Random Thursday Morning Thoughts

• The Board (I'll might discontinue the national graph in the next week or so unless the trend changes.)
  
• Texas (This graph remains intriguing. Have I said "any day now" before?): 
  
• Wise County: Total - 36. Active - 11. And another active case! 
• A buddy of mine told me yesterday his brother (a non-Wise County resident) contracted the 'Rona. In highly technical medical terms he basically said: He's not going to die, but he sure feels like it and wouldn't wish it on any of us. 
• Ransomware update: All Texas appellate court websites still aren't working. I'm telling you, they are going to have to pay regardless of how much they claim they won't.
• I've mentioned this before: The Wise County Sheriff's Office was hit by ransomware a couple of years back and ended up writing a check (or sending bitcoins). I never heard the exact figure other than it was "substantial". That number would have to be disclosed by an Open Records Request or someone could just email me. 
• And I noticed that a law firm that represents Lady Gaga, Madonna, Nicki Minaj, Bruce Springsteen, and Mariah Carey confirmed it had been hit by ransomware where the hackers want $21 million. Now that's a chunk of change. 
  
• We had an odd Intoxication Manslaughter case in Wise County -- odd because it occurred just before noon.   Although the man charged is from Azle, he had some history in Wise County but only a game warden case and some minor drug paraphernalia case over 10 years ago.  
• The federal judge in the Michael Flynn case isn't messing around.
  
  
• If you had bet 10 years ago you'd see a headline like this, how much would you have wagered? (Stern's quote that got the most attentions was, “The oddity in all of this is the people Trump despises most, love him the most. The people who are voting for Trump, for the most part ... he wouldn’t even let them in a [expletive] hotel. He’d be disgusted by them. Go to Mar-a-Lago, see if there’s any people who look like you. I’m talking to you in the audience.”)
  
  
• So having a racket as a DA where you tell people on probation they can "buy out" their community service by running down to the local store and buying gift cards and then giving them to the DA's office only causes you to not seek re-election but doesn't put you in prison?
  
• Girl, if someone is bullying you, the full power of the Liberally Lean Legal Team is standing by on the runway of Decatur Municipal Airport to assist you in any way possible. 
  
• Montgomery County has a lot of Williamson County in it, but seems to be more old school in its controversies: "Montgomery County Judge Mark Keough has filed a police report on 457th state District Judge candidate Eric Yollick after allegedly catching The Woodlands-based attorney egging his car in the county parking garage in March."

  

  Alleged Egg Chunker

• I've got no opinion on the Did-the-guy-in-the-casket-wave controversy. Video here. 
  
• I only part of The Masked Singer I see is the last three minutes, but I continue to believe it's the dumbest show on TV. And why is there so much excitement from the judges and the crowd? Of course, the answer is that it's mandated by the stage directors just like contestants had to scream "No whammys!" back in the day. Heck, any game show is full of fake energy (except Jeopardy.)
• The front pages are kind of boring around the nation today, so I went to Georgia to see if I could find anything on the Ahmaud Arbery case. But the headline I got was another DA funneling money to himself.