Random Wednesday Morning Thoughts

Another story lost to history.  A tip by a self-professed psychic that bodies were buried at a farm caused the Liberty County (Texas) Sheriff's Office to go crazy and search the property. It made national news. Of course, nothing was found.  The craziest part of the story was what was really buried: A judge granted a search warrant based upon the psychic tip.  Amazing. 

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•  Public postings on Facebook are expressing concern for a missing lady out of Boyd.  She's the niece of former Ticket host Greg "The Hammer" Williams. (Thanks to a faithful reader for pointing this out.)
  
  
  
  
  
  
• I'm hearing the Decatur School Board, or at least one person on the Board, has a high profile employee in his/her figurative cross-hairs. 
• This, posted yesterday, is from the service road off southbound I-35 leaving Denton at the Robson Ranch exit. 
  
  
  
• Good. That's inexcusable for any health care worker. 
  
• Watch: A Pittsburg Pirate has a home run taken away from him last night because he didn't touch first. 
  
  
  
• Someone had a great thought about the requirement of the well established rule requiring the batter to run the bases after a home run: If that rule were to be invented today, we would never go for it. After all, what's more disrespectful to the pitcher after a home run? A bat flip or having the batter run a slow and leisurely complete circle around him? 
• Somewhere along the line, U.S. Attorneys turned into TMZ with the way they promote themselves. In this case, the defendant skated for Slovenia, in one event, in 1992. Yet we get this sensationalized tweet:
  
  
  
• While most of us are at work, Fox News is going hard during the day. Video. Note: He says that these "people" -- not the jobs -- aren't worth $15 an hour.  
  
  
  
• Legal nerd stuff in increasing levels of nerdiness:
• Watch an appellate lawyer realize he is arguing the wrong case before three judges.  The judges are incredible nice to him, but the lawyer revealed a bit of sorriness regarding his character because he blamed the screw up on his staff  -- twice. Don't do that.  (The good stuff starts at the 4:00 mark.)
  
  
  
• Check out this footnote in a dissenting opinion issued yesterday in a Texas case. This Q and A is taken from the testimony of a state's DNA expert. Oh, my. 
  
• Very legal nerd stuff for criminal practitioners only: The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals yesterday, which never takes any public action on a Monday, granted a PDR on a case where a trial judge refused to grant a PR bond for a defendant who had been in jail for 90 days without an indictment. Instead he reduced the bond to $1.5 million. Under the law, the judge had to either grant a PR bond or reduce the bond to any amount a defendant can "afford." 
• Lockheed Martin acknowledged that 1,024 of its employees have gone through training courses to bring awareness to White male culture. That should get some people riled up. 
  
  
  
• An image of Tank Man, which long time readers know I'm a big fan of, was blocked by Microsoft's Bing internet search engine on Friday -- the anniversary of the event. Microsoft blamed "human error." 
  
  
  
• The Aggies just stole TCU's very, very good baseball coach. He had been with the Frogs for 18 years.
  
  
   
• Messenger: Above the Fold

Random Tuesday Morning Thoughts

And he actually died shortly thereafter.  A few months earlier, he had run into a bit of trouble:

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• The Internet broke this morning, but it seems to be up and running again.
  

  

  
  
  
  
• This is really horrifying and about as far from conservatism as you can get. “Patriotic education” mandated by the government isn’t education; it’s propaganda.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Will the "1836 Project" teach that:
• Every person coming to Texas for land had to swear their allegiance to Mexico and to convert to Catholicism because Texas was, after all, Mexican territory? 
• That immigrants who made that promise turned around and broke it and then took up arms against Mexico because Mexico didn't allow slaves? 
• That completely broke and unable to fend for themselves, the Republic of Texas begged the United States to annex them only to take up arms against our country 16 years later in the Civil War?
• That the first Constitution of Texas specifically legalized slavery? (Art. 8 Section 1.)
• That Texans stole land and slaughtered the Comanches and Kiowas? 
• What about the Lynching of Jesse Washington in Waco? The Slocum Massacre? The Lynching of Henry Smith in Paris?
• No. Little Johnny will only be given a "Patriotic Education." 
• And he's flat out lying below.  No, the law does not prohibit "any business" from requiring a "vaccine passport." Private businesses can require it all they want. It only applies to the very few businesses with state contracts. This is very Trumpesque of him.
  
  
  
  
• The FBI recovered millions of dollars of money extorted via ransomware from Colonial Pipeline? I'm skeptical about this. You just don't "have" an address of a Bitcoin account. 
  

  

  (And that's not how you spell affidavit)
  
  
• What a team! The "Grab 'em by the P" guy joins forces with a guy who harassed women so badly that even Fox News fired him and then had to pay the victims $32 million.  They will be in Dallas on December 19th when mistletoe will be abundant.
  

  

  
  
  
  
• This resignation is a little weird. She only had 18 months left on her term.  
  
  
  
• Wise County seems to have settled in with 1 in 4 of us fully vaccinated. 
  
  
  
• Mint Dentistry has leased all 14,000 square feet of the very top floor of the Green Monster in Dallas.  The article, sadly, didn't give a price tag.
  
  
  
• As an afterthought, I thought I'd look at the Mint Dentistry website. Oh, my.  Their office could be a TV series like Nip/Tuck only with dentists. 
  
  
  
• Thamel is pretty reliable. "A pair of CFP meetings are expected to decide a specific recommendation, with a final decision, details and television contract determined later in the fall." Link.
  
  
  
• Interesting:
  
  
  
• A Fort Worth police officer got in a foot chase yesterday and left his car on the railroad tracks. A train came by and hit it. (You can click on the link if you want, but that's basically the whole story. No pictures.) 

Random Monday Morning Thoughts

I don't know whether to second guess my 90% number or not.  The 'whodunit" cases are almost always theft/burglary cases. 

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• Here's the reason for the rain and thunder rolling through Wise County this morning. At 7:02 a.m.:
  
  
  
• It is an "11-minute flight that'll reach more than 60 miles above Earth." Still sounds crazy to me. 
  
  
  
• Jon Rahm was leading the Memorial golf tournament by six strokes after the third round but had to withdraw after testing positive for COVID-19. His pay day would have been $1.7 million. He chose not to be vaccinated, so it is hard to feel sorry for the guy. 
  
  
  
  
  
  
• It was announced on Friday, Donald Trump was suspended from Facebook for another two years. On Saturday, his pants became big news. 
  
  
  
• A Florida woman, 53, trashed an Outback Steakhouse. The video is a little NSFW but, to her credit, that's a healthy 53. 
  
  
  
• An El Paso mom posted a 12 minute "short and simple" "explanation" on Youtube trying to explain why she posed as a her middle school daughter. Within 30 seconds, I felt sorry for her husband because she is unbearable. I think I'd rather hang out with the Outback Naked Lady. 
  
  
  
  
  

  

  
  
  
  
• The Aggies make the cover of Dave Campbell's Texas Football.
  
  
  
• The Dallas Morning News editorial board is living in Fantasyland if they believe this: 
  
  
  
• I asked on Friday why an Edgewood police car was being used by an "off duty" Edgewood police officer to work a construction job on LBJ which was involved in a big wreck. A faithful reader says if you look closely that it may not be an Edgewood police car at all -- that many off duty officers are just driving cars which simply read "Police" on them.  But here it is hard to tell. 
  
  
  
• I made reference the other day that I was reading a Texas Rangers book and gave it two big thumbs up. The author emailed me afterwards to say he's been a Liberally Lean reader for years even though he now lives in Pennsylvania! 
  
  
  
• Legal kind of nerdy stuff: What price would you pay if during an appellate argument on Zoom an attorney "raised his middle finger to the camera" as opposing counsel was speaking? In Michigan we have an answer. (Spoiler alert: It's $3,000).
• Legal nerd stuff:  A Trump federal judge is raising eyebrows with his opinion striking down California's ban on AR-15s. (And the next sentence's use of "Even if" is a a little nutty as well.)
  
  
  
• I just mentioned him last week and noted that the "best I can tell, he's been out of the news since 2016." I spoke too soon. 
  
  
  
• I told you the the World Series of College Softball was big entertainment, and I stand by that. They are down to the final four with two elimination games today. Unranked James Madison plays OU today at 3:00 p.m. (that's way too early) and Florida State takes on Alabama after 6:00 p.m.  And this play on Saturday by the James Madison pitcher against OSU was an "Oh, my":
  
  
  
• I haven't mentioned the Mavericks during the playoffs because I don't care about the NBA.  And there's hard to find a more unlikeable trifecta of humans than Carlisle, Cuban and Doncic (yeah, he's great, but that constant whining during the regular season is over the top.)  And I bet Doncic gets away from those two as soon as possible.