In our haste to pack it in for the holidays, we almost neglected to call attention to this slightly off-kilter picture of Lee Leffingwell and Mike Martinez cleaning newly-purchased Eastside parkland. Grace it with a caption in the comments section below.

Before tonight's game against the Los Angeles D-Fenders, the 0-11 Austin Toros announced that swingman James White had been recalled by the San Antonio Spurs (21-7). White goes from the team with the worst record in the D-League to the one with the best mark in the NBA - making him officially the fastest-rising player in professional basketball. The former University of Cincinnati star, who was assigned to the Toros by the Spurs back on Dec. 16, will take his place on the Spurs bench in time for their game tonight against the Milwaukee Bucks. In three games with the Toros, White averaged 12.5 sorely-needed points off the bench.

As for the Toros, they'll try to avoid a dirty dozen (0-12) start to the season tonight against L.A. The D-Fenders beat the Toros two days ago, 103-97. As of this writing, they're down 19-11 at the four-minute mark of the first quarter.

Regular posting will resume by the middle of the week, as we nestle in the bosom of our respective families. It's nice and warm there!

Until then, happy holidays!

The Tyler Morning Telegraph reports that former top Texas drug cop Barry Cooper next week will launch a new Web site to promote his video “Never Get Busted Again,” which Cooper says will show viewers how to hide their stash, “avoid narcotics profiling” and to fool, “every time,” those pesky drug-sniffing police dogs.

Needless to say, Cooper’s change in profession – from narco superman to drug war foe – hasn’t exactly charmed his fellow drug-fighting colleagues. “It outrages me personally as I’m sure it does any officer that has sworn an oath to uphold the laws of this state, and nation,” Tyler DEA Agent Richard Sanders told the paper.

Mexican soldiers say they’ve found a new hybrid marijuana plant that can grow outside year round and is immune to herbicide, reports the Associated Press.

Soliders in the mountainous western state of Michoacan, which has been ground zero for a raging Mexican drug cartel war, have been trying to clear the mountainsides of the plants – known as “Colombians” – by pulling them out by the root and burning them, the AP reports. “Before we could cut the plant and destroy it, but this plant will come back to life unless it’s taken out by the roots,” army Gen. Manuel Gracia told reporters.

Which is why you're reading this, duh. But comments are still wonky, for reasons unknown.

As you might imagine, posting around these parts will be a might light through the holidays, however. Merry Christmas, Happy Chanukah, a joyous Kwanzaa a hep Tet, and a Festive New Year to you all.

UPDATE: Comments a'workin'. Happy Holidays!

Lawyers for Anthony Graves on Dec. 21 fired back at Burleson Co. District Judge Reva Townslee Corbett, who, in an apparent screw you to the federal bench, the day before set a $1 million bond for Graves to be released from jail.

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in March overturned Graves’ 1994 capital murder conviction and death sentence, ruling that prosecutors withheld crucial exculpatory witness statements from Graves’ defenders. Graves has maintained his innocence, repeatedly saying he played no role in the 1992 murder of six people – including four children under 10 – in Burleson Co. Nonetheless, Graves was fingered as an accomplice to the murders by Robert Carter, who was also convicted and sentenced to death for the crime. However, Carter later recanted – shortly before he was executed in 2000 – saying that he had lied and that Graves was in fact innocent. Indeed, during a recent hearing regarding Graves’ impending retrial, one of the original investigators in the case, Texas Ranger Ray Coffman, testified for the first time ever that Carter told him several times during the original murder investigation that Graves was innocent. Sources told the Chronicle that Coffman further testified that he’d passed that information on to former Burleson District Attorney Charles Sebesta, who spearheaded Graves’ first trial.

Chronic troll-in-residence M1EK (former Urban Transportation Commission member Mike Dahmus) points us to a lengthy comment in this Austinist discussion by none other than Brewster McCracken. (Or someone claiming to be him. But if it's a fake, then his doppelgänger's got McCracken's mannerisms – his talking points, the bloviation, the hepcat-parlance he adopts for the kids – down to an almost frightening degree.) After dispensing crazy "props," MC Cracken breaks down the science at Northcross, yo:

"1. The Council was told by Wal-Mart reps that the project was going to comply with the Design Standards and Mixed Use Ordinance when we were first told about this project the week before it hit the press. That turned out to be untrue.

2. Whether the neighborhoods would have the same reaction to a Costco or Target is apples and oranges, because this Super Wal-Mart will be 24 hours/7 days a week and will be 225,000 square feet. Costco is 153,000 square feet, located on a highway, and closes at 8:30 pm M-F, 6 pm Sat. and Sun. The largest Target in Central TX is 171,000 sq. ft, located on I-35, and closes at 9 pm M-S, 8 pm on Sunday… It's a completely different experience from other power center retailers.

3. It appears likely that Lincoln and Wal-Mart have been untruthful about the traffic impact of this highway-style development… At a minimum, Wal-Mart and Lincoln have some explaining to do, and they have a responsibility to start telling the truth.

4. It's a bum rap on the neighborhoods to try to label them as NIMBY's. They are supporting significant Triangle-caliber densities (which are far denser than the Northcross power center) at Crestview Station."

Which M1EK responds to with his hoary argument that locating Wal-Mart on a freeway or frontage road is a bad idea, because it's bad for pedestrian traffic.

So folks up in Minnesota elected an African-American to Congress who converted to Islam some years ago, and will take his oath of office on a Koran instead of a Bible. And one of his colleagues, some dumbass from Virginia named Virgil Goode, somehow decided this merited a call for tighter immigration laws to keep Muslims out of America. Aside from the utter hatefulness of this, we're almost as appalled by his lack of logic – how can tighter immigration laws do a damn thing to stop Americans from converting to Islam?

Still, you have to love democracy: Even the ignorant, fearmongering bigot community has representation.