Weekend Update (01/08/11)

...they never let Dan Patrick (Patrick), join in any reindeer games.....


Maybe that explains why "Mr. Small Government" can't keep his nose out of Government? (I think he was ignored as a child)


Note to journalists: If you're in the business of defending this, you need to crush your tinfoil, you're getting some bad reception. (Maybe an alternate play to: "blame Israel for everything?" Just a thought.)


That Good intentions....but... historic preservation bill might not be the disaster everyone thought. Just because tragedy was averted doesn't mean the bill didn't suck. (See: Healthcare reform bill, 2010. For more)


Is it really wise to give the Austin press corps guns? After all, this is a group that would miss the story if it was handed to them, why do we think their aim is going to improve with metal?


We watch with amusement as The Apple Dumpling Gang disparages the entire Oil and Gas industry:

BP wasn't (and isn't) the only company cutting corners in deepwater. It's not just one player who's rotten; it's the whole game.

It's obvious, to those of us in the industry, that the gang that couldn't shoot straight hasn't spent a day visiting with the actual workers who drill the rigs and who oversee the process. On a whole they're good people doing some very dangerous work. Are their bad apples? You bet. But my experience is that they're a very small minority.

Shutter the Ed board, redeploy the resources to the newsroom. It's time for this wheezing, often inaccurate, dinosaur to be put out of its misery. Their dreck is an embarrassment to Houston.


And finally......


Chronpon? ChronBlog takes on Groupon by selling pole dances. (As of this writing, a staggering one person has taken advantage of the deal. I'm sure Groupon is shaking in their boots.) Wouldn't actual news be nice to see from the former newspaper of record?

You keep using that word.....

...I do not think it means what you think it does.*

So much ado today over Liberal economist Paul Krugman's column where he pretty much takes Texas to task for not tax and spending as he has recommended the rest of the Country do. Of course, the Right has had their say, specifically, that Texas is NOT broke, which led to the following response from a twenty-something anthropologist (not kidding) writing for the news-ish organization Texas Observer.

Partisan wrangling aside (is it really wise to start a serious piece of writing with the descriptor "kick-ass"?) it seems that people don't have a very clear standing of the fiscal concept of deficit. Let me explain. In order to have a "deficit" one must first have actual "expenditures". Right now Texas, by nature of it's biennial budget process, does not have any actual expenditures for their to be a revenue short-fall against. Because of this, future expected revenues are bounced up against future expected expenditures where assumptions are made that all past expenditures will be maintained at cost plus inflation.

What this is called is a projected revenue short-fall, or a projected deficit, much in the same way the Clinton projected government surplus never materialized, so might this projected short-fall be avoided by either reducing expenditures or increasing revenues. In other words, it's not broken, it just needs to be addressed. This differs from say...California in the sense that many of their costs are fixed and there are few mechanisms allowed to the State to fix the issue.

Texas, on the other hand, has many options available to it to prevent the State from operating at an actual deficit. Does this mean things will be easy? Most assuredly not. In fact, many of the so-called solutions are, in the eyes of many, worse than the projected revenue short-fall itself.

All that being said, this much is clear: Krugman got it wrong because he doesn't have a good understanding of how Texas budget process works. Kevin Williamson of the NRO got it wrong because Texas does have budget challenges in front of it that will not just be whisked away with some clever Republican sleight of hand. And finally, Forrest Wilder of the Texas Observer got it wrong because he's too willing to substitute progressive talking points for "facts".

The only "fact" we have on our side now is that Susan Combs (the Texas State Comptroller) is scheduled to issue the official numbers on Monday. At that point we'll know exactly how much money the Legislature has to work with, and then a budget process can start that may, or may not, be sufficient to deal with the problem, no matter how big (or small) it might be.


Note: The best way to deal with the problem is probably a mix of revenue increases and spending cuts. While it's true that Texas Republicans will probably not look at ways to increase revenues and will focus completely on cutting expenditures, it's also fair to say that Democrats, were they in power, would surely lean the other way. That's not a fact, it's just a prediction based on past performance. Both sides are, in my opinion, 50% wrong.





*Thank you once again The Princess Bride for continued blog fodder.

The Noise Machine (01/07/11)

Today with 30% less noise.......


Bill King on Houston pensions. I wonder how long it takes for people to scoff at this one?


Ah...no...you mean no train to Galveston? That's not World Class!?!


The headline: Police Olympics champ catches watch thief in Woodlands....What???


The end of partisanship: That didn't last long.


Local Lefty blogger (and former Hatch Act violator)* blows the whistle on GOP free bike and turkey program for kids....Hilarity ensues. (Who says there's no fun in local politics any more? Oh, let us not forget the e-mail chain. Priceless.



And finally....


The same people who are OK with eminent domain for building Urban rail, stadiums and the like say No Way! When it comes to the oil and gas industry. (Of course, the correct answer is "No" on all accounts, but that doesn't make for a Place Called Perfect now does it?)













*Hey, he would know bout illegal partisan activity on Government property right?

The Noise Machine (01/04/11)

Get it?


Former State Rep. Ellen Cohen running for City Council? Could be. The operative word is "running". Actually "winning" that right leaning district could be a task for someone as progressive as she.


We need more money for roads, but no one seems to know how to get it. No one in elected office that is....


Adventures in media identification:


1. Texas Watchdog: The Texas Public Policy Foundation as a "policy group". Which they are, but they should also be categorized as "conservative" (Which they DO classify the CATO institute as later in the article FWIW)


2. Texas Tribune: Progressive groups aren't but conservative groups are. Not that you expect much from news-ish organizations on matters like this, but at least the Dallas Morning News got it right in identifying it as a progressive coalition....


Speaking of CATO, here's their full write up on ObamaCare. You may disagree with CATO's politics, but their numbers are typically fairly sound on matters such as this. The thing is, the bill can be fixed, provided our politicians are willing widen free-market options through high-deductible plans and HSA's....


Captain D(roubi}'s? That's not world class.


I can think of worse campaigns than Parker vs. Bettencourt but not many.


And finally.....


BigJolly on the Republican House Speaker's Race. And again. It's good to see both sides of the argument, even if you are anti-Straus.

The DMN drops the firewall.

The Dallas Morning News announced today that they're going to start charging for some online content....oh, and they've totally forgotten that Windows' Phone and Android devices exist.


What this means is that you'll have to fork over some greenbacks to keep playing the Wayne Slater/Karl Rove Drinking Game, follow ups to political news that's probably already been posted on a political blog, or Dallas Cowboys content that's also been previously reported on the blogs.

In short: you're still paying money for old news that's reactive instead of proactive due to massive cutbacks in the newsroom.


Oh, and the DMN understands tech about as well as ChronBlog. (Hint: hanging your hat on one platform (especially when other platforms are not only gaining ground, but threatening to pass the one you've chosen) is the digital equivalent of waving the white flag.)


On the bright side: Alcohol consumption among media watchdog types (you know, the type that would play the WS/KR drinking game) is sure to go down. Yay liver!!!



Good luck to 'em, but I just don't see what's there for significant numbers of iApple users to pay for.

2011: Hey, it's not 2010.

For many of us, 2010 was a year that is better left on the trash-heap of history. I've had friends that have suffered personal loss, my family has seen professional upheaval, and Michigan football sucks.

With that in mind, lets take a look at some things that MIGHT happen in 2011 but probably won't:


Mayor Annise Parker vs. Houston City Council: 2011 will be the year of jockeying for position. With C.O. Bradford, Jolanda Jones and Mike Sullivan all trying to out-anti-Parker the other in hopes of unseating Parker in 2012. It's going to get ugly. The HCA official prediction is that some local blog will be leaked our local leaders' pet names for one another: "Crime Lab", "Ms. the Tenth", "Mr. Irrelevant" and "GLBT agenda".


Eversole Resigns: It's (thankfully) going to happen. Harris County Precinct 4 Commissioner Jerry Eversole will resign as a result of his federal indictment. The Commissioner's Court (Read: Steve Radack) will then pick his successor. This successor will be former Harris County Tax Assessor-Collector Paul Bettencourt, who will come out of retirement "for the good of the County". There will be serious discussions of having the replacement decided by a slap-fight between HCRP's Jered Woodfill and HDCP's Gary Birnberg. HCA's official position is to ratify the latter option.


Metro pulls defeat out of the jaws of victory: The "New" Metro will revert to "Old" Metro tactics and declare the opening of .7 miles of new toy train track as a "significant development" in Houston's transit future. In order to make way for this new line 57 bus routes will be eliminated. ChronBlog will stop pretending and just run Metro press releases verbatim as original stories. At some point in 2011 Anti-Metro activist Tom Bazan's head will finally explode.


It's the end of political blogging as we know it: At their beginning, political blogs were a rowdy sort. They were the place that political outsiders went to vent, and gripe about things their chosen parties were doing wrong. Of late, many political blogs are official (if not publicly acknowledged) PR outlets for their party of choice. They coordinate talking points, disparage the other team, and add virtually nothing new to the political discourse. The next logical extension is for the InterLeft to devolve into nothing more than vulgarities repeated ad nauseum while the Bloggers O' the Right limit their topics to Obama's citizenship, immigration and Dan Patrick's latest political movement PR stunt.


Speaking of Dan Patrick: In 2011 the ambitious (yet results poor) TX State Senator for District 7 will formally announce his intentions to make a run for Kay Bailey Hutchison's Senate seat. His political platforms will include adding "In God we Trust" to every sign in America, anywhere, creating FIVE new legislative groups with the intention of catering to the Tea Party and getting his name in the press. His Democratic opponent will be Chris Bell.


The "green" economy will finally be exposed as a sham: This one will actually happen, as increasingly difficult regulations force Big Oil to move more and more resources overseas there just won't be surplus jobs in green energy to fill the void. Still, this result will be applauded by the ecomental movement whose biggest problem in 2011 is going to have to find creative ways to not admit that wealth and humans are what they're really fighting against. A poorer world is a greener world after all.

Presidential Politics: Any one who's entertaining the thought that Obama won't run for a second term put that away right now. The thing is, this time, he'll be vulnerable as the economy will really start to shudder under the weight of unsustainable government spending. Obama's going to have to start discussing large tax increases to fund his agenda, although he won't have much success passing them with a Republican Congress in place who has no desire to commit political suicide. The key will be who the Republicans run against Obama. Do they pick the next person in line? (Romney, McConnell et al.) A parody candidate? (Palin, Barbour etc.) Or do they think outside the box and bring in a serious candidate that can win? (Mitch Daniels, Marco Rubio are the two that come immediately to mind)


ChronBlog admits the obvious: Sometime in 2011 (perhaps after the Lege session) ChronBlog is going to announce all of it's State and National politics will be covered by a Hearst Pool. The D.C. & Austin bureaus will be all shared content and they will add more lifestyle reporters with the extra money. As mentioned earlier, they'll also abandon the Metro beat in favor of just running the organizations press releases. The Apple Dumpling Gang will continue to churn out content, will continue to get almost everything wrong, and the downward slide of America's worst big city daily will continue.


And finally.......


Change coming for HCA: I'm currently involved in some side projects that I expect to blossom during 2011. If all works out as I expect, HCA will be more focused on "Noise Machine" posts and some in-depth, investigative stories on a local level. I also plan to move to a dedicated web-site for HCA sometime in 2011, ditching the current format and moving to something that's more multi-media friendly.