10.23.2020

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

at 2:30 PM

Random Friday Morning Thoughts

 

  • Texas hospitalizations: +149. It was sixteen days ago when Gov. Abbott put the wheels in motion for almost all bars across the state to open to larger capacities. I'm not saying it's related, but that seemed odd timing even then. 

  • Jury trials were supposed to begin again across Texas on December 1st. Let me tell you something, that ain't happening with the number of cases on the uptick -- especially after this development: 

  • Man, this threw me off this morning. The Ticket's Gordon Keith reported on this story and said twice, "And it happened in Decatur." I was disappointed in myself for not having heard about it. Then the Google told me it was in Decatur, Illinois.

  • Minor debate observations: 
    • #1: Trump said that only immigrants "with low IQs" show up at their scheduled hearings. So only dumb people follow the law?
    • #2: We all learned for the first time that your income tax returns requires a heretofore little known "filing fee." 

    • #3: It didn't have anything to do with the fact that the U.S. doesn't know the identify of the parents of  525 immigrant children, but Trump didn't mean this kind of coyote. 

    • #4: John Daly and Kid Rock were in the audience looking at their masks as if they had never seen one before. They probably hadn't. 

  • The presidential election in 1968 was the closest one in Texas voting history. Once you get past how close it was, you then have to scratch your head over the fact that Humphrey actually beat Nixon in this state. (Wise County even went 47% for Humphrey, 33% for Nixon, and 18% for Wallace.)

  • Here's the full Rudy clip from Borat 2.

  • [Insert record scratch sound effect]. But they were kind enough to pick him up at DFW Airport and drive him to their secluded cabin in Oklahoma. Story.

  • Expert Weather Observation: If you walk outside at this moment, it won't get any warmer.  By 4:00 p.m., it will have dropped to 45 degrees.
  • "On this day" from the New York Times for October 23, 1934: "Pretty Boy" Floyd was killed which caused George "Baby Face" Nelson to rise to the top of the FBI's most wanted list. What was up with those facial-feature nicknames back in the day? Then again, J. Edgar Hoover had become the head of the FBI ten years earlier. 

  • Now this just popped into my head:

  • Does anyone else automatically see a negative sign on the new Fox graphics this year?

  • If you didn't see the laughingly tragic ending to Daniel Jones' 80 yard run last night, you have to. Spoiler alert: He didn't score.  (Baylor fans had a flashback to this.)

  • A penny-ante drug conviction out of Wise County was affirmed yesterday by the Fort Worth Court of Appeals. The most interesting thing is that the State's brief utilizes hyperlinks. I very rarely see that. I give it a big technological thumbs up.
  • Time that has passed since the Wise County Sheriff's Office has failed to solve the murder of Lauren Whitener at Lake Bridgeport: 1 year, 3 months, 18 days.
  • Messenger: Above the Fold



at 8:34 AM

10.22.2020

Random Thursday Morning Thoughts

 


  • Texas hospitalizations: +194.

    • Four new cases at Decatur High this week. 
    • COVID seems to be hitting Wichita Falls hard. Its local hospital is headed towards ICU capacity, and the entire Midwestern State football team is in quarantine. 
    • That Everman police officer I mentioned the other day has died. 
  • I love Borat (and, for that matter, Ali G).

    • One of the biggest takeaways from that Rudy segment in the upcoming Borat movie (released Friday) is that how dumb and gullible that Giuliani is. If he can be duped by the filmmakers, he's been a sitting duck for the Russians as he runs around the Ukraine.
    • Flashback to Rudy's "Communications Director" from July. Uh, not so much:


  • If you haven't seen the 24 second video of Biden hugging the son of a man killed in the Parkland School Shooting you need to. This election is a good man vs. a bad man, and it is as simple as that. 

  • Hot opinion from President Obama on local races. He ain't wrong. 

  • I'm a big fan of the Traces of Texas twitter account because of all of the old photos it posts. Yesterday they gave us one from Jacksboro "circa late 1930s."

  • This morning:


  • It will soon be forgotten (if it hasn't been already) but Andy Dalton avoiding a safety and actually completing a pass after this moment is really incredible: 

  • Trouble continues to brew on the 40 Acres over the Eyes of Texas. Yesterday, The Daily Texan ran a story that said the Longhorn Band would not play at Saturday's UT/Baylor game after an internal survey of band members, which asked if they were willing to play the song, revealed there wouldn't be enough "necessary instrumentation" left over to participate. UT President Jay Hartzell response is here. 
  • Burnt Orange Nation, which has 25,000 Twitter followers, just put up a poll about the song. I have no idea what the results will be. (You have to vote at the link in order to see the current results.)

  • Every police force within Tarrant County now have the means to get a search warrant for blood in every DWI case (even first time offenders).  It's always been a murky question for me: When do the neutral judges' cooperation in signing the warrants become so complete that they become a 24 hour arm of the police? 


at 8:34 AM

10.21.2020

Random Wednesday Morning Thoughts

 

  • Texas Hospitalizations: +269. Look out. (The Update says the last available data from local Wise Regional indicates it has an all time high of 16 COVID patients.)

  • Doesn't Big 10 football start up this week? How are the Wolverines going to navigate through this? 

  • Trump walked out of a 60 Minutes interview yesterday because he didn't like Leslie Stahl's "tone."  It sounds like the interview had gone on for about 45 minutes when he just finally got frustrated by the questions. The only question now is whether we will have to wait until Sunday before CBS releases the segment. Note: His Chief of Staff this morning denied Trump "walked out." 

  • NBC Dateline was in Decatur yesterday filming about the unsolved murder of Lauren Whitener. Multiple interviews were done at Veteran's Park in Decatur. 
    • Man, they have been all over this case from the start, even before it entered the Innocence Project stage. The producer assigned to the segment first paid a visit to town to see all the major players on December 20, 2019. 
    • These were just "moment in time" interviews. They intend to come back for much more. 
    • Remember when I bragged about my CBS 11 interview on how I knew how to pull my jacket down in the back just like in Broadcast News? This time I completely forgot and the Dateline cameraman -- and I'm not making this up -- came over to me in the beginning and told me to "raise up" as he jerked my jacket down from behind.
  • This story was in the Washington Post yesterday. Soon -- and I mean very soon -- we won't have any confidence that any video or photo we see is actually real. 

  • I had completely forgot Trump refused to commit to this four years ago: 

  • Best photo from the Cowboy game Monday night.

  • I'm constantly hearing from people who should know that the amount of "Human Trafficking" might be more hype than reality. There's now some data to support it: In 2019, there were only 79 arrests made in all of Texas for that offense. Additionally, for the underlying offense of prostitution, there were only 7 arrests of people under 17 years of age. Yes, any one case is bad but those are pretty small numbers for the state. 
  • If the NFL season ended today, Dallas (2-4) would host a playoff game against Green Bay.
    Photo posted because I like it. (Before you get good-ol'-day syndrome, you
    should know Dallas lost, 54-13, on 10/18/70)

  • Let me hit you with pop culture overload: The lead singer for The Outfield has died which led to the following discovery. (And I wasn't familiar as I should have been with all of the fine work of David Fincher.)

  • My nephew always raves about The West Wing, and wanted me to watch it.  I've slowly made my through the first two seasons (which is 40+ episodes.)  Yep, it's really, really good, but do I dare make this observation: It is incredibly educational. And I'm dead serious about that. But at the same time, if you watch it now you'll also feel like you are watching something that no longer exists. 
  • Let me give another thumbs up to a TV series which I really enjoyed: Rectify. DNA exonerates (kind of) a man and he then returns to his family in a small Southern town. A sheriff, a prosecutor, an Innocence Project lawyer, religion, and small town gossip all have big roles. 

  • The Justice Department sued Google yesterday over alleged anti-trust violations. Who do you want to bet on? Google's team of lawyers or Justice Department lawyers (who all might have a new boss in three months.)
  • Messenger: Above the fold

at 8:33 AM

10.20.2020

Random Tuesday Morning Thoughts

 
  • Texas Hospitalizations: +93. Upward bound again. 

  • A gentle reminder for the "it's just the flu" and "masks don't work" crowd: 

  • The article doesn't expressly say it, but it looks like Parker County got hit with a ransomware attack. And this sounds like it is causing them a problem: "The county’s court system was taken offline and all courts are closed at this time." (And for you Wise County tech folks, there is a an easy back-up system that is already in place if you utilize it.)

  • Below: The President of the United States.  And I don't even understand the "trying to talk people out of" part. 

  • Drudge continues to drag him. 

  • Troy Aiman and Joe Buck got caught on a hot mic apparently mocking stadium flyovers. (Audio.) Aikman jokingly(?) ended it with "That stuff ain't happening with Kamala/Biden ticket, I'll tell you that right now, pardner." Aikman was on The Ticket this morning for his weekly radio show but The Musers didn't ask him about it. So sad for the Courage Boys. But you should have heard the Alt-Right Boys on WBAP this morning arguing over whether Aikman and Buck had revealed themselves as Secret Dirty Libs.  

  • Oh, my. It's not real clear in this story as to what allegedly happened. One sentence says, "Colin McLaughlin is accused of having paid for sex with a woman who was his client in January 2019" and another says, "The indictment accused McLaughlin of knowingly offering to pay another for the purpose of engaging in a sexual conduct."  Quick thoughts: (1) Prostitution is generally a dumb law but the allegation that it is with a client tricks that up quite a bit, (2) It's not readily apparent to me why this is felony charge since prostitution is normally a misdemeanor, (3) How'd the cops get involved in all of this? Is there some back story that we are not privy to? There normally is.   Edit: A faithful reader caught that the story says the offense carries with it "a maximum of 6 months in jail." If that's true, it's very possible a grand jury was used just as an extra "precaution" to indict a misdemeanor just to make sure everything looks like it's on the up and up. 

  • It's been under the radar, but last week the writers of the Star-Telegram all decided to unionize. And they seem uniformly united in the move. They've all changed their Twitter icons. 

  • Legal nerdy stuff: Can cops pursue you into your house without a warrant claiming "exigent circumstances" when the only circumstance that exists is they just saw you commit a Class C (fine only) offense? The Supreme Court just agreed to answer the question. And it happens more times that you would think (e.g. cops see you roll through a stop sign a block from your house and you get to your garage before they stop you. Normally they could would just knock on the door and ask you to come out, but sometimes they'll at least enter the garage to try to get to you. And sometimes they barge right in.)
  • Very odd random Cowboy thoughts: (1) Man, I just don't get this Kyler Murray hype. (2) Andy Dalton is too cocky to just be a spare quarterback. (3) I don't like my coaches to be fat. (4) Others have brought up that Zeke ain't right because he has had the 'Rona. There might be something to that.
  • Trump was just on Fox and Friends.  Chains, Trains, and Automobiles. Audio.

  • A photographer has sued Bevo!  Here's a video of the incident. The photojournalist “was on one knee in front of the portable railing which Bevo was behind,” according to the petition. “Bevo XV rammed his longhorns twice into Plaintiff’s back causing permanent injury to Plaintiff’s neck and back.”


  • Oh, My Part 2! There are just average guys out there who have been scarred for life with sexual registration requirements for less. And I really like Toobin but sheesh . . . .



at 8:35 AM
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)