One billion dollars

Ugh.

The city of Houston's main pension program has a billion-dollar funding shortfall because benefits have been boosted so high that many employees will earn more in retirement than they received while working, according to a report obtained by the Chronicle. A few will retire as millionaires.

To properly reduce the shortfall, taxpayers would have to put nearly $100 million extra into the fund next year, according to an analysis prepared for the pension's board.

Further, the city cannot reduce the benefits for any employee who already has worked five years, thanks to a Texas constitutional amendment passed by voters last fall.

As a result, the city is considering closing the plan to new members and moving new employees into a less generous plan. The only alternatives might be a tax increase or widespread layoffs, city finance officials said.

I'm about to run out the door for the day, so I'll get back to this later. But for now, ugh.

UPDATE: Okay, I've looked at this again, and I'm appalled. The details are amazing.

Today's problems can be traced to 2001, when the pension, governed by a board whose majority is made up of current and retired city workers, asked the city to increase benefits. The city agreed, based on a Towers Perrin report that the city would not have to contribute more than 14 percent of its payroll.

The improvements to the employee-contribution program were substantial.

· In 1993, the program promised 52.5 percent of income for a retiree with 25 years of service. The new program promised 88.75 percent.

· To reach 65 percent of income in retirement, an employee now needs just 20 years of service, compared with the 25-35 years required by most cities.

· Only one other city surveyed gives a surviving spouse 100 percent of the pension. Others require their retirees to accept smaller pension payments in order for their survivors to keep receiving benefits.

· Houston gives a 4 percent cost-of-living increase, regardless of the actual Consumer Price Index computed by the federal government. Others give less or even none at all.

But the most expensive changes were revisions to a deferred retirement plan, available to any employee whose age and number of years of employment equal 70 -- for instance, an employee who is 50 years old with 20 years of service.

With a so-called "drop" account, the employee essentially "retires" for pension purposes but continues working at his normal salary. Meanwhile, his monthly pension benefit -- 65 percent of salary in the above example -- is paid into an account that he can't touch until he really retires.

In addition, the account receives whatever interest the overall fund is making on its investments, but always at least 8.5 percent, compounded daily, no matter how poorly those investments perform.

The employee also continues to contribute 4 percent of salary. And the monthly benefit gets an annual 4 percent cost-of-living increase.

In the case of a worker hired at age 22 who entered the deferred program after 24 years at a salary of $40,000 and retired for good at age 65, the lump sum waiting for him would be $2.75 million, Esuchanko calculated.

I'm not an actuary, but every one of these bullet items jumps out at me as a red flag. How hard could it have been to do some means testing? Give me the raw data and a few hours with Excel and I probably could have told you this was a lot more expensive than what we were told. How is it possible that someone who does this for a living screwed up so badly? I'm at a loss to understand it. I just hope there's a way to fix it.

Draft Day

Thursday night was the draft for the Timbergrove Little League, so barring anyone coming or going, the rosters are now set. Quite a bit happened that night, starting with the fact that I am no longer the head coach of the Twins. I am now an assistant coach. I'll explain that in a minute.

The draft started off with all of the coaches for each respective division gathering together. The league president went over all of the administrative tasks - team sponsorships, deposits for equipment bags, practice fields, candy sales, and so on - then explained the rules for the draft. Basically, each team started with a certain number of players who were guaranteed to be on their teams. They are coaches' children, and players who were on that team the previous year and wanted to return to it. Some players expressed a desire to be on a certain team or to be on the same team with certain other players, and we were to try to accomodate them within reason.

The teams with the fewest players would pick until each team had the same number, then the draft proceeded with rounds alternating in worst-to-first and first-to-worst order. The Twins had the fewest players to start with and finished in last place, so the draft was a chance to rebuild.

After all of the preliminaries, the six coaches in the Mustang Division realized that there were only 55 players total, meaning nine players per team. That wasn't gong to work, since every kid misses a game here and there, so we decided to combine two teams. There were two teams that had one player each - the Twins, who had a single returnee from last year, and a new team, the Giants, who had the coach's son. That coach and I volunteered to join forces, with the new team keeping the Twins name. Since he has a son playing, we agreed that he'd be the head coach. So now you can just call me Assistant Coach.

The draft went spectacularly well for the Twins. Every other team had between three and six players to start out, and they all had certain kids that they had to take to satisfy various requests. We had no such constraints and were able to pick off several of the more talented kids that we'd seen last Saturday.

The kid we picked first was one of my guys from last year, who had originally indicated that he wanted to be on a different team. Fortunately, when I spoke to him and his mother on Saturday, they both said they'd be okay with having me as his coach again. The other coaches were also okay with that. Even better, he and another good player had asked to play together, so we wound up with both of them. We picked up two other standouts during the catchup rounds, and by the end of the evening felt like we were loaded for bear.

The thing that I liked about the draft the most, though, was actually getting to know my colleagues a bit. Coming in last year with an already-formed team, I was never really acquainted with the other coaches. Now I feel like I'm on more equal footing with everyone else.

As for my "demotion", I'm happy to be relieved of some tasks that I didn't have to face last year due to my last-minute status, such as arranging for a team sponsor. With the baby due in May, which is season's end, I knew I'd need someone else to help me out anyway, so this works out just fine. But I admit that a part of me already misses being the guy in charge. I'm going to need to keep my instinct to take command in check.

Practices should start this week, probably Tuesday. I'm ready to get started.

Perry questions Earle

This is the clearest sign I've seen yet that Travis County DA Ronnie Earle is getting close to something in his investigation of the Texas Association of Business and Texans for a Republican Majority: Governor Perry is attacking him.

Gov. Rick Perry on Friday said the "appropriate authorities" should investigate Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle for his probe into possible political misuse of corporate money to help Republican legislative candidates.

"My concern is the extraordinary leaks that have come out of the grand jury system," Perry said. "When the news media finds out about issues going on in the grand jury even before subpoenas have been delivered to people, there's something gravely wrong with that system."

Earle said there have been no leaks out of the grand jury.

"Neither this office nor the grand jury has divulged any information obtained as a result of the grand jury investigation," Earle said.

"A grand jury investigation is an inquiry into the truth. Others have an interest in determining the truth about Texas government," Earle said. " That includes the media, which aggressively pursue their own sources of information. Those sources include civil litigants, government watchdog groups and concerned citizens"

[...]

Perry did not specify what he meant by grand jury leaks, nor did he say who should investigate those leaks.

"I'm more worried about both the appearance and the actuality of impropriety that appears to be going on," Perry said. "The district attorney will need to answer those questions to the appropriate authorities."

Perry spokesman Robert Black later said the appropriate people to question Earle about the leaks would be the grand jury foreman or state District Judge Mike Lynch, who oversees the grand jury.

First DeLay, now Perry. Earle is certainly ruffling someone's feathers.

Note the complete emptiness of Perry's charge, by the way. He claims there have been "leaks" from the grand jury proceedings, but does he offer even a single piece of information that's been cited in any media outlet that shouldn't be known to the public? Does he claim that someone involved with the grand jury investigation has come forward with informtion of impropriety? Did he even talk to the "appropriate authorities" before shooting off his mouth? If you believe any of what he's saying, then you'll probably believe that I have in my possession a list of 57 known Communists now working in the State Department, along with the recipe for Secret Sauce.

As always, you can count on the state GOP to provide a little comic relief in these matters.

Texas Republican Chair Tina Benkiser on Thursday filed an open records request with Earle asking for all records of his office's contacts with the news media in connection to this investigation. She also sought records detailing how much money had been spent on it.

"It is widely believed that Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle is engaging in a baseless partisan witch hunt apparently designed solely to score political points by generating negative media coverage of Republicans," Benkiser said.

The Texas Association of Business twice last year tried to halt Earle's investigation into its political activity, but the all-Republican Texas Court of Criminal Appeals allowed Earle to move forward.

You'll have to speak a little louder, honey. The State Supreme Court justices didn't hear you.

A funny definition of "indecency"

So the evil conglomerate Clear Channel is waging war against indecency - they've dropped Howard Stern from the 0.5% of their member stations who were running his show, they've fired Bubba the Love Sponge, whose antics in Tampa they were surely unaware of before now, and they've got everyone from local DJs to industry insiders all abuzz about the new trend in Non-Shock Radio.

And how do they prove their commitment to decent, clean, family-friendly airwaves here in Houston?

Clear Channel may have dumped Stern and Bubba the Love Sponge, but it recently added controversial radio jock Michael Savage to its lineup at KPRC in Houston.

MSNBC fired Savage last summer after he referred to a caller to his weekend cable TV show as a "sodomite" and said he should "get AIDS and die."

Ken Charles, Clear Channel regional vice president of programming for Houston, did not return calls from the Chronicle on Thursday.

Yeah. That Michael Savage.

Here's Ken Charles' contact page. Feel free to thank him for doing his part to make the airwaves so much more clean and decent here in Houston.

The first female trail boss of the HLSR

Meet Cheri Hambrick, the first female trail boss in the history of the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo.

"She runs a very clean operation and makes it easier on the committee," said Yance Montalbano, chairman of the Trail Ride Committee. "I told my wife, `We have a first lady trail boss,' and it couldn't have been a more appropriate lady."

In her volunteer position, Hambrick spends six months mapping out the trail's route. She speaks to city and county officials about getting police escorts, finds camping sites for each night out, and keeps count and notice of every person, animal and wagon on the ride. She's also chiefly responsible for the safety of the entire crew during the seven-day drive.

"My parents say they don't know how I got here. I was raised a city girl, but I had a love for horses," said Hambrick, 48, who wears her straight blond hair loose beneath a tan cowboy hat.

Several horsemen said Hambrick is resurrecting what was becoming a crippled ride. In one year, membership for the 108-mile ride from Brazoria doubled.

Each of her safety scouts now uses walkie-talkies, and she doesn't tolerate any lewd behavior.

"I feel very successful," she said.

Concerned about the safety and health of both the riders and the horses, her group takes breaks each hour and the caravan doesn't move faster than a human can walk. Some groups, she said, don't tend to their animals as they should.

"We have so much consideration for the riders, but not the horses," said Hambrick, a rider of 26 years. "I've been on rides where they don't even take the break for the horse."

Texas Independence, which began riding Feb. 21, will roll into Memorial Park today with the 13 other trail riding groups.

[...]

When Hambrick enters the park today, she completes her second year in a 52-year tradition dominated by men.

Mark F. Odintz, associate editor of the Handbook of Texas, said women weren't considered when it came to the rugged rides common during the pre-railroad cattle driving days.

Few women worked at that time, Odintz said.

"There were women ranchers, but they were mostly widows who had taken over the ranch. That would have been your best bet" for involvement among women, he said.

Of course there were cowgirls, he said, but they didn't get their golden reign until the early 20th century.

Even in the 21st century, Hambrick was leery about breaking in.

"We'd been trying hard to get her but she kept saying, `No, women don't do it,' " said Barbara Dean, 59, a fellow rider from Magnolia who has known Hambrick for more than 10 years.

"But she has the panache to pull it off -- and we like her," Dean said before pausing briefly. "No, we don't like her. We love her."

Is it just me, or does it seem really strange to be talking about a first female something-or-other in the year 2004? Sometimes I feel like there can't possibly be any more new frontiers like that, and then I get slapped upside the head by reality. Whatever, three cheers for Cheri Hambrick. May there be many more like her.

BTW, if you've never seen a trail ride, this picture will give you an idea of what it's like. Yes, they're riding on the highways and main roads once they hit town. What did you expect?

Local Voter

I want to take a moment an plug a pretty cool site that I've been fooling around with lately, LocalVoter. It's a one-stop shop for what you need to know about elections and elected offices - who your incumbents are, who's running for what, links to city and county resources such as polling places and election results, and so on. Not all of Texas is covered just yet - right now, it has info on the Houston, Austin, Dallas, and Southeast Texas areas - but all of it should be by the time November rolls around.

One other useful thing LocalVoter has is resources for candidates, in which people who search for their ballot information can be pointed to a campaign webpage or a request for a yard sign. Those of you out there who do actual work with candidates might want to check that out.

I had the opportunity to meet and talk to Chris Ladd, the man behind LocalVoter, earlier this week, and I came away impressed with the work he's done here. He's started to get a bit of notice for himself and the site (see here, here, and here for his media mentions) and I think he's going to get a fair bit of traffic this election season. Early voting for primaries is going on through the end of next week, so now's as good a time as any to check out LocalVoter and see what it can do for you.

Mayor White makes moves

Mayor Bill White, continuing with his Gather No Moss philosophy early on in his tenure, gave his first State of the City address yesterday. He touched on the usual quality-of-life highlights, like regional health care and mobility, and also called for some volunteers.

"I need the help of the people in this room," White told an audience of about 1,400 business and civic leaders. "We will not be able to deliver more and better services simply by relying on city employees. A city will only work well if citizens are involved in it."

Reaction to both tone and substance of his speech was positive.

Councilman Michael Berry was pleased that White reached out to county leaders by name.

"It suggested a strength in his humility," Berry said. "He wanted his audience to understand how big the challenges are and that they cannot be spectators; they are going to have to be involved."

[...]

"I liked the fact that he wasn't telling that room what he was going to do. He was telling them what he wanted them to do, which was sort of a call to action, which I think is needed," Berry said. "It was a recognition that his success or failure is going to be dependent on that room buying into what he's doing."

Political consultant Nancy Sims agreed, noting that White has been an active member of the organization he was addressing.

"He got up and delivered a speech to his peers," she said. "It wasn't a strong, commanding, `I am your leader' speech. He was conversational in his presentation. It was quite effective for that audience."

Funny how Boy Wonder Berry keeps getting quoted in all these articles, isn't it? I don't know if he's developed a Phil Gramm-like quality of always being where the media is, or if he just gives the best quotes. Still, this is a sign that the honeymoon is not over, and that's a good thing. Heck, White even seems to be winning over the coveted Whited constituency, and you know how big a deal that is.

Anyway, looks to me like the priorities he's laid out seem pretty reasonable and doable. I'm definitely looking forward to hearing his flood-abatement plan. This was a pretty contentious issue last year, and when you promise a "bold plan" to fix a big problem in a time of budget shortfalls, you're setting up some high expectations. Lots of times when a politician does this, he's about to present a warmed-over version of something a rival or predecessor had floated and which he shot down as being insufficient or impractical. White rejected a one-dollar drainage fee during the campaign, so keep an eye on any part of his proposal that calls for a new revenue source.

White is also poised to name Phoenix Police Chief Harold Hurtt as the next Chief of HPD. Don't know a thing about the man (any Phoenixites want to comment on this, please do so), but as with the other story, reaction (including the obligatory Berry quote) was positive. With all that's gone on with HPD the past two years, this is yet another big thing Mayor White needs to get right. So far, so good.

RIP, Bart Howard

Bart Howard, who wrote the song "Fly Me To The Moon", died earlier this week at the age of 88. FMTTM was the first-dance song at our wedding (we did a foxtrot, for those who care about such things), and it was the first-dance song at my parents' wedding (yes, that's the main reason why we chose it). As such, it's always had a special place in my heart.

Mr. Howard's signature song, originally titled "In Other Words," was introduced in 1954 by the cabaret singer Felicia Sanders. Its popularity spread after Peggy Lee sang it on "The Ed Sullivan Show" in 1960, and it became a bona fide hit in a 1962 bossa nova instrumental version by Lee's conductor, Joe Harnell.

"I've always said it took me 20 years to find out how to write a song in 20 minutes," Mr. Howard recalled in an interview with The New York Times in 1988. "The song just fell out of me. One publisher wanted me to change the lyric to `take me to the moon.' Had I done that I don't know where I'd be today."

Born Howard Joseph Gustafson in Burlington, Iowa, Mr. Howard left home at 16 to be a pianist in a dance band that toured with the Siamese twins Daisy and Violet Hilton. Hoping to write songs for the movies, he traveled to Los Angeles in 1934 and ended up accompanying a female impersonator, Rae Bourbon. He moved to New York after teaming with Elizabeth Talbot-Martin, a comedian and impersonator who was booked at the Rainbow Room in 1937.

Mabel Mercer, whom he met in 1938, was the first to sing one of his songs in New York ("If You Leave Paris"). After spending four years (1941-45) as a musician in the Army, he got a job playing piano at Spivy's Roof, a New York cabaret, until Mercer hired him away to accompany her at Tony's West Side.

From 1951 to 1959 he was the M.C. and intermission pianist at the stylish Manhattan nightclub the Blue Angel, where he introduced Eartha Kitt, Johnny Mathis, Dorothy Loudon and others. The success of "Fly Me to the Moon" made him so materially comfortable that he slowed down as a songwriter. In the late 80's and 90's he played a few cabaret stints and concerts, including at Jan Wallman's. His latter-day muse and favorite cabaret singer was KT Sullivan, who recorded a live album of his songs in 1997. He was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1999.

His other widely recorded songs included "Let Me Love You" and "Don't Dream of Anybody but Me" (to a tune by Neal Hefti). Portia Nelson, his 1950's muse, recorded a whole album of his songs in 1956.

Neal Hefti, who was a composer/arranger for the Count Basie Orchestra, was the guy who wrote the "Batman" TV show theme song. Just so you know.

Rest in peace, Bart Howard. Thanks to Kevin for spotting this.

Those Perry rumors

I presume by now that everyone has heard the rumors about Gov. Perry and the Big News that was supposed to break about his personal life Any Day Now. I never wrote anything about it because I never really believed it. Besides, if it was all true, sooner or later someone was going to take an action that couldn't be explained away.

Anyway, the Austin Chronicle did what should be done and tried to find out if there was anything to the stories. They found nothing, and they say so. That should be pretty much be that.

But do read to the bottom of the story, because despite the lack of truth to all of the bosom-heaving that was floating around, our Governor was indeed involved in scurrilous activities recently, and all of it was happening right in front of our faces.

Gov. Perry and his wife spent Presidents Day weekend in the Bahamas, accompanied by major political sponsors James and Cecelia Leininger and John and Bobbi Nau, who together have donated more than $175,000 to the governor's campaigns. Also on the trip to the Abaco Islands were Perry's political adviser Dave Carney; Chief of Staff Mike Toomey; Deputy Chief of Staff Deirdre Delisi and her husband, GOP political consultant Ted Delisi; Perry's budget director, Mike Morrissey; Texas Public Policy Foundation President Brooke Rollins and her husband, Mark; and GOP anti-tax fanatic Grover Norquist.

When public interest groups complained about the unseemliness of the governor vacationing with deep-pocketed donors, spokesman Robert Black described the cruise as a "working trip" paid for by "campaign funds" and devoted to a discussion of "public school finance." That is, during a luxury retreat in the Bahamas, the governor discussed "public school finance" with a group of wealthy right-wing activists who have done everything in their power to undermine, or even abolish, public education. But we should be reassured by the knowledge that foxes paid for the chicken feed.

How nice for all of them. But hey, at least he's faithful to his wife, and that's what really matters, right?

UPDATE: Harvey Kronberg weighs in on the Perry rumors, and he minces no words. Full text below the More link, as this will evenetually disappear.

Like most news organizations, we here at the Quorum Report have wrestled with a relentless rumor mill over the last month and a half that has proven to be little more than an enormous distraction.

We are not going to get into all the details of ever-morphing rumors about Governor Perry, but the last six weeks make Monty Python movies seem like serious political discourse.

We break our silence because -- well frankly -- enough is enough.

This publication is as wired into the Texas political scene as well as any other, and more wired than most. We pride ourselves on our breadth of both traditional and non-traditional sources.

We have not been able to find even a scintilla of corroboration for any of the rumors. And since the rumors change every day, the matter is now simply silly.

Besides having devolved into an exercise in tedium, the ever evolving rumor is becoming insulting.

It presumes that a voracious and adversarial capitol press corps is asleep at the wheel.

This publication and this writer have never hesitated to take Governor Perry to task when we thought he was wrong. And we will do so in the future. But the Jerry Springer mentality that promotes the relentless nonsense of the last six weeks represents the worst side of politics and demeans all of us who participate.

We blew the whistle on FreePac's smear mailers two years ago. We routinely refuse to buy into the worst impulses of the worst campaigns. When we find offenders who believe that any level of dirty tricks is acceptable as long its politics, we blow the whistle. And if we knew the perps on this cycle of rumors we would do it again.

Absent some connection to the real world, it's time to put the nonsense behind us.

Baseball go boom

Cubs fans. What can you say?

If a curse can somehow live in the intricate windings of cork, rubber, yarn and cowhide that make up a baseball, then the Chicago Cubs can look forward to a luckier future.

The team's catastrophic playoff meltdown last October began when Steve Bartman batted a seemingly catchable foul ball away from a Chicago outfielder, capping decades [of] Cubs ineptitude -- much of it blamed on an unshakable jinx.

Chicago fans the world over are hoping a massive measure of modern-day voodoo will put an end to all that.

The ball will be obliterated by a special-effects expert on live television tonight to lift the "curse" afflicting the Chicago Cubs and bring some closure to one of the most painful losses in the team's doleful history.

Grant DePorter, who helped buy the ball at a December auction for $113,824 on behalf of Harry Caray's Restaurant Group, has lined up three hours of music, comedy and celebrity appearances leading up to the climactic event -- everything short of Steve Bartman, the fan who deflected the ball during Game 6 of the National League championship series.

The ball will be sent into oblivion by Michael Lantieri, an Oscar winner who wrecks things for a living and has worked on such movies as "Jurassic Park" and "Back to the Future." Lantieri, a Cubs die-hard himself, would not reveal his exact demolition plans but admitted he has been blowing up a dozen balls a day in his California lab in preparation.

"That ball's gotta go," said DePorter, managing partner of the restaurant group, which organized the event as part of its annual tribute to Caray, the beloved Cubs broadcaster who died six years ago Thursday. "It's like the ring from `The Lord of the Rings' and we're kind of like Frodo, trying to get it over with."

[...]

The ball will get VIP treatment in its last hours, from a farewell trip to Wrigley and a last night on public display in a hotel suite to a final "dinner" of prime steak and lobster and even a massage.

Then comes the final reckoning. Among thousands of fan suggestions for the act: having NASA put the ball into orbit, dropping it off the Sears Tower and having Chicago native Bill Murray, in "Ghostbusters" gear, obliterate it.

DePorter promises only that "it will be destroyed in a way that there is a mess."

Practicing for the big moment, Lantieri has tortured baseballs in various ways, concluding that "they're harder than you'd expect to blow up."

Anybody else reminded of the bits David Letterman used to do in which objects suggested by the studio audience were crushed by a steamroller or a hydraulic press? My favorite was "A good nutritious breakfast". I'm shocked to learn that MSNBC and ESPN will be covering this event and not the Cubs' flagship station/corporate masters WGN, but there you have it.

More here. I like this guy's suggestion for Steve Bartman. He really could be a Tom Arnold for this generation if he wanted to, which is perhaps why he doesn't. Some fans of other teams would like to get in the act as well. Maybe we could make this kind of thing into an annual ritual. Hey, we do it twice, it's a tradition! Various links via David Pinto.

The other edge

I've spoken about how blogs can benefit Democratic candidates, and while I firmly believe that this is and will continue to be true, it's not a freebie. As Stephanie Herseth is surely learning, the blogreading public is very much in the activist camp, and we don't appreciate candidates who don't stand up for our principles. We want to give you our support, but we're not going to let ourselves get sold down the river in the process.

Obviously, one of the reasons for the "Hate Amendment", as Kos calls it, was to sow dissension within the Democratic ranks, and it annoys me to no end that it's had an effect. What's worse is that this should have been easy to sidestep. Just throw it right back at the Republicans - "We believe that the Constitution is a document that should not be tampered with lightly, and we believe that joblessness, terrorism, the deficit, and rising health care costs are a far greater threat to the family than anything else." (Ginger is more succinct and even less wishy-washy than I am.) Leadership is about making people go places they wouldn't go on their own, and I'm really getting tired of those on my side who claim to be leaders but run away from every opportunity to actually get out in front of the crowd and influence its direction. Heat, kitchen - you know the rest.

I'll say it again and again - I'm a half-a-loaf kind of guy, and I'll overlook a lot of sins to get a lesser evil in place. But even I have my limits. Help me out here, folks.

Subpoenas target DeLay

Another batch of subpoenas in the ongoin TRM investigation was made public by Travis County DA Ronnie Earle yesterday, and they are all about Tom DeLay in one way or another.

Nearly 50 subpoenas -- some issued Tuesday and others dating back to last October -- were made public as part of the ongoing investigation into Texans for a Republican Majority, a political action committee formed by DeLay, R-Sugar Land.

The subpoenas seek testimony and documents from the committee's researchers, political consultants and fund-raisers, including DeLay's daughter, Danielle Ferro.

That would be Danielle Too Hot For The Hot Tub Ferro, for those keeping score at home. The Statesman has a fuller list of lucky winners.

* Russell Anderson, the accountant for Texans for a Republican Majority, who has been asked to testify today. He already was subpoenaed for a list of 81 types of records, including financial records, copies of political polls, research, correspondence and documents concerning the committee's relationship with DeLay and other elected officials.

* Demetrius McDaniel, an Akin Gump lobbyist, who has been summoned to the grand jury today in connection with corporate donations he made to the Republican Majority group on behalf of two clients: $2,500 from Primedia Inc., and $5,000 from Lexmark Inc. McDaniel addressed at least one of the donations to Craddick at the committee's Austin address.

* Danielle Ferro, DeLay's daughter, who was paid by her father's Texas committee to plan committee events.

* Records from the Republican National Committee concerning an exchange of $190,000 between an arm of the party's national committee and Texans for a Republican Majority. The Texas committee gave the national party $190,000 in corporate money in the fall of 2002.

In a single day two weeks later, the national party cut seven checks to Texas House candidates totaling $190,000. Republican officials have called it a coincidence. Critics claim the Texas committee was laundering corporate money that it could not legally donate to candidates into legal donations.

Two Austin candidates, Jack Stick and Todd Baxter, got $35,000 each from the national committee and went on to become freshmen lawmakers who voted for Craddick as speaker.

* Records of John Colyandro, the Texas committee's executive director. He ran the organization under an advisory committee that included DeLay, state Sen. Florence Shapiro, R-Plano; state Reps. Dianne White Delisi, R-Temple, and Beverly Woolley, R-Houston; and then-Railroad Commissioner Tony Garza.

* Consultants who provided polling, research or other services to Texans for a Republican Majority. Among them are DeLay's corporate fund-raiser Warren Robold of Washington, Austin researcher Milton Rister, Austin consultant Todd Smith, Dallas-area consultant Kevin Brannon and Austin fund-raiser Susan Lilly.

* Matt Welch, a lobbyist with Texans for Lawsuit Reform, a group that worked to limit lawsuits in the past legislative session.

* Records of Americans for a Republican Majority, DeLay's national political action committee.

* Records from several Austin restaurants and private clubs, plus the Purple Sage Ranch of Bandera, where officials with the Texas committee had a weekend retreat.

* Records from Blakemore & Associates, a Houston consulting firm, and Clinton International Investigations of Houston. Toomey hired private investigators to do criminal background checks on Democratic candidates, then asked Texans for a Republican Majority to help pay for those services.

Blakemore and Associates is the big cheese among Harris County GOP political consultants. The Chron story has more on them:

Among the newer subpoenas was one issued Tuesday to Houston political consultant Allen Blakemore, who was ordered to provide records next week related to his contacts in 2002 with TRMPAC, Texans for Lawsuit Reform and Mike Toomey, then a lobbyist for the Houston-based lawsuit reform group. Toomey now is chief of staff to Gov. Rick Perry.

Blakemore said there was nothing unusual in Toomey hiring him to employ a private investigator to conduct background checks on Democratic House candidates Debra Danburg of Houston, D.L. "Donnie" Jarvis of Sherman and Danny Duncan of Commerce in September 2002. Blakemore said it was a public records search.

"It's not looking through somebody's window or looking through trash," Blakemore said.

Houston private investigator Kenny Rodgers charged $4,412.53 for the investigation.

Blakemore said he did not ask Toomey why he wanted the information, but assumed it was to help clients make a decision on whether they should make contributions in particular races.

"It's part of my business to handicap races and give them information," Blakemore said.

Danburg and Duncan are among the losing candidates who are suing TRMPAC, seeking damages by accusing the committee of violating state campaign law.

That lawsuit was filed almost immediately after the election. I didn't think much of its chances then, but I'll be happy to be proven wrong.

For more background, read this Texas Observer piece, which seems to have anticipated most of the action that has occurred recently.

Clear Channel drops Howard Stern

There are a number of interesting things to contemplate in Clear Channel's announcement that they would drop Howard Stern from their member stations, but before I get into that, I have to marvel at their official statement.

"Clear Channel drew a line in the sand today with regard to protecting our listeners from indecent content and Howard Stern's show blew right through it," John Hogan, president and CEO of Clear Channel Radio, said in a news release. "It was vulgar, offensive, and insulting, not just to women and African Americans but to anyone with a sense of common decency."

You're telling me that you've just now noticed that Howard Stern, the guy who was doing Lesbian Dial-A-Date back in the 80s and whose TV show often features women competing for free breast implants, is vulgar? Wow. We may have to retire the Claude Award now. You just can't make this stuff up.

A diarist on Kos notes that Stern is now firmly in the John Kerry camp, which I'm glad to hear. Stern has always been an antiestablishment libertarian type, in the Dave Barry mold, and his support of Christie Whitman is credited in part for her initial election as Governor of New Jersey. I agree with the Kos commenter that Stern speaks to a mostly apolitical audience, so having him hammer on Bush and defend Kerry on a regular basis will be the kind of thing that can influence swing voters. Every little bit helps.

On a local note, Howard Stern has never been on the radio in Houston. KLOL, the station whose demographics best fit Stern, has always had its own wacky morning DJs, and like them or not, the explanation I always heard as to why Houston was a Stern-free zone was that KLOL was sufficiently happy with Stevens and Pruett's ratings to pony up for imported talent. I don't know how well the witless mouthbreathers they have on now are doing, but they're still in no danger of being bumped for Stern, as KLOL is part of the evil Clear Channel empire. Alas.

Chevron buys Enron building

ChevronTexaco will buy that grand monument of riches-to-rags excess, the new Enron building. They'll move some 500 non-Houstonians (from New Orleans, Midland, and San Ramon) into it, as well as employees from their other downtown locations.

A couple of points of interest to me:

1. The picture of the building is taken from Smith Street, even though the official address of the tower is 1500 Louisiana Street. The circular walkway that you see connects it to the original Enron building, the one that had the crooked E in front of it, at 1400 Smith. That building was put up for sale in August.

2. The new building was bought by Intell Management for $102 million in 2002. The story doesn't mention a price tag, but I'd bet Intell did not make any money off this sale.

3. The two buildings that ChevronTexaco own downtown, which will be sold off as part of this deal, are the Chevron Tower near Two Houston Center and the downtown mall, and the architecturally interesting Texaco Heritage Plaza, which is about a mile west of the Chevron Tower. I've had the opportunity to visit each building as part of my job. THP has some excellent views out its west-facing windows. I've said it before and I'll say it again - I wish there were some more observation decks in a couple of our downtown office buildings. I'm pleased to note that there is at least one, which I need to check out one of these days.

UPDATE: Here's the full story from today's front page, which among other thing tells me that Texaco Heritage Plaza is not owned by ChevronTexaco. Oops. Still no word on the purchase price, but we do have this tidbit:

The investors who bought it for $102 million at a bankruptcy auction, New York-based Intell Management & Investment Co., tried to distance the building from its history by calling it 1500 Louisiana, but it still was commonly called the Enron Building.

[...]

The sale price was not disclosed, but Intell President Gary Barnett said in a release, "Kudos to them for acquiring a trophy building at a fraction of its cost."

At the time of the Intell purchase, many said $102 million was less than half of what it would cost Enron to complete the unfinished tower.

ChevronTexaco also will get a break from the city: It will pay taxes on the building's $80 million base value, the mayor said. The company is expected to add $45 million in improvements.

Make of that what you will. The story also notes that while Intell tried to call this the "1500 Louisiana building", everyone still calls it "the Enron building". Get used to it, ChevronTexaco - I still call our city's tallest structure "the Transco Tower", and you'll never hear me utter the words "Reliant Astrodome".

And the beat goes on

Seems like just about everyone close to Tom DeLay is being investigated for some allegation of malfeasance or another. He may have to franchise himself at this rate.

In the Travis County hot seat today is DeLay aide Jim Ellis.

When Jim Ellis, a key aide to U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, was preparing to deliver money to an arm of the Republican National Committee, a DeLay ally in Texas had a blank check sent to Ellis with the amount to be filled in later.

John Colyandro, executive director of DeLay's Texans for a Republican Majority, said in a deposition that he had the blank check sent because Ellis had a meeting with Republican National Committee officials scheduled the next day.

It has been known for almost a year that Texans for a Republican Majority gave $190,000 in corporate donations, which could not be donated legally to candidates, to the Republican National State Elections Committee. In a single day two weeks later, the national committee cut seven checks to Texas House candidates totaling $190,000 in money that could be legally given to candidates.

[...]

Colyandro and officials of the Republican National Committee have always contended that the $190,000 amounts were a coincidence. The blank check, however, raises questions about who determined the amount and how they arrived at that number: Did Ellis, who also played a key role at Texans for a Republican Majority, fill in the amount? Did he negotiate the amount with national GOP officials?

Officials of the Republican National Committee said they didn't know who met with Ellis or who decided to send money to Texas.

"You are going to have to talk to Jim Ellis about how he came to the conclusion of $190,000," said Lindsay Taylor, a spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee. "No one would have come in here with a blank check."

[...]

Larry Noble of the Center of Responsive Politics, which tracks federal campaign spending, said there may have been a benefit for the Republican National Committee to accept recycled corporate donations.

He said changes in federal campaign laws, effective after the 2002 elections, were forcing the national political parties to adjust their accounts: "The money was sorting itself out."

Tom Craddick may be in more trouble in San Antonio.

Republican stalwarts pulled together a small San Antonio reception in 2001 to support Rep. Tom Craddick's quest to become speaker of the Texas House, but records give no indication he paid for the event — a possible violation of state law.

The law that governs the speaker's race requires candidates to make all campaign expenditures from campaign funds, with the exception that other individuals can spend up to $100 on correspondence to "aid or defeat" a candidate.

Craddick spent money from his speaker's campaign account on several meals at San Antonio restaurants in 2001 and 2002, but did not report any expenditure for the Nov. 13, 2001, event at the Plaza Club, according to his speaker campaign reports at the Texas Ethics Commission.

[...]

The invitation to greet Craddick in San Antonio, posted last week by the Quorum Report — an Austin-based online political newsletter — is signed by San Antonio businessmen Red McCombs, George Hixon and Jim Leininger, as well as lawyer Tom Loeffler.

"It is our belief that the members of the (2003 Legislature) will select" Craddick as speaker, their letter states.

"The changing political landscape, his years of service in the House of Representatives and initial base of support make this projected outcome quite clear. We have asked Tom to join us for a private reception where he will outline his current thoughts on the speaker's race and the various ways we may support his efforts."

San Antonio lawyer W. James Jonas III, Loeffler's law partner, said Monday he organized the event and composed the invitation, but took care not to spend more than $100.

Jonas said he assumed the cost of the event was picked up by Craddick, in keeping with the law.

"I'm not sure I ever got a bill" from the club, he said.

A club official declined to specify the cost of the event, but said receptions can cost from $150 to $1,500, with club members charged on their monthly accounts.

You figure with a name like "Plaza Club", you're out a hundred bucks just with valet parking and coat check. But maybe they're all cheap tippers, so who knows?

Another DeLay buddy, a lobbyist named Jack Abramoff, has gone so far as to shock a GOP Congressman into requesting an investigation of his activities.

In letters to Attorney General John D. Ashcroft and FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III, Rep. Frank R. Wolf (R-Va.) cited an article published in The Washington Post on Sunday that detailed how a Washington lobbyist and a public relations executive with ties to House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) have charged a handful of tribes more than $45 million in the past three years to influence public policy.

[...]

"This is shocking," Wolf scribbled across the bottom of his letters to Mueller and Ashcroft asking that they examine whether laws have been broken. The articles, Wolf wrote, "point out how the Indian gambling issue exploits Indians and potentially corrupts government officials."

The FBI has questioned members of the Saginaw Chippewa tribe in Mount Pleasant, Mich., in recent days about the $3.9 million the tribe spent to hire Greenberg Traurig lobbyist Jack Abramoff and the $10 million it has paid public relations executive Michael Scanlon. Some tribe members have complained that they have gotten little for their money, and that Scanlon's firm helped engineer the election of the tribal council that awarded the contracts.

Federal law requires that casino proceeds benefit tribes as a whole, not individuals.

Mark Corallo, a spokesman for the Justice Department, said his department "will review Chairman Wolf's request."

Here's the original article. If anyone can tell me what those lobbyists did to deserve an eight-figure payout, I'm all ears.

All of this seems to be making our boy Tommy a little testy.

With Republican campaign-spending practices under investigation in Austin, U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay blasted Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle on Tuesday for using his power for "vindictive" ends.

"This is nothing more than a vindictive, typical Ronnie Earle process. The district attorney has a long history of being vindictive and partisan," Mr. DeLay said at a weekly session with reporters, responding to a question about a grand jury investigation being run by Mr. Earle.

"This is so typical. This is criminalizing, or an attempt to criminalize politics. We have a runaway district attorney in Texas," Mr. DeLay said.

Mr. Earle said of the leader's comments: "Being called partisan and vindictive by Tom DeLay is like being called ugly by a frog."

I can't top that. Thanks to Alfredo Garcia for the links.

UPDATE: One more from the Star Telegram, which adds a bit more to the DeLay-Earle sniping. I'll pick it up where Earle's frog comment leaves off.

"My job is to prosecute felonies. Texas law makes it a felony for corporations and labor unions to contribute to campaigns," Earle said.

[...]

Earle said he could not comment on whether he would subpoena DeLay. He said additional subpoenas will be filed in coming days.

Earle, an Austin Democrat who is running unopposed for another four-year term, said that since 1977 he has prosecuted 11 Democratic and four Republican elected officials.

"They have all said it was political," he said.

Two of the 15 officials were acquitted, including Hutchison, who was cleared in 1994 of using her state treasurer's office for political purposes.

The memory of the Hutchison case is worrisome to me. She came away from her acquittal a lot stronger than before. Better to drop charges than to go for the kill and miss. I'd love to see some of these miscreants get charged, but the risk is non-trivial. Get those ducks lined up, Ronnie.

Almost a good idea

Clear Channel has adopted a zero tolerance policy for indecency in order to ensure that none of its DJs expose one of Janet Jackson's breasts on the air, or something like that.

"Clear Channel is serious about helping address the rising tide of indecency on the airwaves," Mark Mays, president and chief operating officer, said in a statement. "As broadcast licensees, we are fully responsible for what our stations air, and we intend to make sure all our DJs and programmers understand what is and what is not appropriate on Clear Channel radio shows."

Mays said the company will institute a zero-tolerance policy for indecent content, which will include company-wide training and automatic suspensions for anyone that the FCC alleges has violated indecency rules on the air.

"If the FCC accuses us of wrongdoing by issuing a proposed fine, we will take immediate action," Mays said. "We will suspend the DJ in question, and perform a swift investigation. If we or the government ultimately determine the offending broadcast is indecent, the DJ will be terminated without delay.".

Whatever. Wake me up when they adopt a zero-tolerance policy towards the playing of anything by Bad Company. Then we'll be getting somewhere.

Kronberg on TRM

Harvey Kronberg of the Quorum Report did some analysis of the TRM investigation for his weekly bit on Austin's Channel 8. Not much new, but a fairly concise summary of what's gone on and why there's been such a flurry of news lately. Check it out.

Ah, sweet mystery of life, at last I've found you

All right, enough with all this gay marriage stuff. Let's look at something of real importance.

Princeton physicist Paul Chaikin's passion for M&M candies was so well known that his students played a sweet practical joke on him by leaving a 55-gallon drum of the candies in his office.

Little did they know that their prank would lead to a physics breakthrough.

The barrel full of the oblate little candies made Chaikin think about how well they packed in. A series of studies have shown they pack more tightly than perfect spheres -- something that surprises many physicists and Chaikin himself.

"It is a startling and wonderful result," said Sidney Nagel, a physicist at the University of Chicago. "One doesn't normally stop to think about this. If you did, you might have guessed what would happen, but you'd have guessed wrongly."

The issue of how particles pack together has intrigued scientists for centuries and has implications for fields such as the design of high-density ceramic materials for use in aerospace or other industries.

Chaikin and his colleague, chemist Salvatore Torquato, used the candies to investigate the physical and mathematical principles involved when particles are poured randomly into a vessel.

Writing in Friday's issue of the journal Science, they said they found that oblate spheroids -- such as plain M&Ms -- pack surprisingly more densely than regular spheres when poured randomly and shaken.

When poured in, they said, spheres occupy about 64 percent of the space in a container. M&Ms manage to pack in at a density of about 68 percent.

"We just stretched a sphere and suddenly things changed dramatically," said Torquato. "To me, it's remarkable that you can take this simple system with common candies and probe one of the deepest problems in condensed matter physics."

Mars Inc., which makes M&Ms, did not help sponsor the research although it donated 125 pounds of almond M&Ms to Chaikin, Princeton said in a statement.

Hmmm. I wonder if there's any difference in the packability of plain vs. peanut vs. almond M&M's. Clearly, more research is called for. Pass me that bag over there, would you?

Priorities

Front page headline in today's Chron: Al Qaeda Still Poses Threat.

Despite U.S. success in attacking al-Qaida's hierarchy, the terrorist network is still capable of "catastrophic attacks" against the United States, CIA Director George Tenet told the Senate Intelligence Committee Tuesday.

The U.S. assault on al-Qaida has "transformed the organization into a loose collection of regional networks working autonomously," Tenet said. The smaller groups "pick their own targets, they plan their own attacks," but they share an anti-American goal.

The most immediate threats include the possibility of "poison attacks" and al-Qaida's ongoing effort to produce anthrax material, he said.

"Extremists have widely disseminated assembly instructions for an improvised chemical weapon using common materials that could cause a large number of casualties in a crowded, enclosed area," Tenet said.

"We are still at war against a movement," he said, appearing with other administration officials to discuss global security threats. "People who say it's exaggerated don't look at the same world I look at. It's not going away anytime soon."

Well, I'm sure they'll understand that we have more pressing matters to take care of right now, and will agree to lie low until we've got this whole gay marriage thing worked out. It's the least they can do.

Funny how in every Bush administration, a crisis arises that can only be dealt with by amending the Constitution. Turned out that flag burning really wasn't such a grave danger, but that doesn't mean we can afford to let our guards down now. Maybe we can come to a compromise here that would also address this little bit of unfinished business that Poppy left us. I hereby propose an amendment to the Constitution that strictly forbids gay people from burning the flag. Who's with me?

Gay marriage

I'm trying, I'm really trying, to make sense of the idea that anyone, let alone the President, could think that amending the Constitution for the purposes of restricting the rights of a subgroup of citizens is somehow good public policy. I also don't understand why the full force of the federal government is needed to settle the question. Make no mistake - the proposed amendment would very much deny states the right to make up their own minds about this. I just don't get it.

Marriage is a religious rite and a civil contract. No one is trying to make any organized religion change its doctrine. It's the civil contract, which confers many clearly defined benefits to those who enter it, that is being targeted for change. You could think of it as a gender-equity issue - why should spousal rights be denied to some people because they're the wrong sex? I don't see the problem.

There have been a lot of really ludicrous arguments about why gay marriage is bad that have been floated around lately, from the truly wacky (it could lead to bestiality! and child molestation! as if the legal distinctions regarding animals and minor children would suddenly be mooted) to those that say more about the advocate than anything else, like those who argue that it would somehow weaken "traditional" marriage. I can't speak for anyone else, but I haven't felt the slightest twinge to divorce Tiffany and head down to the nearest bath house. I think that any marriage that did fall apart as a result of what's been going on in San Francisco was perhaps not built on the stongest foundation to begin with.

I attended a wedding between two women some years ago, at one of the more liberal churches here in Houston. It was one of the most traditional ceremonies I've ever been to - a high mass with full choir, both women walked down the aisle by their fathers. If you'd not seen the participants, you wouldn't have known the difference. They're still together, and last I heard were talking about children. The world continues to spin on its axis in the meantime.

Like Kevin, I don't even think Bush is motivated by principle to do this. (Of course, I don't think he has any real principles other than tax cuts and bidness deregulation, but that's neither here nor there.) I think this is as clear a confirmation of Ruy Teixeira's ongoing theme that Bush is rapidly losing support among independent voters, and as such he has no choice but to play to his base. Issues don't get much redder or meatier than this one.

Of course, you know we've truly gone down the rabbit hole when Tom DeLay is counseling restraint.

House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, said he appreciated Bush's "moral leadership" on the issue, but expressed caution about moving too quickly toward a constitutional solution, and never directly supported one. "This is so important we're not going to take a knee-jerk reaction to this," Delay said. "We are going to look at our options and we are going to be deliberative about what solutions we may suggest."

I thought I'd seen a squadron of pigs circling overhead while driving home, but I'd chalked it up to too much caffeine. Now I'm not so sure.

Just sing a song and bring the sunny weather

I can't claim to be the world's biggest fan of the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, mostly because you never can fully take the New York out of the boy, but I'm always fascinated by the trail riders who come in every year from miles away to camp out in Memorial Park. They're on their way now, as the Rodeo kicks off next week, and I'm charmed once again by their simple respect for traditions. This story was about the Sam Houston trailride group from Huntsville, and though they don't have far to go to get here, they still face challenges with aplomb.

Sam Houston's bunch is one of 14 groups expected to reach Houston by Friday, some traveling as far as 400 miles away and one coming from the neighbor to the east -- Louisiana. Nearly 4,800 people on horseback and in wagons will camp out in Memorial Park Friday night, then lead a parade through downtown Houston Saturday morning.

This 52-year-old pilgrimage began when four men saddled up for a ride from Brenham, thus beginning the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo's trail ride tradition.

[...]

The riders have a deep affection for one another -- a type of humor-bound camaraderie that is easily understood in the calming country. No surprise that their love for the land is strong.

Dione Futral, in her 23rd year with the Sam Houston group -- the second-oldest trail -- said that with each passing year, it pains her to see less shrubbery and fewer trees.

"It's getting hard to find camp sites because subdivisions and shopping centers, road houses and golf courses," said Futral, a 54-year-old Montgomery resident who is riding with 250 others in her group this week.

None of that steers riders away, Futral said. Futral said the bond in the Sam Houston group is evident. Everyone has the same appreciation, she said.

"You don't hear the telephone, you don't hear a fax machine or a copier," she said. "You're sitting there and listening and you think, `(Trail riders) used to do that back in the old days -- how did they do it?' "

Yep. For sure, this Internet-dependent city boy would have a hard time with it. Be sure to check out the photo gallery with the story. Happy trails, y'all.

Don't it turn my red states blue

The goal: Defeating President Bush in November.

The requirement: Turning at least one Red state from 2000 into a Blue state.

How are we doing on that front?

Well, John Kerry and John Edwards are both leading George Bush in New Hampshire.

In a University of New Hampshire Granite State Poll conducted this week, 47 percent of New Hampshire adults said they approve of the job Bush is doing as president, 48 percent disapprove and 5 percent are neutral. That's down from a high of 71 percent in April and down 9 percentage points since October.

Looking ahead to the November election, 38 percent of likely voters said they would vote for Bush, and 53 percent said they would vote for Democrat John Kerry. In a matchup with Democrat John Edwards, 51 percent said they would vote for Edwards and 37 percent said they would vote for Bush.

Via Kos, who notes that just picking up NH would be insufficient thanks to the reallocation of electoral votes after the 2000 Census. One may also be skeptical of this poll when one recalls that Bush had significant leads over both the then-inevitable Howard Dean and the generic Democrat back in December. But I'll still take it.

More ominous for the President, perhaps, is this Ohio poll, (PDF) sponsored by the University of Cincinnati, which shows his approval rating in the Buckeye State below 50%.

The latest Ohio Poll finds President Bush’s approval rating remains well below the ratings he received in the early months of 2003. Forty-nine percent of Ohioans approve of the president’s performance, 49 percent disapprove and two percent neither approve nor disapprove.

The president’s approval rating in Ohio continues to be in close proximity to the rating he receives from the nation as a whole. The most recent national survey conducted by The Gallup Organization placed the president’s approval rating at 51 percent.

[...]

In the latest Ohio Poll, 47 percent of Ohioans approve of the way Bush is handling foreign affairs. Forty percent of state residents approve of the president’s handling of the economy.

Ohioans’ ratings of the president’s handling of foreign affairs and the economy are now the lowest of his presidency.

Unfortunately, they don't take the logical next step and ask the pollees whom they'd vote for in November. (They do have a very nice breakdown of the results by various categories.) I think, though, we can safely conclude that Ohio is not a lock for the President.

Standard caveats apply: it's early, it's only one poll, the moon's ascendancy in Pisces may portend future uncertainty for all Capricorns, etc etc etc.

UPDATE: Angry Bear crunches some job numbers in Ohio, and it ain't pretty for the President.

CD09 update

With early voting for the March 9 primary underway as of yesterday, the race in CD09 has gotten spirited. Candidates Al Green and Rep. Chris Bell both landed some high profile endorsements for the home stretch.

Former Houston Justice of the Peace Al Green got support from U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., former chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus. She gave him a $5,000 check from the caucus' political action committee during a noon news conference at a south Houston early voting location.

Later Monday night, Waters' husband, Sidney Williams, hosted a fund-raiser for Green at the Warwick Hotel.

Meanwhile, U.S. Rep. Chris Bell announced support from a number of congressional leaders, including House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California and Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson of Dallas, the immediate past chair of the black caucus.

In a race in which Bell and Green differ little on most issues, both are making their backgrounds the litmus test for voters in a district that is 35 percent African-American, 30 percent Hispanic, 20 percent white and 15 percent Asian-American.

Monday, Waters indicated that Green's background as a longtime leader in Houston's African-American community best suits him to represent the diverse district. He is a former president of the local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

Waters said Green has support from at least 11 of the black Democrats in Congress, including Bennie Thompson of Mississippi and Jesse Jackson Jr. of Illinois.

[...]

The Bell campaign argues that experience gained in his first term in Congress gives him a leg up over Green. Bell noted that the national NAACP gave him a 90 rating on its annual report card on legislative issues.

Monday, the campaign released names of congressional leaders supporting him, including Pelosi, Johnson, Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer, Democratic Caucus Chairman Bob Menendez and Congressional Hispanic Caucus Chairman Ciro Rodriguez.

The third Democratic Party primary candidate in the 9th District is lawyer Beverly Spencer. The winner will face the winner of the GOP primary race between A.R. Hassan and Arlette Molina.

With all due respect to Rob, the winner of the Democratic primary will be sent to DC in November. The presence of Beverly Spencer may force a runoff, but that'll be the end of any intrigue.

Bell's touting of his NAACP rating generated a minor kerfuffle, according to John Williams yesterday.

The Houston branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People has complained about advertising U.S. Rep. Chris Bell is doing in his Democratic Party primary race against former Justice of the Peace Al Green.

Yolanda Smith, the branch's executive director, issued a statement last week saying that Bell's radio advertising and mail-outs "are misleading."

Smith said her office has received complaints that the advertisements suggest that the NAACP is supporting Bell. The NAACP does not formally endorse political candidates.

Bell said his advertising never makes such a claim.

It states that Bell received an "A" rating from the annual NAACP Legislative Report.

The report chronicles the voting records of all members of the Senate and House.

Other lawmakers, such as U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., and U.S. Rep. Artur Davis, D-Ala., publicize their NAACP ratings without complaint from the organization.

The possible difference?

Green is the former president of the local NAACP branch.

The Bell campaign said the campaign ad will continue to run.

Oops.

Finally, Greg Wythe attended a candidates' forum over the weekend that included both Bell and Green and came away unimpressed with the challenger. I don't believe the Chron has made an endorsement yet (annoyingly, I can't find a link to a collection of all of their recommendations so far), but if I were a betting man I'd put a dollar on their supporting Bell.

Defining terrorist down

Remember when no one paid any attention to Rod Paige? Boy, weren't those the days.

Education Secretary Rod Paige called the nation's largest teachers union a "terrorist organization" today, taking on the 2.7-million-member National Education Association early in the presidential election year.

Paige's comments, made to the nation's governors at a private White House meeting, were denounced by union president Reg Weaver as well as prominent Democrats.

The education secretary's words were "pathetic and they are not a laughing matter," said Weaver, whose union has said it plans to sue the Bush administration over lack of funding for demands included in the "No Child Left Behind" schools law.

Paige said later in an Associated Press interview that his comment was "a bad joke; it was an inappropriate choice of words." President Bush was not present at the time he made the remark.

"As one who grew up on the receiving end of insensitive remarks, I should have chosen my words better," said Paige, the first black education secretary.

What an utter moron. That's also possibly the lamest use of the "just a joke" defense I've ever heard. Here's a hint for the future: Try your jokes out before a sympathetic test audience before going on the road with them. Anything that makes these people flinch or recoil should be immediately dropped.

I was going to write a long indignant rant about how using the word "terrorist" indiscriminantly strips it of all meaning, but honestly, is there anyone (besides Paige) who doesn't already know this? Haven't we all been inundated with the same sort of rant about terms like "Nazi" and "fascist" these past few years? You know what I'm saying, so I'll spare you the verbiage.

I just have one question: How long will it be before President Bush declares Rod Paige a "tolerant person" and never speaks of the matter again?

There's recruiting and then there's recruiting

Buried near the bottom of this rather pedestrian story about sex 'n' drugs 'n' stuff on the Bigtime College Athletics Recruiting Trail is a fairly sensible suggestion, made by UT Coach Mack Brown.

UT and A&M are in unusual positions in terms of recruiting because so many of their signees commit before their official visit, so the "selling" of the university has been done.

And with most of the players signing with the schools being from the state, the majority of them bring parents or guardians on their visits.

"You get better behavior from a guy when mama and daddy are in town with him," Brown said. "In fact, I wish the NCAA would look at (allowing schools to pay for) parents' visits. That would help when you bring in out-of-state kids."

Hard to argue with that. I think the NCAA would do well to at least consider the suggestion.

Way more interesting was this companion article about an enduring anachronism, the all-female "hostess" squads that meet up with recruits during their visits.

At most schools, the moment a high school recruit arrives on campus or at the local airport, he is welcomed by a hostess from the groups of all-female students. (Reportedly, these days a few campuses around the country have male members, but none are in Texas.)

At Texas A&M, they are known as Aggie Hostesses. Texas calls them the Texas Angels. Texas Tech's are the Raider Recruiters. Baylor has the Baylor Gold. Houston has the Cougar Cruiters. The Eagle Angels are at North Texas, and the Purple Hearts at TCU.

Legends in coaching like UT's Darrell Royal and UH's Bill Yeoman have said how valuable the Angels and Cruiters were to their programs in the 1960s and '70s.

Baylor's football media guide describes the Gold as "vital to the football program and the whole recruiting process." Tech's guide says the Raiders Recruiters are "the backbone of Texas Tech's recruiting efforts."

They are attractive, outgoing and at many schools, not necessarily representative of the makeup of the overall student body. UT's 2003 football media guide has photographs of 37 Texas Angels, with as many as 14 who appear to be black (37.8 percent), compared to the black student population of 3.2 percent in 2002.

These are not the average girls on campus -- any campus -- but the groups are adamant that they are not there to use their sexuality to entice high school recruits.

"They are outgoing, charming ladies," Dana Butterfield, a Colorado athletic department employee who oversees the Ambassadors program, told the Denver Post. "I think they have a flirtatious nature with anyone. I don't think they turn on the sexiness for recruits."

Organization leaders in Texas dismissed flirtation or anything like it as part of their duties.

"Using them as anything in that way is not what our organization is all about," said Lacey Glenewinkel, a member of the A&M football support staff and sponsor of the Aggie Hostesses. "They're here to meet with the recruits and so they have one more person on campus for the recruit to talk to and know.

"I don't feel like what has happened at Colorado reflects on our organization."

[...]

While the NCAA rules do not mention sexual relationships, most of the organizations have rules that call for dismissal of women who become involved with recruits.

"These are some exceptional young ladies who are there to help the families feel more comfortable," UT recruiting coordinator Michael Haywood said. "The mothers love 'em. They are able to answer questions that we can't answer because they live on campus and deal with college life every day.

"(Sex) is not even a thought. We have young ladies with great character that are pursuing careers and degrees. We haven't had any issues in that area. And I don't know any organization in the country that uses those young ladies for that purpose."

OK, I think we've all got the message there. There are just so many things I never knew about, coming from a Division III school.

Making BlogAds work for future candidates

You've probably seen the Wired article on BlogAds and their role in helping Ben Chandler get elected to Congress by now. It's good coverage of the story and provides a good view from inside the Chandler campaign of the ads' impact. The big question, mentioned in the article, is now that a bunch of other candidates are running blog ads, will anyone come close to replicating Chandler's success with them?

I think it's pretty clear that no one will duplicate the kind of 40-fold immediate return on the investment that Chandler got, mostly because no one will ever duplicate the perfect storm of Chandler's candidacy - special election, winnable race, pickup opportunity on the other guy's turf, easy to see that your contribution really did have an effect, and so on. Fortunately, given the relative inexpense of BlogAds, pretty much any decent candidate can and should be able to recoup his or her investment several times over, though it may take longer to get that kind of return.

I think there's a simple key to making this a viable long-term strategy for candidates, and that's to grow the audience. As I noted before, the total receptive readership for these ads is in the 100,000 to 200,000 range, depending on how much overlap there is among the most popular blogs. That's a pretty shallow well to tap into, and it won't take more than a handful of candidates busking there to dry it out.

The good news, though, is that the size of the audience now is tiny compared to its potential size. Simon Rosenberg notes that nearly 50 million people will vote Democratic in 2004, so there's a huge amount of room to expand. This is where the establishment, by which I mean the DNC, the DSCC, and the DCCC, can return the favor and help the bloggers by working to bring more readers into the fold.

How to do that isn't any great mystery. What I want to see these guys do is to mention blogs - their blogs, other like-minded blogs, whatever - at every opportunity. I want them to put their blog URLs on their letterheads and in their email sigs. They should mention them every time they speak to someone, and make sure every candidate they work with knows them and is strongly encouraged to do the same. While they're at it, start talking to state party organizations and get them to make like the Yellow Dogs, and have them push down to the county level from there. It's just good old-fashioned networking, and it's exactly the sort of thing that a group of paid political consultants/advisors/whatnot ought to excel at.

By raising awareness of their own efforts in cyberspace, they'll naturally help point some new eyeballs at the quadrumvirate of Atrios, Kos, Calpundit, and Josh Marshall, which in turn should help the rest of us downstream from there. A very realistic goal should be to double each one of these guys' daily hit counts by November, and in doing so, they'll have a bigger group of potential responders to those blog ads that we'll never get away from now. It's a clearcut win-win.

I should note that in talking up blogs, it's important to help people realize how they're different from standard online-brochure political sites. Atrios says it well here.

What the Dean campaign tapped into was a bunch of people who wanted to feel personally invested in a campaign, but hadn't found any way to do that. Too many state and local parties are completely ossified and don't return calls by people offering to volunteer, and are often run by people who don't seem to want any new blood interfering with their little fiefdoms. Between impeachment, Florida, and the Bush administration there are a lot of people new people who decided they wanted to become "involved" but didn't know how. The internet allows a small degree of personal involvement by a large number of people, and they're grateful for candidates who let them feel involved.

[...]

Look, a lot of the internet "personal involvement" is an illusion - and most people know that. Nobody ever thought Howard Dean read through thousands of comments on his weblog, but it nonetheless allowed them to feel they had a wee personal connection to the campaign, and that's all that mattered. The truth is, I think it's relatively easy for a campaign to tap into that sentiment, though not all campaigns will be comfortable doing that - and nor should they try. Blog readers are not your "typical voter" or your "typical Democrat," and not all campaigns/candidates are necessarily well-suited for trying to tap into that particular vibe. But, some are and with a little creativity and not too much effort they might be able to get the little extra money/attention they need to put them over the line in November.

It is about making people feel a little more connected, a little more involved, a little more listened to. There's a community aspect to blogging in general and to certain specific blogs in particular (Kos especially). Feeling like you've found a community of people like yourself and becoming a part of it is hugely desireable to many, many people. That's what we're aiming for here, and the rewards for getting there will greatly outstrip the cost.

UPDATE: Atrios adds on, and the DCCC shows that it is listening. Good!

Never underestimate the bandwidth of a WiFi-enabled bus

This is downright cool - it's a project to bring Internet access to remote locations by means of solar power, wireless access points, and data transmissions via buses or motorcycles. Here's a press release from one of their projects in Cambodia.

BANLUNG, Ratanakiri, Cambodia, September 1, 2003. A project launched today in one of the world's most remote regions, Ratanakiri in northeastern Cambodia, will bring e-mail to 13 villages that have no telecommunications and can mostly be reached only by motorbike or ox-cart.

These villages have no water, electricity, phones, cell phone access nor television or newspaper delivery. They are far from health centers. Per capita annual income is under $40. But they now have e-mail.

At these villages' new schools which are equipped with solar panels on the roof to provide sufficient energy to run a computer for six hours, there is now an e-mail link via a motorcycle delivery system.

Early every morning, five Honda motorcycles leave the hub in the provincial capitol of Banlung where a satellite dish, donated by Shin Satellite, links the provincial hospital and a special skills school to the Internet for telemedicine and computer training. The moto drivers equipped with a small box and antenna at the rear of their vehicle, that downloads and delivers e-mail through
a wi-fi (wireless) card, begin the day by collecting the e-mail from the hub's dish, which takes just a few seconds.

Then, as they pass each school and one health center, they transmit the messages they downloaded and retrieve any outgoing mail queued in the school or health center computer that is also equipped with a similar book-sized transmission box, and go on to the next school. At the end of the day they return to the hub to transmit all the collected e-mail to the Internet for any point on the globe.

Each school also has a computer and e-mail-trained young teacher graduated from the Future Light Orphanage in Phnom Penh, including four women, who are the village computer teacher and e-mail postmaster. The children in the village are being trained to take over this function in a couple of years.

You may wonder what good this will do for a village that has no water, electricity, or phones. Well, I'll tell you.

Children in the school are able to communicate with their donors overseas and tell them what they need for their school and studies; they can also communicate with other children in other villages via attachments typed in the Khmer font; teachers can send and receive reports and directives from the ministry of education; the village health worker can report instances of illness and send digital photos of such patients to obtain guidance from the provincial referral hospital and beyond from the Sihanouk Hospital Center of Hope in Phnom Penh and Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School in the U.S. which is already linked into a telemedicine program with the provincial hospital; any villager can send a message or grievance directly to the governor who has such an e-mail unit in his office and welcomes village communications to which he has pledged to respond. Newspapers can transmit their pages to the villages; villagers can announce their handicraft products and order goods from the market. Many other uses of this system will be developed by the villagers themselves.

Like I said, pretty doggone cool - the friend who emailed this to me said "think UUCP, but with cars instead of modems". Cheap, too - check the specs and ordering info. Nice to know that it is possible to actually make the world a better place, isn't it?

Fill 'er up!

My, my. The TRMPAC scandal investigation continues to expand, as Travis County DA Ronnie Earle's office sends out dozens of subpoenas over the next few days.

Nine subpoenas were officially filed Friday. They went to House Speaker Tom Craddick and eight other people, including six Republican House members.

The subpoenas seek documents related to the 2002 speaker's race, which ended in 2003 with Craddick becoming the first Republican speaker since Reconstruction.

[...]

The subpoenas went to Craddick and six of his top lieutenants: Dianne White Delisi, R-Temple; Kent Grusendorf of Arlington; Phil King of Weatherford; Mike Krusee of Round Rock; Arlene Wohlgemuth of Burleson; and Beverly Woolley of Houston; all Republicans. Another went to Bill Ceverha, a former state representative and treasurer for the Republican majority group.

They were ordered to produce pledge cards -- which speaker candidates and their allies typically collect from House members during a race -- and any e-mails or other correspondence related to the speaker's race. The documents are supposed to be delivered to the grand jury Feb. 26.

Beverly Wooley will wake up today to see a front page story about her fundraising activities on behalf of TRM.

Rep. Beverly Woolley, R-Houston, swept through [Reliant Energy's] Houston corporate offices on Sept. 9, 2002, raising money for targeted House races as well as for Texans for a Republican Majority, according to an itinerary of her travel obtained by the Houston Chronicle.

Notes on her itinerary indicate she spoke to some donors about what types of legislation they would like.

[...]

Notations on Woolley's itinerary indicate that one energy executive said property taxes are "outrageous" and another energy executive wanted to take the "volatility out" of "severance tax policy." A banker who agreed to make $22,000 in donations directly to TRM-sponsored candidates wanted "to clean up home equity lending."

For financier Charles Hurwitz, it was noted he had an interest in improving the Texas horse racing industry, which he helped sponsor. The note said he had "retained (lobbyist) Elton Bomer -- Talked to (lobbyist Michael) Toomey."

At the time, Bomer was a horse racing lobbyist and Toomey was a lobbyist for Texans for Lawsuit Reform. TLR was one of five organizations targeting Republican House races.

[...]

A hand-written note on the itinerary called the trip a "36Kday + 25 Reliant." That meant $36,000 raised directly for candidates plus $25,000 in corporate money from Reliant.

The donation to TRM was made by then-Reliant Senior Vice President Bruce Gibson. Gibson now is chief of staff for Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst.

Gibson said he remembers meeting with Woolley but nothing that was discussed. Gibson said it was not unusual at the time for political organizations to seek corporate "soft money" to finance state and federal campaign funds.

"There were all kinds of soft-money accounts. I got hit hard," Gibson said. "They usually were not involved in races. They were for other expenses."

According to the itinerary, Woolley spent the rest of the day raising money directly for specific House candidates from Houston executives on behalf of TRM.

Woolley went on to be named the chairman of the House Calendar Committee, which is the panel that decides which bills to debate on the House floor. Not that this will stop anyone from attempting the lame "no quid pro quo" defense. Who would ever stoop so low as to think that the person in charge of prioritizing legislation might remember who handed her an envelope full of unmarked bills along with a word in her ear about severance tax policy? The very idea is just so tacky.

The grand jury gets to pore over these documents on February 26. Mark it on your calendar.

Another race to watch

There's one statewide race this year, for Railroad Commissioner. The incumbent, Victor Carrillo, was appointed by Rick Perry to finish out Tony Garza's term. He's now facing opposition in the Republican primary, and the GOP establishment is going all out for him.

Presidential adviser Karen Hughes endorsed Railroad Commission Chairman Victor Carrillo on Friday in the GOP establishment's latest effort to give him a boost in a four-way primary election race.

[...]

In the primary, Carrillo faces Douglas G. Deffenbaugh of San Antonio, president of an oil and gas service company; retiree Robert Butler of Palestine; and K. Dale Henry, a Mullin engineer.

The winner will face Democrat Bob Scarborough of Fort Worth.

Hughes described Carrillo — a geologist, geophysicist, energy lawyer and former Abilene City Councilman and Taylor County judge — as "exceptionally well qualified for this job."

With the GOP working to attract Hispanic voters, Hughes also cast him as the party's future.

"The future of the party is reaching out to more Hispanic candidates, to women, to African Americans to diversify our party," she said. "The Hispanic community is a very important constituency."

Deffenbaugh responded, "I think the future of the Republican Party is staying true to our conservative ideals of less taxes and less government — and putting small oil and gas operators out of business is not staying true to our conservative values."

Deffenbaugh said such operators are hurt by a requirement for oil and gas well operators to have a bond to ensure they have the money to plug wells when they're done with them.

The requirement, aimed at ensuring wells aren't abandoned, is required in state law. The law is implemented by the commission.

The reason for all this top-dog attention to Carrillo is that the GOP would very much like to avoid a rerun of 2002, when Steven Wayne Smith, a less qualified candidate with vocal and embarrassing views on race defeated the Perry-appointed Xavier Rodriguez in the primary for State Supreme Court, a result which put a bit of a crimp in their Hispanic outreach program. I don't believe any of Carrillo's opponents are as notorious as Smith, who was the litigator in the Hopwood case, and none of them have such an evocative name, but apparently the powers that be aren't taking any chances. The wailing and gnashing of teeth potential if Carrillo goes down is very high.

So that's where they're hiding!

Headline in today's Chron: Volunteer discovers a new asteroid on Internet. I must confess, I never would have thought to look there myself.

Buy Girl Scout cookies!

Is there no end to what some people will politicize?

People in Waco were more than a bit taken aback after turning on a Christian radio station and hearing a community leader call for a boycott of Thin Mints and Caramel deLites.

"I encourage you to join me in abstaining from Girl Scout cookies," John Pisciotta, director of Pro-Life Waco and an associate professor of economics at Baylor University, has been saying for two weeks in public-service announcements running around the clock on KBDE/89.9.

Pisciotta then says the Waco-based Bluebonnet Council of Girl Scouts supports Planned Parenthood's annual sex education seminars.

The vaguely worded radio announcements are the latest and most public attempt by the group to discourage the Girl Scouts from even a casual affiliation with Planned Parenthood, an international organization that promotes reproductive freedom and provides health care services related to reproduction.

Criminy. I suppose nothing the so-called "pro-life" movement does should surprise me, but I still found myself shaking my head when I read this. On the plus side, their little tantrum seems to have had little effect.

So far, the fallout has been limited. Two of the 400 Girl Scout troops in the Bluebonnet Council's Central Texas district have reportedly disbanded after learning of the Planned Parenthood connection.

The controversy has made for better cookie sales in Waco.

[Beth Vivio, executive director of the Bluebonnet Council of Girl Scouts] said the Girl Scouts expect to sell more than the average 432,000 boxes of cookies during the sale, which runs through February. And the Girl Scouts office has seen more calls and drop-in visitors requesting cookies.

A flurry of letters to the editor of the Waco Tribune-Herald seems to support her assessment: The pro-cookie writers outnumber the writers who favor Pro-Life Waco's campaign.

"You (Pro-Life Waco) just made buying Girl Scout cookies a political statement," wrote M.B. Tankersley of Woodway, "and it's one I am not afraid to make. Thanks for the reminder that we need to support this worthy organization."

Good for her, and good for the rest of the cookie-buying public in Central Texas. I'd already bought three boxes this year, but if another Scout comes knocking on my door, I'll buy more.

Checking out the talent

Today was tryout day for the Timbergrove Little League. Unlike last year, when I was called in to coach an already-formed team, I had the opportunity to observe and participate in a brief workout of the new and returning players in the 9- and 10-year-old Mustang division. Four players from my team last year will still be in this division - one is already on the roster, one has requested to play for a different team, and the other two, who want to play together, will be in the draft.

As my reward for coaching a winless team in 2003, I will get the first draft choice when we choose up sides next Thursday. As it happens, the player I plan on picking is one of my guys from last year. He was a good player then - his teammates picked him as their MVP - and he's improved since then. Picking him ought to give me the inside track on my other former player and at least one other kid, a boy who happens to be a neighbor of mine. Kids are allowed to express a desire to be on the same team as another kid, and while coaches aren't bound by that, we do have a gentlemen's agreement to try to accomodate them. If I can use that to my advantage and get a couple of kids who already know me, I most certainly will.

I took some notes on each player during the workout, but there's not much to go on. The kids who stood out were fairly few, and with some 30 kids there, no one got a lot of opportunity to distinguish him or herself (one player there was a girl). The draft will be a crapshoot, and frankly I'm just hoping for some good citizens with parents who understand it's a game.

By this point, it also seems pretty clear that I am in fact the head coach of the Twins, by default if nothing else. I sure do hope I'll have an assistant who can stand in for me in May when I'll be otherwise occupied. Of course, maybe the baby will wait until the season is over before she makes her appearance. Surely that's the least she can do for her dad, right?

Keeping an eye on the candidates

It goes without saying that the upcoming election is vital, and I consider it a top priority to help every good candidate that I can to win. I'm going to highlight a few of these candidates here, and will continue to keep an eye on them and push their campaigns during the year. I'm also going to issue an open invitation to every Democrat I mention here: If you'd like for me to publish an interview with you, drop me an email at the address above.

Via Southpaw, check out Gary R. Page, who will be running against Kenny Boy Marchant, the golden boy of the State House who got his very own custom-made district out of our endless legislative summer. As noted here, Marchant is nothing but a Forgy Kerr candidate, a nonentity whose purpose in life is to serve the interests of those who aim to put him in Congress. Now, I don't have any illusions about Gary Page winning this race - if Martin Frost didn't think the new 24th CD was winnable for him, it sure won't be winnable for some Democrat no one's ever heard of. But that doesn't mean any of us should be willing to roll over and die.

You've already met Morris Meyer, who's running against Smokey Joe Barton in the 6th CD. He's been busy with his blog ads, and he's been getting a push from Atrios, which ought to help him out. Again, this is a race the Democrats should have no chance in, but I like the fact that we're fighting. I believe only good things can result from that.

And when you read Atrios's link to Tom DeLay's charming comments about homosexuals, remember that Richard Morrison is taking on DeLay. Richard has a primary opponent in Erik Saenz, and while I'll be happy to support Mr. Saenz if he winds up with the nomination, I strongly believe in Richard's candidacy and would like to see him win in March. Given that he needs to be campaigning now, Richard could really use a little help.

If there's one thing we've learned from this past year, it's how important control of the State House is. Greg Wythe is strongly supporting a few Democratic House candidates, including Byron Barclay, who hopes to unseat Martha "No Thong" Wong in HD 134; the perenially threatened Scott Hochberg in HD 137, who is consistently one of our best incumbents; and Alma Allen, who hopes to unseat the turncoat Ron Wilson in HD 131. I urge my Houston readers to get to know these candidates, especially if you're in one of their districts.

Finally, Byron has more about Alma Allen and Ron Wilson (with similar stuff posted in his Kos diary). He's also watching the GOP-only 10th CD race, and I'm sure he'll be equally focused on Austin's State House races.

It's never too early to get involved. The new Congressional boundaries may be reality, but they don't have to be destiny. Let's roll up our sleeves and get down to it.

More rail studies in Sugar Land

I guess this is progress.

A commuter rail along the U.S. 90A corridor is a workable transportation option for passengers commuting from Fort Bend County to Houston, according to a feasibility study released Friday.

"The future of Fort Bend County depends on an effective passenger rail line," said Leonard Scarcella, Stafford's mayor and an avid supporter of a Fort Bend commuter line.

The findings from the $250,000 study, conducted through the Houston-Galveston Area Council, were presented to a committee of state and local officials.

The committee recommended that federal, state and local leaders organize a second study called an alternative analysis, which would begin this fall or next year.

The next study, estimated to cost between $1 million and $2 million, would take a more detailed look at commuter rail and examine all possible transportation options in the corridor, including buses and the use of other rights of way for rail.

It also would examine other issues, including noise, safety and grade-crossing traffic.

I guess the fact that the studies are getting more expensive is a sign that they're getting more serious. I fear it also means it'll take longer, too. It sure would've been nice to have something in place while the downtown spur is being rebuilt, wouldn't it? Maybe next time.

Perry's chief of staff being investigated

The ongoing grand jury investigation into potential illegal use of corporate campaign donations by the Texans for a Republican Majority has reached into the Governor's office.

The Texas Association of Business and Texans for a Republican Majority had much in common even before a grand jury began investigating allegations that both groups illegally spent corporate money in 2002 legislative campaigns.

Both groups spent unprecedented amounts of corporate money in election activities. Both targeted the same two dozen legislative seats that were crucial to the Republican takeover of the Legislature.

And in the weeks leading to the November elections, leaders of both groups met with lobbyist Mike Toomey -- now Gov. Rick Perry's chief of staff -- to discuss the business association's ad campaign that was financed with corporate money. The identities of the donors have been kept secret.

It's neither unusual nor illegal for political professionals to exchange information, plot strategy or even coordinate their activities to elect a slate of candidates. When corporate money becomes involved, however, the fine line between cooperation and coordination becomes the boundary between legal political activity and a felony.

"Coordination is just a fancy word for conspiracy," explained Travis District Attorney Ronnie Earle.

"Communication is not coordination," retorted Andy Taylor, the lawyer for the business association.

John Colyandro, executive director of Texans for a Republican Majority, on Thursday confirmed the meetings with Bill Hammond, president of the Texas Association of Business; Chuck McDonald, a public relations executive who designed ads for Hammond; and Toomey. He said he met with political professionals all the time and could not recall what was discussed.

Toomey declined comment, and Hammond referred all questions to Taylor.

McDonald would say only, "Any meetings in my office would have been to discuss the TAB mailings."

The Chron story mentions a couple of Houston legislators who benefitted from TRMPAC money.

One issue is whether Republican House candidates were promised campaign contributions in exchange for pledges that they would vote for Craddick for speaker. Two Houston state representatives, Larry Taylor and Martha Wong, said Friday that they were committed to supporting Craddick long before receiving any money through him.

Taylor, a Republican, said he had been dedicated to voting for Craddick since 1997, when he ran unsuccessfully for the Legislature. Taylor said he did receive a check from TRMPAC in the mail sent by Craddick.

"The fact that he delivers a check to me has nothing to do with my voting for him," said Taylor.

Wong, a Republican, said she thought her check was mailed to her campaign consultant's office. She said she committed to support Craddick in January 2002, months before the TRMPAC donation.

Back to the Statesman article, there's a lot of new information here about TRM's activities and how Mike Toomey, who is to Rick Perry as Karl Rove is to George Bush, was involved.

Based on interviews with Colyandro and documents from Texans for a Republican Majority, new details are emerging about Toomey and Colyandro's working relationship:

* Toomey hired private investigators to do criminal background checks on three Democrats running for the Legislature. He then asked Texans for a Republican Majority to pay for part of that cost. Toomey scribbled on top of the investigator's bill: "John C, Never paid -- call my mobile 2 tell me if you can pay. Thanks, Mike."

* Toomey also submitted miscellaneous expenses to the Republican Majority group, including a $444 copying bill.

* Colyandro said he contacted the Law Enforcement Alliance of America about getting involved in Texas legislative races. The Virginia group distributed the pieces to Texas voters under its logo and refused to disclose the sources of its money for the mailing.

* Colyandro, who also was working for the Gregg Abbott campaign for attorney general, denied recruiting the law enforcement group to run a $1.5 million TV ad against Abbott's opponent, Kirk Watson of Austin. The Virginia group never disclosed who paid for the last-minute attack ad and has refused to comment on its involvement in Texas campaigns. Colyandro has always called Toomey a mentor with whom he frequently discussed politics and campaigns.

As executive director for Texans for a Republican Majority, Colyandro was the nexus of decision-making on how the committee spent $1.5 million in the targeted legislative races, which included Austin-area candidates Jack Stick, Todd Baxter and Rick Green.

The group legally spent $900,000 from individuals by giving it directly to candidates or paying for polling, research and phone banks to help the candidates.

It even shared some of its consultants with the legislative candidates.

The issue in the grand jury investigation of Texans for a Republican Majority is $600,000 in corporate donations that the group used for polling, research, fund-raising and consulting. Colyandro said those were administrative expenses that benefitted the committee, not the candidates.

Colyandro said he decided whether an activity was political or administrative. Prosecutors are investigating whether that corporate money actually became illegal political expenditures by directly benefitting a candidate's campaign.

Prosecutors also are arguing in their court filings that the Texas Association of Business used political action committees to coordinate its corporate-financed ads with candidates.

"What TAB was prohibited from doing directly," prosecutors wrote, "it accomplished by chicanery."

Texas Monthly had a long profile of Mike Toomey (registration required) last year. Here's a choice quote.

The old ideas about Texas government are in jeopardy. They may prove to be relics of a dead political tradition, one that was rural, Democratic, and loosely organized. Today, a new political tradition is being established, one that is suburban, Republican, and tightly controlled. At the heart of that new tradition are Rick Perry and his enforcer, Mike Toomey. With a huge mandate from the voters, unassailable Republican majorities in both the state House and the Senate, and a major budget crisis that justifies gubernatorial intervention, Perry is poised to become the most powerful governor of modern times. And Toomey is providing the brains and the muscle.

In the Capitol game of Clue this year, he is everyone's favorite suspect: Mike Toomey did it, in the governor's office, with—what else?—the knife. Why did the Texas Medical Association part company with its longtime lobbyist, Kim Ross, last December? Because Perry told the doctors' group that his office would not work with them as long as Ross was around. (The TMA backed Perry's Democratic opponent, Tony Sanchez, in the 2002 governor's race after Perry, at Toomey's urging on behalf of two clients, vetoed the doctors' top-priority bill in 2001.) Why did the State Preservation Board, dominated by Perry appointees, fire its executive director, former GOP legislator Rick Crawford, whose tenure included the construction of the highly regarded Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum? Because Crawford refused Toomey's request for his resignation, his apparent sin being friendship with Perry's archenemy, former Democratic House Speaker Pete Laney. Why did several Democratic representatives have a change of heart in late March and vote for a proposed constitutional amendment limiting lawsuit awards? Could it be because the governor's office informed them that funding for a regional health center in the Rio Grande Valley and a medical school for El Paso depended upon local lawmakers' support for the tort-reform bill? Many more dark and dirty deeds are attributed to him without proof, as occurred with Karl Rove in the Bush years.

If Toomey winds up taking a fall, it'll be very, very bad for Rick Perry. Stay tuned.

Ralph may run again

Yawn. Ralph Nader may run for President again this year.

After weeks of postponing his decision, Nader will appear on NBC's "Meet the Press" to make the announcement, said Linda Schade, a spokeswoman for Nader's presidential exploratory committee.

"He's going to be discussing his role in the presidential election," Schade said of the man whose run for president in 2000 is blamed by many Democrats for tilting a close election in favor of George W. Bush. "He's felt there is a role for an independent candidate to play."

Schade declined to speculate on what the decision would be, but she said Nader would be available for interviews following the television appearance and planned to hold a press conference Monday morning to discuss his communications with the Democratic and Republican parties.

Nader, who turns 70 next week, has said he would base his decision, in part, on whether Democratic and Republican officials respond to his agenda, which includes the need for universal health insurance, a more progressive wage policy and making dramatic reforms to the criminal justice system.

Nader decided in December not to seek the nomination of the Green Party, the insurgent political group he represented in 2000. Green Party officials said at the time they doubted Nader, running as an independent, would get on many state ballots without a party organization and so late in the political season.

Schade said Nader has not begun the process of getting his name on state ballots, which requires garnering thousands of signatures.

In spite of being described by some as a spoiler, Nader for months has been gauging support for another run through an Internet site and exploratory committee. On Thursday, he sent Web site subscribers an e-mail asking them for their thoughts on whether he should seek the presidency.

Whatever. He's just in it for the attention anyway - when all is said and done, he'll probably have spent more time dithering about his decision to run than he will have spent actually running. Frankly, anyone who's gonna vote for Nader this time around wasn't gonna vote for the Democrat anyway, so there's no point in wasting energy on him. Without the support of the Green Party, he probably won't get on as many ballots, and he probably won't get as much attention from the media. So do whatever you want, Ralph. I've stopped caring, and you've stopped mattering.

(Note: Whatever one may say about Ralph Nader, don't take it out on Public Citizen. Their legacy and relevance are untarnished even if his isn't.)

Today Skilling, tomorrow Kenny Boy?

Now that Jeff Skilling has done the perp walk, when will the feds turn their sights on Kenny Boy?

With Jeff Skilling's indictment and Andrew Fastow's plea deal, a key question looms: What's next for Ken Lay?

At this point, no one can say. Prosecutors are still investigating Lay and haven't yet decided whether to bring charges. What's more, that investigation is likely to continue for months.

Lay's lawyers didn't speak Thursday, but they have steadfastly maintained his innocence. A spokeswoman for Lay, 61, said only that his attorneys were reviewing the indictment against Skilling, who served as Enron's chief operating officer and then its chief executive officer.

Some legal experts said if Lay's reputation as a more hands-off CEO turns out to be true, it could make it more difficult to bring criminal charges against him.

But, they also said, prosecutors could consider whether Lay acted in a "willfully blind" manner, that is whether he deliberately chose to ignore obvious signs of wrongdoing.

Skilling, who had been Enron's chief operating officer, took Lay's job as CEO in early 2001. Lay remained chairman and resumed the role of CEO when Skilling unexpectedly resigned in August of that year.

James Comey, U.S. deputy attorney general, spoke to reporters in Washington about Skilling's indictment, but said he couldn't comment specifically on Lay.

"The government is still a long way from bringing an indictment again Ken Lay," said Robert Mintz, a former federal prosecutor in New Jersey.

He added: "The government's approach here is to take these one defendant at a time and I think right now all of their efforts are going to be devoted to making these charges against Jeff Skilling stick and any charges against Ken Lay are very much an open question."

What Robert Mintz says sounds right to me. Skilling followed Andy Fastow so quickly because (I presume) Fastow pleaded out and gave the feds what they needed to bring a case against Skilling. With Skilling and Rick Causey almost certain to go to trial, the feds won't have time to pay much attention to Ken Lay. It's possible, depending on how long it takes for the trial to begin, that Lay won't be in the crosshairs for a few years.

Skilling will also serve as a test of the "it was all those evildoing underlings" defense. With Lay known for his, um, Dubyaesque management style, if the feds can't nail Skilling for complicity in what was going on, they'll never touch him. I'm really interested to see how this trial goes.

Finally, I note that Skilling has pled not guilty to all counts. His mouthpieces then talked trash on the courthouse steps. This will surely be fun.

Perry slaps Kay Bailey

I guess Rick Perry is taking the idea that he might not only be challenged but genuinely threatened in 2006 by a fellow Republican seriously. He's been vocally critical of Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn for some time now, but that's always been pretty much in self-defense. This rebuke of Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison is an unprovoked attack, which makes it way more interesting.

Gov. Rick Perry says Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison chose the worst possible time to call the Bush administration's progress on Mexico's decade-old Rio Grande water debt "halfhearted."

Hutchison told hundreds gathered at a Rio Grande Valley "water summit" Tuesday that she would urge President Bush to step up efforts to get Mexico to pay the approximately 1.3 million acre-feet of water it owes under the terms of a 1944 water-sharing treaty.

"I have been extremely disappointed in Mexico's blatant disregard for the treaty and what I feel is a halfhearted effort by our government to enforce it," Hutchison said.

Perry said Hutchison's words belittled recent water transfers that have Mexico current for the present accounting year. He said criticism now could hurt the mood of Mexican President Vicente Fox's visit to Bush's Crawford ranch next month.

"I think the Bush administration has done everything in its power," Perry told The Associated Press. "We've got some very serious negotiations going on with President Fox. ... I think to be overly critical, knowing the sensitivity of the negotiations, is in no one's best interest."

Hutchison said that she recognized Bush had many issues to deal with but felt he needed to put more weight behind the water issue.

"I doubt that Gov. Perry was able to read my entire remarks. I said President Bush has been forced to prioritize, and until now, homeland security has come first," she said. "But now Mexico has the water, and it's time for the State Department to enforce the treaty and eliminate the water debt. I hope the governor will agree to stand up for the farmers of South Texas."

Hutchison is considered a possible opponent to Perry in the 2006 gubernatorial election.

Sure is cute to see Gov. Perry stick up for the President against such scurrilous carping, isn't it? I can just see the slogans for the 2006 primary: "Rick Perry - Cleaving more forcefully to George Bush than anyone else!"

Craddick records subpoenaed

And the grand jury investigation of Texans for a Republican Majority moves forward,with Travis County DA Ronnie Earle subpoenaing House Speaker Tom Craddick's documents from the 2002 Speaker's race. Basically, the allegation is that Craddick funnelled TRMPAC money to Republican House candidates in return for their supporting Craddick as speaker. Various stories have differed on how many candidates were the beneficiaries of this largesse - this one says 20 races and 7 candidates (huh?), the NYT story speaks of 11 candidates, though that appears to be for money from Union Pacific, and this Statesman story says 14 candidates and a different amount of boodle. It sure is hard to keep it all straight. Anyway, Craddick say's he's happy to cooperate in today's Statesman story:

Craddick's statement comes just after reports that he helped Texans for a Republican Majority raise and deliver campaign funds to Republican candidates who went on to vote for him as speaker.

A state law bars outside groups from trying to influence the internal House election — either directly or indirectly. It also is illegal for a candidate for speaker to knowingly accept a group's help in that election.

A spokesman for the speaker has said Craddick already had secured the majority of his Republican votes for speaker before distributing money to those candidates.

Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle said that an ongoing investigation of Texans for a Republican Majority has been broadened, but declined to discuss specifics.

The money that Craddick delivered came from Union Pacific Railroad and from donations made to Texans for a Republican Majority. The group was formed by U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay to help elect the first modern-era Republican majority in the state House. That majority went on to elect Craddick as the first Republican speaker since Reconstruction.

Prosecutors say Texans for a Republican Majority illegally used corporate donations to help Republican candidates in two dozen House races. The Texas Association of Business is under investigation in connection with similar allegations.

It is illegal for corporate money to be used for electioneering, and both groups have denied wrongdoing.

Earle later released a fuller statement, which can be found on the Quorum Report.

In the late Fall of 2002, in response to public boasting by the Texas Association of Business (TAB) that it had collected and contributed money from corporations to elect candidates to the Texas Legislature, this office began an investigation into possible violations of Texas law prohibiting such corporate contributions.

That initial effort led to an investigation of allegations that Texans for a Republican Majority (TRMPAC), a political action committee, also illegally raised and used corporate money for political purposes.

During the course of the investigation into the activities of TRMPAC, possible criminal conduct in connection with the race for Speaker of the Texas House of Representatives was uncovered. As a result, the investigation was broadened once again to include those allegations.

As part of that investigation, and as announced today by Speaker Tom Craddick, a subpoena duces tecum for production of records has been served on the Office of the Speaker of the House.

The subpoena will be filed of record tomorrow in the Travis County District Clerk’s Office.

Lots of activity going on, with the focus apparently shifting from the TAB investigation to TRMPAC. Stay tuned. Links via Byron and Clean Up Texas Politics. Be sure to read this Statesman editorial, too.

Panning the Press

Though I've yet to see a mention of it anywhere other than in the Chron, the Houston Press got four letters this week which condemned it for the loss of Tim Fleck. Maybe I oughta try and track him down and see if I can get him to talk about what happened. He probably can't, but what the heck. I'll see what I can do. If all else fails, maybe I can put the blogging bug in his ear.

A further split on immigration

I've expressed skepticism before about President Bush reaping a political windfall from his recent immigration reform proposal. While it's possible, if he actually puts some political capital on the line, that he might swing some Hispanic voters his way with this, I think the backlash from his own party will more than outweigh any such boon to him. Yesterday, the GOP candidates in the primary for the new 2nd Congressional District provided some further evidence to that thesis.

President Bush's proposed immigration policy was a target Wednesday during a forum of Republican candidates for the 2nd Congressional District, who said the plan is too lax on illegal immigrants in Texas.

The comments ranged from dismissal of the Bush plan by Houston police officer John Nickell to guarded criticism from former Judge Ted Poe, who said the United State should beef up efforts to improve the economy in Mexico to keep workers in that country.

But none of the six Republican candidates in the March 9 primary for the newly drawn district supported the party's president on the issue.

[...]

"We all know and like President Bush in this room. We think he is as great of a president as there has been," said candidate Clint Moore. "But this policy is not a good one."

Nickell said the U.S. military should be used to enforce the nation's borders.

Nickell has testified before Congress in opposition to the Houston police department policy against checking the immigration status of people who are arrested or otherwise have contact with Houston officers.

He said the "hands-off" policy prevented the city from picking up illegal immigrant Walter Sorto, convicted of killing two East End waitresses, when he was stopped for traffic violations before the slayings.

"This cannot be allowed," he said.

Businessman George Fastuca complained that Bush's policy will lead to an amnesty program that will encourage illegal immigration.

Businessman Mark Henry said the president's package must be modified to ensure against amnesty. He favors creation of a guest worker program that would help keep track of those coming here, but said non-working family members should not be allowed to accompany guest workers.

"When they are finished working here, they go home," Henry said.

Poe said that Congress should take a "common sense approach" to immigration, and that businesses hiring illegal immigrants should be held accountable.

"The long-range goal should be to devise a policy to improve the economy of Mexico to keep them there," Poe said.

Now, I'm not claiming that the nativist wing of the Republican Party is going to abandon Bush in November. The main alternative for folks of this persuasion is the very definition of "fringe" and will get basically zero mainstream coverage. What I am saying is that when party stalwarts like these guys feel the need to distance themselves from a high-profile Bush initiative like this, it's a lot harder for Bush to advocate for it. If he can't convince his most loyal supporters that this is a good idea, why should anyone else believe him? And before anyone says the word "triangulation", I'll remind you that Bush gets nearly all of his approval in polls from Republicans. He can't afford to cross his base. This issue is a loser for him, and I'll bet you don't hear all that much more about it from Bush himself than you do the Mars mission.

By the way, I never thought I'd say these words, but Ted Poe is making some sense here. If the goal is to discourage the hiring of illegal immigrants, the policy needs to be aimed at those who do the hiring. I don't think he'll get much support from the business lobby, though.

Skilling busted

Looks like the federal prosecutors have given me a birthday present.

Jeff Skilling, the ex-CEO credited with cultivating the culture that led to Enron's burgeoning success and its stunning crash, surrendered to the FBI in Houston early today.

Accompanied by a gaggle of high-powered attorneys including Bruce Hiler of Washington and Dan Petrocelli of Los Angeles, the tieless former executive arrived at the FBI's local headquarters just before 7 a.m. and silently ran a gantlet of television cameras. Asked by reporters how his client was doing, Petrocelli replied, "under the circumstances extremely well."

Minutes later, FBI agents drove their handcuffed suspect to Houston's federal courthouse downtown, where he is scheduled to appear before U.S. Magistrate Judge Frances Stacy as early as 9 a.m. to hear his charges, arrange for bail and enter his plea. As cameras flashed and a news chopper hovered overhead, FBI agents escorted the once-powerful businessman in through the backdoor of the courthouse.

Sources told the Chronicle that Skilling, 50, was named in a sealed indictment on Wednesday, making him the top Enron executive to be accused of a crime in the trading giant's downfall. The specific charges against Skilling will not be revealed until the indictment is unsealed this morning. Lawyers who are close to the case expect the charges to accuse Skilling of conspiring with other executives in a series of schemes to manipulate earnings and fool investors about the health of Enron.

Yes, they said handcuffed. Isn't this a lovely sight?

We'll find out later just what the indictment is about, and where the case goes from here. And just because I know you're wondering:

The only Enron corporate kingpin above Skilling was ex-board Chairman Ken Lay, who has not been charged. Prosecutors are still investigating Lay.

It's been a good day already, hasn't it?

UPDATE: Skilling is charged with 35 counts of insider trading, fraud, and conspiracy, with seven more counts against Rick Causey. You can see the indictments here (PDF). Skilling has pled not guilty, posted $5 million bond, and passed a lie detector test (PDF). (Awfully nice of the Chron to host that, eh?) His next court appearance, which will be for the purpose of scheduling future court appearances, is March 11. Let the show begin!

UPDATE: I had originally said that all the counts in the indictments that were unsealed today were against Skilling, but that's not correct - I'd misread what was in the story. I've fixed the text to reflect that. Thanks to Greg V for the catch.

Another year in the can

Today is my birthday. I'm exactly the same age as Justine Bateman and exactly one day older than Cindy Crawford. Other people lighting candles today include Prince Andrew and Nicolai Copernicus. On this day in 1985, Cherry Coke was introduced to America, while Mickey Mouse was introduced to China. And of course, today is the 156th anniversary of the rescue of the Donner Party.

Last year at this time, I told you a few things about me. This year, I'd like for you to tell me something about you. Nothing so fancy, of course, but I'd be interested to hear things like where you are and how you found me. Or whatever - I'm just trying something different here to see what happens. Hey, it's my birthday, so let's have a little fun. Thanks!

Dean drops out

It's old news by now, but I do want to add my voice to those who have thanked Howard Dean for helping to infuse the Democratic Party and the various contenders for the Presidency with a spine, and to help them overcome their fear of attacking our Popular Wartime President for his many and manifest failings. I'll be very interested to see what Dean does with his existing structure. If I have one wish, it's for him to encourage as many of his supporters as possible to run for office themselves, as Rob is doing. You want there to be a positive legacy of Dean For America, that's your best bet.

Frankly, if there's anyone who should be thanking Howard Dean for his campaign, it's John Kerry, as William Burton pointed out.

By claiming the left wing of the Democratic Party as his own, Dean created space towards the center for Kerry to emerge as a "moderate" alternative. Without Dean in the race, Kerry would've been the most liberal viable candidate; and centrist support would've drifted to the candidate who best positioned himself as the moderate alternative to that liberal Kerry.

I don't know if the voter perception of Kerry as a moderate will hold through the general election. Unfortunately, most of the swing voters and Reagan Democrats probably aren't paying enough ettention right now to form a lasting impression of Kerry before the Bush war machine gets cranked up.

This could've all been different. If Dean had emphasized his moderate record as Governor rather than running almost solely on the war (until just before the election), he might've actually emerged as the moderate alternative, rather than as the liberal sacrificial lamb.

I think that's right, though of course the media's insistence that opposition to the invasion of Iraq somehow equals flaming liberalism didn't hurt Kerry, either. I think William is wrong about what Dean might have emphasized - for better or worse, had he spent 2003 talking about his record in Vermont, he'd have remained an obscure former Goveror of a tiny state that had no shot at the nomination - and I'm also a bit more sanguine about how Kerry will be perceived in the months to come. The "Vietnam veteran" story line seems to have taken hold, and I think the nattering nabobs will continue to play that up because they like that kind of contrast between candidates. But we'll see. I could most certainly be wrong about this.

The Voorn Project

Want to know how to insult a student at one of Texas' many universities? Check out The Voorn Project for some ammunition. It's pretty funny, and I'm pleased to see that the creator took the time to include smaller schools, such as my alma mater.

TRINITY UNIVERSITY
I live in a town so Mexican that we cancel classes at 3:00 pm every day to take a siesta. My parents have money. I'm in a fraternity or sorority. Dorks are allowed. I was really smart in high school. I was kind of weird too. Our mascot is the Tiger because everything else in Texas was taken. I watch football games from my dorm balcony. Far West is the place to be. I don't steal because I own everything. I have had my SUV here at school since my freshman year. I have a papasan chair in my room. My tuition is so high that both grandfathers had to go fight for more GI Bills to pay for it. I probably have a scholarship too. I'm not originally from Texas. Who is the governor of Texas right now? I will probably move to the mid-west after graduation. Longhorns are slackers. What's an Aggie? Sea World? We have a Sea World?? I went to Six Flags Fiesta my senior year when I visited the school. Haven't been back since. I've tried drugs but never got hooked. Homosexuality is way okay. I used to be Presbyterian, until the school dropped the covenant, now I don't really go to church. War is not cool, but I guess it doesn't matter, as long as I don't have to go to boot camp.
I'm a Tiger.

Other than the fraternity/sorority part (when I was there from 84-88, they constituted maybe 25% of the student body - any more recent students want to take a guess on what it's like now?), that's pretty scarily accurate. Oh, and we were supposed to call the dorms "residence halls". Not that I usually did - too many syllables.

Congressional happenings

Crossposted from Polstate, here are some news and notes from the various Congressional races around here to keep you going until the next race of national interest.

Rep. Charlie Stenholm and Rep. Randy Neugebauer are touring the new CD19 to make themselves better known to its residents. An RNCC-sponsored poll released last week had Neugebauer leading this race by 11 points (49-38), but both men had good favorable ratings, with Stenholm doing slightly better.

In CD 25, Republican candidate Rebecca Armendariz Klein has chosen her opponent by kicking off her formal campaign with an attack against Rep. Lloyd Doggett.

Klein touted her fluency in Spanish and said her conservative values will resonate with the district's voters, 70 percent of whom are Hispanic.

She blasted Doggett, without naming him, as an example of "career politicians who only know how to oppose everything, who make great promises during the campaign season" only to forget about their constituents after winning the election.

Doggett decided to run in the newly formed District 25 after the Republican-led Texas Legislature redistricted him out of the Austin-centered district he has represented for a decade.

On Tuesday, Doggett said he and Klein were in agreement about at least one thing.

"I am referring to her statement that she is tired of the 'empty extremist rhetoric of career politicians who put partisanship over the interest of our communities,'" Doggett said. "Her statement is a fitting description of House Republican Majority Leader Tom DeLay and his effort to divide communities across Texas."

Rep. Phil King, R-Weatherford, who authored and pushed through the redrawn map of the state's 32 congressional districts, introduced Klein here.

During a weeklong federal court trial last year, King testified that map drawers tailored the 350-mile-long district specifically so a Hispanic Democrat would win that race and to offset criticism that the plan was designed to kill the careers of seven longtime Anglo Democrats, including Doggett.

Klein said she will raise and spend about $2 million in the general election and about $150,000 for the primary.

With so many races promising to be loud and expensive, this one has dark-horse promise for being the loudest and dirtiest.

I haven't found a newspaper cite, but Sen. John Cornyn has endorsed Mike McCaul in the crowded 10th CD race. There's no Democrat running in this Austin-to-Houston district, so the GOP primary winner will take the seat. A press release announcing this can be found here (Word doc).

The Star Telegram looks at the GOP primary in the 17th CD, where Arlene Wohlgemuth, who abandoned her state House seat to run here even before the federal court upheld the new boundaries, is getting a spirited challenge from Dot Snyder for the right to run against Rep. Chet Edwards.

The new 170-mile-long district stretches southeast from Hood and Johnson counties and includes several cities, Baylor University and Texas A&M. It includes about a third of the old district, including Waco, but not Fort Hood in Killeen, where Edwards had strong support.

The race is tight between Wohlgemuth and Snyder, who has raised the most money so far - more than $281,000 cash on hand as of Dec. 31, according to reports filed with the Federal Election Commission. Wohlgemuth had nearly $68,500, and McIntyre, who has never run for public office, reported about $23,600.

When campaigning, Wohlgemuth touts her work on the Appropriations Committee in the last legislative session when she authored the sweeping reform of the state's health and human services, streamlining 12 agencies into five, tightening up Medicaid and saving the state more than $1.1 billion.

"People don't have to just accept what I'm telling them; they can look at my record," she said.

But Wohlgemuth may best be known for the Memorial Day Massacre in 1997, when she used a procedural move to kill 52 bills - some pushed by then-Gov. Bush - scheduled for House debate. She was angry that a proposal she supported, requiring parental notification before abortions, had been defeated on procedural grounds.

Wohlgemuth said she does not believe those actions or her reputation as a conservative will hurt her.

"The vast majority of people understand why I did what I did and admire the fact that I was willing to stand up for principle," Wohlgemuth said.

Snyder points to her experience in education. As a Waco school board member, she wrote a policy ending social promotion, a program that withstood a court challenge. Bush, when governor, later visited Waco to discuss the policy and used it as a model for his "No Child Left Behind" initiative, she said. Snyder also led efforts to have abstinence taught as part of sex education curriculum.

"I'm a very positive person, someone who solves problems with tough people hammering out solutions," she said. "My history is working with a variety of people to accomplish things."

She also counts Bush and the first lady among her friends. Snyder's husband, Dr. Ned Snyder III, a gastroenterologist, was in the same fraternity with Bush at Yale. The two remained friendly and play golf when the president visits his Crawford ranch.

A picture of the two couples is used in one of Snyder's television ads, but she said she is not using her family's relationship with the Bushes to get elected.

"I wouldn't want to abuse the friendship," Snyder said. "I talk about a president that I respect and admire."

Edwards is well-funded and should have a decent shot at keeping his seat. Elsewhere, Wohlgemuth recently visited Texas A&M, which is in the 17th CD, but didn't impress everyone while there.

Finally, the sure-to-be epic battle between Rep. Martin Frost and Rep. Pete Sessions is already being fought on several fronts, including the House Rules Committee, of which both men are members, and fundraising. It's been mentioned elsewhere, but one group supporting Martin Frost is his co-religionists.

Rep. Martin Frost (D-Texas) is seen as being in the most trouble.

Because of redistricting in Texas, Frost will need to face off against incumbent Rep. Jeff (sic) Sessions (R-Texas) in a redrawn district made up of mostly Sessions’ constituents.

Frost, who is Jewish, recently raised $100,000 in Jewish money at a Houston fund-raiser. He is seen as a leader on Israel issues and is the former chairman of the Democratic Caucus.

One political analyst said Frost has some chance in the new district, because it is more than 50 percent minority voters, and Frost is a proficient fund-raiser.

Stay tuned.

Appeals court upholds Do Not Call law

This is welcome news.

A federal appeals court upheld the government's do-not-call registry Tuesday, dismissing telemarketers' claims that it violates free speech rights and is unfair because it doesn't apply to charities and political solicitations.

The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals called the registry "a reasonable fit."

"We hold that the do-not-call registry is a valid commercial speech regulation because it directly advances the government's important interests in safeguarding personal privacy and reducing the danger of telemarketing abuse without burdening an excessive amount of speech," the court said.

[...]

The appeals court overturned U.S. District Judge Edward Nottingham of Denver, who said the list violated free-speech rights by barring calls from businesses but not charities.

"As a general rule, the First Amendment does not require that the government regulate all aspects of a problem before it can make progress on any front," the appeals court said.

The court also said there was no evidence suggesting charitable or political callers were as troublesome as general telemarketing calls.

The registry "offers consumers a tool with which they can protect their homes against intrusions that Congress has determined to be particularly invasive," the court said.

"Just as a consumer can avoid door-to-door peddlers by placing a 'No Solicitation' sign in his or her front yard, the do-not-call registry lets consumers avoid unwanted sales pitches that invade the home via telephone," the court said. "We are convinced that the First Amendment does not prevent the government from giving consumers this option."

The court consolidated the appeal of Nottingham's decision with two related challenges: a case brought against the Federal Communications Commission by Denver telemarketers and the FTC's appeal of a ruling in Oklahoma that said the agency had no authority to create and enforce the list.

I strongly disagreed with Nottingham's ruling, and am very pleased to note that the appeals court saw things more or less my way. I hope this settles the matter.

Koufax winners

The 2003 Koufax Award Winners have been announced. I did not take the prize for Best Series - David Neiwert was the deserving winner - but it was a big honor just to be in the running. Much thanks to Dwight, MB, and Eric for all their hard work, and thanks to everyone who cast a vote for me.

Chandler wins, Sadler trailing

The great news is that Ben Chandler has won KY 6 by a decisive margin, 55-43 (with 2% going Libertarian) over Alice Forgy Kerr. Josh Marshall has a pointer to an AP story on the result. The DCCC is elated, as you would expect. Next up: Stephanie Herseth on June 1.

In Texas, Republican Kevin Eltife has a small lead over Democrat Paul Sadler in the race to replace Bill Ratliff in the Texas Senate. Here's the totals as I blog this:

RACE NAME  

State Senator, District 1 - Unexpired Term


             PARTY EARLY VOTES PERCENT TOTAL VOTES PERCENT

Kevin Eltife REP        13,485 51.06%       37,721 50.81%

Paul Sadler  DEM        12,923 48.94%       36,521 49.19%

                        ---------------------------------

Vote Total              26,408              74,242

Early Provisional Ballots Reported 6

Provisional Ballots Reported      56

Precincts Reported               264 of 313 Precincts 84.35%

That's a bit closer than it was when I checked a few minutes ago. Byron is keeping tabs on a county-by-county basis - as of his last update (45 minutes ago as I write), Eltife's lead was over 2000; now it's 1200. Stay tuned.

UPDATE: And now Eltife's lead is 4000, with 275 precincst reporting. That doesn't look good for Sadler, sadly.

UPDATE: It's Eltife, plus Kel Seliger in West Texas. A good day for ex-mayors, apparently.

More heat on Craddick

In the wake of yesterday's NYT article on the yearlong investigation into the Texans for a Republican Majority PAC, the Statesman reports that the evidence is mounting against the speaker.

The depth of Craddick's involvement is surprising because he has always contended that he had distanced himself from Texans for a Republican Majority except to headline a fund-raiser. He said he had wanted to avoid any appearance of a conflict of interest between his campaign for speaker and the committee's goal of electing more Republicans.

Craddick was not the only Republican seeking the top job, and the committee was not publicly involved in the internal House race.

Before the 2002 election, Craddick had played a lead role in organizations similar to Texans for a Republican Majority.

For years, Craddick, the longest-serving Republican in the House, had tried to marshal Republican money to elect a GOP majority and unseat Democrat Pete Laney. When Craddick publicly stepped aside in 2002 to run as speaker, U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay and other Craddick allies took over that role.

The committee's own documents, however, show that Craddick remained involved at several levels.

In an e-mail, the committee's executive director, John Colyandro, wrote to an accountant that he had $100,000 to be distributed and that Dr. James Leininger, a big Republican donor, would be sending more money.

"You need to cut checks for the following total and have them FedEx'ed for Monday delivery to Tom Craddick. . .," Colyandro wrote.

The $152,000 from Texans for a Republican Majority was to be given to 14 legislative candidates. The donations ranged from $1,000 to $20,000 per candidate.

That was not the only time Craddick delivered money to candidates, according to the documents.

In a memo, Austin fund-raiser Susan Lilly, who was working for the committee, said Craddick distributed checks for the Union Pacific railroad's political action committee. Union Pacific sent $25,000 to 11 legislative candidates at the request of Texans for a Republican Majority.

According to e-mails between Lilly and Colyandro, Texans for a Republican Majority wanted to help distribute the railroad's money so it could get credit from the candidates for soliciting the donations.

Representatives with Union Pacific were not available for comment Monday.

Richter said he did not know why his boss was enlisted to deliver money to Republican candidates but said Craddick believed he had done nothing illegal.

McDonald suggested a motive. "I think Tom Craddick and TRMPAC wanted to make sure Tom Craddick got credit for delivering the money to the Republican candidates," McDonald said. "He wanted credit. He wanted the recipients to be beholden to him."

Texans for a Republican Majority raised $1.5 million for the 2002 elections, including $600,000 in corporate money, to help elect a Republican majority in the Texas House of Representatives. The GOP now controls the House 88 to 62.

Most of the corporate money was raised in Washington, D.C., by DeLay's corporate fund-raiser, Warren Robold.

"McDonald" is Craig McDonald of Texans for Public Justice. They have a long report on how all of the $195 million from the 2002 elections was raised, and were featured on NPR awhile back to discuss this case. Though they don't have anything specific to these recent reports, I was emailed the following press release from McDonald:

Today's New York Times report by Richard Oppel, Jr., delves deeper into the murky swamp underlying Texas' 2002 elections. The most troubling new finding is that Texas Speaker Tom Craddick apparently used Tom Delay's TRMPAC as a springboard to the speakership. Why else would TRMPAC use Craddick as a courier to dole out $152,000 to GOP House candidates?

To ensure that speaker candidates do not attempt to influence their colleagues' votes with special-interest money, Texas law (Chapter 302, Government Code)
requires speaker candidates to establish separate speaker committees that cannot finance the campaigns of other House members. The Times story suggests that Craddick may have sidestepped this law by using DeLay's TRMPAC as a proxy. This is all the more disturbing given that Craddick made DeLay's redistricting agenda the centerpiece of his first session as speaker.

The ongoing Travis County criminal investigation needs to get to the bottom of this quagmire. Texans have the right to know if their speaker cheated to get the job.

If someone does eventually go down for all this, no one can say they weren't warned ahead of time.

AstroTurf maker to file for bankruptcy

This is sad news.

Southwest Recreational Industries Inc., the Leander-based maker of legendary sports field surface AstroTurf, has filed for bankruptcy protection and soon will be out of business.

The bankruptcy leaves projects in limbo at athletic facilities across the country, including new turf that was slated for the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome in Minneapolis. SRI cut more than 300 jobs before the filing, holding on to 190 employees companywide to help it shut down in the next two weeks.

[...]

In its bankruptcy filing, the company says it will sell off two small divisions that make portable sports flooring and equipment for volleyball, gymnastics and basketball. But the businesses for which the company is best known, football fields and running tracks, will be discontinued in the next few weeks after SRI finishes projects already under way.

The filing caps a dramatic decline for the company, which once was the industry leader in sports surfaces with millions in sales and fast growth.

But the company grew faster than management or its systems could handle, according to the bankruptcy filing, leading to costly mistakes. SRI also was heavily indebted, leaving little room for error. In mid-2003, the company hired a new CEO and an investment banker to explore its options.

"It is surprising to see a company go under so quickly," said Robert Sills, whose company, Martin Surfacing Inc. of Lancaster, Pa., is listed as SRI's second-largest creditor, with a $6.3 million claim. "They were the industry leaders and seemed quite profitable and seemed to be in good shape. And it all came unraveled pretty quickly."

SRI ended the year with $156.9 million in revenue, a nearly 29 percent drop from $220 million in 2002, as reported by business research firm Hoover's Inc.

In its bankruptcy filing, the company said it had about $102 million in assets and $88 million in liabilities as of Dec. 31, 2003.

Executives made the decision to file for bankruptcy Thursday as the company struggled to keep up with its debt payments.

Naturally, like all true sports fans, I prefer real grass to artificial surfaces. (As long as someone else has to mow it, of course. I've been trying for years to persuade Tiffany to let me install turf in our yard. Hey, if it's good enough for New York City parks, it's good enough for me.) Still, it's always sad to see such an icon pass by. At least we still have FieldTurf.

So what do you think would be an appropriate sendoff for them? A 21-cap gun salute? Maybe a party with Olestra chips, non-alcoholic beer, and tofuburgers? I'm open to suggestion.

More blogger candidates

Several people in the comments to this Kos post about Mary Beth's candidacy mention that they are now or have been candidates for office, including my friend and neighbor Rob Humenik, who aspires to be a Democratic precinct chair. (Consider this an official endorsement, by the way.) This is good on many levels - as Big Media Matt points out, you can't win elections without some good candidates. It will be vitally important for Democrats in Texas to start building a bench now, so we'll have some people with experience and name recognition as the demographics turn in our favor over the next decade or so. I hope that some members of Howard Dean's sizeable Texas organization channel some of their energy into that goal, for example.

Why the A-Rod trade was bad for the Rangers

It's interesting to read the reaction to the A-Rod deal in the Dallas press. While these guys all more or less seem to grasp that Tom Hicks is an idiot, they don't quite get why he's an idiot.

Kevin Blackistone:

It's as if Tom Hicks was your uncle who just returned from some exotic vacation at the end of the world and all he brought back for you was some lousy T-shirt.

Kevin Sherrington:

Baseball fans in this area don't care what Hicks did for the Stars, only what's happened to the Rangers.

And this is what they should hear from Hicks: I screwed up.

He says that, and maybe some of the anger dissipates. Maybe some of the lost season-ticket holders find their way back.

Accountability is a rare quality around the Rangers since they went back-to-back-to-back-to-back in last place, and it's time to see some.

Gerry Fraley:

The best player in the major leagues cannot bring an established pitcher in return in a trade. That tells how much of a bind the Rangers were in with the Alex Rodriguez contract as soon as owner Tom Hicks decided to cut the payroll. Boston and the New York Yankees both knew they were dealing from a position of strength. The Rangers are fortunate to get anything for Rodriguez.

None of them mentioned the real reason Tom Hicks was in a financial bind, and none of them mentioned what dumping A-Rod meant he was doing about it. Joe Sheehan explains it succinctly in this Baseball Prospectus premium article. I'll quote the relevant bit:

For what they did here, the Rangers could probably have gotten the same results by aggressively pursuing buyouts of the [Chan Ho] Park, [Rusty] Greer and [Jeff] Zimmerman deals. The Rangers paid those three $22.2 million last year--basically what Rodriguez got. Just Park played, and he did so at below replacement level. It's likely that only Park will play in '04, and God knows what they'll get from him.

The three will make $24.7 million in 2004. Park will make $14 million in '05 and $15 million in '06. I'll say it again: the Rangers made themselves worse in order to subsidize this decision.

Maybe one of these guys ought to ask Tom Hicks why he thought getting rid of Alex Rodriguez but keeping the other three made more sense. It makes no sense to me.

Case in point

There are days when I wake up and wonder if I've blogged it all. I ask myself whether I can bring the snark one more time. Is that all there is? Is this the day that my muse abandons me?

Upon seeing this story in today's paper, I gratefully realized that today was not one of those days.

ALPINE -- The first indication that Dr. Larry J. Sechrest's neighbors and students had read his article titled "A Strange Little Town in Texas" came when he began receiving death threats and obscene phone calls and his house was vandalized.

The article by Sechrest, 57, an economics professor at Sul Ross State University, was published in the January issue of Liberty, a small libertarian magazine with a circulation of about 10,000 and only two local subscribers. But it was weeks before people heard about it in remote Alpine, which is three hours from the closest Barnes & Noble, in Midland.

The article lauded the beauty of West Texas, the pleasant climate, the friendliness and tolerance of the locals. But Sechrest, who has a Ph.D. in business administration from the University of Texas, also contended that "the students at Sul Ross, and more generally, the long-term residents of the entire area, are appallingly ignorant, irrational, anti-intellectual, and well ... just plain stupid."

[...]

Sechrest wrote that he was "prepared to defend to the death the proposition that Sul Ross, and this area of Texas more generally, is the proud home of some of the dumbest clods on the planet."

The article, copied and passed around by the hundreds, led to two anonymous death threats on Sechrest's office phone, scores of obscene phone calls in the middle of the night, eggs tossed at his home and windows smashed on a car parked outside his house.

Sechrest said he never expected the people in Alpine to read the article, nor did he expect such violent reaction.

He thought of his piece as "a Mark Twain sort of thing, meant to be light-hearted," he said. "I can't believe there's such anger -- not in Alpine!"

Well, whatever else one might say about the good professor, he's obviously prepared to serve as a personal example of why his thesis is correct. How many other academics are willing to make that kind of sacrifice?

UPDATE: El Gato is an alum of Sul Ross, and is unsurprisingly unimpressed with Prof. Sechrest's remarks. Just so we're all clear on this, neither am I. CrispyShot's interpretation in the comments here is spot on.

Elections today

Well, today we find out if Ben Chandler and the money he raised through blog ads is The Wave of the Future and An Ominous Portent For President Bush or just another pipe dream that couldn't abide the light of day. The polls look good, so keep your fingers crossed. If you haven't seen it already, the DCCC now has a blog called The Stakeholder which has been following this race closely. They have some pictures from the weekend canvassing-in-Kentucky project.

Today is also the day for Paul Sadler or Kevin Eltife to claim Bill Ratliff's Senate seat, and which Republican out in West Texas gets to run as the incumbent for Teel Bivins's seat in November. I have no idea how these races will go. Apparently, the local media in SD1 did not give the impending election there much play last night.

Early voting for the primaries in Texas should begin on Monday if I'm calculating things correctly. So far, the only ads I've seen have been for Ben Streusand, a Republican running for the new 10th CD. Streusand is very upset about all that profligate spending by Congress and vows to go to Washington and use his mad bizness skillz to impose a little fiscal responsibility. Apparently, no one has told him that the Republicans hold a majority in the House. I'm sure his people will set him straight on that if he does win.

It's Official: A-Rod is a Yankee

Bud Selig has approved the trade that will send Alex Rodriguez to the Yankees and Red Sox fans everywhere into apoplexy. I'll have some thoughts about this later, but for now, I agree with what Peter Gammons says. And before anyone starts whining about Yankee money, bear this in mind: The small market clubs will be getting plenty of Steinbrenner dollars this year from the luxury tax. Will that go into improving their talent, or fattening their owners? George Steinbrenner may be many things, but complacent ain't one of them.

The end of Angel

Argh!

In a move that has completely blindsided producers and fans alike, the WB Network announced late Friday that it was cancelling its long-running Buffy the Vampire Slayer spinoff, Angel.

Dammit! I'm not ready for Angel to go away. Please, please, let some other network - UPN, Fox, Telemundo, C-SPAN, the Golf Channel, anyone - make an offer to Joss Whedon to keep Angel going for another year or two.

Via the equally bummed Atrios.

A radio station I'd want to listen to

After going on an extended rant about Houston's awful radio scene and the demographics of each rock stations' listeners, the Houston Press' John Lomax comes up with a damn fine suggestion for how to create a worthwhile spot on the dial.

Take all the so-called garage bands, throw in some cool classic rock, and throw it all together with softer-edged stuff from the likes of Norah Jones, U2, Radiohead and Coldplay. Toss in some of the early punk and proto-punk stuff by Motörhead, the Clash, the Jam, Iggy and the Stooges and the Ramones, and the '80s stuff that the Point mostly shuns -- stuff like the Violent Femmes, the Pixies and the Replacements. Then there's hip-hop -- today's teenagers can't remember a world without it, so there's no built-in resistance to it, and nobody on the commercial rock dial is playing 1980s floor-fillers like Eric B. and Rakim's "Seven Minutes of Madness" remix of "Paid in Full," or De La Soul's "Me Myself and I," or the quirky John Lydon/Afrika Bambaataa collabo "World Destruction." You could throw in the edgier, backpacker-friendly mainstream stuff of today as well -- OutKast, Black Eyed Peas, the Roots. Give it a name like Rock Revolution or something like that, and as the Brits say, Bob's your uncle and Fanny's your aunt.

Imagine Jack and Meg's "Seven Nation Army" followed by Zep's "Fool in the Rain" followed by the Clash's "London Calling" followed by Jet's "Are You Gonna Be My Girl" followed by Public Enemy's "Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos," and tell me that formula's not a winner. You want a Mix? We got your Mix hangin' low, buddy. A station like that would rob tons of listeners from the Buzz, KLOL and the Arrow, as well as a few who tune in to old-school hip-hop shows on the rap stations and the people who never let their radio tuner stray to the right of KTRU. Who knows, it might even win back a few people who've turned the radio off and ripped off the knob -- the CDs- and iPods-only crowd, a multitude that grows more numerous with each passing day.

If you've been reading here for awhile, you know that this is very much the sort of thing I've agitated for (see here, here, and here for previous entries). Throwing in hip-hop is not what I originally had in mind, but you know what? It just might work for me. I always thought I hated country music until I was exposed to some good country music. So who knows, maybe the same thing would work for me and hip-hop. Even if not, I'd accept that as the price to pay for a station that surprised and challenged me otherwise.

Lomax notes correctly that just doing this as a gimmick wouldn't work for long. (Note, for instance, that Country Hits is now a bottom-feeder in the ratings after starting strong, just as I thought it would.) The key would be ensuring a mix of good music, in particular a mix of stuff that would appeal to different fans without being the same old same old all the damn time. Maybe - oh, I don't know, call me crazy here - having DJs choose the music themselves instead of only playing from homogenized corporate playlists, taking requests from listeners all day instead of during prescribed and limited hours, and showcasing local talent where appropriate. What's so hard about that?

Sadly, now that we've sold my beloved old Mazda, I'm now driving a no-CD-player car, and sooner or later this forced diet of the Arrow and the Point is going to make me lose it. This experiment can't happen soon enough for me.

UPDATE: Steve points to this 1998 Spin article which covers a lot of familiar ground, including this quote: "Proponents of consolidation argue that, once the dust has settled, there will actually be more diversity..." We're still waiting. Note, by the way, that two words are conspicuously absent in that piece: "Clear Channel".

NYT covers DeLay investigation

Here's a longish NYT article about the ongoing investigation into Tom DeLay's Texans for a Republican Majority PAC and the allegations that it illrgally funnelled corporate money to candidates in 2002. It oddly doesn't mention the Texas Association of Business, but it does give a nice overview of the story to date as well as provide some new details.

The extent to which Texans for a Republican Majority used corporate money in the 2002 races is laid out in a trail of recently obtained documents. Under Texas law, political action committees are generally prohibited from using corporate and union donations for anything other than administrative expenses, like rent and utilities.

But records and interviews show that fund-raisers from Texans for a Republican Majority who were paid with corporate money solicited donations on behalf of individual candidates backed by the committee, which also spent corporate donations on fund-raising events, polling and a voter identification project.

In one case, corporate donations were used to pay a $1,200 legal bill to defend a new Republican legislator, Bill Zedler, against accusations from his opponent that he did not live in the district that elected him.

The documents, and interviews, also show that the committee often coordinated its efforts with Tom Craddick, a Republican state representative whom lawmakers elected speaker of the House after the 2002 elections. Later, at the urging of Mr. DeLay, Mr. Craddick helped lead the bitter fight to carve the state into new Congressional districts.

[...]

Before the 2002 elections, Mr. DeLay wanted lawmakers to take up redistricting, Mr. Ellis said, adding that "there is no question" that Mr. DeLay wanted Mr. Craddick elected speaker. The two men served in the Texas House together in the 1980's.

[...]

Records and interviews show that other committee officials were involved in raising money sent directly to candidates.

On Aug. 12, 2002, [TRM's 2002 fundraiser Susan] Lilly wrote an e-mail message to [TRM Executive Director John] Colyandro and Warren Robold, a fund-raiser for Mr. DeLay who worked for the committee and, records show, was paid with money from corporate donations. In it, she described a visit from Ron Olson, an official with Union Pacific railroad.

Mr. Olson, she wrote, "came down this morning and said that through DeLay's efforts (i.e. Warren) that UP had identified $25,000 worth of TRMPAC targets that he is supposed to individually go and give checks to. However, he was asked that a 'DeLay' person accompany him when he gives the checks (so that the recipient will know that it was TRMPAC related)."

A Union Pacific spokeswoman confirmed that Mr. Robold asked Union Pacific to make donations from its political action committee to candidates backed by Texans for a Republican Majority. He made the request, she said, after the railroad declined to donate to the committee.

Union Pacific donated to 11 candidates but would have made those donations anyway, she said. She also confirmed Mr. Craddick handed out some Union Pacific checks to candidates, explaining that company officials did not have time to do it.

The grand jury investigation has been going on for some time now - I know I'm ready to see some action. For more background, check my recent interview with Fred Lewis and Fred's site Clean Up Texas Politics.

Dogs may be good for allergies

As a dog owner and daddy-to-be, this sounds like good news.

It's been accepted dogma for years that house pets were not good for children with asthma and allergies. But a newer theory, strengthened by the latest study, suggests otherwise.

The new study found that infants with certain forms of a gene that is a marker for immune function, who also have a dog, are much less likely to develop allergic skin rashes, a sign that their immune systems are stronger than those who have not had a dog in their lives.

And it may not be the dog, but the dirt that dogs track in.

"Having a dog was associated with a particular pattern of immune system development," said Dr. James Gern, a pediatric allergist at the University of Wisconsin in Madison.

He and his colleagues tracked 285 children from birth to age 5 to better understand how environment and genetics work together to confer protection or trigger allergic reactions. Those without a dog during the first year of life were twice as likely to have an unexplained skin rash than those with a dog.

The hygiene hypothesis suggests that dirt primes the immune system and helps infants develop a stronger immune response. The findings appear this month in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology.

The Wisconsin study also provides the first evidence that certain genes could increase or decrease the risk for allergy and asthma -- and having a dog could influence the outcome. In this study, they collaborated with Carole Ober of the University of Chicago to look at a marker of immune function, a gene called CD14.

Gern and his colleagues collected umbilical cord blood from 285 newborns to test their body's immune response and which of the three forms of CD14 the child inherited. They also performed physicals during the first year of life. In all families, one parent had allergies or asthma.

Kids in houses with dogs had more immune system stimulation, measured by CD14, and less dermatitis, which many doctors believe is an early sign of allergy. But only two varieties of CD14 were associated with less risk of dermatitis if a dog was present. Those with the third form were not affected by the presence of a dog.

Oddly enough, the member of our household with the most pronounced allergies right now is the dog. I know someone whose dog is allergic to their cat - they give him regular doses of Bendryl for it. Thankfully for Harry, it's not that bad for him.

Mary Beth for Maine Lege

Candidates who blog are old hat by now, but here's a first for you: Mary Beth Williams of Wampum is now a candidate for the state legislature of Maine. First up is the Democratic primary on June 8. She's got a Paypal link up for those who would like to donate (anything above $10 cannot be anonymous, maximum contribution is $250).

Best of luck to you, Mary Beth. I look forward to hearing more about your experiences and, hopefully, your eventual election.

A pair of dunces

Chron hotshot columnist Rick Casey gives Governor Perry a dunce cap for his three-pronged strategy for fixing school funding, which boils down to higher cigarette taxes, video gambling, and closing a loophole in the corporate franchise tax which allows limited-liability partnerships to not pay it. While Casey is quite right to question the efficacy of Perry's plan, he fails to mention the history behind it. In particular, it was Comptroller Strayhorn who first floated the cigarette tax and the idea of video gambling, both of which were flatly rejected during the regular Legislative session by Perry. In addition, Perry and the Republican-controlled Legislature tried and failed to close the franchise tax loophole back then as well. Thus, what we have here is two of someone else's ideas that Perry once opposed plus something he characterized as a "high priority" and failed to accomplish. Doesn't that just give you a warm and fuzzy feeling?

Anyway, for omitting this relevant background material, I sentence Casey to sit in the corner along with the Governor. Better luck next time.

A-Rod to Yankees?

Boy, talk about a disturbance in the Force:

In an offseason when a flurry of high-profile players switched teams, the Yankees early today were on the verge of making the biggest splash of all.

Barring a last-minute snag, industry sources said the Yankees would acquire [Alex] Rodriguez, the 2003 American League Most Valuable Player, for second baseman Alfonso Soriano and another player.

The trade comes just weeks after a proposed deal that would have sent Rodriguez to the Boston Red Sox fell apart and at a time when he'd seemingly resigned himself to another losing season in Arlington.

Wow. I can't wait to witness the wailing and rending of garments that will occur in Red Sox Nation if this one goes through. I'm still boggled by the idea that the Yankees would move A-Rod, one of the best defensive shortstops in the game, over to third base so Derek Jeter can stay in place. And after all that they may still end up with Enrique Wilson in the lineup. Maybe if I think of them as a National League team, with the pitcher batting ninth, it'll seem more logical.

Just as a reminder to everyone, trading A-Rod, even for a good young player like Alfonso Soriano, will not help make the Rangers more competitive. This is because A-Rod's salary was not what was preventing them from being competitive in the first place. The Rangers' problem was mostly that they spent a ton of money on players who weren't worth it, and they have consistently failed to grasp this. If their problem was A-Rod's salary, they'd take the money they'll be saving (about $10 million after you factor in Soriano's salary and the portion of his deal that they'll cover for the Yankees) and use it to upgrade other positions on the team. Since they won't be doing that - and you can carve that in stone - this is nothing but a salary dump.

Tom Hicks is quickly cementing a reputation as the dumbest owner in Major League Baseball, and this would finalize it. Back in the early 80s, the NBA passed a rule which required league approval if the Cleveland Cavaliers wanted to trade a first round draft pick, thanks to the amazingly inept bungling of then-owner Ted Slepien, whose finest moment turned James Worthy into Butch Lee and Chad Kinch. Maybe it's time MLB considered a similar intervention in Arlington.

It's snowin' down in Texas

It's snowing in Dallas and Austin, among other places I'm sure. Alan has pictures from Big D, Byron has weather images from Austin, and Scott says he'll have pix later. Meanwhile, Norbizness remains calm and collected about the whole thing.

In January of 1985, during my freshman year at Trinity, San Antonio was buried under 13 inches of snow, which started on Fridasy night and continued through Sunday monring, and which was more than it had gotten in the entire 20th Century up to that point. The campus is on a hill, and the main result of a weekend's worth of snow was a severe tray shortage in the cafeteria for the rest of the semester, as pretty much all of them were turned into impromptu sleds. Classes were cancelled on Monday because the roads were still mostly undriveable thanks to all the Botts' Dots and their snowplow-discouragement properties. By Tuesday, it was sunny and 70 degrees and the snow was gone by nightfall. I actually saw a few women sunbathing amid melting snowbanks, something I never thought I'd see as a kid growing up in New York.

No snow in Houston, just more cold. Finally getting a little sun, and there's no real rain in the five day forecast. Fine by me.

Technology Review blog

I'm a big fan of MIT's Technology Review magazine, and I was thrilled to see in this month's issue that they have a blog. Turns out they've been writing it since October, so either I've missed previous announcements or they've been shy about it up till now. Anyway, it's a group blog with permalinks, archives, and XML feed, and comments, and it looks pretty good to me. I'll be adding it to my sidebar. Check it out.

Happy Valentine's Day

Once again, I present you with My Favorite Valentine's Day Story.

That'll get the romance going

Pete notes that while tomorrow may be Valentine's Day, today is Friday the 13th, and if you'd rather celebrate that, he's here to help by telling you which of the "Friday the 13th" movies are worth your time.

It's good to be a Bush

That's our school board.

Houston school board members unanimously agreed Thursday to accept $115,000 in charitable donations that will be funneled to an educational software company founded by Neil Bush, the brother of President Bush.

A watchdog group and legal scholars earlier this week said the deal raised legal and ethical concerns because Bush and officials of his company were involved in soliciting the donations to the HISD Foundation, a philanthropic group that helps the Houston Independent School District.

HISD trustees delayed a vote on the matter in December, saying they were concerned that Bush's Austin-based company, Ignite, might be benefiting from his family name. On Thursday, the nine board members approved the funding without discussion.

Trustee Larry Marshall said in December he wanted more information on the effectiveness of Ignite's educational value and why there was no competitive bidding for the software.

On Thursday, Marshall said HISD administrators assured him that open bidding will be used on similar future projects. School districts are allowed to buy educational software without bidding because the products are so specialized.

Rick Cohen, director of the Washington, D.C.-based National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy, has called the arrangement "self-dealing" that "pushes the border of legality."

Foundation officials have said the deal was legal.

No word as to whether any women will be sent to Neil Bush's hotel room as part of the deal. Thanks to Kenneth for the tip.

Freewayblogging contest

The Scarlet Pimpernel, also known as the Freewayblogger, has a contest going:

This one's easy: Take a piece of cardboard and paint the letters A, W, O, and L on it and affix it securely (duct tape and coathangers work best) to a bush next to your local freeway. Take a picture and send it to us here. Best photo wins a T-Shirt and twenty five bucks.

People who like this sort of thing may find this the sort of thing that they like, so if that's you, knock yourselves out.

UPDATE: Kevin comments that this would be vandalism. I disagree - vandalism is the willful destruction of property that isn't yours. Unless a bush that you attach your sign to dies as a result, I don't think you can be justly accused of vandalism.

Littering is another matter. While I believe littering is generally a lesser offense than vandalism, it's still a crime and a nuisance and thus should not be tolerated, let alone encouraged. So that's a problem.

However, you'll note that the point of this is to take pictures of AWOL signs. So, in order to keep this on the straight and narrow, I propose placing your sign, taking a few pix, then taking the sign down after a short while. You should probably stay near it for the duration of its display, so there's no question that it hasn't been abandoned. Just be sure you're not illegally parked while doing so!

Blogads for Congress

Looks like the success of Ben Chandler's online fundraising via BlogAds has already spawned the inevitable successors. So far, Georgai's John Barrow and Texas' Morris Meyer are running ads on blogs, and I'm sure they won't be the last ones to do so. I seriously doubt they'll replicate Chandler's 20-fold return on their investment, as they're in regular November races and don't have Atrios and Kos beating the drums for them on a daily basis (at least, not yet), but with the low cost of blog ads and the high interest of the audience, it's a pretty good risk to take.

My main concern is that for all the talk of the blog revolution, the fact still remains that even a powerhouse like Kos only gets 100,000 hits per day, which doesn't take into account repeat visits and search engine queries. No matter how passionate that audience is, it's not very deep and I fear it'll get tapped out pretty quickly. There's also a whole lot of overlap between those who read, say, Kos, Atrios, and Calpundit. For this to be a long-term success, the pool of regulars needs to keep expanding. The good news there is that all three do have growing readerships - Calpundit is already close to equalling his best month ever, while both Atrios and Kos are halfway there with more than half of February to go. It would be very much in the Democratic Party's best interests to do what it can to help continue this trend.

Getting back to Barrow and Meyer, they're both worthy of support - Barrow for running in an eminently winnable district (one that voted 55% for Al Gore) and Meyer for running against the execrable Joe Barton - and I hope they get it. If anyone from those campaigns reads this and would like to comment on how the blog ad experience has been for them, I'd love to hear from you. Finally, though he's not currently running any blog ads that I'm aware of, please keep Richard Morrison and his quest to rid us all of Tom DeLay in your thoughts when you're making your campaign contributions.

UPDATE: Add another advertising-on-blogs candidate Doug Haines, also a candidate in GA 12. I hope the fact that he's in the primary with John Barrow doesn't sow any dissension.

Skilling in the sights

Be still my heart: Task force preparing indictment for Skilling.

An indictment against former Enron Chief Executive Officer Jeff Skilling is on the prosecutorial drawing board and could be brought to the grand jury as early as next week.

Though next week is the target, sources said the case could be postponed for any number of logistic or strategic reasons.

The specially formed Enron grand jury that will consider these charges against Skilling is nearly 2 years old and has been working more frequently as this investigation intensifies. On Thursday, it put in an eight-hour day.

The charges against Skilling being finalized by Enron Task Force prosecutors come on the heels of the Jan. 21 indictment of ex-Enron Chief Accounting Officer Rick Causey and the Jan. 15 guilty pleas of former company Chief Financial Officer Andrew Fastow and his wife.

Attorneys involved in the Enron criminal cases expect that Fastow, who agreed to serve 10 years in prison for two counts of conspiracy, gave prosecutors information that will add to the case against Skilling.

Skilling, 50, has consistently denied any wrongdoing.

I'm palpitating. With Skilling at the top of the Enron food chain (along with Kenny Boy), any indictments would almost assuredly result in a trial. There's no one left to go after, and Skilling ain't gonna plead out.

Legal experts expect Skilling, who also served as the company's chief operating officer for years, will fight any criminal charges with full force and his trial will be a high-powered slugfest.

Bruce Hiler, Skilling's Washington, D.C.-based lawyer, said his client did nothing wrong and fairly relied on his subordinates and the accountants and lawyers they hired. Hiler said if Skilling is indicted, many corporate executives need to be afraid of the government.

"If a COO can't rely on the dozens of experts who review and recommend transactions, then no COO should go to work tomorrow, because they may find themselves indicted," Hiler said.

Here's a crazy thought: Hire better experts. Maybe there's an offshoring opportunity here. That way, if you do wind up getting busted for taking their bad advice, you can at least claim you demonstrated your fiduciary responsibility to the shareholders by lowering the cost of that bad advice.

But I have to ask: When Skilling was taking the bad advice of all his experts, didn't he know enough about his own business and the law to inquire if maybe some of the arrangements being recommended to him were such good ideas? Did he really have no idea about any of the rampant looting going on around him, and if so did none of his experts think it was wise to let him in on the secret? Shouldn't a chief executive, even one who claims to be a powerless and ignorant hostage to the whims of his inscrutable advisors, still be held accountable for what those advisors whom he hired tell him to do? I know what my answer is.

January traffic report

I've gone and reclaimed the old Sitemeter counter I'd used on my Blogspot site. Had to reset it to zero and rebuild all my pages, and I'll be taking a WAG as to my actual February numbers, and so on and etcetera. What can I say, I got what I paid for. Ultimately, I'll probably add an Extreme Tracking and/or Add Free Stats counter just to compare and contrast, but for now I'm too lazy. (Thanks to Alan for the Add Free Stats suggestion.)

I had about 32,000 visits in January, making it slightly less busy than December but pretty decent overall. Jon Matthews and American Idol tryouts continue to be big search enine favorites - these two posts on Matthews have drawn a boatload of comments, mostly asking for updates, and I eventually closed comments on the American Idol post. Lea Fastow was popular last month, but the second most frequent search term and a consistent winner for some time now is "ugly people", presumably because of my Show Business for Ugly People category. Who knew there was such interest?

Top referrers are below the More link. As always, thank you for coming by. I hope I can make a decent guess at February's numbers.

Aggregators, collections, indices, etc
======================================
298:  http://www.bloglines.com
140:  http://blo.gs/
111:  http://www.technorati.com/
73:   http://ranchero.com/software/netnewswire/



Weblog referrers

================

1674: Atrios


1410: Daily Kos


656:  Calpundit


548:  TAPPED


369:  Political State Report


198:  The Burnt Orange Report


160:  Rhetoric & Rhythm


144:  Rob Booth


129:  The Sideshow


96:   A Perfectly Cromulent Blog


91:   Slacktivist


90:   Coffee Corner


87:   The Agonist


83:   Matthew Yglesias


81:   Greg Wythe


79:   Virginia Postrel


77:   Liberal Oasis




Top search terms

================

#reqs: search term

-----: -----------

  842: lea fastow

  818: ugly people

  499: american idol tryouts

  332: jon matthews

  241: william krar

  235: andy pettite

  226: diane zamora

  150: costco

   83: prime number algorithm

   78: largest rat

   72: capturing saddam

   64: world's largest rat

   54: darlie routier

   53: poincare's conjecture

   51: tom coleman

   50: schlitterbahn galveston

   44: marfreless

   43: if you love something set it free

   42: catholic high school girls in trouble

   39: marnie rose

Congressional race preview

Teen prodigy Stephen Yellin gives his view of the 2004 House races in Texas. He's a bit more optimistic than I am, but it's always nice to get an outside perspective. I will say this - if Ralph Hall actually does get a serious Democratic challenge, this will wind up being a better year than I'd have ever thought. I can't say I'm banking on it, of course.

Meanwhile, there's a couple of good articles in the AusChron about the Democratic primary in CD25 between Leticia Hinojosa and Rep. Lloyd Doggett, which so far has been more muted and less acrimonious than I feared, and on State Sen. Gonzalo Barrientos' decision to endorse Hinojosa, thus making him the only Austin pol to do so. Byron has some more on this race as well.

How terribly strange to be 70

Today is Bill Russell's 70th birthday. Six days ago, Hank Aaron turned 70. 1934 was obviously a pretty good year for producing sports legends. Other than that, I don't really have a point here.

Schilling and Atrios

Those of you who don't read baseball-oriented blogs are probably unaware of a recent kerfuffle involving Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling. Schilling, who's always been an outspoken player, recently revealed that he has been a regular poster on a Red Sox fan board called the Sons of Sam Horn, using the handle Gehrig38. Everyone, myself included, agrees that this is a Good Thing, as how could it not be cool for a star player to interact with fans in this way?

A little while back, baseball blogger David Pinto quoted from a thread on SoSH in which Schilling was critical of ESPN's sabermetric columnist Rob Neyer. This sparked controversy because Schilling has said on the SoSH forum that he would prefer that what he says there not be quoted elsewhere, and the SoSH founder left a comment on Pinto's post which called it unethical. There was much todo to follow, with the heat level ratcheded up by Jay Jaffe, who defended Pinto and reprinted the Schilling quote that Pinto had since taken down.

I bring all this up not because I'm terribly interested in the ethics debate. It seems clear to me that Schilling ultimately can't have what he's asking for. Bloggers and chatboard posters may restrain themselves, and Schilling can certainly exercise some influence over the beat writers who need to talk to him as part of their jobs, but who's to stop someone like Rob Neyer himself from reprinting words recorded in a public forum? Should such a thing happen, I'm sure the local ink-stained wretches would feel much less compunction about weighing in on it all.

What interests me in all this is that Schilling started out on SoSH as just another pseudonym with an opinion and the wherewithal to post it. The fact that he eventually revealed himself is, in my opinion, the inevitable outcome of someone with genuine insider knowledge speaking up in public under an assumed name. Sooner or later, everyone's going to want to know exactly how it is that NoName2345 can speak with authority about what kind of aftershave Manny Ramirez uses. There's only two possibilities - either the unknown expert comes from a very small subset of the general population, or the unknown expert is a fraud. They must eventually prove their bonafides, or they risk being seen as just another barstool blowhard. (Or worse, another Mary Rosh.)

Which is why the other recent brouhaha, about Atrios' secret identity, is so much baloney. Can you think of any single thing that Atrios has posted where one needs to accept that he does in fact have access to information that you don't? I can't. Atrios deals in publicly available data, stuff that anyone could find. Surely by now if his identity were material to his blogging, someone would have pointed to one or more of his posts and asked "How do you know that? What is your source?" If you mentally substitute "Dominic Scarpetti", or "Jerome Horwitz", or "Yon Yonson from Wisconsin" wherever you see the word "Atrios", does it change your perception of the veracity of his words?

But what if he really is Bob Shrum, or Sidney Blumenthal, or (gasp!) HILLARY!?!? Well, then I'd say Atrios has done a better job than Curt Schilling did of not dropping any hints to his identity of the "only a few people could possibly know this" kind over the past few years, going back to his pre-blog Table Talk days, the kind of hints that a Mickey Kaus or Andrew Sullivan could pounce on with a gleeful "Aha!" Indeed, the fact that Sully has no clue who Atrios is after all this time - and remember, we've had the chance to hear Atrios' voice, too - is to me the strongest evidence that his real name wouldn't mean anything to Sully anyway. And if I'm wrong, and Atrios truly is an insider of some kind, he's doing a pretty excellent impersonation of someone who isn't. In either case, who Atrios is has no real bearing on what Atrios says, and that's what really matters.

Bill Burkett

Damn. Kevin Drum has an interview with Bill Burkett, the former National Guardsman who was recently quoted in the Dallas Morning News saying that then-Governor Bush's chief of staff, Joe Allbaugh, told the National Guard chief to get the Bush file and make certain "there's not anything there that will embarrass the governor." Burkett provides a lot of background information to bolster his claim. Check it out.

UPDATE: Meanwhile O-Dub talks to a much more taciturn Bill Campenni, who has written two letters to the editor discussing his time in the National Guard with George Bush. Hesiod has some problems with what Campenni says.

Dean for Edwards

When I first stumped for John Edwards as the second half of a Kerry/YourNameHere ticket, I mentioned that I had a gut feeling that having Edwards on board would help Kerry woo back some Dean voters who are unenthusiastic about him. Looks like my instinct was pretty accurate.

It's not surprising that John Edwards says he would be a tougher opponent for President Bush than Democratic front-runner John Kerry. It raises eyebrows when Howard Dean says the same thing.

[...]

Dean told CBS News in an interview that will air Wednesday night that he believes Edwards would be the better candidate in the general election, even though Kerry has the advantage right now.

"My fear is that he actually won't be the strongest Democratic candidate," Dean told the network.

Not exactly an endorsement, but it's easy to see how to get there from here. Whether it's Edwards or not, I feel pretty strongly that Kerry's choice for VP ought to provide not just a good contrast to himself, but also a good one to Big Time Dick. I want someone who's forward-looking, 21st Century, not a reach back, and Edwards fills that bill very well. That's the biggest strike in my mind against otherwise-credible possibilities like Bob Graham, John Breaux, or Richard Gephardt, whom Jeralyn accurately calls "your father's Oldsmobile".

UPDATE: Well, maybe my instincts aren't that good after all.

[I]nterviews with both campaigns indicate a Kerry-Edwards ticket is unlikely, and advisers to both men lack the excitement for such a pairing that some voters feel.

Several Kerry advisers say the Massachusetts senator is skeptical about Edwards's strength as a running mate, saying he appears to lack the clout with Southern voters that he often brags about being able to deliver. Edwards's inability to win more than a single primary state thus far may give him the aura of a loser in the general election, these Kerry aides said. And Kerry himself recently noted with a touch of derision that, according to opinion polls, President Bush would defeat Edwards in his own home state of North Carolina.

Oh, well. Via Political Wire.

Lee Harvey was a friend of mine

The History Channel has asked three historians to review the credibility of a documentary that claims LBJ was behind the assassination of JFK.

The History Channel aired the documentary, The Guilty Men, in November as one of several programs exploring conspiracy theories surrounding President Kennedy's death. Johnson was Kennedy's vice president.

Former aides to Johnson, along with former presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter and Johnson's widow, Lady Bird Johnson, sought an independent probe of the claims in The Guilty Men.

Meeting last week with executives from the TV station were Larry Temple, special counsel in the Johnson White House and president of The LBJ Foundation; journalist Bill Moyers; Jack Valenti, head of the Motion Picture Association of America; and Tom Johnson.

After the meeting, Tom Johnson said the executives expressed concern that the issue had been "ratcheted up" by letters from Ford, Carter and Lady Bird Johnson to the chief executives of NBC, Hearst Corp. and The Walt Disney Corp., which own A&E Networks.

"Nothing is more important to The History Channel than the integrity of our programming," Dan Davids, executive vice president and general manager of The History Channel, said in a statement. "We take their concerns about historical accuracy and fairness very seriously and are taking appropriate action."

That's nice. Here's a thought: Maybe the next time they bat around the possibility of airing something like that, they might get the historians on board with it before the actual broadcast, instead of after it. You know, what with them being the History channel and all.

Temple, who now works as an Austin attorney, said he was inclined to act when viewers began calling and sending e-mails and letters to the LBJ Library.

"Unfortunately, many of them were from kids who believed what they saw on TV," Temple said.

"The theme was always: 'Why do we have this memorial for murder?' and 'Why do we have this library to honor a man who killed a former president?' It was such an egregious distortion of anything that is right or fair, we had to do something about it."

Well, kids, at least you learned something from all this, even if it wasn't what the History Channel intended for you to learn.

Not really on point but worth your time to read: Columbia Journalism Review's Campaign Desk on defining conspiracy theories down.

Westar may keep its secrets

The Kansas utility Westar, which last year revealed that it had given over $50,000 in hard and soft money to several Congressional Republicans and Tom DeLay's Texans for a Republican Majority PAC, has announced that it may or may not release its final report on the subject to the public.

When the long-awaited report on Westar Energy Inc.'s 2002 political donations under former CEO David Wittig is released, the company's board might not publicly release it, a company spokeswoman said Monday.

"Once we do have results, it will be up to the board to decide whether to release them," Karla Olsen said.

Keeping the information secret would be a departure from the board's handling of an earlier investigation that revealed the political donations. In May, the board released a 360-page report and hundreds of pages of exhibits on its Web site.

Olsen said the company's handling of the report from Washington lawyer Timothy Jenkins would be consistent with the handling of the previous report.

"Just as with the report last May, it was up to the board to decide whether to make that public," she said.

Public Citizen is on their case to release the report, though they don't have any current info or press releases that I could see on this topic. Obviously, I hope Westar ultimately does the right thing so we can all know just exactly how DeLay benefitted from their misguided largesse.

Speaking of The Hammer, according to Roll Call, he's attempting to soften his image a bit.

Even before hitting the airwaves, an Armstrong Williams interview with Rep. Tom DeLay (R-TX) is "generating a bit of controversy." DeLay and his wife Christine opened up their home to TV cameras for the first time and they were to focus on a discussion about their "crusade" to help foster children. However, DeLay got "tripped up" in comments he made about absentee fatherhood. DeLay: "A woman can take care of the family. It takes a man to provide structure. To provide stability. Not that a woman can't provide stability, I am not saying that." Once Christine realized her husband was "treading on dangerous territory," she said "let's edit this out" and told her husband, "this is not a good thing for you to be saying. And you don't mean it anyway." The Rep. added that "it does take a father, though." Christine offered some clarification by noting that she "had the structure there when [DeLay wasn't] there. But ... absolutely, [a] two-parent family is the best."

That touchy-feely stuff sure is hard, isn't it? It gets better.

The show, which will air this week on stations across the country, will also feature a "lighter side" of DeLay. He said he makes coffee for his wife and vacuumed the house before Williams arrived. DeLay also highlights his wife's positive influence on him, saying he'd "probably be in prison today, if it weren't for her".

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Sometimes, no sarcastic remark seems adequate. Someone please remind me to keep an eye out for the transcript of this sucker. Thanks to JD and Alfredo Garcia for the tips.

Where I've been

Everyone else is posting their States I've Visited maps, so what the hell. Click on the More link to see mine. I'll even throw in a little bit of useless trivia about me to make it seem more worthwhile:

States I've Attended Weddings In: Massachussettes, New York, Virginia, Maryland, Florida, Ohio, Illinois, Arkansas, Texas, Colorado, Arizona, California, Nevada, Montana, Oregon.

Not A State, But I've Attended Weddings There Anyway: Washington, DC, and Vancouver, British Columbia.

States I've Attended Sporting Events In: New York, New Jersey, Maryland, Florida, Indiana, Louisiana, Arkansas, Wisconsin, Illinois, Texas, Colorado, Montana, California, Oregon.

Not A State, But I've Attended A Sporting Event There Anyway: Tokyo, Japan.

States I've Only Driven Through And Thus Haven't Technically Visited If Actually Setting Foot In The Place Is Required To Count As A Visit: Connecticut, South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, Idaho.

I'm sure you're all just enthralled. You can create your own visited states map if you want to, or just click on More and see where I've been.

Law and Order: Public Morals Unit

And now one of our esteemed County Commissioners is in full panty-bunch mode over Janet Jackson's boobie.

Harris County Commissioner Steve Radack wants to make sure there's no more such misbehavior in a county-owned building.

Radack said Tuesday that he wants a "morality clause" added to the contracts of all entertainers who perform in such venues, including Reliant Stadium, Reliant Center and the Astrodome.

"I'm not trying to push to dictate society's morals," he said. "But I will say this: As a member of Commissioners Court and a 20 percent vote on these facilities, I believe it is clearly appropriate to set some standard."

How such a clause could be written in a way that wouldn't flagrantly violate the Constitution is unclear. Even Radack's fellow conservatives on the Commissioner's Court think it'd be a good idea to run this one past the county attorney first. I think we can file this under "complete non-starter", but I want to see a corpse before I declare it dead.

Many moons ago, the Rice MOB performed at Baylor University. Afterwards, we received a letter from an aggrieved fan who chastised us for "undulating suggestively on the field". Sometimes, what's in the eye of the beholder says an awful lot about that beholder.

UPDATE: I bow to Pete for his superior take on this daunting issue.

Stripperama!

In case you've ever wondered, this is exactly the sort of thing that makes athletic directors chug Maalox.

The president of a company that employs topless dancers said Tuesday his strippers have been hired by students at Rice University and the University of Houston to perform at parties that might have been attended by student-athletes or prospective student-athletes.

Steve Lower, whose Denver-based Hardbodies Entertainment Inc. employs about 15 dancers in Houston, said such parties are commonplace in Colorado and, to his knowledge, elsewhere around the nation.

"It's a tradition handed down from player to player to player," Lower said. "But colleges and universities have absolutely no knowledge of these parties. They're paid for by players or friends of players, and they're not happening on campus."

Lower first disclosed that Hardbodies dancers had danced at parties involving student-athletes as recently as two weeks ago at the University of Colorado. He subsequently said Colorado should not be singled out because such parties happened elsewhere, such as at Rice and UH.

"We have supplied entertainers for parties at the University of Houston and Rice," he said. "Whether they were recruit parties, I don't know."

Boy, that sure sounds bad, doesn't it? Well, maybe. Look a little farther down, though, and see if you see what I see:

Lower said he opened the Houston branch of his business, which also includes branches in Denver and Las Vegas, about 18 months ago. He said he was not as familiar with the Houston operation as the Denver branch and thus could not say if dancers had been hired here to perform for recruits.

"Usually the only way we find out that recruits were there is if the girls tell us," he said.

University of Houston athletic director Dave Maggard said UH "has no knowledge of and does not condone the type of `recruitment' activity" described by Lower.

"We expect our student-athletes to act responsibly at all times," he added. "We are concerned about these allegations and will investigate them completely."

Maggard said Lower was unable to give him a definitive answer when he asked if UH student-athletes had hired dancers.

"He indicated to me that University of Houston students had utilized this service," Maggard said. "My question was, `Are you talking about student-athletes or students?' and he said `students.' I said `athletes?' and he said, `I'm not sure. I would assume that athletes may have been involved.'

"No one in our department knows anything about this, and this fellow (Lower) indicated that no one at the school knows anything about it other than the students (who hired the dancers)." Maggard said. "He said at all the institutions where he has done, quote, business, it has all been through students."

[...]

At Rice, spokesman Terry Shepard said university president Malcolm Gillis had asked athletic director Bobby May and vice president for student affairs Zenaido Camacho to determine whether such parties had taken place on campus.

Shepard said Rice officials had no knowledge of the parties described by Lower and that if such gatherings took place, they were "completely out of line with the university's standards."

"I can't believe any of our athletes are that stupid," Gillis said in a university statement. "However, if it is proven that any of them or anyone at Rice had anything to do with such a thing, it would go very hard on them."

May said Rice officials were unable to find any reference to Hardbodies in its athletic department records.

"We will do our best to find out if there is any activity that would link our players with that organization, but we have no evidence of that," he said. "We don't expect to find any connection."

So the stripper-service owner doesn't really know anything about the Houston market, and apparently has no way of knowing if any of the students who hired his service are even athletes, let alone athletes involved in recruiting. Am I crazy, or did he just generate a ton of free publicity for his business on the basis of essentially nothing? Apparently, Rice AD Bobby May had more to say about how flimsy this all is on a sports talk radio show this morning - this post on the Rice fan board sums it up. But will the results of the UH and Rice internal investigations be revealed on Page One? What do you think?

One last thing, on a lighter note:

According to NCAA rules, a school "may not arrange or permit excessive entertainment," though it is unclear what constitutes excessive.

"Excessive entertainment" is the funniest thing I've seen today. It'd also be a great name for a rock band.

Countdown to the 17th

A couple of big elections coming up on Tuesday. Over in Kentucky, Congressional candidate Ben Chandler has hit a small jackpot by running blog ads.

"We're raising [considerable] money off the blogs," said Chandler spokesman Jason Sauer. "It's been really successful. Really beyond anything we've expected."

With an investment of only $2,000, and in less than two weeks, the campaign has raked in between $45,000 and $50,000 in contributions from blog readers, and that number is growing every day, said Chandler campaign manager Mark Nickolas.

Chandler -- a former state auditor and former state attorney general -- is facing off against GOP state Sen. Alice Forgy Kerr in the Feb. 17 special election for the Lexington-area House seat. But while Kerr has outraised Chandler by several hundred thousand dollars -- as of late last week, Kerr had raised about $1.2 million and Chandler was estimating his fundraising total at about $650,000 -- Chandler's campaign says its fundraising pace is picking up and at least part of the surge has come from the Web.

"It has been phenomenal," Nickolas said. "I get an e-mail every time there's a contribution -- and we know from the e-mail the source is a blog when they come through that avenue. Since the morning of Jan. 29, the FEC [filing] cut-off, I've put all those e-mails in a separate file. So far there are 711." [...]

Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean has paved the way, raising millions in campaign cash from those who've visited his "Blog for America" site -- but Chandler has followed a slightly different model.

Instead of creating his own blog, Chandler is drawing potential donors to his campaign Web site by running advertisements on 11 other popular, politically oriented blogs such as Calpundit, Daily Kos and Instapundit [...]

No matter how you slice it, a 20-fold return on investment is nothing to sneeze at. And I just love that Instapundit may have helped out, no matter how inadvertently. You can kick in here. The latest numbers show Chandler leading, but in a tight race.

Of course, money's great but there's no substitute for direct action. As noted here, interested folks in the area are needed as volunteers to spend a little time in KY 06 and help out with the Chandler campaign. If that's your neck of the woods, please check it out.

I'd also like to highlight the following email that was sent by Kentucky for Dean to its supporters, as noted in the comments to that last post on Kos:

To all Dean supporters in the 6th District:

As we all work hard this week doing long distance phone-banking and letter writing for Gov. Dean's efforts in Wisconsin, I wanted to address a question about which I've been asked many times in the past few days: What can (or should) Dean supporters do to help Ben Chandler win the 6th District special election, considering he endorsed Wesley Clark for President?

I've gone over this in my head so many times, and the answer is always the same: we should do whatever we can to help Ben Chandler, the Democratic candidate, win this election. Here are two reasons:

1. This open U.S. Representative seat is important for Kentucky. Like Ernie Fletcher, Alice Forgy Kerr would undoubtedly be a rubber stamp for Republicans in the House. We need every single Democratic seat in the House to counterbalance Tom Delay and his radical right-wing agenda. Ben Chandler is the Democratic candidate, and whatever our disagreements, his election would better serve the Commonwealth of Kentucky.

2. Alice Forgy Kerr has made this special election a referendum on the popularity of President Bush and his agenda leading into the November election. In the strongest possible ways, Mrs. Kerr attached herself to the Bush administration and its policies of fiscal irresponsibility and reckless foreign policy. A Democratic victory in the 6th District (where President Bush won with 56% in 2000) would send a clear signal to the rest of the country: this President is a failure, and the electorate is starting to notice.

Like you, I was disappointed that Ben Chandler endorsed Wes Clark for President. I know and accept that this was a political decision--we have a difference of opinion on which candidate would make the best President.

But right now, I also believe we have a responsibility as good Democrats or concerned Independents to not let another under-qualified and irresponsible Republican represent this state. We can help. There are things you can do.

Thanks, and let me know if you have questions.

jh

Jeremy Horton
Chair, Kentucky for Howard Dean

Good on them for keeping their eye on the ball.

There's a big election here on the 17th, too, as a successor to Bill Ratliff in the State Senate will be chosen. Andrew Dobbs at the Yellow Dog Blog has done a great job keeping up with this race - see his posts on the vicious smears against Democratic candidate Paul Sadler, and the record-breaking flipflop by Republican candidate Kevin Eltife. The group Texans for Lawsuit "Reform", who are behind the sleazy and inaccurate attacks on Sadler as they were in the general election, have accepted his challenge (PDF) to hold debates in VFW halls in the district. That ought to be fun. (Sadler's site has more on the attacks against him.) I haven't seen any polling on this race, but I expect it to be close. You can help out Sadler by donating to his campaign.

Finally, I don't have a dog in the fight for the open SD 31 seat, as the runoff is between Republicans, but I see that there's been some slapstick out there.

A Kirk Edwards strategist in a misdirected e-mail called an Amarillo TV news producer politically motivated and her audience "wine-swilling."

The strategist Friday mistakenly sent the e-mail to a California man bearing the same name as another strategist in Edwards' campaign.

In the e-mail, Brian Berry of The Strategy Group called Ellen Robertson Neal, executive producer for KACV-TV, "not a legitimate TV show host."

[...]

Berry on Monday said the e-mail was intended to be private and that he'd vented in it because Neal had "badgered" the Edwards campaign with phone calls after the Odessa candidate canceled his appearance on her show.

"That's just an elite term," Berry said of calling the PBS audience "wine-swilling."

"I don't know if they like wine. Maybe cheese, too."

A Craig Murphy of California forwarded the e-mail to Neal on Saturday after receiving several by mistake, apparently because he has the same name as another Edwards strategist, Craig Murphy of the Arlington-based Murphy Turner & Associates. Neal forwarded the e-mail to the Globe-News on Monday.

Call me crazy, but anyone dumb enough to send an email like that - more than once! - to a complete stranger instead of a coworker has no place criticizing someone else's perceived eliteness. And what is it with the food and beverage obsession, anyway?

UPDATE: Wow. Check out this ringing endorsement for Chandler. If these things have any effect, this one ought to help.

Sitemeter screwup

I've had a free Sitemeter counter for nearly two years now, and though it has its wonky moments it's always worked. For some bizarre reason, yesterday the counter at the bottom of this blog became inaccessible to me - if you click on it, you get a message that says "Access to this account is currently blocked. Contact the system administrator." I've no idea what this means. View access to my stats is unrestricted, but the account name and password I used to set this up still seem to work, though I can't see anything when I do log in.

I've sent a message to the Sitemeter webmaster and am awaiting a reply. I know you get what you pay for, but this is still annoying. Most likely, in another day or so I'll just create a new counter and start it out at approximately the total I think I was at before this happened. Since the counter code is on each archive page, that means a complete rebuild. Sigh.

I'm contemplating adding a different counter for comparison and backup purposes. Anyone have experience with Extreme Tracking? Are there any other decent choices? Thanks.

An interview with Fred Lewis

Fred Lewis is one of the people behind Clean Up Texas Politics, a nonpartisan site that tracks and shines a light on the influence of big money in elections. There's been a lot of activity to keep them busy lately, and the real election season hasn't even started yet. I had the opportunity to ask him a few questions about what he does and what we have to look forward to this year. Click on the More link for the full text of the interview.

CK: Who is CleanUpTexasPolitics and how are you different from other watchdog groups like Texans for Public Justice?

FL: Clean Up Texas Politics is part of Campaigns for People, a non-profit that educates the public and builds coalitions for campaign and ethics reform in Texas. We are different than other groups in that we work only on state campaign and ethics reform, have Republican, Democratic and Independent board members and supporters, draft reform legislation because of our legal expertise, and focus on educating and building diverse coalitions for reform. We built the last reform coalition, the Show us the Money Coalition, of 62 groups that successfully promoted comprehensive campaign disclosure through the 2003 Texas legislature. We work closely with Texans for Public Justice and many other groups of all stripes and backgrounds.

CK: The Texas Ethics Commission is not known for its strong enforcement powers (see this article, for example). What kind of effect are you hoping to have?

FL: We helped rewrite the Commission's laws in 2003 to give it more power but much more needs to be done. Basically, the agency needs to be completely restructured to remove the board members from the enforcement process and the agency's budget needs to be increased substantially and removed from the legislative process. One reform that would help would be to require a specific number of random audits of campaigns, which the Legislature has resisted in the past.

CK: Why has there been such a focus on corporate money in campaigns recently, especially here in Texas? Is this a bigger issue now than before?

FL: Making or accepting corporate contributions is a 3rd degree felony in Texas and has been illegal since 1905. The prohibition has been followed generally until the 2002 election. If corporate contributions are allowed to continue in Texas, they will become a tidewave and will overwhelm the political process and undermine democracy. Our web site goes into more detail.

CK: How big an effect does an influx of corporate money have on campaigns? Given how favorably the State House lines were drawn for Republicans in 2001, did corporate money really have much effect in the 2002 elections?

FL: Corporate money likely had a significant impact on the 2002 Texas state House races. In 2002, the Texas Association of Business (TAB) and Texans for a Republican Majority(TRM) spent money in the general election on the 21 most competitive state house races. They won 16 of these races and 11 of the 16 were close, with the TAB/TRM candidate winning with 50-60% of
the vote.

In the 11 races, TAB spent on average $82,000 per race on corporate-funded direct mail pieces and TRM spent, directly and indirectly, on average $62,000 per race. One hundred and forty four thousand dollars is a substantial amount for competitive Texas house races, which usually cost between $200,000-$500,000. If 1/2 of these 11 TRM/TAB candidates had lost, the Texas House would likely have been quite different. More information is here.

CK: As you know, Travis County DA Ronnie Earle has been conducting a grand jury investigation of the Texas Association of Business (TAB) for its campaign contributions in 2002. They've fought the investigation and related efforts to discover their members' names tooth and nail, to the point where some of its members were briefly jailed for contempt. Why are they fighting so hard? What might this investigation reveal?

FL: The investigation will reveal whether TAB was spending corporate money to underwrite its political activities, including electioneering ads, which is illegal, or using these funds for true issue ads, which are legal. TAB claims it is protecting the First Amendment rights of its members to anonymity. The DA, however, isn't requesting the names of its members but documents of its political activities .

CK: In addition to the criminal investigation, there is a lawsuit pending against TAB by four Democrats who were defeated in 2002 and who claim that illegal corporate money raised by TAB contributed to their losses. Is this related in any way to the criminal case? How likely is it that these plaintiffs will get relief from the courts?

FL: There are several civil lawsuits, two against TAB and one against TRM. The plaintiffs and reformers like myself think the lawsuits involve serious matters; the defendants disagree. It will likely be resolved by a jury.

CK: Jonathan Grella, a spokesman for Tom DeLay, recently said "It's wrong and unethical to link legislative activity to campaign contributions." How do you respond to that?

FL: We believe it's wrong to provide better treatment to large contributors, who make up .1% of voters, than the general public because it undermines majority rule. The evidence is overwhelming that large contributors get something for their money. We published a book of interviews of former Texas state legislators who admit favortism (Too Much Money Is Not Enough by Kinch) and there are Congressional interviews as well that make the same point.

In several surveys of large donors, most admit to seeking favors and often getting them. In a devastating brief in support of McCain-Feingold filed by a business group, the Committee for Economic Development, the group stated that corproate soft money contributions weren't about free speech but either the business community buying favorable policies or being squeezed to give contributions. See here for more.

CK: What effect, if any, will the McCain/Feingold law have on statewide campaigns starting this year?

FL: McCain-Feingold extends to federal candidates, federal PACs, and state parties' activities on behalf of federal candidates. No more corporate soft money is allowed essentially to these entities as to federal elections in Texas. As a result, the state parties and state officeholders are likely to try to make up for the now banned federal soft money with state corporate money schemes to attempt to evade our state prohibition. While these activities are questionable, if not illegal, Texas state law needs to be tightened in similar ways to McCain-Feingold. Otherwise, corporate money is likely to flood Texas state elections even more than in 2002.

CK: What new tricks and loopholes can we look forward to seeing used in 2004? What's the next frontier in questionable campaign fundraising?

FL: We are likely to see more of what we saw in 2002: corporate special interest monies in state elections. These sources will likely claim that they are broadcasting "issue ads", supporting only PAC and party "administrative expenses", and not sending corporate money roundabout to candidates through slush funds. Also, we may see state parties and state officeholders in Texas try to raise corporate money, and evade the corporate prohibition, to replace the federal corporate soft money banned under McCain-Feingold.

Where were you in 1972?

Diana Moon suggests an interesting question for President Bush regarding his National Guard service:

"Mister President, can you give us the names of three National Guard Service colleagues who served with you between May 1972 and October 1973?"

Via Seeing the Forest. For the record, in 1972-73 I was in first grade. The following people could testify to my attendance at Sacred Heart Elementary School: Eric Wright, Carolyn Morrison, Helen Shea, Steven Baldassare, John McGinley, and Geraldine Cunningham, plus Sister Evangeline, my teacher. Over to you, Mister President.

Or maybe not.

[Documents released today] indicate Bush received pay for six days of duty between May and December of 1972 when he was supposed to be on temporary duty in Alabama. There is a five-month stretch in 1972 when he was not paid for service. The records do not indicate what duty Bush performed or where he was.

The White House also has not been able to produce fellow guardsmen who could testify that Bush attended guard meetings and drills. "Obviously we would have made people available" if they had been found, McClellan said.

Obviously.

Round round get around, I get around

Quite a bit of transportation-related news in the paper today. The big story is that the planned construction on the so-called "downtown spur" off of US 59 will go ahead as planned starting this weekend.

Spur 527 will close this Friday as planned. U.S. District Judge David Hittner on Monday denied a request by a residents' group, the West Alabama Quality of Life Coalition, to temporarily halt the project. The elevated link from the Southwest Freeway into downtown will be rebuilt, and its heavily traveled inbound lanes will be closed for nearly three years.

Although the neighborhood organization could appeal the decision, that option appeared unlikely Monday.

The coalition contended that closing of the spur's inbound lanes for 33 months would flood local streets with traffic, increase pollution and endanger children.

But Hittner disagreed with arguments that residents would suffer irreparable injury from the project or that the public interest would be harmed by letting the work begin on schedule, at 9 p.m. Friday.

"After considering the public consequences of halting this project as a whole and not just the consequences to individual parties," he wrote, "this court determines that a preliminary injunction is not in the public interest at the present time."

Hittner's ruling also said the plaintiffs failed to show that the defendants, including the Texas Department of Transportation and Federal Highway Administration, had not complied with federal requirements on environmental protection and historic preservation.

Coalition attorney Jim Blackburn said it would be very difficult to win in an appeal to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

"Judge Hittner gave us a very fair hearing," Blackburn said. "We absolutely got a fair shot. I feel that we should have won, but I have no complaints about the court."

[...]

Reconstruction of the 43-year-old spur is part of a larger project that will also extend improvements to the Southwest Freeway northward from Mandell to Texas 288. The segment from Mandell to a point north of Montrose will be lowered below ground level, three decorative arched bridges will be added to the four that are now in place, and the Metropolitan Transit Authority's high-occupancy vehicle lane will be extended.

Opponents say they know the work needs to be done, but they had hoped to delay it until 2007, when other local road projects, including improvements to the Katy Freeway, West Loop and Kirby Drive, would be finished and better able to handle the overflow.

This is going to be an enormous pain in the ass, and while I think the WALQ folks have a strong case for delaying the construction - I drive on the spur several times a week and it looks to me like it's in decent shape - I reluctantly agree with Kevin that stopping this debacle probably wasn't the job for a judge. Blame TxDOT and County Judge Robert Eckels - they're the ones who are making this happen.

KHOU did a story last night about travel times on the alternate routes into downtown from Sugar Land, taking Beltway 8 or Loop 610 to SH 288. (Somewhat surprisingly to me, 610 North to I-10 East wasn't mentioned. That's the way I'd go if I were unlucky enough to have that commute.) All these routes are much longer than 59 to the spur, and I suspect the residents are correct when they worry about people taking 59 as far as they can and then navigating the neighborhood roads from there. I'm really glad i'm not living in that part of town right now.

Speaking of Judge Eckels, the good news is that by the time we've lived through all of this pain and inconvenience, we might finally have some commuter rail available as an alternate commute.

"What we can see is that, even with light rail, mixing trains and traffic is a bad idea," Eckels said. "We are setting records for accidents, and with our many visitors to the city, people will not just get used to it."

"Rail can be an important part of our mobility solution, and the voters have told us to move forward," he said. "But common sense and our obligation to the people require us to make the current line safer and fix its operational shortcomings."

With the cooperation of the city, Metro and railroad companies, Eckels said, the county could have more than 100 miles of commuter rail within five years.

The county already is studying the idea, identifying U.S. 290, Texas 249, Texas 3 and U.S. 90 as potential corridors.

Eckels campaigned against a November referendum proposal for Metro to build 73 additional miles of light rail. The measure was approved.

That's mighty big of you there, Bob. Why weren't you talking about this five years ago? Oh, that's right, because you were fighting any kind of rail transport tooth and nail. Now that this dam has finally and irrevocably been broken, you've hustled out in front of the parade and hoped to look like a leader. Thanks a hell of a lot.

Well, we don't have commuter rail yet, but maybe this round of road construction will encourage people to explore mass transit options, such as taking the light rail line in from the South Fannin Park 'n' Ride.

On Super Bowl Sunday, the Metropolitan Transit Authority's light rail line carried almost twice as many passengers as Metro officials hope will be taking the train on a daily basis by year's end.

An unknown, and probably large, number of the 61,000 boardings on MetroRail that day were football fans from out of town who attended the game at Reliant Stadium.

But if Metro is to achieve its goal of 33,000 rail boardings a day by year's end, it needs to persuade the locals. About 15,000 of these turned out Jan. 1 to ride for free, just before the line opened for business.

Jeff Arndt, Metro's chief operating officer, said statistics for Super Bowl weekend prove that many people will ride MetroRail to a special event. But he noted that the Super Bowl was an extraordinary event.

"There was nothing typical about it," he said.

A more accurate picture of rail's daily role in the local transit mix may emerge later this week, when Metro's January ridership totals are released.

I'm looking forward to seeing those numbers. The first month has certainly been eventful, but I don't think anyone can claim that the rail line isn't being used. The key is ensuring that ridership grows over time.

Finally, a little sympathy for a lost suburbanite. Louisiana St. is the road to take to get from downtown to I-10 and points westward. There are signs that point this out, as well as the access points to I-45, US 59, and SH 288, but there aren't as many as there should be, and if you're not on Louisiana you probably won't see anything very helpful for I-10. Sorry about that.

Ryan to rejoin Astros?

Nolan Ryan is poised to rejoin the Astros. No, silly, not as a pitcher, but on a personal services contract, which is to say he'll get paid to schmooze with big shots.

According to a person close to the situation, Ryan has told [Astros owner Drayton] McLane he will have an answer for the Astros by the middle of the month. It wouldn't be a surprise if the announcement was made today or Wednesday, however.

"I haven't talked to Nolan in about 10 days, but I have certainly talked to Nolan and encouraged him and recruited him," McLane said from his home in Temple. "We certainly have recruited him. ... We've had numerous conversations in the last several months."

Ryan's 10-year personal services contract with the Rangers ended late last year, and McLane wasted little time trying to lure him back to the Astros.

Nice move on McLane's part, which officially kills the ghost of John McMullen once and for all. Watch out for the reaction from the Chron sportswriters, though - I do believe that John Lopez may wet himself.

Deep Thoughts Dept.

Ken Hoffman answers the questions you didn't know you were asking:

Houston attorney Phil Sellers sent an e-mail with a perplexing legal question:

"In the Jack-in-the-Box commercial where the delicatessen manager is mad at Jack for introducing turkey club sandwiches, what does the `S' on Jack Jr.'s baseball hat stand for?"

Excellent question, and one that even had Jack executives in California scratching their big round heads.

At first, they said the "S" stood for Schultz Auto Repair, sponsors of Jack Jr.'s pee-wee baseball team.

But upon further review, they decided the "S" stood for "State" -- as in Jack's alma mater, Ball State University in Indiana.

So next time you're on trial for your life, and your lawyer appears to be in deep thought, this may be what he's thinking about: cheeseburger commercials.

That's pretty funny, but for the record, a Ball State cap would probably either have a "BSU" on it as seen here, or a cardinal as seen here. Not that I'm particular or anything. And as long as we're being trivial, we all know who Ball State's most famous alum is, right?

The state of the state's economy

A panel of economists talks to the Legislative Review Board, and it ain't very pretty.

"The reason people question whether the economic recovery is real is because there hasn't been much job creation," said Bernard Weinstein, director of the Center for Economic Development and Research at the University of North Texas.

Weinstein and three other economists testified to the Legislative Budget Board on how economic recovery would affect state revenue from tax collections. The portrait they drew was bleak, despite an increase in economic activity in businesses.

But...but...we've got zillions of new jobs! Governor Perry told us so! How can this be?

Overall, the news is mixed.

Weinstein told the panel that if job growth is flat, consumer sales tax collections for the state will not sustain major new investments in public education without expanding the sales tax base on personal and business services.

James LeBas, chief revenue forecaster for the state Comptroller's Office, said growth in the state's gross domestic product this year will run about 4 percent, the strongest it has been since 1999.

But LeBas said the state has lost 160,000 manufacturing jobs and 5,000 oil and gas industry jobs in the past three years during the recession.

Private-sector job growth, he said, has been in 33,000 new low-wage jobs in leisure, hospitality and other services.

The biggest area for job growth, LeBas said, has been an additional 119,000 government jobs in the education and health care fields. He said that is mostly new employment in local school districts.

"If we're adding government jobs, we're mostly recycling money that is there," LeBas said. "We're not growing the underlying base economy."

LeBas said a bad indicator for future state sales tax revenues is that per capita personal income in Texas matched the national average during the 1990s, but now it is almost 2 percentage points below the national average. Lower wages mean less taxable consumption.

[...]

Austin private economist Angelos Angelou said Texas today is creating jobs that pay wages that are less than what they were two years ago. He said the state especially should be worried about the loss of high-technology white-collar jobs overseas.

Angelou noted that Texas a few years ago had 25 semiconductor plants and now there are only 10. He said Texas needs to invest in technology research and development.

Angelou said the state also needs to invest in primary and secondary schools with an emphasis on creating engineers or nurses to work in the growing biotechnology field. Angelou said more engineers will retire in the next five years in the United States than will graduate from the nation's universities.

So the biggest area of job growth in the past few years has been 119,000 new positions in local school districts, and we're facing a shortage of engineers. That upcoming special session on school finance reform is going to be such a pleasure to watch.

One last item:

In other business, the LBB declared four state budget items emergencies so they could fund them.

Those included $9 million for the Regional Academic Health Center in Harlingen; $2 million in start-up funds for a Texas Tech University medical school in El Paso; $6 million to the Texas Cooperative Extension for wildlife damage and control activities; and $2.5 million to the Texas secretary of state's office for the 2004 primaries.

Funding for the two health care facilities became political footballs during last year's special sessions on congressional redistricting. Republican leaders had hoped to obtain Democratic votes for redistricting by refusing to pass the health care bills until congressional redistricting legislation went to the governor.

Yes, redistricting was a higher priority than hospitals. That's all you need to know about the mindset of our state leadership.

Stopping reredistricting before it begins

The DLC highlights a proposed amendment to the Alabama state constitution regarding mid-decade redistricting.

Down in Alabama, State Rep. Marcel Black of Tuscumbia, Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, noticed the very different outcomes of the Colorado and Texas power grabs, and did exactly the right thing: He's sponsoring an amendment to the Alabama constitution that would clearly limit congressional redistricting to once every decade.

Alabama has a Democratic-controlled legislature and a Republican governor, so Black's proposal may well have legs, since each party would be protected from a future power grab by the other. Such an amendment makes sense in any state where the constitution is silent on this issue. It's a no-brainer on public policy grounds, and probably on public opinion grounds as well. It's hard enough for voters to adjust to new districts once a decade. If districts are subject to more frequent changes whenever one party or the other gains or loses control of legislative branches and the governorship, we could soon see an endless round of re-redistricting actions that could bring chaos to the political life of many states and the country as a whole.

Raising this issue, moreover, could help draw attention to the more general problem with contemporary redistricting practices: the growing tendency to make most congressional districts safe for one party or the other, radically reducing the number of competitive seats, and turning the "people's branch" of Congress into a large mass of hyper-partisans who are insulated from public opinion and fear nothing politically other than a primary challenge from someone claiming even greater fidelity to partisan interests. That phenomenon already has a lot to do with the disconnect between the ideological and partisan warfare in Washington and the moderate views of a majority of the American people Congress supposedly represents.

Well, I'd rather this be taken up on the federal level, but if state by state is the best I'll get, I'll take it. Not that I'll be holding my breath, mind you.

Thanks to JD for the tip.

Coach 2: Electric Boogaloo

You may recall that I spent a few months last year coaching a Little League team. At the end of the season, I was asked several times by parents, players, and league officials if I would do it again this year. Last night, I got a call from the league president asking me that question. I told him that I was willing to coach, but since I'm not the father of a player, they should give preference to someone who is. I also said that I'd be more than happy to assist such a person.

I had the same conversation some time ago with the guy who recruited me as a coach in the first place, who is a coworker of Tiffany's. The word from him has been that there's a player's dad who would like to coach but who doesn't have a whole lot of baseball experience. I'd be a pretty good fit for him as operations manager/consigliere/Don Zimmer without the Pedro-charging proclivities. Both he and the league prez are aware that whatever role I fill, I'll likely miss the end of the season due to other obligations.

I should find out fairly soon what they have in mind for me. There's a league meeting on Feb. 21, which I presume includes the draft, since we began practicing on Feb. 22 last year. I'll let you know what happens.

Daily News Online

The march of online progressive publishing continues with Daily News Online, a slick-looking collaborative effort (I hesitate to say "blog" because it doesn't quite look like one, but that may be just me) focusing on current events. There's an awful lot of energy in group blogging/publishing lately, and while I think this is a Good Thing, I wonder when we'll hit the saturation point. Be that as it may, DNO has a nice layout and a lot of good stuff to read, so check it out.

And batting second...

I suppose it's time to do a little navel-gazing about who might run as the Robin to John Kerry's Batman in November. Not that I'm ahead of the punditry curve here - Mark Evanier quotes someone he describes as "loosely a member of the Washington Press Corps" who confidently predicts a Kerry/Max Cleland hookup, Greg contemplates Kerry/Gephardt, and both he and Andrew D (who's been kicking butt at YDB lately, in case you haven't been reading) write about Kerry and Evan Bayh. Search around a bit and you'll see musings on Kerry/Edwards, Kerry/Bob Graham, Kerry/Bill Richardson, and more.

My personal favorite among these is Kerry/Edwards. Now, I know, Edwards has said he doesn't want to be Kerry's VP. Well, of course he's going to say that. He's still in the running for the Presidential nomination. Once he says that he'd consider being a VP, he ceases to be viable in any way for the top spot. When and if circumstances make him non-viable, then a statement saying he doesn't want to be #2 will mean something.

I like Edwards for three reasons:

1. He's the best speaker among the candidates right now, the kind of orator who makes people believe in him. Kerry has a great resume, and I think will make an outstanding President (as would Edwards, of course), but he's vanilla. Edwards would generate some actual excitement in a way that Kerry just isn't capable of.

2. Assuming a Kerry win in 2004, Edwards is young enough to be a natural candidate in 2012, something that is absolutely not the case for Cleland, Gephardt, or Graham. That's counting chickens before the eggs have been laid, but that doesn't make it irrelevant. Plus, Edwards makes a great contrast to Dick Cheney - the future versus the past.

(Tinfoil hat fulminations about how the nomination in 2008 or 2012 already belongs to Hillary Clinton are left as an exercise for the reader.)

3. This is just a gut instinct on my part, but I think having Edwards on the ticket would ameliorate some of the hard feelings that Dean supporters have for Kerry. It doesn't make a lot of sense, since Edwards is the more conservative of the two and is equally hawkish on Iraq, but he's also less Establishment, more comfortable with the language of progressivism, and just plain less stiff than his putative boss. I also believe that Kerry/Edwards would feel a lot less like "Bush Lite" to those who already think Kerry is too much like Bush for whatever reason. It's a minor thing, but every vote is going to matter, and I want to have as many Dean supporters (and Kucinich supporters, for that matter) enthusiastic or at least accepting of a ticket headed by Kerry as possible.

Note that I don't list Edwards' Southernness as a key asset. I believe that geographic diversity in a ticket is overrated, and I think the important thing is not so much an appeal to "Southern" voters but moderate voters, especially in Midwestern states. This post on EDM captures what I'm thinking.

Finally, as long as we're talking Vice Presidents, I've seen some speculation that Dubya will replace Cheney as his understudy, possibly with Rudy Giuliani. This seems a bit far out to me. I do believe that Big Time Dick is likely to be more of a hindrance to Bush than an asset, but I think switching horses, even for plausibly deniable "medical" reasons, will feel like weakness and vulnerability, which is exactly what they don't want to project. I could be wrong here, of course, but I seem to recall similar rumors about Poppy replacing Dan Quayle back in 1992, and nothing ever came of that, either. I don't like making predictions, but I think the GOP ticket will be what it was in 2000.

UPDATE: Meanwhile, at Not Geniuses, Nico and Matt ponder Howard Dean as the VP. Personally, I think that'll happen about three seconds after the drop the puck for the NHL All-Star Game in Hell, but I do agree with the commenter on Nico's post who says the following:

Because it really makes more sense to have the VP appeal to the base. Few swing voters are going to not vote for a ticket because of the VP choice (unless it is a real blockhead one like Quayle). But putting a party favorite in the VP slot helps rally the turnout.

I still think Edwards brings at least as much to the table here, but there's something to this. I also note with some interest that unlike Edwards, Dean has publicly stated that he would take the VP slot. Make of that what you will.

You too can be a pundit

Normally, upon reading an op-ed entitled Call now, and you too can become a pundit and realizing that there isn't a single mention of blogs or blogging would inspire me to gripe about people who are hopelessly out of touch, but the actual piece is so deliciously bitchy towards most of the main media whores that I won't say anything bad about it. Read and enjoy.

Res ipso loquitor

From John Williams's column today:

Two Democratic Houston state representatives with re-election races are getting help from Republican House Speaker Tom Craddick.

Tonight, Craddick is scheduled to be the "special guest" at a fund-raising reception for Ron Wilson and Harold Dutton at the Austin Club near the state Capitol.

Wilson and Dutton were among the few Democrats who stayed in Austin last spring when most other House Democrats fled to Oklahoma in an attempt to waylay the congressional redistricting plan being pushed by Craddick and other Republicans.

In the March 9 Democratic primary, Dutton faces a challenge from Chand Khan, a travel agent, and Wilson from Alma Allen, a member of the State Board of Education.

For those of you who live in Ron Wilson's district, I hope this will help clarify your choice for the primary.

More fun with the TiVo

One of the perhaps underappreciated joys of the TiVo is the things it records for you on spec, stuff it thinks you might like based on the things you have asked it to record. Thanks to this feature, Tiffany and I are now hooked on BBC America's Waking the Dead, a classy two-hour cold case files-type crime drama which is now among our Season Pass items. BBCA is quite the gold mine for mystery fans - I really need to start recording Murder in Mind (I've caught a couple of eps by chance), and both Wire in the Blood and Red Cap look promising, too.

Of course, there can be some unintentional amusement as well. Once in a while, the TiVo doesn't change channels on our cable box successfully, so what you see listed as an episode of, say "Law and Order" on Channel 35 may turn out instead to be Channel 3's "Buscando Amor", a Spanish-language version of Blind Date, complete with snarky hosts, thought balloons, and hot tub scenes. As long as it wasn't something you had intended to record, it can be more fun than what you thought you were getting.

Chron discovers William Krar

The Chron runs what I believe is their first story about William Krar, the man from East Texas who was found with 800 grams of cyanide (that's about 28 ounces; according to the story, it's enough to kill everyone in a 30,000 square foot enclosure). Authorities are still not sure what kind of danger Krar was, and I for one find little comfort in the fact that he was caught because of a misdelivered package. Davd Neiwert has been following this closely and has a bunch of useful info if you need to do a little catching up.

UPDATE: Neiwert has now posted about the Chron story.

Are you ready for some baseball?

Now that we've gotten all this Super Bowl silliness out of the way, we can start getting ourselves in the right frame of mind for baseball. We'll begin with your 2003 national champion Rice Owls, who make their initial defense of that title on Tuesday. The Chron gives an overview of their outstanding pitching staff and assesses the rest of their lineup in its college baseball preview.

On the pro side, there were two double-take moments in the columns this weekend. First, John Lopez says the following in writing about Astros' manager Jimy Williams and his suddenly-excellent pitching staff.

He hasn't even put on his baseball shoes and already Williams knows where this season is headed.

Win, and it's them. Lose, and it's all on him.

It's unfair, but true.

Win, and it's because of the best top-of-the-rotation foursome in baseball, three-fourths of which surrounded Williams onstage at Friday's Houston Baseball Dinner.

There were Roger Clemens, Andy Pettitte and Roy Oswalt, looking sharp, strong and in shape.

Win, and it's because Big Rog brought the attitude, Cy Young stuff and work ethic, with Pettitte adding prime-time stuff and October mettle.

Win, and it's because -- good gosh -- Wade Miller and Oswalt are your Nos. 3 and 4 starters.

You ask Williams, kiddingly: That staff is practically unfair, isn't it? They should just give you guys the trophy.

He smiles, tilts his head and utters his famous mantra for all things baseball, "They've got major-league players on the other side, too."

Win, and it's all about the pitching staff.

It's about the powerful lineup and gifted bullpen, which only was made stronger with the arrival of Pettitte and Clemens. It's about the bold offseason moves, brokered by Drayton McLane, Tal Smith and Gerry Hunsicker, as if Williams' presence in the dugout had nothing to do with the signings of Pettitte and Clemens.

You don't think the two aces ever asked a current Astro, "What's Jimy like?"

Of course they did. And it helped seal the deals.

Win, and it's because Williams made like a reception and blended into the background. He stayed well out of the way.

But if the Astros lose?

It's about ol' Capt. Hook unable to turn the right knobs or flick the right switches. Not handling the talent.

I don't quite know what to make of this. I can see that Lopez is giving Williams some of the credit for landing Andy Pettite and Roger Clemons, which is perfectly appropriate, but after reading and rereading this thing several times, it feels like he's trying to inoculate Williams from blame if the Astros don't win in 2004. What else is managing besides maximizing the value of the talent at hand? If the Astros fall short, and if there's no clearcut beyond-his-control reason for it, it's fair and rational to ask if Williams got the most out of everyone.

Are managers often judged unfairly? Sure. Are they often hampered by unrealistic expectations? Of course. Guess wat? Life isn't fair. Williams has been dealt a pretty good hand, and he should be expected to succeed. In the end, he'll be judged by his results. I don't know what else John Lopez could ask for.

That was small potatoes compared to this bit from Richard Justice.

So there was Major League Baseball on Super Bowl Sunday pitching its product right there alongside the potato chips and little blue pills. Could you hear Gussie Busch and Phil Wrigley rolling over in their graves?

Their generation of owners did not believe in such stuff, certainly not if it meant stooping to associate with pro football.

That was then.

"That's why we were considered dinosaurs," commissioner Bud Selig said bluntly. "We were unwilling to change. Those days are over."

Indeed.

Selig continues to be the target of cheap shots from columnists and commentators who haven't done their homework or choose not to let the facts get in the way of a strong opinion.

The truth is this man is the best commissioner baseball has had. Period.

Thanks to his leadership, baseball has labor peace, interleague play, wild-card races and enough revenue sharing to give small-market teams a chance to win.

The best commissioner baseball has ever had? Hold on a second, I'm still breathing into a paper bag here.

We are still talking about a guy who presided over the only cancelled World Series, right? The guy whose team has long violated the league's rules about debt equity, who has shamelessly misrepresented the league's financial picture, who destroyed all of the good feelings emanating from the 2001 postseason by embarking on a ludicrous and dishonest attempt to eliminate four franchises, who has consistently insulted many teams' fans by insisting they cannot compete. That's the guy we're talking about, right?

As for the "accomplishments" Justice lists, there are a lot of true fans who consider interleague play (and the resulting unbalanced schedule) and the wild card to be abhorrences on the order of the designated hitter. Revenue sharing has always been a joke, a way to let the Carl Pohlads of the world line their pockets with other teams' money without having to put any of that cash into the product on the field.

I could go on and on, but thanks to Doug Pappas, the gold standard of Bud-bashing, I don't have to. Just click around for a few minutes there, or do a search on "Bud Selig" and get your fill of the case against. Selig may not be the worst Commissioner ever, but that's as far as I personally would go.

Boobiemania jumps the shark

It's official: Our national case of the vapors resulting from Janet Jackson's exposed boobie has become a clown show.

A Tennessee woman has sued Janet Jackson and others involved in her breast-baring Super Bowl halftime show in Houston, saying millions of people are owed monetary damages for exposure to lewd conduct, court records showed Friday.

The suit, filed earlier this week in federal court in Knoxville, Tenn., also names pop star Justin Timberlake, who performed with Jackson, CBS Broadcasting Inc., show producer MTV Networks Enterprises Inc., and the parent of those two companies, Viacom Inc.

Meanwhile, upset television viewers have filed more than 200,000 complaints about Jackson's revealing halftime performance -- a record for the Federal Communications Commission, officials said Friday.

The lawsuit in Tennessee asks the court to declare the matter a class action for purposes of damages. No dollar figure is mentioned in the suit, but it estimates that over 80 million U.S. viewers might be due compensation.

CBS has said the game drew an average viewership of just under 89.6 million people. Advertising during the game sold for more than $2 million a spot.

I believe that I will suffer an actionable level of damage if this suit is not tossed out of court immediately and with extreme prejudice. Where oh where are tort reform proponents when they can be useful for a change?

That'll take the edge off of any lingering Super Bowl euphoria

Say this for Mayor White: he knows when a party's over and it's time to get back to work.

Mayor Bill White held out the prospect of employee layoffs Friday as he acknowledged that the projected budget gap for the coming fiscal year is twice as large as his predecessor's most dire forecast.

While Lee Brown's administration projected a $74 million shortfall for fiscal year 2005, which begins on July 1, White said he expects the gap to be more than $150 million because of several major -- and unavoidable -- expenses that are coming due.

In addition to considering layoffs, White said the city also might chip away at the huge deficit by selling some of its real estate.

He added, however, that there are some austerity measures he will not consider, including a property tax increase and pay cuts or furloughs for city employees.

"I've tried to get the most realistic idea of where we would be if it was more or less business as usual," White said, "and we've found that business as usual is unacceptable.

"The magnitude of the problem is greater than many people may appreciate," said the mayor, who took office five weeks ago Friday. "I'm confident we will solve the problem, but that will require getting at the root causes of some of these cost drivers."

Those "drivers" include a $40 million increase in the cost of employee health care benefits, a $50 million police pay raise that takes effect in April and a $60 million increase in the city's total contribution to the municipal, police and fire pension systems.

I'm not going to bother delving into the particulars of all this, for it's the sort of thing that Beldar calls MEGO (my eyes glaze over) stuff. Instead, there are two points of interest from this story that I want to note.

One is that this is exactly the sort of problem White said he was best qualified to fix. His platform was about competence, ability to make tough decisions, and fiscal responsibility. He's about to get a chance to show what he can do. The problems aren't of his making, but the promises of recovery are. Succeed, and he'll be bigger than Bob Lanier. Stumble, and the next two years will be cover-your-eyes ugly.

Note also that no one from the City Council, not even Michael "Find me an office and I'll run for it" Berry, was quoted in this article. Maybe they'd all gone home early, maybe no one had anything of interest to say, maybe they were all simultaneously struck mute, I don't know. What I suspect is that all of them, especially those with near-future interest in higher office, are going to wait and see what White proposes before saying anything commital. We're about to see how long that honeymoon White is on really will last.

Obviously, I'm rooting for the Mayor. I voted for him, I like him, and I believe he will do a good job. But I'd be lying if I said I wasn't holding my breath a little right about now.

Governor exaggerates job growth

Look around! There's new jobs everywhere, created by the sheer force of Governor Perry's will. At least, that's what he says.

Gov. Rick Perry says he has reeled in more than 10,000 jobs since 2003 by luring big business and big events to Texas.

The most-talked-about catch is the Toyota plant being built in San Antonio. Perry parlayed that success into a $295 million appropriation from the Legislature for his office to put together incentive packages to land even bigger corporate prizes.

But a close examination of Perry's claims of creating jobs in Texas raises questions about some of the numbers.

Of the 1,221 Houston-area positions on a list of projects bringing jobs to Texas issued by the governor's office, some are not new. And some jobs may never even materialize.

The "Lucy Exhibit" -- 5-million-year-old fossils of a prehistoric ancestor dubbed "Lucy" that was discovered 30 years ago in Ethiopia -- will come to the Houston Museum of Natural Science in 2006, according to the governor's office of economic development and tourism.

The governor's office claims the "Lucy Exhibit" will create 46 jobs in Houston, such as hiring an exhibit manager, curator and extra ticket sellers. It will also generate an economic impact of $7 million as tourists rush to see the early hominid.

But that's all news to the Houston Museum of Natural Science, which is supposed to be hosting the exhibit.

"We don't have signed contracts yet," said a surprised Lydia Baehr, director of public relations for the museum.

In fact, the museum is still negotiating the deal.

As for the 46 new jobs or $7 million economic impact? Baehr said she has no idea where the governor's office got those figures. She said they have no idea how many jobs might be created -- if the deal can be successfully consummated.

At a guess, I'd say they got that $7 million figure from the same place as the $300 million Super Bowl impact numbers.

Quest Diagnostics is another company on the governor's list -- 500 jobs created.

But the company says the 500 jobs aren't new. The firm -- which tests blood, urine and other bodily specimens for doctors, hospitals and employers -- had three offices in Houston and consolidated its operations into one center.

"Net job gain? There is none," said Quest spokesman Gary Samuels. The new facility gives the company room to work more efficiently.

And if the company had not been able to find a bigger space to lease, would it have moved to Los Angeles or Phoenix, two big cities frequently mentioned as attractive relocation sites for Texas companies?

No, said Samuels. "We're already there."

Health care is a regional business, he said. Doctors and hospitals don't want to truck specimens from Houston to New Mexico so the company has 30 major labs in the United States including facilities in Dallas and San Antonio.

[Deputy chief of staff for Perry Phil] Wilson remembers the story differently. He said that when Quest Diagnostics contacted state officials about a possible package of financial incentives last spring, the company indicated it might leave Texas.

In addition, Wilson said, the company reported it had 355 employees in Houston and planned to add 150 more over the next five years if it stayed.

In the end, Quest never submitted a formal proposal for incentive funds to remain in Houston and never received any, Wilson said.

So the company made what turned out to be a phony threat to leave the state if it didn't get some taxpayer-funded swag, the Governor's office ignored it (to its credit, I must say), and when nothing happened as expected, all of the existing and projected employees were counted as newly-created jobs. This is what's known as How To Succeed In Government Without Really Trying.

Norquist to be investigated?

Remember this article about how Grover Norquist was going to help the GOP gain complete domination of American politics? Turns out it may contain a confession of wrongdoing in it:

Diners brushed past the men unaware, as Ken Mehlman and Grover Norquist hopscotched across state lines, refining what Norquist calls, with a wink, "our secret plan to seize power." Mehlman, the Bush-Cheney campaign manager, and Norquist, gardener of the conservative grass roots, were discussing a new tactic for the 2004 election: The campaign would activate the conservative base as it never had before.

Norquist, 47, is known for his weekly strategy sessions of conservatives, a Washington institution. But quietly, for the past five years, he also has been building a network of "mini-Grover" franchises. He has crisscrossed the country, hand-picking leaders, organizing meetings of right-wing advocates in 37 states. The network will meet its first test in the presidential race. On this evening at Harry's, several blocks from campaign headquarters in Arlington, Norquist presented his master contact list to Mehlman, mapped out and bound in a book.

"Fabulous, Grover. Awesome," Mehlman said, scanning the book like a hungry man reading a menu. "We're going to take that energy and harness it."

The binder was Norquist's gift to the presidential race.

Problem is, the gift of that binder may be in violation of campaign finance laws, according to Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW).

Americans for Tax Reform is a corporation and campaigns are prohibited from accepting contributions from corporations. According to FEC regulations, Bush-Cheney could not accept the list if it came directly from Americans for Tax Reform. CREW believes that Bush-Cheney may have also violated FEC filing requirements by failing to record the contribution of the list.

Forbes Magazine first noted this right after the WaPo article came out, but it's only just now that the FEC complaint has been filed. Here's CREW's statement, in which they also point out that even if Norquist could claim that his master list was his sole personal property, it would still have value in excess of the $2000 hard money limit.

Grover, Grover, Grover. What words will you use to describe Melanie Sloan and the FEC now that you've already called everyone you don't like Nazis? Those are the risks you take with hyperbole abuse, I guess.

Thanks to Alfredo Garcia for the tip.

Praise the Lord and pass the hot wings

I can't believe I missed this in this week's Press. Obviously, between Tim Fleck's departure and Rich Connelly's Super Bowl diary, I got distracted.

It's tough work transforming our government into a Southern Baptist church, so where does U.S. Representative Tom DeLay go when he wants to relax and refuel? Nowhere else but Hooters, the soft-porn restaurant chain where waitresses are judged by how tightly they squeeze into skimpy tops and shorts.

We don't know if DeLay himself went and showed the ladies just why he's nicknamed The Hammer -- his office didn't return our calls -- but it's obvious he endorses Hooters' philosophy that it ain't a meal unless you can ogle some Men's Club wannabe.

The December financial report of DeLay's political action committee, Americans for a Republican Majority, shows an outlay of $117.19 at a Washington, D.C., Hooters. (Pretty large bill; we can only hope the ARM PACers did not imbibe any ungodly alcohol while leering at the cleavage.)

Judging from the filing and DeLay's past statements, we know: a) Don't send your kids to liberal schools like Baylor or Texas A&M because they have "coed dorms"; and b) Fine family-values dinner conversation can include "Check out the tits on that waitress!"

Is Hooters worried about being taken over by fundamentalists? "We're in the hospitality business," says Mike McNeil, marketing vice president for the chain. "We're not going to discriminate against anyone based on politics."

I like to think that one lesson I've learned in this life is that there are certain debts which should always be paid in cash. Apparently, Tom DeLay hasn't figured that out yet, and we're all the more entertained for it. This isn't quite on the order of a mayor's aide taking prospective conventioneers to Rick's Cabaret on the city's dime because "that's where they wanted to go", but it's still pretty funny. Maybe the next time DeLay is preaching in church about how Texas A&M and Baylor are dens of sin and iniquity, someone will ask him about this. I'd pay to see that.

Thanks to JD and Drew for the tip.

It was the Flu Pandemic, and it swept the whole world wide

Linkmeister points to a couple of articles about the flu, both of the 1918 and modern varieties. The first article, about how the deadly Spanish influenza pandemic took hold in humans, does not specifically mention if it used samples of the actual virus that was recovered in Alaska a few years back, but I would assume that is the case (you can read more about it in Gina Kolata's book on the subject). Stay healthy, y'all.

Fleck to Chronicle?

Here's an interesting rumor for you, from political analyst/gossipmeister George Strong:

And the hot rumor of the day is that Tim Fleck is in discussions with the local paper to join it for his Insider column. Fleck is a well respected reporter on the political scene and was the only reason the Gossips ever read the Houston Press. Unless you are interested in ads for Gentlemen Clubs there is not much else in that paper to read. Now that Tim is gone it will be interesting to see what happens to their readership.

Joining the Chron would be a huge coup for both parties, though one wonders how that might affect their imported hotshot Rick Casey. With Casey, Monday political columnist John Williams, and editorial page denizens Cragg Hines and Clay Robison already in the fold, I fear that the Chron will pass because they already have enough political writers. I sure hope I'm wrong.

Wherefore art thou, Mario?

It's just never a good thing for a reelection campaign when a former stripper files a lawsuit against you in which she alleges "emotional and physical pain during a 17-year affair". Which is what happened to State Sen. Mario Gallegos yesterday.

In the lawsuit, Susan Delgado also asks for $14,000 to repay cash loans she said she made to Gallegos.

In a prepared statement, Gallegos' attorney, Mike Gallagher, expressed outrage at the allegations and said the suit will be "appropriately and vigorously fought."

Delgado, 39, a former stripper who now works as a waitress at a strip club, also seeks unspecified "exemplary damages" for distress she said Gallegos inflicted, including "spankings, slappings and hair pulling" during "intimate relationships."

Included in the allegations were a Sept. 20 incident at a motel on the Gulf Freeway, where she said Gallegos threw her to the floor during a spat.

Gallegos, who faces opposition in the Democratic primary in March, did not directly respond to the allegations.

Gallagher said that a Houston police investigation found the allegation of physical abuse Sept. 20 to be "baseless and not credible." Gallagher said Gallegos "fully cooperated with all authorities in that investigation and was completely exonerated."

"In circumstances such as this, it has become commonplace to make allegations that focus elections on all issues than those relative to how well Senator Gallegos has served his district," Gallagher wrote in the statement.

Yowza. And it's not the only legal action pending against Gallegos, either.

On Jan. 26, a constituent filed a lawsuit in state district court alleging that Gallegos does not live in Senate District 6, which he has represented since 1995, and asked the court to order him off the ballot.

Gallegos has said that he and his wife spend most of their time at the home of his mother, former Houston school trustee Olga Gallegos, who lives in the district.

The lawsuit is based on the homestead tax exemption that Gallegos and his wife claim on another residence outside the distr

When I first heard that Gallegos had a primary opponent, I dismissed it as a typical quixotic bid that had no chance. Now I'm not so sure. I'm in Senate District 6, so this directly affects me. I guess I'd better take a good look at Yolanda Navarro Flores and see what I think.

The South Regional shall rise again

It's never really too early for March Madness, is it? Here's a study (PDF) by three liberal-arts economist types who claim that all regions' seedings in the NCAA Men's Basketball tournament have become less accurate over the past few years, with the South Regional especially being essentially a crapshoot. Just something to keep in mind when you fill out your tournament pool spreadsheet in a few weeks.

FCC Fracas

Last week in San Antonio was the big FCC hearing on localism, number two of six in a series. Judging from the news accounts I've been reading, it looks like it was a pretty lively event. Here are some excerpts and highlights.

From the Chron:

From Asleep at the Wheel's Ray Benson to struggling Houston songwriter T.C. Smythe, Texas musicians are blaming federal deregulation of broadcast media for shoving local talent off the nation's airwaves.

[...]

"Just as strip malls with national brand-name retailers have homogenized the look and feel of large and small towns across America, so in certain instances has radio done much the same thing to music," said Benson, a 35-year industry veteran.

"If you take 18 or 20 records and play them over and over again, people will learn to eat that kind of crap," he said.

The same principle applies to news, Benson said, joining others who said distant ownership or management of media is ill-advised.

Smythe said it's been nearly impossible to break into commercial radio station playlists.

"I've learned that if I don't write a song that can make people want to drink beer or buy insurance, commercial radio won't play it," she said.

She presented the five commissioners with a CD of Houston-based songwriters and musicians "who despite their efforts and outrageous talent are denied air time for one reason: Local broadcasters will not play independent music," she said.

From the Express-News:

At an open microphone session, Scott Frost, 16, a junior at Marshall High School, implored the FCC commissioners to listen to the public more than corporate America.

"What I'm asking is you protect our interest," said Frost, who got permission from his mom to miss school to line up at 8 a.m. to speak to commissioners. "You protect our views and you protect us."

Second-grade teacher Anita Cisneros, 30, said San Antonio needs high-quality bilingual, educational and other local programs that represent Mexican-Americans and Chicanos.

"I want quality and accessibility," Cisneros told the commissioners.

From the Austin Chronicle:

Aside from a few people praising the Amber Alert system or help given to their charities, most of the public and invited panelists alike made it quite clear to Powell that his professed support for localism is undercut by his own stance on ownership. "The issue is not whether broadcasters are being local to a greater or lesser degree, but rather whether the lax ownership rules hinder the democratic process and exclude community interests and representation," said panelist Lydia Camarillo, vice-president of the Southwest Voter Registration Education Project. "Diversity of ownership breeds competition, and competition breeds better journalism and diverse perspectives in the news."

Camarillo was especially concerned that minority viewpoints suffered under consolidation. Despite a growing Latino electorate, she said, Americans were not able to understand the potential power in such gains because Latino stories "are not being told by Latinos, and even more rarely are they reported by Latinos. ... The number of television stations owned by minorities in the past three years has dropped from 33 to 20."

In response, Clear Channel's San Antonio market manager responded to the protest by equating community interests with commercial interests. "In my world, localism is more than a concept," said Tom Glade. "It's the way I operate my business. And the reason couldn't be simpler – it's called the radio scan button. ... Our listeners have many, many choices for news, information, and entertainment." In San Antonio, though, several of those "many" choices – one TV and six radio stations – are owned by Clear Channel.

Other corporate reps likewise missed the point. Steve Giust, general manager of San Antonio Univision affiliate KWEX-TV, was asked by an audience member, "If Univision is working to meet the community interests, as you assert, why does it portray such a narrow range of women on its own programming?" Giust artlessly replied, "We have lovely women on some of our shows" – a comment which drew lusty booing. He continued, "Locally, I think our local talent is just as beautiful as our network talent," garnering more catcalls. Rather than dig his hole any deeper, he stammered, "That's all I have to say."

From the San Antonio Current:

For media activists, January 28 started early, at 4 a.m., and ended late, about 19 hours after the first people cocooned themselves in heavy blankets and queued up by the entrance to City Council Chambers, waiting for the Federal Communications Commission hearing to begin.

[...]

It was not an accident that FCC Chairman Michael Powell chose San Antonio to be one of six U.S. cities to host a public hearing. One of the largest media conglomerates and a generous contributor to the Bush administration, Clear Channel, is headquartered here. Powell, the son of Secretary of State Colin Powell, could expect CEO Lowry Mays to be a hospitable and doting host - despite the $755,000 fine for indecency the FCC conveniently levied against the company the day before.

Clear Channel's presence, the interest from FCC supporters and opponents, and the emotional intensity that colored the day's events illustrate how strongly the issues of media ownership and localism resonate in San Antonio.

The events that took place outside the hearing were arguably as important as the hearing itself. Behind the scenes, while telecommunications giant SBC hosted a luncheon for Powell and select area college students, members of a pirate radio station broadcast its protest (until the transmitter ran out of juice) in front of Clear Channel's main office, and a Clear Channel billboard on Hildebrand was tagged.

The hour-long rally in Main Plaza featured speeches from small Texas broadcasters, public interest organizations, and ethnic groups. "The media plays a pivotal role in shaping public opinion and creating lasting images," proclaimed Nadine Saliba from the Arab and International Women's Association. "The media has toed the government line when it comes to issues affecting Arab Americans; it has echoed the administration's propaganda and has engaged in a degree of auto censorship that is shameful and inexcusable in a free society. And things stand to get worse with the FCC project for media consolidation."

Two hours before the hearing, the AFL-CIO issued a Cornell University study - which the labor union commissioned - concluding that, newsflash: Clear Channel's control of broadcast media, sports management, billboards, talent agencies, promotions, ticket vendors, and performance venues undermines musicians. (Go to here to order the entire study.)

The Current has a massive series on local media issues going, which I'm slowly working my way through. This one, with a who-owns-what chart, is an eye opener.

It's the deficit, stupid!

This story about a possible cutback in funds for the Port of Houston, contains the bones of what I think should be the main strategy of each endangered Democratic Congressional incumbent here.

Rep. Nick Lampson, D-Beaumont, said a major concern is a potential 13 percent cut in spending for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which maintains the Houston Ship Channel.

The corps already is operating without enough money, and this could delay a project to deepen the channel to accommodate heavier or larger ships.

"For the president to talk on one hand about the importance of homeland security and on the other leave gaping holes in our infrastructure is confusing at best," said Lampson, a member of the House Transportation Committee. "This budget leaves the corps hamstrung to keep our waterways open and safe."

However, a spokesman for the president's budget office said money for all ports has been combined into the Homeland Security Department's spending plan -- a move that could make the money more accessible.

"The process has been streamlined, and we've attempted to make a one-stop ... for state and local governments," spokesman Chad Kolton said.

Lampson is definitely on the right track, tying the budget deficit to homeland security. The message is simple: Bush and the Republicans have created this mess, and they're trying to fix it in part by skimping on important things like security for one of America's busiest ports. It's a basic variation of the Stenholm Message, in which Lampson can reasonably say that he'll work with the President when he's right - whoever the President may be - and disagree with him when he's wrong, as he clearly is regarding the Port's funding. This theme and the examples of where disagreeing with the President is clearly the Right Thing To Do should be echoed ad nauseum between now and November.

There's no reason why this message can't be adapted to other Congressional races where the President is generally popular as well. As Kos points out, an emerging strategy among the GOP Congressional leadership is to threaten certain programs unless a Republican represents the district that gets served by them. Which leads to the obvious question: If the threatened programs are objectively good, why should a given representative's party affiliation matter? Would the GOP cut off all funding to the Port of Houston if Nick Lampson gets reelected, for example? Yeah, yeah, I know - victors and spoils. Such an appealing campaign message that would make, no?

FYI, the Kentucky special election to replace Ernie Fletcher in Congress is February 17. If you want to help a Democrat win that seat, make a donation to Ben Chandler.

Dome redevelopers want more time

Time for an Astrodome Redevelopment Update.

The Astrodome Redevelopment Co. has asked the Harris County Sports and Convention Corp. to extend a deadline for its plan for a space theme park in the dome until after the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo.

"We thought it would be a great time to have our feasibility study take a look at that and see if we can coexist," said Scott Hanson, vice president of Trajen Aerospace, who is heading up the Astrodome Redevelopment Co.'s plan to transform the domed stadium into a mixed-use entertainment destination.

Compatibility with the current tenants at Reliant Park -- which include the rodeo and the Houston Texans football team -- will be crucial to any redevelopment plan involving the Astrodome, county officials have said.

The Sports and Convention Corp. is expected to take up the deadline extension at its Feb. 18 board meeting.

After selecting the Astrodome Redevelopment Co.'s proposal last fall to convert the 39-year-old building into an indoor theme park, hotel and retail complex, the board gave Hanson's group until Jan. 31 to demonstrate financial ability to complete the estimated $300 million project.

Willie Loston, executive director of the Sports and Convention Corp., said Wednesday that the Astrodome Redevelopment Co. had largely satisfied the corporation's basic requirements.

Those included providing basic financial information and proof of compliance with state laws regarding business organization.

"We're very encouraged and we have seen, really, nothing but positives ever since we started the process and have had very few, if any, setbacks at all," Hanson said.

Sounds like they're in pretty good shape, and they're making a resonable request. I can see the Astrodome from my office, and I'm rooting for these guys to succeed so it will remain a part of my landscape.

On a side note, there's a little graphic which shows that ticket sales for the 2004 Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo are down 16% from last year so far. This was briefly mentioned on the radio this morning, with the explanation being that it's the Super Bowl's fault. The radio newsie said that Rodeo officials expect sales to bounce back now that the game is over. We'll see.

Friends in high places

Here's a little expenditure that you won't find detailed in the current budget.

A media firm working for President Bush's re-election campaign has a share of the administration's publicly funded $12.6 million advertising effort touting the new Medicare law.

National Media Inc. of Alexandria, Va., is purchasing $9.5 million worth of television advertising for a 30-second commercial that the administration intends to educate seniors about changes in Medicare such as the new prescription drug benefit, executives involved in the advertising campaign said Wednesday.

Critics of the new law contended the firm's involvement is evidence that the administration is mounting a political rather than educational campaign for the new law.

"There are hundreds of media buyers out there and they get the contract," said Rep. Rahm Emanuel, D-Ill.

Emanuel said campaign media buyers typically are paid 10 to 15 percent of the cost of air time. But executives would not say how much the firm is being paid.

[...]

[Health and Human Services spokesman Bill] Pierce said HHS chose a team led by Ketchum Communications and including National Media to manage the ad campaign, which also covers airing the ads on radio, in newspapers and on the Internet in English and Spanish. He said Ketchum and National Media have done ad work for Medicare for three years.

National Media partners include Robin Roberts, the media buyer for Bush's 2000 campaign, and Alex Castellanos, who is well-known for creating sharp attack ads including the Republican Party commercial about Democrat Al Gore in 2000 that subtly flashed the word "RATS" across the screen.

Bottom line: Your taxpayer dollars, which are funding this ad blitz, are going to help line the pockets of GOP consultants, and the money they reap will in part get plowed into Bush's reelection campaign. Isn't that sweet? What a country we live in.

Via Atrios. The Hamster, who has more info about NMI's GOP connections, and Lean Left are also on this.

BAN Prosperity Index

Here's an interesting way of looking at the current economic climate: the BAN Prosperity Index.

The BAN Prosperity Index is a weighted aggregation of six economic indicators that directly affect poor and middle class Americans. Included in the aggregation are measures of well being such as real discretionary income growth, inflation, and interest rates. Also included are measures of the economic security of poor and middle class Americans such as the unemployment rate, length of unemployment, and frequency of non-business bankruptcies.

According to this measure, things were better in Q4 2003 but still not good for most people. Check it out, it's good stuff.

Probably the last damn Super Bowl thing I'll write

Two final indications that things must have gone reasonably well this week. One is Rich Connelly's Super Bowl diary, in which he actually seems impressed with the downtown party scene in spite of himself.

As bizarre as it may seem, downtown's Main Street -- in the city perpetually straining all too uncomfortably to not be seen as a poseur -- actually feels like the French Quarter. And sure, the French Quarter doesn't involve a whole lot more than walking around and drinking, so it's not all that difficult to duplicate the setting.

But getting the feel right is a lot harder. And Houston's pulled it off. There's enough of a chill in the air to let you know there's weather; there's beer on the streets, crazy hats, shouting drunks and laissez-faire cops; there's loud cheers from in front of clubs when a celebrity walks in.

And yeah, the light rail system quickly becomes overloaded, the streets outside The Main Event are choked with traffic, and some people are walking 16 or 20 blocks from their parking spaces.

It doesn't matter. On at least this night, downtown Houston is the best place in the country to be.

I've been to New Orleans several times, and it's my opinion that the whole French Quarter thing doesn't have all that much actual appeal once you're past the party-till-you-puke stage of life. Don't get me wrong - everyone should experience it once, even if you're old enough to know better - but nowadays with every city from Galveston to Biloxi celebrating Mardi Gras with beads, boobs, and beer, it's hard to say why that aspect of New Orleans is unique any more. There's an awful lot of overpriced tourist-trap schlock there, too. And for the record, parking 16 to 20 blocks away from the action is par for the course in the Big Easy when it's crowded.

(Yes, I know, there's plenty of historical and cultural interest in New Orleans. I've seen a lot of that, too, and the next time I visit I'll want to see more of it. But let's face it - Super Bowl attendees, especially including all those snooty sportswriters, aren't there to ogle Creole architecture.)

Anyway, speaking of those snooty sportswriters, Yahoo's Dan Wetzel gets it right.

The good thing about hosting a Super Bowl is it brings about $300 million in revenue to a metropolitan region. The bad part – at least if you are not New Orleans, Miami, Tampa or San Diego – is the unmerciful ripping you get from the national media.

Houston currently is under such a barrage from columnists around the country who hate the sprawl, the lack of culture, the bizarre zoning laws (you can apparently throw an 80-story high rise up in the middle of a neighborhood and open a strip club between a couple of churches), the traffic and the sleepy nightlife. Some even ripped the town for the early week weather. Fifty degrees apparently is arctic to some of these guys.

The Baltimore Sun concluded Houston was "ugly, hot, humid and (has) unpredictable weather for about six months ... (it) is a Dallas wannabe without the landscape. Yes, Houston, you have a problem."

Who knew the media lived such lavish, high-rolling, lace-curtain lives that spending a week in Houston was so beneath them? Somehow we've turned into Paris Hilton.

Houston is fine with me. It might try gentrifying a neighborhood rather than just abandoning and extending further into the farmland, but the people are great, the restaurants good and there is plenty to do. It's a good solid place. Which is why almost two million people call it home.

I don't see how you could not have a great time downtown on Thursday night whether your interests are in free concerts, bars and parties or family events such as the NFL Experience.

The city will just have to deal with the bad pub and take everyone's money. Besides, this will be nothing compared to what happens to next year's site, Jacksonville, Fla., which is a small, conservative, Southern city that should be ripped to shreds out of media boredom.

Then there is the 2006 site, Detroit, which promises to get worse press than Scott Peterson.

Thanks, Dan. I feel much better now.

Getting back to Connelly, he's your go-to man for the real scoop on the streaker that CBS didn't show.

Almost no one at the stadium caught the Janet Jackson tit show that the nation saw on TV; everyone at the stadium, however, caught the streak show that didn't make it to TV.

As Carolina lined up for the second-half kickoff, the referee approached the ball as if it had fallen off the tee. Then he stripped to a jockstrap and started dancing.

And no one did anything. The guy's out there dancing for five, ten seconds, and no one's making a move to stop him. He dances some more, and still nothing. He's running out of ideas, it's taking so long for security to react. He choreographed under the assumption he'd get stopped right away; now he's being forced to do a marathon.

This is the Super Bowl, security's supposed to be tight, right? Those of us in the stadium have been subjected to a film, animated with flowing arrows, showing us how to leave "in case of an emergency evacuation."

Finally a Houston cop gingerly steps out, but he doesn't look too sure about it. Then a security team sprints out from one of the tunnels -- where they've no doubt been herding the dancers onto buses. The streaker looks relieved, frankly, to be done dancing.

He starts running toward the Patriots, none of whom looks too interested in tackling a near-naked guy. At last, linebacker Matt Chatham shoves him to the ground, ignoring the tackling fundamentals of going low and wrapping the runner up.

His whole story is pretty entertaining. I sure hope he doesn't pull a Fleck on us before the Super Bowl's return engagement.

UPDATE: What Ginger says here should be stapled to every snooty sportswriter's forehead.

I’ve been thinking about this whole thing for the last week or so, and I’ve concluded that Houston’s real problem is that it doesn’t have a tourist district, which is the apparent source of ‘charm’ in many cities.

What you get when you come to Houston is an authentic experience of how Houstonians live. Houston doesn’t have anything like the Riverwalk or the Strand that serves as a magnet for visitors to the city. Who thinks real San Antonians live like they do on the Riverwalk? I know most people in Galveston don’t live like they would on the Strand. Financially and imagewise, the lack of a tourist district may be a deficit, but it is honest. That’s something I like.

Damn straight.

Courts spike Bacardi trademark claim

I just love to see Tom DeLay lose, even if it's only by proxy.

In a blow to one of House Majority Leader Tom DeLay’s (R-Texas) top legislative goals, a federal trademark court has dismissed rum giant Bacardi’s claim that it has the rights to the coveted “Havana Club” label.

The ruling also rejected claims brought by a Bacardi competitor, Havana Club Holdings SA (HCH), that Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R) and former Rep. James Rogan (R-Calif.) engaged in improper lobbying activities to help Bacardi in its legal battle.

Late last week, an appeals board at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) reached a decision more than eight years after Bacardi first filed its complaints against HCH. Bacardi claimed that HCH secured the patent rights under fraudulent circumstances and that it has the rights to the label.

But the PTO dismissed that argument and in turn hampered DeLay’s effort to help Bacardi secure the label through legislative language he is pushing on Capitol Hill.

Now, if you read down through this thing, you see that not only are there bipartisan bills in both chambers which would provide an alternate approach to DeLay's - the Senate bill is cosponsored by that flaming socialist Larry Craig of Idaho - you also see that Big Business is squarely behind that effort and opposed to DeLay. Yet still he persists, and because he's the biggest baddest mofo on the block, he may yet win anyway. There's a lesson in here about working together to defeat a bully, but I'm not sure it's one that would comfortably fit into an After School Special narrative.

OK, it really was worth it

I believe we can now officially answer affirmitively when asked whether or not it was worth it for Houston to host a Super Bowl: Apparently, doing so has made Dallasites envious.

Listen, Houston is one of my favorite places. How can you not like a city with a chain of coffee shops called House of Pies? It's just that it's been hard not to notice them wallowing in all that Super Bowl glory down there, while at the same time, we here in Dallas are reportedly having trouble coming up with a "branding" strategy to attract visitors.

According to the people who court tourists and book meetings, Dallas has an identity problem: We haven't got one! People think there's nothing here to do or see.

Schweet! The hell with those phony economic impact estimates, this is more than enough justification for me.

On a side note, as long as I'm on the op-ed pages, today's letters to the editor contains a missive which defends the strip clubs and the Chron's pre-Super Bowl coverage of them. Just so you know.

No girls allowed

If golfer Greg Norman had his way, the PGA Tour would permanently bar women from playing in its events.

The Australian star dismissed women in men's events as a marketing ploy, and said men's tours should consider changing their bylaws to prevent women from receiving sponsor's exemptions.

"I think the situation is more of a marketing ploy than anything else," Norman said. "If the girls come out and think they can play against the guys and fail every time, that can't be very positive."

Norman's comments came three weeks after Michelle Wie, 14, missed the cut by a stroke in the Sony Open, an effort that prompted seven other PGA Tour events to offer her exemptions.

"I'm very impressed with her game, very impressed with her attitude and demeanor at such a young age," Norman said. "But I think the rightful place is that women play on their tour and we play on ours."

Norman, preparing for the Heineken Classic, addressed the subject when asked to comment on Laura Davies' appearance next week in the ANZ Championship -- the first start by a female player in an event sanctioned by the European and Australasian tours.

"I think everyone is just jumping on it, and it's got to stop," Norman said. "How do we stop it? It's up to our administrators to come up with the wording of our bylaws.

"The players have got to vote it in on a majority vote. We can't go play on their tour because we're not female, that's the wording they have in their bylaws. I think we should do something about it."

I'm not a golf fan, and frankly I don't care one way or another who plays where. But what exactly is Norman threatened by? Is the PGA Tour in danger of making ladies' tees widely available? If not, and if he thinks female golfers are not viable competitors on the men's tour, then what does he have to be worried about? Unless, of course, he thinks he can't beat those non-viable competitors consistently. If that's the case, I'd say he has bigger problems.

Eric McErlain and Ted at Women's Hoops have their say on this. I tend to agree with what Ted says, which is that the issue is with sponsors' exceptions. Seems to me that if that's so, the problem will correct itself one way or another. Either the novelty will wear off, and the occasional exception given to a hometown favorite like Laura Davies will be considered equivalent to one given to a non-golf pro celebrity, or someone like Michelle Wie will prove herself a worthy competitor and will force her way onto the PGA Tour as a regular.

Eric raises a question about the long-term effect on the LPGA Tour:

[W]hat happens to the LPGA Tour if the best players on the women's tour are playing in PGA events? Is it possible we could be looking at a situation analagous to Major League Baseball and the Negro Leagues, where the Negro Leagues were doomed once their best players were allowed to compete on a level playing field in the Majors?

I don't think the MLB/Negro Leagues situation is exactly analogous, though it's certainly possible that the LPGA could become marginalized. Perhaps a better parallel is to the American Contract Bridge League, which was forced by a lawsuit to eliminate Men's events in favor of Open events back in 1990 or so. This has not killed Women's events, partly because female clients still hire pros for them, partly because the schedule of major Women's events usually doesn't directly conflict with that of Open events, and partly because Women's events were never considered as prestigious as the Men's, and now Open, events were anyway.

Basically, the Women's events have always been a niche market of sorts, and I suspect the same is true of the LPGA, WNBA, WUSA (RIP) and any other women's/ladies'/girls' league. That doesn't make them pointless by any stretch - I for one am a season ticket holder to the Houston Comets and plan to be for the foreseeable future - but if they are all eventually mooted by the integration of women as full and respected competitors in the related men's leagues, I don't think that will be counted as a loss in the grand scheme of things.

Raising money in Texas

Somewhat to my surprise, given how many members of our Congressional delegation have endorsed Wes Clark and how well-established the Howard Dean network is, John Edwards is the top money-raiser among Democrats in Texas.

Edwards raised $1.6 million in Texas through the end of January, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics.

Edwards far outstripped the other Democrats in the race, but all were eclipsed by President Bush, who raised $12.6 million in Texas so far, out of $131.7 million across the nation.

Edwards raised a total of $14 million nationwide, including $427,595 in Houston.

[...]

Second to Edwards in Texas fund raising was Dean, who collected $678,986 in Texas, out of $41 million total. Dean raised $165,000 in Houston, and dozens of Houstonians campaigned for him in Iowa and New Hampshire.

Arthur Schechter of Houston, Metropolitan Transit Authority chairman and former ambassador to the Bahamas during the Clinton administration, gave money to Dean, Edwards, Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, Missouri Rep. Dick Gephardt and Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut.

"I like everybody," Schechter said. "I think I have had six of the nine Democratic candidates as house guests at one time or another."

But Schechter, who recently was elected chairman of the National Jewish Democratic Council, said he will be supporting Kerry.

"I think he sounds and looks and talks and walks more like a president than anyone we have had in a long time," he said. "And he's right on the issues."

In the Texas money race, Wesley Clark was third among Democrats, raising $477,949, including $94,000 in Houston.

Keir Murray, a Houston-area volunteer organizer for Clark, said the former NATO supreme commander has drawn a diverse group of supporters.

"There were some who were getting involved in politics for the first time," Murray said. "There were independents and even some disaffected Republicans."

Kerry, who has a campaign office in downtown Houston that had an overloaded voice-mail system Tuesday, raised $290,615 in Texas, including $89,975 in Houston. Now that Kerry is the front-runner, his fund raising and organization in Texas will mobilize quickly, Schechter and others predicted.

I suspect Schechter is right and that Kerry will be the top Democratic fundraiser here shortly, probably by next month.

I'm still scratching my head over Harris County Democratic Party chair Gerry Birnbirg's comments:

"It's all the trial lawyers," Gerald Birnberg, chairman of the Harris County Democratic Party, said of Edwards' Texas money base.

Edwards was a highly successful plaintiffs lawyer before his election to the Senate.

Raising campaign money is one thing -- but where is Edwards spending it? The first-term senator does not have an extensive campaign organization in Texas.

"Interestingly enough, it would appear that Edwards has a touch of Gore-itis," Birnberg said, referring to former Vice President Al Gore, the Democrats' 2000 presidential nominee. "Edwards flies into town, then takes the money and leaves. I have seen no evidence of him spending it here."

Gore and President Clinton made many fund-raising trips to Texas but spent little of it in the state.

I'm sure the first statement is true, but is it really smart to put it in black and white, given the extreme demonization of plaintiffs' lawyers around here? Isn't that a Republican talking point? What were you thinking?

As to the second point, I'd like very much for all of the Democratic candidates to spend some time in Texas, especially in the biggest counties (Harris, Dallas, Bexar, Tarrant, Travis, El Paso), all of which other than Tarrant are already Democratic-majority or are slowly but steadily becoming Democratic-majority. I'd also love for the eventual nominee to spend some time here. However, I'm quite certain that every state and county chair wants the same thing. Given that Texas is not going to be anywhere close to a swing state, it hardly makes sense to use a lot of the eventual nominee's scarce resources on it. What purpose is Birnberg serving by publicly carping about it?

In every generation there is a Chosen One

Alex recasts "Buffy" and "Angel" in terms of the 2004 Presidential race, as only he can. Check it out.

UPDATE: Oops! I had originally credited this to Mac Thomason, but the author was his co-blogger at War Liberal instead. My apologies, Alex.

Morris Meyer

I received an email today from the campaign of Morris Meyer, who is running against the objectively pro-pollution Rep. Joe Barton in the 6th CD. He's got an uphill battle ahead of him to say the least, but he does have a blogroll on his web page and a link for contributions. Stop by, wish him well, and toss him a few coins if you can.

Ted Barlow is a genius

I'm in awe of this idea. The only way to make it better would be to get a national columnist to write about it if and when NR prints a bogus letter. Ted, we are not worthy.

UPDATE: In case you think that this is a pointless exercise that demonstrates a complete lack of humor about people who are just expressing opinions or something like that, note that the Kerry letter that Jonah Goldberg published bears a striking resemblance to this urban legend, as someone in the comments at Crooked Timber notes. You'd think a professional writer would have heard of Google or of chain letters by now, but in this case you'd be mistaken. Perhaps someone preemptively punked NR before Ted could suggest it.

It's about time

Finally, the Chron gets some letters regarding its overview and review of some of the better strip clubs in town. I was beginning to get worried that no one would bother to work up a head of froth for me. As an extra added bonus, there are three letters complaining about the halftime show. Thank you, Houston! You guys rock!

Breast backlash!

OK, reaction to Janet Jackson's naked boobie is getting just a wee bit out of hand.

The head of the Federal Communications Commission ordered an investigation Monday into the broadcast of the Super Bowl's halftime show, which included a revealing performance by Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake.

As they sang the lyrics "gotta have you naked by the end of this song," he tore open the leather cup covering her right breast, baring her pierced bosom to millions of television viewers.

Commission Chairman Michael Powell called the incident a "classless, crass and deplorable stunt," demanding a swift and thorough investigation."

As Mark Evanier and Atrios have noted, after watching approximately one billion commercials for erection enhancers, Powell's outrage feels awfully manufactured to me. Yes, erectile dysfunction is a genuine medical condition, and I think it's perfectly appropriate to advertise remedies for medical conditions on television. It's just that with all the winks and smirks and say-no-mores in those ads I couldn't tell where the inappropriate halftime ended and the inappropriate commercials began.

Janet Jackson has accepted the blame and has apologized, but that won't stop the crusade.

[T]he apologies won't thwart an investigation, said FCC spokesman David Fiske. The investigation's not just about the flashing, but the entire halftime performance, he said.

Fiske declined to comment on specifics but said, "this will be a wide-ranging investigation into the appropriateness of the entire show."

Other performances may also have riled viewers and irked the FCC. Kid Rock donned an American flag for a shirt and rapper Nelly grabbed his crotch during his performance. Some family advocacy groups took offense to the crotch-grabbing and sexual lyrics.

Each incident the FCC finds obscene could carry a fine of up to $27,500.

Whatever. That's chump change to pretty much everyone involved, so let's not kid ourselves into thinking there's a deterrent factor. It's not like this is the first Super Bowl halftime show of questionable taste, either, but were it not for that renegade breast, we'd have all forgotten it by now just as we've forgotten all of the others. For the record, we turned the sound off during halftime - I didn't even know Janet Jackson had sung "Rhythm Nation" until I read about it later.

As if seeing it once wasn't enough, the decupping had lots of viewers doing double takes.

The Drudge Report had a replay of the exposing moment repeating on its Web site for much of the day.

And Tivo, which makes digital video recorders, estimated that each of its viewers replayed the scene an average of two times. Tivo's recorders let viewers replay the last few seconds of live television.

We re-watched it once, just to be sure we'd seen what we thought we'd seen. Even on second viewing, we thought she had a pastie on.

Even the Houston Police Department was bombarded with calls, most inquirers wondering why no criminal charges were filed.

The flood of questions prompted acting Chief Joe Breshears to release a statement Monday, noting that "actions that may seem in poor taste do not necessarily rise to the level of violations of Texas law."

You know, I almost wish they had arrested her, just so I could watch Chuck Rosenthal botch another high-profile prosecution. Maybe next time.

I respect Rob Booth, but I think he's wrong here.

I'll tell you what really gets me steamed. Jon Matthews, local former KSEV radio host, was arrested for allegedly exposing himself to a minor. The Left delighted in reporting that and laughing at his fate in prison. Now, Ms. Jackson and Mr. Timberlake have done what Jon Matthews was accused of doing, only they did it to TENS of MILLIONS of minors. And somewhere I know there's a Leftist saying that we Americans have to get over our "prudishness." Urrgghhh.

With all due respect, being in the presence of a naked person is not the same as seeing one on television, whether the nakedness is welcome or not. If you doubt that, compare an evening spent at the Men's Club with an evening spent watching a softcore movie. In cases like Matthews', there's a clear potential threat that the exposer may do something worse to those in his presence. Whatever you may say about Janet Jackson and her breast, she wasn't in a position to make anyone feel like she might be an immediate danger to them. She wasn't actually there in your living room with you.

Bottom line is this: I have no quarrel with enforcing whatever standards exist for primetime network television. Let the FCC levy fines, let Viacom sack those responsible, let Janet and Justin feel the backlash, it's all cool by me. All I'm asking is that we keep a little perspective, OK? There are plenty of worse things that can be seen every day on television than a two-second exposure of Janet Jackson's still-mostly-obscured breast.

Fleck leaves Press

This is a damn shame: Political writer Tim Fleck has apparently left the Houston Press.

Citing a severance agreement that stipulated he not discuss the circumstances of his departure, Fleck isn't saying much.

Press Editor Margaret Downing was equally tight-lipped.

"All I can say is, he's left the Press," she said last week.

That's bad, but this is worse:

Before signing the agreement, Fleck reportedly told friends he was pushed out because the alternative weekly wanted to "move in a different direction" and appeal to a younger readership.

Downing, who joined the Press after serving as managing editor at the Jackson (Miss.) Clarion-Ledger and the Houston Post, said it hasn't yet been decided whether the Press will continue to offer the sort of hard-edged political commentary for which Fleck was known. "We're going to try to keep our balance," she said.

But at least some readers may look elsewhere.

"There's no reason for me to pick the Press up if his stories aren't in there," political consultant Dave Walden said.

I won't stop reading the Press if Fleck isn't there, but its value to me will definitely plummet. If Fleck's musings about a "younger readership" is true, then I think it's completely misguided. The bulk of the Press in any given week is devoted to the music/club/arts/singles scene, and last I checked that all skewed pretty young (younger than me, that's for sure). Speaking as one of those non-younger readers, what will be left for me if there's no Insider or Insider-like column?

Fleck, a Houston native who graduated from the University of Houston, has been around the local journalism scene for decades, specializing in political and investigative reporting.

He joined the Press when it was founded in 1989. He left in 1993, returning in August 1994, after it was purchased by New Times, a Phoenix-based chain of alternative weeklies.

In between, Fleck had published a political newsletter, the Houston Insider, and he began a weekly column, The Insider, in addition to handling other writing responsibilities at the Press.

The Insider was filled with acerbic wit, including this take on Anthony Hall, just named as Mayor Bill White's chief administrative officer. "After the Insider congratulated Hall for his survivability, Hall responded somewhat defensively that he could have gone into the private sector and made millions of dollars. There are those who might have been willing to pay him more than that to leave."

But Fleck has been known to overstay a welcome himself.

Walden recalls a fund-raiser for former Mayor Bob Lanier held in a hotel ballroom. The media wasn't invited, but Fleck walked in anyway.

Walden asked him to leave. Fleck said no. "I said, `OK, I'll just have you thrown out.' He said, `I'll do a Gandhi on you and lie on the floor, and you'll have to carry me out.'

"So I let him stay."

Walden laughs now, "But it wasn't so funny at the time."

As for Fleck, he said he is setting up a home office. "I'll wait and see what comes over the transom, and I'll act on it."

I know what he should be doing. It starts with the letter "b" and rhymes with "logging". Can't say it'll bring you fame and fortune, Tim, but it'll keep your name out there and ought to help you land some freelance gigs. Those of us who think the Press is making a big mistake will be happy to read you wherever you publish.

"Spam is bad", experts say

Hold on to your hats, everyone. Experts are telling us that spam may have a bad effect on business and stuff.

The exponential growth of unsolicited junk e-mail -- spam -- is shaking consumer confidence in the Internet and may hamper growth of the e-economy, officials on Monday told a global anti-spam meeting.

A survey published by consumers group the Trans-Atlantic Consumer Dialogue (TACD) showed 52 percent of respondents were shopping less on the Internet or not at all because of concerns about receiving unsolicited junk e-mail.

"It is very clear that the majority of citizens are very troubled by unsolicited commercial e-mails," said the survey, which was released at a spam meeting led by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

"It is also very clear that bona fide businesses are losing money because the disreputable image of spam is making consumers uneasy about engaging in e-commerce."

First things first - Whoever wrote the word "e-economy" needs to be put into a long timeout, along with all of the copy editors who let it slide past them. My only consolation is that the writer eschewed "i-economy".

Second, I guess the fact that there's a global anti-spam meeting is news, but the rest of it - there's a lot of spam! it's bad! - is not exactly what I'd call hot off the presses. I was hoping maybe there'd be some progress reported on modifying how SMTP mail is delivered - requiring the sending server to perform a calculation, something that would be trivial for anything but a bulk mailer, seems to be the hot idea - but no.

Personally, I use my old Yahoo address for when a website demands one. I check it once a week and throw out about 80% of the mail it gets unread. Not the best use of time, but it could be worse. I'm very reluctant to give out any other address unless the recipient is someone I know and trust. Probably won't work forever, but so far so good. I think until there is a workable solution to spam, this sort of approach will be more and more widespread.

Maybe there is something to that "electability" thing

Holy crap. The latest Quinnipiac poll of registered voters has Kerry beating Bush nationally by 51-43. That's better than all of the other Dems, who each trail Bush by a small margin, and is greater than the margin of error, which is 2.8%.

Now, I'm still not convinced that Kerry is The One Who Can Beat Bush, and I'm not going to go into all of the reasons why this doesn't mean very much right now. We'll see how he stands after Rove Inc. trains its guns on him, for one thing. But maybe, just maybe, there is something to the line of reasoning that Kerry has caught fire in the primaries because he is the most "electable".

Of course, national polls don't mean all that much, and they won't mean a thing if Kerry or anyone else can't turn at least one red state blue. But then you read that Bush holds a mere 45-43 lead over the generic Democrat in South freaking Carolina and you have to wonder if maybe things are looking up a bit. (Yeah, I wish they'd taken the next step and asked about specific matchups, too.)

Qunnipiac link via YDB. CBSNews poll link via Pandagon.

Color line broken earlier?

According to this story, the Society for American Baseball Research is trying to determine if William Edward White, who played one game with the National League's Providence Greys in 1879, was the first black man to play in a major league game.

The Wall Street Journal reported Friday on the White case.

Until now, it was generally accepted that the first two black players were catcher Moses Fleetwood Walker and his brother, Welday, an outfielder. Both played for the Toledo Blue Stockings of the American Association, then a major league, in 1884.

After that, no black player appeared until Jackie Robinson with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947.

White attended Brown University, was born in 1860 and was the son of A.J. White of Milner, Ga., according to school records.

Peter Morris, an SABR researcher, got in contact with Civil War historian Bruce Allardice, according to the Journal, and Allardice found the only A.J. White in Milner in 1880 was Andrew J. White and that the 1880 census said his household included a 35-year-old mulatto woman, Hannah White.

Mark Arslan, a genealogist of the White family, told Allardice that the 1880 census reported A.J. White owned 70 slaves. Allardice and Arslan found that the 1870 census showed Hannah White was living with her mother and three children, including a 9-year-old mulatto boy, William White.

Morris found that A.J. White's will, in a courthouse in Zebulon, stated he left the balance of his estate to "William Edward White, Anna Nora White and Sarah Adelaide White, the children of my servant Hannah."

Jim Gates, library director of the Hall of Fame, has been aware of SABR's research on the project.

"We don't have a lot on William Edward White," he said. "Several SABR people had been through and indicated this was one of the people they were searching on, so we gave them all we had.

"Hopefully they will continue to find more information."

You may ask why it matters if a guy who played one game in 1879 becomes known as the first black ballplayer in the major leagues. It matters because William Edward White, and maybe others like him, demonstrate that baseball didn't have to have a color line. Major League Baseball could have let talent be the determining factor of success. I don't know what it would have taken to overcome the racism and cowardice that ultimately prevailed, but who can say what would have happened if a Josh Gibson or a Satchel Paige had established himself by 1884, when Cap Anson refused to let his team play if Fleet Walker was in his opponent's lineup. I just know which way would have been better, and it's important to remember what we all lost as a result.

A grave and gathering danger

Where the doctrine of preemption based on "grave and gathering danger" came from, according to Thadeus and Weez.

What I like about Houston

I've taken a few dozen deep breaths now, and I'm doing my best not to let a pampered media pretty boy like Bill Simmons annoy me. He's probably the kind of guy who shows up as a friend-of-a-friend at a party, gets drunk and obnoxious, then calls you a lousy host when you throw him out at 4 AM anyway.

So, for the benefit of those who might have had their impressions of Houston colored by his baloney, I'm going to take a moment and follow Ginger's suggestion and give three things I love about Houston.

1. The weather. Yes, dammit, the weather. I know it gets hot here in the summer time. Guess what - I like it hot. Give me a choice between being too cold and too hot, and I'll take "too hot" 100% of the time. There are many nice, intelligent, rational people out there who enjoy cold weather. I'm very happy for them. I'm just not one of them. Your vision of hell may be Houston in August. I consider it to be an equitable trade for Houston in winter.

2. My neighborhood. I live in a place that has live oaks, houses that are not from the "pick one from Column A and one from Column B" style of master-planned architecture, good neighbors, and room for kids to play. It's also close to downtown, easy to get to and from thanks to its proximity to two highways, and METRO willing will eventually be walking distance to a light or commuter rail stop.

3. The food. There's quite a few things I could reasonably pick for #3, but as far as I can tell, Houston has the best variety of cheap-to-reasonably-priced eats anywhere. What do you like? Thai? Barbecue? Italian? Vietnamese? Cajun? Cuban? Pizza? Indian? Tex-Mex? Southwestern? Non-Tex-Mex Mexican? Something else? We've got it, and it's affordable.

There. I feel better now. Feel free to share what you like about where you live in the comments.

Super Bowl wrapup

It sure doesn't suck to be Adam Vinatieri, does it? Two blown field goals and he comes out the hero anyway. Life is beautiful all the time.

Was it just me, or was there a serious shortage of genuine, memorable, worth-talking-about-on-Monday Super Bowl commercials? There were some good ones - the AOL series with the American Chopper guys was cool - but I can't remember a more boring overall set of ads on any previous Super Bowl. And to think CBS declined to air the Move On ad.

Of course, I also can't remember a Super Bowl that featured as much "accidental" and intentional nudity in it. Larry has the best quip you'll see about this. And I just love Justin Timberlake's explanation:

"I am sorry that anyone was offended by the wardrobe malfunction during the halftime performance of the Super Bowl," Timberlake said in a statement. "It was not intentional and is regrettable."

"Wardrobe malfunction". I gotta remember that one the next time Tiffany says "You're not wearing that, are you?" to me. For what it's worth, the consensus at our house was that Janet had a pastie on, which led us to conclude that the bodice-ripping was intentional. But I think I like "wardrobe malfunction" better.

Great game, but I'm glad I watched it on TV instead of in person.

UPDATE: Jesus Christ, I can't believe what a total candy-assed whiner Bill Simmons is.

I've been thinking about it ... I'm going to miss Houston. Remember when the SLA kidnapped Patty Hearst, and she started to identify with them, and pretty soon she was robbing banks? That's how I'm feeling. I like being miserable. I love traffic. I don't need to see the sun ever again. I might never leave.

Here's how I spent my Saturday night before the big game. We went to the Playboy party, had VIP access, stood in line with all the other VIPs ... and the line never moved. So much for VIP access. Hey, at least we were standing outside in the freezing cold.

The weather on Houston on Saturday was a bone-chilling 55 for a high and 48 for a low. What an unbelievable wimp.

UPDATE: Now here is someone from Simmons' backyard who gets it.

Patriots fan Danny Chick of Lynn, Mass., fell in love with Houston on his first visit.

"Everybody is so damn friendly," he said. "How could you not want to come back to Houston? Incredibly nice. If we weren't here, we'd be in 20-degree weather."

Thanks, and come back any time (though I'd suggest avoiding July or August). As for your former compatriot, he's welcome to stay in LA for as long as he likes. The longer, the better.

UPDATE: And score one for Julia in the Nipple Quip department.

Encore?

We haven't even played the Super Bowl yet, but NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue seems suitably impressed with how things have gone so far.

"I want to thank Houston for all they're continuing to do to make this game a great success," he said.

Tagliabue didn't indicate when Houston might get another Super Bowl, but he did say, "it's been a truly magnificent team, and we look forward to returning for another Super Bowl."

It's hard to say for sure amidst all the civic boosterism in the Chron and the star struck happy talk on the TV news, but things seem to have gone smoothly, and the visiting fans that get quoted appear to be enjoying themselves. The bad weather on Friday caused some discomfort to Bostonian-gone-soft Bill Simmons, but you can't win them all. I hope his mommy reminds him to pack a sweater if he goes to Super Bowl XL in Detroit. Meanwhile, whatever the NFL may decide, we've got nothing to be ashamed of. Best of all, by Monday morning we'll have the place back to ourselves. Until the All Star Game, anyway.