Kuff responds to Bush’s Australia speech. Right on.
There’s new Baby Chaos as well.
Finally, we’re preparing for Halloween. The Boy’s gone from wanting to be a pirate to Stitch to Spider-Man to finally, Jango Fett. We got the costume this past Saturday. The La is supposed to be Maid Marion to Mateo’s Robin Hood with Jesse and Griffin as his Merry Men. I haven’t seen her costume yet.
Tim Thompson, whom I used to work with at IntelliQuest and Ruhul dubbed “Buddha” for his quiet nature and even-temper, has created a photo essay on redistricting. If anyone needed clarification on how the Republicans have chopped up Austin in an effort to gain more seats at the expense of Texas voters, this makes it crystal clear. An extra special thanks and hugs for Gov. Perry, David Dewhurst, Tom DeLay and the GOP.
Emmy-award winning The Daily Show (a.k.a. The Greatest Show on Television) last night joked that the movie Predator is apparently an abundant source of governors as both Ah-nuld and Jesse "The Body" were in the film and speculated that we may someday see a Governor Carl Weathers or a Senator Predator. I’d like to point out that they were both in Running Man and the unbearably awful Batman and Robin as well, which gives us such candidate possibilities as Maria Conchita Alonso, Yaphet Kotto, Jim Brown, Mick Fleetwood, Dweezil Zappa, Richard Dawson, George Clooney, Chris O’Donnell, Uma Thurman, Alicia Silverstone, Elle Macpherson, Vivica A. Fox, and Vendela Kirsebom.
Speaking of Daily Show, I found this piece by Walter Cronkite on John Ashcroft via Daily Show fan, Lisa Rein’s site.
So, Ah-nuld is governor-elect of Kalifornia and the Red Sox and the Cubs are still in the running for the World Series. Has anyone checked the temperature in Hell lately?
On a much more personally annoying note, it appears that the presidential primaries in Texas could get bumped a week due to the redistricting fiasco. This means that it is likely that once again, the democratic nominee who will run against the Shrub will be chosen before I get a chance to have my say. The republicans will, of course, blame the delays on the democrats running to Oklahoma and New Mexico, but since they still can’t decide on their own map and they had all of that time to agree on one, I don’t think they have much of a leg to stand on. F*ing politicans.
Burnt Orange Report has an amusing summary of last night’s California governor candidate debate. I don’t doubt it’s accuracy. I don’t know if it was possible to see it here, but I wish I had watched some of it last night instead of spending my time breaking the site. I really need to get a local copy running at home so I can make changes and test them before uploading them. What a novel idea…
I heard mention of this on NPR and just read more on CNN this morning. Funny how no one in the administration felt the need to explicitly point this out until six months after invading Iraq. They still can’t seem to get the story straight among themselves as Cheney still seems to be sticking to the earlier story. He must’ve been at an "undisclosed location" when they had the meeting about changing their tune. There’s also this report today about comments from Hans Blix who likens the U.S. and U.K.’s case against Iraq to a witch hunt. Nice.
It’s Paul Krugman mania around here. I can’t get enough of this guy. This past weeks NY Times magazine has a great article (registration required, blah blah) on what my man Paul calls "the Tax Cut Con". I also stumbled on his official web site, previously found here.
Paul Krugman is an economist at Princeton. He also writes an op-ed column for the NY Times (free registration required). He’s been commenting on the Bush administration and it’s f’ed up policies. He’s recently released a book collecting many of the articles he’s written. You should read him.
I found this via BoingBoing.
There’s an op-ed in the Houston Chronicle about the new law mandating the Texas pledge and moment of silence in all schools. It’s by a government teacher and third year law student named Jaye Ramsey Sutter (found on Off the Kuff).
I have to say that I agree with her. I’ve been thinking about this since school started. Henry’s school does the pledges and moment of silence during assembly in the morning, which the parents are welcome to attend. I usually stick around simply to spend a little time with Henry before I go to work. Mary and I have discussed this and it bothers me a little more each time I’m subjected to it. The Texas pledge is a hollow, watered down version of the U.S. pledge. It seems pointless to me, the product of a politician with too much time on his hands looking for something that would score him some feel good points with his constituents. I’m sure the other legislators followed suit so as not to rock the boat or upset any of their own consitituents.
I’d like to tell Henry that he doesn’t have to follow any of it if he doesn’t want to, but there are other factors involved. As Ms. Sutter points out, it could open him to ridicule from his classmates and go on his “permanent record” (which is probably a good thing). I’d like to tell him, but he wouldn’t care or understand. He’s 4. All he cares about is what’s on Teen Titans after school and whether or not there’s a movie out in the theaters that we’ll allow him to see. I think I’ll save the civil disobedience lesson for later.