3.01.2022

Random Tuesday Morning Thoughts





It's the 10 year anniversary of Sandra Fluke and, more importantly, what Rush Limbaugh said about her which caused a national stir -- so much so that even he had to apologize after the backlash which included President Obama calling her to offer words of support.  

  • There's a 40+ mile long convoy of Russian military vehicles headed towards Kyiv.  They are sitting ducks, and no one is stopping them. That tells you Ukraine no longer controls the air. And it also tells you the capitol city is about to fall. 

    • Paul McCartney in downtown Kyiv in 2008. He posted this yesterday. It was a concert at the now ironically named "Independence Square."  

  • What a strange photo. "Russian President Vladimir Putin huddled with officials to discuss the economic turmoil amid his invasion of Ukraine." Does he fear an assassination attempt from within his inner circle?

  • Assuming this photo is real, it occurred to me Google and Apple and the other tech companies could bring a country to its knees quicker than any governmental sanction. Seriously, Putin has to worry about the Russian people going into a widespread revolt, and the tech companies just impacted every Russian with flick of a switch.  Throw in Amazon servers for banking and credit cards, and this could be a Black Mirror episode.

  • The very helpful and very smart Wise County Elections Administrator Sabra Srader provided me with the early voting numbers for the county.  With a little over 47,994 registered voters, we came in at 10.05% with 4,821 -- far higher than the state average percentage. And here's a news flash: Wise County is very Republican. Click to enlarge or click here for the Google Sheet (I added the percentages). 

    • Four years ago there were 7,924 total votes cast (early and day of). 
  • This guy has spent a bunch of money on campaign ads on DFW television in his bid for District Attorney, but it drives me nuts that he never mentions which county he is running in. 

  • Follow-up from yesterday. I don't know about "upset."

    • And here's the mugshot of the guy which is at the center of the mess.

  • It's pretty amazing that 14 people were shot in a Las Vegas lounge last weekend and it barely registered as news. 

  • The ACLU is after the book burners in Granbury. 

  • The Messenger's Richard Greene tweeted this out yesterday of the front page of the Messenger from 100 years ago this week. Click to enlarge. The heck with the prison escape, I want to know about the bank cashier that ran off with his paramour. 

  • My favorite conspiracy theory, which I love thinking about, is that we are all living in a computer simulation where every now and then there is a glitch in the software causing history to repeat itself -- but we just all chalk it up to coincidence. 
    (Smith was actually injured in Landover, MD which is 
    only few miles from where Theismann was playing.)

  • Kim Mulkey out there throwing shade at the Evil Empire. She even threw in an Ehlinger impersonation. Video. 

  • I don't care about the NBA, but this found its way to my radar last night. Any chance of scoring here on this in-bounds pass with less than a half second left at the end of the first half? Video.

  • Tarrant County Judge race prediction: Tim O'Hare beats Betsy Price, and that's a very bad thing.


at 8:31 AM

2.28.2022

Random Monday Morning Thoughts




I stand by the proposition of prosecutors attending executions as being weird. In fact, I'm not sure I've heard of it happening since then. 

  • The war continues in Ukraine.  
    • Before everyone starts betting on the Ukraine Resistance, I wouldn't get my hopes up.

    • As I post this, I'm seeing a flood of social media about "images coming out of Kharkiv." I'm guessing something bad has happened.
    • The Snake Island guys are apparently not dead according to a Ukrainian navy Facebook post.  I would tap the brakes on any sensational story you hear in this conflict. 
    • I never thought War Games would be relevant again.
       

    • Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy has become somewhat of a star by donning fatigues and promising to stay and fight.  I thought this thread was interesting: From a PR standpoint, what exactly is it about this video which so powerful and universally praised?

    • Kind of makes you think against about Trump's telephone call with him (the one which led to Trump's first impeachment), where Zelenskyy  was asking for Javelin missiles but Trump responded with "I would like you to do us a favor, though" in connection with Hunter Biden. 
    • And comparisons were made.

  • Voting day is tomorrow.  Early voting has been reportedly very low, but I can't find the exact numbers to compare it to four years ago. But the final cumulative vote count by the Texas Secretary of State's office shows that Republicans outnumbered Democrats in early voting 5.93% to 3.65%.


  • The Florida man who shot another man in a movie theater was found not guilty late Friday. 

  • The QAnon Congresswoman spoke at a white supremist rally over the weekend.

     

    • Mitt Romney, in response, called her a "moron". 

    • She responded. 

    • It really was a white supremist rally. Watch this when old Sheriff Joe was a little confused at the audience's reaction to something he said:

  • More lawyers coming. (This guy is a professor there.) 

  • This is a nightmare for everyone, especially the victim. Stay with me here:

    • A guy was arrested for domestic violence in January and became one of hundreds of people a magistrate in Tarrant County sees every month for his bond to be set.  
    • Almost anyone can set bonds (from JPs to city judges to mayors), but Tarrant County streamlines the process by giving a lot of that responsibility to a special magistrate appointed by the elected district judges. That's good. The less judges setting bonds means the more consistent bonds will be.  (Plus, the guy is heavily involved in felony cases because he also has the authority to approve tons of plea bargains in felony cases -- he's no novice.)
    • Back to the guy arrested for domestic violence. Actually, he had two charges against the same victim, aggravated assault and unlawful restraint. 
    • The magistrate set the bond in an combined amount of  $15,000.  That actually seems pretty normal. He even added an ankle monitor as a condition. That seems a little unusual, but was justified because the guy had five past felony convictions and a "danger assessment" for the victim came back as "extreme danger."  
    • Pause for a moment. No matter what the bond was set at, how would you feel if you're the magistrate and are holding a piece of paper which says "extreme danger"?
    • The guy makes bond.
    • Then it went from bad to worse: The victim goes missing.
    • The cops obviously suspect the guy out on bond, and they get a search warrant for his house. Her body is found underneath it. Oh, man. 

    • This all got my attention when the lame duck D.A. in Tarrant County did a pretty scathing social media post on Saturday roasting the magistrate who set the bond by name.  You never see that. 

    • Side note: The D.A. needs a headline writer. That reads as if the guy is out on bond again. He's not. He's in jail. 
  • This guy has spent a fortune in an advertising blitz in DFW so the Morning News published an article exploring exactly who he is. I stopped reading and decided I hated the guy once I got to this: "Henry splurges on parties. He threw his daughter a $6 million quinceañera and a $4 million 18th birthday bash for his son. Pitbull and Nick Jonas performed at daughter Maya Henry’s party . . . ."

  • We have our first January 6th trial this week.  It is for a man from Wylie who is a "member of a militia-style group called the Texas Three Percenters."


at 8:32 AM

2.25.2022

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

at 2:30 PM

Random Friday Morning Thoughts




Ted Cruz was not a Texas senator ten years ago. He was running against Craig James and former Dallas Mayor Tom Leppert. The rest of that exchange is here.

  • 287 in Rhome seemed to be a dicey proposition yesterday morning. 


  • Russia/Ukraine:
    • For about a week now I've been thinking that "Keeve" in Ukraine must be somewhere different than the city of "Kee-EV" that I had heard about all my life.  Nope. One and the same. I just didn't get the memo that the pronunciation of Kyiv had changed.
    • There were a ton of videos yesterday from the Russian invasion, but the one that stuck with me the most is this one.  Sound up - that's important. That's an incoming plane firing a missile.

    • Wise County has a couple of zip codes which have the highest percentage of Ukrainians in Texas. If my math is correct -- and that's always a crapshoot -- we've got around 80 people in and around Decatur and Bridgeport. I think technically this is people who identified their ancestry as being from the Ukraine in the Census

    • The last couple of days feels like my teen years when we all feared the Russians all the time. They were the threat back in the day. 
    • Pop culture shows that are relevant right now: 
      • The Americans - Russia embedding spies in the U.S. by having them live as a suburban family (and actually loosely based on a true story). I really liked it. 

      • House of Cards - It had a fantastic character who played a big role as Putin, and now that's who I think about whenever I see the real Putin speak.  And I actually felt like I learned something about U.S.-Russian relations.

  • Yeah, you shouldn't be saying that, but take a look at the video. These are just three teachers bs'ing in the hallway while someone records them from at least 30 feet away. It doesn't justify the remarks, but I'd hate to be a teacher where every kid might be a spy.  (Story.)

  • This is the way so many things work. Spot a crisis. Hype it up. And then capitalize on it with the sole intention of just increasing your budget. After all, what legislator is going to vote against fighting, say, "human trafficking" when it is in the news every day?

  • This is funny to watch. "Raise your hand if you believe Joe Biden won the election." George P is not a moron. Louie, as we know, is. And Eva Guzman had to check out both of them before she decided how to answer. (Paxton didn't attend.)

  • Confirmed moments ago, President Biden will announce his Supreme Court nominee to be Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, 51, who is currently on the federal appellate court in D.C. She was confirmed for her current position by this very Senate just last year (on a vote of 13–9 in committee and 52-46 overall.)

  • Former Baylor coach Art Briles has been hired as the offensive coordinator at Grambling State, and he's looking like LBJ in his later years. 

  • 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: 967 days.
  • Messenger: Above the Fold

at 8:29 AM
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)