2.21.2020

Random Friday Morning Thoughts


  • This miraculous recovery of NASCAR's Ryan Newman, going from "serious but not life-threatening condition" to walking out of a hospital less than 72 hours later, almost makes my conspiracy theory detector go off. I'm not exactly sure how, but it's softly beeping. 
  • The Aggies beat Prairie View A&M last night 30-2. In baseball. It was 27-0 after the second inning. 
  • The NFL Player's Union distributed a "fact sheet" about the proposed new collective bargaining agreement. Here's an excerpt from page 3 where the less significant aspects of the proposal are set out. But part of it got my attention. For reference, in Colorado the legal limit for DWI under the influence of marijuana is five nanograms.
  • The jail sentence: Four days in jail with credit for one day. Not mentioned: How much good conduct time the Sheriff gives in Collin County.
    • So how much good conduct time can you get when sentenced to the local county jail for a misdemeanor? I was thrown for a little of a loop this morning. I had always thought the maximum was 3 days credit for one day served  But the statute, unless I'm reading it wrong, says that the maximum is one day extra credit for one day served (that's 2 days credit for 1 day served), and the total credit can't be more than 1/3 of the sentence. Someone tell me what I'm missing.
    • The Wise County Sheriff's office has always had a weird policy of 2 for 1 credit after 30 real days. 
    • One oddity is that any Texas sheriff controls the time credit for his jail. A judge can't sentence someone to jail and order it be served "day for day." 
  • "What the hell was that all about? . . . Can we get like Gone with the Wind back, please?" - Donald Trump ranting last night about Parasite winning Best Picture because it was made in South Korea. 
  • Whatever happened to Tiffani Amber Thiessen?
  • I watched the very short documentary, Long Shot, on Netflix about how an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm filmed at a Dodgers game ended up freeing a man accused of murder. Two things that pleasantly surprised me: (1) California procedure allows a judge to simply throw out a case that the State was foolish enough to bring, and (2) the guy sued the cops for conducting a crappy investigation and settled for six figures. 
  • The Supreme Court is about to decide whether a 1964 Civil Rights law protects transgendered people because it prohibits discrimination on the bases of "sex."  Rumors were floated by right wingers yesterday that Justice Gorsuch would be the swing vote and it might go different than one would think. 
  • Regarding that case, I wrote the bullet point below earlier this year. When I went to the National Archives in December, they actually had a display of the handwritten alteration of the bill in Congress where "sex" was inserted. I felt pretty good about the fact I was one of the few walking by it who knew why it was on display. (There was no signage about the pending Supreme Court case.)
  • As everyone celebrates the 40th anniversary of the U.S. Hockey team beating the Russians in the Olympics, remember (1) the game was shown on TV after it concluded on tape delay  -- it was actually played at 4:00 p.m. CST and not during the evening when most people watched it, (2) the game wasn't for the gold medal. The U.S. still had to play Finland. Personal note: I watched a portion of it in Cundiff, Jack County, Texas.