What can Christians do to accelerate global warming so Jesus comes back quicker?

In honor of The Lord's intervention in the trial of Victoria Osteen, as well as Rick Warren's Faith Forum last night (for which true believers paid between $500 and $2000 to attend) ...

As True Bible believing Christians™, we have a much better understanding about the fate of this planet than any Biologist, Environmentalist, or so-called scientist because we have a personal relationship with the Fellow who created this whole place to begin with! Friends, as True Christians™ then, being familiar with the Holy Bible gives you more authority than anyone who holds a post-graduate degree! That's something to be proud of - don't wince about it! And don't let people call you crazy! God's Holy Scriptures give the poorest farmer's servant in our congregation the power to win an argument with a Bio-Chemist, or a Nuclear Physicist -- without even knowing a lick about what them folks studied in their fancy secular universities! What these ignorant unsaved, over-educated folks don't understand is that they can gather all the data, all the research and present all the facts they care to collect about any subject under the sun - but when you hold it next to child-like faith in the Almighty God, the most learned Evolutionist or Environmentalist, will widen their blind eyes in awe, and cower in fear at the truth of God's Word! Praise Jesus! For the simple truth, we need only look to our old children's Sunday School song, "He's Got the Whole World in His Hands!" Oh, GLORY!

Full sermon available at Landover Baptist.

Sunday Funnies (some funnier than others)

Harris County candidates forum on criminal justice and behavioral health

Now this looks like something rife with explosive opportunity. I'll be attending (and blogging):

WHEN SYSTEMS COLLIDE:

HARRIS COUNTY BEHAVIORAL HEALTH AND CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEMS

One Voice and The Network of Behavioral Health Providers invite you to a Candidates' Forum at which candidates for key Harris County offices will offer their views on how the office for which they are running and the county can have an impact to ensure that the adult criminal justice system is not the community behavioral health treatment system "safety net".

It is a well known fact that nation-wide the failure to provide adequate community behavioral health services impacts a community's criminal justice system. In Harris County , much attention and effort have been paid to providing county inmates needed behavioral health treatment.

But should the Harris County Jail be the largest mental health facility in the state of Texas ?

DATE: Tuesday, August 26, 2008

RECEPTION: 5:00 - 6:00 pm

CANDIDATES' FORUM: 6:00 - 8:00 pm

LOCATION: United Way of Greater Houston

50 Waugh Drive

Houston, Texas 77007

CONFIRMED PARTICIPANTS:

(listed alphabetically under office)

CANDIDATES FOR HARRIS COUNTY JUDGE

Harris County Judge Ed Emmett

Mr. David Mincberg

CANDIDATES FOR HARRIS COUNTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY

Mr. C.O. "Brad" Bradford

Ms. Pat Lykos

CANDIDATES FOR HARRIS COUNTY SHERIFF

City of Houston Council Member Adrian Garcia

Harris County Sheriff Tommy Thomas (Not Confirmed)

Please RSVP by Wednesday, August 20th to:

onevoice@ghcf.org or 713.333.2215

Perhaps some citizen will try to arrest Rove while he's in town today

They have tried to do so before, after all.

Here is the itinerary for today's Fugitive Fundraiser Tour. He's raising money for Terrified Texas House Republicans.

What is the nature of Karl Rove's security detail when he attends these things? Is it more than the local police? Contracted bodyguards? Blackwater?

Who's paying for it? He's not a government employee any longer, after all. Why are local police and taxpayer funds used to pay for the protection of a man who is in comtempt of Congress, among his many other crimes?

Disavow yourself of the notion that any Texas Republican wouldn't sell his daughter into white slavery just for the opportunity to stand next to Herr General Rove. The local right-wing freaks live for this shit.

Do you think they run people through metal detectors at the downtown Aquarium?

Isaac Hayes 1943 - 2008

With his lascivious bass-baritone and flamboyant wardrobe, Hayes developed a musical persona that was an embodiment of the hyper-masculine, street-savvy characters of the so-called blaxploitation films of the era. In his theme song to Gordon Parks’s “Shaft” from 1971, the title character is summed up in a line that has become a classic of kitsch: “Who’s a black private dick/Who’s a sex machine to all the chicks?”

(Furthermore: “He’s a complicated man/But no one understands him but his woman.”)

The “Shaft” theme won an Academy Award and has become one of his best-known songs. But Hayes’s career stretched far beyond soundtracks. For much of the 1960s and into the ’70s he was one of the principal songwriters and performers for Stax Records, the trailblazing Memphis R&B label, and in the 1990s he revived his career by providing the voice for the amorous and wise Chef on the cable television show “South Park.”

"Chocolate Salty Balls", also on the South Park Christmas CD ...

He penned soul classics like ''Hold On I'm Comin''' for Sam & Dave, helped usher in the era of disco and was a goldmine for countless hip-hop and R&B artists who used his illustrious arrangements as the focal point for their songs decades later. ...

His influence also extended beyond music. His trademarked bald head, full beard and muscular frame, often adorned with a multitude of gold chains, made him a fashion trendsetter at a time when most of his contemporaries were sporting blowout Afros. He was also a symbol of black pride, and an activist for civil rights. ...

Hayes also acted in movies including ''Tough Guys,'' ''I'm Gonna Get You Sucka'' and ''Hustle & Flow.'' He had recently completed the movie ''Soul Men,'' in which he played himself; the film also starred Samuel Jackson and Bernie Mac, who died on Saturday after a bout with pneumonia.

I wou;d really like to have the rest of the week off from posting obituaries.

The Weekly Wrangle

Here's the TPA Blog Round-up for the week just passed, and check out The Truth About Texas Republicans, a new blogger-powered website designed to expose the real truth about GOP Texas legislators. The opening posts look at the stuff state representatives Dwayne Bohac, Betty Brown, John Davis, Bill Zedler and State Sen. Mike Jackson don't want you to see.

refinish69 was happy to introduce a real progressive Democrat to the readers of Doing My Part For The Left a few weeks ago, but has to wonder how to describe Michael Skelly: Democrat or Republican Lite?

Vince at Capitol Annex takes a look at the Texas State Teacher's Association lawsuit against the Texas Education Agency for giving public funds to private institutions.

Irony Alert: Mary McDaniels, Manager - Pipeline Safety, Texas Railroad Commission, lied on camera about the Atmos Energy gas pipeline couplings. She spoke in Fort Worth about pipeline safety, inspections, and regulations for Chesapeake Energy's Barnett Shale pipeline, says TXsharon at Bluedaze.

Julie Pippert at MOMocrats asked: "Offshore drilling -- whose issue is it anyway? The people's? Or the politician's?"

Women who enter the military know they may encounter danger along the way, just as their male counterparts do. Diarist Liberal Texas at Texas Kaos highlights an additional danger they face in Assault on Women in the Military, and calls on all of us to ensure that our fighting women are protected against sexual assault from the companions they should be able to trust.

WhosPlayin used to think John McCain was worthy of respect, even if he was wrong on issues. But mocking conservation and lying about Obama raising taxes demonstrate who John McCain really is.

jobsanger thinks Democrats should let Clinton's backers have their vote at the convention, and believes Barack Obama has a chance to win Texas this November.

Neil at Texas Liberal talks about AIDS and black people.

Due to the purchase of McBlogger by a rival blogging firm, the regular writers are on strike. This week we'd like to introduce you to a new McBlogger, Rose Petal.

North Texas Liberal remarks on John McCain's anti-Obama ad comparing the Democratic nominee to Paris Hilton and Britney Spears, and also includes Hilton's response ad. Still waiting on Britney's energy policy...

Off the Kuff takes a look at The Queue behind KBH for her maybe-to-be-abandoned Senate seat.

YaGottaLoveIt of South Texas Chisme urges Barack Obama to have a fundraiser for money that stays in Texas while urging Hillary Clinton to campaign for Rick Noriega in south Texas.

WCNews at Eye On Williamson posts on the Williamson County DA's unwillingness to test DNA evidence in a 30-year-old unsolved murder case in Lawsuit Filed Against County For New DNA, Fingerprint Tests.

Tropical Storm Edouard was more like a decent rainstorm, but that didn't stop the media -- old as well as new, including madcap reporter/Congressman John Culberson -- from building it up to a height it could no more sustain than its winds. PDiddie at Brains and Eggs has the roundup of the hyperventilating in Houston.

BossKitty at TruthHugger is concerned about the economy in "Purses Tighten, Small Business Suffers, Families Budget".

nytexan at BlueBloggin wonders, as the Georgian-Russian war continues and Bush plays with U.S. athletes at the Olympics ... Could The U.S. Get Pulled Into Georgia’s War?

XicanoPwr discusses the immigration survey that was sent to presidential candidates Obama and McCain put together by The Sanctuary, a web-based grassroots community of pro-migrant, human rights, and civil-rights bloggers.

Late Edition Funnies

EV 8/10: Attack ads work

Let's give the Sunshine State back to McBush, but no other changes from last week.

<p><strong>><a href='http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/interactives/campaign08/electoral-college/'>Electoral College Prediction Map</a></strong> - Predict the winner of the general election. Use the map to experiment with winning combinations of states. Save your prediction and send it to friends.</p>

McInsane went into the gutter, and it appears to have worked for him. Whooda thunk?

This in spite of a raft of data denouncing the ads.

So the question begged is: who's telling the truth? The people who say the ads aren't working, or the people being polled?

Here's my humble O: the attack ads are working, and they work particularly well on a portion of the electorate that wants to vote for McCain if he gives them a good enough reason to do so, i.e. the former GOP base who has been disillusioned by Bush, the wars, gasoline prices, the value of their suburban tract home (if they are still in possession of it), etc. and so on. These people despise Obama and the Democrats even more than they do all of those things, but are likely to sit this election out unless they see a Republican party willing to go on the offense against him (and them).

Voters are motivated by a politician -- a political party -- that will fight. Wonder if the Democrats have ever considered that strategy?

Solzhenitsyn, McCullough, and shortly, Newman

Far, far too much sad news this past week:

There remains among Western commentators a surprisingly persistent mythology of Soviet rule. This depicts Stalin as the usurper of Lenin's revolutionary asceticism, with Khrushchev and his successors tempering the bloodiest excesses. In reality, the grey bureaucracy of Khrushchev and Brezhnev laid claim to the individual mind. It defined political difference as mental illness.

On being released from the camps, Solzhenitsyn became the voice and dramatist of the zeks, the prisoners who languished in a system where the merest idiosyncrasy was an antisocial act. He became, with the dissidents Andrei Sakharov and Anatoli Scharansky, a towering moral witness against this system. And he was fearless.

I am reminded of that tiresome conservative canard about liberalism being a mental disorder as I read that last sentence in the first paragraph.

Bernie Mac blended style, authority and a touch of self-aware bluster to make audiences laugh as well as connect with him. For Mac, who died Saturday at age 50, it was a winning mix, delivering him from a poor childhood to stardom as a standup comedian, in films including the casino heist caper "Ocean's Eleven" and his acclaimed sitcom "The Bernie Mac Show."

Though his comedy drew on tough experiences as a black man, he had mainstream appeal -- befitting inspiration he found in a wide range of humorists: Harpo Marx as well as Moms Mabley; squeaky-clean Red Skelton, but also the raw Redd Foxx.

Saturday before last my wife and I attended a funeral service for a friend from college -- heart attack at 47 -- who was so much like Bernie Mac it was scary. Terrific smile, wonderful person, gone too soon. Fabulously funny, loved a good party, lived life to the max. Too many more parallels to iterate. His passing last week is magnified by Bernie Mac's this one.

Paul Newman has finished chemotherapy and has told his family he wants to die at home. ...

Yesterday, it was reported in America that Newman, 83, had only weeks to live and had returned home to his wife, Joanne Woodward.

"Paul didn't want to die in the hospital," a source said. "Joanne and his daughters are beside themselves with grief."

The source, described as a close family friend, said that the star had spent the past few weeks getting his affairs in order.

Never Forget: Bush gave up golf because it "just sends the wrong signal"

Three men to help him up, while his wife and daughter avoid even looking.

Legs spread wide, bouncing his knees, casting his eyes around, slapping his miniature American flag against his knee.

I have a feeling George, Jr. was the "Are we there yet?" kid.

Sunday Funnies (GOP slime edition)

John Edwards screwed the pooch

Sure I'm a little disappointed. Well more than a little. But there's shinola to be discerned ...

-- Don't you think he could've done better than this? Seriously? Christ, she looks like Eileen Smith. (That wasn't too screechy, was it?)

-- Now that the National Enquirer is reputable journalism, when do you think the traditional corporate media will begin reporting on Bush's alcoholism? And what it could mean for the next war he intends to start?

-- McBlogger picked a SCAB, and now it's bleeding.

-- Martha is posting peevishly, but the MOMocrats have a cooler head. So does Digby.

-- Who's going to keynote the Johnson-Rayburn-Richards dinner?

-- Sorry if I missed it; did somebody die as a result of John Edwards' lies? Is he still serving in the United States Senate? Introducing legislation such as the Marriage Protection Amendment?

Back in a moment to our regularly scheduled media frenzies, like the Olympics and the brand-new war between Russia and Georgia.

Olympic news

-- Pollution shrouds Beijing as opening ceremonies set

The wall of gray haze around the National Stadium and across the city cut visibility down to a mile. On the eve of opening ceremonies, Beijing’s polluted air took center stage Thursday as the most visibly pressing problem for Olympic organizers who had promised to clean up the Chinese capital. ...

The notoriously dirty air in this megacity of 17 million has been a leading concern since Beijing won the bid for the Olympics in 2001. China has poured 140 billion yuan—$20 billion—into “greening” the city, including doubling the number of subway lines, retrofitting factories with cleaner technology and building urban parks. But environmental efforts have often been outpaced by constant construction and increased traffic.

To help ensure clean air for the Olympics, Beijing officials imposed drastic measures in mid-July, including pulling half the city’s 3.3 million vehicles off the roads, halting most construction and closing dozens of factories.

-- Islamic group issues new threat

Police shut down the bustling bazaar in the capital of China’s restive Muslim region of Xinjiang on Friday amid threats from an Islamic group that attackers might target buses, trains and planes during the Olympics.

A sign at the entrance of the bazaar in Urumqi did not explain why the area, surrounded by mosques with minarets, was off limits as the country prepared to kick off the Summer Games thousands of miles away in Beijing.

Even a KFC restaurant in the shopping area—filled with touristy shops selling carpets and jade—was closed, and a guard sitting on the steps shooed people away.

The sprawling, far-flung western region of Xinjiang has long been a source of trouble for China’s communist government. The rugged, mineral-rich territory is populated by the Uighurs, a Turkic Muslim minority that has had tense relations with the Chinese. Many Uighurs favor independence or greater autonomy for Xinjiang, which takes up one-sixth of China’s land mass and borders eight Central Asian countries.

-- Bush dedicates new embassy, scolds Chinese on free speech

Speaking on China’s turf the very day it hosted the opening of the Olympic Games, President Bush on Friday prodded the communist country to lessen repression and “let people say what they think.”

The president’s challenge, issued as he dedicated a massive new U.S. embassy in Beijing, capped a volley of sharp exchanges between the two nations this week about China’s human rights record. ...

Bush came to Beijing mainly to watch U.S. athletes compete and enjoy the spectacle of the summer games, but a round of political one-upmanship has heavily defined his trip to Asia. He bluntly criticized China’s human rights record in a speech in Thailand, which prompted China to warn the U.S. president to stop meddling in its business.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang admonished Bush just before he got to China.

“We firmly oppose any words or acts that interfere in other countries internal affairs, using human rights and religion and other issues,” he said. The spokesman added that “Chinese citizens have freedom of religion. These are indisputable facts.”

-- Human rights protests in Hong Kong

A British man was taken away after unfurling banners that denounced China’s human rights record on a major bridge in Hong Kong ahead of the Beijing Olympics’ opening ceremony Friday. ...

Matt Pearce, a longtime Hong Kong resident from Bristol, England, hung two banners on road signs on Hong Kong’s Tsing Ma Bridge that said, “We want human rights and democracy” and “The people of China want freedom from oppression.” ...

TV footage showed Pearce wearing a mask of a horse’s head and a white shirt bearing the Olympic rings while carrying a guitar. His protest ended after about an hour when men in plainclothes hustled him away. ...

Olympic organizers moved the equestrian event from Beijing to the former British colony of Hong Kong because of a rash of equine diseases and substandard quarantine procedures on the mainland. Hong Kong has a prominent horse racing scene.

Oh yeah, there will be some athletic competition going on also.

TV coverage of Fast Eddie worse than the storm itself

Ken Hoffman is dead solid perfect:

1. With the possible exception of the new TV commercial with Big Oil whining that they're really making very little money (yeah, right, and Hooters doesn't want you to notice their waitresses), nothing on TV is funnier than our local stations promising calm, reasoned coverage of approaching storms and hurricanes ... and then hysterically screaming, "The sky is falling! Run for your lives! Women, children and weathermen first!"

2. The 10 p.m. news: Channel 11 went to its bullpen and dusted off Dr. Neil Frank as Tropical Storm Eduardo "inches toward" the Gulf Coast. Anchorman Greg Hurst said Dr. Neil would "put everything in perspective" for us. I wonder how Channel 11's chief weatherman Gene Norman feels about Dr. Neil showing up for the big story? It's like Norman quarterbacks the team the whole season, but Dr. Neil is brought out of retirement for the Super Bowl.

3. Channel 13 weatherman Tim Heller predicted winds of 50-60 mph when Edouard touches down. During Rita, Heller looked like a kid who lost his puppy when the hurricane missed us. It would have been his first big story since arriving in Houston. So it was slightly understandable. ...

4. Whoa, Channel 2 just headlined a story "Survival Checklist." Survival? That's a little hysterical, isn't it? The weatherman said the storm surge would be 3-4 feet. That's not life-threatening, that's rad surfing, dude.

5. Do all the stations do a story from the same Home Depot, or do they spread the free plugs around?

6. I'm watching the Astros game live from Wrigley Field. The weather is much, much worse in Chicago. Lance Berkman just saw a lightning bolt and tucked tail and ran into the dugout. He'll never be a TV reporter. No guts, no ratings.

7. (11 p.m.) Channel 11's Vincente Arenas is on Galveston Island. He just held up a gizmo that measures wind speed. It said 8 mph. You know that ceiling fan at the West Alabama Ice House that gently stirs the air? That's 10 mph. ... Have you seen the billboards for McDonald's new Southern-style Chicken Sandwich? The sign says, "available seven days a week, including Sundays." Hey, if you're going to flat-out steal Chick-fil-A's sandwich, right down to the pickles, you might want to show some respect and not mock Chick-fil-A for giving its employees Sunday off.

8. (After midnight.) At the risk of making a prediction that could backfire, especially if Edouard strengthens and causes pain to our area, I'm saying the storm will be nothing but a heavy rain. I like to err on the side of danger. Caution is for amateurs. ... Why don't my neighbors turn off their sprinklers? It's going to pour buckets Tuesday.

I walked the dog about 2:30 a.m. and it was warm, muggy, and as still and quiet as you would expect it to be at two-thirty in the morning. The storm coverage anchors had all turned in at midnight -- saving their sputtering for the 4 a.m. flash report, I presume -- so there was the usual nada (infomercials) on the tube. I surfed the net until I got sleepy again at 5, sliding off comfortably in the awareness that we weren't going to be endangered no matter what the talking heads on my teevee said.

It was a nice day off. I'll take a hurricane like that any time.

Edouard "inches", "creeps", "plods", "slogs"...

... even "ambles". In some places along the Texas Gulf coast (probably Jefferson County) he is "pounding" and "hitting".

Some are live-blogging -- zzz -- some are Twittering (this is a sample from yesterday's rehearsal, creativity courtesy Julie P at MOMocrats):

8 AM AM
Woke to screaming wind

8:01 AM
Never mind, it was kids, not wind

8:02 AM
Kids were screaming because they heard the wind

8:05 AM
Gave kids prebought premade preservative and sugar laden scones from store.
& bottled water. B/c we dump health and eco @ first sign of mother nature

8:07 AM
Breakfast didn't last long

8:12 AM
Sugar hit, storm too. Kids and winds are engaged in howling competition

8:14 AM
Will keep you up to date until power goes ou...

10:28 AM
Power's back

11:04 AM
Fish are in the yard, and power's flick...

6:22 PM
Everyone's heading to the beer garden in Clear Lake Shores to swap downed
tree stories!

Obviously it never got this bad. Like the batteries and the MREs, we can always save it for the next one. One last thing, from Congressman John Culberson's e-mail newsletter yesterday (bold emphasis his):

Dear Friends,

Tropical Storm Edouard appears headed our way; and some predictions suggest we could start feeling the effects of the storm sometime after midnight tonight.

After the destruction of Tropical Storm Allison in 2001, Houstonians know that no tropical storm should be taken lightly. While the winds may not be as strong, the rain can be even more devastating.

Here are some tips I follow to keep my family and home safe during hurricane season:

...

Lie on the floor under a table or another sturdy object.

My batshit conservative Congressman, lying under a table in his house, Twittering.

I can easily picture that.

Edouard headed right at Houston

The Weekly Wrangle

We're making preparations for Edouard here -- a full tank of gasoline, some batteries and extra water -- but there's still time to read the Texas Progressive Alliance's Blog Round-up (for those who aren't in danger of losing their electricity) ...

Last week on Bluedaze , Big Oil threatened TXsharon. In "Big Oil" Threatens Harm to My "Lovelies" and Me she calls out the abuser and includes a new PR plan that will save Chesapeake Energy millions of dollars and help clean up Big Oil's act.

Mike Thomas of Rhetoric & Rhythm is critical of a campaign to knock off Blue Dog Democrats , even if it means electing Republicans, all in an effort to punish Democrats for failing to hew the line on certain progressive issues.

refinish69 from Doing My Part For The Left has always heard that What happens in Vegas, Stays in Vegas or does it for Pete Sessions?

Burnt Orange Report went on strike last week to raise $1000 for Chris Bell's State Senate campaign. 12 hours later, 15 donors raised $1,075 for Bell and the BOR team is back to blogging.

jobsanger opines about the lack of Democratic leadership from Speaker Nancy Pelosi in Pelosi: Where's The Leadership?, and lets us know the Nanny State is alive and well in The "Nanny State" Strikes Again.

The Texas Cloverleaf is on a strike for change! Help raise money for selected candidates. What do we want? Donations! When do we need them? Now!

Texas Liberal suggests that life is like a harbor where ships come and go.

Off the Kuff calculates how many eligible but unregistered voters there are in Harris County, and compares it to 2004.

Obama came to Houston but only for a few high-dollar fundraisers in River Oaks, a trend sadly that is repetitive of past Democratic presidential nominees. PDiddie at Brains and Eggs had the report, and the total take was $1.5 mill.

Mean Rachel gets a response from Rep. Elliott Naishtat to her modest proposal from last week, and at dinner discovers just how unwired the Yankee in the Texas House really is.

Over at TexasKaos, lightseeker makes the case for a Republican straight ticket ballot, and for the Democratic slate (with video)! It may be the only way to save the Republican party from its present delusional masters!

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme wonders which will come first -- the death of the Republican Party or a full blown police state. CBT, ever the optimist, predicts the former.

Vince at Capitol Annex notes that Railroad Commissioner Elizabeth Ames Jones is going to run for US Senate if and when Kay Bailey Hutchison vacates her seat to run for governor.

Aimlessness at WhosPlayin got one too many email forwards about "Why Men are Republicans", and decided to retort with "Why Men Prefer Democrats".

McBlogger takes a look at the ability of DHS to snoop on you. And you thought the FISA stuff was bad...

BossKitty at TruthHugger wonders "What is Adrenarche and Why Are America’s Services Sexually Immature?"

Paris Hilton's mother (McCain maximum contributor) objects to ad

Bold is mine:

It is a complete waste of the money John McCain's contributors have donated to his campaign. It is a complete waste of the country's time and attention at the very moment when millions of people are losing their homes and their jobs. And it is a completely frivolous way to choose the next President of the United States.

Oh, there's also this:

Kathy Hilton and her husband donated a total of $4,600 to McCain's campaign earlier this year.

Do you think his campaign will stop the slime now? Nah, I didn't think so either.

Greenwald: Let's give the Blue Dogs the boot

A reminder to all the Republicans who relish the carping of the 9% Congress: they score that low because Democrats are pissed at them. Because Pelosi took impeachment off the table, because they continue to fund Bush's Wars, because they have cheerily joined in the evisceration of constitutional rights, because they refuse to do anything about Karl Rove's sneering contempt, and because too many of their members vote like Republicans. Not because they oppose offshore drilling or undocumented immigration or any of that other conservative bullshit ...

Perhaps most remarkable, some polls -- such as one from Fox News last month -- reveal that the Democratic-led Congress is actually more unpopular among Democrats than among Republicans, with 23 percent of Republicans approving of Congress compared with only 18 percent of Democrats. One would be hard-pressed to find a time in modern American history, if such a time exists at all, when a Congress was more unpopular among the party that controls it than among voters from the opposition party.

This week even Nick Lampson and Barack Obama announced that they would be open to drilling for oil in the nation's most fragile ecosystems, and they did so not to satisfy America's insatiable consumption but to appease the knee-jerk polls that suggest Americans want it.

Just in Texas, we have Lampson and Ciro Rodriguez and Chet Edwards (odiously mentioned again this morning by Pelosi on George Snufflelufagus' This Weak as vice-presidential material) and even Silvestre Reyes, the head of the House Intelligence committee, who barely managed a decent whine about the White House's restructuring of the nation's intelligence apparatus this past week. Of course there's all the Texas House representatives who keep electing Tom Craddick speaker, but even I'm tired of complaining about that.

(T)he only question worth asking among those who are so dissatisfied with congressional Democrats is this: What can be done to change this conduct? As proved by the 2006 midterm elections -- which the Democrats dominated in a historically lopsided manner -- mindlessly electing more Democrats to Congress will not improve anything. Such uncritical support for the party is actually likely to have the opposite effect. It's axiomatic that rewarding politicians -- which is what will happen if congressional Democrats end up with more seats and greater control after 2008 than they had after 2006 -- only ensures that they will continue the same behavior. If, after spending two years accommodating one extremist policy after the next favored by the right, congressional Democrats become further entrenched in their power by winning even more seats, what would one expect them to do other than conclude that this approach works and therefore continue to pursue it?

If simply voting for more Democrats will achieve nothing in the way of meaningful change, what, if anything, will? At minimum, two steps are required to begin to influence Democratic leaders to change course: 1) Impose a real political price that they must pay when they capitulate to -- or actively embrace -- the right's agenda and ignore the political values of their base, and 2) decrease the power and influence of the conservative "Blue Dog" contingent within the Democratic caucus, who have proved excessively willing to accommodate the excesses of the Bush administration, by selecting their members for defeat and removing them from office. And that means running progressive challengers against them in primaries, or targeting them with critical ads, even if doing so, in isolated cases, risks the loss of a Democratic seat in Congress.

I am pretty close to fed up with voting for Democrats who once elected vote like Republicans. And I appear to be far from alone in that regard. I likewise refuse to continue to enable this bad behavior by supporting them simply because of their label.

If they lose, I consider it to be their fault, not mine.

EV 8/3: Keeping it close

Most others do not show it so tight, but I'm going to be consistent and keep states that are polling the candidates within one percentage point in the gray.

<p><strong>><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/interactives/campaign08/electoral-college/">Electoral College Prediction Map</a></strong> - Predict the winner of the general election. Use the map to experiment with winning combinations of states. Save your prediction and send it to friends.</p>

John Heilemann has a good piece in New York Magazine about John McCain's strategy. It is to run a campaign attacking Barack Obama personally as too young, too elite, and too pampered to be President as opposed to attacking Obama's ideas and also as opposed to promoting McCain's ideas are something the country really needs. A variety of ads have already surfaced in this vein. More will follow. The irony, of course, is Obama was raised by a single mother whereas McCain is the son and grandson of admirals and married a woman worth an estimated $100 million.

McCain, for all his slime-smearing this past week, still cannot win.

Sunday Funnies (collection of fools edition)

Seymour Hersh: Cheney considered killing Americans in pretext to attack Iran

Don't you wish it wasn't real? That he was just making it up?

Bush administration officials held a meeting recently in the Vice President’s office to discuss ways to provoke a war with Iran.

In (Seymour) Hersh’s most recent article, he reports that this meeting occurred in the wake of the overblown incident in the Strait of Hormuz, when a U.S. carrier almost shot at a few small Iranian speedboats. The “meeting took place in the Vice-President’s office. ‘The subject was how to create a casus belli between Tehran and Washington,’” according to one of Hersh’s sources.

... I asked Hersh specifically about this meeting and if he could elaborate on what occurred. Hersh explained that, during the meeting in Cheney’s office, an idea was considered to dress up Navy Seals as Iranians, put them on fake Iranian speedboats, and shoot at them. This idea, intended to provoke an Iran war, was ultimately rejected:

HERSH: There was a dozen ideas proffered about how to trigger a war. The one that interested me the most was why don’t we build — we in our shipyard — build four or five boats that look like Iranian PT boats. Put Navy seals on them with a lot of arms. And next time one of our boats goes to the Straits of Hormuz, start a shoot-up.

Might cost some lives. And it was rejected because you can’t have Americans killing Americans. That’s the kind of — that’s the level of stuff we’re talking about. Provocation. But that was rejected.

...

Hersh argued that one of the things the Bush administration learned during the encounter in the Strait of Hormuz was that, “if you get the right incident, the American public will support” it.

“Look, is it high school? Yeah,” Hersh said. “Are we playing high school with you know 5,000 nuclear warheads in our arsenal? Yeah we are. We’re playing, you know, who’s the first guy to run off the highway with us and Iran.”

Sometimes there's just nothing to add. This is one of those times.

Sunday Funnies

Obama's in town today, but only for the money

Using Texas as an ATM, the same as John Kerry and Al Gore and Bill Clinton before him. This is precisely the reason why we have been a one-party state for the past fourteen years. Taking money out of Texas and spending it on teevee advertising in Michigan and Ohio and Florida doesn't get a single Democrat elected to the statehouse or the courthouse here.

After conducting a midday public forum on the economy in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Barack Obama will head later today to Houston, whose metropolitan area has more registered voters than all of the Hawkeye State.

But Obama has no scheduled public events in Houston. Instead, he will collect donations for his Democratic presidential campaign and the Democratic Party at two private gatherings.

Of the $287 million raised across the nation by the Obama campaign, only a quarter has come from contributors of at least $2,300, according to the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania. Federal law puts a $2,300 cap on the amount an individual can give for a primary or general election, for a maximum total of $4,600.

The Houston events fall into the big-money category. They start at $2,300 per person, with amounts above $4,600 going to the party. The receptions take place at the River Oaks home of trial lawyer Richard Mithoff and his philanthropist wife, Ginni, and the Memorial area home of energy company chief John Thrash and his philanthropist wife, Becca Cason Thrash. Top donors at each event will get a chance to have their photographs taken with the Illinois senator.

Whether you have $23 or $2.300 to give a political candidate, we're all much better off if you give it to Rick Noriega or David Mincberg or C. O. Bradford or Diane Trautman, or Sherrie Matula or Kevin Murphy or Joe Montemayor or Larry Hunter, or Chris Bell or Joe Jaworski, or Mike Engelhart or Jim Sharp or Linda Yanez.

Obama is going to have all the money he needs to get elected, believe me.

Update (8/1): At least $1.5 million ...

Barack Obama collected more than $1.5 million in campaign funding Thursday night in two Houston neighborhoods built by oil and natural gas profits while telling his audiences that America needs to liberate itself from those fuels.

... Standing on a platform just above the water level of a lighted indoor pool at a Memorial home, Obama said the nation needs to develop wind and solar energy and other alternative sources. He spoke to about 55 paying guests at candlelit, round dinner tables under skylights in the 18,000-square-foot home of John Thrash, chief of a natural gas infrastructure company, and wife Becca Cason Thrash.

...

On Thursday morning in Iowa, Obama told a public audience that amid record-high oil profits, Republican opponent John McCain's proposal to lower corporate taxes is wrong and that the Republican Party is bereft of ideas that would help steer the nation to long-term energy independence.

At his other closed-door stop in Houston, the River Oaks home of trial lawyer Richard Mithoff and wife Ginni, Obama vaguely outlined a desire to work with both major parties to fashion short-term oil and gas usage policies. ...

Mithoff ... said the event had raised $1.5 million for Obama's campaign and the Democratic Party. Donations started at $2,300 per person and the total raised at the Thrash home was unknown.

The River Oaks audience was a multiethnic blend of lawyers, politicians, business people and others.

I removed some of Alan Bernstein's more egregious sneering. Click over for the full Republican effect.

Person Linda Yanez

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Four hundred and eighty two billion.

And that's after he inherited a $286 billion surplus:

The government's budget deficit will surge past a half-trillion dollars next year, according to gloomy new estimates, a record flood of red ink that promises to force the winner of the presidential race to dramatically alter his economic agenda.

The deficit will hit $482 billion in the 2009 budget year that will be inherited by Democrat Barack Obama or Republican John McCain, the White House estimated Monday. That figure is sure to rise after adding the tens of billions of dollars in additional Iraq war funding it doesn't include, and the total could be higher yet if the economy fails to recover as the administration predicts.

Iraq and Afghanistan war budgets are supplementals, and the deficit calculation includes an estimate of tax revenues based on an economic model that forecasts more growth (and thus more tax revenue) than is likely. But the truth-telling is buried at the end of the article. I'll emphasize it in bold:

Monday's figures capped a remarkable deterioration in the United States' budgetary health under Bush's time in office.

He inherited a budget seen as producing endless huge surpluses after four straight years in positive territory. That stretch of surpluses represented a period when the country's finances had been bolstered by a 10-year period of uninterrupted economic growth, the longest expansion in U.S. history.

In his first year in office, helped by projections of continuing surpluses, Bush drove through a 10-year, $1.35 trillion package of tax cuts.

However, faulty estimates, a recession in March 2001 and government spending to fight the war on terrorism contributed to pushing the deficit to a record in dollar terms in 2004.

The guy had a track record of running companies into the ground. We shouldn't be surprised.

But beyond the mismanagement of our national security (endless wars in the Middle East are not making us safer), of the country's treasury, and the curtailment of civil rights at home and abroad (torture, holding prisoners without due process, wiretapping Americans without just cause) there's several things much more grave about the Bush legacy. Let's consider just one ...

The economic dismantling of the middle class -- not just the lack of decent jobs at decent wages with decent health and retirement benefits, but people losing their homes, unable to afford gas to get to work, dying for lack of affordable health care -- is the sort of thing that revolutions in the past were begun over.

It's really looking more and more like the United States needs a little of the "blood of patriots and tyrants to fertilize the tree of liberty", to paraphrase Thomas Jefferson.

Veep speculation

Monica Langley at the WSJ:

Before leaving on his overseas trip, Sen. Barack Obama reviewed information on several prospects and narrowed the field. His focus now includes five colleagues in the U.S. Senate -- Joseph Biden, Evan Bayh, Chris Dodd, Hillary Clinton and Jack Reed -- and two governors, Tim Kaine of Virginia and Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas, according to Democratic operatives, though he could still make a different pick.

On the Republican side, Sen. John McCain also is understood to be narrowing his list, with speculation focused on about the same number of choices. They include ex-Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, a rival during the Republican primaries; Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, with whom he has a strong friendship; and former Rep. Rob Portman of the battleground state of Ohio. Republicans also are touting Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, and campaign adviser Carly Fiorina, ex-CEO of Hewlett-Packard Co., among others.

Booman, on those names:

I would be very pleased with the selection of Sebelius, Dodd, or Reed. I'd be okay with the selection of Kaine. Biden, Bayh, or Clinton I would consider poor choices. Bayh and Clinton would be personally demoralizing.

On the Republican side, I'll be brief. ... None of these picks particularly frighten me. John Thune is probably the safest choice, but I can't see him fundamentally changing the game. Fiorina is untested as a campaigner and her qualifications are dubious. Romney would be a disaster. Crist has to overcome rumors about his sexuality. And Pawlenty just doesn't carry much juice.

I think it will be Biden for Obama (and I will be happy with that, agreeing with Booman otherwise even though I would love it if it were Dodd or Richardson, who is getting no buzz whatsoever) and Portman for McCain, although the WSJ article really makes it sound like McCain is being talked into Romney. poblano says:

If Bob Novak is circulating internal polls showing Mitt Romney helping John McCain in Michigan, you can be pretty sure that the Republican establishment is behind the idea of making Romney McCain's VP. It's easy enough to understand why. Romney has been a good team player: an excellent fundraiser and a tireless campaigner. He is unlikely to embarrass either himself or the ticket. And he could potentially be an asset in several states, among them Michigan, New Hampshire and Nevada.

But Romney also comes with several liabilities which, when combined with his strengths, would tend to produce a very interesting electoral map.

Go read it; it's cogent (as always). grantcart points out the similarities between Obama and Tim Kaine, concluding with his belief that the Virginia governor will be the one.

Who do you think will be the second bananas? Post a comment.

The Weekly Wrangle

Here are the TPA Round-Up blog highlights for the week of July 28:

TXsharon challenges you to view these pictures of domestic drilling Armageddon in the Barnett Shale and still support the Drill and Burn domestic drilling agenda.

U.S. Rep. Ciro Rodriguez' Republican challenger for the 23rd Congressional seat is taken to task by Mike Thomas of Rhetoric & Rhythm for shirking his responsibility on a critical hospital expansion vote before the Bexar County Commissioner's Court.

WCNews at Eye On Williamson posts on the GOP's "latest" energy plan in Carter, Oil, & Hair Of The Dog.

Neil at Texas Liberal asks what would be the impact if polar bears could vote.

Off the Kuff looks at a Texas Monthly overview of the effects of the presidential race on downballot elections in Texas and offers his criticism of it.

Guest columnist JR Behrman at Texas Kaos has a few strong words about Energy Policy: Democrats Routed. He also has a Texas plan.

Julie Pippert of MOMocrats asks the Obama campaign to explain its absence in Texas after they announced the roll-out of their Spanish language ads as an outreach to Hispanic voters, then discusses a Senate proposal that would require 50% of US cars to have a flexible fuel system by 2012, and finally the MOMocrats share the draft of their position paper to be submitted to the Democratic National Committee for inclusion in the party platform.

McBlogger had a great time at the subprime panel at Netroots Nation. So good in fact that he decided to offer some of his own solutions since the panelists, including the dimwitted Rep. Brad Miller, decided to offer nothing of substance.

XicanoPwr reports on the latest poll by the Pew Hispanic Center on the Latino vote. Polling shows that 66% of Latino registered voters will support Obama.

Burnt Orange Report points out that commissioner of agriculture Todd Staples finally comes around to what Democrat (and future Ag Commissioner) Hank Gilbert has been saying all along: Texans are being overcharged at the gas pump due to lack of state inspections.

BossKitty at TruthHugger dreams about the "Count Down To Accountability - Bush, Cheney Indictments".

refinish69 from Doing My Part For The Left invites everyone to meet Annette Taddeo -- A true progressive Democrat.

jobsanger writes about how, after years of the Bush presidency, even our closest traditional ally gives the US no credibility in Brits Don't Trust Bush On Torture.

Obama and the down-ballot races in Texas are the focus of two articles by R.G. Ratcliffe of the Houston Chronicle. PDiddie at Brains and Eggs summarizes, and finds some to agree with and some not.

Mean Rachel writes an open letter to Rep. Elliot Naishtat, encouraging him to consider joining the technology age and starting an inexpensive, user-friendly website, designed specifically for state legislators, with Wired for Change's DLCCWeb, a Netroots exhibitor.

nytexan at BlueBloggin keeps an eye on Mitch McConnell, the GOP king of distortion and extortion. McConnell plans to block legislation that can impact Americans now and push for a bill whose product will not be seen for 10 years in McConnell Extorts Senate For Off Shore Drilling. McConnell never fails to please Bush and his corporate buddies.

WhosPlayin looks at a new USGS petroleum estimate for the Arctic Circle, and notes that only a small portion of ANWR is estimated to be productive, and that the study doesn't address economic feasibility.

Vince from Capitol Annex tells us that, while indicted former U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Sugar Land) won't accept a presidential pardon, he'd love one from Texas Governor Rick Perry.

CouldBeTrue from South Texas Chisme gets upset with a crappy newspaper article.

Extra Funnies