Random Thursday Morning Thoughts

• With the Cowboys playing the Rams this weekend in the playoffs, past playoff games between the two teams have been revisited. Some QBs weren't always as great as we thought: In 1976, the Cowboys lost with Roger Staubach going 15 of 37 for only 150 yards with no TDs and three interceptions. 
• The NBA is offering front row seats via virtual reality for $6.99 for a handful of games this season.  The technology apparently works like a charm. Will one day teams be playing in empty arenas but making just as much (or far more) money by selling virtual reality tickets?
• Does this sound like a man who would throw a temper tantrum?

  

  That's right! No slamming!

• I mentioned this on Monday and then this showed up on my timeline yesterday. (This whole story just came to light in 2016 so I don't feel so dumb now of just finding out about it.)
  
• Pretty close call for those houses in Aubrey.
  
• "A Waco man was placed on deferred probation and ordered to make restitution Wednesday for trying to bilk a cheating husband out at least $17,250 by threatening to release a video showing him having sex with a stripper." There's a lot going on there. 

  

  My investigation reveals this is the club where she worked.

• Two men, utilizing Grindr, allegedly kidnapped, assaulted, robbed and beat at least nine men in Dallas because of their sexual orientation and . The indictment this week caught my attention because of a word I wasn't familiar with. For a second I thought I had been mispronouncing it "finagle" all these years. (Both are words and both mean basically the same thing.) 
• 
• The pastor in Fort Worth, who praised God about the mass shooting in the Orlando gay club, but had to resign because he hooked up with strippers while smoking weed, has issued a video statement. He says it all happened in a "casino" in Jacksonville. Google casinos in Jacksonville. That alone is enough to question his judgment. 
  
  
  
• Dear Mrs. LL: Feel free to divorce me and marry this man. According to Texas law, you'll just owe me $1 billion once you say your vows. (Trust me on this -- no need to consult with anyone. I'll send you wire instructions.)

                                       

• Is all this press about Bird Box a little weird to you? Reviews put it as nothing more than an above average movie, but we are inundated with references to it. 
• When three Texas politicians have a press gathering on the governor's lawn and the family dog "just happens" to get loose and make an appearance in front of the cameras so they can lovingly shower it with attention. (If you don't think that was staged, you are very naive.)
  
• He is detached from reality:
  
• There is going to be some huge news regarding a Texas high school football player today according to this guy of Dave Campbell's Texas Football. He normally is just breaking news left and right this time of year about coaching changes. It won't be about college recruiting because he doesn't cover that. I can't imagine what it could be for him to promote it like this.

Random Wednesday Morning Thoughts

• I heard Mark Cuban is do a radio commercial for some Low T center yesterday. How spare is that? I'd rather make the news because I bought a yacht.
• Trump was pretty calm last night as he read off a teleprompter. Prediction: He won't like the reviews of him being "subdued" and a Twitter rant is forthcoming. That is, unless he is getting bored with the whole thing. 
• The optics of the Democratic response weren't any better. 

  

  "Your mother and I want to talk to you about flag addiction."

• Overheard in the DA's office from one out-of-town lawyer to another: "Are you one of the prosecutors or are you on the court appointed list?"  He seemed to have a good grasp of the landscape. (And, trust me, those people are everywhere in the courthouse come docket day.)
• Also overheard from a different out of town lawyer to another: "If you plea the felony, they'll probably just dismiss the misdemeanor." It was all I could do to keep from saying, "You're new around here, aren't you?"
• My award-winning rant yesterday of how we are developing into a society where we just believe what we want to believe and discard anything we don't like as "fake news" prompted one faithful reader to direct my attention to this book which pretty much sets forth that point.
  
  
• Kliff Klingsbury as head coach of the Arizona Cardinals? I don't know if it will work or not, but that's one weird promotion after being fired by Tech. (Side note: I'm not sure Baylor's coach doesn't get named as head coach of the Jets in the next two days.)
• This was from a random story in the Morning News yesterday about a tech company in Fort Worth being sold. Look at what they do. (And there's no way that technology is being limited just for that. We are all being watched and tracked.)
  
  
• Trump in 1999:
  
• I haven't mentioned the disturbing story of the comatose patient giving birth in the health care facility in Arizona, but a development yesterday also got my attention. A judge has ordered every male worker in the facility to give a DNA sample. That's flat out a 4th Amendment violation. The judge issues a search warrant because he thinks there is probable cause to believe that every male worker possesses evidence of a crime? (And, no, you don't get to search someone to exclude them as a suspect. That would be like a search warrant being issued for every home in Wise County because a TV was just stolen from Walmart.)

                                                 

• Trump and his associates have the dumbest lawyers. Yesterday, the lawyers for former campaign manager and felon Paul Manafort couldn't properly redact a pleading they filed which accidentally revealed that he is accused of conspiring with Russia. That's a big story.

                                                      

• Random smart guy stuff: Bridgeport's own Chance Pierce, a running back at Abilene Christian, has been named to the All Academic Southland Conference first team. (He has a 3.40 in Kinesiology.) Oddly, he played on the defensive line in high school. 
• Is he OK this morning? 
  
• Messenger: Above The Fold

Random Tuesday Morning Thoughts

• I went to Denton yesterday and there were four Denton County Sheriff's office SUVs running traffic at the Wise County/Denton County border. What a waste. Assuming you accept that a sheriff's office should be involved in traffic enforcement (I don't), that divided strip of 380 in rural Denton County is probably the safest in that county. Think about I-35 or the eastern side of 380 which is notorious for wrecks. 
• The layoffs at the Dallas Morning News are disturbing. When I first discovered the Internet in 1996, I told a friend, Lisa, that one day "we would all have our own online TV stations." I was a little off the mark about the delivery mechanism, but the vision is becoming deadly accurate. I fear a day when we will live in a society where we are overwhelmed by disinformation with the reliable sources of credible information no longer existing. From there, the masses just accept what they want to believe. It is becoming an America, as Kellyanne Conway accidentally admitted, of "alternative facts." And the government will have the biggest bullhorn with no one to fact check them.
  
• Speaking of . . . 
  
• Again, speaking of, Martina has a message . . .  
  
   
• And all of that leads to this: Tonight, from the Oval Office, Trump will lobby for The Wall. And once you get by the past lie of "Mexico is going to pay for it",  he will deliberately lie to you again and tell you there is suddenly a "crisis" at the border. There is not. It is propaganda. It is misinformation. He had two years with a Republican controlled House and Senate and there was no sense of urgency. 
• I rarely look at Facebook, but it was called to my attention that a Wise Count "rant" page went off on the service that you get in the local DPS driver's license office. 
• In what was the worst attempted fake field goal in college football history last night, Alabama decided to have the holder run the ball right up the middle against this formation with the kicker leading the way. And it was 4th and 6.
  
• There was a fake Internet story that went around years ago about Mark Cuban buying a mega-yacht, but this one, regarding Jerry Jones, comes from Business Insider.  (A credible outlet of information.)
  
• As I continue to watch Ken Burns Vietnam, I was stunned last night to learn of then presidential candidate Nixon colluding with South Vietnam to pull out of the peace talks with the North days before the election. (If the public thought there was no end in sight for the war, the more likely a switch from a Democrat to a Republican president.)  That was 100% treason. LBJ knew it. The FBI knew it. The CIA knew it. But they decided to not disclose it. Nixon won by a razor thin margin with 43.4% of the vote over Humphrey who garnered 42.7%. (George Wallace got 13.5%.)
• Lady goes crazy at JetBlue counter.
• Per the Update: Murder in Decatur. Edit. There is a guy on Facebook who has the same name as the suspect who lists Decatur as his resident who has this as the first available post. I don't know if it is him. 
  
• Wait a second, as Americans struggle with stagnant wages, who is "flush with cash" . . . ?
  

Random Monday Morning Thoughts

• Yes, this caused my head to explode on Friday night:

                                         

• I wasn't familiar with Pastor Donnie Romero of Stedfast Baptist Church in Fort Worth but he became quite the sensation over the last week. He first caught some attention after the Orlando mass shooting by saying this on video: “These 50 Sodomites were all perverts and pedophiles and they are the scum of the earth, and the earth is a little bit better place now, and I’ll even take it a little further. I heard on the news today that there are still several dozen of these queers in ICU, and I will pray that God will finish the job that that man started.” Good grief. Well, he resigned last week after “grievous sins” were discovered involving being with prostitutes, using marijuana and gambling. (Star-Telegram story, with video, here.)
  
• As little as five years ago, Mountain Ceder would knock me down. Now, despite Mrs. LL having multiple sneezing fits yesterday, I'm not impacted at all. Weird.
• Saw someone suggest The Muppets should host the Oscars. I'd be all in. (Even put the two grumpy old men in the balcony to mock everyone.)
• Another freeway shooting in Dallas this morning. (People are crazy.)
• I'm not sure how much Fox pays for the rights to the NFL, but you would think the league would at least be able to refer viewers to the network at the start of a playoff game.
  
  
• Pretty good chance he was in the stands at Jerry World (or at least in the Party Pass area.)
  
  
• In case you missed it, here are people running when the stadium doors opened in order to get the best "standing" area for the party pass. (Someone referred to it as the "Running of the Poors.")
  
• Not messing around:
  
  
• In had no idea that a nation of taxpayers were completely oblivious as to how our marginal tax rate works. (If you don't, she wants to tax every dollar you earn over $10,000,000 at 70%. The horror!)
  
• The only thing giving Fox News one ounce of credibility is Chris Wallace. Yesterday, he called out Sarah Sanders for lying about the "border crisis" with numbers that simply weren't true. No, Sarah, there are not 4,000 known or suspected terrorists who have been caught trying to cross the Mexican border. The number, according to the State Department, is zero. It's airports you are talking about. 
  
• Things that I had no idea even happened:
  
• The government remains shut down because Trump can't get taxpayer money for The Wall after he promised you that Mexico was going to pay for it.
• Messenger: Above The Fold.

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

How old were y’all when you found out the ridges on the bottom of the salt/pepper shakers had a purpose? pic.twitter.com/5SXIbIHjBM

— TallGlassOfHorchata (@LipBitinANNAmal) December 29, 2018

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so this happened at church today... pic.twitter.com/fZ9JWJEjFJ

— Daniel Dalexis (@DanielDalexis) December 30, 2018

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I’m sorry pic.twitter.com/UKuYVByngj

— Dan McQuade (@dhm) January 2, 2019

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Amazing street art pic.twitter.com/2gybkflIwy

— Georgia Knight (@Hadrians_Gate) December 31, 2018

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outta nowhere pic.twitter.com/IQt7KeyvSC

— nick (@nick_pants) January 2, 2019

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Random Friday Morning Thoughts

• Look, I don't care about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, but the "shocking" video of her released yesterday by an alleged crazy Q group conspirator of her dancing in high school might be the biggest backfire of all time. (The Q account has since been deleted but you can watch the video here.)
  
• The winner of the AOC video "scandal" is the person who created this video of her dance footage intertwined with the group dancing in The Breakfast Club. And this remark also was a crowd pleaser:
  
• Well I would hope so.
  
• Not only is this a picture of a bunch of guys staring at a sink hole in Fort Worth, it's a bunch of guys standing way too close to a sink hole in Fort Worth.
  
  
• One of the most thought provoking shows I watched over the holidays was The Push premised on whether a person can be persuaded in about an hour to kill someone. It's not as crazy as it sounds. 
  
• Trump made a surprise appearance in the Press Room yesterday afternoon but took no questions as he continues to rant about The Wall. Apparently, the dress code was skin-head semi-formal.

                                            

• He seems to be stable this morning: 
  
• He should have just waited to tweet out fairly good job numbers that were just released. (And, as President, he always knows what those numbers are going to be the night before.)
• Southwest founder Herb Kelleher has died. He was truly the first time I realized on a large scale that employees didn't always hate their bosses and visa-versa.
  
• This is fairly mind boggling: The organizational chart of the Dallas DA's office. 
• "Plans are underway for a Wisconsin company to build a $300 million indoor water park and hotel complex near Grapevine Mills mall." Considering they already have a water park at the Gaylord Texan and Great Wolf, the market up there seems a little "saturated."
• Quite the odd third story below. (Side note: The grand jury which was empaneled turned around and manage to indict 49 people on the same day.)

Random Thursday Morning Thoughts

• Delkus warned you of 1" to 3" of snow this morning. I told you yesterday, without qualification, that we would be in the clear. This isn't hard. 
  
• Odd trio of 76 year old deaths yesterday: Bob Einstein (Super Dave Osborne/Marty Funkhouser), the Captain of the Captain and Tennille, and WWE's broadcaster "Mean" Gene Okerlund (who I might have watched twice in my life.)
• A couple of years back I mentioned some great Captain and Tennille trivia: Muskrat Love, perhaps one of the worst songs of all time, was a cover of the song performed by the band America who covered it from someone else. 
  
• Speaking of bad, I caught the last seven minutes of The Masked Singer last night. It is far, far worse than I expected, and I expected it to be gawd-awful.
• I see Fox News was fair and balanced last night:
  
  
• The University of North Texas Law School over in Dallas was finally "provisionally accredited" in 2017. In the last bar exam, its pass rate was 61.16%.  Baylor, at 92.71%, edged UT for the lead. 
• Last year I mentioned an opinion piece in the New York Times where an author with street cred compared the West Texas fracking boom to the past mortgage crisis or dot com bust -- that is, it wasn't as it seemed.  Yesterday, The Wall Street Journal published a warning article as well. Trouble is coming.
  
• Two security guards at XTC strip club in Dallas (which always seems to be in the news) have been charged with murder after gunning down a guy in the parking lot.  It was broadcast on Facebook Live.  WFAA has the video.
  
• Good lord:
  ?
• Seems like a good deal. 
  
• Another phrase I'd like to see retired: "I'd run through a brick wall for that guy."
• Trump made the mistake of getting in front of microphones yesterday. (Video -- which is worse that the printed text.)
  
• And in addition to praising the Soviet Union for invading Afghanistan (??!!), what was up with that poster and empty binder?
  
• Dark hypothetical: If BEVO would have killed someone during his crazy incident with the bulldog at the Sugar Bowl, would they have played the game? I bet they would have. 
• By the way, PETA has weighed in on the BEVO/Uga incident. That organization is a master at getting free press. 
•  Messenger: Above The Fold.