Updates on things I’m considering writing about

I have on file copies of a news article and my sentencing/plea deal statements which show that in my current felony case, the State was willing to accept a dismissal of charges, but that the judge chose to assert himself as prosecutor. From a January 3^rd article in the Batesville Guard paper titled “Tragedies, education, crime among news from Sharp County” written by Larry Stroud: “ 40-yr-old James Snyder Jr., was sentenced to 20 years in prison with 15 years suspended on reduced charges of manslaughter. The state contended that Snyder was an unwilling participant.”

 

On 1 December, Georgetown City Council shows that the Baptist Church runs Georgetown. At a time of great economic distress, Georgetown shelved a measure that would have allowed Sunday sales of alcohol in restaurants, with the prospects of improving Sunday tax revenues on both food and drink sales. The measure was shelved because of opposition primarily from ministers with the Georgetown Baptist Church and members of same. The opposition brought no empirical data, because there is none that supports a rational disagreement for Sunday sales. Instead, they brought up respect for the Sabbath, which, as an argument in a government forum, is unconstitutional. There were other anecdotal references to the horrors of alcohol, but these had no relevance to the discussion, as alcohol sales are already permitted.

 

Terror in Mumbai. The terrorist assault in Mumbai, India, targeting mostly westerners and Jews was a well thought out and planned assault against which the apparently undisciplined, untrained Indian Police had no effective initial response. The attacks are not the act sought to be portrayed as one of Kashmir separatists struggling against Indian rule in the on-going dispute between India and Pakistan. The attacks are a diversionary measure designed to put Indian and Pakistani troops facing off against one another so that Pakistan’s military attention diverts from the tribal areas in which al-Qaeda and the Taliban seek refuge from their conflict in Afghanistan. The intended effect was to focus the attention of Pakistan and India, as well as that of the nations whose people were targeted, mostly American and European, as well as Israel, on the ongoing dispute over Kashmir, which both Pakistan and India claim. This would have diverted intelligence and military resources toward Kashmir and given the operatives of al-Qaeda and the Taliban some relief in the tribal areas bordering Pakistan and Afghanistan.