If not, then surely gay marriage opponent and conservative heroine Carrie Prejean’s newly released sex tape would have been MUCH racier.

Oh well. At least this hypocrite is hot. And has finally contributed something worthwhile to society.

I like the circle. I wish the city had more circles and stop signs on neighborhood roads. We’ve got a great grid of four lane thoroughfares; there’s no need for cars to travel more than a few blocks, or over 20 mph, in any neighborhood in southeast Shreveport.

Still, the design of this one is not very good: Low, dark, and without many warning signs. I’m not surprised someone hit it. I just hope the response is to make it more visible rather than to eliminate it.

The justice of the peace who refused to perform interracial marriages has finally decided to resign.

He wants to entrust our national security to the French!

I know we did.

The debate continues.

Here in town, all is well. Outside town, where all the water drains, not so much. In particular, some of us younguns are going to have to rescue my grandmother later today.

According to the National Weather Service, Wallace Lake is supposed to crest at record heights tomorrow evening. My grandmother’s house is in the floodplain of the lake. Right now – at 10:00 AM on Saturday, a day and a half before its supposed to stop rising – the water is less than twenty feet from her house and is high enough over the roads that she can no longer escape.

Now, we’ve know about the possible flooding since yesterday morning. We’ve all been telling her that the water is going to keep rising until Sunday night and will most likely get in the house. She had plenty of time and notice. She has any number of family members in town who would have been glad to let her stay with them. It would have been the easiest thing in the world to leave while the roads were still passable. But all we got was “well, it’s stopped raining, and we’re just praying the water will recede.”

Maybe it will. Most likely, though, we’ll be using my cousin’s ginormous four wheel drive dualie (I’m 6′2″ and almost need a step ladder to get in it) to go pull them out the front door while the water is flowing through the back door.

KSLA has some video of the area near where she lives.

UPDATE

Just returned from a tour of flooded areas. After seeing the house and hearing the new, lower forecast for the crest, I think it will be fine.

Here’s some pics.

In a ditch just up Barron Road from the house.

The back of the house.

The barn. The thing you barely see inside is the top of an s-10 pickup. The owner is currently doing ten years in the state pen, so he won’t miss it too much.

Finally, the cause of the lake and it’s floods: Wallace Lake Dam. If you’ve ever been out there on a normal day, you understand how much water this is; it’s normally ten or fifteen feet below the spillway and only goes through a drain, that is now submerged, in the middle of the dam. So on a normal day, everything you see on the left, save a ten foot wide channel in the middle, is bone dry. Typically, you can climb up the spillway and walk from one end to the other.

Imagine you’re a local graphic artist. A fairly successful one. You’re driving along in your new Lexus. As you roll through downtown Shreveport, you drive by the First Methodist Church. On top of that Church is a huge steeple, one they only put up about a decade ago and that cost who knows how much money. Next thing you know, you are trapped in your car, which was crushed when the steeple fell off the church.

You are now out a car, several days of your life while you are in the hospital, and a few fingers, too. Which is a really bad thing if you’re an artist. The church, of course, is now out a steeple.

I can think of a lot of words I would use in that situation. Most of the local coverage has repeatedly used the word “miracle.” What they mean is that it’s a miracle the guy lived. But if you’re going to invoke the divine for the result, don’t you have to invoke it for the causes, too? Sure, the odds of surviving being struck by a falling steeple are so small that it seems like a miracle. But by that logic, being struck by a steeple itself is even more “miraculous.” The odds of the accident even happening are at least as long as those of surviving it. So if your only criteria for labelling something a miracle is that the thing occurred against long odds, then the accident was just as much a miracle as escaping it alive. And if both of these events were miraculous, then the author is a little sadistic.

I had a great post about the hearings Congress had today about the NFL and long term head injuries. I accidentally erased it prior to publishing. I don’t feel like trying to recreate it. So here’s a summary.

One, why is Congress bothering with this issue? These are knowing and consenting adults harming no one but themselves.

Two, rather than solving the problem with education, more subjective penalties during games, or better equipment, how about removing all helmets and pads? The protective equipment incentivizes dangerous behavior.

Three, I hope my son never plays football. Baseball, basketball, track, cycling: Yes. Football, no.

Got this via e-mail from a buddy in Tallahassee:

yea, so, I officially have been the victim of aggravated assault. Went for a ride yesterday afternoon. Guy in a truck cuts me off (intentionally), so I squirted my water at him (his truck which was moving away from me by then, so there was no way any of it even wet his tailgate). About 5 minutes later, he pulls up beside me on a back road with his window down. We exchange many “words” for, literally, a couple of minutes. During the entire conversation, I keep riding and he keeps veering me off the road. I keep riding. He tells me he would run me over if he didn’t care about his truck, and that it’s illegal to ride a bike in the road. After all, he doesn’t “play football in the road”, and he has a right to “take a right”, and I’m endangering him by being on the road. He throws a handful of trash at me, which hits me. Then he swerves enough to smack my handlebars hard enough that I scraped my knee on the left drop and almost went down. I continue to ride. He tells me his “name” and that he wants to meet tomorrow. Many other words were exchanged, and he turns around and goes back the way he came from.

During the entire encounter, we did not pass another car, pedestrian, or cyclist. I went to the closest gas station and called the law. After a brief description of the occurence, I asked if I could ride home (as I was not badly hurt) and meet a deputy there instead of on the road. Got home, called again, they responded. Gave info to deputy. He took zero notes, told me I had no case. Tried to question me for not calling at the time of the occurence. I informed him that I had. I gave him the name that was given to me, and he said “I’ll write that down when I get back to my car.” THE END.

Grown man (mid to late 40’s), FSU football shirt, buzz cut, fat (go figure), white (go figure), green tundra pick-up (go figure).

Been there, though I’ve never bothered calling the cops. That’s the most aggravating part of the whole story. Ignorant rednecks will do as ignorant rednecks will do. An overweight middle-aged POS has to do something to make himself feel worthwhile. That’s expected. The indifference of law enforcement, though, is inexcusable. Based on my own experience and that of other cyclists, it’s also typical. They see the world as cars and when cars and bikes mix, the fault is always the bike’s.