• ‘The Iron Claw’ and the Dallas Only the Dead Know – How the tragic saga of the doomed Von Erich clan—the inspiration for A24’s new wrestling drama—mirrors the story of Dallas, a boom town that can’t grow fast enough to shake the ghosts of its past.
• I got a kick out of this part about the author, even if he misspelled Emmitt’s name:
  • I’m the son of a Philadelphia Irish sports zealot and—forgive me father—when I was a guest at a Cowboys game, I bought Cowboys gear for my then-infant son and snapped up a Michael Irvin shirt for myself. I hit the Emmett Smith shimmy in a hallway. I regret nothing.

• The Oscar nominee did not disclose which film it was, but clearly the Peloton instructor had no idea Nolan was in his virtual class that day.

• Registered voters were asked whether they considered a list of political figures to be people of faith, including Trump, President Joe Biden, former Vice President Mike Pence and Utah Republican Sen. Mitt Romney. Trump was the top choice for Republicans, while Biden was the most common choice for Democrats. Pence topped the list for independents.
• Sixty-four percent of Republicans said Trump was a person of faith, up from 53% in October. Pence, at 56%, came in second.
  • Church attendance isn’t necessarily indicative of a person’s faith or personal relationship with a greater power, but I’m curious to know how many times Trump attended a church service since leaving office.

Drone show in Busan, South Korean, on January 1, 2024pic.twitter.com/2MvzxDshka

— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) January 4, 2024

• “Let me tell you, I’m not willing to do too damn much right now to help a Democrat and to help Joe Biden’s approval rating,” Nehls told CNN. “I will not help the Democrats try to improve this man’s dismal approval ratings. I’m not going to do it.”

• I guess I wouldn’t consider myself a fan, but Elvis has always fascinated me. He never performed outside of North America and only left the United States for a concert tour three times. Those stops were in Canada, all in 1957. With that in mind, I find it interesting that this thing is opening up in London.

• Google’s new Project Green Light system uses the company’s vast maps database and AI to optimize traffic lights around the world. The system suggests changes and city engineers then decide if they want to implement them. “We had one case where we moved four seconds from a north-south street to an east-west street for a particular time of day, so then that can help reduce some of that stop-and-go traffic,” Laura Wojcicki, an engineer at Seattle’s Department of Transportation, told CBS News.
  • This story reminded me of two moments in my life. My family and I were inside a cab growing through downtown San Antonio hitting almost every red light. In the military, my father did a lot with road construction and the like. He talked about how the city needed to resynch or adjust their traffic lights so that traffic would flow better and save commuters time.
  • When I was a college kid living in Abilene, a friend I went to church with timed all the lights on Ambler so he never had to stop on his way to church on Sunday morning. Basically, he would drive ten miles over the speed limit at every other light, while driving ten miles under the speed limit for the others.