4.14.2015

Random Tuesday Morning Thoughts



  • From time to time I get a comment telling me WiseCounty.com is down.  That is almost never true.  If it ever happens, you can check www.downforeveryoneorjustme.com to find out. (It just dawned on me I've owned that domain for almost 20 years.)
  • The Ticket's morning show is doing a tour of local college campuses this week and broadcasting from five of them. They ran into a roadblock with TCU which would only let them broadcast from the press box of an empty football stadium. No where else on campus was offered. They won't be going to TCU.
  • The Tulsa cop who killed the guy when he allegedly thought he was using a taser instead of a pistol was actually a "volunteer" who had donated thousands of dollars of vehicles and equipment to the local Sheriff's office. 
  • "15 things to know about the Dallas County DA’s new top assistant." Hey, Dallas Morning News, I'm in the criminal justice business and even I don't want to know 15 things about her. 
  • "If you are a Christian or a white man man in the USA it is open season on you. Therefore Hillary Clinton has an advantage." - Fox News' Bill O'Reilly. (Screenshot.)
  • I listened to a little bit of Marco Rubio's presidential announcement last night and was struck by a thought that applies to every person running for president whether Republican or Democrat. They all have a theme of how they want to make America a place where you, the voter, should be able to make more money. Couch it in terms of "opportunity" or "success" or "dreams" or "economic opportunity", the dominant theme is money. It's very Joel Olsteen like. It's all a version of, "In the end, if you listen to me and support me, your life will be better because you will have more money." 
  • The North Central Council Of Governments will do a transportation and "thoroughfare study" which will include Wise County and will cost $500,000.  Give me a second . . . Ok . . .In the future, 114 will need to be expanded, I-35 will need to be expanded and 380 will need to be expanded.  (In the spirit of fairness, I'll settle for 1/2 of the price of the study.)
  • Notice how I didn't make a Ranger prediction or Maverick prediction? It would be too easy. 
  • If you use the term "low information voter" I immediately know who you've been listening to.
  • We've got a Roku streaming TV device at home which I don't use nearly enough. But I noticed today that Amazon's streaming device now has a function where you can push a button during a show and it will identify every actor on the screen and tell you what other movies/shows they've been in (using IMDb's database.)  Pretty cool.  
  • A couple of years ago I was taken to task when I asked if college kids still took a TV to college for their dorm room.  With a laptop, why would they? Heck, every now and then I think that we should "cut the cable".
  • At around 9:30 at night, The Family Pup will silently walk upstairs and stand by the closed bedroom door waiting for us to go up. 
  • I hadn't thought about for Nebraska running back Lawrence Phillips for a long time. Back in the day when college running backs were king, he was the king of kings. The sixth overall pick in the 1996 draft, he soon flamed out and got into criminal trouble.  He was ultimately sentenced to 31 years in prison. Now he is accused of murdering his cellmate. (I seem to remember Dale Hansen, a huge Nebraska fan, going off on a rant about Phillips even when he was in college. He was signing the screen even back then.)