5.24.2021

Random Monday Morning Thoughts




The Joplin, Missouri tornado killed 158. 


  • The story of the abduction of Cash Gernon in the Mountain View area of Dallas really disturbs me.
    • And, unless I'm missing, the local TV stations are dropping the ball on this case. Video footage of the abduction of the 4 year old in the Mountain Creek area was actually obtained and  released. But it wasn't one of our local stations to let us know this, it was the Daily Mail

    • And according to the story, he came back and hour and a half later and stood of the same crib containing the boy's twin brother!

    • The only way the above came to my attention was a Dallas Observer twitter post. Is is just so disturbing that the local stations don't want to air it? 
    • And another non-local news outlet, The Daily Beast, obtained neighbor's footage of the alleged abductor stalking the area 10 weeks earlier.

  • The online mob is upset about a matter-of-fact recitation of the Black Lives Matter movement in the yearbook at Decatur High School. 


  • The Texas "constitutional carry" bill has arisen from the dead and is on the verge of passage. It went to a joint committee to work out the differences, and it has now made it out without being gutted. At midnight last night, the House signed off on the comprise bill it 82-62. It now goes to the Senate where it is expected to pass. 

  • A midnight vote? The only guy I really know in the Texas legislature is the recently elected David Spiller out of Jacksboro. I've thought about him every time I read about some marathon committee meeting or session. Is that gig worth it? I'll ask him. 
  • Highway 380 on the other side of Denton is dangerous. There's always a horrible wreck happening, and there was a bad one yesterday.

  • Cable car accident in Italy kills 14.




  • It won't get much play here, but what happened in international politics yesterday was wild. Say there was a journalist in Costa Rica bad mouthing President Biden. The journalist then gets on a plane to take a trip to Canada. Once he gets over U.S. airspace, the U.S. calls in a false bomb threat to the plane which then makes an emergency landing in the U.S. as a precaution. U.S. authorities then board the plane and arrest the journalist and may now imprison him or worse. That's basically what happened yesterday with a flight between two European Union states. The U.S. condemned the act. (At least one U.S. citizen was onboard.)

  • A play in three Acts:
    • Act I

    • Act II

    • Act III

  • Speaking of Greene, she and embattled Matt Gaetz decided to make a joint appearance on Friday in Arizona in support of the the bizarre and ridiculous vote "audit" being conducted by the wheels off firm called "Cyber Ninjas." They oughta hook up. They are prefect for one another (except that she's 46.) 

  • I just love this picture from Spring Commencement from the University of Maryland. And if you zoom in, there's a lot going on in it. 

  • The Trump Republicans plan to oust Liz Cheney are off to a rough start

  • Random video footage: Cybill Shepherd, as Miss Teenage Tennessee, on the field of the Cotton Bowl in 1967 before a Cowboys/Steelers game. 

     
  • We've now got an official state handgun? 

  • With all the rain, somehow Lake Bridgeport still isn't full. (I'm not complaining. We went what seemed to be a decade of the thing looking like Death Valley.)

  • Another Texas case solved by "familial DNA" or "genealogy testing" through commercial DNA sites. To clarify, this process isn't the typical running a a known DNA sample through the national criminal database (CODIS) and getting a direct match. No, it's running the DNA through commercial DNA databases (23andMe, etc.) and getting a match for a portion of a family tree, and then doing the footwork of elimination. (This girl's death was one of the many deaths that Henry Lee Lucas falsely confessed to doing.)

  • I was going to post a front page from South Carolina of Phil Mickelson's victory, but not a single paper from that state, where the win occurred, had it on the cover. Nor did North Carolina to the north nor Georgia to the south. I gave up after that and just went random.