“I can drive a van, and an ambulance is like a van…”
If Larry David himself had once gotten stoned at Power Tools, even he couldn’t have tied together all the potential sub-plots that gloriously converged with a stolen ambulance crashing into a drug bust at a club that has been notorious among slackers for 20+ years under a half-dozen different names ina 105 year-old beer distribution warehouse.
We can only hope thatThe Ibarra Brothers™ were nearby to videotape the whole episode and post it to YouTube.
The Lone Star College Community System, which covers parts of North Harris and Montgomery Counties, has been blanketing conservative talk radio station KSEV with recruitment commercials this week.
The spots cite success stories of LSC students, presumably for the purpose of encouraging more people to enroll.This is somewhat confusing, as several LoneStarCollege officials recently told the Chronicle that they were at capacity and running out of room for new students.
That Chron article was really just a puff piece to support a $420 million bond issue that Lone Star officials have put before voters, who will decide tomorrow.Surely, the warm and fuzzy commercials Lone Star College has aired on a conservative talk radio station the week leading up to the election are all just in the misguided but noble intent of increasing enrollment they say they don’t have capacity to accommodate, not a use of system resources to influence a bond election.
Your tax dollars at work folks.We haven’t studied the bond issue, and don’t really care to since we don’t live in the district.But anyone should be annoyed by the use of public money to influence the outcome of an election.
Our recent foray into interactive media demonstrated that our faithful readers visit this blog seldom or never.Well, you can all just kiss off into the air.
But we’ll try again.A recent survey of Houston MSA residents by Rice Institute socio/politico/pscycho/anthro-pologist David Kleinburg (or whatever his name is), conducted on a random sampling of citizens loitering outside Lola’s around 3 AM, found that transportation was a high priority.Specifically, they’d like $5 for an unrealistically cheap bus ride to a distant city (we only had $3, but left happily).
Prior to this revelation, few knew that transportation was among the concerns of Houstanicans.A similarly shocking truth was unearthed by the Chronicle’s Bill Murphy, who recently discovered primitive humanoid activity beyond the bounds of Loop 610.
The Bayou City Madman recently found that traffic is caused by YOU!, and we now ask YOU! to pick your worst driving habit.The poll should be somewhere to the left.
Tailgating
Unnecessary Passing
Turning so sharply you take chunks of the curb with you
Turning so widely you interrupt traffic in 3 lanes
Hitting the brakes to look at tits in Memorial Park
Driving 5 MPH when it sprinkles
Total inebriation before lunchtime
Driving too fast when I hit the brakes to look at tits in Memorial Park
Driving in Downtown Without a One-Way Street Permit
Too many options, perhaps. We expect to reach around .001% of Houstanicans with a +/-97 margin of error. Still more reliable than Rasmussen. Or Clineberg (or whatever his name is).
One of the local blogs we've occasionally enjoyed was Houstonist: http://www.houstonist.com/
Recently, it was revealed to us that there is also an "Austinist": http://www.austinist.com/ Different "authors," identical style.
We, naturally, have little interest in Austin. But we are interested to know that "Houstonist" is not really a unique local blog, but part of a larger marketing program. "Jim Parsons," feel free to comment and have your say (we think we remember you from Ken Hoffman letters). No news here except to the most serious of local bloggers, but most of us do it for fun and not as part of a larger scheme.
Is blogging really going to become a corporate endeavor and, more importantly, is there really a way to get paid for doing this? And, if so, why isn't Cory or Slampo on the payroll? Maybe they're authentic, and maybe it's better that way.
(Apologies to Banjo, but Clute is waaaaaay out there.)
While Bill White and a bevy of Democrat political consultants have been busy celebrating an early present, we know that the rest of the world has been eagerly awaiting the Bayou City Madman's reaction to today's news that Rick Perry intends to seek reelection in 2010.
Our initial reaction:
Disclaimer: The blog's author received no compensation for his stunningly wonderful graphics work. Further, he did not do this during government work hours; today is Thursday and everyone knows he mows the grass around Clute City Hall on Tuesdays.
Rarely is the revolving door link between politicians and lobbyists so bluntly illustrated as in the case of the Cyndi Taylor Krier Post Office.
The naming of a post office is a special honor, usually given to historic figures, dearly departed public servants, or military heroes.Krier, who got her start in politics as an aide to Texas Republican hero JohnTower, later served in the Texas State Senate, as Bexar County Judge, and on the UT Board of Regents.She was certainly a public servant, perhaps even a minor political hero to Texas Republican women.
The only catch?Cyndi Taylor Krier is still very much alive.She’s also very actively lobbying on behalf of United Services Automobile Association, a financial firm based in San Antonio.And, as the Washington Post helpfully points out, USAA just happened to make a $5,000 contribution to Congressman Lamar Smith*, sponsor of the bill, the day legislative action started. Of course it would be silly to think you can buy a post office for a mere 5k. It takes years of contributions and political chits.
In other places, they're naming post offices after soldiers who died in Iraq or Afghanistan. Our congressmen are using the honor to reward political insiders. Krier already has a juvenile facility in Bexar County named for herself, but hey- why stop with screwed up kids when you can be blamed for late Christmas cards too?
*This hideous action received support from the entire Texas congressional delegation, including our conservative, responsible, limited-government stalwarts John Culberson and Ron Paul.
Call it the wages of the welfare state, an overbloated empire, or the tyranny tax, but it's here.
Local news has been rife with the shocking surprise that many in Houston count as last-minute or late filers.Our airbrushed correspondents pose the question of why so many Houstonians wait until the last minute to succumb to the IRS.
Could it simply be that few are eager to grasp their ankles in anticipation of a large rusty pole in the name of federalism?Sure, we know that some of that cash goes to the less-achieving among us.We also know that we earned it, and we don’t like paying two or three times for the same money.
We further know that we don’t mind helping the lesser when we have a choice.We know that having our gifts, and the option of giving, forcibly taken from us lessens us as human beings.We know that is better to give than be taken from.
We know that the last sentence ended in a preposition, and that certain days make us Americans less happy to be where we're at.
There are days when you wonder if the Republican Party is really the right place to be.So many losers out of touch with reality, clamoring to be the “voice” of the party.Most of the loudmouths have never broken a sweat to help a single candidate and wouldn’t know a winner if they were standing on the finish line of the Daytona 500.
Big Jolly has done an excellent job exposing the moral hypocrisy of Terry Lowry, publisher of the tawdry Link Letter.The Link Letter is a low-grade pulp magazine that endorses candidates in Republican Primaries. Though the Link Letter is nothing else than a political action committee, Lowry skirts the law by claiming to be a commercial magazine charging for “advertising,” thus not taking “political contributions.”Uh, ok.
Lowry’s latest excrement violated mailboxes of Republican voters Friday, unleashing a slew of slanderous trash-talk against JP candidate Richard Risinger and DA frontrunner Kelly Siegler.
Of Siegler, Lowry lisps: Curses like a drunken sailor, and can drink most under the table. Did not have an affair with one, but choose to have an affair with a fellow district attorney.Ignoring the offenses to standard English, how can Lowry know any of these things?Besides, from what we've seen of Lowry, we have a hard time believing he would recognize a good-time girl if he saw one, and even harder time believing he would be interested.
Lowry hisses at Risinger for marrying his "long time" girlfriend, or "paramour." So Terry Lowry can't understand why two heterosexuals might be interested in marriage after a longterm romance? Hmm. Disgusting people like Lowry explain why most decent people avoid politics.
For a cheap, genderless whore like Terry Lowry to question anyone’s moral character is like Larry Craig wagging his stained little index finger at Bill Clinton for being a "naughty boy."
Worse, Ethics Commission records show that Lowry has been paid a small fortune over the years by the Harris County Republican Party.Do the major donors who finance the party’s operations do so with the intention of funding a sleaze-peddling gossip girl like Terry Lowry?Do the hundreds of thousands of regular Republican voters want this kind of trash to be their voice?Do the real grassroots who help elect winners want to be associated with this?If the Republican Party can’t get its act together and throw out the trash, it’s going to be a rocky November.
And now, in tribute to Ms. Lowry:
If a scumbag like Lowry thinks Kelly Siegler is a naughty girl, then by all means let's go vote for the naughty girl.
Saturday was the day on which both political parties held their biennial Senate District conventions, the intermediary step between the precinct convention and the state convention at which the most partisan of souls grovel for the privilege of self-funding a delegate’s journey to the national nominating convention.
Through an error in judgment, we found ourselves delegated to the Harris County Republican Senate District Convention.All in all, it was a tolerable if humid day at GraceCommunityChurch, a megachurch among megachurches just outside the beltway.
During a break, we found ourselves being adamantly educated by an enthusiastic young man on the myriad horrors of the Trans-Texas Corridor, to which we are also opposed.Apparently, TTC will not only lubricate the flow of illegal immigrants and open the first seal of global government, but will even serve the greater purpose of enriching the King of Spain.Juan Carlos, we hardly knew yee.
The benign blurring of Spaniards and Mexicans not withstanding, it was an enlightening talk.Though our evidence is purely anecdotal, and the tale merely a vignette, it was but one more moment in the waning days of the modern conservative movement during which we found our passion for the cause only moderated by the passions of our allies.
We just got back from New Iberia for Easter, and we realized the lyrics of the song in the last post, taken in focus, were a little depressing. Here's a more uplifting song. If you page through it, you'll better understand the concept of male suicide. Didn't you?
