I can see where this blog could go.

One of the first blogs I ever read was a Houston-based blog called -- what else?-- blogHOUSTON. Blogger Laurence Simon called the site "an excellent rolling rebuttal to the Houston Chronicle's horrid op-ed pages and news coverage." I could almost see this site going that way as I keep buying the dead-tree edition of the San Antonio Express-News. Why is that, you say? (In addition to my ongoing critiques of Scott Stroud, Jan Jarboe Russell, et al.) Well, with all that that went on in San Antonio and South Texas yesterday -- the flooding in Comal County, Mir Imran's establishment of three new companies bringing a good bit of high-paying jobs to San Antonio, Rick Perry's urging Bill White to drop out of the governor's race because of a potential conflict of interest -- what does the Express-News copy desk decide to make the day's top story? Across the strip. at the very top of the page? This:

Huskers set to shuck the Big 12

I could understand that if this were the Lincoln Journal Star or the Omaha World-Herald, but San Antonio? The only connection to the Big 12 that San Antonio has is the fact that the football championship game has been played here now and then -- three times since the conference's inception, most recently in 2007. Yet it was the biggest news of the day in the city's major daily paper. Good grief. I don't know if the Express News' circulation numbers have declined as precipitously as many papers' numbers have, but if that's the best layout they can do on such a big news day, it wouldn't surprise me.

All they did was put a gang of terrorists in charge!

Believe it or not, that is one of the main thrusts of this letter:

(Charles) Krauthammer never mentioned the suffering of the inhabitants of the even smaller Gaza Strip (population, 1.5 million; area, 254 square miles) when their only crime is that they elected a government of Hamas.

Yep. All they did was elect a gang of terrorists whose stated goal is the destruction of Israel and driving the Jews into the sea. Why on earth would the Israelis want to marginalize such people?
/sarcasm

Speaking of job creation...

...they're also making it harder on the federal level now. These entrepreneurs not only follow the proper channels to come to this country, but they also work to create jobs when they get here -- and now the damn feds want to make it that much harder for them to do that? One would almost think the government was on the side of the people who willingly break the law.

And the anti-gambling insanity continues...

...only now, people's jobs are apparently in danger, because casino gambling is baaaad, hmmkay?

A plan to rescue the struggling Texas horse racing industry could end up killing live racing at Retama Park.
...
Under the plan, Retama and Sam Houston Race Park would give up live thoroughbred racing for one year in 2011 by transferring their dates and purse funds to the state's largest Class I track, Lone Star Park, in order to establish a single, 65-day schedule next year at the Grand Prairie facility.
Texas racing officials say the plan would increase daily purses to about $280,000 at Lone Star, boosting efforts to make it more competitive with tracks in Louisiana, New Mexico and Oklahoma that offer gaming options — such as slot machines — not available under Texas law.

This is something to keep in mind when Rick Perry and the Republicans in the Texas Legislature talk about Texas being a great place for job creation. Apparently not all legal industries are welcome here. I don't think allowing casino gambling is going to be any kind of panacea to what ails the Texas job market, but the last thing we need to be doing is creating an environment in which we lose jobs to bordering states because a vocal minority of Texans doesn't want it. I know there are more factors at play here, including the influence from those border states who want those Texas dollars to keep coming to them instead of staying here, but the opposition of Rick Perry and the Republicans in the Texas Legislature doesn't help matters.

So now we know...

why Helen Thomas was anti-gun: She apparently thought neo-Nazi skinheads should be able to bash Jews' heads in with boots, bats, pipes, etc. without the threat of meaningful reprisal. Like Jonah Goldberg said, "Spare me Lanny Davis's wounded outrage. Everyone knows she is a nasty piece of work and has been a nasty piece of work for decades."

Details, details...

...or, Same great blog, just a new location!

Back when Sabra and I met, we both agreed that for varying reasons if things worked out between us, I would be the one to make the move to San Antonio. That wasn't a big issue for me; between 1998 and 2001 I moved three times, from Texarkana to Bryan-College Station, from B-CS to the North Texas town of Sulphur Springs, and finally from there to the Beaumont-Port Arthur area. So I really wasn't any stranger to relocating, as you see; when I did it, I did it big. And I loved San Antonio from the first time I visited the city; from the first time I came to see Sabra, it felt like coming home. And I knew I wanted to come back as soon as I could, so I did just that. We're still in a bit of a transition here, but I'll be blogging as often as I can. I don't think it'll be slowing much if at all, but at any rate, here I am in San Antonio, and here I will stay. ;-)

UPDATE: Albatross in comments suggested a name change. I had thought about doing that, yes. So I went ahead and did it. URL will stay the same for now, but the new title is at the top now. I trust "Alamo City" is an acceptable nick for my new city, eh?

I am not understanding something...

...here:

A Pennsylvania man has been charged with raping a 13-year-old neighbor who got pregnant and burying the body after the girl performed a home abortion.
...

Lisk was arraigned Monday on charges of rape of a child, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, concealing the death of a child and abuse of a corpse. He is being held in lieu of $50,000 bail.

Concealing the death of a child? Abuse of a corpse? I thought it wasn't a person until it was born...

Lucky me...

We had to take my middle stepdaughter to the doctor today, for a spider bite. Sabra told her best friend about us being called back to the exam room over an hour BEFORE the actual appointment (though I should note we spent another 45 minutes in said room for what amounted to about a two-minute exam):

"At least it got us away from Oprah."

Which, indeed, it did...but lucky me, I was in my own little world with Iron Maiden courtesy of my iPod, so I really had nothing from which to be rescued as far as that went. ;-)

(Speaking of which, Albatross, you were right about Powerslave. I also liked "Flash of the Blade" and "The Duellists," and "Losfer Words (Big 'Orra)" is one of the finest instrumentals I've ever had the privilege of hearing. I can see this album will be played quite frequently...)

Why can't Americans do those jobs?

...or, Jan Jarboe Russell tries to make a coherent argument for what I suppose is some sort of amnesty but FAILS miserably:

San Antonians understand the economic consequences of unfair immigration laws. They are: Without workers, crops rot in fields; young undocumented students with graduate degrees from U.S. universities face deportation; and many manufacturing plants sit idle. One statistic tells the story: The U.S. economy needs about 600,000 low-skill workers a year. About 5,000 visas are issued a year.

Crops rot and manufacturing plants sit idle? I would think those crops rot because the people who grow them get those government subsidies too late. And yes, THAT was partially tongue-in-cheek. But those manufacturing plants are by and large sitting idle now because of the bad economy. Either way, I don't understand why Jan Jarboe Russell posits that the only way those jobs can be done is by illegal immigrants. I understand there are a lot of factors at play here, but there isn't any reason those jobs can't be done by Americans who are here now, especially with the economy the way it is now. I know how the old saying goes, that immigrants "do the jobs Americans won't do," but we need to get away from that. And the sooner the better.

No shortage of hateful, judgmental people in the world, is there?

(FOUL LANGUAGE ALERT. I don't normally talk like this, but I don't take kindly to people talking shit about my wife.)

Click. Read through the thread. Ponder the judgments of those who have never met my wife in real life. I don't remember who first said this, but I first encountered it via Kurt Hofmann at Armed and Safe, and it applies here quite well:
"I believe that being despised by the despicable is as good as being admired by the admirable."

And then, there was this line from Guns 'n' Roses' "Shotgun Blues," which reading that thread also evoked:
"You think anyone with an IQ of over 15, is gonna believe your shit, fuckhead?"

Nothin' but a bunch of fuckin' Mean Girl harpy cunts who never escaped that middle school mentality. It's a sad thing to see, too.

I should note that they're slinging yet more word vomit about me now. Big words I don't understand? Ohhh, if that half-witted snot only knew what I once did for a living and the recognition I got for it. People and their propensity to mouth off about shit they don't know anything about.... And there are more things I could say about said word vomit -- but it'd be more or less a re-wording of what I said above, being despised by the despicable and all that.

I-35 is the quickest way out of there, Cal...

I guess I should have expected this, coming as it does from a big-city academic, but even so I still have to shake my head...

The biggest liability for (Houston Mayor Bill) White is his past membership in a New York-based gun control group. White says he resigned after finding its positions too restrictive, but his participation in Mayors Against Illegal Guns riled up those who live to preserve Texas' pro-gun culture.
"Anywhere in the civilized world you would be able to make the argument that everybody should be able to be against illegal guns. But we're not in the civilized word. We're in Texas," said Southern Methodist University political scientist Cal Jillson.

You'd think Cal Jillson would have done his research -- because if he had, he'd have seen that it isn't nearly as simple as "be(ing) against illegal guns." If he'd done his research he'd know that the group in question advocated banning importation of certain guns and ammunition because they were allegedly "non-sporting," without actually defining the term. Not that it would ultimately have mattered, because either way the group would never have stopped there; it would have basically said such was "a good first step, but we must do more!" And we all know that "more" would have included things like semi-auto rifle bans and onerous licensing and registration schemes. I thought it was funny how Jillson didn't really say anything about White himself resigning because he found MAIG's positions too restrictive. Maybe Jillson thought it was a purely political move, but at any rate, if he thinks Texas is "not in the civilized world," it's worth asking why he's still here.

Observations from the road

Most folks in Texas ARE a cut above in every way, but they still can't drive for shit in the rain. I drove through a couple of downpours west of Houston yesterday, going 65 mph and I STILL had people riding my ass. What the hell? Do those people not recognize their self-destructive behaviors? Or do they just not care?

As much as my music tastes have broadened, death metal and its associated subgenres STILL isn't my thing. I heard Children of Bodom covering Iron Maiden's "Aces High" rolling down the interstate between Sealy and Columbus. The instrumental part of it was still pretty good, but when those guttural shrieks came in...well, let's just say I was not impressed, especially since I had heard the original a few minutes earlier.

What was I doing on the road, you ask? Well, more details later...but it all boils down to this: I am in San Antonio for good now. :-)

More accurate headline?

Headline to this story:

Amid spill anger, Obama asks cut in oil tax breaks

Call what I'm about to do here "spin" if you like, but I defy you to tell me it's not right:

Despite economy not fully recovered from extended recession, Obama presses for tax increases

Because we all know good and well this is what that boils down to, right? We all know those new taxes are ultimately going to be paid by the American people, right?

"...have we come too far to turn around?"

...or, Yet MORE vintage Queensryche...just because it's my blog.

One of my selections on the iPod last night at work was 1984's The Warning. This was the band's first full-length album, released about a year after the self-titled EP, and I think it probably showed Queensryche at its most progressive; every song on this album is one more reason I am baffled at people lumping the band in with the other "hair metal" bands of the day such as Poison, Bon Jovi, Winger, etc. Geoff Tate and his bandmates really were coming up with some cutting-edge metal back then. Contrary to the go-to glam topics of getting drunk and laid and other such pretty-boy posturing, almost every song on The Warning is rife with science-fiction imagery, mostly tales of apocalyptic visions and war, and even a glimpse at a future totalitarian dystopia -- a lot like early Metallica and Megadeth, albeit with a sound that was not so raw and in-your-face. I'd been planning to get this cd at some point anyway, but "NM 156," the aforementioned totalitarian tale, was the song that finally prompted me to get a sense of urgency about doing that, about a month or so ago. I've heard it said that the song was inspired by George Orwell's 1984, and a listen to the song certainly gives one that idea:

"Erratic survey, freethinking not allowed/My hands shake, my pushbuttons silence the outside crowd/One world government has outlawed war among nations/Now social control requires population termination."

The whole album is great -- it's probably my favorite of the classic Queensryche remasters up to Promised Land -- and "NM 156" is perhaps the biggest reason for that. Good, good stuff. Have a listen.

And THIS is a special kind of stupid.

Calling your ex-girlfriend from a CITY PHONE and threatening to kill her if she doesn't drop the charges against you. I don't know if calls from those lines are recorded, but I wouldn't be surprised if they were. On a more serious note, though, I'd say that guy was not only stupid, but also quite dangerous. I wouldn't be surprised if he followed through on that threat if ever he got out of jail -- which he very well might, of course, and he won't be able to buy a gun when he gets out. But you know he'll get one anyway, or he might even get a bat or knife and go at her. I hope for her sake she realizes that and acts accordingly to protect herself.

That's a special kind of greedy, right there.

Suing the railroad company because the engineer couldn't stop the train on a dime, that is. I understand the family of that kid was grieving after what happened to him, but I don't understand why they couldn't accept that the kid was injured because of his own bad choices -- or someone else's, in the case that it was the family of someone besides the driver.

And if it was not the driver's family that sued, I don't understand why they could not have sued the driver of the truck instead, because he was the one who made the conscious choice to drive in front of the train. Honestly, 8,000 tons of steel going 55 mph? It's not rocket surgery to figure out such a thing is not going to handle like a Ferrari. And I almost understand Travis Benke saying, "we’ve been killing people since Day 1," but for the fact that, ultimately, it was the fault of the people running in front of the trains that they met the fates they did. I could have sworn that one of the first things I learned in driver's ed back in the day was that the train always had the right of way. Even if I didn't, again, it's not hard to figure out that it's practically impossible for the train to avoid a collision. I suppose acknowledging that would take some sense of personal responsibility, though, and we all know the aversion people have to that.

Unpossible!

What's this, you say? A mass shooting where?

British Prime Minister David Cameron says at least five people have been killed in a shooting spree in rural England.

This cannot be! Handguns are banned there, and guns you CAN own there are heavily regulated! Why, it's almost as if gun control laws don't work!

You never know. That story does say AP, but they HAD to have gotten it from The Onion...

Yeah, I'm goin' to hell...

...because after I read this, I thought, "I wonder if he was listening to any of that devil-worshippin' music and if that had anything to do with it?" ;-) It is a sad thing, though. I do really wish them all the best.

While I'm at it, speaking of hell, I do wonder what Tipper, whose PMRC accused Iron Maiden of promoting Satanism with "The Number of the Beast," would say to this...

The mariner's bound to tell of his story
To tell this tale wherever he goes
To teach God's word by his own example
That we must love all things that God made.

...from "Rime of the Ancient Mariner." Did she or any of those other committee members EVER acknowledge that they were full of shit?

And the pot calls the kettle black...

...right here:

(Sarah) Palin posted on Facebook last week that she wondered what (Joe) McGinniss would gather "while overlooking Piper's bedroom, my little garden, and the family's swimming hole?"
McGinniss called Palin's comments "ugly innuendo" and "revolting."

Ugly innuendo? Revolting? Says the man who's going to write a book about Sarah Palin whether or not she agrees to say a word to him? What's he going to be doing, going through her trash?

What's this?

Why...why...it's almost if the market is punishing BP!

BP lost billions more in market value Tuesday as its shares fell steeply on the first trading day since the weekend failure of its latest bid to cap the massive Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

Billions more in market value. Quite possibly as much as, if not more than, the government would be extorting out of the rest of us via Thomas Friedman's "carbon tax." And, again, we haven't even gotten to the carbon tax's deleterious effects on the rest of the country. The way things are is not perfect, but I think it's far preferable to the way those want it who would use the government to influence Americans' behavior, as Friedman and his ilk do.