That's what kids around the world are doing these days, thanks to the Handbook of Texas Online: "...a trailblazing resource about all things Texas." It's also, just plain fun to read. And more is coming. Watch the video, pard.
No Little Red Books or armbands are mentioned, but otherwise this proposed new Democrat public service shebang (which adopts some of Baby Barry's rhetoric, piggybacks on a bill sponsored by notable loudmouth pol Charlie Rangel of New York, and whose bandwagon will be driven by that paragon of journalistic wheeze TIME magazine), certainly sounds fascistic, even communist.
It would, apparently, start out voluntary, but turn into an involuntary, no exceptions national draft for everyone 18 to 42. The really disturbing part is that the "service" they talk about, as an alternative to traditional military service, is never explained. There are no specifics at all. Guess they'd be getting to that part later. Uh, huh.
Via Instapundit.
This thing fascinated me the first time I saw it at Creaky Pavillion, where it was art for a post on Warmism. No explanation there, but there was a link to the Flickr account where it originated. There it was identified as the Zugspitze weather station, atop the Zugspitze, the highest spot in Germany, at a little under ten thousand feet. Looks like a defensive outpost of some kind in the Lord of the Rings, or else a flour sifter turned on its side. Can't find an explanation for why it looks the way it does, but it certainly is cool. The peak in the distance has a Christian cross atop it, viewable in the image as posted at Flickr.
For those now considering how to get their Edwards campaign stickers off their cars--in lieu of being identified as one of the suckers who bought the bouffant one's holier-than-thou routine while cheating on his cancer-stricken wife--try old-fashioned peeling, starting at one corner. A liberal (so to speak) spraying of WD-40 on what's left, followed by a good wipe or two, should do the trick. As for Baby Barry's problem, with Edwards being on his VP short list, well...
There's a lot of teeth gnashing in the conservative blogosphere over BB's tap dancing around the question of whether he should have backed the surge, given its success in Iraq. I watched the cBS video here and, though I don't care much for his politics, I have to say his answer is no more than what any politician, who didn't wish to step down from his earlier judgement, would do. He didn't put down the troops, as some are suggesting. He acknowleged their success, he just questioned the surge strategy itself.
On the contrary, the shift in military strategy, from large unit fighting to establishing lasting community security was almost more important than the additional manpower. As Mac says it's definitely the way to win in Afghanistan, as well. It's just harder there because the people have fewer resources to fall back on, and the terrain is more difficult, with communities more isolated. And with advisers like Gen. McPeak, Barry might just go back to trying to win cheaply, with bombing.
UPDATE: This, however (scroll to the bottom of the post) is a lie, plain and simple. Why it's called a gaffe is beyond me. Politicians tell gaffes. Ordinary people tell lies. But to me, Baby Barry told a lie, to make himself look good. Instead, he looks very, very bad. See if you don't agree.
Here's the very best view of Hurricane Dolly to watch today, and local stations to check on for news and weather. The Brownsville Herald is updating quickly.
UPDATE: By 9:30 a.m., tornadoes were already popping up on radar west of Corpus Christi. By 1 p.m., Dolly had grown to a category 2 hurricane, its eyewall was moving ashore a bit north of Brownsville and it was pounding the coastline with hundred mph winds.
Overloaded with antique adjectives and enough typos to make an honest proofreader weep, this narrative Texas history (subtitle: The Melancholy Tale of a Hanging in Early Houston) by renowned historian Stephen L. Hardin is nevertheless an entertaining look at the mudhole and (yellow) fever swamp that was the Republic's first capital. Gary S. Zaboly's gritty drawings--especially his bird's eye view map (apparently unavailable on the Web) of the squalid little town on sluggish Buffalo Bayou--complement the period photographs of the major players. It's a view of early Texas that chauvanistic natives would rather outsiders didn't see (such as the shack two-room clapboard shanty that was President Sam Houston's first executive mansion) and a caution that even battlefield heroics can't guarantee a happy postwar life. Get a copy and be appalled, amused and advised.
I've exhausted the easy rhymes on Tropical Storm Dolly, which is finally nudging hurricane status at seventy-four mph but seems headed for northern Mexico instead of southern Texas. But the right quandrant of a storm is the hardiest and so the Rio Grande Valley will get the worst of whatever she has when coming ashore sometime tomorrow. In Cameron County they're getting up the plywood and preparing for flooding. Looks like Central Texas will get no rain at all, not even enough wind to worry about, unless one of the tornadoes these things often spawn should wander up our way. Which is doubtful.
UPDATE: The LCRA's Bob Rose thinks we'll get some rain, anyhow: "Rain amounts will be fairly low, generally around 0.5 inch to as high as about 1 inch. The remnants of Dolly are forecast to track west and dissipate over the mountains of northern Mexico Friday into Saturday. For our region, the chance for rain will decrease beginning Friday and weather conditions will return to hot and dry this weekend."
It's beginning to look more and more like Dolly will go in near the mouth of the Rio Grande, about where the hurricane center originally had it pegged. So agrees Eric Berger at the Chron. And maybe only barely a minimal, category one, hurricane, she's been so weak so far at just fifty mph. That would be good news for most on the Texas coast, but bring us less rain than we might otherwise get to cool off our long string of hundred degree days. Heck, I even have the landscapers coming tomorrow to trim one of the back forty's live oaks where its branches are dragging on the rancho's roof, to save the shingles, if there were high winds from the storm's remnants coming inland. Looks like I jumped the gun. But we'll know more about that tomorrow.
Via Rene's Apple.
Why do people have sex in public places? Because it's titillating and they can--unless they're in Dubai. That's why the practice is a staple of the porn sites. I admit to a tryst in a canoe under Washington D.C.'s Fourteenth Street Bridge at rush hour many years ago. I never was able to make my goal, however, of an airliner's lavatory at cruise altitude. I'm too old and slow and creaky for it now.
Via Instapundit.
The New Braunfels office of the weather service is forecasting potentially heavy rains south of the rancho from Dolly's inland track, starting Wednesday night into Thursday, although no one is sure what the track will be, specifically how far north of the mouth of the Rio Grande. All depends on the track and how big the storm is, certainly probably a hurricane when it goes ashore, but how fast will it fall apart after that? Accuweather's Joe Bastardi (subsrcibers only) is ranting (as usual) at the hurricane center for allegedly missing Dolly's actual location this morning, which could bring it ashore well north of Laguna Madre, in which case we could likely get a lot more rain.
UPDATE: The Seablogger, presumably still enjoying his northeastern cruise, nevertheless has taken time out to predict a possibly severe Dolly striking as far north as Galveston! Pajamas has a nice roundup of views.
I won't go into any of the crass names that Fort Worth has been called, even by Texans (maybe, especially by Texans). But I truly doubt the Stock Yard Museum's claim to an antique light bulb that's been burning since September, 1908. What, no power outages in a hundred years? Bosh. When it comes to municipal brag, I prefer such as lowly Hutto's claim that it is the Hippo Capital of Texas with, almost certainly, the largest concrete hippo in the world today--Henrietta, by name, weighing in at 14,000 pounds--not to mention diverse others.
The MSM, falling all over itself, as usual, to play pattycake with Baby Barry, is quoting one version of Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki's alleged translation of his alleged praise for BB's withdraw-from-Iraq-in-sixteen-months pitch.
But, wouldn't you know it, there are at least two other alleged translated versions, each with a different emphasis and different caveats. The original one has no caveats. I thought the CIA was the gang that couldn't shoot straight? I know it's heresy to say so (possibly even, gasp, racist) but I still don't believe BB is going to win the presidency. So save your breath Maliki, assuming you, uh, actually said anything at all.
But I got to admit I like it that the Europeans and other foreigners are falling all over themselves to swoon at BB's feet--and I'll bet that, secretly, Mac does, too. Because if there's one thing that will absolutely undercut an American politician who wants to be president, man, that is it.
So where's the first tropical storm in the Gulf this season likely to wind up? So far Jeff Masters' prediction above calls for a landfall as a minimal hurricane somewhere along the Texas-Mexico border, i.e. around Brownsville or Matamoros. For once, reduced as we often are to wishing for a hurricane to bring us some summer rain, we've got one that could do the job for us with a minimum of pain to others. But Accuweather's Joe Bastardi thinks Dolly could be at least a Cat 2 by the time she reaches the border. More rain for us in Central Texas, maybe, but possibly also more pain for others along the Rio Grande.
I'm not sure this tool is much better than using a box cutter (which is cheaper) or even a pair of stout scissors. But it's an option. I have noticed that the clam shell wrapping has become somewhat easier to open, on some packages at least, by getting your thumbnail between the seams and prying it apart. Presumably it's the manufacturers who are making it easier to do that.
Via Instapundit.
So shouldn't we be talking about America's first gay president? You know who I mean. Funny stuff here, especially in the comments.
It annoys me, sometimes, dragging the extension cord around behind the mower, and trying not to trip or run over it. It does look mighty Green, and should easily qualify for the EPA's proposed new Global Warming rules on every emission.
As long as the lawnmower inspector doesn't complain that the source of the electricity is the city's power plants which are run mainly by fossil fuels. In their case, a lot of natural gas, supplemented by a little nuclear and a little wind. I suppose I should worry what will happen to the landscaping guys I pay to do the front yard. They use plain old gas mowers trailing black smoke exhaust. The restrictions could make them significantly raise their charges, ultimately putting me out dragging the extension cord of the electric mower in the front yard as well.
Rand Simberg notes that it could also be Ich Bin Ein Dummkopf, for other reasons Baby Barry's three hundred foreign policy advisers overlooked. Heh.
"Susan Sarandon has vowed to leave the country if McCain gets elected."
That'll more than do for a start, but there's lots more.
Rasmussen Reports, a favorite among people looking for an objective pollster, finds a curious July polling resemblance between this year's Dem nominee and the one who lost back in 2004:
"Obama’s support looks a lot like John Kerry’s. The only big difference is that Obama is currently doing about five points better against McCain than Kerry did against George W. Bush. Four years ago, exit polls showed Bush defeating Kerry among white men by a 62% to 37% margin. Today, Obama is doing four points better than that and trails 58% to 37% among white men.
"The tale is the same among white women. Bush won that demographic by eleven percentage points, 55% to 44%. Obama is doing five points better and trails by only six, 48% to 42%. Among non-white females, Obama leads by fifty-four points, up three from Kerry’s margin of fifty-one points. However, Obama lags a bit among non-white males. This year’s presumptive nominee leads by twenty-nine points among that group, down from Kerry’s thirty-seven point margin."
Whatever Old Media would have you believe about BB vs Mac, this summer situation ought to give any supporter of The One concern. Indeed, some of them already are blaming, what else, racism.
Turns out the new WiFi signal at the rancho works perfectly for Mr. B. and his buddy Wyatt, who is here for a sleepover tonight. They can battle each other in Mario Brothers adventures with their Nintendo DSs in synch.
UH, NO: They informed me, with a minimum of disdain, that their units have built-in WiFis and proved it when we went up to the local burger joint by playing Pokemon in synch all the way.
While New Yorkers and the feds still argue about what to do with the hole in the ground in lower Manhattan, a memorial has finally been raised in Texas to the flight crews who were among the first to die on that terrible morning that still resonates in the mind's eye of most Americans. It's complicated, and a bit strange, the statue at Grapevine, just outside Dallas-Fort Worth International, but it holds your attention.
Could it be the oil sellers were more impressed by President Bush's elimination of the executive order banning new coastal drilling than they were on the Dems refusal to follow it up? The former was not widely reported but the oil business heard about it. Or could it be simply a reaction to Americans driving less and buying smaller cars? Something is pushing oil below $130 a barrel for the first time in months. If it keeps dropping, gas prices have to follow. I'd hoped to see what the Seablogger, who follows the market closer than I do, had to say, but he's busy blogging from his passage on a 160-foot tri-mast sailing yacht off the northeast coast.
UPDATE: The Seablogger thinks the oil price has peaked and the only question now is how far its price will fall.
In fact, a stellar nursery about 5,000 light years away towards the Milky Way's center.
