On May 8, Vote Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes

Monday night was open mike night at the Richardson City Council meeting and visitors were lined up to speak to the proposed $66 million bond package that the city council later unanimously agreed to place before the voters on May 8. Of the total, $25 million is for streets, alleys, sidewalks and creeks, $23 million is for parks and recreation, $10 million is for municipal buildings and $8 million is for neighborhood vitality projects such as screening walls, landscaping and entry features. Voters will be able to choose to support and/or reject each bond proposition separately.

After the jump, what the visitors who spoke had to say about it all.

"Best Use of Negative/Contrast" - The Envelope Please

Remember the infamous "Voters Guide" in the 2009 Richardson City Council election, a product of the Richardson Coalition PAC and the political consulting firm of Murphy Turner Associates? Murphy Turner is the proud winner of the 2009 "Pollie Award" for "Best Use of Negative/Contrast"? (I don't know which is more surprising, that such an award exists, or that a firm would be proud to win it.)

After the jump, Murphy Turner Associates' involvement with yet another "Voters Guide," this one in Tarrant County.

Avoid Trivia

George F. Kennan, 1904-2005, American advisor, diplomat, political scientist and historian, whose writings inspired the American foreign policy of communist containment that governed American foreign policy for a half century, headed a State Department "think tank" under Secretary of State George C. Marshall. Kennan credits Marshall, who hired him to constantly reappraise America's grand strategy in the world, with giving him the best advice of his career:

"Avoid trivia."

Great advice. Contrast it with this blog, which at its best can only dredge up old quotes, historical trivia if you will, as food for thought. Sigh.

After the jump, another principle that guided Kennan in his thinking of how to apply American power in the post-war world.

CCI: How Google Failed Me

"I will kill you, CCI." With just 20 characters (Twitter allowed him a generous 140), Ian McCann of The Dallas Morning News (@imccanntx) sent me scrambling to Google to figure out just WTF he was mad about. Here are the possibilities. Your guess is as good as mine.

• Clinton Climate Initiative: Mad at the weather? No one has cabin fever that bad.
• Canine Companions for Independence: Mad at his guide dog? Say it ain't so, Ian.
• California Criminalistics Institute: You'd think they might be after Ian, not the other way around.
• Custom Chrome, Inc.: I just can't picture Ian shooting up his tricked out Harley.
• Component Concepts, Inc.: Maybe this "quality paintball maker" sent Ian got a defective batch.
• CCI Ammunition: Another gun association. What's with the letters CCI anyway?
• Center for Collective Intelligence: On Twitter? Who are we kidding?

I don't often say this, but this time Google failed me. Help me out someone. What's the CCI that Ian McCann wants to kill?

Sessions and Perry: The Moderates In Their Races

The Dallas Morning News endorsed Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX) in his District 32 GOP primary against challenger David Smith. Smith did something I didn't think possible. He managed to make "Taliban" Pete look like the moderate in this race. Kind of like how Debra Medina managed to make Gov. Rick Perry (R-TTC) look like the moderate in his GOP primary race against Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-DC). Yeah, I know. It's a crazy year.

What To Do About The Shrinking Gas Tax

The gas tax hasn't gone up since 1993. It's still 38 cents a gallon, even though the purchasing power of that 38 cents has eroded a lot. On top of that, rising fuel economy standards mean that 38 cents has to stretch to cover more miles driven on each gallon of gas. The result is a highway trust fund that's broke. The result of that is highway construction lagging population growth.

After the jump, one idea about what to do about the problem.

The Odd Republican Who Still Believes in Balanced Budgets

For a while now, Texas state Senator John Carona (R-Dallas) has been a puzzle to me. He's an old-style Republican who still believes in balancing a dollar of gov't expenditures with a dollar of revenue. He is open to raising taxes to pay for all the new roads Texans want. He calls other Texas Republicans fiscally irresponsible and hypocritical to boot. Where does he get the courage? For a short profile of this GOP heretic representing Richardson, Garland and north Dallas, be sure to read the cover story, "The Last Republican," by Wick Allison in the March edition of D Magazine.

Tiger And The Press: Made For Each Other

Michael Landauer says Tiger Woods "doesn't get to dictate how his return to the spotlight will go." Sure he does. He can do as he wants and the press can decide whether or not to cover him. The only thing Woods can't insist on is that the press should leave him alone. Little chance of either side wanting that, though.

Government of the People, by the People, for the Corporation

"Corporations pay for half of what we're going to do here ... We have to think about them as well as the people who go in and vote."
-- Richardson Mayor Gary Slagel

After the jump, what was Slagel thinking?

Should Public Schools Promote Godly Character?

How Christian Were the Founders?

Was Jesus one of America's Founding Fathers? If you care about what your children are taught about science and history in Texas public schools, then you'll want to pay attention this election year not only to the governor's race but to some obscure races down the ballot for the State Board of Education (SBOE). According to Unfair Park:

"This could be the election that decides exactly how much power religious ideologues hold over the board that shapes the education for 5 million public school students in Texas."

Last year, the seven members of the religious-right faction on the SBOE successfully steered the science standards to include wording that undermines evolution. This year, the SBOE is tackling social studies, seeking to include language that revises American history to promote Christianity. For the fundamentalists, takeover of education is but a step towards a larger goal, takeover of government. In an article this week, The New York Times explains the fundamentalists' strategy:

"As Cynthia Dunbar, another Christian activist on the Texas board, put it, 'The philosophy of the classroom in one generation will be the philosophy of the government in the next.'"

After the jump, what the SBOE candidates themselves had to say at a League of Women Voters forum in Richardson Wednesday evening.