3.15.2021

Random Monday Morning Thoughts





Ten years ago we had the Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster in Japan. I had forgotten that its cause was an earthquake and subsequent Tsunami that killed 16,000 people. (And that's a different Tsunami than the one you are thinking about that hit Indonesia in 2004.)
  • News on Friday afternoon can quickly fade from memories, and by this morning hardly anyone is mentioning the racist redneck from Oklahoma caught on a live mic. He was one of the announcers of a live stream of a girls' high school basketball game who took exception to one team taking a knee during the national anthem.   Here's the audio. Here's his apology where he blames his blood sugar. 

  • A viral video does not show a lady being arrested in Galveston for not wearing a mask. The lady was arrested for violating a decades old criminal trespass law in Texas which says once a property owner tells you to leave and you refuse to leave, you are committing an arrestable offense. Video.

  • This news flash from Love Field this morning might be pretty good evidence that we, rightly or wrongly, are "getting back to normal."

  • Now we know why it's easy to get a COVID vaccine in West Texas: Half of Republican men won't get it.


  • If this guy is accurate, Wise County will receive $13.57 million from the most recent Congressional stimulus package.

  • This picture, from a "Spring Break at Port Aransas" compilation, got my attention. It really is a work of art. I'm guessing the guy being held back just decked the other guy, but look at all the expressions in the background. Click to enlarge.

  • Mortgage crisis flashback humor. 


  • This story is pretty wild: According to police, a guy in Hurst was trying to steal a homeowner's catalytic convertor from a truck outside his residence so the homeowner ran outside with a gun and fired three shots, killing the alleged thief, as he attempted to drive away. Cops arrested the homeowner. The grand jury decided to kill the case. 

  • Drug cases filed in Texas courts have fallen for the first time in years. The reason: Due to a legislative screw-up from a couple of years ago, marijuana cases now require a lab report showing the percentage of THC -- the ingredient in weed that makes you high.  With basically no labs doing that, more and more prosecutors are simply declining prosecution. Source: Grits for Breakfast.


  • Bad legal take. (And it is from a new congressman with a questionable background.) 

  • Gov. Abbott will hold a press conference today with this guy announcing new efforts to make it harder to vote in Texas under the guise of "voting reform."

  • Here's the Liberally Lean Tourney Pick 'Em link. Remember, it's a tricked up scoring system where upset picks in the first two rounds can win the whole thing. Get on it. 

  • I don't want to dog UT after they won the Big 12 Tourney, but it seems like a big deal that they got to rest the day before the game against OSU (because Kansas withdrew due to COVID issues) while OSU had to duke it out with Baylor the evening before. 
  • Caught the WBAP good old boys dogging the Grammys last night because of the rap artist performances and musing that they prefer "bands like the Eagles or Foo Fighters who just stand up there and sing." Sheesh. I wonder why the distinction.  


at 8:32 AM

3.12.2021

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

at 2:30 PM

Random Friday Morning Thoughts






Ten years ago yesterday there was a heck of a grass fire around Rhome during high winds. Fox 4 put up a live helicopter feed, and I basically ran a live blog posting photos as they came in. 
  • Yesterday marked the unofficial beginning of the Covid Shutdown, so I went back and looked about how I reacted to it. That post is here. It was the first time had a bullet point which included a chart about the spread of the virus. I was pretty shocked when I saw it: The U.S. hadn't yet hit a day which had cracked 300 cases. Here is what it looked like on 3/12/20:

  • President Biden addressing the nation last night felt so good simply because it felt so normal. 
  • Let's check out how Fox News handled it:
    Look at  the chyron

    This is amazing: At one point they had a Tucker Carlson "reaction cam"
    in the corner of the screen during the President's address. Watch it in action. This is real.

  • Weird sight yesterday at Lake Bridgeport: A helicopter was hovering over the water as it lowered some object into the water. The object (not a person) stay submerged for at least five minutes before it was raised back up and the helicopter flew away. 

     
  • Forensic hypnosis might be the dumbest "science" ever used to convict people. When I was DA in Wise County in the 1990s, I had one case where it had been used during the investigation. When I saw the video of the witness "hypnotized", I cringed. And then I laughed. It was ridiculous. The hypnotist would have been more credible if he had pulled out a watch, waved it back and forth, and said, "You're getting sleepy."   Fortunately, that witness couldn't remember anything new because of the "hypnosis session" so it wasn't a factor in the case. 

  • DPS is trying to promote a kinder and gentler presence on Twitter.

    • The other images aren't quiet as tender:


  • People are getting a head start by signing up for the March Madness Liberally Lean Modified Scoring System Pick 'Em Tourney. You can, too. Here is a very funny entry from yesterday: Edit: Link fixed.

  • If you are a prosecutor or judge who has your name and address blocked from appraisal district websites (that's a perk you get if you avail yourself of it), you might find out that your property taxes last year weren't paid from your mortgage escrow account.  It's happened in Dallas, Denton and Tarrant Counties.  The problem was caused by a company named CoreLogic who is a "company hired by mortgage companies to pay property taxes for them." (Now how exactly this screwup happened is unclear because the story in the Dallas Morning News was written by Dave "The Watchdog" Leiber. He has frustrated me before. )

  • Dak Prescott's girlfriend made a rare appearance with him at the Wednesday press conference to announce the contract extension. I was looking for a picture of her from it, but instead discovered that she posted this last Halloween. 

  • Star-Telegram front page story: Prosecutors "presented false testimony" that lead to man spending 25 years in prison. (The background story from last fall is probably better.)

  • Time which has passed since the Wise County Sheriff's Office has failed to solve the murder of Lauren Whitener in her home at Lake Bridgeport: 616 days.
  • Messenger: Above the Fold



at 8:29 AM

3.11.2021

Random Thursday Morning Thoughts




That bullet point isn't that exciting, but it is just an example of lots of bullet points I was making 10 years ago about the Texas school funding crisis. You may not remember it, but schools were actually laying off teachers left and right because the real estate mortgage crisis/scandal had caused property values to plummet and, consequently, the ad valorem taxes which fund the schools had taken a hit as well.  Now 10 years later, skyrocketing property values and skyrocketing property taxes have made school funding issues a distant memory. 
  • The Stimulus Package passed the House yesterday with not a single Republican vote. It's an interesting political dynamic. The majority of Americans (70%) support the bill. But with only 41% for those who identify as Republican supporting it, not a single Republican representative budged. I call it interesting because those 41% of Republicans didn't garner a single yes vote to represent their position.  Maybe that's the way it should be. I don't know. 

  • Maybe the Messenger covered this but, if so, I missed it. 

  • But the official state vaccine map shows the only doses available in Wise County as of today are 200 of the Johnson and Johnson type at "Wise Health Community Health Center" in Decatur and 90 doses of the same at Brookshires in Bridgeport.  It didn't even list Walmart as one of the five option locations. Bottom line: You can find the vaccine somewhere, you just have to work at finding it. 


  • The Rangers caused quite the blowback yesterday as they went full throttle by announcing the new ballpark will be at 100% capacity on Opening Day. They say they will require masks but there is absolutely no way that will be enforced. 

  • This coincides with a new ad featuring all former Presidents (except one) who urged everyone to get a vaccine. George W. Bush makes this oddly worded, and now interestingly timed, statement: "You know what I'm really looking forward to? Is going to opening day in Texas Ranger Stadium with a full stadium."

  • Right out of law school and in my first job, I had a senior associate criticize my draft of a client letter because I had begun a sentence with, "Interestingly," (i.e. "Interestingly, the witness in his deposition stated . . . .") The lawyer told me, "If it is interesting then you don't need to tell them that it's interesting."  I found that statement to be so stupid that I still remember it over three decades later.  We're lawyers. It's our job to tell clients what facts of the case are noteworthy. 
  • Part of the set collapsed on this ESPN Columbia segment, and I thought the guy might be dead. Video. But he is ok. 



  • I heard an ad for FindAHouseChurch.com on WBAP this morning. That made me curious since there's always someone trying to make a buck behind stuff like this. I haven't figured it out yet, but the website it is run by John Stewart Hill, the somewhat strange guy behind The Good Contractor's List. 
  • In reviewing old home videos, I found this shot of new Hall of Famer Drew Pearson signing autographs at the Grand Re-opening of the First National Bank in Bridgeport in 1996.

  • I was briefly in the video wearing a suit and sunglasses and looking like an obnoxious character from a John Hughes film. (And the wind was blowing.) 

  • All right, his is my proposal for a scoring system for the Upcoming Liberally Lean Tournament Pick 'Em contest. I want to make it where picking winners and upsets in the first two rounds might be enough to win the whole thing even if you tank after that. (The link to sign up should be here.)  Under the default scoring system which I changed, first round winners would get you 1 point even if it was an upset. 

  • The crazy trading of Gamestop stock is at it again. 

  • I watched the Netflix documentary on Jeffrey Epstein, and one brief part of it focused on how no one is really sure how he made his bizarre amount of wealth. For fun, here's a link to the the front of the mansion which just sold on Google Street View. (One fun thing for me is to use that map feature for dang near any address I see in the news.)


     
  • Legal nerd stuff: The federal judges on the Fifth Circuit are snipping at each other.  See this dissent vs. a concurrence: 


    Dissent above, Concurrence below





  • On the front page of the Dallas Morning News: Man released from prison after 34 years because prosecutors withheld evidence. How many times must stories like this be written?




at 8:38 AM
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