5.18.2021

Random Tuesday Morning Thoughts





The video is still up on youtube. By today's standards, I no longer think it is "over produced."  

  • That case of the murdered four year old in the Mountain Creek area of Dallas is still weird. I was skeptical about whether there actually was home surveillance video from inside the house showing the child abducted, but police have confirmed it in a search warrant affidavit according to the Morning News. But there's a lot of sorriness in this case:
    • The kid wasn't even staying with his parents. He was with the "girlfriend" of the child's father -- a father who hadn't been seen since March.
    • The child's biological mother didn't know where he was and had been "looking for him." 

  • This story out of Arlington was confusing as well. "[T]he man was parking in front of a home in the 1400 Comanche Court when he had a 'medical episode' and drove through a fence, then into the pool." Here's the street and satellite views. How exactly does this happen on the short street?
    Just two pools on that dead end
    Looking into the cul-de-sac

  • Remember Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-Georgia) who said that those involved in the January 6th Insurrection looked like they were engaged in a "normal tourist visit"? Well, some have reminded him of these photos where his image was captured. 


  • Lumber prices are finally tumbling but still very high. 

  • 60 Minutes had a segment on UFOs last Sunday which has everyone talking. Here's a local radio hosts take on the subject. Point #4 is, uh, interesting. Aliens are "scripturally proscribed."

  • President Biden released his tax return. It's the 23rd year he has done so. 

  • The Onion pulled no punches after Israel bombed the AP offices in the Gaza Strip because it said Hamas had an office there. 

  • Supreme Court observations from yesterday:
    • The big news was that the Court decided to hear an abortion case when there was no apparent reason to. The lower courts had struck down a Mississippi abortion law that clearly violated Roe v. Wade and Casey v. Planned Parenthood so why do they want to hear it?  This guy might be right: 

    • Last term the Supreme Court said in Ramos that it's unconstitutional for a person to be convicted by a jury unless the verdict is unanimous. Makes sense. But what about all those people serving prison sentences right now because that's exactly what happened to them? All their appeals had been exhausted, but can they get a new trial too? Nope. The Supreme Court said the rule is not retroactive. Too bad. So sad. 

    • But, wait! The Supreme Court had said in the past that said "watershed" constitutional cases involving criminal procedure should be applied retroactively.  That's the Teague Rule! What about that? Justice Gorsuch explained: Criminal defendants should know they shouldn't trust us when we say stuff like that:

    • And in a case that got almost no notice because it was just a decision denying the review of a Texas case, look at what the prosecutor got away with:

  • Baylor is using the actual NCAA Basketball Championship Trophy in promotional materials. I had never really looked at it before. That design is extremely spare. 

  • Our County Judge has found another postcard of the courthouse. That's looking east. Notice the old movie theater on the right in the background. And that building to the left  in the foreground now has a second floor on it. I'm guessing this is around 1965.

  • Callisburg, Texas high school Klan video? (Dallas Observer story.)
  • As seen below, the New York Post just crucifies Gov. Cuomo every single day.  But Cuomo subscribes to the new modern day theory about every political firestorm: No matter how bad it is, just ride it out and you'll survive.  


at 8:32 AM

5.17.2021

Random Monday Morning Thoughts




And I still don't think there was.  Background of the accident is here. The families filed a lawsuit in Denton County, but I don't think they recovered anything. (See cause no. 2013-10779-16 with a search here, and see this appellate court setback.)   Highway 380 in Denton County would be expanded to four lanes.

  •  Update on the big "drug bust" in Decatur about three weeks ago.
    • Brooke Melton is still in jail. That's 20 days. 

    • Her husband has bonded out after an attorney posted his bond. (I don't know who that is yet.) 

    • I missed quite the typo last week. 

  • Those Bridgeport numbers for sales tax simply seem wrong. I can't even begin to think of where the money was spent within the city to cause a 130% increase.  

  • This former Dallas prosecutor is only the fourth lawyer to ever lose his law license for withholding evidence that led to guilty verdicts and wrongful incarcerations.  Those guilty of it get away with it all the time. Side note: After working in Dallas, the prosecutor worked in the Denton County D.A.'s office but was fired from it. I don't know why.  He now drives tour buses in Alaska, and still thinks he did nothing wrong. 

  •  "The mother told WFAA her son was sound asleep when the suspect broke in through the back door and kidnapped her son. The mother says surveillance video shows what happened."  That sentence alone causes me to have  lots of questions about the horrible murder of a 4 year old found stabbed to death on a residential street in the 7500 block of Saddleridge in Dallas. An 18 year old was arrested for kidnapping and the only thing we know is that he sometimes "was seen walking in the neighborhood."  It's also curious that the  WFAA story says that the man arrested had a "ankle monitor" on. But the Morning News only references that he had a pending misdemeanor charge for Evading Arrest (and I can't imagine an ankle monitor being ordered for that.)

  • WFAA's color grid for predicted rainfall is screwed up.  If the numbers weren't on this graphic, where do you think that the heaviest rain would fall?  It needs to go from yellow (lightest) to orange to red to purple (heaviest).

  • Of all the videos of the crazy rain in Dallas yesterday afternoon, this one stuck with me. The guy gets out of his car and water can be seen rushing out of the passenger compartment. He then immediately shuts the door to keep the water from escaping.

  • The Colonial golf tournament is next week and you can get an all-inclusive package (food and alcohol) for $475 a day. I think this is new. I don't think this is a bargain. 

  • The suburban Houston tiger was found, and when I saw this story I was sure he was being moved to the Rhome or Bridgeport tiger sanctuaries. Nope, we don't get him. 
  • Scott Baio supporting Ricky Schroder for acting like a jerk to an innocent Costco worker is a pretty good measure of both of them. 

  • Could Israel at least be a little more surgical in their counter-strikes against Hamas so as to not kill 50 children while they do so? 
  • Sam Houston won the Division I Championship yesterday (but we won't mention that South Dakota State's quarterback left with an injury in the first quarter.)

  • Crime wave!

  • Want something to think about all day?: You have three closed doors to choose from. Behind one of them is a new car. Behind the other two is a goat. You choose door #1. The host, who knows where the car is, first opens up door #3 which reveals that a goat. You now have the option to stick with door #1 or switch and choose door #2?  Question: Do you switch because it increases your odds? Amazingly, the answer is yes. Welcome to the "Monty Hall Problem."




at 8:35 AM

5.14.2021

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

at 2:30 PM

Random Friday Morning Thoughts




The background here is that an In-N-Out Burger had opened in Frisco and people lost their minds. I still remember the video of this girl (still available) as she cried with joy. It was so darned weird. (Unless someone shares her name, she got married a couple of years ago. Here's another fun fact: Did you know that since Jay Leno ran the clip on The Tonight Show that she got her own IMBD page?)

  • The CDC announced yesterday that if you have been fully vaccinated then you no longer need to wear a mask or socially distance. That's as close to an announcement of "It is all over!" that we are ever going to get. 

  • Well, it's technically over for a quarter of us. 

  • This was the horrible case that occurred off Greenville Avenue in Dallas two years ago. The 22 year old had gone out to celebrate her birthday when she was grabbed in a parking lot in the early evening hours.  He was charged with capital murder where he could have received life without parole. Instead he pled guilty to a life sentence to the lesser offense of simple murder which allows him to be eligible for parole after 30 years. He would be 79 at that time if he were to be paroled (which is probably unlikely.) 


  • There was a crazy police chase that ended in Alvarado yesterday. I counted at least 23 cops drawing down on a guy at the end of it.  (Something which seems incredibly disorganized and is a recipe for the whole thing going horribly wrong.)

  • Colonial Pipeline paid $5 million to the hackers to be released from their ransomware.  I'm telling you, payments like this are made all the time. (The Wise County Sheriff's Office got hit with ransomware before and paid up.) 

  • The story isn't particularly noteworthy, but that picture is. I didn't think that looked like Jenna Ryan, but I suppose it is. Edit: Readers don't think it is.


  • Oh, my. 

  • Kim Ogg is the District Attorney in Harris County. Uh, where does one go to "register to be a juror"?

  • This is pretty wild: Last weekend the president of the University of South Carolina at the end of commencement congratulated the students from graduating from the "University of California" (video), and yesterday he resigned because it was discovered he plagiarized a quote in his commencement address. He stole a quote from the famous "Make up your bed" commencement address of  Admiral William McRaven at the University of Texas in 2014. 

  • My 10 year flashback earlier this week referred to Tammie Jo Chaffee who was imprisoned for murder in Wise County. A faithful reader pointed out to me that you can write to her here at WriteAPrisoner.com.
  • It's not particularly exciting, but the Fort Worth Court of Appeal affirmed a conviction for Evading Arrest out of Wise County yesterday where the defendant received 13 years in prison. (Legal nerd stuff: The appellate court, as it will always do, seemed to affirm the case on a theory not even advanced by the State. The issue was whether the jury should have been asked to decide whether the defendant failed to signal which was the basis for his initial detention. The Court said "we don't care" because there was a reasonable suspicion to stop him anyway. I'm not so sure about that.)
  • More legal nerd stuff: President Biden just got the opportunity to appoint someone to the Fifth Circuit which governs Texas.
  • What did I tell you about large warehouses?

  • Watch the reaction of a bunch of girls' college golf teams, including North Texas and Sam Houston, being advised that the Regional event at Baton Rouge was cancelled. That was sorry. (And here is Barstool Sports mocking re-creation of the moment as they try -- for publicity's sake -- to invite the teams to their own tournament.)

  • 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: 679 days.
  • Messenger: Above the Fold



at 8:32 AM
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