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Readers may recall that Hispanic activists successfully sued Irving under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, arguing that the city’s century-old system of electing council members from at-large, city-wide districts discriminated against Hispanics because no Hispanic had ever won a seat on the council.

To settle the lawsuit, Irving was forced to create six single-member voting districts—one of which was heavily gerrymandered to ensure the election of a Hispanic—and two at-large ones.

The election results are in and the folks at the Mexican American Legal Defense Fund must be having a bad day. The newly created “Hispanic” district was won by an African American (who defeated a Hispanic), while the one at-large contest was won by … yep, a Hispanic (who defeated a white candidate).

The best-laid plans of mice and race-pimps gang aft agley….

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How about a Let’s Laugh at Lawyers day?

Watch it.

‘Oh, look, it’s like an event, except everybody’s in costume.’

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Sometimes the system works.

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Say not that the struggle naught availeth.

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A mouse with eighteen buttons!

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“Any neighbors?” I asked.

“A few. On the land next to us is a trailer. Woman lives there with her husband—and her ex-husband, who just got out of jail a few months ago.”

Some things had gone missing from his property, so soon after we arrived, he walked over to the vintage 1970s RV he kept there and opened the outside generator door. Generator gone. Obvious tracks leading directly back to the neighbors’ property. As soon as night fell, we heard a generator begin to hum in the distance.

There was not much that could be done, at the moment. It was at least an hour back to anything remotely resembling civilization, and there was no cell signal out here. We were armed, but disinclined to pursue the matter through unofficial means. A man who will live with his wife and her new husband is capable of pretty much anything. He may even have low self-esteem.

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Most of the power, of course, will be obtained from the rapidly rotating corpse of the late Liberal Lion, Senator Ted Kennedy. The wind farm is just there for cover, as in money laundering.

Freeberg has some great ideas.

1. ILLEGAL Immigration reform. As in ILLEGAL. Did I say ILLEGAL?
2. Putting-up-with-communist-assholes reform.
3. Domestic drilling reform. Drill-baby-drill.
4. Portraying-the-military-in-movies reform.
5. Aggressive interrogation reform. Which means start doing it.
6. This-Is-Sparta reform. If our soldiers rough up terrorists we don’t throw them in the brig, we give ‘em medals.
7. Deficit spending reform. Budget deficits simply aren’t allowed anymore. Learn to deal, Congress.
8. Birth certificate reform. Just pull the thing out, President-Elect, like I have to do when I apply for a passport.
9. ACORN/Census reform. Anyone who put you guys in charge of this, is banned from public service for life.
10. You-go-first reform. Congress makes laws that affect the rest of us, Congress lives under those laws first.

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If you had a trust fund, you could be an innovator too.

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I am not making this up.

Lileks.

But some of the criteria describe “waste” as something you might call “living.” Look at the categories. No. 1: Minimal Impact Behavior. Like not hitting people or running my car into a tree? I did my part. No, it’s “reusing wrapping paper.” So a city gets dinged because parents let kids rip open presents instead of insisting they open them with an Exacto knife so Mommy can iron out the creases and use the paper next year, and you get Care Bear paper for your high school graduation.

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Not the sort of thing you usualy find in Slate.

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No one really knows why, but for an open wound, simply applying suction dramatically speeds healing times. (The theory is that the negative pressure draws bacteria out, and encourages circulation.) But for almost everyone, that treatment is out of reach–simply because the systems are expensive–rentals cost at least $100 a day and need to be recharged every six hours.

Kelly McCullough is one of my Recommended Writers (see there on the right?), for good reason.

I am a pretty gold dragon. I hatched today. Girl was waiting. Told her my name was Henth. Then I ated her.

Met a knight today. He tried to poke me with sharp stick. I didn’t let him. I did not ated him. How do you shuck a knight?

Not sure about ateding mimes. Too much gas later—silent but deadly. On the other claw, it’s one box they’ll never get out of.

Found princess and have set her out front as knight-bait. No more mime-indigestion. Thinking of collecting shields. Sparkly.

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If you don’t have to buy it, you don’t have to go through The Store.

My wife discovered this trick early on with her Kindle. Most of the books she has now are ones she got free from Project Gutenberg rather than bought from Amazon.

Now that’s comedy.

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Born of war and now in its 70th year, its brilliant design has propelled it into a new century with an undiminished reputation. It is an engineering landmark, the epitome of functional simplicity, and yet nobody is entirely sure who designed it or gave it its name.

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Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

At a senior center in Manchester Wednesday, one woman turned away when Hodes offered his outstretched hand for an introduction.

“I don’t want to shake your hand. You voted for health care, so just go,” snapped Carmen Guimond, as she refocused on her lunch of roast beef and mashed potatoes and waved him on.

When Hodes decided to stay at the table and launch a defense of what’s considered to be one of the more popular provisions of the law — closing the “doughnut hole,” a gap in prescription drug coverage for Medicare recipients — she challenged him about whether he had read the entire bill and dismissed his explanation.

“Two hundred and forty dollars in the first year. That’s all it is,” she said, referring to the initial subsidy. “That’s not much.”

“And over time, by 2020, it closes the doughnut hole,” Hodes said.

“We’ll all be dead by then,” she deadpanned.

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(1)  The man knows burgers; I like burgers.

Very persuasive.

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Time to get ready for summer, Roy.

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Hey, mutants deserve fame, too. And pizza, of course.

We have a new comic strip link. It’s on the right, beneath Frazz (although only in a positional sense).

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Apparently ace werewolf-story writer Carrie Vaughn is in the SCA.

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Texas has strict rules on home-equity lending, relative to other states, and this has helped to prevent ratios of loan size  to home value from rising as high as they have elsewhere. This is certainly worth thinking about in considering potential changes in the regulatory environment. A word of caution, however—it’s very easy to underplay the importance of both the relative strength of the Texas economy and the advantage of not having a significant housing bubble.

A lot of it’s just being a red state.

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I’m looking forward to one that can iron shirts.

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I am not making this up.

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So there, food snobs.

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One of the most ironic aspects of our putative “Age of Obama” is how little impact it has had on the nation’s urban geography. Although the administration remains dominated by boosters from traditional blue state cities–particularly the president’s political base of Chicago–the nation’s metropolitan growth continues to shift mostly toward a handful of Sunbelt red state metropolitan areas.

Funny how that works.

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Apparently C J Cherryh used to teach Latin, and has a course available.

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Using your own stem cells—extracted from your fat or bone marrow—a San Diego company called Organovo is offering a $200,000 bioprinter that prints human tissue in 3D. While the current model, which ships this year, can only handle simple stuff like blood vessels, printing up whole organs is very close.

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We have the technology.

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Manor (MAY-ner; population 6,500), which is 12 miles east of downtown Austin, has turned civic participation into a sort of online game, complete with virtual currency. It uses barcode-like images that can be read by cellphone cameras to give residents everything from historical information to data on municipal projects. And it allows residents to report problems to its public works department by taking a photo with their phones.

Some of the technologies Manor is using are available elsewhere. But Manor is unusual in employing all of these programs in a small city that has a limited budget and no history as a high-tech hotbed. The town has been getting more attention lately for its efforts and generated some buzz at this year’s South by Southwest Interactive festival in Austin.

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Two would-be robbers called a bank ahead and demanded that the cash be ready for them when they arrived, Connecticut officials said, giving police ample time to get to the scene.

Not quite a Darwin Award ….

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I am not making this up.

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Roy, you might want to put this on a piece of clothing.

Lileks is on the case.

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SPROUT GARDEN. The crew plans to grow sprouts and herbs during the journey. To avoid salt spray, the garden may be relocated to the rear mast.

Memory eternal.

Watch the clips for the best music of the 20th century.

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It is well established that white people like the past. Vintage clothing, history degrees, and nostalgia are just three examples of how white people show their love for by-gone eras. So when white people think about growing their own food they are reminded of pastoral images of farming, working the land, and growing whole natural foods for their family. This most positive viewpoint comes from the fact that white people have mostly enjoyed  supervisory roles in agricultural production over the years.

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Domino’s Triton No. 1, an experimental pizza-delivery vehicle, at the Pioneer Auto Show, a museum in Murdo, South Dakota. It’s a future that never came to pass, as most pizza drivers use their own cars for delivery.

Hiro Protagonist, you’re on deck.

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Sounds almost like a tabloid headline, doesn’t it?

Check it out.

137 years of Popular Science, online.

A new word.

O•ba•ma•lar•key (n.):

Rhetorical defense of a dumbass idea, offered by subtly re-directing the discourse from the merits and weaknesses of the idea itself, toward the appealing but meaningless attributes of the personality most prominently associated with it.

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Tremendomeatatarianism  is the ethical stance of vowing only to eat meat that’s tremendously delicious.

Sign me up.