9.05.2022

Random Monday Morning Thoughts





Text at the time: "House Fire (Wise County) Four Wise County fire departments are battling a house fire at 6769 Farm Road 51 North. The blaze is near the intersection of County Road 2625."

  • It's Labor Day, and yet again I prove I'm THWMISB™.
  • But the far right wing Wise County Conservatives (who meet in a church) want you to know that you are a Commie if you are taking the day off. 

    • It should be noted that the post is embarrassingly wrong from an historical standpoint. Yet another reason that you shouldn't ban books. 
  • Wise County's public website which has all the court and jail information has been down for five days. And when it is down, the internal system used by the jail, courts, prosecutors, and clerks is also down.   I've never seen it offline this long, and it makes me believe something is seriously wrong. 
    • I realize there is a big move from the courthouse to temporary offices going on (because of courthouse renovation), but that wouldn't explain it. The county servers are housed in the old Wells Fargo building and they aren't impacted. 
    • Ransomware attack? That's pure speculation. But it happened once before to the Sheriff's office. 
  • A junior varsity player from Dalhart:

  • Moments ago. Regardless of whether it actually happens, gas prices will go up on the news alone. 

  • Horrible death from his condo in the "Jenga building" in lower Manhattan. "The chain had said Wednesday that it will lay off approximately 20% of corporate employees, close around 150 stores and slash several of its in-house home goods brands."


  • News out of Seattle, Washington in the last 12 hours:


  • I got a very cryptic message that this new documentary on Hulu about a teacher-student relationship has a Decatur connection. I haven't watched it yet. 

  • Crazy news out of normally calm Canada.

  • On Friday, the details of the documents found (and not found) in Trump's place at Mar-a-Lago were released. He responded on Saturday by calling the FBI "vicious monsters."   We might as well call it MAGA vs. The Union now. 



  • Also on Friday, there was a hung jury over in Denton.  There's something not quite right about that case involving a former Ranger star.

  • Video of construction tumbling like a house of cards in Dallas yesterday during a storm. I'm no contractor, but I don't think that should happen that easily.

  • "Just before 3:30 am [on Friday], Engine 12 was responding to a house fire when it was involved in a rollover accident on NW 28th St on the north-side of Fort Worth. All 4 firefighters were transported to the hospital with minor injuries. No other vehicles were involved." Fort Worth is probably self-insured on stuff like this, right?


  • This was in connection with the $10,000 loan forgiveness order. You think this worked out well for them?

  • Legal nerdy stuff: Tarrant County has formally asked the AG whether a magistrate appointed by the judges can also serve as a legal advisor to those judges.  The County Auditor told the AG it was an "ongoing situation" and needed to be answered as soon as possible. The job salary for the recently posted opening was included in the request.

  • Other Tarrant County court news:

  • If you haven't seen the two plays in the final seconds that Uvalde used to win its first home game, you need to.

  • Wise County high school football highlights: (1) Decatur gave up 15 points in the last 4:37 to send the game against Wichita Falls Rider into overtime -- and then lost, (2)  Bridgeport beat Boyd in a defensive struggle, 63-62, and (3) Boyd had a Big Man Touchdown:

  • Kickoff at UCLA for the first game of the year. And the Big 10 wants them for the LA market? 

  • UT opens as a 20 point underdog against Alabama. Kickoff is Saturday at 11:00 a.m. 


at 8:29 AM

9.02.2022

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

at 2:30 PM

Random Friday Morning Thoughts




Slow moving Hurricane Issac, which had come ashore, caused the postponement of the Aggie vs. Louisiana Tech game in Shreveport. It would be rescheduled to October where the Aggies escaped 59-57 despite this being Johnny Football's memorable big year.  North Texas was actually able to play LSU in Baton Rouge as scheduled since the weather in southern Louisiana had cleared up. They lost 41-14.
  • Dana Manoushagian was sworn in as Wise County Court at Law #2 yesterday, and a very cool moment was when she opened up her jacket to reveal a "Uvalde Proud" t-shirt. Most people in the audience didn't know that she was raised there. The swearing in was also on the same day as her 32nd wedding anniversary. 

    • Wise County Court at Law #2 causes some confusion. It is located in Bridgeport, and not in Decatur, simply because of space issues. It was created in 2011, but there was no place to put it. But since the county had built a very nice courtroom for the Justice of the Peace over there a few years back, the agreement was reached for the two courts to share it.  
    • And even though it has complete county court at law jurisdiction (including the right to hear criminal misdemeanor cases), it limits itself by an informal agreement to family law and smaller civil lawsuits. All the criminal cases are instead heard in County Court at Law #1 in Decatur (in the old Wells Fargo building) by Judge Greg Lowery. It's admittedly all a little tricked up. 
  • “Too much of what's happening in our country today is not normal,” Biden said. “Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic."  And he's right. There's a clear difference between the Normal Republicans and the Trump Republicans.  The hard core Trump Republicans are nuts. But the problem for the Normal Republicans is that they need the support of the Trump Republicans to get elected. 


  • And the speech was perfectly times because there was a ton of Insurrection news yesterday:
    • We had the longest sentence yet. Still not enough.


    • And on the heels of that, Trump said yesterday he will pardon and apologize to the January 6th Insurrectionists. I wonder if Jefferson Davis ever said that. 


    • A Granbury attorney for the Oath Keepers, one of the main groups behind the Insurrection invasion of the Capitol, was indicted yesterday. 





    • We also learned the wife of a Supreme Court justice contacted the rep of another state in an attempt to overthrow the election. So insane. 

               
  • Overnight news. Now that's a close call.  Video.


  • "The department said on Twitter that officers were dispatched after a woman reported hearing a hissing sound while getting money from one of the kiosks." Police video.


  • I don't know anything about this Texas case, but that's one of the craziest trial pictures I've ever seen. It's like a surprise attack from the lawyer from the rear.  
  • I mentioned this judge before about the allegations of signing search warrants while drunk, but her problems got bigger yesterday when she was "arrested by the Parmer County Sheriff's Office and booked into the Parmer County Jail Wednesday evening on one count each of official oppression, furnishing alcohol to a minor and criminal trespass." The "official oppression" facts are pretty vague and the story only tells us that she is accused "of intentionally mistreated a woman, saying 'she would make sure her partner got jail time,' knowing that it was unlawful."
  • The Wise County Sheriff's office fixed the jail PDF I had been complaining about yesterday morning, and then the whole records search website, as well as the PDF, went down in the afternoon and was still down as I write this.
  • Jacksboro plays its first game in its home stadium which was damaged by the tornado in the spring, and Boyd will be their opponent. 
  • Time which has passed since the Wise County Sheriff's Office, despite having a full male DNA profile, has failed to solve the murder of Lauren Whitener in her home at Lake Bridgeport: 3 years, 59 days.
  • Messenger: Above the Fold

at 8:30 AM

9.01.2022

Random Thursday Morning Thoughts




The most unstable box scores the Messenger ever produced.

  • If this is a "staged photo" . . .

    • . . . so are these.



    • And especially this (which should have been a crime against Christianity) . . .

  • Trump may have finally guaranteed his indictment yesterday. When complaining that the picture being staged, he admitted that he knew the documents were there and where they were kept.  This is bad. And wasn't it just the other day that he said all the documents were "planted"?

  • And while Trump was sealing his fate on social media, one his lawyers was on Fox News randomly saying that lots of people had access to his office where the documents were kept. They are both so bent out shape about the FBI creating a photograph with the documents, that they are making admissions left and right. 

  • Sarah Palin lost last night to a Democrat in her bid to become Alaska's only House representative. (But this is only to finish an unexpired term that ends December 31st.  There is a completely different election between the same candidates in November for the full two year term.)


  • And I still feel like I'm missing one. There have been a bunch lately. 



  • When Abbott does a PR stunt of going "door to door", how many doors do you think he actually knocks on? I'm guessing less than five, and I might be overshooting it.

  • Her sin in Oklahoma? She posted a QR code to the Brooklyn Public Library, which gives students online access to banned books. A library. Yell at me for Hitler comparisons all you want, but we just keep getting closer. It's almost, what would you call it, "semi-fascist" behavior?


  • Some stories just don't make sense. There were a ton of reports over the weekend about a BYU fan shouting the N-word at a Duke volleyball player.  At BYU? That seemed odd. Now it appears the story may not have been true at all. 

  • Texas will still put you in a cage for it, but a new Gallup poll shows . . .   

  • Texas AG Ken Paxton, who is still under indictment, will be hanging out with Trump in New Jersey today.

  • This made me laugh. The audience member was as sincere as the day is long.   



  • That story looks juicy.

  • After I posted this yesterday . . . 

    • . . . a faithful reader told me it looked familiar and attached this . . . 

  •  Number of days that the Wise County Sheriff's Office has failed to fix and update the PDF of the jail roster: 2.


at 8:30 AM
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