Random Tuesday Morning Thoughts

• I'm not sure I've ever referred to a documentary as fun, but Netflix's The Legend of Cocaine Island is exactly that. Big thumbs up.
  
• It was announced yesterday that country and western artist Hal Ketchum has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. I'm not a country fan, but I wore out his album Sure Love in the 1990s. 
  
• Two Bridgeport icons have funeral services in the next seven days. Wayne Harveson on Monday and G.B. Funk today. Mr. Funk was my next door neighbor from the time of my first memory.
• Mrs. LL saw this on the news the other day and asked me why they were dressed like that in the White House. I told her Trump is obsessed with having people look like they walked out of "central casting" and he uses those words all the time.
  

  

  Not the Village People

• My highly reliable sources tell me the last plea bargain offer on this Tarrant County case was 30 years to do. (Star-Telegram story. Dallas Morning News original story.)
  
• This weekend was the first time I became aware that Tiger Woods had a new girlfriend. She apparently used to work at his restaurant in Florida which was another first because I didn't know he had a restaurant.  Here's the menu. (Hint: A side of broccoli will run you $9.00)
  
  
• The burning of Notre Dame yesterday made me want to go to Paris, and reminded me of all the things in this world I've not seen. Nothing lasts forever. 
  
  
• He embarrassed the United States again yesterday. Can you imagine if the French President had said as 9/11 was happening: "So horrible to watch the massive fire at the World Trade Center in New York. Perhaps flying water tankers could be used to put it out. Must act quickly!"
  
• I wonder how others handled it?
  
  
  
• The Washington Post ran this graphic with a story yesterday showing marijuana arrests as a percentage of total arrests across the nation. 
• Wise County, below my red dot in the graphic, was in the 10% to 20% range. 
• Since the first of the year I've been keeping close track of criminal case data in Wise County, and I can tell you that of the 384 misdemeanor criminal cases (above a traffic ticket level) and the 204 felony cases actually filed in court in Wise County that 105 of them (93 misdemeanors and 12 felonies) are for marijuana possession. That equates to a total percentage of 17.85% for all cases filed. 
• Side note: If you added "edibles" that number would be closer to a pretty shocking 26.70%. (All THC legally purchased in Colorado or other such state which gives rise to an arrest in Texas is filed as a "Penalty Group 2" felony case. So far in Wise County this year, we've had 52 Penalty Group 2 cases filed. They are almost certainly THC cases but I can't be 100% sure with the data I'm looking at. We could have a couple of outliers like mushrooms in there.)
• The tracking by law enforcement of out of state plates headed south on 287 and how they are profiled and targeted could be a feature story in the Messenger.
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• As you paid your taxes yesterday, remember that Sarah Sanders said Congress wasn't smart enough to understand Trump's tax returns as they fight to the death to keep you from seeing them.  Incredible. Sarah Sanders - Sarah Sanders! - is talking about people being dumb. 
• I'm a big Ticket listener but was shocked to hear Ticker girl Julie Dobbs say yesterday during the noon hour that the burning of Notre Dame "has been confirmed by CNN to be terrorism." Finally one of the hosts called her on it. She just shrugged it off and said that her program director told her that.