8.10.2016

Random Wednesday Morning Thoughts


  • I've seen it with my own eyes on Lake Bridgeport: There is a technique where you can actually surf behind a slow moving boat sans a rope. (I posted a video a few weeks back with a couple of kids doing that trick with a dog sitting on the surfboard.)
  • The diving pool turning from blue to green in Rio is weird. It looks like the water at Six Flags on the old cave ride. 
    Six Flags creeping a kid out back in the day
    Compare and Contrast in Rio
  • The Tarrant County case of Ed McIver Jr. is a perfect example of the State jacking with someone. A grand jury declined to indict him earlier this year on attempted capital murder of an officer charges. (If you can't get a grand jury indictment, a prosecutor should thank his lucky stars because he has been saved from an eventual acquittal by a jury on an incredibly worthless case.) Despite the no-bill, prosecutors fought to keep the guy in jail. A judge reduced his bail and he got out. The State then threw him back in jail for alleged "violations" of his bond conditions. Yesterday, the Tarrant County DA's office again tried to have him indicted on attempted capital murder by simply going to a different grand jury. Once again, the DA's office was told it was out of its collective mind.
  • I don't know if Art Briles, who for some strange reason was at Cowboys training camp yesterday, will ever coach again at the major college level. Probably not.
  • In "happy birthday" news from a Texas paper . . . 
  • I'm frustrated that I didn't take up kayaking on the U.S.S. Liberally Lean until after Olympic qualifying. Everyone would be talking about my gold medal this morning instead of Michael Phelps.
  • John Oliver's show this week spent the majority of its time focusing on the importance of newspapers and the dismissal state they are in. They are so desperate they've stumbled by trying to incorporate social media into their content. (I noticed the Dallas Morning News' new beta site is dumping a couple of Facebook comments directly into the body of a story without comment or acknowledgement. You just suddenly see a couple of embedded comments from spare strangers.)
  • In that same vein, the Star-Telegram's Bud Kennedy took Judge Larry Myers to task for posting the fake "no parking" signs in his neighborhood. When I looked at it, there were three comments using Facebook logins at the end of it (with one of them being someone shoehorning in their own unpaid ad.) And the first comment had the following insight: "What do you expect from a LIBERAL judge, laws aren't for them don't you know! They are experts at breaking the law, just look at their mullah ovomit, now isn't he something special? Go Trump!" Yep, newspapers really need that social media contribution.
  • I bet there will come a day when high school volleyball no longer uses the term "kills". 
  • Courthouse discussion yesterday: Name the country artist who shot a music video in Decatur, what movie was it from, and what year?
  • Trump didn't actually threaten Hillary yesterday. The trouble is that Trump supporters have to constantly jump back and forth between, "I support Trump because he's a straight shooter who means what he says" and "Oh, well, he didn't mean that." 
  • The BagOfNothing guy had an epiphany yesterday when he realized the joy of anticipation. Being the hardest working man in show business, I wrote about that eight years ago when I referenced this clip:
  • "If [Susan Hawk] is the county's top attorney, that office works at peak efficiency when she's gone." - The Ticket's Gordon Keith on the oft-absent Dallas DA.
  • Answer: Faith Hill. Pearl Harbor. 2001.