along the river like a damn voodoo haint.

See also:
Where's that Trinity Trail Council Approved a Year Ago? Still Buried Under City Hall's Big Lie.

Hear me out. Big news in the city's only daily newspaper today is a groundbreaking for construction of the segment of walk and bike trail that will link existing trails near downtown to trails around White Rock Lake. When the new section of trail is complete a couple years from now, it will create a vast loop of trail tying together an entire bike-able, walkable region of the city.

That's not just biking and walking: It's a whole new way of living. You will be able literally to live, work, shop for groceries and head out to the lake without ever firing up your stinkpot.

Guess what. There is an entire loop of paved modern trail at the other end of town, in southern Dallas, meandering around small lakes and wild grasslands. In a recent chat with City Manager Mary Suhm, she admonished me to get down there on my own bike and ride it, which she had done recently. She said it was thrilling. I still have not done it. But everybody who has biked the Great Trinity Trail tells me it can be a truly exalting experience.

So where's my ghost? Right between the Katy Trail and those recently completed paved trails to the south. Right where the old guard troglodytes still insist they're going to build that stupid underwater toll road. What do I mean? Hey, listen, this is simple. You can see the ghost, too. Just focus.

Police Say an Asian Massage Parlor and Far North Dallas House are Part of a Massive Prostitution Ring [Updated]

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 11:26:21 -0600

backpage.com
At first glance, the ads proclaiming last week's grand opening of the JJ Health Center might have appeared to suggest something more than a massage. The massive amounts of cleavage, the pining eyes and lingerie uniforms of the "Friendly Charming Attentants," the scantily clad masseuse doing what appears to be some oddly sexualized version of the Harlem shake -- all seemed to be sended some sort of coded message. But then you read the actual text of the ad -- "Fantastic Good Massage. **Boost your sprits and energy, Reduce pain, Relieve stress and Improve circulation**" -- and conclude that sometimes a massage is just a massage.

And sometimes it's not, which Dallas police suspect is the case with JJ. In a police report filed yesterday, they refer to the establishment as a brothel and make the shocking allegation that men go there to pay for sex.

Dallas police didn't actually visit JJ yesterday. They did, however, raid a home on Kit Lane in Far North Dallas and arrest a 57-year-old named Chinli Yeh for engaging in organized crime.

Jesse Ventura Is Super Serious About Suing Chris Kyle's Widow

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 08:33:22 -0600

In his book American Sniper, under the heading "Punching Out Scruff Face," slain Navy SEAL Chris Kyle claimed that in a 2006 he got into a bar fight with "Scruff Face," a "celebrity" veteran. Kyle claimed the fight started because Scruff Face was insulting then-President George Bush, and then said Kyle "deserved to lose a few guys." Mr. Face, it turns out, is supposed to be Jesse "The Body" Ventura, former professional wrestler, Minnesota governor, Predator victim and current litigant. Ventura claims the fight never happened and brought a defamation suit against Kyle a year ago.

That was, of course, before Kyle was shot dead at a Texas gun range. Since then, there has been a national outpouring of sympathy for the murdered SEAL and his widow, Taya. Even Bill O'Reilly has gone out of his way to advise Ventura to drop the lawsuit, saying on air "If he wants to restore his reputation, then he should drop the case. That's how I feel, Jesse. I hope you got the message there."

Some Punks Decapitated Nessie, Arlington's Beloved Playground Loch Ness Monster

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 07:30:00 -0600

The Arlington Parks Department described the crime in clinical terms. Vandals had come in the night and defaced a piece of playground equipment at Allen Saxe Park, causing $5,000 in damage. But the detached language masked some strong emotions. This wasn't just any old jungle gym. This was Nessie, which the park department describes as its "beloved dragon," even though she's clearly a mythological Scottish cryptid. They'd found her body on the morning of June 13, tortured and brutally decapitated.

"They used some sort of mechanical tool," park department supervisor Scott DeGrant told WFAA, scarcely able to disguise his fury. "And it's our theory that a teenager or some child or someone has it in their basement or bedroom or closet as a souvenir."

The city is now issuing a plea for any information on the whereabouts of Nessie's head so they can track down the perpetrator and deliver a serving of cold, hard Arlington Parks Department justice.