11.14.2022

Random Monday Morning Thoughts




From Random Thoughts on 11/14/12. 

  • There were a lot of videos of the mid-air collision that killed six in Dallas on Saturday. I think the top four are here (planes coming in towards the camera), here (screenshot below), here, and here. 

  • Over the weekend, Nevada and Arizona were called for the Democrats. The Senate, and President Biden's ability to have his federal judges confirmed, remains intact. (I'll break down my wrongful reliance on 538's prediction later.)

  • Election denier, both past and present, Kari Lake is probably going to lose the Arizona governor's race.  It's amazing how if they lose it's "Fraud!" but if they win "The system worked!" 
     
    • Saturday Night Live had a spot on imitation of her, complete with her trademarked "soft lens", as well as a great depiction of the Fox and Friends hosts:

  • The FTX crypto implosion turned into a bankruptcy and scandal as its founder was rumored to be headed for South America (which he denied) but with billions being unaccounted for. 

    • What makes Americans so gullible? Maybe because we are conditioned to be. Yep, that's the FTX founder on the right: 

  • College carnage: 
    • Shooting at UVA last night. The schools is still in "shelter in place" this morning since the gunman is still on the lose, but police have identified who they they are looking for, and  he is a former student and football player.  Edit: A current linebacker was just named as one of the victims.

    • Ruled a homicide in Idaho. The bodies were found yesterday afternoon. 

  • Elon Musk's  new Twitter verification system is going great. It was was abruptly put on hold on Friday, but the mess is still out there. 
  • Trump news:
    • Tiffany got married this weekend and, I'll admit, this is a nice family photo -- with the exception of one person not following the rules. 

    • Trump is now a major headache for the Republican Party. And he's a child. This was before the wedding: 
       

       
  • "Walther was a pastor at the Faith Baptist Church in Round Rock for the past 18 years, said David Clawson, a deacon at the church."  It looks like he wasn't the pastor, but the church's website -- and that's a big church -- has scrubbed him so I can't figure out what position he held.  Story.


  • Three images from the TCU/Texas game.  And, yes, I should have never doubted the Frogs.
    • Before the game, the UT coach was sporting a wild suit. 

    • Those first quarter stats. If I heard the broadcast correctly, it was the fewest number of combined yards for a first quarter in any college game all year. 

    • Best crowd shot

  • We had one of the Top Five all time catches yesterday in the wild Vikings/Bills game. Video.

  • Legal nerdy stuff: Federal law makes it a crime for a person to possess a firearm if he is subject to a family violence protective order (18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(8)).  Well, maybe not. Last Thursday a Trump federal judge in West Texas struck the law down citing the Supreme Court's Bruen decision from earlier this year. And this is one nausea inducing opening paragraphs: 

  • Legal nerdy stuff #2: The Texas legislature -- the same one which banned all abortion with no exceptions -- began pre-filing bills for the upcoming session at 8:00 a.m. this morning. Between 300-500 bills are expected to be filed before Thanksgiving. 



at 8:30 AM

11.11.2022

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

at 2:30 PM

Random Friday Morning Thoughts




When the Messenger took on the War on Drugs. 

  • Not sure what the update is on this . . .

  • Senate update:
    • Nevada: Republican leads by 8,988 with 130,035 left to count. 

    • Arizona: Democrat leads by 115,037 with 527,715 left to count

  • This occurred last night by a the same Trump district judge in Fort Worth who who is always making the news because of his wild decisions.   This one will be appealed to the Fifth Circuit which is also full of Trump judges. Opinion is here.

    • On a related note of the sad state of our judiciary, watch a smiling Justice Alito, author of Dobbs, appear before the right wing Federalist Society at a dinner last night as the crowd gave him a rousing ovation.  This is really disturbing. 

  • Elon Musk's decision to allow any account to get a "verified" check mark for $8, is going really well. Examples below (all which went live -- and then Twitter can't ban them fast enough because everyone has been fired or quit): 



  • Inflation might have tailed off just a bit yesterday, but I really liked this chart showing inflation over the years.  The period of 1973-1985 was wild, and then we had a generation that didn't even know what inflation was. 

  • We have a winner in the Dallas County district judge's race which required voters to write-in a name. So how many votes does it take? 38,865 is number it took to win over two other write-in candidates. In the other "normal" judicial races on Tuesday in Dallas County, there were around 400,000 votes cast in each which meant you needed 200,000+ to win. 

  • Trump declared war on fellow Republican Ron DeSantis last night.  The first sentence of the statement was 88 words. It's the kind of thing that would cause an immediate family intervention to be called if your crazy uncle posted it. 

    • Seriously, what are the Republicans going to do with Trump? He may be about to destroy the party's best chance to win the Presidency in 2024.  And the Republican primaries and the debates would a wheels off circus. Let's do it! 

  • I present to you a very confusing photo posted on the Messenger's twitter account last night as they covered the Alvord playoff game. (Click to enlarge.) I love this so much. 


  • Remember yesterday when I made fun of 300,000 in Tennessee for voting to approve slavery for prisoners?  I missed a very big related story: 

  • College NIL flashback and news: 
    • I said this the day after NIL payments were authorized:

    • Yesterday we had the equivalent of a SuperPAC (or probably a combo of already existing SuperPACs):

  • I've got a bad feeling about TCU on Saturday. 
  • Cyrptocurrency exchange FTX just declared for bankruptcy. 
  • 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, 129 days.
  • Messenger - Above the Fold

Remember, the have gun boats!


at 8:31 AM

11.10.2022

Random Thursday Morning Thoughts



That was in reference to Roanoke, Texas, and I was right. There's even a Wikipedia entry about the odd number of crashes and fatalities there "between 22 September and 3 November 2012."  Since then, I had forgotten that Roanoke even had an airport. (Oh, I can't find the video I referenced.)

  • Liberally Lean Weather Bulletin: My crack and highly compensated staff has issued a Wise County alert that it's about to get cold. It will be 63 degrees at midnight and then get ready: 
    • When you wake up: 50 degrees
    • By 10:00 a.m.: 47 degrees
    • By 2:00 p.m.: 46 degrees
    • By 7:00 p.m.: 42 degrees
    • By midnight: 39 degrees
    • Saturday morning: 33 degrees
  • Counties won by Beto:

  • Senate update: Three states are left and both parties need to win two of three for control. Arizona and Nevada are up in the air, and Georgia is headed to the run-off.  I don't think any of them can be safely predicted right now. As of this morning:
    • In Arizona, the Democrat has a 95,318 lead with an estimated 595,483 still to be counted.

    • In Nevada, the Republican has a 15,812 lead with an estimated 165,713 still to be counted. 

  • Quacking? (By the way, she won re-election with 66% of the vote. Incredible.)

    • Her crazy cohort is in a barn-burner. She's behind by 64 votes with 5% still to be counted. 

  • We will never hear about "rainbow fentanyl" again. 
  • The biggest loser on Tuesday must have been Trump because the conservatives are dog-piling him . . . 
    • The conservative Wall Street Journal:

    • The very conservative and Murdock owned New York Post. Ouch:  

    • Drudge (who has always hated Trump): 

    • The obnoxious Mark Levin (who started as a never-Trumper but then transitioned to a Trump suck-up): 

  • For the life of me, I don't know why the Republicans in the Senate didn't go along with the impeachment of Trump after January 6th. Not only was it well deserved, but that would have triggered a life-time ban from federal office. They would be done with him.  But I pray he runs. And he still has a "big announcement" scheduled for next Tuesday.

  • Tarrant County Sheriff Bill Waybourn's jail hands down the death penalty far more than Texas juries:

     
  • The U.S. Constitution actually expressly permits slavery for those incarcerated. Some states want to prevent that by amending their own state constitutions to prohibit slavery of prisoners. Tennessee did that on Tuesday. But just think about the 318,000 people who looked at the ballot and thought "Slavery? Good idea!"

  • I listened to WBAP this morning for a sec and heard Hal Jay and Ernie Brown spending a segment discussing whether Brittney Griner "hates America" because she once took a knee during the national anthem. Neanderthals. 

  • Something is going on in the seedy crypto market. Bitcoin plummeted 25% on the news of the implosion of FTX (who, by the way, has multi-million naming rights contract for the Miami Heat's arena and Cal's stadium.)  And that's about all I know of crypto -- other than it is snake oil.

  • Legal nerdy stuff: Most of the newly approved Denton pot ordinance is a big bag of nothing because they can't legally do anything which contradicts state law. But one provision of the ordinance (according to this article) is that Denton Police can no longer use the odor of marijuana as probable cause to search a vehicle. You know, that might be OK.  State and federal law certainly allows the odor of marijuana to be probable cause but that's not the same as mandating a search based on the odor. 

at 8:29 AM
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