Wednesday Roundup - Platitudes and Astronauts

A lot of ink was expended covering Rick Perry's State of the State yesterday, by many and several media outlets, various other blogs, and Democratic party leaders and elected officials. My take on the whole deal is that, like most State Of The Something speeches, it called for bipartisanship and enumerated a long list of things that Rick Perry Is Going To Do That Will Be Great. I say that the onus for bipartisanship lay with the party in charge, and declare that all of his Big Ideas, which include the modest goal of curing cancer and are given even at the expense of alienating much of his base, are geared towards dusting him up for a national role.

Big ideas will probably not be present at Voucherfest 2007 in Austin today. Several thousand Leiningerites will converge on the Capital to lobby in favor of a couple bits of legislation that are ultimately geared towards the privatization of public schools. You know your movement is in trouble bad when your keynote is John Stossel.

Dallas County's new leadership is addressing a problem that's apparently been out of hand for a while - The Texas Commission on Jail Standards informed the county they had 90 days to reduce the inmate population in county jails by 1000 to meet minimum inmate-to-guard ratios. If the population is not reduced, the county will have to pay to send inmates to other jails, will have to close facilities, will have to transport prisoners back for court hearings, public defenders will have to travel to wherever the inmate is housed, and cats will lie down with dogs. In short, mass hysteria. The obvious political implication will be that institutional problems like this are county administration timebombs that can be put off and delayed until something falls apart, and then where the buck stops gets very hazy.

There are 31 Senate districts in the state of Texas, and 26 of them are represented by people who would like Perry to rescind his executive order on HPV vaccinations. Considering the state House Republican caucus just elected Frank Corte as its leader, you can be sure he's going to get it from both sides. If you're still unclear as to how severe this fight is going to turn out to be, or how much this alienates the general ideology of someone who supports the religious right agenda or Rick Perry or Republicans, imagine this: John Edwards is elected president, and then immediately declares a national War on Millworkers. (I'm taking credit for that analogy. -George, mng. ed.)

In absence of any actual news to report, the Washington Times (who brought you, via a subsidiary, the Obama-madrassa fabrication) has been talking about Speaker Pelosi's travel requests for several days. Since I pulled that story out of an RSS feed, I thought I would check the main page at the Washington Times to see what, if any, major stories they're covering. Guess what the lead is? That's right - Pelosi and the Jets. I both cannot believe it and can believe it so hard.

This is from a few days ago, but Nick Lampson's write-in opponent is thinking about running again in 2008, and this time she won't be hampered by voters having to write in her $2 handle. The story actually points out that in her 11 minutes in office, she had perfect attendance. That's gonna look great on a yard sign, Shelley! "Vote Sekula-Gibbs: She Won't Ditch."

Finally, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram wins "Best Headline Of 2007, So Far" award for their story on the NASA astronaut who was apparently a little high strung. After being charged with attempted murder, the team over at the Star Telegram decided to run it as their lead in this morning's edition, with a story titled "From The Rocket To The Docket." I'm so proud I could cry.