It might seem like an obvious point: no, you can’t just start a massive industrial operation right next to a middle-class residential neighborhood. Most homeowners aren’t cool with that. But Dallas-based EagleRidge Energy has boldly gone ahead and extracted oil on sites next to a few Denton residential communities anyway,…
The underground sex economy in Dallas, you probably won’t be surprised to know, is thriving. Not thriving quite like the local trade in drugs ($191 million per year) or guns ($171 million), but it’s substantial, pulling in an estimated $98.9 million per year. That’s at least the figure reached in…
You can buy anything with Bitcoin (pictured above) these days: A sandwich; art; insurance. And, until yesterday, at least, you could also buy shares in Texas oil wells. The oil well shares were offered by a Southlake company called Balanced Energy, which, according to its website, is currently offering a…
Demarcus Ware, seven-time Pro Bowler, the Cowboys’ all-time sacks leader and all-around beast, will wear the blue star no longer. The Fort Worth Star-Telegram’s Clarence Hill Jr. reports that Dallas released Ware today. Ware has been a Cowboy since they drafted him with the 11th pick in 2005, a rare…
Dallas ISD Trustee Mike Morath, who came forward yesterday to explain his role as the watchmaker who set into motion Support Our Public Schools, is Rain Man-like in his ability to spout off statistics. He — and Mayor Mike Rawlings and the others behind the home-rule push — have been…
The best argument against plastic bag bans like the one Dallas is set to consider very soon is that they’re not really worth the energy. Plastic sacks make up a relatively small fraction of the waste stream, hardly enough to justify inconveniencing shoppers or retailers. It’s not a particularly good…
If Klyde Warren Park has proved one thing, it’s that if you make a formerly blemished urban space sufficiently cool and attractive, people will do yoga there. Other things, too. The point is, the people will come. The folks who run Fair Park have taken note. Last year, as part…
That moment when you spot the red-and-blue flashers in your rear-view mirror, emerging from behind a conveniently large shrub, is not a pretty one. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could avoid it, and do so without the bother of having to obey all traffic laws all the time? The…
Last weekend, John Ratcliffe kicked off his final campaign push by running — and successfully completing! — a 5K fun run in Rockwall. It was a strategic move, a chance to mingle with potential Republican primary voters while simultaneously reminding everyone that he, unlike incumbent U.S. Rep. Ralph Hall, isn’t…
Just so there’s no confusion, the White Student Union of Tarrant County College never had any official connection to Tarrant County College. The group was founded a little more than a year ago by Richard Railey, a 56-year-old white supremacist who happened taking classes there. There was nothing for the…
If you’re feeling charitable, you might describe Ricky Bobby Sports Saloon and Restaurant, with its checkered flags and black-and-yellow stock car out front, as a loving, if unauthorized, homage to the 2006 Will Farrell/John C. Reilly film Talladega Nights. The breastaurant’s parent company, strip club conglomerate Rick’s Cabaret International, has…
The undeveloped stretch of woods north of Garland’s Firewheel Mall is exactly the type of spot where a Hollywood screenwriter would have the two panicked 16-year-old suburban kids, suddenly in way over their heads, dump their classmate’s body. It’s also, according to police, the type of spot where two panicked…
In October, the Duncanville Police Department responded to what they vaguely described as a “major disturbance.” After they arrived, a 28-year-old man named Clinton Peterson somehow ended up getting shot to death. The police department admitted this much in a press release published shortly after the shooting. But cops provided…
The folks behind Support Our Schools, the group pushing to free Dallas ISD from many state regulations by turning it into a home-rule district, have finally gotten around to explaining themselves. Their stated goals: to combat voter apathy, extend the school year and school day, woo back the middle class,…
Trail Life USA, the splinter group that formed when Irving-based Boy Scouts of America decided to admit openly gay members, is many things: openly evangelical, unapologetically homophobic, generally lame. It is not, however, a modern-day incarnation of the Hitler youth. You’d be forgiven for thinking otherwise. Over the weekend, The…
No one who encountered Sergeant Nick Pitofsky while he patrolled the streets of Crandall would have predicted that he’d wind up as the perpetrator of a murder-suicide, fatally shooting his wife, then himself at their home in the Cedars. Understandable that the first response from his Crandall PD colleagues would…
When Fox Sports Southwest canned him last September after a single appearance, Craig James came out with guns blazing. Fox Sports had canned him because of his sincerely held and constitutionally protected religious beliefs (i.e. that gays are “going to have to answer to the Lord for their actions.”). He…
There’s something rotten in Duncanville city government. Twenty-four of the past 30 months spent without a permanent city manager, a City Council bitterly divided, and now this: The city of Duncanville is suing Mayor Deborah Hodge. Yes, that is a thing that can happen. The lawsuit was filed on Wednesday…
Greg Abbott has made it clear: He is not using his Latina wife as some sort of “prop” to woo Latino voters, and he’s outraged that a Lubbock City Council member may have suggested otherwise. Never mind that the only verification of the councilman’s comment came from an anonymous source…
If you’ve ever felt the urge to buy a single pair of fancy underpants for $16 from a bunch of bros with cool Facebook pictures, then you may have heard of Jonathan Shokrian. In the tech and fashion press, he’s known as the CEO of a very hip underwear website…
Somehow, a coating of grime makes puppies even more adorable than they would be otherwise. It’s like they’re fresh off a delightful romp in a mud puddle, or maybe through the White Rock dog park on a particularly dusty day. But the puppies in the picture above have probably never…
Dallas City Council members had no trouble finding words to describe their feelings when confronted yesterday with a $9.6 billion to-do list of infrastructure needs that runs the gamut from streets to cultural facilities to flood management. “Unbelievable” was one. “Daunting” was another. Throw in “depressing” and “scandalous,” and you’ve…
