Busy but some thoughts

The office workload is high at the moment:  it is always is at this time of year, and it always dispels any sense of a holiday mood.  Oh well.

Anyway, some various thoughts I normally would have posted separately about:

 *  By virtue of falling asleep and waking up with the TV still on, I found myself watching on SBS last Friday a documentary about Hank Williams, of all people.   Like most Australians, I guess, I knew the name, would probably recognise a couple of songs as being him, but had absolutely no idea about his life.  I would have guessed he lived into the 1960's, but he died aged 29 in 1953, seemingly of a combination of alcohol and medically administered morphine.

So yeah:  turns out he was like he was like the early country version of Amy Winehouse:  big talent, unhappy life, drugs and alcohol their ruination.  (Not that I know much about Amy Winehouse either, but I think that's the general gist.)   Fame is good for very, very few people.

* This Texas Supreme Court last ditch effort to try to stop Biden becoming President:  it's too cute by half, surely?   Given that the litigation is only against those States where Biden won, the political motivation is just too obvious - I mean, couldn't they find a Trump voting State where some technical argument might be possible about how that State had changed its voting procedures in the last year and join them in the action to try to gain some pretence of it not being purely about trying to install Trump?   

And if the Supreme Court gave it any credibility, surely it would be opening a Pandora's Box of potential future litigation. 

I see that a lot of people have noted that the 17 States joining in are basically the States of the old South, making it like a revenge attempt for losing the Civil War.   It's also been noted that its being run by the "States rights are important" party - sure, until they vote for the wrong President.

I am no expert on American constitutional law - but it seems wildly improbable that this will go anywhere.

* Assuming that this is all done and dusted soon - the biggest story of 2021 will be how seriously the Republican party splits.  Here's a bit of speculation:  the "best" thing that could happen for the party to recover would be for some QAnon, "the election was stolen" nutter to shoot or blow up up some Democrat (or even Republican who didn't endorse Trump's fake win claims) office - this would finally give the appalling "leadership" of the Party a reason to say "Enough is enough.  The election was lost legitimately and people have to stop believing it was all a conspiracy that's going to be cured by armed rebellion."