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We here at the World’s Most Dangerous Beauty Salon, Inc., will spend today waiting.

Final arguments in the Tom DeLay trial are this morning.  The case will probably go to the jury after lunch.  We will bring you the results.  Those of you scoring at home, and we certainly hope you are, can see the play-by-play right here at Hal’s Most Esteemed Tom DeLay’s Coverage.  (Start at November 7th and scroll up.)

Wagers are being accepted at Thelma’s manicure table.  It works this way: You give her a five dollar bill.  She puts it in her right pocket and then shockingly gives you five ones from her left pocket.  It’s magic money and a special trick that Thelma learned in honor of Tom DeLay.

You can keep up right here.

UPDATE:  From the Houston Chronicle —

The defense won a major victory in the charge visiting District Judge Pat Priest gave to the jury. It, essentially, said DeLay merely knowing Colyandro and Ellis and what they were doing was not enough to convict him.

“Mere association with persons involved in a conspiracy, if there is one, is insufficient to prove participation in a conspiracy,” the charge said. “Likewise, participation in a conspiracy cannot be proven merely by the fact that a person knew of a conspiracy and was associated with or in the presence of persons involved in the conspiracy.”

However, the charge also said: “An agreement constituting a conspiracy may be inferred from acts of the parties.”

Hell, with those standards, I don’t think that even I would find him guilty.