5.23.2023

Random Tuesday Morning Thoughts




This is another front page from Oklahoma about the Moore tornado. One forgotten aspect of the event was a horrible screw-up it was on the number of dead which were reported. The medical examiner's first said 91 were expected to be dead which gave rise to the headline above. It later revised the number  to 51 dead, and finally revised it again to 24 blaming "double counting." Incredible.


  • House Bill 3297 is now headed to Abbott's desk: It eliminates vehicle inspections in Texas for non-commercial vehicles.  

    • One thing that Texas can't eliminate is emission inspections if you are in one of the 17 required Texas counties (Wise County is not one of them.)   
  • Paperwork has been filed to begin construction on a new $10 million (!) and  20,823 square feet TA Travel Center just south of Decatur around the 287 business exit on the opposite side of the highway. 


  • It came from a "blue check mark" Twitter account. That used to mean something. Now it means someone is willing to pay Elon $8 a month. Story. We are all doomed. 

  • At the risk of sounding like a right wing conspiracy nut, this actually sounds a little fishy: A U-Haul with only a Nazi flag in its cargo rammed a security barrier at the White House last night.  Video.

  • This week we will acknowledge the one year anniversary of the massacre in Uvalde. But always remember the disclaimer the Austin American Statesman placed on security cam video it had obtained: "Editor's note: The sound of children screaming has been removed."

    • County officials, including those who have for months obstructed the public's right-to-know, are telling outsiders not to come to Uvalde this week. Those signing off on this might want to sit this one out. 

  • What a mess in Dallas. This has been going on for quite some time now. 

  • The Filter Queen lost again in Arizona last night. Despite the facts and truth, she will continue to lie about it like others who don't care about democracy.


  • Good gawd.

  • Legal nerdy stuff: Prof. George Dixon has died.  His multi-volume legal Treatise of "Criminal Practice and Procedure" is the greatest work on the subject of all time. If I ever had a complicated issue to deal with, that work already had a section dedicated to it which I would find easy to read and footnoted out the wazoo. I even wrote him once in the 1990s, and he wrote me back. 

  • Extremely nerdy legal (and weird) stuff from of the Sixth Circuit. There's a lot more going on out there than what we know about.

  • Flipping around this morning on the radio and heard, on KXT, "The Man Who Saved The World." But it wasn't by Nirvana (who famously sang it on MTV's Unplugged). Instead it was by David Bowie. And then I realized for the first time that Nirvana simply covered Bowie's original 1970 release.