Monthly Archives: August 2012

Texas blog roundup for the week of August 6

Posted on August 9, 2012 by Charles Kuffner

The Texas Progressive Alliance salutes NASA for its awesome job with the “Curiosity” landing as it brings you this week’s roundup.

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The door will stay open

Posted on August 8, 2012 by Charles Kuffner

Good decision. A proposal to give Houston City Council the ability to meet behind closed doors is dead. What a mayor’s spokeswoman called a “lack of consensus” was manifest in a committee meeting last week during which several council members … Continue reading →

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Some coverage for Sadler

Posted on August 8, 2012 by Charles Kuffner

It’s a start. The Tea Party has toppled another mainstream Republican, this time in Texas. Lost in much of the coverage of the primary contest between Houston attorney Ted Cruz and Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst was the November general election, … Continue reading →

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Funding to rebuild Yale Street Bridge acquired

Posted on August 8, 2012 by Charles Kuffner

Good news. Calling the Yale Street bridge “functionally obsolete” after a recent engineering study, the Texas Department of Transportation has secured “out of cycle funding” to replace the bridge, Councilwoman Ellen Cohen announced late Monday. Cohen said that means the … Continue reading →

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Diaz has larger lead in Constable Precinct 2 race

Posted on August 8, 2012 by Charles Kuffner

Sixteen votes. Hey, it counts. After provisional ballots were tallied Tuesday, [Chris] Diaz’s tally stands at 2,078, while [Zerick] Guinn’s is at 2,062, said Jill Moffitt, Democratic judge of the central count. “I’m glad that they’ve finally come up with … Continue reading →

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One Texas PAC

Posted on August 7, 2012 by Charles Kuffner

Catching up on something from before last week’s runoffs, there’s a new PAC in town with some big ideas for the future. State Reps. Trey Martinez Fischer and Ana Hernandez Luna unveiled the One Texas PAC, with Martinez Fisher pledging … Continue reading →

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Guess who likes the Obamacare ruling now?

Posted on August 7, 2012 by Charles Kuffner

The state of Texas, that’s who. But not for any positive reason, of course. The high court decision limited the power of Congress to force states to take certain actions by threatening to withhold federal money – in the Affordable … Continue reading →

Posted in Legal matters | Tagged , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Henson removed from DeLay appeals case

Posted on August 7, 2012 by Charles Kuffner

Score one for Team DeLay. Former U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay has won a tactical victory with the removal of Justice Diane Henson, a Democrat, from his appeal. A motion to remove Henson was granted late Friday without comment … Continue reading →

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Could you get to work if you didn’t have a car?

Posted on August 7, 2012 by Charles Kuffner

Lots of people in the Houston area could not easily get to work if their car were not available to them. According to a new report from the Brookings Institution, only 57.8 percent of the jobs in the entire Houston … Continue reading →

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NOH8 comes to Houston

Posted on August 6, 2012 by Charles Kuffner

Very cool. The NOH8 “photographic silent protest” comes to town Oct. 18 at the University of Houston. The shoot is hosted by the UH Council of Ethnic Organizations, from 4-7 p.m. in the University Center. NOH8 was created by celebrity photographer … Continue reading →

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Chron smacks Stanart and Sumners

Posted on August 6, 2012 by Charles Kuffner

Ouch. Harris County Clerk Stan Stanart is bad at his job. Specifically, Stanart has performed poorly as chief election officer in his duty to responsibly and effectively administer elections for Harris County. […] Stanart said that the delayed results were … Continue reading →

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You weren’t supposed to be mad at me!

Posted on August 6, 2012 by Charles Kuffner

Oh, the humanity! Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst on Friday continued to fight a battle that he had lost three days before when Ted Cruz defeated him for the Republican U.S. Senate nomination. Cruz and his allies had effectively cast Dewhurst … Continue reading →

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Houston Bike Share set to expand

Posted on August 6, 2012 by Charles Kuffner

Cool The plan has always been to expand the program, and Laura Spanjian, Mayor Annise Parker’s sustainability director, first alluded to a search for new locations in early June. “We’re going to have about 20 new kiosks and about 205 new bikes,” Spanjian now tells … Continue reading →

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Weekend link dump for August 5

Posted on August 5, 2012 by Charles Kuffner

Happy Contraceptive Mandate Week! Here’s something you can do to make it a little more awesome. Also, too, this and this. You want to watch brown bears fishing for salmon, don’t you? Of course you do. Two words: Exploding termites. … Continue reading →

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Chick-fil-A

Posted on August 5, 2012 by Charles Kuffner

So there’s been protests and counter-protests and editorials and clever menu ideas, and that’s only in the past week. I don’t think the Chick-fil-A saga is going to come to a resolution any time soon, so let’s remember what it’s … Continue reading →

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Judge halts anti-voter registration laws

Posted on August 5, 2012 by Charles Kuffner

Good. U.S. District Judge Gregg Costa of Galveston ruled that a law that prohibits third-party voter registrars from working in more than one county and another that mandates registrars in Texas be residents of the state violate the First Amendment. … Continue reading →

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HISD tweaks its bond proposal

Posted on August 5, 2012 by Charles Kuffner

HISD Superintendent Terry Grier presents Bond Referendum 2.0 for your approval. Grier’s amended proposal adds five high schools to a list of 20 that would get new buildings or partial replacements. The additions, originally slated for smaller renovations, are Davis, … Continue reading →

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Yale Street Bridge to get makeover

Posted on August 5, 2012 by Charles Kuffner

You may recall that last November the load limit on the Yale Street Bridge was reduced by TxDOT to 8,000 lbs per single axle and 10,000 lbs per tandem axle, which has resulted in truck traffic being forbidden on the … Continue reading →

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Saturday video break: Stop Your Sobbing

Posted on August 4, 2012 by Charles Kuffner

Song #57 on the Popdose Top 100 Covers list is “Stop Your Sobbing”, originally by The Kinks and covered by The Pretenders. Here’s the original: Definitely an early 60s song, very different in structure and sound than what I at … Continue reading →

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Up or down, more or less

Posted on August 4, 2012 by Charles Kuffner

Metro has chosen its referendum. A sharply divided Metro board approved a plan Friday that would give the city of Houston tens of millions of dollars more for road projects under a ballot referendum to be put before voters in … Continue reading →

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The discussion is closed

Posted on August 4, 2012 by Charles Kuffner

I don’t know about this. The mayor and city attorney are floating the idea of shutting the public out of some City Council discussions. Houston is unusual, perhaps even unique, among Texas cities in requiring that its council always meet … Continue reading →

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Bike sharing to come to Fort Worth

Posted on August 4, 2012 by Charles Kuffner

Good for them. The Fort Worth Transportation Authority said Monday it’s raised more than $1 million, and plans to launch a central city bike-sharing program by next Spring that will include 30 stations and 300 bikes. The program will start … Continue reading →

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Friday random ten: Going for the gold

Posted on August 3, 2012 by Charles Kuffner

Continuing the Olympics theme this week: 1. Band of Gold – Freda Payne 2. Gold – Emmylou Harris 3. Heart of Gold – Johnny Cash 4. Gold for Bread – Blitzen Trapper 5. Not Enough Gold In The World – … Continue reading →

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Is it time for an election administrator?

Posted on August 3, 2012 by Charles Kuffner

Campos revives an old topic. I think it is way past time to get an Election Administrator over at the County and take running the elections out of the hands of the ideologues and partisans. [County Judge Ed Emmett] and … Continue reading →

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Metro and UH make nice

Posted on August 3, 2012 by Charles Kuffner

Good. Construction of a light-rail line that would cross University of Houston property can continue now that UH and Metro officials settled differences that threatened to delay the project. UH announced in a statement Tuesday that university officials have agreed … Continue reading →

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We need more doctors and nurses

Posted on August 3, 2012 by Charles Kuffner

If the state of Texas ever expands Medicaid, or less likely does something on its own to improve access to health care for its residents, it’s going to have to confront a different problem: A persistent shortage of doctors and … Continue reading →

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Do July showers bring August hurricanes?

Posted on August 3, 2012 by Charles Kuffner

So we had a nice, wet, not too hot July that among other things help erase the drought in Harris County. What could possibly be bad about that? Increased risk of hurricanes, that’s what. [Impact Weather forecaster Chris] Hebert studied … Continue reading →

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What will The Dew do next?

Posted on August 2, 2012 by Charles Kuffner

So Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst isn’t going anywhere next January. I’m going to put aside the questions of what happened for now and ask instead what happens in 2014? As we know, there are three people running for what they … Continue reading →

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Now you see those votes, now you don’t

Posted on August 2, 2012 by Charles Kuffner

Tuesday was not a good day for the County Clerk. Zerick Guinn went to bed late Tuesday, believing he had won the Democratic nomination for Precinct 2 constable by a comfortable margin. By morning, he had lost the race by … Continue reading →

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It was more than drought that killed the trees

Posted on August 2, 2012 by Charles Kuffner

So say the experts. Don’t blame the drought for killing an estimated 506 million trees in Texas. At least, don’t blame it exclusively. The drought is only part of the story of why trees are dying, according to a new … Continue reading →

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Texas blog roundup for the week of July 30

Posted on August 2, 2012 by Charles Kuffner

The Texas Progressive Alliance is overloading on the Olympics as it brings you this week’s roundup.

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2012 Democratic primary runoffs

Posted on August 1, 2012 by Charles Kuffner

All state results here. Best news of the night was Paul Sadler‘s easy win. Can we please raise some money for this guy? Congressional results: James Cargas in CD07, Pete Gallego in CD23, Rose Meza Harrison in CD27, Marc Veasey … Continue reading →

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2012 Republican primary runoffs

Posted on August 1, 2012 by Charles Kuffner

All the results are here. In the end, Ted Cruz won a pretty solid victory. I’ll note that in the last two publicly released polls, PPP had Cruz up by 10, whereas Baselice & Associates claimed Dewhurst was up by … Continue reading →

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One more thing about the Buffalo Bayou transformation

Posted on August 1, 2012 by Charles Kuffner

You saw Trudi Smith’s guest post about the transformation of Buffalo Bayou, which was recently kicked into high gear. There’s a point that needs to be addressed about the project and the lovely park that’s being built up, and the … Continue reading →

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