Miers withdraws...

Bush reaffirms his respect.

Congratulations, Chicago!

The series was better than 4-0, but the White Sox did a great job.

Conagratulations, too, to the Astros...great year.

Astros

Never been done. Brandon, you gotta get it started.

Miers and the Republican Conflagration

I know it wasn't to be applied to political parties, but I think it is related to Reagan's Eleventh Commandment.

In essentials, Unity; in non-essentials, Liberty; in all things, Love.

Seems like we can honestly debate whether the nomination is Essential, but certainly the Love seems to be missing.

City Journal's Nicole Gelinas on Big Easy Corruption and Violence

Of course we all knew of the reputation of New Orleans long before Katrina hit, but who knew it was this bad. Wonderfully researched article on the well-known corruption and shockingly unknown (at least to this reader) murder rates.

Marketing to Pedophiles?

Traveling east of MoPac on 5th Street, it is impossible to miss the marquis that serves as mouthpiece for the owner of El Arroyo Mexican Restaurant. Over the years, I have been amused rarely and disappointed often by the personal politics and tasteless insults “hawked” from the street on a sign, but recently I was shocked to the point of contacting the restaurant immediately.

“Show us where on the doll El Arroyo touched you” was the message Clay McPhail felt would benefit his business that day, but it remains a mystery to me to whom he was marketing with the line used to interview children in cases against child molesters.

It was painful to imagine a young child with a history of speaking out against a molester seeing the marquis and wondering why their experience was being shared with all the world to see. Who would be motivated by the sign to stop in for a margarita or a meal? A call to the manager resulted in my being told the owner had a right to post any message he chose and a call to the owner was never returned.

However, the following day the marquis read “The devil called and said we were being mean.” For some people, any kind of publicity will do. Perhaps McPhail feels indebted to me now, for having again brought his message to the public eye. My appetite for Mexican food will take me anywhere but in “the ditch” with him.

Belinda Howell
Austin, Texas

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.