Random Wednesday Morning Thoughts

• Coronavirus - Texas. We hit another high yesterday in a hospitalizations. If any number should be the gold standard, it's hospitalizations. Right? Shouldn't we be more concerned? And that's a heck of a sustained trend we've got going.
  
  
  
  
• Wise County: Total 57, Active 6 (+1), Deaths 5.
• It looks like Wise County will have a BLM-like rally around the courthouse on Sunday at 4:00. In looking at some social media pages which I never visit, some people are treating it like the Nazis are coming to town. We aren't that backwoods, are we? 
• The 180s continue.  Why in the heck arrest them in the first place? 
  
• How many times have I written Too Many Police?™ over the years? You know, I should have trademarked and sold that question to those who thought Defund the Police was a good idea. Mine better conveys the message. 
• Very Random Thought: Did I ever tell you I came up with idea of anti-lock brakes on my own in 1975? (I don't know when they were invented, but I had never heard of them when I came up with the idea in my teenage brain.)
• In watching people argue whether there is "systemic racism" with the police, I was reminded of the Tulia scandal in Texas in 1999 which eventually caused every "drug task force" in the state to disband. That included the very wheels off Cross Timbers Task Force which ran around Wise County. 
  
• Hey, look, a white guy! And get a load of this quote from his father who said this about his home schooled kid  “He has grandiose ideas, a lot of them . . . and zero common sense . . . . I’m still proud of him, whether he burned down the police station or not. He didn’t hurt nobody, did he?”
  
• There was a similar George Floyd death by the Williamson County Sheriff's Office last year where the video was just released after the Sheriff fought to keep it from the press. It's been big news in the Austin area, but I don't know if that story has the legs of the Floyd incident. But at least one state rep and one county commissioner wants the Sheriff to resign. The Sheriff called the commissioner a dirty lib (basically). Note: Live PD was riding along for the incident but claims they didn't keep the footage. (Riiigggggt.) A&E has put Live PD on hiatus for unrelated reasons. The body cam video does exist.
• Oh, and Cops has been cancelled. Not the real cops, the show. 
• And the new streaming service HBO Max has shelved Gone With The Wind. I'm not on board with that. It's way too close to book burning. 
  
• Confederate statues are coming down in Tarrant County and even Denton County. That wouldn't have happened two years ago.  But I've never understood why we've honored people who took up arms against the United States. 
  
  
  
  
• Wait. This was allowed?
  
• There was a guy in Bridgeport selling Trump gear at the intersection of 380 and 101 yesterday. He had quite a few customers.
  
   
• This guy in New Jersey who was off to the side "re-enacting" the murder of George Floyd as a protest was passing by probably wants to rethink that bit. Or, who knows, maybe not. People are crazy. (Video of the incident.)
  
  
• This is awful out of Mesquite. And it comes on the heels after a family of six were found dead in a murder-suicide in San Antonio.
  
   
• TxDot's horribly designed interchanged at 287 and 380 in Decatur has always been a disaster. One reason is when vehicles westbound on 380 exit to go northbound on 287. The turn is so sharp that the fence and railing there have been crushed at least a dozen times. I noticed the last time it was knocked over that TxDot basically gave up and left it unrepaired for at least six months. Then about one month ago crews came out and fixed it. Since then, I had seen that it had been destroyed in two different places. And this morning, according to the Update, a truck overturned taking the turn. 
• Messenger: Above the Fold