Saturday, December 02, 2006

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.

Friday, December 01, 2006

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.

Wednesday, November 29, 2006

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.

Monday, November 27, 2006

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".

Saturday, November 25, 2006

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 ...