Hey, Now

Random mugshot from The Smoking Gun.

War On Drugs ---- I Give Up My AntiWar

You make the call.

Basic law: If you possess between 1 and 4 grams of dope, the range of punishment is that of a Third Degree Felony (2 to 10 years in the pen.) To wrap your brain around that, a gram is the equivalent of a Sweet N Low packet.

Bonus law: If you commit the above offense but previously had been convicted of any felony and gone to the pen, got out, got convicted of another felony and sent to the pen again (regardless of the type of felonies and regardless of the length of the sentences) then you can be "Enhanced" to a "Habitual Offender." The new range of punishment for what had been a Third Degree is now no less than 25 years and no more than Life. Absent a plea bargain, the jury gets to pick that number.

So . . . a guy in Tyler gets caught with a whopping 1.46 grams of meth (not exactly Pablo Escobar), but he has the unfortunate background of being sent to the pen twice before.

So the jury says ...............Answer.

Yeah, yeah. Sure he's a "loser" and he "broke the law" but, in the end, it was 1.46 grams of dope.

I'd Love To See A Mike Synder vs. Jane McGarry Fight Like This

As I Was Up At The Crack Of Dawn . . .

. . . on Sunday, I snapped these pics. Not that they are earthshaking, but the sky was beautiful. Although the telephone polls in the background weren't exactly the accent I was looking for.

Patriots Hold Cheerleader Try-Outs

Boston Globe runs pic of belly button "ring" along with other photos.

Wise County citizens plea with Joe Duty to follow suit (not with a belly ring but with tricked up pictures.)

Sportzzz

- The Aggies and the Razorbacks have agreed to a 10 year deal to play in the new Cowboys stadium. Cool. (I haven't driven by that stadium in a year but I heard it's massive.)
- With a win over Tech on Saturday, Baylor should make the NCAA tournament. It'll be the first time in 20 years. And, yeah, it'l probably just be a one-and-done appearance, but it'll be weird to see the Bears' name on all the brackets.
- Most random of salary notes: Boston Red Sox reliever Jonathan Papelbon agreed to a one year deal last week. Is he good? You bet. He had 37 of 40 saves last year with a 1.85 ERA. He also saved 3 of the 4 World Series games for the Red Sox. So his salary for next year? $750,000. Yep. That's it. Baseball players make a ton of money as free agents, but unfortunately for Papelbon, he's two young to be a free agent. That comes in two years. (As comparison, his back-up, who almost got booed out of Boston last year because he couldn't hit the broad side of a barn, made $6,000,000.)

Some Laws Even I've Never Heard Of

Breast feeding scandal in Denton. World stops turning. But mom is kind of hot.

Snow Talk

So the morning courthouse conversation brought up this issue: One fine lady on the second floor proclaimed that Decatur had more snow in either 1987 or 1988 than this weekend. I was working in Dallas back then so I couldn't refute it. I doubted it, but couldn't back it up.

Unavoidabley Detained This Weekend

- I really hate moving the clocks forward. It happens every year at just about the time I'm comfortable waking up early. - Stumbled across real guys playing tackle football with pads on at Pennington Stadium on Sunday. Something called "The American Eightman Football League." - I watched Eastern Promises. It's kinda good. - I noticed three knuckleheads decided to go canoing (sp?) last night on the Parker/Wise County line and had to be rescued. - I'm reading Slaughterhouse Five (nope, never read it before.) - This video isn't as good as the "Don't Have Maps/Such As" video, but it's pretty good.

And Another

Crystal Wells, 33, has pled guilty to the very strange charge of "Unlawful Transaction With A Minor" which apparantly means "Sex With a 15 Year Old Boy" in Kentucky. She'll be sentenced later but the prosecutor is recommending five years in the hoosegow.

I can't pass judgment on this young lady because the picture is so blurry. Sheesh. We can allocate all these judicial resources to this prosecution but we can't get a picture that doesn't look like it was taken in a sauna? I'm leaning towards a short probation, but the prosecutor better get me a better picture quick or I'll let her out with time served.

If There Had Been A Photo Contest, This Would Have Won

I call it, "Man skis down 'Mount Decatur'" (this morning.) Gold. Pure gold.

(Thanks emailer Joel.)

Edit: And then someone tricks it up . . .

Hey, Now

Do U Want 2 Meet?

The Fort Worth Court Of Appeals always releases its weekly opinions on Friday, and I'll normally take a look at some of them (for my real job). Although not legally significant, the opening of one of the opinions today got my attention:

Samantha Lezark was murdered in her bedroom on the evening of January 5 or the morning of January 6, 2003 . . . . The medical examiner determined the cause of death to have been strangulation by a coaxial cable wrapped around her neck three times and tied with a square knot. A bloody fire extinguisher lay next to Lezark'ss body, and her head had contusions consistent with being hit by the fire extinguisher. There were no signs of forced entry into the house. A palmprint on the coaxial cable was identified as that of [Defendant] Kristopher Kyle Russell, and his fingerprint and his DNA were found on the fire extinguisher. [Russell's] partial latent thumbprint was also identified on a laser pointer found on Lezark's bed. [He] testified at trial that he had met Lezark in an Internet chat room in late November 2002 and had entered into a sexual relationship with her by mid-December.

Note to self: Cancel Saturday date plan.

Garbage News

Uh, if your garbage in Decatur isn't picked up this morning in a timely manner, now you know why. (Parking lot behind Sweetie Pie's Ribeyes.)

Bad Aggie

I was watching this on Wednesday night as the Aggies beat Baylor soundly (as Baylor does everything it can to stay OUT of the NCAA tournament.) But when your up by a ton with seconds left, do you really think its appropriate to bounce the ball off the backboard and dunk it? Now if Baylor had been ahead and had done the same thing, I'd call it an "exclamation mark" because "our team just got a little excited." But the Baylor reaction to the dunk was not very First Baptist Church-like.

Friday Morning Pick Me Up

Sure, some people cried this week when Brett Favvvvarrrrraaaaa retired from the Packers, but I wept over the retirement of long time figure skater Katerina Witt. Sure she sinned a little bit when she got neekid for Playboy in the 1990s but I'm willing to forgive her for that - after hours of examining the photos, I have now classified them as "art."

(And see the connection? It's icy outside. Katerina skated on ice. That, my friends, is good journalism on my part. You won't see stuff like this in the Update.)

Holy Cow - It Was A Blizzard!

(Photo credit: Paul Wood)
(Photo credit: Robert Morgan)

Variety of photos from today (many reader submitted) on Flickr here.

Keep 'em coming. (blog2[at]wisecounty.com)

Edit: School closings for Friday are here.