11.08.2021

Random Monday Morning Thoughts




Dr. Conrad Murray was convicted of involuntary manslaughter in the death of Michael Jackson ten years ago yesterday. He ended up serving two years of a four year sentence, and wrote a book about the whole ordeal in 2016.

  • Just last week I was talking to someone about how people were all most crushed to death in the concourse area at the Rolling Stones concert at the Cotton Bowl in 1989 but hardly anyone has ever heard about it. Then the exact same thing happened in Houston on Friday night at the Travis Scott concert but with tragic results. The video of this girl pleading with one of the cameramen is chilling. 

    • It's still early in the investigation in Houston, but it appears the people weren't trampled but instead died because their chests got compressed so tightly that their lungs couldn't expand. That's exactly what happened at the The Who show in 1979. We didn't hear much about it, but 21 people died that way at the "Love Parade" music festival in Germany in 2010.
    • Those barriers towards the stage in Houston look pretty stout. 

  • President Biden's $1.9 trillion Infrastructure Bill passed late Friday night and is headed to his desk for signing. With nine Democrats voting against it, it took 16 Republican votes to pass it. Without the GOP members, it would have failed. 

  • Cancun can't survive with publicity like this. "The attorney general’s office for the state of Quintana Roo said in a statement that two men died in a confrontation between 19 to 20 gang members over drug dealing territory that borders the Hyatt Ziva Riviera Cancún and the Azul Beach Resort. Another person identified as a hotel guest was hospitalized for a head injury. AP reported 15 attackers arrived by boat in Puerto Morelos, Mexico, wearing ski masks and left the scene on the water." I've walked that stretch of beach.  
     

  • COVID:
    • Aaron Rodgers is actually weirder than we thought he was. We learned he lied about being vaccinated, took a horse dewormer instead, oddly quoted MLK in his defense, and blamed the "woke mob" for coming after him. And he is flat out making this part up: 

      • I noticed that the State Farm commercials featuring Rodgers noticeably disappeared yesterday. 
    • Ted Cruz got offended by Big Bird on Saturday. 

      • I wonder if Cruz thinks his own comic book qualifies as propaganda directed towards children.

  • On Saturday afternoon, QAnon was at it again:



  • Good lord. Look at that picture and that headline. And if her father is telling the truth, he and his wife lived in the same apartment with the children and were there when the fire broke out at 3:00 a.m.  Prosecutors allege the children were "unattended" and charged the mother who was not at home. 


  • And another: "For the past two years, the identity of the individual to whom the skeletal remains belonged was shrouded in mystery. Genetic material recovered from the site led investigators to some of Seitz's possible relatives; this discovery, which came with the assistance of a private laboratory and the FBI, ultimately helped identify the victim in recent weeks."

  • Bill Belichick fashion on display before yesterday's game. We should all aspire to have that attitude. 

  • The "Steel House" outside of Lubbock is on the market for $1.75 million. I had never heard of it before this weekend.  

  • During the Cowboy stinker yesterday, a blocked punt ended up in a first down for Denver yesterday.  I guess the rule is very simple when you think about it: If a punt goes past the line of scrimmage, it doesn't matter if it was blocked or not. If the receiving team then touches it without recovering it, it's a live ball.  (And the same applies for a field goal that doesn't make it to the end zone: See Leon Lett vs. Packers Dolphins on Thanksgiving back in the day.)

  • Texas Tech will be hiring a Baylor assistant as its next head coach. He's a huge fan favorite in Waco. 
at 8:30 AM

11.05.2021

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

at 2:30 PM

Random Friday Morning Thoughts




I had forgotten that Herman Cain (R.I.P.) was running for President a decade ago, forgot that he got caught up in a sexual harassment scandal right in the middle of it, and forgot that he broke out into song to get the press off his back. (Video.)   

  •  The Kyle Rittenhouse trial is bizarre because every witness the prosecution calls is hostile. They aren't outright saying that Rittenhouse was justified, but they might as well be. It's just the best witnesses the prosecution has. One witness yesterday was a "journalist" for the right wing The Daily Caller, and the other was a guy who had driven to Kenosha armed with his own AR-15 and pistol while wearing body armor in order to try to stop “rioting and looting and what not.”


    • And even when the trial is not going on in the courtroom, things aren't going well for the prosecutor. 

  • This case never made sense to me. (Background.) It was just so cold-blooded. And it happened right off Harmon Road as you are headed into Fort Worth. 


  • The Little Ball of Insurrection got 60 days to do. That's not nearly enough.


  • This got a lot of play yesterday.  Perhaps this struggling family used the milk to fill up their pool in the background. (Not to mention milk hasn't been $1.99 a gallon since 1979.) 

  • I might embroider this on a throw pillow. 

  • Breaking: Unemployment numbers just released show it is down to 4.6% (it was 6.3% in January.)   Throw in the stock market being at an all time high and we are finally out of Afghanistan, are things really that bad? Trump would be running to the Rose Garden right now to get in front of the cameras. Biden should, too.

  • New Texas Tribune/UT poll just released. I think this is just about right. 

    • And I think Abbott will win the Republican primary, but I'm surprised that the new poll shows this:

  • How much do you think they had to pay Kate Hudson to promote some kind of cryptocurrency? I'll tell you one thing, I guarantee that she demanded to be paid in U.S. currency. 

  • I read this one over the last couple of weeks.  It's a about a serial axe killer in Austin in the 1880s written by the famed Texas Monthly writer.  Good stuff. And you'll learn that prosecutors could be pretty wild with their accusations even back then. 

  • I'm two episodes into Maid on Netflix. Everyone needs this dose of reality. 

  • 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: 854 days.
  • Messenger: Above the Fold

at 8:29 AM

11.04.2021

Random Thursday Morning Thoughts




The Ticket's Norm Hitzges got married 10 years ago, and I had found their wedding album online. Alas, it is now gone. The album, not the marriage. "Norm and Mary" are still together today.   

  •  I watched some of the Kyle Rittenhouse trial yesterday.  Random observations:
    • From an optics standpoint, he is a nightmare for the prosecution. Boyishly young, white, and clean cut. And he looks, well, innocent. 

    • I've said that I thought the prosecution will have a difficult time getting a conviction, but I've been focusing on the death that occurred on the street when he was retreating.  But that first killing by the boarded up store, where we don't have a good video of it, might be a lot more troublesome for him. He shot the guy in the head. If I'm the prosecutor, I would have indicted him on that one alone and focused on it. 
    • Man, you get to see all the unedited videos taken that night if you are watching this trial. (Just search for the trial on YouTube. There are a number of live feeds.)
    • The judge is much smarter than I expected, but he's also a nut.  In considering a hearsay objection, he went on a long dissertation about the Hearsay Rule which was actually spot on about a very complicated subject. But then he went on to its historical background and began referencing the Apostle Paul while he was in prison.  He certainly has never learned the first rule of being a judge: Say as little on the record as possible if you don't want to get reversed.

    • Then he went on a rant about legal experts on TV and even brought up Jeffrey Toobin. Watch it here. 
    • The defense lawyer doesn't know the evidence rules. 

    • The prosecutor is ready to push the rules and no one is calling him on it. While playing a video, he would suddenly stop it and, without objection, would then address the jury with something like, "What you are seeing here, and this is undisputed, is the defendant . . . ."  Sheesh.  This isn't a One Act Play. 

    • Hey, that guy kind of looks like Gary Oldman in Batman Returns.

  • He's unhinged. 

  • Teacher salary scale in the metroplex is here.  It lists 1 through 49. 

  • I'm not exactly sure how the prosecutor in the Raider player's deadly DWI case got the detailed information below so quickly. It seems like you would have to jump through some constitutional hoops to get access to the "black box" information. And that would also be record speed to get a court admissible alcohol concentration from blood.  

  • The Cowboys will wear these 1976 helmets on Sunday. I'll say it: That's a bad look. 

  • Lots of truth to this. 

  • A few people asked if my assistant made it to the Rolling Stones. Yes, she did. Got there at 3:30 p.m. for general admission standing room on the floor of the Cotton Bowl and didn't sit down again until after 11:00.  You have to really love the Stones to do that. 
  • Louie Gohmert and the QAnon Jewish Laser Beam Congresswoman did a publicity stunt together in support of the January 6th Trump Insurrectionists.  They showed up at the D.C. jail demanding admittance. (They were told to hit the road.) He even has a cute little hashtag for the seditionists. 

    • I'll never understand how these nuts want to normalize the attempted overthrow of the United States Government. I'll forever be pissed off about it. 

  • Prosecutors cannot intentionally use their peremptory strikes (removing x number of jurors from the pool without the need for the judge's approval) on the basis of race alone.  But that rule also applies to the defense lawyer. Someone pointed out to me last night hat there is one huge difference: If the prosecutor objects to the defense striking all minorities and the judge overrules the objection, there will never be anything the prosecutor can do about it if that white jury then finds the defendant not guilty. The state can never appeal an acquittal. 

  • Random new Gallup poll on marijuana legalization (including historical results): 

  • Mrs. LL has an unusual philosophy for teenage trick or treaters. She thinks they ought to get full sized candy bars as a reward for not instead being out and doing hood rat things.
  • Interesting. Wise County voted against a Proposition that passed the state wide election: "Texas Proposition 2, Authorize Counties to Issue Infrastructure Bonds in Blighted Areas Amendment." I wonder if the word "blighted" had anything to do with it.

at 8:32 AM
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