Monday, March 21, 2011

The Vernal Equinox Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance's brackets are still in good shape as it brings you this week's blog roundup.

WhosPlayin has been focused on Lewisville city council elections and the criminal records of two of the candidates, each of whom has assault convictions and each of whom lied on their ballot application.

Off the Kuff discusses the budget deal that allows for Rainy Day funds to be used to close the current biennium's shortfall.

DosCentavos compares the Mexican-shootin' Missouri legislator and the goings-on at the Texas Capitol and tell us what Dems should be doing.

Bay Area Houston notes that When the Galveston County Republican Party Chair slept with teabaggers he woke up with a bad taste in his mouth... and no job.

Are you in favor of preserving the mortgage interest income tax deduction, or do you favor phasing it out for larger, more expensive homes and/or wealthier taxpayers -- or eliminating it altogether? PDiddie wants your opinion at Brains and Eggs.

Musings gives an update on the ground perspective of why schools need more support staff, not less, in order to ensure student success with the new, more rigorous curriculum and testing mandated by the Legislature and SBOE.

WCNews at Eye On Williamson makes clear that the recent "drama" surrounding whether to spend some of the Rainy Day Fund was done for political cover, better known as The Show.

This week McBlogger takes a look at two crazy people who are, unbelievably, elected officials.

refinish69 at Doing My Part for the Left is disgusted and dismayed at the stupidity that is the Texas Lege. Nothing like a Clean Crapper Bill or protecting the ignorant to make the state of Texas proud.

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme suspects that Republican hate against Muslims resulted in fires at a Houston mosque. Republicans have sliced and diced the American public every which way -- women, people of color, gays, teachers, nurses, Jews, Muslims and who knows what else. Wisconsin has woken up. Lets hope the rest of America soon follows.

At TexasKaos, lightseeker is Shocked! Shocked! at the new "edited" video that has hit the web. Check out The Media Fail Us Again- of NPR and Edited Videos.

Neil at Texas Liberal came across an example of extreme government direction of our lives.

And PDiddie adds: One of the most interesting things I read in the past week was this ...

I'm sure the government of Iran must be watching the events in Libya with particular interest. In December of 2003, Libya announced it had a nuclear weapons program and that it would get rid of it. The last of the nuclear weapons technology exited the country in 2009. Libya's repressive, dictatorial regime was welcomed back into the fold of the great Western powers and their friends (a.k.a., the "international community") and trade flourished. Now, just over seven years later, Libya is under military assault from those same powers, only now without the nuclear threat that keeps the West out of North Korea. For the power centers in Iran this must be particularly instructive. America will one day have another Republican president determined to go to war in the Middle East. Will the Iranian people rise up and find a government willing to crush dissent with brutal force? Will America decide that this cannot be tolerated and military action must occur? Will Iran have a "nuclear deterrent" or not? These are questions military leaders in Iran, and our folks in the Pentagon and intelligence community, must be considering. Military actions always have unpredictable repercussions.

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