7.20.2022

Random Wednesday Morning Thoughts




Ten years ago I was deep into Jon Krakauer's Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith. The book was almost 10 years old then, but a mini-series based upon it was just released on Hulu this year. 

  • Traffic backed up on the "lake road" outside of Bridgeport yesterday when a wildfire broke out. The road was later shut down completely for a while. They were still fighting the fire deep into the night. 

  • Wichita Falls set a record at 115° yesterday.
  • We've now got us a full blown cover-up.   A violent coup occurs on January 6th, and the Secret Service thinks it didn't need to preserve evidence that could implicate the leader of the coup? This is intentional evidence destruction. 

    • What makes this comical is that the Secret Service is in the business of recovering electronic evidence. Even the Wise County DA's office routinely turns over phones or computers to that agency to see what they can recover. It's what they do. They probably do more of that than protect a president.
  • From Possum Kingdom yesterday.

  • In light of Justice Thomas overt threat to overturn the constitutional right to same sex marriage, the House yesterday took measures to make it federal law. The bill, of course, will not pass the Senate.

    • Here's how North Texas reps voted.

  • A Texas elected prosecutor may have known that a Trump Insurrectionist was hiding out at his family's property. (Fun fact: The prosecutor's predecessor in Kinney County was Todd Durden who used to be the County Attorney in Wise County in the 1990s.)


  • And this headline fails to mention that Steven Bannon (assuming he's not in prison), Jack Posobiec (of Pizzagate Hoax fame), and our own Ronny Jackson (assuming he's upright) will also be attending. It's a collection of crazy at the Hilton Anatole in early August. 

  • You know that mess that happens when your a/c's overflow condensation line (that typically dumps the water outside the house where you can see it) also gets clogged and then causes the overflow to get dumped onto the ceiling of a room? This kid has invented a way to stop the clog from occurring. I'm interested (but this Star-Telegram story doesn't really explain much about the invention.) It will be entered in a competition set for "Oct. 17-18 at the 3M Innovation Center in St. Paul, Minnesota, for $25,000 and the title of 'America’s Top Young Scientist.'”  
    . 

  • Small government Republican?:

    • Next on his agenda:

  • This was floating around yesterday. Kind of funny. (I would also like to acknowledge that J. Lo and Ben Affleck were married last weekend in the same place that I was. But Britney beat us to it back in the day.)

  • Weird travel schedule: The Rangers have a "make-up game" at Miami tomorrow and then have to travel across the country to Oakland for a game on Friday. That was the best scheduling idea?

  • Social media fight: Apparently Texas Tech and TCU are going at it on Twitter after TCU's AD said Tech was in a "desert."  Tech is also amped up over a new SuperPAC (my term, from the beginning) which will pay each of their player's $25,000, and a new $200 million stadium.
  • Messenger: Above the Fold


at 8:30 AM

7.19.2022

Random Tuesday Morning Thoughts





Here is the Update blurb about the motorcycle case. And that is an actual pic from the Messenger that accompanied the story. Yep, trooper dragging a dead goat.  

  • Mineral Wells coming in hottest of all.

  • It looks like DFW might be in competition with 1980 and 2011.  Here are the side by side stats through July 18th for each year:

  • Within the last two hours, England has set an all time high temperature reading. Home air-conditioning is basically non-existent there. 


     
  • Fires abound. And it may be worse today. 
    • Parts around Possum Kingdom lake, including houses, are burning. If you are familiar with it, here's a map showing the general area:

    • Near Glen Rose yesterday afternoon.   It has "tripled in size" overnight according to WFAA.

    • We even had a fire in Wise County yesterday.

  • I missed this in the Uvalde report: Here's the breakdown of the officers at the the school by agency:

    • DPS is taking heat: “You got 91 troopers on the scene. You got all the equipment you could possibly want, and you’re listening to the local school cop?” said state Sen. Roland Gutierrez, a Democrat whose district includes Uvalde and who has accused DPS of seeking to minimize its role in the response.
    • And DPS responded.

  • A Bridgeport rancher was featured in an KXAS/Channel 5 story.

  • I'm not sure why Steven Bannon's lawyer, shown below as he arrived for court yesterday, is bringing a shopping bag with him. (Those are bad screengrabs, but they were the best I could pull off.)


  • A new Texas Monthly article by Skip Hollandsworth is always reason to celebrate. In the just released issue, he takes on a recently famous Fort Worth cold case of Carla Walker which was solved by DNA and family tree research. 

  • Paparazzi stalking Elon Musk on a yacht proved Elon Musk might be as white as he is rich. (More pictures here.)

  • Sports news.  College football is wild right now.
  • I'm about four episodes into Apple TV's Severance. I'm a little iffy on it. So far it's been a 30 minute Black Mirror stretched into four hours.

at 8:31 AM

7.18.2022

Random Monday Morning Thoughts




On July 20, 2012, a mass shooting occurred inside a Century 16 movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, United States, during a midnight screening of the film The Dark Knight Rises. Dressed in tactical clothing, James Holmes set off tear gas grenades and shot into the audience with multiple firearms. Twelve people were killed and 70 others were injured, 58 of them from gunfire. In August of that year, the jury deadlocked on whether to impose the death penalty and he was given a life sentence.

  • Yesterday the Texas House released its report on the Uvalde shooting. It was as critical as you expected. But the Texas Tribune might have had the perfect line in summarizing it:

    • There was also new Uvalde video released late yesterday.  Here's an edited version which will suck you in. 

    • Someone tell him he's not the victim. Video.

  • You've already seen it, but . . . 

    • . . . I did notice this when I looked up at the TV last night. Ugh. 

  • Wise County authorities were involved in some kind of car chase/standoff yesterday morning on 287.

  • So how can you determine it to be an accident by simply looking at injuries on a body? Wouldn't the injuries be exactly the same if she had been pushed? (I'm not saying she was. I'm saying no one can make that determination by looking at a body.)

  • Wise County's Congressional representative is a certifiable nutcase. And in the 15 second video, he even managed to screw up the "come and take it" line.

  • I’m fine with this. If you style yourself a combatant in a war to destroy democracy and if your movement is an ongoing mortal threat, then yeah, 15 years . . . that’s fine.  He's from Wylie, Texas.




  • Say what?

  • Say what again.  Actually this one makes a little sense.  Johnson lost in the Republican primary. Now he is hiring the Democrat who will be facing off against the guy who beat him.  

  • Fox Sports graphics department: "Hey, since the Yankees/Red Sox game is being played in New York City, let's create a graphic superimposing the teams' logos on the 9/11 reflecting pools at Ground Zero!"

  • Talk about a late Friday news dump. And how did all the women settle so quickly with the Houston Texans unless they were all hit over the head with a big bag of money?

  • It was one of the last great deals in streaming, but now ESPN+ will go up to $9.99 a month beginning in time for football season. 

at 8:31 AM

7.15.2022

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

at 2:30 PM
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