9.09.2022

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

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Random Friday Morning Thoughts




A Clemson player being baptized at practice seems to be something you wouldn't see today. Or maybe it's exactly like something you would see today. I'm torn.

  • I actually got a copyright violation notice from someone for reproducing the photo of a wooden arch at the Humble Hall in Rhome. OK, no biggie. But the public link to the photo on Facebook is here.
  • A faithful reader tells me that highway 114 headed to Roanoke is an absolute mess this morning due to a wreck at the Wise County / Denton County line. Here was the beginning of the traffic backup shortly before 7:00 a.m.:

  • New this morning: President Biden is going to Queen Elizabeth's funeral.

  • The new line of succession. 

  • Queen Elizabeth meeting every President since Harry Truman, except LBJ, really jumps out at me. 
    With Truman
    With Kennedy


    • People have inquired of the LBJ Library as to why Lyndon Johnson and the Queen never met up, and there's no really good answer according to them.  But it's probably important to note that Johnson didn't travel out of the country after JFK's assassination, and the ongoing Vietnam War didn't help British/US relations. 


  • This arrest in connection with a car running into a house last month seems to be a little bit of a reach. And it's also a reason you always shut up after a tragedy that could give rise to criminal or civil liability. Why the arrest? Detectives said the front seat passenger "was also impaired and contributed to the crash by grabbing the steering wheel just before the impact."



  • I really thought the Uvalde fiasco would cost this man his job, but he's still sticking around.

  • Uh oh.

     

  • There was a brief scare yesterday afternoon when we thought there was another mass shooter in Uvalde (two people were shot in a city park), and Gov. Abbott tweeted out the below and was understandably criticized for being out of touch and indifferent.

  • Justice Gorsuch revealed yesterday that there is an actual investigative committee in existence to find out who was behind the lead of the Dobbs abortion opinion draft, and that its findings will be in a "report." He didn't say if the report will be made public. But if it is not, it would be great if it, too, were leaked. 

  • I heard the reports of it taking up to 10 hours to get out of this years Burning Man event, but I did a double take when I saw this photo of the problem. 

  • If you are seeing the Cowboys season win total line at 9.5 or higher, take the Under.  Book it. 
  • And another.

  • Time which has passed since the Wise County Sheriff's Office, despite having a full male DNA profile, has failed to solve the murder of Lauren Whitener in her home at Lake Bridgeport: 3 years, 66 days.
  • Messenger: Above the Fold

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9.08.2022

Random Thursday Morning Thoughts




The Big 10's new deal announced a few weeks back is $7 billion over 7 years.

  • The Star-Telegram has the story on the death of the second grader in the Rhome on Saturday "after she was hit in the head by a falling wooden archway at a party."

    • The Tarrant County Medical Examiner's Office lists that the incident occurred at  211 CR 4651. Google Maps returns that address to a private event center named Humble Hall.  Looking at some of their photos on Facebook, I noticed this one of a wooden archway. I have no idea if it is the same one. 
      [Removed due to copyright claim]


  • A different Star-Telegram story about Rhome:


  • A guy drove around Memphis last night live streaming on Facebook as he randomly shot people.  Four are dead. He was arrested. He 19 years old. 

    • That was a wild time while it was ongoing.

       

  • Breaking. This doesn't sound good. “All the Queen's children are either at, or are travelling to, her Scottish estate near Aberdeen.” I mentioned her health on Tuesday.

  • An investigative reporter, Jeff German, was murdered outside of his home in Las Vegas on Saturday morning. Yesterday an elected county official, who had been the subject of the reporter's recent articles, was arrested. "The 45-year-old Democrat lost his re-election bid in the primary after German’s findings were published. German also had recently filed public records requests for emails and text messages between Telles and three other county officials, [one of whom] was identified in previous stories as a subordinate staffer allegedly involved in an 'inappropriate relationship' with Telles."

  • A Texas Justice of the Peace goes to a rural part of a county to pronounce someone dead (they still do that) and accidentally pulled into the wrong driveway.  That was enough for a guy to unload on her vehicle with six shots. She wasn't hit. 

  • A federal judge in Fort Worth, who constantly goes rogue, ruled yesterday that the federal requirement that health care insurance coverage pay for preventative care is invalid if the employer purchasing the insurance  objects on religious grounds about certain specific preventive care that they wouldn't use themselves. In this case, the employer objected to HIV preventive care. It's as crazy as it sounds.  So, under the ruling, your employer's arbitrary religious beliefs controls your health care. 

    • John Kelley of Kelley Orthodontics in Fort Worth was one of the named employers who brought the lawsuit and who objected to the HIV preventive care.


    • There were other plaintiffs who brought the lawsuit who weren't employers but just other employees who objected to their co-workers potentially receiving the preventive care under the same group insurance policy.  
    • Random Twitter post to ponder:

  • Tradition was restored yesterday when President Obama and Michelle were invited to the White House for the unveiling of their White House portraits.

    • Those are not to be confused with the other funky official portraits unveiled years ago and which are on display at the National Portrait Gallery which is one of the many museums which are part of the Smithsonian Institution, (Note: It is the Smithsonian Institution and not the Smithsonian Institute.)

  • Nerdy political observation: There was a new felony court created in Tarrant County and, as I understand it, the timing of its creation was such that the local Democrat and Republican parties got to choose who went on this November's ballot. The Republicans chose a guy who had the benefit of also being appointed in August by Gov. Abbott to fill out the term of that court until January 1st. The Democrats chose the guy below. If you want to know if Tarrant County is truly trending Blue, watch the down ballot races like this one. I don't think Tarrant County is there yet despite Biden and Beto (when he ran against Cruz) recently winning their races higher up on the ballot.

  • Since the documentary on Manti Te'o, the Notre Dame player who was famously catfished, is in the news, this old screenshot I ran across from ESPN's Game Day of signs taunting the guy got my attention. 

  • Random rare technical football thing I actually know about: The guy below giving a hot opinion about the end of the LSU/Florida State game is wrong (tweet and slow motion video are here.) It's not the defensive guy's effort. It's the blocker on the far right who screwed up. He has to block down and not let the guy get through the gap to his right. He can ignore the guy to his left who is trying to go around -- he'll never get there. 

    • You know how I know that? I was that blocker a million years ago and had a coach embarrass me in a film room when I, too, had worried about the guy going around instead of the guy to my right.  Of course, my thoughts at the time were, "That's great coach. You might should have shared that little tidbit of coaching beforehand."


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9.07.2022

Random Wednesday Morning Thoughts




Above: How it started on 9/5/12. Below: Where it went. 



  • I'm hearing about a female child's death due to a falling object at a birthday party in Rhome at a rented facility over the weekend. Paradise second grader. Edit: It's in the Update. 
  • The public access to Wise county's jail and court records, as well as the regularly updated jail list, is now back online. (They changed a URL and didn't tell anyone.) But e-filing in the county courts and district court is still unavailable as of yesterday morning. 
  • We had an interesting timeline by DPS yesterday.
    • The Texas Tribune was set to release this exposé about DPS's failure at Uvalde and Col. Steve McCraw's attempt to cover it up and deflect blame.

    • Moments before it was published, DPS  -- always in damage control and CYA mode -- suddenly announced that it is taking action against five of the troopers.  (And "taking action" is an overstatement. Nothing will happen to the 5 out of 91 troopers.)

    • Regarding the actual Tribune story, I thought these two paragraphs about who finally took charge was about as complete as I've read, especially that last sentence:

    • DPS notably put some troopers in Uvalde for the cameras yesterday.

  • Breaking news from The Washington Post last night: Nuclear secrets were recovered from Mar-a-Lago. I'm now beginning to believe Trump is actually going to be indicted. 




  • It looks like an expensive home in Colleyville went up in flames this morning. 

  • Austin's airport is completely shut down this morning because it is completely without power.  Even the terminals are dark. And they think it might be due to a construction snafu next door.

  • I kind of like commissioners and a county judge fighting in Wichita County about how much to tax people.  

  • Trump schedules a rally in Ohio for 7:00 p.m. on September 17th. Anything else going on in Ohio at that exact date and time which those people care about? 


  • When I saw this headline I thought it was referring to language interpreters. Nope. The new ruling deals with sign language interpreters for the hearing impaired. 

  • My hot legal opinion is that a hung jury should always preclude a retrial on Double Jeopardy grounds. It's not the law, but it should be: The government gets one shot at you and one shot only.

  • Kind of legal stuff: If you are interested in the Candy Montgomery axe murder case which was recently featured in a Hulu docu-drama and will get yet another one on HBO this fall, you might also be interested in this new interview of the then 27 year old second chair defense lawyer. 

  • The great images from the last time the Cowboys were on the field:

  • Messenger: Above the Fold

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