For almost 160 years, the Imperial Sugar refinery has been a part of the community of Sugar Land. In fact, for most of that time it was the defining landmark of the town. Now it sits empty, the victim of yet another corporate downsizing, and both the building and the people who formerly worked there face uncertain futures.

During the recent session of the Texas Legislature, there were big heated debates over the budget, over cuts to various social programs, and other contentious issues, but none so big as the debate over redistricting. It seems that, during the last session where the Democrats still controlled part of the Legislature, they refused to pass a redistricting plan, so a panel of three judges had to do what the Elected Representatives of the People refused to do. The new leadership felt that, since it was their responsibility under the Constitution to draw the lines, they should get the job done.

The sad tale of the HPD Crime Lab would be comical, if it weren't so tragic. Already, people have had their convictions overturned after re-testing of DNA failed to corraborate the original findings. In many other cases, the DNA has either deteriorated because of the horrid conditions in which it was stored, or has disappeared - used up during botched testing initially. How many more people will continue to serve times for crimes they didn't commit? We may never know.

Well, folks -- the jury has spoken. A group of 12 of his peers has determined that arresting almost 300 people for the "crime" of 'trespassing' on the property of a business establishment that was open for business (in some cases, taking them into custody over the objections of the manager of the business, who didn't want his customers arrested) just because the real targets were nowhere to be found, holding them, bound with plastic tie-wraps, for several hours, then taking changing his story numerous times as to why he changed the plan without the approval of his superiors, did not constitute "official oppression". Yeah, and the mass slaughter of millions of folks by the likes of Stalin, and Hitler, and Pol Pot, and Chairman Mao, and Saddam Hussein, did not constitute "crimes against humanity."

This is the fourth of what will more than likely be an ongoing series of rants against what I consider to be serious flaws in the way ''justice'' is dispensed and administered in the state of Texas. Before you get the idea I am just another Clinton-lovin' GOP-bashin' bleeding-heart liberal: I have voted in the Republican primary every election cycle since 1980, I was (and still am) an avid listener of the Rush Limbaugh show, and I am a strong supporter of conservative causes. However, I also have a sense of what is fair and what isn't, and when I see something that is wrong, I do what I can to correct it.

In an editorial published earlier this week in the Houston Chronicle, James Howard Gibbons asked "When will US Forces liberate Texas?" Full of the usual left-wing scare-mongering tripe, Mr. Gibbons was suggesting (tongue-in-cheek, one hopes) that, once Baghdad has been liberated and Saddam & Sons shipped off to The Hague for a well-deserved war crimes trial, the 7th Cavalry, the 101st Airborne, and the 3rd Infantry turn their attention to Austin, and that the Air Force and Navy send their Tomahawks and smart bombs to 'decapitate' the government of Texas, removing from power those who we so foolishly elected in 2002.