Tuesday Roundup: The Late Show

To a source no less than David Letterman and in a venue no smaller than national television, Senator Barack Obama refuted my recent musings as to whether he might be thinking of the Vice Presidency as a contingency. I had pondered the question here, and I am more convinced of my original impression than before Obama's Letterman appearance. Even though it's not an unusual question, I think it signifies trouble on horseback for Letterman to ask it.

Here's some disturbing news: remember the housing boom? When people that you knew could barely make rent were moving into McMansions all over the place and talking about things like adjustable rate mortgages and balloon payments? Well, the Washington Post has a story about the ties between weakened lending standards and demand, which drove the boom and also created an environment in which mortgage fraud could flourish. I'm sure you'll see investigative reports in which headlines say things like "The American Dream... or The American Nightmare? Apparently, federal data shows that mortgage fraud has increased ten-fold since the year 2000. Yuck.

Roger Clemens is appearing in commercials encouraging business to work together with communities to help out public schools. Raise Your Hand is a public school advocacy group, opposed to vouchers, etc and so on. They've got a statewide ad campaign going on, and since education is one of those things that affects everyone, you could do worse than checking out their website and seeing what's what.

The Star Telegram engages in a strange bit of hero worship of TYC Conservator and all-around Team Perry All Star Jay Kimbrough, and since I've seen stories similar to this one elsewhere this morning, I wonder if a PR campaign isn't underway to polish up Kimbrough for one reason or another. A decorated war veteran, Kimbrough has gone to bat for Perry and Bush in the past, usually on the state government's unpleasant, dirty agency reform and cleanup jobs. Democrats are no fan of Kimbrough's because when Democrats took off to bust the quorum on redistricting in 2003, he brought in the FBI, which still seems a little silly. He is the guy in charge of cleaning up TYC, though, so if you're curious about him, read away.

Dana Milbank has a good column at the Washington Post about who was talking about Iraq on Monday, which was the fourth anniversary of the taking of Baghdad and the ousting of Saddam Hussien. No one from the Bush Administration brought it up, and the White House website was dominated by above-the-fold coverage of the White House Easter Egg Roll.

In Waco, the Branch Davidians are planning a tourist attraction at the site of the standoff between David Koresh, his followers, and federal agents. The Branch Davidians have now split into sects, and the The Lord of Righteousness group is responsible for the plans. They would like Waco and Texas to chip in for the project. Charles Pace, current leader of the Lord of Righteousness, had this to say about possible PR problems, and the reluctance of people to contribute to the project:

“What can we do about it? We can bring them out here and teach them the truth,” Pace said. “The truth will set you free … The church (under Koresh) went through an apostasy and was judged. It was prophesied that there would be a slaughter of men, women and children and that there would be a fire. Why? Because (followers) were not sighing and crying for the abominations that were being done here. They were breaking God’s law … We believe we got judged and we got judged royally.”

I include this in political news because taxpayer dollars would go towards the renovations if all goes as planned. It could turn into an interesting process, to say the least.

Finally today, if you have Atmos Energy for your natural gas service like I do, you may be dismayed to know that the Railroad Commission approved an increase in residential natural gas rates by $10 million, while industrial rates were cut by $6 million. You will be further dismayed to see what Atmos originally asked for.