There are three bills before the Legislature, HB 214, SB 87, and SB 82, making it mandatory for school districts to have automated external defibrillators (AED) at athletic competitions.

The bills differ in the scope of training and certification required, but the important part of the bill is that an AED will make it to the fields and courts of our schools.

The turnaround on hearings for Perry's HPV order was very fast, but that's no surprise. Impassioned arguments began yesterday, and the House Public Health Committee will probably hear them through most if not all of today. The arguments for and against are the same as you've been reading in the last few weeks, from a challenge to the Governor's authority to make such an order to questions about the long term effects of Gardasil. You can watch the hearing after 10:00 AM here.

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Arguments about voting machines are legion these days. As often as a new batch of touchscreen machines are ordered, someone is filing a lawsuit or signing petitions.

In Lubbock, Texas, the Lubbock Police Department is declaring war on exotic dancing. In this city of 200,000 people, there are no liquor stores, no beer in convenience stores or grocery stores, and now: no dancers frolicking around in their underwear.

This week's featured article is an examination by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. of ExxonMobil's PR efforts and the lengths to which they go to combat the idea, rather than the actual problem, of global warming.

A couple of firms have put forward some proposals for what they would do with the lottery if they bought it, and those proposals include such unsavory things as video slots and keno. Outside of the fact that keno has always seemed sort of silly, increasing the breadth of the lottery to include the aforementioned additions as well as online gaming is going to make the sale even tougher for Governor Perry.

This week I spoke with Bill Brannon, a Regional Field Director for the Democratic National Committee.

This is probably the last thing you'll ever need to read about the Edwards bloggers and the resultant teacup tempest: every party involved, in one way or another, was wrong.

If I were in the business of writing campaign commercials like Republicans do, I would have thrown this together: