The Sunday afternoon news.

And topping the list is everyone's favorite wonder dog, Scrappy.  Friday night he had his second venture into the bark park, with two male dogs this time- and Airedale named Vinnie and a great slobbering English Mastiff named Drake.  It looked something like this:

I say "something like this", because I had a camera problem that I will go into in a bit. Scrappy and Vinnie were like a couple little kids, play fighting, running around, while Drake followed at a slightly slower pace and tried to inject himself into the middle when the slowed.  Then they'd get tired, and one of two things would follow.  The first was, they'd all wander around, sniffing various things until either Scrappy or Vinnie (they took turns) would come up to the other and start things up again.  The second was really clever on Scrappy's part.  He would sit down between Drake's front legs.  As Drake slowly came to the conclusion that this presented a humping opportunity, Scrappy would wait until Vinnie's back was turned and leap out after him.  That boy really earned his name that night, as well as a shower ( between Vinnie's play bites- which I also received, and can guarantee were harmless- and Drake's slobber, he was soaked).

Now the camera thing.  For whatever reason, my camera's chip went spastic and would not download the pictures I took.  I tried everything in my arsenal, but no go.  So I took a picture of the camera screen with my phone, and that is what you see above.  I decided to charge the battery and try again in the morning.  Now here is where my camera's adorable little quirk comes in.  It is a Sony, and thus makes you download through their PlayMemories Home program.  Which is a good thing, EXCEPT on a full battery.  Then, it absolutely refuses to recognize the camera through the USB  until enough time passes and it gets back to some seemingly arbitrary level.  So, Saturday morning, after several moments of fighting THAT battle again, I decided to take a walk and just take pictures with the phone, which I could then e-mail to the computer.

River's way down, eh?

Area inundated with visitors to the annual Shindigz Soccer Festival (or as I call it, Soccerpalooza).

And sure enough, by the time I got home, the camera was drained enough to get PMH to open.  Unfortunately it still wouldn't download anything until I got rid of Friday night's pictures by re-formatting.  And that's why you get the fuzzy Scrappy picture.

So now, I move onto three news stories I've collected this weekend.  Our first story comes from WANE.com, and makes me shake my head yet again at the FWPD's ability to get the job done:


FORT WAYNE, Ind. (WANE) - Police said a man is facing seven charges after he led police on a moped pursuit Friday night near the southeast side of Fort Wayne.
According to Fort Wayne Police Department spokesperson Sgt. Mark Brooks, an officer pulled over Lagrant Smith, 40, who was driving a moped near Eckart and Winter Streets around 10:15 p.m. Friday.
Brooks said Smith initially pulled over but then refused to speak with the officer and took off on his moped.
More than 10 FWPD squad cars followed Smith on his moped. The pursuit led police around a large side of southeast Fort Wayne, according to Brooks.

Brooks said the pursuit speed topped out at around 20 miles per hour.
Smith was finally apprehended in the 5300 block of South Anthony Boulevard, after leading police around for about two miles.
Police said Smith got off his moped and attempted to flee on foot. Officers had to use a stun gun on Smith and arrested him shortly after, Brooks said.
According to police, Smith hit several cars during the pursuit.
Brooks also said a police officer suffered a minor leg injury during the pursuit.

So tell me how it is that not only did the FWPD need TEN officers to catch a guy that most people could have taken down by themselves on foot, but managed to get hit- several times- by this elusive snail  perp?

As long as I'm picking on WANE.com, figure this one out.  I'll separate out the offending lines.

STEUBEN COUNTY, Ind. (WANE) - Officials said a Steuben County Sheriff's Office deputy was flown to the hospital after he hit a tree and was pinned in his squad car for over an hour Saturday night.

According to police, the deputy was responding to the Story Lake area to assist DeKalb County police with a 911 call regarding a man with a gun threatening to shoot people at a large gathering.

.............................................................................

The deputy was driving southbound on SR 327 just north of CR 400 S in a fully marked 2010 Ford Crown Victoria police cruiser at around 11:40 p.m. when he came over a hill and saw another vehicle driving the same direction on the road.

Police said the deputy tried to avoid a head-on collision with the other car by going off the east side of the road. He then lost control, drove across SR 327 and hit a tree on the west side of the road.

............................................................................................................

According to officials, the deputy was pinned in his patrol car for over an hour before fire rescue crews were able to extricate him. He was flown to Parkview Trauma Center via Samaritan Helicopter.

The man suffered a head injury, along with ankle and wrist injuries, according to police. His condition was not released.


 

So, tell me how you can have a "head-on collision" with a car "driving in the same direction"?


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The third story, though, pisses me off because it is the kind of legal mumbo jumbo (sorry, Nain) that runs this country straight down the tubes.  Most of us have heard about the three "bored kids" who livened up their day by killing the Australian college baseball player who was just out for a jog.  Here's what is aggravating in this, from FoxNews:

An Australian baseball player who was allegedly shot and killed at random while he was jogging wasn't targeted because of his race or nationality, the prosecutor in charge of the case said Friday.
Christopher Lane, a 22-year-old student at East Central University, was shot in the back and killed last week while jogging in Duncan, a southern Oklahoma community where the three teenagers accused in his killing live.
"At this point, the evidence does not support the theory that Christopher Lane was targeted based upon his race or nationality," District Attorney Jason Hicks said in a statement.
Chancey Allen Luna, 16, and James Francis Edwards, Jr., 15, have been charged as adults with first-degree murder. Michael Dewayne Jones, 17, is charged with using a vehicle in the discharge of a weapon and with accessory to first-degree murder. He is considered a youthful offender but will be tried in adult court.
Jones named Luna as the gunman. 
Hicks acknowledged that social media posts allegedly made by some of the defendants are racial in nature, but he said "the evidence is insufficient to establish that race was the primary motive" in Lane's slaying.
The Daily Caller reported that racist tweets were posted on an account belonging to Edwards. One tweet from the account reads, "90% of white ppl are nasty. #HATE THEM." Another post read, "Ayeee I knocced out 5 woods since Zimmerman court!:)"
The Daily Caller's report noted that 'woods' is used as a derogatory term for white people. 
Police Chief Dan Ford said the victim appeared to be chosen at random, and that one suspect told officers that he and the other boys were bored and they followed Lane and killed him for "the fun of it."
One of Edwards' friends, Serenity Jackson, told The Associated Press she didn't believe race was a factor in the shooting. She noted that Luna's mother, Edwards' girlfriend and Jones are white.
"It has nothing to do with Chris being white. They didn't even know who he was," said Jackson, 17, who grew up with Edwards.


So a black kid can expose himself as a racist publically, kill a white guy, and it's not racist.  Even though we all know of a similar case where the killing was an outrage and sparked the wearing of hoodies in protest because he was black, and that was racist.

Let me ask you something, when society gives me this message, how am I as a white supposed to NOT be racist?  Let's call a spade a spade, as it were.  I do not doubt that these kids were so morally bankrupt that they wouldn't kill a black IF THEY HAD A REASON sufficient for murder in their little pea-sized brains.  But this prosecutor wants me to believe that they would have killed a black just for fun, as soon as a white?  I don't buy that for a minute.

An accusation that was never proven of racism for George Zimmerman was enough to make him the most hated cracker in America.  But James Edwards, a black, can post clearly racist stuff on the WWW and I'm supposed to believe that killing a white man for fun wasn't racially motivated.

You know what?  I don't like using this word on my blog, but there's no way to avoid it:

BULLSHIT.


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Finally, we're on the second to last week of the AIHL season, and this is how things shook out.

Adelaide had one slight hope to make the playoffs (which as I understand it are a four team bracket, one-game series, one date, one venue affair), and that was to sweep the Melbourne Ice this weekend.  Saturday, with time running out and the goalie pulled, they let in a score by Tommy Powell (his second of the game) to put them down 5-3.  But Josef Rezek scored with 34 ticks left, and Matthew Heywood 13 seconds later, and the hope was still there (albeit slimmer) as they went to the shootout.  But in the SO, Heywood and Powell cancelled each other out, and the Ice's John Gordon popped home the game winner for the 6-5 final.  Sunday, Melbourne rolled 5-2 and it was all over for 8-12-8 Adelaide.

The two top teams, Sydney's Ice Dogs and Newcastle, each had but one game to play.  The Dogs blew down the crosstown rival Bears 4-1, while the hyphen boys (Pier-Oliver Cotnoir and Nick Orford-Quirk ) each scored twice as Newcastle knocked off Melbourne's Mustangs 6-1.  The two losers met Sunday, with the 'Stangs topping the Bears 6-2.

And resurgent Perth got the joy of playing two this weekend against the woebegone Canberra Knights, recording 7-2 and 6-2 wins.

Which means we know who will be going to the playoffs (the 17-6-4 Ice Dogs, the 16-7-3 North Stars, the 17-9-2 Perth squad, and the 16-7-4 Melbourne Ice) just not who will play who.  Three games are left to close out the season- Saturday will have the Newcastle North Stars vs the Ice, while the Ice Dogs play 2-24-1 Canberra.  Sunday, it's Newcastle again, against the Mustangs (12-10-5).  And with skillful mentioning of records along the way, the only one left to mention are the 7th-place Sydney Bears (7-20-1).