Twitter Tracks: Super Bowl, Snow and More

Twitter tracks from February, 2011:

• 2011 02 01 - Someone should have told the Packers there was no need to bring the frozen tundra with them to the Super Bowl. #NotFair
• 2011 02 01 - Uh oh. Tunisia, Egypt, now Jordan. Another domino teeters. Headline: "Jordan's king fires Cabinet amid protests"
• 2011 02 01 - No guarantee that a new gov't in Egypt will be friendly to US, but polls suggest Obama's presidency has improved odds. http://goo.gl/M9C99
• 2011 02 01 - Mayor Gary Slagel will not seek re-election. At the same time, hell freezes over in north Texas. Coincidence??? You decide.
• 2011 02 01 - Satellite Shows Winter Megastorm Painting US White. Proves Global Warming A Hoax. Look Closely, See Jesus In Clouds. http://goo.gl/Q4scC
• 2011 02 01 - Green Bay Packers complain that north Texas weather is "too cold." Too cold for the Packers? That's cold. http://goo.gl/jgvkm
• 2011 02 01 - Please don't leave us, Mayor Slagel. We don't like how city services have deteriorated since you stepped down. http://goo.gl/KMHqY
• 2011 02 01 - OK, it's fun to exaggerate the D/FW storm, but, really, this is normal winter weather for much of the US. You can get out in this. Really.

After the jump, more Twitter tracks.

Third Time's the Charm at US 75 and Bush Tollway

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According to a story in The Dallas Morning News (behind pay wall), Plano is pitching a $34 million dollar transportation project to reconfigure the ramps at US 75 and the Bush Tollway. This would be the third attempt to get it right.

After the jump, failures one and two.

Don't Look Now At Rick Perry's Tweets

If you're a member of the press, he just might have blocked you from seeing his tweets. Reporters are eagerly checking if they are on Tricky Rick's enemies list. Regular people (and by regular people I mean me) are wondering if this doesn't inhibit communications between the governor and the people of Texas. Well, yes, it does. But it's much more than that.

It's actually a brilliant political move on Rick Perry's part. Not only does he stick a finger in the eye of the press, thereby winning hearts on the right, but he gets a ton of free publicity for his Twitter PR stream. I'm sure he won't mind if people reading this check it out. Like Sarah Palin, Rick Perry is shoving aside the press and communicating directly with the public. Brilliant. And by brilliant, I of course mean petty, vindictive, divisive and endearing to his (2012 national) base.

Fossil Watch Moving, Galatyn Overpass Isn't

Fossil Watch announced plans to move its corporate offices to the former Blue Cross Blue Shield of Texas campus at US 75 and Spring Valley. Fossil will be vacating offices on both sides of US 75 in Richardson near Galatyn Drive.

So much for Fossil benefiting from last year's bond item to complete the Galatyn overpass west of US 75. That overpass has been in the long-range plans since at least 1993 (see a history of the project here), but listening to the opposition to the 2010 bond election, you would have thought that it was invented as a personal treat from Mayor Gary Slagel to Fossil chairman Tom Kartsotis after Fossil bought land west of US 75 in 2005.

Maybe now we'll hear that the Spring Valley underpass near Fossil's new location, completed almost a decade ago in 2002, was actually a prospective treat to Fossil by the Richardson City Council, knowing that in 2011 Fossil would end up moving down to that part of town. Conspiracy theorists, it's your turn.

Dennis Stewart's Hat Is In, But Which Ring?

Dennis Stewart, former member of the Richardson City Council, is running for election again. The question is, which seat? His campaign website is up (h/t Destiny Herndon-DeLaRosa), but with the embarrassing notice "This site is currently UNDER CONSTRUCTION !!" (What is this? GeoCities circa 1998?) The website says to check back after March 14, 2011.

March 14 just happens to be last day for filing, which suggests that Stewart has not yet decided which seat to run for. In 2009, he was defeated in his re-election bid for the at-large Place 7 seat by Amir Omar. He said a few unfriendly things about Omar in that campaign. Stewart might be tempted to seek revenge for his loss, but if so, why wait until March 14 to file? So instead, he might be thinking of running against Mark Solomon in Place 2. In 2010, as a private citizen, Stewart joined a fairly vocal opposition to a rezoning request for a senior living center at Renner and North Star, which council member Solomon (and Omar) voted for. So, maybe Stewart will try to rally the NIMBY crowd to unseat Solomon. Or maybe Stewart might decide that it'll be easier to win one of the open at-large seats and doesn't want to tip his hand about which one until he knows who all he's up against.

Ian McCann, in The Dallas Morning News, reports that, as of today, only one of the seven seats on the council is contested. We know that many more potential candidates picked up packets from city hall. That suggests a lot of them are taking a wait and see attitude before deciding which seat to file for. It promises to be a busy day at city hall on March 14.