5.30.2019

Random Thursday Morning Thoughts



  • While Trump was having a "Marcia! Marcia! Marcia!" moment this morning, he admitted that Russia helped him get elected: 
    (He was late this morning because of this tweet.)
  • There was a scary moment last night in the Astros/Cubs game where a four year old was struck by a foul ball.  Early reports are that she'll be Ok, although the place stopped down after it happened. (Has there ever been a person die due to a foul ball at a major league game? Yep. Last year.)
  • On Sunday night, Dallas went a little nuts over a report of a missing four year old child. By morning, the news was that the father had made the report up. So, yes, he's been charged with a crime, but even I was surprised to learn it's just a Class C misdemeanor (fine only) with a specific Penal Code provision covering the crime. 
  • Someone emailed me this week for the sole purpose of telling me that I needed to go to Odessa to see what the oil boom has done -- and not in a good way. It's chaotic. And the new issue of Texas Monthly has a story about the same thing.
  • With all this hoopla over Art Briles being hired by Mt. Vernon, I was curious what the school's record was over the last few years. I found it. (By the way, coach Josh Finney left to take a job at Winnsboro, which is also a 3A school, who went 2-8 last year. That's seems a little odd since he seemed to have a good thing going.)
  • A bill was introduced in both the House and Senate to eliminate the County Attorney in Cooke County and combine the office with the DA's office. Both died (the bills, not the prosecutors). I thought stuff like that was always a done deal. 
  • In case you missed Robert Mueller's statement yesterday, here it is:
  • It would be a lot easier to hold those press conferences in the White House press room, but Sarah Sanders doesn't do that any longer. 
    Sanders in a "Nothing to see here" moment yesterday
  • Mob boss or Texas Sheriff? (This guy had quite the history.)
  • Just an average day on social media: Some Tony Romo fan with a Twitter account posts a pic of car, with license plate visible, which he accuses of speeding through a school zone this morning, and the Fort Worth Police Department wants information in response. 
  • Someone in the White House wanted the U.S.S. John McCain "out of sight" during Trump's visit to Japan, so a tarp was placed over its name. Trump denied ordering it but said this morning that the person who did was "well meaning." 


at 8:30 AM

5.29.2019

Random Wednesday Morning Thoughts



  • I finally went into the Decatur QuikTrip because I was laughing at everyone being so giddy about it. Verdict: Pretty dang impressive for a convenience store. And shout out to the male cashier who was able to keep two lines on either side of the cash register moving at mind-blowing pace. I would be fired from that job within 30 minutes. 
  • I'm no demolition expert, but taking a wrecking ball to the gutted hotel after the fire in Dallas, especially the way everyone is standing around, doesn't look that safe. (Here's a quick video of the ball hitting the side of the thing.)
  • So you think I'm too hard on Pete Delkus? The guy predicts rainfall to within a hundredth of an inch yet also predicts wide variances (0.59 in Archer City and 3.29 in Graham). It's ridiculous to even create the graphic.  
  • I've been moaning about it for years, but the Texas drivers surcharge law will be gone. And here's a bonus: If you still owe money from past charges, as of 9/1/19 all of that government debt is forgiven. (If you were found guilty of DWI in the last two years, that's a big chunk of change you just avoided.) 
  • And despite all the hoopla and false promises of Gov. Greg Abbott, there was no meaningful marijuana reform this session.
  • Channel 5 was setting up for a live shot (?) in Decatur this morning. I'm guessing it's for the Decatur Softball team heading to the state tourney. (That may be a wild guess, but the van was inside the barricade for the street closure.)
  • She's an extra but a big time extra with good gigs in both HBO's Games of Thrones and Chernobyl within the last month.
  • He's just embarrassing himself now: 
  • I had no idea the Korean War claimed around 35,000 American lives fighting against Kim Jong Un's grandfather. Everyone goes nuts about Vietnam's 50,000 number, but that's an amazing number for a three year war. 
    Even the war's memorial is underrated.
  • Former WFAA anchors Ron Corning and Alexa Conomos are teaming up for a weekly podcast. There is no way they can make any money from that. And promoting it with Conomos saying, "Ron and I were always known for telling it like it is" doesn't help. You read a teleprompter. 
  • The Texas Secretary of State has resigned after the fake voting scandal. He couldn't even survive in a land of political sugar daddies in Austin. And it's a good thing no one peddled that lie. Oh, wait. 
  • Messenger: Above the Fold. 

at 8:32 AM

5.28.2019

Random Tuesday Morning Thoughts




  • In a convoluted screw-up, after September 1st you can go to work as a plumber without a license to do so in Texas. That's because there won't be a requirement to have a license. Since I have a reputation of being able to fix any broken toilet, you might be looking at the next Messenger "Best Plumber in Wise County" award winner. 
  • Trump wished the Japanese troops a "happy Memorial Day." (I'm just glad it wasn't December 7th so he couldn't fire off a "Happy Pearl Harbor Day!")
  • Update to yesterday's Mount Everest post: 11 people have died in the last 10 days. A Colorado attorney is the latest.
  • I had some buddies tell me about the Dr. Death podcast about Dr. Christopher Duntsch, a neurosurgeon out of Dallas. They told me the story is so crazy that I wouldn't believe it.  They were right. 
  • In what might be the most historically confusing and equally disrespectful tweet ever, Texas Live! out of Arlington posted this on Memorial Day and immediately took it down. (The soldier "holding" the taco died four months after the photo was taken.)
  • My "Let's Get Out Of Here" post on Friday will often include a wheels off video from the "Block or Charge" Twitter account. He posted something that got him suspended in the last couple of days.   
  • I won't disclose the subject matter, but a Wise County Facebook account set up for complaints and accolades turned into one of the wildest gossip threads of all time yesterday afternoon before it was taken down. It was full scorched earth. 
  • I can't say I'm that familiar with the old Ambassador Hotel in Dallas, but it went up in flames early this morning. (The photo doesn't even do it justice as this quick loading video shows.)
     
  • Edit: Just saw this update:
  • A pretty good documentary about a contestant on The Price is Right is Perfect Bid: The Contestant Who Knew To Much. (Although it should be called The Contestant Who Legally Memorized Prices).
     
  • I've got a huge complaint about Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee: It relies heavily on geography but doesn't give you any guidelines as to what part of a state the author it talking about. (Just a simple, "Close to present day Laramie, Wyoming", for example, would be a huge help.) You need a map to have the book truly make sense. 
  • We had a snake at a Walmart in Denton County. It's "just a rat snake" but still quite the sight. Photo below.  (However, I remind you of the Great Decatur Rat Snake Incident of 2009 -- exactly 10 years ago -- which involved the local legal community moving in to gawk.)
  • As badly as the city of Boston treated Bill Buckner, you would think his death would make it above the fold. 




at 8:31 AM

5.27.2019

Random Monday Morning Thoughts



  • It's Monday. Everything is closed. There is no Wise County Messenger Update. But here I am, the hardest working man . . . again.  
  • The Messenger did post an update yesterday about a fatality accident north of Decatur on FM 51 which occurred on Saturday.
  • Being from the mean streets of the west side of Wise County, it almost pains me to say this: With the Decatur High School's softball team making the state finals over the weekend, I'm hard pressed to think of a school with a greater success rate in UIL sports than this school year. The boys' basketball made the state tourney, football made it the state semi-finals, a cross-country state title, baseball made a playoff run, and I'm sure I'm missing something. 
  • Art Briles was named the head football coach of tiny Mt. Vernon high school and it was fascinating about how it broke. And it was a pretty well kept secret because everyone should have known something was up when a school board meeting was set for 5:30 on the Friday before a three day weekend. (And I'll never get use to technology since that tiny school was able to pipe in Briles live from France on Skype. See it here.)
    • As to whether its good or bad, I don't know. Letting the guy coach in a town of 2,500 doesn't seem unreasonable. But I understand the complaints.
    • I don't understand the Star-Telegram stretching it this morning trying to find a connection to a TCU student's murder by a serial killer that has no connection with Baylor or Briles: 
  • "Hey, Barry, the next time a cop orders me out of my car do I have to comply?" Naaa. Just tell him your facing an existential question and you'll get back to him once you decide. Heck, I'll even write about your situation and use a glamour shot. 
  • This picture looks fake but it is not. Last week there was a traffic jam on the way to the top of Mount Everest. Story  (And that's no easy journey. I remember being so naive that I was shocked when reading Into Thin Air that the author, an experienced climber, was taking something like six months off to train before the climb.)
  • Since it's a holiday, do yourself a favor and watch a couple of quick loading videos of elephants protecting themselves in the wild. (And see the coolest guide in the world).  
  • NFL legend Bart Starr has died. I actually saw him play in person when I was a little kid (without having any idea who he was) in the Cotton Bowl.  He went 9 of 21 for 83 yards, no TDs, and one INT.
  • Remember I told you about the fake "drunk Pelosi" video on Friday morning? At the same time, Fox and Friends were either oblivious to it or blatantly spreading it by having those two goofballs on the show who mocked Pelosi and her drinking. Steve Doocey came back later and apologized but said he was "unfamiliar" with the doctored video. 
  • The Texas softball pitcher getting hit in the face by her own catcher is one of the most cringe-worthy things I've ever seen. She'll be fine. 
  • The Texas House passed the school funding and tax bill late Saturday. I still don't know if it is smoke and mirrors and I bet our own rep doesn't either. Why am I picking on him? Rep. Phil King was absent from the vote. Of the 150 House reps, only 11 were not there. King was one of them.  
  • Legal nerd stuff. If Gov. Abbott doesn't veto it, Texas will have the biggest change in DWI law since the early 1980s: For offenses after 9/1/19, a person will be eligible for deferred adjudication for first time DWI so long as you don't have a CDL, don't have a blood alcohol concentration of 0.15 or higher, and agree to an ignition interlock device as part of the probation. (I'm still trying to sort this out since it all went down Saturday evening in some type of compromise. Here's the bill in its current state. I think I'm right.)
  • Two Texas guys tried to jump a bridge in Louisiana and died doing so. I had to look it up to see the landscape that led to their decision and here it is. Using my superior Google map skills, the gap is 170 feet. (And that's a weird swing action on the bridge to let boats pass.) 
  • What the . . . . ??? Is he insane? (And he deleted it and then reposted to correct the spelling of Biden's name --- like that's the disturbing part that needed to be deleted/change.) 
  • Going into Memorial Day weekend, the Army thought it would be a good idea to post this. I don't think they got the responses in the comments they expected. Brutal. People don't like how vets are treated once they come home.
  • Messenger: Above the Fold
Largest newspaper in Japan



at 8:30 AM

5.24.2019

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






at 2:00 PM

Random Friday Morning Thoughts



  • Wise County close neighbor Kenneth Copeland was ambushed by an Inside Edition reporter about his private jets and lavish lifestyles. It was tense at times, but he talked to her for 10 minutes.
  • The McKinney Chamber of Commerce can't be pleased. 
    Yesterday - Unlucky homeowner.
    From a year and a half ago after mid-air crash over the town.

    The other plane from that mid-air crash.

  • A brief was filed yesterday in a murder case pending at the Fort Worth Court of Appeals claiming that a juror was disqualified because she failed to disclose that her daughter was "Samantha Jordan [who] serves as the public relations spokesperson" for the Tarrant County D.A.'s office.  I don't know if the appeal will go anywhere. The complaint was that she answered "no" to these two written questions:
  • This is Socialism, right? Isn't this bad and will lead to anarchy in the streets?
  • Trump showed more and more signs of instability yesterday as he appeared before the press with a couple of farmers as props, and then gave us gold:
    • First, we had a true The Emperor Has No Clothes moment when out of the blue, in order to prove he didn't act crazy in the Infrastructure meeting, he called upon those pillars of truthfulness, Kellyanne Conway and Sarah Sanders, to tell the press how calm he was.
      "OK, as long as we've got a voucher"
    • Second, he actually announced (again!) that he's "an extremely stable genius."
  • I think the scandal is that you never hear about him actually working (and I'm not sure what prompted a story on Rick Perry by CNN this morning):
  • UT's Tom Herman got a two-year extension on his contract after going 17-10 to start his coaching term in Austin.  Some of the Evil Empire's social media accounts need to tap the brakes. The length of a contract never means that someone will "be around" in college football (other than checks being written.) 
  • The term "Fake News" was created because of things like this: A  doctored video of Nancy Pelosi appearing drunk while giving a recent speech is going viral. The last time I checked, it had been viewed almost three million times in three days. It gained traction because it was tweeted out (and then deleted) by Trump's lawyer. These are strange days.
  • Fort Worth lawyer Mimi Coffey has caught a lot of heat over the years for her billboards, but I didn't know she had four children who have now graduated from Brewer High who are either valedictorian or salutatorian.  That's beyond impressive. 
  • That was one bizarre half inning yesterday at the Big 12 Baseball Tourney: 3 HRs, 2 triples, 2 doubles, 4 singles. 
  • I don't understand this school funding/property tax announcement. You can't decrease the latter and increase the former. Something's not right.
  • Author Naomi Wolf will have a bad day today.


at 8:35 AM
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