Any other bloggers that would like to use this graphic, feel free. Just be sure to download it rather than linking to or reffing it.

This just gets better and better:

"I want an end game," said Sen. John Whitmire...

"For us, 30 days was a sacrifice, but one we were willing to pay and we will stay another 30 days if need be," said Sen. Leticia Van de Putte, chairwoman of the Senate Democratic Caucus.

"There's something irrational about all of this," Whitmire told The Associated Press. "There's something irrational about us being a hotel for 30 days. And this group's talking about staying another 30 days. We get out here and start playing to our constituents and this group has a hard time figuring out how to wind it down because now they've built it up in our communities to the level that it looks like anything less than total victory" is unacceptable.

"Irrational?" Isn't that a little harsh Senator? A few cracks are beginning to form in the unity of our Eleven Profiles in Democratic Courage.

One of the topics discussed on Craig Anderson's morning show today (besides the homosexual conspiracy to persecute Craig, of course) was the notion that the baby boomer generation is so needy and self-indulgent that it is generally ruining an otherwise healthy American culture.

I happen to agree with this notion....although I do believe that this is painting with too broad a brush and that not everyone who is technically a "baby-boomer" is to blame for bringing low our cultural values.

So here is my suggestion to fix it all. We ask every baby boomer the simple question: "What happened in the Summer of '69?"

Those who answer "Woodstock!" we kill. Those who answer "We landed on the moon" we let go.

Problem solved.

"First of all, I'm funny. It's done for comedic purpose. And I don't lie."

--- Al Franken

The Nigerian e-mail scammers are beginning to get organized.

By the way....for you rubes out there it is now pronounced neejair.

On the quagmire of current liberal arguments against the War on Terrorism:

We have essentially imposed a revolution on Iraq – and liberals give us a month to work out the bugs. U.S. forces in Baghdad say that Iraq is well on its way to establishing American-style representative democracy and might even be holding its first free elections in less than a year. Within three years, the Iraqi people could be recalling their first governor.

Read the rest here.

And maybe the next step for Iraqis to celebrate their freedom will be to rename one of their cities "Midland."

Sorry, but I don't want to live in a world without The Bleat. Losing Michael Kelly in Iraq was bad enough. Now this.

OK. After years of study in the field I have determined that this is how it works:

Children of a certain age are electromagnetic entities. During the course of their day the unseen coil that wraps around their little bodies is carrying a current that causes a magnetic field which in turn causes almost anything and everything that they pass to cling to them. Left in this state these items will continue to cling to them indefinitely. This includes metals (both ferrous and non-ferrous), organic substances, plastics, and even fluids.

The current traveling through the invisible wire causing the child to possess these electromagnetic properties is only broken by the act of the child entering your automobile, at which point the magnetic field ceases and everything that the child has accumulated during the day immediately drops from their body and onto the seats and the floorboard of the car.

Any questions?

UPDATE: It is not yet known why the current is not re-established when the child exits the automobile.

If you liked the Texas Eleven logo in the photo below, you'll love wearing it on a T-shirt (that you can order here) showing your support for these fine state senators. The back of the shirt lists the names of these outstanding politicians and calls them "Eleven Profiles in Courage." If you want to send a note of appreciation to the senators, you can write them at Texas11@txdemocrats.org. Or you can send a fax to 505.828.0230 at the Marriott Albuquerque, a "working family" kind of hotel, I am sure. All of this wonderful information is brought to you courtesy of the state Democrat party website.

While the Texas Board of Education is engaged in a struggle to determine how much Evolution vs creationism to put in new biology textbooks for Texas children, we are here assured that it not a problem for MISD children, because neither is taught to any extent. Even though the TEKS exam requires a "working knowledge" of the theory of evolution, MISD Science and Health Director Janice Baulch says MISD gives the subject

"a cursory glance and (students) move on to another topic"

What do they consider more important to spend time on?

"MISD's curriculum focuses more on adaptation, or changing to meet environmental challenges".

I'll wager that the emphasis is on the evil biped and his effect on the rest of nature.

In the column to the left please note the addition of the link to KWEL's new internet forum. Go have a look and let Craig know what you think. You can begin with something like "Say, is it just me or did the guy you had on this morning not really answer any questions regarding the VA Hospital in Big Springs [sic]?"

Note to the Dems: You want your power back? Win some elections. You want your statewide offices back? Win some elections. You want your committee chairmanships back? Win some damned elections. Fantastic levels of gerrymandering both twelve and two years ago give you the majority of congressional seats that you now enjoy regardless of the pasting after pasting that you have received at the state's ballot boxes.

Don't speak to me of disenfranchised voters when your party has been way out of favor for a decade or more statewide and you still have a majority of congressional seats.

And Senator van de Putte: Put down that Payday.

The Invasion of Midland: Has anyone really done the math on this?

As of midweek, organizers were expecting 120,000 concertgoers throughout the weekend, including those from Louisiana, Missouri, California, South Dakota, Alabama and Kansas.

Included in that number are the 1,000 young people who have already signed up to camp out overnight. However, by the time the event gets underway, organizers are expecting another 1,000 campers, according to Mrs. Tull.

So we've got 2,000 campers in the park. Where's the other 118,000 folks gonna sleep? Or are they just going to stay up all weekend? Even if you count the same people coming and going over 3 days (giving 40,000 real attendees), I'm still not buying it. (I might believe 10,000 to 20,000 total folks...that is still an incredible number of people for Midland and Odessa to absorb over the weekend.) I think we've got our own version of the Million Man (or Mom) March going here...wishful thinking on attendence to pump up the hype and get free advertising but little basis in reality.

A little change of pace, from Argus Hamilton:

Arnold Schwarzenegger enlisted billionaire investor Warren Buffett last week to join his economic team. It backfired. The candidate's approval rating dropped forty points in the time it took for Californians to realize he wasn't Jimmy Buffett.

Colorado University was named the top party school Tuesday in a nationwide survey. It's highly controversial. Other party schools complain that Colorado has an unfair advantage because drinking at six thousand feet is like hitting from the ladies' tees.

And this, via Drudge, is a riot. Or it may cause one! Ground beef sales are going to go through the roof. Why? Just because, Milt. Just because.

This from Ralph Peters on the NY Post:

"On the contrary. We've taken the War Against Terror to our enemies. It's far better to draw the terrorists out of their holes in the Middle East, where we don't have to read them their rights, than to wait for them to show up in Manhattan again.

In Iraq, we can just kill the bastards. And we're doing it with gusto."

Wouldn't it be cool to find out that the CIA or something was running a covert op that was actually recruiting these Islamonazis to "come fight the infidels" in Iraq so we can kill them more easily?

An interesting article about Al Franken, who has...ahem...a new book out on liars.

"Franken, a satirist and former writer for 'Saturday Night Live,' admitted in a letter last month that he deliberately tried to mislead Ashcroft when he sought personal information from him.

"In the letter, I indicated that I wanted your story for a book about abstinence-only sex education entitled 'Savin' It!' I claimed that I had already received testimonies from several conservative leaders, which I had not," he wrote.[SNIP]

Franken wrote his request to Ashcroft on letterhead from Harvard University's Shorenstein Center for Press and Politics at the Kennedy School of Government, where he was a fellow during the spring term.

But the school never gave permission for the use of their letterhead, and apparently wasn't pleased with Franken's prank, which he acknowledged in the apology.

"My biggest regret is sending the letter on Shorenstein Center stationery, I can assure you that no one at the Shorenstein Center had knowledge of the letter before I sent it," Franken wrote. "I am very embarrassed to have put them in this awkward and difficult position, and I ask you not to hold this against the Center, the Kennedy School, or Harvard in general."

This kind of thing used to end careers. Now it gets your book rushed to stores.

I would suggest that you try the above. You can buy them online here.

Back to School Week assignment: Is Midland the "Nerdistan" of West Texas?

"Instead, these communities can best be described as "nerdistans" - new urban regions built on their attractiveness to the rising technological elite… More than anything, successful nerdistans seek to eliminate all the kinds of distractions -crime, traffic, commercial blight - that have commonly been endemic to cities and, later, midopolitan areas as well. Although nerdistans often lack the social diversity and cultural richness traditionally associated with more urban areas, these are features that many engineers and scientists seem more than willing to dispense with in order to escape social and other pathologies." ...via Instapundit.

Could it be? Would you want it to be? Follow the links. Read. Discuss. Fifty word comment due by noon tomorrow.

Don'tcha know that the environmentalist wackos are getting....uh.....a woody over this story. Gaia strikes back!

Interesting bit of information on Gray Davis contained in this article:

"The Chronicle did find at least one friend who found Davis to be smart, fashionable -- and "a good kisser."

Actress Cybill Shepherd said she and Davis met in Hawaii 36 years ago, when she was a 16-year-old tourist and he 24 and working in a travel agency. He was wearing a decidedly non-tropical blue blazer over a gray T-shirt. She was smitten.

Now close your eyes and imagine the William Jefferson Clinton action figure. Can it even be done without an additional, uh, action figure? It would necessarily have to come as a set, wouldn't it? Or not. I can see it now: "Intern Sold Separately".

The postscript from an article by Victor Davis Hanson:

"These are still perilous times. But if anyone on September 12, 2001, had predicted that 22 months later there would still be no repeat of 9/11; that bin Laden would be either quiet, dead, or in hiding; that al Qaeda would be dispersed, the Taliban gone, and the likes of a Mr. Karzai in Kabul; that Saddam Hussein would be out of power, his sons dead, and an Iraqi national council emerging in his place; that troops would be leaving Saudi Arabia, Arafat ostracized, and Sharon seeking negotiations; that new Middle East agreements under discussion — and all at a cost of fewer than 300 American lives — then he would surely have been written off as a madman.

All that and more were no mere accidents. They were the direct result of the work of thousands of brave and astute Americans who were as likely to be slurred during their risky ordeal as they were to be third-guessed in its successful aftermath — and predictably by the same opportunistic bystanders.

So far we have lost fewer lives in Afghanistan and Iraq than we did in a single day's butchery in the Marine barracks in Lebanon. But unlike that terrible sacrifice, this time Americans are fighting back, winning, and changing for the better the lives of millions in the most remarkable, ambitious, and risky endeavor since the end of World War II.

We need to remember all of that, and get a grip on ourselves amid the latest outbreak of what we can now diagnose as a chronic and embarrassing hysteria Americana.?

This is no way to go. Also it said that "Hundreds of people witnessed the accident, Smith said, and grief counselors were on hand."

Ah, the ever-present grief counselors.

The cause of the massive power outage in the Northeast is discovered. Hillary Clinton is wrong....it wasn't Bushes fault after all.

For Craig Anderson's pleasure I will re-print this ScrappleFace article in it's entirety:

"ESPN to Show 'Straight Eye for the Homo Guy'
(2003-08-15) -- The Entertainment and Sports Programming Network (ESPN) announced today that its fall lineup will include 'Straight Eye for the Homo Guy', a new show based on a similarly-named program on another network.

On each episode a team of five heterosexual males will do a "makeover" on one homosexual man.

Preview screenings of the pilot showed the five guys uncomfortably shuffling around the menswear section at Wal-Mart picking out trousers for a guy named Maurice, who they refused to take with them.

The men get frustrated after about 30 seconds and ask a blue-vested store associate if she could just find them something in the proper size. Things get tense when they're asked which one of them will wear the pants, and they struggle to admit they're buying the slacks for another guy.

"He's a relative," one man says quickly. "Uh...yeah...my brother...our brother...we're all brothers, and we're buying the pants for our other brother and he's in a coma...but he'll be out soon, and he'll need pants. And that's what we're doing."

Destined to be a ratings hit, 'Straight Eye' also includes "coaching sessions" where the hetero-males tell the homosexual helpful things like "clothing is strictly for warmth and to cover your body, not to draw attention to yourself. Buy clothes which blend with your surroundings....like camouflage gear."

In another scene, the team takes their subject to a Barber Shop to "get a real haircut." While he waits, they force him to read an issue of "Guns & Ammo."

From this MR-T article on the recent heatwave:

"'It's much above normal,' Young said, adding the hottest August recording is 116 set June 27, 1994. "

If you ever needed insight into the mind of the MCDC board, the executive director gives it here; he is speaking of the greater economic development on the north side of town versus the south.

"The Council, many times, lets private development do the development and, on the Loop that's exactly what has happened," noted Diaz.

"It's private dollars that are driving that development. On the South Side, that's not going to happen".

I guess we should be thankful the council "lets" private development work "many times". With all the run down and abandoned buildings on the south side, private investors don't see the diamond in the rough that is clear to Diaz and Swallow, hence the need for your tax dollars to bring their vision to reality.

Read the full story.

Hidden in a back page in the MRT Sunday was a bit about Arianna Huffington showing up at the filing in CA at the same time as Ahnuld (trying to get some camera time she wouldn/t ordinarily have gotten???) and stating to the press that she was the "greener" of the two since she had driven a mixed-fuel car and Arnold had traveled in an SUV. This from a woman whose main source of income was derived from divorcing the son of a rich oil man.

James Taranto on bloggers, politics and politicians blogging.

But do politicians have what it takes to succeed in the cutthroat world of blogging? Not likely. The best political bloggers--Mickey Kaus (Kausfiles.com), Glenn Reynolds (InstaPundit.com) and Andrew Sullivan (AndrewSullivan.com)--all have a contrarian outlook and irreverent humor...

Blogging, in short, thrives on sarcasm. Politics doesn't. So it's hardly surprising that Dr. Dean's blog is earnest to the point of sanctimony, all we-can-make-a-difference and let's-build-a-better-America. Last week it featured one Erica Derr of Greensboro, N.C., who was so appalled to get a tax rebate that she donated it to the Dean campaign. "I could have spent this money on material things," she wrote. "What would those things mean 15 or 20 years from now when my daughter is paying for the debt we accrued?"

Stop, mom, this is embarrassing!

Or, "Geez, Mom! I'd wish you'd get a life!" The other eight of the nine dwarfs will fare little better in the blog world.

More anecdotal data that will be used in support of "global warming," in spite of its obvious contradiction of the theory.

I can hear the hawk now "Who knew?".

Inbound Google Search Term of the Week:

"pictures of texas hallucinogenic mushrooms"

Meet the good Sgt. Naviguesser, USMC, over at the Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler. An excerpt:

"The Armed Forces been tasked with a tall order, keeping this country from flying apart at the seams; we receive extremely short shrift for doing so. The press plasters its front pages with stories of tanking morale; discontent in the ranks; an untenable peace; a Vietcong-esque Guerrilla war in the making. Journalists circle about like buzzards, waiting gleefully in the wings to sign our toe tags, live and in color. They don’t know us, nor do they understand the situation, well enough to see the reality that lies beyond their lower colons. They have failed miserably to grasp that their irresponsible coverage is only encouraging further attacks, or to put it bluntly, (as I prefer):

THEY ARE PROVIDING AID AND COMFORT TO OUR ENEMIES."

Argus Hamilton:

"President Bush left Saturday for four weeks on his Texas ranch. He plans to clear brush and chop trees and jog six miles a day in one hundred degree heat. The general idea is to convince North Korea that he is crazy enough to do anything."

"Texas Senate Democrats remained in New Mexico last weekend, once again denying Republicans a quorum just as they did when they fled to Oklahoma in May. They had to flee north and west. Louisiana's put too many governors in jail for Democrats to take a chance there."

We can relate.

This story, that has gotten some national attention, is enough to bring a tear to your eye. Amazing factoid: 1 million gallons = 5 million fifths = 12 days of production.

OK, Wallace.....it has been three days. Spill the beans.

Credit Where Credit Is Due Department: Go over to MyWestTexas.com and check out the reader submitted photos from around the West Texas area. This is a great idea and they have gathered a pretty good collection of photographs.

Twenty times? Did he think the title was actually "Hi, Nooner!"?

Uh, oh.

James Lileks had better get his site up soon or I will have to go back to doing some actual work.

While slaughtering horses for food is not the most pleasant of thoughts, how is it that this is any worse than slaughtering every other meat source that shows up on our dinner tables? The designation of horses as "companion animals" seems to be the difference.

Cattle, long rounded up by man with the help of these companion animals, must be laughing now that the shoe is on the other hoof.

What is it with Ed Todd and water? Here is Mr. Todd on the subject of water on June 27, 2002. And again here on August 2, 2003.

We still await his column on air.

More discussion and fall-out on the Chevy pickup/boat Cubans that was highlighted here last Thursday, the 24th (see below). Read this from the Wall Street Journal and this from the Florida press. I don't think we've heard the end the story yet...they should never have been sent back to Cuba.

Another one bites the dust! Who won the pot at The Bar by picking "Anadarko" and "July?" Who's left? Marathon, Oxy, ChevTex, BR?

There's no link (yet) to the MR-T's article this morning to extract the usual blather from the C of C, et al. So this is from memory. "No real impact to the economy." "We'll miss those families that will leave Midland." "This will be a real boon for the local independents."

The Woodlands is (are?) just lovely this time of year...