Purity Pledge For Texas GOP

Texas state Sen. Dan Patrick (R-Houston) announced the formation of a new political action committee, the Independent Conservative Republicans of Texas. Most of the Republicans in the state senate and over half in the house were invited and joined the PAC. Notable names absent include Richardson legislators Sen. John Carona (District 16) and Rep. Angie Chen Button (District 112). GOP candidate Stefani Carter, who is challenging Democratic Rep. Carol Kent (District 102), is not among the list of five GOP primary winners who joined the PAC.

The press release announcing the PAC's formation begins:

"On the eve of the 'Tea Party' movement's anniversary, conservative legislators in Texas have banded together to form a new organization -- the Independent Conservative Republicans of Texas. With conservative voters organizing like never before to protest the unprecedented overreaching intrusion of the federal government, voters need to know there are Republican legislators who share their beliefs and will uphold their principals [sic]."

After the jump, my initial impressions of the new PAC.

Glaring Urban Failure

"Glaring urban failure." That's what The Dallas Morning News' Rodger Jones calls Richardson's pedestrian access to its DART stations.

"There's no way to safely walk from the Galatyn and Bush DART rail stations to the nearest residential neighborhoods. C'mon, folks. Build some sidewalks."

Does he have a point? Yes. Does he omit some important information? Also yes. After the jump, the context.

Reverse 911

Did you receive a robocall from the city of Richardson today on your cell phone? If you did, chances are you registered your cell phone with the city's Reverse 911 service.

After the jump, what Reverse 911 is all about.

OTBR: New England Covered Bridge

Latitude: 44.169201° N
Longitude: 71.960999° W

A child on a road trip with his family asks, "Where are we?" and the father answers, "Let's check the map. We're off the blue roads [the Interstate Highways marked in blue on the road atlas]. We're off the red roads [the US and state highways]. We're off the black roads [the county highways]. I think we're off the map altogether." It was always my dream to be off the map altogether.

After the jump, a few of the random places (and I mean random literally) that I visited vicariously last month that are "off the blue roads".

A Tale Of Two Cities

It was the best of meetings. It was the worst of meetings. The meeting referred to was the first of three community meetings to gather input on redevelopment plans for the west Spring Valley Road area in Richardson. After the jump, two different perspectives of that meeting.