And he doesn’t have much of a jump shot.

Roger Clemens has signed with the ‘Stros for next year. “I had visions of coming down here [to Minute Maid Park] and sitting in my season seats for a change and watching the guys play and enjoying the stadium that way,” Clemens said. “When Andy signed, two days after that, everything started spilling over to my lap.

Bags and Biggs were excited about the signing. In an ironic twist, Bagwell, a Boston native, passed up a chance to close out his career with the BoSox a couple of years ago to sign a big contract with the Astros. All in all, though, these two B’s have got to be pretty pumped about a pitching rotation consisting of Pettitte, Clemens, Oswalt, and Miller – Both Bagwell and Biggio are players who are on that infamous Hall of Fame “bubble”; a World Series Ring would make them shoe-ins.

It’s hokey and all, but the season building in Houston is looking to be a pretty compelling bit of baseball, ‘specially if it pans out. But it’s nice to see the owners in Houston actually shelling out a little bit of cash to keep the new stadium filled. Time to see if Choke City can reclaim the Clutch City title.

(BTW – the other Rockets are 2 games over .500, better than half the teams in the league, and they’re still third from the bottom in the Midwest. No team in the Midwest is below .500. Tough, tough year)

Harvard invites Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao to speak, then honors him by sending a student protesting China’s occupation of Tibet to an administrative board, where the student is faced with possible expulsion.

“I think, frankly, Harvard should be ashamed that they care more about not ruffling the feathers of China’s premier than about the chance to voice the concerns of six million people,” (Megan) Howard (the protester) said.

Al Franken was on Tough Crowd on Comedy Central today. Funny, funny. He and Quinn played well off each other. My guess is that the folks watching the USO shows were rolling on the floor laughing.

Best bit was Al mentioning that he did a show in Tikrit, and asked to get a picture in the “spiderhole” with two Washington Redskin cheerleaders. He was told no, that it would be insulting to the “Arab Street”. Al then went on to say that the whole Geneva Convention treatment of Hussein was crap, and that Saddam should have his nuts chopped off, stuffed in his mouth, and then he should be paraded down the “Arab Street” so that terrorists could finally get the picture.

I still don’t like his economics, but he’s one of the funniest guys going.

An AP article at Yahoo!News has a poll showing more people seeking alternative news sources and abandoning the traditional outlets.

Young adults were leading the shift, with one-fifth of them considering the Internet a top source of campaign news for them, said the poll by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press. About the same number of young adults said they regularly learn about the campaign from comedy shows like “The Daily Show” and “Saturday Night Live.”

That sounds bad at first glance, but I’d rather people get campaign updates from Jon Stewart than Bill O’Reilly.

Nightly network news was named as a regular source of campaign news by 35 percent, down from 45 percent four years ago, and newspapers by 31 percent, down from 40 percent.

Maybe one of the news channels will revert to honest fair and balanced news in an effort to retain viewers. …It could happen!

What is this beautiful picture depicting?

Two leopard slugs mating in a garden in Australia. Ewwww…

It took me way too long just to figure out how to operate this game . (I blame the creators for giving poor directions…or actually no useful directions at all.) Use your mouse to select the egg and drag in the opposite direction of where you want to launch her. It took me 55 launches to get through level 1 the first time.

I was gonna toss this as a comment here but Becky deserves better.

Becky ran a 30k this weekend — her first official long distance run — and placed 63rd out of 88 in her age group (and 274 out of over 400 overall)!

That’s what Nizar Nayyouf “an exiled Syrian journalist now living in Paris” claims.

It has been confirmed that the Iraqi weapons which were smuggled into Syria through the intermediary of Colonel Zu Alhima Shalish are now located in three different places

Special thanks to BPB-mom-in-the-hood, Linda McCollum, for sending me this “clipping” from the society section of the Shreveport Times.

Note how my name goes last in the list of vistors? It is either because they were listing people in reverse-order of importance, or maybe by time-of-arrival. I don’t understand why the SmiCollums aren’t listed.

I’ll have to update my society pages scrapbook which now has a total of…let’s see…one entry.

In the interest of “fair and balanced” news, I present this piece I like to call WYDLIA as a counter argument for my articles here, here, here, here, and here :

The four-day allergy forecast for AUSTIN, TX is:

So, I’m starting to get a not-so-funny feeling in my left nostril that often leads to a dose of antibitotics. I’ll be spending the next 3 days overloading on Allegra, Claritin-D — that’s right: antihistimane double-up! — and Flonase. Lucky for me, I am headed to Hawaii on Thursday to videotape the nuptials of some close friends on Lahaina’s beaches. Maybe that’ll help clear my head.

I’ll have to start reading FreePressed.com on a regular basis. Their current lead article states that Iowans are sick and tired of running into Democratic candidates.

… Dean wrapped up his speech the way that he always does.

“You have the power, you have the power, you have the power,” Dean said, his face barely visible over the top of the podium. …

“Thought you’re car could use a tune up and oil change,” the boyish Edwards said, as he rolled out from under the car. “By the way, I went ahead and rotated your tires. Did you know that my daddy worked in a mill?” …