Having java in South America this p.m.

Well, sort of. In that "in your mind" kinda way.

Me and the cool kids from Houston Metrobloggers (clink at the top...there. Right there. See it?) are doing the Meetup thing at Brasil this afternoon.

Hope I'm not the oldest one in the room...

Update: if the c.k. were there, they were hiding from me.

My Valentine of 18 years was kind enough to walk around to the other rooms and patio inquiring (you know how we men are about asking for directions) and a tableful of young men said, "sure that's us" but her BS detector red-lined. So, H-Town bloggers, if that really was you, no offense...

Ha. Ha. *click* *BLAM*

From this week's Idiot files:

Hi-jinks were the order of the day at a recent Bush event in Fargo, ND, when Karl Rove grabbed the microphone of CNN's John King and proceeded to do a little "reporting" of his own. "The president is making an incredible presentation to the audience here in Fargo, North Dakota," said Rove. "The crowd has received an overwhelming - his reform message of Social Security. The crowd broke into a strong applause when the president attacked the mainstream media..." King interrupted, "It's not bad. I'd keep your day job, but that's not bad." Not bad? How dare you, Mr. King! "I'd say more than not bad," gushed Judy Woodruff, back in the studio. "I think we're ready to hire Karl Rove right now. We'll start - we'll make the phone call right after the show." You know, I don't know what's worse... the idea that Karl Rove's spin is so similar to CNN's regular reporting that Judy Woodruff can't tell the difference, or Woodruff assuming CNN can employ someone they already work for.

I'm so appalled at broadcast news any more that I barely watch it.

My first corporate career was in the newspaper business. Ten years ago, I subscribed to the daily paper, Newsweek, Rolling Stone, Mother Jones, and a dozen others periodicals on an occasional basis.

Today? Nothing.

I had access to a dozen more dead-tree versions of dailies around the country, as well as the WSJ and the Nation's McPaper. I also subcsribed to Editor&Publisher, the bible of the industry, and wondered why the denizens of the onion-topped towers I occasionally bumped into took so lightly the things I read in its pages that alarmed the hell out of me.

Well, they're still there, raising their ad rates 6% every year and cutting their editorial staff a couple of people, managing their publications at a 20 or 30% profit margin and meeting once a year at a resort location to congratulate themselves on what a fine job they are doing.

I moved on. Of my own volition.

I get my news online these days. And I don't give up my personal information to invasive-registration sites. I have my browser shields up so high and so thick that there are blank spaces with "AD" in them all over the page. Little bubble noises go off frequently, signifying another pop-up window has been blocked.

This blogging thing is just more evidence that the old media is just about over. And the sooner we all help them figure it out, the better we all will be.

Can we now begin the healing?

Or least get back to the usual meaningless and tired partisan rancor our Lege is renowned for?

Harvey Kronberg says it's over (or is that Vo-ver?) for Talmadge Heflin:

Acting as a Special Master in the HD19 election challenge, State Rep. Will Hartnett's report to be issued this morning will conclude that Hubert Vo won his election by at least sixteen votes. Any remaining disputed votes are insufficient to overturn the election.

In a statement this morning, Vo said,"I appreciate the careful and thorough job my colleague Mr. Hartnett has done under intense pressure and in difficult circumstances. He refused to be distracted by sidebar issues and kept his focus on making sure the will of the voters is upheld.

"I am confident that my colleagues on the special committee and in the full House will live up to the standard Mr. Hartnett has set in honoring both the spirit and the essence of our democratic process."

Thank you, Representative Hartnett, and please stay off of small airplanes for awhile...

I shouldn't have let this get by

As heard on Air America last week:

"Today is Groundhog Day and the State of the Union Address.

"An ironic juxtaposition: one involves a meaningless ritual in which we look to a creature of low intelligence for prognostication, and the other involves a groundhog."

Last of the Vaqueros

When I was kid, I was a Cowboys fan. Those were the days of Roger Staubach and Bob Lilly and Drew Pearson, whom we'd impersonate at halftime when we went outside to re-enact our version of that Sunday's blowout of some hapless opponent. As I grew older, I drifted away from the 'Pokes as a favorite, mostly because I tend to root for the underdog in nearly all things.

So the Cowboys of Jerry Jones and Jimmy Johnson and Troy Aikman and Michael Irvin weren't so popular with me. Oh, I rooted for them, but as with most dynasties I wasn't rabid about it.

With much respect I note the retirement today of Emmitt Smith, and in this article I am reminded why I admired him, much more so than his teammates named above:

But despite his impressive statistics, he won just two major awards in 15 seasons -- NFL MVP in 1993 and the Super Bowl MVP that same season, when he rushed for 130 yards and two touchdowns in the Cowboys' 30-13 win over Buffalo in Atlanta.

He won those despite missing the first two games of that season in a contract dispute with Jones. Smith finished that regular season with perhaps his greatest game, an overtime win over the New York Giants at the Meadowlands.

The Cowboys and Giants were both 11-4. The winner got the NFC East title, home-field advantage in the playoffs and a first-round bye. The loser got a wild-card game the following week.

Smith separated his shoulder in the third quarter but returned to the game, which went into overtime tied at 13. He carried the ball on nine of the Cowboys' 11 plays in the extra period at one point raising his aching shoulder to stiff-arm Lawrence Taylor on his final run, which set up Eddie Murray's game-winning field goal.

He finished with 229 total yards and a touchdown on 32 carries and 10 receptions, the heaviest workload in team history, then spent the night in a hospital.

Had the Cowboys lost that game, Smith probably wouldn't have been able to play the following week in a wild-card game. That would have made the road much more difficult in what turned out to be the Cowboys' second of three Super Bowl victories in four seasons.

Few men set a better example on the field or off as the kind of player anyone, friend or foe, could admire. If Emmitt Smith's post-NFL career is as successful as his playing days, then he should go into the Human Being Hall of Fame as well.

Sy is getting to be such a downer

Seymour Hersh tells us just how bad it's going to get:

For me, it's just another story, but out of this comes a core of -- you know, we all deal in “macro” in Washington. On the macro, we're hopeless. We're nowhere. The press is nowhere. The congress is nowhere. The military is nowhere. Every four-star General I know is saying, “Who is going to tell them we have no clothes?” Nobody is going to do it. Everybody is afraid to tell Rumsfeld anything. That's just the way it is. It's a system built on fear. It's not lack of integrity, it's more profound than that. Because there is individual integrity. It's a system that's completely been taken over -- by cultists. Anyway, what's going to happen, I think, as the casualties mount and these stories get around, and the mothers see the cost and the fathers see the cost, as the kids come home. And the wounded ones come back, and there's wards that you will never hear about. That's wards -- you know about the terrible catastrophic injuries, but you don't know about the vegetables. There's ward after ward of vegetables because the brain injuries are so enormous. As you maybe read last week, there was a new study in one of the medical journals that the number of survivors are greater with catastrophic injuries because of their better medical treatment and the better armor they have. So you get more extreme injuries to extremities. We're going to learn more and I think you're going to see, it's going to -- it's -- I'm trying to be optimistic. We're going to see a bottom swelling from inside the ranks. You're beginning to see it. What happened with the soldiers asking those questions, you may see more of that. I'm not suggesting we're going to have mutinies, but I'm going to suggest you're going to see more dissatisfaction being expressed. Maybe that will do it. Another salvation may be the economy. It's going to go very bad, folks. You know, if you have not sold your stocks and bought property in Italy, you better do it quick. And the third thing is Europe -- Europe is not going to tolerate us much longer. The rage there is enormous. I'm talking about our old-fashioned allies. We could see something there, collective action against us. Certainly, nobody -- it's going to be an awful lot of dancing on our graves as the dollar goes bad and everybody stops buying our bonds, our credit -- our -- we're spending $2 billion a day to float the debt, and one of these days, the Japanese and the Russians, everybody is going to start buying oil in Euros instead of dollars. We're going to see enormous panic here. But he could get through that. That will be another year, and the damage he’s going to do between then and now is enormous. We’re going to have some very bad months ahead.

I need a drink. (Tonight is the weekly "Drinking Liberally" meeting -- click on the icon at the top. You're invited.)

*shakes head*

The NYT used the word 'bold' in their online headline this morning describing Bush's agenda, as revealed in last night's SOTU.

I'm so tired of that.

This guy wouldn't know bold if it kicked him in the balls.