Random Tuesday Morning Thoughts

• Breaking college football news: Ohio State coach Urban Meyer will step down after the bowl game. (At least he gave his bosses the heads up about something.)
• Isn't it time that the Southlake football team stop dying their collective hair blond? I know they have been doing it for years and years, but in this day and time it has kind of an Aryan Brotherhood feel to it. 
• Fort Worth PD will place, with a homeowner's permission, "bait" Amazon-like packages on doorsteps to catch thieves. Question: What level of crime would the thief be charged with? A theft charge is based upon value (regardless of whether the person actually knows the value of what he is stealing): For example, under $100 in value is like a traffic ticket, over $2,500 is a felony.  So what's in the packages which will determine its value? The PD Press Release doesn't say. (It also says the homeowner, who must have a video recording mechanism, won't be involved as a witness. That's a promise they can't legally keep.)
• Once Eric Trump said this, you just knew he was going to get killed in the comments. He must have forgot that daddy (aka "Individual 1") used to frolic with Stormy while married (among many others).
  
• "All state agencies, offices and departments will be closed on Wednesday for a day of mourning to honor former President George Herbert Walker Bush, Gov. Greg Abbott said in an executive order Monday."  Around here, I have no idea who is shutting down, but that could include DPS, all District Attorneys and the District Judges. (All are technically "state agencies.") Schools and universities were specifically excluded.
• Here's a shocking thread on President Bush. As President, he wanted to ratchet up the War on Drugs and to do so he wanted to address the nation holding up crack cocaine and say it was purchased in front of the White House. Since there wasn't any drug dealing going on in front of the White House, the DEA lured in a 19 year old high school kid to sell to an undercover agent. Bush got to hold up the crack. (Note: The 19 year old was tried twice and both trials resulted in hung juries. The feds tried him a third time, got a conviction, and he received ten years in prison serving over seven of it.)
  
• I've dogged UT's long haired Brecklyn Hager over the last couple of weeks and perhaps deservedly so. He got mauled in the OU game (quick video with three examples here), received a critical 15 yard penalty, and then deleted his Twitter account after the game. 
• Recommended: A fairly short podcast by Slate on Ruby Ridge. 
  
• Also recommended: Showtime's ongoing series Enemies: The President, Justice & The FBI. The more things change . . . . 
  
• A member of the "Texas Seven" (prison escapees who killed a cop outside of an Oshman's in Irving) is scheduled for execution tonight. Two years after  four of them were caught in a small town in Colorado, I actually went through there on the way to a tiny casino town. There were places selling "The Texas Seven Were Captured Here" t-shirts. 
  
• This front page from Galveston makes the cut below because of the crazy lead story: "A scammer posing as a county contractor in May tricked an employee in the county's purchasing department into changing how and where a $525,282 payment for road work would be made. The scammer has not been caught . . . . " Good, lord.