When I'm wrong, I'm wrong. And, boy, was I was really wrong. From Wikipedia: "[T]wo adult males requested trials, and juries handed each defendant a 99-year prison sentence. Eleven other adult males pleaded guilty to the charges against them and received 15-year sentences in exchange. All seven juveniles entered guilty pleas and received seven-year probated prison-sentences. The twenty-first and last defendant pleaded guilty after a year long investigation whereby a DNA specimen identified him as being at the crime scene. The defendant received a reduced seven-year sentence in exchange for pleading guilty to indecently exposing himself to a child."
- There are some folks getting their COVID vaccine basically on demand in West Texas. If you make enough calls you'll find a county that will say, "Just come on out right now and we'll give it to you."
- Someone suggested to me that the vaccine is more available in West Texas because the shipments sent there are not being used there by its residents. That is, the further West you go, the more you find people who are anti-vaxxers and Covid "hoax" believers.
- Wise County schools going with no masks: Alvord ISD and Paradise ISD.
- One year ago yesterday:
- For the many of you who are curious about the silence from Bag of Nothing, I want to let you know I've communicated with him and he's OK. He's going through some tough things, but he's fighting through it.
- Random church letter out of Tennessee: The short version is, "It doesn't look like you want us, and that's fine because we don't think you're good enough for us anyway."
- It's like something that Michael would suggest in The Office, but in this case the staff didn't revolt.
- The Cowboys under Jerry Jones really have had remarkable stability at the quarterback position. But most of it was luck with Romo being an undrafted free agent, and Dak being a fourth round pick.
- With Dak's signing of his $160 million contract, some have noted that Jerry Jones bought the Cowboys and Texas Stadium for $140 million back in 1989.
- Here's the Wikipedia entry for that second headline from above where nine passengers were actually sucked out of the plane. The flight had just left Honolulu.
- I will open up Liberally Lean March Madness Tourney entries next week. But, like I intended to do last year before COVID derailed it, I'll trick it up with a different scoring system than others. I'll greatly reward upsets in the first two rounds and give less weight to picking the Final Four and ultimate winner. I'll get you the details.
- If said it before: Buying into the NBA Top Shot digital cards is stupidity.
- I understand the concept of "storing value" in gold or a Van Gogh painting or now even Bitcoin. They are all worth something because there is widespread and sustained agreement that they are a place to store our money/value.
- Heck, a $100 paper bill is worth $100 because we agree that the piece of paper is worth that.
- And these new digital trading cards are being marketed by the NBA machine as both a "collectable" and, by hyping terms like "blockchain", as a place to "store value." Neither are true (despite what Mark Cuban is trying to con you into believing.)
- They certainly aren't collectables (digital copies are exact copies) and, more importantly, people will soon quickly come to the agreement that it is not a safe place to "store value." Then the con and the folly will be revealed.
- It is exactly like the Beanie Babies craze. The only entity who made money from Beanie Babies was Ty Inc. who sold the fluffy creatures by the millions. The only people who will ultimately make money from Top Shot is the NBA which sells the initial digital cards in packs and then just sits back and watches.
- Messenger: Above the Fold