Random Monday Morning Thoughts

The Texas Republican Convention was going on and the Tea Party from Watuaga was warning about the new "smart meters" for electric usage readings.  Early signs of QAnon. 

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•  I'll swear between Friday's Random Thoughts and noon on Friday, gas jumped 30 cents. I saw $4.79 later in the day, and it might have gotten higher.
• This crime is just hauntingly horrible.
  
  
  
• A state judge in Wisconsin was killed and found zipped tied to chair. He was on a "hit list" of the suspected killer, a man who had been sentenced by the judge to prison for six years in 2005. 
  
  
  
• Man, this woman's account of ignoring cops and going into the Uvalde school to retrieve her kids is amazing.  I believe every word. Video. (NBC and other networks have even been playing this CBS interview.)
  
  
  
• Now the Texas House Speaker has figured out how to stop mass shootings in Texas: Committees!
  
  
  
• A man died after being hit by the wheels of an 18 wheeler while it was turning in Midlothian, and the brief story about it is wild.
  
  
  
• A guy who tried to overthrow the government was very upset that the government put him handcuffs because he ignored a subpoena to talk about the overthrow. Video.
  
  
  
• In a sane country, news that the Chief of Staff to the Vice President went personally, for the first time ever, to the Secret Service agent in charge to tell him the President is about to get the VP killed, would be a pretty big story. Especially when the next day Trump almost had Pence killed. 
  

  

  
  
  
  
• If you haven't seen the winner's performance in the first ever "spell off lightening round" in the National Spelling Bee, it's worth a minute. It's mind boggling. 
  
  
  
• Kyle Rittenhouse says he going to be an Aggie, he says. The school then announced he isn't scheduled to be enrolled.
  
  
  
• I didn't tune in to see any of the celebration of the Queen's 70th anniversary celebration, but I kind of wished I'd seen her in hologram form waving to the crowd in an historic carriage. Video.
  
  
  
• There are plans for TxDOT to put in an overpass on 287 where National Roper Supply is located, but the money could be far better spent putting an overpass on 287 further south, just past Rhome, where it's a literal death trap as cars going into and out of the heavily traveled 4838 have to dodge cars going 70 mph. 
  
  
  
• I monitor Wise County records all the time, but this might be the first time I've seen someone booked into jail officially listed as a transient. You would think that would happen at least a few times a year.
  
  
  
• Kenny Chesney played Cowboys Stadium on Saturday night. A few years back the guy decided to try and get rich by ripping of Jimmy Buffett's persona with a country twist, and he basically got away with it. He even threw in a little Dallas Cowboy pandering at the show. 
  
  
  
• Buried in a long story yesterday in the Washington Post about former golfer Greg Norman, who is now the commissioner for the newly formed and controversial golf tour funded by Saudi Arabia, was this paragraph asserting the Tiger Woods turned the Saudis down for the same job despite being offered close to $1 billion. 
  
  
  
• A mysterious raft showed up on a Texas beach.  "It’s made from humble materials, old metal drums apparently held together with lengths of rebar. The mast is a broken tree branch. On the right side — starboard — clothing is tied to the front, likely used to catch the wind and function as a make-shift sail."
  
  
  
• Matthew McConaughey gets a front page op-ed piece in the Austin American-Statesman.