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| From 2010 05 Houston - Galveston |
We hadn't been to Galveston since before Hurricane Ike. Given that another hurricane season is upon us and the BP oil spill is threatening to change life around the Gulf forever, we decided not to wait any longer to make another visit to Galveston.
After the jump, our trip to Houston and Galveston over the Memorial Day weekend.
Each night, at the end of "The Late Late Show," there's a little jingle that asks host Craig Ferguson, "What did we learn on the show tonight, Craig?" And Craig, with his feet up on his desk and his coiled-snake coffee cup in hand, reviews the lessons learned.
After the jump, "What did we learn on the blogs this week, Mark?"
Suppose the city of Richardson told you that they were interested in redevelopment of a strip of older apartments, aging underperforming retail, and miscellaneous other land uses, and asked you to participate in a survey. You would rate the attractiveness of a series of photographs of potential new development for the area. For example, what would be your reaction to the photo above? Probably not much different than the reaction of almost everyone who actually participated in this focus group. The overlaid bar graph indicates that almost everyone who actually did this exercise gave this Chevron gas station the lowest rating, a 1 on a scale of 1-7.
After the jump, why their opinion may not matter.
The Texas State Board of Education (SBOE) finished revising social studies standards for Texas public education for the next decade. After this rewrite of history by these elected non-historians, Texas schoolchildren are now going to be taught that maybe Thomas Jefferson was factually incorrect when he described the First Amendment as "building a wall of separation between church and state," that Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address needs to be balanced by the speeches of Jefferson Davis, and that Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy, who found a red under every bed, didn't have much to be ashamed of after all.
Our children will have to endure a decade of this. Or will they? After the jump, is it too late to stop the nonsense?
Are you surprised that a focus group says they prefer quality? No? Neither am I. The Richardson City Council acted as if this is some big discovery. At the May 24 City Council meeting, city staff presented a progress report on the West Spring Valley Corridor Reinvestment Strategy, specifically a report on the second community meeting that was held May 13, 2010.
My take on the progress report of the first community meeting can be found here. After the jump, my review of the second community meeting.