Sunday Postpourri

That big blonde digging out a kill attempt happens to be my niece. She is the star on the University of Arkansas volleyball team.

Last evening the two candidates competing for the US Senate held a debate at Rice University. My birthday buddy Barbara Radnofsky and Scott Jameson, the Libertarian candidate, talked substance for 90 minutes before an assembly of about fifty voters and a few media. Kay Bailey Torture was too scared to show up, and after watching Barbara tear her into little pieces in absentia, I can understand why. Senator Perjury Technicality alleges she will show for another debate scheduled for October 19, in San Antonio and to be broadcast on all statewide PBS stations. We'll see.

The conglomerate that owns the Los Angeles Times fired its publisher because he refused to cut staff. This is amazing to me, because I spent a decade in corporate newspaper management and never met a single man nearly brave enough to do this. I'll have more to say at a later date.

One of the best restaurants in New Orleans is finally open again. I'm not a candidate for the turtle soup, but most everything else on the menu -- including the jazz brunch; they invented that -- is worth the drive over. Right across the street from Commander's Palace is the Lafayette Cemetery, one of the Crescent City's oldest burial grounds. Lots of interesting history when you take a ghost tour and lots of movies filmed there. Here's a good picture of it.

The old I-10 bridge over the Trinity River -- between Houston and Beaumont -- is finally going to be replaced.

If you have ever sold a used car to another person and conspired to report the selling price as lower than reality when you recorded the title change at the courthouse... well, you can't get away with that any more. The state estimates that they will collect an additional $35 million dollars from eliminating the "liar's affidavit", and the county tax assessor-collectors estimate that many will be pissed off about it. Way to go again, Rick Perry and the Republican Texas Lege. At least they haven't raised your taxes, right?

TIME declares that the Republican Revolution is over. Stu Rothenberg says "a true blowout is now possible".

And don't miss the Moral High Ground Mudslide edition of this week's Sunday Funnies.