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1. pickpockets

2. capita

3. clarification

4. architects

5. flexisexuality

(Obviously, I have excluded proper nouns here, which I suppose I should have made clear in the headline. But I’m trying not to use my delete key today, in accordance with the wishes of my new life coach, Fran Pepperpaw. So, sorry. And, honestly, I’m not a giant fan of “flexisexuality” as a word; it’s, like, hey, do something first, right? But I feel like, oh, Daniel, or maybe Hein would have wondered why I didn’t pick that, in favor of, say, gingerbread, and then that would have become a thing. I guess what I’m saying is: I love the word pickpockets and will fight to the death anyone who disagrees.)

Canada’s ambassador to the United States, Gary Doer, likes to point out that his country is the biggest foreign supplier of energy to the U.S., as well as Texas’ second-largest trading partner, after Mexico. And that the relationship with Texas plays out in sometimes-surprising ways. “Did you know,” Doer said with a smile during a visit to Dallas yesterday, “that the highest per-capita consumers of [7-Eleven] Slurpees in North America is Manitoba? And that the highest per-capita consumers of Crown Royal–made in Gimli, Manitoba, with beautiful clean water–is Texas?”

Doer (pictured) was in town to make some more serious points, though. One was with a visit to–and a show of support for–Fort Worth’s Lockheed Martin facility, whose F-35 Joint Strike Fighter project is threatened by U.S. budget-cutters. Canadian companies are doing $16 billion worth of work on the F-35, and the Canadian government’s buying 65 of the planes. Doer said possible cuts to the program “concern” him.

The ambassador was also here to talk up Alberta’s oil sands–attacked as “dirty oil” by environmentalists–and TransCanada’s Keystone XL pipeline, which would bring oil-sands crude through Texas to Houston. “There’s no question that in the alpha stage, oil-sands emissions were higher than they are today,” Doer said. “But emissions have since gone down 40 percent. They’re now lower than emissions from California thermal oil that was excluded from California’s light-crude standard. And, water utilization for oil-sands production has gone from 10-to-1 to 2-1.”

(That’s not the same water, presumably, that goes into the Crown Royal.)

Hey, remember the Dallas Cowboys? They’re in last place now, so you may have either just decided to pretend they’re not there, in that giant glass and steel building that, from aerial view, looks kind of like a hemorrhoid pillow. Or maybe you are are True Believer and are  on your computer right this very minute, working out mathematic schemes that would still get America’s Team to the Super Bowl, if pretty much every team got sucked into the ground, save maybe the Lions.

Well, there was a chance that their game against the  Eagles would get pulled by the NFL from the televisions this Sunday on account of mental cruelty and nobody caring. Only now the NFL says, “Nah, we won’t pull your game. Have fun watching it, Philadelphia.”

I plan on watching either like this, or like this. Just like I did when I originally wrote this post.

1. This is something that actually occurred: “A Louisiana man was sentenced Monday to five years in prison for stealing a newborn calf and beating it to death with a shovel after the Saints lost to the Dallas Cowboys last season.”

2. The Mavericks are rolling, winning their sixth in a row last night against the Houston Rockets. Good way to celebrate Dirk Nowitzki being named Western Conference player of the week. And so I continue having a Google stranglehold on this phrase: I see you, big German!

3. Apparently, the Super Bowl will be a magnet for pickpockets. I called my usual pickpocket source, the Artful Dodger, but he would neither confirm nor deny the report, suggesting I try his boss, Fagin, instead.

4. Parents, be sure to talk to your teenage girls about flexisexuality, but maybe skip the reference to Madonna and Britney Spears kissing, because they probably won’t remember that happening or who those people are. Also, don’t talk to them about some made up word.

5. Also, Virgin America is almost here.

As I mentioned before, Sarah Palin was due to sign books Sunday at the Barnes & Noble in Lincoln Park. A local photographer who also blogs on Open Salon went, and recapped here. Lots of inside baseball involved in the narrative, but keep scrolling, because Holy Jeff Brady’s Beard.

Local pr maven Merrie Spaeth is not going to be on former Texas Tech football coach Mike Leach’s Christmas card list. ESPN is reporting that Mike is suing Merrie’s firm and ESPN for slander, libel and alienation of affection (just kidding about that last one) regarding his being fired by Tech.

Does the flap over the proposed Las Colinas Entertainment Center really stem from a simple business rivalry between two big live-events companies? That’s what proponents of the $250 million Irving complex contend.

They say the LCEC story–which has been all over WFAA-TV and the Dallas Morning News in recent days–is the result of a “well-funded, undisclosed” opposition led by an outfit called AEG Live. AEG’s a Los Angeles-based company that operates DFW concert venues whose revenues allegedly would suffer from a successful LCEC.

But Channel 8 reporter Brett Shipp, whose investigative stories jump-started the recent coverage, calls the AEG theory “hilarious,” adding, “It’s a slap in my face. Anybody who knows what I do knows I don’t carry water for any corporation.”

Even so, you can sort of see how this conspiracy business got started.

So for an entire week we’ve heard about this campaign to opt-out of the new enhanced scanner things at the airport because they can see your parts and stuff and well, the alternative is just as bad because they touch your parts. Or something.

So today was the day everyone was supposed to insist they wanted a stupid pat down. Listen, I can get groped whenever, by people that will make eye contact with me. So I don’t understand why groping by a stranger trumps walking into this booth thing so they can verify I’m not an underpants bomber is preferable, especially when it runs the risk of making your fellow passengers having to wait on you a little stabby.  But to each his own.

But with all the furor, apparently organizers forgot: Most travelers would rather just get on the stupid plane and go to where ever, and not have it blow up. So because of this, it appears this opt out thing is pretty much a dud.

1. October

2. November

3. June

4. January

5. September

Hall-of-Fame quarterback Roger Staubach says he’d love to get out on the field tomorrow, when the Cowboys face the Saints in Arlington. “It’s not the throwing, but the hitting that would be a concern,” Staubach says. “It would be fun to get out there on Thanksgiving Day. I’d play for a quarter–if they’d agree not to hit me.”

These days, No. 12 is spending a lot of time gearing up for Super Bowl XLV, which will be played Feb. 6, 2011, at Cowboys Stadium. As chairman of the host committee, Staubach was instrumental in bringing the big game to North Texas. And he already has his eye on a repeat performance.

“We want to get 50 back in Dallas,” says Staubach of Super Bowl L, to be played in 2016. “Troy (Aikman) is my vice chair on this one; I’m getting him ready to take over for the next Super Bowl.”