10.18.2011

Random Tuesday Morning Thoughts


  • Love this quote from the Denton County Republican Chairperson regarding an eccentric Denton resident (and Presidential candidate)  who was arrested over the weekend: "My thought is they ought to keep him in jail until he can be tried and convicted.” Good grief. Maybe she can use that line in her next "our Constitution is sacred" speech. 
  • Reference on the radio this morning to an old time medical treatment of my childhood: Monkey Blood.
  • I just thought about the Texas Tech student struck on his bicycle near Runaway Bay during the summer. I never heard another word about him.
  • Kind of technical, but if you get hit with one of those stupid DPS "surcharges" after September 1, 2011 and you are truly indigent, there's a way out of them. DPS just hasn't figured out how to handle the new law they are obligated to enforce.
  • Bristol Palin, author - mother - spokesperson, is now mature enough under the law to buy beer today for the first time.
  • WBAP's Hal Jay this morning: "I wish my kids would have learned to speak Mexican."  And he wasn't joking. His co-workers made fun of him for the next minute. (7:49 a.m.)
  • Softball season is over. 4-6 record. Not bad for a group of kids and a coach who had no idea what they were doing when the season began. I told them at the first practice that I had two goals for them: (1) To be better at the end of the season than at the beginning, and (2) to have fun. They did. And I did.
  • Goldman Sachs, despite the horrible economy, has been making money hand over fist while it has faced Congressional investigations and lawsuits in the way it duped investors with mortgage backed securities. Now, suddenly, this morning they announced a third  quarter loss for the first time since 2008. Somebody might want to check those numbers. I smell a "don't be mad at us, we're losing money, too!" PR stunt. 
  • Somebody find me more info about this: Back in 2007, a UNT student was murdered with the eventual convicted murderer being caught on surveillance video in a convenience store with her shortly before her death. There was a blurb yesterday in the Texas Lawyer (behind a paywall) about her parents and estate winning an $8.6 million civil judgment after a five day trial in Denton. Who did they sue? Tell me it wasn't the convenience store. 
  • Wasn't the bank in Decatur, the one that Wells Fargo purchased about 10 years ago, named "The First National Bank of Texas" I always thought that name was worth a lot, and I don't think anyone else has picked it up (assuming they can.)  There's a century old "First National Bank Texas" without the "of" but that's not the same thing.  Edit: I think I'm right.
  • Juveniles are rarely detained in "detention" while their criminal case is pending, and when they are it normally is for 10 days or so.  Wise County sends our kids to a facility in Denton, but I'm trying to remember if we've ever used the facility in Granbury. Is so, county officials just got freaked out because some kid died their last week during an impromptu game of tug-of-war.
  • Prosecutors are different in the northeast . . .