Perry, Schools, and the Truth-o-Meter

At a Capitol news conference on the second day of the legislative session, Texas Governor Rick Perry made a factual claim about public school funding:

We've had public education funding growing at three times the public education enrollment. So you've had a 70 percent increase of funding from 2002 to 2012. You've had a 23 percent increase in enrollment growth. I think under any scenario over the last decade, the funding that we have seen in the state of Texas for public education has been pretty phenomenal.

Source: Texas Tribune.

Surprised? As Daniel Patrick Moynihan famously said, "Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts." No matter what you think about the proper level of funding for public schools, we all ought to be able to agree on whether or not Texas public school funding grew three times the rate of enrollment from 2002 to 2012. Right?

After the jump, PolitiFact Texas hooks up its truth-o-meter to Rick Perry.

Basketball: Richardson 55, Jesuit 34

In a battle of once-beaten District 9-5A teams, the Richardson Eagles defeated the Jesuit Rangers 55-34 Friday night at the Eagles gym. At the district halfway mark, Richardson is 6-1 and Jesuit is now 5-2.

More photos after the jump.

S2L77: Bang Pa-In Summer Palace

Bangkok, Thailand
February 12-20, 1977

The weekend market is on again, telling me that I've spent too long in Bangkok.

Source: Personal travel notes.

From 1977 02 11 Thailand

My last excursion in Thailand was to the Bang Pa-In Royal Summer Palace. It's located on the Chao Phraya River about 10 miles south of Ayutthaya and 50 miles north of Bangkok. Originally built in the 1600s, it served Thai kings when the capital was at Ayutthaya. It fell into disrepair when Ayutthaya was sacked in 1767, but restoration took place in the 1800s. Most of today's gardens and buildings date from that era.

More photos after the jump.

God and Ross Perot

Everybody is gushing about the newly opened Perot Museum of Nature and Science, made possible by a generous $50 million donation by the Perot children in honor of their parents, Ross and Margot Perot.

Q. What is the difference between God and Ross Perot?
A. One is an all powerful being, an object of worship, the source of all that is good, and the other one is God.

See what I did there? Comedy gold. Top shelf. (With apologies to Craig Ferguson.)

Well, not *everyone* us gushing. There's at least one person in north Texas who doesn't worship Ross Perot and that's Jesse Morrell, or at least he doesn't worship the Perot museum. Morrell is a minister dedicated to "open air outreach," that is, a street preacher from Tyler. Morrell recently visited the new Perot Museum and blogged about it.

After the jump, my review of Morrell's review.

Review: Behind the Beautiful Forevers

Amazon

From Behind the Beautiful Forevers, by Katherine Boo:

Abdul rose with minimal whining, since the only whining his mother tolerated was her own. Besides, this was the gentle-going hour in which he hated Annawadi least. The pale sun lent the sewage lake a sparkling silver cast, and the parrots nesting at the far side of the lake could still be heard over the jets."

After the jump, my review.