The authors at Jessica's well have always been skeptical of Economic Development taxes, incentives, and other schemes whereby local Taxpayer dollars are supposed to be used to woo private corporate interests (and sometimes government bureaucracies). I agree that the whole framework of ED taxes is just a shell game of job trading and bribes, no matter what the ED boosters would tell you. Even though the system is flawed, and everyone seems to know it, the argument to keep it is "Everyone has one, we can't compete with out it."

Today there are several stories about the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company closing their Tyler, Texas plant. The quotes today in many news sources confirm the worst of the "cynical views" we have expressed about the bastardization of Economic Development and the true futility of the venture in the face of corporate America's decision making.

Houston Chronicle: The city is still hoping it can save the plant through an incentive package worth $21 million that would include tax breaks, cash and money earmarked for training.

But for now, the area is in a hope-for-the-best and prepare-for-the-worst mode, said Tom Mullins, president of the Tyler Economic Development Council.

Here we have the City trying their best to shell out $21 million to keep 1,100 current jobs, not new jobs, but current jobs. By my math that is $19,090 per job and still Goodyear is going to close the plant. Looking past the fact this is protectionism, not development, I guess Tyler's bribe wasn't good enough.

Akron Beacon Journal: Besides Tyler, plants in Gadsden, Ala.; Union City, Tenn.; Fayetteville, N.C.; and one in Canada produce the private label tires that Goodyear will stop making.

The union has said Goodyear wants to shutter two factories; it named Gadsden as the other likely target.

Public officials in the four states put together incentive proposals at Goodyear's request to try to keep their plants open. Gadsden officials said they remain hopeful their incentive package will keep the Goodyear plant open there, where it employs 1,430 people, making it the largest private employer in the 39,000-resident city in northeast Alabama.

This has the makings of one of the worst case scenarios for the use of ED money. Here we have a company actively trolling for dollars to see if they will consider keeping existing jobs at a location when that money was supposed to create new jobs and diversify economies so the loss of big employers wouldn't be an economic catastrophe.

So what might Gadsden throw on the table?

Akron Beacon Journal: Gadsden is making a significant economic pitch to the Akron tire maker to keep the plant open. Although the city won't release details about the job-retention incentives, part of the proposal includes helping modernize the plant to make it more productive. The Steelworkers local said the incentive package might be valued as high as $125 million, including money that Goodyear would invest.

WOW. That's $87,412 per job in a factory that the story says has an average wage of $58,000 a year.

If you read the stories carefully, you can see that ED tax money is being used to prop up a system suffering from the effects of labor unions and foreign competition. The Steelworkers union has been on Strike against Goodyear for about a month, and their "competitors [are] open[ing] modern plants in low-labor-cost nations such as China."

What is trying to keep this economic dinosaur alive?

Taxpayer money that was earmarked for the future of employment and manufacturing.

It seems the cynics may be right.

This image is a re-creation of something I actually saw today....a sight which got me to wondering just how many of these fish emblems does it take before it begins to look less like an enthusiastic Christian and more like someone who is tallying how many people they have hit in a church crosswalk?

Steyn! Now!

But suppose the ''Anyone But Bush'' bumper-sticker set got their way; suppose he and Cheney and Rummy and all the minor supporting warmongers down to yours truly were suddenly vaporized in 20 seconds' time. What then?

Nothing, that's what. The jihad's still there. Kim Jong Il's still there. The Iranian nukes are still there. The slyer Islamist subversion from south-east Asia to the Balkans to northern England goes on, day after day after day. And one morning we'll switch on the TV and the smoke and flames will be on this side of the Atlantic, much to President Rodham's surprise. Bush hatred is silly and parochial and reductive: History is on the march and the anti-Bush crowd is holding the telescope the wrong way round.

(...snip...)

It's not a question of whether you're "for" or "against" a war. Once you're in it, the choice is to win it or lose it. And, if you're arguing for what will look to most of the world like the latter option, you better understand what the consequences are. In this case, it would, in effect, end the American moment.

...but do go read the whole thing. And vote like your, or your child's, life depended on it. Because it does.

"With Proposition 87, we can switch to cleaner fuels, wind and solar power," he says in a political ad, "and free ourselves from foreign oil. If Brazil can do it, so can California."

But as a matter of fact, that's not what Brazil did.

It launched a crash program of offshore oil drilling in the late 1990s, working with a Manhattan Project-like determination to develop its own natural resources.

One of our favorite pols, flacking for one of his favorite contributors, ADM. And for an additional tax on the oil & gas industry in California. Read the whole thing here, at the Investors Business Daily website.

How are we not like Brazil? Not nearly as much sun to grow stuff, corn or sugar cane, to turn into methanol. (Being astraddle the equator has some advantages.) Not nearly as much, percentage-wise, of our land is sufficiently arable for same. No national initiative to develop more domestic oil and gas production. Also, we're not a nation of few roads where routinely getting 10 mpg in a 4 cylinder Volkswagen running on ethanol is OK.

Also we are not like Brazil because we allow our car manufacturers and politicians to scam us with flex fuel vehicles, the vast majority of which will never run on anything but 100% gasoline, in order to get bogus tax credits and be able to say they are doing something to make the US more energy independent.

Brazil has had its problems with its oil industry, but it truly is a success and seemingly has a long future in front of it. And Brazilians are not having to listen to Venezuela's crazy man Chavez natter on about how he keeps them supplied and warm in the winter, either.

This is amazing:

"Aside from the bus attack in Marseille, the Interior Ministry said that both Friday and Saturday night were 'relatively calm.' Youths set fire to about 200 vehicles Saturday, police said. But even on ordinary nights, the number of cars burned often reaches 100."

I guess that in France that twice the normal rate of car burning is still considered "relative calm".

Here is a question: What does it cost to insure a car in France nowadays?

And in case you are wondering if there is some religious demographic that is particularly involved in these burnings, please keep quiet about it until you know for sure it isn't those radical Lutheran immigrants again.

(h/t LGF)

In short, if the KGB man's account is accurate, Kennedy was working with the Soviets to undermine Reagan's hard line policies and influence the 1984 election. As Kengor puts it:

"If the memo is in fact an accurate account of what transpired, it constitutes a remakable example of the lengths to which some on the political left, including a sitting U.S. senator, were willing to go to stop Ronald Reagan."

Raise your hand if you believe that Ted Kennedy and today's left-wing Democrats are above this sort of behavior when it comes to stopping President Bush.

Gee, I don't see many hands raised out there. I wonder why?

Go and read. via Powerline.

In my inimitable style, not that anyone wants to or should imitate it, I'll pontificate about a major reason for controlling the borders.

I live in my home town, where I grew up. I was given time off for good behavior: college in Houston, a short time in Austin, and seven great years in Midland. During this time I've seen a marked change in the complexion of this small town.

The demographics have changed, certainly; and that doesn't bother me. After all, it would be rather hypocritical of me, of all people, to sneer at someone for being different. But I can condemn the imposition of a system of values utterly different from the one that Americans have, which stretches back beyond 1776 to the Magna Carta and even before that to Periclean Greece.

I regularly read The Spectator, an English Tory paper, founded in 1828. It has a conservative bent, but not an ideological one, like National Review, The American Spectator, or that redoubt of the neo-cons, The Weekly Standard, all of which I also subscribe to, but don't like quite as much. (My right-wing ideology failed me utterly in February of this year, but that's another story.)

The Spectator, written not only for Brits, but for the expats in the Commonwealth, has quite a few articles on other parts of the world and they open the eyes more than all the travel or cultural documentaries can. Those who accuse Americans of being insular are right; we are. Frankly, I don't give a damn if we are, but we are. Many of the articles remark on the colonialists' experiences abroad, after the empire, and give a sense of a world which we just don't see. Yet. It's being thrust on us.

Isn't this something?

Mexican President Vicente Fox, one of about twenty Mexican nationals who are not actively trying to leave Mexico for greener pastures, does not consider it embarrassing that his citizens feel the need to leave their home country by the millions just to be able to eat.

But the border fence? That is an embrassment.

Amidst the doom and gloom and open relish about the chances of the Republican party in the upcoming elections--the sadness of Republicans wondering why people don't return their calls, and the glee of the those in the media who don't even try to disguise their fealty toward Berkley--there is a ray of hope.

While performing the morning ablutions in preparation for work, to be assaulted by a phalanx of people demanding instant action right now, as though land would ruin like a hollandaise which, if not eaten in fifteen minutes, would break, I was watching BBC World News and I saw a vulture togged out in a cheap blond fright-wig perfectly appropriate for Halloween. I refer, of course, to Eleanor Clift.

Madame Clift was droning on and on about how the American people were tired of...and sick of...whatever she was tired of and sick of, in a classic case of projection of what she is pleased to call her ideas onto a body politic whose inattention bothers her.

She was licking her lips--a metaphor for vultures don't have any and hers are trompe l'oeil, effected by paint--that the Democrats were sure to rise again to power, like Grendel's mother from the sea.

Rejoice. Over a decade ago some firm, whose name I forget, rated the various pundits on accuracy and she was dead last. In fact, she is so bad that I would in general feel safe in ascertaining her opinion and then betting on the opposite. As a writer, Robert Heinlein, who informed me in my youth, said, if you don't have time to make a considered judgment of the issues, find someone [like Eleanor Clift] and do the opposite. And he's been proven right. Madame Clift has proven to be a huge timesaver, such as a keyboard is improved by a mouse, which come to think of it, might gain her attention as a mid-morning snack.

I am voting today but due to geography I won't be voting in any races that are the least bit competitive.

It seems that the question "Do the Republicans deserve to win?" is being asked in every quarter of the blogosphere.

It is too simple a question regardless of your level of satisfaction or dissatisfaction with the current majority party.

"Do the rest of us deserve for the Democrats to win?" is a question needs to be asked also.

The Republicans have done a lot of things that leave me shaking my head but they still have the one big issue right: Western civilization is facing a real threat right now. It will take a fight, not platitudes and appeasement, to come out on the other side.

The small stuff can get worked out later.

For reasons that we have discussed before this may not mean bad things for the Midland Development Corporation's deal with Countrywide but it does serve to drive the point home that these "economic development" packages do not ever create jobs. Period.

What "economic development" taxes do is provide a taxpayer-funded kitty to bribe...yes, the word is bribe...firms to make non-market-based decisions on where to place existing jobs for the short term.

Had the campaign material contained that simple truth five years ago the referendum would not have passed.

I will go further: Had the original referendum contained a "sunset clause" that required that the Economic Development Sales Tax be re-affirmed by the voters every three or four years else it expire, it would now be gone.

United States' Wilson Young, left, son of Jake Young, one of the victims of 2002 Bali bombings, touches a freestanding granite globe, with 202 individually carved doves, each of which represents a victim, prior to a ceremony to unveil the memorial site in central London, Thursday Oct. 12, 2006. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis)

For the United States, 9/11 brings Terrorism home in the hearts and minds of a nation. It was a horrifying day. However, 9/11 was not the first, nor the latest strike by Islamic Terrorists at Americans. Barely a year after 9/11, at the conclusion of Ramadan, Global Islamic Terrorism consumed a Man who embodied the best of what Midland, Texas can produce, Jake Young.

For all the column inches of space spent in the local paper remembering where you were or what you were doing when you learned about 9/11, little has been said about Jake in the press, local or otherwise since 2002. However, tonight, as Ramadan comes to a close, I was reminded of Jake Young. There are widespread reports of the release of two of the Islamic Militants convicted of participating in the bombing that killed Jake. Some media reports mention a "Nebraska Football Player," others reference "Americans" and others just quote the figure "202."

I remember Jake Young.

No one can accuse a commercial of taste; in fact when I was immerded in college in the seventies, I took, fatuously, a course in psychology by a man so strange that I was utterly unsurprised later to read that most people in the mental-health professions went that way with an eye to finding out what was wrong with themselves. Having been involved with one of them, I can say that I believe it as utterly as I believe that the government wishes me well. Their seeking to explain themselves by explaining others may have been begging the question, or a self-fulfilling prophecy; I don't know.

(Also I have read that over half the people who read Pychology Today believe in astrology, a particularly silly form of mysticism that I can explode in 15 seconds--30 if the audience is stupid enough to be from Countrywide Home Loans.)

Dr. N--physician, heal thyself--said that Madison Avenue had found from the Alka-Seltzer commercials showing, "I can't believe I ate the whole thing," that what you and I might think is a good commercial is in fact a bad one. Let's gloss over the fact that I never, even in my salad days, thought that a good commercial. It was found to be a bad one because people remembered the commercial rather than the product. Well, perhaps. People remember the dismembered corpses in a fatal crash of a Mercedes with a train rather than the German engineering that carried the people who were in the wreck.

Total loan fundings dropped 22% to $115 billion from $147 billion last year, and earnings before taxes in its mortgage banking unit declined 40%. Mortgage production earnings were down 32%, servicing fell 52%, and closing services dropped by 36%. "The mortgage banking segment continued to experience the effects of a transitional market," said Angelo R. Mozilo, the company's chief executive.

Our new favorite home loan shark arranger. And our new, tax-subsidized, job creating, miracle working neighbor. Text from a WSJ article without a link. Here is a related article from Yahoo.

This has to be the funniest thing that I have seen in months.

Askmen.com has run a contest to determine who is the number one "Man's Man". It was George Clooney for anyone who is interested.

Priceless is the fact the AskMen.com didn't know to throw out the list, bury the project, and kill everyone who knew anything about it when the five top-rated manly men are made up of an actor, a singer, a Brit aristocrat, one real man, and....wait for it...a clothes designer.

Can they not hear the laughter?

UPDATE: Jimmy Patterson provides his own list of Manly Men. And any list of men that contains Mel Cooley can't be wrong.

It is surely shallow of me (moi? shallow?) to think that Angelo Mozilo looks like a cheaper, oilier version of Caesar Romero. Perhaps they were separated at birth; after all, Mr. Romero's most famous role is that of Joker in the Batman series.

Of course Walsingham is right about the distortion of other firms' wages engendered by tax breaks. Recall Adam Smith's Invisible Hand. My problem with economic-development agencies is the same problem that I have with any organization--any--which coercively makes economic decisions for me using my money. Or any decisions for me using my strength against me for their own purposes. Say what you will about Jimmy Swaggart, and you'll have to beat me to it with sharp elbows to get in first, you can always turn him off. You cannot turn off a governmental economic-development agency. And with them you don't even have the option, highly regarded in Texas, of defending your property at the point of a gun. Enslaved by thieves. The dream of every autocrat and jumped-up parlor pink in history.

While in college in Houston in the dark ages of the 70s, I saw on the goggle box two men who appeared smarmy by my nascent grease detectors. My oleometer sounded like a Klaxon, rushing past slippery to peg at snake oil.

They were presenting a plan to Houston to get money to build the Summit, a mixed-use venue for sports, concerts, and no doubt with an eye toward gala events of anything in the foreseeable future, including monster-truck rallies and low-rider convocations where the paint is worth more than the car and where artificial fur goes to die.

These Knights of St. Nicholas of Myra would bring unlimited benefits to Houston, Mankind, and the Human Spirit, elevating this poor planet from being on the outskirts of a small star in the Milky Way galaxy to the pantheon of galactic, nay, universal prominence, if only the city of Houston were brave enough to take up the challenge.

Costing a mere $17,000,000, a figure instantly disputed, and even the dimmest of commentators, a large claim, that, noted that those revenue projections depended on its being rented 1,303 times a year. Well, a slight exaggeration, perhaps, but it must be rented often enough that the janitors couldn't get the sick off the chairs from the monster-truck rally in time for the faith-healing service to follow shortly. Or do I have the cause of the sick reversed? I cannot tell.

And all these untold benefits: economic development, the pedophile's blandishment of candy; a boom at Greenway Plaza, which was doing well enough by itself; perpetual motion; a cure for cancer, obviating the need for M. D. Anderson; the end of world hunger; good for what ails you (if it's in your mind), and all of the surpassing, transcendent, ethereal wonders if Houstonians were merely brave enough to vote their money away to line the pockets of the developers and, it strikes me just now, perhaps the owner of the land who thought of a good way to sell it at a high price and therefore funnel taxpayer dollars into his own pocket, a form of economic slavery.

Brave enough. Yes, brave enough. It takes bravery to come up with a reason to convince yourself that it is indeed an act, good and brave, and therefore escalating into virtuous, to hand over your wallet to a footpad at knife-point. You can be assured that he will use the money taken from you by force to engender economic activity, that is, to satisfy his need to steal until he digests what he has taken from you, but as is the nature with progressive additions, too much is not enough and the pattern escalates. First the Summit--and even the Latin analysis grates unless one is even more cynical than I, and I am cynical about even that being possible--then hotels to serve it, commissaries, emporia selling sports memorabilia of no value at high prices for people who identify themselves with people playing a game rather than with their own lives, a fleet of helicopters to serve the notorious and infamous performing in it, a school for helicopter pilots, a company given start-up money by the city to protect its investment to make heliports, and finally bribing Sikorsky, with more tax breaks to move to Houston to cut down on the delivery time for helicopters so that the sun can be obscured by them darting above us like a swarm of locusts. And let's not forget the law school to train the ambulance chasers to sue over the helicopter crashes killing high-profile celebrities worth more dead than alive. And half-way houses for those recovering from barratry. The Melvin Belli House can have an internecine war with the F. Lee Bailey Facility to see who gets to fly the Jolly Roger.

This is the addiction in full efflorescence when life is insupportable unless a billion of others' money is spent before breakfast. "One more won't hurt." "I can stop anytime I wish." And the dark, lurking fear of extinction, the fear of a drunk of an intervention, leading to vicious attacks on anyone who might suggest that his money were better used by he who made it instead of being taken from him, by force, to do something he, the producer who made it is hurt by, and, in a masterstroke of mental agility equal to denying the Holocaust or 9/11, sniffing that the people whose money is being disposed of by an unelected kleptocracy are merely mean. Self-preservation seen from the eye of a tapeworm. Dr. Freud could use this as an example of projection.

And we all must be brave enough to vote for this. Or we are bad.

Even in my jejune days, I wondered who was at the gate, taking admissions.

There is a saying in the gay world which states that "All clothing is drag." And so it is. All words are drag too, but some more than others and even a Calvin Klein feather boa will not obscure an Adam's apple but serves to point it up to one who is not blind; it is like makeup on a chancre. I am so averse to misdirection that I consider euphemism to be concise irony. Let's declaim that the emperor has no clothes. Shout it from the rooftops. Bother the gods. Let it be known. Stet.

The Midland Football-Soccer and Baseball Complex Development Corporation is on the City Council Agenda for approval of $1.059 Million Dollars for the construction of Luxury Suites, a Concession Stand and a Storage Building at Citibank Ballpark.

If you are a regular reader of the MRT, as the summer of 2006 wore on, all that was ever talked about in the news was the six new luxury suites with a price tag of about $600,000. It would appear that council is being asked to approve a project that has two additional buildings and a new price tag that is approximately $400,000 more than before.

However, this is not the case. If you do a simple search at mywesttexas.com and pull up the March 20, 2006 story, you see the project is $1.01 Million and has the concession stand and storage building.

So who is to blame for this poor reporting? The MRT for spending all of the summer driving the $600,000 figure into the forefront of the Community's consciences, or the City for neglecting to come out and correct the MRT and state the suites are $600,000, but we are spending $1.01 Million on all the improvements?

Terry Teachout's review of Alan Rickman's My Name is Rachel Corrie is spot-on brilliant. For those of you who may not remember, Rachel Corrie was the misguided 23-year old who got herself foolishly run over by a bulldozer in 2003 while protesting an Israeli demolition of some Palestinian-claimed property in the Gaza Strip.

"It's an ill-crafted piece of goopy give-peace-a-chance agitprop--yet it's being performed to cheers and tears before admiring crowds of theater-savvy New Yorkers who, like Mr. Rickman himself, ought to know better.

So why don't they? Because Palestine is the new Cuba, a political cause whose invocation has the effect of instantaneously anesthetizing the upper brain functions of those who believe in it. Take Mr. Rickman, who evidently intended 'My Name Is Rachel Corrie' to be a pro-Palestinian equivalent of 'The Diary of Anne Frank.' Alas, wishful thinking is not the stuff of exciting theater. The script is disjointed to the point of incoherence, the staging crude and blatant, while Megan Dodds's performance as Rachel Corrie is frankly cartoonish.

Part of Ms. Dodds's problem, however, is that the real-life character she is portraying was unattractive in the extreme, albeit pathetically so. Whimsical, humorless and--above all--immature, Corrie burbles on about her feelings...without ever troubling to test them against reality. When she finally does so by thrusting herself into the middle of the Israeli-Palestinian blood feud, she sees only what she passionately longs to see...She grew older but no wiser, and in the end died a martyr to her own naivete."

Here here. Rachel Corrie died completely in vain, for no other reason than to martyr herself into a terrorist cause. Anyone who knew her should be ashamed of her death, not proud of it. She wasted her life, and died as stupidly as she lived. The fact that her story is now a sappy, off-broadway indulgence speaks volumes about how distorted the entertainment industry's world view has become.

Here is an interesting topic over at Dr. Helen. It concerns reports that the school district in Burleson, Texas is training kids to not be submissive and to not comply with a gunman's orders when it comes to school violence.

"Youngsters in a suburban Fort Worth school district are being taught not to sit there like good boys and girls with their hands folded if a gunman invades the classroom, but to rush him and hit him with everything they got - books, pencils, legs and arms.

'Getting under desks and praying for rescue from professionals is not a recipe for success,' said Robin Browne, a major in the British Army reserve and an instructor for Response Options, the company providing the training to the Burleson schools."

As you would expect, not everyone agrees with this philosophy.

"Hilda Quiroz of the National School Safety Center, a nonprofit advocacy group in California, said she knows of no other school system in the country that is offering fight-back training, and found the strategy at Burleson troubling.

'If kids are saved, then this is the most wonderful thing in the world. If kids are killed, people are going to wonder who's to blame,' she said."

While there is some "fight-back" training involved, the basic philosophy of an aggressive response of some sort v. total passivity is not lost on this student:

"'It's harder to hit a moving target than a target that is standing still,' said 14-year-old Jessica Justice, who received the training over the summer during freshman orientation at Burleson High."

It is an interesting topic and I suggest that you read the whole post along with many interesting comments.

I'm working on my "Street Cred" for my future aspirations of running for political office.

Two things computer-related:

1) Internet Explorer 7 became available yesterday and because of the fact that on those very rare instances when my brain is not being altered by Karl Rove's mind-control beam it is being altered by Bill Gates' mind control beam...well....I downloaded and installed it.

And I like.

Still getting a feel for it...but one thing is very apparent: Since I installed the upgrade the text displays really nicely in both the new browser and also in Outlook. Is this the case for anyone else or is it just the mind control beams?

2) I am having a major overdose of schadenfreude this morning on the news of Apple shipping a bunch of iPods that have a virus pre-installed. Even better, they blame Microsoft:

"Apple took another jab at Microsoft in a statement on its Web site (Didja get that? Not in some Mac forum somewhere but on the Apple website! -Ed.) , saying:

'As you might imagine, we are upset at Windows for not being more hardy against such viruses, and even more upset with ourselves for not catching it.' "

Wow. Way to cowboy-up on the responsibility there, dude. That is kind of like blaming the rape victim for wearing a miniskirt.

Me? I blame Bush.

From Captain's Quarters:

"Let's get this straight. Reid's failure to follow the Senate rules on disclosure in 2001, when he sat on the Ethics Committee, somehow got set up by the Republicans. Reid's connection to an attorney involved in a bribery case that directly related to zoning decisions in Clark County, where they both owned property, was a Rovian plot set in motion in 1998. And now Reid's new disclosures of property in an area where he has taken an intense legislative interest somehow relates to Republicans, when no one even mentioned the parcels in question -- because Reid failed to disclose them during his entire time as Senate Minority Leader, while he has castigated Republicans for alleged ethical lapses.

The only reason he's coming clean is because the AP caught him breaking the rules earlier, and it pointed out the extensive connections between Reid, Nevada land developers, and the legislation he has championed that has benefitted all of them."

I guess the mainstream press is only interested in Republican scandals to maintain the pre-election negative drumbeat...Republicans Bad....Republicans Bad....Republicans Bad.....

I just did two searches through MyWestTexas.com's search function that cover the last 14 days:

1) "Mark Foley" - Returned 49 results. Interestingly, a lot were in Spanish.

2) "Harry Reid" - Returned 6 results. One (in Spanish) was related to the land deal mentioned above and the other....wait for it....related to Democrats taking the lead on the Mark Foley scandal.

The Dems and the National mainstream press are tripping over the elephant in the living room while they are demanding to know "who knew what, and when did they know it" on the Foley case.

Three things are notable about the Foley case: 1) he is a creep, 2) he is long gone, and 3) he broke no laws. Say what you will about Republican sleaziness, but when they get caught they have the decency to resign...or at least "get resigned". The charges against Tom Delay are nothing compared to the ones facing Rep. William Jefferson. Yet Delay is gone and Jefferson fights on. And I would bet money that Ronnie Earle comes up empty against Delay.

Mark Foley (who got caught writing creepy e-mails to a 17 year old page) was gone before close of business on day one of the scandal. Gerry Studds (who actually had sex with a 17 year old page) became a hero to half the party and was re-elected several times. Guess which one is the Democrat.

Former Senator Bob Packwood of Oregon, who was forced from office because he was gropey with the female staffers, had to be looking at Bill Clinton and wondering why he (Packwood) didn't just blame it all on a vast left-wing conspiracy. But then Packwood was a Republican and deserved and got no support or defense. But Bill Clinton was a Democrat so the entire feminist movement just laid back and tried their best to enjoy it while he had his way with 35 years of their history.

To be fair, Gary Condit was a Democrat and he was forced from office. But someone actually died in that case. It is refreshing to know that it still takes a Kennedy-sized PR apparatus (and a Kennedy-sized level of press subservience) to get past the actual death of a consort.

(Note: Because the search function was used through MywestTexas.com's site does not mean that anyone at that site has any influence of what the search calles up. I think it hooks straight into the national feeds. I have no idea what the Foley v. Reid ratio in the print edition was or whether it matches the search results closely.)

At last, some asked-for mockery:

Even more (and better) mockery here.

At first the Apple v. Windows commercials were only guilty of being hopelessly smarmy and self-congratulatory. Now they are just making crap up.

Truly, while in any serious application...take your pick:

Office
Dreamweaver
Flash
After Effects
Photoshop
InDesign
Illustrator

.....what is the practical difference between a Mac and a PC?

Zero.

I guess the more time you spend outside of actual power apps the bigger the difference appears between the two operating systems and the more time you spend inside the apps....i.e. doing actual work, the less the difference appears.

And, yes, I am aware of Final Cut Pro...which is a great app, but for 97% of non-linear video editors and 235% of anyone thinking about buying a Mac based on these ads Adobe Premiere Pro 2.0 is just as good.

Has anyone ever complained that their statements were taken completely into context?

The official City of Midland Website got a much needed facelift and it looks great.

Are political cartoonists really that high on the United Nation's list of problems?

From the United Nation's own website:

The fifth seminar in the Unlearning Intolerance seminar series of the United Nations Department of Public Information (DPI), entitled "Cartooning for Peace: The Responsibility of Political Cartoonists?", will explore the rights, roles and responsibilities of political cartoonists in promoting peace issues.

The anger and divisiveness engendered by the publication of the caricature of Prophet Mohammed and the recent controversial exhibit on the Holocaust suggest both a sense of the power and of the necessity of responsibility in the art of cartooning. The choice of this particular topic at the present time will, we hope, offer another opportunity for the United Nations to be a forum where difficult, but necessary, questions are raised and addressed, not only to suggest answers but to spur non-confrontational thought, debate, and enquiry.

I would like to think that the United Nation's website was hacked by the people behind iowahawk or Scrappleface but that is not the case.

Darfur can wait, I suppose, while we admonish cartoonists for causing riots and the Pope for causing nuns in Somalia to be shot down in cold blood.

(h/t: LGF)

Countrywide's Borrowing Costs Rise as U.S. Home Slump Worsens.....

Oddly enough, this may be "good" news as far as our venture with Countrywide. The jobs that local authorities are claiming are being "created" by our most recent economic development foray notwithstanding, Countrywide Mortgage as a whole is in a substantial slowdown. This may mean that they move more jobs to Midland if it is cheaper to maintain said jobs here.

And with State and local authorities so willing to subsidize their payroll that may well be the case.

Of course, this is no comfort for all of the local mortgage lending firms who will have an even harder time holding on to their employees when the tax-fed behemoth comes to town.

One of the numerous advantages of being a highly influential blogging powerhouse is that from time to time we get free stuff to pass on to our "readers".

So I am passing this on to you "readers" (Hi, Mom!): Go here to get a free chapter from Mark Steyn's latest "America Alone".

In other free stuff news, almost as good as my getting a link for a free chapter, Walser received a review setup of an new Intel Based Powerbook Pro (or something) for three lousy words: "but Mac curious".

Life ain't fair.

I sure am glad that the taxpayers of Midland were able to help out Countrywide Mortgage CEO Angelo Mozilo with some of his moving expenses.

The poor guy is living hand to mouth....if by hand-to-mouth you mean he made only $57,000,000 last year.

In any event, I am glad that the Midland Development Corporation was able to be "flexible" in their dealings with Mr. Mozilo. And it is because we are talking about economic development activities in general and public funds specifically that we are able to describe what happened in the negotiations as flexibility.

Had we been talking about the private sector and people using their own money the word flexibility would have not really been a good fit. In fact, in the latter case, one would find it very hard to describe this particular negotiation process without using the term "hillside goat" at least three times.

And speaking of flexibility....now comes the always flexible Perryman Group (who amazingly always seems to have just the perfect study in hand...a miracle I tell you!) to practically identify 700 locals who will likely abandon their current employer to join the Countrywide team.

As a service to those firms already here and paying taxes in Midland, Texas.....passe' as they may be...perhaps the Perryman Group or the MDC can give a heads up to those firms that are likely to lose their employees to Countrywide, a firm that can now pay artificially inflated wages thanks to your tax dollars.

I wonder how many locally based mortgage lenders supported the ED Sales Tax thinking that it would bring people into Midland who would need houses...and therefore mortgages. How many now are realizing that they are paying to subsidize a direct competitor and are helping to arm said competitor with the wherewithal to steal their staff?

Sacrifices need to be made, I suppose. And I am sure that Mr. Mozilo, who has personally made $96 million dollars in the last five years, made some also in his negotiations with the MDC. Or the State of Texas and Tom Craddick, I should more properly say.

I almost got caught up in printing the legend myself there.

Suggestions for JimmyP:

Photo: Bob's Better Burger

Lead: Just a few blocks from the site of this Blog's Namesake, Jessica's Well, is the burger joint where all of the JW editorial board pop in on a regular basis. Nobody knows what they drive, when they go, or wether they go together, but rest assured if you staked out Bob's for a solid week you would most likely meet the whole crew.

It's a good basic rule of thumb that no matter how bad a scandal is, the political class' response will be worse, largely hysterical and lacking any sense of proportion.

Mark Steyn. Now!

The Midland Reporter-Telegram has printed their opinion piece concerning the *cough* Midland Development Corporation's success in getting Countrywide Mortgage to create relocate jobs to Midland. It begins:

"If Midland Development Corp. had been a Big League player during the past five years, it would have batted a little above the proverbial "Mendoza Line" of .200 -- but not much. "

Fine. The MRT is entitled to its analogy and we are entitled to ours. And the MRT editorial staff has not wasted any time in printing the legend. If you have not already, have a look at this article first reporting the "incenting" of Countrywide Mortgage. Fairly well described is the State's (and most particularly Speaker of the House Tom Craddick's) involvement with getting Countrywide to move to jobs to Midland. The local MDC is handing over to Countrywide $1.75 million dollars. The State of Texas delivered to Countrywide $20 million and a "Craddick Moment".

Yet....yet in today's editorial you will find zero mention of the State's involvement or of Speaker Craddick's. None. Nada. It is all MDC this and MDC that. It evens mentions the Texas Alliance Call Center**...almost certainly another Craddick "get" without mentioning Craddick. Particularly irksome is the mention of MDC "successes" TRACE Engines and TMP in the same article. If you want to get a feel for the balance that is shown by the MRT in these press releases, know that TRACE Engines (a company now largely owned by Midlanders and that was coming to Midland regardless of any MDC involvement) will be occupying the same building on Interstate 20 that has been...er...recently vacated by TMP. (What? You didn't know? I am sure it was reported!)

When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.

But even with all of this discussion of who did what and when...the question of whether economic development activities as described above constitute an actual development of the economy is still being begged: In the macro sense, why do this? Jobs are not being created. Not a single one. Indeed, the article itself said that Countrywide is in the process of eliminating jobs. These jobs are only being moved. Period. We are being taxed at both the State and local levels to provide us the ability to steal jobs from other municipalities who no doubt are taxing their locals in order to try to keep from having them stolen.

The various officials involved can extoll the virtues of "economic development" activities or they can tell us of their faith in the free market and of the need for government to have as little involvement as possible.

They should not do both.

Further evidence that the idea of limited government seems to be a guiding principle only for parties out of power.

(** The Alliance call center is already here and operating while the MDC busies itself with efforts to offer them an "incentive" package.)

Michelle Malkin and others are reporting what will receive wall to wall coverage Monday...North Korea has reportedly tested a nuclear device. Since the event was just early enough to make the Monday News Cycle for the print media, I am curious to see what lingering stories survive on the front pages.

Since my answers in for the "Questionless Interview" were buried in the comments, I guess I will expand upon them.

- I grew up in Midland, and somehow I made my way back here after A&M.
- How Old am I? I'm probably the youngest on the staff.
- Gee you're persistent, look I'm old enough to know about "White Oil"
- My dogs are already on the Internet.
- I'm pretty new to blogging, but an old hand at this Internet thing...and I can prove it.
- Really, nothing ever written on the Internet ever really goes away.
- Cheeseburger and Chocolate Malt...at Bob's, where else?
- WinXP and Linux, apples are for pie.
- I haven't had cable in 4 years, how else am I going to spend my time?
- I think Trash collectors understand and know a community better than anyone.
- JW may just be the trash collectors of the local blogosphere.

More answers for the Questionless Interview. I am sure I can't be as clever as Walsingham, but I'll take a shot:

- Late at night and sometimes at lunch.
- From reading too much and writing too little.
- I would never expose my pet in the blogosphere. I like this quote though: "Cats make you earn their affection. They don't sell out like dogs do."
- DeNiro, "Meet the Parents"
- You can't spell "economic development" without "con" can you?
- Yes, that may be true, Jimmy, but I wonder if Countrywide is offering their laid off staff in California a move to Midland?
- I really think the ED folks really are Good Guys that have the best interest of Midland at heart. They are Just Wrong on how to do it. Businesses start up here all the time, without demanding a handout.
- I'd just want to come to dinner at Walsingham's when he's having Reagan, Thatcher, Churchill and JP II over, wouldn't you?
- Oh, all right, I'd take Walser's list and add Thomas Jefferson, Dante and Jim Morrison. No, I wouldn't want Gandhi there either.
- Yes, we could use my house. I have a big table. We'd do steak, another good reason for not having Gandhi over.
- MT Rider? I love driving by the big bus stop on Texas by the MR-T office and counting buses and passengers. On a couple of days there actually been several more passengers than buses making the Big Route Exchange. Quite exciting. I really dig the new, even-more-expensive-to-run buses that are showing up, too.
- Speaking as an Oilman, I like big, inefficient vehicles running around on pointless errands. Soccer moms are big in my book, too.
- Buy every one of the repeat riders a used Crown Vic. And hire a driver for the ones who can't drive.
- Earmarks? What are you talking about? If you don't want to tell me what you are spending my tax dollars on, just give it back to me. I am sure I can invest spend it better than my congressman can.
- Blogging? I just do it for typing practise practice. And to get to play with HTML. You and I are the only ones actually reading it.
- Bob's on odd numbered days, excluding Fridays, Jojo's on even numbered days and always on Friday. Except during Lent.
- Using several hot laptops and several different ISPs.
- Apple? Ate one today.
- Best day blogging? Gee, what could top this?

First off, I am pleased that Countrywide Mortgage has decided to expand their operation into Midland. The prospects of having a large "office space" intensive employer may bode well for many of our empty buildings in town.

I must say that the Midland Development Corporation has actually achieved something significant, HOWEVER in the Grand scheme of things they are still only picking up the Economic Development "Tip" at the big boys table. The real economic development engine for the City of Midland is the "investment" the community made in Tom Craddick by making him one of the youngest and then one of the longest serving representatives in the Texas House.

For the THIRD time in the last year, a significant employer picks Midland after they 1) have a Craddick "moment", 2) have a sizable chunk of change from the Texas Enterprise Fund (or are a State Contractor) and 3) have the MDC toss a little more in the "kitty."

Granted the Locals have done quite a bit of legwork, and I am sure that the locals are the ones working the TEF, but every story (HHS Call Center, Trace Engines, Countrywide) all seem to have the same quote:

"Of course, Tom Craddick played an awfully important role."

Why do we have such an ED war chest when we have Craddick?

"Former mayors say ED 'tools' in place"

Upon reading the article I was surprised to find four former mayors damning the Midland Development Corporation with faint praise. Did anyone else get that feeling?

Not wanting to miss out on the Questionless Interview craze (Read the Comments here), I hereby submit my answers:

• Sometimes. But never before I wash my hands.
• Yes, I have a dog. Two actually, but I would never put their picture on the internet where creeps could look at them.
• It is just a matter of semantics, really. One man's tax-guzzling, legalized-kickback-offering, paleo-commie-pinko, Republican-talking, Democrat-walking civic apparatchik is another man's Certified Economic Developer.
• Winston Churchill, Ronald Reagan, Pope John Paul II, and Margaret Thatcher. In that order.
• Gandhi? Why would I necessarily have a list that contained Gandhi?
• No. I have never ridden an EZ Rider bus. I like to be around people.
• Why do I blog? Because it is like getting a Letter to the Editor published every day. Only without paper. Or a stamp. Or something important to say.
• I tried it once, but it gave me a headache.
• M.I.S.D.
• F.D.I.C.
• R.S.V.P.
• Find out what it means to me.
• Bob's Better Burger. Bar none. Not even close.
• Wintel...but "Mac Curious".
• 18 hours...but got to thinking that it was best left to professionals.
• J-School? How do you know I didn't?
• Sometimes mustard, sometimes mayonnaise. It depends on what I feel like that day.
• My "15 Minutes of Fame"? You mean this isn't it?

Entrepreneurship at its finest.

Two weeks now and we have totally ghosted in the new bloggerdomain feature. I think we can get in if one of us sends some dicey e-mails to one of our imaginary interns and then has to resign.

Am I doing something wrong or are MyWestTexas.com's RSS Feeds just totally busted?

The "Local & State" Feed has been like this for months.

UPDATE: Okay, it is just the one feed that doesn't work. It is the most important one, though.

One of the symptoms of reading online news and blogs is that whenever I go out and pick up the paper and look at that morning's big headline it really seems like I have picked up yesterday's paper.

I would be uncomfortable if I were in the newspaper business.

And one of the things that I like most about reading blogs is that whenever I hear or see the electronic media reporting on something I am aware in real-time of what they are leaving out.

It seems it is time for one of Jessica's Well's most talked about local boards to rotate in some new members. From the City's Press Release:

The City of Midland is currently accepting applications for citizens interested in serving on the Midland Development Corporation Board (MDC). Two of the five members terms will expire on January 15, 2007. Applications will be accepted through October 20, 2006, with the City Council making consideration of the applications in November.

The MDC Board was created in January 2002 following voter approval of a quarter cent sales tax in November of 2001. The Board is responsible for carrying out an investment policy and considers and reviews all requests for Economic Development funding based on revenues from the quarter cent sales tax earmarked for Economic Development.

Application packets are available through the City Secretary's Office on the third floor of City Hall, 300 N. Loraine, or by calling 685.7432. The packet includes an application which should accompany a resume outlining any prior experience with economic development along with employment and educational background. Applicants are also encouraged to list reasons why they would be an asset to the Board. Board members must be a registered voter of the City and have no outstanding indebtness to the City.

So remember, you can put the Taxpayers in Debt in the name of the MDC, but you personally can't be in debt to the City. So I guess everyone with outstanding property/sales tax bills, parking tickets, expired pet licenses and water bills are just out of luck.