Texas vaults USC in BCS Standings!

According to ESPN.

Should last exactly one week. Trick is staying in the top two spots.

SSJ takes first step thanks to Radioblogger

Thanks to the Generalissimo for providing the link. We'll try to live up to the expectations...

Victor Hanson's Carnage and Culture

Just received my copy in the mail today and couldn't be more excited to get started. It is subtitled, "Landmark Battles in the Rise of Western Power." While wasting a little time at the office reading the book flaps, I noticed this paragraph:

"These [consensual government, free inquiry, innovative enterprise, rationalism, freedom and individualism] Hanson argues, are the cultural values that have enabled Western armies, often vastly outnumbered and far from home, to slaughter their opponents and impose their social, economic, and political ideals on other civilizations."

I happened to buy a first edition, something I don't normally do unless I've already read the book, because of my appreciation of his columns...hmmmm, that makes no sense...I guess now I need to go buy a copy of one or more of his books retail. Anyway, it's a first edition:

Release Date: September 2001

Just reading the book flap in light of the election last Saturday gave me chills. Pick up a copy of the paperback for yourself here at Amazon.

Austin Bay on Stros (and 1986)

Just in case you missed his comments on the 1986 game.

Bork hearings....

You know, I think I was a young 26 year old lawyer during the Robert Bork hearings. I was fortunate to be traveling a lot in and around Houston at the time and was able to listen to the Pacifica affiliate carrying the hearings in my car. I thought I was really smart then but wish that I had the experience I have now, almost 20 years later.

I would love to listen to those today.

Stros

I was at the big game against the Mets, 1986. The Hatcher homerun put it away, except it didn't.
We wrapped out ties around our heads to no avail.

Pitching wins in playoffs, right?

Miers and my Spaghetti Spine

I never realized just how little I can think on my own. Someone, please, help me decide. Tell me what to think. Krauthammer says nay and Sowell says yea.

Chuck: To nominate someone whose adult life reveals no record of even participation in debates about constitutional interpretation is an insult to the institution and to that vision of the institution.

Tom: But ideal was probably never in the cards, given the weak sisters among the Republicans' Senate "majority."

Why is Bidge...

signing with his left hand? (left-hand column, half way down, "Photo galleries: Game 2," photo #3)

SSJ ignored...

by the NYT. Beldar too. Althouse and Volokh made it.

Harriet Miers as a "trial lawyer"

Robert Novak writes today that Harry Reid "praised [Miers] . . . a lot for being a 'trial lawyer' - no encomium in the GOP."

Without looking up the meaning of "encomium," I'm sure the point that Novak is making is that "trial lawyers" are hailed byDemocrats and despised by Republicans.

Reid and Novak are perpetuating a common misuse of the term "trial lawyer" and a misapprehension about what they do. Beldar addressed this topic early on and perhaps can do so again.

Courtland Milloy on Bennett

Courtland Milloy (who apparently writes a metro column for the Washington Post) makes an interesting observation today. He cites these stats: black women accounted for 32 percent of the abortions performed in the US in 2002, while making up only 13 percent of the female population; and half of all pregnancies in DC ended in abortion, a higher percentage than in any state. Then he says this:

"No outcry over that because those were just disposable fetuses, right?

"That is, until Bennett spoke of aborting 'black babies,' and suddenly those fetuses become precious pre-born black people who must be saved from the evil Dr. Bill."


As an aside, what has been lost in this kerfuffle is the fact that Bennett is adamantly pro-life, against all abortion no matter the color of the baby.

H5N1

And here I thought Hewitt was being something of a Chicken Little for all the squawking he was doing about avian flu. Turns out he might be right. The 1918 pandemic, one of history's worst, was a bird flu.

If Miers is second or third string...

then I'm the very definition of chopped liver. Wish I could take credit for that but one of the Directors of my law firm (a lib) said it this morning as we made coffee.

Also really take offense at the mud slung at SMU...and I'm a UT guy who had to live through the humiliation of the era of Eric Dickerson and Craig James (even if they were cheaters).

Many thanks to Beldar's Blog for applying a salve to my sore feelings...

Beldar sets the record straight on a lot of the aspersions cast on the latest nominee. Sheesh, I thought I had thicker skin.

Dem Contract with America [UPDATE]

Kondracke reports that Democrats are planning a version of Newt's Contract with America. I can't imagine that being a good idea. Kerry always referred folks to his website for details of his agenda, knowing full well that most Americans would yawn and never look. There was a reason he did that: the agenda won't sell.

I think Mr. Kondracke has it dead wrong.

If they really reduce their agenda to a dozen or so honest items that can be easily digested, they'll be shocked to learn just how far to the right the country (at least the red states) has moved since their heyday. Perhaps the MSM will be able to "interpret" the contract for us so that the agenda will seem more palatable but the blogosphere will not let them.

This could spell doom for those dems who've been elected to serve from the south and the west.

Update for anonymous:

While I do not know of any certain percentage of sessions the Speaker is required to attend, I suspect there are no such requirements since those rules are usually drafted by the party in power. Wish I could be more helpful. You might try looking here. Or here.

Moving to much more important subjects, blogging, Adams and the Astrodome:

Is posting on the internet half the fun? Sure it is. Guilty. Will anyone ever take seriously anything a dirt lawyer in Texas has to say? Doubtful, but there is the remote chance that someday I might have an original thought.

As for the Eighth Wonder of the World, anybody in the Houston area born before, say, five years before the move to Minute Maid Park would certainly have plenty to say about the 'dome. I didn’t even make it to my first game there until I was twenty-five…still, I was almost dumbstruck. If you’ve ever been to a little league game in Texas in August, you’d know how necessary the 'dome was. A great piece of engineering, then and today.

Most importantly: you clearly lack the sophistication necessary to appreciate the thespian skills of the late Mr. Adams. You probably think the French are wrong about Mr. Lewis.

Missed it by that much...

Can't believe Don Adams is gone.

Was one of my first TV icons...along with Shatner.

Loquacious?

My secretary in our weekly meeting today said I am (accused me of being) loquacious. I don't like that.

A new hookah in Austin...

The Economist reports:

"Hookahs used to be associated with marijuana, opium dens and progressive rock (or that's what we vaguely remember).

Bart Whitaker found in Mexico

If the police tell you that your son is plotting to kill the family, you probably ought to keep an eye on him. Bart Whitaker was captured Thursday in Mexico. He had been on the lam after his mother and brother were killed, and he and his father wounded, by a masked gunman at their home in Sugar Land in December 2003. I described the story here and the creepy post Bart left on a gaming site lamenting the death of his brother.

Bart and some Baylor buddies had plotted twice before to kill the family. Police got wind of the second attempt and reported it to the family, who apparently dismissed it as not credible.

Where is Leonidas?

Did you make it home?