Pelosi and "Friends" a real treat

About three hundred Houstonians (SRO capacity at the Christ Church Cathedral downtown) gathered to watch Alex Pelosi's new documentary "Friends of God" and chat with the director last night. Among the many godless liberal activists, there were also the Texas Freedom Network, Americans United, and ACLU staff and board members, Rep. Scott Hochberg, Rep. Donna Howard, and yours truly. (The film makes its debut next month on HBO. Here's a snippet:)



There are some reviews of Pelosi's debut here (more about the after-party than the film itself, the documentarist's infant son, and best friend Moby, including the famous "Karl-Rove-might-be-my-long-lost-brother" remark), a somewhat indignant but generally spot-on Christian review and some spiteful comments here, and a more-even-handed take here.

JFTR, Alexandra Pelosi is a raised-and-practicing Catholic. She comes from good progressive stock of course, grew up in San Francisco and lives in New York, but remarkably bonded with the now-disgraced Pastor Ted Haggard during the filming (and defends him still). Read the links above for more.

What I was impressed with during the post-screening Q&A was Pelosi's commitment to show the evangelicals in the best possible light. She genuinely identifies with several of her subjects, and portrayed in the doc only those whom she she carefully considered were the most sincere. She was quick to note that she met many Christians in her cross-country travels who were full of shit, and left their stories on the cutting-room floor.

Knowing that these might be the best the American evangelical movement -- numbering between 20 million (BARNA) and eighty million (per the late Jerry Falwell) -- has to offer, you can watch the documentary with perhaps a clearer eye. And make up your own mind, as Pelosi intends.

There's no denying the intensity of the belief and the commitment to the cause, as well as the considerable influence on US politics and the Republican party over the past generation. The only question is whether the movement in terms of that electoral influence has peaked, particularly in the wake of the myriad of moral scandals of both those in the ministry as well as their adopted political party.

Can the fundamentalists continue to turn out the vote post-Falwell? Can the Christian issues of abortion, creationism and gay marriage keep driving the believers to the polls to vote straight-ticket GOP? Or are the war in Iraq, global warming, and the cost of health care -- issues which divide the evangelical bloc as deeply as the rest of the nation -- more important to voters in the coming elections?

Time and our respective efforts, as always, will tell.

Update (8/25): Via Dungeon Diary, AMERICABlog has the news of Pastor Ted's latest misadventure. I just have to wonder what it's going to take for Alex Pelosi to see through him.

Justice rides a white Hummer

I only wish I could write snark like this:

We hear Attorney General Alberto Gonzales was sighted at the Texas Capitol [yesterday] morning. Folks under the pink dome saw the AG and his family pull up in a motorcade of black Suburbans and a white Hummer (because, of course, justice rides a white Hummer). A Department of Justice spokesperson told us that Gonzales isn’t here on DOJ matters: “There’s no official event going on. If he’s there, he’s there on personal business.”

Personal business, eh? Perhaps he’s reminiscing about the good old days or as so many do, just returning to the scene of the crime. Since Texas is scheduled to execute its 400th prisoner tonight, maybe Gonzales is here to commemorate his contributions to inflating that number. Maybe he’s looking for a job. (He’s loyal, unscrupulous, willing to lie at the drop of a fired attorney, and bend rules for his employer. Sounds like a perfect House parliamentarian.) Or maybe he’s on an errand for his boss, feeling out possible replacements. Seems like Justice Nathan Hecht has the necessary virtues to lead Bush’s Justice Dept.

I think it's to discuss the special legislative session to be called on Voter ID -- and not Iraqn divestiture, as Vice-President-Wannabe 39% MoFo has feinted.

Update (8/25): Thanks to Matt B in the comments for pointing out that letter correction above. Like so many these days, I am getting my 'q's and 'n's mixed up.

Maybe it's because they're so close together on the keyboard.

Type "batshit crazy" into Dictionary.com

and this is what you get:

Postpourri, while we wait for the next hurricane to form

-- Nice one here about Hurricane Dean hitting the island of Jamaica by Attytood.

-- Lady Bird isn't cold in the ground and TxDOT already wants more billboard revenue -- or maybe more fear, or perhaps both. Racy Mind beat me to this last week, but jobsanger today reminded me again of the outrage it made me feel.

"HURRICANE FORMING NEAR GULF -- KEEP YOUR TANKS FULL". Did you see this message flashing on the highway electronic travel advisory boards last weekend?

I think it's actually less advertising than it is a terror threat when the government scares the suburban sheeple into filling up just as the price of gasoline is running up (ahead of a hurricane that never was headed close to Houston).

-- "I'm the proud owner of Karl Rove's father's solid gold cock ring." NSFW. Really NSFW. But click on the Boing-Boing link at the lead-in -- or here -- and you'll be OK. Just be careful not to laugh so hard you throw up.

-- A little protest here today:

“We will protest at the 200-year-old oak tree where black people were illegally lynched many, many years ago. Today lynching in Texas is legal and it is done by the government in Huntsville. But Texas does not have the moral authority to execute anyone. The death penalty is used only against the poor and is a racist attack on the African American and Latino communities.”

Update (8/23): The state of Texas went ahead and killed Johnny Conner yesterday, making him #400. Here's video of the protest at the Hanging Tree, downtown:



-- Advanced Conspiracy Theory, as instructed by RG Ratcliffe:

Black helicopters, the Illuminati, Gov. Rick Perry and the Trans-Texas Corridor are all now part of the vernacular of the global domination conspiracy theorists.

Perry's push for the Trans-Texas Corridor super highway is part of a secret plan, the conspiracy theorists say, to create the North American Union — a single nation consisting of Canada, Mexico and the United States with a currency called the Amero.

Government denials of the North American Union and descriptions of it as a myth seem to add fuel to the fire. A Google search for "North American Union" and "Rick Perry" returns about 13,400 Web page results.

Ya gotta love it. Especially when the Texas Eagle Forum gets in on the action:

Perry enhanced the conspiracy buzz earlier this summer by traveling to Turkey to attend the secretive Bilderberg conference, which conspiracy theorists believe is a cabal of international monied interests and power brokers pressing for globalization.

And the conspiracy rhetoric is likely to ratchet up this week as President Bush meets with Mexican President Felipe Calderon and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper in Quebec in their third summit to discuss North American relations under the Security and Prosperity Partnership.

"There is absolutely a connection with all of it," said Texas Eagle Forum President Cathie Adams. The Trans-Texas Corridor "is something not being driven by the people of Texas."

Keep reading:

Fast-forward to March 2005 to Crawford, when President Bush, Harper and then-Mexican President Vicente Fox agreed to pursue the Security and Prosperity Partnership, SPP. The idea was to promote cooperation among the countries on economic and security issues.

But conservative author Jerome Corsi — in his new book: The Late Great U.S.A.: The Coming Merger with Mexico and Canada — argues the SPP is a "stealth" attempt to wipe out the nations' borders and form a single economy like the European Union.

With an entire chapter dedicated to Perry's Trans-Texas Corridor plan, Corsi says the first step to integrating the economies is to integrate the transportation infrastructure.

"His (Perry's) actions have been to fight hard to build this toll road and not listen to the objections expressed by the people of Texas," Corsi said.

Corsi became nationally known in 2004 as the co-author of Unfit for Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry. Corsi said extensive research shows the SPP has created working groups on the North American Union that answer to presidential Cabinet secretaries.

"This is more of a shadow bureaucracy, a shadow government already in effect," Corsi said. "Unless it is stopped, it will turn into a North American Union with an Amero."

Wait for it ...

The official federal Web site for the SPP has a section dedicated to busting the North American Union as myth.

"The SPP does not attempt to modify our sovereignty or currency or change the American system of government designed by our Founding Fathers," the site says.

But that has not stopped a growing opposition to the North American Union by groups such as the Eagle Forum, The Conservative Caucus and the John Birch Society.

Pow. Money shot.

Now see, ya gotta hope that the Swifties together with the Birchers can derail the TTC -- pun intended -- once and for all. Because if the Lone Star conservatives have one last spasm of outrage left after they finally realize they've lost the battle over immigration, that no one is going to be rounded up, then maybe they'll realize they can still triumph here.

The Chronic was compelled to follow up with a disdainful editorial rejoinder to Ratcliffe's tale of intrigue. You can almost hear their sniffing. Fortunately they managed to nail the real issues, though:

Like a throbbing artery, the Trans-Texas Corridor has become the crucial connection between these theories in recent years. But anxieties about foreign infiltration and loss of national sovereignty have periodically flared in American culture for centuries. Current talk of a looming "North American Union" began in 1992- 92, when first a Republican and then a Democratic administration implemented the North American Free Trade Agreement. The tragedy of our Iraq adventure and the overheated campaign rhetoric about immigration — plus completely rational concerns about shrinking manufacturing here and lower wages for U.S. workers — are setting the NAU fears on boil.

Yet the Trans-Corridor Conspiracy crowd in Texas is looking too far abroad. There's no reason to try to smoke out secret international cabals in this deal. Spanish company CINTRA has already proudly prevailed in the 50-year, multibillion-dollar deal. Though foreign investment brings Texas needed economic juice, 50 years is too long a time to cede control and revenue from the very heart of the state.

Nor are Mexico and Canada the first beneficiaries of Perry's plan. Those would be the contractors — including three of Perry's top campaign donors.

Poorly thought-out trade deals at the federal level certainly can hurt us. But there's little chance that easing the drive from Laredo to Kansas will by itself spawn one-continent government.

All too real, on the other hand, are the effects the corridor itself will have on Texas. Bisected communities, carved-up farmland and devastated wildlife habitats are some of the provable results the corridor will leave in its wake. These threats are considerably more real than the possibility of continental government, and it doesn't take a conspiracy theorist to worry about them.

Nice property available. Just don't drink the water.

Emphasis mine:

How clean is clean?

That's the question facing Houston as officials consider easing strict standards for cleaning up contaminated groundwater. The plan, up for council vote Wednesday, is intended to help spur redevelopment of so-called "brownfields," former industrial properties with low levels of pollution.

A Superfund site in Westchase could be one of the first properties to redevelop if the city adopts the program. The now-defunct Crystal Chemical Company once manufactured herbicides on the 25-acre tract, just east of the Royal Oaks Country Club.

The current owner, Union Pacific Railroad, has treated much of the soil and groundwater for arsenic contamination. But the groundwater still has too much arsenic to qualify as drinking water, according to state and federal environmental regulators

Drinking-water quality — the cleanup standard under state law — can take years to attain. A city official estimated it would take hundreds of years of treatment for the water underneath the Crystal site to be potable, or clean enough to drink.

"Because of the expense, many developers back away from these brownfield-type properties," said Mike Frew, a technical water specialist with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.

To promote redevelopment of these idle sites, the Texas Legislature created an alternative in 2003. Owners can apply for a "municipal setting designation," or MSD, from the state, with city approval. The MSD allows redevelopment as long as the contaminated groundwater never will be used for drinking.

Sounds like a suburbanite's dream, doesn't it? I bet they name the development "Blue Stream", or even better, "Crystal Water", after the company that laced the soil with arsenic.

In cities like Houston and Dallas, most properties use city-supplied drinking water instead of wells. It just does not make sense to require property owners to reach the potable standard, the city's environmental attorney, Ceil Price, said.

"This is groundwater that no one is using," Price said. "In some cases, the groundwater has been treated for 20 years and they just aren't able to get to drinking water standards. And there just isn't technology to get them to the standard."

If Houston joins the MSD program, hundreds of properties potentially could qualify for redevelopment, Price said. But the properties would have to pass a number of environmental hurdles, and owners would remain liable for cleaning up other pollution, such as contaminated soil or surface water.

Price emphasized that contaminated groundwater that possibly could hurt people in ways besides drinking, such as leaking to the surface or releasing hazardous vapors, still would have to be treated under the MSD program.

Oh, that's good to know, Mr. Price. I was afraid for a moment there you were helping make the case for development.

Local environmentalists do not oppose the MSD program outright, but view it with caution.

"Sometimes (contaminated groundwater) travels and gets into our streams and reduces the quality," said Brandt Mannchen of the Sierra Club's Houston Regional Group.

Nice to know that those environmental whackos aren't up in arms over this.

One concern is the presence of nearby drinking water wells. Seventy percent of the city's water supply comes from Lakes Livingston, Conroe and Houston, but the rest comes from wells. There are three public drinking water wells within a one-mile radius of the Crystal Chemical property.

Regulators say that those wells are protected from the arsenic-contaminated groundwater by a containment wall, a pump system and monitoring equipment. If the site wins MSD status, a deed restriction would prohibit drinking water wells from being dug on the actual site in the future.

The TCEQ has given MSD status to 34 properties statewide, accounting for roughly 577 acres. Most of the sites are in Dallas and Fort Worth.

Gotta keep up with the Metroplex, ya know. Bidness is bidness.

In Fort Worth, the MSD program allowed developers to build a Target, Marshall's and other stores on the downtown site of an old Montgomery Ward warehouse, Frew said. The water underground there still has traces of trichloroethene, a toxic cleaning solvent.

If Houston adopts the program, it should examine each applicant carefully, said James Kelly, president of the Bayou Preservation Association. The city also should be clear with the public that the relaxed standard will provide relief only for a narrowly defined group of eligible brownfields. The city should also create its own name for the MSD program, Kelly said, since "municipal setting designation" does not mean anything to most people.

How about "greenfield enhancement zone"? Or just "Green Zone"?

"Let's just make sure that in relaxing this requirement we don't undermine the incentives of landowners who are keeping their property clean and who are cleaning up pollution when it occurs," Kelly said.

Thanks to Mr. Kelly for thinking a little ahead on this one.

Really and truly, anyone foolish enough to buy a suburban property with arsenic-laced water as a feature is just the kind of fool who will vote to keep in office the Republicans in the Texas Lege who relaxed the rules enough for the developers to offer it for sale.

At a bargain price.

Weekly Texblog Wrangle

Here's your Texas Progressive Alliance Blog Round-Up for the week of August 20, 2007. This week's installment is once again compiled by Vince from Capitol Annex.

Krazypuppy at Texas Kaos keeps track of What You Will Not Find at Laura Bush's Library.

TXSharon at BlueDaze asksL "Would you make Osama Bin Ladin director of Homeland Security?" If you said no, read about who wants to protect our water in Barnett Shale: Devon wants to conserve our water? Like hell!

Hal at Half Empty sees vultures flocking to pick over the bones of Tom DeLay's old seat.

Texas Toad at North Texas Liberal exposes the hypocrisy of chickenhawk Republicans taking shots at Rick Noriega.

Vince at Capitol Annex tells us about the coming storm surrounding implementation of religious viewpoint "anti-discrimination" policies in Texas schools to comply with a bill recently passed by the Texas Legislature.

WcNews at Eye On Williamson points out the hypocrisy in sentencing in recent child molestation cases in Williamson County.

PDiddie at Brains and Eggs fries up a double order of e-Slate voting woes: an advance of the meeting over security issues with Houston Mayor Bill White and the Harris County (Republican) clerk; and the disappointing results of that meeting, including the news that the TDP lawsuit over "emphasis voting" was dismissed.

Captain Kroc at McBlogger suggests the incumbent in the Travis County Tax Assessor-Collector race is using a page or two from Turd Blossom's playbook.

Boadicea at StopCornyn tells us about John Cornyn's Badge Of Fiscal Irresponsibility.

CouldBeTrue at South Texas Chisme exposes another Republican minority district suppression scam - using immigration raids to minimize population counts for the 2010 census.

Kuffat Off the Kuff asks "How many felonies could you commit with an oyster?"

Glenn Smith at Burnt Orange Report gives a "political type's" perspective on the media's fascination with Karl Rove.

Also, don't forget to check out these other great Texas Progressive Alliance blogs: People's Republic of Seabrook, Three Wise Men, Musings, Bay Area Houston, In The Pink Texas, Who's Playin?, Feet To The Fire, Easter Lemming Liberal News, Winding Road In Urban Area, Common Sense, B & B , The Agonist, Texas Truth Serum.

"This Week" Prez debate wrap

Live-blogging at The Great Orange Klan, and also Texas Blue. The ABC News online poll shows Obama the winner and Joe Biden a somewhat surprising third ...

Who do you think won the Democratic debate?

Barack Obama
4,028
Hillary Clinton
2,866
Joe Biden
2,063
John Edwards
1,736
Dennis Kucinich
1,336
Nobody won. I'm voting Republican. (Ha ha)
576
Bill Richardson
473
Mike Gravel
358
Nobody won. I'm waiting for Al Gore to get in the race. (Give it up, people.)
348
Chris Dodd
119
Total Vote: 13,903

Dodd's Talk Clock: