Dallas Has Second Most EV Charging Stations. Electric Vehicles? Not so Much

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It seems that a lot of electric vehicle charging stations have been popping up in Dallas of late -- at gas stations, grocery stores, possibly soon at City Hall -- and now we know that yes, there are a lot.

Xatori, an app-maker, released a list yesterday of the cities with the most EV charging stations for every 100,000 residents. Portland, as you might assume, comes out on top, but No. 2 is something of a shocker: Dallas. A bit further down the list, coming in at No. 6, is Austin.

That's means Dallas is ready for the electric car boom. A glance at traffic is enough to tell it hasn't come yet. Maybe once there's an oil crisis and we develop technology to make the stations obsolete.

Dallas Has Country's 34th Worst Drivers, Which is Ridiculous. We Drive Much Worse Than That.

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Dallas drivers are terrible, but they're not as terrible as they could be, Allstate's data shows.
Every year, Allstate crunches its claims data from the country's 200 largest municipalities, does a little arithmetic, then releases a ranked list showing which cities have the best drivers and, by extension, which have the worse. The insurance company just released its report for 2012, and the answer to your burning question is yes, Sioux Falls is still the nation's safest place to drive.

Dallas? As you'd expect, not so much. The city, for the second year in a row, came in at No. 167. Drivers here -- at least those with Allstate insurance policies -- are 32.8 percent more likely to get in a wreck than your average U.S. driver. The typical amount of time between accidents is 7.5 years.

But looking at it another way, Dallas actually does relatively well. Of cities with more than a million people, it's the sixth safest. Flipping the list on its head, Dallas has the 34th worst drivers in the country, which flies in the face of everything anybody has ever said about Dallas traffic, not to mention that time last month I was rear-ended and spun into a concrete wall on the Mixmaster.

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Glenn Beck Makes $80 Million, Forbes' List of Highest-Paid Celebrities

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Glenn Beck when he parted ways with Fox News last year and moved the seat of his forum for rational political discourse from New York to Irving. According to Forbes, Beck managed to pull in $80 million without the imprimatur of cable's oh-so-fair-and-balanced news network. That puts him at No. 11 on the magazine's list of highest-paid celebrities, sandwiched between Simon Cowell and Elton John, which seems like it'd be uncomfortable for him.

So how did Beck manage to rake in so much cash? He's got a media empire with his own book imprint through Simon & Shuster, a "news" website, a radio show, and GBTV, his Internet-only TV network, not to mention legions of like-minded fans.

To be clear, Beck is not Oprah. She topped the Forbes list with $165 million despite losing nearly half her previous year's income. But there was never really any question of that, was there?

CNN Money Says McKinney is Country's Second Best Place to Live. Go Figure.

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City of McKinney
McKinney can keep up that "Best Places to Live" banner for another couple of years at least.
Earlier this morning on the Today Show, CNN Money released its list of "America's Best Places to Live."

Dallas doesn't make the list, even though there are 100 places, but neither does any other metropolis because this is a list of small cities that "offer strong job opportunities, great schools, low crime and a true sense of community." The methodology, which considers housing affordability, arts and culture, economy, health care and safety, considers only cities between 50,000 and 300,000 people. Seems large cities are filled with too many undesirables.

No. 1 on the list is Carmel, Indiana. No. 2 is McKinney, our exurb to the north. Here's CNN Money's take:

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Southern Living Dubs SMU a Top Tailgating School, Citing Those Crazy Cake Stands

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SMU
This, according to Southern Living, is one of the best tailgates in the South.
Both my parents went to SMU, and I even went to a few sporting events growing up. But I claim total ignorance of SMU's apparently proud tailgating tradition. Er, I mean Boulevarding tradition.

Either way, the school does it well, according to Southern Living, which ranked SMU as one of 20 best tailgating schools in the South. Not much hint of the magazine's methodology for compiling the list, just four categories: UT and OU are among the "Powerhouses," A&M is a "Traditionalist," and SMU is a "Style Setter."

And what, exactly, is a tailgating style setter? "From sundresses to cake stands, these schools showcase true splendor in the grass," the magazine explains.

Wait, cake stands? This is college, right? You mean keg stand, right? But no. Kegs aren't allowed on The Boulevard.

Texas is Fat, and Getting Fatter, Says the CDC

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It's an easy thing for a state to rationalize. Every year, the percentage of Texas residents who are technically obese inches up slightly. It's just by a percentage point or so, so maybe it's a rounding error or a gravitational anomaly that affects every Texans' scale. Besides, who doesn't overindulge over the holidays? You can work off the extra flab during the new year. The new year comes and the new treadmill turns into an expensive clothes hanger and before you know it, your ankles are too chubby to fit in your cowboy boots and you're the ninth fattest state in America with a 30.4-percent obesity rate.

Yes, Texas is high on yet another list, but this one is from the Centers For Disease Control, whose opinions carry more weight than, say, Forbes. Plus, it comes with colorful maps and a slideshow that show us just how shockingly fast our waistlines have expanded. The map above is from 2010. The one below is from 1990.

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Forbes Ranks Dallas Fourth Coolest City, Loses All Credibility By Putting Houston First

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We knew the gigantic PBR would pay off.
Dallas may be the greatest city in the history of ever, but how cool is it?

Pretty damn cool if you ask Forbes. It ranks us number fourth in its list of America's coolest cities. A major accomplishment considering how little there is here for hipsters.

But don't break out the champagne yet. Lest you think the rankings are highly scientific and represent something more than a meaningless attempt to generate page views, glance at the top of the list. D.C. and Los Angeles out-cool Dallas, which I guess makes sense, but the coolest city of all? Houston.

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