Israeli warplanes flew over the home of Syrian President Bashar Assad, Israeli officials said. The move apparently is aimed at pressuring the Syrian leader to help get a captured Israeli soldier released. Visit CNN for the latest.

Many of you may have heard of today’s Supreme Court decision to uphold most of the Texas redistricting plan engineered by Tom DeLay.

I have not read the full opinion so I can’t comment on that, but does anyone else find it frightening that partisan groups are allowed the power to redraw these districts? Gee, no obvious situation for abuse of the system there.

And lest my usual far-right critics think this is simply an attack on DeLay and the GOP, I am well aware that the Democrats have done the exact same thing when they are in power and that bothers me too.

We should not allow such an important decision to be placed in the hands of those who benefit directly from the outcome, especially when it has the potential to disenfranchise voters so easily. But what can we do about it? I fear not much.

Unless I am mistaken the drawing of districts is left up to the individual states, which i assume might play a part in the Supreme Court’s recent decision. Its possible some States do this process in the correct manner (an impartial panel of judges who have lifetime appointments or who are otherwise not dependent on the process), and in the case of smaller states it may not be an issue as dividing a state in two or three ways is going to be more difficult to gerrymander (or you could be wyoming and have only one district). But states like Texas have a system that is broken. Initiatives might do the trick but if you have a Republican majority in the state its going to be difficult to get them to vote for a plan that might take power away from Replubicans (and the same in blue states with the Democratic party). Legislative solutions are unlikely to work because the legislature allready approves of the process. As I said there may be nothing anyone can do. And that is very very scary.

The Diamondbacks give up four runs in the top of the ninth, and lose 11-7.

We're at Chase Park for the Diamondbacks-Mariners game with other firm folks. Arizona gave up five runs in the first inning, but now it's a tie game, 7-7 in the bottom of the eighth.

Israeli ground forces are entering southern Gaza after airstrikes on bridges and a power plant, Israeli military tells CNN. Visit CNN for the latest.

“Brendan, you are an enigma wrapped in a riddle hog-tied inside the trunk of a teamster’s car.” –Will Luzader, one of my fellow summer associates (quoted with permission)

Israel Radio reports Israeli air strike and ground troop movement in northern Gaza, AP reports. Visit CNN for the latest.

The latest comments from J.K. Rowling on the in-progress seventh Harry Potter book have Drudge buzzing. “WILL J.K. ROWLING KILL OFF HARRY POTTER?!?” he asks incredulously. Of course, this is nothing new; she’s maintained all along that she might kill off Harry in Book 7, but that we’ll just have to wait to find out. Still, the article got me thinking. If you thought the suspense — and the accompanying security measures and media hype — over who would die in Books 5 and 6 was bad, just imagine what it’ll be like in the days leading up to Book 7! (Said book is “reportedly due to be published next year at the earliest,” according to the article.)

OK, here’s the deal. The aptly-named Rush is (we trust) Off the Narcotics but now there might be Another pharmacological issue, here. Of course it’s also possible he simply got Stiffed by left-leaning Law Enforcement in Palm Beach County. / Ultraliberal MSM souce: Fox News ~

 Rush Limbaugh was detained for about three-and-a-half hours at Palm Beach International Airport after authorities said they found a bottle of Viagra in his possession without a prescription.

The 55-year-old radio commentator’s luggage was examined by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement after his private plane landed at the airport around 2 p.m. from the Dominican Republic, said Paul Miller, spokesman for the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office.

ICE officials found in Limbaugh’s luggage a prescription bottle labeled as Viagra, a prescription drug that treats erectile disfunction, Miller said.

“The problem was that on the bottle itself was not his name, but the name of two Florida doctors,” Miller said.

…”He said he had the Viagra in his possession for his use and that he did obtain it from his doctors,” Miller said.

Sheriff’s investigators confiscated the drugs [ oh, the inHumanity / ~ the guestblogger :], and Limbaugh was released around 5:30 p.m. without being charged.

A doctor had prescribed the drug, but it was “labeled as being issued to the physician rather than Mr. Limbaugh for privacy purposes,” Roy Black, Limbaugh’s attorney, said in a statement…

Read what little I left out. Well, the Presumption of Innocence applies & now we’ll have to wait & see what comes of this one. As Briandot has recently reminded us, hard cases do make bad law :}. Let us all hope poor Rush doesn’t get scr*wed again. (Now what was Brendan’s so-wonderfully-discovered Teutonic noun, again? Oh yeah, that’s it: Schadenfreude. :)

You might think I’m referring to the Azores — but in fact I’m talking about the DC Metro area. The rain that is currently soaking the East Coast of the United States is causing major problems for the nation’s capital, including flooding of major thoroughfares. The buildings housing the Justice Department, the IRS, and the National Archives are all experiencing problems; the basement of the IRS is partially flooded, although the National Archives is (thankfully) merely surrounded by a muddy moat. The 12th Street tunnel is flooded, as is part of US29 in Silver Spring, and part of the Beltway near Alexandria is covered in five feet of mud. Or so says the rumors on the Internets.

More from the Washington Post.

Thankfully I’m in Denver for a conference, and am looking out my hotel window at gorgeous blue skies at 5,000 feet above sea level. :) (…although the power at my house has gone out, taking down Briandot headquarters.)

UPDATE BY BRENDAN: Capital Weather has complete coverage.

And, as if the current flooding wasn’t enough, Dr. Jeff Masters writes that a tropical depression could form tomorrow off the Carolina coast, and head north. “Depending on the low’s track, the mid-Atlantic coast may also get a good soaking on Wednesday.” Like they need it! The Storm Track has more.

Port Hueneme in Ventura County, California has been evacuated after a written threat -- "This nitro is for you, Mr. George W. Bush, and your Jewish cronies" -- was found written on a metal pole inside
a container ship, according to CNN.

There is not much going on outside of lots of rain in Florida. From the NHC, as of 11:30 AM EDT:

A LARGE TROPICAL WAVE ACCOMPANIED BY A WEAK LOW PRESSURE AREA IS LOCATED ABOUT 1000 MILES EAST-SOUTHEAST OF THE SOUTHERN WINDWARD ISLANDS. SIGNIFICANT DEVELOPMENT OF THIS SYSTEM IS NOT EXPECTED AS IT MOVES WEST-NORTHWESTWARD AT 15 TO 20 MPH.

Just in: Italy has advanced to the quarterfinals with a dramatic last-second penalty converted against Australia to win the game 1-0.

Update, 10:04: Summary of the game posted.

Since I’ve been the opposite of a “hyperactive blogger” lately, I figure this would be a good time to point y’all toward another blog that I’d recommend putting on your daily reading — er, viewing — list: Chris McLemore’s photo blog.

Chris is a fellow rising 3L at NDLS, and simply put, his photos are awesome. It’s always a pleasure to visit his site and just surf through the recent posts. As someone who fancies himself a decent amateur photographer, I constantly find myself looking at Chris’s pictures and thinking, “Damn, I wish I’d taken that!”

Anyway, the blog was formerly known as “My Day in London” (because Chris was in NDLS’s London program last school year), but now it’s called as “My Day in…the District” (because he’s in D.C. for the summer). In reality, the pictures come from all over the place, as he’s done a lot of travelling recently. Regardless of where he is, I hope he’ll keep the blog going, because it’s a fantastic site.

P.S. The, uh, non-hyperactivity of my blogging pace is likely to continue this week, by the way. I’ve got a big work deadline on Thursday, so I expect to be extremely busy until then.

I really wanted to get this post up Friday night before the knockout round commenced, but I’ll go ahead and stick with what were my predictions going into Saturday:

Second Round
Germany over Sweden
Argentina over Mexico
England over Ecuador
Holland over Portugal
Australia over Italy
Switzerland over Ukraine
France over Spain
Brazil over Ghana

Quarterfinals
Argentina over Germany
England over Holland
Australia over Switzerland
Brazil over France

Semifinals
Argentina over Australia
England over Brazil

3rd-Place Match
Brazil over Australia

Final
Argentina over England

Some comments on the above predictions:

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