A little postpourri before leaving for Galveston

-- Yes, I know the photos below are slow to load and cause the site to scroll slowly. Update (12/3): the photos have been moved back to their source in order to make this blog more user-friendly.

It's a minor irritant even for those who have high-speed connections. You poor dial-up Neanderthals must be experiencing hell. It looks and works much better in IE7, which is rapidly becoming my favorite browser over Firefox, so try that and see how you like it.

Of course if you are still dialing up, it will take all day and night to download the new browser, so I'll see you back here tomorrow. (My specific advice is to kick the goddamned AOL to the curb and get in the fast lane. It's cheaper and way better. Really.)

-- Capitol Annex wants your input on the Best and Worst of the 2006 political season, so go over there and fill out his survey. I'll have a separate post with my answers to Vince's questions later.

-- This is an absolutely hilarious response by a FReeper in Katy to a planned mosque in his neighborhood.

-- the Young Conservative Goonbats at UT plan a severely retarded nativity scene.

-- this link at Washington Monthly, and others from there, describes the "Texification" of the national GOP and how it led to their recent thumping. It's just too bad the voters in this state are so slow to wake up to the mistakes they have sent to Austin and Washington.

-- Mitt Romney, the Republican evangelicals' Last Hope for 2008, is also a bald-ass hypocrite when it comes to immigration. It probably won't hurt him with this base.

-- and congratulations to Rep. Silvestre Reyes of El Paso, who yesterday was tapped by Speaker-to-be Pelosi to chair the House Intelligence Committee.