No Upgrades

The end of American Civilization. (Part 1)

2012-01-08T17:20:00.000-08:00

These are pictures I took today at the Houston Boat Show. What you are seeing is the fist step of the end of America: fake fireplaces in vehicles designed for camping.

And people thought it was a great idea.

We're done.

Because we say so.....

2012-01-06T08:25:00.000-08:00

That seems to be the evidence used by Nancy Sarnoff of Chron.com to speculate that Downtown Houston is on the verge of a building boom.....

(New Downtown Tower Could Take Shape, Nancy Sarnoff, Chron.com)

A new skyscraper in downtown Houston could be announced this year, a sign of strength in the local property market, real estate executives said Thursday.

"I think that every developer has a new building in their drawer ready to pull out as soon as the market's ready," Laura Van Ness, director of business development for Central Houston, said during a panel discussion on the future of downtown. The event was held by the Houston chapter of CoreNet Global, a corporate real estate association.

So you have an unelected bureaucrat, providing an opinion backed by no hard data (that was provided in the story) and that's sufficient enough to say that new buildings are going to be popping up soon?

Near as I can tell, the biggest argument FOR development is that rents are rising. Um, OK, rising rents are good for the renter, which makes it odd that many of the same who are benefiting from increased rents would really do all that much to build just because.

Later in the story, following a tactic called "buying the lede", was a statement by Hines saying NOTHING will happen until tenant demand (in the form of lease agreements) is sufficient to fill 50% of any proposed hi-rise and that, right now, that's just not there.

If it ever DOES get there then expect companies to build as necessary to fulfill demand, until then, take glorious pronouncements of a downtown building boom with a hefty grain of Gulf Cost salt.

Proving my point on the 'middle class'

2012-01-05T07:55:00.000-08:00

For years now I've been saying (on Isolated Desolation, Lose an Eye, Harris County Almanac and now here) that most progressives define "wealthy" as being anyone who earns more than 60K per year.

Today the Apple Dumpling Gang provides hard evidence of that:

(How do you define middle class? It depends..., The Apple Dumpling Gang, Chron.com)

By the strictest of definitions, American families that fall into the middle fifth by income are middle class. By that standard, families making between $38,048 and $61,735 (in 2010 dollars) would be middle class.

Remember that, when you hear progressive bloggers, progressive politicians and progressive members of the media talking about "making the wealthy pay". If you have a household income of $75K, you're the "wealthy" and they want to make you pay "your fair share".

It's an important data point in the upcoming debate over which direction we want our economy to go.

Added: All of this makes you wonder what type of middle-class jobs the President and The Apple Dumpling Gang are speaking of? Certainly not professional positions that require a degree, or an advanced degree for that matter, because most of those, outside of entry-level positions, have pay scales in excess of the middle class.

The iPad2 review.

2012-01-03T19:12:00.000-08:00

I mentioned, on Twitter, that Little Oil Co. decided to give everyone iPad 2's for Christmas, as a way of saying thanks for a good year. I've had around a month to play with it and these are my thoughts....

2 important caveats.

1. I'm not a tech-writer or IT guy, I know just enough about computers to install most software without wiping out the hard drive. So there's that.

2. I'm NOT an Apple fan. I work on a PC, have PC's at home, a Droid 2 Global phone and a Sansa mp3 player. There are a lot of things about Apple that I dislike.

That being said, I like the iPad2. Granted, I'm not sure I'd pay the price for it on the open market, but now that I have it I'm finding it to be a useful little toy. And it is a toy, despite people trying to tell you that it's a productivity enhancer. It's a fun toy, that has very interesting possibilities for travel, but it's absolutely useless for work. For typing? Well, if it's any indication I'm typing this blog post on my PC, not on my iPad.

What I do like are that there are several free apps that make it useful. I've downloaded the Chron.com app, and enjoy reading the "paper" on it. That said, if I didn't already have a Wed-Sunday subscription (which gives me the iPad version on Mon-Tues) I don't think I'd pay for the paper in this format. For me, the benefit of a newspaper subscription are the Sunday coupons. I can get news anywhere, quicker and for way less money. This is not the lifesaver that the print media thinks it's going to be. Again, on the road (with wi-fi available, so you can read the articles - or with the pretty expensive data plan) it has potential, but not as a daily read. I've also downloaded HootSuite for Twitter, which I really like. It's a slick interface that's easy to read and has a lot of flexibility. It's not TweetDeck, but it's pretty good.

This brings us to the major shortcoming that I find with the iPad2, typing. It's not that bad on Twitter, where you can only type 140 characters at a time, but when typing something that takes some work (say, a blog post) it's very time consuming. It's possible that I just have fat fingers, but I find the keyboard on the screen pretty poorly laid out. Copy and paste is also a chore, mostly because you have to close down, open the browser, drag copy the line, close the browser, open what you were working on, and paste. Call it me but Alt+Tab click and CTRL+C is much easier, and more practical.

To sum up I see me using the iPad, in place of my netbook, on plane trips etc, but I'll still use my netbook for times when I go somewhere and plan to do some typing. It will be interesting to see, on upcoming trips, how it connects to different wi-fi signals in the field, and whether it will work in Europe at all.

I do see why Apple fans like it though, it's got all of the styling and bells and whistles that they crave, iApple swagger if you will. It is a useful little toy that has good graphics, is easy to use, and has a wide variety of apps that work really well. One major drawback, and don't let apple fanbois tell you it's not, is the lack of Flash. It's frustrating to click on something and find a white page staring back at you. You miss an awful lot of the Internet without it.

Verdict: Good, sturdily built, useful (at some things) tablet, but not sure if I find it worth the high price. To be fair, if I wasn't so reliant on Windows and Office for most of my work I might like it better.

The ReBoot

2012-01-02T13:57:00.000-08:00

One of the reasons I chose corycrow.blogspot.com as my address when creating HCA was that I knew, at some time, I'd be ready to do a re-boot just as I had with Isolated Desolation and HCA. What I didn't want to do was archive an old blog and eventually delete it as I had with the others. I think that, by keeping corycrow alive and well I can really change this blog to be whatever I want it to be.

What I want it to be is a personal blog, largely (almost totally) free from politics (excepting the occasional goofy story etc.) focusing on travel, good places to eat, good wine, humor, you name it.

I'm changing because I really believe independent poli-blogging is dead. The interLeft has devolved into a profane circle-jerk, and the Bloggers O' the Right have become a circular firing squad. With no one listening, or willing to consider other opinions, the genre is as dead as it's ever been. It's become a world where blockquoting with non-existent attribution with no value-add makes one an elder statesman, and people with opinions choose to frame them as fact. There's a reason people are pulling back. That reason is bad blogging.

I won't promise to update this every day. Heck, I won't even promise to update on a regular basis. If you're still following this blog (there area few of you) you're probably a friend anyway, either that or you see me on twitter, so you'll know when I update and will either come and read, or you won't. Either way I'm hoping the pictures are nice and the prose makes you laugh. More importantly, I'm going to be on-line less in 2012 and spending more time out in the real world, spending time on planes, on bike-trails, and working on my house.

I've got a lot coming up in 2012, I hope that if you're following along you get a chuckle out of it. I know that I will. Here's hoping I don't get seated next to this on my way to my various destinations:

2012 predictions

2012-01-01T21:18:00.000-08:00

Let's see how wrong I can get this year...

1. Romney wins R nomination, loses general to Obama b/c of tea party defection to 3rd party "non RINO" candidate.

2. Perry drops out of nomination race after poor showing in SC. Announces will run for another term as TX Gov.

3. EPA continues war against oil industry. Prices rise to over $150/bbl.

4. US economy continues to suffer despite gridlock in Fed Gov.

5. This blog will either undergo a ame change, or shutter in 2012. Right now I'm leaning toward a name/direction change. No more political blogging is already a given.

6. The Obama administration is hobbled by a series of scandals.

7. "food deserts" are never defined, but Millions are spent trying to put an end to them.

8. Mexico is unsuccessful turning their economy around and controlling the drug gangs. This is a bad thing for the US economy.

9. At some point Israel will have enough of Obama's dithering in the region.

10. AGW climate change will be all but disproven, movement will still survive because adherents don't fully understand scientific method and why science is not settled.

That's all I've got this time. Blog reboot coming soon.

Greetings 2012

2011-12-31T22:43:00.000-08:00

Goodbye 2011 and hello 2012.

For 2012 expect more of the same from the blog here. I'm not expecting to up output much, as my resolutions for 2012 have more to do w/work life balance and less to do with being on the computer all the time. Travel, will be front loaded this year and will involve multiple trips to Europe and Las Vegas.

I'm also planning to take things in a less political direction here in 2012 and more toward the social satire side. As for resolutions...

I resolve to work less and sleep more.
I resolve to spend more time hiking, riding my bike and doing things that don't involve looking at a computer screen all day.
I resolve to be more cynical.
I resolve to not blog the election.
I resolve to spend more time sports blogging.
I resolve to spend less time worrying about bad journalism in Texas. (not that it's going to change right?)

So Happy New Year all. Here's hoping 2012 treats you better than 2011 did.

While we were out....

2011-12-26T15:43:00.000-08:00

Houston's "Downtown Pavilions" went into receivership....

(Downtown’s Houston Pavilions taken over by receiver, Nancy Sarnoff, Chron.com)

Despite this the City has declared the property (whose anchor tenants are the House of Blues and Lucky Strike Bowling Lanes) a "success". Obviously using some definition of success with which are are not yet familiar....

Houston gets "bike sharing" (at Light Rail stations to boot!)

(Houston to get bike sharing and Nissan Leafs*, Zain Shauk, Chron.com)

This little "newswatch" blog piece wasn't bad, but the 'news' story from Chronblog on this issue should have never made it passed even the most junior editor....

(Bicycle-sharing program will start in downtown Houston, Allan Turner, Chron.com)

Imagine a Houston where you could step from a light rail station, rent a bicycle for a nominal sum and pedal to your destination. The only greenhouse gas you'd emit would be your own carbon dioxide as you huffed and puffed along. Rather than fretting about burning noxious gasoline, you could gloat about burning calories.

Cringe-worthy, and not a word of opposition in what was clearly designed to be an advocacy piece and nothing resembling journalism.

During time when finances for the City are historically tight, it's telling that this bumbling administration and City Council closed the curtain on 2011 with some fiscally questionable decisions. It's almost comical that ChronBlog asked the question whether gridlock has been good for Texas or no.

Given the actions of our local politicians (many of whom share fiscal ideology with many in the National Democratic Party) the more gridlock the better.

*I won't even discuss the "leasing" of Nissan Leafs. I'm sure someone would say this has as much potential to the taxpayer as did Bill White's failure of a Prius purchase plan.

'Twas the night before, the night before, the night before Christmas

2011-12-22T11:22:00.001-08:00

(used via a creative commons license.)

And all through the house, not a blogger was blogging, not even the lightly read and intermittently updated.

In other words: Happy Christmas y'all. Here's hoping you spend it with good times, good friends, all of your loved ones around you safe and happy (and warm) and free from food-borne illnesses.

If you comment on here, don't be surprised if it's not approved until after the Holiday has passed. I've got tamales to eat ya' know?

City of Houston passes High Rise Ordinance, takes first bite of elephant...

2011-12-22T09:59:00.001-08:00

Many of my three (or so) regular readers are undoubtedly familiar with the question: "How do you eat an elephant?" The answer of course being "One bite at a time."

Yesterday zoning and land-use advocates took their first bite into the zoning elephant and are already coming back for more.

(Houston City Council OKs high-rise limits, Zain Shauk, Chron.com)

After four years of arguments and delays, Houston City Council on Wednesday approved restrictions on residential towers, passing an ordinance inspired by the so-called Ashby high rise.

The decision came during the final council meeting of the year, giving Mayor Annise Parker a victory as she pushed for two controversial sets of regulations to pass before seven new city representatives are sworn into office in January.

The other proposed regulations stalled, however, with the council voting unanimously to delay a vote on new automobile shop rules until February and leave the issue to the new council in the upcoming term.

The restrictions on high rises, which will require those structures to be built at least 30 or 40 feet from surrounding homes, depending on the street sizes, faced opposition from five council members who wanted it delayed.

In reality, this is a fairly toothless ordinance. One that was undoubtedly crafted to provoke the following response:

(Buffering Ordinance Falls Short, The Apple Dumpling Gang, Chron.com

Those who endorse incremental change may applaud the Residential Buffering Ordinance as a small step in the right direction. But if the city's goal is to protect neighborhoods against the kind of unwelcome surprises posed by projects like the Ashby high-rise, the Residential Buffering Ordinance falls tragically short. We believe that the city can do better.

By better, the Gang is undoubtedly referring to form based codes which, in reality, are zoning for those who don't like the mean-ol' Government telling them what they can or cannot do with their land. The problem with form-based codes is that the argument based for/against them is based on a false premise.

(Regarding the proposed High Density Ordinance, Andrew Burleson, NeoHouston

A far better and more effective approach to development regulation is form-based code. In a form-based code the scale of a building and the way it relates to its surroundings is regulated, and land-use is not regulated.

Got that? Land-use is NOT regulated, so we're dealing with the much more benign "codes" than a full on frontal zoning ordinance which would tell you at what time you could wake up in the morning to relieve yourself.

At first blush, form-based "codes" sounds much more benign, kind of like a soft summer afternoon at a beach bar on a Sunday evening, rather than the full on Saturday evening rave that zoning is sure to become. The problem with this analogy, is that you're still drunk at the end and wake up with a hangover the next day.

By limiting the form of buildings you also limit the possibilities for their use. While it's true that one can put a restaurant into a converted bungalow, one would have difficulty building a multi-unit residential property in one. You also would have difficulty doing office space of any meaningful size (obviously we're omitting law-offices from this discussion, which (like roaches) can take up residence pretty much anywhere) limits the possible uses for which new construction can be designed. Conveniently, this also ensures that very un-urban suburban plat neighborhoods are allowed to thrive (at now inflated real-estate prices) while low-rent areas are more likely to be re-developed to handle the desire for "urbanism". In short, the wealthy keep their yards while the DINK's get their lofts. Everyone is happy except the poor, who are increasingly driven out to the fringes of town to eek out a living on their own. If you can then eliminate the main arteries that allow the poor to enter urban enclaves to reach employment centers, all the better. By shoe-horning the poor into a few public transit options, you better control and monitor their movement. This is the urbanist' dream. Paris, but without the sense of history, classic beauty and Gypsy beggars.

All of this ignores the "slippery slope" argument, which states that, once form-based codes are in place, Urbanist proponents will then say they're "not enough" and begin the push for full scale zoning. Next is a congestion charge, forced evictions and then? Unfortunately I'm not a creative enough writer to imagine what would come next.

Whatever does come next will be, fortunately, at the behest of the voters. Because to make these changes the City will have to submit them to the public for a vote, which means that City residents will get exactly what they ask for. That's why I don't have a problem with amateur urban-planners making imaginary capital spending budgets with other's money. I might not agree with Andrew Burleson, and find him to be amazingly thin skinned, but I don't begrudge him the right to advocate for his future vision for Houston (a vision, undoubtedly, that would be different than what I described here but which, in my estimation, relies too much on the benign wisdom of the planners to be realistic) as a matter of fact I welcome it. I also welcome articles such as this:

(National Economist puts Houston on Cities to Watch List, Nancy Sarnoff, Chron.com)

Steady job growth and a construction revival make Austin and Houston two of my five cities to watch. Texas isn’t hung over from the housing boom like the other big states of the South and West, so there’s little to hold back growth. Honorable mention to Fort Worth and San Antonio.

Clearly what Houston is currently doing is working out just fine. I've yet to see a good argument as to why we should continue to try and fix what's clearly not broken, only to replace it with items that clearly are?

Until then, we watch with amusement as Houston continues taking bite after bite out of the zoning elephant, all while assuring its residents that it is doing no such thing.

High bills are one thing.....

2011-12-20T18:58:00.000-08:00

....apparent incompetence is another thing altogether.

(Houston hits Harris Co. with huge drainage fee bill, Deborah Wrigley, KTRK 13 News Houston)

County commissioners have yet to recover from the first payment of the city's drainage fee that involves Reliant Park. This latest bill is ratcheting up tensions even more, but this time for good reason.

Reliant Park includes everything from Reliant Center, to the Astrodome, to Reliant Stadium and it's all county property that was built and paid for with county bond funds.

In downtown, there's Toyota Center and Minute Maid Park; both are city-owned properties. And that is why the county is wondering about its latest drainage fee bill.

"It apparently includes charges for both Toyota Center and Minute Maid Park," said Willy Loston with the Harris County Sports Authority.

To make matters worse, the letter states that the $88,000 the county paid in its first fee installment was an under-billing and about $4,000 more is due. And this latest bill is $107,000.

I'm wondering how long it will be until the City of Houston taxpayers realize that their County taxes are going to pay these bills? For County residents, many of whom don't use the stadiums they're now being (double) taxed for, this has to sting twice as hard.

From the beginning this ~~money grab~~ drainage fee has been a poorly implemented, terribly designed mess. One that will only get bigger and bigger as the City's thirst for funds increases.

Until then, there appears to be a lot of work that needs to be done to tie down rates, fees due and what actually needs to be taxed by a municipal works department that's horribly understaffed and overworked. Amazingly, despite no evidence of even the most basic competence, Mayor Parker drew no serious challengers during the last cycle and we're assured of two more years of this wandering mess.

If she doesn't draw a serious challenger in 2013, you have to wonder if Houston's City Government is finished a functioning democratic entity? After all, if the InterLeft has a problem with single-party State rule, then surely they would have a problem with single-party Municipal rule that ensures bad elected officials serve until term limited only because they are aligned with the preferred power brokers?

Sadly, no. The roar you're most likely to hear is them telling the County to "stop whining" and pay up, whether the bills are fair, correct or even for things they don't own.

HISD Must-reads

2011-12-20T10:30:00.001-08:00

If you're a resident of HISD's jurisdiction, have a kid in their school, are just worried about where your hard-taken taxpayer dollars are going, or are among the many who claim it's all "for the children" (and the teacher's unions of course), then you should take the time to read these three excellent pieces released today by Texas Watchdog....

Rash of improper influence over high-dollar contracts at Houston ISD -- while teachers are cut and schools are closed, Mike Cronin & Jennifer Peebles, Texas Watchdog

Former Houston ISD procurement chief reveals problems in the agency, talks about his dismissal, Mike Cronin, Texas WatchDog

Houston school district launches two audits, but questions abound on whether either will solve HISD's problems, Mike Cronin, Texas Watchdog

There are some issues one would hope prove to be non-partisan. Somehow I doubt that will be the issue in this case. There are sure to be a lot of politically sacred-cows gored here, be interesting to see who feigns the most outrage over this. The spin should also be good for some clean fun. I encourage you to go read all three pieces and then share them with everyone you know who has a child attending HISD, or who pays taxes to them.

(New) Metro solution: We'll just wait until the furor dies down

2011-12-18T18:16:00.001-08:00

Gotta hand it to the new Metro: They get the whole 'news cycle' thing:

Expect delays: Metro pushes back route changes until February, Caroline Evans, West University Examiner

Bus riders will have a little more time to adjust their travel plans before Metro goes through with route changes and eliminations. Metro announced via Twitter and Facebook Thursday that the proposed changes, which include eliminating the 35 Fairview and the 49 Chimney Rock, will be put off until February so staff can meet with affected communities and try to come up with other options.

What Metro's bloated PR department understands is that, by the time February rolls around, many in Houston will have forgotten that Metro was planning these 'service adjustments' altogether.

If there's any real difference between 'new' Metro and 'old' Metro it's the former's superior ability to properly handle a friendly media. You can be sure that, by February, there will be a laundry list of new, positive, stories about how Metro is ~~squandering~~ spending $900 Million of taxpayer money on an expanded toy train system designed to move the pretty people from haute location A to haute location B thus ensuring that these 'service enhancements' are buried on page 27.

Another scalp for Dolcefino's wall

2011-12-13T20:11:00.000-08:00

This time, It's the CEO of the Port of Houston.

According to the story, Mr. Dreyer is saying that he's "had enough" and is resigning. Enough of what is anyone's guess?

My guess is he's had enough of the public demanding to see what's going on over there. For years Chron.com has given organizations like the Port and Metro a free pass, choosing to forgo their watchdog responsibilities in favor of rah! rah! cheerleader reporting.

What this news hole (journalism desert?) has created is an opportunity for television news to improve ratings on a monthly basis with slickly-produced, high-tech journalism segments that (in Wayne's case anyway) typically get results.

Not thinking it through

2011-12-13T17:52:00.000-08:00

Social media. It's tough. Especially Twitter, where there are very few hard and fast rules how to successfully communicate with the masses....

For example, right now I'm guessing the Houston Tomorrow ~~smart~~ dumb-growth, ~~green~~ ecomental set wishes they had timed these two tweets at different times....

Economic and demographic shifts driving Americans to drive less: - Sent at 7:52 PM, 12/13/11

Pedestrian deaths rose in 2010 nationwide: - Sent at 7:52 PM, 12/13/11

This group can't even get social media right, and they think they should be in charge of the Urban planning for Millions of people? The obvious comeback is that they should all take more walks, Darwinism and what-not, but we here at HCA don't want people dead, just proven to be the central-planning, anti-poor, pro-ruling class, Statists they are. So, they can keep driving their SUV's to work, we don't mind....

Thanks to them for keeping the humor going though, as a local blogger it's much appreciated.

The Houston Transit Paradox

2011-12-11T12:42:00.001-08:00

On the one hand, Houston "world-class transit" proponents LOVE that Metro is being given the keys to the car of $900 Million dollars to do with as they please:

(Metro gets its money (finally, $900 million), The Apple Dumpling Gang, Chron.com)

Houston Metro's success in landing $900 million in federal funds for expanding light rail here is little short of a miracle given the national climate of towering deficits and partisan gridlock.

Congratulations to the transit agency's leadership team of Gilbert Garcia and George Greanias for getting it done. And kudos to old pros inside the agency like John Sedlak for doing their part behind the scenes. Hard to believe, but these are the first federal funds granted for Houston rail. Ever.

On the other hand, shiny new apps are being lauded for that old-fashioned, creaky bus service:

(An app for Houston's bus system, The Apple Dumpling Gang, Chron.com)

The app, which Metro says will be available by the end of the year, will list all the bus stops and schedules. We hope this comprehensive view of the system will help Houstonians see that, yes, their city does have a functioning mass transit system.

The problem with this is that, unmentioned here, Metro is currently slashing that very bus service in order to free up money to pay for the red-ink that has become the new 'transit backbone'. Imagine just how expendable those bus lines will become once the expense of an expanded network is factored in.

The solution? You will not be surprised to hear that Peter "plan" Brown*, feels that Houston just needs a plan:

(Get a plan, Peter Brown, Chron.com letters)

Essentially, there is no coordinated plan; not for the city, not for the region. Without a goal-oriented plan, backed by clear, sustainable growth policies, Houston tax-payers will be the losers, because scarce public dollars will be wasted.

Of course, the counter-argument is that 'plans' such as the ones that Brown is championing, are big money wasters that involve massive resources but which actually get little done. Fittingly, groups with high-minded names such as Brown's Better Houston and David Crossley's Houston Tomorrow love to promote plans that ultimately involve groups of like-minded people (especially people who think EXACTLY as do they) making life's decisions for the rest of us. These are the same groups of people who promote so-called "green" housing construction standards that make home prices even more prohibitive for the poor, and plans to rip up all freeways that run through cities which would make it prohibitive for the poor to get to work.

After all of that, if you can't see the paradox here it is: Proponents of so-called "world class" transit solutions are actually proposing mass-scale solutions whose real end goal is to push the poor outside of the city center and to the suburbs. The more they call for "transit" the less they are actually hoping to provide.

The core of any urban transit program should be allocate resources to ease the most common type of commute, while also providing transit who are most reliant on it. In Houston that should mean ensuring that car transit is primary, and poor neighborhoods have good strong bus service that gets them to places such as job centers, grocery stores and other community centers. Houston's transit future, as envisioned by the cool kids, is actually a plan that's designed to move upper-class urbanites with excess disposable income from their nice lofts to entertainment areas. Successful cities are not typically planned this way.

*That's Peter "plan" Brown, who garnered the support of a mere 22% of the electorate in the 2009 Houston mayoral election. That's means that just about 4 out of every 5 Houston voters disagree with him, and since his ideas closely mirror those of Houston Tomorrow you could say that they disagree with them as well. Despite this, the Apple Dumpling Gang (the editorial board of what was once the newspaper of record for America's fourth largest city)are willing to ignore the will of a strong majority to back plans like this.

Things (bad) newspapers do (part II)....

2011-12-10T11:41:00.000-08:00

Run riveting political analysis such as this:

(Runoffs will decide final makeup of Houston City Council, Zain Shauk, Chron.com)

"The mayor has some real stake in this, of course," said Richard Murray, a political science professor at the University of Houston. "She had a fairly rocky two years, I thought, with council. So, the new council, will it be better for the mayor? Worse?"

Never mind that the Chronicle still can't get Richard Murray's identification correct (He's a Democratic analyst and party activist, not "just" a political science professor as they continually note) but that analysis should have been thrown back into the ocean like a small fish.

Not content to stop there, Houston Democratic political analyst (and bicyclist!) Bob Stein gets his chance to weigh in:

Although Jones often has voted with Parker, she "has never been an easy vote" and likely will become more aggressive in a third term, Rice University political science Professor Bob Stein said.

"She will be term limited," Stein said. "All the gloves will be off with Jolanda. She won't have to worry about appeasing stakeholders or interest groups."

Ummm, the thing with Jolanda has been (whether people have liked it or not) that the gloves were never ON with her.

The problem with over-relying on the same, reliably left-leaning, experts is that eventually, they just have nothing new to add. Curiously absent from almost any Chron.com story on local politics are voices from Republican poli-sci professors. There are some in Houston, and you don't have to go too far to find them. (St. Thomas University for example) If Chron.com wanted to include a variety of thought in its analysis it wouldn't be that hard to find. That they don't tells you a lot about the editorial influence over their reporting.

Things (bad) newspapers do....

2011-12-10T10:37:00.000-08:00

Assign articles about Playboy magazine articles to the online religion editor.

Things over at the Chron have been declining for a while, but they're really starting to show stress fractures of late.

That's Billion with a "B"

2011-12-09T08:20:00.000-08:00

My two (or so) regular readers know that I'm skeptical of so-called "green energy" on a broad scale. The technology, and reliability, are just not there to make this economical when expanded at anything larger than cottage industry levels. Today's story by Texas Watchdog underscores that thought:

(Texas Public Utility Commission pushes for $7 billion transmission lines for wind power, Mark Lisheron, Texas Watchdog)

With a shale oil and gas revolution bringing us an era of inexpensive fuel and greater energy independence, an ever-resourceful state has found a way to add $7 billion to our electric bills.

The Public Utility Commission, chafing because deregulation has left it out of actual power generation decisions, wants ratepayers to pick up the tab to run wind power lines from West Texas to North Texas and Houston, according to a skeptical story today by the Dallas Morning News.

Quite unlike the downward plunge in fossil fuel prices, a project that just a few years ago was estimated to cost $5 billion is now almost $7 billion. And when Donna Nelson, the chairwoman of the Utility Commission who thinks laying the lines is prudent at either price, says the current figure is only an estimate, its track record would suggest the number will not be getting smaller.

All of this money spent for energy that's only expected to satisfy a small slice of Texas' energy needs is ridiculous on it's face. I see a burgeoning role for green energy at a micro level, but when you start to expand the concept the cost/benefit analysis gets very, very unfavorable.

Environmental stewardship is not the problem. It's possible to be green without being a raving ecomental. Really, it is. Let's start by trying to not pollute, recycle what we can, grow some square foot gardens and try and keep our cars in running order. If we choose to install personal solar panels onto our homes that's all the better. Because that's where 'green energy' has a future in my opinion. These pie-in-the-sky, job creating behemoths that are being fed to us from fantasy land are just going to result in the waste of Billions (with a B) of taxpayer dollars that could better be served fueling the real economy.

The backlog that wasn't.

2011-12-09T08:07:00.000-08:00

Excellent reporting by the Texas Watchdog today on Sheriff Garcia's on-again/off-again warrant back-log:

(Poof! Harris County Sheriff's Office backlog disappears, Steve Miller, Texas Watchdog)

A reported backlog of warrants at the Harris County Sheriff’s Office has suddenly cleared up, thanks to a statement from the office that there is no backlog.

The Houston Chronicle reported in November that 30,000 misdemeanor and felony warrants were not part of the database that state law enforcement uses to catch scofflaws both casual and serious.

Sheriff Adrian Garcia said at the time he would need a dozen staffers to clear up the problem and that the situation put his deputies at risk in the streets.

I remember when this came out, there were dire predictions of hardened criminals running loose in the streets, Sheriff Garcia all but predicted doom if his department didn't get more money.

Oops...

But now the office says that some of the numbers it put out were right --- it claims there is still a list of 19,748 misdemeanor warrants yet to be entered --- but that, oops, it made a mistake on the felony number of 10,088.

The article goes on to quote County Judge Ed Emmett, who chastises Garcia (rightly) for playing politics with public safety.

The good thing about Sheriff Garcia's election was that it cleaned out the department which had devolved into a "good ol' boys club" under the rule of Tommy Thomas. The bad thing is that, it appears, Harris County has elected someone into the office who lacks the qualities required for good leadership. This next election would be a good time to fix that, although it's HARD to vote out a County incumbent so I've serious doubts that this will happen.

A more likely result is that the InterLeft, running around with their hair on fire and a fresh dose of daily outrage, will accuse Emmett of 'playing politics' and bemoan the fact that someone more to their liking isn't in charge. (read: A Democrat). For me, I don't care if the replacement is a Democrat or a Republican, just get someone in who can properly administer the department, ensure that public safety levels are maintained, and who is competent. That should be the minimum standard for Sheriff regardless of party. Thomas couldn't do it, Garcia is now displaying the ability, so it's time for someone else.

Thanks to Texas Watchdog for their Community Commons license which allows for ample blockquoting.

You get what you want to get.

2011-12-09T07:34:00.001-08:00

Environmentalists are breathless today as a new EPA survey has come out "suggesting" that hydraulic fracturing is responsible for contaminated ground water in Wyoming.

(EPA links fracking to contaminated water in Wyoming, Neela Banerjee, Boston Herald)

The Environmental Protection Agency said that hydraulic fracturing, a controversial natural gas drilling process, likely contaminated well water in Wyoming, a finding sure to roil the debate about expanding natural gas drilling around the country.

EPA’s new draft report found dangerous amounts of benzene in a monitoring well near the town of Pavillion, in central Wyoming.

This Boston Herald article is fairly light on substance, surprisingly, the Houston Chronicle does a much better job filling in the blanks:

(EPA links fracking at Wyoming to tainted well water, Jennifer Dlouhy, Chron.com

The EPA stressed that the findings are limited to Pavillion, where fracturing has taken place both at and below the level of the drinking water aquifer and close to drinking water wells - conditions that are not common elsewhere in the U.S.

Oil and gas drilling has been conducted in the region since the 1950s, and some of the 169 gas production wells in the area were fractured as little as 1,220 feet below the surface.

By contrast, energy companies are extracting natural gas from Texas' Eagle Ford shale at depths of 4,000 to 14,000 feet.

Elizabeth Ames Jones, chair of the Texas Railroad Commission, said Texas' geology is different than Pavillion's.

"Hydraulic fracturing does not go on close to the surface here and it would be impossible to migrate up from miles below the earth to a water table," she said. She added that Texas also has stringent well construction rules to ensure water safety.

In short, what the EPA has is evidence of something, that hasn't been peer-reviewed, that's of a limited sample size, and for which there's no replication in shale fractured wells anywhere else in the Country, a one-off. A one-off that environmentalists are sure to try and use to stop shale gas development throughout the country.

What this study means is that the burden of proof is now on Encana to demonstrate that their Wyoming property is properly constructed and, if not, that they can mitigate any damage that's conclusively linked to their wells. It would seem that further testing, and tracking is needed, as well as a peer-review of the EPA's findings. What we're likely to get are politicians waving a poorly-developed flag in a rush to judgement. A judgement that many of them were determined to find no matter what. It just took them finding a field with a unique drilling profile. If you look hard enough you can find a data point to support any political agenda. The EPA now has found (albeit tenuously) the environmental argument. That they were looking for just that should give you pause.

The hope would be that this study leads to a cleaning of the water in this region. Instead we're going to hear calls to severely curtail promising energy production in the name of post-normal science. It's one of the biggest problems with Lisa Jackson's EPA, and the reason people are correct in saying that their powers need to be severely curtailed.

Eight Hundred Seventy Thousand

2011-12-06T16:47:00.001-08:00

That's the number of jobs US Shale gas, the same gas that Leftist groups (along with the EPA) want to do away with, will create by 2015 according one study by IHS:

(Shale gas will support 870,000 jobs by 2015, study says, Houston Business Journal)

Shale gas plays will support more than 250,000 new U.S. jobs by 2015, according to a study published Tuesday by IHS Inc., an international information company.
The study said in 2010, the shale gas industry supported more than 600,00 U.S. jobs, and by 2015, it will support 870,000 jobs. By 2035, the industry is expected to support 1.6 million jobs.

Think about those numbers the next time you hear politicians talk about how much they want to create jobs, while following policies that won't.

Metro flies route cut balloon, Chron tries to provide cover.

2011-12-05T19:59:00.000-08:00

Too bad (for them) the residents aren't buying it....

(Bus riders give Metro an earful on proposed route cuts, Zain Shauk, Chron.com)

Frustrated bus riders gave transit officials an earful Monday at a hearing on proposed bus route cuts, including one that would not be replaced by an alternative.

The changes proposed by the Metropolitan Transit Authority include the elimination of 10 bus routes and adjustments, including a few expansions to 40 others. The agency is proposing to expand service on some routes.

Overall however, the "service adjustments" amount to a severe decrease in service to neighborhoods that most rely on Metro. The neighborhoods that it's Metro's prime directive to provide service. If they fail on this, then they fail on their core mission. And, yes, they are failing on this as we speak, dedicated to building a shiny, fancy toy train that's designed to move shiny, fancy people from shiny, fancy place to shiny, fancy place. If you can keep the dull, plain people OFF the shiny, fancy train then that's all the better.

Meanwhile, you have to feel sorry for the poor. While the left-leaning un-elected Fed bureaucrats in D.C. are trying their best to price cars out of their reach (that's even admitted by the regulations staunchest supporters such as Thomas Friedman*) local, left-leaning un-elected bureaucrats in Houston are trying to take away the very transit that they are suggesting they rely upon. And the supposed "watchdog" media, is cheering them on every step of the way.

The late Marvin Zindler was right: It's HELL to be poor (although he knew very little about that)

*Yes, that's the same Thomas Friedman who chides others for not being 'green' enough while he himself lives in an 11,000 sq ft mansion. Green indeed.

One Bad/One Good

2011-12-05T10:16:00.000-08:00

First, the bad:

(Seliger calls out Michael Quinn Sullivan, Paul Burka, BurkaBlog)

The Amarillo state senator published an op-ed piece in the Midland Reporter-Telegram on Sunday called “Who Will Watch the Watchers,” in which he criticizes Sullivan for what he calls “fraudulent misrepresentation of voting records” by him and his “misnamed special interest group,” Texans for Fiscal Responsibility.

Sullivan had lashed out at Seliger two weeks ago, so it’s always good to see someone take on a bully. Since a link is not available to the piece, here are some excerpts from Seliger’s op-ed:

Nice to see Burka openly parroting Democratic Party talking points now. It's long been known that he's a lib/Dem opinion writer, maybe he's gotten tired of trying (unsuccessfully) to hide it?

As for the link not being available?

Well......

(Beware of fake fiscal responsibility group lobbyist and his phony Legislative ratings, Kel Seliger, MyWestTexas.com)

You'd think MSM companies would be more conscious of poorly attributed blog posts with large swaths of test copied and pasted without proper attribution.

Now, because bad news has been shown to have an adverse effect on the health and well being of those who read it......

As a public service we leave you with this (properly attributed) story:

(Focus on domestic oil will reshape U.S. energy industry,Houston Business Journal)

Originally sourced from:
(Big Oil heads back home, Guy Chazan, The Wall Street Journal)

The dramatic shift by U.S. oil majors such as ConocoPhillips and other exploration and production companies to focus on domestic production in shale plays rather than focus on major projects in the Middle East or Africa will have a key impact on the industry.

The Wall Street Journal reports that the switch to extracting oil and gas from shale will also affect the world's geopolitics, and, ultimately the world's consumers.

For example, while Middle East countries for decades were the frontrunners in oil production, the report said that a new study by PFC Energy, a Washington-based consultancy, predicts that the U.S. will be the top global oil and gas producer by 2020, bypassing Saudi Arabia and Russia.

We're (soon to be) #1!!!!

The choices we make.

2011-11-25T20:24:00.000-08:00

We should not be allowed to make, according to the anonymous ed board of ChronBlog.

(Congress caves on school lunches, The Apple Dumpling Gang, ChronBlog)

If declaring all that makes us sound as though we favor a nanny state, then so be it. When it comes to diet and health, this country's young people - all of us really - need more guidance and help. And better leadership on the subject than it is apparently getting from Congress.

Translation: We feel that all of you are too stupid to make the correct choices when it comes to your diet.

I have a better idea: Shutter the Editorial Board, which is obviously too stupid to understand the 10th Amendment to the United State's Constitution. School menus are the provision of the States, and the boards that people elect to oversee them.

So much for which to be Thankful.

2011-11-24T13:16:00.000-08:00

Even with all of the bad news, tragic news, and everything else that has floated around this year we still have a lot to be thankful for in America regardless of one's political persuasion.

I for one am Thankful that we are still free enough to choose to celebrate the Holiday in the manner of our choosing.

Happy Thanksgiving to my two (or so) regular readers, and to the rest of you as well.

KROI starts tomorrow (Maybe)

2011-11-20T16:18:00.001-08:00

Do you even care?

Mike McGuff has been all over this as have many in the InterLeft. It seems that a "news" stations is something that a world class city has to have in order to be more "world class".

I'll be honest, I haven't listened to KTRH 740 since they changed up the format and brought in Matt Patrick. I used to listen to J.R. and Lana from time to time when I knew there were big stories for them to talk about but, for the most part, when it comes to morning, drive-time radio I can usually be found switching between 790 and 610 most mornings. (I stopped listening to 1560 -along with most of the rest of you- when they switched over to the Yahoo! sports radio format) I doubt that the presence of a new 'news' station in Houston is going to change that much.

It doesn't help KROI's position, from my viewpoint, that they've decided to provide a normal time slot to Geoff Berg. There are Progressive opinion-makers I wouldn't mind hearing on a daily news show but this guy, one of the more vile and fact-free members of the InterLeft, isn't one of them.

That being said, the actual "news" line-up of the station is pretty strong and, if they can keep the opinion pieces to a minimum, they might serve a niche market in a city that claims to want it.

Is that niche large enough to sustain a radio station over the long-term? I have my doubts, but I will be listening.....When I'm not surfing the sports talk stations that is.

Meanwhile, out in the 'burbs.....

2011-11-19T11:23:00.001-08:00

There's been a lot of news coverage of late surrounding The City of Houston's endless deliberations regarding their new(proposed) parking ordinance. If this kind of dithering reminds you of the City's issues surrounding Ashby High-Rise you wouldn't be far from the truth. The last few City administrations have had difficulty walking the line between catering to the vocal minority that is the Inside-the-Loop, ~~smart~~ dumb growth set, and staying true to Houston's historic core belief of growth through a lack of central planning. That Houston's 'walkable urban' group has never been comfortable with what makes the City great (a great many of them imports from Cities with strong urban planning, bad job markets and higher costs of living), Houston's elected officials have created a business and development unfriendly environment which is having an unintended effect....

In short, many historic "Inner Loop developers" are choosing to move their expansion plans to those hated 'suburbs'.

(New Woodlands homes coming from surprising source. Jennifer Dawson, Houston Business Journal)

News came out this week that construction has begun on a 41-home gated community in The Woodlands.
The project size is not particularly significant. But what caught my eye is who’s behind the new development — Pelican Builders Inc. and Boxer Property — two Houston names not typically associated with suburban residential development.
The single-family community is being developed by Pelican Builders — which specializes in high-density, urban residential projects.

It's true, both Pelican and Boxer are still pursuing projects inside the Loop, it's telling that they feel the need to venture so far outside of it.

I've said before that, counter to the 'anti-suburbia' hysteria constantly produced by urban proponents, there are 'walkable communities' that exist outside of what many consider to be the traditional urban core. The Woodlands has several of these, as does Sugar Land and Pearland. Even Conroe has dense, walkable areas. Just today, in my far NorthWest Cy-Fair neighborhood, I hopped on my bicycle, rode over to the local grocery store, and dropped off some dry-cleaning before heading home, a trip that took just under an hour. If I wanted to, right now, I could walk to a coffee shop, a local bar, a bevvy of restaurants and a movie theater, all within 10 minutes.

It's not that I dislike urban living, it's that I have 3 large dogs and like to have a big back-yard, luxuries that cost a pretty penny inside the Loop. It's not without some irony however that I see well-to-do urban core residents (most of whom are proponents of 'walkable neighborhoods') fighting tooth and nail to keep the luxuries that I have out here in what many consider the boon-docks. I would even venture to argue that my little outer-band neighborhood is far more 'walkable' than many ideal urbanist-approved areas inside the Loop.

The point here is that "walkability" is a concept that can take on many forms, in many locations, and it's presence isn't contingent on geographic location. Nor does it fit stereotypes well. For all you hear about the "white-flight" suburbs*, remember that the ideal of a single-family home with three bedrooms and a 2-car garage is increasingly becoming attainable for historic minority demographic groups. They're discovering the lifestyle, and they're enjoying it. The great thing about living out here is that there are options for all, options that the market has decided are good things to pursue.

*Funny that most of the disparages: Pasty white, drive down the block to pick up a can of corn, bland, monochromatic, etc. are all coming from a fairly bland, chain-coffee sipping, Macy's shopping, mostly white Prog urban group who wants everyone to view things exactly as they do.

Newsish come, Newsish Go

2011-11-17T19:03:00.000-08:00

For a while now I've been railing against Prog websites, posing as non-ideological news outlets, whose sole purpose is to attempt to frame today's issues in a progressive bent. I call these organization "newsish" because what they produce reads like news but, after closer examination is not, in the traditional sense of the word.

The most successful of these newsish outlets is The Texas Tribune whose greatest claim to fame is establishing the untruth that Texas cut $4 Billion from public education* (an untruth that has now mysteriously grown to $5.4 Billion.) To be fair, the Tribune does some good work on elections, and the interviews they crank out are of high quality and (occasionally) entertaining (although often biased).

Some of these sites (see: The Trib) have been so successful that many now consider them to be the model for news:future.

Not so fast.

Today the newsish outlet American Independent announced they are shuttering.

While it's tempting to say that this is the beginning of the end for newsish sites I believe that what did in The Independent was more bad journalism and amateurish writing rather than some fundamental flaw in their business model. As I said before, the Tribune churns out some decent product outside of their content that's obviously written to forward the cause, the Independent was never able to do that.

I've also stated that I have no qualms about news outlets with an agenda, provided they're open and honest regarding that agenda. My problem with organizations such as The Trib and Independent is that they're continuing to put on the brave face that they're somehow objective journalists.

That's a claim that's ridiculous on it's face because even traditional journalists aren't objective in this day and age.

So hail and farewell to the American Independent. I can assure you that we will missish you greatly.

*In reality Texas' education funds, in terms of real dollars, INCREASED from the previous budget, although it was $4 Billion less than if they had kept the previous formula (Something the lege NEVER does). What Texas really did was provide the education system with a smaller increase, due to a National recession. It was one of those rare cases where an increase was successfully spun as a decrease by a dedicated few.

Tell me again how this 'hurts the rich'?

2011-11-17T18:38:00.000-08:00

Maybe someone can explain this to me 'cause I'm not getting it....

(Occupy Houston protesters arrested near downtown bridge. Mike Glenn, Chron.com)

Police arrested about a dozen Occupy Houston protesters during a march that ended Thursday evening at a downtown bridge.

The protesters linked arms and squatted in the middle of the intersection at Commerce and Travis.

It would seem to me that blocking a major roadway doesn't hurt the 1%, it hurts those of the 99% who are trying to hoof it home after a full day's work to spend time with their families.

Not that clear thinking has been a mainstay of the Occupy movement.

Clearing up something on central planning....

2011-11-16T19:58:00.000-08:00

So, Houston's restaurant and inner Loop crowd is up in arms over Houston's (proposed) parking ordinance changes....

As they should be, because big government, central planning diktats are rarely workable in a large, diverse urban setting. One size fits all typically becomes one size fits none and it's typically the small businesses that suffer most.

While I agree with them, I do have one SMALL bone of contention with the way this debate is playing out....

(Notes on Parking Ordinance Changes in Houston, The software agorist)

Let’s not suburban cookie cutter this, but work out collaborative solutions that fits each area of our fine city

The idea that Suburban parking standards, set out by market forces and typically not by a domineering, ham-fisted central government are the City's model here is bunk. Yes, it's a mistake to try and make dense, urban areas into a replication of the suburbs, but to compare the two situations is casting a negative light on Suburbia that it doesn't deserve. NBC has already tried this with that horrid TV show Suburgatory, and look how long that lasted. Plus, the idea that there's something "inferior" about the suburban approach to living undercuts the main argument that the "walkable"* urban living group is making.

Individual choice means just that. If you want to imagine true purgatory on Earth, imagine 7 Million people wedged inside the Loop asshole to elbow. The point here should be that there are a myriad of solutions that could provide Houstonians with the flexibility they say they are after. If you don't think so, go take a look at the many "walkable" neighborhoods that actually DO exists outside of the Loop and Beltway 8.

*As my friend Kevin notes, most of the urbanites in Houston have precious little idea what a "walkable" neighborhood really is.

This is why no one takes you seriously (Part II)

2011-11-16T17:21:00.000-08:00

Consider this: these are the same people that were frothing at the mouth over the TCEP "censoring" an AGW proponent in a recent report.

("Now would be a good time to think about saving our lives, David Crossley, The List @ Chron.com)

[As usual, comments from supporters of climate change will not be published]

Translation: If you don't agree with me, I won't publish your comments.

Pot, meet Kettle.

The good news is that AGW proponents like David Crossley do more to HURT their own cause than any fact could ever do. Prior to Climategate, the momentum was firmly behind them, wind at their back and all of that. Now the emperor has been revealed as the naked, science-free rogue many AGW deniers knew him to be, and they're starting to run into stiff headwinds.

Even more unbelievable is that Chron.com (the former newspaper of record for America's 4th largest City) is allowing a blogger, posting under their domain, to blatantly violate their comment policy.

This is why no one takes you seriously

2011-11-16T17:10:00.000-08:00

I'll give the Houston Tomorrow people this, they're single-minded in their wrongness about the future of Houston's economy.

Texas maintains some the largest scale and fastest growing megapolitan areas in the United States. The state is now the hub of the world energy economy, as well as a major center for logistics, corporate headquarters, and medical research and technology.

...

The combination of these three megapolitans — each specializing in different sectors — make the triangle’s economy remarkably diverse and resilient. However, the state faces risks, especially in the area of human-capital investment, that could derail growth.

What they mean by "human-capital investment" are more trains, toys and trinkets for the so-called "creative class". What they forget, is that Houston is a white-collar, working-class City through and through.

What the Houston triangle "needs" to stay competitive are more jobs, a more consistent, business-friendly environment that spurs growth, and a continued reliance on the idea that people should be able to live where they want, without nanny-state, know-it-all types trying to make life's decisions for them.

If you want a good laugh, go check this out. If you want to hear some serious talk about the future of the region, go watch and read Tory Gattis.

The job you're hired to do

2011-11-13T16:37:00.000-08:00

Greg, from Rhymes with Right, does a very good job picking apart this Chron.com article by Anita Hassan regarding the back-log of processed warrants at the Harris County Sheriff's office.

While the Chron.com piece offers zero feedback from anyone other than the HCSO spin-doctors (Garcia himself), Greg provides some much needed context and a little history lesson in Garcia's hiring practices.

Go-read both pieces, and then steel yourself for the wave of InterLeft spin that's sure to come.

I've no argument that former Sheriff Tommy Thomas had to go, but the main plank of Garcia's campaign was on his competence. The question that has to be asked is: "If Garcia is turning up incompetent then does he deserve to be re-elected?"

Sticking together

2011-11-12T21:28:00.000-08:00

Chris Moran of Chron.com reminds us that the establishment that plays together, sticks together

Thibaut, a state representative until she was swept out in the Republican landslide last year, also has the endorsements of state Sen. Rodney Ellis and her former state representative colleagues Alma Allen, Carol Alvarado, Garnet Coleman, Harold Dutton, Jessica Farrar, Ana Hernandez Luna and others.

Were I Andrew Burks Jr. (Thibaut's opponent) I'd use that as a selling point for my election.

Yes, they do think you're that dumb...

2011-11-05T11:58:00.000-07:00

From Patricia Kilday-Hart's Chron.com column on corporal punishment:

A clarification: My Wednesday column claimed that 68,000 Harris County voter registration applications were "rejected" in 2008. According to the county attorney's office, during 2007 and 2008 the voter registrar's office rejected 3,518 persons who applied for voter registration cards. During the same period, the tax office also sent 64,036 notices to voters who had submitted incomplete applications; of those, 29,386 ultimately registered, according to county records.

That's not a "clarification", that's a "correction".

That Kilday-Hart and the editors of the Chron believe you and I don't know the difference says a lot about how they view their viewers. To be fair, it's not limited to the Chron (or their Texas Hearst brethren), other media outlets go out of their way to blunt criticism by attacking the critics through grammatical silliness or false appeals to partisanship.

For example. One time, several years back, I was attempting to debate a point of something with Kyrie O'Connor, now (unbelievably) the interim editor of the San Antonio Express-News. Once it became apparent she couldn't refute my argument on "facts", she chose to take advantage of my inability to edit chron.comments and my one mis-use of "its" vs "it's". Did I make a typo? Yes, undoubtedly. Did that make my entire argument invalid? Only in the minds of the press. It doesn't stop there, instead of answering legitimate questions about The Texas Tribune's story on the Texas Windstorm Association, Trib Editor Evan Smith accused me of "grousing".

Unfortunately for Mr. Smith, the readers saw it as more than that:

Erin Anderson
So, to recap: $327 Million taxpayer dollars for 1,000 (temporary) jobs (when the "stimulus" money is gone, so are the jobs), 8,600 homes "weatherized" (with half of homes inspected found "deficient"), agencies unprepared to administer the program, shoddy record-keeping, and outright fraud. Yet the conclusion is that this program is successful and thriving??

Recipients of free money are always happy with the results. But the other 24 million Texans who did not get free weatherization or a government-subsidized job do not believe this was a "successful" use of our tax dollars. Throwing around "free" money (aka "stimulus") is an inefficient way to allocate resources that always results in high levels of waste & fraud.

And since the U.S. is almost $15 TRILLION in debt and borrows $0.43 of every dollar it spends, that's about $140 Million that will have to be repaid with interest by taxpayers. But most importantly, that's $327 Million that now cannot be spent on any other higher-priority uses, such as hiring more teachers & firemen like the President is always talking about (for example, 6,500 teachers at $50,000 each). Not the definition of success.

Is that "grousing"? Or is it a serious question regarding the completeness and context of the article?

This isn't the first petty argument I've received from Smith, who seems to spend more time editing my blog (for free, I thank him for that) than he does his own publication. Typically he gets me for misspelling his cub-reporters names. Obviously, I want to give them the correct credit, so I fix these errors whenever I can.

All that being said there's a big difference in the funding (and supposedly, the mission) of Chron.com and the Tribune, if not between the attitudes and political leanings of their reporters. The Chronicle is corporate owned, and presents itself as a non-biased media source. The Tribune is non-profit, and plays lip service to not being partisan but is lacking a single Republican on its board of directors. Its main funding comes from Democratic sources. It was very much founded as a Colorado Model organization (Also known as: News-ish) and has followed their business plan to a T.

Which leads us back to Kilday-Hart's "clarification". When Kilday-Hart wrote the original column it was forwarding an idea (that Kilday-Hart and Democrats both share) that Republicans are evil anti-Democracy warriors seeking to deny the right to vote to those who won't vote for them. The data point that she "clarified" seemingly lent credence to that argument. Except that it didn't, and the truth of it severely damaged Kilday-Hart's original argument. By "clarifying" it, instead of "correcting" it as should have been done, Kilday-Hart is implying that her original argument is still valid. That you, the paying (or non-paying) customer are too dense to figure all of this out. It's a very negative view of the general populace, one again (conveniently) shared by Kilday-Hart and the Democratic Party.

The larger, overriding, problem is that a majority of Texas lock-step political media would rather wash their eyes out with bleach rather than spend time conversing and sharing with the work-a-day Texas citizen. You can tell by the tone that they view most of them as rubes and hacks again, a view conveniently shared by them and the Democratic Party.

Does this mean that the media has a "Democratic bias"? No, that argument is sad an only made by people too dense to understand the difference between partisan and ideological. But they are, for the most part, much to the left of Texas' mainstream political population, just as I feel the Tea Party is right of the same. This wouldn't be a problem if they would admit their progressive leanings. Let us know the truth and go from there.

But they don't. Therein lies the rub.

The obvious response.....

2011-11-01T10:26:00.000-07:00

...to the news that (some) humans are heating up, and destroying Gaia is fairly obvious right?

(From the Comments of Eric Berger's anti-population post)

namsmog says:

November 1, 2011 at 11:57 am
Families do not afford to have 10 kids, they burden the rest of us with over consumption, social problems, dumb politics, wars/terrorism, you name it; human gene pool is a cesspool; no mammal has had such an adverse impact on all the rest of the species as humans…

If you consider humanity to be at fault, then the obvious solution is to remove yourself (as part of humanity) from the equation.

That will never happen, of course, because mental giants such as namsmog view themselves to be a breed above the normal flim-flam of humanity. Enlightened beings who could save everything if just everyone else would do them a favor and die. (or, at a minimum, do whatever it is they think they should do.)

At it's core, AGW is similar in goal to the Occupy folks, both of which swear fealty to the far left wing of one of our two major political parties.

Think about that.

Did PeckBlog Plagiarize?

2011-10-20T19:45:00.000-07:00

Saw a Tweet from Amy Peck tonight advertising an analysis of Texas' Constitutional Amendments on her blog. Always interested in political analysis I thought it wise to head over there and take a look. This is what I found:

Proposed Texas Constitutional Amendments, Amy Peck, PeckBlog

Here are the proposed state constitutional amendments coming up in the November election. As a state employee, I do not think it would be ethical to post my opinions about the proposed constitutional amendments. So instead I have posted an analysis and arguments for and against each proposed amendment. Post any questions you have in the comments, and I will do my best to get you an answer.

In and of itself, that's not too bad. The problem comes with the "analysis". If you go and read the PeckBlog "analysis" you might notice that it looks very familiar to the analysis found here. Again, this is not, in and of itself a problem.

What IS a problem is that it appears that Amy Peck has 100% either straight copied, or summarized the Texas Legislative Council's work without attribution, essentially presenting it as her own.

However you cut it, that's plagiarism.

Now, it's probable that this was unintentional, that Peck just used the TLC's document and is ignorant of copyright laws, and the pratfalls of not offering proper attribution. At worst, she intentionally ripped all of the content and presented it as her own. I don't think there's any way you can look at the two documents and make any kind of argument that the information on Peck's blog is her own.

Let's hope that we're dealing with the former and Peck corrects her error and apologizes.

Do endorsements matter?

2011-10-20T19:04:00.000-07:00

My initial thought is: These two probably don't.

Bell endorses Jones. Chris Moran, Chron.com
Rodriguez, Harris and Stipeche for HISD board. The Apple Dumpling Gang, Chron.com

Let's start with the easy one.....

CHRIS BELL?????

I'm not sure the candidate who couldn't out draw a corpse is really someone who I would rely on to bring the vote. It's a testament to Kelly Cripe's savvy as a PR flack that she's wise enough to not use it in a mailer. Chris Bell? Meh.

At least, that's what most people would say, but Bell is a fave rave with the local InterLeft and Chron.com. Because of this, his endorsements are constantly paraded out in support of favorites that are probably going to win (comfortably) anyway. The effect of this is that Bell's self-delusion of popularity (Wow! My endorsement really put THAT candidate over the top!) is maintained and he's still mentioned as a serious Democratic candidate for almost any office that opens up for which he's eligible.

Even worse, is the Apple Dumpling Gang's endorsement.

First: No one pays attention to them any longer, and second, they obviously don't place the same weight on a Prog politician's cronyism as they do on a Republican candidate's cronyism. Besides that, when your definition of "qualified" seems too be more closely tied to idealism (in this case: Prog) than to actual qualifications you run the risk of losing credibility. For many years now the Apple Dumpling Gang has had zero.

If you haven't heard the phrase "post normal science" I encourage you to go look it up. Not only is it anti-science, but it's also the foundation for much of the human-driven climate change movement. What we're getting close to in Houston is "post normal politics". Where key players are recasting basic facts in a more favorable light to ensure a desired result.

I'd say you should think this is a problem no matter what side of the aisle you're on, but we know from the recent past that, at least, one side has no problem with hi-jacking civil discourse to advance something that's destined to fail. (Yet which has been sold to them as a panacea all facts to the contrary)

Alternative methods for traffic reduction

2011-10-18T17:05:00.000-07:00

Courtesy of Metro rail.

Link to the text version of the story is here

Obviously this OLD plan wasn't doing the job as efficiently as possible. The obvious flaw, which Metro obviously overlooked, was that people were getting their cars fixed and back on the road soon after the Danger Train "relieved traffic".

Well now we can't have that. This new "phase 2" plan brilliantly attacks the problem from both ends. Metro takes out your car, and blocks the entrance to the places where it can get fixed.

I guess you can't make an omelet without breaking some eggs (or, in this case, cars)

Three unlikely data points (updated)

2011-10-18T14:56:00.000-07:00

If you spend anytime at all listening to "those in the know" in Houston you'll hear a lot of stuff about how Houston will die on the vine without expensive, centrally planned, (and horribly inefficient) transit or how Houston is ugly or that Houston will lose their competitive advantage if they don't immediately stop what they are doing, give all of their planning over to David Crossley and his group and stop losing out to other cities in the race for "the creative class" and high priced workers.

Given all of the opinion and computer modelling that they've thrown at the problem (note: Not hard evidence, computer modelling) you might be surprised to find these three hard data points staring you in the face:

1. Houston home sales rise, break price record. Houston Business Journal
2. Harris County foreclosures take major dip. Houston Business Journal
3. Houston sets US pace for income growth, study shows. Houston Business Journal

So let me get this straight. Ugly, blighted, dumb, transit-deficient Houston, home of big traffic delays and buildings that no self-respecting liberal journalist could love. Houston, with its grungy air, mouth-breathing tea-party types and a cast-iron aversion to central zoning. Houston, a city so dumb some people don't want to live asshole-to-elbow in Crossley Towers (after their construction in a formerly blighted area of course, keeping them fully away from the "proper neighborhoods") where sustainable living, square foot gardens on two square foot balconies are the norm. Houston home of food deserts and an intellectual back-water where some people think they might, just might think they want a fenced-in backyard and believe that they should have some modicum of control over the property they own......

....that Houston is leading the nation in salary growth and is, by all accounts, experiencing a population boom.

Maybe we're not the armpit of civilization our would-be ruling class is making us out to be?

Funny, right after I posted this article David Crossley's group, Houston Tomorrow, rolled out this clap-trap, obviously meant to be a slight (again) at the Houston region:

Houston Region ranked 11th most stressful by Forbes, David Crossley, Houston Tomorrow.

There's just one small problem:

The Houston region is #11 out of 15 in Forbes new list of the Most Stressful Cities in America.

(emphasis mine)

Unsaid in the Houston Tomorrow article is that Houston came in BETTER than liberal utopias Seattle, San Francisco and San Diego and waaaay behind dense, transit heavy, walkable (Crossley's gold standard) New York (#1) and Chicago (#3). Again the facts don't match the rhetoric.

One District at a time

2011-10-18T14:15:00.000-07:00

Maybe that's the path?

(Business owners want Montrose Management District dissolved, Ken Fountain, West University Examiner)

The Montrose Management District, not yet a year old, may be facing extinction.

Like all of the Houston’s management districts, the Montrose Management District runs on assessments solely to owners of commercial, not residential property.It was formed under a law passed by the Texas Legislature in 2009 -- after two failed earlier attempts -- to encompass the western part of the Montrose area. In January, it merged with the already existing East Montrose Management District to form one district.

From the outset, a group of small business owners have opposed the district, appearing at board meetings to voice their objections. Many claim that they were unaware of the district’s formation until last fall, when they received mailed notices of a meeting to set the property assessment.

Ever since, they’ve vowed to collect the number of signatures from property owners required by state law -- equal to 75 percent of the assessed commercial property in the district -- to force the board to dissolve the district.

And succeed they have, or so it seems. As of last word the District's lawyers are pouring over the signatures trying to determine if the signors "oppose the totality of the district". My guess is they will, and they'll have no other choice to disband.

If you need to know more about why this is a bad thing, take a look at this blogHouston piece that outlines some of that "bad crony capitalism" that The Apple Dumpling Gang finds so offensive when practiced by the wrong politicians (i.e. politicians who do not share their ideals.)

You'd think that the Mayor's life partner and the seemingly under-qualified son of fund "manager" David Hawes being employed by the district would have fired off a round of warning bells....You'd be wrong,

It's not the job of those from the ruling class party to worry about things such as conflicts of interest and cronyism, only to point out when they think the other side is doing it better than them.

More:

Texas Watchdog, Rhymes with Right

You know "for flood control"

2011-10-13T20:01:00.000-07:00

So say we all?

(How tight is Houston's drainage tax 'lock box'? Bike trails funded by Rebuild Houston money for streets and drainage, Steve Miller, Texas Watchdog.com)

It was passed by Houston voters as a tax to address the city’s decrepit drainage system and Third World streets. But $857,000 of the new Proposition 1 fund --- which Mayor Annise Parker pitched as a "lock box that can only be spent for street and drainage improvements" --- is slated for hike and bike trails.

The money will pay for "design, acquisition and construction" of trails as part of an overall plan to provide "an alternate route of travel for bicyclists and/or hikers away from street traffic," according to the city's latest capital improvement plan.

If you're not reading Texas Watchdog for your daily news, my question is "Why not?"
The answer is THIS type of reporting that one won't find at Houston's newspaper of record. It's the type of reporting that Houston certainly needs.

Supposedly, the hapless Parker administration is none too happy that this news has been released to the public, which is all the more reason why it SHOULD be released to the public.

Don't expect the city's prog InterLeft to get upset about this, that's not what they do.

You should probably be upset about it however, because your tax money is going to end up paying for this*

*Not that we here at HCA have a problem with bike trails, we're avid bicyclists after all, but we believe in paying for them in an honest way, not under the guise of "flood control"

RenFest

2011-10-07T19:04:00.001-07:00

Good story today in Chron.com about RenFest....

Grateful it survived fires, Renaissance Fest opens Saturday, Hallie Jordan, Chron.com

Rather than preparing for the nation's largest Renaissance Festival, crew members spent a week in September defending the 55-acre fairgrounds from one of the largest wildfires the region has ever seen.

Using heavy equipment, 5,000-gallon water tankers and a small fire truck of their own, the fair's 14-member maintenance team worked around the clock to keep the flames at bay just a month prior to Saturday's opening.

The blaze came within 100 yards of the property, and right up to the edge of a 60-foot firebreak the crew cleared around the festival site. By removing trees and plants from the area, the team was able to help contain the blaze and protect the fairgrounds' permanent structures.

Nice to hear the Houston area's local "things white people like" festival is going to pull it off this year. It was getting a little dicey there for a bit with all of that fire. GREAT job by those 14 maintenance workers stopping the blaze.

Unfortunately, travel plans will preclude me from going to the Festival this year, but if you want to go out and have a good time, get some decent food and overpay for some beer served quite often with some good natured ribbing?

Funny, I don't feel occupied

2011-10-06T19:46:00.000-07:00

It's amazing how the media gets worked up about 150 or so people while all but ignoring 10,000.
(Protesters target bank, City Hall In Houston this morning. Robert Stanton, Chron.com)

More than 200 protesters — young and old, healthy and disabled — converged in downtown Houston Thursday under the banner of the Occupy Houston movement.

The demonstration was an outgrowth of a New York event focused on what the protesters called social and economic inequality and corporate greed. It began at 8:30 a.m at Market Square Park with about 150 protesters — many carrying placards and chanting — who then marched to the J.P. Morgan Chase Bank Tower before moving on to City Hall.

The crowd grew to more than 200 by midmorning, according to a police officer at the scene.
“We have officially occupied Hermann Square Park,” a speaker told the crowd, referring to the reflecting pool area on the east side of City Hall. “We are not going anywhere until the people are heard.”

Supposedly, according to a tweet by KHOU's Alex Sanz "rally" organizers are claiming 700 people attended. To get to that number they must be using the same models used to calculate global warming. Either that or they're using the Keynesian multiplier.

Some are calling this the "Tea Party of the Left". I don't buy that. It may be a rally of the rank and file of the Democratic Party, but it's still just a bunch of young people with no jobs running around living out some Che fantasy while chanting things that are hard to hear at a distance.

On the bright side, all of the signs I saw were spelled correctly.

It's no secret that I've no affinity toward the Tea Party. I view them as the tantrum wing of the right. They're pretty good at making noise but, so far, haven't shown the ability to govern the darn place. I don't expect to see this from the Occupy folks either.

More damaging to the Democrats is the Occupy Manifesto a treasure trove of anti-American ramblings that can be summed up as "gimme". Where the Tea Party doesn't want to pay taxes only to have them go to those they consider to be lazy and freeloaders, the Occupy folks want to get a free ride without putting in any effort.

In the end, the Tea Party is guilty of having limited vision, while the Occupy movement has shown no vision, no drive, and no proclivity toward doing much but playing bongos, smoking, wearing Guy Fawkes masks and quoting philosophers out of context.

Bread and circuses is all this is. Bread and circuses.

Wake me when it's over and the adults come back in the room.

Is anyone still tracking these?

2011-10-04T10:39:00.000-07:00

Yet another greatest hit from the Danger Train.....

(15 hurt as Metro train, dump truck collide downtown, Dale Lezon, Chron.com)

Fifteen people were treated for minor injuries Tuesday morning after a dump truck collided with a Metro light rail train downtown. The truck, headed west on Capitol, struck the train at Main and Capitol at 9:15 a.m., according to Metro officials.

Thirteen passengers, the train operator and the dump truck driver were taken to St. Joseph Medical Center and Ben Taub General Hospital. They had bumps and bruises and other non-life threatening injuries, officials said.

The dump truck apparently ran a red light, according to Metro officials. The driver said the sun reflected on the traffic light and he couldn’t see that it was red. The train had a green light.

Ouch.

Glad to hear everyone was (for the most part) OK. Bumps and bruises but nothing (too) serious. There used to be someone on the web that was tracking the number of Danger Train collisions. Does anyone know if this is still around?

On another note: Notice how Metro officials are quick to release the information when the other vehicle (not the Metro driver) appears to be in the wrong. Had Metro been potentially at fault the story would have been: Metro is still investigating.

A bigger problem is that, years after the train has been operating, collisions with the train are still fairly commonplace. The (Metro-fed) idea that Houston drivers are wholly to blame (What part of safety don't you understand?) obscures the fact that these lines are poorly engineered. Streetcars share lanes with automobiles, but they are subject to all traffic laws, including red lights. Non-grade seperated rail in areas with high automobile traffic are accidents waiting to happen.

As Metro continues to plow ahead with this dangerous, unflexible (notice that, while the rail was down, unsexy busses had to fill the gaps. Yes, the very busses Metro has been cutting since the train started operating) rail accidents are going to continue to skyrocket, transit options are going to continue to decline, and Metro is going to continue to sink further and further into a financial abyss.

Meanwhile, as rider capacity declines, automobile congestion is going to increase.

All of this raises the Question: What problem was "Metro Solutions" trying to solve?

True bi-partisanship

2011-10-03T20:55:00.001-07:00

When Democrats and Republicans truly work together, the results are often disastrous for the American people
(Turning Your Cell Phone Into A 'Sell Phone'? Ned Hibbard, FoxNews Houston)

A bill just filed in Congress would make your mobile phone “fair game” for the kinds of calls you might not want to take.For the past two decades, your cell phone has been off limits to automated dialing programs. But that protection – like the Nokia ringtone – could be about to vanish.“Pretty much, it's probably the worst bill I've ever seen,” says telemarketing opponent Joe Shields.He’s talking about House Resolution 3035, known as the “Mobile Informational Call Act of 2011.”

Got that? Those annoying automated phone calls you get at home can soon eat up paid minutes on your cell phone. You'll be PAYING for the privilege of being annoyed.

Who's responsible for this mess of a deal?

The bill is bipartisan in that it’s sponsored by a Republican and a Democrat.But FOX 26 News looked at the top nine political contributions of the congressman who introduced the measure.And it may be worth noting that four out of the nine came from telecom or banking groups.

The one thing good about America is this: Despite all of the anti-Democracy rants by the Progs of late it's still the best system for identifying the sponsors........and voting them the heck out of office. Which is why the Prog's anti-democracy rhetoric is so dangerous.

(Sorta) back in the saddle quick hits

2011-10-03T10:30:00.000-07:00

National

Think Occupy Wall St. could become a campaign liability for Progressives?

The problem they're going to have here is that 70% of Americans are way right of this type of expression. Not that Wall St. doesn't have it's problems, but the answer to them is not to blow up the entire capitalist system and replace it with some Marxist Utopia that won't be...a utopia at all. The main problem the left in America has right now is that there's no such thing as moderation to them. Taking it too far is not far enough to their ardent supporters (bloggers).

Speaking of pushing it too far: The GOP isn't with these two bills but they also have a proclivity to get out of hand.

Getting rid of the EPA would be good move (you could have better regulation and policy without them), but it's not in-line with what the majority of the electorate is willing to go along with. There's a fine-line between being pro-economy and anti-consumer. IMO the government should always have heavier regulation over things people NEED (food, water, electricity, gas etc.) and only health and safety regulation over things people WANT. That's a pretty striking difference from what a few on the far right are proposing.

On a serious note: Nothing to see here, move along.

To suggest that regulators and those that they regulate not have any human feelings is absurd. There's nothing here that suggests the State department is being swayed by these friendships, only that both sides are acting human. The Socialist/Environmentalist movement wouldn't be happy unless the regulators called the TransCanada employees a bunch of capitalist pigs.

It makes you wonder what Obama's internal polling numbers are showing if they're going to these lengths to shut out the public on his jobs plan addresses

I'd be willing to bet the polling results aren't good, despite an administration and media coordinated press to
win support.

In a word: Heh.

You gotta think the Occupy Wall St. peeps (and the Prog bloggers that support them) would just as soon sell their first born for medical research than admit the Tea Party was on to something. Far better to misrepresent and call them vulgarities.

Local

A man called Cactus

The urbanists and transplants are going to have a seizure over this one. Surely County Commission called "Cactus Jack" isn't world class right?

In which the Houston Chronicle admits the media didn't do it's job.

Had reporters done what reporters typically do - dig for facts - they might have gradually uncovered a raft of details that put Jones' claims in a different light. They could have learned that the combined recollection of virtually every KBR employee who dealt with Jones that day described a different version of events. That company records seemed at odds with Jones' memory on many points. That medical evidence did not support her descriptions of her injuries or her claim of being drugged. That previous diagnoses by her own doctors in Houston said she suffered from a psychosomatic illness that included faking some symptoms.

There have been far too many stories of late where the media, after the fact, has admitted that "whoops, we kind of dropped the ball on that one, sorry, we'll do better NEXT time." The problem is that the "next time" comes and the media does what it has done for years, slant the news. The Houston Chronicle, under it's current leadership, is among the worst of the MSM outlets for slanted (towards the Houston establishment usually) reporting. You expect this type of behavior from The Texas Tribune, the Texas Observer or other newsish outlets, whose funding is typically from party activists and/or interest groups. Sadly, you have to expect it from the mainstream as well. Far better if all of them would just own up to their bias and let us all digest the news with full disclosure.

To be fair, the National news media is worse than the Houston Chronicle.

KBR was a tailor-made villain. Too bad it doesn't appear they've turned out to be. Damned facts.

No matter how many times you put lipstick on a pig it's still the same 'ol pig.

The Chron could have a hundred apps, and it's still not going to change the fact that their local news reporting is sub-par, quite often getting scooped on stories of local interest by National or out-of-town publications. The iPad was hailed as the saviour of newspapers, my prediction is that it won't move the needle AT ALL. What newspapers need to do is get back to some old fashioned watchdog reporting. For the pro-establishment Houston Chronicle, this would mean a 100% re-vamp of the product. I don't believe that Jeff Cohen is the visionary that is necessary to pull off a feat of this magnitude.

So much to talk about. I'll leave the Perry Presidential stuff for The Texas Iconoclast

Hiatus

2011-09-24T22:35:00.000-07:00

I'm going to quit blogging for a while to put my focus on issues of a personal nature.Be back soon.

If you hear "consensus" and science....

2011-09-18T21:28:00.001-07:00

....run away.Huntsman is wrong, science doesn't HAVE consensus.For anyone familiar with the scientific model, consensus is a joke. Which is why all of the AGW climate change proponents are 100% wrong. There's plenty of evidence that the Earth is heating, what's not proven, or even supported by ANY credible scientific study, is that said increase is due to human activity.

Political blind spots

2011-09-11T12:02:00.000-07:00

I'm not much for writing long, flowing tributes to days when bad things happened because, quite frequently, they end up looking like this:

The years of shame, Paul Krugman, New York Times

What happened after 9/11 — and I think even people on the right know this, whether they admit it or not — was deeply shameful. Te atrocity should have been a unifying event, but instead it became a wedge issue. Fake heroes like Bernie Kerik, Rudy Giuliani, and, yes, George W. Bush raced to cash in on the horror. And then the attack was used to justify an unrelated war the neocons wanted to fight, for all the wrong reasons.

Bush's Fatal 9/11 flaw, Peter Beinart, The Daily Beast

George W. Bush thought al Qaeda’s attack was the major geopolitical event of our time. He was wrong.

It's funny to me that a large portion of Democratic activists are still fighting a losing battle against the Bush presidency, much in the same way I thought Republicans were foolish for continuing to fight against the Clinton presidency long after he was out of office. If anything, the disaster that has become the Obama presidency has made us realize that neither of the previous two presidents were as bad as the opposite side made them out to be. This political blind spot by Democrats is distracting them from the real story....Rick Perry is on the rise, and he can (and probably will) BEAT Obama in 2012 if something doesn't change.

Non-sequitur

2011-09-10T13:52:00.000-07:00

The problem with using this argument:

Global Commuter Stress is Growing, David Crossley, Bossiness Tomorrow

The annual global Commuter Pain survey, which IBM released today, reveals that in a number of cities more people are taking public transportation rather than driving

When making the argument that people should ride public transit in Houston is this.....For the most part, there IS no reliable, robust, flexible public transportation in Houston. If the MetroRail expansion gets Federal funding and moves forward there will be even less.Of course, Hoston Tomorrow has never let facts* get in the way of a chance to advocate for controlling people's lives and travel patterns so why should that start now?

*The whole story is that there is plenty of money in the Rainy Day fund to cover the budgets of fire departments and no serious observer truly believes that they are going to run out of money.

Slamming the Port

2011-09-08T18:37:00.000-07:00

OK, well...sorta.

County report criticizes Port administration, culture. Mike Morris, Chron.com

Port of Houston Authority officials operate with a culture of impunity, running the public agency like a private business, defying open meetings laws and employing other secretive policies, the Harris County Attorney's office said in a new report.

Some might say that "running government like a business is a good thing. Unfortunately, the Port Authority has been ran more like a slush fund than a business. Any rational business would have fired the board by now.

John Thornton gets some bang for his buck.

2011-09-01T11:30:00.001-07:00

Ladies and Gentlemen....I give you the most biased piece of newsish ever.....

We Read Rick Perry's "Fed Up!" So You Don't Have To, The Texas Tribune.

A piece so odious that no staffer had their name attached to it. There are so many things wrong with this "summary" that I'm not even going to try to list them. What it basically amounts to is a public fisking, with no factual back up, and no thought of penning a balanced review.

In short: This is nothing more than a political hit-piece masked as journalism by a newsish organization that's increasingly reverting back to the industry standard for the type.

Where once they could be relied upon for some solid reporting, they're drifting further and further afield as time progresses. Think about this: When was the last time the Trib ran a piece on Perry that was genuinely important? It's been a while.

Something tells me that Thronton and that all Democrat board were demanding to start seeing some bang for their buck. After all, there's an election to be won coming up pretty soon.

There's a LOT more I could say about this but I won't. I'll finish with this: The Trib has turned out something that wouldn't make the cut on most solid political blogs*. And they've categorized it under "journalism".

*The key-word being solid, which means that you could expect to see something that bad (or worse) on this blog. It's why you read right?

Unintentional Humor

2011-08-29T10:52:00.001-07:00

If find it funny that Prog economist Paul Krugman comes out with this:

Republicans against Science, Paul Krugman, New York Times.

Jon Huntsman Jr., a former Utah governor and ambassador to China, isn’t a serious contender for the Republican presidential nomination. And that’s too bad, because Mr. Hunstman has been willing to say the unsayable about the G.O.P. — namely, that it is becoming the “anti-science party.” This is an enormously important development. And it should terrify us.

On the same day CERN comes out with this:

Science Getting Settled, Lawrence Soloman, Financial Post.

The science is now all-but-settled on global warming, convincing new evidence demonstrates, but Al Gore, the IPCC and other global warming doomsayers won’t be celebrating. The new findings point to cosmic rays and the sun — not human activities — as the dominant controller of climate on Earth.

The research, published with little fanfare this week in the prestigious journal Nature, comes from über-prestigious CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, one of the world’s largest centres for scientific research involving 60 countries and 8,000 scientists at more than 600 universities and national laboratories. CERN is the organization that invented the World Wide Web, that built the multi-billion dollar Large Hadron Collider, and that has now built a pristinely clean stainless steel chamber that precisely recreated the Earth’s atmosphere.

In this chamber, 63 CERN scientists from 17 European and American institutes have done what global warming doomsayers said could never be done — demonstrate that cosmic rays promote the formation of molecules that in Earth’s atmosphere can grow and seed clouds, the cloudier and thus cooler it will be. Because the sun’s magnetic field controls how many cosmic rays reach Earth’s atmosphere (the stronger the sun’s magnetic field, the more it shields Earth from incoming cosmic rays from space), the sun determines the temperature on Earth.

I'm not going to go out on a limb and suggest to you that the Republicans were somehow "right" about the whole climate change deal. Many of them have been denying that there was any significant change all along. On the other hand, it's the Prog's who seem to be in danger of becoming the party of pseudo-science, happily believing unproven theories left and right because they are told to by their political heroes who stand to gain Billions of dollars based on a series of politically influenced financial bets.

Neither am I going to say the issue of climate change is dead. There are still open questions as to whether or not ground level pollution is a partial driver, or whether the chemicals needed to drive climate change are mostly natural in origin. In short, the Sun drives MOST of our climate's change, but there still is a benefit from not polluting etc. not only from a climate perspective but from a general health and natural beauty perspective as well. These study results are not carte balanche to pollute, but they should spell the end of the "stop climate change by shutting down the economy" nonsense that we've seen for a while.

The simple fact is that the Earth's climate has always been changing. The idea that human beings had the ability to stop or alter that change is arrogant. It's high time we started finding ways to deal with climate change now that we're seeing its effects, and stop wasting Trillions of dollars trying to stop something we have no control over in the first place.

What should terrify us is not the GOP's refusal to believe man is altering the climate, but that the Prog's are willing to destroy our global economy in a vain attempt to become King Canute.

RELATED: CERN Press release on CLOUD

100% Newsish

2011-08-27T10:16:00.000-07:00

That should be a label on The Texas Tribune's "31 days, 31 ways" ~~list of progressive candidate's talking points~~ examination of the "effects" of the 2011 Texas Legislature.

Expect these issues to be parroted repeatedly by Prog* candidates as they attempt to try and gain back some relevancy in Texas politics during the next election cycle, and expect the same Prog politicians to quote The Trib (and their Progressive/Democratic board and financial backing) as an "independent source of journalism" verifying their claims.

That's not to say that newsish outlets can't report hard news. The can, and do. As a matter of fact some of the best day-to-day legislative reporting in Texas comes out of Evan Smith's shop. On election day, when their site is up, they're required reading for political junkies. However, when they move into news-editorial content (what I call newsish material) that's where their bias slip shows.

In many ways this is not a bad thing. To me it's OK that the Trib writes from a Progressive perspective, in many ways that this blog writes from a center-right perspective as does my other project Texas Iconoclast. Of course, the big difference is we readily admit our bias so that it's out there for all to see. The Trib, on the other hand, will swear up and down that the bright, young, trendy group of reporters with edgy eye-wear (who happen to all be Progs that Editor-in-Chief Evan Smith (himself a trendy, hip proponent of edgy eye-wear who's also a staunch Prog) has gathered around the Prog campfire have NO BIAS AT ALL in their writing. It's the same newsish fallacy that the public is supposed to follow with groups like Politifarce, the opinion cum "fact-checking" site that proved the Pulitzer to be nothing more than a giant journalist circle-jerk. (Much in the same manner Obama's Peace Prize proved the Nobel to be a big Prog circle-jerk)

The problem with party bias is that, when ideas become politically untenable, you look a fool when you about face on an issue because the party Politburo has suddenly done an about face. Party bias doesn't work well for news organizations, or newsish organizations for that matter. Were the Tribune to come out and say "Hey, we're a Democratic news outlet!" that would (1) be false and (2) ruin their access to Republican candidates. In short, they'd become a Democratic party blog. Their mission is much bigger than that.

Reporting the news with a particular ideal however is A-OK. As a matter of fact, I would argue that ALL journalism is reported from a certain ideological perspective. Just as the MSM groups all possess a liberal (note: note Democratic) bias so does Fox News post with a conservative (note: not Republican) bias. The problem arises when Fox and the MSM say they're "right down the middle", which is just so much bull. They're no more "down the middle" than is the Trib, or Iconoclast, or this blog.

As a matter of fact, I would argue that ALL of the news you read today is mostly newsish, from one perspective or the other. The difference between a news organization producing newsish material and a newsish organization reporting the news is really just a matter of funding. From a newsish perspective the best outlet in Texas is the Trib, with a couple of sub-par outlets (Texas Observer and Texas Independent) occasionally producing a blog post or three.

But the Trib is the Majordomo, no other outlet can compete with products such as their "31 in 31" series and, given the level of writing talent that Smith has assembled, they probably shouldn't try.

Long-live the King of Newsish.

*Prog: Short for progressive, also a poke at the French.

If you read one thing this weekend.....

2011-08-26T18:35:00.000-07:00

Please make it this great piece by Mike Cronin and Jennifer Peebles of Texas Watchdog...

Interwoven ethics problems at Houston ISD, Houston Community College, port authority, Harris County -- all one big ball of string

You're welcome.

I reject your reality.....

2011-08-26T09:15:00.000-07:00

...and substitute my own.

That seems to be the mantra of City Controller Ronald Green when dealing with S&P:

(City dropping S&P as its investment-rating agency. Chris Moran, Chron Houston Politics blog.)

The city of Houston will drop Standard & Poor’s as the rating agency for its investment portfolio as a result of getting downgraded earlier this month, said City Controller Ronald Green.

The rating only applies to Houston’s investments, not its debt, so it has no effect on the city’s borrowing costs, Green said.

I get it, there are a LOT of things wrong with S&P as a ratings agency: They blew it on the sub-prime mess, haven't found a bubble they didn't like (or missed it's coming POP!) The problem is people are using these examples as factual arguments for why S&P is wrong NOW.

It's just more logical fallacy argument-making posed as fact. It only makes sense that, if the US Government is downgraded, that the investments stemming from US Government sources would be downgraded as well. Despite Green's claims, there's really nothing arbitrary about that. Political? Possibly, but not arbitrary.

The problem is, like Metro, City of Houston finances are on increasingly shaky ground. At times like these the main focus should be on efficiency and cost-cutting, not funding trinkets and expensive light-rail lines that don't serve those who need transit services the most.

The focus by Houston City and area elected officials (as well as appointed quasi-governmental bureaucrats) on trinket governance would be considered incompetent if you removed the understanding that today's government is not about citizen service. Put in their proper perspective, these decisions make perfect sense*.

*We'll let you decide the proper perspective for yourselves.

Seattle: Quick Thoughts

2011-08-24T09:26:00.000-07:00

Just got back in (Haaawt) Houston after a week spent in Seattle. As with my Toronto trip, here are some quick thoughts.

1. Yes, cost of living is HIGH there.

2. No, they aren't getting their money's worth for the high taxes they pay.

3. Seattle's monorail = Houston's light rail, only it has cooler destinations at each end of the line. To be honest, Seattle is a city full of boondoggles that probably sounded good at the time.

4. Whatever you do, don't drive during rush hour. - Seattle may be beautiful but its roads are crap. For all the money that City is taking in you'd think they could afford some decent pavement.

5. Hub and spoke bus/train/monorail routes may be easier to administer, but they don't make getting around all that easy.

6. Crosswalks....optional. Watch out if you're driving.

7. Seattle residents STILL don't like George W. Bush, although they do seem to be enamoured with Bar-B-Q.

8. Two words: Deodorant pal.

9. There are a lot of edible fish on display at the Seattle Aquarium, some of which are advertised to live in Puget Sound. Despite this most restaurants serve only fried cod.

10. Pike's Place Market is neat, but the whole throwing the fish thing is overrated.

Red-light cameras and stupidity.....

2011-08-24T09:17:00.000-07:00

So City Council has voted, in a non-binding resolution, to turn the city's controversial red light cameras off immediately.

As you can imagine, this has the pro ATS (or, possibly, ATS themselves for all I know) all in a tizzy:

(From the comments in the linked story)

Kent L. Hunley says:
August 24, 2011 at 10:33 am
Congrats voters of Houston, your will has been honored. One small thing, you might have to pay more taxes since you voted the cameras out, unfortunately when you are stupid enough to think that just getting rid of the cameras doesn’t come with a several million dollar penalty, you pretty much get what you deserve.

Left unsaid: The City could have avoided a "several Million dollar penalty" had the escape clause in the contract not been removed by Bill White, super genius.

All of which goes to show you that there's "smart" and then there's "political smart". The two have nothing in common.

Food Trucks Brought to you by MetroRail

2011-08-15T19:10:00.000-07:00

Hey, Houston already has a "mass transit backbone" that requires 99.9% of residents to drive into town in order to ride it. (makes sense right?) So who's to say that we can't destroy the idea of food trucks by creating a central location where 99.995% of Houstonians would have to drive to them?

Possible Spot Where Food Trucks can Flock, Nancy Sarnoff, Chron.com

A local entrepreneur wants to turn the parking lot she leases near downtown into a gathering spot for the city's growing fleet of food trucks.
Lauren Barrash, owner of an Inner Loop shuttle service, is circulating a survey to residents around her Washington Avenue- area property to gauge interest in the proposed project.
She already leases space to one food truck and has started approaching others about the idea.

Of course, the whole appeal to food trucks is that they are mobile, and that (in an ideal world, outside of the mind-suck that is inner-loop Houston)they can drive close to where people work and serve up some tasty food.

Not in Houston however. In Houston the idea of food-truck Nirvana is a place where people would have to drive, pay the owner of the lot a fee to park, eat, and then drive BACK to their offices (or homes, after a night of drinking on Washington Ave.)

If MetroRail doesn't sponsor this Metro is overpaying for their bloated PR department.

The Money

2011-08-10T19:33:00.000-07:00

There's this: Metro lays track for southeast line as questions remain, Carol Christian, Chron.com.

This: Mayor Moving to curb blight, Chris Moran, Chron.com.

This: Dynamo see "green" in soccer stadium, Houston Business Journal.

This: United, city agree on $1 billion airport deal, Chris Moran and Julenia Moreno, Chron.com

And this: Serving a fresh helping of hope, Chris Moran, Chron.com.

In a city out of money, looking at financial austerity, how is all of this going to be paid for? Oh...

Water, water...

2011-08-10T19:25:00.000-07:00

Who's got the water?

Houston expects mandatory water restrictions next week, Matt Schwartz, Chron.com

Mayor Annise Parker this morning said that the city is moving toward enacting mandatory water restrictions and a simultaneous draw-down of water from Lake Conroe, as soon as next week, in response to the ongoing drought.
In June, the city implemented what it calls Stage 1 water conservation. Those include voluntary restrictions on water usage, including a request that residents limit the watering of lawns to twice a week and to do that watering at night or in the early-morning hours.
Under Stage 2, those restrictions would become mandatory. Other restrictions, such as a prohibition on washing cars, would be added, Parker said. Residents also would be required to repair water leaks on their properties within 72 hours.

Out of Time, Out of Water, Ubu Roi, HouBlog

Having enough safe water to drink. And on this one, I feel our administration has been tanking. (Har, har). Ok, so the Mayor declared that, by golly, we’re going to Stage 2 water rationing, andobythewayweregoingtodrawdownLakeConroenobigdeal.

It’s a big deal all right. While we are in a drought of epic proportions (about 85% of the state is in “Extreme Drought” conditions, the most severe), the administration has done next to nothing about it, aside from bring some contractors on board to try and keep up with the leaks. Frankly, I’m surprised we haven’t had a major sinkhole somewhere yet, thanks to a washout from a broken water line. I do know where there’s some suspicious dips in the road…

Apparently not Houston.

Also: BlogHouston

In the coming economy....

2011-08-09T19:32:00.001-07:00

some might say it's wise to teach kids how to cheat.

HISD's school board seems to think this is OK.

Hey, we've got ChronBlog, The Apple Dumpling Gang, the Metro Board and Progs everywhere supporting Grenias' alleged kiddie-porn habit so why should being accused of cheating be all that big a deal?

Next up: Murder is A-OK. Oh....wait....

Don't believe the hype.

2011-08-09T10:45:00.001-07:00

Polls such as this typically aren't worth much....

("Wave" election could be coming. Mackenzie Weinger, Politico)

Less than a quarter of Americans say most members of Congress deserve reelection — the lowest number ever found in the 20-year history of Gallup/USAToday polling — and the dismal numbers could mean another “wave election” is in the cards for Washington.

A wave "could" be coming, but it's probably not. A better poll question to ask would be whether or not people believe that THEIR congressional representative deserves re-election. Typically people feel this way about other people's representatives, but they prefer to keep theirs. That this is coming from Politico (which I consider to be a fairly conservative news organization that runs the occasional Prog friendly story) tells me that, on the political beat, the media is scrambling to frame 2012.

Also to add: The poll was a CNN poll. They do a pretty good job on specific elections (see: Machin WV Senate) but tend to trend further left as the issues become less granular. The problem seems to be a clear selection bias. Having not seen the crosstabs for this poll however I will admit this is a guess based, in part, on recent history.

Finally: Even IF this poll contains some type of selection bias I can't believe it would flip the numbers. If that's the case, then the Prog's should be happy because it means their finger-pointing on the debt fiasco has been more effective than the Conservatives. Given the media coverage surrounding this issue that should not come as much of a surprise.

Worst.Editorial.Board.Ever.

2011-08-08T20:27:00.000-07:00

From The Apple Dumpling Gang:

When Chronicle reporter Brian Rogers asked, Daniel gave lots of mealy-mouthed, not-good-enough excuses ("District clerk bailing on court fees, critics say," Page A1, Thursday).
He said he's trying to untangle the fluctuating state law, which was settled back in November. He said he wasn't briefed in depth on the matter until a month ago. And he said he was concerned that raising the fee would have the "unintended consequence" of keeping more people in jail, since bondsmen would pass the cost to their customers.

None of those excuses passes muster. It's the county clerk's job to know the law and enforce it - whether he has qualms or not.

From Matt Bramanti in the comments:

"It's the county clerk's job to know the law and enforce it - whether he has qualms or not."

Whose job is it to know the difference between a county clerk and a district clerk when the editorial board is asleep at the switch?

This story is about the district clerk. But hey, don't let facts get in the way of a good Chron huff.

Disband the editorial board; it does a bad job.

Yes they do. Also, they're a week late and an editorial dollar short (again)

Just shut them down. They're an embarrassment to the City.

Some quick thoughts on Toronto...

2011-08-08T20:06:00.001-07:00

I just got back from a quick trip to Toronto, and here are some thoughts on my (too quick) trip to the City.....

1. Toronto in the Summer is brilliant.

2. Poutine is the Canadian version of Buc-ees Beaver Nuggets. Crack cocaine in food form.

3. Canada has taken a lot of the good stuff from Europe (sensible public transit, a walkable City Centre) and mixed it up with a lot of the BAD stuff from America (ignoring infrastructure needs -especially their roadways, which suck and are always full of traffic) and nanny-stateism. (Their alcohol retail sales system makes Texas' look sane in comparison).

4. The high-rise apartments in Toronto all look like they were built in the 50's and 60's.....by the Russians.

5. Bilingual is their "multi-culturalism". It's being pushed by people who have no clue and for reasons that make no sense. It's also a one-way (pro-French in their case) street.

6. On a Summer evening, you can stroll along the Waterfront in Toronto. In Houston you can fry an egg on the sidewalk next to Buffalo Bayou.

7. In the Winter, Torontans don't walk around much. They tend to use a tunnel system or (when possible) drive cars. If not possible they stay home and eat Poutine (see #2)

8. Due to years of road maintenance neglect, Toronto's traffic is terrible. (Also, left turn arrows folks, look into them eh?)

(Points six, seven and eight are proof of case Houston Tomorrow's vision for "future Houston" is complete and utter bollocks.)

9. Two words: Good beer.

10. Point ten has been ceded to Torontans due to the terrible ass exchange rate you're currently seeing. The US $ is 90% of the Canadian dollar. I'll will say the Loonie is pretty cool however.

And yes, I do want to go back.

You can learn a lot from a Tweet....

2011-08-08T19:55:00.000-07:00

Case in point, from the Honorable Annise Parker...

Long Heights town hall! 2 bad we couldnt hit many city issues due to multiple anti-Walmart and anti-Preservation folks tryin to score pts-a

Unsaid in this Tweet is that Herronor is FOR the Wal-Mart development and (in the right places of course*) Preservation. What she forgets is that, to the "anti-" whatever crowd these ARE city issues that are very important to them. That she disagrees with them means (in her words) that they are "scoring points" rather than bringing up real City issues.

I'd like to sit here this evening and tell you that false arguments such as this are the sole property of the Prog's. Unfortunately, they're not. Bad arguments and demagoguery seem to play well with everyone in politics, and political blogs. If you're not paying attention to recent events in the City, State and Country this is not working out so swell. It's time to stop it and challenge these fallacies whenever and wherever they occur.

"Right" being identified as those areas where reliable, progressive voters with deep pockets reside. That they are typically Caucasian and are gentrifying formerly diverse neighborhoods is just another one of those political paradoxes that test if you still have a sense of humor.

It doesn't matter what the real reason is....

2011-08-04T11:11:00.001-07:00

....this just looks bad.

Daniels might have not raised the rates for innocent reasons, but if you're going to crack on your political opposites when they seem to favor donors (Borris Miles) then you better be just as hard on your own. It looks bad. Like a political favor being returned by a candidate who I can't figure out how he got elected for the life of me.

If nothing else we should have seen this type of technical ignorance regarding the statutes coming down the pipe when we elected into office a person with almost no relevant experience.

If a Federal Agency Shuts Down....

2011-08-04T11:04:00.001-07:00

....and no one notices....Is it really even needed?

Have you flown since the shutdown? I have, and I didn't notice a thing.

I mean, sure. The workers noticed, and we should work through the private sector to get them back on the job as soon as possible, but from an air-travel standpoint I think it's safe to say we now know the FAA could get by just fine on a LOT less.

Oh, and if you're wondering why Obama is so concerned about this? Union jobs are at stake people.

Government solutions in search of a problem.

2011-08-04T10:39:00.001-07:00

Study: Healthy eating is privilege of the rich, Donna Gordon Blankenship, AP via Chron.com

A healthy diet is expensive and could make it difficult for Americans to meet new U.S. nutritional guidelines, according to a study published Thursday that says the government should do more to help consumers eat healthier.

Of course it does. Because that's the manufactured "solution" to every perceived "problem" out there: A big, expensive, government program that takes money from those that have, and gives it to those that have not.

I would suggest the "solution" is not as complicated (or expensive) as our Statist experts would have us believe.

- Square foot gardening: Teach people, yes even people in apartments, that cultivating a small garden is doable. Yes, it takes work, and work is something that the Statists feel people are not willing to do. But it only costs pennies for a few seeds, possibly a few dollars for a seedling. The ROI on these, if properly tended, is exponential. It's also a good way to teach kids responsibility and install a work ethic, something the Statists understand would put an end to their desired way of life.

- Remove subsidies: The reason it's "more expensive" to eat healthier is because we've let the Government subsidize our food supply thus ridding it of diversity. In reality, the costs that are seen for healthy foods are closer to a real cost than the incredibly low costs for "unhealthy" foods. Simple supply and demand dictates that, as it becomes less profitable for big companies to continue growing wheat, corn and soy, our agriculture will rediscover other grains etc. Because there is more supply, the price on these "ingredients for the wealthy" will eventually moderate.

- Rein in what people on assistance can buy: Don't want people eating unhealthy? Restrict the food options on programs like the Lone Star Card. Fresh fruits, vegetables, dairy and meat. (not processed meat) That should about do it. If someone wants to eat a chocolate bar there's nothing that says they can't do it, just not on the government dime.

- True cost: Used to be a sign of being wealthy was to be plump. That's because the rich could afford food and the poor cannot. In today's society being fat and sloppy are signs of being poor, while the wealthy are bronzed and fit. That's because the poor are now eating TOO MUCH unhealthy food. Perhaps being forced to purchase less healthy food would be a good prescription? Sadly, that did not fit the pre-determined conclusion of this survey.

- What are we really doing here: It seems as though the Statists behind this survey don't have a clear grasp of what food assistance is designed to do. Programs such as welfare, WIC and the Lone Star Card (yes, I know, they are one and the same, but there are slight distinctions) are designed to be safety nets to prevent people from having no food at all. The choice is between starving and having some food to put on a plate. We're trying to act as if those on welfare need to decide whether or not to purchase their Champagne with or without a peacock splashing around. That latter line of thinking is where fiscal ruin lies.

- The bigger picture: Of course, I'm referring to the job market. People with jobs will make more money than people on welfare assistance, and they'll take more pride in the money earned. The secret to "closing the food gap" is to not try and close it at all. More importantly the secret is to create jobs and get unemployment down. Once you do that there will still be a food gap (there always is) but it will be far less critical.

And the solution will not require a big, expensive government program either.

There's a problem with hating the voters....

2011-08-02T13:15:00.000-07:00

One that the Prog's are discovering is oh so real. The problem is, you can't continually insult the intelligence of the Country and have them identify with you.

Per that recent Gallup survey 41% of Americans now self-identify as "conservative" with the "liberal" numbers down around 21% and with "moderates" hanging around 36%. Here's the rub....

"Millionaire" and "Billionaire" have been publicly re-defined as anyone making more than $200K per year (the family income floor for Obama's proposed "tax increases on the wealthiest Americans".) That doesn't make those making more than $100K feel very comfortable because they now understand that they're next. And "next", in terms of having your wealth given to those who haven't worked for it, sucks.

Is it any wonder then that the Prog's are angry with their candidate while the Republicans seem to be on the verge of coalescing around theirs?

My friend Kevin used to quip that the Americans typically let Prog's get in charge for a little while and then quickly remember why this is a bad idea. It seems that could be the case here although I would argue the Republicans need to finish before there's any talk of a "Tea Party Spring" in America. (This is even before the debate of what it should look like and who should lead it or, if it should even happen in the first place.)

Until then, here's a love note from Jonah Goldberg to the MSM. Enjoy.

Behind the screaming headline

2011-08-01T10:48:00.000-07:00

ChronBlog's ~~editorial~~ headline department parrots the meme:

Red-light cameras reduce crashes, Texas study suggests, Paul J. Weber, AP via Chron.com

But a closer look at the survey itself reveals something slightly different.

Yes, during the first year or two there is a (slight, and uneven) decrease in traffic accidents after the installation of RLC's. At 14% (with little controls, this could easily be mostly made up of noise. But, since we're taking the numbers at face value without factoring in noise*....)

You would also be wise to notice that accidents started to INCREASE at almost all intersections after the 2nd year RLC's were in effect. What this suggests is that the "safety" benefits from RLC's are transitory at best, and the intersections will revert to the mean over time as people get more and more oblivious to the RLC's and continue old driving patterns.

What any of this means is uncertain, but it certainly doesn't "suggest" that the installation of RLC's provide any sustained reduction in accidents. If anything, it suggests the opposite. It's just another incomplete data point in the on-going debate over RLC's, which the voters of Houston have rejected in an election the areas former newspaper of record refuses to recognize as valid.

A far better solution could very well be reinforcing already ingrained behavior by lengthening yellow light times. Unfortunately, this option does not drive revenue for the City so it's being rejected out of hand.

*Noise could also relate to reduced traffic volumes due to the economy. The raw number decreases are way too small vs. the general population to be considered statistically significant, especially considering the lack of control intersections (i.e. intersections without RLC's) in the study.

In defense of the Tea Party...

2011-07-31T08:29:00.000-07:00

I know, I've been hard on the Tea Party of late, telling them to get out the Kiddie Pool and offering the opinion that they might have to accept some tax increases as a part of the debt ceiling deal (I was wrong on that one, the Democrats have caved). All that being said, is it really fair right now to blame the Tea Party for this mess?

Last I checked, the Republicans PASSED a plan that the Democrats unilaterally rejected. While I still hold the position that the Tea Party is going to have to accept some compromise going forward, it's very hard to make the case that they're the drivers of this mess.

The Democrats have gone from a request for a clean increase, to the demand that no increase without a tax increase would be unethical, to now (apparently) abandoning the call for tax increases. Paul Kurgman this morning on "This Week" on ABC called for kicking the can down the road until after 2020 (Is Bill White advising him now?) Meanwhile the clock is ticking on the deadline imposed by the President, a deadline that may, or may not, be a real time for worry.

Today the thing to follow is the Grand Agreement 2.0. If one is reached, and is passed through the Senate, will Boehner and Co. be able to ram-rod it through the House. The unasked question, by the media, is whether or not they should.

Bullet Points!! (Debt ceiling version)

2011-07-29T07:40:00.000-07:00

- Matt Lewis of the Daily Caller has a pretty solid take. My thought is an imperfect deal from the right would be far better than an imperfect deal from the left.

- Case in point. If Harry Reid is out-flanking you you're not doing it right.

- It is fair to question Boehner's leadership at this point.

- It's also fair to question the political viability of the Tea Party movement at this point. Any group that doesn't understand the mechanics of turning around the ship of state might not be the ideological group you want manning the wheel.

- Turning this mess around is going to be a long, steady, plodding slog. America needs a course correction but attempting to do so too rapidly could buckle an already weakened hull.

- The Republican establishment politicians (McCain, Hutchison) are missing the boat again. Adopting the Democrats plan was never the right answer, the strategy should have been to develop one of your own that would pass.

- Important lesson: Even RINO's serve a purpose. The Tea Party would be wise to understand this, and not let their anger get in the way of using them to garner a deal.

- There has never been a President that would be considered "conservative enough" to satisfy the current demands placed on our elected officials by today's Tea Party. There's a reason for that. Think about it.

- Finally: My guess is the Reid bill gets passed and signed on Sunday, signed into law on Monday. This was seen as a chance for Republicans to keep momentum, the question is: would they blow it? If Reid's bill is the one that survives, the answer will be: "Yes, they blew it."

Get out of the kiddie pool Tea Partiers....

2011-07-28T19:14:00.000-07:00

It's called political reality. In this case Tea Party members need to understand that the Democrats control the Senate and the Executive branch of the government. From that perspective the "other side" controls two of the three levers of legislative deal-making. What this means is that any deal that's made is going to HAVE to include buy-in from the other side.

This doesn't mean that Republicans should just roll over, to the contrary, they need to fight to make this as big a win as possible. The key word is POSSIBLE. Not a wish list, not something that's a complete sell-out to the other side, but a bill that has enough in it that you can claim a win with a straight face, all while blaming the bad things on the other side.

Tax increases? Bad idea during a recession. However, since the Democrats are full of bad ideas during a recession you let them have some and then drape them over them like a cheap suit come election time. You hammer that issue, and Medicare, and Social Security, and ObamaCare. You tie them to those issues so tight they can't burp without people thinking about how much the Democrats are costing them.

Was the Boehner plan perfect? Far from it, but it was a whole lot better than Reid's mess of a plan, or the non-plan, things-we-cross-our-heart-promise list of things Obama's press secretary claimed to be a plan. Was Cut, cap and balance better? In a way, but since "balance budget" is a loaded phrase these days (and one that the public doesn't entirely believe) it had it's flaws as well.

Granted, there's no way the so-called "gang of six" plan could go anywhere, not if Republicans still remember their historic rout of the Dems in 2010 that is. But there are still realities in any plan that have to be recognized.

1. The debt ceiling has to be raised. - True, Democrat threats are probably overblown, but their is going to be a legitimate price to pay if it's not done. The thinking that Obama will get most of the blame for this is a risky proposition. Far better to pass a bill with his fingerprints on the bad things in the bill, while playing up your (hopefully good) contributions.

2. Any deal is going to need some tax increases. - Remember that 2 out of 3 thing from earlier? Yeah, it's still there. The trick is to force Democrats out of their class war mentality and force them to raise taxes on ALL economic levels, not just the one's they use to club the voters over the head with.

3. A worse fear is a debt downgrade. - If you want to see things get really bad, let S&P and Moody's lower America's credit rating. If that happens it might not matter whose in power. Plus, you never know who the public is going to blame with no legislative DNA scattered around for evidence.

So instead of your name-calling of Boehner, arguing with aging relics such as Kay Bailey and McCain and get to focusing on the business at hand. Then go back to continuing to elect more fiscal conservatives so this isn't an issue the next time around.

Out of the kiddie pool Tea Party. Tweeting and rallying with mis-spelled signs is the easy part, governing is hard.

Sex on the bus (Updated)

2011-07-28T11:26:00.000-07:00

or...toy train, in this case....

Metro chief Greanias suspended, Carol Christian, Chron.com

The Metropolitan Transit Authority board has suspended George Greanias, the agency's president and chief executive officer, for accessing adult content on Metro's computer system, board chairman Gilbert Garcia announced today.

Greanias, who has led Metro for less than a year, will be suspended for one week without pay for violating Metro's electronic communications policies, Garcia said.

My thought is he could say he was doing research on how to increase sagging ridership numbers on Metro's 7 mile transit backbone.

Update: Houston Press provides site-by-site detail.

If these are true (and coming from the Press (more a shock shop than a 'news' shop these days) with no verification or sourcing I'm not saying they are) then there seems to be another issue here. Some of these sites (by name) appear to be relating to child pornography or prostitution. I would think this is something Metro would want to look into. Although maybe not. Judging from the commenters in the said Houston Press piece underaged porn is 'no big deal'.

I thought Houston was running OUT of money?

2011-07-26T19:15:00.000-07:00

So how come the municipal government keeps finding so much to spend?

Houston's new motto: Yes, our roads suck, we are cutting back on police service and our librarians are now part-time but hey, check out our new underpass eh? (Of course, to do so means riding our toy train, and we REALLY, REALLY need you to ride our toy train dammit.)

Remember: All politics is about buying votes. If you don't think you're strong in a certain community, just re-work the budget to ensure they get something. I think they probably teach that in Poli Sci 201. (101 is now exclusively dedicated to reading teleprompters we hear)

About those East Downtown Homeless.

2011-07-14T19:09:00.000-07:00

They're a problem. Falling asleep on sidewalks, peeing in entryways, generally mucking things up in Houston's (soon to be) hip, hot district where the walking of the dogs (running of the bulls being deemed too dangerous) occurs annually and where a bevvy of new sidewalk cafes are sure to appear....soon...we promise, because so much popped up around Minute Maid Park...um...Toyota Center....OK never mind.

The point is Houston needs to figure out what to do with these people, especially now that more and more young, urban Caucasians make plans to relocate to the bevvy of European-style lofts and multi-use developments that popped up around Minute Maid....ah forget it.

The early idea for this is to extend Houston's civility ordinance to include East Downtown thus barring the homeless from breathing their rarefied air. I'd be OK with this, IF they'd consider dropping the incredibly stupid EaDo moniker. If they did however the folks over at Culture Map would explode. Since it's a civic imperative that their terrible journalism standards be contained in a relatively harmless vehicle, that will never happen.

Fortunately Houston, I have a plan.

Round these homeless up, put them in temporary shanties, and then put them all to work building Dynamo Stadium.

Think about it, it's a win/win. East Downtown rids them selves of those considered undesirable (but, it should be noted, should be protected -in other people's neighborhoods- at all cost) while the Dynamo can truthfully say their new playground is a stadium of and by the people. The homeless? They get steady work with three squares per day and possibly a renewed sense of civic pride in contributing so much to a Stadium from which they'll be barred from begging in front of.

Of course, you have to do something with them when construction is completed, but by then the new Grand Parkway will be open and you can relocate them to empty overpasses with plenty of room. Maybe throw in a blanket and shopping cart for each of them.

The alternative is Soylent Green people.

Wish I could do this at work.....

2011-07-08T20:28:00.000-07:00

Houston can't appeal red-light ruling for now, Cindy George, Chron.com)

A federal judge ruled on Friday that the city of Houston may not immediately appeal his ruling invalidating the November referendum that turned off a red-light surveillance system.

That's handy. Hey, boss. I know you want to look at my latest revenue projections for the 3rd quarter but I'm going to have to say you can't do that right now. Maybe I'll work with you and the investors so that you can take a look at those at a later date. (Once the final settlement has been successfully negotiated behind closed doors, so that the royalty owners have no say in the outcome.)

Think that would go over well?

America: Fat and getting fatter

2011-07-07T10:13:00.000-07:00

Amazingly, the answer provided by the group performing the study is to do even MORE of the things that got us fat in the first place.

The definition of insanity is......

The answer to this problem isn't to put MORE kids on school meal programs but less. Even if you don't like Jaime Oliver and his Food Revolution thing, you have to admit the quality of food in public school lunches is abysmal at best.

The answer to this problem isn't to follow the lead of the USDA, it's to move AWAY from their recommendations. After all, since the inception of the "food pyramid" America has gotten fatter and fatter.

And the answer sure isn't throwing large amounts of money at the problem, or taxing sodas, or fast food or listening to the world's leading "nutritionists" on the matter. Hell, it's the nutritionists who are pimping for increased funding so that they can get more money to do studies such as this. The driving force behind modern day "prevention programs" is research, not the public good.

If scientists and government really wanted to help people they'd stop subsidizing soy, corn and beef and would open up the marketplace to a wide variety of fresh vegetables. Ending the subsidy on corn would a.) make it's price point more comperable with other vegetables and b.) raise the price of HFCS, which would raise the price of processed foods. Why tax an item on the back end that highly subsidized on the front end?

Government farm and fiscal policy, in many cases, was implemented in the interest of large multi-national food companies, and not the lowly farmers that Democrats & Republicans love to trot out in front of the cameras during election season. The single-family farmer is all but gone from America, excepting those who have learned to take advantage of the foodie, farmer's market fad and even they're just scraping by.

There's an argument to be made that time and technology have passed these groups by, that AGM and Cargill are the wave of the future. That might be so, but all I know is the tomatoes I grow in my back-yard mini garden taste much better than the red balls of wax I get at the store. Hell, even farmer's market tomatoes taste better.

The government isn't going to make one person less obese, despite their good intentions. What's going to change this trend is the public taking personal responsibility, taking a long look in the mirror and deciding that maybe 3 hamburgers for dinner just isn't a good idea any more. And while I don't advocate vegetarianism (and certainly not veganism, which is code for "fad eating") I do think that too many of us eat way too much processed and feedlot red meat.

That's why I'm a big fan of "The Omnivore's Delimma" and "In Defense of Food" by Michael Pollan. In neither of those books does he recommend a Government solution (although I'd be willing to bet he supports the soda tax). What he does recommend is taking ownership of your own diet, getting rid of the processed crap and eating a LOT more vegetables, a variety of vegetables at that.

In the end, that would probably be the simplest 'cure' of all for this epidemic, but there's no research money to be made and corporate profits would be low.

So the "tax everything we don't like" drum beat will continue, and America will get fatter. Experts will wonder why.

That's one way of handling it.....

2011-07-06T10:40:00.000-07:00

(City turning red light cameras back on, Chris Moran, Chron.com)

The city of Houston will turn its red-light cameras back on today, Mayor Annise Parker announced after this morning’s City Council meeting.

According to a statement from the mayor’s office, tickets will be issued after a “short period of equipment testing.”

Houston voters approved a referendum to turn off the cameras in November, but a federal judge ruled last month that it had been improperly placed on the ballot, rendering the results invalid. As a result, the city faced a choice to turn the cameras back on or canceling its contract with American Traffic Solutions, which could cost the city $16 million.

It was always only a question of "when" not "if" they decided to turn them back on. It's tricky work deciding what period of time is sufficient so that the majority of people will forget you're ignoring the stated will of the voters. It's like when your boss tells your group that you're going to have to work evenings and weekends for a while and then immediately announces they'll be out of the office on vacation for the next two weeks. Consider the appeal like your boss' closing statement: 'I'll have my Blackberry with me'.

I'm sure the city's legal interns are working on that appeal just as hard as your boss is looking over their e-mail while sitting on a deck-chair sipping a Mai-Tai. This outcome was the administration's preference from the moment the lawsuit was filed. Given their track record on other issues, I'm surprised anyone there had the competency to see this through. How much you wanna bet they now divert some funding from trauma centers to some green initiative now that the "money is there" again? I'm placing the odds at 2-1 for.

Ah well, at least the Apple Dumpling Gang is happy. Now that they've had a win can we shutter them and re-deploy the resources to news desks?

Update: Of course they will. After all, why spit in the face of due process without a revenue stream?

Also:

BlogHouston

Let me sum up.....

2011-07-05T10:09:00.000-07:00

I could fill up an entire blog detailing the Houston Foodie reaction to the new Whole Foods/Montrose location that has everyone in a tizzy.

That would take to long so let me sum up:

WOW!! You can drink a beer AND shop in MONTROSE!!!

Otherwise you're just dealing with a smallish, crowded, Whole Foods inside the Loop that often reeks of sweat and patchouli oil.

Based on the hype this place has received I was slightly dissappointed at not having the option of receiving my Champagne slightly chilled and poured down my throat by a ~~Lisa Foranda~~ ~~Lucy Noland~~ Nefratiti Jacquez look-a-like while Ilona Carlson's (prettier and slightly younger) twin sister fed me caviar brined by the last living descendent of the Russian Tsars when I visited this weekend.

Talk about your downers.

The Noise Machine 07/05/11

2011-07-05T07:15:00.001-07:00

Trying something a little bit different today....

Dear France: America's criminal justice system is a feature, not a bug. It's a different matter when you're speaking of our mainstream media however....

About that media....It's bad...real bad.

Today's sign that David Brooks is not to be taken seriously. Neither as an opinion writer nor the moderate political thinker he aspires to be.

No, the "people" (read: Caucasian progressives) want higher taxes on OTHER people, not themselvs. That's kind of a key point.

Another day, another "yeah but" story on Perry. It seems like almost every positive the State's political media finds, they feel duty bound to follow it up with a "yeah but" qualifier. (Is there a 'anti-Perry' media badget that could get taken away or something?)

Reductionist science is bad science. Unfortunately, most of what passes for science today is reductionist in nature. This leads to bad policy ideas such as soda taxes and carbon offsets.

Our government is designed to push down large decisions to a low level. In many cases those making the decisions lack common sense. The end product is the least free, "free" country in the world.

The Fourth

2011-07-04T10:31:00.000-07:00

I'm not much of one for "rah-rah" patriotism. I don't like the "USA USA" chants at sporting events*, and I can't stand "Proud to be an American" by Lee Greenwood. To me, true patriotism is understated, it doesn't need to be shouted out to everyone around so they get it.

That being said I like July 4th, mainly because it's one day where political reading goes bonkers and every minor political pundit tries to drum up some obscure viewpoint of the founders to further their political beliefs. Because of this we get the Tea Parties and their misspelled signs, progressives calling everyone who doesn't think the founders were tax and spend statist liberals stupid, and the Apple Dumpling Gang...well, the Apple Dumpling Gang defies explanation. I read somewhere (don't remember where) something by my friend Kevin that basically said you couldn't have a discussion about the Nation's founding anymore because no one understood the damn thing in the first place.

I agree. Much of this is because history is written by the victors, and much of it is because of the human tendency to discount those things with which we disagree. There's also the frustrating tendency of people to try and superimpose past ideologies on present groups. For example: people saying that the founders were all "liberals" and the pro-England groups were "conservatives" . That's just wrong on so many levels, and factually inaccurate.

The real story is that America was founded by an amalgamation of political ideas, figures both great and small and (yes) scoundrels and opportunists. It's what makes this Country great, and our inability to come to grips with this fact** is (partially) what brings us down.

So this 4th I encourage you to celebrate the holiday however you see fit. Wrap yourself in the flag listen to Lee Greenwood, sit in a bar and rail against those evil conservative idiots, do charity for the right reasons or just to prove you're superior to others, attend a political rally for your chosen party or spend time blogging about the evils of every other idea but yours. The important bit to remember, is that we all have the ability to do this because of where we live, and what a ideological diverse group of men were able to accomplish 235 years ago.

*You'd think that, after all these years, we could come up with something better than just chanting our initials over and over.

**Conservatives have a tendency to ignore America's faults while Liberals/Progressive/Socialists have a tendency to focus too much on them. Part of the problem is the liberal education system which, for years taught a glorified version of history. Your coping mechanism for dealing with this is largely driven by your political ideology. Neither are correct.

Houston's leadership "wants" urban density...

2011-07-04T08:41:00.001-07:00

...just not all of the stuff that goes along with it.

(Bars' double-decker parking raises concern. Chris Moran, Chron.com)

(Montrose-area residents face parking woes after popular restaurant moves in. Courtney Zubowski, KHOU.com)

The funny thing is, that happy, Utopian dense living dream always looks good until you realize you're going to be living asshole to elbow with 6 Million plus Houstonians who will A.)be in a sour mood B.)All swear that "they've been there for years" and that their interests (i.e. the way they think things should be) should be protected over the interests of the community as a whole.

You don't hear about this urban downside in the Houston Tomrorrow workshops talking about the socio-morality of an apple or the need of plants for water. Everyone* loves the concept of dense, urban living but when you get to the ugly reality that parking sucks, people start to tune out.

*Everyone who matters in the eyes of the Houston Chronicle and Houston Tomorrow of course. That being Caucasian progressives who really just want Texas to be less than it is. You know, the cool kids.

Are they trying to make Lee P. look good by comparison?

2011-06-30T08:19:00.000-07:00

It's possible that I was mistaken when I hung the "Apple Dumpling Gang" moniker on the ChronBlog editorial board. The true gang who couldn't shoot straight appears to be the Parker administration.

It's telling how shallow the Houston political talent pool really is when you have a Mayor that's generally made a mess of everything, is more focused on her green cred than she is keeping jobs in Houston, and there's still no credible challenger that's stepped up to (at least) make her answer for these missteps on the campaign trail.

One poll does not an election make....

2011-06-30T08:14:00.000-07:00

Case in point.

I've no idea whether Perry can compete nationally, although my early inclination is no, however, anyone seriously entertaining the idea that Obama would have a chance against Perry in Texas needs to walk down off the partisan ledge and take a couple of shots of something pretty strong. An on-going economic war by the President's party against Texas is only going to make this worse as we roll into the worst season of all*.

*For those of you not paying attention, it's pre-election season. The period of time before the campaigns get really serious and all you have are reporters and amateur bloggers speculating about who, what, why and how.

Why not just wait for the final numbers?

2011-06-23T22:22:00.000-07:00

Chron.com and Metro* are beside themselves with glee over a "study" by local Democratic activist and University of Houston Poli-Sci professor Richard Murray that suggests new members won't have to be added to the board.

(Study: Metro board not in need of new members. Carol Christian, Chron.com)

A study by a Houston political science researcher shows that suburban population growth, relative to the city of Houston's, hasn't been enough to require adding two seats to the Metropolitan Transit Authority board.
The conclusion by University of Houston professor Richard Murray is significant because if 2010 census data had met a threshold that requires expanding the board from nine to 11 members, the city's five appointees would no longer be a majority.

The emphasis is mine, and really cuts to the heart of the issue. What scares Metro to death is the prospect of losing the majority for the urban core and being forced to consider providing service to non-smart growth proponents. What this would undoubtedly mean is *gasp* NO MORE TOY TRAIN. That's something that the world-classiness crowd can't stand.

To my thinking waiting for the final census results to come out, and then taking a hard look at the final numbers, is the best way to satisfy this. In a very "old" Metro way however, Metro is choosing to get out in front of the issue by using their bloated PR department to spend taxpayer money in order to prop up 7 miles of train service that's accomplishing a lot of nothing. Not only is it bad public policy, but it's accompanied by more bad identification of local figures and will soon be followed by a bad editorial cheer-leading the results. It's the Houston Way.

*Please don't call them the "new" Metro. That's a PR ploy to cover up the fact that Metro is operating as they always have. They don't listen to large swaths of the voting public and they aren't all that interested in providing meaningful transit service to the Houston Metro area.

If the cost of trees is so low.....

2011-06-22T18:45:00.000-07:00

....that Chron.com can kill some to run this poorly-argued pap from the Apple Dumpling Gang.....

...then why is the cost of lumber so high right now?

Shutter the ed board, redeploy the resources to local coverage. These little pieces of anti-democratic, static, ruling-class finger wagging are getting too predictable. At least they didn't try to "build a bridge".........or something.

One note: The Chron's argument is basically that the "will of the people" from the time of the City Charter is more important than the "will of the people" now. What they also forget is that the "will of the people" back then was majority pro-segregation. Surely THAT'S not the argument they are making?

Some might say....

2011-06-22T17:17:00.000-07:00

....that Houston's City government is slightly insane.

(Is Sundance deal good for Houston? Purva Patel, Chron.com)

The city of Houston is helping pay to remodel an art house theater in hopes of collecting a percentage of the business, even though a similar agreement with another downtown business has fallen short of expectations.

If you go read the entire article (and you should) you will see that the deal referenced in the first paragraph was Tillman Fertitta's Aquarium. I remember the howls against that at the time from the InterLeft, strange that their silent on this deal.

Of course, Sundance Theater will probably only screen "approved" films that middle-aged, Caucasian progressive's like to tell other people to attend. The Aquarium? schlock fun and food from the king of those things. Things those Republicans want to un-elect consider beneath them.

Meanwhile....about that budget...

What's not said....

2011-06-19T15:03:00.000-07:00

....in today's San Antonio Express-News story about "clean energy" companies bringing jobs and economic manna to the city is where the profits will be found long-term?

(S.A. wins new jobs in clean energy, Tracy Idell Hamilton, MySanAntonio.com)

CPS Energy CEO Doyle Beneby is expected to announce Monday the relocation of several clean-energy-related companies to San Antonio, bringing hundreds of good-paying jobs and establishing a firm toehold in the “new energy economy” that Mayor Julián Castro has been pushing since he was first elected.

The article goes on to say that these companies are going to spend Millions on San Antonio education and infrastructure and are going to be giving away certain products FOR FREE!

Which all sounds well and good until you realize that pseudo-governmental agencies make up their economic short-falls on the backs of the taxpayer. Granted, free-market companies pass on their short-falls to the consumer, the difference being you have a choice in the private market, while in the regulated, government monopoly there's no relief from poorly ran companies who make short-sighted decisions partially for political reasons.

Somewhere, and forgive me but I don't remember where, I read a comment by a progressive suggesting that pseudo-governmental agencies shouldn't worry about profit at all. I can't state how much I agree with that. While agencies such as Metro and CPS Energy don't need to turn a profit because they're subsidized heavily, their goal should be to run as profitable as possible so that their impact on the taxpayer's wallet is none. Those profits could then either be sent to the general fund, or used to strengthen the infrastructures they operate.

Instead we have companies that are coming in and receiving Billions in government subsidies to do something the free-market has decided right now is unsustainable. Guess who's going to pay in the long run?

Hey Paul? corrected

2011-06-18T09:47:00.000-07:00

I'm guessing you're nixing that planned run for Houston Mayor now right?

(Thousands lost in tax refund scam, Cindy George, Chron.com)

The Harris County Tax Office may have lost more than $350,000 to a fraud scam in which tax overpayment refunds were claimed by people not entitled to the money.
In a letter to County Commissioners on Friday, Assessor-Collector Don Sumners reported that the potential loss to his office is $356,629 from issuing as many as 17 checks from December 2009 through October 2010. The claims were made for tax years 2006, 2007 and 2008.

~~I can't believe that Chron.com didn't point out that this scam occurred during Bettencourt's tenure~~*. I'm not sure if that was because this article feels to be hastily prepared, or that the editors just didn't feel it to be all that important.

To me, when you have a candidate whose self-professed claim to fame is running a good organization and being a watchdog for the taxpayer, this seems like an automatic. Now granted, I'm not a fan of Mr. Bettencourt, nor his political guiding light Dan Patrick. I think both of them are political demagogues who are only in it for their own egos. So I admit that I'm chuckling just a little bit with the news of this. That being said, how in the world do you not mention who was in charge at the time?

*Oops. Obviously, as Kevin pointed out in the comments, I flubbed this. The infraction actually occurred during Vasquez tenure. Not Bettencourt's as I so gleefully opined. Has it really been three years since Paul resigned?

So, change that to "how did the Chron not contact Vasquez?"

My apologies to Mr. Bettencourt.*

*That is, before he quit his position to cash in on the property tax issue which he claimed to fight all those years. His founding that company was a sign to me the Dan had given up that fight.

Why do I get the feeling.....

2011-06-17T16:33:00.000-07:00

....that today's ruling overturning the anti-red light camera election results will soon be followed by a lawsuit against the city by the RLC operator demanding the camera ticket program be reinstated?

(Judge invalidates vote ending red-light cameras. James Pinkerton and Chris Moran. Chron.com)

A Houston federal judge on Friday invalidated last November’s referendum that ended the red-light camera program, a ruling that has sent city leaders back to square one.
U.S. District Judge Lynn Hughes ruled the city can not reverse an ordinance except by a referendum of voters held within 30 days of the passage of the ordinance. Opponents to the red light camera ordinance, which passed in 2004, mounted the last year challenge as an amendment to the city charter but Hughes said it was essentially the same thing.

You have to think that American Traffic Solutions now feel they have a legally binding contract with the City of Houston that has to be executed.

As far as the ruling itself? Like many other bloggers, I'm not a fan of judges overturning the will of the voters in non-Constitutional matters. This isn't a case where the minority is being trod on by the majority, or a situation where the security of the union is in danger. Houston's elected officials have recently said that they wouldn't resume the program even IF a judge voted the election down.

I just can't help but wonder if they're going to, legally, have any choice?

Find the Friendly outlet.

2011-06-16T19:27:00.000-07:00

Follow me here....

6:27 PM June, 16th, Texas Watchdog: HISD vendor state Rep. Borris Miles offered trustees all-expenses-paid Costa Rican trip, email shows. Lynn Walsh, Trent Seibert & Jennifer Peebles, Texas Watchdog.
From the article:

Phone messages left at Miles' legislative office and his Houston insurance office were not returned Thursday afternoon.

7:37 PM June, 16th, Houston Chronicle: HISD trustee confirms vendor-lawmaker set up trips, Ericka Mellon, Chron.com From the article:

Miles, a Houston Democrat, said the Costa Rican government picked up the tab for the trips, which included others from the Houston area. Miles, who also attended, did not say who else joined him, but Marshall was the only one of the seven HISD trustees he invited to accept the offer.
Miles has contracted with HISD for several years, with his insurance agency earning nearly $900,000 since late June 2009, according to the district's check register.
"We don't even have the health insurance for HISD," Miles said Thursday. "I do flood insurance for HISD. We were just trying to show them ways to cut costs."

Other than the quotes from Miles the two articles are pretty much the same. Now, I know what you're saying "he's saying the Chronicle stole Watchdog's article." No, you're wrong. I believe that the Chronicle came across this independently of the Watchdog. I also believe that the Miles camp went media outlet shopping, and chose to feed the story to a media outlet in Houston that he knew would be sympathetic. It's not illegal, it's not even really unethical. It's called spin. Politicians use it all the time to make sure their stories get spun in the best possible light. They can do this because today's MSM news outlets are two things: 1. Desperate for unique content and 2. Ideologically aligned with certain politicians (Although, it should be said, not political parties, and certainly not if they smell blood in the water.)

With declining readership and an editorial staff that's unaligned with a majority of their readers, the writing is increasingly uncritical and sub-par from a watchdog perspective. That a small, non-profit online media outlet is consistently beating Houston's former newspaper of record to stories tells you pretty much all you need to know. That Miles story is told in only one news outlet tells you more than you need to know.

Congrats to the Watchdog for a job well done.

Note: Again, because no-one is going to get this right, I'm NOT accusing the Chronicle of doing anything wrong. I'm just saying that they are not doing a good job in my opinion reporting the news.

Forward to the Past.

2011-06-16T06:49:00.000-07:00

Much ado in Houston today about City Council offering 50+ amendments to Mayor Parker's proposed "austerity" budget. Some Council members want to cut deeper (Sullivan), some want to make sure they're not inconvenienced by all of this (Adams), some want to further cut the police force budget to fund community centers (Clutterbuck) and some just want.....well....Chris Moran of Chron.com says it nicely...

({Council}Members offer own ideas to trim the budget. Chris Moran, Chron.com)

Councilwoman Jolanda Jones proposed that the city set a goal of having minority-owned firms get 35 percent of the city's business, more than triple the current goal for purchasing contracts and well above the existing goals in construction and professional services.

OK then.

What's not made clear is how this proposal would cut spending at all?

My early guess would be no. The problem with quotas, whether real or implied, is that they often lead to a company/agency/group having to accept a sub-par offer in order to meet them. A second problem is that the Houston has long been a "majority-minority" city, with Hispanics making up the largest slice of the population pie. Unless specifically written out, Caucasian business are "minority" by definition. Of course, I realize that's not the goal here. The goal is to make sure that contracts are given to companies that are not owned predominantly by Caucasian males, and I agree that who owns the company shouldn't have anything to do with who gets the contractual nod. I also agree that, from time to time, pockets of racism show up in American society. Racism is a terrible thing, being a mix of Caucasian and Native American I have to admit that I've typically been free from it's horribleness pretty much all my life.* So I'm with you there.

My question is whether or not a quota system is the best way to address this. A better, fairer, way would be to write procurement rules that ensure in no way can a person's gender, race, creed or sexual orientation be used as a means of denying a contract. This suggests that the best offer (which, by the way, might not always be the cheapest) is always accepted, even if the owner of the company is Dennis Rodman.

The upside of this is that it assumes that traditional minority businesses are quite capable of turning out a product as good, if not better, than their Caucasian male counterparts. The downside is that the cost of equality is eternal vigilance.** There would also have to be fairly strong review processes in place, not unlike private industry FWIW.

You hear a lot from local pols about "running government like a business". Which really is code for "I'm going to bring in people I've done business with in the past." The thing is, Government really doesn't work like a business at all. Most Government procedures are designed to push decision-making authority down the ladder to the lowest position possible. Therefore you have clerks making go/no-go decisions on contracts, inspectors shutting down projects that cost a business owner thousands just because they can.

The main problem with Government isn't that it's bloated (although that is a problem) it's that it's accountability and oversight systems suck. What government, at all levels, really needs is accountability from the top. It needs managers to analyze the goings-on in the departments for which they are responsible, and for elected officials to keep an eye on the things they're supposed to be keeping an eye on. Instead we get a City contract system that still needs to be told that it's a good idea to consider minority contracts, which leads to elected officials deciding that a good way to get re-elected in the face of ethics charges is to pander to their base. Meanwhile a local business gets it's very expensive new patio shut down because some low-level inspector didn't see a patio permit on the wall.

Is this really the way you expect your government to work?

*Most of my life, except recently, where I've started to see instances of so-called reverse-racism. For instance, I've heard a minority manager for a company I worked for say they would never hire "white men" to work for them. Fortunately I was in another department so I got the job.

**Apologies to Thomas Jefferson.

Harris County Investments Under Scrutiny

2011-06-15T09:46:00.000-07:00

I'm sure Edwin Harrison will say everything will look different, when all of the facts come out, but the facts that we do have right now are sure not looking good for him...

Bond trade fees draw scrutiny, Mike Morris, Chron.com.

Two brokers with ties to Harris County's troubled former finance chief overcharged the county by more than $900,000 on dozens of trades in the last three years, a Houston Chronicle analysis has found.

Despite the inflated prices, former financial services director Edwin Harrison funneled roughly half of $7.3 billion in county investments from 2008 through last fall to Morgan Stanley's Howard LeDet and UBS' Royce Simpson, according to a Chronicle analysis of county financial records.

The article (which you should read all the way through) goes on to provide details for both questionable personal and business dealings between Mr. Harrison and two investors from 2008 forward. It's a good piece of watchdog reporting by the Chron, something we wish we'd see more of, and not just directed at the County, but at other local government (and pseudo-government) entities as well.

I've long thought that having one person in a position of power who can make decisions involving Millions of dollars of taxpayer money is a bad idea. In the private sector there are SOX controls, and other safeguards to prevent this type of fraud. Would it be such a bad idea to implement (or strictly enforce) chain of control measures in local government?

I'm sure the powers will be will ensure us they're in place, but they're sure not being followed.

Jolanda Jones Ethics probe rolls on.

2011-06-13T20:08:00.000-07:00

She still claims innocence but the OIG probe said differently.

I'm always skeptical when people speak of "all the facts coming out", that's typically attorney-speak for "I'm still working on my defense". It might not be the case here, Ms. Jones might have additional evidence on her side. Maybe she'll even make it clear why she didn't provide it to the OIG?

Others: BlogHouston

(Re) Defining an issue

2011-05-23T13:28:00.000-07:00

The Center for College Affordability, working in partnership with Texas Public Policy Foundation, released a study today revealing that 20% of the teaching faculty at UT-Austin are responsible for teaching 57% of credit hours.

On the surface, the solution to this would seem relatively simple: Have more teachers spend more time actually "teaching" students.

For the State's sub-par political media however, the solution is that the issue just needs to be re-defined:

(Tweet from the Austin Chronicles LegeLand blogging team)

LegeLand: Texas conservatives tout study that minority of lecturers teach majority of credit hours: But are those mega-lectures really teaching much?

Part of this is probably just your normal, run-of-the-mill backlash that any proposal by two conservative groups would experience from a liberal media outlet. Some of it is probably much more.

So intent are the Universities, and their fellow travelers in political media, to resist any change outside of "more money" that could potentially impact their rankings on the various "higher learning institution" lists that it's easier to just keep throwing up road blocks attempting to blur the definition of what's being debated.

Nowhere in the study were large, theater-style classes mentioned, yet they were assumed by a media who is now actively advocating against the Conservative position on higher-education reform. When you're losing the debate on intellectual grounds, try and refocus the discussion on something else. It's a pretty standard play book that's playing out in Texas right before our eyes.

Ahmadinejad over OPEC?

2011-05-16T15:23:00.000-07:00

America's oil nightmare realized.

Eventually, something like this had to happen. As America has continued to dither over our energy policy, the rest of the world has noticed our lack of leadership, now Ahmadinejad is poised to take over the mosty powerful, dysfunctional economic organization outside the US.

Seems our playing politics with our oil and gas industry is just about to rise up and bite us in the.......*

*And no, I'm not just referring to the Obama administration, although they've certainly done their part to make America even more reliant on OPEC than we have ever been. This flows through several Presidencies, and the frustrating tendency of politicians to ignore the long-term financial needs of the County in the name of re-elction. An implosion of OPEC (the most-likely scenario if Ahmadinejad goes bonkers) doesn't help anyone.