The Weekly Wrangle

Here's the Texas Progressive Alliance weekly blog round-up, from submissions by member blogs from the week just past.

North Texas Liberal analyzed the arguments from Rep. Michael Burgess, R-Flower Mound, and Newt Gingrich in favor of the flat tax. See their conclusions here.

The Commissioner of the General Land Office of Texas is a monumental ass. PDiddie of Brains and Eggs has the dirty details in "Discussted".

Gary at Easter Lemming Liberal News informed his readers about the local elections and other events taking place in a Local Early Voting Edition.

WCNews at Eye On Williamson has this week's Transportation Wrap-Up.

WhosPlayin resumes his watch on Michael Burgess, and joins North Texas Liberal in rejecting his "flat tax" proposal as a tax increase on the middle class.

Hal at Half Empty wonders why Texas' junior senator, John Cornyn, doesn't support our troops.

Over at McBlogger, Captain Kroc has a real problem with some of the concessions the City made to a certain developer looking to build condos on Lake Lady Bird.

The Texas Cloverleaf promotes a story about more shenanigans in the Texas Youth Commission, this time forcing a Denton County superintendent to quit before she is fired.

Last week, KUHT (PBS Channel 8) in Houston ran a special on immigration and public attitudes towards it called Houston Have Your Say, which included public officials, activists, ordinary citizens, and a couple of bloggers. Off the Kuff was one of those bloggers, and he wrote about his impressions here.

Vince at Capitol Annex notes that the Texas Association of Business is calling for education reform and wonders if anyone else sees the hypocrisy in that situation.

BossKitty at BlueBloggin looks at yet another VA screw up and continues to ignore the welfare of our troops in the VA Caught In Suicide Coverup.

Sunday Evening Funnies

"Discussted"

I was a big fan of Rich Hall's Sniglets in the '80s. Lately, in both the e-mail I receive and the various blogs and online fora I visit, I regularly find myself laughing out loud at misspelled words with brand new meanings, such as the one in the title of this posting.

How many times have you found yourself in a conversation meeting the description above, after all?

Judging by this article in Texas Monthly, and this article and the reader comments in the Chron, it must happen to everyone within audio range of the Commissioner of the General Land Office of Texas inside of 15 seconds:

Jerry Patterson is a concealed-weapon-carrying, tobacco-dipping, canvas-death-trap-flying maverick whose management of the Christmas Mountains has ticked off everyone from Rick Perry to the Sierra Club. Not that he cares.

"Proving once again that I grew up weird, when I was a kid I enjoyed it when we were driving behind a Houston bus — loved the smell of diesel fumes," Patterson recently confessed in an e-mail to supporters of a program that helps governmental entities switch their fleets to clean-burning natural gas. "That might explain my thought processes as an adult." ...

"Many would describe me as kooky, but I don't really care," he said. "If the voters disagree with what I'm doing, there's the next election, or there's impeachment. I do what I think is right, and I don't concern myself with public opinion."

Jerry Patterson has been both dipshit and embarrassment for too long now. Let's find someone and send him some public opinion he can't ignore in 2010.