Houston Controller Race on Red, White and Blue

This was a pretty good addition of my on again off again favorite program.  All three candidates got in their digs as well as their positive points.  It worked for me.

Lots of smears were brought up.  I’ve gotten a phone call supposedly from a fellow Democrat who is unhappy with Ron Green (I deleted it — it was typical concern trolling).  It was paid for by Pam Holm.  Also, I got a whatchamacallit flyer thingy in the mail today from Holm, telling me that Ron Green hasn’t paid his taxes (it went straight into recycling).  Of course, things are more complicated than that.  He appealed to others who have had disputes with the IRS.  Shouldn’t that get the glibertarian vote?

Holm went on Glenn Beck’s show from what I gather.   That tells me she is a teabagger and/or trying to nationalize a local race.  Either way, it’s a huge turn off.  When M.J. Khan asked her about the lies she has told about him in her campaign advertising, her response was, let’s say, less than flattering.  The Rottweiler with the turquoise mini-collar in her flyer is in the same category.

In the end, I’m sticking with my original choice, Green.  Kahn made a good show, too.  I wouldn’t mind him being Controller.  But Holm hasn’t really done anything to make her a good choice, unless one wants a smear merchant and fringe national media sell-out holding the purse strings on the city’s budget.

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An Update to my Rant about Red, White & Blue on Houston PBS

I was pretty ticked off this past Friday night when a show that I had praised (and enjoyed) for a long time decided to put a local talk show host on to debate the health care issue with an elected state representative and another guy (economist?) against reform.

I sent an email to the general manager of the station on Friday and got a reply today.  He states that no elected officials wanted to come on the program.

It seems to me that Dan Patrick himself was unwilling to come on the program, so he sent his employee instead.

But if that is not the case, it speaks badly for local conservatives/republicans that they were afraid to go on a local program that is in some ways connected with one of their political allies.

Where are the local republican’s town hall meetings on health care?  I seem to only find Democrats holding them and tea party people advertising them.

I’ll include a Michael Berry vanity tag to this post even though it’s not about him.

KHOU’s Investigative Report on Paul Bettencourt

Bettencourt ran last fall and then resigned, saying he got an offer over Thanksgiving weekend.  There’s one thing , though:  he’s being sued over voter registration.  Tonight KHOU has followed up on their pre-election report about Bettencourt’s policy regarding voter role purges.

Wow, the report was better than I thought it would be — better than advertized.  It pulled in Jared Woodfill (the county republican dude) and Gary from my not so favorite PBS show anymore.

It’s another local republican fight.  Unfortunately, it has more to do with democracy and whose vote counts, but they can fight it out.

Cool kitty video and more

This kitty (via rump roast) is cool.

Poor Kathleen, she can’t find any fun, only sadness and Marxism talk.  No ‘scandal’ worked to defeat Obama.

On a more serious note, the continent of Africa is blowing up — it’s more than Somalia or Sudan, but the Congo.  Snarky me thought that Sarah Palin might put her expertise to work helping the Congo make their natural resourses work for the general population.  But she’s back in Alaska and that sort of ‘share the wealth’ program only works there.

I love it when my boss calls at 4:59 on a Friday about some web edit and then uses something I said about a FTP issue from 5 years ago to criticize her failure to edit copy — especially when she edited the copy all those years ago.  She’s recently taken to quoting my exact words (in her mind) from several years ago — all the while lying about simple stupid things that have happened since.  As always, my hope is just to last until she retires while making my work as interesting as possible.

RW&B is Chris Bell and Joan Huffman.  We’ll see if it’s interesting (TX Senate seat 17).

Oh, and Obama made a joke about Nancy Reagan. PLEASE.  The woman was horrible to everyone but those she trusted (very few) in her time.  GIVE ME A FREAKING BREAK.  Let Nancy cry about being the butt of a joke.  She’s got an entire organization and mouthpiece lauding her hubby day in and day out.  She deserved it.

What I don’t like about some Democrats

David of RW&B is being an ass.

Either one of the two candidates will be much better than what we have had.

To push your own guy to defend the republican . . . in a race that involves two very well qualified people.

It’s embarrassing.

Why is he representing my point of view.  Crap now he is a freaking libertarian.

Stupid.  David has just been stupid.  Why did I think this was a good show?

Fat White Men

I generally like Red, White and Blue, but tonight it is altogether too white, too fat and too male.

The white guys who whine about their status all the time (links? not tonight) are not under represented.

The fat dem is Mark White.  The fat republican guy is just fat.  Oh, it’s Jack Raines.  He’s still fat.

Nothing new.

I’m going to watch Basquiat.

“Given the Circumstances, Try to Have a Good Weekend”

And I will.  I was able to get an appointment today — by being pro-active.  It went well.  He was sarcastic at one point — something that runs through the complaint about me — and when I didn’t noticeably react, pointed it out.  Later in our talk, I said something sarcastic, and then said I had always thought it was part of my humor.

As  a colleague suggested — the pimple has been popped.  Let’s see who keeps picking at it.

My favorite show was on tonight — Red, White and Blue.  Since I am being lazy, I won’t go to the trouble to look up the names of the guys who were on.  It was an editor from the Chronicle (which is now considered pro-democrat?) and an on air personality from KSEV (which I never listen to — I have never liked Dan Patrick).  I can’t remember at the moment what they talked about first (and I don’t want to rewind the tape since I have it set up to record in a few minutes), but they did address Rick Perry’s mandate for girls to get the vaccine.  All four men had very strong opinions about it.  David was the soul voice saying that it would save girls’ lives.  As for me, Perry single-handedly screwed a generation of Texas girls through his handling of this.  According to the chat on RW&B, this was Perry’s launch for a presidential bid for ’08.  So, it stinks all around.  Perry got money from Merck.  Merck exclusively makes the vaccine.  Perry wants to be president.  Girls will suffer and die.  Seriously, this is the level of politics in Texas.  Thanks GWB.

Lastly, while someone may object to a new kitten having a name already — you know who you are — Rowdy seems appropriate.  Either that or Stinky.  Or maybe “you stink because you have single-handedly taken over the kitty house that we have only just figured out was ours stinky” might be more appropriate.  My vote is for the shorter name.

Red, White and Blue — 11/10/06 version

I love this show.  One reason is because the hosts let their guests talk.  I bet if I went to the trouble of counting the number of words or the amount of time given to hosts vs. guests, it would reflect better ratios than any of the Sunday morning shows.  In addition, for local politics, they have all other outlets beat — hands down IMHO.

Tonight, the guests were Garnet Coleman and Tom Pauken.  Let’s see, do you know either of them?  Ok, that might not be a fair question since Garnet is from Houston and was a leader in the Killer D’s who valiantly tried to stop Tom DeLay’s redistricting efforts and Tom Pauken is the former head of the state republicans and is now living off of governor Perry by being the head of a task force about appraisal reform.

As I listened — Pauken, who is from DALLAS — was quite glum.  He pined for Ronnie.  Several times.  No mention of Ronnie’s protege, GW.  He called his own cocky.

Garnet is hopeful.  The races were close. (Gary is actually a little wordy, but Garnet gets more time.) He brings up the child health insurance issue.

David asks Pauken about DeLay as a reason for the Republicans’ losses and Pauken answers with references to Goldwater and Reagan.

Garnet — “turnabout is fair play” He recalls Jim Wright, and then says one of the most accurate — and funny points about DeLay and Newt — I quote, “It turns out they were the pigs in Animal Farm. That they were no different.”

He’s right that DeLay became the poster child for the Republicans in Congress. 

Amazingly, Pauken only mentions Bush once — when he said anti-Bush.  Pauken also repeats the myth that Democrats have no ideas — this while sitting next to a man virtually spilling over with ideas.

Garnet is a good guy.  He’s not my rep, but I’m glad he’s on our team.  Pauken isn’t a bad guy, but at the end of the program he did that typical Republican shift to robo-republican.  Garnet stayed the same throughout.  And my god the man has more of an accent than I do — even when I am tired or drunk.  What a drawl for a Houstonian!

It’s a very good program.  Here’s a linkto their page on KUHF’s website.  Usually they are only on one Friday a month, but they’ve been on every Friday since October.  I’ll miss them if they go back to the old schedule.