The Noise Machine (01/31/10)

Ending the month with a bang....


Houston's new Fire Chief has a tough job winning the PR battle. Good luck.


The Democrats roll out three candidates for Lite Gov. Eh.....


Miss Virginia is the new Miss America. Eh.....


Sue Dat! You knew there was going to be trouble when the NFL tried to trademark a misspelling and the national emblem of France.


Going to the same store after a big winner bought a ticket there is akin to sitting down at a slot machine after it paid out big. Just sayin'.


Save NASA! There's a legitimate argument to be made that, by scrubbing the moon mission, Obama is doing just that.


I didn't watch the debate, but David Jennings did. Given the fact that he, and not a bunch of left-leaning journalists, was the target audience I'd say his review is more worthy of note. (That being said, if ChronBlog ever got around to hiring that mythical conservative State/Metro columnist....) **As for Burkha? Eh...**


Consider this: New Orleans is still in shambles, and is still hooked to the IV of public assistance. Now people want Houston to follow that model. Maybe there's another way that could encourage people to take the steps they need to improve? Just a suggestion.


Nate Silver is very good at political analysis, but mixing politics with economic news typically reduces the usefulness of the latter. This case is no different. (Overstates the positive in news that most, nonpartisan observers have characterized as "Eh...")


When Texas Watchdog does a Gov't spending report you'd be advised to take notice.


Blogging luminary Lou Minatti on Bill White. It's a good read.


And finally....


All you need to know about this op-ed pimping wind and solar as the future of Texas energy can be found at the bottom: "Hershey is a fiction writer" Because the idea that wind and solar can replace oil, nuclear and coal as our energy source is more fiction than reality. (Even industry sources cap the potential share at 20 percent that's an 80% gap for those of you not keeping score.)

Rumors of newspapers' impending salvation...

..may be premature at best.

With all the talk of the iPad saving the media you'd think that a lot of people are willing to pay for online news if only they had the proper tools.

You'd be wrong.

(Harris Interactive News Release, Poll by Regina M. Corso 01/13/2010)

Newspapers around the country are struggling. 2009 saw a few newspapers change their business model to an online focus or shut down completely. 2010 will most likely see the same struggle and, perhaps, new business models emerge for these media entities. One thing is clear, the era of Americans reading a daily newspaper each and every day is coming to an end.

Just two in five U.S. adults (43%) say they read a daily newspaper, either online or in print almost every day. Just over seven in ten Americans (72%) say they read one at least once a week while 81% read a daily newspaper at least once a month. One in ten adults (10%) say they never read a daily newspaper.

Worse than that, is the value that the public places on newspaper content:

One potential business model that newspapers are exploring is charging a monthly fee to read a daily newspaper's content online. This model, however, seems unlikely to work as three-quarters of online adults (77%) say they would not be willing to pay anything to read a newspaper's content online. While some are willing to pay, one in five online adults (19%) would only pay between $1 and $10 a month for this online content and only 5% would pay more than $10 a month.

Locally, this is potential bad news for ChronBlog, who faces all of the same hurdles as other daily newspapers but is suffering from the additional burden of reduced news content caused by ill-targeted layoffs.


In short, ChronBlog is suffering from a segment collapse in the market and incompetent leadership. I've yet to see a business that can stand on one leg (monopoly) when the other two legs (demand & quality) dry up.



Good news though! This Sunday we're being treated to another Features-type section!

Help 'em now

Because the way the Country is going kids today are going to need it later.

That's right, it's charity time.


If you're not familiar with Junior Achievement then click on the link and read up. Go ahead, I'll wait.....


Got it? Good.


Given the economic mess that we're going to bequeath to the next generation of young, hungry worker bees the least we can do is equip them with the tools they need to make a go of it in the rough n' tumble world of business. That being said charity doesn't mean that you can't have a good time....

I'm asking you to help me support Junior Achievement.

If that link doesn't work then here's a direct link to my Donation Page. I'm also going to be placing this in the sidebar to make it easy.


I've got a big, big goal for this charity, but the potential pay-off is worth it:

Any participant raising $5000 gets 2 Continental Airlines Business First Class Round-trip tickets anywhere within the lower 48. For those of you that don't know, my wife was laid-off back in March. So yes, I'm not too proud to admit it, this is partially driven by our desire to take an anniversary trip later in the year. Believe me, I'm not doing it because I'm a great bowler.

Granted, since it's two tickets I can't offer a ticket up to a big donor (It's me and the wife, you understand) but I can guarantee that I'll take pictures and video which I'll share on my Flickr page, on my food blog, and on here. Hey, it's sorta like being there right?

More importantly, you can walk away with the knowledge that you've helped properly train the next generation to make good business decisions. If you don't think that's important remember this: Their salaries are going to be paying for your retirement, medicare etc.

The economy of the future...

The salad days for major oil companies are over. What this means is that Houston's buffer against the bad economy is about to evaporate like so much condensate spilled out of a tanker. If you think Big Oil is worried about public perception over off-shoring you'd be wrong. The way they figure it they've already been demonized by one political party who's now suggesting large tax increases on them to fund entitlements.


Meanwhile, we're told that the new "green-energy" economy is The economy of the future.


It's similar to "free crabs tomorrow". By the time tomorrow gets here we're all going to starve to death. The failure of the Republicans (when they were in power) and the Democrats (now) to craft an energy policy that's designed around our domestic resources in lieu of reliance on foreign oil and a pie-in-the-sky unrealistic alternative will be looked at as one of the greatest public policy blunders of all time when future Chinese historians study American culture.

The Noise Machine (01/29/10)

Much ado about......



Let us start with today's odd defense of climate science by ChronBlog faith-based writer Eric Berger. (They admit they don't know exactly what they are talking about but they all agree it's going to happen.)


UH is working to meet Gov. Rick Perry's 5% budget reduction mandate. (It's important to remember that this is done in the private sector all the time. As such, it's not the impossible task the hand-wringers are making it out to be.)


If you're suffering from insomnia, there are some cures, in the form of Gubernatorial primary debates coming up soon. (I watched the first one, so I've done my Republican time. I will probably watch the Democratic debate however, for no other reason than morbid curiosity.)


NASA gets their marching orders, and they don't include the moon.


Why do I get the feeling that, if groups like Texas Parent PAC were to get their way, Texas would get an "F" in this survey and that would be a desirable outcome? (Education "reform" isn't about better teaching, it's about those currently ruining the system getting theirs.)


The sins of the father..... (Is this a system of justice? Or revenge?) Tom Kirkendall has more.


Coming Sunday Only in the print edition (Until Monday that is):The Return of Chron-Eye for the Death Row Killer Guy! Now with 12% more hype! (Oh, and a new "good life" section) (Which fits ChronBlog, who typically suffers from 12% lower subscription rates.) *sigh*


Speaking of declining subscription rates. L'il Red is back. Thankfully, and true to form, her comeback post was all about the "I". (In this crazy world we need some constants, even bad ones)


Do newspapers even employ copy editors now?


Texas Tribune Eye for the Death Row Killer Guy Part II. (One more in a continuing series of reports by Texas journalists trying to find that mythical 'innocent man' executed by the state.)


Sure, you can pay us for the education, but right now the field can't handle the workforce. (Someday however, in the future one guesses)


And finally......


Many people who gripe about the low-tech in Texas voting systems are the same folks who rail against the e-slate voting machines.

Some call them "Parents"

Texas Conservative blogger Rhymes with Right lifts the veil covering the funding of Texas Parent PAC.

Funny, according to some on the InterLeft this group is nothing more than a group of parents concerned about educating the children, certainly they're not a group that sees political and financial benefits from ensuring the current (failing) status quo is maintained.

This has to be an error, sort of like those made surrounding the Texas Ethics Advisory Board which led many to (falsely) believe that they were part of the Texas Ethics Commission.

Stop me if you've heard this one before.....

Wealthy, centrally located neighborhood objects to big, residential unfriendly development right in their back yard.

Instead of Southampton vs. the Ashby Highrise we give you The City of Bellaire vs. the proposed West side Dynamo Stadium. Charlotte Aguilar of the Bellaire Examiner provides the details. One detail that wasn't made very clear (in this article) was whether or not Bellaire can do much about it.

Of more interest (to me) was this tidbit that suggested this "new" plan isn't as "new" as news reports have led us to believe:

One Bellaire councilmember might not be part of the city’s official debate. Newly elected Councilmember Corbett Parker counted Houston Dynamo CEO Oliver Luck among his campaign supporters, and Luck introduced him at one Bellaire fundraiser. Does Parker see this as a conflict? “Potentially,” he told the Examiner. “That’s one thing I’m going to have to look at.”

I'm sure we'll hear something along the lines of the "mutual respect" that Mr. Parker and Mr. Luck share. Knowing the small-town manner in which Houston operates, we'll HEAR it, but we'll have trouble believing it.

UPDATE: In a second report Ms. Aguilar reports that details of the deal were a little more secret (to some) than the participants have let on. Insider information, back-room deals brokered by former Pols? It's the Houston Way!


UPDATE 2: ChronBlog reports.

The Noise Machine (01/28/10)

Today with 27% more noise....


You'd probably expect that I'd start off with the State of the Union....

You're right. But, did the speech work? Too early to tell.

News Flash: Democrats loved it and Republicans generally didn't. In related news pneumonia is generally a bad thing.

Of course there's a Texan response.

Hey, the Republican response! (Zzzzzzzz.....)

And finally....The perspective from the British version of the Democrats. (I'm sure their talkers will come out with better over time.)



Onward and upward....


The veterans public housing proposal beats a retreat. Not that many gave it much serious consideration in the first place.


Binding homeowner arbitration comes under fire. There's a serious case to be made for getting rid of this or, at least, making it non-binding and keeping the threat of litigation on the table to force home-builders to negotiate in good faith. (Sadly, those that are out front on this issue are not known for making serious arguments.)


The Westpark Dynamo has a fine ring to it. With no public money on the line I think this is a superior solution. (Which, of course, means that it has absolutely zero chance of ever getting done.)


KBR bets on downtown. The original plan being to move out West, but the economy sacked their planned campus. That's good news for downtown office occupancy, ironically it's KBR that's renting the space. (A company that's repulsive to many of the Downtown area's biggest boosters.)


No education = no drivers license = no way to get to a job = dependent of the State. I don't think Rick Perry has thought this one through.


The ChronBlog Caucasian Think-Tank finds another tax increase to embrace. This time against those mean, evil bankers. (I wonder if they'll be as excited about taxes on the bonuses of Newspaper companies? My guess is no.)*


The Republican stimulus problem. Good for me but not for thee is a tough campaign slogan. (Then there's the problem of the flag-waving that was associated with the small checks cut for the Bush tax-cuts.)


Those backroom healthcare deals aren't going away. Broken transparency promises notwithstanding.


I present to you the least surprsing news story of the day. You're welcome.


Texas Tribune eye for the death-row killer guy? (I remember, back in the halcyon days of 2009, how Texas Tribune promised to 'redefine journalism' upon their rollout. Let's see: Advocacy journalism and anti-death penalty screeds. Nope, just more of the same minus getting your hands dirty.)


RIP Howard Zinn. There's an important message in this piece: You can learn something from everybody. That's why it's important to get your news from a variety of perspectives. (And why it's important for news outlets to try and offer a variety of viewpoints, which is something at which most fail miserably.)


You know things are bad if beer sales are down in Germany. So yeah, things are bad.


And finally....

Shopping for bananas in PJ bottoms is not allowed in one large British grocery store chain. A sensible idea that should be implemented here.

SOTU: Snap Analysis.

The Text: Here.

In reality, SOTU speeches during election years are little more than campaign speeches dressed up in the tuxedos high rhetoric and overly-long applause. From that perspective, Obama's speech was a solid B+ for the Democratic Party. Heading into the speech many pundits were expecting a return to Clinton-style triangulation, what they got was a wide-ranging repeat of Democratic policy priorities that Obama has championed since the beginning of his campaign.

Health Care: In my opinion, the weakest part of his speech. Instead of channeling Clinton and taking a conciliatory tone Obama stood up and appeared ready to fight for the dog of a bill that's currently awaiting passage. As is his wont, he evoked the image of "some people" who are for people losing their insurance and dying in the streets, and he mockingly invited "anyone" who has a plan to bring it to his attention, implying that no-one had done so previously.

The buck stops....: With Bush apparently. A large section of the speech was focused on blaming the Bush administration for the ills of society. Is there plenty of blame to heap on the Bush Administration? You bet. But there's also plenty of muck-up within the Administration and the Democratic party to spread around as well.

The Spirit of Determination: From the speech:

But remember this - I never suggested that change would be easy, or that I can do it alone. Democracy in a nation of three hundred million people can be noisy and messy and complicated. And when you try to do big things and make big changes, it stirs passions and controversy. That's just how it is.

Those of us in public office can respond to this reality by playing it safe and avoid telling hard truths. We can do what's necessary to keep our poll numbers high, and get through the next election instead of doing what's best for the next generation.

But I also know this: if people had made that decision fifty years ago or one hundred years ago or two hundred years ago, we wouldn't be here tonight. The only reason we are is because generations of Americans were unafraid to do what was hard; to do what was needed even when success was uncertain; to do what it took to keep the dream of this nation alive for their children and grandchildren.

In my opinion this was the best portion of Obama's speech, and his delivery was bang on.

Irony: Does it strike anyone else as odd that Obama is railing against the Washington "establishment" in an effort to make sure many of them get re-elected? Think about that for a minute.

Biggest Surprise(s): A targeted capital gains tax cut? From a Democrat? Also, I was surprised that he even discussed Cap n' Trade, a bad bill that many have considered DOA for quite some time.

Cognitive Dissonance: Obama's outright campaign statement calling the Republicans the Party of No during a section bemoaning constant campaigning and increasing partisanship in Washington was poorly conceived by his speech writers.

Jobs bill: Republicans will cast it as "Stimulus II" but they'll be under severe pressure from a public with shaky confidence in the economy to pass it. He also pushed for tax credits for business, and repeated his call for tax increases on Oil companies, banks and all those making over $250K/year.


Now that the speeches are over, the campaign begins, it will be interesting to see how people react to the speech in the polls.

iThud?

After all of the hoopla and hubub surrounding the GRAND BIG ANNOUNCEMENT of the (get this) iPad *snicker* I was ready for emergence of a Tech messiah to lead us to the promised land of true, mobile computing bliss.

Uh...no.

What we ended up with was a super-sized version of the iPod Touch with some limited connectivity options on the high-end. Call it an iTouch on steroids (sans camera) or a big-assed iPhone with no calling plan or whatever you want. What we're looking at here is iFlop....or iThud....or *shudder* Newton.

Despite being generally panned, I'm thinking the HP Slate running Windows 7 @ a rumored price point of under $400 peaks my interest more than this.

The Noise Machine (01/27/10)

Do not adjust your set......


About that HPD crime lab.... (At some point, it's got to get better right?)


The unmaking of NASA. (A limited constituency et. al.)


Harris County on being the biggest dog in the kennel. (It's good to be the king.)


Regardless of your political affiliation, I think we can all agree that reducing the number of incarcerated juveniles is a good thing. (Certainly so in the country with the largest (official) prison population in the world.)


Let's throw a (political) Party:

A Democratic pollster takes Obama to task. (The spectre of incompetence was always hanging over this administration, it's just that most who voted for him didn't expect the learning curve to be so steep.)

When in doubt, Democrats remember the lessons of Bill Clinton. (Inarguably the most successful Democratic President of the computer age.)

Why the Democrats are in trouble: Exhibit A (When you build your base of power on a collection of special interest groups with no defining, central vision these things tend to happen.)

Need more proof? Well then here's Exhibit B and Exhibit C. (Too many narrow agendas spoil the soup.)

Or there's this, from Joel Kotkin, possibly the most serious urban affairs writer out there today.

Another problem: In many cases they detest those they are elected to represent. (For more proof of this go read pretty much any InterLeft blogger after a political moment doesn't go their way. "Stupid" and "losers" are the descriptors du jour.)

The spin-off of all this is that the generally non-productive public sector is growing while any sector that creates wealth is shrinking. (Speaking of unsustainable)

Oh, and the Progressive "model" for Texas is slowly drying up and blowing away. (See: Public Employee Unions for more)

Then there's the whole hubris thing, coupled with politically calculated moral outrage....*sigh*


So, politically anyway, we're in a wasteland populated by those who view the average American as inferior and inept and....

An intellectually bankrupt GOP who's clinging to the parts of the Reagan plan they like (tax cuts, small Government) while rejecting the parts they don't like (Amnesty for illegal immigrants) is only a partial solution to the mess.


There are signs of hope however, Rep. Paul Ryan's Blueprint thingy has some serious policy provisions inside, and Americans seem to have finally had enough of the spending. That's something at least.

As tonight's SOTU address approaches I wouldn't advise playing a drinking game centered around the words "middle class" or "bipartisanship", your liver will defect within the first 15 minutes


Speaking of the SOTU, It appears that most people will watch it on FOXNews. (Another fact that spawns fits of rage amongst the InterLeft set FWIW)


The Bill White er..Texas Tribune on Charter schools and the problems they're having retaining teachers.


And finally....


Never before has a candidate polling at 12% been so hailed. (Could it be that she's the only Republican candidate Bill White has a chance of beating?) In the words of a long-time blogger.....stay tuned.

The Noise Machine (01/26/10)

SOTU Eve.....



Let's talk about sex bay-bee. (Just maybe not to a bunch of 10yr olds OK?) *yuck*


Sheriff Garcia wants a SWAT team. What's this, a para-military County Police force? (What's he doing, angling for the Republican vote?)


The University of Texas-Austin is planning tuition hikes. In non-related news (we're told) Mack Brown is raking in $5MM per annum. (And, as ChronBlog has told us, their poor Regent isn't getting a raise.)


The way they were going I'm questioning whether there was a plan A.


A comedy in four acts:

We're gonna FREEZE that Federal Spending. (At least, that Federal spending on programs we don't like.)

The Sky is falling! (What will we do without massive federal funds?)

No! The sky is NOT falling! (Think of the finances of your children!)

Forget the children and their quality of life 50 years from now. The sky IS falling! (I know this because God told me. I'm a Reverend after all.)

The end....



If a State of the Union Speech is given in the woods...and no one is around to hear it....do spending cuts really get implemented? (Political theatre is the best theatre FWIW)


Ooooh....Davos...scary.


Taking the romance out of olive oil. (So you really want to be a farmer?)


Increased transparency in Government is a bi-partisan issue. (Except when it's not)


And finally.....



I sure am glad the old campaign finance laws (struck down by the SCOTUS) eradicated corporate money from politics. Oh....wait.

If only they offered podcasts or video streaming to the public....

their interviews might be relevant again.

(Peggy Fikac, Texas Politics @Chron.com, 01/25/2010)

Gov. Rick Perry won't be meeting with newspaper editorial boards as they decide which candidate to endorse, campaign spokesman Mark Miner said today.

Miner said that Perry still wants coverage, of course, and "we want to work with the media" but he doesn't want to spend the time on editorial board meetings.

"They can still endorse us if they want," Miner said. "A better use of the governor's time is speaking around the state, talking about issues that matter to people. If you have an opportunity to talk directly to people around the state or sit in a board room for two hours, we're choosing to travel around the state and talk about issues."

Kevin Whited has long suggested that the CCTT consider streaming these insider board meetings to the public, thus increasing their value to politicians and making it worth the public's time as well. For a blueprint, see the fine candidate interviews completed by Democratic/Progressive blogger Charles Kuffner.

As the amount of information available increases in everyday life the idea of editorial writers and newspaper editors acting as some sort of news filter to protect the general public from themselves is laughable. The end result is the obsolescence of old media traditions such as candidate/editorial board closed-door meetings.

Open it up and let the customer decide.

Glutton for Punishment

Back in March of 2009 I disclosed the fact that, for the first time in 12 years, I would not have a subscription to the local newspaper. This was a decision that was reached despite my long-term subscription to the Houston Chronicle.

Unlike many, my reasons for cancelling my subscription weren't ideological. In short, I could give a damn whether ChronBlog has a liberal, conservative or anarchy bias, as long as I understand it and apply the correct filter to their news. Yes, ChronBlog has never met a government solution in search of a problem that they don't like, or a tax that they felt shouldn't be collected, and yes, they're too close to Metro and the political machine that they cover, but the biggest reason that I stopped subscribing was because the value-add that their reporting provided was growing less and less every day. The Monday & Tuesday print editions are fairly worthless and, aside from the Sunday edition, I found myself taking the newspaper straight out of the bag and putting it directly in the recycle bin.

Not that I wasn't reading ChronBlog, I was. As my blog(s) changed in style I came to rely on ChronBlog content more and more. I've always said that, without newspapers, the political blogosphere would be a boring place populated by sock-puppets reciting news releases from their respective parties into the echo-chamber of a readership that either agrees, or is mocked viciously and angrily using some of the weakest arguments known to man. You want a primer on logical fallacies? Get thee to the comments thread of a blog.

I went along without a paper edition of ChronBlog for 10-months, and then my wife reminded me what we were missing: coupons. My wife is a dedicated coupon-cutter, she can save around 10-15% of our total grocery bill buying with them, and she ended up buying the early Sunday edition on her Saturday shopping trips more often than not.

Here's where ChronBlog came through. Their Wed-Sun home delivery with the ability to get the e-edition of Mon-Tues was just what I was looking for. Not only do I now get the Sunday edition for the coupons (and, to be honest, I enjoy reading through the paper on Sunday morning) but I also get the Taste section and the food reviews on Wednesday and Thursday. Since I do most of my news-reading on line, this is a perfect set-up for me.

So I find myself, once again, a member of the ChronBlog subscription base. A paying customer. My 10 month experiment with no daily newspaper has come to an end. In summary, here are the results....

- My life was actually OK without a daily newspaper to read. At first I thought I'd miss sitting down with something tactile to skim through, but I found that getting my news online was a workable substitute.

- The death-blow to the industry could be the day someone figures out how to reliably deliver coupons in some other form than the Sunday paper. I've spoken with several people who say that this is the main reason they still get the paper at all.

- I did miss sitting down and reading the food sections, especially the restaurant critiques by Houston's lone, remaining professional food critic. Granted, you would be advised to wait before trying the recipes but they do provide a good guide post for Internet searches of the same.

- Oddly, the section that I found suffered the most online were the comics. Text stories on-line were just as good as text stories in the hard-copy medium, but there was something about the comics page that just wasn't the same.

- I find myself reading more of the hard copy paper than online. Maybe this is because the ChronBlog website doesn't encourage drilling down past the front page? All I know is, when reading the physical paper I'm more likely to look at the work of the Metro columnist and the ChronBlog Caucasian Think Tank. In the online version I could go weeks without reading either. (or I'd have to remind myself to check up on them for the linkpost.)

- This is going to sound like a joke but it's not. One thing that not having a physical newspaper effects is the availability of kindling for grilling. I don't mean that rude, it's just fact. Newspaper stock makes for a great fire-starter.

Oh yeah, to the FCC, I have received nothing in compensation for this blog post.

The Noise Machine (01/25/2010)

Who Dat? etc. etc....


Welcome to Chrysler-land Fiat.


When crisis strikes: Change the window dressing. (Call it, Modern Political Leadership Theory 101)


Political truism: When polls are trending negative the gut-shot reaction is to announce "help for the middle class". (Call it, Modern Political Leadership Theory 201)


I don't know about you, but I'm still waiting for the "dippin' dots" green economy of the future to replace the jobs that are about to be lost.


Are For-profit colleges the wave of the future? (Not unless the perception of their degrees in the corporate world improve substantially.)


Saving wetlands is always a good idea. (There are perhaps no ecosystems more vital to environmental health than marshes and wetlands.)


Here come the wave of fitness center lawsuits. (Death, taxes and trial lawyers trying to make a buck.)


An interesting look at Texas CAN academy. (Write-off the car AND the kid?)


What a mess. (With all of the oil traffic in the Houston Ship Channel, it's amazing this doesn't happen more often.)


Foreclosures on the upswing in Houston. As the current administration seeks to cripple Houston's two largest industries (health care and energy) expect this trend to continue to rise.


Should we read anything into the ChronBlog Caucasian Think-Tank's recent fixation on Houstonians' eating habits? That's two editorials against processed foods in two days.** Preparing for a second career in nutrition perhaps? (After the eventual shuttering of the ChronBlog that is.)


Two sides of the Metro Universities line land takings: 1. From the Pro-Metro crowd and 2. From the Anti-Metro crowd. You are all free to choose the argument that best suits your political leanings.


What's the statute of limitations on blaming your predecessor? In the corporate world you have somewhere around a six-month window. In politics, where (honestly) taking the blame for screw-ups is unheard of it could be unlimited. (Whether or not the populace believes you (not including the unquestioning left fringe) is another story. We already know the unquestioning right fringe never believed you in the first place.)


Cutting the Federal Budget without addressing entitlements is akin to trying to lose weight without changing your eating habits. It ain't gonna' work. That being said, the populace has, seemingly, had enough of the run-away spending. Of course, this being politics, the pundits think this is a good time to increase the agenda and spend more.


The problem with today's journalists? They're too close to the people they cover. (See: The "super-secret" journo/movers & lefty shakers meetings that none shall mention**.)


Medina is turning out to be a progressives late Christmas present. A Republican with no chance to win but who could force Perry into a run-off. (Thus keeping his campaign machine turned away from Bill White.)


And finally.....


Republicans on the Interwebs (WARNING! It ain't pretty.)









*All joking aside, the advice they are giving regarding diets is fairly accurate. So there's that.

**Unless they want to let everyone know that they are a lefty mover & shaker that is, then....they let it slip. (from time to time)

The end of a money grab...

...fittingly, with a whimper

(Mary Flood, Chron.com 01/23/2010)

Houston this week lost its bid to collect millions of dollars in hotel occupancy taxes from online travel sites.
Houston, like other cities around the country, sued Expedia, Priceline.com, Orbitz, Travelocity and other online booking companies, saying the city wasn't getting the full amount of taxes for each Houston hotel room booked.
Houston alleged that the companies violated its hotel occupancy tax ordinance and sought millions of dollars. The city argued that online bookers should pay taxes on what the customer paid.
But the online services argued that taxes should only be paid on their wholesale cost for the hotel room and the city had no right to tax the online service fees or the room markup.
Harris County Civil District Judge Brent Gamble this week tossed the case out of court based on arguments from the online services that include that they aren't hotels and their fees should not be subject to hotel taxes.

Of course, there will be appeals and (since no bad political idea ever truly goes away) eventually a new lawsuit worded differently or with a different tax basis used to try and extract more money from the hotel/motel sector in order to pay for the increasingly unworkable debt load on our shiny new stadiums and city owned hotels.


Desperate times and all of that.

The Noise Machine (01/24/10)

And I in my cap, settled in for a long day of football....


Anne Linehan of BlogHouston points out two new Metro absurdities rightly calling the local agency a 'cesspool'. (The argument for Metro is, well, that they're about the same as TxDot when it comes to cost overruns. This is made by the same folks who constantly say (rightly) that TxDot is a mess.)


Also from Ms. Linehan is an update of the controversial "F-2" segment of the Grand Parkway. If ever there was a road that didn't need to be built....


Rest in Peace Robert Mosbacher.


Feminist economics, yup you read that right.


Hutchison's abortion problem. Or, why she's got no chance of winning the Republican Gubernatorial primary.


Fontaine resigns from Metro, takes position with Metro. Good luck with that....


Translation: The voters are too stupid to make the necessary decisions inherent in a Democracy. (I wonder if they'd also be open to limiting the spending of unions and trial lawyers? Nah...


Guerrilla politics, courtesy of Debra Medina. (Given her lack of money this could be her best tactic.) It won't help her much methinks, but it's probably the best thing she's got.


Bill King is still out there sounding the pension obligation alarm that our elected officials are failing to hear.


Out-going Metro Chairman David Wolff however, wants to worsen Houston's already precarious financial standing by recouping $1.6 Billion in sales tax funds in order to prop up Metro's shaky financial situation. (Caused, for the most part, by Metro's insistence on building a faulty at-grade rail system.)


When I agree with the ChronBlog Caucasian Think-Tank. Where they miss the boat however, is in their failure to address the cost of such a diet. Organic food is expensive. The reason the poor eat so poorly is because, in many cases, they can't afford food from the farmer's markets that the cultural elite are holding up as an ideal.


Slampo provides some historical perspective to the Republican Gubernatorial primary. (and illustrates both why Hutchison can't win, and what's wrong with the modern-day Republican party.)


Finally....


Your weekly dose of Clarkson (Because, if Houston can't have a good Metro columnist we'll have to ape the work of others.)