Random Thursday Morning Thoughts

The passing of "Speedo Man" pictured in the masthead.

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• My highly compensated weather team still thinks it snows all day and into the night in Wise County, and they think we will get a lot of it. (It even began falling a bit earlier this morning than they expected.) But Dallas-Fort Worth proper might get nothing but rain until this evening. The closing of schools in the metroplex might have been a bit premature. Edit: Or not,
  
  
   
• There's a criminal trial ongoing in the district court in Decatur about a child who died.  The State claims it was due to malnourishment while the defense claims the death was due to other medical issues.  Here's the obituary. 
• Yep, it was, and still is, a catastrophe. 
  

  

  
  
  
  
• The Pacific Palisades area is simply gone. Click to enlarge 

  

  Just the coastline damage in the northern area

  
  

  

  Red depicts the homes destroyed. And those were
  some high priced homes. 

  
  
• The Eaton fire with homes in Altadena.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• You can count on Trump to fail to provide encouragement as lives are destroyed. Even Junior got involved.  Just very bad people. 
  

  

  
  
  
  
• Keller ISD  is considering cutting out the riff-raff from its school district by splitting and creating the Alliance ISD which would take all of Keller's school campuses west of Denton Highway 377. That would include the high schools of Central, Fossil Ridge, and Timber Creek high schools and leaving only the original Keller High School.  It's trying to become a junior Southlake ISD. 
  

  

  
  
  
  
• An electrical substation just south of Roanoke dramatically caught fire last night.  Video of it as it was ongoing.
  
  
  
• Trump made a phone call to a Supreme Court judge as Trump was filing his request with the court to stop his Friday criminal sentencing.  The call was allegedly about a low level job reference but almost certainly just an excuse to ex parte the judge (who certainly has no ethics about it.)
  

  

  
  
  
  
• Lots of kissing of the ring going on. 
  
  
  
• Wise County's goofy Congressman was on some spare internet streaming show yesterday talking about taking taking over Greenland, Canada, and Panama as something serious and legitimate. 
  
  
  
• With Texas playing in the Cotton Bowl on Friday, there have been some flashbacks to when coach Steve Sarkisian led BYU over Kansas State as quarterback in the game in 1997.  I actually went to it with a buddy because we didn't have anything to do and tickets were cheap.
  
  
  
• Messenger - Above the Fold

Random Wednesday Morning Thoughts

Wikipedia entry. 

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• My Liberally Lean Weather Team has issued a report: They believe snow will begin in Wise County around 10:00 a.m. tomorrow morning and end around midnight.  This is not to be confused with the metroplex which they think is becoming very unpredictable and where a wintery mix will start much later in the day. That snow line moves slowly:

  

  Thursday morning +

  
  

  

  Thursday evening +

  
  
• I feel sorry for those making a decision about schools. Tomorrow morning will look absolutely fine, but we know it will snow/wintery mix during the day. So do you risk opening the schools and then getting everyone home safely? And as tough as it is to predict snow/wintery mix, the conditions of the roads are a complete wildcard with the temperatures hovering around freezing. 
• A former Wise County deputy who made headlines for taking inappropriate pictures of people registering as sex offenders, is back in the Wise County Jail on a parole violation. 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• History:
  
• With the way these fires have spread in Los Angeles overnight in areas of many, many homes, by the end of the day we are going to see a catastrophic disaster. 
  
  
  
  

  

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Wikipedia has a list of all the times that high school has appeared in movies and TV.
  
  
  
• He has left the Death Star:
  
  
  
• The Laken Riley Act was passed by the new House yesterday which will give ICE new authority. It has begun. 
  

  

  
  
  
  
• I don't know how to handle Trump over the next four years. His press conference yesterday was an insane rant where he claimed he's renaming the Gulf of Mexico, threatened to invade Greenland and Panama, suggested Hezbollah was at the Jan. 6 riot, claimed Jack Smith had "executed people" and ranted about windmills
  
  
  
• He's a cartoon. Video.
  
  
  
• But of all his idiocy, let's remember this part of the press conference for future reference: Grocery prices will come down "very fast."
  
  
  
• She's nuts.  
  
  
  
• Trump has gone (PDF) to the United States Supreme Court this morning to try to stop his criminal sentencing set for Friday in Manhattan -- where he will get time served. Let's see if they get involved once again. 
  
  
  
• I can't take it. 
  

  

  
  
  
  
• I'm sorry. She's getting paid what to do what?!
  
  
  
• I'm surprised at this. He was originally charged with Intoxication Manslaughter because his blood-alcohol concentration was 0.147.  He pled guilty to the lesser charge of Manslaughter, received 10 years deferred probation, with 150 days in jail as a condition -- but he gets to choose when he serves it.  The victim's family was not in favor of the deal. 
  
  

  

  
  
  
  
• Mike McCarthy's contract officially ends today.  He is no longer receiving a paycheck. Today, he is as much the coach of the Dallas Cowboys as I am. (There is a 7 day "exclusive" period for the Cowboys to negotiate with him if they want to.)

Random Tuesday Morning Thoughts

Wait a second! I came up with the idea to renovate the Wise County Courthouse? The same courthouse that is currently being renovated? And to think I've been praising County Judge J.D. Clark all this time. They'll probably name it after me once they read this. 

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• I've got the highly compensated Liberally Lean Weather Team in the lab going over computer models.  I told them to get me a snow estimate and that they better not screw this up.  Developing . . . . 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• The peaceful transfer of power has once again been restored.  It really isn't that hard to do if you're not a nut. 
  

  

  
  
  
  
• A plane crashed into a backyard in California yesterday with remarkably little damage.
  
  
  
  
  
  
• "JetBlue said the plane had most recently flown to Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport from New York JFK Airport with the flight number 1801."
  
  
  
• Meta/Facebook is cozying up to Trump like nobody's business.
  
  
  
• But wait, there's more. Facebook announced this morning that it is going to be like X with no "fact checkers."   X is already like InfoWars with its avalanche of conspiracy posts. Great. Just great. 
  
  
  
  
  
  
• They specifically sucked up to Trump during the announcement. They even made the announcement on Fox News.  The change was made, they said, because of Trump's "commitment to free expression" Huh?! He literally wants to shutdown TV networks that criticize him. 
  
  
  
• An example of Trump's "commitment to free expression" yesterday:
  
  
  
• This is actually surprisingly funny when you see it. Video.
  

  

  
  
  
  
• I wonder if we are going to have the American version of The Diary of Anne Frank? 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Trump might actually just be crazy.  What's next? Rolling tanks into Poland?
  
  
  
• The Business Second™. Junior will also become an "equity owner." I don't know if I can handle four more years of stuff like this.
  
  
  
• Unethical prosecutor news. Gift link.   
  
  
  
• When the new DA in Houston took office on January 1, 2015, he didn't know his law license was suspended because he had failed to pay a late fee to the State Bar.  He has since fixed it.