Random Friday Morning Thoughts

• Yep, the teacher near Lubbock got fired over her Facebook post about the McKinney Pool Incident. I still don't understand how she can be fired. She was fired over speech. She was fired because the government (the ISD) didn't like the content of her speech. Someone commented yesterday that free speech doesn't apply if you are an at-will employee. It does if your employer is the government. The basic law is you can't be fired because of speaking about something of "public concern". Great summary of the Supreme Court's struggle with this issue here.
• Edit: Some people have pointed out the school policy was the reason she was fired. Hey, I'm no First Amendment lawyer but I don't think the local government gets to trump the Free Speech Clause by a local policy. It certainly couldn't say, "We can fire you for anything you say whether on or off the job." Now if that were in a contract, things would get interesting.
• The head of the NAACP chapter in Spokane has been pretending to be black. (Great photo evidence in there.)  This story may go from weird to funny to disturbing as her history is explored. 
• It still seems amazing that Robert Downy junior was allowed to play a white actor dressed up as a black actor in Tropic Thunder. (He and the movie were very funny.)
• Te murder case being tried in Wise County is expected to go into next week. That's one of the longer trials in the county I've seen. 
• What a horrible wreck Wednesday afternoon on I-20 which killed a former Aledo ISD superintendent and his grandson. He went into the median, through a metal protective fence, and into oncoming traffic. No knows why yet.
• I'm all for renewing the Aggie/Longhorn football game, but the new cover of Dave Campbell's Texas Football is horrible. 
• I guess it's legit, but I came across this Twitter account of a guy who has fired off 100s of tweets in recent hours to the media, reporters, celebrities and almost anyone else which reads: "My 13 month old son was diagnosed w/ inoperable stage 3 #Neuroblastoma #Cancer please RT #HenryStrong http://www.gofundme.com/pleasehelpmyboy "  He's raised $3,000 of his goal of $20,000. 
• There's a salt mine on the other side of Dallas that will on rare occasions give tours? . . .