HOUSTON TEA PARTY: The organizers say 7-10,000 showed up, and send this picture of Steve Crowder (also seen on PJTV) addressing the crowd.

UPDATE: A more negative take on Houston, here. Plus, in Chicago, a tale of two tea parties.

Also, I’ve apparently underestimated the diversity of the movement.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Kevin Menard writes:

I suspect a lot of the problem with Chicago’s multiple parties and the Houston report is because it really is a grass root effort and not astro-turfed. T he Dallas party is both unfortunately placed (Southfork Ranch is on one end of the Metroplex) and too much of a day long event for someone with kids and pre-existing commitments. My 4th was committed long before these were scheduled. Most of the folks I know locally likewise. From living in Houston, I am not sure Discovery Green is any better a location. The original parties were in the evening in areas where people were – not conflicting with a host of other traditions.

Good point. And the Houston Tea Party organizers write:

Eh, the guy doing the negative report seemed to come and try to find the nuts in the crowd :/ can’t really control who shows up, and we didn’t discriminate much on tables. The truthers were removed though.

Numbers came from the police estimates they gave us. Definitely many times more that 2000. We do admit our sign-in efforts failed to even get a third of attendees, the area was just too open.

That’s breaks with grassroots organizing.

PICTURES AND REPORTING FROM TODAY’S LAS VEGAS TEA PARTY. But there’s another one tomorrow, too.

TRUE: Israel is Bullied Because It Acts Like a Doormat. In diplomacy — especially American diplomacy these days — the bigger a problem you are, the more goodies you get. You’ve got nukes. Be a big problem . . . .

THREE kitchen gadgets that work.

SOCIALIZED MEDICINE: Hospital patient so shocked at dirty ward she climbed out of bed to clean it herself.

RECIPE: Whole Salmon On The Grill.

MARIETTA, GEORGIA TEA PARTY: Reader Gary O’Neill sends this picture, and says there are about 5,000 in attendance. Jonathan Krohn is a speaker.

Plus, from Cynthia Yockey: How to talk to reporters at your Tea Party. And if you’re planning to attend one, how about signing up as a PJTV citizen reporter?

UPDATE: Reader Matthew DeLuca sends this picture from the Cobb County Tea Party and in a followup says there are at least 4,000 people there. I believe it’s the same event.

TECHNOLOGY MARCHES ON: The Anti-Paparazzi Handbag.

BRIAN DOHERTY: Heller Ain’t No Bad Place to Be: Second Amendment hero Alan Gura continues the legal fight for gun rights.

A ROUNDUP OF user-alienating web practices. I particularly hate autorun videos (you hear me, Forbes?) — but the ones with no controls are much worse.

TO THEM THAT’S NOT A BUG, IT’S A FEATURE: “Has anyone told the White House these are, um, err, recurring costs?”

GOOD NEWS for those growing long in the tooth: Gel Grows Tissue For Receded Gums On Teeth.

FIREWORKS SAFETY. I say, do it yourself if you want, just be smart. “Leave it to the trained professionals” is one of the cancerous mantras of our age, and there’s a big difference between setting off your own fireworks and sitting passively while others do it for you — the difference, if I may say so, between having sex and watching porn. And, in both cases, the presence of a degree of risk is part of the difference . . . . Some related thoughts on this subject are here.

UH OH: Colin Powell Airs Doubts on Obama Agenda. “Colin Powell, one of President Obama’s most prominent Republican supporters, expressed concern Friday that the president’s ambitious blitz of costly initiatives may be enlarging the size of government and the federal debt too much.”

SARAH PALIN TO resign as governor?

UPDATE: Thoughts from John Hawkins and The Anchoress.

I don’t know if it has anything to do with her decision, but she’s been subjected — along with her family — to more abuse than any other non-national-officeholder I can think of.

ANOTHER UPDATE: More thoughts from Tigerhawk. Plus, here’s video.

Also, Palin Quits To Spend More Time with Couric, Gibson. Meanwhile, C.J. Burch emails that she may be trying a Tea Party run. Could be.

MORE: Some readers think she’s cut a TV deal, and that’s why she needs to be free by August. There’s a lot of speculation, but I imagine we’ll actually know something soon enough.

As for thoughts that she might pull a Ross Perot . . . well, (1) Perot was actually polling in the lead at one point; and (2) It would serve the GOP establishment right, given how they’ve treated her . . . .

STILL MORE: Megan McArdle: “I’m second to none in my condemnation of the attention her family has received. But can you imagine a male politician resigning because comedians and bloggers were being too mean to his daughers? The state of Alaska elected her to serve a term. She owes them that much”

Well, possibly. But if the ever-so-thin-skinned Barack Obama got one-tenth the abuse that Sarah Palin has gotten, he’d cry like a little girl. And his defenders would scream raaaacciiiiism at the top of their lungs.

STILL MORE: Reader Kevin Whalen writes:

Happy Fourth from a reader serving in northern Iraq (where we are having a jaw droppingly amazing dust storm. So much for fireworks).

In reading your coverage of the Palin resignation a couple thoughts came to mind. Here we have a talented, rising politician who was asked to volunteer that talent, drive and energy to the betterment of Country and party. She did so and was repaid by having her freedom surrendered to “handlers”, her privacy violated, herself subjected to ridicule and her family turned into fodder for tasteless idiots who style themselves as comedians (far beyond anything any other politician had to endure). She then decides to call it a day and get out.

Is she going John Galt?

Just a thought. It’s hard to see how her experience on the National Stage was anything but a net negative. If anything, it’s gotten worse since the campaign ended.

Anyway, knock back a few for us over here!

Will do. And yeah.

NANOTECHNOLOGY AND CLIMATE CHANGE: The big point is that — unlike many other proposed remedies — nanotechnology is worth developing ASAP regardless of what happens with the climate. Plus, a warning: “Be careful, though: while natural climate variability is not an existential risk — we do fine in steaming jungles and have lived through ice ages — a Weather Machine run by the same people who ran our financial system recently could be a very dangerous toy.”

EXAMINER: No Second Stimulus, Please. “Be sure to thank the President and Congress. This week, with news of some 467,000 jobs lost in June, the Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that the U.S. has now lost about two million jobs since the economic stimulus package passed. Even more notable is that the average workweek has been slashed to 33 hours – the lowest number on record. When the President signed his $787 billion stimulus package into law, he confidently asserted that unemployment would not exceed eight percent. If Congress hadn’t passed it, he warned, it would rise to nine percent by 2010. Well, unemployment reached 9.5 percent last month, meaning, by the President’s own logic, that his stimulus package has failed.”

A LIBERAL WHO’S OPTIMISTIC ON IRAQ. Of course, it’s okay to be optimistic on Iraq, now. It was just pre-November that such optimism branded one as a neocon warmonger apologist. . . .

GORDON CHANG: The Coming Trade War With China.

FROM BMW: A 45 mpg Diesel SUV?

OUCH: Obama sounding Bush-like on jobs.

IN THE MAIL: From Inman Majors, The Millionaires: A Novel. What’s not to love about a book centered around “Glennville?”

A JULY 4TH WISH from the folks at Reason TV.

STIMULUS! Not since 1965 has it been so hard for teens to get work.

STIMULUS! NY City Apartment Sales Down More Than 50%. “Manhattan apartment sales plunged more than 50 percent and the average price dropped 21.4 to 24 percent from a year ago, as the U.S. recession forced many who own a piece of the Big Apple to eat humble pie, several reports said.”