Web surf's up

A few things I found clicking around that will engage your attention:

**E.O.W.C. has details on the Trans-Texas Corridor --that would be the Toll Road on 'Roids -- public hearings scheduled across the state. McBlogger will file a full report, but his preliminary flash indicates that last night's meeting in Ennis drew 350 people, and there were 700 in Gainesville. Hank Gilbert was given a standing O for his remarks by the roughly 80% Republican audience in Ennis.

**Vince at Capitol Annex has been doing the yeoman's work again, this time giving us the story on Ralph Hall's attempts to deregulate the processing of chickenshit. He's also gathered up some posts on Dr. No -- that would be Libertarian-in-Republican-clothing Ron Paul -- and the polluted water in East Texas that the Texas Railroad Commission first neglected and then obfuscated. And his best work -- including the masthead photo of LBJ and MLK -- is your action alert on the Republicans who are trying to kill the Voting Rights Act.

** Both Muse and John Coby have posted photos of the shuttle Discovery's belly tiles.

** The billboards alerting Big Oil that David Van Os is going after them are now going up; the first one can already be seen in Dallas, at the intersection of Harry Hines and Market Center Boulevards. Three more in East Texas will be visible soon. They are generating significant reaction in the blogosphere already. (Disclosure: I serve the campaign as a volunteer statewide coordinator.)

** the Texas Progressive Alliance -- a confederation of blogs throughout the state which post from the same political perspective as this one -- has an aggregator. I also use the Texas BlogWire, which appears in the column on the right, as my personal RSS feed for what's going on in Deep-In-The-Hearta.

** and Lyn recaps the week that was, most of which you already know if you've been reading along here.

Chris Bell and the blogosphere

The Houston part of the galaxy, at least. Since I have struggled with online accessibility and work-related projects since yesterday, I'm too far behind to do much more than point you to Kuffner, Muse, and Stace.

Prog Tex live-blogged it, and in attendance also were Lyn, Matt H., Rob, and Lara Cottingham from the campaign along with Sally and Karen from Nick Lampson's campaign.

Some snips -- not directly quoted but as close as I could -- follow. (If there are errors in the transcription, in either numbers or the interpretation, they are mine.) Regarding Kinky and Gra- err, Carole:

"Kinky's negatives by all measures are extraordinarily high; on the order of 70% or so. Somebody is going to break out of that second-place pack (in the polling) and it's either going to be me or her."

Fundraising "has gotten a lot easier" lately. About $1.2 million will be reported in the quarter just ended, and about $2 million overall.

On immigration: "Why do their issues have to be our issues? (Talking about) building a wall is simply absurd."

How do we address/counter the undercurrent of defeatism among Democrats, liberals and other of our would-be support group? "Win. Winning salves many wounds. A 'Democrats-can't-win' attitude is simply the latest negative reaction for us to overcome. I have overcome the fundraising concerns, I am overcoming the no-name-recognition issue, and I will overcome this."

Bell is confident, assured, has a great sense of humor, is traveling extensively throughout the state and working hard without appearing to be frantic or even tired. He really seems to have the blog-relations thing down pat, also.

Update (7/11): Eye on Williamson County fleshes out the points on immigration, name-recognition, and "Kinky-gets-votes-from -Republicans".