broke down on the brazos

Original content forthcoming, I promise. To tide you over, consider this most excellent blog, Concurrent Sentences, writing about how the war on marijuana drastically expands police powers:

So marijuana has become a law enforcement go-to for probable cause. It is the result of an officers completely subjective sense of smell. It is often supported by marijuana found during the subsequent search. If marijuana is not found but other contraband is, the contraband is unlikely to be suppressed because the probable cause for the search would still be subject to the officers “good-faith” belief there was marijuana contraband present. And in my (very limited) experience I have found the alleged odor of marijauana to be a common and reoccurring basis for probable cause and not found in the search. I have read lots of police reports that go something like these scenarios:

1) Officer smells marijuana, searches, finds a gun.
2) Officer smells marijuana, searches, finds some stolen property.
3) Officer smells marijuana, searches, finds some prescription drugs.
4) Officer smells marijuana, detains suspect and runs ID, and suspect has a protection order in place that they are violating in some minor, technical way.
5) Officer smells marijuana, detains suspect and runs ID, reveals an existing warrant.

If you’re looking for something a little lighter, then how about this entertaining AV Club interview of Danny Trejo?

I would just go with the extras and the director would see me. I was always Inmate No. 1, and I always had one line like, “Kill ’em all.” [Laughs.] It was like, “I can do this.” I remember a director handed me a shotgun and he said, “Kick in this door and take control.” There was a poker game going inside, and the director said there would be a couple of stunt people inside. He said to improvise. So I kick in the door, somebody jumps up, I bash them with the shotgun, and I ask this guy, “Oh, you wanna die, huh?” This lady starts screaming, and I put this gun right in her face. So the director yells, “Cut! Cut! God, Danny, where did you study?” I said, “Let me see. Von’s. Safeway. Thrifty Mart.” [Laughs.] So all this stuff I was doing, I just knew. You’ve got to remember, I was Inmate No. 1 for the first five years of my career. So shit, I know how to be an inmate.

That should tide you over.