Judge bans probationer from having sex

Here's something you don't see everyday.

No sex. That's part of a sentence imposed on a 17-year-old girl by Texas state district judge Lauri Blake. She's ordered the young drug offender not have sex as long as she is living with her parents and attending school, as a condition of her probation. It is one of several unorthodox rulings Judge Lauri Blake has imposed since she was elected 10 months ago in the district court that covers Fannin and Grayson counties. She has also prohibited tattoos, body piercings, earrings and clothing "associated with the drug culture" for those on probation.

Good for the judge, though it's unfortunate that she's having to do things the parents should've done all along. Wait, there's more:

Lawyers are also subject to her rulings. Blake has told female attorneys not to wear sleeveless shirts or show cleavage in her courtroom.

Forget everything I just said. This judge is a heartless monster whose warped perception of justice threatens the well-being of the state. She must be stopped.

This is why I love folks from New Orleans

While New Orleans residents worked to get the Big Easy back up and running, Reuters went to the coonass man on the street:

"If they don't get these businesses going again, the city ain't going to have any money," said Art Depodesta, part owner of the restaurant and bar Cooter Brown's. "I want to be the first to open in Uptown." Workers busily scrubbed everything with bleach and Depodesta said he tossed away about $10,000 worth of rotten food. "It was nasty. The oyster cooler, well, the dead bodies I saw got nothing on that oyster cooler," he said. "The time for all the 'woe, woe, woe is me' business is over. It's time to get going."

New Orleans is going to be just fine.

FOUND! Chron reader rep wanders back home

Take down the roadblocks and call off the bloodhounds. James T. Campbell, the missing Chronicle reader representative, is alive and well. Yesterday, the following exchange ensued on Campbell's blog, About:Chron:

Now that the hurricane is essentially over as a Houston story, do you think we could get Cohen's answers? Posted by: Matt Bramanti at September 28, 2005 09:46 AM

Yes, before week's end. Posted by: James Campbell at September 28, 2005 09:52 AM

That's a relief.

Are they accepting new members?

LST reader and commenter Gregg sent this one along. These guys look like trouble. Fun trouble.

DeLay indicted, likely to face firing squad

In a clear sign that the nation's evil KKKonservative "majority" will inevitably collapse within 24 hours, House Majority Leader and spawn of the devil Tom DeLay was indicted today.

The charges range from conspiracy to cannibalism, and progressive legal activists expect DeLay to be executed by week's end, allowing the Democratic Party to reinstitute its wildly successful social programs and foreign policy efforts.

Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle, a completely neutral and unbiased champion of justice, called the totally non-politically motivated indictment "a huge victory for MoveOn. I mean, for law and order."

Doc offers free abortions for storm victims

It's been great to see residents of the Gulf Coast open their hearts in generosity to their fellow citizens. Then again, you just knew some scumbag would screw it all up:

A doctor has offered to perform free abortions on hurricane evacuees, saying it may be too dangerous for them to wait until they return home. Despite protests from abortion opponents, Little Rock Family Planning clinic director Dr. Jerry Edwards said he has already performed six free abortions. The clinic usually charges between $525 and $600 for a first-trimester abortion. "If we didn't provide it now, they would get it later — a late-term abortion that would give greater risk to the mother's health," Edwards told KTHV-TV in Little Rock.

What a sweetheart. Dr. Edwards has inspired me to perform similar acts of generous violence. Selfless, caring soul that I am, for the next week I'll be more than happy to toss hurricane victims down flights of stairs, dropkick stranded puppies, and coldcock elderly evacuees. No charge. Don't thank me, I'm just doing my duty.

Your technicolor tax dollars at work

Uncle Sam is whipping out his paintbrush, adding more color to the nation's currency in an attempt to foil high-tech counterfeiters. But there's also another benefit, according to the Associated Press:

There will be the addition of subtle background colors on both sides of the note to go with the traditional green and black. Each denomination has its own color to make finding the right bill in your wallet easier. For the $20, the additional colors were blue, peach and a different shade of green while the $50 bill featured the added colors of blue and red.

Thank you, government! If it weren't for you splashing ridiculous colors all over my money, how would I possibly know what denomination I'm carrying?

MISSING: Chronicle Reader Representative

Nearly a month ago, James T. Campbell, who represents literally dozens of loyal Chronicle readers, invited the unwashed masses to submit questions to Chron kingpin Jeff Cohen:

Feel free to ask anything from "Why doesn't the Chronicle have a conservative columnist on its staff?" to "Why was it necessary to redesign the newspaper?" I will pose your questions to Cohen and post his replies sometime during the week of September 5.

Well, that week came and went with no answers from Campbell. So did the following week. And the next one. Finally, Campbell posted a blog entry on Sept. 20, on an unrelated subject. Since then, it's been eerily quiet.

Too quiet. That's why I'm enlisting you, the Lone Star Times reader, to help find this man.

Be on the lookout. Campbell was last seen at 801 Texas Avenue about a week ago. Hopefully, this is just another false alarm. Campbell has been known to pull this disappearing act over and over again.

Still, information leading to Campbell's safe return will be rewarded handsomely.

VodkaPundit shakes up Appletini

Stephen Green over at VodkaPundit has a great piece on Apple's battle with record labels, who (I'm shocked, shocked!) want to raise prices on iTunes:

Eight weeks as a paying customer, and I've already downloaded over 200 songs. That's about 20 CDs worth of music. That's about $200 bucks for Apple and the record companies. That's more money than I spent on music in the last two years combined.

At 99 cents, it's hard to say no. At some higher price, it might be hard to say yes. Even at a buck twenty-five a pop, my $200 iTunes bill would have gone up 50 dollars – an increase substantial enough to make me think twice about buying something I barely thought once about buying for a dollar. Impulse purchases might have become calculated purchases. 200 songs for $200 might have become 100 songs for $125. Less music for me, less money for the recording industry.

It's basically a blow-by-blow of the unconscious microeconomic theory we all carry around in our noggins. He's right, too. Related: Corante's Copyfight

Notre Dame coach fulfills boy's last wish

I thought this kind of thing only happened in the movies:

After Craig Chambers fumbled at the 1-yard-line Saturday and the Huskies started lamenting an opportunity lost, Notre Dame coach Charlie Weis began thinking of a promise made. Weis revealed yesterday during his regular day-after news conference that he had met with a 10-year-old Notre Dame fan on Wednesday who was suffering from inoperable brain cancer, and that the boy had asked him to pass on the first play against UW. The boy, Montana Mazurkiewicz of Mishawaka, Ind., died Friday, something Weis learned after the Irish arrived in Seattle. Weis didn't hesitate to follow through on Montana's request, even though the Irish started its first possession of the game at its 1-yard-line following the UW turnover. The play, a pass from quarterback Brady Quinn to tight end Anthony Fasano, turned into a 13-yard gain in a game Notre Dame won 36-17.

How 'bout them Irish.

Would you believe 86 gets deep-sixed?

The man who survived countless KAOS hits has died. Don Adams, famous for playing Maxwell Smart in the 1960s Get Smart series, was 82. Not 86.

Adams died of a lung infection late Sunday at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, his friend and former agent Bruce Tufeld said Monday, adding the actor broke his hip a year ago and had been in ill health since. As the inept Agent 86 of the super-secret federal agency Control, Adams captured TV viewers with his antics in combatting the evil agents of Kaos. When his explanations failed to convince the villains or his boss, he tried another tack: "Would you believe...?" It became a national catchphrase.

Sorry about that, Chief.

GOP shocktroops arrest, beat Cindy Sheehan

Cindy Sheehan, the noble grieving mother who dared to stand up to BushHitler's illegal Halliburton conquest of calm, peace-loving Iraqi children, is now a political prisoner:

Cindy Sheehan, the California woman who has used her son's death in Iraq to spur the anti-war movement, was arrested Monday while protesting outside the White House. Sheehan and several dozen other protesters sat down on the sidewalk after marching along the pedestrian walkway on Pennsylvania Avenue. Police warned them three times that they were breaking the law by failing to move along, then began making arrests.

Sheehan, who heads a mainstream anti-war group encompassing 99.44% of the Earth's population, was beaten into submission by a death squad personally overseen by BushCo puppet master KKKarl Rove, before being sent to an Abu Ghraib torture facility in a 150-degree shipping container full of urine-soaked Korans. "You can't do this!" the valiant mother exclaimed to Rove, waving a copy of the Constitution. Rove swiped the document, using it to wipe his brow. Rove expressed relief that the situation calmed down.

"This was a big distraction," the evil political mastermind said, cackling wickedly. "Now we can get back to the important work of Amerikkka, like dynamiting more levees in New Orleans."

Plainclothes cop shot, killed in tailgate bust

This is an interesting way to go:

Witnesses told the Orlando Sentinel that the incident started when an undercover officer tried to break up a tailgate party. When he encountered resistance, they said, he fired three shots into the air. An Orlando Police officer saw the man with the gun and shot him several times, the newspaper said.

But here's the best part:

"It's pretty freaky. You don't think you would see this at a UCF game," junior Nicole Jorgensen, 22, of Melbourne.

Yeah, that's the sort of thing you would see at a Florida State game.

H-E-B open for business as competitors cower

I'm certainly no fan of H-E-B, but it's nice to see that they've been able to open so quickly after Hurricane Rita's undevastating non-impact:

Hey everyone - the HEB at Fry Road and I-10 is open. And they have gas! I didn't expect anything to be open. Everything else was closed. Except HEB! I bought milk and bread for the kids, beer for me, hamburger and hotdogs, we're set! I asked the checker how they opened so fast. Turns out this wasn't the local crew - HEB brought these people in from Uvalde, 250 miles to the west!

Still not going, though. I'll wait for Randalls to open up tomorrow morning.

Aftermath

After a thorough inspection of Mattsapundit Central Command, my best estimate of insured losses is... Zero. Excellent. In my inspection, I also realized that my palatial compound could use some more routine maintenance. Problems include:

• My little "backyard" is being overgrown by stuff I didn't plant.
• Front gate is all rusty
• Siding has some rot
• Garage door is still a water-damaged 24-foot turd.

But that's all low priority stuff right now. You see, due to bad planning by Mattsapundit emergency preparedness personnel, there's not much non-Campbell's food at Central Command, and I'm getting hungry. Not hungry like "I could go for a Snickers bar." Hungry like "I could eat the ass out of a dead rhinoceros." Mattsapundit Mobile Command is also thirsty for hot, delicious octane. So we're heading out to the abandoned wasteland that used to be a city of five million, in search of vittles. I'll take lots of pictures and post them Monday morning.

Ice House open for business

Oh hell yes. UPDATE: It's closed. Why, God? WHYYYYYY?!

You call this a hurricane?

Very little is going on. We have a light breeze and intermittent rain. I've gone camping in way worse weather than this. And so, I'll give you links to people who are covering the storm. Maybe they have more exciting things to say than I do. Lone Star Times has a crew of reserve bloggers. We bring them in when we're beating Navy by four touchdowns. Or you can try Rob, Laurence, Kevin and Anne, or even Greg.

And so it begins...

Here we go, folks. The wind is starting to pick up here at Mattsapundit Central Command, and we're getting our first drops of rain. Here are current conditions from the good folks at Weatherbug:

Temperature: 79.4°F Pressure: 29.54" pressure rising Average Wind: 13mph N

Other than that, not much to report. I've got my survival kit ready to go, consisting of one constitutionally protected anti-looting system, two bathtubs full of water, one bottle of Scotch and a whole mess of Campbell's soup. Fox News on the TV, Sleater-Kinney on iTunes, and I'm pretty content.

Back home, safe and sound

Well, I'm back. While holing up at my folks' place in Sheridan, I saw the storm track turn northward and decided to make the trek home. I figured it would be dicey to make the trek home when half the world is trying to come back to Houston, so I decided to beat the crowd. It was a pretty sweet drive. 80 mph from Columbus all the way in to Dairy Ashford. There was hardly anyone on the road, going either direction. One interesting thing I saw, though, was a small convoy of vehicles from Arizona. State troopers were escorting a Suburban bearing Phoenix Fire Department markings, along with three large trucks and a chartered bus. They were heading east, right into Houston. It's good to know other states are stepping up.

Mattsapundit suspends Houston operations

Here's the skinny on Hurricane Rita, who's turning out to be a real bitch:

• 175 mph sustained winds, gusting to 215
• Central pressure of 897 millibars (third lowest Atlantic storm ever)
• Up to 15 inches of rain

Doesn't sound like too much fun. Accordingly, your humble correspondent will be packing up and heading out to the Mattsapundit Emergency Operations Center outside of Sheridan, Texas, some 70 miles west of my beloved Bayou City. My dad and sister are already out there, with the rest of the family to follow. I cannot stress this enough: GET THE HELL OUT OF HOUSTON. In 175 mph winds, ordinarily docile objects like stop signs do extraordinary things, like dice people into chunky salsa. I'll keep y'all posted, but I don't know how many full-fledged blog posts I'll be able to sling up. Odds are it'll mostly be via Audioblogger. Stay tuned, folks. A prayer would help, too.

From the road: I have

From the road: I have NEVER seen traffic this bad.

Irish crack top 10 in AP poll

Hell yeah:

Notre Dame is a top-10 team for the first time in three years, and Southern California has matched Miami for the longest stay at No. 1 in The Associated Press Top 25. Charlie Weis' Fighting Irish are No. 10 in the AP media poll released Sunday, jumping 10 spots after upsetting Michigan 17-10 on Saturday to improve to 2-0. "I think too many times rankings are based off of reputation, not off what really happens," Weis said Sunday when asked if he thought he had a top-10 team. "So maybe if you go by what you see, maybe the answer is yes. I'm not there to judge that."

Go Irish! Beat Spartans!

"Creamy" skim milk, and the skinny on H-E-B

I noticed the following words on my bottle of milk this evening:

Creamy & Delicious

It's skim milk, dammit. If my skim milk is creamy, the milk-skimming machine is not performing its intended function. The milk in question is branded "MooTopia." The Mongoloid dumbasses good folks at H-E-B claim it's far superior to standard divinely ordained milk. Quoth H-E-B:

Compared to traditional whole milk, H-E-B’s MooTopia features 60 percent less sugar, 35 percent more calcium, 75 percent more protein, 4 grams of carbs, is enhanced with vitamins A and D and lactose free.

Pretty impressive for something you squeeze out of a four-pack of teats. Unfortunately, selling precision-engineered dairy products is the only thing H-E-B is good at. In addition to tempting the Lord, commissioning horribly written press releases and parking 18-wheelers on my route home from work, H-E-B operates a large chain of crappy supermarkets. The executives at H-E-B (the B stands for Butt, seriously) have devised a unique business model, combining the following elements:

• Bad store layout featuring offset aisles, so you have to make two 90-degree turns to stay in an aisle;
• An array of products narrow enough to make an East Berliner feel right at home;
• Shiftless, apathetic employees;
• Shopping carts built in such a way that my feet hit the underside of the cart with every stride;
• Lots of dirt and clutter; and
• Enraged customers

H-E-B's site proclaims that the company is celebrating its 100th anniversary. I urge H-E-B's management to mark the occasion by ceasing operations immediately and turning the location nearest me into something more pleasant, like a chemical weapons depot, hog farm or pentitentiary. I appreciate the company's philanthropy, but the executives could do a lot more for the community by leaving it. I doubt I'll ever enter an H-E-B store again without criminal intent. I hope someone at H-E-B reads this post and communicates my concerns to the brass. Ordinarily I'd fill out a comment card, but my friendly neighborhood H-E-B location's comment cards are printed exclusively in Spanish. Cabrones.

Welcome, Michelle Malkin readers!

Michelle gave me and many other Houston bloggers - including my fellow LSTers, Laurence Simon, blogHOUSTON, and the Chron folks - the honor of hosting her audience today. Stick around, folks. I'm writing this via WebTV in the Holiday Inn, and I'm about to head down to the Dome for more updates. Stay tuned.