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?

Houston refugees leaving Austin

Heading back to Houston...no menagerie. PETA sucks. Several "accidents" from geriatric "dogs."

Leonidas at Thermopolae

Thanks, Mike.

Texas should deny/refuse federal financial assistance....

I know Perry can't do it politically, but how great would it be for the most capitalistic state to do it on its own.

Houston evacuation routes jammed

We'll be hearing complaints when this is over about the delay in reversing the inbound lanes of the evauation routes. Thirty minute drives are taking hours. Gasoline is almost impossible to find and some folks are running out of gas just sitting in traffic.

We're planning to take back roads south and west and work over to Austin. Three cars, four adults, one toddler, four dogs, and a cat.

Civil War terminology

Recently the left was all up in arms because Roberts had replaced the term "Civil War" with "War Between the States," clearly indicating his disdain for Civil Rights and a desire to turn the clock back 150 years. The first thing that popped into my mind was that if he truly had such feelings, he’d have replaced it with "The War of Northern Aggression." It is one of those terms that always makes me laugh when I think about how my fellow southerners try to rewrite history.

Paul Greenberg reminded me today of a somewhat more delicate way southerners have of referring to the conflict, "the Late Unpleasantness."

Is it time to turn my back on W?

I know that in a time of war and a time of one very recent and one pending national, natural disaster, this is probably the most inopportune time to discuss this but I am not the only one concerned about federal spending. Someone once apologized to drunken sailors for the comparison of their spending habits to those of the federal government.

Count me among Noonan’s dinosaurs; we’ve got to help pay for these things by revisiting the Transportation Bill and/or MORE TAX CUTS, if we can possibly get them thru. At least b---h about the spending as you sign the bills, Mr. President. Wring your hands. Complain.

Not turning my back yet; the war is too important. The tax cuts (now any discussion should be phrased as increases) are too important.

The Katrina relief efforts are too important (if they are done properly...a test to see if you really are a compassionate conservative, Mr. President...I have no doubt about the former, it is the latter that concerns me). We've screamed bloody murder for thirty, maybe fifty, years that handouts are not the way. Now is our chance to do it right. Get these folks on their feet and turn 'em loose.

Continued prayers for those along the Texas coast.

Rita bears down on Texas, blogger sees opportunity

As Rita - now the third strongest hurricane on record - marches toward Texas, this Houston blogger, who lives in Evacution Zone B, must decide whether to leave by 2 am as mandated by the Plan (yes we have one and it is being implemented) or stick around for the lootin'.

Did Reid really say/mean that?

From that conservative bastion, The Washington Post, Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) said, "The president is not entitled to very much deference in staffing the third branch of government, the judiciary."

That is a quote, the article rightly points out, that may come back to bite him.

Katrina v. Rita

Check out the coverage at the Houston Chronicle, particularly the "recommended routes" and other evacuation coverage. The entire Texas Gulf Coast seems prepared to go. Did NO have similar plans and coverage? Of course I realize that Texas has the benefit of having recently witnessed Katrina, but they couldn't have thrown all this together in three short weeks while simultaneously helping out those from LA.

Being a Texan I also know that many more will evacuate today than would have pre-Katrina...hindsight being 20/20 and all.

Hurricane tracking is notoriously difficult and Rita might not even come close...still I'm impressed. My prayers are with those along the coast.

Ted Turner: master logician

Thanks to Radioblogger for the transcript from Blitzer:

TT: Have you ever been to North Korea?
WB: No. I've never been to North Korea.
TT: Well, you know, at least go up there and look in their eyes and have a chat with them, before you accuse them of...
WB: I've made several requests, but they haven't let me into North Korea.
TT: Then go on your vacation.
WB: Maybe if I go with you the next time.
TT: All right. I took Christianne Ammanpour with me this time.

Madeleine Albright had that chat (and dance as I recall) and look how well that turned out.

Clearly, I'm to examine the timber in my own eye before judging the mote in another's but I don't think that has much to do with logical discourse.

Chrisopher Hitchens v. George Galloway, no contest

"I did not have the lepidopteral presence of mind to point out, at that moment, that butterflies pupate from sturdy and furry caterpillars."

I wish he had. Hitchens' review of himself worth reading. Love this guy.

Jebby Bush, latest victim of Katrina racism

John "Jebby" Bush, son of Governor Jeb Bush, was arrested Friday in Austin for public intoxication.

Jebby had been living in a Red Cross shelter since he evacuated Florida when Katrina hit. Henry Silva, head of LULAC, decried the arrest. "This is just the latest example of the Bush administration's blatant racism in dealing with this tragedy."

Noting that Jebby's mother is a native of Mexico, Silva denounced the president. "George Bush doesn't care about his half-Mexican nephews and nieces."

Bart Whitaker, fugitive and scumbag

In December 2003, Bart's mother and brother were killed by a masked gunman in their home. Bart and his father were wounded.

I did a little googling on Bart and found this: Several days after the attack, he left this post at a gaming site where his brother was apparently well known, letting the gamers know that he (Bart) had pulled through, that he was "still pretty shocked by the whole thing," and that his brother was a "damn fine player, and a damn fine man."

Turns out Bart orchestrated the attack and that his brother was the original target.

The triggerman and getaway driver were arrested this week. Bart skipped town in July 2004 and hasn't been heard from since.

Update 9/26/05: Bart has been captured in Mexico.

Russ Smith is right: W could learn from Clinton

From this week's New York Press:

"Bill Clinton—who largely ignored the '93 World Trade Center terrorist strike, and was MIA during a '95 heat wave that killed almost 1000 people in the Chicago region—would've given a televised address to the nation within 24 hours of the storm's impact, probably from New Orleans, and he'd have worked the crowd there on the ground instead of viewing the floods from a helicopter. And while the media wasn't entirely in the tank for Clinton, he would've been hailed as an empathetic, hands-on president."

And I don't mean biting his lip or wiping a tear away...just being there.