7.17.2019

Random Wednesday Morning Thoughts



  • In covering the opioid crisis, The Washington Post analyzed DEA data tracking the location of every prescribed pain pill and created a graphic ranking the highest per person prescription rate by county. For Texas, Young County (Graham) is on top of the leader board with 88.4 pills per person. Wise County had 34.9 pills per person. For the county, the hills of West Virginia and Kentucky have a problem. 
  • This is cool: A video of Apollo 11's rocket pre-launch was projected onto the Washington Monument last night. Video here.
  • Uh . . . 
  • Shout out to West Wise Special Utility District. After spending two days being unable to diagnosis the source of a leak in the yard, I finally broke down and called them in the belief that it was possibly a leak between the street and the meter. An incredibly friendly lady named Dorothy answered (without first having to go through a phone tree), listened to my problem, confirmed I had all the water shut off, and directed me to the water meter (and to look for a tiny rotating star which, we learned, wasn't rotating) and said, "That's good news for you. It sounds like our problem." She said she would send someone out and the guy arrived in under 15 minutes. He, too, diagnosed it as their problem and began making arrangements to repair it.   
  • Someone explain to me how the best customer service experience I've ever had comes from a governmental entity which doesn't even have a competitor in the product they offer (water)? 
  • CNN had White Nationalist Richard Spencer on to say Trump isn't racist enough. To give him a forum is shameful. 
  • I spoke with someone who had to go into the Decatur DPS office to get his license renewed. The wait was around two hours despite arriving before 8:30 a.m. I didn't know this: Those working the counter also have to administer the actual driving tests. So with people in line, they have to get up and go outside and spend time doing that. How many troopers do we have out there? 
  • Idiocracy.
  • Here's Trump and Jeffrey Epstein looking at women on the dance floor at Mar-a-Lago. “Look at her, back there. … She’s hot.” (It's from 1992 when he was between marriages to Ivanka and Marla Maples. But I don't remember Trump having such tricked up eyebrows.) 

     
  • Channel 8 decided to show the footage of the crash that killed 10 people at the Addison airport. I noticed last night that Fox 4 stopped the footage before impact "in respect for the families."
    The plane is at a 45 degree angle. A big explosion follows.
  • Papa Johns has a big color ad in the Messenger seeking people who wish to open a franchise. 
  • Also in the Messenger, I learned that the the Decatur Hospital (yes, it's Wise Health Systems, but I'll never get used to it) was hacked where around 100 direct deposits were actually compromised and changed. But the hospital has a system requiring paper checks for two pay periods after any change so the hack was noticed and no money was stolen. (Support local journalism.) 
  • Yesterday, the House of Representative voted  240-to-187  to condemn Trump's racist tweets. Texas Republican Will Hurd joined them. (The vote was delayed while the crowd who is normally sick of political correctness didn't think it was appropriate.)
  • Messenger: Above the Fold


at 8:31 AM

7.16.2019

Random Tuesday Morning Thoughts



  • Zeke Elliott might hold out if he doesn't get a new contract with the Cowboys. I would, too. He's at the end of his rookie contract and the Cowboys will simply run him to death and then replace him. And he'll never be the same. It has happened before. I give you DeMarco Murray in 2017:
  • Trump doubled down on his "go back where you came from" demand to Congresswomen of color yesterday. This exchange with the press cements his place in history as a White Nationalist. He is their man. 
  • An it comes as a surprise to no one that he can't spell Al-Qaeda.
  • On a serious note, he wrote down "Alcaida" because he used it to make a claim multiple times that Rep. Ilhan Omar, who has been a U.S. citizen six years longer than Melania Trump, praised the terrorist group. That's a lie. He's going to get her killed. 
  • Below, "Smith's counsel" in the transcript is the lawyer for a defendant in a breach of contract case in Houston. It was a trial before a judge which ended, uh, abruptly. (Smith's lawyer did ultimately find the court of appeals which just reversed the judge's quick draw on the judgment.) I've thrown in a picture of judge for good measure. He says he "treats every litigant with respect and dignity" on this campaign site which consists of one page.
  • With e-filing, lawyers can now file documents online up until midnight on the day that something is due. In a medical malpractice case, some poor associate in Texas got stuck with making a filing hours before a critical deadline but managed to cut it beyond close by getting the necessary document filed right on the nose at midnight.  He then realized minutes later that he didn't file all of it, and got the complete document e-filed at 12:19 a.m. The case has been dismissed because of the tardiness.  
  • I got a package delivered  yesterday from some place called Your Girlfriend's Closet which caused a huge question mark to form over my head. Upon learning about my girlfriend, I didn't know whether to be defensive, guilty, impressed, or concerned about my memory. (Turns out someone in the Family Unit bought it and sent it to my office for delivery.)
  • A faithful reader told me I sounded like Alex Jones in connection with my Coast Guard/Submarine Conspiracy. Perhaps. 
  • Motorcycle death: A guy hit a cow in Grayson County outside of Whitesboro last Friday.
  • These are new photos hanging in the West Wing. Nothing like having a picture of you and a murderous dictator on your wall. 
  • Let me tell you something: One of the best thing about the Messenger which seems to have been created out of thin air and with little fanfare is the column of Joy Burgess-Carrico on tidbits of Wise County history. Last week's story of a guy who got shot on the courthouse square in 1894 after hiding out in a lawyer's office is good stuff. 
  • Netflix has edited the suicide scene in the controversial 13 Reasons Why. 
  • Speaking of teens and social media and bizarre tragedy, how in the world did I miss this that happened near Utica, New York. Good lord: "Police arrived at the gruesome scene Sunday morning, alerted by frantic calls from users on the messaging app Discord. What police heard in those calls was horrifying:Someone had uploaded an image of a bloodied, lifeless young woman to the server, her throat marred by a deep gash. 'Police located 21-year-old Brandon Clark after he called 911. They found him at the end of a dead-end road, on the ground next to a black SUV, officials said. He stabbed himself in the neck with a knife as an officer approached him. Then, police say, Clark moved to a tarp where a teen’s bloodied body was located. He then took a selfie while lying across her body as the officer watched, police say." 
  • "CBS News is currently livestreaming its original broadcast from fifty years ago, when the original Apollo 11 crew launched from Kennedy Space Center in Florida to put the first humans on the Moon." It's here on youtube. Hurry. Liftoff is at 8:32 a.m. CST.

at 8:22 AM

7.15.2019

Random Monday Morning Thoughts


  • The Denton County Sheriff's Office won't release records to the Denton Record Chronicle in a police involved shooting that, according to the agency, should be straight forward: On June 29th, a "61-year-old man entered the home [in the upscale Lantana neighborhood] uninvited and threatened the three people inside. When deputies arrived on scene, the man allegedly leveled a shotgun at them before being shot and killed by law enforcement." Turn everything over. You look corrupt when you don't. 
  • I'm not sure what's more disturbing. That someone thought it would be a good look for Mike Pence to go down to the border to look at people in cages or that's exactly the look they wanted to project to Trump's base. 
  • We've seen this before.
  • You think those Republicans (especially Pence, Graham, and Cornyn) really wanted to be on camera at that moment? One time, Pence stormed out of Colts game once because players took a knee during the National Anthem. But he was fine with this.
  • And with the Pence controversy brewing on Saturday, Trump drops a bomb on Sunday confirming what he's made clear since the beginning: He's a racist. He told four duly elected female Congressman of color to "go back" to their home countries. (Side note: Three of the four were born in America.)
  • As usual, Republicans are scared to condemn the Klansman-In-Chief, although Fox News' Geraldo Rivera did call him out. (Note to Geraldo: No, he's not better than that.)
  • And to think I was just going to make fun of Trump supporting disgraced Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta on Friday morning by saying, "He's a Hispanic man."  That was just the beginning of Hispanic Weekend for this administration. (Which including a lie about ICE doing a "roundup" which didn't happen.)
  • Moving on. Yesterday morning: 
  • Update on the sprinkler system: I fixed it! Works like a charm. I found the replacement parts for the solenoid and valve for the one that just happens to be black. And I redid all the electrical connections, cleaned all this up, and put a valve box on top of it. But look at that installation mess. 
  • Well, almost like a charm. The bad news is that after turning the water supply back on to the irrigation system for the first time in a long time, after 24 hours a different section of the yard was flooded from the ground up. I'm now digging to try and find the leak. 
  • TCU is renovating its stadium again, and this time they are making their video screen bigger than Baylor's by 1'4" in width and 1'6" in height. (It will be 180'4" by 48'6" high.) I support construction bits. 
  • If you haven't seen the "Woody Harrelson at Wimbledon", it's pretty funny.
  • After spending the weekend thinking about my Jump-On-The-Drug-Carrying-Submarine Conspiracy Theory. I think I'll double down on it with a slight revision. The whole thing is just so ridiculous including the guy yelling, "That’s going to be hard to get on!”  Further research reveals that the Coast Guard has one spokesman who says that submarine was carrying drugs. I'll reluctantly take the government at their word. But if you read everything he says about it we have this: On June 18 the Coast Guard Cutter Munro intercepted that submarine carrying cocaine. But he never gets down and says the video depicts the exact moment of the seizure. Revised theory: That's the sub they captured. Yep, it had cocaine on it.  Days later they examine then sub and operate it. (Why wouldn't they?) And then they film a guy jumping on the sub to go along with the self-promoting report of the seizure of the cocaine. Thus, the words of, "We seized 16,000 pounds of cocaine from this submarine" being said while the after-the-fact video is playing is technically accurate.  Not spoken: "We didn't seize the sub exactly like that, but we never said we did." 
    Photo Coast Guard released of the inspection of the seized sub.
  • The Washington Post has a front page article about tigers in cages, and it reminded me of a really good recent Texas Monthly article about "Joe Exotic". The sub-headline: "He called himself the Tiger King and plastered his face on highway billboards in Texas and Oklahoma. He bred big cats, bears, baboons, and more. He lived, with a parade of partners, on the grounds of his private zoo. He threatened a rival with murder—repeatedly, on YouTube—and tried to hire a hit man to do the deed."

at 8:34 AM

7.12.2019

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









at 2:00 PM

Random Friday Morning Thoughts


  • Breaking: Labor Secretary Acosta has resigned. (I was wrong on that prediction.)
  • Anyone else have a lot of questions about that Coast Guard video that's hitting all of the news? My alarm is seriously going off again. A guy just jumps on a sub without the proper gear, bangs on the hatch like it's the front door of a house, and the guys inside just open it up and give up without taking any evasive maneuvers? All with two camera rolling? 
  • Ok, you think I'm crazy about being suspicious about that? Follow the links which are all from Coast Guard. When you finally get to a description of this video, this following is all they say which could be a sneaky way of saying, "We train using what we call self-propelled semi-submersible suspected drug smuggling vessels (SPSS)." And that second sentence is exactly what you would say if this was a training video.  Find me something from the Coast Guard, not vague news reports, which says this was an actual drug bust.
  • The video of the Angry Bagel Guy is also going around, and I don't get why everyone thinks it is funny. Videoing and uploading someone's worst moment  -- especially someone who has issues -- so the rest of us can laugh and mock is not a good look. 
  • This is the case that got the whole Baylor scandal started. (To be clear, the reversal wasn't because of insufficient evidence but because the DA's office under the old administration screwed up. That, of course, is totally expected. He could be re-tried.)
    That's a really good photo.
  • Trump on Free Speech at his Right Wing Social Summit yesterday: "To me when you see something good and then you purposely write bad. To me that's very dangerous speech, and you become angry at it. But that's not free speech."  At least President Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho made sense.
  • After Trump caved on the Citizenship Question on the census questionnaire yesterday, a skirmish occurred between Sebastian Gorrrrrrrrrrka and a Playboy reporter in the Rose Garden.  The whole scene was an embarrassment to us all. There are a couple of angles of the confrontation: Here and here. 
  • I'm not sure the proper term is that she "escaped" from a foster home. 
  • LBJ is really a fascinating character. I stumbled across this photo yesterday which fits with his personality. He was really devoted to his family but worked all the time. 
  • Speaking of presidents and working, let's check in on Trump this morning. He spends all his time watching and promoting State TV and the worst propagandists among us. 
  • Trump has tweeted or retweeted at least 57 times in the last 24 hours. That's weird even for him. He's triggered or nervous about something. 
  • Hal Jay on WBAP this morning on Tropical Storm Barry preparations: "I saw them stacking sandbags all the way to waist high, but if only 20" of rain is coming, don't you just have to stack them 20" high?"

at 8:31 AM

7.11.2019

Random Thursday Morning Thoughts



  • A double rainbow was visible all over North Texas yesterday evening. This was from Haslet. 
  • Two men were seriously injured after being shot at Buck's Caberet in north Fort Worth last night. Police were called at around 2:30 a.m. That mid-week strip club run never seems to work out for folks.  
    I've got questions for a couple of these folks.  
  • We've got a new Mike Pence. Yesterday a candidate for Governor of Mississippi (yep, Mississippi) wouldn't let a female reporter shadow him because he will not be alone with a woman other than his wife. He's seriously scared he can't control himself when he's alone with a woman, but calls it Christian values and blames the dirty libs for the fact he's mocked. 


  • No one laughed more yesterday at Alex Acosta's defense of his Epstein plea deal than prosecutors. Everything he said was a cover-up and a lie. There were four major red flags: 
    • He referred to a case with multiple victims with same common scheme as being like  “rolling the dice” at trial. Hey, a case with no witness other than the victim with one incident of abuse is a "roll of the dice." Multiple victims is an unfortunate prosecutorial gift that rarely happens.  
    • He said that prosecution of sex offenders is much different and easier now than back in 2008 because "We now have 12 years of knowledge and hindsight, and we live in a very different world." Dude. You're talking about 2008 like it was 1950. Prosecutions are exactly the same today as they were in 2008.
    • He defended meeting with Epstein's lawyer for breakfast at a hotel because, "We live in a city where people have breakfast meetings all the time" while at the same time saying the deal had already been brokered by that point.  
    •  Blaming the state prosecutors for not being aggressive enough. The feds never care about a state prosecution. They either take a case and make it federal or they don't. And he was in charge of making that decision.
  • This Texas state rep is right to criticize a dumb lady, but his alternative isn't exactly a genius plan.
  • My one and only faithful administrative assistant has the worst luck. A couple of years ago she went to Vegas to see the Rolling Stones. Once there, it was cancelled because Jagger had developed voice issues. She now has tickets to the Stones again this weekend: In New Orleans. 
  • I don't even know what he's babbling about this morning. All of this doesn't makes sense, and it's weird even for him. He's not well. (And he even randomly tagged an account of someone who is a retired teacher in Florida who, when I just looked, had 157 followers.)
    And what's that last sentence mean?
  • Then again, that's should be an expected followup from his remarks yesterday: "You've worked so hard on the kidney. Very special -- the kidney has a very special place in the heart. It's an incredible thing."
  • There's a reason a buddy of mine always called it the "Mel Cooley School of Law."
  • Fox News for some reason had Kristy Swanson on to talk about the women's soccer team and Megan Rapinoe, and, I have to say, "That's Buffy the Vampire Slayer?"
  • 84-year-old Norma Allbritton has been arrested for shooting death of husband, Johnnie Allbritton, who died in 1984 near his home in Leon County, Texas. There are no details about this "new evidence" but the background on the case is pretty wild. I'm skeptical.
  • Shoutout to BagOfNothing this morning for (1) A bullet point on religious indoctrination of children -- I can see his hands sweating as he typed and retyped it, and (2) an absolute must see gif of Jim Carrey being deep-faked into The Shining.



at 8:31 AM
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