Photos of the Day
Like Christmas, Halloween seems to arrive earlier each year. Houston Chronicle just published a slideshow of the Most Haunted Properties in Texas. For a bigger fright, use Texas Monthlyâs 2009 list as a guide, though watch out for ghosts and police.
Tweets from Last Night
Probably has somethinâ to do with running shoes âŠ
Make sure youâre following all of the excitement â use our official hashtag #TeamWendy. See you tomorrow!
â Wendy Davis (@WendyDavisTexas) October 3, 2013
Also, check back in with the Daily Post, where our own Dan Solomon will be live-blogging the event.
Daily Roundup
Drug-Raid.tx.govâ Bad news for all you tech-savvy drug fiends out there. The infamous virtual black market, the Silk Road, has been raided by the Feds, and its alleged mastermind was arrested, IRL, for narcotics trafficking. The kingpin is said to be Texan and UT-Dallas graduate Ross William Ulbricht, who went west in search of his fortune last year. In this case, it meant setting up the worldâs largest online exchange for illicit drugs. Goods were exchanged for bitcoins (virtual money with real monetary, if fluctuating, value), according to the FBI. In two years, the Silk Road had more than $1.2 billion in transactions and Ulbrichtâs alleged cut was more than $30 million. The whole story is pretty dang fascinating, and Ulbricht himself is an especially fascinating character. Lest you think virtual drug dealers are dumb and lazy, the 29-year-old earned a physics degree at UT-D on a full scholarship. After receiving a masters degree from Penn State and spending some time in Austin, he moved to San Francisco in 2011. Unlike days of yore when gangsters were mowed down at the theater, Ulbricht was arrested at the library. As noted in the Forbes profile, Ulbricht had been a fan of libertarian philosophy and a vocal supporter of former Representative Ron Paul. None of which is all the surprising considering the Silk Road is free market capitalism at its finest. Or not finest. âUlbricht allegedly paid a bounty of 1,670 Bitcoins ⊠to put out a murder hit on a Silk Road user seeking to extort him.â So remember, kids, donât take drugs from online strangers.
DIY Execution Kit â Not everybody in the unregulated drug market is suffering from withdrawal. The mystery of how Texas has been executing prisoners despite running out of its supply of the prescribed drug, pentobarbital, has been answered. Thanks to a FOIA request from the AP, it was revealed that the state has received its new stash from an unregulated âcompound pharmacy,â which âcustom-makes drugsâ that âarenât subject to federal scrutiny.â The Texas Department of Criminal Justice now has a yearâs supply of boutique death drugs. Though it doesnât seem too difficult to âtestâ the new product, death row inmates have filed a lawsuit contending that âTexasâ use of untested drugs during an execution would violate the U.S. Constitutionâs protection against cruel and unusual punishmentâ since âsome are banned for use in animal euthanasia.â The TDCJ has been so desperate to get its hands on some death serum that, according to the lawsuit, âprison officials have been trying to obtain execution drugs in the name of the âHuntsville Unit Hospital,â though a hospital at the prison hasnât operated since 1983.â Related, a recent study found that two percent of all U.S. countiesâincluding Dallas, Harris, and Bexar countiesâare responsible for the most of the countryâs executions. While the Houston Texans struggle at greatness, Harris County residents can rest easy knowing they are number one at something.
Highway Toll Trolling â The Texas Department of Transportation has had enough of you, toll jumpers, and itâs gonna tell everybody. According to a press release from TxDoT, jumpers owe more than $27 million in unpaid tolls, which essentially amounts to highway robbery of toll-abiding citizens. So in an effort to really crack down on the violators, TxDOT is crowd-sourcing the work of peer pressure: âThose who fail to respond to this notice will have their names posted on TxDOT and TxTag websites and shared with the news media. The web listings will include the violatorâs name, city and state of residence, number of unpaid tolls and total amount owed in tolls and fees.â The main targets for this Meganâs Law-like shaming are 28,000 vehicles, each with 100 unpaid tolls in a twelve-month period. Though there are a couple of more things TxDoT can do, this weak game of carpool chicken seems to be the best available option. No word yet on what happens to Mad Max vigilantes who use the personal information to physically capture highway scofflaws.
Last Ride of Cowboy Randall â Police have arrested a man in connection with a series of bank robberies between Austin, San Marcos, and San Antonio. âIn each of the robberies, Reed used a weapon, and in his final robbery restrained the bank tellers,â according to a report from KXAN. As should be expected, a woman did it better. This story is nothing compared to one of Bettie Jo Tallis, the âclassic good-hearted Texas womanâ who dressed like a cowboy, politely robbed banks and confounded the best G-Men for years before a spectacular end at age sixty. The details of her story are as unbelievable as they are true. And our own Skip Hollandsworth chronicled the whole thing in his amazing 2005 piece. Seriously, if you donât read it, youâre totally robbing yourself.
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Rumors of Alamoâs Shutdown Have Been Greatly Exaggerated
Woman Not Named âWendy Davisâ Is Running For Guv
$3.8 Million Distributed To Victims Of West Plant Explosion
For Sale: Mayan Temple-Shaped Building, $450K, No Ritual Slaughters Accepted
The Sasquatch Genome Project Has Big News
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