10.27.2020

Random Tuesday Morning Thoughts

 

  • Texas hospitalizations: +72.  It's way too early to project out, but this rise isn't as sharp as the last peak.  But I wonder if that means it will just last longer. And it doesn't mean we won't hit or surpass 10,000 a day again. 

  • Never mind. I've just learned that it's all a hoax that will go away in a week. 

  • Sports and COVID: Wisconsin started a redshirt freshman quarterback on Saturday, Graham Mertz, who played lights out. Get this: He went 20 of 21 with 5 touchdowns.  After the game, he tested positive for COVID and now has a confirmation test scheduled this morning. If he has it, the Big 10 rules says he must sit out the next 21 days. (The second stringer has a broken ankle and the third string QB tested positive yesterday as well.)
  • He's not doing well this morning. And he sure doesn't feel good about the early vote. Change "it to me."

  • Actually, before Trump's tweet, the graph below shows a search for "can I change my vote" briefly surpassed a search for "chicken", but I suppose that's a trend. (Actually, Trump is referring to an article he saw from the right wing propaganda site The Gateway Pundit which started promoting this false narrative two days ago as part of their Hunter Biden fetish. ) 

  • You can't change your vote in "most" states but you can do so in seven of them. I did not know that before this morning. And I bet it is a royal pain. 
  • Everything is fine. 

  • "Election Day" is now a bit of a misnomer. We have an "election period" with next Tuesday being "the last day to vote." No day to vote is more important than the other. 
  • Due to ice, Wichita Falls closed schools today. Below is downtown Amarillo this morning with the stadium of the Amarillo Sod Poodles is in the background. (I just like typing "Sod Poodles.") As for us, we might hit a record LOW high today.  You know, "it's the lowest high temperature we've ever had."   The metroplex record was a high of only 46 in 1936.  That's in jeopardy.

  • The Texas Department of Criminal Justice is just doing bits about death row where inmates had to listen to other prisoners get electrocuted.  The only ghouls are those running that Twitter account.

  • This is a good photo when you look at Melania. Click to enlarge.

  • There been a lot of criticism of how rest of the Cowboys just stood around after the attempted murder of Andy Dalton on Sunday.  Check out this video of how the 49ers responded after a cheap shot on Joe Montana Steve Young back in the day. 

  • Despite my super Internet skills, I can't find out what was said at the Weatherford "Monster Bash" which prompted the public statement below. (But there seems to be a clear constitutional issue here: Can a city ban certain speech just because the city "hosts" an event? Don't think so. Sayin it was "not approved" is one thing. Saying it is "not allowed" is another.)

  • It really is amazing. But to the victor belongs the spoils. 

  • Man, you guys really liked my hot sports opinions on "tired" yesterday. I was surprised by the number of emails/texts I received in support of it. I might put it on a throw pillow.


at 8:35 AM

10.26.2020

Random Monday Morning Thoughts


  • Texas Hospitalizations: 5,206.

  • I probably shouldn't be talking about the Third Surge of COVID-19 or people in the hospital or people dying. Probably an election law violation. 

  • There's something about saying you don't want to give any effort because you're "tired" of something really sets me off for some reason. It first struck me when, during the protests after the George Floyd killing, I saw an old Wise County friend post online that was "tired" of hearing about social injustice. Really? Well, boo-hoo. Now people are "tired" of wearing masks, and "tired" of hearing about COVID. You know how you separate yourself from the spares of the world? It's how you react when you are "tired." 
  • We've got record early voting going on. Fox News brings us the breakdown:

  • If Trump goes down and flames and the Republican Party has to take years to recover from his train wreck, the GOP might still say it was all worth it. It's kind of like the question of "Would you win a Super Bowl if it meant going the next ten years with a losing record?" Although this might be more akin to three Super Bowls and 20 years of a losing record. 

  • I've got the strangest Century Link problem this morning in the office: The Internet through Wifi is working but access via the hard lines to the computers and phone is down. 
  • This Texas Monthly article about yet another DNA exoneration (although it is kind of in court limbo at the current time) is really, really good and has a striking similarity to the Wise County Lauren Whitener/Aric Maxwell case: There was a DNA “mixture” report that no one understood. But the problem in this case was that “no one” also included the defense lawyer, and his client got got wrongfully convicted.

  • There was this great line in the story: "What is scary is how tenaciously police and prosecutors cling to their initial assumptions—and how much this reflects basic human tendencies." True that. 
  • Really? The NFL has never cared about head injuries. It's all lip service and sometimes it doesn't even get that. 


  • College football:
    • I loved this final play in the Michigan Penn State/Indiana game.  I think the tip of the ball crosses the plane of the goal line before it even gets to the pylon. Here is a great video of it. The photo below is fantastic as well. Click to enlarge.


    • Rice losing a game because a field goal attempt which resulted in the ball hitting the uprights and crossbar a total of four times. Watch it. 

    • Baylor's top two senior running backs "opted out" of the remainder of the season last night. I wonder if the head coach deciding to punt from the Evil Empire's 30 yard line had anything to do with it. Edit: The punt was still dumb but the two players may still be with the team. 
  • The New York Post (the same Post that is owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp, and the only media outlet reckless enough to run the Hunter Biden laptop story) has made an endorsement after, I'm sure, hours of internal deliberations . . . 


at 8:32 AM

10.23.2020

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

at 2:30 PM

Random Friday Morning Thoughts

 

  • Texas hospitalizations: +149. It was sixteen days ago when Gov. Abbott put the wheels in motion for almost all bars across the state to open to larger capacities. I'm not saying it's related, but that seemed odd timing even then. 

  • Jury trials were supposed to begin again across Texas on December 1st. Let me tell you something, that ain't happening with the number of cases on the uptick -- especially after this development: 

  • Man, this threw me off this morning. The Ticket's Gordon Keith reported on this story and said twice, "And it happened in Decatur." I was disappointed in myself for not having heard about it. Then the Google told me it was in Decatur, Illinois.

  • Minor debate observations: 
    • #1: Trump said that only immigrants "with low IQs" show up at their scheduled hearings. So only dumb people follow the law?
    • #2: We all learned for the first time that your income tax returns requires a heretofore little known "filing fee." 

    • #3: It didn't have anything to do with the fact that the U.S. doesn't know the identify of the parents of  525 immigrant children, but Trump didn't mean this kind of coyote. 

    • #4: John Daly and Kid Rock were in the audience looking at their masks as if they had never seen one before. They probably hadn't. 

  • The presidential election in 1968 was the closest one in Texas voting history. Once you get past how close it was, you then have to scratch your head over the fact that Humphrey actually beat Nixon in this state. (Wise County even went 47% for Humphrey, 33% for Nixon, and 18% for Wallace.)

  • Here's the full Rudy clip from Borat 2.

  • [Insert record scratch sound effect]. But they were kind enough to pick him up at DFW Airport and drive him to their secluded cabin in Oklahoma. Story.

  • Expert Weather Observation: If you walk outside at this moment, it won't get any warmer.  By 4:00 p.m., it will have dropped to 45 degrees.
  • "On this day" from the New York Times for October 23, 1934: "Pretty Boy" Floyd was killed which caused George "Baby Face" Nelson to rise to the top of the FBI's most wanted list. What was up with those facial-feature nicknames back in the day? Then again, J. Edgar Hoover had become the head of the FBI ten years earlier. 

  • Now this just popped into my head:

  • Does anyone else automatically see a negative sign on the new Fox graphics this year?

  • If you didn't see the laughingly tragic ending to Daniel Jones' 80 yard run last night, you have to. Spoiler alert: He didn't score.  (Baylor fans had a flashback to this.)

  • A penny-ante drug conviction out of Wise County was affirmed yesterday by the Fort Worth Court of Appeals. The most interesting thing is that the State's brief utilizes hyperlinks. I very rarely see that. I give it a big technological thumbs up.
  • Time that has passed since the Wise County Sheriff's Office has failed to solve the murder of Lauren Whitener at Lake Bridgeport: 1 year, 3 months, 18 days.
  • Messenger: Above the Fold



at 8:34 AM

10.22.2020

Random Thursday Morning Thoughts

 


  • Texas hospitalizations: +194.

    • Four new cases at Decatur High this week. 
    • COVID seems to be hitting Wichita Falls hard. Its local hospital is headed towards ICU capacity, and the entire Midwestern State football team is in quarantine. 
    • That Everman police officer I mentioned the other day has died. 
  • I love Borat (and, for that matter, Ali G).

    • One of the biggest takeaways from that Rudy segment in the upcoming Borat movie (released Friday) is that how dumb and gullible that Giuliani is. If he can be duped by the filmmakers, he's been a sitting duck for the Russians as he runs around the Ukraine.
    • Flashback to Rudy's "Communications Director" from July. Uh, not so much:


  • If you haven't seen the 24 second video of Biden hugging the son of a man killed in the Parkland School Shooting you need to. This election is a good man vs. a bad man, and it is as simple as that. 

  • Hot opinion from President Obama on local races. He ain't wrong. 

  • I'm a big fan of the Traces of Texas twitter account because of all of the old photos it posts. Yesterday they gave us one from Jacksboro "circa late 1930s."

  • This morning:


  • It will soon be forgotten (if it hasn't been already) but Andy Dalton avoiding a safety and actually completing a pass after this moment is really incredible: 

  • Trouble continues to brew on the 40 Acres over the Eyes of Texas. Yesterday, The Daily Texan ran a story that said the Longhorn Band would not play at Saturday's UT/Baylor game after an internal survey of band members, which asked if they were willing to play the song, revealed there wouldn't be enough "necessary instrumentation" left over to participate. UT President Jay Hartzell response is here. 
  • Burnt Orange Nation, which has 25,000 Twitter followers, just put up a poll about the song. I have no idea what the results will be. (You have to vote at the link in order to see the current results.)

  • Every police force within Tarrant County now have the means to get a search warrant for blood in every DWI case (even first time offenders).  It's always been a murky question for me: When do the neutral judges' cooperation in signing the warrants become so complete that they become a 24 hour arm of the police? 


at 8:34 AM
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