Light posting

Apologies all five of you out there for the light posting these last few weeks. I've been preoccupied with some personal shit and blogging was very, very low on my list of priorities for spending time.

That said, a few quick hits:

1. I'm still in mourning for the shellacking Texas Tech took at the hands of the Sooners on November 22nd, falling from a #2 ranking to #7 and out of contention for the national championship. At least the team who did that to them are themselves now playing for the national championship and Tech will be playing (#25) Ole Miss in the Cotton Bowl on January 2nd.

2. Holy Shit a fighter jet crashes into a tranquil San Diego neighborhood! (h/t Broadway Carl)

3. This afternoon, I just finished reading "The Road." I'm not entirely sure how I feel about it yet, but I'm still disturbed and upset so that may or may not be a good thing. Right now, I'm leaning towards thinking that the whole thing is some kind of metaphor for something. Details to follow.

4. I am almost done watching HBO's "The Wire" (all five seasons!) and that show does an amazing job at fictionalizing the futility of Reagan's War on Drugs, a war that continues to this day, unabated. It also depicts very clearly the depravity such a futile war generates in the policing organizations charged with enforcing it's anti-Constitutional dictates, a depravity that deepens every day as all our rights and liberties are abrogated in the name of Law & Order (the concept, not the Tee-Vee show). In most essential ways, the War on Drugs was a dress-rehearsal for the War on Terror and the concommitant shredding of the Constitution.

Thus, no other explanation than gross police misconduct can explain both this (via Digby's Hullabaloo):

Man dies during arrest in Minneapolis.

Officers found the man on the street and tried to arrest him. He resisted and officers shot him with a Taser, Palmer said.

So, just remember that the Police can taser you if you don't show them enough respect and it's all A-OK.

and this (via Balloon Juice). Unlike the last one, this one is so many different levels of awesome.

KopBusters rented a house in Odessa, Texas and began growing two small Christmas trees under a grow light similar to those used for growing marijuana. When faced with a suspected marijuana grow, the police usually use illegal FLIR cameras and/or lie on the search warrant affidavit claiming they have probable cause to raid the house. Instead of conducting a proper investigation which usually leads to no probable cause, the Kops lie on the affidavit claiming a confidential informant saw the plants and/or the police could smell marijuana coming from the suspected house.

The trap was set and less than 24 hours later, the Odessa narcotics unit raided the house only to find KopBuster’s attorney waiting under a system of complex gadgetry and spy cameras that streamed online to the KopBuster’s secret mobile office nearby.