Random Thursday Morning Thoughts

Ten years ago yesterday, Fox 4 news had a misfire near the end of game six. 

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• Wise County actually hosted a "governor debate" last night between Don Huffines, Allen West, and Chad Prather with Shelley Luther doing the moderating. You can watch everyone try to out-conservative themselves here. They claim they invited Greg Abbott who they said declined. That's probably true. 
  
  
  
  
  
  
• BagOfNothing is back up. I knew what was going on but certainly wasn't going to say anything. That's a beating for anyone who has been through it. 
• So we learned it was a live round that killed the cinematographer on the set with Alec Baldwin. (Again, he's home free on this deal.)  But I've got serious questions about Santa Fe County Sheriff Adan Mendoza. If he thinks he can just gather up 500 rounds of ammo from the "crime scene" and send them to Quantico for "analysis", he's in for a rude awakening.  Those boys will laugh at him for such a generic request (and from his press conference, he was exactly that generic sounding.)
  
  
  
  
  
  
• In this five second video of a tornado in Orange, Texas yesterday, you can see an ATV go flying through the air. 
  
  
  
• I didn't have Ted Cruz defending the Nazi Salute on my Bingo card, but he did it yesterday. (I know the point he was trying to make, but that was a dumb move which was guaranteed to become a soundbite. It's the same kind of judgment that led him to take a trip to Cancun.)
  
  
  
• Texas book ban update: State Rep. Matt Krause's book crusade included a letter providing "a 16-page list of about 850 book titles and asks the districts if they have these books, how many copies they have and how much money they spent on the books."  They included:
• Life, Death and Sacrifice: Women and Family in the Holocaust 
• We the Students: Supreme Court Cases For and About Students 
• Abortion: Opposing Viewpoints 
• Women's Rights 
• The Cider House Rules
• And this one!
  
  
  
• Idiocy by the city to volunteer pay it. Robbery by the law firm to charge it. Big law firms run some of the greatest scams in America.  
  
  
  
• Here is the promo which debuted last night where Tucker Carlson appears to have produced an upcoming program that will suggest/urge that The Trump Insurrection on 1/6 was a "false flag." This looks like Alex Jones type stuff. 
  
  
  
• And another case solved by genetic genealogy.  "In 2019, officers sent one of the infant’s rib bones to a private lab in Texas for forensic analysis. The lab recovered human DNA from the bone and conducted a genealogical profile, which led to Poole and Bynum — a married couple living in the small town of Taylorsville, police said."
  
  
  
• Rusty Hardin out of Houston is a really good lawyer. But even the greatest lawyers can get their arse handed to them.  He was the lead defense lawyer on this multi-million verdict. (And I've never really thought you can be an expert in both criminal and civil law.) 
  
  
  
• Lost puppy dog alert.  Edit: Cancel this. They were actually found. 
  
  
  
• I'll be locked into this just like I was locked into this case when I was a teenager. There's a great book on it called Evidence of Love. You'll like it to if a suburban housewife, a seedy affair, and an axe taken to her lover's wife gets your attention. 
  
  
  
• Unlike Jerry Jones who is currently making a fortune in oil and gas, real estate, a national concession company, and more, Mark Cuban is just Barnum Bailey trying to associate himself with smoke and mirrors.
  
  
  
• For the umpteenth year: No one is giving away their weed candy on Halloween. 
  
  
  
• Waco legal news only because her name got my attention. It seems that her last name is referenced as "Hunting Horse" even though she doesn't use a hyphen. If it's a native American name, it would normally be strung together as Huntinghorse. 
  
  
  
• For the life of me, I don't understand why there are TV commercials for prescription drugs.

Random Wednesday Morning Thoughts

Thoughts on civil forfeiture 10 years ago. (Here's the AP story about the DA in Shelby County that the Feds were after. I don't know what eventually happened.)

   

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• It was a nice dedication ceremony yesterday naming the courtroom at the new courthouse annex (officially called the "Wise County Court Center ") after the late Judge Melton Cude.  Judge Lowery had a hard time beginning his remarks when he became more emotional. We need more of that in this world. 
• The Aurora City Council met last night in temporary quarters. (Credit: Messenger's Austin Jackson doing yeoman's work.)
  
  
  
• I saw this headline a million times yesterday and kept thinking, "He got charged for being kicked by a paramedic?" Side note which is actually the lede: That's one one heck of a still shot from that video in that shocking case.
  
  
  
• And this headline below was everywhere. What do you expect the DA to say before the investigation is complete? That all charges are off the table?  (But I am interested in the first news conference today. I really want to know if it was a real gun with a real bullet -- that's not entirely clear.)
  
  
  
• I think it's going to be hard to get a conviction against Kyle Rittenhouse, and the judge isn't going to do the prosecution any favors, but the blurb below is a little misleading. The actual story said that while the judge "advised Rittenhouse’s team against using pejorative terms to describe the three men shot, such language could be used in their closing arguments if evidence shows the men participated in criminal acts." And telling the prosecutors that they can't refer to them as "victims" is a little unusual but not unheard of. 
  
  
  
• I'm telling you, we are getting closer to book burning parties.
  
  
  
• His actual letter to the Agency ask them to find any books which "might" cause a student to feel "discomfort." Good lord.
  
  
  
• Historical reference photo.
  
  
  
• In a related note but from a completely different source and reason, I don't know why the lady wants her record expunged or why she is getting such widespread support for it. An expungement means it is all wiped away just like it didn't happen. You don't want that. You want people to remember it. 
  
  
  
• Random Cowboy pics from their Halloween party.

  

  Dak as a lion tamer.

  
  

  

  Dalton Shultz

  
  
• What are the Aggies up to now? Video. Answer: I have no idea. 
  
  
  
• I need to put this story in my "Don't Trust Medical Examiners" file. 
  
  
  
• There were 19 deaths listed in the Update yesterday.
• Legal nerd stuff: Two Texas criminal laws were struck down as unconstitutional yesterday by intermediate courts of appeals. Here and here if you are interested in that sort of think. (One of them was the same law being used to prosecute Netflix for broadcasting Cuties. Speaking of, whatever happened to that?)
• Messenger: Above the Fold 

Random Tuesday Morning Thoughts

I just went back and watched it. I still think it was wildly inappropriate, but I surprisingly also caught myself laughing this time.     

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• The cold front and accompanying very quick storm will blow through Wise County at 1:15 a.m. 
• Friday really is the time to dump bad news.  Arlington PD fired the officer who shot and killed the man driving very slowly in a cul-de-sac who they had blocked in, and also released the video of the incident. By Monday, everyone had forgotten about it, including me.   Fox 4 coverage. WFAA coverage. (It's the white vehicle, below.)
  
  
  
  
  
  
• The stock market hit and all time record high yesterday. Trump used to take all the credit when that happened. 
  
  
  
• It's a Starbucks going in on 380 in Bridgeport.  Also, Bud Kennedy of the Star-Telegram tipped me off to this site where you can find out what's going on with basically any commercial building site in Texas. 
  
  
  
• Ummm???
  
  
  
• It's just mindboggling numbers. Facebook yesterday evening announced $9.2 billion in net income on $29 billion in revenue -- all in the third quarter alone and all for a company which doesn't produce anything. 
  
  
  
• Yesterday I saw references to two new cases where a person's identity was established by forensic genetic genealogy/familial DNA -- the locating of relatives through commercial DNA databases who share most, but not all, of the known DNA markers from the unknown person you seek. And then doing good old fashioned police work after that. 
• This one
  
  
  
• And this one.
  
  
  
• I remember this quote from a small town Texas police chief from a Texas Monthly story from a couple of months ago. It is spot on. 
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Just like what happened with cell phones and flat screen TVs, you are about to see the age of the astronomical explosion of electric cars.
  
  
  
• Cover-up!!!
  
  
  
• You know who I think is a very possible wild-card hire? Art Briles' son, Kendal, who is the offensive coordinator at Arkansas. 
  
  
  
• Someone read this very short story and explain where that $500,000 figure in the headline comes from.  It's completely made up. 
  
  
  
• Thumbs up to this Netflix documentary. And it has quite the startling ending. 
  
  
  
• I still monitor the Texas COVID hospitalizations because I'm kind of expecting another Winter Surge, but so far there is no evidence of that happening. Yet.