Category: News & Pop Culture

If I were a cussin’ man

If I were a cussin’ man I’d say, “*&^*! That’s awesome!”

A couple Modest Mouse fans built up a huge kinkos bill and decided to make a music video using stop action photography and 4133 pictures of their favorite band.

“Myself and a couple have friends have entered the above into the Modest Mouse video competition. Using green screen footage provided by the band we cut a simple music video. We then degraded the images and printed out each frame sequentially. (all 4133 of them) We then nailed each “shot” of 50-100 posters to various structures and posts. Then using a digital SLR camera with a long exposure we frame by frame shot each poster. Oh, and theres a little video projection (again, frame by frame on the SLR) just to mix it up. There is no compositing, no shortcuts, just lots of blood, sweat and tears, and a huge Kinkos bill!”…. Max

PhotoJojo passed along the link as well as some tips on how to make your own stop action video.

Linda McMahon on ABC’s Good Morning America

abcbenoit.jpg
Linda McMahon, WWE CEO, was on ABC’s Good Morning America this morning discussing the Benoit tragedy and the possibility that there may have been tension at home between Benoit and his wife, Nancy, over the education and care of their son Daniel, who was found dead along with his parents Monday afternoon.

Watch the interview online

Texas town where Spanish is official

CNN has a story on El Cenizo, Texas, a border town of 6,500 where Spanish is the official language of the city and city employees are prohibited from turning in illegal immigrants.

Watch the story

Texas Monthly had an interesting story on the 24-year-old mayor sometime last year as well. He’s pretty radical in his thinking but a lot of it makes sense.

County taxes

Now here’s some interesting news from the Texas Comptroller.
The latest numbers I have is for 2005 and I’m not sure if that means 2004-2005 or FY2005 or 2005-2006… but here’s some data on Texas Total County Property Tax Rates:

The Average Tax Rate in 2005 was: 0.531450673
Ellis County Tax Rate was: 0.3499
There were 28 counties with a tax rate below .3499
And 225 counties with a tax rate above .3499
Of those 225, 202 of them were above .4

If I’m not mistaken, our current tax rate is .3495. With the recent bond election, the tax rate is expected to increase between 3 and 4.5 cents or to .3795 or .3945. Even if somehow the bond had been expected to increase the tax rate by 5 cents, the county tax rate would be .3999, or below 4 cents per $100 of property valuation. So while many counties may very well have lowered their tax rate since 2005, if they remained at the same rate or higher, Ellis County will still have a tax rate lower than 202 of the 254 counties in Texas.

WWE shocked at latest developments in Benoit tragedy

The WWE has released a press release regarding the Chris Benoit double-murder-suicide over the weekend.
The company said they are “concerned with the sensationalistic reporting and speculation being undertaken by some members of the media.”
According to the press release, the murder of both Benoit’s wife and son was likely deliberated and not in an act of rage.
The press release also says there was no evidence of illegal drugs in Benoit’s house and he tested clean for steroids in mid-April.
Read the full press release and a timeline of events.
After the facts surrounding the case were made known, WWE removed “all tributes to Chris Benoit” both on-air and on the web.
Vince McMahon also made a brief introduction before the WWE ECW show last night, dedicating the show to everyone affected by the tragedy and saying there would be no further mention of Benoit after his statement.
It appears that other than the above links, there are no other pages for Chris Benoit anywhere on the WWE website. A search of his name brings up a number of pages but none of the links are valid anymore.

Huckabee blogger conference call

Mike Huckabee’s website has posted the audio of the blogger conference call from earlier today.
The call started off with James Robinson, who heads his own ministry in Texas and hosts the television program, Life Today. The ministry brings aid to people around the world.
Michael Ferris, president of Patrick Henry College also joined the former governor and bloggers on the line.
With Ferris, Huckabee talked briefly about his support of education in public schools, private schools and homeschooling. He said he believes all parents should have an opportunity to choose the best education for their kids, and personally he sent his children to public schools. “I believe in competition in education. This is a mom and dad decision not a bureaucrat decision.”
Robinson and Ferris both gave their support to Huckabee during the first portion of the conference call.
Ferris said Huckabee was the most able communicator he’s ever met.
Ferris also said Huckabee is a real conservative and senators and mayors don’t win the presidency.
Huckabee said news from the polls has been encouraging and he’s now tied for support with McCain in several states now.
As for immigration, Huckabee said he doesn’t support the current legislation because it doesn’t focus on border security and doesn’t require authentic paperwork at the border or a legitimate reason for entry into the country – such as American’s are now required to have when crossing our own borders.
“We’re a nation not selfish about our freedom. American’s don’t resent the immigrants, they resent their government for botching the manor in which they’ve been allowed to come in.”
On media attention, regarding fundraising:
“Our goal is not to get elected by the national media but it’s to get elected by folks out there in America.”
On his energy plan:
Huckabee plans to have true energy dependence before the end of his second term.
“This is not only for the economic factor but for the security factor… If we want to see innovation and conservation the Fair Tax helps us accomplish both. If our only tax is your tax on consumption people will find ways to be less consumers of energy because it will be in their best interest.”
Huckabee also said companies will have advantages to innovate because they won’t be taxed for coming up with innovations.

Listen to the full conference call online.