Random Wednesday Morning Thoughts

• The Cowboys' Randy Gregory is facing a 10 day game suspension for violating the league's drug policy for marijuana and has checked into rehab. If he has in fact checked into rehab, he will be the only guy in his support group who says that he is addicted to weed.
• Bill O'Reilly was in rare form last night. In responding to Michelle Obama saying she now has gone to bed in a house built by slaves only to see her children playing on its lawn the next morning, O'Reilly said the slaves who built the White House were “well-fed and had decent lodgings.” He's his own Saturday Night Live skit.
• Number of black delegates at the Democratic National Convention: 1,182. Number of black delegates at the Republican National Convention: 18.
• In light of this disparity, however, the great FiveThirtyEight.com says it is getting closer:
  
• The bad news for Trump is that he is still losing in that projection even though he is currently predicted to win coveted Florida and Ohio - albeit barely.  The problem is that he's running out of states to conceivably win. And if either Florida or Ohio goes back to Clinton, it's over (and it may already be over).
• The Ticket had a National Park Talk this morning. I'm embarrassed how few of them I have been to. I think I've got this mind block where I feel that even if I spent a week in one of them, I would still miss 99% of the hidden gems in it. 
• NPR is reporting this morning that a "federal judge has granted John Hinckley, who shot President Reagan in 1981, his freedom under certain restrictions" reportedly being allowed to live full time with his mother. 
• In related news per the Update, "The Hinkles will perform at 7:30 tonight at the pavilion at the Wise County Old Settlers Reunion." Wait. I think I messed that up. 
• Hinckley was crazy. And that's a simplistic statement reflecting how our criminal justice system simply has a standard of "just don't do x or you will be punished" with no regard to the way someone's brain is formed -- unless it is so malformed that we don't even need science to tell us that it is. It's that grey area in the middle that we turn a blind eye to. 
  
• I'm really amazed how the Democrats haven't opened up both figurative barrels on Donald Trump. He has given them an arsenal that won't end and they seem hesitant to go after him. That makes no sense. 
• Someone asked me what bait I used. My preference has always been some type of yellow or green sassy shad.  (Nothing works better than live minnows, but I like to give the fish a fighting chance.) 
• Someone draw me a Venn Diagram of the group who hates someone saying "Black Lives Matter" and the group who want all retail clerks to say, "Merry Christmas." 

Above The Fold

Readable full page.

Regarding the chase story, shots were fired?

I'm Not Sure He Understands Unity

These political breakfasts for the Texas Delegation seem as exciting as looking for hanging chads. But the last speaker, a Bernie Sanders supporter, gives an apparant unifying speech and then decides to end it with, "But we want to be clear: We currently are condemning our current presumptive nominee." That livened things up just a bit. (Start with 1:45 to go.)

Random Tuesday Morning Thoughts

• Someone mentioned Netflix's Stranger Things yesterday to me in the courthouse and then I it referenced two to three more times on the radio/Internet after that. I suppose there's a name for that mental phenomenon of having a memory in your brain triggered when otherwise you would just hear background noise.
• I mention Cullen Davis here from time to time and he was vindicated yesterday in a fender bender in a one day trial in Tarrant County. Lots of little nuggets in that story if you can get to it. On whether he worried the jury would hold his fame against him, Davis told the paper, "To know me is to love me." In shaking the judge's hand after the case, he told him, "I've me a lot of judges in my time." And his lawyer told the jury that Davis should be responsible for nothing more than the Plaintiff's hospital co-pay of $20. "Give her the $20," he said. (Insurance payments are admissible?) Local connection: Davis' lawyer, who was most likely hired by his auto insurance carrier, is married to the daughter of a Bridgeport doctor. 
• Wise County employees will be on a "new insurance plan [of] Blue Cross Blue Shield and . . . should see lower premiums but better benefits." The Obamacare Effect?
• Here's advice from a Texas Supreme Court justice who believes everyone apparently has unlimited time and unlimited resources:
  
• So someone who is already getting the very dicey law degree these days should also get a Master of Business, Master of Public Health, or a Master of Laws (a degree held by not a single person that I've ever known)? Please. 
• Local radio host Mark Davis' tweeted last night during the Democratic National Convention. (He also said eight years ago, "Obama is unelectable.")
  
• Parts of the DNC was a rowdy mess but it was certainly entertaining. (Sarah Silverman basically told the Bernie Sanders people to shut up, and Susan Sarandon looked like she might have a heart attack.) But Michelle Obama got rave reviews. 
  
• Oh, and it wasn't a DNC email "leak" it was a DNC email "hack". 
• How would you like to be 85 years old, worth $3 billion, marry a hot wife six years ago, and now find her mother to be kidnapped with a ransom of $37 million?
• Frisco ISD will hold four high school games (they have a lot of high schools) on the first weekend of football season in the new indoor Cowboys practice facility. All games are now sold out.
• We are coming up on the 50th anniversary of the mass killing by Charles Whitman from the UT Tower. The whole thing lasted 96 minutes. It would be a perfect 96 minute movie. Start with the first second of the movie being the first shot and you've got a locked in audience.
• After 30 years, on my own, I figured out a way to make sure my tie is a perfect length after I tie it. I can now be a special contributor to Hints from Heloise or Lifehacker.
• "Plano church welcomes Pokémon Go players." Shut it down. Let's go home. 

That Fighting Can Make A Man Hungry

Calm as can be. The guy just kept ramping up his order the more he watched.

Language warning.

And to prove I will forever be a skeptic: One of these days companies like Taco Bell will set this whole thing up. Just pay a couple of chicks to beat the crap out of each other while you pay another guy to film it while he places an order for a delicious quesadilla. And then hope it goes viral.  (Don't believe me? There's some evidence that the "kid smashes windshield of $250,000 car" is a set up.)

P.S. Did they not ask him if he wanted sauce? What kind of joint are they running there?

The Most Chilling Thing You Will See All Day

This is the chilling moment a tiger pulls a woman into the jungle. She survived. Full story: https://t.co/xHciLjottXhttps://t.co/NDJeMCpAfT

— NBC News (@NBCNews) July 25, 2016

I Don't Know What This Is About But It's Funny

pic.twitter.com/aLI10Mb1Ee

— Razib Khan (@razibkhan) July 25, 2016

Random Monday Morning Thoughts

• "Two people are dead and up to 16 are injured following a deadly shooting during a teen night at Club Blu in Fort Myers." Any "teen night" in da club seems like a dicey proposition. (Oh, and the youngest person injured was 12.)
• The Democrats only had one job this week: Don't screw up. They didn't get even to Day One before an email scandal broke costing the job of the DNC head.
• That person taunted the head of the RNC one week ago foreshadowing a screwed up Republican convention:
  
• Yesterday a three year old child was left in a car in Dallas and died while her family attended Bible study.  That got me thinking. Does it matter where the parent was going when he/she forgets about a child in the car? Should any punishment be different? What if it hadn't been Bible study but the person went into a bar? What about to cancer treatment? What if he was in a mosque?
• Uncomfortable father/daughter pictures . . .
  
• Over the weekend Trump proved he could work for Liberally Lean as a copy editor . . . 
  
• What is the reason that NASCAR is in trouble? At the Brickyard 400 yesterday, they may have drawn only 50,000. Just a handful of years ago it would regularly have crowds of over 200,000. NASCAR doesn't even announce official attendance records any longer.
• It looks like the Crazy Texas Mom blog (over there ---->) has gone private.  It's been a long pattern here at Liberally Lean: Referenced blogs either suddenly disappearing or going private. (One wants told me that her blog was doing fine until "your band of monkeys" showed up.)
• I bought a Maytag washer about two years ago, and it now looks like the control panel is out. I was disheartened to see a krillion complaints on the Internet about the issue. Throw in what would be two service calls and a part that costs well over a $100 and you've got to think about replacing the dang thing instead.
• 40 years ago this week: The last Super Bowl Champion vs. College All-Stars game. How unstable was that. Can you imagine that game being played today when the college players have already been drafted? The risk of injury is enough to avoid it.
• Lake Bridgeport CSI: "Samples collected by the Tarrant Regional Water District (TRWD) from Lake Bridgeport on June 6 were examined using cross polarized light microscopy and suspect veligers [of zebra mussels] were detected."  Just throwing in "cross polarized light microscopy" would almost make me believe anything.  If I heard, "Mr. Green, we have used cross polarized light microscopy and have diagnosed you with leprosy" I would head to a colony.
• Breaking: Travis County Deputy shot and killed in his Round Rock home. Early reports say it might be the result of a robbery.
• Yahoo!, the company that could have been Google, has been sold for $4.8 billion. Remember Yahoo! bought Mark Cuban's Broadcast.com for $5.7 billion and did nothing with it (because nothing could be done with it.) 
• Mark Cuban on The Ticket this morning wouldn't rule out running for President in four years. And he also went on a rant on how hard it is to get on the ballot in Texas and other places as an Independent.

Above The Fold

Full page pdf.

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

Trump Has My Entertainer Of The Year Vote: He's At It Again Today

Trump: Cruz never denied that that was his father in the National Enquirer's JFK assasination story https://t.co/zOlnGHjGIs

— Eugene Scott (@Eugene_Scott) July 22, 2016

Intern Wars

Random Tuesday Friday Morning Thoughts

• Odd sight outside my office yesterday: My neighbor lady trying to crush a baby mouse with a metal pole (and with a little too much delight) and me trying to stop her. 
• Not much to say about Trump's acceptance speech. Not great. Not horrible. Too long (1:15 ours - crushing his predecessors.)
  
• If you were watching Fox News after the first night of the RNC, you wouldn't have learned about Melania Trump's plagiarism of Michelle Obama's speech. As the breaking news was being examined on CNN and MSNBC, Fox News' Sean Hannity never mentioned it per the Washington Post and signed off from his program proclaiming that it had been a “great first night.”
• Here's Hannity's reaction to the story in the link above:
  
• Hey, I understand that social media accounts of guys like Hannity are run by some intern flunkie in his twenties, but you would think the network would have better control than that. Then again, Fox News didn't control Roger Ailes very well.
• Not sure why Trump needed to pat down his daughter for drugs or weapons last night: 
  
• As of this morning, and for the third day in a row, Southwest Airlines is having computer problems. That's odd. You'll see news of a one to two hour outage every now and then but nothing like this. 
• 
• A former sixth grade teacher and Wise County resident had her conviction for attempting to buy drugs affirmed yesterday. Think of the number of people involved in this low level drug crime: Cops set up a sting operation, they meet (no drugs exchanged in this $100 transaction), arrest, book in, brief stint in jail, bond, grand jury, lawyers on both sides, court hearings. a full trial, a probated sentence, an appeal, briefs filed, a court of appeals review. 
• "2 Former Florida Paramedics Charged in 'Selfie War' With Patients." I huge question mark just formed over my head.

  

  Obviously innocent.                   Obviously guilty.

• Sheriff Joe was a last minute fill in at the Republican convention last night. He must not have said anything crazy since I haven't heard anything about it. 

Random Wise County School District Question

Click to Enlarge

The Internet tells me this is a map of Wise County school districts in the 1930s. Can anyone confirm that? And, although I doubt it, are there any old school houses (or at least remnants of them) still remaining?

Public Service Message For Chico Area

From a faithful reader:

"Last few days local . . . lady been bathing in the creek at Chico.    Cops finally showing up.   Luckily this time she's not full buff like normal"

Not The Duck Dynasty Guy! It's A GOP Civil War!

Random Thursday Morning Thoughts

• For months I've been saying we are watching the implosion of the Republican Party at the national level due to Trump, and last night we saw the detonation. Ted Cruz gets booed. Think about all of this. Donald Trump -- Donald Trump -- is the official nominee at the same convention where Ted Cruz is booed. Ted. Cruz. Booed. What a cluster.
• But I have a new found respect for Ted Cruz. He realizes the obvious: Trump is a fraud, and Trump can't win. And Cruz was not going to sell his soul like Perry, Abbott and Patrick. He will be proven correct and may very well be back in 2020 as the Republican nominee when the rest of the party wakes up.
• Then again, Cruz sucked up to Trump to no end at the beginning of the campaign expecting Trump to fold and then planning on taking his supporters. So I may need to re-think my new found respect. 
• The Trump Family reaction to Cruz last night needs to go in the history books. It was like watching Goodfellas or The Sopranos before a hit is ordered:
  
•  Trump was surprised that Cruz wouldn't endorse him? You call someone "Lyin' Ted" for months and then give that person the floor at your convention?
• There were reports that Cruz and his wife were heckled as they left the convention which prompted someone on Twitter to post this exclusive picture of their getaway:

  

  "Trump's dead, baby. Trump's dead."

• Hot sports prediction: The Ranger's won't win the AL West. The Rangers won't make the wild card. The Rangers finish third in their division.
• The always conservative Fifth Circuit struck down (kind of) the Texas' Voter ID law yesterday and hardly anyone noticed.
• "We promise that this is a temporary thing and that it will in no way affect the quality of opinion writing we publish." The Dallas Morning News' "disclaimer" about blog posts appearing under the "Opinions" section of its website. I certainly do hope "that this" "thing" doesn't impact that quality writing. Side note: Couldn't a 10 year old kid fix this website problem in about two minutes?
• We've got another police shooting but fortunately the guy didn't die: 
  
• We have a leader in the clubhouse for Worst Comedic Performance in 2016: Mark Cuban last night. This is so bad that it must be watched. No wonder free agents distance themselves.
  
• One last look at Berlin Cleveland courtesy of Laura Ingraham:
• 
• Oh, come on. We're havin' fun here, no?
• I don't know much about the Russian track team being banned from the Olympics but when I heard the country's appeal was rejected by the "Court of Arbitration for Sport" my head almost exploded. 
• I was fishing off the U.S.S. Liberally Lean kayak yesterday when I was visited by the game warden.  What's the world coming to when I'm not harassed and law enforcement just wants to chit chat and ask how I'm doing without demanding to see my fishing license!? (I did ask him if he was "coming aboard" when he pulled up.)

Kids And Dog On Lake Bridgeport Make UPI National News?

Link.