There's news on the intelligent design front. Ben Stein has written and narrates Expelled, a "documentary" coming out mid-April (maybe--it's been postponed before) about academics who propound ID and are expelled (get it?) from universities because academia is biased in favor of evolution and natural selection (like that’s a bad thing).

Barak Obama was keynote speaker Saturday morning (didn't see him except as he walked to the book-signing tent--getting a big hand from the people in line along the way).  

Ever reconnect with an old friend and realize all that time you were out of touch you'd become reeeally different?  Here's what I got tonight from someone I knew 20 years ago and have recently begun e-mailing:

I've cut up the letter to the editor--don't want to screw with copyright--but it's just shit; you'll get the idea.  But my reply at the end isn't bad.  I think my old friend and I will be crossing each other off our Christmas-card lists:

from the regular assholes and have a look at some new ones:

police intimidation

Answers to my outraged letters from my representatives usually interest a few people--other Texans represented by these--ahem--characters, anyway.  So here's another one from Lamar Smith hot off the e-mail:

So I'm driving to the vet with my sick doggie listening to the Alito hearings on NPR, and the committee takes a 15-minute break at about 11:06 a.m. EST, and the NPR announcer comes on and asks Nina Totenberg what she thinks about what Alito has said, and she says the equivalent of "He's not saying much."  Then he asks a reporter for the L.A. Times what he thinks about what Alito has said, and the reporter agrees with Nina.  Then the announcer turns to Diane Feinstein and says, "What do you think Senator Feinstein?", and she says,

1)    Well, it's a beginning.
2)    It's going to take more time.
3)    Many things need to be clarified.

Remember last October when Kay Bailey Hutchison (my senator)said on Meet the Press that she hopes any indictments coming out of Fitzgerald's office aren't based on "some perjury technicality"?  

SEN. HUTCHISON [to Tim Russert]:  ...I certainly hope that if there is going to be an indictment that says something happened, that it is an indictment on a crime and not some perjury technicality...

This is going to be short and I don't care who's pissed.  They're shooting dogs in NO.  Here's video (WARNING--I'M GUESSING IT'S HORRIBLE; I couldn't watch it after I heard the shots):

Dallas News

I've never posted a diary before.  I hope I break no rules.  This (below the fold) was posted on Hoffmania today (12/2) and it really got me.  With permission from the author: