Dogg Towels
Early Voting in Person starts two weeks from today. As of Saturday, a tad over 3,300 mail ballots have been sent to the Harris County Clerk. 181,000 voted by mail in Harris County in 2020, the COVID year. In 2022, 61,000 voted by mail. In the recent 2024 primaries 18,000 Democrats and 7,000 GOPers voted by mail here in the county. Got it?
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Only in MAGA world. Commentary is talking about the outright lies MAGA is telling about the recovery efforts in states hit hard by the last hurricane. Folks are hurting and MAGA world takes advantage of their suffering. Let’s end this BS in 29 days.
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The Chronicle’s lead story yesterday was about a consortium that bought up all the known combinations to a Texas Lotto jackpot last year and won $95 million. And it was all legal. The consortium used some special rigged up I-Pads to buy up the 25.8 million possible number combinations. If the Lotto jackpot gets that high again, why bother playing if you know the consortium will step up again and win the prize. That is not how our lottery should work.
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This is from this past Saturday’s Chron E-Board Thumbs Up/Down take:
Thumbs twiddled: After the Detroit Tigers destroyed the Astros in a devastating two-game sweep in the Wild Card round, many Astros fans are ready to turn the page to football. But we’re inclined to see the glass as half full. Sure, we’ve grown accustomed to enjoying October baseball. That’s the expectation, and having such high standards is a reflection of a strong organizational culture. Yet it’s easy to forget that this version of the Astros, ravaged by injuries and erratic pitching, really had no business making the playoffs. The team started 12-24 and was behind 10 games in the divisional standings in mid-June, yet somehow surged back into contention and won the AL West for the seventh time in the past eight seasons. Were the Astros more talented than the Tigers? Sure. Did it matter? Nope. Baseball will break your heart, and perhaps this can be a lesson for the team never to underestimate any opponent, especially in a best-of-three series where randomness, unlikely heroes and meltdowns from your $95 million closer can swing a game in an instant. For now, we tip our cap to the 2024 Astros, implore Jim Crane to back up the Brinks truck for free agent-to-be Alex Bregman, and count the days until pitchers and catchers report to spring training in February.
Thumbs down: For the fans still smarting from this stinging playoff defeat, don’t forget you can always blame Ted Cruz. The U.S. senator has been present at so many disappointing games — the Rockets loss to the Warriors in the 2018 playoffs, the Texas Tech loss to Virginia in the NCAA men’s finals in 2019 and, well, the list goes on and on — that sports fans dread the “Cruz curse.” Guess where the senator could have been instead of dooming the Astros at Game 2 against the Tigers? Sitting down with us, the Chronicle editorial board, in a conference room. We weren’t watching the game then; we were conducting our endorsement screening with his Democratic challenger, U.S. Rep. Colin Allred. Too bad for ’Stros fans that Cruz wouldn’t work us into his busy schedule.
The curse works.
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“Today” had a story this morning on Snoop Dogg and the Terrible Towel. See the featured photo. Snoop is a huge fan of the Steelers. The Terrible Towel made its debut 49 years ago during the 1975 NFL playoffs. A bunch of professional teams hand out the rally towels these days including the Astros and Texans, but we still call them Terrible Towels.
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Nothing to report on the team.
