Corridor Rescue Inc. in the news.

Corridor Rescue Inc., the Dog-rescue charity with whom I'm a foster/adoption volunteer, was in the news recently on Fox 26...

(Kristine Galvan, Fox26, Feb 01, 2010)

It's called the Corridor Of Cruelty. Next week, the Harris County District Attorney’s Office and Crime Stoppers will team up to shut down an area where hundreds of dogs have turned up, dumped, tortured and killed.

"Here we're seeing some bones," said Roger Haseman, an Environmental Prosecutor for Harris County, as he walked along the edge of the lot, near the intersection of Highway 59 and Little York. "I think they saw a few animal carcasses down here on this side of the street."

Haseman and assistant district attorney Belinda Smith have been eyeing the area for the past year when a woman named Deborah Hoffman, founder of a group called "corridor rescue," brought it to their attention. Hoffman coined the term "corridor of cruelty," and has rescued 140 dogs from the area since she discovered it.

Hoffman, along with her volunteers, have snapped pictures of dogs found stabbed to death and burned, but no one has ever been arrested.

Go read the entire thing, and watch the embedded news clip. It's a good news report that lays out several of the issues we're struggling with.


Soon I'll have an update on Maximus, the new pit-bull we've taken in as a foster.

You're all the same!

Provided you ignore the opinions of the majority.

First off: I have a lot of respect for Nate Silver and his FiveThirtyEight political blog. When it gets close to crunch time, and qualitative analysis in elections really matters, there's none better.

That being said, when he pontificates on the opposing party he tends to get it wrong more often than not. The thing is, in this case anyway, he should probably know better.

Take a look at the following graph: The data points in this graph (from the Daily Kos/Research 2000 Poll of Republicans is spun by Mr. Silver to indicate a sameness of thought within the Republican party. "McGOP" as characterized by Silver.

The problem with this categorization is that it ignores the fundamental results of the poll:
When viewed from that angle, the Republican Party opinion on the impeachment question is fairly fractured. Compare that to a June 2007 poll where 69% of Democrats called for the impeachment of then President Bush. By any measure the Republican third/third/third split reflects greater diversity of thought than the two-thirds/third split among Democrats two years prior.

The rest of Silver's post takes aim at several examples using the same, incorrect, reading of the graphs in question. While it's true that there is 30-40 agreement across all age/demographics there's nothing within the entire poll to suggest that Republicans are this big, homogeneous group of like-thinking people that are more in lock-step than are Democrats.

Even if Republicans are in agreement, on the big questions, isn't this somewhat to be expected? Wouldn't you assume that the so-called "Conservative" party has a like-minded approach to some of the bigger issues of the day? After all, large majorities of Democrats support the current health-bill, Climate change legislation, increasing taxes on oil & gas companies, card-check union-vote legislation, etc. Is this evidence of a McDemocrat approach to politics?

No. It's not.

The impetus for writing this is not to provide cover for the Republican Party. When it comes to political philosophy I'm finding myself more and more at odds with them every day. Nor is it really an attempt to pick a fight with Nate Silver. When it comes to statistical analysis I'm bringing a knife to a gunfight in that one. He's still one of the best at what he does. No, my intention here is to highlight the pratfalls of only getting your information from one source, instead of capturing information from a variety of sources. It also illustrates why I believe that having a perspective on the news you report is not a bad thing, provided it's disclosed honestly and often. We all know that Mr. Silver is a Democratic analyst. When reviewing his work that fact should be taken into consideration, his analysis filtered and then a hard, honest look taken at the results.

The result here is that the beginnings of the 2010 Democratic campaign strategy may be starting to appear. Casting the Republicans as non-thinking, anti-intellectual automatons who lack the ability to think independently.

That the poll numbers don't suggest that is beside the point.

Lies, damn lies, and statistics after all.

The Noise Machine (02/03/10)

Don't worry, we've burned our fact-checker at the stake....


An early candidate for moron of the year.


Rasmussen released a poll which has Perry's lead widening and Medina above 15%. (I got a Rasmussen call the other night. They compared the Republican candidates vs. Bill White, but no Farouk Shami.)


Medina gets the warm-fuzzy, useless news story treatment from ChronBlog while while Bill White gets his from the Austin American-Statesman. Next up, newspapers will wonder (again) why their subscription rates are dropping. (Maybe a new glossy section with pretty pictures will help?)


Read "water rate hike" as "tax increase" (which it is) and then let's talk about the wisdom of raising taxes during a recession. Something that was brought up, at the end of the story, by C.O. Bradford, who knows a little bit about faulty city organizations. (On another note, this rate hike has been predicted, for some time, by Houston blogger Ubu Roi.) I can't help but wonder if massive tax increases such as this could have been avoided had Houston simply made public works a priority over the last two mayoral administrations?


There's a war brewing over EPA smog limits, the setting of which seems to be more based on what some think things should be than how they really can be. (That is, if you want to keep some semblance of an economy as a going concern in Houston. If that's not your goal? Well, that's OK too.)


Not only is Perry leading in the polls, but he's kicking Hutchison's butt in fund-raising as well. ChronBlog future endorsee Bill White has a slight lead over everyone, but only has about 1/2 the COH. (That's "industry" slang for Cash On Hand. Just trying to spruce the place up a bit.)

Evan, of Rick Perry vs. World weighs in.


On a National level: Are rumors of the Republican resurgence built on a house of sand? I think so. There's still those icky problems of rhetoric and the fact that they've not much better a track record than the Dems. (If you replace the clueless with the incompetent, what have you gained?)


I'm linking to this story for no other reason than I like the term: precision cuts. When journos buy into political spin the result is a story like this. (funny? Well yeah.)


So, above, you have the job-eating smog reductions of the EPA. Here, you have Democrats eager to protect their jobs by focusing on energy. Unless they're pinning their hopes squarely on the Dippin' Dots economy that is, in which case carry on.


Today's ecomental moment: Please! Help us save our hefty government-funded research grants the planet.


Classic Stossel.


And finally.....


Slampo on the new Ligtnin' Hopkins Memorial Plaque. Good stuff.

The Noise Machine (02/02/10)

Six more weeks of mild weather with cold nights before the oven turns on.....



Let's start with Slampo, who dissects ChronBlog's new "Good Life" section and finds the results to be less than inspiring. (Yet this was thought of so highly that certain neighborhoods received free copies of it, many of which disintegrated in the rain into news pulp instead of news crap.)


Regarding this story by ChronBlog's Mike Snyder...BlogHouston notes the political baggage that Icken carries with him, and Houston Tomorrow broke the story....But hey! We've got the Good Life!


Looked to me like the Groundhog didn't want any part of it. (Of course, you'd be miffed as well if some old guy wrenched you away from your nap and held you in front of bright camera lights in the cold.) Fortunately, in Houston, Winter's really not all that bad.


The Fruit-loops beat is back not all of the time of course, but it's a sad reflection on the media in Houston when the former newspaper of record is taking its lead from TV stations. (Ideally, of course, it's the other way around.)


It's embarrassing when the inferiority complex of Houston's elite is put on public display by ChronBlog. Dammit, we know you're afraid your friends in New York don't take you seriously but keep us out of it would you? (Damn embarrassing if you ask me. "oooh, we matter, look at us" Meh....)



It's about damn time. That is all.


Oh deer.


The Bill White er...Texas Tribune takes a look at the high level of influence of Law firms in judicial races. And yes....they advocate. (Blame the editorial direction. Mr. Smith can't help himself.) On second thought...Blame the reporter. (H/T Kevin Whited.) (In any other industry that'd be a gross conflict of interest that would result in the instant removal of the worker from the story. Obviously those things are of no concern to the leadership of the Tribune.) OK, blame the inattentive blogger....As was kindly pointed out to me by Evan Smith via e-mail, Abby Rappaport didn't write this article. And here I thought I had something. Mea Culpa and my apologies to Ms. Smith. My concerns about Ms. Rappaport's position on an obviously partisan foundation however are still valid, in my opinion, yours may vary.*


So, what we need to get more federal funding for high-speed rail is to spend more money on the State level building a bureaucracy? ("All I want is what's coming to me, all I want is my fair share.")**


And finally.....


What happened to Democracy? - We frittered it away with low voter participation and the discovery of the public that they can vote themselves great public benefits at the cost of everyone just one pay grade higher than they.






See, unlike ChronBloggers we air our dirty laundry out for the World to see. Hey, we're all human, and when you're wrong you're wrong. No reason to cover it up. Excuse me now why I go shoot the editor.
**Yes, that's a Peanut's reference. Can you name who said it?

Help 'em Now (Take two)

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

That's right, it's charity time.


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


Got it? Good.


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

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

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


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

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

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

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


ALSO: This is a tax deductible donation under the current rules. Junior Achievement will send you a receipt for tax purposes via e-mail.

The Noise Machine (02/01/10)

My enthusiasm is soaring.....


If you're not registered to vote, today's the last day to fix that, unless you like not having a voice in deciding who's going to be voting your tax increases up/down.


Trust me, don't feed your dog generic food. They don't like it.


How $3.8 Trillion dollars can kill a city's economy. How in the world did it ever get to a point where the Gov't is spending $3.8 Trillion per year?


On the bright side: The folks at GHASP, Sierra Club etc. are going to be happy, granted, they'll mostly be without jobs, but the air will be clean. (Always look on the bright...side...of life.) *In all seriousness, that opinion piece is horribly incorrect, acting as if no improvement has occurred over the last several years in an effort to scare Houstonians into supporting drastic measures to reach unattainable goals. Ahhh politics.**


Yet another reason for greenies to hate cars. Gosh those abandoned dealerships are ugly. (Far preferable are graffiti-covered toy-train stops.)


It's back to the damn fourth grade meme for ChronBlog. FFS people, find a new lede.


News wonks have always had good things to say about Channel 39's newscast except that they have somewhere around zero resources. That's a shame as you can read here.


Texas missed out on the recent spate of high-speed rail funding. Your party affiliation will tell you whether or not this was a good thing.


And his favorite color is green....More features dreck from Chronblog.


The Bill White er. Texas Tribune has a campaign spending app. Do with it what you will.


And finally.....


Congratulations for BELO Corp for putting on the worst debate in the history of arguing. I've seen parts, that was enough for me. You almost have to intentionally be that bad.