This is just plain stupid.

FYI - Melissa, Texas is located seven miles northeast of McKinney just off State Highway 75, in north central Collin County. 2006 Pop. apx. 3,014.


Man arrested for turning without signaling

02:42 PM CDT on Tuesday, May 6, 2008
By JONATHAN BETZ / WFAA-TV

MELISSA, Tx -- Mark Robinson was driving through downtown Melissa last week when he was pulled over for failing the use his turn signal.

But instead of getting a ticket, the officer took the 24-year-old to jail.

He was booked, strip searched, and sat for 3 hours with criminals. "People talking about using drugs and shooting heroine. They asked me what I was in there for and I said a turn signal violation," said Robinson.

There aren't any warrants out for Robinson. In fact he says he's never been in jail.

....

News 8 contacted various cities in Collin County, many of which have not made a single arrest this year for not using a turning signal. Even the police chief in Melissa acknowledges he's never seen this happen in his own city. "In the 6 years I've been the police chief, this is the first time," said Chief Duane Smith, Melissa PD.

But he stands behind his officer, saying state law gives him the power to arrest someone for many crimes, no matter how minor.
....

http://www.kvue.com/news/top/stories/050608kvueturnviolation-cb.d4cb840e.html

Refused to sign.
Taken to jail to post.
Happens all the time.

The only very bad thing about the arrest was Mr. Robinson's attitude and reasoning.

But the article did not say anything about the guy refusing to sign. Do you have insight into this matter?

I do not think that is the case simply because if the guy had refused to sign than there would have been no need to have this story as everyone could understand why someone would go to jail in that kind of situation. That is just my personal thought. But all I know of the matter is what is in the news. That is why I asked if you had any additional insight.

In addition, regarding the matter of him being strip searched, it is my understanding that strip searching minor traffic law violators is unconstitutional. Strip searches for MINOR violators are justified only when a "reasonable suspicion" indicates that a detainee could possess weapons or contraband. Wilson v. Jones, 251 F.3d 1340 (11th Cit. 2001); see also, e.g., Roberts v. Rhode Island, 239 F.3d 107 (1st Cir. 2001); Chapman v. Nichols, 989 F.2d 393 (10th Cir. 1993); Fuller v. M.G. Jewelry, 950 F.2d 1437 (9th Cir. 1991); Masters v. Crouch, 872 F.2d 1248 (6th Cir. 1989); Watt v. City of Richardson Police Dept., 849 F.2d 195 (5th Cir. 1988); Weber v. Dell, 804 F.2d 796 (2d Cir. 1986); Jones v. Edwards, 770 F.2d 739 (8th Cir. 1985); Mary Beth G. v. City of Chicago, 723 F.2d 1263 (7th Cir. 1983).

I hope Mr. Robinson gets paid.

[This message was edited by RTC on 05-11-08 at .]

I like Macaroni and Cheese. Kraft is pretty good. Especially the 4 cheese stuff or the Sharp Cheddar.

Has Kraft Mac & Cheese gotten less creamy? I remember it being really creamy (back when "Undercover Angel" was a hit . . . ah Star Wars, I wish they were our wars . . . but I digress). Now it seems more powdered and more orange. Funny, I don't remember the past being so orange.

Rachael's mac & cheese is the best by far. None of that blue box stuff. Good, sharp cheddar, thick and rich. You can feel your arteries constricting, like trying to siphon stucco through a garden hose. I've never siphoned stucco, but the analogy seemed pitcuresque enough for a banjo player.

Velveta shells are better than the powdered stuff.

I've been sitting at home for two weeks discovering how useless daytime TV is. The cooking shows are at least interesting. I've seen several recipes for mac and cheese, some of them creating a white product. The ingredients say it must be good, but can white mac and cheese ever be as good as orange, or better yet Kraft neon orange?

quote:

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Originally posted by David Newell:
Has Kraft Mac & Cheese gotten less creamy? I remember it being really creamy (back when "Undercover Angel" was a hit . . . ah Star Wars, I wish they were our wars . . . but I digress). Now it seems more powdered and more orange. Funny, I don't remember the past being so orange.

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Funny that you mention that song, David. I've had that 1978 tune "Love is like Oxygen" in my head now for days. I heard it on the radio the other day, and now it won't go away. I'm pretty sure AP and the boys/girl won't want to play it either.

Normally, I'd just use the ignore feature for this thread, but had to jump in on the subject of Mac and Cheese.

I always loved the powdered stuff, but developed a taste for Velveeta Shells in law school because Kraft required butter to cook and I have a butter phobia.

Back to ignore.

I have to admit, no matter how good "real" mac & cheese is, it will never have the same comfort level to me as my 33-cents-a-box stuff (I wasn't rich like you guys, able to afford the fancy brand-name Kraft stuff!), mixed with chopped hot dogs and lovingly made in my dorm microwave. Sorry.

AndreaW, that is my favorite comfort food, and I have even won over a few others who thought--before trying--that it wouldn't be very good. Except I use Velveeta shells and cheese.

Neither of my kids will eat any mac and cheese other than the blue box, orange variety !

I personally like the Luby's version the best.

Greg, if you get a song stuck in your head, such as that horrible so-called tune "Garden Party" by the Nelson son, or Nelsonson, you can try straight-lining the bag of faux flavorings in the Kraft blue box. Forget the shells, man. Get a straw, go to work, get happy, lose the tune. I apologize to the ladies who choose the box variety and hot dogs to the RR "How good is that" home-cooked dish. But once I had the real thing I couldn't go back. I do love Hebrew National hot dogs though. Probably the one food I'd want on that proverbial desert island, Mary Ann, not Ginger, thank you.

How did we go from the arrest of someone for a traffic violation to liking Mac and Cheese?

Suzanne,

I utterly horrified my entire dorm the first time they saw me putting hot dogs in my mac and cheese. But then, I horrified a lot of people with my strange Texas customs. (I was one of only two Texans in my entire college, in upstate NY.) I managed to turn a few other people onto it before I left.

quote:

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Originally posted by Brent Ratekin:
How did we go from the arrest of someone for a traffic violation to liking Mac and Cheese?

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Mac and Cheese is a very powerful and controversial subject these days.

Brent, have I ever told you the rumor of how Vernon, Texas got it's name? It's quite a fascinating story...

Excerpted from the Handbook of Texas, @

http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/VV/hev1.html

VERNON, TEXAS. Vernon, the county seat of Wilbarger County, is just south of the Pease River on U.S. highways 70, 183, 283, 287, and the Burlington and Northern Railroad, fifty miles northwest of Wichita Falls and sixty miles southeast of Childress in the north central part of the county. The site was called Eagle Springs by the Tonkawa Indians as early as 1858 for the unusual abundance of nesting eagles.

Application was made for a post office to be called Eagle Flat, but the postal department complained that too many Texas towns already had the word eagle as part of their name. The second-choice name of Vernon was accepted, and a post office was granted to the community in 1880. Though sources disagree, Vernon was probably named either for George Washington's Mount Vernon or for a traveling whiskey salesman named Vernon Brown. Wilbarger County was organized on October 10, 1881, and Vernon, with a population of twenty-five, was chosen as the county seat.

quote:

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Originally posted by A.P. Merillat:
Greg, if you get a song stuck in your head, such as that horrible so-called tune "Garden Party" by the Nelson son, or Nelsonson...

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Ok, now the Starz song is gone and it's been replaced by Garden Party, to which I only know part of the lyrics, resulting in a humming sound instead of the lyrics when I get past the first stanza of the song.

Thanks A.P.! What would I do without you?

Speaking of getting songs stuck in your head -
Greg, you probably run into this all the time, but it seems at the most inopportune, innoportune, inoport...inconvenient times, I get the Asleep at the Wheel line stuck in a one-line loop: "Elvin Bishop's sittin' on a bale of hay, he ain't good lookin' but he sure can play...". It usually happens when I'm getting filetted, fileted, fille...sliced up by a defense lawyer, with the jury staring me down, waiting for the answer that will make the defendant look innocent and me look, well like a bad speller.

Dang you, A.P.

And I guess you think you can fool me with your Asleep at the Wheel mention, but any true Texan of my age would know that the quoted line eminates from Charlie Daniels and the CDB's "The South's Gonna Do it Again".

You might be able to fool a youngster like Newell with a statement like that, but you can't fool a guy whose first car had an 8 track.