And you thought you just hated Justice Rehnquist.

It turns out that there are plenty of good reasons to despise him. This helpful reminder comes from The Natives are Restless a good friend of Foxxylove.

Alan Dershowitz gives him his "respect."

"As a law clerk, Rehnquist wrote a memorandum for Justice Jackson while the court was considering several school desegregation cases, including Brown v. Board of Education. Rehnquist’s memo, entitled “A Random Thought on the Segregation Cases,” defended the separate-but-equal doctrine embodied in the 1896 Supreme Court case of Plessy v. Ferguson. Rehnquist concluded the Plessy “was right and should be reaffirmed.” When questioned about the memos by the Senate Judiciary Committee in both 1971 and 1986, Rehnquist blamed his defense of segregation on the dead Justice, stating – under oath – that his memo was meant to reflect the views of Justice Jackson. But Justice Jackson voted in Brown, along with a unanimous Court, to strike down school segregation. According to historian Mark Tushnet, Justice Jackson’s longtime legal secretary called Rehnquist’s Senate testimony an attempt to “smear the reputation of a great justice.” Rehnquist later admitted to defending Plessy in arguments with fellow law clerks. He did not acknowledge that he committed perjury in front of the Judiciary Committee to get his job."

Laissez faire is a theory for Bitches.

I know you come to this blog so often because your seeking advice.

And because you can't ask your Mom about the sores on your penis. Don't worry about the sores, you can't get herpes unless you actually get near a vagina. So I guess I will repay your patronage by answering the number one question I get here at the Bathos.

"I know social theory is boring, but how can I get my friends to debate theory rather than the fun stuff with me?"

Since I am certain that you have already chosen wisely (like Go Team Aniston), it'll be easier than you think to get all of those proponents of laissez faire to begin a strained defense of that "whacked out theory."

First, understand that Ayn Rand screwed up a lot of their thinking in regards to methodological individualism.

"There is no such thing as a group brain. "

While Ms. Rand and her brilliant attacks on strawmen have entertained retarded children for years, in light of recent tragic events on the Louisiana Coast I am thinking that people will see the need for government now even more. Even when they see how governments can screw things up.

I know what your saying..."but some of my best friends are Scientologists...I mean Objectivists...are they really that kooky?"

No, not at all. What I am saying is that they should change their name to Kate Cruise or Shut the Fuck Up.

Of course if I were looking around for the actual advocates of laissez faire other than 12 year old girls who carry around worn out copies of the Fountainhead, it might get difficult.

Here's another thing that pisses people (me) off.

People who advocate functionalist arguments without any constraint knowledge. You'll be hearing plenty of people in the near future telling us how we need poor people.

(A theory of social stratification if I have ever heard one. Quasi-liberals often hold a meritocracy belief which is frankly just another version of the Just World Hypothesis.)

Just inform them that their has been plenty of empirical research on Moore/Davis and it's pretty clear that meritocracy is full o' crap.

See you've already got 2 fun arguments to start after the 40's get flowing.

P.S. Artificial Grass Sucks.

News for Black people and the people that may or may not like black people.

George Bush don't like black people. P. Didddy doesn't either, how else can you explain his desire to give a million dollars worth of his clothes away? Wow I wonder how there is a million dollars worth of his stuff just lying around Big and Tall shops ready to cloth the naked. Haven't the poeple of N.O. suffered enuff?

Not that George has done much for poor white folk either. This is not the first time that hurricane relief has taken so long under our dear leader. According to the Daily Howler:

For three days after Hurricane Andrew, the “federal cavalry” didn’t appear. Murphy described extensive looting of private homes as south Floridians fought for their lives. On Day 4, the feds finally showed.

Then again some black people don't know there are poor people in the Big Easy. And her name isn't Bill Cosby. She just runs Atlanta's biggest newspaper. In her defense there are no poor blacks in Atlanta, just overpaid quaterbacks.

In only took one day for Sherriff Joe's posse to turn New Orleans into Tent City. They've already shot at a guy with a bean bag.

Cops suck.

500 in New Orleans have bailed and the rest are looting:

"Some officers joined in taking whatever they could, including one New Orleans cop who loaded a shopping cart with a compact computer and a 27-inch flat screen television."

Calling David Duke a Racist just doesn't do justice to the kind of racist he is. Here's a sample of his headline writing:

New Orleans descends into Africa-like Savagery
Roving gangs of African-Americans raid nursing homes for the elderly and even children’s
Whites in New Orleans are Facing Rape and murder at the Hands of Black Mobs
Mass Racial Attacks Against Whites in New Orleans
What about the Human Rights of Whites?

If you visit his website, and don't have a tatoo of the coming race wars don't say I didn't warn you. (NSFBF) Not Safe FOr Black Folk

Got a call from Larry King he wants his copyrighted "journalistic style" back.

Waking Life.

Just saw this movie, Waking Life. One of the best movies I have seen in a while.

Burrito Doo Doo- the remains from an exploded microwaved burrito left on the glass turntable.

Houston Proud

I have never been more proud of being from Houston than I am right now. The city is always ranked as one of the friendliest. The city has a fierce pride and can-do spirit. The fourth largest city in America, Houston is one of only four cities in the country with permanent companies in all four performing arts: opera, theater, symphony and dance. It's been through boom and bust yet inexplicably lives in the shadow of their fellow Texans in Dallas.

But one thing Louisianians are about to find out, how good it feels when Houston says "We got your back."

To my mates in Tempe that's what a skyline looks like.

Salon writes this about my hometown:

In the unincorporated areas and the city proper that together make up the sprawling greater Houston area, population 4.5 million, lies a case study in what is wrought by living according to the commandment "There shall be no zoning." Sublime, helter-skelter juxtapositions are everywhere. Right next to an eight-lane freeway, a Discount tire store huddles near a traveling carnival; children spin themselves silly on blinking rides that rival NASA's anti-gravity chambers, under the vacant gaze of an overly made-up model looming down from a billboard advertising an all-night porn store. And don't miss the 20-story office building right across the street from a neighborhood of brand-new monster houses, with no niceties like landscaping buffering the commercial district from the residential one. Neighborhood deed restrictions impose some conformity, but those rules end at the property lines -- then, hallelujah! Anything goes!

Hey I used to live next to one of those 20 story buildings. I thought it was cool. Salon goes on to mention the "goofy" theme song that "Houston Proud" ran during the years of the 80's oil bust. I remember that song , and I was a kid, and dammit I loved that song! I miss my home!

I can't find the lyrics or a MP3 for the song but it goes like this if I remember:

Houston Proud. Proud of the things we are together. Proud enought to stand and sing it loud. We believe there is no place better, that's why we call it home. And we're all Houston Proud!

You can go Enron on us, you can talk about the 90 degrees and humidity. But if you knew the people like I did, you wouldn't be surprised at all that they opened the Dome. You wouldn't be surprised at all they were the first city to step up.

"Houston is kind of an odd city. We have the sprawl of Los Angeles without the old-world charm," says Mickey Herskowitz, a Houston Chronicle sports columnist. "It's really a city still groping for an image." He remembers a contest to come up with a slogan to describe Houston in the 1990s. No one could figure out what made Houston special, so they settled on "Houston Proud."
"Yeah, we're proud," Mr. Herskowitz says now. "We just don't know why."

I think I know why. Thank-you Houston.

Sheppard Smith has a soul.

I have always thought of Sheppard Smith as the right-wing, conservative, Fox News-lackey of the Republican Party. And while I am sure that is still true, he was one of the first guys out the gate screaming mad over the bungled rescue of New Orleans.

I remember hearing one of his reports and it was palpable in his voice the concern he had for his fellow Americans. "When Sheppard Smith is losing it." I thought. "Things must be outta control."

From Wonkette:

(I didn't see it coming.)

Sean Hannity sure didn't either. Last night, interviewing Geraldo Rivera and Shepard Smith in New Orleans from the comfort and safety of his studio, he responded to their descriptions of the still very desperate situation with a call for "perspective." Replied Smith: "This is perspective!"

White bread grew a backbone. Too bad it won't last.

A poem I bought from a homeless guy.

Bam Boooo

(A Poem From A Homeless Dude.)

All I have to is [hear?]
her name and every hair
on my body just bristles
with desire. When I see the
moon of her face this
frame of mine oozes sweat,
like a moonstone. When that
women as close to me as
beneath steps close enough to stroke my neck the
thought of jealousy is
shattered in my heart
that's only sometime hard is diamond.

I believe this is a work in progress. There were quite a few crossouts and corrections. But if your gonna sell something , shouldn't it be a finished product.

Apparently moonstone is a real item, my friend and I were not quite sure of it's authenticity.

Homeless guy mentioned that the police had arrested him for "selling his poems."

I think that's messed up. Apparently you can do 3 years in the slammer for great and creative work like BAM BOOO.

It clearly needs work but I would have given him a few weeks not years to tidy things up.

I can also attest to the fact that homeless guy's frame "oozes of sweat."

I can't get enuff of you.

I realize many of you miss me. You can't get enough of me. Your probably sitting at work saying to yourself "I wonder what Mr. RomiusTexis is listening to on that annoying Yahoo Radio."


Well, now you can know. Just visit it here and no it doesn't just play UFO.

One of the nice but truly creepy aspects of the station is your ability to see how I rate literally thousands of songs and artists. One day Best Buy or Safeway is gonna take all that info and do something sinister with it. I am certain that the FBI or the CIA has already constructed my criminal-pyschological profile.

Drowning New Orleans

A major American city is left for dead. A million homeless refugees. Not since the civil war has the homeland seen such devastation. It's essentially unthinkable.

1 million without power in the gulf coast, for months perhaps. Tens of thousands in New Orleans downtown and the government doesn't know to drop food and water. An obviously angry Jack Cafferty on CNN:

I'm 62, I remember the riots in Watts, I remember the earthquake in San Francisco, I remember a lot of things--I have never, ever seen anything as badly bungled and poorly handled as this situation in New Orleans. Where the hell is the water for these people? Why can't sandwiches be dropped to those people in that Superdome down there? This is Thursday! This is Thursday! This storm happened five days ago. It's a disgrace, and don't think the world isn't watching. This is the government the taxpayers are paying for and it's fallen right flat on its face, in the way its handled this thing.

Now they say perhaps thousands are dead too.

Even if you don't have family in the area, we will all be paying $4 dollar gas prices and subsidizing billions of tax dollars to rebuild the largest port of entry is the U.S.

There is even talk of depression era "works" programs because much of the gulf will be without industry for 6 months maybe more. I can't imagine how these people will rebuild their lives. It may not be possible. Probably any other city is left to become the Atlantis of North America but we need New Orleans it's giant port and 20% of all oil refineries...

Sploid has some crazy stuff on our good friend Pat Robertson and the FUcked up FEMA.