Thursday's Thoughts

• The judge in the trial of the third officer charged in the Freddie Gray case has declared the police van driver not guilty on all counts in a bench trial.   So far, that's a 0/3 record, with three defendants yet to go.  No word yet whether prosecutor Marilyn Mosby is getting the message that her pandering to the nattering nabobs of the BLM agitators is being seen for the sham that it is.
• Closer to home, a Collin County grand jury has declined to indict a McKinney police officer on charges of excessive force while dispersing an unruly group of adolescents from an unauthorized pool party last summer. The complainant was not injured, but her feelings were hurt, on account of she was disrespected and stuff.
• The tragic murder of 49 people in Orlando has unleashed much commentary reminiscent of those six blind dudes, somewhere on the Indian sub-continent, encountering an elephant.  Many see it as another rallying cry for stricter gun control, others view it as Islamic Extremism, and a few cast it as an act of homophobia.  An article this week suggests that it was revenge, not Islamic doctrine, that animated the shooter, alleging he'd learned he'd been exposed to the HIV virus through one of his encounters at the club, though he did declare allegiance to ISIS during his rampage.  I don't have a problem with including 'no-fly' persons to the NICS database (if there's due process for appeal if it's not justified) to make it more difficult to legally purchase firearms, but I'm also not so naïve as to forget that a determined psychopath can wreak as much, or more, death, hurt, and destruction, with other commonly available items, such as automobiles, diesel fuel and fertilizer.
• '60s counter-culture icon and philosopher George Carlin points the finger at the root cause of political dysfunction (language warning, for those not familiar with Carlin).  I wonder what he would think about the present wholesale sell out of American government - at nearly all levels - by politicians bent on allowing more, not fewer, uninformed or previously ineligible (non-citizen) voters.  If one were to propose some de minimis standards, sort of a 'common core' as it were for voters, the ACLU would have a conniption fit, alleging that certain groups were being disenfranchised.  And so the circus continues.
• Do ya suppose the middle east has Leanin' Palm Tree drawin's where one goat-tender dude says to the other, about a third dude, "Ya know, he jus' don't jihad..."
• Less than two years after a referendum about Scotland leaving the U.K. (it stayed), Britain is tonight tallying results of its own vote on whether to leave the E.U..  Early indications are that it will remain associated with its neighbors on the continent.  (EDIT: The early predictions were wrong.)
• A woman penned this 'open letter' urging Mitt Romney to saddle up again for 2016.  Possibly related, Breitbart has run an article highlighting Sport's Authority's liquidation, connecting it to WMR.  Not until the third paragraph does the author note that Romney left Bain Capital - SA's one time owner - in 1999.
• Messrs. Page and Plant prevailed today in a California courtroom, against claims they'd lifted the opening strains of STH from Taurus's instrumental Spirit.  While I'm not the huge LZ fan, and there have long been claims they regularly plagiarized other works, I think the verdict was correct.
•  Boy, this is neat!  In about 1964 or 1965, my Dad bought a '62 Monza model, light blue metallic.  We had that car when we moved to the Metromess - it's the first car I remember learning to steer and shift (at about age 7 or 8) out on North Story Road (north of Northgate) when it was a 1-1/2 lane blacktop running between pastures.  That was a long time ago.  When Dad's younger brother came back from the Air Force (was stationed at Guam) in about '70, he gave the Corvair to him and he put another 100K on the clock.  Despite all of Nader's warnings, it was a good car.