8.22.2016

Random Monday Morning Thoughts



  • Breaking this morning: "A federal judge in Fort Worth has blocked Obama administration guidelines directing the nation’s public schools to allow transgender students to use bathrooms and other facilities that align with their gender identity." Red alert! Red alert! All school resource officers to the bathroom stalls! Repeat! To the bathroom stalls!
  • The Messenger went after Tax Assessor Collector Monte Shaw for not allowing the Wise County Appraisal District to collect Wise County taxes saying his refusal costs the county $160,000.  At least three employees in Shaw's office would have to be let go if the change was made.
  • I watched the first season of Stranger Things. I've got a lot of hot sports opinion about it which can be summed up with: "Why does the Internet force good shows to be labeled as great." It was like a Stephen Spielberg movie made back in the day -- cheezily entertaining but has more holes than Bonnie and Clyde's death car. 
  • The AP College Football poll was released yesterday: OU #3 and TCU is #13.
  • News broke on Friday of a Baylor player to be sanctioned for beating his dog. My thoughtful commentary: 
  • The Trump campaign (for some reason) released a two paragraph statement from Rudy Guiliana who actually shoehorns in "my best selling book" in the statement.
  • The Bridgeport city pool used to have an elevated spring board. It had to have been 30 feet in the air. And I don't remember any age or height restrictions. If you were brave enough to go launch yourself, have at it. 
  • Texas has 95 new DPS troopers as of Friday.
  • I think something was wrong with that yellow line in the Cowboy game:
  • Can we tap the brakes on Dak Prescott as the second coming of Staubach?
  • A fraternity student died of an overdose at aTm over the weekend and four of his fraternity brothers were arrested for drug possession when a search warrant was issued for the fraternity house. (I'd love to see the search warrant affidavit if it tried to justify the search of a third person's room. personal belongings, or person. None of the arrests were related to the death.)
  • Also over the weekend, thirteen people were shot at a house party in Bridgeport . . . Connecticut.
  • The Ryan Lochte story became accidentally famous because a Fox Sports Australia reporter just happened to be sitting by Lochte's mom in an early morning shuttle. The mom had hurt her foot and the reporter, not knowing who she was, asked her if she was OK. "She proceeded to tell me how terrible her stay had been. She’d broken her foot and now her son had been held up at gunpoint." And then it was on. 
  • I wouldn't buy a car from Southwest Kia "which includes New World Auto Imports Inc., New World Auto Imports of Rockwall Inc. and Hampton Two Auto Corp." The reason: "Dallas-based Southwest Kia will pay an $85,000 penalty to the Federal Trade Commission to settle charges that it violated a 2014 consent order barring it from deceptive advertising."
  • Bud Kennedy had to backtrack on his Friday "Angry White Man" column when it turned out the Angry White Man wasn't white. 
  • Bridgeport ISD installed solar panels a few years back. The company behind them maintains a web site where you can monitor cost savings. They claim $84,326 for Bridgeport. I wonder how accurate that is. 
  • The Liberally Lean crack investigative staff has been referencing Fentanyl lately. Well news over the weekend revealed that's what killed Prince. (The drug -- not the investigative staff.)
  • The legal world is changing when a federal appeals court judge takes a his own camera and snaps a picture (of an inflatable rat, no less) and then publishes it in his opinion in a decided case. 
  • Lake Bridgeport is over conservation level again. And it is late August. That doesn't happen.