A blog is born (and less weighty matters)

Put your hands together for Feet to the Fire, a collaborative effort by some of my favorite people -- including me, of course. Muck will be raked.

-- Another of the Astros journeyman hurlers who sent the team into their glorious 1980 playoff run, Vern Ruhle, passed away at MD Anderson over the weekend. I thought that Ruhle was a tremendous pitching coach and felt bad when the Astros canned him in 2000, coincidentally the same year they began play in Enron Field Minute Maid Park. Crawfish Boxes has a nice compendium of stats (like always) and an old baseball card. Vayo con Dios, Vern.

-- As more global warming news warns, the fair-and-balanced pushback manages to get itself into the Chronic. Shame on you, Eric Berger. All the conservative freaks in town will continue to think the newspaper is too liberal, so you may as well quit trying to appease them.

I'll have more than these bite-size pieces later on as I'm sitting around doing nothing but scratching where it itches all day. (Pajamas media, indeed. I'm wearing sweats.)

Sunday Funnies

(click to view larger)

I smell postpourri

-- excellent point-counterpoint by Markos regarding the 2008 Democratic declareds.

-- there are several conversations going on about the past and future direction and management of the Texas Democratic Party.

-- another Houston police shooting of an unarmed African-American man has a neighborhood on edge. On a lighter note, this is the HPD news I count on HouStoned for.

-- the Texas corporations who benefited the most from Republican administration paid most of the$2 million tab for Rick Perry's inaugural. They include TXU, which is rushing to build several coal-fired plants in Texas. We're also getting gouged by the cellular phone companies. Surprised?

-- Iran got military parts and equipment from the Pentagon. Bush caved on his wiretapping efforts. Cheney thinks it's OK to look at your credit report. The White House visitors logs are now classified 'top secret'.

-- The Sunday Funnies and more tomorrow.