The Noise Machine (12/21/09)

I'm only going to say this once.....


Only in Houston: Mayor as tourist draw. There are a few tell-tale signs that the quest for world-classiness have gone too far. This is one of them, pathetic attempts to say Houston should be just like everyone else is another, as is suggesting the new Mayor ease up on oversight when Billions of dollars of public monies are at stake. (That's our ChronBlog!)


Speaking of Billions of dollars: Metro promises to do better**. Cross their heart and hope to die. (No, seriously, they mean it) *snicker*


That ol' Rice endowment just ain't what it used to be. And that's too bad. A strong Rice is good for Houston. Notice I didn't say a strong Rice propped up by taxpayer dollars. Rice is private and should remain so. I hope some doddering politician in an attempt to maintain world-classiness doesn't propose a taxpayer bailout.


Bad political blogs live for this sort of thing. (That's our ChronBlog!)


More bad news for the Texas Youth Commission. At some point you have to ask who wrote the laws that established the organization? What a mess


When "health & safety" go too far. (At what point are Americans going to look in the mirror and realize that we didn't vote for this? Change, maybe, but the over-criminalization of day to day life, government interference where it shouldn't be, and asinine warning labels that have no reflection of reality?)


Meet the Advent Conspiracy. Of which I am a card-carrying member. (One thing I respect about Ecclesia and other modern-Christianity devotees is their rejection of the prosperity Gospel. Roberts, Osteen and their followers may take comfort in God as a non-questioning ATM but, in the end, the greed principle is what's gotten Christianity in the most trouble throughout history. What we are (hopefully) seeing are the beginnings of a modern-day reformation of the Christian Church.)


The race for Harris County GOP Chair gets some pub which prompted swift (negative) responses from the InterLeft. (From whom the same idea springs, organically we're sure, that Woodfill would be the worst result for Republicans, therefore the best result for them.) *They're correct on that point IMO*


OK, So Copenhagen was a disaster. Well, not really a disaster, but hardly what the globalists were wanting. The answer? How about admitting that the suggested changes will put an end to economic growth? (You won't find opinion much in America, where we're being promised the fallacy of the new green economy. What a climate change economy is going to do is retard the financial growth of the poor and middle class. This is obviously not disputed amongst those in charge of the global climate change movement.)


Is there an underground music movement any longer? My vote is no.


A long (New Republic) read by Johnathan Chait on the fall of Republican ideas. Most Republicans I know would disagree with this, but that doesn't matter. What matters is that Chait's view is in-line with many in the electorate. I've long said that "tax-cuts, deregulation" and putting on Reagan's underwear isn't going to appeal to today's American electorate. Those things are fine, but there's got to be something else. (Beyond "Obama sucks" that is. The Democrats tried the inverse of that and were in the political boonies for years)














**Irony: Metro telling small businesses that they're going to have to "open their books" in order to receive assistance via a hardship grant.