Q.: General, recently you changed your name from "Artificial Timetable" (or Timetable for short, or Art for real short) to "Time Horizon". What gives?

G.T.H.: Well, the surge is workin', it don't look like we're goan hafta fight 'em over here instead of over there, here meanin' home, the good ol' US of A that is, and we dam shore ain't goan cut n' run.

The biggest and best party of the TDP's state convention (being held this year on June 5-7, at the Austin Convention Center) is set for Thursday, June 5 at the Cedar Door.  

Here's your personal invitation.  No RSVP or delegate credential necessary, nor is there a cover charge.  Cash bar.  Besides the members of the Texas Progressive Alliance, you will meet candidates, staffers and most importantly, Texas Kossacks and assorted blog-groupies.  (Worth the price of admission alone.)

Come have a drink with the best and brightest of the Texas blogosphere.  (Me, too.)

Other 17% (presumably Edwards, Dodd, Richardson, and other presidential candidates who have suspended campaigns but remain on the Texas ballot) and Undecided 4%.

Please join us for the Progressive Populists Caucus' Annual Meeting 2008: "Texas In Play" with James Galbraith.

Lookey here at the Right's latest maelstrom of Swift-Boat BS:

Che Guevara Flags in Obama's Houston office

First of all, you idiots, one of those is a Cuban flag with Che's photo on it, so you'd get better outrage mileage if you tried to tie Barack Obama to Fidel, given that Castro and McCain are currently fussing with each other -- and that Castro is still alive, albeit barely.

Texas Supreme Court Justice David Medina and his wife were indicted today by a Harris County grand jury in connection with a fire that gutted their Spring home last summer, the judge's attorney said.

Medina is charged with evidence tampering, attorney Terry Yates said. His wife, Francisca Medina, is charged with arson, Yates said

I was too ill to perform my duty as the Democratic observer at the Harris County central counting office last week, so at the last minute I asked John Behrman to stand in for me. And look what he saw:

I'm officially ready to adopt the Republican terminology of denigration for those who have chosen to wear the label proudly. I'm not going to call them Blue Dogs or moderates or conservative Dems any longer. They are Democrats.

They are not Democratic.

A supervisor with CPS Energy (San Antonio public utility) displays a hangman's noose over two separated bibles -- a symbol of white supremacy -- in his cubicle at the downtown office.  Photo here.  Management has not responded to numerous complaints about it.

Bad news:

The Justice Department said today that Internet service providers should be allowed to charge a fee for priority Web traffic.

The agency told the Federal Communications Commission, which is reviewing high-speed Internet practices, that it is opposed to "Net neutrality," the principle that all Internet sites should be equally accessible to any Web user.

About three hundred Houstonians (SRO capacity at the Christ Church Cathedral downtown) gathered to watch Alex Pelosi's new documentary "Friends of God" and chat with the director last night.  Among the many godless liberal activists, there were also the Texas Freedom Network, Americans United, and ACLU staff and board members, Rep. Scott Hochberg, Rep. Donna Howard, and yours truly. The film makes its debut next month on HBO.  Here's a snippet:

It's a small, small world for pardons, after all.

President Bush's commutation of Lewis "Scooter" Libby's prison sentence highlights some interesting connections between Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, a former fugitive from justice, an ex-president and two leading 2008 White House hopefuls.

Before entering government, Libby was a private attorney who represented billionaire international commodities trader Marc Rich. Rich was indicted in 1983 by then-U.S. Attorney Rudolph Giuliani on charges of tax evasion and illegal dealing with Iran during the American hostage crisis.

Read it and weep.  All that stands between democracy in Texas and the most vile voter disenfranchisement legislation imaginable is state Sen. Mario Gallegos' freshly transplanted liver:

A Senate committee has passed the controversial, partisan-charged voter identification bill, but Democrats are vowing to do whatever it takes to block it.

Their success will depend on whether Sen. Mario Gallegos Jr., D-Houston, who has missed most of the session recuperating from a liver transplant, can make it back to work for the vote.

in such a way as to overcome the Republican backlash against them?  More importantly, does a ticket with both -- not one or the other -- help Democrats down the ballot (rather than hurt)?

That seems to be Dick Morris' premise here, and I want to know if you think it is plausible.  Yes, I have considered the source.  I'm thinking he's on to something, but that's just me.

Here's the deal -- and for full disclosure, I was a volunteer for Clark in 2004, and am leaning Edwards at the moment ...

The SEIU Janitors for Justice again staged a sitdown in Houston yesterday as their strike continued into its third week.

The janitors are striking for better wages and benefits -- namely $8.50 an hour and healthcare -- and yesterday's sitdown targeted Chevron, which reported earnings of $14 billion last year.

The Houston Police Department, as with the Halliburton protestors last year, got overly aggressive and used their mounted officers to intimidate the peaceful protest.

Photos here.

Watch the video: YouTube link

The Austin American-Statesman reports on Greg Abbott's misuse of state resources with an appropriately misleading headline.  They manage to get the story right, however (bold emphasis mine throughout):

... and he doesn't even have any legs.  

On Leslie Blitzer's SNAFU Room just a moment ago, Gonzales sat with one ankle crossed behind the other, and dipped and ducked and shucked and jived and didn't answer a single question.  And then Max Cleland said, "I don't agree with a damn thing the Attorney General said.  It's al-Qaeda, stupid."

Even my wife said that Abu looked like a wussy.  He made Blitzer look as macho as The Rock in comparison.

This man couldn't even say if his own mother and father were documented when they came to the United States (in a prior interview.  Not that it matters, but the obvious prevarication is just continuous.)

I believe he would be bussing tables in a diner if he had never met *.  And for the good of the country, I wish that's where he was.

One year ago as our merry little band of leftists was returning from Camp Casey, we heard on the radio that a strengthening hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico had turned toward New Orleans.

That bitch's name was Katrina.

Jordan Flaherty was an eyewitness on the ground; here's the archive of his postings.  His journal begins here.  I blogged about my experiences helping evacuees in the Astrodome and the GRB convention center, and I posted that of others'.   Lyn's account was also significant.

Earlier this week the four-part documentary by Spike Lee, When the Levees Broke, aired on HBO.  I urge you to watch it.  Here's a Katrina timeline from Think Progress.  This YouTube from scoutp is very moving.  The song is "Louisiana 1927", written by Randy Newman and performed by Marcia Ball.

I'm left with these still-raw recollections, and the ominous foreboding that it could all happen again, shortly, here in Houston or Miami or New Orleans once more.

Do you feel safer?