Download Day for Firefox 3 (and some catching up)

I got mine. I'm not real happy about my bookmarks being incorporated with my Delicious tags, but I'll get used to it, I suppose.

Let's play some catch-up with the recent news:

-- RIP Stan Winston and Tony Schwartz. A lot of things would not look the same without their contributions to pop culture, politics, movies, and a lot more.

-- Yesterday was the anniversary of the first Democratic convention in Texas:

On June 16, 1855 the newly formed Democratic Party of Texas held its first convention in Austin.

Before 1848, Texas elections were conducted without political parties. Contests between factions became formalized with the birth of political parties. In 1848, the Democratic party was born in Texas. Competition for the Democrats came first from the Whig Party, then the Know-Nothing Party.

Wow, some things never ever change, do they?

-- I really like this response:

A defiant Barack Obama said Tuesday he would take no lectures from Republicans on which candidate would keep the U.S. safer, a sharp rebuke to John McCain's aides who said the Democrat had a naive, Sept. 10 mind-set toward terrorism.

"These are the same guys who helped to engineer the distraction of the war in Iraq at a time when we could have pinned down the people who actually committed 9/11," the presumed nominee told reporters aboard his campaign plane. "This is the same kind of fear-mongering that got us into Iraq ... and it's exactly that failed foreign policy I want to reverse."

This ain't 2004, Pukes.

-- Respect Are Country. Speak English. I've previously posted examples of 4th-grade education-challenged conservatives demonstrating their ignorance, but you'd really think someone on the Right who knows better wouldn't let them outside with their hand-lettered stupidity, don't you?

-- In environmental news, the oil companies have been given special dispensation to harm the recently-classified-as-endangered polar bears in their search for oil. And also as previously reported here, another health hazard, this time PCBs, are being incinerated in Port Arthur. PCBs release dioxins into the air and are proven to cause cancer and brain damage.

-- Harris County Republicans can't escape their Rap Sheet any longer.

Back to regular posting eventually.

The Weekly Wrangle

Time for another edition of the Texas Progressive Alliance's weekly blog round-up, compiled based on submissions made by member blogs, by Vince from Capitol Annex.

CoulldBeTrue hears Rick Perry's rally call against Mexican drug cartels hooking up with local gangs and fears coded words meaning 'Lets profile Latinos' yee haw.

Off the Kuff spent his time in Austin interviewing candidates for office. The first group of interviewees published are State Rep. Dan Barrett, HD97; Wendy Davis, SD10; Robert Miklos, HD101; and Chris Turner, HD96.

refinish69 of Doing My Part For The Left gives a review of his experience herding cats at the Texas Democratic Convemtion and a podcast version as well.

The Texas Cloverleaf wonders why we are getting yet another TX Secretary of State, as Phil Wilson is resigning after only one year on the job.

PDiddie had some scenes from the Texas GOP convention posted at Brains and Eggs.

With four electric companies folding up shop over the last several weeks, it is going to be a difficult summer for Texas consumers. The failures underscore just how screwed up the retail utility business is in Texas. One commentator has called it a game of Russian roulette, and so it is....

In a much-anticipated mega-post on transportation issues, McBlogger tells us that lawmakers are "doing it wrong" when it comes to transportation funding.

Vince at Capitol Annex tears apart the Republican argument for getting rid of property taxes and replacing them with a sales tax for funding public schools, which this week was promoted by Texans for Fiscal Responsibility.

LSU alumni crawfish boil in Beaumont

The two years we have attended -- my mother is the alum; she got her master's there in 1949 -- the football team has captured the national championship, so we did our part yesterday and attended the annual affair at the beautiful ranch of Phil and Carla Meaux, on the north side of town.

LSU defensive coordinator Bradley Dale Peveto -- his dad was a football coach at my high school when I was growing up -- spoke to the assembled hundred or so about the Bengal Tigers' 2008 prospects, but I can't tell you a word that he said. I'm sworn to secrecy. Really. It's like one those insider information things that Coach Fran got fired over, except I only paid twenty bucks for my crawfish and I don't wanna get Coach Peveto in trouble. In any way.

In attendance were a handful of my Lamar professors (though retired nearly twenty years Mom still has a few friends among active faculty), Pat Harrigan and Cindy Barnes. And also SH-19 Democratic challenger Larry Hunter, who has a fundraiser in Houston next week.

A good time had by all (and a good team to be fielded by the Tigers of Red Stick this fall. Trust me).

Sunday Funnies