• Gulf War Three (Mark Steyn, NRO)
  

  Barack Obama was supposed to be the best, the very best, and yet he is always, reliably, consistently mediocre. His speech on oil was no better or worse than his speech on race. Yet the Obammyboppers who once squealed with delight are weary of last year’s boy band. At the end of the big Oval Office address, Keith Olbermann, Chris Matthews, and the rest of the MSNBC gang jeered the president. For a bewildered Obama, it must have felt like his Ceausescu balcony moment. Had they caught up with him in the White House parking lot, they’d have put him up against the wall and clubbed him to a pulp with Matthews’s no longer tingling leg.

• He was hired to be Obama, not to lead the country (Brothers Judd)
• Obama's Answer To Spill Comes Up Short (Charles Krauthammer, IBD)
• Stop the Barges! Stop the Barges! Where are the lifevests? (The Fat Guy)
• Internet 'Kill Switch' Would Give President Power To Shut Down Web (Bianca Bosker, HuffPo) For work, I pay attention to countries that may be at risk of coups when state radio/tv go dead or start to play patriotic tunes. I never expected a US Congressman ever seriously to consider giving a US President the power similarly to control an element of state media.
• Your Government At Work (Sallie James, Cato) The folks who want government to run all aspects of the lives of its “subjects” can never really explain how that can work when we have so many examples of government idiocy. Luckily, on the few occasions Americans have given those folks control of all three branches of government, they’ve made such a mess of things that it doesn’t happen again for decades. To that end, see the next two links.
• Dereliction of Duty (Stephen Hayes, Weekly Standard)
• Prepare Yourselves For Speaker Boehner (William Galston, TNR) That’s so alarmist. Don’t we know from LibDem partybloggers that this is all a figment of Rasmussen’s imagination? LOL
• Mitch Daniels, genial Jeremiah (Michael Gerson, RCP)
• TCU's pipeline to Houston leads to first Omaha trip (Sam Khan, Houston Chronicle)
  Todd Whitting was on Rayner Noble’s staff when UH was among the best, and was not as UH sunk below mediocrity. He should get a call from Mack Rhoades to be the next head coach at UH.
• Katharine Shilcutt Will Be the Next Food Critic at the Houston Press (Eating Our Words) An inspired choice. Very good mesh.
• Cereal killers (Trent Seibert)
• 36 Hours in Bordeaux (Seth Sherwood, NY Times) I should probably stop screwing around on the web as much as I do, and spend that time learning French/Greek (to help with fully enjoying trips).

• Solitude and Leadership (William Deresiewicz, The American Scholar)
• Obama is too friendly with tyrants (Saad Eddin Ibrahim)
• How’d we lose Brazil, Turkey and Lebanon? (Richard Grenell, Daily Caller)
• The Gulf Spill, the Financial Crisis and the Failure of Big Government (Gerald O'Driscoll, WSJ)
• Marine Techie: End Gulf Oil Spill With ‘Mother of All Bombs’ (Noah Schachtman, Wired)
• Why nuking the blowout is a very bad idea (Red Ink: Texas)
• Texas Democrats Sue After Green Party Secures Ballot Spot (Miguel Bustillo, WSJ) But isn’t the LibDem meme that the TXGOP wants to restrict the ballot? So hard to keep the narrative straight!
• Robb Walsh Bryan Caswell Bill Floyd = Reef Gone Tex-Mex? (Eating Our Words) Sure to be a new BorgFav!
• Robb Walsh's 100 Favorite Houston Dishes: #25 Special Enchiladas-A-La-Taylor at Spanish Village (Eating Our Words) Callie’s fav at the joint, too.
• Turns out Longhorns have plenty to keep them in the Big 12 (Tom Shatel, Omaha.com)
  

  Did Texas set this up to chase Nebraska away?
  Quite possibly. If so, who cares? Not Nebraska. The Huskers are big winners here.

  The main problem for the Huskers is that they haven’t been “big winners” in a long, long time. They can blame UT all they want, but UT has brought much more glory to the Big 12 in the last decade than Nebraska has.

  At least the craziness is over for now, which is good—Kuffner and Burka can stop writing about a topic they know little about and get back to blockquoting and repeating consultant gossip (respectively). Everyone wins!

• Retracing Jefferson’s Steps in Burgundy (Ann Mah, NY Times)

• The Perry camp’s response (BurkaBlog)
  

  I do think that White just wasn’t very smart about the way he handled his business. When you hold office, especially an executive office in which you have a lot of power, and you have a lot of investments at the same time, there is a simple way to insulate yourself against the kinds of trumped-up charges the Perry campaign made: You create a blind trust. Rick Perry is smart enough to know this. Why wasn’t Bill White?

  It’s not a matter of smart. He truly doesn’t see it as an ethical issue, as he made clear today. That’s a real problem.

• Gov candidate White: no wrongdoing in investment (Michael Graczyk, AP)
  

  “I liked their business plan,” White said. “I made an investment in the company. I didn’t stop investing because I was mayor.”

  That’s a problem. The whole thing just kind of smells like the sometimes fetid Houston Way.

• The Alien in the White House (Dorothy Rabinowitz, WSJ)
• Obama Meets Toto (Dan Henninger, WSJ)
• BP Parody on Twitter Posts a Disclaimer (Brian Stelter, NY Times)
• UH unveils plan to build new football stadium (Steve Campbell, Houston Chronicle) Will the timing be good enough to improve their conference?
• Nance, et. al., on realignment and facilities expansion (Steve Campbell, Cougars Blog)
  

  “The last time there was a major re-alignment, unfortunately for political reasons we got left out,” Nantz said. “It should have never happened. It should have never happened. You start comparing markets. Would you rather have Houston, or would you rather have Lubbock? Would you rather have Houston, or would you rather have Waco? Would you rather have Houston, or would you rather have Stillwater. Take all those three schools combined, and let’s brag about the history and heritage of what they have produced. I think combined, it won’t equal what the University of Houston has produced athletically.”

• University of Colorado Joins Pac-10 (Pac-10.org) For better or worse, it’s on. Bye bye, Big 12 (at least historic Big 12). And bye bye Big 12 Wraps (‘cos a 16-team conference is too damn much work).
• Conference realignment roundup: Reports say Nebraska on its way to Big Ten by Friday (Daily Oklahoman)
• Big 12 blew it by eschewing playoff (Dan Wetzel, Yahoo Sports)
• Nebraska's animosity toward Texas opens the floodgates (Kevin Sherrington, DMN) Texas certainly did its part to boost its new conference over the years. Nebraska’s mediocrity over many years, on the other hand, was a big drag. Good riddance.
• The Big Zero (Joe Posnanski, SI.com)

Leroy Stick – the man behind @BPGlobalPR (StreetGiant.com)

I don’t want to get on this dude’s bad side!

The danger of a government with unlimited power (George Will, WaPo)

Wilsonian government, meaning (in Wilson’s words) government with "unstinted power," is hostile to Madison’s Constitution, which, Madison said, obliges government "to control itself." Thus our choice is between government restraint rooted in respect for nature, or government free to follow History wherever government says History marches.

I never viewed Will as a Natural Right v. History Straussian (okay, I still don’t), but it’s good to see him taking cues from the Claremonsters on the topic, which they get right most of the time.

Economic growth is key to our national security (Carl Schramm, Robert Litan, and Dane Stangler, RCP)

Agreed. Too bad the Dem leadership is ramming through a redistributionist/regulatory/borrowing agenda instead of a growth agenda, hmm?

History returns to Europe (Victor Davis Hanson, RCP)

‘The Euro Zone Has Failed’ (Vaclav Klaus, WSJ)

Economic growth in Europe has been slowing down since the 1960s, thanks to the increasingly damaging economic and social system which started dominating Europe at that time. The European "soziale Marktwirtschaft" is an unproductive variant of a welfare state, of state paternalism, of "leisure" society, of high taxes and low motivation to work. The existence of the euro has not reversed that trend.

Rotten Food Complicates Chávez’s Reign (Dan Molinski, WSJ)

Venezuelan authorities discovered nearly 1,200 shipping containers full of rotten food at a state-run warehouse and have arrested a former top official in the government’s food distribution network.

The discovery of the 30,000 tons of out-of-date milk, rice and wheat flour at the warehouse in the port city of Puerto Cabello is seen as an embarrassment for President Hugo Chávez, who has been blaming opposition forces and private industry for a recent rise in food shortages.

President Chávez, addressing the issue late Tuesday, said the food was left to go bad due to "mistakes, inefficiency" and "bureaucracy" within the government, but also said corruption was likely involved. He promised his administration would prosecute those responsible.

That sounds a little too close to our own Purveyor of Hope!

Al Jazeera: More powerful than ever (Economist)

James Hansen: 2010 likely the warmest year on record (SciGuy)

I am sure, however, that his data will be roundly questioned and criticized. Of the validity of the criticisms I cannot judge.

Berger can play untrained meteorologist all day long when it comes to witnessing for the Faith of Global Warming, but vows never a critical word/thought because, really, how could he ever know? Wow.

Tom Franklin Cements Ties With Cougars (Hair Balls)

Good news for Cougar fans! TF does a nice job for UH.

We’ll try a little linkpost for the first time in ages—composed in Windows Live Writer (if everything works correctly, which is doubtful).

Nuke It? (Daniel Foster, NRO)

It’s a little less crazy than it sounds.

It doesn’t sound crazy at all.

Why The Gaza Flotilla Attack Proves That I Am Right About Israel / Palestine (Wayne Myers, Conniptions)

Genius!

Is there still hope for (American) Syrah? (Eric Asimov, NY Times)

The French do beautiful things with the grape. The American approach rarely suits me.

In a welfare state, how much is ‘enough’? (Jonah Goldberg, NRO)

Obama doesn’t have a clue (Dick Morris, The Hill)

Who would have thought that this president, so anxious to lead us and so focused on his specific agenda and ideas, would turn out not to know what he is doing?

Umm, most anyone who looked at his career and achievements and experience running anything (actually, nothing)? Sadly, we were the cranks while all the smart people were drugged out on Hopium during the last election cycle. *shrug*

UPDATE: Live Writer ditched because it just produces some fugly output. It’s MS, so I shouldn’t be surprised probably.

Oscar Mayer Wienermobile loses control, crashes into Racine home (Amy Kant, Fox6Now.com)

The Oscar Mayer Wienermobile got itself into quite a pickle when it crashed into a Racine home Friday morning.

Neighbors tell FOX 6 the Wienermobile took a wrong turn and ended up on the dead-end street, Kenilworth Avenue in Racine.

While trying to get turned around, the woman driving the hot dog on wheels accidentally hit the gas instead of the brake and lodged the Wienermobile under a house.

Officials say no one was injured in the crash.

The driver should have blamed sudden acceleration syndrome.

Police: SE Houston man accidentally hits gas, kills wife, mother-in-law (Dale Lezon, Houston Chronicle)

A man who had just picked up his new driver’s license mistakenly hit the accelerator as he returned to a far southeast Houston home shortly before 10 a.m. today, lurching into the garage and killing his wife and mother-in-law and seriously injuring a 6-year-old boy, police said.

The women, who were cooking, were pinned against the back wall, Houston police spokeswoman Jodi Silva said. A Houston policeman who lives in the house and heard the commotion ran into the garage, backed the car up to free the victims and unsuccessfully performed CPR.
Police said the victims were 66 and 41. No names were released.

Our condolences go out to the families. What a horrific accident. Many people would have blamed “sudden acceleration syndrome” rather than their own error.

Speaking of errors — that Chron copy as of the time of posting is pretty ugly. One would think professional journalists could churn out better copy, quickly, in this internet age of ours.

Prosecutors: Woman shot man during foreplay (Peggy O’Hare, Houston Chronicle)

A woman accused in the shooting death of her common-law husband told police her gun accidentally fired while they were playing a game of

Girl Crashes Car Into House, Boy Hurt (KPRC-2 News)

HOUSTON — A 12-year-old boy was hurt when his sister crashed a car into their northwest Harris County home, KPRC Local 2 reported.

The 16-year-old girl’s mother was teaching her how to drive on Wellington Meadows Drive near Billneys Park Drive at about 12:30 p.m.

Cypress Fairbanks volunteer firefighters said the girl was pulling into the garage when she accidentally hit the gas instead of the brake.

The car went into the house and the 12-year-old was pinned underneath.

If she were a few years older, she would know NEVER to admit what actually happened, but rather to blame it on “Sudden Acceleration Syndrome.”

Sometimes, even, you can be married to a hack at the “local” Village Voice publication, and your sudden acceleration story spreads all across the empire, with nary a mention of the relationship! Evil carmakers and their evil accelerators!

To my mom, and all others. Enjoy your day. You’ve more than earned it!