It was a record heat-setting day on Monday, around here, a high of 103 at 5 PM, the hottest time of the day--- which is about what we expect, this time of year in South Texas, the place of which William T. Sherman once commented, “If I owned Hell and Texas, I would rent out Texas and live in Hell.” Until yesterday, we had a mild, and rather pleasant spring, cool at night and in the mornings, and in the high 80ies for a couple of hours at the hottest time of the afternoon, interspersed with swift-moving, generously damp rainstorms. But yesterday, the thermometer vaulted a whole ten degrees, the leap from bearable to un-.

By late afternoon, the water from the cold tap, when I rinsed off dishes in the kitchen, was just barely cool. We haven’t any rainstorms for a couple of weeks, and the serious gardeners are just this weekend beginning to apply the sprinklers and lament the end of a run of low water bills. Mother Nature (commonly acknowledged to be a moody, temperamental bitch) has taken care of all our watering needs for nearly all the last year--- even last summer proved intermittently damp. From now until sometime in September, the only endurable place to be--- unless in the early mornings--- will be indoors, with the air conditioning turned on.

Among my neighbors I am the one who holds out the longest, against admitting that summer is really here, and it is time to tight-close the windows, draw the insulated shades or curtains, and turn on the AC, to hide from the brutal heat for three or four months until that blissful day in September (or October, at the very worst) when we can fling open the windows, and welcome the autumnal chill… or actually, what passes for moderate temperatures most other places in the northern hemisphere.

Because Texas in the summer is hot… hot, hot, hot, an oppressive stifling humid heat, that does not relent at sundown, or with a cool breeze blowing from the nearest body of water…heat that blazes down from a washed-out sky, and shimmers off the pavement like a griddle with a gas flame on underneath it. Those who are outside in the worst of the day are drenched in sweat that never dries--- standard equipment on workmen’s vehicles around here, especially for those who are outside--- is a five-gallon insulated water container, the kind with a spigot on the side. During the worst of the heat, dogs lie flat in whatever shade they can find, panting, with hardly the energy to move, while cats are invisible, removing themselves unerringly to whatever cool shelter they have divined. Even the lizards remove themselves.

It is too humid for swamp coolers, which cool by evaporation, and work very well in places like Central California, or the Salt Lake Basin, where the heat is dry. And there is no real relief from the heat at night, as there is in places when you can open up the windows and induce the cool night air into the house by using fans, then shutting the house and drawing the curtains, to preserve the coolness inside throughout the heat of the next day.

I cannot even begin to imagine how this part of South Texas was habitable before the invention of air conditioning, although the design of older houses helped considerably, with deep porches, and tall windows, with efficient cross-ventilation, thick walls and plenty of sheltering trees. I can always pick out the houses which pre-date central air conditioning, just from the way a good cross-breeze can be induced to blow through it. My own house, being modern, only gets a good breeze through it if I open the garage doors, and that is impractical. But I have let the photina grow, until it shades the front, and planted a verbena and two crepe myrtles that shade the rest, so my little house is spared the worst of the tormenting heat, and the sun blazing down, and the air conditioning purrs gently, and I count the weeks until the first cool day in fall.

When all is said and done, Texans are kind of proud of being able to endure summer heat. It is what we pay for a mild and wonderful spring and fall, and a winter that hardly offers the opportunity to put on anything heavier than a thick woolen sweater. Should we have a summer like other places, it would be too perfect, and everyone would move in and spoil it.

At the very least, we can say that the summer heat keeps out the French and other riff-raff.

(Correction: It was Phil Sheridan who made the "live in hell and rent out Texas" comment. But it doesn't make it any cooler.... Sgt. Mom)

From 'BurntCop' at CyberSoulMate.com:

IMPORTANT: WARNING FOR MEN - DATE RAPE DRUG

Police are warning all men who frequent clubs, parties and local
pubs to be alert and stay cautious when offered a drink from any
woman. A date rape drug on the market called "Beer" is used by many
females to target unsuspecting men. The drug is generally found in
liquid form and is now available almost anywhere. It comes in
bottles, cans, from taps and in large "kegs." Beer is used by female
sexual predators at parties and bars to persuade their male victims
to go home and have sex with them. Typically, a woman needs only to
persuade a guy to consume a few units of Beer and then simply ask
him home for no strings attached sex. Men are rendered helpless
against this approach. After several Beers, men will often succumb
to desires to perform sexual acts on horrific looking women to whom
they would never normally be attracted. After drinking Beer men
often awaken with only hazy memories of exactly what happened to
them the night before, often with just a vague feeling
that: "something bad" occurred. At other times these unfortunate men
are swindled out of their life's savings, in a familiar scam known
as "a relationship." It has been reported that in extreme cases, the
female may even be shrewd enough to entrap the unsuspecting male
into a longer term form of servitude and punishment referred to
as "marriage." Apparently, men are much more susceptible to this
scam after Beer is administered and sex is offered by the predatory
females. Please! Forward this warning to every male you know. If you
fall victim to this insidious Beer and the predatory women
administering it, there are male support groups with venues in every
town where you can discuss the details of your shocking encounter in
an open and frank manner with similarly affected, like-minded guys.
For the support group nearest you, just look up "Golf Courses".

Now available: Synthetic 3 carat diamonds - only distinguishable from natural stones because they are ABSOLUTELY perfect.

"This is very rare stone," he says, almost to himself, in thickly accented English. "Yellow diamonds of this color are very hard to find. It is probably worth 10, maybe 15 thousand dollars."

"I have two more exactly like it in my pocket," I tell him.

He puts the diamond down and looks at me seriously for the first time. I place the other two stones on the table. They are all the same color and size. To find three nearly identical yellow diamonds is like flipping a coin 10,000 times and never seeing tails.

"These are cubic zirconium?" Weingarten says without much hope.

"No, they're real," I tell him. "But they were made by a machine in Florida for less than a hundred dollars."

Forbes FYI's Christopher Buckley and Patrick Cooke present a revised International Code:

Simply enroll at the California University of Protection and Intelligence Management.

It's too bad that the SonarGuard swimming pool alarm system is so expensive, as it is certain to prevent several drownings.

It seems the insurrection in the Libertarian Party has suffered a major setback. On Sunday, the LP nominated Michael Bednarik, who preaches the same sort of radical yadda-yadda-yadda which has classically alienated voters from the LP:

11. What would you do on your first day in office?

a) Declare that all four national emergencies are immediately terminated, as well as the presumption of Emergency War Powers. Senate Report 93-549 has found that the "national emergencies" announced by FDR in 1933 because of the Great Depression, by Truman because of the Korean War, and two initiated by Nixon because of the Vietnam War, are still in effect today. (Skeptical readers can search the internet for this report and read it for themselves.)

b) Declare that all 20,000+ gun control laws in the United States are unconstitutional and unenforceable. I would also issue a valid executive order to the BATF and other pseudo police agencies informing them that any agent who confiscates a weapon of any kind, from someone who is not currently engaged in a murder or robbery, will not only be terminated from their position, but they will also be prosecuted for violating the unalienable rights of the citizens they have sworn to protect.

c) Issue another valid executive order to my subordinates executives working for the IRS. That order would instruct them to come to work, make a pot of coffee, and begin working on their resumes' pending a federal grand jury investigation as to the legitimacy of the Sixteenth Amendment and the Internal Revenue Code. High ranking officials from that department would be closely monitored as flight risks, pending indictments for fraud in the event that evidence proves that they knew that no statute exists that requires Americans to fill out a 1040 form and relinquish a significant percentage of their hard earned money to an unconstitutional government that refuses to operate within a budget.

d) Declare the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 to be unconstitutional, and prohibit that organization from printing even one more dollar of fiat currency. I would immediate appoint Bernard Von Nothaus, Monetary Architect for the Liberty Dollar, to be my Secretary of the Treasury, placing the stability of our economy in his capable hands.

e) I would announce a special one-week session of Congress where all 535 members would be required to sit through a special version of my Constitution class. Once I was convinced that every member of Congress understood my interpretation of their very limited powers, I would insist that they restate their oath of office while being videotaped. Those videos could then be used as future evidence should they ever vote to violate the rights of Americans again.

f) I would take a short break for lunch.

Visitors to Minnesota are highly advised to take in The Museum of Questionable Medical Devices

The curator, Bob McCoy, in a phrenology device

As I sit here, I can think of about a million other things that are more interesting than politics and war. The problem is, that's all Stryker seems to talk about. I try to start a nice little post about garden gnome commandos, and Stryker pushes me out of the chair and starts one of his tired rants about one damned thing or another. The dude's starting to get on my nerves considering he's a satiric persona I made up one day because I couldn't think of a title for this website. Sometimes, I slip a post or two in there when I'm really tired, but more often than not, I wind up writing the same crap because Stryker absolutely has to tell you what he thinks about stuff. I don't know, maybe I'm only really good when I'm ragging on things. I can think of a half-dozen snarky things to say about a given subject in an instant, but I can rarely think of anything positive to say about most things --even things I like. It's something that's been troubling me for awhile, so I'm going to try to be a bit more postivive. It'll suck, I'm sure, but that's why I'm not the only one writing around here.

I'd like to write about movies. I've got 400 DVD's and I'm usually watching AMC, TCM or Fox most of the time. You'd think I could come up with something interesting that didn't involve making fun of the films.

I'd like to write about music, but I don't think I'm too qualified for that gig. However, I've been tossing around the idea of deconstructing ABBA's entire catalog, under the title, "ABBA: Forgettable Fun or Serious Social Commentary?" I could do the same with the Bee-Gees-- New York Mining Disaster is one of the most weirdly great songs I've ever heard. I could do a lot of that, but then everyone would know that I'm a serious 70's disco freak.

I could start drawing again and post my pictures here. I used to draw little comics featuring my own characters when I was younger, but I got away from that as time moved on. I'm a little bit out of practice, but I've got an entire storyline featuring American Jesus (don't ask, it's satire) doing things up apacolyptic style in Iraq and Afghanistan. The story that I've completely finished, "He is Risen and He is Pissed," has American Jesus fighting Osama in a cave. I also have a crossover story involving Elvis called, "The Return of the King." It's a buddy-comic featuring the two Kings of American culture as they battle a resurrected JFK who's attempting to rebuild Camelot, which will allow him to bring all the dead Kennedy's back to life and usher in an Age of Darkness. I think I might give JFK an evil henchman like LBJ, who insists on micro-managing the campaign, or just have some secret undead society comprised of people who're known by three initials. The "Return of the King" will probably be a four-volume shot, while "He is Risen and He is Pissed" is about 8-10 pages long. All I have to do is draw it, which will take a considerable amount of time as I haven't seriously drawn anything in about 7 years.

Finally, I want to write for the Weekly World News. That is my dream. It's fake, but all the best news usually is.