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Yep, the GM bailout in the financial crisis resulted in the federal government becoming an owner of the auto maker. Here is an update from December 9, 2013 which now answers my question: "U.S. taxpayers no longer own any of automaker General Motors. The Treasury sold the last of its remaining 31.1 million GM shares today. It started with 500 million shares in 2010. The taxpayer loss on the GM bailout is $10.5 billion."
- This is like a reverse A Time To Kill movie. Video here. You can see the blonde attorney to his left die a little inside when he says it. Note to lawyer: It's a constitutionally protected public trial.
- Trying more than one defendant at the same time can be really hard on the State, but it can also be a nightmare for a defense lawyer when the lawyer for the other defendant is a moron.
- Another courtroom head scratcher: The judge in the Rittenhouse trial had the jury give a round of applause for the defense's expert witness who was about to testify next. (Video.) I'll give him the benefit of the doubt that he didn't know he was the only veteran in the room.
- Look out.
- Netflix has a documentary on Travis Scott which was released a couple of years ago. Mrs. LL stumbled upon it last night and, after about 15 minutes, I got locked in as well even though I didn't even intend to watch it. It's fantastic. The footage of his insane crowds (including the need for EMTs to come to their aid) is really incredible in light of what just happened.
- And what happened got worse yesterday.
- This is from the Denton Record Chronicle crime blotter, and is very weird in several respects.
- She's not wrong.
- Very limited interest bullet point: (1) I'm still not over a freshman quarterback at TCU acting like the second coming of Roger Staubach against Baylor last weekend, and (2) Here's an aerial shot of Baylor's campus taken this week. I've heard about the horrible traffic on I-35 through Waco, and it's easy to spot why. You can see the ongoing construction and the planned expansion by the arrow in the bottom photo. Should be able to click to enlarge.
- Fun fact: Did you know that the New York Giants played the 1973 and 1974 home games at Yale? The Cowboys (and Roger) played them in New Haven, Connecticut during this week in 1973.
- A growing trend of work-from-home employees is the requirement that they install facial recognition software so the employer can verify they are actually working at their computer. The red notice below accompanies an attorney job posting (which, by the way, pays $27 an hour for 50 hours a week.)
- Here's an example of the software:
- Here's an example of the software:
- Very legal nerd stuff: I've been thinking about how it's odd that Rittenhouse can arm himself with an AR-15 and travel across state lines to insert himself into a situation where violence was likely to occur, but still get self-defense protection just like he was an average innocent Joe walking down the street. Texas, at least, would give the State the benefit of having the jury instructed on "provoking the difficulty."
- That law basically says you forfeit self-defense protection if you bait someone into a situation where you can kill them in self-defense.
- To be specific, it says, "If a person by his own willful and wrongful act bring about the necessity of taking the life of another to prevent being killed himself, he cannot say or claim that such killing was in his own necessary self-defense, for the law then imputes to him his own wrong and its consequences." Smith v. State, 965 S.W.2d 509 (Tex.Crim.App. 1998)
- The "willful or wrongful" act would be carrying the AR-15 as a minor in violation of Wisconsin law. Or it could even be breaking the curfew.
- Another mystery solved by forensic genetic genealogy DNA. The group which cracked the DNA mystery is based in The Woodlands. Interestingly, it is the same group that solved the DNA mystery of "The Girl In The Pool" in Pecos, Texas, and the Carla Walker murder in Fort Worth.
- Time which has passed since the Wise County Sheriff's Office has failed to solve the murder of Lauren Whitener in her home at Lake Bridgeport: 861 days.
- Messenger: Above the Fold
