5.11.2021

Random Tuesday Morning Thoughts





That guy was a new Congressman, and I thought the cover was a little odd so I made a post out of it in May of 2011. Here's his current Wikipedia entry:   "Aaaron Schock resigned from Congress in March 2015 amid a scandal involving his use of public and campaign funds . . . . After he pled not guilty, prosecutors reached a deferred prosecution agreement with him in March 2019 whereby all charges against him were dropped in return for period of good behavior and payment of $100,000 in restitution.

"Schock had a voting record of consistently opposing LGBTQ rights. He came out as gay in March 2020."

  • Tiger update in Houston. His owner or caretaker, who was out on bond for murder, has been arrested. His tiger, who was last seen on his lawn and then in his truck, has not been located. 

  • I'm surprised that Brooke Melton, the lady arrested in the big drug raid near Victory Church in Decatur, is still in jail. She's been there 14 days. Note that this is someone who hasn't been convicted of anything, but our justice system says that if you don't have money for bond, you sit in a cage. 

  • Random Broadway news this morning:

  • Ummkay. 

  • Last week, protestors blocked a road in Plano in response to the death of Marvin Scott who died while in the Collin County Jail on a misdemeanor weed charge.  One guy, who got stuck in traffic, got out and went on a rant which was caught on video.  For some reason, Texas AG Ken Paxton (who is under indictment and being investigated by the feds), decided to enter the fray yesterday and come to the defense of the frustrated motorist, who just happens to be white, over the protestors, who he described as "militant BLM protestors."

  • Israel and the Palestinians are at it again over the last few days, but I'm not sure why nine children had to die last night.  


  • The return to normalcy continues: Lafayette Park across from the White House is now open. 

  • Lee Greenwood has "inspired" a Bible!  (And it's only $49.99.) 

  • A faithful reader shared this photo of a ton of bees which suddenly appeared in a yard in Decatur on Sunday. More amazingly, there was a bee expert in town who came over and wrangled them into a container and moved them out. 

  • This meme has been showing up lately, and I absolutely agree with it. If I share something with you, it's because it has impacted me and has caused me (normally) concern. I don't want you to immediately reply with your story that you think is similar. But, man, lots of people disagree with that. They are of the position that sharing your story is expressing empathy and that's what conversations are all about. I don't know who is "right" here. 

  • Innocent conversation between young boy and his father in a Texarkana bathroom on Sunday which I've thought about way too much:  The kid said he was frustrated while washing his hands because  the automated water faucet turned off so quickly. His dad tells him that the water will stay on so long as he keeps his hands directly under the faucet, and adds, "So why are you complaining about something that you caused?" The kid just went silent. The dad wasn't mean to him, but just matter-of-fact. And they were dressed like they had just gotten out of church. I guess there was a good teaching moment of, "Sometimes what you think is a the source of a problem is not the source at all" but it didn't come across that way. It bugged me. 
  • The amount of time law enforcement has spent "protecting" us from eight-liners is laughable:



at 8:32 AM

5.10.2021

Random Monday Morning Thoughts




It looks like the sheriff's deputy was Seth Aaron Miller who was convicted and placed on five years probation with 60 days in jail as a condition of that probation. As far as my proclamation that the ME's office is nuts (something that turned out to be exactly right), I can't find a single reference to the barstool story, and the link is dead.   (http://www.star-telegram.com/2011/05/07/3058479/tarrant-authorities-eyeing-new.html)

  • I don't know why this isn't front and center of every newscast and newspaper this morning. A ransomware attack by a Russian group has shutdown a pipeline which carries gasoline and other fuel from Texas to the Northeast. It delivers roughly 45% of fuel consumed on the East Coast.

  • Weekend Gunfire News:
    • A gunman killed six members of an extended family Sunday at a birthday party at a mobile home in Colorado Springs
    • One man was killed and seven other people were wounded in a shooting inside a downtown Phoenix hotel after an argument early Sunday, police said.
    • Three people, including a child, were shot in Times Square on Saturday afternoon.
  • The great Portuguese water dog, Bo Obama from Boyd, Texas, died late last week. 

  • Over the weekend, Donald Trump actually called the winner of the Kentucky Derby a "junky." 

  • The insanity continues. "The median single-family sales price set a record at $325,000, 18% higher than in April 2020." How are young people supposed to afford a house? Interest rates certainly help out, but that's offset by property taxes which kill you. 

  • Faith healer Ernest Angley has died at the age of 99.  I watched way too much of this man on TV when I was a teenager. I struggled with being told on Sunday mornings that if I had faith the size of a mustard tree that I could move a mountain, yet knowing this man was obviously a fraud. 

  • Seeing this question online this morning and it's a great one: Is Tucker Carlson vaccinated?

  • It took me almost a decade, but I finally drove through the toll road on LBJ 635 in Dallas from I-35 to past Central.  It's incredible. 

  • I was on my way to Arkansas and had to go through Hooks, Texas. You can see the high school stadium from the highway, and I wondered to myself how many people think, "That's where Billy Sims played" when they go by. I always do.

  • Another arrest has been made in a Texas cold case using Familial DNA Searching. That is, using commercial sites like  GEDmatch, 23andme, and Ancestry.com to at least locate the family tree of a killer and then go from there. 

  • Alvord High School's baseball team is in the playoffs and will play in the Holy Land starting on Thursday: John Paul II's field in Plano. Here's an actual satellite shot: 

  • I'm 100 pages into Lonesome Dove.  My verdict is being formed and thus far withheld. 



at 8:34 AM

5.07.2021

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

at 2:30 PM

Random Friday Morning Thoughts




The student was a 24 year old sophomore out of Temple, and it was never clear why she and two others jumped out the window. But I found a picture of it the "first floor" which made the story a little more understandable. That might be a little more than six feet, plus the ground slopes away. Also, two people were eventually charged with misdemeanors of  "making a false report to and interfering with a peace officer."

  • New job numbers were released this morning. This wasn't supposed to happen. 

  • Awful. Only 20 years old.  

  • It will probably land in the ocean but, man, can you imagine the chaos this will cause if it starts heading towards a populated area. However, I haven't been able to figure out how much notice we'll get as to where it is headed once it re-enters the atmosphere.  

  • College Station police are explaining why they tackled and tased a bicyclist after a video was widely circulated. What also got my attention was how a motorcycle cop just drops his ride on the sidewalk.  


  • If you ever thought the crazy Bill Gates conspiracy theories would go away, this won't help that happen. 

  • I'm kind of surprised this hasn't had a little more coverage than what it has.

  • A convention in Dallas which is heavily QAnon influenced has quietly been kicked out of the facility that had agreed to host them. 

  • Oh, my. Video.

    • And that guy looks strangely like Ted Cruz. 

  • Below is the box score from a softball game Monday in Alabama in the "Class 6A Area 3 Tournament."  I got sucked into this. 
    • Look at how Lanier lost by just 1 run in a shocking score of 46-45 (!!) despite only getting 5 hits. 
    • I suggest you look at the base on balls figures.
    • There were 29 batters "hit by pitch."
    • And if I'm reading it right, the winning team pulled their starting pitcher only to put her back in the game in the final inning. She then gave up seven runs on seven walks to almost blow the game, but her team bailed her out with a four run rally in the bottom of the inning.
    • It's glorious:  

  • Albert Pujols was released by the Angels yesterday. Here's a look at his salary year by year: 

  • 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: 672 days.
  • Messenger: Above the Fold



at 8:31 AM

5.06.2021

Random Thursday Morning Thoughts





Ended up playing for nine years which is a lifetime for an NFL player. The defensive and special teams player actually scored one touchdown in his career when Odell Beckham Jr. muffed a punt. Video.

  • WFAA/Chanel 8 picked up on the high profile arrest in Decatur of Jake and Brooke Melton last week.  Brooke is still in jail in Wise County after nine days, and there's no attorney listed. Jake was arrested in Oklahoma, but I'm not sure about his status.  

  • A baby was shot and killed in a vehicle by police in Mississippi after they opened fire on the car stopped after a pursuit of a man wanted by police. Video. There were 40 cop cars surrounding him. A police statement issued immediately after the incident said officers fired, "As the suspect exited the vehicle." The video doesn't show a man exiting the vehicle.


  • The Texas Senate passed open/concealed carry without a permit yesterday. There are a couple of amendments that still have to be resolved, by there is now a 99% chance it becomes law on September 1st. 

  • The first criminal trial in Dallas since the pandemic has just concluded. What constitutes "Stalking" is a messy line. 50 emails in three weeks is a close call between extremely irritating and a crime, but the guy also showed up at her office to "take her to lunch" and then showed up at her home. Then again, he left whenever he was asked to leave and never returned. The sentence was agreed upon: 4 years probation. (If she look familiar, you are probably right. She had to step in and run the Dallas DA's office when Susan Hawk ran into her mental health issues in 2015.)


  • And we had the first criminal trial in Waco. A man who rotted in jail for 818 days was found not guilty on an assault charge. 

    DA with a classy retort.

  • If you like deep dives, here's the complete audit report of the Tarrant County ME's office complete with autopsy photos showing the "missed bullet" found after a body was disinterred and re-examined. That's what started the current house cleaning. (Warning: There are other disturbing photos in it.) 

  • Florida's Gov. DeSantis signed the new voter suppression bill live on Fox and Friends this morning while at the same time banning local media from the event. 


  • Probably the richest guy I personally know told me a few years back that he had gotten into the business of building, buying and selling massive warehouses like those around Alliance Airport. I think of that whenever I see stories like this: 

  • The South Carolina House of Representatives voted yesterday to bring back firing squads. Let's do it. And let's televise it. If the government is in the business of killing people, let's not candy coat it with the "peacefulness" of a lethal injection. "If we, as a society, cannot stomach the splatter from an execution carried out by firing squad, then we shouldn’t be carrying out executions at all." Wood v. Ryan, 759 F.3d 1076 (9th Cir. 2014)(Kolinski, J., dissenting)

  • Thinking you can appeal a Facebook decision to the Supreme Court is a moronic take. Yet this guy has 1.7 million followers on Twitter. 


  • George Jung, the drug dealer about who the film Blow was loosely based upon, has died. I really liked that movie. 

  • Average apartment rent in North Texas: $1,222.



at 8:35 AM
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