Random Tuesday Morning Thoughts

• A Senate committee is going to release a report on torture by our military today. There are already people in the right wing media defending our tactics before we learn what was done. 
• Mark Davis made the very odd statement this morning that some of the tactics we will learn about would not be appropriate if they were done "on our own people." Think about that. Someone should not be waterboarded (or worse) simply because they had the fortuitous event of being born on American soil? Try to explain that to an alien from outer space. "Well, when his mother gave birth, she was on this particular piece of land on our globe. That's why we don't waterboard that person. Others we don't care about." 
• And then explain to the alien why it is OK for our government to execute "our own people" by lethal injection even though they were born on that same land. 
• Today the Republicans get to fight for sound bites as Jonathan Gruber is forced to appear before a House committee. That's nothing more than a media event.  Every representative has been working on just one five second zinger that will make the national news. 
• Driving in the fog: I like finding a car's tail lights in the distance which I can just follow from a safe distance.  I fear the fog pile up. 
• There's an editorial in the Star-Telegram today by a liberal calling for the abolition of the grand jury system so prosecutors will either have to either file cases in court or take responsibility and explain why they didn't. That's crazy because grand juries are supposed to protect us for nutty prosecutors. (Obscure legal note: The U.S. Constitution's right to a grand jury has never been ruled to be a requirement of a state prosecution. But Texas has a grand jury requirement in its own constitution.)
• I promise I'll do a post on how the grand jury process actually works. I've been asked about that a lot recently.
• I'm not sure I knew Bridgeport had a Taco Bell. When I was a kid, the news that McDonald's was opening in Decatur was about as big of news as there could possibly be. 
• I've been thinking it and they talked about it on the Ticket yesterday: The Elf on the Shelf causes more pressure on the parents to not forget before going to bed that the Elf is in the same place in the house that it was that morning than it is for the kids' enjoyment. 
• Someone mentioned it in the comments yesterday and it's in the Update today: There was a fight between two motorcycle clubs in last weekend's Wise County Toy Run. Good grief. If you google the two groups, the "Road Dogs" and the "Cossacks", you'll find some pretty interesting stuff to read.
• Sports: Junior Miller researched the non-conference schedules in 1974 of Baylor, aTm, TCU, and SMU. Oh, my. How insanely tough they were. (You'll have to click around a bit, but they can be found here.)
• It's now the punishment phase in the capital murder trial of the ex-JP who has been convicted of murder.  The prosecutor's are now allowed to bring up his other alleged murders. One witness yesterday said the ex-JP was an "immediate suspect" once an assistant DA was gunned down as he got out of his car.  Normally, saying someone is an "immediate suspect" is negative for the prosecution because it leads to the belief that the cops jumped to conclusions and were predisposed. But once someone has been convicted of murder and you're just presenting punishment evidence of another murder, the State can get away with that. 
• That Hulen Mall murder plot is a script for a crazed teenager movie.