Sunday Funnies (late edition)

Another letter to to the president (sic)

With the help of the ACLU, I wrote the following letter to to Bush this past week:

The Senate Judiciary Committee has asked you nine times to tell them the full truth about the domestic spying program. Now they have issued subpoenas demanding the legal justification behind the program.

You should comply with the subpoenas.

They are not asking for sensitive operational details about the program. All the Senate Judiciary Committee wants to know is your legal rationale for spying on Americans without warrants.

As a taxpayer and a voter, I want to know if my government is spying on me without a warrant, and I want to know your legal justification for ordering spying without warrants on any American.

This program has been in the media since 2005. We know you have the documents, and we know the program exists because you publicly admitted it. It's time for you to release these documents to the public.

I am proud to be an American. I love my country, and I believe we can be both safe and free. But only if everyone follows the law, including you.

What I didn't include in this letter -- what I was thinking as I wrote it, was:

What I would really like to see is a well-organized group of proud American patriots drag your sorry ass -- and Dick Cheney's and Karl Rove's, too -- out of the White House and hanged upside down from the flagpoles, like Mussolini in 1945. That or maybe just a plain old firing squad against the wall of the West Wing's brand-new pressroom.

But I'll settle for your compliance with the subpoenas.

But I didn't write that; I only thought it.

Sunday Funnies (early edition)

'The example she set for us'

Admirers paused at her closed casket, which was draped in a gold-toned pall with multi-colored embroidery. The pall is an official church drape used in Episcopal funerals.

A pillar stood to the right memorializing former President Lyndon Johnson's Great Society social programs, while windows above displayed red and gold-sealed binders containing 45 million presidential documents. ...

Earlier Friday, Johnson's body was carried for a last trip to her beloved wildflower center in southwest Austin, where family and friends gathered for a private church service ... A large portrait of Johnson wearing a hat and surrounded by wildflowers adorned the wall behind her oak casket. On a table nearby were two vases of bluebells, reportedly her favorite flower. The limestone gallery, with its floor-to-ceiling windows, overlooked a spectacular Central Texas vista.

She was remembered for her "graceful elegance" and "radiant presence."

"She was a picture of what it looks like to be fully alive," said the Rev. Stephen Kinney, former rector of the St. Barnabas Episcopal Church in Fredericksburg, where Johnson worshipped.

He added: "We are here to let Lady Bird go and to celebrate her glad release. This is our time to say goodbye."

This was another Lady Bird spring we had, wasn't it?

Confident and lush and defiantly gorgeous, this spring burst out of an ugly winter in such glory because of Lady Bird Johnson. ... How could she have known how much we would come to count on her annual spring show in Washington and her wildflower stands along the interstates, more than 40 years later? Hers is a simple and steadfast legacy, unparalleled among first ladies. She took her lifelong love affair with nature and strewed it across a huge country, where it could cheer generations of Americans without regard to class or creed or age. She sowed an explosion of color to please the loner trucker barreling down the highway and the poor child skipping past urban trash.

She was a great liberal, when being a liberal and a woman was far, far from cool. It was tough being a liberal in Texas too, then as it is now. She did it with grace, magnanimity and charm.

Paraskevidekatriaphobia

Paraskevi means Friday, dekatria means thirteen and phobia, of course, means phobia.

What is the original reason Friday the 13th is associated with bad luck?

There have been a number of events known as "Black Fridays" in history. Usually these were devastating. Some historians propose that the origin of the "Black Friday" was the simultaneous arrest of hundreds of Knights Templars on October 13, 1307 (Friday), to be later tortured into "admitting" heresy.

Today, the concept of Friday the 13th has been extended through the 'black Friday' concept to incorporate anything really bad that happens on a Friday. Throughout history there have been a number of calamities known as Black Friday:

Black Friday (1869), a financial crisis in the United States
Black Friday (1889), the day of the Johnstown Flood.
Black Friday (1910), WSPU took militant action when the Conciliation Bill failed.
Black Friday (1919), a riot in Glasgow stemming from industrial unrest
Black Friday (1921), day on which British dockers' and railwaymen's union leaders announced their decision not to call for strike action against wage reductions for miners
Black Friday (1929), a stock market crash in the United States
Black Friday (1939), a day of devastating fires in Australia
Black Friday (1945), largest air battle over Norway, over Sunnfjord
Hollywood Black Friday (1945), the day the six-month-old Confederation of Studio Unions (CSU) strike boiled over into a bloody riot at the Warner Bros. studios leading to the eventual breakup of the CSU.
Black Friday (1978), a massacre of protesters in Iran
Black Friday (1982), known in Britain after Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands, sparking the Falklands War
Black Friday (1987), the day an hour-long F4 category tornado ran through the city of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
Black Friday (2004), a crackdown on a peaceful protest in the capital city of Maldives, Malé

Other uses of the term include:

"Black Friday" is the name given to the last Friday before Christmas in the United Kingdom. It is a day when widespread anti-social behaviour due to public alcohol consumption is expected to occur, and police are given additional powers to combat it
Black Friday (1940 film), a science-fiction/horror film starring Boris Karloff, Stanley Ridges and Bela Lugosi
Black Friday (2005 film), a Hindi film on the 1993 serial bomb blasts in Mumbai, directed by Anurag Kashyap
"Black Friday", a title of a song by Grinspoon
"Black Friday", a title of a song by Steely Dan
"Black Friday", a title of a song by Megadeth
"Black Friday Rule", a title of a song by Flogging Molly
"Black Friday", the nickname for game 3 of the 1977 NLCS baseball championships. Philadelphia Phillies fans gave the nickname because the Phillies blew an early lead against the Los Angeles Dodgers and a controversial call was made during the game
"Black Friday", a title of a poem written by Dennis Rader, the BTK killer

Sources all excerpted from Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friday_the_13th
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Friday

Which is odd because the Greeks have an irrational fear of Tuesday the 13th (tritidekatriaphobia) for reasons unknown to this blogger.

A wildflower partisan

From my good friend Prairie Weather:

Lady Bird Johnson died this afternoon. Her flowers are still blazing outside our house though the July sun may make them go to seed soon.

She was a wildflower partisan, as all Texans know. I made so bold as to steal the drying seed head of one of her perfect, rare, Venetian red galliardias, at the old Johnson ranch, put it in my pocket, and scrunch the seeds into my garden about five years ago.

The next spring I had a beautiful single red galliardia plant.

The next year genetics took over and I had a lot of galliardia plants in the same area of the garden but they were mostly of the more common, less beautiful red-and-yellow variety. The following year, more. This year, thanks to the tremendous amount of rain, galliardia are blooming as far out as a couple of hundred feet from the house. There's still a display of pure Venetian reds right outside the sleeping porch, mixed with mealy-blue sage and some lilac skeleton flowers. The cattle and deer leave them alone.

All wildflowers native to the seven very distinct eco-regions of Texas are now popular, thanks to Lady Bird. "I want Vermont to look like Vermont, and Texas to look like Texas," she said. We may have more authentic, water-saving native gardens in this state than any other. Lady Bird won't be forgotten anytime soon.

PGA tour pro plays a muni with a weekend duffer

On the sixth tee, Marino stood behind me and watched my tee shot slice over the trees on the right side of the fairway . . . over the course fence . . . over a road . . . over a jogging trail . . . and splash into the Potomac, 150 yards out of bounds.

"I thought you said there were no water hazards on this course," Marino said.

I stepped back, too ashamed to respond, and watched Marino hammer an intentional fade that arched left to right. It soared down the middle of the fairway, cutting a path that mirrored the hole's shape, and dropped to the ground 350 yards away. One of my co-workers from the paper, out on a golf course for the first time in her life to watch this round, offered her evaluation.

"Wow," she said, "his shots even sound different than yours."

Thanks to Tom K for the link.

It depends on what the meaning of "verified" is

Hell, what are we going to do about this? Call for his resignation? Demand Bush fire him? Impeach him?

Can't prosecute him for lying to Congress because Bush will just give him a pardon:

As he sought to renew the USA Patriot Act two years ago, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales assured lawmakers that the FBI had not abused its potent new terrorism-fighting powers. "There has not been one verified case of civil liberties abuse," Gonzales told senators on April 27, 2005.

Six days earlier, the FBI sent Gonzales a copy of a report that said its agents had obtained personal information that they were not entitled to have. It was one of at least half a dozen reports of legal or procedural violations that Gonzales received in the three months before he made his statement to the Senate intelligence committee, according to internal FBI documents released under the Freedom of Information Act.

What time does the tea party start?

Yo, Mrs. Vitter: David calls your bluff

and raises you two testicles:

"Vitter, 46, then became Louisiana’s first Republican senator since the end of Reconstruction, and has built a reputation as a solid conservative, opposing abortion rights, same-sex marriage and gun control. Last month, he took a leading role in efforts to kill the comprehensive immigration overhaul bill.

In 2000, Vitter was included in a Newhouse News Service story about the strain of congressional careers on families.

His wife, Wendy, was asked by the Newhouse News reporter: If her husband was as unfaithful as former President Bill Clinton, would she be as forgiving as Hillary Clinton?

“I’m a lot more like Lorena Bobbitt than Hillary,” Wendy Vitter told Newhouse News. “If he does something like that, I’m walking away with one thing, and it’s not alimony, trust me.”

“I think fear is a very good motivating factor in a marriage,” she added. “Don’t put fear down.”

Oh, my. Alimony or sliced baloney. What a dilemma the Vitters are on the horns of.

Personally speaking, Mrs. Vitter, I never discount fear as a motivator, but apparently you just weren't taken seriously by your whore-mongering husband.

Who's going to take responsibility for hiding the knives in this God-fearing household? Their children?

One may think it apropos at this moment to express brotherly empathy for a fellow man's impending emasculation, yet given that Vitter doesn't give a damn about the private parts of 150 million American women for whom he has repeatedly voted to deny anything resembling reproductive or contraceptive freedom, I would merely take this moment to suggest to the junior Senator from Louisiana how much it must suck to have someone else tell you that they, not you, own your body.

Tired of the "media filter", Bush makes a YouTube

You talkin' ta me?

Tex-Blog Corral (and other great candidate news)

Let's begin with two Galveston-area Democrats who have declared their intentions to run for office in 2008, Joe Jaworski for SD-11 and Judge Susan Criss for the Texas Supreme Court, and wrap up with Glen Maxey for Travis County tax assessor-collector.

I met both Criss and Jaworski through our mutual association with the Van Os campaign in 2006. They were each strong supporters of David's, which naturally means they are both progressive Democrats. They are also the brightest of legal minds and once again are precisely the kind of people we need to get elected to public office.

Criss has served as the judge of the 212th District Court in Galveston since 1999 and has presided over many significant cases, including the semi-sensational Robert Durst murder trial. Judge Criss attended the Juneteenth Filibuster for Freedom last summer in Galveston with her father, SD committeeman Lloyd Criss, and has a great blog herself. She's challenging yet another odious Republican, Phil Johnson.

Joe Jaworski (yes, he's related) will take on Mike "Inaction" Jackson for the right to represent the Eleventh Senate District of Texas in 2008. Jaworski has served most recently as mayor pro-tem of Galveston and practices law in the family firm; Jackson was just named "furniture" in Texas Monthly's annual "Best and Worst Legislators" edition.

Glen Maxey makes a return to electoral politics after being narrowly defeated for Texas Democratic Party chair at last June's state Democratic convention in Fort Worth. He's challenging 16-year incumbent Nelda Wells Spears. Maxey intends to emphasize the "voter registration" responsibility of the TA-C job:

"There are basically four functions in the office," said Maxey -- taxes, fees and fines, vehicle titling and registration, and voters' registration -- and he describes its current operations as "fairly efficient but not being used to its potential," especially concerning voter outreach and registration. "We're not using the power of the office to achieve 100-percent registration of eligible voters," he said.

And here's more from around the Tex-blogosphere:

It's 11:30, do you know where your blogger is?

McBlogger sees "little Patty Rose" at one of his favorite Austin bars.

Taking Texas Back

Texas Kaos continues its podcast series, hosted by Refinish69.

This week features an interview with Mike Engelhart, who is running for 151st District Court judge in Harris County. I first met Mike when we worked on Barbara Radnofsky's US Senate campaign in the last cycle. He's also a blogging judicial candidate.

Going Public

Capitol Annex takes a look at the implications of the IPO of Kolberg Kravis Roberts, which is presently negotiating to purchase utility giant (and coal plant builder) TXU.

Do you want Blackwater types patroling our border?

South Texas Chisme writes about DynCorp International, a Virginia-based military security firm, stating it could train and deploy 1,000 private agents to the US-Mexico border within 13 months, offering a quick surge of law enforcement officers to a region struggling to clamp down on illegal immigration.

And Don't Forget that Senate Race

Burnt Orange Report reminds that John Cornyn reeks and either Mikal Watts or Rick Noriega is a vast improvement (Watts not so much, but that's just my humble O).

Half Empty explores the idea of another draft movement. Why not draft Mikal Watts For Chief Justice of Texas 3rd Court of Appeals?

Border sheriffs ask: "Where's our money?"

Remember all that money that was allocated by the Lege for border security? Border sheriffs want to know why their buddy Rick Perry isn't giving more of it to them. Off the Kuff takes a look.