8.07.2020

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






Random Friday Morning Thoughts

 

  • Wise County active: 16 (-3 from yesterday.) I was going to ask if Ernest Angley had come through the county, but no one would understand what I'm talking about.
  • Texas hospitalizations:
  • I'm always checking in on conservative talk radio and there has been a major trend over the last month. That being: The pandemic is over-hyped and is all part of a master plan to get Trump out of office. "Just watch. It will go away after November 3rd." I bet I've heard that a dozens of times. I'm not sure what happened to the every-life-is-precious crowd.
  • Trump signed an Executive Order yesterday banning TikTok in 45 days. There's so much going on there: (1) It's just a stunt. It will never happen because he can't do it legally or practically, (2) How's that 20-something vote gonna work of for ya? (3) Remember when executive orders were evil? 
  • Yesterday, the State of Texas put the kibosh on jury trials through September.
  • The two students who took images at a Georgia High School have been suspended for doing so. North Paulding County high school principal Gabe Carmona made an announcement over the school intercom, warning that "Anything that is going on on social media that is negative on our light... there will be consequences for both students or anyone who sends out those pictures, so please be careful."  Someone needs to introduce Mr. Carmona to the First Amendment and §1983. This isn't a "Bong Hits For Jesus" type of case.
  • "Thighland." I've always heard its beaches were fantastic. 
  • This Texas alligator tried to munch on a 4 year old , but it didn't work out for him.  And for the first time in Liberally Lean history, I'll mention a game warden without dogging 'em. 
  • This will be built pretty close to Wise County. It will be on Highway 114 on this side of the Texas Motor Speedway.
  • Texas Tech's women's basketball coach was fired one day after a USA Today story came out. In just two years "12 players have left amid allegations of abuse by the coach and two assistants." That was quick.
  • Over the last two months we've seen a trend, especially in college football, of college athletes joining together in protest about the way they are treated and exploited.  As far as exploited, I still can't wrap my head around how we plan to go forward with this fall season by taking measures to protect predominately white crowds by limiting seating to 25% as they watch predominately black athletes roll around in piles on a field in front of them. And it's being done for one reason and one reason only: Money.
  • Funny bit. 
  • Tricked up: I don't even remember the Rangers playing an exhibition game in the Alamo Dome.
  • Messenger: Above the Fold
  • TTWF? Texas Tech University at Wichita Falls?:


8.06.2020

Random Thursday Morning Thoughts


  • Wise County active: 18. That's -3 from yesterday and puts us under the magical threshold number set by Texas to be released from restrictions. Honestly, I have no idea how that works. I think we would have to apply to be removed from the restrictions, and then I don't know what happens if the very next day we clock in at 21 cases. Would we automatically lose our exemption that was just granted?
  • Texas hospitalizations. The trend down continues (assuming the numbers aren't permanently jacked up since the reporting was transferred away from the CDC).
  • What exactly is the plan for Texas schools if some kid, which you know will happen, comes down with COVID? Sure, you send him home to self-quarantine, but what about the rest of the class? They just meet the next day like nothing happened?
  • I'm not sure I trust the Walmart crowd to behave once one car's occupants start mouthing at another car because, you know, "They were giving us the stink eye and disrespectin' us." (Looks like Prosper or Plano or your only local choices to find out.)
  • Everything has started off smoothly in that case. 

  • Heard one of the afternoon hosts on The Ticket say that he thought the amount of ammonia nitrate housed in the warehouse in Beirut "would have violated some zoning laws or something like that." 
  • There are just two places in Wise County where I can use Apple Pay with my iPhone. I feel extremely cocky and high tone when I get to use it. 
  • If Trump plans to win on the perceived Biden gaffes, Biden should invite him to a game show set in Yo-Semite named "Person. Woman. Man. Camera. TV." Seriously, that seems like a very bad topic to hang your hat on. 
  • You never hear about anyone just flat out freaking out when on their literal death bed. You would think that at least someone would have a panic attack when death is imminent. But I've never heard of that. I think that's weird. 
  • I keep seeing headlines that the FBI has "raided Jake Paul's home." I'll admit that I have no idea who Jake Paul is. 

8.05.2020

Random Wednesday Morning Thoughts


  • Wise County active cases: 21 (+1)
  • Texas hospitalizations. I bet that curve will start flattening out instead of plummeting. 
  • Breaking: UConn will announce today it will not have football this Fall -- the first FBS school to skip the season due to COVID.
  • A faithful reader, recalling a post of mine a few weeks back regarding a white supremacy sticker I had seen near the Wise County courthouse square, sent along a new story regarding the group Patriot Front. From the new story: "The Parker County Sheriff’s Department arrested the three men on Saturday after watching them place stickers on two different signs on the Parker County Courthouse lawn, according to the men’s arrest warrants." I have no idea if the two stories are related.  (Here's a second article on the arrest.)
    My recent bullet point
    From the new story

  • There's not much to say about the Beirut Boom other than "wow." Of course, there might be someone out there goofy enough to call it an "attack" based upon him speaking with "our great generals."
  • A new meme which inserted a 1982 Far Side cartoon into it yesterday caused me to learn that the cartoon was so confusing back in the day that the author tried to explain it

  • Below: Just a random sentence I took out of this week's Messenger from a column from their intern who flies and back and forth to college several times a year. As Ticket fans would say, "Cue the Vivaldi!" 
  • Sheriff Joe, assuming he's not out prematurely locking up brown people this morning, is still watching the election results to see if he'll get a shot at getting his old job back. The last numbers I saw: 
  • I've dogged this lawyer ever since I learned he used to be in Texas with a scam of drafting anti-immigration ordinances for cities and then rake in lawyer fees defending them when they were challenged in court. He would almost always lose those cases. Then he ran off to Kansas where, as of last night, he has now lost his second big state race in a row. 


  • Trump was on Fox and Friends this morning explaining why he thinks schools should open: "This thing's going away. It will go away like things go away."
  • Didn't I just ask "What's the deal with Fort Hood?" Here's something new.
  • Messenger: Above the Fold

8.04.2020

Random Tuesday Morning Thoughts



  • Wise County active: 13. That's -7 from yesterday. We must have had a someone selling a miracle elixir on the courthouse square that I missed.
  • Texas hospitalizations:
  • Nothing to see here. Just Liberty University president Jerry Falwell Jr. "posting a picture of himself with his pants unbuckled, underwear showing, a glass of  'wine' in his hand, and his arm around a woman’s waist?" He deleted it. (It was apparently from a party on a yacht with a theme of some TV show named "Trailer Park Boys" which doesn't clear things up one bit.)
  • New York magazine is taking no prisoners.
  • I don't run into Fort Worth that often, but has anyone else noticed the wrecked car on 287 sitting at a 45 degree angle under the overpass at the Saginaw cutoff? It's been there for weeks.
  • Another 287-into-Fort Worth observation: I'm no apartment mogul, but anyone else think it's weird to shove in a ton of new apartments in between the Williamson-Dickies plant and and a new monstrous self-storage warehouse?
  • It's election day in Arizona which means my long time nemesis Sheriff Joe, 88,  is trying to get his old job back. He's running to be the the Republican nominee to get the chance to face the incumbent who beat him by 11 points four years ago. Thoughts and prayers.
  • Trump seemed about as interested in Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick earlier this week as the rest of us are.
  • I don't know who on his staff is letting him do these interviews, and he got killed in the new Axios interview on HBO last night. All 35 minutes of it is on YouTube.  Spoiler alert: It ain't Frost/Nixon. 

  • TCU coach Gary Patterson had a team revolt yesterday when he used the N-word. He didn't call a player the word, he just uttered it when he told a player not to use it. And he did it on two separate days. The whole thing is a little weird, but I've bet his players have been looking for an excuse to dogpile him for years. He's said to be a royal jerk. 
  • It's been out for a while, but here is Texas Football's Preseason Top 10 for 4A.  This might be the only rankings you ever see. Decatur is #10. Random observations: #1 Waco La Vega beat Decatur in the state semis a couple of years back. Argyle is good at everything. I went through Dumas a couple of years back and it didn't look like a 4A town. I had never heard of El Campo. According to wiki, it looks like a consolidated school district between Houston and Victoria and has been 4A for over 40 years.   
  • Ringtones have gone away, haven't they?
  • Say what?
  • A Rockwall police officer and SRO has died of COVID.

8.03.2020

Random Monday Morning Thoughts



  • Wise County active cases: 20. Or so they say.
  • Texas. I'll go with the hospitalizations chart for the next week or two. It was what first tipped most of us off in June that something was going very wrong. Anyone want to place any bets as to what happens in September?
  • By the way, all those people are in the hospital because of BIG testing. Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead. I learned that this morning: 
  • Men's clothing blood bath this morning: The parent companies of Men's Wearhouse,  Jos. A. Bank, and Lord & Taylor have filed for Chapter 11. Let me tell you something, ain't nothing wrong with the Men's Wearhouse. (Pop quiz: What's the difference between George Zimmer with George Zimmerman?)
  • From a female soldier getting murdered, to bodies being found on base, to a mass shooting, what's the deal with Fort Hood?  
  • Alan Dershowitz, who has been protesting a little bit too much whenever he is mentioned as part of the Jeffrey Epstein scandal, made my head spin because of this camera angle on Friday. (Here's the mystery solved.)
  • We had a great jail escape by two prisoners in of Oklahoma on Friday.  After leaving from the 12th floor, one jumped or fell when he got to the 4th floor and broke his leg. The other was captured later in the day.  (If you click it, you can get a better look at the make-shift rope they used.)
  • So I guess it would be wrong to hold this kid out an example if I want to go into a "So what have you done with your life?!" rant to the Senior in the House, huh?
     
  • Not sure how they are going to enforce this. (But the picture does accurately reflect every UT girl going to a party.)
  • Trump quick hits:
    • Two weeks and one day ago to Fox News' Chris Wallace regarding a replacement for Obamacare: 
    • That was not a big crowd in Froida last Friday.


    • He's not banning TikTok. He says crap like that all the time. (See Health care promise, above.)
    • He golfed both Saturday and Sunday. (And here's a quick video of him on Saturday taking four practice swings off the tee and then shanking his drive.)
  • I was well aware of his name, but I don't recall ever listening to Bill Mack, the "Midnight Cowboy", who died on Friday. But I didn't hear until this morning that he died of COVID.
  • I'm only five episodes into Schitt's Creek, but I'm putting at The Office or Arrested Development level of quality.  Very, very funny. 
  • Here's a "fun" legal question from an opinion that was just released. May police in Texas legally stop and detain you as you pull into your driveway for the alleged traffic violation of failing to use your turn signal if the red line below represents your undisputed path of travel through your neighborhood into your driveway? The court actually put that photograph in the opinion. (I added the red line for clarity.) The law says you have to use your signal if you "turn" -- and "turn" is not defined.
  • Answer: The trial court judge ruled, "You don't have to use your turn signal." Then the appellate court reversed him and said using the turn signal was required. So what's the big deal? If they didn't have the right to stop the driver, any evidence discovered as a result of the illegal stop couldn't be used against him. In this case, it was methamphetamine.   Side note: Your answer shouldn't change now that you know meth is involved. That plays absolutely no role in determining whether it was a legal or illegal stop.
  • COVID cant' touch them: SMU and Texas State just announced they were moving up their game to August 29th. (Then again, your high schoolers will be playing the day before.)