5.22.2020

It's Friday -- Let's Get Out Of Here






at 2:30 PM

Random Friday Morning Thoughts


  • The Board (still flat-lining): 
  • Texas (still trending slightly down but that's three days in a row of 1,100+ new cases):
  • Wise County: Total 43. Active 11. So we've chalked up a -3 in the "Active" column since yesterday? Anyone else beginning to question the 100% accuracy of our numbers? 
  • There's trouble brewing in Brazil as a drone gave us some pics of some mass graves being dug. 
  • It was announced yesterday that a Texas Supreme Court justice has been diagnosed with the coronavirus.  I wonder if that will impact their normally hardline decisions.  People forget that they still haven't finally ruled on whether salon owner Shelley Luther has to serve seven days in jail for failing to follow the rules to protect others from the spreading of the virus. They only ordered her release on a PR bond until they decide.
  • Wylie Mayor Eric Hogue has found himself in the news after an email of the devout Church of Christ leader revealed he didn't want women leading the council in prayer.  (Theological side note: The Apostle Paul sure does cause a lot of problems for the "Bible is literally true" crowd. And they don't even have the "new covenant" excuse to bail them out.)
  • Trump, who would have read the above as "one Corinthians", gave us a great quote yesterday regarding the status of his health: "And I tested very positively in another sense. So this morning. I tested positively toward negative, right? So no, I tested perfectly this morning. Meaning I tested negative. But that's a way of saying it. Positively toward the negative." Watch.
  • Official Liberally Lean First Warn Thunder Truck Weather Center prediction: Beginning around 5:40 p.m. today, the rain will begin and then it'll be off and on for the next 48 hours. Beginning Sunday afternoon, it gets serious again and it should continue for a few days.
  • I've been watching Netflix's Trial By Media docuseries and yesterday saw the episode about something I had almost forgotten about: The "Subway Vigilante" case of Bernard Goetz. A few thoughts: (1) How did I miss that Joker seems to at least partially based on it? (2) How did Goetz have a degree from NYU in nuclear engineering and end up running a half arse electronics "business" from his home? (3) New York trial lawyers would fail miserably in Texas. (4) I had forgotten about New York's reputation for crime in the 1980s. The idea of going to Manhattan for vacation and riding the subways was unthinkable. (5) If Goetz hadn't turned himself in a few days later, they would have never found him. 
  • "About 20 people were tuned in to a Zoom conference call just after noon on Thursday when 72-year-old Dwight Powers unexpectedly slumped from his chair and disappeared off-screen." Oh, and happy Friday. 
  • One of these days Fox News is going to turn on Trump. And the fact he thinks a "news organization" is in existence to "help" a political party is somewhat shocking but, sadly, probably right in this case.
  • The topic of prosecutors hiding evidence is near and dear to my heart, and I'm all for exposing them since they can pretty much get away with it with personal impunity.  In Houston, the issue is coming up because the DA there is trying to fix past cases because of the shocking event last year where a cop lied to get a search warrant and two innocent people ended up being shot to death. If you care about past bad cops, this letter to the DA says, "you ought to be pulling your hair out" over one of your past bad prosecutors. 
  • I've got to think about this one. Certainly the odds of converting 4th and 15 these days is significantly higher than the near impossibility of recovering an onside kick under current rules. But would the odds be unfairly high? The comments give a lot to think about.
  • They just keep coming despite the court shutdown. Nineteen more Class A and Class B misdemeanors were filed In Wise County yesterday (including one for DWI for a former DPS trooper which has been flying under the radar.)
  • Messenger: Above the Fold (Yep, their weekend edition is now coming out on Friday instead of Saturday.)

at 8:33 AM

5.21.2020

Random Thursday Morning Thoughts


  • The Board (still kind of flat-lining): 
  • Texas (downward trend is still holding). But Denton had the most new cases in two months yesterday.
  • Wise County: Total 42. Active 14. Red alert! That's an increase of four active cases from yesterday. (My hopes of becoming the Wise County version of Dr. Fauci because I believed we would never crack 12 active cases again just went down in flames.)
  • Speaking of, the man has disappeared. 
  • I went thought the Decatur Whataburger line the other day around 5:30 p.m. for the first time since the pandamic began.  I think I would have been able to raise my own cow in less time. 
  • You might remember former Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst from when his political career started to go downhill in 2013 when he called the Frisco jail to try and strong-arm them to release his niece who had been arrested for shoplifting. He's in the news again for allegedly being assaulted by his girlfriend. The big news is that the 74 year old has a 40 year old girlfriend.
  • I did a quick blog search to see when I had last mentioned Dewhurst, and I came across an ad his campaign created in his runoff election with Dan Patrick. It was an online ad only, but it was brutal. Here's another pretty good attack ad which did make it to the air. (Both youtube videos.)
    Yep, they tracked down old footage of Patrick.
  • He's a machine of rapid fire falsehoods all in one setting. All are clipped here.
    • "They send in thousands and thousands of fake [mail-in] ballots." (Nope, "they" don't.)
    • "Voting is an honor." (It's actually something called a "right".)
    • "I was honored by the man of the year in Michigan." (He's never been declared Michigan Man of the Year not does that honor exist.) 
  • If you haven't seen the Houston area cheerleader get bit by a copperhead -- and how could you not? --  here's your chance. It's on a quick loading loop. You know, this is the first time I think I've ever seen someone being bitten by a snake in the wild. Normally, it's some guy being cocky and taunting a snake before he gets the what for from the business end of the viper.
  • I've said it for years: No contract is more lucrative than the government contract. This story is probably behind a paywall for you but I'll let you know the contract is for "contract tracing" and the small company beat out "IBM, AT&T Global Business Services and Accenture LLP". The contract is six times larger than any contract the small Frisco firm has ever had before. 
  • I posted how Notre Dame was getting creative with its Fall schedule, and now UT is doing the same. I bet this happens across the board:
  • Hey, I just asked this question about Uber and now D Magazine tries to answer it. And although the answer is, "We're not sure", I was surprised to learn that Uber isn't the entity building the proposed office tower in Deep Ellum. Nope, it's some group named Westdale that will own the structure and Uber was just going to lease it. That was never made clear during the hoopla of the ground breaking. 
  • A good question: With all this rush to Open Up America!, will attendees at any state or national Republican convention have to sign liability waivers? If so, why?
  • As predicted, it took about five seconds for the Fifth Circuit to put on hold the Tuesday federal district court ruling that all Texans can vote by mail. 
  • Remember the Georgia Senator who is a senator despite never being elected and who immediately got in trouble for allegedly dumping stock when she got inside information about how the coronavirus would wreck the economy? Well, her husband just made a $1,000,000 donation to a Trump SuperPAC. The PAC should be called "Please Don't Let Your Lapdog Justice Department Indict Me PAC."
  • Here's a detailed blog post of lady from the North Richland Hills area who caught the coronavirus. I know that it's legit, and it's interesting to see how a regular person describes the experience. It sounds like hell. One of the more interesting tidbits was this: 
  • They just keep coming despite the court shutdown: 37 new Class A and B misdemeanors were filed in Wise County yesterday. 
  • I was absolutely right about the Rural Uprising™, but the rural areas backed down before the uprising could really get going. 

at 8:31 AM

5.20.2020

Random Wednesday Morning Thoughts


  • The Board (that's kind of beginning to flatten out a bit -- in the bad way.):
  • Texas (the new downward trend is still holding):
  • Wise County: 38 total. 10 active.
  • Call in Q!: A faithful reader has pointed out a discrepancy about the numbers. The above figures for Wise County are from a site provided to me by county officials. The official Texas site, however, shows Wise County has 15 active cases. 
  • Edit: A high ranking official just explained: "The dashboard is not updated as quickly as our daily line chart, as they want local officials to have data before it shows up on the public DSHS dashboard.  The DSHS dashboard is also way behind on number of tests conducted in Wise County, because we require the local clinics to also report that to us locally each day so we have a real-time daily count.  Also important to note that DSHS dashboard has 'estimates' whereas our daily report from regional  medical director is actual confirmed cases."
  • There was a pretty good video yesterday of Costco refusing service to a guy who wouldn't wear a a mask. The underrated part of it was Mr. I'm No Sheep bragging about having "3,000 followers on my Instagram feed." Video here. Language warning. 
    "Welp, see ya later."
  • Jerry would be welcomed in Costco.
    "And you can't see it, but I'm smiling when I say that."
  • Good question brought up yesterday: Once professional teams start playing again, what percentage rate of positive tests would be enough to shut a team down? 1 person? 5%? 10%? How do you set that number?
  • Pier 1 is gone. It was on life support even before the pandemic. 
  • Johnson & Johnson's baby powder is gone. You can either blame or thank the lawyers. 
  • A Texas federal judge ruled late yesterday Texas' mail-in voting law, which allows it for anyone over 65 but illegal for those under 65 unless special conditions exist, to be unconstitutional. The Fifth Circuit will probably knock it down because they now vote as predictably as a crowd at at Trump rally asking if they believe the Fake News. And also because the judge has a ridiculous writing style. Ken Paxton has already filed an appeal
  • The opposition to mail-in voting is a bad look. They aren't scared about voter fraud, they are scared about more people voting. It's that simple. 
  • And Trump, moments ago, just proved that point and demonstrated he is willing to openly extort a state to stop it. (Spoiler alert: There was nothing illegal about it. And an application is being sent out pursuant to a 2018 Michigan constitutional amendment approved by 67% of the voters. He lies every day.):  
  • And you would have at least thought he would thrown out at least one thought or prayer for Michigan while he was at it: 

  • Stephen F. Austin got crushed by the NCAA yesterday which banned it from post season play in football, baseball and basketball for one year. Why? Academics. I don't know what an "APR score" is, but SFA failed to meet that academic standard. But this weird explanation by administration officials makes me wonder what happened: “Beginning in 2013, an athletic department administrative error in the academic certification process resulted in the miscalculation of SFA’s reported APR scores,” said SFA athletic director Ryan Ivey in a statement. “Once the administrative error was identified and corrected, the APR scores of these three programs fell below the [minimum] threshold." 
  • Sports: He's worth a bonus of a few millions because the guy never gets hurt. Seriously.
  • Messenger: Above the Fold (I suppose, "The Roost! The Roost! The Roost is on Fire" would have been a tacky headline.) 

at 8:35 AM

5.19.2020

Random Tuesday Morning Thoughts



  • The Board (we cracked 90,000):
  • Texas (is that peak a few days ago truly the peak?):
  • Wise County: Total 38. Active 10. (If my prediction that we will never clear more than 12 active cases again holds true, I'll declare myself the Dr. Fauci of Wise County.) 
  • So even though he doesn't have the 'rona, Trump said yesterday that he is taking hydroxychloroquine as a preventive measure. He's either lying or crazy. But I guess we all agree he should take as much as he wants. 
  • Trump got mad at Cavuto and all of Fox News because of that. 
  • After Trump just blurted out that he was taking the drug, the the White House scrambled to have Trump's doctor issue a statement. The problem is that it neither confirmed Trump is actually taking the medication or that the doctor prescribed it. 
  • Now that's an interesting plan in order to avoid the heart of flu season: 
  • Gov. Abbott said yesterday that almost everything can open at either 25% or 50% capacity . What that really means is that everything is now open 100%. No one is going to regulate the capacity of any business. It's now a free-for-all as Abbott said we need to "find ways to coexist with COVID-19 as safely as possible."
    Clever.
  • One of the many questions I have is: What will college football stadiums look like this Fall? And Fall will be here in no time. Man, school presidents are in a pickle. 
    Worst College Game Day ever. 
  • I'm telling you, Mark Cuban has got a lot of Trump con man in him. There is absolutely no way to end up on the ballot now as an Independent. (And did you see he now thinks every American should get a $1,000 government check every two weeks and that it must be spent within 10 days. Why he keeps getting interviewed as an expert during these times is beyond me.) 
  • Just create a "task force" and it solves every problem, right? 
  • A guy who pled guilty in 2014 and sentenced to three years in TDC to a law which had been declared unconstitutional almost a year earlier is now entitled to restitution from the State per the Texas Supreme Court.  I still think the bigger story is that the defense lawyer, prosecutor, and judge were too dumb to know that the law had been struck down and let the guy get screwed over  Heck, I wrote about the law being stuck down on the morning it happened, and I wasn't' even handling a case involving that statute.  (He also sued his lawyer - here's the Petition. The case is really even crazier than I describe: He got deferred adjudication because of his plea and no one caught the problem again when he was revoked and sent to prison two years later. )
  • Ransomware Update: Texas appellate courts still held hostage this morning. This makes 12 days.
  • Moment of silence for an American Hero of my generation. 
    "My, you look lovely today Mrs. Cleaver." 
  • I've predicted Uber's demise, but the pandemic might have expedited the situation.  Are they still going full throttle on their construction project in Deep Ellum?
  • Oil has made a comeback but is still well below oil field viability. And anyone feel comfortable it will be there a month from now? 
  • Yesterday I posted the front page of the "topless" jeep run in Beaumont. Oh, man, you need to take a look at the local news footage covering the event. Other than the wheels off people, let's just say the ladies have access to a lot of cheeseburgers down there. (And by that, of course, I mean no disrespect.)
  • I've gone back and started watching Community which I completely missed when it came out. It's pretty funny, but I could do without Chevy Chase. 


at 8:32 AM
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