Random Wednesday Morning Thoughts

• I had no idea you could rip off  Crowley ISD for $2 million by just emailing them pretending to be a contractor and changing a bank account number for future payments. (News recently broke that the Save the Children charity got hit for $1 million in a similar scam.)
• Oil dropped 8% yesterday to less than $46 a barrel. It was at $74 less than three months ago. Texas, brace yourself.
• This photo of downtown Houston in the fog yesterday morning was making the rounds. Pretty cool. Edit: This was shot by a plane passenger with a cellphone and made the cover of the Houston Chronicle.
  
• Second Amendment warning? The Trump Administration has banned bump stocks. Here's an interesting twist: You have 90 days to turn them in to the government or destroy them or you are no longer a "law abiding gun owner." 
• Trump had a banner two hours yesterday.
• 10:43 - Reverses course and announces that he won't shut down the government over lack of funding from the taxpayers for "The Wall" and might have to use "other ways" (whatever that means.)
• 10:59 - The Trump Foundation shuts down during a corruption probe
• 11:06 - Angers the NRA over bump stocks
• 11:59 - Trump's former NSA, Michael Flynn, is told by the judge at a sentencing hearing  that "Arguably, you sold your country out", a few hours after Trump wished him luck.
• My continuing rant about "news disguised as ads" has a twist. Remember how Saturday Night Live used to do fake commercials as a comedy sketch. Now they are doing them again, but they are real ads.
• Well, they captured the coyote in Frisco but now questions arise as to whether it is the same one responsible for the attacks. As a callback to yesterday's post, there's only one way to find out:
  
• He is magical. (From the Update.)
  
• Sarah Sanders Huckabee, who you pay $180,000 a year, held her first news briefing in over a month and a half yesterday and it lasted less than 10 minutes.  The press corp, justifiably so, told her to "do your job" as she walked away. 
  
• The best Texas Monthly articles of 2018 are here. One that looks good that I haven't read is "The Cartel Next Door" about the killing in Southlake in the Town Square. A couple of my favorites on the list, with links, are "The Doting Boyfriend Who Robbed Armored Cars" (he really was a criminal mastermind) and "How Houston Lost Its Mind Over A Trump Shirt" (how social media can destroy you.) 
• Along those same lines, Longform has released its "best list". A Texas story by a great writer is on it. 
  
• Messenger: Above The Fold