Bag of Randomness
Tuesday, April 28, 2026

I’ve got an upper-respiratory infection and feel like crud.

Regarding the shooting at the White House Correspondents’ dinner, I find it odd how almost all news organizations leave out the detail that the shooter wasn’t even on the same floor as the president or the ballroom. The shooter had to be insane to think he could get close enough to the president or any other administration officials to cause any harm after breaching the first checkpoint.

President Trump is using the incident to push the need for his coveted ballroom, which is just silly. The Correspondents’ Dinner is an annual event, and this year’s attendance was around 2,600. The initial plans for Trump’s White House ballroom would have sat 650 guests, later revised to a maximum of 1,350. State dinners, the kind in which they use a tent, generally accommodate between 300 and 500 guests.

And, I’m still a bit surprised how Vance’s Secret Service detail whisked him away much sooner than Trump’s detail.

I continue to keep an eye on how China is advancing, and sadly, how I think they will become the world leader in technology. Here are a few things of note.

I just spent two days at the 2026 Beijing Auto Show (Auto China 2026), and I need to tell you something: the future of the auto industry is electric and Chinese. I’m not being dramatic. Just realistic.

In a single hall at the show, there were more EV models on display than there are available ones in the entire United States. There are 17 halls at this show. Seventeen. And they all have more EVs than the US market.

The show features 1,451 vehicles, including 181 world premieres and 71 concept cars, sprawling across a record-breaking 380,000 square meters of exhibition space at two venues. It’s now the largest auto show in the world — and it’s not even close.

Walking through the show, the first thing that hits you is the scale. This is not like any auto show I’ve attended in the West. The energy is different. The booths are massive. The vehicles are ambitious. And almost everything is electric or electrified.

……..

The scale of what’s happening here is staggering. In 17 halls of exhibition space, Chinese automakers are showcasing vehicles that span every possible market segment — from $10,000 city cars to million-dollar hypercars, from off-road adventure SUVs to autonomous robotaxis, from electric motorcycles to luxury sedans that rival Rolls-Royce.

The battery makers are the unsung heroes. CATL, CALB, EVE Energy, and others had booths that rival the automakers themselves, and they’re pushing technology forward at a pace that makes western battery efforts look sluggish.

Full Article

Sidenote: I like this matte-red.

 

Texas leads U.S. in business bankruptcies as filings keep rising amid economic pressures

Texas is continuing to lead the nation in the number of businesses filing bankruptcy, new data show, with one of every six U.S. cases being filed in the state.

The increases are tied to economic pressures including persistent inflation, the impact of tariffs and rising interest rates and consumer debt.

Full San Antonio Express News Article

 

Texas school sent waiver for parents to allow kids to be coached by sex offender – The former Houston Astros prospect holds previous charges of online solicitation of a minor and domestic violence.

The Texas Home Educators Sports Association (THESA) thought it could get away with allowing a registered sex offender to coach minors by sending parents a waiver to sign, with the coach’s testimony attached, according to Amy Smith at watchkeep.org.

The report comes a day after Smith uncovered that Tommy Whiteman, a 46-year-old former Houston Astros prospect, was the head coach for the THESA Riders based out of Fort Worth, and had previously worked with the Haskell High School softball team—located almost an hour north of Abilene—while also operating an indoor baseball and softball facility in Keller called Redemptive Sports. He is currently listed on the Texas Sex Offender Registry until 2030 for online solicitation of a minor back in 2010, meaning communicating or distributing sexually explicit material. He also has previous domestic violence and assault convictions in Oklahoma from incidents in 1999 and 2000.

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