The April 19 anniversary is bad enough around here, but three years ago tonight (almost to this hour), the largest and most ferocious tornadoes ever measured in the US blew through the Oklahoma City metro area. The biggest was an F5 bigger than the one seen in Maryland last weekend -- the biggest ever. It started south of here in Chickasha and moved northwest along I-44 right into OKC. I-44 turns more north, but the storm still tracked WNW, going through Moore, southwest OKC, and Midwest City (near Tinker AFB). 44 people died amid tens of millions of dollars in damage.

A separate funnel started here in town, but touched down only briefly about a mile from here, then skipped over most of El Reno and moved WNW. It eventually built up steam and eventually flattened much of Stroud, halfway between OKC and Tulsa. It destroyed an outlet mall that accounted for 20% of Stroud's jobs. The mall did not reopen. Most of the damage has been rebuilt now; you can't drive down I-35 and see the mile-wide storm swath easiliy anymore, but it was a day worth remembering.

It's a miracle of meteorology and storm warnings that hundreds of people didn't die that day.

Great piece by Michael Kinsley on the Bush administration's apparent fascination with faux royalty.

Doesn't our president understand that there are two different kinds of nations in the world? There are nations where the rulers are determined by heredity - where the person in charge is in charge for no better reason than that his or her father was in charge before him. Then there are nations where the rulers are determined by democracy - where the person in charge is in charge because he or she got the most votes in an election among the citizens. And in this great divide, the United States stands proudly on the side of ... of ...

Oh, never mind.

The bit this week about TV viewers having a "contractual obligation" to watch commercials was already simmering, but today's news that Hollywood is demanding spy rights on ReplayTV customers was just too much. It started as a news item but exploded into a full explanation of why Hollywood does not have the rights it thinks it does just because it can't figure out how to make money broadcasting in a digital age.

I may even go back and add more later, when I have time.

After fighting a large battle for a narrow victory, giving Hewlett-Packard permission to go through with an ill-advised merger of Compaq that will change the "HP Way" forever, CEO Carly Fiorina says the new company -- which will be named HP and lay off a whole bunch of Compaq workers -- wants to pay "tribute to the contribution of both companies as we come together to build the new HP."

Are they changing the name to include "Compaq?" No. Moving headquarters to Houston? No. Redesigning the logo to include Compaq visuals? No.

They're changing the stock symbol from "HWP" to "HPQ". They're removing the "W", as in "Walter." It was once a great company.