The Noise Machine (04/23/10)

With the first pick in the Houston Blog draft, HCA selects......



BlogHouston notes that Metro is still in damage control, spin mode from their latest round of (seemingly never-ending) scandals. The Houston Press meanwhile offers their PR shop a bit of friendly advice.


Meanwhile, over at ChronBlog, "Nothing to see here, the Americans are NOT in Baghdad". (Calling this an "accounting review" is sketchy, at best. When you consider that UHY did not take into account GAAP standards nor apply any type of business case test what they basically did is say "Yup, everything is documented". Totally stripped of it's underlying business context you could say that a ponzi scheme is OK when you think about it.) The entire report is provided here.


Local New Urbanist Andrew Burelson makes a good observation regarding government mandated parking standards and their disconnect with reality. (Oddly enough, he (and many other New Urbanists) aren't fans of this big, monolithic government solution because they don't like the outcome. However, they're fine with proposing other big, monolithic government solutions that produce outcomes they think see as desirable.*)


Over at the Bill White Texas Tribune, Evan Smith gives public school teachers an earful. (Implying that those who question the Trib are lazy and whining about his salary being posted on various blogs. It should be noted: this blog was not one that posted said salary, nor will it. Nor will HCA delve too deeply into teacher's salaries. Your mileage may vary. Now administrator salaries? That's a different matter. Buck up Evan.)


Also from the Bil... er...Trib: The Perry camp has the White campaign on the defensive. (Who could have predicted that Perry's team would be successful in framing White for the public?)


And finally.....


Is there a correlation between body weight and sucking from the public teat? Lou Minatti thinks he could be onto something here...









You see the same thing with the pro-healthcare reform crowd, who LOVE the idea of Government mandates and control of the healthcare industry, but are throwing a fit over the proposal that the Federal Government regulate (read: eliminate) direct sales of wine.