Random Monday Morning Thoughts

• Coronavirus in Texas update. This is fine? 

  

  Hospitalizations

  
  
  
• Wise County: No updated numbers since Thursday. 
• As expected hoped, the Black Lives Matter protest in Wise County went off without a hitch.  But the fact that there were "two sides" is a little embarrassing.
  
• The "other side's" position had a nice graphic to go along with it.  And what exactly did they mean by "outside influence(s)?"  And I'm proud to announced the "rule of law" as well as "democracy" survived a simple protest in Wise County by a group seeking (gasp) equality. Incredible. 
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• How in the world did the Atlanta police shooting of Rayshard Brooks happen? The New York Times has a great break down of it with annotated video. Thoughts:
  
• How a situation can escalate from a guy sleeping in his car to being shot with a handgun by the cops is a little hard to explain. 
• Someone falling asleep in a drive-through happens all the time. Ask any of your cop friends if he has dealt with it before. Also ask him or her if she ever considered using the ultimate lethal force on the person.
• It says something about society in general where a Wendy's employee's first inclination is to call the cops when a customer doses off. But that reaction by an employee also happens all the time. 
• Sure you don't resist arrest and you don't take a cops taser, but you don't need to die for it. If you think that a reasonable consequence, you need to really re-evaluate yourself.
• Shooting the guy two times in the back as he runs away doesn't help the cop's position.
• Somewhere along the way, the mission of most cops changed from "we are here to help and to keep the peace" to "we are here to get you."  For example, the guy asks if he can just leave his car and walk home. The cop responds with the question shown below for one reason: He wants the guy to say "because I'm drunk" or "because I shouldn't be driving" so he can have an admission for his DWI case.
  
• Should the cops have just let him park the car and walk home or let someone come get him? It makes sense to me. But then the problem becomes you have to then give that option to everyone. Then again, why not have a system where that option is given to everyone yet the DWI case could still be filed with the court? 
• I absolutely agree with those who think the cops should have just let the guy go when he began to run. At that point all we've got is a couple of misdemeanor charges of DWI and Resisting. You've got his car. You've got his ID. You're going to get him. 
• Portions of the field sobriety tests can be seen at on the New York Times site. He looks pretty good and interacts reasonably with the officer.   He ended up dying after a DWI investigation which might not have resulted in a DWI conviction. 
• I seriously doubt that the cop will ever be convicted of anything. And even I think he probably shouldn't. A reasonable doubt exists as to whether his split second decision was unreasonable under the circumstances. And a reasonable doubt is all it takes. 
• Who knew?
  
• Don't underestimate the stance taken by football players at the University of Texas.  Their demands are just socially justice related, but if all the pre-predominately black teams (meaning all of them) would realize they hold the bargaining power in a system which exploits them for millions and millions of dollars, we'd have a heck of a movement. 
  
• We are going to have a hard time explaining just how extremely stupid this time in American history was. 
  
• Speaking of, Ted Cruz and Jim Jordan had a statesman like twitter fight with actor Ron Perlman over the weekend.  Idiocracy.
  
• Just the President of the United States using the power of his office to try and break a private company because he doesn't like the news coverage that they have a constitutional right to provide and express.
  
• I've found my new campaign video from a guy out of Georgia! But not only is the video worth watching, but the fact that he got arrested for it really ramps up this story.
  
• I'm four episodes into HBO's Watchmen, and I'm really sucked in to something which has a lot of characteristics that normally don't appeal to me. And the fact that it has its roots in the Tulsa Massacre makes it timely. (Like most of you, I had never heard of the Tulsa incident until this year.)
  
• There's so much going on that I barely have time to mention Fox News literally becoming Fake News by photoshopping photos from Seattle. 
  
• It looks like I'll be shutting down my First Warn Alert Thunder Truck Live Action Weather Laboratory for the next two to three months. We're on cruise control. 

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

These the pranks I can get behind 😂 pic.twitter.com/GLz5ExhfKj

— danny ocean 🌊 (@dannypasifika) June 7, 2020

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i cannot stop thinking about her pic.twitter.com/dAwMsncMug

— maddy (@vennicebitch) June 8, 2020

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Let’s take a break from the heavy stuff. Here’s a good old fashioned wave smash pic.twitter.com/meanODiTxs

— influencersinthewild (@influencersitw) June 6, 2020

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That dog is on human mode @icanteven (via ig:pvmal) pic.twitter.com/IkJpoA9yHD

— Barstool Sports (@barstoolsports) June 12, 2020

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Block or charge?🏀🤷‍♂️🐎😱🤭😂 pic.twitter.com/ye4quzglQz

— Rex Chapman🏇🏼 (@RexChapman) June 11, 2020

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Random Friday Morning Thoughts

• 'Rona in Texas: Both hospitalizations and active cases are lower than the day before but both were near all time highs: 
  
  
• Wise County update: No new data was reported yesterday for the county website, but the official Texas site puts us at 11 active cases up from 6 yesterday. Edit after clarification from local official: There was a technical malfunction with the normally updated data but it should show 6 active cases. Why the confusion? "Notice we are also reporting 57 total cases, which is what DSHS reports to us, yet DSHS dashboard shows 55.  Also note that their active cases on DSHS dashboard are 'estimated' - they have had us 'estimated' at 11 since May 20, but that does not correlate with what they report to us daily."
• If you want to go to Trump's Tulsa rally, you'll have to sign a coronavirus waiver.  As long as you cheer, they don't care if you die. It's like a Jim Jones Liability Waiver.
  
• Sunday's "rally" at the the Wise County Courthouse on Sunday should be a calm affair that we all should want to take part in. Who could be against a peaceful gathering of people exercising their First Amendment protected rights in support of equality for all? It should be encouraged.  But some social media chatter makes me feel like I'm living in Selma in the the 1960s.
• Trump came to Dallas yesterday and held court at a church.  Dr. Robert Jeffress, however, was left on the sideline as a different pastor of a feel-good-gospel-mega-church was chosen by Trump to sit next to him instead.  Someone needs to check on Jeffress this morning.
  
• Trump said at the gathering in the church that he throws so much money at Texas that we are hoping for another hurricane. Note: Two days earlier the federal government denied Dallas' appeal to federal funds because of the tornado that wiped out a large part of the city last year. 
  
  
• Conspiracy theory! (Here's a pretty fun thread trying to figure out what the image over his left shoulder was.)
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• According to the Messenger, the coronavirus shutdown in April didn't impact Wise County cities' sales tax receipts at all. In fact, they went up. Color me confused. 2020: The year where nothing makes sense to me. 
• Life comes at you fast.
  
  
  
  
  
• I just finished reading this book about a murder in Houston which occurred in 2013.  The author said the case received "international attention", but I don't remember a single thing about it back then. (But my memory is so bad it's probably one of my bullet point somewhere.)
  
• I just started this one. "In 2019, Hulu began developing a series based on the book. Leonardo DiCaprio and Martin Scorsese will executive produce the project."
  
  
• Apology or not, that was extremely poor judgment for Gen. Milley to take part in Trump's street clearing photo-op in order to use the Bible as a prop. Milley says he considered resigning. He still should.
  

  

  "I should not have been there."

• Of course, he doesn't. 
  
• Whatever happened to that "task force" on gun violence that Greg Abbott formed after the mass shooting in El Paso? It couldn't have possibly have been all for show in order to give the impression you care about an issue when you don't, right?  (Compare and contrast Trump's visit to Dallas yesterday.)
  
• Messenger: Above the Fold

Random Thursday Morning Thoughts

• Coronavirus - Texas set another record yesterday with an eye-opening 2,504 new cases (previous record was 1,949)  and, more importantly, another record-breaking number of those hospitalized at 2,153. Good grief.
  
• Wise County: 6 active. 57 total.
• "Abbott's staff did not respond to questions about whether the increase . . . would slow or halt the reopening process." 
  
• I never thought I'd see the day that NASCAR banned all Confederate flags.  But in all seriousness, I think you'll see a major revolt from its fan base along with the financial hit that will go with it. And that "sport" was already on shaky footing to begin with.

  

  The Confederacy: Still taking loses in 2020. 

• And with Confederate statues coming down left and right along with military officials saying on Tuesday that they are open to renaming U.S. forts which are currently named after Confederate military commanders, there seemed to be a real awakening going on. But then Trump, as he sat on the porch, sipping a mint julep, and patting his dog Beauregard, came to defend the nation's past sins.  Who is advising him to choose the wrong side here?  I'm not sure I've seen a political implosion like the one that he is going through. 
  
• But wait, there's more. Trump also announced that he will have his first "rally" in Tulsa which is coming up on the 100th anniversary of the Black Wall Street Massacre. Tulsa! On Juneteenth. He's not even trying to hide it any more. Serious question: Will Trump's people allow Confederate flags at the rally? 
  
• And that announcement came on the same day that an official with the Tulsa PD said this. 
  
• Do we have any Confederate memorials or statues in Wise County?
• Trump is gonna get mad at Fox News again. 

  

  Don't they know that unfavorable polls
  are just "Fake News?"

  
  

  

  "Going Down"

• I don't know what these middle-of-the-night ramblings were about last night. Protesting = taunting? Protesters = ugly anarchists? Promising a federal invasion? Once again, he uses language of division. And the mayor responded.
  
  
  
  
• Slidell's high school basketball team opting out of the UIL's ceremony honoring them as state finalists is interesting. But the UIL really did screw that day up as they shut the whole tournament down with no notice and no communication. 
• VP Mike Pence deleted this, but I'm not sure why.  Clearly social distancing is being violated but they longer care about that -- it's been 44 day since they last held a Task Force briefing. And there is one black guy front and center which could be interpreted as a prop, but they don't care about that either. 
  
• Something going on in Graham?....

Random Wednesday Morning Thoughts

• Coronavirus - Texas. We hit another high yesterday in a hospitalizations. If any number should be the gold standard, it's hospitalizations. Right? Shouldn't we be more concerned? And that's a heck of a sustained trend we've got going.
  
  
  
  
• Wise County: Total 57, Active 6 (+1), Deaths 5.
• It looks like Wise County will have a BLM-like rally around the courthouse on Sunday at 4:00. In looking at some social media pages which I never visit, some people are treating it like the Nazis are coming to town. We aren't that backwoods, are we? 
• The 180s continue.  Why in the heck arrest them in the first place? 
  
• How many times have I written Too Many Police?™ over the years? You know, I should have trademarked and sold that question to those who thought Defund the Police was a good idea. Mine better conveys the message. 
• Very Random Thought: Did I ever tell you I came up with idea of anti-lock brakes on my own in 1975? (I don't know when they were invented, but I had never heard of them when I came up with the idea in my teenage brain.)
• In watching people argue whether there is "systemic racism" with the police, I was reminded of the Tulia scandal in Texas in 1999 which eventually caused every "drug task force" in the state to disband. That included the very wheels off Cross Timbers Task Force which ran around Wise County. 
  
• Hey, look, a white guy! And get a load of this quote from his father who said this about his home schooled kid  “He has grandiose ideas, a lot of them . . . and zero common sense . . . . I’m still proud of him, whether he burned down the police station or not. He didn’t hurt nobody, did he?”
  
• There was a similar George Floyd death by the Williamson County Sheriff's Office last year where the video was just released after the Sheriff fought to keep it from the press. It's been big news in the Austin area, but I don't know if that story has the legs of the Floyd incident. But at least one state rep and one county commissioner wants the Sheriff to resign. The Sheriff called the commissioner a dirty lib (basically). Note: Live PD was riding along for the incident but claims they didn't keep the footage. (Riiigggggt.) A&E has put Live PD on hiatus for unrelated reasons. The body cam video does exist.
• Oh, and Cops has been cancelled. Not the real cops, the show. 
• And the new streaming service HBO Max has shelved Gone With The Wind. I'm not on board with that. It's way too close to book burning. 
  
• Confederate statues are coming down in Tarrant County and even Denton County. That wouldn't have happened two years ago.  But I've never understood why we've honored people who took up arms against the United States. 
  
  
  
  
• Wait. This was allowed?
  
• There was a guy in Bridgeport selling Trump gear at the intersection of 380 and 101 yesterday. He had quite a few customers.
  
   
• This guy in New Jersey who was off to the side "re-enacting" the murder of George Floyd as a protest was passing by probably wants to rethink that bit. Or, who knows, maybe not. People are crazy. (Video of the incident.)
  
  
• This is awful out of Mesquite. And it comes on the heels after a family of six were found dead in a murder-suicide in San Antonio.
  
   
• TxDot's horribly designed interchanged at 287 and 380 in Decatur has always been a disaster. One reason is when vehicles westbound on 380 exit to go northbound on 287. The turn is so sharp that the fence and railing there have been crushed at least a dozen times. I noticed the last time it was knocked over that TxDot basically gave up and left it unrepaired for at least six months. Then about one month ago crews came out and fixed it. Since then, I had seen that it had been destroyed in two different places. And this morning, according to the Update, a truck overturned taking the turn. 
• Messenger: Above the Fold