Summer school

School start date stirs debate

Let's see, Monday is August 7... It's 100 degrees outside... It's daylight until eight PM... Time for school!

Loser state celebrates talent show winners

Alabama billboards will tout state's ‘Idols’ - American Idol - MSNBC.com

We're so pathetic that we're building an ad campaign around having people do well in a televised singing contest.

Fancy that

Braves bench Focus on the Family

Normally, of course, I would post Braves news at Braves Journal, but things there get really nasty when politics gets involved and I'd rather not have to deal with it. But I have to comment on this. Apparently, the team has something they call "faith days", which are pretty much what they sound like. FotF was a part of the first one but no longer will be invited.

Commitment to gay rights by current owners Time Warner? Maybe. More likely, though, it's because FotF is part of a coalition that opposes the team's acquisition by Liberty Media on the grounds that that company is a "pornographer" because it owns On Demand, the company that distributes movies (most of which aren't porn) to hotel rooms.

Okay, I'm cynical.

You will never guess why

College desegregation hearing rescheduled

Okay, get this... It was pushed back eight days because of Yom Kippur.

You will never guess why

College desegregation hearing rescheduled

Okay, get this... It was pushed back eight days because of Yom Kippur.

Does Jeff Sessions know about this?

Area Hispanic population up by 50% since 2000, data say

Maybe he could build a wall between the Alabama and the Tombigbee. The state's hispanic population is now over 100,000 for the first time. And that's probably underreported.

Bad idea

Officials want plans for new State House

It's almost $100,000 just for the plans. Alabama doesn't need a new legislative building, it needs a new legislature.

Bad fences make bad neighbors

Sessions' fence plan clears Senate

The Senate voted overwhelmingly in favor of the ELT's plan to build a 370-mile triple fence at the Mexican border. It's in an amendment to the defense spending bill. I'm not sure what a fence that's about a fifth of the length of the border is supposed to do, actually.

A move for a very simple reason

Belk buys Parisian; Saks moving to N.Y.

Look, nobody works in the corporate offices of Saks Fifth Avenue to work in Birmingham. I mean, be reasonable. So they figured out that the way to get out of town and to New York without the shareholders complaining about the cost was to sell the corporate offices! Together with the Parisian chain, but really it's just to get out of Birmingham. The new owners are going to start phasing out the Parisian name starting next year.

It would be problematical

Suit claims governor, AG not enforcing campaign law

The suit accuses Riley and King of not enforcing a law that allows one party in a lawsuit to force judges to step down from cases if the judge has received campaign contributions from the opposing party or their lawyers that exceed a certain dollar amount set by law. The limits are $2,000 for circuit judges, and $4,000 for appeal court judges.

The problem being in that in most major cases you'd be hard pressed to find a judge who hasn't gotten big contributions from one side or the other. Still, it seems like a pretty good idea to me.

Time to leave

Hoover considers whether to leave bus system over fee hike

I will admit that $34,742 per year seems like an awful lot for one bus route. But knowing Tony Petelos as I do, I expect he'd be happy to have the excuse to keep all those icky poor people from visiting his malls. Some people even want to take them to baseball games!

They really should

Bar urges judges be appointed

But as long as the Business Council is getting its choices elected to the state supreme court, I don't see a change.

That's nothing

CNN.com - Tropical Storm Chris heads for Leeward Islands - Aug 1, 2006

You know what's going on in the Pacific? Tropical Storm Fabio, that's what. Fabio! I am convinced that the NWS is giving these storms goofy names to make us relax our guard.

No relation, seriously!

WSJ.com - ABC Pulls Plug On Gibson Project About Holocaust

ABC: "No, we didn't even know about the whole drunken anti-Semitic 'sugartits' thing! It's totally unrelated!"

There are certain problems with this

Cooper Green closes clinic in Bessemer

They're directing patients to their clinic in Fultondale. I don't know if this will work, but I'm trying to link to a map.

From Bessemer AL to Fultondale AL

Assuming that the link works, you will notice that Fultondale is on what is technically called the other side of Birmingham from Bessemer, and is some 20 miles away on the interstate, assuming that the interstate hasn't been blown up by a truck accident that day.

Now, they didn't have much choice, as the air conditioning at the Bessemer clinic is broken and therefore the place is uninhabitable. But Fultondale? That's the best they can do? I used to live in Bessemer, and when I was young I had only the vaguest idea where Fultondale was. I knew that somewhere on the other side of Birmingham there were several towns with "Dale" at the end of their name and it was one of them. Which was Fultondale and which one was Forestdale, Gardendale, Avondale... Who knows?

But of course

Black Belt antebellum charms lure new settlers

Who hasn't been charmed by the grandeur of slavery-era cotton plantation houses? Charms.

The Final Days

The End of Checklist Liberalism | TPMCafe

It looks like the end of Joe Lieberman. It's really none of my business what the voters of Connecticut decide, but what the pro-Lieberman (or anti-anti-Lieberman, in the locution some prefer) forces don't understand is that opposition to Lieberman isn't ideological. It's not about issues, not even the war. It's about George Bush. And it's about Lieberman's ridiculous adherence to a form of bipartisanship that is very like what Grover Norquist once described. Lieberman, for whatever bizarre reason, has decided to attach himself to the various schemes of a President whom most Americans and nearly all Democrats despise, and moreover has continued to do so while claiming that this makes him "principled".

Roll Tide [GLUB!]

UA gives fountains another try - Tuscaloosa

You see, every time there was a fountain on campus, students would put detergent (usually Tide, as you might expect) into it. Sometimes (the story doesn't include this, but I'm assured it's true) they'd put red food coloring in as well. They're sure that this one will be prank-proof.