Pettitte, Astros playing chicken

This is the most recent news I can find on the 'will he or won't he'/'here or there' cat-and-mouse being played by Andy Pettitte and the Astros:

The Yankees have opened by offering Pettitte $15 million. They've also told him they'll improve that, perhaps to $17 million, which would top the $16.5 million he made in 2006. The Yankees also said they'll give Pettitte a second year if he so desires. The Astros are way behind financially, at $12 million (and one season).

Even so, interested parties have seen the competition as a 50-50 proposition.

"Certainly, we have a geographical edge,'' Astros general manager Tim Pupura said. "And certainly, you have to expect the Yankees to have a financial edge.''

The author, Jon Heyman of SI.com, continues ...

Feeling slightly uncertain about which team Pettitte will choose, the Astros went ahead and agreed to a deal Thursday morning to obtain Jon Garland from the White Sox for three young players -- Willy Taveras, Jason Hirsh and Taylor Buchholz -- only to see it fall through when, according to sources, the White Sox became concerned with the health of Buchholz.

We can't forget that Pettitte left the Yankees three years ago feeling somewhat slighted by his own team when it reduced their offer to him from a three-year contract to a two-year contract. So it's reasonable to wonder whether Pettitte felt the least bit slighted at the news that the Astros had a deal for a pitcher to replace him.

And indeed, Garland would have been replacing him. Purpura said it "would have been very difficult'' to employ both Garland and Pettitte and said they will continue to seek a top starter. If they can't resurrect a deal with the White Sox, they will look for another one.

"We have to pursue other options,'' Purpura explained. "He's talking to other clubs, and we're talking to other clubs."

I thought the 'Stros did well with the Carlos Lee and Woody Williams signings (even if the market dictates they had to overpay for them) but if they miss Pettitte not over a few million dollars but because he's easily piqued, well ...

... too bad. He started this charade with his Clemens-like shilly-shallying, and now if he has to go back to the Big Apple to work, gee that's too bad for his lovely family in Deer Park.

Make up your mind already, you big redneck.

Update (minutes after this posting): Pettitte is New York-bound.

Andy Pettitte has chosen to re-sign with the New York Yankees, reaching a one-year $16 million deal with a player option for another $16 million in 2008.

If he gets hurt, he won’t take his option.

“I had offered the Astros $14 million and an option,” Randy Hendricks said. “But they wouldn’t take it. Both teams know that if Andy gets hurt, he won’t take the option. The Astros flat turned me down.”

Feingold, Bennett put the ISG on notice

Each in their inimitable way, of course. First, Russ (from Countdown):

The fact is this commission was composed apparently entirely of people who did not have the judgment to oppose this Iraq war in the first place, and did not have the judgment to realize it was not a wise move in the fight against terrorism. So that's who is doing this report.

Then I looked at the list of who testified before them. There is virtually no one who opposed the war in the first place. Virtually no one who has been really calling for a different strategy that goes for a global approach to the war on terrorism. So this is really a Washington inside job and it shows not in the description of what's happened -- that's fairly accurate -- but it shows in the recommendations. It's been called a classic Washington compromise that does not do the job of extricating us from Iraq in a way that we can deal with the issues in Southeast Asia, in Afghanistan, and in Somalia which are every bit as important as what is happening in Iraq.

This report does not do the job and it's because it was not composed of a real representative group of Americans who believe what the American people showed in the election, which is that it's time for us to have a timetable to bring the troops out of Iraq.

And then Bill:

Who are these commissioners and what is their expertise in Iraq — or even foreign policy? ... The entire report is contemptuous of the military, spoken of as pawns on a chess table, barriers, observers, buffers, and trainers. Never as what they are trained to be: the greatest warriors in the world. Would it have been too much to ask that one general, or even one outspoken believer in the mission from the get-go, be on this commission?

Perhaps the most systemic problem with the report is it didn't tell us how to win; it answered how to get out. The commissioners answered the wrong question, but it was the one they wanted to answer.

In all my time in Washington I've never seen such smugness, arrogance, or such insufferable moral superiority. Self-congratulatory. Full of itself. Horrible.

I think Bennett is jealous because he wasn't picked for the commission. Or maybe he's just having severe slots withdrawal.

Pearl Harbor Day remembrances

Today is the 65th anniversary.

There's no personal connection to the day; my dad shipped out to Pearl (he boarded a train at the old Union Station railway downtown; it's now part of Minute Maid Park) but got there just as the war was ending, so he never saw any action. He spent his enlistment doing the beginning of peacetime maintenance.

The surviving veterans will gather at the USS Arizona memorial for the last time. Most of them don't expect they can attend a 70th, if there is one.

The Arizona had been loaded with millions of gallons of heavy fuel oil the day before it was sunk in the Japanese attack. That oil has leaked slowly out of it ever since. There has long been concern that the deteriorating condition of the rusting ship might suddenly release what remains of its trapped cargo, causing an environmental disaster. People have been studying ways of dealing with, or preventing, that occurrence.

And in Fredericksburg, the hometown of Admiral Nimitz, they will commemorate the anniversary with the usual speeches and 21-gun salutes, but also with a sale of Texas Historical Commission bonds to expand the facilities there.

Kossacks like Edwards, Obama, Clark

... but Gore a lot more, if he would only declare. Almost 16,000 respondents from the progressive netroots voted in the poll that did not include the former vice-president and the three named in the headline finished 28-28-26 respectively; 57% of almost 14,000 made Gore a runaway winner in the poll with his name on the ballot. The three leaders leaked away much of their support to him.

Summary:

... But keep in mind, winning the "blogosphere primary" gets these guys nothing. It's all about activating, energizing, and mobilizing hardcore political junkies to evangelize and work their campaigns.

Let's say, conservatively, that 5 million people read liberal blogs. You get 10 percent of those, you're looking at 500,000 activists working on your behalf. What campaign wouldn't kill for that sort of interest?

The corporate media meme remains, of course, Hillary and Obama. Frankly, I don't think the Democrats can win back the White House with either one of those two at the top of the ticket. My choices today would be Gore, Clark, Edwards -- and not necessarily in that order. Greggie-Poo the Blue Pooch will be shocked, shocked if the ticket in '08 isn't Clinton-Warner.

I think that premise is absolutely hilarious. OTOH, I'll have to vote Green if he's so much as half right.

Update: Kos calls the cattle.

Update II (12/7): And the cattle prod for the Republicans. My take, posted there, is ...

McCain is sucking all the oxygen out of the room. It's currently him alone in the first tier.

Second tier: Giuliani, Romney, Brownback.

Hizzoner has star power but is much too moderate to move up. The fundies need someone to rally 'round; my guess is it will be either Mitt or Sam.

Third tier: Hagel, Gingrich, Pataki, Huckabee, Tancredo, Hunter, Thompson.

Hagel is McCain Lite, with the exception of being out front in opposition to Iraq. This still doesn't seem to be the popular thing to do if you're a conservative, however. Gingrich will attract a southern conservative following and can't be discounted. Pataki gets lost among the other nor'easters (and is the blandest of this bunch; makes Frist seem like Elvis). Tancredo has one issue to run on. Hunter, Huckabee and Thompson don't even have that.

Could go nova by just announcing and move into the top tier: Jeb, Condi. Not sure how either can run a campaign of 'change' in 2008. Bush fatigue would ultimately doom either one in the general.

Blogs force Rep. Truitt to blink

The legislation filed by Rep. Vicki Truitt -- summarized here -- has been withdrawn by her.

The Fort Worth Star-Telegram has the story:

Texas bloggers: Retract your claws. Vicki Truitt means you no harm.

The Keller state representative has been public enemy No. 1 for bloggers for the past three weeks because of a bill she pre-filed relating to defamatory comments on Web sites.

It turns out Truitt had meant to file a much narrower bill that was not directed at bloggers. She now plans to enter substitute language in January.

I don't really buy this premise of Ms. Truitt's, but let's continue:

Truitt filed House Bill 129 on Nov. 13, the first day lawmakers could file bills for the legislative session that begins in January. The bill specified that the author of defamatory statements expressed on the Internet would be subject to the same libel limitations as the author of any other statement "in any other written or graphic form."

Outrage on the blogosphere was quick.

Eileen Smith, editor of Austin-based InThePinkTexas.com, ripped into the bill two days later in a post titled "My Other Blog is Yo Mama." The post now appears on the first page of a Google search for "Vicki Truitt."

More than 30 readers commented on the post, many heckling Truitt. Noting that if the bill passed it wouldn't go into effect until September, reader Roaring Gnome suggested, "I think you should dedicate all posts after Sept. 1, 2007 to making fun of Vicki Truitt's absurdly big hair. It would NOT be a false statement, so I think you'd be covered."

More than 10 other blogs ultimately wrote about the bill in the ensuing weeks. Some latched onto the notion that they were free to say whatever they wanted about Truitt until the bill passed.

I didn't think there was nearly the blogswarm we needed on this in order to get the desired response. That Rep. Truitt backed off so quickly suggests she is an avid blog reader and was intimidated by our enormous power.

Or that she doesn't know a blog from Bergdorf Goodman (and is intimidated by our enormous power). Continuing:

Vince Leibowitz of Grand Saline analyzed the bill's wording on his blog CapitolAnnex.com. He suggested that even though Web sites are already subject to libel limitations, the legislation could ultimately strip bloggers of the basic protections against libel charges that traditional media enjoy.

That prediction worried other bloggers, some of whom suggested organizing opposition to the bill.

"This is just another way to silence the little guy/gal," wrote Michael Davis, who blogs at dallasprogress.blogspot.com.

"I blog. You decide. Truitt sues," added a blogger on bayareahouston.blogspot.com.

...

Truitt's legislative director, Dan Sutherland, said that legal advisers had suggested broadening the bill's language to include all defamatory comments, but that stifling bloggers or anyone else on the Internet was never their intention.

"In the conversations I had with legislative counsel, we never talked about blogs," Sutherland said. "Apparently the people who write blogs think it was targeted at them, so we're trying to clarify it."

Sutherland described the blogger reaction to the bill as "amazing" but noted that allowing public comments to help reshape proposed legislation is part of the democratic process.

"It's not unusual for any representative to file something, and once people start reading it, they bring things to our attention they hadn't thought of or got lost in the translation," Sutherland said.

Truitt said she didn't intend the bill to be viewed as a way of silencing free speech on the Web, especially for those writing about public figures.

Once again, I doubt it. Nevertheless:

Smith, of InThePinkTexas.com, expressed surprise that Truitt's broadly worded bill was intended to be about something so specific as identity theft. Regardless, she said the furor over the bill has helped spark a dialogue about how blogs should be treated compared to traditional media.

"It has brought up interesting questions about how legislators are going to view blogs as vehicles of information," Smith said. "It's actually a good discussion platform for everyone to have anyway ... even if it wasn't what she intended."

And there you have it. The blogosphere just gained a little street cred.

2006's Texan of the Year: Blogger Style

... not a Republican (like last year) but also not necessarily a Democrat, either (though they endorsed several of them in the November elections).


It's Carolyn Boyle of Texas Parent PAC.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

Texas Parent PAC was founded in 2005 by Boyle, a former public relations executive well-known in the Capitol as an advocate for Texas public schools.

"Carolyn Boyle and Texas Parent PAC proved that you don't have to be a prominent, wealthy donor to make positive changes in the Texas political landscape,” said San Antonio's Matt Glazer, senior writer for Austin-based Burnt Orange Report and founder of Just Another Blog. "Overnight, Parent PAC became the most sought-after endorsement in Texas politics," Glazer continued.

"This election cycle, Carolyn Boyle and Texas Parent PAC showed that soccer moms and PTA dads speak as loud as the James Leiningers and Bob Perrys, and that the folks those guys have been helping get elected all these years aren't doing the job when it comes top public education," said Vince Leibowitz of Grand Saline, publisher of Capitol Annex.

Congratulations to Ms. Boyle and Texas Parent PAC.

Just cleaning out my del.icio.us pages

-- The Times put out their Ten Best list, none of which I have read. I did just complete John Grisham's The Innocent Man, and I think that ought to be on anyone's list.

-- the retail diamond industry is concerned about the effect of the movie "Blood Diamond" on its holiday sales.

-- Greg Abbott doesn't believe that carbon dioxide is harming the planet:

Twelve states are squaring off against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which they say has failed to do its job by refusing to limit emissions of carbon dioxide, a heat-trapping greenhouse gas.

But in Texas, where the state climatologist says global warming is a pressing concern and scientists say the Gulf Coast could be flooded within the century, the attorney general has joined a smaller coalition of states that sides with the EPA, which says the gas is not a dangerous air pollutant.

The Texas attorney general's office did not even consult the state's environmental agency before signing onto the legal brief submitted to the high court, according to one of the agency's commissioners.

"The State of Texas' intervention in this case wasn't derived from any formal request" from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, said Larry Soward, one of three members of the commission. "This agency did not ask the attorney general to intervene in the lawsuit on our behalf, nor have we been involved.

"It's routine or common course for the agency with regulatory authority to be integrally involved. And that hasn't been the case."

I'm going to send the OAG a copy of "Inconvenient Truth" for Christmas. How about you?

-- Wal-Mart has added a new benefit for its long-time employees: if you work there for twenty years, you get a polo shirt.

-- student loan regulation is about to change substantially, to the benefit of students and the detriment of the lenders, who in the most recent cycle gave most of their campaign contributions to two Republicans. One of them was John Boehner, the incoming House minority leader.

-- William Wayne Justice is probably the most valuable Texas jurist of my lifetime. It's not too fantastic to imagine him on the Supreme Court, having been appointed by Clinton in the Nineties and surviving a bruising confirmation, and beating the living daylights out of Fat Tony the Fixer and Slappy Thomas.

What a wonderful world it would be.

-- Christof and Kuffner have previously reported on the Trans-Texas Corridor propaganda campaign already underway. Paul Burka calls the TTC potentially the "the worst public policy fiasco" of his lifetime. Many of the 2006 Democratic statewide candidates campaigned hard against the boondoggle and will likely continue that effort. Other smart, ambitious Democrats might do the same. This is an issue still crying out for organized opposition.

-- Electronic voting machines ought to be tossed into the harbor. Or the lake, or the gulf, or the ocean, or the nearest, deepest, saltiest body of water. That's not my opinion but that of the federal agency that advises the US Election Assistance Commission.

-- all the way from last week, the president-elect of the Christian Coalition resigned when the board refused to allow him to expand the mission of the organization beyond opposing gay marriage and abortion, to include poverty and environmental issues. "That's not our base," they said.

The NBA's new balls

The composite microfiber basketball adopted for use in the NBA this season has been greeted with scorn by many star players.

Last week, the NBA Players Association filed a labor grievance against the league regarding the use of the new ball (as well as the "zero-tolerance" referee's whistle policy).

Houston Rockets owner Leslie Alexander's newly ex-wife Nanci, an avid animal-rights activist, could be responsible for the league's switch to the synthetic game ball, according to talk show host Joe McDonnell of AM 570 KLAC in Los Angeles.

As far as a hot rumor goes this certainly qualifies, and "word on the street" is that Nanci Alexander was able to convince her good friend, David Stern's wife Dianne Bock, into selling him on replacing the leather ball.

The leather trade is indeed brutal.

This showdown appears likely to be resolved by expensive litigation (or at least the threat thereof).

Update (12/6): the Commish prepares to capitulate ...

“I won’t make a spirited defense with respect to the ball,” Stern said. “In hindsight, we could have done a better job. I take responsibility for that.”

Update II: and Les Alexander debunks ...

"Do you think David Stern would even think about that?" Alexander said. "It's ridiculous. She asked him all the time when she saw him. He's not going to respond to that. David's got a lot of things on his mind. He's going to listen to that? She wanted everything removed that was leather. This was not going to be one of his priorities. If it was, we need a new commissioner."

A few of my best and worst of 2006

As summoned by -- and previously sent to -- Vincent:


Texas' candidates this year had a lot to say. What was your favorite "soundbite?" (A soundbite is something a candidate repeated frequently or something a candidate said only once that you felt was particularly memorable).

Early on in the election cycle, Rick Perry said "Adios, MoFo" to a Houston television reporter. Despite the T-shirts available for sale at Pink Dome, the phrase rarely came up again -- except on the blogs -- after the governor apologized for it, but the words linger as a symbol of the arrogance of this man.

Texans are demonstrably weary of his act, and it's a shame we (that is, Texas' Democrats) couldn't take advantage of Perry's weakness as both politician and person.

Of all the political commercials that ran in Texas this cycle, which one do you believe was the best commercial that exhibited a candidate or campaign in a positive light?

Chris Bell's "Big as Texas". Republicans tried (and failed) to poke fun at it, but it was by far the most effective I saw at introducing a candidate to the electorate.

What do you think was the best negative political advertisement of the 2006 election cycle?

The website slamming Strayhorn that was done by the Perry camp ("Grandma's Attic" or something).

What do you believe was the worst TV or radio commercial by any candidate this election cycle?

Any of Greg Abbott's; he relentlessly ran commercials in every single TV market across the state every thirty seconds, day and night, in the month before the election.

You could not avoid his ads. They were everywhere.

The one where he is surrounded by laughing children -- they were there to hide his wheelchair from view -- was bad, but the one using taxpayer dollars to pay for the video of agents arresting an alleged online predator was the worst. It was a prime example of his publicity-hound nature amplified by his politically corrupt actions.

From Chris Bell's use of the governor's mansion electric bill to Fred Head's use of Susan Comb's steamy romance novel, candidates up and down the ballot had some unique attention getting techniques this cycle. Which one was your favorite?

Tie: the Van Os Courthouse Whistlestop Tour and Bill Moody's 1000-mile walk across Texas.

What race do you believe represented the biggest upset of 2006? (Primary or General election).

Another tie: Borris Miles over Al Edwards in the primary in March. Juan Garcia over Gene Seaman in November.

What do you think was the best political news story of 2006?

Democrats slowly (very slowly) begin to take back Texas.

What do you believe was the worse gaffe by a political candidate this election cycle?

"Ni**er eggs", Kinky Friedman. Hard to choose a single of Friedman's mistakes since they were so numerous.

What, during the course of 2006, do you believe was the most overrated thing when it came to Texas politics? (It can be a candidate, a group, a story, anything!)

An exciting, knock-down drag-out Governor's race, trumpeted as early as 2005. Turned out to be incapable of matching the hype. Perry stayed low and mostly out of sight, Strayhorn blew up on the launching pad, Bell never caught fire, and Kinky ... well, Kinky made a complete fool of himself.

If you had the chance to name one Texas politician the "Biggest Political Prostitute Of 2006," what candidate would you give that title to?

All of the Republican incumbents at the statewide level are high-dollar whores, but Greg Abbott tops even Rick Perry and Tom Craddick in his ability to pander to the lobbyists in exchange for a five-figure campaign contribution.

Abbott raised millions of dollars from the largest corporations in order to run nonstop TV ads against his opponent, and will do the same thing all over again when he runs for higher office in four years.

He is the absolute worst of a really bad lot.

Of all the political news and events of 2006, what (or who) do you believe was the biggest political 'bomb' of the year?

Sadly, Chris Bell. A good candidate with the right message, but was unable to compete because so many gave up on the Democrats so long ago. From the donors with the heavy checkbooks, to the strategists advising the Texas Democratic Party, through the mainstream media which picked up on the defeatist mentality of the movers and shakers, all the way down to the local activists and even the voters -- especially the minority blocs -- almost nobody thought they could win anything big. And sure enough, they didn't.

So maybe it would be more accurate to call the Texas Democratic Party the biggest bomb. The blue tsunami which washed across the United States stopped at the Red and Sabine rivers. As Paul Burka suggested, it was a once-in-a-generation opportunity squandered.

What's the dumbest statement a politician uttered this election cycle?

"Susan Combs wrote a pornographic novel", Fred Head. This statement actually should have gotten some traction in this too-conservative state, but Combs flipped it against him, rallying romance authors (and liberals) everywhere to her persecution -- err, cause. Head would have been far more competent as state comptroller than his Republican rival and should have focused his message on his qualifications and experience.

Moral: never try to out-righteous a Republican.

What Texas newspaper, reporter, television station, etc., do you believe had the best overall political news coverage in 2006?

None. Oh, there were a few things that were good: Peggy Fikac wrote some top-notch entries for the SAEN/HC blog "Texas Politics"; KPRC had a very good resource page for politics, campaigns and candidates which included archives of video snips. But the newspapers barely did their reporting jobs, and the TV stations repeatedly failed to do theirs: WFAA produced but declined to air a followup to their own report about the Attorney General's misuse of taxpayer funds for his video department in the week before the election.

KTSA in San Antonio deserves two kudos, one for a fine job in interviewing candidates (going all the way back to an in-studio face-off between Nathan Macias and Carter Casteel in the spring primary season) and one for Radio Agonist, which is apparently the only local progressive radio program in the state.

But the blogosphere trumped them all. Even the ones on the right.

What Mainstream Media Outlet do you believe had the worst political news coverage for 2006?

The Houston Chronicle. Too slow and too sparse. The Houston Press article on Jim Henley is but one example of their sloth. The Chronic barely ever mentioned the CD-07 race, much less Henley's name.

They exceeded their already spectacularly bad reputation for lousy political reporting.

What Texas blog do you believe is the best Texas Politics blog on the web? (Note: you cannot vote for Capitol Annex).

Charles Kuffner of Off the Kuff did yeoman's work. By himself, with a full-time day job and raising a young child, he ran circles around the lazy slobs working in the mainstream media. McBlogger followed Ag Commissioner candidate Hank Gilbert (and his opponent Todd Staples) closely. This blog obviously focused on the Van Os campaign and the foibles of the incumbent Attorney General. Dos Centavos tracked the Poe/Bindarim CD-02 contest along with the three statehouse races in the Kingwood/Spring region. Red State followed the victorious Juan Garcia, and did an excellent job revealing the corruption of Gene Seaman. Burnt Orange Report reported on the statewide contests consistently and gave good insight into the various Travis County races. Musings was seemingly embedded in the Lampson and Matula campaigns and also delved into the corruption and haplessness of their opponents, Shelley Gibbs and John Davis. She played tag-team with Bay Area Houston here, who also posted vigorously on Perry's incompetence and Abbott's corruption.

Capitol Annex did -- does -- a masterful job of analyzing the policy. And really ought to be allowed to get a few votes here.

Kuffner's comprehensive effort, from the podcast interviews with candidates to his seemingly every-race-in-Texas coverage, has to win the prize. Truthfully, none of the rest of us came close.

What Texas politics blog covering a specific region (i.e. San Antonio, Fort Bend County, Harris County, etc.) was the 'best' in 2006?

Muse's Musings, covering all aspects of the Fort Bend County Democrats and their races. Followed closely by Burnt Orange and Travis County.

Don't lie: you know you read Texas Republican blogs, too...just to know what the other side is saying. Which Texas right-wing Republican blog is your favorite?

Lone Star Times. Matt Bramanti showed up at a Sheila Jackson Lee rally and had his picture taken with her.

That wins the Chutzpah Award, at least.

A little postpourri before leaving for Galveston

-- Yes, I know the photos below are slow to load and cause the site to scroll slowly. Update (12/3): the photos have been moved back to their source in order to make this blog more user-friendly.

It's a minor irritant even for those who have high-speed connections. You poor dial-up Neanderthals must be experiencing hell. It looks and works much better in IE7, which is rapidly becoming my favorite browser over Firefox, so try that and see how you like it.

Of course if you are still dialing up, it will take all day and night to download the new browser, so I'll see you back here tomorrow. (My specific advice is to kick the goddamned AOL to the curb and get in the fast lane. It's cheaper and way better. Really.)

-- Capitol Annex wants your input on the Best and Worst of the 2006 political season, so go over there and fill out his survey. I'll have a separate post with my answers to Vince's questions later.

-- This is an absolutely hilarious response by a FReeper in Katy to a planned mosque in his neighborhood.

-- the Young Conservative Goonbats at UT plan a severely retarded nativity scene.

-- this link at Washington Monthly, and others from there, describes the "Texification" of the national GOP and how it led to their recent thumping. It's just too bad the voters in this state are so slow to wake up to the mistakes they have sent to Austin and Washington.

-- Mitt Romney, the Republican evangelicals' Last Hope for 2008, is also a bald-ass hypocrite when it comes to immigration. It probably won't hurt him with this base.

-- and congratulations to Rep. Silvestre Reyes of El Paso, who yesterday was tapped by Speaker-to-be Pelosi to chair the House Intelligence Committee.

Dickens on the Strand this weekend

My favorite festival of the year. Edit (12/3): The photos previously appearing in this space can now be found here.

More photos here. Taking the little nephews for their first trip. Weather should be perfect; see you there.

He's Still the One

The WaPo, Firedoglake, and Stephen Colbert have extensively covered John Hall, the first professional rock musician -- "rock" being a loose description, IMHO -- elected to Congress, so go click and read.

He was/is the lead singer for Orleans, which had two megahits in the Seventies, "Still the One" and "Dance With Me". My personal connection is that this music was released in 1976, my senior year in high school. It got plenty of play at our prom, and contained some good makeout tracks from what I can recall; you can listen to a blast from the past here.

That's the album cover of "Waking and Dreaming" on the right (Hall, with more hair, stands in the middle); it's obvious that the radical homosexual agenda was even then seeping into American culture.


Hall made two appearances on the Colbert Report; the first was in the recurring "Better Know a District" segment in which Colbert sends up an always-hilarious parody of a serious interview. In his bit with the future Congressman, Colbert produced a set of 'smear flash cards'. Hall drew the "My opponent smokes marijuana" one. After he was elected, Hall returned to sing a National Anthem duet with the host (the video snip is linked above).

Congratulations to John Hall, and thank goodness musicians and their fans finally have representation.

This Week in Irony (and it's only Monday)

One of the companies hired to build a wall to deter illegal immigration is being investigated by the Department of Homeland Security for hiring undocumented workers.

Senator Dan Patrick -- the general in his self-proclaimed army of douchebags conservatives -- might just be a bleeding rectum. And the other Republicans in Austin might have to curb their fascism alter their strategy.

The oil companies could be -- surprise! -- squeezing production in order to prop up the price of gasoline.

The Bush twins, Jenna and Not Jenna, went buckwild in South America for their 25th birthday celebration. Apparently they did oversee a little family bidness while they were there: their dad purchased a hundred thousand acre property in Paraguay and Jenna took a meeting with the president of the country and the US ambassador. I hope she didn't have to take her clothes off.

NBC and MSNBC decide to call it a civil war. They are not joined by the rest of the corporate media yet. Kofi Annan says it is almost civil war. The Bush administration calls it a "new phase".

Tired of turkey already

... and of media reports of shopping. Do they simply regurgitate last year's story so that they don't have to go out to the mall and honestly report the percentage of the parking lots' capacity? As if that's news anyway?!

... How about football? Anybody tired of football yet? Shit, I might have to go shopping just to get away from it.

... who's grown weary of certain relatives they only see once a year?

... and why doesn't anyone serve a freaking vegetable at Thanksgiving dinner? Is green bean casserole as close as it gets? Cornbread dressing, oyster dressing, mashed potatoes, baked potatoes, baked yams, candied yams, squash casserole, dinner rolls, croissants, cranberry sauce, giblet gravy and the nearest I came to a vegetable was a piece of celery the size of my pinkie fingernail and a chive. One. Chive. No wonder everybody falls asleep after feasting on so many carbs.

Boy, I'm tired. And I think I want some sushi for dinner this evening. Or some Vietnamese soup. Maybe a movie. Anybody seen Bobby yet? The reviews are cruel. Those who've written the ones I've read must be all Republicans ...

Black Friday Postpourri

Scattershooting while wondering what it's like to be fighting for a parking place -- or the last of a certain sale item -- at the mall right about now ...

-- Two separate groups of 20,000 people each in downtown Houston yesterday were fed, and some of those were clothed. Five thousand showed up to help. Elsewhere the need is similarly great.

-- A terribly bloody day in Iraq, but the stores here open early anyway.

-- Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings lost on Jeopardy to David St. Hubbins of Spinal Tap (or Lenny from "Lenny and Squiggy" if you prefer). I believe another "fresh perspective" is in order.

-- FOX prepares a conservative version of "The Daily Show". No, really. Their current lineup isn't funny enough (of course).

-- Newt Gingrich intends to use the power of magic -- well, hocus-pocus -- in order to be "elected" President. I'm scared. No really, I am.

After all, it could happen. He could easily carry Georgia and Florida and South Carolina and Texas and several other southern states using this strategy.

-- Jordan Barab at Firedoglake has the comprehensive wrap on the Houston janitors strike.

-- the American Family Association wants you NOT to shop at Wal-Mart this weekend because of their sublime support of the "radical homosexual agenda". No, really.

-- here's some more backstory on last week's James Carville-Howard Dean dustup.

-- The Time is Yao.

Update: I shouldn't mention Black Friday without quoting Steely Dan ...

When Black Friday comes
I'll stand down by the door
And catch the grey men when they
Dive from the fourteenth floor
When Black Friday comes
I'll collect everything I'm owed
And before my friends find out
I'll be on the road
When Black Friday falls you know it's got to be
Don't let it fall on me

When Black Friday comes
I'll fly down to Muswellbrook
Gonna strike all the big red words
From my little black book
Gonna do just what I please
Gonna wear no socks and shoes
With nothing to do but feed
All the kangaroos
When Black Friday comes I'll be on that hill
You know I will

When Black Friday comes
I'm gonna dig myself a hole
Gonna lay down in it 'til
I satisfy my soul
Gonna let the world pass by me
The Archbishop's gonna sanctify me
And if he don't come across
I'm gonna let it roll
When Black Friday comes
I'm gonna stake my claim
I'll guess I'll change my name

Things to be thankful for

-- My health and the love of my wife, family, and friends.

-- The brave men and women serving our country in the armed forces.

-- that America dumped the 109th Congress.

-- I'm thankful Rick Santorum will have more free time to find the WMD.

-- Really thankful we no longer have to go to war with the Secretary of Defense we had.

-- for "red state values" like protecting reproductive rights, supporting stem cell research, and rejecting discrimination.

-- I'm thankful Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK), who calls climate change the “greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people,” will no longer chair the Senate environmental committee.

-- and that Al Gore helped the nation, and the world, face an inconvenient truth.

-- I'm thankful the Dixie Chicks aren’t ready to make nice.

-- I'm thankful Ted Haggard bought that crystal meth but never used it.

-- I'm thankful for "the Google" and "the email" (and the "series of tubes" that make them possible). I'm particularly thankful Maf54 isn't online right now.

-- that Keith Olbermann's ratings are up and Bill O'Reilly's ratings are down.

-- I am so thankful I won't ever have to spend Thanksgiving hunting with Dick Cheney.

-- and last but nor least, I'm thankful the "Decider" only gets to make the decisions 789 more days.

Have a very happy Thanksgiving

Agonist Radio tonight (and all week)

My blog buddy Sean-Paul Kelley is hosting his progressive radio program each evening this holiday week on KTSA-550 AM. Stream it live over the Web if you cannot listen in the San Antonio market. Here's a podcast from last night's program and his conversation with Nathan Newman about the just-settled Houston janitors strike. Here's tonight's schedule:

700-730: Intro segment, introduce the night's guests, main topic, poll question and call-ins, etc.

730-800: Cliff Schecter is a regular contributor to MSNBC, the Huffington Post, a National Political Correspondent for The Young Turks on Air America and proprietor of Cliffschecter.com online.

800-830: Ted Rall will discuss his new book, Silk Road To Ruin

830-900: Ciro Rodriguez to talk about his quest to knock off Henry Bonilla in the still-to-be-scheduled runoff election in CD-23.

900-930: Charles Kuffner.

930-1000: S-P BS'ing his way through the last 30 minutes of the show.

Call in (toll free) 800-299-KTSA.

They tried to steal it, but we stole it back

Frequent commenter Bev sends this along:

A major undercount of Democratic votes and an overcount of Republican votes in U.S. House and Senate races across the country is indicated by an analysis of national exit polling data, by the Election Defense Alliance (EDA), a national election integrity organization.

These findings have led EDA to issue an urgent call for further investigation into the 2006 election results and a moratorium on deployment of all electronic election equipment.

"We see evidence of pervasive fraud, but apparently calibrated to political conditions existing before recent developments shifted the political landscape," said attorney Jonathan Simon, co-founder of Election Defense Alliance, "so 'the fix' turned out not to be sufficient for the actual circumstances." Explained Simon, "When you set out to rig an election, you want to do just enough to win. The greater the shift from expectations, (from exit polling, pre-election polling, demographics) the greater the risk of exposure--of provoking investigation. What was plenty to win on October 1 fell short on November 7.

More:

"The numbers tell us there absolutely was hacking going on, just not enough to overcome the size of the actual turnout. The tide turned so much in the last few weeks before the election. It looks for all the world that they'd already figured out the percentage they needed to rig, when the programming of the vote rigging software was distributed weeks before the election, and it wasn't enough," (Sally) Castleman (the national chair of EDA) commented.

Greg Palast previously warned us this might happen (read everything at the link, ahead of the excerpt below, to understand how they almost stole it):

It’s true you can’t win with 51% of the vote any more. So just get over it. The regime’s sneak attack via vote suppression will only net them 4.5 million votes, about 5% of the total. You should be able to beat that blindfolded. If you can’t get 55%, then you’re just a bunch of crybaby pussycats who don’t deserve to win back America.

We took your advice though, Greg, and stole it back. And we're going to work a little harder in 2008 to do the same thing.

Thanks for the heads-up. Botha ya's.

Corporate greedheads give in; janitors strike ends

After the appallingly bad publicity associated with the police crackdown (and additional unconscionable behavior by an assistant Harris County district attorney) on striking janitors over the weekend, the companies involved settled with the SEIU and the five-week-long strike came to an end today.

Bill White made sure he got some of the credit. Not for forcibly clearing the intersections of the city, but for "making many phone calls behind the scenes" to bring the strike to a close.

I call bullshit (until I hear differently from people in the union). White was out to lunch for the last month -- as he has been on nearly every issue requiring even the slightest confrontation during the past year. ( Let's do give him credit for taking on that badass Jordy Tollett, though.) The mayor is doing almost as good a job of wasting his political capital as George W. Bush. Oh, and FWIW, unnamed sources on a "blog" -- especially a corporate media-owned one -- don't impress me much.

And Miya Shay really sucks at blogging, too. Somehow though, she managed to get at least two of the more progressive Texas blogs to pick up on her meme that the strike was pointless. Nice going, fellas. Something about that reminds me of the Texas Democratic Party making sure everyone understands well in advance that they can't win a statewide election.

So if you work in an H-Town office building, thank the person who cleans your bathroom and empties your trash and mops your floor. They won a small victory for their families today against the formidable forces of our local Fortune 100's greed, not to mention surviving the thuggery of Houston's Finest.

Houston's business and governmental leaders distinguished themselves in this matter. Not in a good way.

"Houston can’t go on like this, with so many living in poverty."

We sat down in the intersection and the horses came immediately. It was really violent. They arrested us, and when we got to jail, we were pretty beat up. Not all of us got the medical attention we needed. The worst was a protester named Julia, who is severely diabetic. We kept telling the guards about her condition but they only gave her a piece of candy. During roll call, she started to complain about light-headedness. Finally she just collapsed unconscious on the floor. It was like she just dropped dead. The guard saw it but just kept going through the roll. Susan ran over there and took her pulse while the other inmates were yelling for help, saying we need to call somebody. The medical team strolled over, taking their own sweet time. She was unconscious for like 4 or 5 minutes.

They really tried to break us down. The first night they put the temperature so high that a woman -- one of the other inmates -- had a seizure. The second night they made it freezing and took away many of our blankets. We didn’t have access to the cots so we had to sleep on a concrete floor. When we would finally fall asleep the guards would come and yell ‘Are you Anna Denise Solís? Are you so and so?’ One of the protesters had a fractured wrist from the horses. She had a cast on and when she would fall asleep the guard would kick the cast to wake her up. She was in a lot of pain.

The guards would tell us: ‘This is what you get for protesting.’ One of them said, ‘Who gives a shit about janitors making 5 dollars an hour? Lots of people make that much.’ The other inmates -- there were a lot of prostitutes in there -- said that they had never seen the jail this bad. The guards told them: ‘We’re trying to teach the protesters a lesson.’ Nobody was getting out of jail because the processing was so slow. They would tell the prostitutes that everything is the protesters’ fault. They were trying to turn everybody against each other.

I felt like I was in some Third World jail, not in America. One of the guards called us ‘whores’ and if we talked back, we didn’t get any lunch. We didn’t even have the basic necessities. It felt like a police state, like marshal law, nobody had rights. Some of us had been arrested in other cities, and it was never this bad before.

Rest of the story here.

HB-129 seeks to end blogging as we know it

I'm going to sample a good bit of Vince Leibowitz' research and re-print his Q&A regarding one of the bills pre-filed for the Texas legislative session opening in January:

House Bill 129, filed by State Rep. Vicki Truitt (R-Westlake) for consideration by the 80^th session of the Texas Legislature is legislation that will drastically impact writers for whom the World Wide Web is their primary medium of distribution.

House Bill 129 is legislation that would amend Texas' Civil Practices & Remedies Code by adding Section 73.0045. This section would provide statutory provisions in Texas law under which the authors of websites (including blogs) can be sued for libel, slander and defamation in the same manner as print or broadcast media. It also provides mechanisms that allow courts to order website authors to remove the offending content.

But aren’t websites and blogs already subject to libel and slander law?

Yes. Since the popularity of the Internet began to rise in the mid-1990s, courts across the country have held that website authors can be held to the same or similar standards as newspapers, radio and television stations when it comes to libelous, defamatory or slanderous statements. In Texas, web writers and websites (including blogs) have been sued successfully on a number of occasions.

If the Web is already subject to libel law, then what's the big deal?

Good question! There is a very big difference to the manner in which websites and their authors can be held accountable currently and what would happen if HB 129 became law.

Presently, websites and blogs are subject to the libel and slander provisions of the Civil Practices & Remedies Code because federal and state courts have consistently held that web-based content is similar to other media and must be held to the same standards. And, web writers have no problem with that. Courts have been the ones to make these decisions and determinations because, when the Civil Practices & Remedies Code was originally written, the Internet was not the major force in society that it is now. As is the case with patent law, copyright law, election law and numerous other areas of state and federal law, when the law does not specifically cover a new medium or area that develops as a result of emerging technology courts make determinations about the applicability of that law to new mediums.

The 'big deal' is that, although House Bill 129 codifies the already established fact that websites in Texas can be sued for libel and defamation, it fails to provide web-based writers with the same protections as other mediums are afforded under Chapter 23 of the Civil Practices and Remedies Code.

What are these protections?

Print media is specifically protected by Section 73.002 of the Civil Practices & Remedies Code when it comes to a concept called "privileged matters." House Bill 129, though it codifies that websites may be sued for libel, does not further revise the CP&R to indicate that websites are subject to these protections.

Specifically, the privileged matters clause protects print writers from lawsuits for defamation in certain instances relating to coverage of public events. This is especially important for bloggers, who often function as citizen journalists.

In short, fair, true and impartial accounts of judicial proceedings, legislative or executive proceedings, and other official proceedings and public meetings (like city council meetings and county commissioners court meetings) is protected from libel action. The coverage is considered "privileged" so long is it is fair, true and impartial.

The privileged matters clause also protects commentary (opinion and satire) related to public officials and other matters of public concern so long it is "reasonable and fair."

House Bill 129 fails to amend the CP&R Code to provide the necessary and appropriate protections to bloggers and citizen journalists.

I'm not a blogger, I just have a MySpace page. How does this apply to me?

Whether or you are a blogger, have a MySpace, Xanga, or Facebook site, or a regular website, House Bill 129 poses a significant danger to you.

Because the term "website" is not defined by House Bill 129 and is overly broad, social networking sites are covered. Almost everything on the web could be included in the term "website." Technically, under the changes House Bill 129 would cause, email messages in an archive on sites like Google Groups, Yahoo Groups could result in actionable libel claims.

A comment you leave on a MySpace page, something you write on a friend’s "wall" on Facebook, or a message you send to Google Groups will be wide open to frivolous lawsuits from anyone you happen to offend, and you could find yourself paying thousands of dollars in legal fees just to have a frivolous lawsuit thrown out of court.

I am a blogger, but I'm very careful about what I write. Why should I care?

Whether you blog about your Labrador retriever or Texas politics, House Bill 129 should scare you into action.

As noted previously, those of us writing on web-based mediums have been subject to libel and defamation suits for years. However, once it is codified in Texas law that writers and owners of such sites can be sued, you could find yourself answering for even the most nonchalant blog post in court.

Consider this: A blogger or MySpace goes to a national chain retailer like Wal-Mart and has a bad experience with a rude cashier; the blogger blogs that Wal-Mart has horrible customer service on their blog. Wal-Mart can now sue you for libel. Will they win? It’s doubtful, but under House Bill 129, a major retailer could use your offhand comment about their store as a test case to scare off other web-based writers from making similar statements.

For political bloggers on the "left" and "right", the danger is far worse. Because we don't get the protection of the "privileged matters" clause, we could find ourselves sued every time we write about a politician or political candidate no matter how careful we are. A simple post about staff being fired from a congressional office or a state representative accused of ethical violations or sexual harassment could result in a multi-million dollar lawsuit being served upon you because you have no protection when writing on matters of public concern no matter how unbiased and accurately you report. While your unbiased manner and accuracy may mean a jury might not find you actually libeled someone, it will cost you thousands of dollars in legal fees and you may be bankrupt by the time a verdict is returned in your favor.

You should also care because you could be held accountable for things you didn't even write.

If you are the owner of a blog of website with comment capabilities, you could be held responsible for what others say in the comments section or on the bulletin board section of your website. Because you own the website, and HB 129 codifies the ability of websites to be sued for libel, you bear the ultimate responsibility for every word that goes on your site. You can be sued for comments.

So what do we want?

Since bloggers and web writers have already been successfully sued in Texas, the addition of websites to the Civil Practices & Remedies Code is somewhat moot. Our complaint isn't that reality has been codified. It is that reality has been codified without citizen journalists being given the protections they rightfully deserve.

What we want is either a defeat of HB129 or to see it amended such that web writers, bloggers and citizen journalists are offered the same protections under the "privileged matters" section of Chapter 73 of the Texas Civil Practices & Remedies Code.

What should we do?

Contact your state legislator -- Senator and Representative. Ask them to oppose HB-129.

Demon seed

You just know that poor child is so conservative she'll never be able to smile anything but crooked...

Bail set for striking janitors at $888,888 *UPDATE: Bail reduced

This is the justice you get when all of the law officials in the nation's third most populous county are Republicans.

People arraigned on murder charges have had bail set as low as $30,000, but if you're making $5.00 an hour and sit down in the middle of a Houston intersection, you get intimidated -- at best -- by a mounted Houston Police officer, arrested, charged with a Class B misdemeanor, and thrown into jail with your bail set at "send-a-message" level.

Update (11/19) : "Bond rates were later reduced by a magistrate judge to $1,000 per person."

Houston and Harris County truly feels like the belly of the Neo-Fascist beast today.

More at MyDD, Daily Kos, and The Agonist.

Update (11/19): Matt Stoller stays on the story:

Representatives Sheila Jackson Lee, Henry Waxman, John Lewis, Al Green, Senator Ted Kennedy, Reverend James Lawson, Texas State Senator Rodney Ellis, Texas State House Representative Garnet Coleman, Houston City Council Member Ada Edwards, Reverend James Orange, and Reverend William Lawson have all spoken out.

If I were Chevron, Exxon, and Shell Oil - all of whom make billions and any of whom could end the strike - I would be nervous that Henry Waxman is asking you to intervene. A few million dollars in extra salary and health care benefits for the people cleaning your offices is a really small price to pay to prevent Waxman from really scrutinizing your business practices. He plays hardball, he dislikes corruption, and he's pushing global warming legislation.

HPD gets violent with SEIU protestors

Photos here.

We've seen this sort of hyper-aggressive police action, particularly with mounted officers, previously (at the Halliburton protest last year).

Update: The Washington Post has more, or you may click on the image of Ercilia Sandoval on the right. And Easter Lemming, who shot the video above has even more, including the link to the Justice for Janitors blog.

Moneyshot Quotes of the Week

Reviving this irregular series as a result of the newly target-rich environment:

"Ted and I had a discussion. He said homosexuality is genetic. I said, no it isn't. But I just knew he was covering up. They need to say that."

-- Rev. Louis Sheldon, a Christianist from the Traditional Values Coalition, disclosing that he and 'a lot' of others knew about Haggard's homosexuality 'for awhile ... but weren't sure just how to deal with it'.

Obviously the best way to address the troubling issue of the nation's leading evangelical being gay and a drug abuser was to say and do nothing while continuing to rake in the cash from the gullible fools who buy their lies.

"It cannot be just a matter of friendship. It will have to become almost a confrontational relationship. You've got to confess your sins and you've got to have a group of people around you who will not let you whitewash the issue. From the Christian perspective, we think in terms of prayer, we think in terms of what we call godly counsel, where godly men who are clean themselves insert themselves in the life of the one who is struggling."

-- H.B. London, vice president for church and clergy at Focus on the Family, on the spiritual 'restoration' of Ted Haggard

Did he actually say that a gay evangelical can be cured by other 'clean godly men inserting themselves' into him?

Isn't that how all this trouble began?

"Bob Sherwood's seat (in Pennsylvania) would have been overwhelmingly ours, if his mistress hadn’t whined about being throttled."

-- Grover Norquist, excusing Karl Rove for the GOP's electoral wipeout one Congressional seat at a time

Hear hear, Grover. If those bitches would just keep quiet and take their strangling from their Congressmen, the House of Representatives might've retained another Christian soldier to carry on the fight for God and Dubya.

"Our party does not suffer the affliction of being a boiling mad collection of fringe interests with notions so cockeyed that they ultimately rub each other raw and make average Americans cringe."

-- Rep. Joe Barton (R - Batshit Crazy, TX)

'Rub each other raw', Joe? You're really going to miss Mark Foley's Christmas party, aren't you?

"I still consider Santorum and Allen among the best and most appealing conservatives on the scene. I believe Santorum has national appeal, despite his loss in Pennsylvania. And although Allen's campaign was knocked off stride, nobody will care much."

-- Mark Levin, National Review Online

Don't you need to be the guy running the RNC, Mr. Levin? Are you by any chance gay? That would be an advantage...

And finally, an old photo needs a new caption:

I'll open the bidding:

"Man, last week was really shitty."

"Dude, don't get ME started..."

It's only been a week ...

... and I'm still not as happy as everybody else about the election results in Deep-in-the-Hearta.

I believe the elation some feel comes from their proximity to Dallas County, or Hays County, or how much work they did in Ellen Cohen's or Juan Garcia's or Valinda Bolton's campaign. And to be clear, the following is not at all meant to rain on their victory parade. Those wins are certainly sweet, and those candidates and their campaigns deserves congratulations for their hard work.

But I believe the overabundance of enthusiasm for last Tuesday's election returns in some quarters simply comes from having met an extremely low set of expectations:

"We made a practical decision," said Matt Angle, a Democratic strategist who is helping rebuild the state party. "It was the most efficient way to spread the resources. It wouldn't have been a rational decision to do otherwise."

Mr. Angle said the party focused its resources in 17 House districts, half of those in which Democrats mounted a challenge against Republican opponents.

I just don't recall Matt Angle being elected by anyone to develop and execute the Texas Democratic Party's election strategy. I also don't believe that anybody at the SDEC level of governance approved or even consented to a plan of focusing all of the party resources on just 17 statehouse races.

Furthermore, I have it on good authority that the party officials at the highest level repeatedly assured candidates who were NOT in one of the afore-mentioned 17 contests that the words Matt Angle is quoted above speaking -- about concentrating on just a few selected races -- was absolutely NOT the case; that there would be no narrowly-targeted strategy in 2006.

In other words, somebody lied. And in any event, their deeds spoke louder than their words.

The Texas Democratic Party, such as it is, long ago chose a minimalist strategy for 2006. Big-dog contributors like Walter Umphrey and John Eddie Williams sent six-figure checks early on to Carole Strayhorn, apparently thinking she was the only Democrat capable of defeating Governor MoFo. Potential Democratic candidates stayed away from filing for office in droves. It took a late leap by three members of the Dirty Thirty -- Bob Gammage, Ben Grant, and Fred Head -- to make things interesting. But none of the members of the "Dream Team" from 2002 stepped up to support anyone or anything on the Democratic slate. The only thing John Sharp ultimately did, after having his name published repeatedly as the only Dem with a snowball's chance of being elected Governor, was to join Rick Perry in a bipartisan education funding initiative. Charles Soechting abruptly abandoned the chairmanship in the middle of the campaign season, setting up a protracted fight at the convention between old-guard and new-school factions. The most positive message conveyed to the media all during this time was: well, we're going to have to lower our sights somewhat. And guess what? The media picked up on the defeatist attitude of the bigwigs who call themselves Democrats and ran with it. Over and over.

The state party -- the tattered shards of it, anyway -- was so impotent that it gave up on all of the statewide races long before the party's convention in June of this year. All of the enthusiasm generated by the grassroots in Fort Worth for the slate of populist candidates was wasted on the small band of elitists and insiders pulling the strings and moving the money around, who had long since determined -- and telegraphed to the media -- that there was no hope this year.

They didn't even do a good job of going through the motions. Their overt acts of capitulation contradicted their mealy-mouthed expressions of support. Well, most of the time that was the case, though I frequently heard the following:

"We have limited resources." "We can't concentrate on every race." "This is a rebuilding year." "We need more staff and better databases in order to rebuild our infrastructure so we can be competitive in (pick one: 2008, 2010, 2012, 2014)."

In that respect, the men in charge of the Texas Democratic Party -- that would be Fred Baron and Matt Angle -- did exactly what they said they would do.

Performance met expectations. I suppose congratulations are in order. What do you think, Boyd?

"There's enough credit for everyone involved in the effort," state Democratic Party chairman Boyd Richie said. "But certainly the (Texas Democratic) trust created an atmosphere where we could organize, plan and execute."

Can't wait to see the game plan for 2008, fellas. Here's a question for Freddy Bosshog: do you think John Edwards can carry Texas as the presidential nominee? Can he at least win the Texas primary in March of year-after-next, or will he be an Iowa-only kinda guy (he IS lookin' good in the Hawkeye State, for whatever that's worth)?

Hey Matty All-the-Angles: who are you recruiting to run against Senator Box Turtle? Oh wait; that's Boyd's job -- allegedly. Can Nick Lampson hold that seat in 22, ya think? And who's gonna challenge Ralph Hall, Boyd? Got anybody in mind besides you?

Boy, I'm stoked. *belch* *fart*

Update: Burka says ...

Opportunities like 2006 only come along once in a generation, and Democrats failed to make the most of this one.

Bush's Brain Damaged

"How could one notice," you're thinking. Not referring to the one encased in his skull, in this case:

President Bush had many explanations for what he called the "thumping" his party took on Tuesday, but the most creative was the notion that his chief strategist, Karl Rove, had spent too much time reading books.

"I obviously was working harder on the campaign than he was," the president said at (the Wednesday November 8) East Room news conference. The reporters laughed. The Architect, who had challenged Bush to a reading contest, wore a sheepish grin and stared at his lap.

Newsweek piles on:

Rove's miscalculations began well before election night. The polls and pundits pointed to a Democratic sweep, but Rove dismissed them all. In public, he predicted outright victory, flashing the V sign to reporters flying on Air Force One. He wasn't just trying to psych out the media and the opposition. He believed his "metrics" were far superior to plain old polls. Two weeks before the elections, Rove showed NEWSWEEK his magic numbers: a series of graphs and bar charts that tallied early voting and voter outreach. Both were running far higher than in 2004. In fact, Rove thought the polls were obsolete because they relied on home telephones in an age of do-not-call lists and cell phones. Based on his models, he forecast a loss of 12 to 14 seats in the House -- enough to hang on to the majority. Rove placed so much faith in his figures that, after the elections, he planned to convene a panel of Republican political scientists -- to study just how wrong the polls were.

So a reputation as 'genius', painstakingly constructed over nearly a lifetime, washed away in a single wave.

I built a sandcastle once, too. Only took me a few hours though. And boy was I crushed when the tide came in that afternoon.

I can only imagine how sick Karl must be feeling these days.

Houston's Veterans

From yesterday's parade here:



From Arlington West (in California):



Arlington West is the Veterans for Peace project to acknowledge the loss of life in Bush's Iraq war.

Yesterday in Houston, the Veterans for Peace contingent marching in our parade received a great deal of positive feedback, but there were a few boos and heckles of "peace is cowardly" and so on. (We have the classiest conservatives around here.)

Images above courtesy Houston Chronicle. See also this story about the younger veterans and how they were impacted by their participation in the parade. Be sure also and click on the moving multimedia entitled "Three Generations of War".

Ed Bradley, 1941-2006

Bradley had many nicknames throughout his life, including Big Daddy, when he played defensive end and offensive tackle in the 1960s at Cheyney State College; but his favorite, (Charlayne) Hunter-Gault and (Jimmy) Buffett said, was Teddy Badly, which Buffett bestowed on him onstage the first time Bradley played tambourine at his side.

“Everybody in my opinion needs a little Mardi Gras in their life, and he liked to have a little more than the average person on occasion.”

“He was such a great journalist,” Buffett added, “but he still knew how to have a good time.”

One mo' for Biggio

Biggio, 40, will begin next season just 70 hits shy of becoming the first player in team history and 27th all-time to reach the 3,000-hit total, a feat that will cement his Hall of Fame credentials.

He's the club's all-time leader in games (2,709), hits (2,930), at-bats (10,359), runs (1,776), doubles (637), extra-base hits (970) and total bases (4,514). He's second in homers (281) and RBIs (1,125).

In 1988 I was still a newly-wed and we had just moved to Midland, Texas so that I could become the national advertising manager for the Reporter-Telegram. It was difficult to impossible to get Astros games or news in West Texas at the time -- not much in the way of satellite TV, no Internet quite yet, ESPN was just coming around.

It was 1993 before we moved back to Houston. I had to be in San Diego training for a new assignment during the time allotted for our move and asked my wife to find an apartment as close as possible to the Astrodome, so that I could go see a game whenever I chose. She accommodated me and found us a little loft on Holly Hall where I could walk right down the street to the Dome. From my front door to the box office on the east side: twenty minutes.

I got to see Biggio (and Bagwell) on the field on a regular basis. They're the best ballplayers Houston has ever had. Not counting Hakeem and Earl, of course.

All the best to Biggio as he chases 3,000 next summer.

Update (11/13): HouStoned is a bit harsher on Bidge.

"As far as two-handed push-ups ..."

" ... you can do that all night, and it doesn't make a difference whether she's there or not."

Rest in peace, Jack.