Rob Booth has pointers to two stories that I've overlooked which are worth reading. Here he found this story in which US Rep. Max Sandlin (D, Marshall) predicts that the courts will overturn the new Congressional map, and here he found the reason why you haven't gotten your new voter's reg card yet.
Voter registration certificates, or cards, that are usually mailed between Nov. 15 to Dec. 6 will not be in the mail until after Jan. 11, 2004.Due to the redistricting plan adopted by the Texas Legislature, a Three-Judge Federal Panel has ordered all county voter registrars to delay the issuance of the voter registration certificates. The court did not include a specific deadline for the registration certificates to be issued; however, the Texas Secretary of State has advised county registrars to mail the certificates as soon as possible beginning on Jan. 11.
All Texas counties have been instructed to redraw county election precinct lines if new precincts are required to conform with the redistricting plan which affects only 28 counties.
I didn't know that, either. Not sure why unaffected counties have to redraw precinct lines - that seems unnecessary to me. Someone correct me if I'm wrong here, but I seem to recall that the state didn't set aside any money to the counties to offset the cost of all this. That would be typical of the Perry/Craddick mindset if so.
Today marks the end of my second full year of blogging. It's been a fun ride, and I expect it to continue to be for the foreseeable future. Thanks to everyone for riding along with me.
I don't do a whole lot of navel-gazing around here, but anniversaries do have a way of bringing out that impulse. I'll try to keep it brief. I find that one of the things I've been successful at here is following a story as it goes along, often helped by people like AJ Garcia who send me links to stories I might've otherwise missed. I worry sometimes, though, that in spending that much time on a given topic I might be boring people. So I'd like to ask: Are there any topics you'd like to see me write about more often, or less often, in the coming year? Please leave any feedback in the comments, or drop me a note at the address above.
One of the things that I thought worked very well this year was our Texas Blogburst, though I must say I'm very disappointed to have gotten exactly zero responses from any of the county party officials that I wrote to. It's great that we've got a state party blog and a few local group blogs, but I don't think we've come close to getting full value for them. If I have one wish for 2004, it's to get these groups and others like them linking, and more importantly talking to each other. Howard Dean's been a successful candidate so far not because he's got a blog and online fundraising but because he's built a community. Blogging was just a means to that end. It's the networking - the people - that make the difference. I'm going to do what I can to make some of this happen here next year. I welcome any suggestions on how to do that.
All right, my navel's pretty well-inspected now. Thanks for your indulgence in this matter.
As of today, there are no Democratic candidates on the ballot for any statewide office in 2004. Well, there's one, anyway.
AUSTIN — No Democratic candidate has yet filed to run for statewide office in Texas in 2004, but party officials say they expect a couple of hopefuls to emerge before Friday's filing deadline.San Antonio lawyer David Van Os said Tuesday he'll be one of them, as a candidate for the Texas Supreme Court.
"I am going to file. That's definite," Van Os said.
The only statewide offices on the ballot in the 2004 presidential election year are a Railroad Commission seat and three seats apiece on the Texas Supreme Court and Texas Court of Criminal Appeals.
Like every other statewide office, each has a Republican incumbent, some of whom already have drawn Republican opponents.
Van Os plans to run for the seat held by Scott Brister, appointed by Gov. Rick Perry in November to replace Craig Enoch, who resigned.
That's not stopping the state party from sounding optimistic.
State Democratic Chairman Charles Soechting said the party is concentrating its efforts on fielding candidates for the Texas House, saying voters are primed to punish Republican lawmakers for issues such as congressional redistricting and deep cuts in social service spending."The backlash has begun," Soechting said in a news release. "A full year of the over-the-top Republican partisanship has sparked a movement to restore common sense and mainstream values to the Texas Legislature."
Soechting did not give the names of the Democratic candidates he said would file in the House races or which Republicans would be targeted.
Ted Royer, a spokesman for the Texas Republican Party, which has not lost a statewide race since 1994, said he was unimpressed with Soechting's plans or his analysis of the voters' mood.
"I haven't seen their news release," Royer said. "We're very confident heading into next year's elections."
Redistricting has certainly been a rallying point for Democrats here, and I certainly hope that will help to turn out the base in November, but let's face it: Their base is bigger than ours right now. I'm not convinced that independents looked at the whole saga with anything more than a "pox on both their houses" mentality. I don't see redistricting as the best way to bring more people into the Democratic fold.
Democratic Party spokesman Sean Michael Byrne and strategist Kelly Fero, who advises Soechting, said they are not aware of any candidates who planned to step forward in the statewide races.For years, the party made a conscious effort to bypass statewide races, saying it was regrouping for a strong comeback in 2002. But that plan backfired when Republicans again swept all statewide offices while strengthening their majority in the state Senate and winning control of the Texas House for the first time since the Reconstruction.
Fero echoed Soechting's prediction that a slate of formidable Democrats would emerge for the legislative races.
"You'll have to wait until 5 o'clock Friday when filing ends, but I think you'll see about two dozen strong candidates step up," Fero said.
I hope you're right, but I'll be holding off on the champagne until then. Bill Howell fears a repeat of the disastrous strategy from 2000. I'm not as downbeat as he is, but I see where he's coming from.
I'll say this: It'd be nice if whoever the eventual Democratic Presidential nominee is spends a little time here campaigning. Not because he thinks Texas is winnable, but because it would help turnout for all of the downballot races. Al Gore got about as many votes in 2000 as Bill Clinton did in 1996, while George Bush got one million more than Bob Dole did. I don't know about you, but I think that has an effect on other races. Anything to minimize that effect would be good.
Looks like the Chick-Fil-A cows will be hibernating for awhile.
Chick-fil-A is postponing its latest advertising featuring those iconic bovines to avoid appearing insensitive to concerns about the first U.S. case of mad cow disease.The Atlanta-based restaurant chain had planned to unveil a new round of in-store and direct-mail advertising in January. In addition to shelving that campaign, the company will examine advertising such as billboards.
"It's not the intention of Chick-fil-A to make light or take advantage of any food health crisis," Chick-fil-A spokesman Jerry Johnston said Tuesday. "We are voluntarily withdrawing or delaying our advertising. We don't want people to perceive that we are taking advantage of what is happening in any way."
Like others in the fast-food industry, Chick-fil-A reported a sales slump in early 2003 because of a straining economy and concerns about the war in Iraq. But Chick-fil-A has seen its same-store sales rise during the past six months as the economy has picked up steam.
Laura Ries, president of Ries & Ries consultants, said holding off on the ads is a smart idea. No matter how clever or inoffensive Chick-fil-A tries to make its marketing, the company doesn't want to do anything — even indirectly — that would associate itself with the disease.
"There is no need to throw salt on a wound, so to speak," she said. "You always want to lie low in these situations."
Johnston said Chick-fil-A's cow campaign, in its ninth year, has avoided any association with mad cow disease.
I'm sure they'll be back soon enough. Tiffany has a real weakness for Chick-Fil-A. I get her one of their coupon-loaded cow calendars every year as a stocking stuffer.
It is with no small amount of sadness that I note the news that Michael Croft and Ginger Stampley will be leaving Houston in the very near future for the metro New York area. Their departure means that the Greater Heights Area Axis of Left-Leaning Bloggers will be down to three members (Ted, Rob, and me). Thankfully, the Greater Houston Area Axis of Left-Leaning Bloggers has grown considerably over the past two years.
The sadness I feel is for myself as I see these two good friends of long standing move away. I'm very happy for Michael and Ginger, who are about to embark on a grand adventure. Our loss is very much your gain, New York.
Larry points to this article in which Jim Louderback predicts the Tech Flops of the Future.
I've got a simple rule I apply to suss out success for a new product (modestly, I call it Louderback's Rule). It states that any new product must offer at least two dimensions of improvement over what it's trying to replace - without losing anything in the process. Why has the camera phone been such a success? First, it's a phone with a camera - that's one. But the second dimension - easy upload and communication of pictures -ensured the runaway success of the camera phone. Without the communications, the camera would be useless.[...]
Oh, I should note the corollary to Louderback's Rule: beware the cow-path. Just as cows follow each other, creating well-defined trails through a pasture, I'm especially leery of new products that layer a shiny high-tech patina on a low-tech process. Remember the electric pasta maker? Turns out buying pasta in the store is actually easier. Or the bread machine? How many people really want to make their own bread?
Lair is quite properly exercised over the bread machine diss. Having sampled his garlic parmesan bread (mmmmmmmmm...recipe here), I can attest that in the right hands, a bread machine is a Good Thing. A Very Good Thing.
My grandmother, who knew a thing or two about pasta, had one of those low-tech pasta makers back in the day. She did all the hard work, mixing together the ingredients to make the pasta dough, then she stuffed it into the pasta maker, turned the hand crank, and presto! Strands of fettucine would come out. It worked kinda like a manually-powered paper shredder. I don't remember if it could be adjusted to give you noodles of different widths. Not that it mattered to me, since fettucine alfredo was my favoritest dish ever as a kid.
As for the Louderback Loser List, I'm sorry to hear that the Dick Tracyesque SPOT watches probably won't cut it. It'd be just the thing to go with my Blackberry, cell phone, and pager. I can't help but feel that if you're going to wear a Two-Way Wrist Radio, you really ought to have Headquarters somewhere. I mean, otherwise what's the point?
The Statesman has a pretty interesting series going about its proposed new Congressional districts, which tie Austin and the nearby Hill Country to Houston, South Texas, and Midland. Here are their reports on District 11, also known as the Craddick Special, District 10, which I mentioned yesterday, and District 25. Their index page also has some demographics and maps to pore over. Sure would be nice if the Chron did something like this, wouldn't it?
Bill emailed me to ask if I'd seen this story about William Krar, the man from Noonday, Texas, who recently pled guilty to various charges stemming from a few items he had in his house:
Inside the home and storage facilities of William Krar, investigators found a sodium-cyanide bomb capable of killing thousands, more than a hundred explosives, half a million rounds of ammunition, dozens of illegal weapons, and a mound of white-supremacist and antigovernment literature.
I said I had a passing familiarity with the story and said I'd do some looking into it. Turns out I don't really have to, for David Niewert has been on the case for some time now. As a public service, here are the links to his coverage:
Why Domestic Terrorism Matters
David was scheduled to be on Faux News' The Big Story yesterday, but as of this writing I didn't see anything on that web page from the show, nor has he posted a report yet. I'll check back later and update as needed.
UPDATE: Forgot to mention when I first posted this: I searched the Chron archives and found not one single mention of William Krar. I think that's just pathetic.
UPDATE: Here's the transcript from David Niewert's visit to Faux News. Check out Joe Carter's comment to this post, too.
Normally, I wouldn't take too much notice of a movie theater that's about to be closed and torn down, even one that's profitable and getting shafted by its landlord. In this case, however, I must give a salute to the soon-to-be-doomed Meyerland 8, because it's where Tiffany and I had our first date.
(All together now: Awwww.)
We saw Inventing the Abbotts, a nice if not very exciting little film in which the not-yet-famous Jennifer Connelly gets nekkid. I confess, that was probably the last movie I ever saw at the Meyerland 8, as I have since succumbed to the charms of stadium seating, which can only be found at the various Googleplexes. Nonetheless, I'm sorry to see it go. There's not a whole lot of places like it left around here.
This article from yesterday's Chron about the impact of the Mad Cow discovery on ranchers in Gonzales was presumably written to help us empathize with them and to reassure us that it Can't Happen Here. I'm fine with the empathy, but I'm not 100% reassured just yet.
On Sunday, local rancher Jim Selman was relieved to learn that the infected cow was from Canada and its butchered parts may have been shipped only to Washington, California, Oregon, Nevada, Alaska, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana and Guam."I think this will probably help our situation," he said. "I think it makes us more confident that all of our fail-safe measures are in place."
If it's not too much trouble, could you tell me what those failsafes are? Are they regulations enforced by an external entity, or are they just your personal code of conduct? I'm not questioning your integrity if it's the latter, but I will wonder if everyone else has the same standards.
My concerns are partially addressed later.
"Nobody makes their living on the cattle industry," said Jay Gray, a cattle rancher and general manager of Graham Land and Cattle Co., the feedlot that supplies 30,000 cows a year to the market. The beef from these cows is sold at Kroger Co. stores under the Nolan Ryan brand.[...]
Gray pointed out the precautions his feedlot takes, such as not feeding animal products to cattle, which is how inspectors found the disease was transmitted. And each cow at his feedlot is tagged, with something akin to plastic earrings, so the animal's background can be easily traced.
"We've rehearsed this for a long time," he said.
Not feeding animal products to animals is very good, and goes a long way towards making me feel better. But I still want to know: What do you do with the so-called "downers"? What determines a sick animal, and how to you ensure that they don't get processed along with the healthy ones?
If you want to point out to me that I used to be blissfully ignorant of such things and accepted the beef on my plate with complacent faith, I'll agree with you. I'm asking these questions now because I know I can't afford to be that way any more.
UPDATE: Barefoot and Naked has a lot of BSE-related links (here, here, and here).
Congratulations to my sister Eileen and her husband Jason for the birth of their first child, Declan Charles, over the weekend. Mother and baby are doing fine, though since the little guy wasn't due until February 5, he's going to stay in the hospital for a few more days.
(Congratulations to them as well for their excellent taste in middle names. My father's gonna claim credit for it, but I know better.)
That's two nephews and one niece for me, and a grand total of 27 great-grandchildren for Nana. Our plans for world domination are right on track.
This Statesman article gives an overview of the proposed new CD 10, one of the three districts that would carve up Austin under the Republican map. This is the one that stretches from Austin to west Houston, from suburb to suburb with a swath of rural in between. The folks in the rural areas think that the suburbanites don't know or really care about them, while the folks in the suburban areas talk about themselves.
A couple of quotes of interest, first from U.S. Rep. John Carter, R-Round Rock, who currently represents much of this area:
"That area is very similar to the Round Rock area — very fast growth," Carter said of the Harris County suburbs in the new 10th. "That's a hugely pro-life area. These folks are conservative almost to the point of being Libertarians."
Somewhere, Jim Henley just got a nosebleed.
If you need another reason why I generally don't like these conservative-almost-to-the-point-of-being-Libertarian folks, you need only look at this:
Cherry Tree Republicans President Paul O'Finan, whose Houston area club includes members in the new 10th, believes he has a feel for concerns of area residents."They are outraged with what's going on with illegal immigration," he said, adding that immigrants are "laughing at us because they are destroying our culture from within."
Yeah, these are the people I want running my country. Thanks for the reminder, sir. Oh, and give my regards to everyone in your local DAR chapter.
Via Yellow Dog comes this analysis of the 2003 Houston Mayoral race. I kind of wish now that I'd looked for this earlier, because the cited paper by Richard Murray no longer appears to be posted at the stated URL. Regardless, the long passages quoted have some familiar stuff about the Sanchez and White campaigns, plus something that I hadn't heard before:
Much of the support Orlando Sanchez received in 2001 election was an anti-Lee Brown vote. In a number of polls done in 2002 and 2003, only about 60% of the respondents who said they had voted for Sanchez in 2001 said they expected to vote for him in 2001.
I had long believed that Sanchez wouldn't get the same level of Hispanic support that he did in 2001, but this is the first I've heard that his support across the board was so shallow. I'd love to know where these polls are that Dr. Murray is talking about. I for one wouldn't have given in to the conventional-wisdom description of Sanchez as the frontrunner if I'd known this.
One other item for your consideration, for which I'll try to clean up the formatting:
Estimated Vote Share in Different Voter
Precinct Groupings in 2003General Election Runoff
White% Sanchez% Turner% White% Sanchez%
Racial/Ethnic Anglos 46% 48% 6% 48% 52%
Blacks 18% 1% 81% 96% 4%
Hispanics 46% 47% 7% 56% 44%
Asians 70% 25% 5% 72% 28%
No matter how you slice it, that's what I call broad-based support for Bill White.
UPDATE: Greg found Richard Murray's full report (PDF). I did come across this link yesterday, but it came up blank on my screen. Oh, well.
As expected, the GOP will be putting up some challengers to Democrats who participated in the legislative boycotts during the last session. Here's the scoop from San Antonio.
A group of GOP newcomers has targeted incumbent Democratic state legislators, thinking they can hang the albatross of breaking Texas Senate and House quorums around the Democrats' necks.Depending on what happens in March, some potential November races include Jim Valdez against District 26 state Sen. Leticia Van de Putte, Steve Salyer vs. District 118 state Rep. Carlos Uresti, Chris Shindler against District 116 state Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer, and Sandra Ojeda Medina vs. District 123 state Rep. Mike Villarreal.
The thinking of these Republicans is that voters will not look kindly on the Democrats who fled across state lines in a failed attempt to derail congressional redistricting.
Similarly, much could be made of Van de Putte's unproven allegation that a Republican colleague slurred Mexicans during the divisive debate.
But despite those perceived advantages, some longtime local Republicans don't see the merit in such a strategy. All of the districts lean Democratic, and none of the GOP hopefuls have proved they can raise the funds necessary to beat an incumbent.
At the same time, the Democratic incumbents now will run full-scale campaigns that could help raise overall Democratic turnout, making life more difficult for Republican judges on the countywide ballot.
All of these incumbents except for Mike Villareal (who won 63%-35% over a different Republican challenger) ran unopposed in 2002. The state House boundaries were redrawn in 2001 to create more favorable districts for GOP candidates, so many existing Democratic districts were packed. As such, I'm not particularly worried about these races.
If anyone should be vulnerable, it's Sen. Van de Putte, who did not distinguish herself with that claim about a racial slur allegedly made by a Republican colleague. Her Senate seat would also be a bigger prize, especially if the Democrats snatch back SD 1 on January 20. Again, I'll be surprised if she's seriously challenged.
As for other locations, I know that someplace I've seen a link to a listing of candidates who have already filed for the March 9 primary, but I'll be damned if I can find it now. Any help for my failing memory would be appreciated.
Seems like there's been an uptick in comment spams lately. I've had new comments to delete and new URLs to add to my spam blacklist most days over the last two weeks. I even had my first trackback spam in there. The blacklist has been successful at stopping about half of the spammers, but new URLs keep popping up.
I see that one of the features of Movable Type 3.0 will be comment registration. That's not a road I want to go down, as it seems more trouble than it's worth. I've got plenty of logons and passwords to remember, and I don't want to add to anyone else's burden on that. And all to deal with people who want to take advantage of sites like this for their own gain. Such an annoyance.
UPDATE: Naturally, in the time it took me to write this, another comment spam appeared. Grrr.
I agree with Big Media Matt - the criteria used in this Best Places to Live guide sounds exactly like a formula to determine the richest exurban areas and not much else. The $50,000 median income cutoff is a guarantee that all major urban areas are excluded, while the 60-mile radius around a major urban center cuts off all rural areas. (Just out of curiosity, are there any places that clear the income and employment hurdles and which aren't within 60 miles of a "major city"?)
This "survey" is nothing more than a litmus test. Either one would only ever live in places like The Woodlands and Sugar Land, or one would sooner be broken on the rack than live there. I know a few people who live in the burbs because that's where they work, and a few people who live out there because that's what they could afford, but I don't know anyone who feels like they have a choice in the city-versus-suburbs matter who's indifferent to it.
I don't know how granular their financial data is in this, but in some parts of the Big City, there's a real wide range within a small area. I live in a ZIP code where a lot of folks live at or below the poverty level, but you couldn't tell that from my neighborhood. And I'll take it over any "soulless exurban sprawl zone", even and especially master planned soulless exurban sprawl zones.
There's more to a place to live than just income levels, and any survey that undertakes to rank them without considering these things will produce bogus results. Keep that in mind before you buy that sprawling swankienda out in Fort Bend or Montgomery County.
Every once in awhile, you can actually learn something from those end of the year Weird Stories wrapups.
Tom Hanks was signed to play flamboyant congressman Charlie Wilson of Lufkin, who helped Afghani mujahedeen oust the Soviets, in a movie based on the book Charlie Wilson's War: The Extraordinary Story of the Largest Covert Operation in History.
That could be really cool, or it could suck all kinds of rocks. I just have one request: Hire Molly Ivins as a script consultant. She has some great stories to tell about ol' Charlie.
Julia has a fine collection of news links to get you up to speed on the Mad Cow story. Here's one link that I'd like to highlight.
During a House debate last summer over a possible ban on using sick and injured cows for meat, Representative Gary L. Ackerman, a Democrat from New York, held up a photo of a crippled cow and cautioned that such "downer animals" carried the highest risk for mad cow disease.But Representative Charles W. Stenholm, a powerful Texas Democrat and a rancher, countered that the government's screening program was tight enough to prevent any problems.
"The picture the gentleman is showing, that sick animal, will never find its way into the food chain," Mr. Stenholm said. "Period."
Thanks, Charlie. Of course, it was just such a cow that caused all this ruckus in the first place. I call this Exhibit A for why faith-based regulations don't work. Go read the rest for more.
I must not be as jaded as I thought I was, because I really can't believe I just read this headline in today's Chron: Amid backdrop of war, Houston reborn in 2003.
With the chutzpah of a city that put man on the moon and built the world's first domed stadium, Houston -- an amalgamation of sprawling suburbs -- in 2003 became a city with a downtown heart.[...]
Against a backdrop of war, Houstonians in 2003 grappled with controversies involving police and school officials. In May, tragedy struck again when 19 illegal immigrants died after they were abandoned in a sweltering, airless truck near Victoria.
Are you kidding me? Are you seriously trying to tell me that whateve Houston "overcame" in 2003, the eventual invasion of Iraq made it somehow more compelling? Heroic, even? Please.
If this isn't the worst example ever of the Chron mindlessly shilling for Houston, it's got to be pretty close. For shame.
Ezra Klein and Kevin Thurman both print the following quote, which in my mind is the Best Reason Ever to avoid WalMart and Sam's Club.
Wal-Mart is "the unstoppable, insatiable force" in retailing, "rul[ing] the commercial strip the way Julius Caesar once ruled the Roman republic." That isn't hyperbole. Against the Wal-Mart bulldozer, nothing can stand. Yet somehow Goliath's Sam's Club operation is being thrashed by Costco.Sam's Club has 71 percent more U.S. stores than Costco, yet Costco's total sales are 5 percent higher. The average Costco store generates almost double the revenue of a Sam's Club. By any hard-nosed business measure, Costco is succeeding brilliantly against what may be the most formidable competitor in any industry on Earth.
Furthermore, Costco's success translates directly into benefits for workers and customers in the very manner that cheerleaders for corporate America have long described. The company offers "the best wages and benefits in retail." Its starting hourly wage is $10. Full-time hourly workers earn annual salaries of $40,000 after four years.
And get this: Whenever Costco buyers negotiate a good deal on products, the savings are actually passed on to customers. No, seriously; markups are capped at 14 percent.
Well then, you say to yourself, Costco CEO James D. Sinegal, the architect of this marvel, must be taking bows as a Hero of the Republic. Wrong. Instead he's defending himself from powerful forces that better understand how a business ought to be run.
In a single paragraph tucked matter-of-factly into Fortune's hymn to Sinegal and his company, as if it were one more piece of incidental data, we learn that "some of the practices that made Costco great have lately come under attack by Wall Street." What the complaint boils down to is that Sinegal is too generous to the peasants. Stock analysts have "pounded on" him to trim workers' health benefits "and to otherwise reduce labor costs." The critics' view is summarized by "Deutsche Bank analyst Bill Dreher, who recently wrote, 'Costco continues to be a company that is better at serving the club member and employee than the shareholder.' "
For whatever reason, both of them got the URL to the piece that contains this quote wrong. It's here, which a commenter on the Pandagon post noted. The Fortune article it references is here, though you can only see the beginning of it unless you're a subscriber.
I don't quite get Ezra's conclusion that Wall Street's disdain for Costco's generosity towards its employees means that businesses need regulation. Some amount of regulation (we can certainly argue over how much) is necessary in our capitalistic society, but I don't see the connection here. I'd say what's needed is more a reevaluation of our priorities. Why should a successful company have its stock denigrated by analysts because of its health care plan? Aren't profitability, good growth prospects, and a loyal customer base enough? The implication seems to be that shareholders are somehow more important, and should be more rewarded, than employees. Suffice it to say that this is a value system that I just don't understand, and I speak as an owner of various stocks.
(I keep wondering when, in this age of offshoring, downsizing, increased productivity, and automation, executive compensation will start to be treated as an out-of-control cost that needs to be reined in to enhance long-term competitiveness. Oh, shareholders and the business press have been grumbling for some time, but it hasn't had any effect as yet. We're talking tens, even hundreds of millions of dollars, often going to one person while the company in question is bleeding. Applying a little of the hardheaded realism and dedication to cutting costs here would go a long way, it seems to me. But I digress.)
Anyway, for those here in the Houston area, we've had a Costco for some time now. Now that I know the difference, I'm going to make sure we have a membership.
The ever-so-shrill, I-liked-him-so-much-better-when-he-stuck-with-economics Paul Krugman has a few suggestions for the press on how to cover the 2004 elections.
• Don't talk about clothes.• Actually look at the candidates' policy proposals.
• Beware of personal anecdotes.
• Look at the candidates' records.
• Don't fall for political histrionics.
• It's not about you.
How totally naive. You won't get any ratings with that. Where's the horse race, the inside baseball, the validation of one's personal worldview? No wonder the guy toils in such obscurity.
Unfortunately, via Atrios, it looks like there ain't much hope for what Krugman hopes. Oh, well. Maybe in 2008.
Here's a great article on Dicky Maegle and Tommy Lewis, the two protagonists in the wildest play ever in college football. Lewis' off-the-bench tackle of Maegle while Maegle was headed for a 95-yard touchdown run during the 1954 Cotton Bowl will be 50 years old on January 1.
This is something I didn't know:
Lewis and Maegle appeared on the popular Ed Sullivan TV show in New York two days after the game, and Sullivan asked Lewis why he did it. Lewis' response became the most repeated line associated with the tackle."Mr. Sullivan," Lewis said, "I was just so full of Alabama."
Fifty years later, Lewis said Sullivan put him up to the line.
"We were sitting in his office trying to figure out something for me to say," Lewis said. "All I could do was apologize, so Sullivan told me to say I was 'full of Alabama.' That's not something that would normally come out of my mouth."
For his part, Maegle protested Sullivan putting he and Lewis in the same hotel room while in New York for the show.
"Mr. Sullivan," Maegle argued privately to the gregarious TV host, "I'm not rooming with this guy. He might have a nightmare and try to throw me out the window."
Sullivan obliged.
"After what Lewis had done in the Cotton Bowl," Maegle said, "I didn't know if he was all there (mentally) or not."
On a side note, in this year's Rice-Nevada game, Owl quarterback Kyle Herm matched Maegle's feat by running for a 95-yard touchdown. Most of his run was along the Rice sideline, so there was never any real danger that history would repeat itself a little too faithfully.
I'm sorry I missed this.
They drove through Houston's barrios Christmas morning in low-riders that jerked up from the pavement, blaring horns as loud as those on a train and wearing wildly-colored zoot suits that screamed for attention.Children ran. Dogs barked. Police sirens wailed.
It was sheer joy.
Once again, hundreds of families in some of Houston's Hispanic neighborhoods received a bit of raucous holiday cheer Thursday from local hero "Pancho Claus" and his friends in low gear.
The procession of 10 souped-up cars wound its way through the streets of the East End, the north side and the Heights from morning into the afternoon, dispensing toys and smiles to many children who found nothing under their Christmas trees.
"We're trying to give them a Christmas surprise," yelled Richard Reyes from the bed of a pickup piled high with toys as dozens of children gleefully clamored for gifts. "To some of these kids, this will be the only gift they have."
Reyes, a 52-year-old actor, has become legendary in the barrios for his annual Christmas appearances as Pancho Claus. Donning a red zoot suit with a matching red tie and a black fedora, the tall and goateed Reyes easily stood out from the couple of dozen helpers who wore more subdued suits or regular clothing with Santa hats.
Reyes said this was his 20th consecutive Christmas passing out presents as Pancho Claus. Members of the Latin Fantasy Lowrider Car Club took part for their 12th annual appearance. For several years, Harris County Precinct 6 Constable Victor Trevino has provided officers to accompany the procession of cars.
"We're very thankful and happy for the presents," said J. Refugio Hernandez from the porch of his home on Runnels at Everton. "The economy is bad and I lost my job, so I wasn't able to buy my (four) kids presents."
Jasmine Corona grinned as she ran back to her mother clutching a baton covered in colorful sparkles.
"I'm very happy," the 7-year-old said shyly.
"Christmas is a little better," said her mother, Aurora Corona.
Pancho Claus is a revered icon in many Hispanic areas in Texas, but he typically wears a red poncho and a large sombrero in serving as a symbolic bridge between Latino and Anglo cultures.
Reyes said he thought of the zoot suit get-up to infuse cultural pride in the poor neighborhoods he visits. The outfits, which consist of baggy pants and matching-color jackets, were popular in the 1940s, and often were worn by Mexican-Americans and blacks.
"We want to give the kids something to look at with pride and let them know we have a history in fashion," Reyes said.
Reyes, who operates the Web site panchoclaus.com, has an acting troupe that performs Pancho Claus plays throughout Houston. He also plays in a rhythm and blues band with the same name.
He said he could not reach so many children and give so many presents without the help of two primary sponsors, Union Pacific and Multicultural Education and Counseling through the Arts.
The Latin Fantasy Lowrider Car Club raised $3,000 for the Christmas giveaway in a recent car show called Juguetes Para El Barrio, or "Toys for the Neighborhood."
"I always ask people, 'Do you believe in Santa Claus?' " said Sotero "Shorty" Villarreal, owner of Shorty's Hydraulics low-rider shop, who distributed presents with his wife and four children Thursday. "If they say no, I tell them, 'That's the wrong answer.' "
You said it, dude.
When I first glanced at the headline of this Chron op-ed piece, which reads "Why should hospital district cover illegals?", I figured it would be the standard-issue ignorant nativist rant, and I started to prepare some responses as I read through it. About midway through, I realized there was no point in arguing with it, because it was such a poorly written muddle that I had no idea what author Eric Yollick was actually talking about.
Then I got to this paragraph, which stopped me dead in my tracks:
The real beneficiaries of illegal immigration are the businesses that employ them illegally. You and I pay approximately 72 percent of our disposable income to taxes -- local, state and federal -- in many different forms -- income, ad valorem, sales and use. Illegal immigrants do not pay nearly those amounts. Employers get the benefit of these employees. Why, then, should they not bear the burden instead of spreading that burden across all taxpayers, rich and poor alike (which is what we do through the ad valorem taxes that MCHD assesses)?
Emphasis mine. Seventy-two percent? Of disposable income, which to my mind means the money you have after you pay for the things you have to pay for? Jumping Jehosaphat, what planet do you live on? Even the guy who draws "Mallard Fillmore" only claimed he was paying "more than 50%" of his income in taxes.
I've seen statistics pulled out of the air before, but this one takes the cake. Eric Yollick, if you're reading this, I officially triple-dog dare you to document that 72% figure. Feel free to drop me a note or leave me a comment. In return, I'll recommend a few good accountants for you so you can bring that burden down a tad. It's the least I can do for you.
Hawaii defeated Houston 54-48 in triple overtime in the Battle of the UHes yesterday. Congratulations to all of you who were wise enough to bet on the over.
From the Seemed Like A Good Idea At The Time Dept:
UNIONDALE, N.Y. - Bad Santa isn't just a holiday movie. A seemingly harmless Christmas promotion arranged by the New York Islanders turned ugly, and all because of the team's fierce rivalry with the New York Rangers.And the Rangers were nowhere near when trouble broke out. The promotion invited fans to dress up as Santa Claus for Tuesday night's game against the Philadelphia Flyers and be admitted to the Nassau Coliseum for free. What's more, they were permitted to parade across the ice between periods.
About 1,000 Santa Clauses showed up and as promised, they were invited on the ice after the first period.
This turned out to be not such a good idea. As the Santas milled around, two of them removed their red jackets to reveal jerseys of the rival Rangers — not a good thing to do in the home of the Islanders.
Ignoring the holiday spirit, some of the other St. Nicks turned into Bad Santas, jumping the Ranger fans. The interlopers were knocked to the ice and had the shirts ripped off. Other Santas went sliding across the ice during the melee that took six minutes to settle down.
The entire parade took nearly nine minutes, and almost delayed the start of the second period. The players were unaware of what was happening on the ice until after the game, won by the Islanders 4-2.
Maybe it was the presence of the Flyers that set off the fans. Philadelphia, remember, is where Santa was once booed in a holiday parade.
When New York's Arron Asham learned about what had happened, he grinned.
What did he think about the episode?
"Awesome," Asham said.
Sounds like the most exciting promotion at a sporting event since Disco Demolition Night in Chicago. Eric McErlain was there but managed to miss the fun. You can see a few pictures of the pranksters and the result of their ingenuity here.
Mele Kalikimaka is the thing to say
On a bright Hawaiian Christmas Day
That's the island greeting that we send to you
From the land where palm trees sway
Here we know that Christmas will be green and bright
The sun to shine by day and all the stars at night
Mele Kalikimaka is Hawaii's way
To say "Merry Christmas to you."
(Repeat)
OK, it's not Hawaii here, but it is sunny and warm and there are a few palm trees to be found. Whatever your weather is like, Merry Christmas!
I believe it's been well known for a long time now that a sizeable percentage of shoppers at Houston's high end mall the Galleria are from Mexico, but I'm still a bit surprised to see it expressed in such stark terms.
Red, green and white are more than just traditional holiday colors to Patricia Porto.The many wealthy shoppers visiting her boutique this Christmas season make her think of another color scheme -- that of the Mexican flag.
The Galleria has long been a favorite among both Mexico's elite and middle class.
At least 20 percent of the shopping center's customers come from Mexico.
"Without the Mexicans, there is no Galleria," said Porto, who counts Mexican customers as 70 percent of her business.
Now that's just one shopkeeper's opinion, and what it may mean could be "Without the Mexicans, I'd be out of business". That's clearly the case here, but it doesn't have to be sitewide. I'm inclined to believe that she's discussed this with some colleagues who are in a similar position, though, and if it's true for enough of them, that's close enough.
Not too surprisingly, most of the business from these foreign visitors is for the real expensive stuff, but the story did note that some middle class folks make a regular trek up north, too. The fear of terror attacks slowed things down recently, but there's a bigger factor at work:
[Porto] remembers when, in the 1980s after two peso devaluations and a recession, fewer Mexican customers shopped at Galleria stores.And for the last two years, business was slow. Many Mexicans were afraid to travel to the United States because of the terrorist attacks.
But business has picked up again, despite the recent weakening of the Mexican peso against the U.S. dollar. And, for some middle-class Mexican shoppers, that's an important factor in the decision of whether to come to the United States.
"When there's a big difference in the exchange rate, it affects how they want to spend their money," Tourneau's general manager, Ed Gelber, said. "If they have so much money that it doesn't matter, then it doesn't matter."
Nice to know our weak-dollar policy is good for something.
There's the basic contradiction all at once: Wolfowitz and the neocons seem to truly believe that they're motivated by an idealistic devotion to democracy, but at the same time they're willfully blind to the fact that their own Cold War history makes a shambles of that supposed devotion.After all, this is the same group that spent much of the 70s and 80s so intent on interpreting everything as part of a war of civilizations between the West and a resurgent communism that they ignored — or in some cases actively encouraged — the rise of Islamic fundamentalism in the Middle East. (Remember Afghanistan and Iran-Contra?) The very single-mindedness that neocons are famous for blinded them to the fact that they were contributing to the rise of an even bigger problem, one that had nothing at all to do with communism.
A more expansive approach to the Cold War would almost certainly have worked nearly as well — after all, communism was rotting from within and the Soviet Union was never as strong as the neocons insisted it was — and might have left room for a more democratically inclined Mideast policy as well. But instead of learning this lesson the neocons have simply shifted their familiar monomania to the very fundamentalism they helped midwife into creation. Even the methods are familiar: proxy wars around the world, domino theories, demonization of the left, and an insistence on huge military buildups. The old hatred of Europe is back too, this time even more virulent than before.
Having failed so spectacularly in the 80s to understand the consequences of a single-minded foreign policy, they are now asking us to give them another chance against a different enemy. But wouldn't it be better, instead, to try a cure that hasn't already been proven worse than the disease?
Brilliant!
Tom Spencer visited home here in Houston and took a look at compassion and class mixing through a Star Trek prism. Check it out.
Are shopping mall Santas going extinct?
Santa isn't the big man at Christmas that he used to be, at least not at the mall.While appearances by St. Nick remain a holiday ritual at most of the nation's 1,130 enclosed shopping centers, there are bearish signs for mall-based Santas, according to a review of five years of "holiday fun facts" from the International Council of Shopping Centers.
There is evidence of Santa fatigue:
· The number of Santa photos sold per mall in 2002 was 4,683. Those are 54 percent fewer Kodak moments than the 10,250 photos snapped per mall in 2000, the only other year for which figures are available.
· The average number of children sitting on Santa's lap per mall in 2002 was 8,758. That's down 13 percent from the five-year high of 10,119 in 2001.
· The average mall, like many businesses, got leaner and meaner in 2002, using one full-time and one part-time Father Christmas. That compares with one full-time and two part-timers in 2001. The recent peak of Santa staffing was in 1998, when the average mall had 1.2 full-time Santas and 2.8 part-timers.
That last bullet item is a clear demonstration of the dark side of those rising productivity numbers.
Ah, well. At least this is one job they can't offshore.
I agree with this post on TAPPED about the latest DLC/Howard Dean dustup so much, I'm going to quote most of it.
[T]he DLC really hasn't been offering a "Bush-lite" agenda for America. On the other hand, "Democratic centrists" really have been "cravenly supporting much of George W. Bush's agenda" and the DLC needs to learn to deal with that reality. Bush's big-government conservatism has provoked a small, but steady, stream of defections from Republican moderates, deficit hawks, and principled conservatives which, combined with the GOP's narrow margins in the congress, has meant that none of Bush's major domestic initiatives -- not the tax cuts, not the Medicare bill, not the energy bill -- had the votes to pass without cooperation from Democrats.And cooperation is exactly what they've gotten, from folks like Zell Miller, John Breaux, and Max Baucus, who've helped move terrible legislation to the president's desk and let the GOP get away with running the most partisan congress in generations. The DLC didn't support any of these bills, but I haven't seen them criticizing those who did, many of them card-carrying New Democrats. We know the DLC doesn't shy away from condemning Democrats from the left wing of the party who cast votes that displease them, but they've been utterly silent on the craven behavior of the party's right wing.
Under those circumstances, is it any wonder people have the impression that the DLC itself endorses the "Bush lite" politics that legislators associated with the group seem to be following? Instead of facing up to the reality of today's politics -- a narrow Republican majority allying with a handful of conservative Democrats to pass frighteningly bad legislation -- they seem to want to endlessly re-fight the battles of 15 years ago, even though they know perfectly well that Dean is no kind of crazed far-lefty.
Damn straight. We're about to enter our fourth accursed year of this Presidency. You would think that by now some people would have learned that crossing the aisle to vote for Bush's legislation brings no reward - ask Max Cleland and Jean Carnahan how much their votes for the Bush tax cuts and the Iraq resolution helped them - but you would be wrong. That as much as anything is what is driving the anger of many Democrats, and most of them I'd bet are Dean supporters. It's high time the DLC fully grasped this.
Byron is helping to lead the charge to give support to State Rep. Paul Sadler, who is running in a special election on January 20 to replace the retiring Bill Ratliff. Sadler is the only Democrat on the ballot, and if he wins it's a pickup for the Dems, making the Senate balance 18-13. He's a strong candidate with a good legislative record, so I'm happy to give him what little support I can.
You can make a donation to his campaign if you'd like to help. I'm going to add that link to my sidebar along with ones for Richard Morrison and Stephanie Herseth, which I'd unaccountably forgotten to do before now.
I keep promising to do that blog post on what Official Political Party blogs like the Yellow Dog Blog ought to do in order to get a return on their investments, but until I get around to it, something they ought to do is help promote candidacies like Sadler's and Morrison's. If there's one lesson we've learned from the 78th Lege, it's that politicians who aren't on your own ballot can have a pretty big effect on your life, including who your representatives are. It matters to all of us how many Democrats there are in Austin and in DC, and that's a message that should be broadcast on every channel.
Construction of new Schlitterbahn in Galveston is another step closer to reality as the Galveston City Council approved a lease on the property in question.
The water park will be between Galveston's Lone Star Flight Museum and Moody Gardens, two of the island's busiest tourist attractions.The Schlitterbahn lease covers about 25 acres at Galveston's Scholes International Airport. Schlitterbahn will pay $7,400 a month, or $88,800 a year, in rent.
Other businesses lease property at the airport, which serves mainly private pilots and several offshore helicopter firms but is not served by commercial airlines. Formerly known as Scholes Field, the airport property was a huge World War II flight training site.
"Even though we have great tourism, the Schlitterbahn will really fill a gap in that it will have things that teenagers in particular will want to do," LeBlanc said.
"It will raise the city to a new level of tourism."
Plans for the park's attractions are not complete, Schlitterbahn spokeswoman Sherrie Brammall said Monday.
"We would hope to unveil plans for the new water park by spring and, if everything falls into place, the construction should be under way this summer," Brammall said.
Opening is expected by May 2005.
Depending on weather, the water park could be open as many as 200 days a year.
Two hundred days a year? Wow. The original park in New Braunfels is basically only open for the summer, with some weekends in May and early September. I guess the labor pool is deeper in Galveston than it is in New Braunfels - the original park pretty much runs on teenagers out of school for the summer.
The water park is expected to pump up to $500,000 a year in sales and other taxes into this cash-strapped city's coffers and have an economic ripple effect in the area of $30 million to $35 million a year, said Jeff Sjostrom, executive director of the Galveston Economic Development Partnership.[...]
Sjostrom said the planned water park is expected to induce many families who vacation in Galveston to stay longer.
"Instead of coming to the island for one or two days, they'll stay maybe three or four days," he said.
Early estimates put the number of water park jobs at 900, many of which will be part time, LeBlanc said.
I've pretty much decided that all forecasts of economic gain resulting from new businesses in a given location are wildly optimistic, but I nonetheless hope this one is accurate. It's certainly true that Galveston could use another big attraction to keep people in town longer, and a visit to the 'Bahn is an all-day affair.
So last week, Tiffany asked her mother, who is hosting both Christmas Eve and Christmas, what food we should bring. She expected to hear something like "oh, bring a vegetable", but instead was handed two recipes and a shopping list. As she is management and I am labor in our household org chart, I was tasked with buying the needed groceries.
So off to Kroger I went. I'm actually not a clueless grocery shopper, and found everything specified in more or less short order, but I did almost get hung up on two items: clam juice and chives.
Clam juice? Where's that? I looked up at the signs over the aisles and figured it'd either be in with fruit and vegetable juices, or with spices and condiments. Turns out it was in neither one - I found it near cooking oils, though I've forgotten what the highlighted items on that aisle were. Thankfully, this was between the two aisles that I've fingered, and was near the end, so I spotted it as I was walking by.
As for the chives, I couldn't remember if "chive" is a synonym for "green onion" or not. I didn't see anything labelled "chives" in the produce displays, but after a quick consultation with one of the store employees, who looked it up in his magic book, we eventually located them among the prepackaged items.
Somewhere between the chives and the clam juice it occurred to me that my errand would have been greatly simplified if my neighborhood Kroger had a kiosk near the entrance where I could do a query on "clam juice" and be told "aisle seven, rear, top shelf". Navigating these huge upscale grocery stores is enough of a challenge when you're just there to buy the usual stuff, but when you've got a specialty item on your list it can be pretty daunting. There are other self-service technologies now - unattended cashier lines where you scan your own groceries, weigh stations for produce where you input a product number and get a barcode sticker for faster checkout - why not something like this? I know I'd use it.
Yes, this would be a large investment for a not-easily-quantified gain, but surely a smart upscale food store would advertise their new feature for a competitive advantage. It might also help them with demand - if you allow queries based on brand names, you could keep track of those that are made for brands you don't carry and stock accordingly. Hell, a really smart chain might let their suppliers subsidize some of the cost in return for specialized queries, advertising displays, an option to print coupons, whatever.
I'm sure there are many possibilities. All I know is that I found myself wishing that I could have Googled on "clam juice", and this is where it took me.
As expected, the Houston International Festival is moving out of downtown.
The 32-year-old Houston International Festival is moving, not quite to the 'burbs, but to a tract of manicured grass and two parking lots on 27 acres at Reliant Park. Festival organizers signed a contract Monday with SMG-Reliant Park to hold the April music and culture festival near the football stadium for at least five years. The contract contains an optional extension for a total of 10 years.SMG, which manages Reliant Park, would not disclose how much the festival is paying. Jim Austin, iFest president and chief operating officer, said it is well below the $250,000 a year the festival would have had to pay the city to continue to hold the event downtown.
The City Council voted last summer to dramatically increase the $51,000 in fees it would charge the festival to remain in the public parks and streets surrounding City Hall. Officials had complained about closing streets, wear and tear on the parks and being reimbursed for only a fraction of those and other costs, including security and garbage pickup.
I strongly suspect that the reason this was a money loser for the city and will be a money maker for Reliant is parking. If the city owned the parking lots that people used downtown, they'd have covered their costs a lot more easily. Reliant won't have that problem. If I go to iFest this year, I figure I'll park in a downtown satellite lot and take the light rail line to the stadium. I'll bet the traffic in and out of the Reliant lots will suck.
I must say, I'm amused and slightly appalled by some of the comments in this story.
Some predict the move will diminish the festival, loved in part for attracting diverse crowds of Houstonians to listen to live music from Texas, the United States and the world."It's not going to be very creative," said Nuri Nuri, a KPFT-FM radio announcer and devoted festival participant. He said the new site will be more structured and sterile, ruining the relaxed atmosphere that led families to spend the day at the festival, napping in the parks, meeting new people and chatting with friends.
"I'm not blaming the festival folks because they don't have the money," Nuri said. "Let the city put some money in it, for God's sake."
Mike Savas, a music buff and former KPFT announcer, said he will miss the ambience of downtown. He thinks city officials are overlooking a natural part of creating a vibrant downtown that attracts more than commuters.
"It seems ironic that they're trying to build up downtown, but only in certain ways," said Savas, who has performed at the festival in a Greek dancing group.
But though the city helped found the festival and has long supported it by waiving many fees, city officials did little to discourage the move.
"I just don't see how these minimal changes would drive them out of downtown," said City Councilwoman Carol Alvarado, who pushed for the measure that quintupled the fees the festival would have had to pay to remain on city property.
Councilman Mark Ellis disputed Austin's contention that the festival generates revenue for the city in parking fees and taxes, promotes international business, and helps Houston's image.
"Their position now is, 'Now that y'all have built us, we're going to go take our ball and play somewhere else,' " he said. "Good riddance."
Savas and Nuri said they will still attend the festival but fear it will be less fun.
"The music is so great," Savas said, "that wherever it's going to be, I would suffer through it."
With all due respect to Carol Alvarado, that fee hike from 50K to 250K is hardly minimal. I can believe it was justified, but let's be clear about it. As for everyone else, please, for the love of God, finish that second cup of coffee before you speak to a reporter. You'll thank me later.
Final arguments will be given today in the redistricting trial. I'm not sure if the judges will have a ruling by today, but surely they'll have one soon. After that, it'll be on to the Supreme Court regardless of who prevails.
Yesterday the plaintiffs formalized a complaint they made previously by requesting documents from the Justice Department which they say will prove that the approval it gave to the new map was politically driven.
The Democrats want a copy of the memorandum written by the Voting Section of the department's Civil Rights Division in time to present it today in federal court in Austin. A three-judge panel is hearing final arguments in a lawsuit challenging the new congressional plan, which Republicans want to use in the 2004 elections."It is vital that the public and the three-judge panel have access to the Voting Section's recommendation before the start of closing arguments," said a statement issued by the delegation.
Justice Department spokesman Jorge Martinez declined comment Monday.
[...]
J. Gerald Hebert, a lawyer representing the congressional Democrats, has said sources within the department told him the agency's career professional staff found that the Texas map violated minority protections in the Voting Rights Act.
Hebert said he was told the staff was overruled by Republican political appointees. He has demanded a copy of the staff recommendation under the Freedom of Information Act.
"We urge the Justice Department to immediately release the Voting Section's memorandum so that the public and the judges will know what illegalities led career Justice Department employees to recommend against pre-clearing the Texas plan," the congressional statement said.
The statement was issued by Democratic U.S. Reps. Shelia Jackson Lee, Chris Bell and Gene Green of Houston; Lloyd Doggett of Austin; Chet Edwards of Waco; Martin Frost and Eddie Bernice Johnson of Dallas; Charlie Gonzalez and Ciro Rodriguez of San Antonio; Ruben Hinojosa of Mercedes; Nick Lampson of Beaumont; Solomon Ortiz of Corpus Christi; Max Sandlin of Marshall; Charlie Stenholm of Abilene; and Jim Turner of Crockett.
Though I expect the Justice Department to ignore the request even if it would refute the claim, the Democrats more or less admit that they're fishing.
In a joint statement, Texas Democrats in Congress said they were "outraged by the political subversion of the Voting Rights Act that led to the Justice Department's decision to pre-clear the new Texas plan." They demanded a public explanation "for why Attorney General Ashcroft allowed political appointees to overrule the Voting Section's professional finding that the proposed map violates Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act."Democrats offered no proof of their assertion but said they could do so if they obtain the Justice memo in question.
For all the fussing, even the Democrats' lead redistricting lawyer, Gerald Hebert, conceded that even if he obtained the memo in time for Tuesday's final arguments in Austin federal court, it would probably have limited legal significance. The lawsuit involves different aspects of federal voting-rights law, and Justice decisions cannot be appealed to this court.
I've no doubt that John Ashcroft and his minions would not hesitate to overrule a decision they deemed improper, but I've been burned before by allegations of this sort, so I'll be tempering my enthusiasm for this line of inquiry for now, thanks.
Finally, the Austin Chronicle continues its outstanding coverage of the testimony and various backstories at the trial. Kudos to reporter Michael King for his thoroughness.
UPDATE: The ruling will come next week, according to the Quorum Report.
REDISTRICTING TRIAL WRAPS UPHigginbotham says not to expect a ruling until sometime next week
The redistricting trial heard by a three-judge federal panel has just concluded with Judge Patrick Higginbotham telling attorneys not to expect a ruling until sometime next week.
Higginbotham also said that it would be wrong to read anything into the question but he did ask attorney Andy Taylor, representing Attorney General Greg Abbott, what the State's remedy would be if part of the new plan, 1374 C, "needed to be dealt with."
Taylor said the court should give the state the chance to fix it. Attorney Paul Smith, for the Congressional Democrats, reminded the court that the state could not change anything without further pre-clearance by the Department of Justice. Smith said that other than for a minor problem, the court should stay "pure" and keep Plan 1151 C in place.
I almost feel sorry for the judges for having to deal with this during Christmas.
While it's true that the author of this silly review of Return of the King, which has been rightfully mocked by Ginger and Jim, clearly knows nothing about what kind of movie women like, she also clearly knows nothing about what kind of movies men like. Don't get me wrong here, the "Rings" trilogy has been really good and all, but on the Joe Bob metric, it comes up rather short, with a distinct lack of breasts and way, WAY too much plot to get in the way of the action. Take it from me, honey, if you want to understand guys and movies, you really should read someone who knows his stuff first.
The number of alcohol-related traffic fatalities has stopped dropping over the past few years. Bad news, right? Well, let's take a closer look.
Alcohol-related traffic death rates increased or held steady in 19 states between 1998 and 2002, according to new federal data suggesting that efforts to curb drunken driving have reached a plateau.The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's report, which was being released Thursday, calculated the fatality rate per 100 million miles driven. NHTSA considers a crash alcohol-related if a driver had anything above a 0.01 blood-alcohol level, which is far lower than the 0.08 legal limit in 45 states.
[...]
Drunken driving deaths declined markedly during the 1980s and early '90s as organizations such as Mothers Against Drunk Driving were formed and drew attention to the problem.
NHTSA's report showed 26,173 alcohol-related traffic deaths in 1982, or 60 percent of all traffic deaths, falling to 16,572, or 40 percent, in 1999. For 2002, the figures were 17,419 alcohol-related deaths, or 41 percent of all traffic fatalities.
"We seem to be stalled or stuck at relatively the same fatality rate," said Dennis Utter, the chief mathematician for NHTSA's National Center for Statistics and Analysis.
First of all, just looking at the absolute number of fatalities is going to mask the overall trend. There are a lot more people in the US now than there were in 1982, and I'd be willing to bet that the average amount of time spent in a vehicle per person has also inched upwards over that time span. If you were to normalize the data over road-hours or road-miles, I bet the drop would be even more dramatic since 1982, and would also probably give you a slight decline since 1998.
Secondly, unless you're going to claim that a blood-alcohol level of .01 makes a driver impaired, then the truly relevant datum is the number of fatalities which involved actual, illegal DUI. Really, only those cases where the impaired driver was actually at fault matter. Again, I'm willing to bet that this number has declined more dramatically since 1982 and may still be declining gently since 1998.
Finally, we should all be wary of reports like this where the true nature of the data is obfuscated because they can and often are used as a starting point to crack down on the behavior in question. There's a point at which harsher treatment of DUI will produce minimal decreases in the fatality rate but a significant increase in traffic stops and other police activity. We need to recognize that there will always be some people who drive drunk, and they will do so regardless of the penalties for doing so - after all, people still commit murder despite the widespread usage of the death penalty. If we're doing everything we reasonably can do - and I think we're pretty close to that here - then we should be celebrating victory rather than lamenting defeat.
Get out your hip-waders and prepare to defend your wallets - there's going to be a special legislative session in the springtime to finally address that big unfulfilled Republican fantasypromise of replacing the Robin Hood school finance system with something else.
Lawmakers and others are studying the issue, [Gov. Rick] Perry said in an end-of-year interview with Capitol reporters.He said he wanted any new funding system to be a "zero sum game," meaning a new system wouldn't raise taxes beyond the level they would increase because of student enrollments, he said.
"We've got 'X' numbers of dollars in our public school budget. ... The intent is to not raise more dollars over and above what our budget would be increasing anyway because of growth," he said.
As for how the state could substitute partly for local taxes and replace wealth-sharing requirements, the governor said, "There's more ways than stars in the sky — or maybe not quite that many, but there are a lot of different options on how you raise revenues to replace" the current system.
"There's service-oriented, there's business-oriented, there's bad-behavior taxes, there's VLTs (video lottery terminals), there's gambling," he said. "I'm not going to name any options that lock me into (a preference) at this particular point in time."
Asked whether an increase in cigarette taxes, advocated by some to raise state funds, would be an example of a "bad behavior" tax, Perry said it would be.
"Smoking's bad behavior. Sure it is," he said.
That's right, all you smokers and other vice-indulgers. It may soon become your patriotic duty to help finance the state government by engaging in that "bad behavior" at an ever-increasing pace. If we can't pay for schools by taxing the bejeebus out of smokers, drinkers, and gamblers (thankfully, no one has yet proposed a tax on sins of the flesh, at least not in this state), we might have to ask clean living folks to pitch in, and then where will we be?
As always, Perry demonstrates that the concept of "Work smarter, not harder" has never occurred to him:
Asked if there was any money source he'd close the door on, Perry said, "I think I agree with the people of the state of Texas that we're not going to have a personal income tax."
Funny you should mention that. A little while ago, Calpundit, who lives in another state with messed up finances, pointed to this article by a UCLA professor who did a little outside-the-box thinking on the subject of state taxes and revenues. His answer is something that would work equally well for Texas.
In 1986, Congress repealed the federal income tax deduction for state and local sales taxes; however, it retained the deduction for income taxes, real property taxes and personal property taxes. Depending upon the taxpayer's tax bracket, the payment of these kinds of taxes can result in a federal income tax savings of up to 35 cents for every dollar paid in these categories. By contrast, the payment of a sales tax results in no federal tax savings whatsoever. The lesson is simple: Repeal the sales tax and replace it with some tax, any tax, that is deductible for federal income tax purposes.There is real money at stake here. According to the California legislative analyst, the sales tax brought in $22.3 billion for the fiscal year 2002-2003, accounting for roughly one-third of all general fund revenues. Projections show that percentage holding through fiscal year 2008-2009. Over the next six years, California will collect an average of roughly $27 billion per year in sales taxes. If that revenue stream were converted from the sales tax to a deductible tax, the tax savings to Californians would be significant — perhaps as much as $5 billion a year.
Alternatively, the state itself could capture that saving by raising more than $27 billion in deductible taxes. For example, $32 billion raised through deductible taxes would increase state revenues by $5 billion, but because of the federal deduction it would keep the net tax burden on Californians the same.
Note that you can structure things in a completely "zero-sum" way as the Governor wants by simply shifting from one type of tax to another. In doing so, you can generate the same amount of revenue while giving people a tax break, or you can increase revenue without adding to individuals' tax burdens. Doesn't that sound good? Oh sure, you'll shift some of the burden around amongst those individuals, but so what? Any other tinkering, which will surely include "sin taxes", closing loopholes on the franchise tax, and expanding the sales tax, will do exactly the same thing. The objection to an income tax as opposed to any other kind is strictly a doctrinal one. It has no basis in rationality as far as I'm concerned.
Of course, a state income tax is explicitly banned in our Constitution, so the Lege would have to propose an amendment to be voted on. Convincing people to vote for such a thing would be expensive, loud, messy, and most likely doomed to failure. It's also an "only Nixon could go to China" kind of thing in that only the Republicans would have a chance of getting it passed, since the loudest caterwauling would come from their side of the aisle. Governor Perry clearly has better things to do than to risk his popularity on any harebrained schemes like this. So you smokers better not let us down. You're our last hope.
UPDATE: Kevin disagrees with me. I have to say, I don't understand the following at all:
The problem with the income tax is its pernicious nature -- it's withheld throughout the year, it's calculated once a year, nobody ever has a great sense of just what their government is costing them, and it's very easy for legislators interested in growing the administrative/redistributive state to take a "one-time" hit to boost such a tax, knowing the full consequences won't actually be assessed until tax day, well down the road.Boost the sales tax, on the other hand, and people feel the consequences much more directly. Ditto cigarette taxes, liquor taxes, gas taxes, license and registration fees (ask Gray Davis how that went over!). And they react, by calling legislators and complaining, by limiting tax growth through popular referendum (California), perhaps even recalling their governor (also California). Advocates of democracy and limited government should rejoice over those few states that don't have an income tax.
My paycheck tells me exactly how much is being withheld from me, both for that pay period and for the year to date. I guarantee you, I and everyone else who is subject to withholdings, as well as those who must put aside money for quarterly estimated taxes, will feel the effects of any increases quickly and keenly.
On the other hand, I have no freakin' clue how much sales tax I pay. It's a small amount paid frequently, as opposed to a large amount paid at regular intervals, and there's no running total of my payments, so unless I want to become the mother of all receipt-savers, the information is lost to me. Really, if the sales tax went up by a point or two, would you notice that you're now paying $5.50 for that Big Mac Value Meal instead of $5.40? I can't say I would.
Finally, I have a hard time believing that people would react with pitchforks and torches to a penny increase in the sales tax but not to an equivalent increase in the income tax. I also have a hard time believing that changing our tax structure will cause an orgy of government spending in this state, especially after the slash-and-burnathon that was the 78th Lege. Sorry, Kevin, but I'm not convinced.
Clay Robison gives his year-end wrapup of political news and gossip, which mostly consists of snarky potshots at rehashed events. One noteworthy item:
H -- Hutchison, Kay Bailey. Another theory has the senior U.S. senator from Texas running for re-election in 2006, so as to position herself for a vice presidential bid in 2008, particularly if Hillary Rodham Clinton seeks the Democratic presidential nomination that year. Hutchison isn't saying, but guessing can be amusing.
That's what I call long-term prognostication. I'm not saying that the Bush in '04/Hillary in '08 tandem is an impossible parlay, but there's a lot of dominoes standing between here and there. And as long as we're pie-in-the-skying here, how's this for a potential spanner in the works: One of the redistricted Congressmen, say Jim Turner, wins the Governorship in 2006, thus allowing for a Democrat to be appointed as KBH's replacement in the event that she does win the Vice Presidency (not that I'd be rooting for it to happen, mind you). Hey, you never know.
In the first paragraph of this article on a rift between the City of Houston and the president of the foundation that runs the popular International Festival, reporter Rachel Graves uses the following framing device:
At the heart of the impending divorce after 32 years between the city of Houston and the Houston International Festival is, as in many marriages, money.
Fair enough. Let's see about that.
City Council members say they resent picking up after the festival as its president and his wife reap the profits.The president, Jim Austin, counters that the festival brings the city enough money to cover the cost of closing streets, providing security and cleaning up. And Austin, who is also chief operating officer of the nonprofit foundation that runs the festival, says his $127,000 salary, plus bonuses and benefits -- and the $100,000-a-year contract with his wife, Kathi Austin -- are the cost of having a premier festival.
[...]
Austin seems befuddled by the feud as he cites the festival's benefits to Houston. [...] "Maybe we haven't been as thorough as we should have been in going to City Council," Austin said. "Maybe there's a misunderstanding."
[...]
"A lot of people want to say it's this big, huge loss for the city, and I just don't see it," City Councilman Mark Ellis said. "It's not like we've lost the Super Bowl."
[...]
Council members are also bothered by the marketing contract that pays Kathi Austin as much as $116,000 a year.
"That didn't sit well," [City Council member Carol] Alvarado said. "He has a responsibility to say, `Wait a minute, this doesn't look right. Maybe we should look for somebody else.' "
Austin and board members Sakowitz and Charles Foster said Austin did discourage the contract, but board members pressed to keep Kathi Austin because they liked her work.
And lastly, council members questioned what Ellis called Jim Austin's "extravagant trips."
Austin recently returned from a 10-day voyage to Thailand to scout talent and make arrangements with officials for the 2004 festival, which will spotlight that country. He also traveled to Washington this year to meet with the Thai and Indian ambassadors and took a couple of trips to Mexico last year. But he said the trips are largely paid for by host countries and are anything but extravagant.
"I am frugal Freddie," Austin said. "I'm kind of ashamed to say that I have McDonald's receipts from Paris, but I do."
Is it just me, or does anyone else get the feeling that the real issue here, as again in many marriages, is communication? It's all a bunch of he-said/she-said. Like Kevin, I'm sorry to see all this backbiting drain energy from a great festival. I'd rather see it stay downtown (if for no other reason than it's close to where I live), but at least it wouldn't be moving to Tennessee or something.
Congratulations to St. John's and their head coach John Gagliardi for doing what my Trinity Tigers could not do last year: beat the best team in college football in the Stagg Bowl for the Division III national championship.
Yes, I said the best team in college football. How good are the Mount Union Purple Raiders? Try this: Yesterday's loss was their third in eight seasons. Since 1996, when they embarked on a 54-game winning streak, which was immediately followed by a just-now-broken 55-game winning streak, they have won 109 games and lost two. Head coach Larry Kehres is 192-17-3 in 17 seasons there, 162-7-1 since 1990. And that's without scholarships. Wake me up when Bob Stoops, or any other coach, can match that.
It's fitting, therefore, that the team Mount Unions lost to is coached by the man with more victories in college football than anyone else. Gagliardi, for whom the award for Best Division III Player is named, is 414-114-11 in 55 years of coaching. This is is fourth championship.
Finally, notice once again that every division of college football except for IA has a playoff and thus determines its champion in a proper fashion. Div III, whose members seldom play more than 10 regular season games, take 28 teams for the playoffs, with four #1 seeds getting a first round bye. The others take 16 teams. If you limited IA to 11 regular season games and eliminated conference championship games, you could have a 16-team playoff with no team playing more tham 15 times, a total that is already possible now (12 regular season games, an exempt preseason game, a conference championship, and a bowl). Whatever arguments there are against such a system, "too many games" is the silliest.
You thought you had a bad day at the office last week? Not compared to this guy you didn't.
An African cobra capable of projecting its venom 10 feet sank its fangs into the finger of a 26-year-old local pet store employee Friday, an accident that tapped a little-known store of antivenin at the Houston Zoo.The nonfatal incident was the third bite delivered by a poisonous snake this year in Harris County, which, other than the city of Houston, has no prohibitions against selling, breeding or keeping dangerous reptiles, according to local experts and a county animal control official.
The other two bites were inflicted by snakes in the wild.
The employee, whose name was not disclosed, was cleaning out a display case Friday morning at Pets-A-Plenty The Ultimate Reptile Shop at Texas 6 and Bellaire when a red spitting cobra attacked.
Man. And all I have to worry about is getting offshored.
Thankfully, the bite was dry, meaning no venom was discharged, and the employee is doing well. But still. That's gotta suck.
The recount is over in the City Council District G race, and the winner is the same: Pam Holm, now by 24 votes instead of 27 over Jeff Daily.
After Friday's recount, final but unofficial results had Holm at 18,412 and Daily at 18,388, said David Beirne, spokesman for Harris County Clerk Beverly Kaufman.On election night, Daily trailed Holm by 30 votes in the race to replace Bert Keller in the west Houston district. Keller made an unsuccessful bid for an at-large seat.
The margin narrowed to 27 votes last week after ballots mailed by military personnel and civilians overseas were counted.
No recount has ever changed the outcome on an election in Harris County, officials said.
On Friday, county officials re-tallied the Election Day and early votes cast in the District G race using the county's eSlate electronic voting system. Those votes did not change.
But Daily made up ground among the roughly 4,000 mail-in ballots, which were recounted by hand by representatives of the county, and the Daily and Holm camps.
"The scrutiny always gets very tight when you have anything that falls within the margin of error," Beirne said. "Our system can withstand the scrutiny. We feel very comfortable with the eSlate system."
I suppose it should make everyone feel good about the eSlate system that they got the same totals out of it each time. One does expect the same result when one runs the same program twice, after all. I will continue to be skeptical until such time as there's an alternate way to verify eSlate results in a close contest like this.
Rob Booth, who's already given an informative analysis of eSlate and the recent report about its potential weaknesses, makes a good point in the comments to my previous post on this subject. He's talking about a malefactor attempting to tamper with an eSlate memory card:
The tamperer would have to physically access the [eSlates' Judges Booth Controller] to accomplish this, which makes it an issue of physical security or election judge integrity. These issues were present under the punch card system and will be issues under any voting system.
True, and something to keep in mind. Not every potential security hole is best solved by more technology. Oversight, and knowing the people involved, will always be of paramount importance.
So, unless Jeff Daily takes this to court on the old-fashioned grounds of fraud, we've officially survived our first recount involving eSlate machines. Some day, sooner or later, an eSlate card is going to fail, and then we'll have hell to pay. Here's Rob again, from his post this time:
Electronic voting is something that several folks have been blogging on and the one thing we all agree on is that there ought to be a paper trail to go back to. The eSlates ought to print out a receipt that can be used in the event of a recount or equipment failure.
If it were up to me, the eSlate machines would simply be the interface used by the public, with paper ballots being collected and counted via optical scanners. Rob's suggestion of paper strictly as a backup would be acceptable if not preferable to me. However you slice it, operating without any redundancy in the event of a system failure is just begging for trouble.
I can't say it's a surprise, though it's certainly a disappointment, that the Justice Department gave its stamp of approval to the new Congressional map. They took their sweet time about it, and the Democrats have charged from the beginning that it was political appointees, rather than civil service employees, who were given the task, but in the end they did what I figured they would. The only surprise to me is that they released their decision on a Friday afternoon, the traditional time for the Bush administration to admit to bad news. Whatever else you might call this decision, it surely wasn't bad news from their perspective.
Coverage of the ruling and the predictable reactions from both sides of the battle is here, here, and here, while Byron has some quotes from the Quorum Report and the state Democratic Party press release. I'm going to quote from the DMN story, since it covers the main points of interest.
"The Department of Justice determined that the state of Texas provided sufficient proof that the proposed congressional districts do not deny or abridge the right to vote on account of race or color," said Texas Secretary of State Geoff Conner, the state's top election official.[...]
Democrats said that the decision showed the fix was in, that right-minded career lawyers in the Justice Department were rolled over by political appointees, intent on boosting the Republican advantage in Congress.
"It means the Voting Rights Section staff was not able to withstand the political pressure from the top," said Gerald Hebert, a former Voting Rights Section attorney and one of the lead lawyers challenging the remap.[...]
The Justice Department's one-page ruling, which it issued after many consultations with Texans who objected to the map, cannot be appealed and was required under the federal Voting Rights Act before the map could be used in the March 9 primary.
The ruling means that Justice Department lawyers found the proposed map the GOP-led Legislature passed in October did not have the purpose – or the effect – of causing minority voting strength to backslide.
The plan still faces a federal court challenge by minority and Democratic groups, under a section of the Voting Rights Act that protects minority groups' right to elect their candidates of choice – a different standard than that used by the Justice Department.
"We still think we have a solid case in front of the court," Mr. Hebert said after the Justice Department decision. "You don't think it [the court] is going to be infected with the same sort of political influence."
After an eight-day trial, the three-judge panel hearing that case in Austin wrapped up the evidence and scheduled final arguments in the case for Tuesday.
[...]
Mr. Hebert, the Democrats' top lawyer, said an expert hired by the state, University of Oklahoma political scientist Keith Gaddie, recently provided a huge boon to the Democrats' case when he said in a deposition that Mr. Frost's current 24th Congressional District gives blacks an effective voice in electing a candidate of their choice.
The federal law prohibits the breaking up of any current district that effectively "performs" for minorities, Mr. Hebert said. Under the new map, Mr. Frost's district is dismantled.
Democratic lawyers objected to the state's last-minute decision not to have Dr. Gaddie testify. But Judge Higginbotham allowed the Oklahoma professor's remarks and a report he prepared especially for the state to be introduced into evidence.
Andy Taylor, a Republican lawyer who is leading the state's defense of the map, declined to comment on whether Dr. Gaddie's assertions about Mr. Frost's district helped the map's opponents. He said Democrats have failed to prove their case, and the state felt no need to offer their expert or further evidence.
On the subject of Martin Frost, if the new map is indeed upheld in the courts, he might wind up running against Rep. Joe Barton, who is currently in the 6th CD. This analysis, done by Another Rice Grad, disputes the claim that Frost serves in a minority-opportunity district.
The Chron's John McClain notes that after this week, a dubious achievement will no longer be associated with Houston.
If Detroit loses at Carolina, as expected, the Lions will own sole possession of a record they have shared with the Oilers for the last week.Barring an upset by the last-place Lions over the first-place Panthers, Detroit will enter the record book with its 24th consecutive loss on the road -- a streak that began early in the 2001 season and can't end before 2004.
As a witness to the Oilers' 23 consecutive road losses between the 1981 and 1984 seasons, I can sympathize with the Detroit organization. To lose that many road games in succession, a team has to be bad and unlucky -- a difficult combination to overcome.
I was still in New York back in those days, but I remember how inept the Oilers were in the grisly post-Bum Phillips era. Even with the Oilers long gone, I suspect the city of Houston will be a little brighter on Monday morning. Of course, as McClain notes, there's this little matter yet unresolved:
Unlike the 1972 Dolphins who went 17-0 and toast champagne each season when the last undefeated team suffers a loss, there won't be any celebrations among former Oilers on Sunday when the Lions replace them as the worst road franchise in NFL history.Unless Nielsen hoists a glass of milk with Luck, chief executive officer of the Harris County-Houston Sports Authority.
Someday, though, at a time when few, if any, in Tennessee will understand the significance, Houston football fans with long memories will pop the corks on every bottle of champagne within the city limits if another record is broken -- that blown 32-point lead that was written in the record book Jan. 3, 1993.
Oh, yeah. That one I was here for. Last time I'd felt like that after a football game was 1978. Thanks for reminding me, John.
The state began its case yesterday, which essentially consisted of a consultant and a few politicians contradicting the plaintiffs' testimony that there was a racil aspect to redistricting. Other than some comic relief from state Rep. Ron Wilson, there's not too much exciting to highlight. I'll get to that in a minute, since there's now been a ruling in one part of the case.
A federal court today threw out claims by Democrats that the U.S. Constitution barred the Texas Legislature from doing congressional redistricting in the 10 years between censuses."With regard to the plaintiffs' argument to mid-decade redistricting, the point is not well taken," 5th Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Patrick Higginbotham ruled from the bench for the three-judge court. "The Legislature is not prohibited from redistricting."
The ruling came as testimony concluded in the lawsuit challenging the Legislature's plan to redraw district boundaries to take the congressional delegation majority away from Democrats and give it to Republicans.
Gerry Hebert, a lawyer representing some of the Democratic incumbents, said the ruling was not unexpected. Hebert said the mid-decade redistricting argument was a small part of the case and ultimately will be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott praised the ruling. He said it agrees with a legal opinion he issued in April that said the Legislature had the authority to redraw the district boundaries if it wanted to do so.
Final arguments in the case were put off until Tuesday.
To be honest, I hadn't even realized that this was a part of the legal action. Given that Texas' constitution is unlike Colorado's, I agree that if anyone should make a ruling on this, it's SCOTUS. I'm sure someone could make a pretty juicy original-intent argument here, but politics aside, if the Supremes decline to catch that hot potato, I can't say they'd be wrong.
Anyway. Coverage of the state's case so far is here, here, and here, in addition to the Chron story above. One item of interest from yesterday's testimony is the curious case of GOP consultant Bob Davis. Here's what he said, according to the Express News:
Bill (sic) Davis, a former Republican legislator and lobbyist who testified about map-drawing efforts, said he wasn't aware that the redrawn lines broke up significant minority voting blocs around the state.
Does anyone actually believe that? The map-drawing software involved is supposedly so sophisticated it can put neighboring houses in different districts based on voting patterns, and you're telling me that you're not aware of breaking up voting blocs? Blacks voted 90% Democrat in 2002, and Hispanics 65% by Governor Perry's estimate. This is public knowledge. How can you break up Democratic voting blocs and not be aware that you're breaking up minority voting blocs?
Before you answer that, consider this from the DMN:
"I would look at each district and say, 'How could I make this district more Republican?' " said state Rep. Phil King, R-Weatherford, House author of the remap bill. "Political considerations drove the day throughout the state."On cross-examination by Democratic and minority lawyers, Mr. King and GOP map consultant Bob Davis testified that they considered ethnicity only to satisfy themselves that their plan didn't violate the federal Voting Rights Act.
So which is it? Did you only turn on your awareness when it came time to check for VRA violations?
And hitting the middle ground is the Statesman:
Bob Davis, a former state representative hired as a consultant to help the Senate draw new maps, told a panel of three federal judges that "when we were constructing the lines, we were looking at the political results," and not the racial characteristics of voters being moved from district to district.In circuitous detail, Davis outlined the reasoning behind the new map, though he said he was unable to recall exactly how often and when racial data was considered.
I was aware sometimes, I wasn't aware at all, I can't remember when I was aware. We'll have to look at the transcript to see if it was Davis or the three reporters who were confused.
Despite my earlier concerns, we ought to have the court's ruling next week. From the Chron:
Final arguments in the case were put off until Tuesday.Anticipating a possible rejection of all or part of the Texas congressional redistricting plan by the U.S. Department of Justice, the court set its final hearing for 9 a.m. Tuesday in Austin.
The three-judge panel is hearing legal challenges to the Republican plan from Democrats and minority groups that claim the map diminishes the voting rights of blacks and Hispanics.
By law, the court cannot issue a decision in the case until Justice Department officials clear the map of possible violations of minority rights under the federal Voting Rights Act. Justice has until Monday to rule.
Higginbotham told lawyers in the case that justice officials have assured him they will make the deadline, but he said they gave no further guidance.
Higginbotham said he and District Judges John Ward and Lee Rosenthal originally had decided to set a hearing for Tuesday in Dallas in case the Justice Department rejected the map in whole or objected to particular districts. But they changed the time and location to coincide with closing arguments.
Jose Garza, a lawyer for the League of United Latin American Citizens, said if the Justice Department objects to any portion of the map, he will ask the judges to throw out the new redistricting plan.
Garza said federal appeals courts have ruled that a redistricting plan cannot be fixed by the courts if the Justice Department rejects any portion of it for Voting Rights Act violations. He said in that case the congressional districts would revert to those that existed by the 2002 elections.
Texas Solicitor General Ted Cruz said he still believes the Justice Department will approve the map. He said the court was just cautiously setting up a hearing in case it is needed.
But if the map runs into Justice Department problems, Cruz said the state will ask the court to fix the plan to overcome objections in individual districts.
We'll see what happens.
Remember how the Texans for a Republican Majority PAC, the one that helped elect a bunch of new Republicans to the state House so that Tom DeLay's redistricting do-over could be rammed through, claimed that they'd only ever used corporate money for overhead and not for campaign funds? Turns out that ain't necessarily so.
Texans for a Republican Majority has always offered a simple defense to allegations that it illegally used corporate money to help elect state legislators last year: No corporate dollars directly benefited candidates.However, an Austin fund-raiser hired by the political action committee said that wasn't always so. Consultant Susan Lilly, whom the committee paid with corporate money, confirmed this week that she solicited, collected and distributed campaign donations in the name of individual campaigns for Republican candidates.
One-page documents that the committee gave to would-be donors at several fund-raising events, including ones headlined by U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, said: "Contributions should be made to TRMPAC or directly to `(name of candidate) for State Legislature' and mailed to: 1005 Congress, Suite 310, Austin, Texas 78701." The address is that of Lilly & Co.
Separate documents were created for each of the two dozen campaigns that Texans for a Republican Majority was involved in. The briefings included an assessment of the race, the advantages of the Republican candidates and what the candidates needed to do to win. It also included an e-mail address for contacting the candidates.
A Travis County grand jury, already investigating the committee's use of corporate donations, will have to decide whether Lilly's joint fund raising for the committee and candidates violates state law, which bars the use of corporate money for electioneering.
So: Corporate money paid for a campaign consultant, who was hired to do campaign fundraising. Seems pretty straightforward, and therefore illegal. I do have to give TRM's John Colyandro credit for spreading around an impressive amount of fertilizer in his group's defense:
"It's inappropriate," said Colyandro, who promised to fix the error by updating the committee's campaign finance reports to the Texas Ethics Commission.It's unclear how Texans for a Republican Majority will fix what it already has done. State law allows a political action committee to use corporate donations only to pay its administrative expenses, such as rent and office equipment.
Colyandro said former state Rep. Bill Ceverha, who was not paid by the committee, had used the briefings earlier to solicit money for the committee and the two dozen GOP candidates it supported. Because he wasn't being paid by the committee, Colyandro said, Ceverha could issue joint solicitations.
Ceverha said he recalled creating similar documents and assumes Colyandro's account is accurate.
Colyandro said he gave Ceverha's old fund-raising material to Lilly when Texans for a Republican Majority hired her to help with fund raising. Colyandro also said thatLilly would have no way of knowing that she was being paid with corporate money and therefore could not raise money in the name of individual candidates.
"I wouldn't put that on her," he said. "From what checking account she receives compensation is not for her to know."
Lilly said she did not know the source of the money being used to pay her.
Colyandro said that the joint solicitations might create an appearance of wrongdoing but that Texans for a Republican Majority did not intend to use corporate dollars to raise donations in the name of individual candidates.
"If that document was produced for our event, that was sloppy," Colyandro said. "Very, very sloppy."
Lilly said that when she received donations for candidates, she mailed them to the candidates' campaign with a cover letter signed by state Reps. Dianne White Delisi of Temple, and Beverly Woolley of Houston. Delisi and Woolley did not respond to requests for comment Thursday.
The two lawmakers served on an advisory committee to Texans for a Republican Majority along with DeLay, then-Railroad Commissioner Tony Garza and Sen. Florence Shapiro, R-Plano.
The advisory committee helped select the candidates supported by the political action committee, raised money and sometimes hand-delivered donations to candidates, according to Shapiro. But Shapiro said she was unaware that Texans for a Republican Majority was raising and spending corporate money until she read it in news reports after the election.
So what we have here is the "Oops!" defense, combined with the Ronald Reagan "I have no memory of that" gambit, all layered on top of a right-hand/left-hand knowledge gap. I pity the grand jury members who have to sort out the facts from the shinola.
Let's suppose, just for grins, that this is in fact irrefutable proof that corporate funds were illegally used in the 2002 elections. What's an appropriate remedy? Oh, you can fine TRM some amount, which will hopefullybe larger than the nuisance tax that was just imposed on John Ashcroft, but how exactly does that affect anything? Same thing with convicting a few consultants, or even John Colyandro. They'll take one for the team, since they know what the Big Picture was in all this. Now, it's certainly possible, maybe even likely, that no one was elected as a result of TRM's existence, but if just one outcome might have been different, then it almost doesn't matter if anyone winds up getting punished. Equity can't be restored. The cheaters will have won. And the hell of it is, short of mandating that all campaigns be publicly financed, which is something that even I don't endorse, I don't see a solution.
There's been a lot of caterwauling over the now-dead deal that would have sent Rangers shortstop Alex Rodriguez to the Red Sox for Manny Ramirez and enough financial transactions to keep a fantasy accountants' league busy for the rest of the winter. There was even a protest in front of MLB Players Association President Gene Orza's office for his insistence that A-Rod not be made to give up salary in the trade, though it was apparently a bit of a dud. Coverage of the issue is here, here, here, here, and here.
Doug Pappas links to some analysis of the union's stance, from CNN and the Associated Press (both for), and from the Boston Globe, which is (surprise!) against it.
You can put me in the camp of those who think the MLBPA did the right thing. I agree completely with CNN's Chris Isidore:
The fact is, allowing players to agree to cuts in their own salary is the first step down the road to making their contracts -- both big and relatively small -- as worthless as Red Sox 2003 World Series tickets.If you have any doubt that players less wealthy than Rodriguez could be forced to take less than their contract called for, ask players in the National Football League. They are regularly being forced to take substantial pay cuts to hang onto their jobs.
Yes, it's true that the NFL players have non-guaranteed contracts and a salary cap working against them. But the MLBPA didn't win a stronger labor deal for its members by giving unilateral concessions to make specific teams or star players happy -- which is what Red Sox fans would like to see the union do here.
If A-Rod is allowed to agree to pay cuts, other players could soon be forced to take pay cuts as well. Few of them would negotiate from as strong a position as Rodriguez, who is arguably the league's best player.
"The union can't allow this to set a precedent," said Doug Pappas, a New York attorney and an expert in baseball salary structure and economics.
If players could negotiate a reduction in their contracts, he said, "instead of teams eating salaries the way they do currently when they dump salaries in these trades, they'll demand the savings come from the players."
I look at it like this. If you want to transfer to your company's Bora Bora office, you should be free to negotiate whatever salary you want for it, even if it's less. There may well be compensating factors that will make up for the lower pay. This is like free agency, and as Andy Pettite and the Astros can attest, the union has no qualms with this. However, if your company wants to forcibly transfer you to Bora Bora (which is what a trade is like), a pay cut shouldn't be part of it, especially if your only other option is to be fired. While losing his job is not something A-Rod needs to worry about, it is something that could happen to any number of other players if such a concession was made this time, and that's exactly the sort of thing that a union is supposed to look out for.
So, sorry about that, Red Sox fans. As David Pinto said, you'll have to settle for being stuck with Manny and Nomar for another year. I hope you can find some way to cope.
From the Gifts For People Who Have Everything Dept: Send your remains into outer space.
Celestis Inc, a Houston-based firm that in 1997 arranged the launch of 1960s pop icon Timothy Leary's remains, is planning an April send-off in Russia for as many as 150 ash-filled capsules as part of the cargo on a Kosmos 1 satellite.The containers, filled with customers' choices of 1 or 7 grams of remains, will share space with data transmission equipment and will orbit the Earth for as long as 156 years before re-entering the atmosphere as a shooting star. Costs ranges from $995 to $5,300, depending on the capsule size.
Can't make the April launch? Reservations are being taken for later flights.
[...]
For $12,500, Celestis offers moon "burials", in which capsules are carried on lunar mission spacecraft. In 1998, the NASA Lunar Prospector transported a portion of the remains of scientist and comet discoverer Dr. Eugene Shoemaker in its strut, which disintegrated upon landing.
All those years, when Ralph said "To the moon, Alice!", who knew he was giving instructions for his burial?
If you're looking for good things resulting from the recent Supreme Court ruling that upheld McCain/Feingold campaign finance reform, here's one:
The Texas Association of Business is reconsidering whether to replicate a corporate-financed advertising campaign that it says helped elect a Republican majority in the Texas House.The association's $1.9 million campaign, which targeted mailed fliers to voters in 24 legislative races, has been under criminal investigation since early in the year when association President Bill Hammond boasted of the campaign's effectiveness. It's illegal under state law to use corporate money for electioneering, and groups that spend money on election activities must disclose donors' names.
The business group has said its ads weren't electioneering because they didn't expressly advocate for the election or the defeat of any candidates. It has refused to identify the corporations that paid for the ads, saying that the information is protected by the First Amendment right to free speech.
The mailers sent by the group criticized incumbent Democrats, mostly for votes on business-related issues.
The association based its campaign on a legal theory that electioneering is determined by so-called magic words -- including "vote for," "vote against," "support" or "defeat." The test can be traced to a footnote in a 1976 U.S. Supreme Court ruling.
But the U.S. Supreme Court ruled last week that the magic words test is not the standard by which political advertising should be judged.
The Court was not persuaded "independent of our precedents, that the First Amendment erects a rigid barrier between express advocacy and so-called issue advocacy," the court said. "That notion cannot be squared with our longstanding recognition that the presence or absence of magic words cannot meaningfully distinguish electioneering speech from a true issue ad."
Despite the criminal investigation, Hammond in October said his group would solicit corporate donations for election season issue advertising next year. In addition to the presidency, seats in Congress, the state House and Senate and judicial positions are up for election next year.
On Wednesday, Hammond said the association is assessing its options in light of the Supreme Court's ruling.
"The Texas Association of Business' voter information activities in 2002 were allowed by law and conducted well within the law," Hammond said. "The recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling on federal campaign finance reform underscores state legislators' prerogative to change this law if they choose in the future."
Would have been nice to have had this before 2002, but I'll take what I can get. And there's still that grand jury investigation, too.
Testimony for the plaintiffs should be pretty much over by now, and the state is expected to begin its case today. Yesterday's main feature was State Sen. Royce West, who spoke about the public hearings and District 24.
Mr. West said that by passing the plan, the Republican-dominated Legislature uncharacteristically ignored the wishes of witnesses who overwhelmingly testified at hearings against such a change."We did not consider the input," he said, reviewing the 10-1 ratio of witnesses opposing the proposal. "The Senate did exactly the opposite. We went against what the majority of people were asking us to do."
An attorney for the state suggested that the redistricting hearings were purposefully packed with anti-remap Democrats. Mr. West, who sat on the committee that considered the plan, countered that he encouraged constituents to attend but the hearings were open to everybody.
I attended one of those hearings, and the ratio was definitely in the 10-1 against range. If there weren't many Republicans there, it wasn't because they didn't know about it.
U.S. Rep. Chris Bell of the 25th Congressional District said he and other Democrats have activated their campaigns to get supporters to the hearings.The Harris County Republican Party is doing the same thing, partly through e-mails featuring pictures of Houston-area Democrats. "She will be there to express her views," says a caption under an unidentified photo of U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee. "Will you be there to express yours?"
Maybe the GOP constituency wasn't as interested in the outcome as the Democrats were. Who knows?
Back to Sen. West:
Texas Solicitor General Ted Cruz, defending the map, suggested that minorities were not especially well served by the current lines. For instance, he said, Mr. West, who is black, lives in the district represented by U.S. Rep. Martin Frost, D-Arlington, who is white.Mr. West responded that Mr. Frost holds the seat because he has served minority constituents well and – half joking – because "I haven't decided to run yet."
Local activists provided the rest of the testimony.
Several civil rights activists have testified over the past two days that under the Republican plan, black people in Austin, Dallas and Forth Worth and Hispanics in South Texas would see political coalitions built over decades torn asunder.The GOP plan splits minority communities that can now band together for strength and would cause their voices to become whispers in new, predominantly white districts, they testified.
"It dilutes our strength; it creates political alienation," testified Nelson Linder, president of the Austin chapter of the NAACP. "It's frightening, it's challenging, and it's very unfortunate."
[...]
[Robert] Starr, a former member of the NAACP's national board of directors, testified that under the GOP plan, Fort Worth's black community will be taken from an urban-based district, where it is influential in elections, and shifted to a sprawling district that reaches into the part of North Texas where he used to pick cotton.
"The persons who approved that plan have no respect for black persons in Tarrant County," Starr testified.
[Juanita] Valdez-Cox testified that under the new districts, the colonias she aids might well end up with a congressman who lives 300 miles away and to whom the plight of colonia residents will be a low concern. "It would be very difficult for us," she said.
This article notes that we could have a ruling from the court as early as tomorrow. That seems optimistic to me, but we'll see.
Meanwhile, the Express News notes the dog that has not yet barked in the night.
With only two days of trial left, the three federal judges hearing the case and the two dozen attorneys arguing the case are waiting to hear whether the U.S. Department of Justice has determined if the state plan violates the federal Voting Rights Act designed to protect minority voters.Because Texas needs federal government permission before any election law changes can be implemented, the department's decision is crucial in determining whether the existing plan or the map adopted by the Legislature in October will be used in next year's election.
And the clock is running, as the deadline for candidates to file for congressional seats is just one month away.
"We fully expect the plan will be cleared, but if not, we have options," said state Solicitor Ted Cruz.
Those options include filing an immediate appeal with a Washington, D.C.-based three-judge panel or seeking a hearing with the U.S. Supreme Court.
Finally, the Austin Chronicle has an extensive overview of the trial so far and some of the background to it that's well worth checking out. They also have a few words on Vieth v. Jubelirer and its possible impact on the Texas case, as well as a PDF copy of the memos from Jim Ellis, Tom DeLay's local point man on redistricting, to his boss.
All right, I can't stand it any more. I've come across the story of Texas' notorious Felonious Sex Toy Selling Housewife too many times to not comment on it. As there really isn't much one can actually add to a story of this magnitude, I'd like to help clarify a bit of Texas law, for those of you who are confused as to why this woman was even arrested. Here's Molly Ivins to explain it to you:
[If] you own six or more dildos in this state, you are a felon, presumed to have intent to distribute. Whereas if you have five or fewer, you are merely a hobbyist.
Hope that helps. Original link via Atrios, Grammar Police, Hope, who has some other useful tidbits for you aspiring vibrator salespeople in Texas (and you know who you are), Morat, Byron, UncleBob, and pretty much every other wisenheimer on the Internet.
UPDATE: Since Eugene Volokh mentioned it, here is the relevant definition:
§ 43.21. Definitions(a) In this subchapter:
(1) "Obscene" means material or a performance that:
(A) the average person, applying contemporary community standards, would find that taken as a whole appeals to the prurient interest in sex;
[...]
(7) "Obscene device" means a device including a dildo or artificial vagina, designed or marketed as useful primarily for the stimulation of human genital organs.
Yes, you can actually search the Texas statutes for the word "dildo" and get a hit. We truly do live in a great state.
§ 43.23. Obscenity[...]
(f) A person who possesses six or more obscene devices or identical or similar obscene articles is presumed to possess them with intent to promote the same.
The very next subsection provides some good news for our defendant:
(g) It is an affirmative defense to prosecution under this section that the person who possesses or promotes material or a device proscribed by this section does so for a bona fide medical, psychiatric, judicial, legislative, or law enforcement purpose.
I'm thinking "medical" or maybe "psychiatric" here. Now if they can just arrange to have Chuck Rosenthal argue the state's case when it gets appealed to the Supreme Court, they'll be set.
When you lose by 27 votes out of over 36,000 cast, asking for a recount should be expected.
Houston City Council candidate Jeff Daily, who narrowly lost in a runoff election to Pam Holm, on Wednesday filed an anticipated recount request.After the Dec. 6 runoff, Daily trailed Holm by 30 votes in the race to replace Bert Keller in west Houston's District G.
The margin narrowed to 27 votes last week after ballots mailed by military personnel and civilians overseas were counted. According to final but unofficial results, Holm had 18,411 votes and Daily had 18,384.
All right, so how is this going to work?
Daily said he did not question the integrity of the county's $25 million electronic eSlate voting machines, but that the narrow margin compelled him to make the request. The election was the closest council race since 1999, when Mark Goldberg narrowly beat Maryann Young in a runoff.David Beirne, a spokesman for County Clerk Beverly Kaufman, said the recount will be done Friday.
County officials will repeat the Election Day vote counting procedure, feeding eSlate memory cards used at District G precincts into a main computer, which then will tally the votes.
Daily said he wants ballots submitted by mail to be reviewed by election officials rather than scanned into a computer.
"I suspect the major part of the correction, if there is correction, will be from that group," said Daily, a businessman.
So we've got the eSlate memory cards, and the (presumably) paper absentee ballots. Daily's faith in the computer voting machines, coupled with his skepticism of the computer counting machines, especially given the relative maturity of the two technologies, is a little odd to me. Wouldn't you at least like for the eSlate memory cards to be inserted into a different computer than before, just to see if it gets the same result? Wouldn't you like something more than Beverly Kaufman's personal assurances that eSlate glitches Just Can't Happen? I'm sure I'd want to doublecheck the 95% or so of the votes that those memory cards contain in addition to the so-last-century paper ballots. Wouldn't you?
What bugs all of us critics of these black box voting systems is that there isn't a way to doublecheck them. With hardcopy systems, whether punchcard or optical scan or whatever, you could always perform a simple sanity check by taking a handful of ballots, totting up the votes manually, then feeding them into the counting machines to see if they give the same answer. Now you can have some confidence that a subtle error hasn't crept in somewhere. If all you're doing during a recount is exactly what was done before, without any way to verify that you're getting what you should be getting, then what's the point? You know what answer you're going to get, but you can't say with any more certainty that it's the answer you ought to get.
So go ahead and recount the absentee ballots. Who knows, with such a small margin of victory, even that paltry sample might yield a sufficiently large difference this time to change things. If that does happen, though, maybe Pam Holm will express more doubt about the eSlate totals when she demands her recount.
I received the following comment from my post about State Attorney General Greg Abbott and his legal assault on the ADA here in Texas. The commenter, Garth Corbett, is one of the plaintiff's attorneys:
I am the attorney for Advocacy, Inc., that was quoted in the Austin American Stateman article. I want to briefly comment on the quote that is attributed to me regarding the cost of increasing Medicaid waivers(i.e.,The 64 thousand dollar question is how much will waiver services cost?).To be clear, we are not talking about an unfunded mandate. The context for the quote concerns two groups: those currently living in institutions and those living in the community.
It is our contention, that for those who are already receiving services in state institutions that the costs of providing waiver services at home or in a community setting would cost the same or less than what the state currently spends on providing services in an institutional setting.
And for those severely disabled residents already living in the community, but who currently receive no services, getting waiver services at home may in the long run save the State money. That is, getting needed services that will help keep people at home will (we believe) result in less people needing to being institutionalized later on. In many cases, receiving a modest array of services at an earlier point in time promotes better health and greater independence.
As an aside, persons who are part of this lawsuit but live in the community without services are nonetheless eligible for institutional services from the state right now. In other words, if they were willing to leave home and move to a congregate facility funded by the state, they would be eligible to receive a whole array of services.
So, the context for the 64 thousand dollar comment is not where the money will come from. The money for additional waivers will come from the institutional budget and Medicaid related cost savings. How much additional money will be available for waiver services from these sources is unknown at this point, and that is the $64,000.00 question.
Because the state claims that we cannot sue them, we have not been able to do any discovery. Accordingly, we have not been able to get any state documents or depose any state officials. But when we are able to get this information, we are confident that the record will show that the state's policy of putting waiver applicants on a waiting list for an unspecified period of time violates the ADA. Moreover, it would not be an undue financial burden for the state to provide, at a reasonable pace, waiver services to all those requesting such services.
Thanks very much! In the interests of fairness and balance, I'll be happy to print any similar elucidation from AG Abbott's office. I'm sure he's composing a response as I type.
Michael emailed me a link to this article, which was also noted by Teresa, about a breakthrough in understanding an obscure work by Archimedes in the field of combinatorics. Both the NYT article and Teresa's observations are interesting, though I have to wonder why reporter Gina Kolata never mentioned that the science of combinatorics, being as it is a part of probability theory, was mostly advanced early on by gamblers. I always thought that was standard-issue info.
Brad DeLong has his One Hundred Interesting Math Calculations going, which you can contribute to if you want. Andrew Northrup suggests Cantor's diagonalization proof of the density of the real line, which is a lot more intuitive than it sounds, as something cool even if it's not, strictly speaking, a calculation. I second the motion, and note that there's a new book out about Cantor's life and work. I read and enjoyed a different book on the subject, and I'd recommend anyone who's remotely curious about this sort of thing to check it out.
Getting back to Brad's quest for more math problems to tortureenlighten his children with, the original article on Archimedes mentioned Persi Diaconis, who's known for sniffing out such things. He's the one who determined that one must shuffle a deck of cards seven times in order to achieve true randomness. As a bridge player, I can tell you that I can do that in my sleep now. Pretty much any time you see Diaconis' name in the paper, you've stumbled across an interesting problem.
Ted Barlow has a long and detailed email interview with some members of MEChA, the Chicano student organization that was assailed as being a "hate group" during the California recall election. It's a great read, so go check it out. Hats off to Ted for his effort.
One item I found amusing: Ted printed two responses to each question, one from a group at New Mexico State, the other from an individual. This is my favorite answer in the whole thing:
Question: Would you be opposed to an organization which had the same sorts of goals and activities as MEChA, but was centered around Anglos rather than Chicanos? Why or why not?Answer: There are such organizations. They are called fraternities and sororities. We have also worked with them on various activities.
I just thought that was funny. This guy has a future in political speechwriting if he wants one.
The big news out of yesterday's testimony came from State Rep. Glenn Lewis (D, Fort Worth), who spoke about making deals and GOP concerns about the Voting Rights Act.
During his testimony, Mr. Lewis said that in May he pleaded with [Speaker Tom] Craddick not to split [Rep. Martin] Frost's 24th District because doing so would dilute minority-voting strength."He didn't feel like he could give me that commitment," Mr. Lewis said. "I asked him not to have my legislative district split. He did give me that commitment."
That and strong lobbying by U.S. Rep. Kay Granger, R-Fort Worth, led to the placement of 115,000 minorities now represented by Mr. Frost into the district of U.S. Rep. Michael Burgess, a Republican freshman from Denton County, Mr. Lewis said.
Under the current congressional lines, a black candidate would have a good chance of succeeding Mr. Frost when he retires, Mr. Lewis said.
But he said a black candidate would have almost no chance of winning in Dr. Burgess' heavily suburban 26th District, even though it would probably tilt less strongly to Republicans if the new map is approved.
"I guess if Clarence Thomas was to run, he might win," Mr. Lewis said, referring to the conservative U.S. Supreme Court justice, the court's only African-American member.
Mr. Craddick did not hesitate to divide minorities in the legislative district of Rep. Lon Burnam, D-Fort Worth, and place some in Ms. Granger's district and some in Dr. Burgess' district, Mr. Lewis said.
Last January, Mr. Burnam cast the only "nay" vote against Mr. Craddick's election as speaker.
But Mr. Craddick, who is from Midland, protected Mr. Lewis, a five-term lawmaker and an African-American who was one of the House's first minorities to endorse his candidacy for speaker.
Mr. Lewis, a lawyer, said that Mr. Craddick's chief map-maker, Rep. Phil King, R-Weatherford, expressed to him grave concerns about the legality of dismantling Mr. Frost's district, which is 60 percent minority.
Mr. King said an unnamed Republican lawyer had that opinion, Mr. Lewis said."I said, 'Phil, I've been telling you that for the last six months. I guess you had to get a lawyer that you paid to say it to believe it,' " Mr. Lewis said.
Democratic lawyer Gerald Hebert seized on Mr. Lewis' statement and asked him if Mr. King had admitted that GOP legislative leaders were being pressured by U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Sugar Land, to do in Mr. Frost.
"Not expressly," Mr. Lewis said, although he subsequently came to that conclusion "from the totality of the circumstances."
The Morning News also has a brief recap of other testimony given at the bottom of their story.
The Chron story, with the Claude-worthy headline "Democratic lawmaker decries redistricting plan", is about the testimony of State Rep. Joe Deshotel. He's from the Beaumont area, so he's talking about Rep. Nick Lampson's district:
Deshotel said the Republican map split a coalition of black and labor union voters in the 9th District now held by U.S. Rep. Nick Lampson, D-Beaumont.Though blacks only make up 33 percent of the district's vote, Deshotel said a black politician such as he would have a chance of winning the district as it is now drawn.
Deshotel said the new map splits the black communities into three districts.
He said 20,000 Galveston County blacks are put into the 22nd District of U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Sugar Land, and another 60,000 into the district of U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, R-Surfside. The remaining 111,000 in Jefferson County are put into a new 2nd District, which will be dominated by 350,000 mostly Anglo Republican voters from Harris County.
"If you want to reduce the African-American impact on an election, that is how you would do it," Deshotel said.
The Express News covers the next phase of the plaintiffs' case, which will be brought by the American GI Forum and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund. They focused on the 23rd CD, currently held by Republican Henry Bonilla. Though Bonilla represents a mostly-Hispanic constituency, it's been Anglos in San Antonio who have kept him in office. The new map removes most of Webb County, which is 94% Hispanic, in order to bolster his future electability. Unfortunately, the E-N botched the coverage:
But although Bonilla is Hispanic — the only Mexican American Republican in Congress — he is not the favored candidate of Hispanics in the district, said Henry Flores, a St. Mary's University political science professor. Normally, he wins re-election because of heavy Anglo Republican turnout in northwest Bexar County.If Bonilla's district were not changed and the Hispanic voters removed and replaced by Republican voting Anglos in Kerr and Kendall counties, "it is likely he would lose his next election," Flores said.
It took me two readings to realize that there's a missing "not" after "Hispanic voters". Bonilla nearly lost in 2002 to Democrat Henry Cuellar, while the proposed whitening of his district has led former San Antonio Mayor Nelson Wolff to speculate that Bonilla may wind up losing a GOP primary to an Anglo opponent.
Finally, the Star Telegram takes a break from the trial to look at one of the most controversial new districts.
The Star-Telegram analyzed two sections of District 25, roughly equal in size but similar only in their voters' allegiance to the Democratic Party.On the north end is Austin's South Travis Heights neighborhood, where Mahoney lives. Its population is 63.5 percent Anglo, 5.1 percent black and 29.2 percent Hispanic.
Half are college graduates, and the median income is north of $37,000. Home to columnist Molly Ivins, the neighborhood might best be described as urban liberal.
Compared to conservative Katy, Ivins said the choice was clear. "I don't want to seem judgmental, but on the whole, I'm proud to be with Starr County," she quipped.
On the southern end of the district sits a collection of colonias off gritty U.S. 83 in Roma, defined as Census Tract 9502.01, Block Group 5. This is where Barrera, the bar owner, lives and works. It is 99.4 percent Hispanic and 0.6 percent Anglo. Not a single African-American calls it home.
Less than 3 percent are college graduates, and the median income is just below $15,000, making it one of the poorest census tracts in the nation.
The plaintiffs are expected to wrap up their case by tomorrow, and then it'll be the state's turn. I'm beginning to wonder if we'll have a ruling before Christmas. Stay tuned.
Ginger was kind enough to email me a link to BlogRunner's list of Top Authors, which it determines by "counting unique references to articles and posts authored in the last 60 days". A who's-linking-who popularity contest, in other words.
I note with great pleasure that it was my two posts on Movie Badness (here and here) that vaulted me to Number Seventeen in (Temporary) Blog Influentialness. That's even more satisfying than being one notch higher than Howie Kurtz. A talk show, perhaps to be followed by the governorship of a large Western state, is surely in my future.
Whatever one may think of the invasion of Iraq, I believe we can all unite behind August's suggestion of what to do with Saddam Hussein.
We can now find out if Saddam has seen the South Park movie. And, if there truly is justice in this world, there is a chance he hasn't, in which case we can actually show it to him. And see his reaction.There is no one on the face of the earth who can tell me right now with honesty that they don't think this as well. Admit it.
Make it so!
Here's a little quiz, from something I saw in the news yesterday but didn't get around to commenting on. See if you can identify the speaker and the subject of the following quote.
"Because those who are fighting against it have targeted [here] and are targeting your children, you have a right to know what's happening. For better or worse, whether you like it or not, [here] has become the epicenter of this discussion, the battleground of a new struggle for freedom."
Give up? Here's the article and the context.
Education Secretary Rod Paige told business leaders on Monday that recent criticisms of the Houston Independent School District have been unbalanced accounts with an intent to derail national school reforms.Paige, speaking during a breakfast meeting of the Greater Houston Partnership, said New York Times reports on HISD's test scores and crime rate ignore progress that the district has made since Paige was superintendent of the schools. A story unfavorably comparing Houston's scores on the state-mandated Texas Assessment of Academic Skills to scores on the national Stanford Achievement Test mixed incongruous results, he said.
"Comparing those two scores is like comparing bull riding to sheep herding," Paige said. "Both involve livestock but test different skills. "
[...]
President Bush's sweeping school reform package, the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, included many of the same type of reforms adopted by Houston and the Texas Education Agency, including testing student progress annually and tying funding to performance.
"Because those who are fighting against it (No Child Left Behind) have targeted Houston and are targeting your children," Paige said, "you have a right to know what's happening. For better or worse, whether you like it or not, Houston has become the epicenter of this discussion, the battleground of a new struggle for freedom."
I'l let Bill Bishop, who noted this in The Lasso yesterday, express how I feel about this as well:
Lasso trusts he is not stretching things to see the similarity in Paige's rhetoric about test scores in Houston and the Bush administration's rhetoric about the Iraq war. So this is the world we live in: Challenge test scores and drop out rates in Houston and you are an opponent — an "insurgent"? — in the "new struggle for freedom."That's frightening.
Indeed. You can sign me up for the insurgency on this one.
On the one hand, I suppose I should be glad that one of the prosecutors in the Andrea Yates case is now telling health care professionals that Yates was very, very sick when she killed her children.
Andrea Yates had one last chance to recover in time from the postpartum depression that had tortured her for years, one of her prosecutors said Tuesday.But Yates lost that chance when she was released from a hospital in League City, while she was dangerously delusional, Joseph S. Owmby told the 2003 Child Abuse Conference at the Holiday Inn Riverwalk.
Owmby, a Harris County assistant district attorney who helped prosecute Yates for capital murder last year, told the group of about 200 area mental health and law enforcement professionals that had Yates received more hospital treatment for her depression and psychosis, she probably wouldn't have murdered her children.
The psychiatrist who treated her at the hospital, Dr. Mohammad Saeed, testified that he decided to take Yates off her anti-psychotic medication and testified that he saw no evidence she was psychotic when he examined her on June 18, 2001, two days before she drowned the children.
What happened two weeks after Yates' release is a frightening example of how postpartum depression and psychosis can lead to severe child abuse, Owmby said.
On the other hand, I have to ask: Where the hell was this kind of thinking in the Harris County DA's office last March? These guys asked for the death penalty, though they didn't push it very aggressively in the punishment phase. As if life in prison is what such a dangerously delusional person needed.
Here's a quote from a rant by Chron Editorial Board member James Gibbons after Andrea Yates was sentenced, in which he notes that Yates seems to be the only person capable of distinguishing between right and wrong, which was the determining factor in her being found legally sane:
The Harris County district attorney, Chuck Rosenthal, parades around with a "What would Jesus do?" bracelet on his wrist, but his reflex action was to seek the death penalty for a woman who suffers acute psychosis. He's too clueless to see the contradiction.Obviously Rosenthal is too impaired to know right from wrong. It would be a healthy start if the district attorney would give some indication he could distinguish the crucified from the crucifiers.
The defense and prosecution agreed Andrea Yates was psychotic before she killed her children and was psychotic afterward. But the prosecution alone maintained that Yates suddenly became sufficiently sane while she was performing her tragic acts - sane enough to control her actions - to justify her execution or life imprisonment. The jury preferred to give her life in prison.
Setting aside right and wrong, anyone who would give credence to this theory of temporary sanity - and every man and woman on the jury did - obviously has difficulty distinguishing fact from fiction and the plausible from the implausible.
In his closing argument, prosecutor Joe Owmby contended that Yates had the civic duty to seek help from the clergy as an alternative to murder. People who actually believe patients with the most severe mental illnesses have a duty to identify and seek out the help they need cannot be relied on to know the difference between right and wrong.
I know that "insanity" is a legal definition only, but I still have a hard time believing that anyone could take more than a cursory glance at the facts of the Yates case and not conclude that the woman was sick and not evil. Chuck Rosenthal, like his predecessor Johnny Holmes, is fond of saying that he doesn't write the laws, he just enforces them. Well, there's such a thing as prosecutorial judgment, and I believe it was a serious lapse of judgment that led him to go to trial, even if the state wound up "winning". I agree that ultimately, it's the Lege's responsibility to fix the underlying problem of our draconian insanity law, but that still doesn't absolve Rosenthal for his role in this travesty.
Looking back, I see that when I first wrote about the Yates trial, I was a lot more ambivalent than I am now. I can't point to any one reason for my shift in opinion - in retrospect, I think I was trying a little too hard last year to see things from the prosecution's perspective. I think my hypothetical question ("If Yates' erratic and ultimately lethal behavior had been caused by a brain tumor, would you feel differently about her?") is still one that's worth contemplating.
"In your jobs, you have the opportunity to see women suffering from postpartum mental illness and to get them the proper treatment they and their families deserve," Owmby said.
May I suggest to you, Joe Owmby, that people with your job sometimes have that same opportunity as well.
I think Roy and Jesse have the right idea, so from here on out whenever you hear me criticize the Republican Party or any one of its members, assume I'm speaking as a fellow Republican. In particular, I'm a Republican who can no longer vote for Republicans until they adopt the principles and positions of the Democrats. Got that? Now let's see if I can get the Wall Street Journal to give me equal time.
The Philosoraptor has more, including a bonus Personal Anecdote to tie it all together.
If you, like me, believe that there's nothing like a rousing round of cheap shots to brighten up one's day, then head over to the Yellow Dog Blog and vote for your favorite Perry Tale of 2003. Was Governor Goodhair's greatest achievement this year having a group of disabled activists arrested outside his office, or was it parking in a handicap space while filing the papers for President Bush's reelection? You make the call.
Carlos Guerra looks at the recent Supreme Court ruling that upheld McCain/Feingold campaign finance reform and wonders if this will benefit the ongoing grand jury investigation into donations made by the Texas Association of Business and Texans for a Republican Majority.
Texas has banned corporate campaign cash since 1905. But during the 2002 election cycle, U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay and his buddies launched a Republican takeover of the Texas House to increase the GOP's — and DeLay's — influence in Congress and keep it long into the future."It isn't that there hadn't been other misuses involving corporate money in the past," says Craig McDonald, head of Texans for Public Justice, a watchdog group. "But 2002 was the first time we saw an avalanche of corporate money come into legislative elections, and I suspect that it was coordinated."
Five GOP-related political action committees supported a startlingly similar list of legislative candidates, and two groups are now being probed by a Travis County grand jury delving into criminal violations of the state's corporate money ban.
The best known of these is the Texas Association of Business (TAB), which provided money and in-kind support to 23 GOP candidates. Since the Travis County probe opened in January, the association's attorney, Andy Taylor — who is also the state's defense attorney in the federal redistricting challenge — has mounted several unsuccessful attempts to block disclosure of TAB's corporate donors and other critical evidence.
And since March, another group has come under scrutiny on allegations it illegally siphoned corporate money to campaigns: the Texans for a Republican Majority Political Action Committee (TRM). The group has multiple connections to DeLay, the kingpin behind the redistricting plan that is now facing a challenge in federal court over whether it diminishes minority influence in Congress. Coincidentally, I'm sure, it also funded the TAB candidates.
"It came to our attention that TRM also received approximately $600,000 from corporations, some of whom care about Texas but also from some corporations that only cared about access to Tom DeLay in Congress, like Bacardi & Co. (of Florida) and Westar (Energy of Kansas)," McDonald says.
[...]
But Taylor's legal reversals, recent revelations and now the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling have given McDonald hope as the holiday season approaches that Texas' laws will be respected and enforced.
"My Christmas wish is that shortly after the end of the year," he says, "the grand jury will deliver some indictments against the responsible parties."
It's a nice thought, to be sure, but I can't quite see the connection. I mean, if the Supremes had tossed out McCain/Feingold, then I'd expect that the grand jury would be thanked for its time and sent home. All this does is confirm that their work won't be preempted. It doesn't change or add to the facts, it just puts the law on firmer footing. I'll wish for the same thing, but I don't believe it's gotten any more likely.
More testimony yesterday in the federal lawsuit to stop implementation of the new Congressional map, with the highlight being that of Rice professor John Alford, who had testified for the state in 2001. Let's start with the Dallas Morning News:
"I'm a firm proponent of Republicans getting the majority of seats in Texas," said Dr. John Alford, a political science professor at Rice University. "This goes beyond that ... into a territory where the nature of the system itself determines the outcome, rather than the will of the voters."He said that the old map still in use – under which Republicans hold 15 of 32 seats – actually favors the GOP. Republicans could grab a majority of the seats, he predicted, if the party would campaign effectively against Democratic incumbents elected in districts with large numbers of crossover Republicans.
[...]
Dr. Alford was the first witness to testify extensively on nonracial "partisan gerrymandering," which the U.S. Supreme Court has said can be illegal, under circumstances it has yet to define.
The professor said a tell-tale sign of remap politics gone too far lies in statistics that indicate the Republicans' map guarantees them a nearly bulletproof 70 percent share of the congressional delegation, even if the party's share of overall voter population drops below 50 percent. That is accomplished by packing high numbers of Democrats into a lesser number of districts, leaving them insufficient numbers to affect the outcome in the rest."It undermines faith in the actual elections themselves," he said.
On the subject of race, Dr. Alford said Republicans' contention that their lines were drawn politically, not racially, is belied by districts that jag awkwardly to capture minority areas, bypassing reliably Democratic, nonminority turf.
In particular, he criticized three narrow districts running north hundreds of miles from the Mexico border to grab minority dominated districts along the way. Dr. Alford said the three districts are over the top, according to two traditional gerrymandering measures: jaggedness of their perimeters and overall length relative to their area.
It will be interesting to see how the state counters this claim. Their contention has been that only partisan interests drove the map, and any effects to minorities (which they also say were beneficial anyway) were merely collateral. Both Alford, as quoted in the Chron and State Rep. Richard Raymond, as quoted in the Quorum Report, address the issue of intent in different ways. Alford:
U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Patrick Higginbotham asked Alford how the court should tell the difference between minority communities that were cut for racially discriminatory purposes and those that are simply Democratic voters.Alford said he would look at the result of splitting the community.
"Did someone intentionally murder someone?" Alford said. "Did they understand the consequences of what they were doing?"
Alford, who was the state's expert in 2001 redistricting lawsuits, said Republicans could have gained a partisan advantage as they did in legislative redistricting without going to the extremes that he said exist in the congressional plan.
Raymond:
State Rep. Richard Raymond (D-Laredo) said the redistricting process had resembled the case of the gunman who goes into a store to rob it. In order to get out he has to kill the guy standing at the door.Raymond said Republicans started out wanting to take more congressional seats from Democrats but then found minorities standing in the way. "We are standing at the door," Raymond said. "They pulled the trigger, that is what they did."
More from Alford in the Star Telegram:
Alford, who worked with Republican officials two years ago when the state first took up congressional redistricting to address demographic changes found in the 2000 Census, said the latest map contains several fatal flaws. Primarily, he said, it would undermine the voting rights of racial minorities because it shifts several African-American communities along the Rio Grande and in North Texas into districts dominated by Anglo Republicans or by other minority communities that have little in common with their needs.[...]
In response to questions from Andy Taylor, a former assistant attorney general, Alford said the new map is more likely to elect a third African-American from Texas to Congress. But Alford said that an individual thus elected would represent a new district in Houston and that the new map would damage minority residents in Fort Worth who would no longer be represented by Democrat Martin Frost.
Although Frost is white, his District 24 under the existing map is heavily minority.
Alford, who has analyzed voting trends since 1992 that show Texas becoming increasingly dominated by Republican voters, said that the court-drawn map currently in use strikes a balance between minority voting rights and the continuing GOP tide. But Texas Republicans are far from satisfied with the existing map because several entrenched Democrats continue to win Republican-leaning districts, in part because credible GOP candidates are reluctant to take on incumbents.
[...]
"I'm a firm proponent of Republicans getting a majority of the seats in Texas. I want them to win a majority," Alford said. "There are plenty of districts that Republicans could win if they simply did it the old-fashioned way," he said, referring to the current map.
As Greg has remarked on more than one occasion, Charlie Stenholm's district votes more heavily Republican overall than Tom DeLay's.
There was other testimony, mostly from officeholders, including retiring State Sen. Bill Ratliff and Sen. Rodney Ellis, who challenged the GOP's claims about enhancing minority representation by creating another district in Houston that could be won by a black candidate. From the Chron:
Lawyers for the state contend the Legislature enhanced political opportunities by taking Democratic U.S. Rep. Chris Bell's 25th District in Houston and redrawing it as an open 9th District with an increased black population. Both districts are geographically centered in southwest Houston.The state claims that will increase the odds of a black politician winning the district and offset the loss of a district in the Dallas-Fort Worth area where minorities influence the outcome of elections.
The new congressional map increases the black voting-age population of the Houston district from 22 percent to 26 percent. Bell has said he will run for re-election in the new district if the map withstands legal challenges.
Ellis said a well-positioned and well-funded black politician could beat Bell in either his existing district or the one created by the Legislature. And he said Bell would have advantages that could help him win re-election in either district configuration.
"It's a wash. An African-American would have no greater opportunity of winning that district than the current district," Ellis said.
Even if a black won, he said, that would not be worth the political harm that would come under the proposed map from losing six Anglo incumbent Democrats who vote favorably on issues important to blacks.
And from the Express News:
Sen. Rodney Ellis, D-Houston, said he didn't "understand this modern math.""Republicans say minorities' voting strength is not diminished because African Americans or Hispanics get one new district," Ellis said.
"But in doing so, we lose six or seven (Anglo Democratic) congressmen who consistently vote for the interests of minorities, so how is that beneficial to us?"
If some of these arguments sound familiar, it's because they were repeated over and over during the endless legislative summer. It's just that now they're being repeated in front of the referees. Stay tuned.
I'm pretty sure that the maker of The Golden Globes: Hollywood's Dirty Little Secret will not be getting a Best Documentary nomination from them.
The Golden Globe nominations will be announced Thursday.But casual viewers of the annual awards show might be surprised to learn that a relatively small group of foreign journalists hand out the Golden Globes and that many are part-time entertainment reporters for obscure print or online outlets.
"It's an emperor-has-no-clothes story," said Vikram Jayanti, the documentary's director-narrator. "We all think it's like an august organization with hundreds of really reputable film journalists and critics."
In reality, the group behind the Golden Globes, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, has about 90 members, and many have reputations more as star-struck fans and moochers than serious reporters, the documentary says.
Interviewed for the documentary, L.A. Weekly film critic John Powers said the group's members are "essentially just bottom-feeders around the industry, who have somehow been inflated to this point where their judgment is supposed to be very, very important."
Each year, studios arrange elaborate meals where HFPA members can hobnob with directors and actors on films angling for Academy Awards and other movie honors. If stars and filmmakers fail to turn up for a schmooze session with the HFPA, it generally kills a movie's chances for Golden Globe nominations, which draw attention that can boost a film's Oscar prospects.
I'll spare you all of the usual feigned-shock cliches. The best bit in the whole story is at the end:
"Even though the Golden Globe people are by and large idiots," critic Powers says in the documentary, "they often make better choices than the Oscars."
There's a marketing slogan in there somewhere, I just know it.
There were about 26,000 visitors in November, so it had about the same daily pace as October. As with October, it would have been more had it not been for a Real World event, in this case Thanksgiving. A link from The Register in an article about the Atrios/Luskin lawsuit-that-wasn't, and a zillion Google searches for information about local radio talk-show host Jon Matthews, who has been indicted for indecency with a minor, were the main engines of new traffic.
I got my 200,000th Sitemeter hit for this site on November 30, but a bigger milestone is drawing near: my two-year blog anniversary will be January 1. As always, thanks to everyone for reading and for returning. Top referrers are beneath the More link.
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Kos highlights a couple of upcoming special elections, all of which involve open Congressional seats vacated by Republicans. One of these in particular, the South Dakota seat abandoned by convicted manslaughterer Bill Janklow, is a good pickup opportunity for Democrats, as the announced candidate is Stephanie Herseth, who nearly knocked off Janklow as a first-time office seeker in 2002. Kos is urging people to contribute to Herseth's campaign, an action which I echo.
There are a few good points made down in the comments of this post. For one thing, given the Democrats' early advantages in online fundraising, it would be a smart thing for the party to highlight a few winnable House seats and bang the drum for them on the DNC blog and everywhere else they can think of. For another thing, it would be even smarter for someone in the DNC to pay for the design of backend software for online donations that works well across OSes and browser versions which can then be freely given to any Democratic candidate that requests it. To be honest, I'm amazed some entrepreneur hasn't already done this and sold it to one party or the other.
I believe coordinated online fundraising for Congressional candidates is going to be commonplace Real Soon Now, even next year if the Democrats are nimble enough. The Republicans made a bold move and got a huge payoff by nationalizing the 1994 election. Can the Dems pull off something similar? It can't hurt to aim high.
One other thing: Coordinating campaigns like this would be a way of coopting the Dean model while maintaining the value of the party's brand identity. Dean has shown the value of giving national attention to an individual Congressional race, but next year he'll either be too busy or no longer in the spotlight. This is a job for a party, not a person.
For the math geeks in my audience (and you know who you are), there's some followup to this post about Elin Oxenheilm and her claimed solution to the sixteenth Hilbert problem. Gustav Holmberg has several posts (here, here, here, and here) which discuss various aspects of Oxenhielm's claim. One of the things he notes is that press releases announcing big claims like this often go through a university's official channels, which conveys an official endorsement and thus acts somewhat like a "peer review" in and of itself. In this case, Oxenhielm sent out a press release on her own. Judge for yourself if this lowers her credibility.
An interesting side note is that a former teacher of Oxenhielm's who was thanked in the credits of the paper has issued an open letter in which she says "the paper is incomplete and includes serious mistakes, which I think any educated mathematician can easily see". Oxenhielm has a response to this, though you'll need to be able to read Swedish to get the exact meaning.
Another dissenter is Grigori Rozenblum, a professor of math at Chalmers University, who sent this letter to the editors of Nonlinear Analysis as well as leaving a comment on my original post.
In the end, Holmberg speculates about the role of the Internet in this discussion.
But let's leave the media aside for a moment and instead look at two comment threads on the blog unstruct.org; here and here. There are a number of people discussing the affair there and several seem to me to be knowledgeable in the field of maths, some are really advanced: Grigori Rozenblium, professor of mathematics at Chalmers technical university is one of the writers there, another one is a PhD &c. It is, thus, not the letters column of your average daily newspaper. Topics include womens' role in the academic system, proofs in mathematics, the peer review system &c.These winding threads contain, among other things, comments that used to be buried in other media: letters to colleagues, e-mail, gossip over beer at conferences, discussions in workshops &c. But where do the threads at unstruct.org fit in?
Now, I suspect that you could have at least two quite distinct paths taken in the development. You could have the peer review the peer reviewers scenario. Here, scientists decide to use the force of the Net, social software such as blogs, preprint archives and what have you, to make a more or less open discussion about the quality of papers, published or un-published. You would still have peer review, but since that is obviously not always to be trusted, you would have a semi-public discussion (yes, semi-public instead of public, not because it would be locked away behind passwords but rather because ordinary citizens would not be able to understand a word) about papers and other results. The Net result would be better science through public scrutiny and an opening up of scientific practice, just like when the guys at Royal Society decided to do things in the open some 360 years ago. It would not be a world without peer review. It would be a world with a better peer review.
Or you could have the don't rock the boat scenario. Anything that would take place outside of the classical arenas - peer review, publication, conferences, &c - would be deemed bad science. Some of the old school players among the publishing corporations could perhaps be interested in such a path.
Speaking as someone who doesn't understand a word of Oxenhielm's proof or the objections to it, this is still very interesting to me. The fact that an obscure mostly-political weblog such as mine has taken note of it is a sign that the genie is poking its head outside the lamp. (We've already seen world-class academics get involved in blog discussions that touch on their areas of discipline, as was the case in this Calpundit thread, which featured comments from Fields Medal winner Bill Thurston.) I think the extra publicity and the ability to speak directly to curious bystanders will eventually outweigh any objections to this sort of communication. Put me down for the "peer review the peer reviewers" option.
There may be a recount in the City Council District G election, where Pam Holm won by a 27-vote margin over Jeff Daily. The timing is perfect, coming on the heels of yet another report that electronic voting machines, including the eSlate machines used in Harris County, have security flaws.
The analysis, conducted for the Ohio secretary of state, of Hart InterCivic and three other vendors' systems found 57 potential security problems. Hart InterCivic, Harris County's eSlate vendor, had 10 potential risk areas, including four rated as high."We believe because of weaknesses we found in all of these systems, the vendors need to go back and take care of the weaknesses," said Glenn Newkirk, president of InfoSentry, one of two firms hired to conduct the review.
[...]
Researchers from InfoSentry, of Raleigh, N.C., and Detroit-based Compuware Corp. reviewed Hart InterCivic, Diebold Election Systems, Election Systems and Software and Sequoia Voting Systems. The six-week review was prompted after security concerns were raised in Ohio and elsewhere.
The review found, among other things, the potential for an unauthorized person to gain access to eSlate's supervisory controls and shut down the polls early. A password is required to shut down the system here. Hart InterCivic contends that if the system were shut down, voting data would not be lost.
The report also notes that eSlate lacks encryption to protect voting data, and Hart InterCivic is now considering the change.
Another risk identified in the report is that the connection between the system's units can be accessed by voters and disconnected. More security would alleviate the risk, the report states.
Results in which security breaches failed include: an unsuccessful attempt to access the system from an external source, failure to load a program through external sources and failure to upload results twice.
"Compuware has identified several significant security issues," the report states of the eSlate system, "which left unmitigated would provide an opportunity for an attacker to disrupt the election process or throw the election results into question."
The fact that the testers were unable to fully hijack the eSlate system is a point in its favor, but when I read things like "lack of encryption", I have to wonder what Hart InterCivic was thinking when they designed the system. All we've really got here is assurances from the vendor and the County Clerk that we shouldn't worry our pretty little heads over all of this, and they both have strong incentives to take a sunny view of things. Whether it happens in this recount or not, I believe it's just a matter of time before we get bitten on the ass. When we do, I hope everyone remembers what the responsible parties have been saying all along.
UPDATE: Rob actually read the report, and has some good thoughts on the subject. Check it out.
The Chron has a nice profile of incoming First Lady Andrea White, who comes across as a down-to-earth type who'll be more visible than Frances Brown but less, um, colorful than Elyse Lanier. I had the opportunity to meet her during the course of the campaign, and I think she'll be someone that folks here generally like. Here's one reason why:
She was humbled by the campaigning experience -- sometimes overwhelmed, often tired."In January, if you would have told me I would be campaigning in beauty parlors, I wouldn't have believed you," she said. "I now feel perfectly comfortable handing out fliers to women with curlers in their hair."
White has shared personal thoughts like this in handwritten thank-you notes to her husband's campaign contributors. With the help of her mother and mother-in-law, she has written 3,000 and counting.
The letters have won her fans.
I donated twice to the White campaign early on, and each time received such a note, once from Andrea White and once from her sister. I thought that was a very classy touch.
So Saddam Hussein has been captured. That's great news, probably the best news out of Iraq since he was first toppled. I hope this will help pacify things over there, though I have my doubts. Kevin Drum sums it up pretty well.
It's a bit ironic that the top story in today's Metro section of the Chron is headlined Fewer Texans back Bush on war.
The survey by the Scripps Research Center in Abilene found just over half, 51 percent, of those polled said Bush was doing either an excellent or good job overseeing the war in Iraq.Another 46 percent either mildly or strongly disapprove of the way the administration is conducting the war.
As to how well the war is going for the United States, 49 percent said things were going either "well" or "very well," while 48 percent felt it was going "poorly" or "very poorly."
More people in Texas now feel the war is going "very poorly" -- 18 percent -- than think it is going "very well" -- 8 percent.
I'll bet those numbers would be different now. Of course, how big a political victory this is for President Bush is directly proportional to how much the violence in Iraq actually decreases now. This is what I'm talking about:
Saddam remained the face of evil in Iraq for Texans. Sixty-nine percent told pollsters they believe Saddam is personally directing attacks against U.S. soldiers in Iraq. Only 14 percent felt Saddam was not directing the attacks, while another 17 percent didn't know or wouldn't answer.
What are those sixty-nine percent going to think if soldiers continue to get attacked and killed? We've already had one "Mission Accomplished" moment. How pissed off will people get if they think they've been fooled twice?
On a side note, I have to wonder. What will Saddam's trial be like? I mean, there's three basic criminal defenses: I Didn't Do It, You Can't Prove I Did, and Yeah, I Did It, So What? I don't think any of those would go over too well, so what's left? Hiring Johnny Cochrane to use the Chewbacca Defense?
With the signing of Andy Pettite, the Astros are the talk of baseball as the winter meeting goes on in New Orleans. General Manager Gerry Hunsicker is talking about what else he has in mind, while local radio DJs Dean and Rog got a car dealer to offer Roger Clemens a burnt orange Hummer to induce him to think about joining Pettite in the Juice Box.
A few random thoughts:
- Much as it pains me as a Yankee fan to see Pettite depart, even I have to laugh at the Post and Daily News front pages which told the tale of his leaving.
- Note to Hunsicker: I'm sure Jason Lane will make a fine player, but 26-year-olds with a recent history of injury are not really prospects. Besides, you're asking him to replace the guy who led your team in OPS last year.
- I swear, if I read about how the Astros "lost $15 million last year" one more time, I'm going to drive downtown and dopeslap the entire Chronicle sports department. You only have Drayton McLane's word for that, so either he's lying through his teeth, or given money he wrung out of Harris County for Enron FieldMinute Maid Park, the world's worst businessman. For crying out loud, people, ask him to prove it or sell out already.
- I didn't realize Clemens was that close to Steve Carlton for the #2 spot in career strikeouts (4137 to 4099). That may be the ticket to getting him to suit up for one more year. Of course, barring a collapse of some kind, I'd expect Randy Johnson to blow past both of them by 2005, but still. Clemens has an ego. Use it to your advantage.
I'm not quite in the mood to quote, summarize, and make snarky comments about the latest testimony in the federal lawsuit aimed at blocking or overturning the new Congressional map in Texas, so what follows is the links to the news accounts that I can find. I urge you to look at all of them, for if there's one thing I learned from the coverage of this endless legislative summer, it's that no one newspaper gave anything close to a complete picture.
From Friday:
Chron: Trial begins as judges decline to give summary judgment
Statesman: Trial begins, testimony from American GI Forum
Express-News: Redistricting expert sees polarized vote
For Saturday, everything is focused on testimony given by Congressmen Max Sandlin, Martin Frost, Chet Edwards, and Jim Turner, plus former Dallas Mayor and Senate candidate Ron Kirk.
Star Telegram: Democrats testify against remap
Express News: Remap attack continues
DMN: Kirk says remap violates voter rights
Statesman: Democrats assail redistricting plan
Chron: Judges told remap will turn away minorities
The Quorum Report has other miscellaneous bits, including at least one side effect of the testimony:
Testimony in a federal court in the South on such a highly charged issue as race can certainly have a dramatic impact.Just a few hours ago, U.S. Rep. Max Sandlin (D-Marshall) took the witness stand and condemned a decision by Harrison County Commissioners Court to remove the only polling place at Wiley College, the first historically Black college established west of Mississippi.
Sandlin claimed the "black box" had been moved instead to the heavily Anglo and conservative East Texas Baptist University for next month's state Senate District 1 special election.
"There's only one reason for that and everybody knows what it is," Sandlin said.
The testimony has already had an effect.
Harrison County Elections Administrator Pam Brock said Sandlin had not got all his facts right but did say she would be asking county commissioners to "hastily review" yesterday's decision to reduce the number of polling places from 29 to 7.
Brock said removal of the Wiley College polling location would be among the items to be looked at again.
Right. QR also has a sneak peek at the cover of next month's Texas Monthly, in which they give out their annual Bum Steer Awards. I think that in comparing the redistricting architects to the Three Stooges, their choice to depict Rick Perry as Shemp is most poignant statement anyone has made about this entire fiasco.
Attorney General Greg Abbott, who once lauded a successful lawsuit that forced the State Supreme Court building to comply with the Americans With Disabilities Act, is now suing to overturn Title II, which is the section of the ADA that prohibits public entities from discriminating against people with disabilities.
The case stems from a class-action lawsuit filed by two advocacy groups over waiting lists for services but could ultimately affect other areas, including government services and the requirement that public buildings be accessible.Ted Cruz, solicitor general for the attorney general's office, said Abbott is trying to protect the state's interests and limited economic resources. Abbott's office is not challenging the part of the act that bars discrimination by private entities.
"Our argument is that Congress lacks the authority to dictate how states operate," Cruz said. "The attorney general has a constitutional duty to defend the State of Texas. That's the oath General Abbott took."
[...]
The disabilities act provides comprehensive civil rights protections to individuals with disabilities in the areas of employment, public accommodations, government services and tele- communications.
Today, disputes over all parts of the act are being played out all over the country, with a number of states arguing that Title II is unconstitutional. The U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments on the issue next year in the case of Tennessee v. Lane.
Texas' debate began in September 2002, when Arc of Texas and Advocacy Inc. filed a class action against the state. Their complaint: Texas did not provide community-based services to enough people with mental retardation and other developmental disabilities. More than 25,000 people have been waiting years for services such as respite, rehabilitation and group home care.
"We're talking about basic needs," said Mike Bright, executive director of the Arc of Texas.
In their lawsuit, the groups ask that the state be forced to expand services for disabled people. No one knows how much that will cost.
"That's the $64,000 question," said Garth Corbett, lawyer for Advocacy Inc.
I can actually understand this from a fiscal viewpoint. I agree with and support the ADA, but it is a large, mostly unfunded mandate, and for sure the states ain't getting any relief on that from the current Capitol Hill gang. That said, I believe the states need to check their priorities if they're unwilling to include equal access for people with disabilites in their budgets.
It's especially egregious for the wheelchair-bound Abbott to be leading the charge. He has some history of for-thee-but-not-for-me here.
Advocates for people with disabilities say they expected more from Abbott, a former state Supreme Court justice who has used a wheelchair since 1984, when a tree fell on him and crushed his spine."It's ironic and sad, but I stopped trying to understand people's motivations a long time ago, " said Jennifer McPhail, an organizer with ADAPT of Texas. "It just gives you a headache."
Abbott faced similar criticism during his campaign for the attorney general's post. Detractors pointed out that he championed limits on damages and sharply criticized trial lawyers, even though he had sued and received a tax-free settlement worth more than $10 million after his accident.
[...]
In 1995, Abbott lauded the act after the Civil Rights Project settled a lawsuit to make the Texas Supreme Court Building accessible to disabled people. After Abbott's appointment, the building was renovated.
"It is kind of ironic that the Supreme Court Building, the gatekeeper of the law, had to be sued," Abbott told the Austin American-Statesman at that time. "Unfortunately, there are occasions where you do have recalcitrant business owners or entities that do not understand the requirements of the ADA, or, even worse, who do understand the requirements of the ADA and refuse to comply despite attempts at negotiations. And in those circumstances, a lawsuit is certainly warranted."
In 1996, commenting on a Civil Rights Project report that showed that many Texas courthouses were not accessible, Abbott told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram that it was "appalling but not surprising."
In July 1999, Abbott suggested that the Civil Rights Project file suit after he could not gain access to a Houston hotel, Harrington said.
Abbott's spokeswoman, Angela Hale, says the two scenarios are totally different.
"That was a private company," Hale said. "The State of Texas is a public entity with limited resources."
Last I checked, Angela, private companies have limited resources, too, something that Republican politicians are fond of mentioning whenever a law is proposed that would add to their financial burden. One might also point out that the government belongs to and represents all of us, though one might feel some doubt about that latter item given the way things have been lately.
Here's a very interesting analysis of regional trends in Presidential elections which, as the title indicates, goes beyond the binary red/blue state model. Check it out. Via TAPPED.
You may recall that two former executives of Westar were indicted on charges relating to their looting the company. At the time, I wondered why there was no mention of any action regarding the $25 grand payoff to various Republican lawmakers in return for Westar getting "a seat at the table" and some favorable legislation passed.
Turns out Public Citizen is asking the same question. I'm sure they, like me, don't actually expect an answer from John Ashcroft's Justice Department, but we all know that certain ritualistic obligations must still be met. They've also got a pretty good clearinghouse of information on this story, in case you need a refresher.
War profiteering? Whod'a thunk it?
Houston-based Halliburton Co. may have overbilled taxpayers by as much as $61 million for trucking gasoline into Iraq, Pentagon auditors said Thursday.The Pentagon's Defense Contract Audit Agency said Halliburton also may have tried to charge the government $67 million more to manage cafeterias for U.S. troops than the company had agreed to pay the subcontractors hired to actually do the work.
In the military's first public criticism of Halliburton subsidiary KBR since the company went to work in Iraq, Pentagon officials said Thursday that they had discovered "serious problems" with the company's costs and demanded a detailed response.
"Right now the burden is on the company to come back and say why this has happened," a senior Pentagon official said.
[...]
The $61 million in fuel overcharges, through Sept. 30, were calculated by taking the difference between what Halliburton billed the government for fuel bought in Kuwait and shipped to Iraq and what another contractor paid to provide gasoline to Iraq by importing it through Turkey, an official said.
Halliburton billed $2.27 a gallon for the fuel, which included transportation costs. The unnamed contractor charged $1.18 a gallon, the official said.
Asked if he believed Halliburton was intentionally padding two no-bid contracts that could yield as much as $15.6 billion from work in Iraq, the official said, "I do not think it is a systematic problem with overcharging."
There is no allegation that Halliburton profited by the excess billing. The $2.27 price was charged to Halliburton by the sole Kuwaiti contractor allowed by the government of that country to bid on a Halliburton subcontract.
What the Pentagon does allege is that Halliburton did not do everything required under government contracting rules to find the best possible price for goods procured under a no-bid contract.
I'm told that competition is often a force in lowering prices. Maybe we should, you know, try that one of these days.
You know, after all of the bashing the Chron did of Tom DeLay, Rick Perry, Tom Craddick, and the rest of the redistricting bunch over the summer, I started to lose some of my animosity towards their editorial page. It's almost a relief to see that I needn't have worried about them changing their stripes.
Like Claude Rains' Capt. Renault in the film Casablanca, who was "shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!," there are many who profess to be shocked that politics is going on in the Democratic Party presidential primary race. Al Gore's surprise endorsement of Howard Dean's candidacy has set this melodrama into motion.There's an ugly element of cynicism to it, coming as it does before a single Democratic voter has had a chance to cast a ballot.
Some would argue, with good reason, that the endorsement, obviously aimed at boosting Dean as the frontrunner, is a reminder of past years when party politics played out behind the closed doors of secret, smoke-filled rooms.
The primary process was, among other things, supposed to test and battle-harden the candidates for the real contest in November.
There's also an ugly element to it in the way Gore spurned another of the candidates, Sen. Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut, who had been Gore's vice-presidential running mate in the 2000 presidential race. The fact that Gore had not told Lieberman that the Dean endorsement was coming will win Gore no points for loyalty or graciousness.
The Gore endorsement announcement was made in Harlem in the apparent hope that it would bring Dean some support among the African-American electorate. But the move could backfire.
There were some who questioned Dean's support for policies and issues important to black voters. And on Wednesday another of Dean's rivals, Rep. Richard Gephardt, D-Mo., won the endorsement of South Carolina's most influential black politician, Rep. James Clyburn, the state's only black congressman in more than a century.
The six-term congressman's backing is considered critical in the potentially pivotal Feb. 3 primary in South Carolina, where black voters are expected to cast 40 percent or more of the vote.
How much of an effect -- and how lasting an effect -- Gore's gambit will have on the contest remains to be seen. It's too early to say it is decisive.
Politics, as we are so often reminded, is hard ball, and Gore obviously wants to be a player, even if that means making new enemies.
Some might welcome it as a sign, in an otherwise lethargic campaign, that at least there's a game under way.
And Dean's opponents might take up the challenge with another of Capt. Renault's memorable Casablanca lines: "Realizing the importance of the case, my men are rounding up twice the usual number of suspects."
Here's a crazy thought. What if Al Gore endorsed Howard Dean because he genuinely thought Dean was the best candidate? One can certainly quarrel with his judgment, and I've no doubt that Gore hopes to eventually get something out of it, but to not acknowledge the possibility, even to dismiss it in passing? Talk about cynical.
Look, in a hotly contested, multi-candidate primary like this, making such an early endorsement is a risk. Al Gore or anyone else could sit back and wait until they're sure which way the wind is blowing and then sycophantically hop on the sure-thing's bandwagon and act like they've been bestest buddies forever, or he can put his neck on the line and say up front "this is the candidate that I think ought to win", knowing full well that he'll alienate people and will be left with nothing if he chooses badly. Once again, who's being cynical here?
If this were really about the back room, then we wouldn't have all these candidates out here clamoring for votes. We'd have a single anointed frontrunner which everyone who knew what was good for them lined up behind from day one, not unlike a certain hopeful from the last election. The voters are still free to make up their own minds here. Are we happy now, guys?
It's time for the 2003 Koufax Awards, and nominations are going on now. There's a lot of deserving blogs and bloggers out there, so some tough choices have to be made. My nominations are beneath the More link. Forgive me for the (allowable but still egotistical) indulgence of a self-nomination, in the "Best Series" category; had they been expressly forbidden, I'd have picked Slacktivist's excellent Left Behind posts instead.
Anyway, as with voting, if you don't nominate then you can't complain about who got overlooked or overrated, so take a moment and make your voice heard.
Best blog: Tough choice, as there are some great ones out there, but Atrios is still the king.
Best Writing: Teresa Nielsen Hayden. If she's not political enough for consideration, then I nominate Kevin Drum.
Best Post: I tend not to remember individual posts all that well, but David Neiwert's The Political and the Personal stayed with me.
Best series: For once, I'm going to toot my own horn and nominate my coverage of the Texas redistricting saga.
Best single-isse blog: Liberal Oasis.
Best group blog: Crooked Timber.
Most humorous blog: Pete Von Der Haar's A Perfectly Cromulent Blog. If he's not political enough, then TBogg.
Most humorous post: So, So Sad, by Andrew Northrup. Or his Shorter Right-Wing Punditry's Reaction To The Valerie Plame Affair. Can't have enough Gollum, you know.
Best design: The Daily Kos.
Best new blog: Colorado Luis.
Best special effects: Uggabugga.
I love stories about big prime numbers.
More than 200,000 computers spent years looking for the largest known prime number. It turned up on Michigan State University graduate student Michael Shafer's off-the-shelf PC."It was just a matter of time," Shafer said.
The number is 6,320,430 digits long and would need 1,400 to 1,500 pages to write out. It is more than 2 million digits larger than the previous largest known prime number.
Shafer, 26, helped find the number as a volunteer on an eight-year-old project called the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search.
Tens of thousands of people volunteered the use of their PCs in a worldwide project that harnessed the power of 211,000 computers, in effect creating a supercomputer capable of performing 9 trillion calculations per second. Participants could run the mathematical analysis program on their computers in the background, as they worked on other tasks.
Shafer ran an ordinary Dell computer in his office for 19 days until Nov. 17, when he glanced at the screen and saw "New Mersenne prime found."
A prime number is a positive number divisible only by itself and one: 2, 3, 5, 7 and so on. Mersenne primes are a special category, expressed as 2 to the "p" power minus 1, where "p" also is a prime number.
In the case of Shafer's discovery, it was 2 to the 20,996,011th power minus 1. The find was independently verified by other participants in the project.
Mersenne (pronounced mehr-SANE, named for a 17th century French monk/amateur mathematician Marin Mersenne, who was also a regular correspondent of Pierre Fermat) primes are cool, if you're into numbers. This page has some good history about Mersenne primes as well as some of the math surrounding them, such as the proof that if (2^p)-1 is prime, then p must be prime. The discovery of a new Mersenne prime also means that we have discovered a new perfect number, too.
There's an amusing story about Mersenne primes. Mersenne had originally postulated that the following numbers would lead to primes of the form (2^p)-1:
2, 3, 5, 7, 13, 17, 19, 31, 67, 127 and 257
Mersenne himself was only able to verify this for numbers up to 19, though. Eventually, people began to determine that Mersenne had missed a few, and that he'd incorrectly included some others. The case of p=67 was resolved over 250 years after Mersenne's death.
This story is about the number 2^67-1, the 67th Mersenne number (numbers Mersenne had claimed to be prime), which was proven to be non-prime in 1903 by F.N.Cole (1861-1927). In the October meeting of the AMS, Cole announced a talk "On the Factorisation of Large Numbers".He walked up to the blackboard without saying a word, calculated by hand the value of 2^67, carefully subtracted 1.
Then he multiplied two numbers (which were 193707721 and 761838257287).
Both results written on the blackboard were equal. Cole silently walked back to his seat, and this is said to be the first and only talk held during an AMS meeting where the audience applauded. There were no questions. It took Cole about 3 years, each Sunday, to find this factorisation, according to what he said.
This is freely quoted from E.T.Bell's book "Mathematics: Queen and Servant of Science", published in London, 1952; you can find the story in David Wells: "The Penguin Dictionary of Curious and Interesting Numbers" (Penguin Books, 1986)
For the curious: 2^67 -1 = 193707721 x 761838257287 = 147573952589676412927
That story was also told in a number theory textbook I had in college, though it said that Cole got the only standing ovation in AMS history and that it took him 20 years of Sundays, not three. Either way, I've always liked it.
By the way, the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search (GIMPS) page is here. As with SETI@Home, you can loan your computer and its spare CPU time to the advancement of scientific knowledge.
UPDATE: Snarkout expands on the theme of big numbers and their allure. As always, well written and full of cool links. Check it out.
Or something like that. He's officially on the state ballot, anyway.
Gov. Rick Perry, flanked by other GOP officeholders, filed the necessary paperwork at Texas Republican headquarters. He predicted a close presidential race next year but said Bush, his predecessor as governor, will run strong in Texas."Texas is Bush country, and you can bet it's going to stay that way in 2004," Perry said.
And some info on the Democratic candidates, from the ubiquitous Scripps Howard Texas Poll.
About one-fifth (19 percent) of Democratic primary voters responding to the Texas Poll said they were undecided on a presidential nominee. Howard Dean, Wesley Clark, Joe Lieberman and Dick Gephardt were in a statistical tie for the lead among decided Texas Democrats, but no one had more than 16 percent.The poll was conducted Nov. 14 through Dec. 6, before former Vice President Al Gore's endorsement of Dean, the former Vermont governor. But [University of Texas at Austin government professor Bruce] Buchanan didn't expect Gore's endorsement to have much effect in Texas, which Gore -- then the Democratic nominee -- lost to Bush in the 2000 presidential race.
"I doubt it will move the numbers more than one or two points, if that," Buchanan said.
Finaly, I note the following story, headlined Perry parks in handicap spot. The joke is left as an exercise for the reader.
On the eve of the federal redistricting lawsuit, attorneys for the Democratic plaintiffs have released memos which detailed the extent of Tom DeLay's involvement in the process.
[Democratic lawyer J. Gerald] Hebert noted one memo in which [DeLay's political aide Jim] Ellis admitted that a map like the one the Legislature passed had a "risk" of being rejected by the U.S. Justice Department, which must conduct a pre-clearance legal review under the Voting Rights Act."The pre-clearance and political risks are the delegation's, and we are willing to assume those risks, but only with our map," Ellis wrote in one memo.
Some of Ellis' other key statements from various memos include:
· As a conference committee worked on a final deal, Ellis wrote, "major adjustments must be made to ensure that the map reflects the priorities of the congressional delegation and not the Legislature."
· "The (state) House map, in particular, is flawed because it is dominated with largely insignificant state legislative agendas."
· "We need our map, which has been researched and vetted (by the Republican National Committee and the National Republican Congressional Committee) for months."
· "We must stress that a map that returns (Democratic U.S. Reps. Martin) Frost, (Chet) Edwards and (Lloyd) Doggett is unacceptable and not worth all of the time invested in this project."
Remember, kids, redistricting is a function that must be handled by the state Legislature. If someone other than the Legislature draws the map, the map is invalid. Right?
There's some more info in the Statesman story and also in the Austin Chronicle. The Express News has background on the plaintiffs:
"The Jackson plaintiffs," part of a group that sued the state's 2001 redistricting plan, this year are joined by most of the Texas Democratic U.S. House members. They charge the new districts violate the law because "minority voters in Texas are denied an equal opportunity to participate effectively in the political process," that they intentionally discriminate against African Americans and Hispanics and were drawn "with excessive and unjustified use of race and racial data."The American GI Forum, represented by the San Antonio-based Mexican-American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, charges that the plan will deny the rights of voters "on account of their race, color or ethnicity ... by canceling out or minimizing their voting strengths as minorities in Texas" and that it "intentionally reduces the Latino population and voting strength of Congressional District 23," which is represented by a Republican, U.S. Rep. Henry Bonilla of San Antonio.
Republican mapmakers removed half of Webb County from Bonilla's district, along with a bloc of voters who are predominantly Hispanic and Democratic, and replaced it with heavily Republican counties in the Hill Country. Bonilla never has carried Webb County, relying instead on mostly Anglo voters in North and Northwest Bexar County.
The League of United Latin American Citizens, along with Webb and Cameron counties, charges Voting Rights Act violations because "the communities of interest are split" in those counties. Recent census data shows that Webb contains the greatest proportion of Hispanics of any U.S. county, some 94 percent of the population.
U.S. Reps. Sheila Jackson Lee and Eddie Bernice Johnson, who are African American Democrats from Houston and Dallas, respectively, hired their own attorney to argue that the state plan "is not the by-product of population growth or shifts" and is not consistent with the map adopted in 2001, which was drawn by the federal courts. They argue that the court's decision in 2001 "was not an interim plan" and should not be replaced by any new map.
The Texas Chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People says the Legislature's plan was "drawn primarily, if not solely, as a political and/or racial gerrymander." The state's African American voters now elect or have a strong say in the election of 16 members of Congress, and the NAACP will argue that number will drop to 10 members if the new plan takes effect.
The NAACP also charges the state doesn't have the authority to redraw congressional districts more often than once a decade.
The Morning News mentions the recent Texas Poll in regards to redistricting.
The Texas Poll found that 48 percent of those surveyed supported the governor's decision to call three special sessions, and 42 percent opposed it.
Asked whether the resulting plan was merited, 26 percent said lawmakers needed to redraw the lines while 62 percent called the effort a waste of time and money.The telephone survey of 1,000 Texans selected at random was conducted Nov. 14-Dec. 6. The margin of error was 3 percentage points, meaning the results of any answer could vary by that much in either direction.
I'm trying to come up with an explanation that squares those numbers, but I'm having a hard time. There must be some people who both supported the special sessions and yet think the outcome was a waste of time and money, and I just don't know how you can do that, at least after the fact. The Chronicle has a graphic in their print edition which shows the result for the second question, and also the result for "Would you favor or oppose allowing a commission to handle redistricting?", in which 54% favored, 28% opposed, and 18% didn't know or gave no answer.
The Chron also reports on the Pennsylvania case, which is now being heard by the Supreme Court, and its connections to the Texas case.
Paul Smith, arguing for Democratic voters challenging a new congressional map in Pennsylvania, asked the high court to limit gerrymandering, a practice in which district lines are redrawn to overwhelmingly favor one party.Smith also is fighting that battle for Democrats in Texas whose representatives earlier this year fled the state twice as Republican lawmakers worked to pass a redistricting plan that would give the GOP a majority in the state's congressional delegation.
Unlike the Pennsylvania case, however, the Texas Democrats also have alleged racial gerrymandering, accusing Republicans of trying to dilute the voting strength of Hispanics and blacks in violation of constitutional and federal Voting Rights Act protections.
Republicans counter that any impact on minority voters in Texas is unintentional. The state Legislature's goal, they say, was not to exclude minorities or diminish their voting power, which would be illegal, but merely to create a map favorable to Republicans, which is legal.
Smith said a three-judge federal court in Austin will be asked to halt the implementation of the new Texas map until the high court offers guidance in the Pennsylvania case. The old map would then be in place in the 2004 elections.
Failing that, he said, Texas Democrats intend to take their case to the Supreme Court as well -- possibly by the end of the year. If Republicans lose in Texas, they also could go directly to the high court.
That case won't have a ruling for months. We ought to have boundaries for this year by then, though whether they'll be what we have in 2006 or not is anyone's guess.
I confess, I never really thought the Astros would have a shot at Andy Pettite, but it looks like I was wrong. It's a gutsy move on their part, though it does have a downside, as Pettite has benefited from a fairly pitcher-friendly park (especially for lefties) and a scoring-machine offense. You do have to admire them for the willingness to take a chance, though. I'm a diehard Yankee fan and I hate to see Pettite go, but kudos to the Stros on this.
Meanwhile, John Lopez goes one for three in his effort to say something useful about this.
It looks like Pettitte will get his last hurrah at home, feel the love and be a success, given the battery of big bats surrounding him and the fact he remains in his prime.
The Astros have a good offense, but it's not any better than the Yankees'. Houston was fourth in the NL in runs scored last year with 805 while the Yankees were third in the AL with 877. Some of the Yankees' total can be attributed to the DH, while the Astros get a boost from their tiny ballpark. I'd be a little worried about a drop in production in Houston, though, mostly due to age. Craig Biggio is on his last legs, and Jeff Bagwell is not the basher he once was, either. Especially if the Stros dump Richard Hidalgo (who had the best OPS on the team in 2003) and Jeff Kent loses more time to injury than he did in this year, they'll have some big holes in the lineup.
That short porch in left field at Minute Maid Park certainly could be an easy mark for the occasional fat pitch Pettitte might have gotten away with in Yankee Stadium.There's that 4.00-plus home ERA Pettitte carried in New York and the fact he is not a strikeout pitcher. He gets outs by being a control man who keeps the ball in play. Here, some of those outs could well spell trouble.
The first part is correct. Pettite did benefit from pitching in Yankee Stadium, and he may well find himself cursing the Crawford Boxes on a regular basis. However, the "not a strikeout pitcher" comment is false, at least as far as recent history goes. Pettite had 180 Ks last year, which ranked him sixth in the American League. His 7.78 strikeouts per nine innings last year was the best of his career, while his 3.60 K/BB ratio was the second best. Both rates have improved markedly over the past three years, something which has no doubt helped him as the Yankees' defense has gotten steadily worse.
But never mind that. I have to tip my cap to Drayton McLane and Gerry Hunsicker for making a splash. (If only they were this aggressive in upgrading other positions.) I just better not hear about poverty and red ink next year, OK?
Richard Morrison's website now has my interview linked from his news page. There are a couple of other articles about him and his campaign, but something in this story caught my eye.
“We’ll be mounting an aggressive re-election campaign as always,” Jonathan Grella said. “Congressman DeLay clearly has been an advocate for his district for several years and is clearly in a position to deliver on its priorities.”Grella said a Democrat will have a tough time beating DeLay. In 2002, Republican challenger Michael Fjetland drew just 20 percent of the vote in the primary, but still took more votes than Tim Riley, who won the Democratic primary that year.
Oh, really?
Vote Total %
Tom DeLay REP* 100,024 63.12%
Tim Riley DEM* 55,570 35.07%
March 2002 Republican primary results:
Vote Total %
TOM DELAY 22,179 79.79%
MIKE FJETLAND 5,619 20.21%
Don't know if the error is Jonathan Grella's or the reporters, but jeez, how hard is it to check that?
One other item to keep in mind:
But this is what he's up against: As of Sept. 30, DeLay had already raised $810,000 for his 2004 campaign. If he had to, he could easily surpass the $1.2 million he spent to beat lightly regarded Democrat Tim Riley in 2002, when DeLay won with 63 percent.
So, you know. Help if you can.
UPDATE: Byron and RiceGrad have both pointed out in the comments that the comparison was between Fjetland's and Riley's primary totals, not primary-to-general as I had read it. Fair enough, though given the generally lousy turnout for primaries I still think it's not a useful comparison. Nonetheless, I should have read that more carefully. Thanks for the correction.
This Statesman article about the Tom DeLay PAC Texans for a Republican Majority (TRM) and the grand jury investigation into its dealings doesn't really cover any new ground but does give a good overall picture of the PAC and its history. Given that the article's subhead is "Prosecutors are looking at how corporate money was spent", one might have expected a quote or two from an actual member of the Travis County DA's office, but whatever.
We Report, You Decide:
State law prohibits corporations or labor unions from making political expenditures, but their money may be used to establish a political action committee and to pay its administrative costs.At issue before the grand jury is whether some of the activities that DeLay's group used corporate money to pay for — polling, screening candidates and fund raising — were part of the committee's administrative costs or political expenditures for candidates.
[...]
[Jim Ellis, who runs DeLay's Americans for a Republican Majority] and [TRM Executive Director John] Colyandro say prosecutors will find that Texans for a Republican Majority didn't do anything other Texas political action committees haven't done. But in a printed pitch to corporate donors, DeLay's committee promised corporations more bang for their bucks.
"Unlike other organizations, your corporate contribution to (Texans for a Republican Majority) will be put to productive use," the pamphlet read. "Rather than just paying for overhead, your support will fund a series of productive and innovative activities designed to increase our level of engagement in the political arena."
The committee promised to use the corporate donations for "active candidate evaluation and recruitment, monitoring of campaign progress, message development and communications, market research, and issue development."
Emphasis mine. I guess it all depends on what the definition of "administrative costs" is.
The latest Scripps Howard Texas Poll is out, and it shows some interesting numbers for the top Republican politicians in the state.
Out of a sample of Texans identifying themselves as Republican primary voters, 45 percent said they would vote for [Senator Kay Bailey] Hutchison for governor if the Republican primary were held now.Forty-one percent said they would vote for [Governor Rick] Perry, 1 percent said they would prefer another candidate, and 13 percent were undecided. The sample of 393 people had a margin of error of plus or minus 4.9 percentage points.
Sixty-eight percent of the same group, however, said they would vote for Perry if [Comptroller Carole Keeton] Strayhorn were the challenger. Some 17 percent backed Strayhorn, while the remainder were either undecided or preferred another candidate.
[Lt. Gov. David] Dewhurst led Strayhorn, 44 percent to 28 percent, in a hypothetical race for the Republican nomination for lieutenant governor, which also won't be on the ballot until 2006.
The telephone survey was conducted Nov. 14 through Dec. 6 by the Scripps Howard Research Center.
OK, so from this we learn that KBH is Really Really Popular, Perry is Sorta Popular, and Strayhorn is Not As Popular As She Thinks She Is. The jury is still out on Dewhurst, who I'd bet would have been stomped like a grape at a vineyard in a head-to-head with Hutchison. I think this lends some small amount of credence to the notion that Strayhorn might switch parties in order to run for Governor. A 68-17 margin is not something you can reasonably hope to overcome in a primary, but a Democrat who can split off 20-25% of the GOP vote in a general ought to be a winner. Of course, her deficit against Dewhurst is manageable, so she could choose to challenge him in the primary instead. Or hey, just maybe she'll stay put as Comptroller. Stranger things have happened.
As for the possible KBH/Perry smackdown, SMU prof Cal Jillson tosses off a sound bite in the DMN.
"I see her as the strongest Republican in Texas right now," said Mr. Jillson. "Perry divides people. He's been essentially flat over the last year, whereas Kay has been trending up. That suggests Kay has real strength should she decide to make that move."[...]
According to the survey, Texans give Mr. Perry mixed marks on the job he is doing as governor – 46 percent saying he's doing an excellent or good job and 44 percent saying he's only fair or poor.
By contrast, Ms. Hutchison's job approval is 62 percent. A quarter of voters give her low marks.
[...]
"I take Rick Perry to be a placeholder," said Mr. Jillson. "He moved up when Bush went to Washington. He has never really established himself in the minds of Texas voters or even Republicans in a warm and positive way.
"He's there, he's doing fine, he's fighting the fight," he said. "But there are others like Hutchison who have a more positive feel among Republicans and more crossover."
Previous surveys have shown equally mediocre approval numbers for Perry as well, so I think Jillson's statement is accurate. Whatever else you can say about Perry, people don't like him the way they liked George W. Bush.
And speaking of our former Governor, the DMN has some numbers on him, too.
The survey also found that President Bush, who has always enjoyed high approval ratings in Texas, has seen his numbers slip to 58 percent. Forty-one percent disapprove of Mr. Bush's job as president.The latest numbers mark a seven-point drop in Mr. Bush's approval among Texans since August and a 13-point drop since June, according to the survey.
I don't have the numbers in front of me, but I'd be willing to bet that that 41% disapproval rating is the highest ever recorded for Bush here. I'd also be willing to bet that the partisan breakdown of his numbers is now much more in line with the rest of the country. Texas' electoral votes are comfortably in Bush's pocket, but there might be some room for Congressional candidates to run against him. It'd be nice to see the Democratic candidate do some campaigning here as a turnout-booster, if nothing else.
There was an interesting article in the Chron recently about Christmas music and how there have been almost no songs added to the popular canon in the past 20 or so years. One bit caught my eye:
Sure, there are plenty of carols, the religious songs of the season; some of those date back centuries. And lots of good secular tunes and novelty songs. There are just no up-and-coming standards of tomorrow.Experts say that's because music styles have shifted from lyrics-based ballads to upbeat dance music. Composers have a hard time getting big names to record new pieces. And publishers just aren't interested in sentimental holiday songs anymore.
Even the well-known tunes of the "golden age" of holiday music, the 1940s, "probably wouldn't make it with the flavor-of-the-day corporate mentality that exists out there today," said James Richliano, author of Angels We Have Heard: The Christmas Song Stories, which details the history of many.
[...]
Also, we don't have a common music culture in America anymore, said N. Lee Orr, coordinator of music history and literature at Georgia State University in Atlanta. "We don't have a music that binds us together the way swing or Frank Sinatra did," Orr said.
Now there's rock 'n' roll, hip-hop, rap, country, techno, Latin, funk, folk, gospel, jazz, New Age and international -- the list goes on.
Well, not to put too fine a point on it, but the reason for the "common music culture" of the 1930s-50s was the fact that there was a dominant culture in America overall, one which was white middle-class suburban. The music reflected that culture, and the market catered to it. There was plenty of other styles of music that reflected the less dominant cultures - blues, country, and bluegrass, to name three - but the marketplace was not conducive to their reaching an audience outside of their cultures. The splintering of popular music into multiple genres is a natural outgrowth of opportunity and diversity, and if it means there won't be an "(I'm Dreaming of A) White Christmas" of my generation, I consider that to be a small price to pay.
Meanwhile, PG talks about Christmas music that she likes here and here. The CDs that always make it into my player at this time of year include the Asylum Street Spankers' A Christmas Spanking, the Squirrel Nut Zippers' Christmas Caravan, Asleep At The Wheel's Merry Texas Christmas, Y'all!, and the soundtrack to A Charlie Brown Christmas. I suppose one of these years I ought to check and see what else is out there, but any new CD will be hard pressed to displace one of those four.
Of course, there's plenty of Christmas music to hate, which the Crooked Timber folks have been talking about. I don't really have a strong dislike for any one song, but there are a few, mostly the longer and more repetitive ones ("The Little Drummer Boy", "Deck The Halls", "The Twelve Days of Christmas") that I can do without. I must say, I'm in awe of this list of bad Christmas songs, put together by a guy who obviously knows his stuff. "Even Squeaky Fromme Likes Christmas"? "Amazing Grace" performed by Donald Duck? We are not worthy.
Finally, no discussion of Christmas music is complete without a reference to this story about Mel Torme and some clueless carolers.
Plaintiffs in the federal lawsuit aimed at stopping the Texas redistricting have asked the court to delay the start of the trial until after the Justice Department has finished its review.
The department has until Dec. 22 to complete its review.U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Patrick Higginbotham -- one of three judges hearing lawsuit challenges to the redistricting plan -- last month said a trial would proceed even if Justice had not ruled.
Higginbotham said the court could withhold its own ruling pending the Justice Department action.
But Jose Garza, a lawyer for the League of United Latin American Citizens, at a pretrial hearing Tuesday told Higginbotham and Judge John Ward of Marshall that the new redistricting plan has no force of law until after it has received Justice Department pre-clearance.
"There is no valid plan on the ground," Garza said. "If there is no pre-clearance by Thursday, we would seriously urge the court to put off the trial."
Higginbotham received permission from the parties in the lawsuit to contact Justice officials to ask when they might rule.
Justice Department spokesman Jorge Martinez declined to comment on how quickly the review will be done.
"We're not going to have a comment on that. Our process is the same regardless of any court proceeding," Martinez said.
J. Gerald Hebert, a lawyer representing Democrats, said he would ask the court to halt the trial if Justice officials find fault with even a single district in the plan. He said there is not enough time before the primaries in March for the court to redraw districts to fix problems in the map.
Andy Taylor, a private lawyer representing the state, said Hebert was "putting the cart before the horse" because there has been no ruling from Justice.
Taylor said that even if there are Justice Department objections to the map, the federal court would have the legal authority to redraw those portions of the redistricting plan to fix the problems.
On the one hand, you'd think waiting until the Justice Department ruled would be desireable for both sides. If the word comes down that the map is a total crock, or conversely if the answer is that it's perfect in every way, then one side or the other would seem to have a bolstered case. Of course, waiting for Justice makes it much more likely that the new map cannot be used this time around. That obviously works to the plaintiffs' favor, so here we are.
Lawyers for both sides said the trial will take about seven days, predicting a finish around Dec. 19.
Once the action does start, we won't have to wait too long to see how it ends. I don't know about you, but until then the suspense is killing me.
UPDATE: Here's a good article on the Pennsylvania case, which is set to get underway tomorrow. Via The Agonist.
Received in the mail today: A postcard from the Adrian Garcia campaign which said "We're tired of late attacks" on one side and which had a message from Houston Police Officers' Union President Hans Martuciuc on the other defending Garcia's police record. Fortunately for Garcia and his supporters, this is now just something to chuckle about.
I haven't seen anyone else mention this, so I'll note that a new federal building has just opened in Oklahoma City to replace the one that was destroyed by the terrorist Timothy McVeigh.
OKLAHOMA CITY - A new Oklahoma City federal building with shatterproof glass, a steel-plated main entrance and concrete plugs outside opened on Monday, 8 1/2 years after the bombing that killed 168 people.Two dozen employees of the Small Business Administration settled into their new offices, the first tenants of the building, which is kitty-corner from the site where the Alfred P. Murrah Building once stood and a block from the memorial to the dead.
Eleven agencies are scheduled to move in over the next several months. Workers were still putting the finishing touches on the fountain and walkways.
SBA employee Cindi Anderson, a 39-year-old single mother, was nervous about the move until she toured the building and saw its security features.
"With everything going on in the world, it's a little bit scary, but I'm more comfortable now," she said.
Others were excited about getting their own private offices, a rarity in government service, said Dorothy Overal, district SBA director.
Her assistant, Jerry Reese, said it was important to rebuild after the bombing as a show of resolve: "If we didn't do it, the terrorists win."
The SBA had no offices in the Murrah Building, which was destroyed by a truck bomb driven by Timothy McVeigh on April 19, 1995. He was executed in 2001.
The three-story, horseshoe-shaped building was built at a cost of $33 million.
The main entrance is enclosed in three-quarter-inch-thick, floor-to-ceiling steel plates. The building is set back from the street, and its windows are specially treated so they will not shatter in an explosion. Waist-high concrete plugs are designed to prevent vehicles from getting too close.
Still, its proximity to the Murrah site prompted several employees of the Department of Housing and Urban Development to say they do not want to move into the building.
About half of HUD's current 103 employees worked in the Murrah building. HUD lost 35 employees in the bombing and is the biggest agency making the move. HUD officials in Washington have said they are making special arrangements for employees who refuse to move into the building.
No law enforcement agencies will be based in the new building for fear this could make it a target.
The building is to be dedicated next May. No name for it has been announced.
Federal agencies have been scattered throughout Oklahoma City since the bombing. SBA employees had moved out of the nine-story Murrah building five months before the attack and had been using leased space until Monday.
Matthew Madison, district manager for the General Services Administration, said this is the first federal building, other than a courthouse, built in the United States in more than 15 years.
"It has the greatest possible technology enhancements available," he said.
Other agencies moving in are the Food and Drug Administration, the Social Security Administration, the Department of Agriculture, Veterans Affairs, General Services Administration and offices for the Army and Marines.
I'm glad to hear of it. May the new building's occupants know peace and security while they are there.
Here's something for your Christmas list this year.
If you're shopping for a stocking stuffer or an early Christmas present for yourself, you could do a lot worse than a new little book called A Christmas Story.That's A Christmas Story as in the now-classic movie, which was released 20 years ago.
The book isn't the screenplay, though, and it includes only one movie photo -- a dust-jacket shot of Ralphie, the kid whose wish for a Red Ryder BB gun meets the universal warning, "You'll shoot your eye out, kid!"
Better than that, however, it collects the source material by Jean Shepherd, the movie's narrator, co-producer and screenwriter, who has a cameo role as a grouch in a department-store Santa line.
It's described on the cover as "the book that inspired the hilarious classic film," and the introductory publisher's note describes Shepherd's work as "autobiographical essays."
As the article notes, those two statements aren't exactly accurate, but no matter. The book has all of the source material for the movie, and that's good enough for me. Check it out.
The Texas redistricting lawsuit gets underway this week in federal court.
"This could become a landmark case if the three federal judges approve the proposed map. ... It will be the largest disenfranchisement of minority voters since Dr. (Martin Luther) King secured passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965," said J. Gerald Hebert, a lawyer representing Texas' Democratic congressional delegation.But Andy Taylor, the state's outside counsel, argues that any impact on minority voters is incidental to the Legislature's goal of creating a Republican map.
"(The plan) is not an unconstitutional racial gerrymander," Taylor said in a brief to the court. "The evidence will show that the predominant goal of the Texas Legislature was to craft, within the confines of the Voting Rights Act, a plan that increases the number of districts likely to elect a Republican."
[...]
The state's expert witness in the redistricting case -- University of Oklahoma political scientist Keith Gaddie -- said the districts are designed to give Republicans 68 percent of the state's congressional seats even if they only receive 52 percent of the vote statewide.
Attorneys for the groups attacking the redistricting plan are focusing on four main areas:
· A claim that the U.S. Constitution only allows a state to redistrict congressional seats once a decade, which occurred in Texas when the court acted in 2001. The Colorado Supreme Court upheld that principle based on Colorado law last week.
· Contentions that the Texas redistricting plan is a partisan gerrymandering that violates the U.S. Constitution. The U.S. Supreme Court is hearing a Pennsylvania case on Wednesday that could set the standard on how far partisan gerrymanders can go in eliminating competitive elections.
· Claims that the Republican map violates minority voting rights in districts where minority voters are a majority of the population, particularly in Dallas and South Texas. The proposed map splits minority communities between districts so they cannot impact the outcome of an election.
· And an argument that in other areas of the state, such as Beaumont, minority voters were split between districts so they could not influence election results. These are districts in which minorities make up less than half of the district population but their vote has provided the winning margin in past elections.
Robert Notzon, a lawyer for the NAACP, said this involves seven districts in which African-Americans and Hispanics vote in sufficient numbers to swing the election.
"Every one of the African-American influence districts is gone (in the Republican map)," Notzon said.
The story notes that the Justice Department will make a ruling about whether or not the map violates the Voting Rights Act sometime between now and December 22. There's a graphic in the print version of the story which notes that in addition to the Texas case, which begins Thursday if as expected there is no summary judgment given, the Supreme Court will hear arguments in the Pennsylvania redistricting case Vieth v. Jubelirer (some background can be found here). Carlos Guerra also has a good overview of the timeline of current events. We should know fairly soon whether the 2001 map, for which candidates are currently being told to file, or the 2003 map will be in place next year. Note that even if the 2001 map is in place next year, it could still wind up being replaced for the 2006 elections.
I had the chance recently to sit down with Richard Morrison, who will be running against Tom DeLay in the 22nd Congressional District if the old map remains in place. I have a good feeling about him as a person and as a candidate, and I believe that if he can get sufficient funding, he can mount a decent challenge to DeLay. If after reading this interview you feel the same way and would like to help support such a challenge, you can click here to make a donation to Richard's campaign.
The full text of the interview is under the More link. Once the redistricting lawsuit is resolved, I hope to have another chance to talk to Richard about his campaign.
UPDATE: Of interest is this op-ed by Linda Curtis of Independent Texans, in which she indicates that two-time DeLay primary challenger Michael Fjetland might run against him as an independent in 2004.
UPDATE: Greg Wythe has some excellent thoughts on how to approach this campaign. Check it out.
Charles Kuffner: Tell me a little bit about yourself, your background.
Richard Morrison: Well, I’m a native Texan. I don’t know how far back you want me to go, but I was born in east Texas, Longview. I grew up in Liberty, Texas, which is not too far from there. I graduated from Liberty High School, attended Baylor University, got my major in philosophy. And after I graduated from Baylor, I went to South Texas Law School.
CK: That’s where my father-in-law went. What kind of law do you practice?
RM: Currently I’m practicing environmental law.
CK: What does that mean?
RM: Well, I spent the last seven years working with Blackburn & Carter. And Jim Blackburn’s office is probably one of the…not probably, it is the foremost plaintiffs’ environmental kind of a public interest law firm in the state if not in the country.
CK: All right. He’s the guy who’s suing on behalf of the Katy Corridor Coalition.
RM: Correct. And also on behalf of a bunch of different groups down at Bayport and Seabrook.
CK: Were you involved in that litigation at all?
RM: It’s a three-person office, so everybody is involved in everything.
CK: So you’ve just gone out on your own?
RM: Yeah, that’s right. Now I’m going out on my own. I have an office in Sugar Land. I wish I could give myself a free plug, but I can’t remember the phone number.
CK: Hah! That’s all right.
RM: But, I’d like to stick to doing environmental law. I don’t think there’s much environmental, there’s not too many environmental problems in Fort Bend County. So I’m probably going to broaden my practice and not limit myself other than things that come in I don’t know anything about. I don’t want to screw up someone’s case.
CK: And your personal background? You’re married?
RM: Yeah, married. I’m working on the tenth year. I have four kids. I have two daughters and two boys. My oldest daughter is eight years old; her name is Haley. My oldest son is Austin, and he’s six. My next son is four, and his name is John; and the youngest is Julia, and she’s two. We’ve lived out in Sugar Land for, gosh, almost nine years now.
CK: Where did you live before Sugar Land?
RM: Well, before Sugar Land, we lived—my wife and I—we lived in an apartment right over here inside the Loop off of Fournace.
CK: Why’d you decide to move to Sugar Land?
RM: Well, we had my daughter, and we were living in a one-bedroom apartment. So it’s me and my wife and my daughter all living in the same room. And we decided that we needed to move out to Sugar Land. Well, we decided we needed a house first, and we went and looked at homes, you know, inside the Loop, but they were small and expensive, and we knew we wanted to have a bigger family, so the type of house we needed was a lot cheaper in Sugar Land. And I moved out there, and after living out there a year, I realized I had really made a mistake from the traffic standpoint.
CK: Yeah, that’s a tough commute.
RM: And it’s gotten worse as the years have gone on, and so it’s just eating me up, really.
CK: That why you relocated your law office there?
RM: That is the main reason. Before, I spent three hours a day getting from Sugar Land to my office, to my old office, and now my office is right in front of my subdivision, so it takes me five minutes.
CK: What is your background in politics? Have you worked with any political campaigns or any office holders in the past?
RM: You know, my background in politics is kinda on the fringe. I’ll say that. My dad and my mom both went to school with Mark White and Price Daniel, Jr. My dad was Price Daniel’s roommate. My mom got introduced to my dad—she went out with Gov. White in college for the first year—and after that they double-dated and my dad was along, and after that, my dad took my mom out. So I’ve been involved in those two gentlemen’s campaigns to varying degrees, you know, kinda my whole life, not really directly involved but in the fringe, you know, fundraisers and that kind of stuff.
CK: OK.
RM: So that’s my experience, I guess. It’s limited.
CK: OK. What candidates have you done fundraising for most recently or been involved in fundraising for most recently?
RM: Tony Sanchez was the last one.
CK: OK.
RM: My dad and I had a fundraising party for him. We were the hosts out at Clear Lake, my momma and ten other people or so. And that was probably the last one I have done.
CK: OK. I guess the big question for me is, why are you running? Why do you think you can win?
RM: Well, I’m running for a number of reasons. One of the reasons is you hear the old saying that says, “If you don’t vote, then you can’t complain.” All right, so I’ve voted, and I’ve voted against DeLay, but it doesn’t seem to do any good. I was really happy the last time Tim Riley ran. My dad had known him. He’s a lawyer, and he had good things to say about him, and I was pleased, because I thought Tim would do a good job. And I think he did do a good job as a candidate, but he just didn’t raise enough money to get his message out. Voting’s not good enough for me, and I just figured I would have to take matters into my own hands to try to beat DeLay. At a time in the past I would say at least on the issue of fiscal responsibility and balancing the budget, Mr. DeLay and I were driving in the same car. You know, I might’ve been in the back seat to his car wreck. Having the budget balanced and spending only what you can afford is very important to me, and it used to be important to him. But now he’s telling us, “Oh, having a deficit is OK.”
Second, the traffic problem is terrible, and all the local elected politicians, because of their constituencies, want an alternative, such as rail, and DeLay is telling them to keep your mouth shut. And so he’s just kind of abandoned the district. We don’t…he and I don’t agree on anything else other than the deficit, and we don’t even agree on that now. But he is one of the most powerful men in Washington. The guy could do something about the traffic situation in this area. He could have a grand vision and say, “All right, Houston’s got their deal. Let’s be sure they get all the money they need. And Fort Bend County, you’re one of the fastest growing counties in the country. You’ve got to get on board this; we’ve got to get some alternatives out there. We’ve got to get something set up, or you’re going to be behind the eight ball like Houston is now, and it’s going to be too late.” He could do that; it would not be a problem. Instead he chooses to go the other way, which is “roads only,” and the situation with “roads only” is you look twenty-five years down the line and they’ve built every road that they could possibly build, all their dreams, all their plans done, and the only thing you’re going to have out there is cars in traffic, still. Everything’s going to be gridlocked.
CK: Do you get the sense, from talking to any local politicians in Sugar Land, like mayors or city council people, that what you said about DeLay, that he’s out of touch with the local community, do you get the sense that they agree with that?
RM: Yes. I get the sense that they probably would not say that he’s out of touch. He’s very…you think “in touch” of a guy who’s saying, “OK, let’s let the local people decide”, especially since that’s been one of his platforms. You know, that’s what he used to run on. That’s the big, conservative mantra, you know. Well, that would mean the mayor of Sugar Land or the county commissioners would call him up and say, “Congressman DeLay, we really need rail down here. People are screaming for it. We really need it.” “All right, let me get down there, and let’s see what we can do and work with it.” But that would mean to be in touch. His “in touch” is, “Yeah, I’m in touch, but I’m in touch like a prison guard.” Which is, “I know everything that’s going on, but I’m telling you how it’s going to be run. You don’t talk about rail; you don’t bring it up; we’re not going to do it until I say we’re going to do it.” So he’s in touch, but it’s a kind of negative “in touch.”
But again, I know the mayor of Stafford just is really frustrated with what’s going on ’cause he’s going to feel it worst soonest because he’s right in that buffer zone between the growing rural area, suburbs, and Houston. I know the county commissioners…there are a lot of Republican elected officials out there that are very frustrated with what’s going on.
CK: But do you believe that you can take their frustration and turn it into support for you?
RM: But the reason why they’re frustrated, the reason why they’re feeling the pinch is because their constituents are the ones that are telling them, “What the hell’s going on with this? How come don’t we get rail? What’s the problem? How come we’re always seeing roads?”
CK: So you believe you can get the support from the people?
RM: I believe I can, but it’s going to take…see, it’s going to take me getting my message out.
CK: That’s the next question. What is your strategy for getting your message out?
RM: Well, first let me tell you why I’ve got to get it out. If I just have the label, “Richard Morrison, Democrat,” all right, then everyone out there that kind of thinks the Rush Limbaugh way, which is “If this guy’s a Democrat, then we’re electing Ted Kennedy.” Ted Kennedy’s not going to get anything out of there, and so I have to be able to get the message out that, “Yeah, I’m a Democrat, but I’m really your neighbor, and I’m just like you.” Those people are Democrats; they just don’t know it.
I went to this deal the other day with the teachers, when they were protesting at DeLay. There were all these ladies coming up there, these three really nice ladies, the Fort Bend County Democratic Women, they’re like a hundred years old, three of them. They were, like, “Oh, we’d like for you to come and speak.” And I said, “I’d love to speak.” And these three or four soccer moms walked up, and they said, “We’re registered Republicans, but can we come to your meeting?” And so they all think they’re Republicans, because that’s the hip thing to be, you know, and that’s where all the rich guys are and all that, but really they’re just Democrats and they don’t know it, ’cause their rights are getting trampled on, they just don’t realize it. And they think, “Oh, the Republicans are going to take care of us.” Well, I’m not sure that’s true. But the way to get that message out is you have to be able to raise a lot of money and spend it. And Chris Bell, I talked to his campaign before I even started this process, and they told me that he raised 1.2 million and spent all that to get elected. Well, I realized that he had great name recognition from running for mayor the year before, two years before.
CK: 2001.
RM: Right. But I figured just to run a good, competitive campaign, I’m going to need to raise at least a million dollars and spend it all. You know: mailings. We haven’t had in the budget TV, but you know it’s almost not cost effective because you’re advertising to people over in Liberty County, and they can’t vote for you anyway even if they like you. But we may have to do that just to get the name out. But we’ve been talking to people. I bet I’ve got twenty phone calls from different people in Bill White’s campaign that really are excited about helping me. And so we’d like to try to use Bill White’s campaign as a model. Keep it real positive, talk about a new vision, just get some people out there to recognize it and realize, “Hey, this guy, I mean, he goes to church with me. He’s my next-door neighbor. He doesn’t believe anything different than what we believe in. He’s willing to go up there to Washington and say, ‘Look, this is what we need. Let’s do it.’” And I think if I can get that message out, then people will vote. But if not, you know, if you just go out there, and that’s why Tim—I mean, he’s a great guy—but he didn’t get the message out that he was a great guy, and they only saw…a lot of them just saw “Tim Riley, Democrat,” and that’s a death sentence.
CK: Have you gotten support from, like, the national party, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and any of the other statewide Democratic politicians in Texas?
RM: The answer to that question is yes and no. We have talked to all those people. I think I’ve called every elected Democrat in the state. I’ve called a lot of the national people. I’ve called the D Triple C; we’ve talked to everybody over there, and here’s the deal. You know how the things are going, with redistricting. Nick Lampson is, you know, his district is gone. What I’m hearing from these people is if the new districts go forward, he is going to move to District 22 and run against Tom DeLay. Heck yeah. So if the new map goes through, Congressman Lampson is, I don’t want to say—it’s not a dead cinch lock—but I would say he’s strongly considering it, moving into twenty-two and running against Tom DeLay.
Now all those people I talked to, all the guys that are kind of what I would call “professional givers” to the Democratic Party, all tell me, “Morrison, you guys are doing a great job. Everyone’s talking about you, but there’s this possibility that Lampson’s going to run; and if Lampson runs, we’re going to have to support him.” And I’ve actually told Congressman Lampson, “If you run, you call me first, and I will withdraw immediately.” And he said that he appreciated that. He said if he does not run, then we’re behind you. Well, I’ve got commitments for all these professional givers to, you know, work with me in that event.
CK: And on the presumption that the new boundaries are overturned?
RM: Overturned and/or there could be a preliminary injunction granted to keep the old boundaries all the way up until it’s decided out of the Supreme Court.
CK: In that case, then you believe you would have the support from the D Triple C and the state politicians.
RM: As far as from what everyone’s telling me, if that occurs then everyone is going to get behind me.
CK: OK
RM: Now they’re just hedging their bets because, you know…
CK: Yeah. Besides the deficit and transportation, what else would you plan on highlighting in your campaign?
RM: Well, the main issue I wanted to see highlighted—and this is kind of talking about all of them, it comes up in many of them—where has Mr. DeLay been, you know? He’s just abandoned the district for his own effort to raise up his own political prominence, I guess. Especially under that title, you know, I want to be able to talk about—besides the two you’ve mentioned—I want to be able to talk about education. A thing that’s concerning my neighbors out there is that this, “no child left behind” you have to take a test every five grades or four grades, or whatever it is, to pass, so they take away a lot of the curriculum, the normal curriculum is taken away. They teach less history, they teach less science, they teach less math, they teach less language, they teach less of the things that the parents want their kids to learn so they can teach them rotely how to pass this test. And they do that because the school districts that succeed on that test get the money from the federal government, and my neighbors hate that. They do not like their kids being taught that way because they think their kids aren’t really learning anything other than how to pass some stupid test. And they actually…I’ve actually seen the papers that they send home. It’s just a page out of the test that they send home, and they just do the test, and they spend, you know, weeks and weeks just doing pages out of the test. And that needs to be changed. I know everyone says, “Well, how can the federal government help education locally when clearly the federal government right now is hurting it locally, and that needs to stop.” DeLay wants to do away with the education agency totally, so I feel like I’m aiming for the middle.
Clearly clean air is an issue. Houston’s air is not getting any cleaner, and that’s just because the politicians are not wanting to do, I guess swallow the bitter pill and make all industry accountable to clean the air. And I would like to see that taken care of. That’s kind of my whole issues.
CK: OK.
RM: There may be other ones as they come up, but I’d say those are good to start with. I don’t want to have six hundred issues.
CK: Right. That’s just going to confuse people.
RM: There’s probably six hundred out there, though (laughs).
CK: True. Do you have a strategy for using the Internet as part of your campaign and what is it?
RM: Well, you’re certainly a part of it (laughs). Yes, we have set up a Web site. You can contribute online at that Web site. We are encouraging people to give us emails. We are encouraging people to contact us through email. I am telling those people that if they do that, I would like to get in and Nathan [Wilcox, his campaign consultant] is trying to set this up for me very much like yours, like a blog where I can go back and respond to them—not all the time, but some of the time. At first, I can respond to all of them, so if you get on early, you can get some questions answered. We are encouraging people who have lists, you know, lists that may say, “Hey, we want to help your campaign, but we have a list of friends that you email to,” so that we could get those and send out emails and do that. That’s where we are. I know Nathan knows a little bit more about that than I do, but I’m very hopeful that the email campaign, or that the online presence will benefit, much like Howard Dean. I know he’s really good at it.
CK: OK. I think what has made Dean stand out in terms of Internet campaigning has been that he’s built a community, it’s not just another means for getting a message out, it’s enabling people to feel like they’re a part of something.
RM: Right, right. And that’s something that we very much want to do in this campaign. I know that some of the things that Dean’s done is, you know, saying, well, someone, they’re emailing or on the blog site or whatever and they’re saying, “Gosh, we’d like to see Gov. Dean do this.” And pretty soon he’ll say, “Yeah, OK, I’ll do that. That sounds good.” So it makes them feel like they’re contributing to what’s going on, and that’s something that I’d like to do. I mean, I want to get people involved any way I can, and I want to reach those people that are really kind of Internet-savvy. And I want to get…I want input so that I can give them output. I mean, I don’t want it to be one of these unapproachable type campaigns. I mean, that’s not what I’m about. I want to run this campaign…I’m not running this for me. I don’t want to be…you know, I said in a speech one time that I don’t want to be the most powerful man in Congress. I just want to go up there and represent the people of my district, and whatever they tell me to do is what I want to do. I don’t want to go up there and have all of these outsiders and all of these industry groups say, “Here. Here’s $2000. We want you to vote this way.” I don’t want to do that. I want to say, “Well, what is this about? Well, let me see constituents say about this. ’Cause I don’t want to do this just because you give me the money.” It’s just something where—and I hear this not just from my neighbors but from everybody—is that everybody in Washington is out of touch with their district. They just listen to lobbyists, and there’s no lobbyist that’s out there representing mom-and-dad suburbanites.
CK: Have you spoken to people who have run most recently against Tom DeLay? I mean, you mentioned Tim Riley, but DeLay has also had a Republican primary opponent, Michael Fjetland. You know, he hasn’t exactly, I would say, put the fear of God into DeLay, but he does draw twenty-five percent of the vote.
RM: Right. Well I haven’t spoken to him; I need to. I have talked to Tim many times. Tim and I speak frequently, so…
CK: What would Tim Riley say was the reason…his reason for not doing better than he did? Would it mostly be money?
RM: Yeah, I would think that Tim probably would say—you could call Tim and ask him—but I would think he would say probably there wasn’t enough turnout, not enough name recognition. Probably ran out of time is what Tim would say.
CK: You started your campaign kind of early. Is that one of the reasons why?
RM: Absolutely. I had spoken to—doing my calls when I was trying to decide what to do on this—I spoke to somebody who was a longtime political insider, and they said, “Look, the worst thing you can do is wait to the last second then decide. You need to start early.” And that’s why I started. Basically I started this whole deal in May [2003]. I hired Nathan in September, but I had already done a lot of calling before that trying to figure out what was going on, about the best way to go about it. So, I tried to get an early start, but this…see the way it’s working now this is hamstringing you. You know, you start early and do what you want, but then you have to end up waiting for people to make decisions on whether they’re going to run in District 22, and that kind of defeat the whole purpose. So on one level it’s very frustrating. You know, you do what they tell you to do, and then you end up you might as well not have done that. It’s really an insider’s game.
CK: Yes, it is. It very much is. I think that’s all the questions that I really had. Is there anything you would like to add?
RM: I guess there’s nothing really to add, other than, I guess, your blog, and kind of how that got started. Tell me that.
CK: OK. Turn the tables on me. The short answer is that I was reading Slate magazine online, and they had, back then, a section called “Me-zine Central.” It was, like, Mickey Kaus, Josh Marshall, Virginia Postrel. You could read those guys. And one day I was reading Virginia Postrel’s site, and she had a link to something written by a friend of mine, Ginger Stampley. So I followed that, and I saw that she had a Web log up, and I read through it all, and I spoke to her a couple of days later, and I said, “I want to do that. How do I do that?” So I got started from that. And, the funny thing is, when I started, I thought I was going to write more about sports. You just never know. It pretty quickly became apparent to me it was going to be about politics, which is funny because I really wasn’t all that political in college, somewhat but not that much.
RM: Right. How long have you been doing it?
CK: It’ll be two years on January first. Also wasn’t sure that I’d be able to keep it up that long, but, there’s interesting stuff out there.
RM: A lot to talk about.
CK: A lot to talk about. I find myself sometimes, you know, following a story as it goes along, like the whole redistricting thing, and people come to expect to see updated from me on it, even when there’s not that much to say. But it’s been fun. I’ve met some interesting people this way, you know.
RM: Just be nice to me.
CK: I don’t think there’ll be any problem with that.
RM: All right. At least the first couple of posts. You can start being pissed later on.
CK: All right.
Two top executives from the Kansas-based utility Westar have been charged with a variety of crimes related to looting the company's coffers. Nowhere in the story does it mention Westar's donations to various Tom DeLay-operated political action committees, donations that were made in hope of getting some favorable legislation passed that might have saved their sorry asses. You can read some of that history in my Scandalized! section.
John Williams has a good analysis of Bill White's mayoral victory, which he attributes to good planning, hard work, and of course, money. Williams correctly notes that the latter is an ingredient to success but by no means a guarantee:
But the political graveyards are filled with wealthy candidates who squandered millions in losing causes. Look no further than Democrat Tony Sanchez and the more than $60 million he gave to his defeat in last year's gubernatorial race.Don't forget Tom Reiser, Phil Sudan and Peter Wareing -- former congressional candidates who spent millions on a total of five losing races in recent years.
Rob Booth made the same observation with some different examples last week. I certainly agree with the analysis, but I don't think it goes far enough to answer the question "Why do some guys with tons of money win office while others become the butt of jokes?" Williams gets part of it - White had a great plan which he executed nearly flawlessly, and he worked hard to get people's votes, but there's one fact that can't be overlooked: White was running under very favorable conditions for someone like him.
Think about it. No incumbent, relatively weak opposition (though admittedly no one thought so in January), and a compatible political climate. Compare this to the Tony Sanchez campaign, where Sanchez was taking on a Republican incumbent in a Republican landscape. Rick Perry wasn't hugely popular, but he wasn't burdened with a lot of baggage, either. Same sort of thing for Tom Reiser in his attempts to oust Ken Bentsen, while Sudan was running in the same turf against a fairly well-known opponent and experienced politician in Chris Bell. Only Wareing was running for an open seat in friendly territory, but he still had a strong and experienced opponent in John Culberson.
Where White used his money to best effect, I think, was not just in getting his name out to people, but also communicating a clear and compelling reason for why he wanted to be mayor (another big failing of the Tony Sanchez campaign, by the way). When you saw a White ad, you heard him talk about transportation and city services and how he planned to make them better. Agree or disagree, you knew where he stood and what was important to him. I never got that feel from Turner or Sanchez, though I admit that's partly because White's message was loud enough to drown everyone else out. Oddly, I felt Michael Berry, the other candidate who jumped in early before dropping out, had the same kind of vision and mission. If he'd started with Sanchez's level of funding, he could have been dangerous.
Looking forward, White ought to have a reasonably favorable Council to work with. That's great and bodes very well, but it also means that there will be high expectations from the start. You get 62% of the vote and this kind of let's-be-friends talk from the Council, you better get stuff done. Greg has some before-and-after thoughts here and here.
Finally, there's this item from George Strong, in which he notes a last-second attempt by the GOP to smear White by insinuating he's got his eyes on a statewide office. As Greg noted above, that wouldn't be a surprise, but my reaction to the charge is "So what?" If White is looking towards Austin, he'd be running in 2006 at the earliest, which would be after he'd completed a full term as mayor. Given the quick turnaround between the November election and the December primary filing season, he'd either have to decline to run for reelection or announce his candidacy for something else almost immediately after winning a second term. Both of these seem extremely unlikely to me. If I were a betting man, I'd put my money on White serving three terms in City Hall, then making a statewide run in 2010, when he'll still be only 56. How he might do then will depend in great part on how he does now.
UPDATE: The Chron and Editorial Board member James Campbell offer their congratulations and advice to Bill White.
The 20 Most Annoying Conservatives of 2003, now with graphics and gratuitous Futurama references. Four stars. Chuck Bob sez "check it out".
Congratulations to the Trinity University men's soccer team for winning their first national championship! They had a tough road to the title but came through in style.
Talent and attitude helped Trinity win its first Division III national championship last Sunday over Drew (N.J.) University under difficult conditions, capping a 24-0 season.[...]
After surviving in the semifinals last Saturday on a dramatic golden goal from Chris Quinn in a 3-2 victory over Wisconsin-Oshkosh, Trinity won the title over Drew in front of 3,000 fans on a cold New Jersey day.
[...]
The San Antonio university held the No. 1 national ranking in Division III from start to finish this year and conceded only seven goals in 24 games.
[...]
After receiving a first-round bye, Trinity plowed through the University of the Ozarks, Piedmont College and California-Santa Cruz before ousting Wisconsin-Oshkosh in a battle of unbeaten teams in the semifinals. Inexplicably, the NCAA had the semifinals and final on consecutive days, making it a physical and mental battle of endurance.
Way to go, Tigers! This old alum salutes you.
Everyone takes their shots at the BCS today, from Dennis Dodd and Ivan Maisel to King Kaufman and John Lopez. I don't think the problem here is strength of schedule, though Kaufman makes a great point about how a team may be better when you play them than their end-of-season, strength-of-schedule record indicates. The problem is that all of the computer rankings have to start with some initial data that relies on assumptions about how good everyone is, a point that Lopez tries to make but is too clumsy to pull off. You can't completely remove the human element since humans designed the formulas.
I find it amusing that twice now a team that didn't win its conference has gotten to play for the national championship, and that each time it was a Big XII team at the expense of a PAC-10 team. Big XII Commissioner Kevin Weiberg obviously got a better deal for his soul than Pac Ten Commish Thomas Hansen did for his.
Ahem.
The Christmas tree decorating the Texas House chamber this year doesn't shed needles, touch off sneezing fits or create a potential fire hazard.The artificial tree, made in China of polyvinyl chloride, is 10 feet shorter than the homegrown tree put up last year.
"Oh no, oh no," reacted Lanny Dreesen, spokesman for the Texas Christmas Tree Growers Association, whose members annually produce 200,000 Christmas trees.
"I wonder if they ate plastic turkey for Thanksgiving last week," Dreesen was quoted as saying in Tuesday's San Antonio Express-News.
"We didn't kill any trees," responded Bob Richter, spokesman for House Speaker Tom Craddick. "This tree could be useful in the Texas House for 100 years."
Nadine Craddick, wife of the House speaker, accepted the donated tree from The Market, an Austin store, where a model of the tree with 3,500 lights retails for $3,395. Craddick said she accepted the tree for several reasons, adding: "We didn't say this would be forever. It was just for this year."
On Monday, workers on the House floor hung new decorations on the 15-foot flame-resistant, synthetic Oregon fir.
"It's a lot less work," Craddick said. "A real tree can dry out and shed. And I understand that in the past, sometimes bugs would come in with these trees. So we decided to try something a little bit different this year.
"You have to look very hard to tell the difference," she said.
She said she and her husband have never had a real tree in 34 years of marriage.
A towering Texas-grown tree has graced the House floor during the winter holiday season for more than two decades, said Brent Leisure, former superintendent of Bastrop State Park.
Those trees, usually harvested at an Army camp between Bastrop and Elgin, were delivered by the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department.
Last year, a 25-foot Bastrop County Eastern red cedar occupied the showcase spot in the House chamber.
Leisure called the change "a bit disappointing."
"It's a tradition," he said. "But it is the Capitol's tree."
Three real Christmas trees are being housed in the Capitol this year, including one donated by the House to be used as an Angel Tree for needy children.
There must be a lobbying group representing fake-tree manufacturers. It's the only explanation that makes sense.
You know, I don't actually like Kansas State. I don't like their coach, Bill "King Cupcake" Snyder, who'd schedule nonconference games at home against high school teams if he could. But when they can throw the entire BCS structure into a state of complete higgledy-piggledy by winning a game, I find myself pulling for them. That the game in question was the greedfest known as a conference championship game just sweetened things. Throw in the fact that they knocked one of the teams responsible for the breakup of the Southwest Conference out of a BCS bowl and you've hit the trifecta.
Put it all together and all I can say is: Way to go K-State!
UPDATE: And as a reward for getting their asses kicked on national television and dropping to #3 in the polls, Oklahoma gets to play for the national championship anyway, while the #1 Trojans get to play in the consolation game. I can hear Kevin Drum's cries of injustice from here. If this doesn't convert people to the idea of a playoff system, nothing will.
Wow. Even George Strong's projection was pessimistic. Annise Parker won by as big a margin, too, and Ron Green knocked off Bert Keller. Only Peter Brown's close loss kept this from being a clean sweep. Today was a good day.
UPDATE: It's no longer timely, but Christine has captured and posted a screenshot from a Sanchez campaign commercial in which Orlando appears to be glowing. It's pretty amusing.
Testimony on school finance reform has started, and that can mean only one thing: How can we raise taxes without making it seem like we really raised taxes? Answer: Raise taxes on select groups of individuals, such as cigarette smokers.
Danny McGoldrick, research director for the Washington, D.C.-based Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, said a $1-a-pack increase would raise $987 million in new tax revenues and save billions in long-term health care costs."This is a tremendous opportunity for the state of Texas to address its budget problems relating to education as well as to address the leading health problem in Texas, (which) is tobacco use," McGoldrick said.
But Bill Orzechowski, an anti-cigarette tax consultant, said raising the tax would increase the demand for black-market cigarettes.
"A lot of people will simply shop with their fingers over the Internet, or buy smuggled, or make cross-border shopping trips," said Orzechowski.
He agreed that raising the tax by $1 would result in a drop in consumption by 25 percent.
The testimony came on the second day of a hearing by a legislative committee trying to find new revenue options to fund public schools.
The committee also heard about various new business taxes, a statewide property tax and a personal income tax.
The committee wants to replace some of the $14.6 billion raised through local school property taxes.
I've addressed this before, and my position hasn't changed. Until our leaders have the guts to address the big picture and all available options, we'll keep finding more second class citizens to stick it to.
One of my readers just sent me a note saying he's been spammed by some outfit that referenced a blog post of mine in which he'd left a comment, of which his email address was a part. I hate spam, and I hate being even tangentially responsible for someone getting spammed, so I want to do what I can to prevent this from happening. My questions are:
1. Is there a way to prevent webcrawlers from scanning comments? I don't want to keep search engines out, but if blocking them from comments is the only way to achieve this, then that's what I'll do.
2. In the case of this particular spammer, is there anything I can do to prevent them from accessing my site?
3. Any other obvious things I should be doing but probably am not?
Thanks!
The 2003 election season comes to a close today. Look on the bright side: even if your candidates lose, at least you won't be getting any more campaign mailers (six for me yesterday) or phone calls (three yesterday, two recorded and one live). Well, at least not until the primaries in March. Whatever, get out there and vote!
So you've probably heard about the strongarm tactics used on Rep. Nick Smith (R, Michigan) to vote for the godawful Medicare bill. To recap, as Robert Novak reported:
On the House floor, Nick Smith was told business interests would give his son $100,000 in return for his father's vote. When he still declined, fellow Republican House members told him they would make sure Brad Smith never came to Congress. After Nick Smith voted no and the bill passed, [Rep.] Duke Cunningham of California and other Republicans taunted him that his son was dead meat.
The basic details of the story have since been confirmed by Rep. Smith's spokesman, which led Timothy Noah to note that this was a direct violation of federal law regarding bribery:
[A person commits bribery if he or she] directly or indirectly, corruptly gives, offers or promises anything of value to any public official or person who has been selected to be a public official, or offers or promises any public official or any person who has been selected to be a public official to give anything of value to any other person or entity, with intent to influence any official act. …
The story is now getting some national attention, with formal complaints filed with the Justice Department by the Campaign Legal Center and DNC Chair Terry McAuliffe (PDF, but read it anyway, it's pretty scathing). The Detroit Free Press is urging Smith to come clean as well.
Not too unexpectedly, Smith is now backing away from what he said, though Noah notes that Smith's own web page still mentions "bribes and special deals" and "offers of extensive financial campaign support" for his son Brad Smith. The Justice Department says it's investigating, but I have about as much faith as McAuliffe that John Ashcroft's lackeys will find anything. Still, I'll be watching and hoping I'm proven wrong.
Ginger reports on being a mole at a pro-life rally last night. For the record, I'm the unnamed friend who accompanied her. I have just a few things to add to her excellent account of the event:
- The politician from the second video segment was State Senator Tommie Williams (R, The Woodlands). Hearing him rhapsodize about helping "society's most vulnerable members" and all that the 78th Lege did for them was enough to make me want to barf.
- I confess that when David Bereit went on his digression about blogging and mentioned that someone had posted Chris Danze's phone number and that this person was in the very room, my heart was pounding. I relaxed when he said that said person was attempting unsuccessfully to videotape the event, but it still took a few minutes for me to fully calm down. For what it's worth, Bereit said that Danze had received about 20 calls, and that he himself had gotten one.
- I believe that everyone who considers himself or herself a libertarian and who tends to vote Republican because they think that party has a better record on civil liberties should check Jim Sedlak's schedule and hear him speak the next time he's in town. After he's finished ranting about homosexuality, Internet pornography, "uninhibited sex", the Communications Decency Act, library filters, Griswold v. Connecticut, and the "penumbra of the Constitution", ask yourself if you might be voting for the same candidates as he and if this really is the best way to represent your own interests.
- Speaking of Internet porn, the moment when I had the hardest time keeping a straight face was when Sedlak claimed that the CDA would have kept porn off the Internet. The modern world is such a confusing place, is it not?
- The spitting hatred that Sedlak and Bereit had for Planned Parenthood was astonishing to me, and I say that as someone who's done clinic defense and patient escorting. They're such obvious nutballs, though, that I can't say I fear their influence on mainstream America. It's guys like Chris Danze, who was a very effective low-key speaker who came across as a trustworthy person with a mission, that worry me.
Anyway. It was an interesting and in its way enlightening evening, even if I felt the need to wash my brain out with soap afterwards.
UPDATE: The outed blogger was indeed Gunther, who has his own recap of the evening and quite a bit more on the speakers. Start at that link and work your way down. Also, via Byron, here's an update on the clinic whose construction was obstructed by Danze.
UPDATE: Just as an FYI, any comments which refer to me as a "baby killer" or the like will be deleted, and the commenter's IP address banned. I expect that will only be the case for drive-bys.
You may recall Tom DeLay's new "charity", Celebrations for Children, which was set up with the dual purpose of raising funds for children and Republicans and which has been roundly criticized as a sham and a campaign-finance law dodge. Now two of the harsher critics have asked the IRS to investigate.
Two campaign finance watchdog groups complained to the Internal Revenue Service yesterday that House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) is using a tax-exempt charity as "a scheme . . . to allow him to raise and spend unlimited 'soft money' funds for political activities" during the Republican convention next summer in New York.DeLay plans to hold a series of convention-week fundraising events for Celebrations for Children Inc., a charity for abused and neglected children. A 13-page brochure describes the benefits that donors would receive depending on the size of their gifts to the group.
For a donor in the $500,000 "Upper East Side" category, for example, benefits include being named a sponsor at private dinners with DeLay before and after the convention and at other events, the opportunity to bring nine friends to a special golf tournament, 12 tickets to a Broadway show, 25 tickets to "the Members reception before/during/after Presidential acceptance speech" and a private yacht cruise "w/TD" [with Tom DeLay].
The complaint by Democracy 21 and the Campaign Legal Center alleged that "DeLay, Republican officeholders and candidates and Republican party officials will receive systematic opportunities to meet and network with wealthy individuals, corporate officials, lobbyists and other donors in an inherently partisan political environment. . . . They will also have opportunities to solicit contributions from these donors for the 2004 elections."
"Representative DeLay is using the nation's charity tax laws and the pretext of helping children as a cynical cover," said Democracy 21 President Fred Wertheimer, one of the two complainants.
Glen Shor, a lawyer with the Campaign Legal Center, said: "The IRS must not allow the tax exemption for charities to serve as a shelter for a political operation."
You can find the complaint and a bunch of background on this here on Democracy 21's website. The Campaign Legal Center's piece is here. Both also have a link to a copy of the CfC brochure for your perusal.
An item in the wire report of this story puzzles me a bit.
The goal is for 75 percent of the money raised by the convention events to go to the children's charity, says Craig Richardson, executive director of the group created by DeLay. A number of mainstream charities spend less than that for programs.
So does that last sentence mean that mainstream charities have lower overhead and thus can give more than 75% of their proceeds to their stated purpose, or vice versa? I believe it's the former, since CfC has some obviously big expenses (though I'd be willing to bet its staff gets their salaries from other groups), but I don't think it's very clear from that.
The point to remember when reading these stories is this: The reason for this venture, besides being another avenue for big-money donors to evade McCain-Feingold, is to let those big donors give their boodle secretly. That's the hallmark of everything DeLay does. There's no other reason to marry charitable giving with political giving. DeLay does do real charitable work on behalf of abused children, in the original sense of the word "charity" where one's time and effort is its own reward. This is a Potemkin charity, and I hope the IRS sees it that way.
The latest poll gives Bill White a failry comfortable lead going into tomorrow's runoff election.
White narrowly led Sanchez in the Nov. 4 voting, 38 percent to 33 percent. Going into the runoff, White has a 53 percent to 35 percent lead, the poll shows, with 12 percent undecided.[...]
The story of the 2003 campaign is White's ability to bring together various factions of the city, said Rice University political scientist Bob Stein, who conducted the poll with [University of Houston pollster and political scientist Richard] Murray.
He splits the white vote with Sanchez, the poll shows, and gets 75 percent of the black vote compared with 6 percent for Sanchez.
Sanchez has support from 55 percent of Hispanic poll respondents and 71 percent of Republicans.
But in 2001, Sanchez drew 72 percent of the Hispanic vote and more than 90 percent of the Republican vote when he lost to Lee Brown with 48 percent of the total vote.
"What this means is that if he wins, as he should, Bill White will have support from all groups, which should minimize attacks at the council table," Stein said. "This should help him govern."
Murray said that White's support among African-Americans swings the race strongly to his favor. Of those who voted for Turner Nov. 4, 76 percent now say they support White, compared with 4 percent for Sanchez.
These numbers jibe pretty well with an earlier Survey USA poll, which gave White a 58-40 lead (I'm guessing that "undecided" was not an option in the SUSA poll). Different totals, but same 18-point spread.
As for the other races:
City Councilwoman Annise Parker has a big lead over Councilman Bruce Tatro for city controller.Too close to call are runoffs for two at-large City Council seats -- between architect Peter Brown and incumbent Councilwoman Shelley Sekula-Gibbs and between lawyer Ronald Green and district Councilman Bert Keller.
[...]
In the controller race, Parker, who is term-limited in her at-large council seat, has a 46 percent to 26 percent lead over Tatro, a term-limited district council member from northwest Houston.
The winner will replace Judy Gray Johnson, appointed by the City Council to fill the unexpired term of Sylvia Garcia when Garcia was elected a Harris County commissioner. Gray did not seek election to the office, which oversees city finances.
Parker leads among all ethnic groups, Democrats and independents. She picked up most of those who supported four other candidates she and Tatro eliminated Nov. 4.
Tatro holds a 2-1 lead among Republicans.
In the race for City Council At-large Position 3, Sekula-Gibbs has 32 percent and Peter Brown 31 percent, a statistical tie since the poll's margin of error is 4.2 percentage points.
Sekula-Gibbs drew strong Hispanic support when she won the seat in 2001 under the name Sekula-Rodriguez, using the name of her late husband, television anchor Sylvan Rodriguez. She has since remarried. This year, she trails Brown among Hispanics, 36 percent to 29 percent.
Brown has substantial support among Democrats and blacks after getting the endorsement of Jolanda Jones, a black lawyer eliminated from the race Nov. 4. Sekula-Gibbs leads among whites and Republicans.
The race for At-large Position 4 also is statistically tied, at 31 percent for Green and 28 percent for Keller, who is completing his second term as councilman in west Houston District G.
Position 4 became open when Councilman Michael Berry shifted to At-large Position 5 after dropping out of the mayor's race at the filing deadline. Berry, in his first term, ran for Position 5 because he had promised Keller he would vacate Position 4.
Keller, a Republican, drew harsh criticism from Harris County Tax Assessor-Collector Paul Bettencourt and other Republicans when he broke ranks to oppose a proposed city property tax rollback earlier this year. According to the poll, he has support from 47 percent of Republicans compared to 16 percent for Green.
Green leads among blacks and Democrats. The two have about the same support from Hispanics.
A couple of bullet points:
- I know I'm not the only person to speculate that Shelley Sekula Walker Bush Joyner Kersee Cougar Mellencamp Rodriguez Gibbs' name change might adversely affect her reelection chances, especially among Hispanics, but I'm glad to see that there's truth to it.
- Good turnout from black voters would help all of the Democratic candidates. Ron Green and Bill White are the movers here.
- Man, Bert Keller really screwed himself with that tax vote. Forty-seven percent support among Republicans? He's smelling like toast to me.
Other items of interest: As noted yesterday, Diana Davila Martinez picked up endorsements from Gabe Vasquez, and Hector Longoria. You can add Vasquez' predecessor on City Council Felix Fraga, plus other non-runoff candidates Gonzalo Camacho and Joe Carlson. Richard Cantu endorsed Adrian Garcia. I was going to say that the Longoria and Vasquez endorsements might be a mixed blessing to Davila Martinez, but anyone who can get both Vasquez and Fraga to endorse them must be doing something right, given how vocally Fraga opposed Vasquez' candidacy in 1999.
Finally, the mud is being slung in District F. Greg has some commentary and visuals here and here.
I mentioned that the candidate filing season has begun, and it's brought with it a lot of confusion since no one knows for sure whether the new Congressional map will be in place or not.
Some Democratic incumbents filed for office using their old district lines, which might not exist in a month. But others held off, saying they'd rather retire than fight if the state's new GOP-drawn map survives a federal trial that opens next week.Rival Republicans, unable to declare for the new districts until the court makes a decision, went ahead and campaigned in the districts they hope to represent.
"We are a little over four months away from the primary election, and no one can say what the congressional lines will be," Charles Soechting, state Democratic chairman, said of the March 9 primary. "This will create confusion and frustration among the voters."
Secretary of State Geoff Connor, the state's top election officer, said he considered the situation pretty clear. "Right now we have old lines. And we're going to have those old lines until the federal court and Justice Department say we have new lines," Mr. Connor said.
It's still a dice roll from a candidate's perspective, since the filing deadline for Congress is January 16, and no one can say when the final word will be handed down from on high. Some of them can't wait to jump in where they think they belong.
As filing began Wednesday, nowhere was the conflict over what lines to observe more acute than in Abilene. Aides to freshman Rep. Randy Neugebauer, R-Lubbock, were preparing for a visit Friday from Vice President Dick Cheney that will help raise $150,000.Abilene is the hometown of Rep. Charlie Stenholm, one of the seven or eight senior Democrats targeted by the new GOP map. He filed for re-election Wednesday in his current district and was fuming that Mr. Neugebauer – his probable opponent under the new map – would poach so brazenly on his turf.
"It is highly unusual to have as high-profile a fund-raiser in a district that is not even yours," Mr. Stenholm said, especially in light of the tab to taxpayers when the vice president travels. "I don't think it's going to go over too well in West Texas."
Mr. Neugebauer's chief of staff, Anthony Hulen, defended the site. "According to the new map it's as much our territory as it is his," he said.
Well, on the bright side, at least Big Time Dick's location will be temporarily disclosed. Assuming he isn't beamed into the fundraiser by satellite, anyway.
Some fence-sitting from veteran Democrats:
Rep. Ralph Hall, D-Rockwall, the oldest member of the House at age 80, had said he would discuss his future with family at Thanksgiving. Spokeswoman Janet Perry Poppleton said Mr. Hall decided to keep his options open. "He feels like he should weigh all factors," she said. "He normally does not file until the very end anyhow."Rep. Jim Turner, D-Crockett, also decided to await the court ruling. Spokesman Andrew Blotky said he "definitely looks forward to the opportunity to continue representing the district." But the new version of the 2nd District is so Republican that he would probably leave Congress, with an eye toward seeking statewide office in 2006.
In the 1st District, a spokeswoman for Rep. Max Sandlin, D-Marshall, said the congressman would file within soon for re-election, though the new map cuts his chances dramatically.
The possibility of Jim Turner running for Governor or the Senate had Greg all atwitter when it was first mentioned. He'd be a great candidate, but I'd be a little worried about him being out of the public eye for two years before running. All that said, I'd still rather have him in Congress, at least until a suitable Dem can run for the seat he'd be abandoning.
I don't really have a whole lot to say about the so-far meager sales of Mega Millions lottery tickets. Maybe it'll eventually be a hit, maybe it won't overcannibalize sales of Texas Lotto, and maybe it'll sink like a mastodon into the La Brea tar pits because people have grown tired of financing government on the backs of the gullible and the gambling addicts. One never knows. I just want to put the following into perspective, for those who didn't like math in high school:
The odds of winning the jackpot are 1 in about 135 million.
One in 135 million is also the approximate odds of calling a coin toss correctly 27 times in a row. Maybe that can be the next variation on these games.
Austin American-Statesman political columnist Dave McNeely now has a blog, making the Statesman a three-blog newspaper. He'll continue doing his regular column, but promises to post to his blog, called "Inside Texas Politics", when events warrant:
Updates will be as long or as short as necessary to get the job done. And they won't show up every day. The hottest tips and best political news will show up first.
Excellent. Honestly, is there any reason for a newspaper not to do stuff like this? It's free, it's easy, and it'll generate traffic. I'm amazed more of them haven't figured it out. Hats off to the Statesman for being such a pioneer.
Much like Dave Barry when he did his Bad Song Survey, I was rather overwhelmed by the response to my personal Ten Worst Movies List. One link from Atrios and the hit counters go nuts. Anyway, a number of other folks contributed lists of their own, so here's a handy guide to them. Feel free to use these lists to inform your Christmas shopping.
It all started with Pete, who gave the official rules prior to giving his list. Other contributors, as best I can find them, include:
Kevin and TGirsch from Lean Left.
The Gunther Concept, who's sat through some impressively awful films.
Greg Wythe goes for the low-budget films. I don't even want to know what kind of Google search referrals he's going to get after that one hits the indexes.
Ted Barlow demonstrates that even highbrow intellectual group blog members can make bad cinematic choices. And is it just me, or does anyone else think Jeff Skilling must have seen Undertaker And His Pals while he was a business student?
TGirsch takes a different tack with Movies You Feel Bad About Liking But Like Anyway.
Jacob Levy. Man, Crooked Timber and the Volokh Conspiracy. Brings a little class to the joint, don't you think?
Brian Linse, who's an actual movie professional.
If I've overlooked yours, please let me know.
The candidate filing season, that is. The period started yesterday and runs through January 2.
Democratic U.S. Rep. Martin Frost of Arlington filed to run in the district he has represented for 25 years. Frost said he was confident a federal court will uphold existing boundaries and toss out a GOP redistricting plan approved this fall.The Republican map, which Democrats claim violates minority voting rights, decimated Frost's heavily minority district.
"I will run for re-election even if the proposed plan is upheld and would make a decision at that time as to where I would be a candidate," Frost said.
[...]
In addition to Frost, U.S. Rep. Chet Edwards, D-Waco, filed for re-election.
In the Legislature, Rep. Dan Branch, R-Dallas; Rep. Richard Raymond, D-Laredo; Sen. Tommy Williams, R-The Woodlands; Sen. Craig Estes, R-Wichita Falls; and Sen. Judith Zaffirini, D-Laredo, were among those who filed for re-election.
State Rep. Steve Wolens, D-Dallas, announced he won't seek re-election after his current 12th term, which will have spanned 23 years. State Sen. Teel Bivins, R-Amarillo, nominated by President Bush to be ambassador to Sweden, submitted his resignation letter to Gov. Rick Perry on Wednesday. Bivins has served in the Senate since 1989 and is stepping down effective Jan. 12.
Officials of both political parties said they were experiencing the steady stream of filings they expected the first day.
"No surprises, but I guess we've got a few more weeks to go," said Ted Royer, spokesman for the Republican Party of Texas.
Sean Byrne, spokesman for the Texas Democratic Party, said candidate filings were keeping the usual pace for a presidential election cycle, when Texas does not have a full slate of statewide candidates on the ballot.
Wolens, married to Dallas Mayor Laura Miller, may be leaving his State House seat, but he says he's not necessarily done with politics. Some other news:
Supporters of former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean on Wednesday filed the necessary petition to get Dean on the Democratic presidential primary ballot.Republican K. Dale Henry of Mullin filed on Wednesday for the Railroad Commission seat now held by Victor Carrillo, a Perry appointee who has announced his candidacy.
[...]
In Central Texas, Republicans Alan Askew of Wimberley, a home builder and rancher, and Martin Harry, an attorney in Buda, filed Wednesday for the Texas House seat now held by Democrat Patrick Rose of Dripping Springs. The district includes Blanco, Caldwell and Hays counties.
The GOP has targeted Rose as one of the most vulnerable Democrats in the House.
Rose, who filed for re-election, defeated then-incumbent Rick Green, a Republican, by 335 votes out of 38,000 cast in November 2002. This year, he was among more than 50 Democrats who boycotted the session for four days to block congressional redistricting. He upset some Democrats by voting for new limits on lawsuits.
Askew said he expects the race to cost as much as $400,000, a large sum for a rural House race.
Damn. Four hundred grand. You can bet the Tom DeLay Fundraising Empire will funnel in most of that.
Various other reports on first-day filings can be found here, here, and here.
I guess things were a little too quiet in the City Council District H runoff.
City Council candidate Adrian Garcia was disciplined for misplacing drug evidence, causing two accidents and missing work in his early days as a Houston police officer.Diana Davila Martinez, who faces Garcia in a Saturday runoff for the District H council seat, said the incidents "demonstrate a pattern of very irresponsible behavior." Her campaign distributed the public records of sustained police internal affairs complaints involving Garcia.
"All of these sustained allegations are very serious, and Mr. Garcia cannot simply dismiss them as having occurred early in his career," Davila Martinez said. "They are part of his record. They represent him as an individual."
Garcia, who is now director of the city's Anti-Gang Task Force, said he regrets his mistakes but has served 17 unblemished years since the last allegation.
"I've had some bumps in the road, but I've tried to learn from those," Garcia said, adding that he has served under several police chiefs who are "strong disciplinarians" and would not have put him in charge of the Anti-Gang Task Force if there were a question about his integrity.
Garcia joined the Houston Police Department in 1980 and has never scored highly enough on promotion exams to achieve a rank above patrol officer. He has five sustained allegations against him on his police record, including a "criminal activity" charge in 1986 for misplacing a bag of marijuana that was supposed to be submitted to the crime lab for destruction. The marijuana was found a month later.
"It was just a series of errors and miscommunication and time off ... that resulted in the evidence not being placed in the proper room at the proper time," Garcia said.
Garcia also missed a day of work in 1981 because, he said, he was mistaken about his schedule. He was suspended for one day without pay as punishment.
He was in two car accidents while on duty, one in 1981 when he tried to make an illegal U-turn while responding to a call and collided with a bus. Garcia's partner, Richard J. Guerrero, was hospitalized with injuries including a fractured left leg and a fractured right ankle. That earned Garcia a five-day suspension.
In 1985, Garcia said, he rear-ended a motorist he was pulling over, and in 1984 he was reprimanded for discharging his weapon, which he said happened when he slipped and fell. No one was injured.
First of all, unlike the earlier shenanigans, I'm not upset about Diana Davila Martinez attacking Adrian Garcia's record in this fashion. She didn't hide behind any anonymous mailers or outside agitators, she made the charges herself and thus accepted the risk that people may turn on her if they deem her accusations to be without merit. No problem here.
As for the charges themselves, well, the numbers are non-negligible, but there's nothing of substance since 1986. Garcia has chosen a variation on the "young and foolish" defense, and given the long clean spell in his record it may well suffice.
I find the timing of this charge, like the timing of Orlando Sanchez's bogus terrorism claim about Bill White, to be interesting. As in the case with White, the information being released is not exactly new. I can understand not wanting to fire such a weapon in the beginning of a campaign, but why wait until early voting is over? Why let 20% or so of the voters cast their ballots before you take your shot? I'm just wondering here. Maybe the fear that it would get forgotten over the Thanksgiving holiday affected the decision. I don't have a judgment to make about it from a tactical perspective, I'm just wondering what the decisionmaking process was.
UPDATE: According to my neighborhood bulletin board, Diana Davila Martinez has received the endorsements of Hector Longoria (!) and Gabe Vasquez. The mailer she sent which includes the above information about Adrian Garcia's record with the police force drew a mostly negative reaction on the board as well.
First, Atrios spots the mystery.
Bush made a 20-minute speech to a crowd of about 500 party faithful in the main ballroom of the Hanover Marriott at a $2,000-a-plate evening fund-raiser.Not breaking any ground, Bush highlighted the accomplishments of his administration, saying he had eliminated the terror threat from Afghanistan and weapons of mass destruction from Iraq and ensured that Medicare will remain solvent.
How can you eliminate non-existent WMDs, Atrios asks? Fortunately, as David explains, it's all a simple matter of physics, really.
In fact, prior to the invasion, the weapons both existed and didn't exist simultaneously, not unlike Schrodinger's Cat. The invasion and subsequent search brought in observers and collapsed the wave function to one of non-existence. Thus the President was speaking nothing but the truth.
We really don't give our President enough credit, do we?
Via Ginger, Hope, and Scott comes this story about how Texans talk.
Among the unexpected findings, said Guy Bailey, a linguistics professor at the University of Texas at San Antonio and a leading scholar in the studies with his wife, Jan Tillery, is that in Texas more than elsewhere, how you talk says a lot about how you feel about your home state."Those who think Texas is a good place to live adopt the flat `I' — it's like the badge of Texas," said Dr. Bailey, 53, provost and executive vice president of the university and a transplanted Alabamian married to a Lubbock native, also 53.
So if you love Texas, they say, be fixin' to say "naht" for "night," "rahd" for "ride" and "raht" for "right."
And by all means say "all" for "oil."
Hmm. My uncle Ed was an exception to that. He certainly had the convert's zeal about Texas, and spent most of his days here in a house he and my aunt Judy built outside of Wichita Falls where he'd have enough land to raise some cattle, but he didn't really have a twang. Maybe some New York accents are harder to overcome than others, I don't know.
At the same time, the speech of rural and urban Texans is diverging, Dr. Bailey said. Texans in Houston, Dallas, Fort Worth and San Antonio are sounding more like other Americans and less like their fellow Texans in Iraan, Red Lick or Old Glory.
This is true. The people with real twangs around here, for the most part, are those who grew up or still live in rural areas. You can still hear a distinctive accent in some big-city natives (my mother-in-law being a prime case in point), but not as much. Or maybe it's that there are so many of us imported Yankees around in the big cities that you just don't run into the real native speakers all that often.
Perhaps the most striking finding, Dr. Tillery said, was the spread of the humble "y'all," ubiquitous in Texas as throughout the South. Y'all, once "you all" but now commonly reduced to a single word, sometimes even spelled "yall," is taking the country by storm, the couple reported in an article written with Tom Wikle of Oklahoma State University and published in 2000 in the Journal of English Linguistics. No one other word, it turns out, can do the job.
Yeah, the word "y'all" is just plain useful and insidiously easy to add to one's vocabulary. I don't care how many times someone tried to tell me that "youse" was the New York equivalent, I've heard a thousand y'alls for every youse. Y'all wins by a mile. You'll also hear "y'alls" as a replacement for "your" or "yours" ("Is that y'alls car?" "Is that car y'alls?"), though I confess it still grates on my ears a bit.
True story: When I was contracting for the large multinational firm which now employs me, the person who handled my timekeeping was in northern Virginia. One day she told my Houston-based boss that she thought I had a "cute Texas accent". My boss, a fellow transplanted Yankee, politely informed her that I'm a native New Yorker, then died laughing. It's still the only example I know of where I was given that designation.
UPDATE: Stephen Bates has a slightly different take on drawls, twangs, and other speech patterns.
Via Kos, I see that another Democratic organization has gotten the blogging bug: Presenting the New Democrat Network Blog. They've already got some good stuff up, so check it out.
UPDATE: Credit Where Credit Is Due Dept: Greg Wythe was the man behind the curtain for this effort. Come to think of it, I recall him mentioning something like that in passing to me. Great job, Greg!
Thanks to an earlier double-dog dare on my part, Pete has not only graced us (if that's the right word) with his ten worst films list, he even went so far as to detail his methodology for choosing said films. I can't hope to compete with a master of disaster like His Cromulency, but I can certainly slap together my own list. Here they are, in no particular order:
- Wing Commander: I went to see this film for the sole purpose of seeing the "Phantom Menace" trailer. Had I left immediately afterwards, I'd have gotten no less value for my admission dollar. Rule #1: Movies based on video games you've never heard of suck.
- Lost in Space: The only moment of genuine emotion I felt during this craptacular was at the end when the filmmakers made it clear they'd planned for a sequel. The emotion in question was nausea.
- Godzilla: Do I really need to dissect this one? When you find yourself asking how a creature that could hollow out the Chrysler Building could also fit into a subway tunnel, you realize just how far off the "willing suspension of disbelief" mark the directors are.
- Soul Man: As liberals go, I like to think I'm not that easily offended. Movies about C. Thomas Howell in blackface so he can get into Harvard are where I draw the line. Pete's rules say that you have to sit through the whole movie in order to truly hate it, but if walking out on this piece of gristle is wrong, I don't want to be right.
- Allan Quatermain and the Lost City of Gold: I took a date to see this bomb. My only consolation was that she was the one who suggested it. No, there was no second date.
- The Perils of Gwendoline in the Land of the Yik-Yak: It's hard to hate a movie that features a higher breast count than any late night Skinamax offering, but this one should have come with bags for theatergoers to put over their heads as they exited.
- Jaws 3-D: There was an inexplicable flurry of 3-D movies in the early 80s. All of them sucked, but only this one featured exploding shark guts hurtling at your face. I'm reminded of something Roger Ebert said in his review: "Jaws had four interesting characters: Brody, Quint, Hooper, and the shark. Jaws II had Brody and the shark. This one just had the shark."
- Angels and Insects: zzzzzz...I'm sorry, I must have nodded off. The films they show in defensive driving classes have more action and excitement than this snoozefest.
- The Allnighter: Before we had Britney Spears, we had the lead singer of the Bangles in this piece of 80s fluff. I'm pretty sure the only reason my roomie and I saw it was because of the poster that featured Susanna Hoffs in a bikini. Staring at the poster for two hours would have been a better use of our time. Even worse, that bikini was nowhere to be seen in the movie itself.
- The Black Hole: Disney's first PG-rated movie. They'd have been better off betting the company on the "Herbie" franchise.
That's my list. What's yours?
UPDATE: See this later post for pointers to other lists.
It was two years ago today that Enron officially imploded, and the good news is that its former employees seem to be mostly back on their feet.
Two years ago today it all came crashing down at Enron Corp.Two years and one week ago Brandon Rigney saw bankruptcy coming, so he quit his job as Enron's Web master.
Rather than look for work right away, he began building an online bulletin board to help the 4,500 people who would soon be jobless.
Rigney's Web site, 1400smith.com, named for the address of the company's headquarters, became an invaluable tool for the ex-Enron community and those still there, a way to network and stay in touch.
Last Thursday, 1400smith.com vanished from the Internet, because Rigney did not renew his Web hosting license. The site was barely being used anymore, he explained, and he felt it was time to move on.
The bad news is that (anecdotally, at least) many of them regained their footing elsewhere.
Two years ago, when so many lost their jobs simultaneously, finding something new in Houston was extremely tough.Rigney, the former host of 1400smith.com, believes a great number of people left Houston, and many went back to school to earn additional degrees.
"Of those that stayed in Houston, I think they initially had big problems finding work," he said.
If the job market has improved in Houston, it sure isn't apparent to me. I know too many unemployed people for that.
Orlando Sanchez may not have scraped the bottom of the barrel yet, but he's within reach.
Mayoral candidate Orlando Sanchez went on the attack Monday, attempting to link the owner of the company for which opponent Bill White works to international terrorism.[...]
Sanchez started the day with a news conference demanding that White answer questions about why Wedge Group owner Issam Fares defended Hezbollah after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
"If he were seeking his old job (as deputy secretary of the U.S. Energy Department), Mr. White's relationships with a foreign leader and terrorist supporter would likely disqualify him from getting a security clearance," Sanchez said.
White labeled the allegations "wild and irresponsible."
"If we drive out international investors with scare tactics and exaggerations, it will hurt our city," he said.
Sanchez said that White has "tried to dodge the issue by saying that some Republican leaders gave speeches where Mr. Fares was in the room." Sanchez contended that those speeches occurred "prior to September 11, 2001, and before Mr. Fares made his shocking pro-Hezbollah statements."
"Desperate" is the only word I can think of that adequately describes this tactic of a Last Minute Shocking Revelation of something that's been known since White entered the race in February. If this really does demonstrate ties to terrorism, then a few other people have some 'splaining to do:
Two years ago, a Fares-endowed fund paid incoming Secretary of State Colin Powell $200,000 for a 30-minute talk at Tufts University. Fares also ponied up a $100,000 contribution for President George W. Bush's inaugural festivities. Media reports focused on allegations that the Lebanese official was trying to buy influence with the new administration.
And from the Chron article:
White's campaign distributed a videotape of a speech last February in which former President Bush lauded Fares, deputy prime minister of Lebanon, during the annual Issam Fares lecture at Tufts University. Bush made the inaugural lecture of the series in 1994."With Issam Fares here I feel blessed by being with a very good close friend and, Issam, thank you for your role in all of this," Bush said in his February speech.
Bush and wife, Barbara, who live in Houston, endorsed Sanchez in his 2001 mayoral runoff loss to Mayor Lee Brown. They have stayed out of the 2003 race.
Jean Becker, chief of staff to Bush, said Monday that the former president has known Fares for many years and has no reason to believe he is involved with terrorists. Bush is disappointed that this would become an issue during the final days of the mayoral race, Becker said.
Perhaps this is why the Bush family hasn't backed Sanchez this year. Perhaps this is Orlando's revenge on them for not backing him. It's not nice to accuse people who might appoint you to a consolation-prize job of terrorist ties, Orlando.
Early voting ends today, and the election is Saturday. Get out there and vote!
The three-judge federal court has rejected a subpoena brought by the Democrats to compel US Reps. Tom DeLay and Joe Barton to testify about their role in redistricting. For now, at least.
The court held that federal case law requires "a showing of exception circumstances" before discovery can be taken from high government officials in lawsuits where they are not a direct party.The Democrats wanted to question DeLay, R-Sugar Land, and U.S. Rep. Joe Barton, R-Ennis, because they may provide insight in the Legislature's "intent" in redrawing congressional district boundaries, the court said.
"At this early stage, before the plaintiffs and intervenors have presented evidence as to whether the redistricting plan has an unconstitutional or statutorily prohibited effect, this court cannot conclude that such testimony or documents are `essential to the case.' "
But the court left open the possibility that the Democrats can question DeLay if they present such evidence once the trial begins.
The way it was explained to me was this: if you're suing Ford, you don't get to subpoena their CEO until you've gone through the lower-level folks and shown that the big guy has something unique to say. The Democrats can therefore take another shot at DeLay if their questioning of others shows that his testimony is needed. Who knows, maybe it won't be, however much fun it would have been to hear it.
Meanwhile, Democrats celebrated the Colorado Supreme Court decision, while Republicans vowed to appeal. That case is unlikely to have much bearing on the Texas lawsuit.
There are similarities between the Colorado and Texas redistricting battles.A federal court in 2001 drew Texas' districts after a politically divided Legislature failed to act. Republicans gained control of the Legislature in last year's elections and redrew the congressional boundaries in a fight that lasted through three special sessions.
The Republican plan likely would erase the Democrats 17-15 majority in the congressional delegation and replace it with a 22-10 Republican majority.
But the Texas case is different because the state Constitution does not contain specific limitations on redistricting.
Angela Hale, spokeswoman for Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, said the Colorado case will have no impact on the federal lawsuit over Texas redistricting.
"The Texas Constitution is quite different from the Colorado Constitution, and the Texas Constitution has no provision prohibiting mid-decade congressional redistricting," Hale said.
She said the Colorado case "is simply not relevant to the current federal litigation over the Texas Legislature's authority under the U.S. and Texas Constitutions."
J. Gerald Hebert, one of the lawyers for the Texas Democrats, said the Colorado case is not directly linked to the Texas case. But he said it enhances Democratic arguments that congressional redistricting should only legally occur once a decade.
The Texas Constitution, written in 1876, originally contained a provision limiting legislative redistricting to once a decade but made no mention of congressional redistricting. The provision was removed in 1948.
An outside observer summed it up as follows:
Steve Bickerstaff, a 30-year veteran of redistricting lawsuits who teaches election law at the University of Texas, said the Colorado court's decision has no outright bearing on the Texas case. But he said, "I am certain that the Colorado decision will be brought to the attention of the three-judge panel in Texas."
For sure. That case, and the Pennsylvania case, will be coming up soon, so stay tuned.
UPDATE: The Yellow Dog Blog has a couple of editorials that cheer the Colorado decision.
I think many things of Tom DeLay, but I've never thought he was stupid. I have to say, though, I can't understand what he's thinking with this idea.
It is being billed as the perfect place for celebrations during the Republican National Convention next summer, with shows, fine works of art, health clubs, bars, cafes, amazing views, luxury staterooms and restaurants serving cuisine from around the world. And it is just a short walk to Midtown.But before its visitors can cross a New York City street, they will have to pass over a gangplank. The Norwegian Dawn, a 2,240-passenger luxury cruise liner, has 15 decks, 14 bars and lounges and babbling brooks. But even docked at a pier on the Hudson River, it is not New York City. And, to many critics, that is the point.
The House majority leader, Tom DeLay, would like the ship to serve as a floating entertainment center for Republican members of Congress, and their guests, when the convention comes to New York City next Aug. 30 to Sept. 2.
"Our floating hotel will provide members an opportunity to stay in one place, in a secure fashion," said a spokesman for Mr. DeLay, Jonathan Grella. He did not elaborate.
Nothing quite says "out of touch with the average American" than spending a week on a luxurious cruise ship, especially when the stated purpose of being on that ship is to avoid contact with ordinary people.
"In an era of nonstop news and visuals, do you want the visual of the convention to be a group of people sequestered on a cruise ship?" said one Republican strategist, who added that there is a lot of hand-wringing among Republicans in New York and Washington over the plan.
Oh, I do, I do, I really really do. This is something even the Democrats couldn't fumble.
What's even more beautiful about this is that it's all Tom DeLay's idea. Even his point man in New York, Rep. Vito Fossella (R, Staten Island), is backing away from it. And of course, the sheeplike GOP is too scared to criticize DeLay for his Dukakis-in-a-tank scheme. Well, on that score, they deserve what they get.
Keep it up, guys. You're giving the rest of us hope. Thanks to Linkmeister for the catch.
UPDATE: DeLay has changed his mind, after realizing just how stoopid and unpopular this really was. Oh, well. Via Atrios.
Via Mark Evanier and Greg Morrow comes this story about the extremely reclusive Bill Watterson, the genius behind Calvin and Hobbes. It's got quite a bit of detail about the man that I did not know, so I highly recommend it.
Two items of interest here. One, in re: that ubiquitous peeing-Calvin sticker:
"We've contemplated legal action," says Lee Salem, vice president and editor at Universal Press Syndicate, which distributed Calvin and Hobbes. But the cost involved in finding those who make and sell the decals would far exceed what Universal could win in damages. "Bill's as frustrated as we are."Actually, it must be maddening.
"A vulgar counterfeit," says Jef Mallett, a Calvin and Hobbes fan whose own strip, Frazz, resembles Watterson's style. (The illustrations on this page and the facing page are Mallett's.) Slowly, though, the sticker is becoming the only version of Calvin we're familiar with.
Just as Watterson was, Mallett is against rampant licensing of characters so that they appear on everything from calendars to underwear. Unlike Watterson, he believes some selective marketing may actually be helpful. "Because now look what we're left with: Calvin pissing on a Ford logo."
Oddly enough, it's gotten to the point where the variations on this sticker are far enough removed from the original image of Calvin that you wouldn't know who the pee-er is unless you knew the history behind it. I've also seen another type of Calvin sticker, one that shows him bowing before a Crucifix. I suspect Watterson wouldn't appreciate this one, either, however different its message is.
Item two: The future.
Harry Knowles has heard whispers of a return. "There were these rumors . . . ages ago, about Bill single-handedly animating a feature-length Calvin and Hobbes film. I was addicted to the concept of this happening. Ultimately, Bill will do as he wishes. I hope his muse strikes soon and that he cares to share the results with us all."Lee Salem, possibly the first person Watterson would call were he planning a comeback, is guarded, but curiously optimistic. "I don't think the door is locked, the key thrown away. There is a creative spark in Watterson that may need an outlet."
There may be no better moment for his return. Last Sunday, the Washington Post debuted a new strip by Berkeley Breathed. Called Opus (after the penguin star of Bloom County and Outland), the strip fills an entire half-page. Newspapers, it seems, are in the mood to concede to artists.
Alan Shearer, who is managing the PR for Breathed's return, promises the strip to be "the best work of art on the comic's pages. It will bring back the excitement people once had for Sunday comics. Every editor will struggle, but will find a way to give Opus the space it requires." (The Plain Dealer did.)
Now comic strip fans will see whether the penguin can hold his own against those bottom-line newspaper execs. And then, whether Watterson is intrigued enough to battle the forces of evil once again.
I wouldn't go betting the rent money on this, but one can hope, can't one?
(May as well complete the Great Comic Artists of the Eighties Retrospective here by noting that Gary Larson has released a mega-collection of all Far Side strips from 1980 to 1994. He for sure ain't coming back to the dailies.)
Via Kos and Colorado Luis: The Colorado State Supreme Court has struck down the last minute re-redistricting job done by the state's General Assembly.
In its ruling, the full court decided that a Republican redistricting plan, pushed through the state General Assembly in the closing days of this year's session, was unconstitutional because Colorado's congressional districts had already been redrawn in 2002 by a Denver judge after lawmakers could not agree.The Supreme Court decided that under Colorado's 1876 constitution, new congressional boundaries could be drawn only once a decade, following the federal census.
"The plain language of this constitutional provision not only requires redistricting after a federal census and before the ensuing general election, but also restricts the legislature from redistricting at any other time," said an opinion delivered by Mary J. Mullarkey, chief justice of the seven-member court. "In short, the state constitution limits redistricting to once per census, and nothing in state or federal law negates this limitation. Having failed to redistrict when it should have, the General Assembly has lost its chance to redistrict until after the 2010 federal census."
Two justices issued dissenting opinions in the case, which Mullarkey said pitted "two strongly opposed views of the Colorado constitution" against each other.
The court's announcement is here, and opinions can be found here and here (both are Word docs).
The immediate effect is that two of Colorado's seven Congressional seats have gone from being more solidly Republican to being competitive. Republicans currently hold a 5-2 advantage, but one GOP Congressman is stepping down and another won in 2002 by 121 votes.
As for the pending Texas case, I doubt this will be a consideration. The Democrats are not claiming that the act of redistricting was illegal, they are claiming that the end result violates the Voting Rights Act. One can point to this ruling as a good omen if one likes, but I wouldn't take it any farther than that.
The Hall of Fame ballot has been released, and I think it's safe to say that the two top newcomers, Paul Molitor and Dennis Eckersley, are the two favorites for enshrinement this year. It's the returning players that interest me more, and my list of who I'd vote for if I had a vote is as long as usual: Molitor, Eckersley, Ryne Sandberg, Rich Gossage, Bert Blyleven, and Tommy John. This represents a slight change from last year, in which I voted for Alan Trammell but not Ryne Sandberg. I took another look at their stats and concluded I had it backwards then.
You will note I am not voting for Andre Dawson or Jim Rice, the two non-qualifying players with the highest vote totals from last year. Nor am I tempted by Joe Carter, Jack Morris, Dave Parker, Dale Murphy, and a whole host of other Hall of Very Good near-misses. If you want to get into an argument about their merits but feel worn down by purely statistical discussions, may I suggest Bill James' "Keltner List", a series of 15 more subjective questions about a player's merits that can help clarify things. A good application of the Keltner List is here. Happy hunting!
Both Mayoral candidates got front page coverage in yesterday's Chronicle as the runoff campaign enters its final week. (Aside: Early voting ends tomorrow, so get out there and vote while you still can!) The side-to-side articles were in the "contrast what the candidate says about himself to what others say" style, and as noted before with the Houston Press profile of Bill White, no one had anything negative to say about the frontrunner.
Compare, from the Sanchez overview:
"As a council member, he was definitely above average," said Rob Todd, who served with him on council from 1996 to 2001 and is supporting Sanchez's opponent, Bill White. "But the average council member is not qualified to be mayor." (ed. note: Todd is a Republican)[...]
"I just can't think of anything that I can specifically point to in terms of an ordinance or a policy item that he really championed," said County Commissioner Sylvia Garcia, a Democrat who served as city controller for four of Sanchez's years on council and who is supporting White.
[...]
Former Councilman Joe Roach, a Republican who served with Sanchez on council and is endorsing White, blasted Sanchez as being "unable to even articulate the city's bond rating."
Now look at the White profile. Though the story mentions the failed Frontera deal and the pending lawsuit against Chicago Bridge & Iron, the only negative comments about White come from Orlando Sanchez. Make of that what you will.
One more thing, from the Sanchez article:
"It's very difficult to be an effective member of City Council when we have such a strong mayor system," said [Former Harris County Republican Party Chairman Gary] Polland, who served as the head of the GOP during Sanchez's council tenure. "If you're not in bed with the mayor, it's very difficult to get anything done."Councilman Mark Ellis, a Sanchez supporter who led the push for the 2000 tax cut, explained that Sanchez could not take the principal role because of a personality clash with then-Councilman Chris Bell -- now a Democratic U.S. representative -- who provided the swing vote in the 8-7 rollback decision.
"We had to get Democrats' votes," Ellis said. "I was the guy who could go and articulate the position to Chris Bell."
Translation: We're not so good at working with the other team. Maybe if they had Larry Craig on City Council, they could get stuff done.
Meanwhile, John Williams lays out Sanchez' last hope, a get-out-the-vote drive to counter White's continued saturation of the airwaves. I'm pretty sure White has that end of it covered, too, but what else are you gonna do? Two items of interest here. First, Williams says that "Sanchez trails by as many as 18 points in one recent opinion poll". Much as I enjoy reading things like that, I have to ask: What opinion poll? When was it conducted? What are the actual numbers? I like inside baseball stuff as much as the next guy, but let's not go overboard here.
Second, the obligatory mention of Sanchez's most prominent feature:
Don't expect to see Orlando Sanchez's deep-blue eyes gazing from your television screen this week outside of newscasts and debates.
Whether they're piercing blue, steel blue, or just plain deep blue, it's against federal law to write a profile of Orlando Sanchez without fawning about his eyeballs. It's a good thing the election is nearly over, I think the Chron's writers were about to start recycling adjectives here.
UPDATE: Greg furnishes the poll data that Williams alluded to. All I'm saying is would it have killed Williams to say "Sanchez trails by as many as 18 points in a recent opinion poll commissioned by KHOU" instead of "Sanchez trails by as many as 18 points in one recent opinion poll"?