2.01.2021

Random Monday Morning Thoughts


  • Look at that weather forecast I posted on Sunday, January 30, 2011. You know what day that  was? It was the beginning of Super Bowl week at Jerry World. And that forecast by the National Weather Service didn't remotely predict what was about to it hit. 
  • Texas hospitalizations: Plummeting. 

  • Trump found himself without a legal team on Saturday.  Why? He wanted the defense to the Impeachment Articles alleging he caused the insurrection to be election fraud (aka "The Big Lie.")  That's right. He didn't want the defense to be that he didn't cause the attempted overthrow of America, but instead that it was justified.  No wonder they quit en masse. 


  • This Texas Monthly story from last year is great, and there was a tremendous update to it on Friday: She was finally released after a judge's ruling in Austin. So after 18 years incarcerated for a crime she didn't commit, she walked out of jail. But there was a huge kicker: Then ICE showed up, threw her in a van, and headed for the border. 

  • Badly needed.

  • Here's the dust storm on Saturday:

  • I saw this and thought "what a great idea." If you've ever been to a marathon or half-marathon, the organizers are absolute masters of directing thousands of people converging on one spot.

  • I've seen a few reports asking or demanding Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene apologize and acknowledge that the Parkland shooting was real, the Sandy Shooting was real, that 9/11 was not and inside job, and that the  California forest fires were not caused by Jewish Laser Beams.  The heck with that. You don't get to apologize for being bat crap crazy. It's over. You need to be banished to a trash heap of insignificance. 

  • I've slowly began to realize just how many people believe QAnon theories. And they are all around you -- from Walmart to Brookshires to Allsups. I can't explain it, but America has normalized crazy. How did it happen? It's not like we elected someone who agreed to go on a show hosted by someone who had already said time and time again there was a pedophile ring headed by Hillary Clinton holding children in the basement of a pizza restaurant in D.C.  Oh, wait. We did and he did. (You can watch a great Frontline documentary on Alex Jones here.)
    "Your reputation is amazing. I will not let you down.” - Trump to Alex Jones

  • There's a lot of weird things that happen on military bases in Texas. 

  • Happy Days (premiered 1974) depicted life 20 years earlier as well so the same could be said for it.  

  • Stay with me here: 
    • September 12,1932: "The [German] Reichstag passed a motion of no confidence against the Franz von Papen cabinet by an overwhelming vote of 513 to 32, though von Papen called the vote illegal because he was entitled to the floor and had already placed the decree on the speaker's desk dissolving parliament."  
    • Ok, that's a really, really obscure fact about German history and Hitler's rise to power, right? I mean, you probably wouldn't even know it had anything to do with Hitler unless I had not told you. Heck, it's so obscure that it wouldn't even be on a Jeopardy final answer.  
    • Well, yesterday morning I read about that event for the first time as I'm nearing the end of a very good book I'm reading on Hitler's rise to power.

    • Well, get this: Yesterday afternoon I walked in my dad's house, and he is watching a PBS documentary which, at that very moment, was discussing that September 12th moment in Germany. It even was even showing a photo of the no-confidence vote in the Reichstag. 

    • I understand coincidences. But that's a very weird coincidence, right? We haven't even so much as mentioned Hitler to each other. Is there a word for very extreme coincidences?
    • (Now I'm thinking about this Seinfeld scene.)
  • I watched the Night Stalker on Netflix. Verdict: That four hours could have been condensed into one hour, and it sure did spend a lot of time glorifying a couple of detectives who weren't that great.  (And I may be one of the very few who thinks about a 1972 TV movie with Darren McGavin whenever they hear "Night Stalker.")


at 8:31 AM

1.29.2021

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

at 2:30 PM

Random Friday Morning Thoughts

 


  • I'll need to ask the (now) Senior In the House the details about the pig story if she remembers.
  • Texas hospitalizations: I'll probably keep posting this update through next week. From there, I'll only bring it back it there is another surge. And there shouldn't be unless the new variants of the disease take over.  

  • Ok, I need help figuring this out. I received this high tech "mask" yesterday by UPS. It's addressed to me at my office. I didn't order it. No idea who sent it. The label said "Third party purchaser", and it looks like it was shipped directly from the manufacturer. No note was included. So I went to the website and looked it up to figure out what the heck it was. The cost? $299. If someone is doing a bit, they've got a lot of money for bits. 
    (My office address is no secret)


  • Remember yesterday when I said there's a weird trend over the last few months of high profile crimes being committed in the last few months? Well, right after I hit the "publish" button, this story broke about the murder of the UberEats driver in Haltom City: 

  • Who knew it would take the Robinhood brokerage site screwing over the common man yesterday to bring Ted Cruz and OAC together?:

  • Well, not quite "together":

  • Gamestop stock might have had an unstable day yesterday -- especially in the morning. It finally closed at 193.60. This whole thing is a crazy, crazy story.  (The stock just opened at 379 which is up 96%: Link since who knows where it will go.)


  • And it keeps coming: Elon Musk added Bitcoin to his Twitter bio in the middle of the night and within an hour it jumped $5,000 to $37,299.
  • In the couple of week after the Trump Supporters Storming of the Capitol, it looked like the Republican establishment was going to run away from Trump.  Lindsey Graham, Mitch McConnell, and Kevin McCarthy said in speeches on the floor, and in unequivocal terms, that it was time to move on. But yesterday, McCarthy went down to Mar-a-Lago to re-enact a scene from a Tom Cruise movie. They are still scared of him. 

  • So it is still Trump's Republican Party. They need his followers. And they know his worshipers still follow him, amazingly, even after this: 

  • And they are equally scared of the QAnon supporters. They need them to. If not, they would either kick Marjorie Taylor Greene out of Congress or, at the very least, censure her. (She thinks Sandy Hook was staged so the GOP just put her on the Education Committee.)

  • The Aggies are keeping the statue of Sul Ross on their campus. If you want a quick history regarding the controversy surrounding this guy, here's a new Texas Monthly article about him. 


  • Time which has passed since the Wise County Sheriff's Office has failed to solve the murder of Lauren Whitener in her home at Lake Bridgeport: 573 days.
  • Messenger: Above the Fold


at 8:31 AM

1.28.2021

Random Thursday Morning Thoughts

 

  • Ten years later, I'm still wondering about how much money is in that fund. But I did find an update to that bullet point: In 2012, Theadora Ross was sentenced to 46 months in federal prison and ordered to pay $274,034 in restitution.
  • Texas hospitalizations deaths: Hospitalizations are dropping which mean were are at the end of a cycle of the surge. The end of a surge also brings the apex of deaths. 

  • The Texas GOP is out there lying in trying to say its slogan of "We Are The Storm" is not inspired by QAnon. It's efforts are comical:
    They tell us to look the slogan up.

    This guy did. It's a QAnon slogan.

    That's embarrassing 


  • I'm not sure the last time I kept an eye on a stock price all day just for entertainment, but I did it yesterday with Gamestop which went up 134%.  
    • The story isn't that complicated once you understand short selling. It gets a little more confusing in trying to figure out how the masses are using option trading to fuel the Common Man Uprising.  
    • At its core, it's just like the old organized "flash mob" doing a dance routine at the mall. Except this time there are millions in the mob and they are focused on a stock. 
    • You'll hear many in the mob talk about "how much money they've made" with the stock's price rising. Let me share words of wisdom from my father from years ago: "When it comes to stocks, you haven't made anything until you actually sell it."
    • A side story is how this uprising is fueled by the site Robinhood which allows commission free stock and option trading. So how does it make money? As someone told me, it's like any free site which has people register: They are dealing in commodities as well but the commodity is your data.
    • Edit: Whoa! This morning at around 7:30 a.m., the Robinhood app began preventing customers from selling Gamestop stock and options. I'm not sure what is going on, but the masses are mad as a hornet (and the masses include Trump Jr. and the Barstool guy.) The stock had been up in afterhours trading as much as 40% before the change. The stock just opened down 24% and then trading was halted. This will be a big deal. 
  • Noooooooo!

  • The little town of Stinnett, Texas is having a controversy with a police chief.  From this story on a site which amazingly collected documentation over the whole seedy thing, some women (including his wife) have allegedly discovered each other. Pull up a chair, it's juicy. 




  • I've noticed a trend that has developed over the last year: High profile crimes are being committed by teenagers. I mean, some pretty bad stuff being done by very young people. Keep an eye out for it. (Recall the Indianapolis five-person murder on Sunday was done by a teenager.)

  • Normally I make fun of whenever the cops roll out a picture of a drug bust because it's so insignificant. Not with this one. That's a lot of meth.  But as for the DEA agent saying it was "a big dent" in the cartel's trafficking, he's blowing smoke. That's not even a ding. 

  • See that telephone poll? I took these photos on the square in Decatur after a saw a guy in a cherry-picker installing something on Tuesday. I'm no detective, but I'm pretty sure we've being watched. And I've been told they have automatic license plate reading software hooked up as well. 



     

  • Another Capitol police officer has committed suicide in wake of the Trump Supporters Storming of the Capitol on January 6th. 



at 8:31 AM

1.27.2021

Random Wednesday Morning Thoughts

 


  • Above: The link (from a Star-Telegram story of 1/24/2011) was dead, and a quick Google search didn't turn up anything about it. 
  • Texas hospitalizations: Slight uptick but probably an anomaly. 

  • Dominion is going to own MyPillow. From last night:

  • And another. 

  • The Frisco realtor now wants everyone to know she has an account on the social media platform known for courting neo-Nazis.


  • She's a weird bird -- comparing herself to someone who, as best as I recall, didn't fly in private jets and storm government buildings. 

  • Here's the portion of the bill filed by the Democrats in the House to ease the minimum wage up to $15.00 an hour.  No, it won't kill small businesses.

  • I don't' know if this new book is any good, but I love the title. 

  • See? That's not hard, is it?

  • How it started/How it ended.


  • Remember the Zoom video of the defense attorney acting sassy and unprofessional when the judge wouldn't let her withdraw because her client wouldn't take a plea deal? Well check out this paragraph from a story two weeks ago which has a comment from the lawyer after the judge held her in contempt and fined her $500. How did this not get more attention? (But that was a fantastic Randy Moss callback.)



  • Someone call the Decatur hospital, ask if it's available, and get back to me. 

  • I got into a long discussion yesterday with a guy who was well versed in this bizarre world of GameStop stock and the sub-reddit group "WallStreetBets". It's basically a battle of a massive social media group (with money) who simply wanted to jack with a hedge fund which was betting on GameStop to fail. It's fascinating. (And he also has promised to walk me through short selling with options the next time he does it -- and he does it a lot. I'll walk you through it as well once I understand it.) 

  • Edit: GameStop just doubled in the first five minutes of trading. 
  • Didn't expect to have to say this but I, too, am opposed to "forced monkey labor." 

  • Over 20 years ago I wrote about how an indictment in Jack County against Indian leaders Santana and Big Tree, for a massacre near Fort Richardson around 1871, had the language of "not having the fear of God before their eyes, but being moved and seduced by the instigation of the devil." I thought it was bizarrely funny. Well, yesterday I learned that the indictment against Jefferson Davis used the same language.  And a second ago I learned that so did the indictment against Aaron Burr in 1804.  Let's bring that back.
  • Last night OU beat Texas by one point. Here's the video clip of a Texas player scoring two point for the Sooners.

  • Messenger: Above the Fold



at 8:33 AM
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