City of Midland TIRZ #1 has gotten a bit of ink and criticism which has stemmed from their filing of their annual report and the use of MDC funds to finance a utility infrastructure project in the heart of downtown.

As a bit of history, Midland created the TIRZ while in the throws of our depressed economy in 2001. Which is also around the time the MDC started picking up steam. I can't say I blame our City Fathers for creating the TIRZ. At the time, they were desperate for some kind of economic shot in the arm, and were willing to try any club in the bag, regardless of the past performance of other TIRZ's in communities our size. Truthfully, the concept of a TIRZ is appealing, because the TIRZ only goes if the property values in the TIRZ go up.

The flaw in the logic, is that rising valuations are supposed to be caused by the spending of private money on public projects, or the spending of public money on TIRZ specific public projects. Then the "increment tax collections" generated by the TIRZ would re-imburse the property owner for their public improvements or re-imburse the City or County for pumping extra money into the TIRZ infrastructure.

I don't think anyone figured out how that is supposed to work when valuations go up by virtue of rising oil prices combined with the removal of structures from the tax base by demolition or public purchase.

For those who don't know, Chatper 311 of the Tax Code, is the section of the Texas Statutes that govern Tax Increment Reinvestment Zones. Basically a TRIZ can pay for, or reimbuse an entity for Project Costs which are defined as follows:

(1) "Project costs" means the expenditures made or estimated to be made and monetary obligations incurred or estimated to be incurred by the municipality or county establishing a reinvestment zone that are listed in the project plan as costs of public works or public improvements in the zone, plus other costs incidental to those expenditures and obligations. "Project costs" include:

(A) capital costs, including the actual costs of the acquisition and construction of public works, public improvements, new buildings, structures, and fixtures; the actual costs of the acquisition, demolition, alteration, remodeling, repair, or reconstruction of existing buildings, structures, and fixtures; and the actual costs of the acquisition of land and equipment and the clearing and grading of land;

(B) financing costs, including all interest paid to holders of evidences of indebtedness or other obligations issued to pay for project costs and any premium paid over the principal
amount of the obligations because of the redemption of the obligations before maturity;

(C) real property assembly costs;

(D) professional service costs, including those incurred for architectural, planning, engineering, and legal advice and services;

(E) imputed administrative costs, including reasonable charges for the time spent by employees of the municipality or county in connection with the implementation of a
project plan;

(F) relocation costs;

(G) organizational costs, including the costs of conducting environmental impact studies or other studies, the cost of publicizing the creation of the zone, and the cost of implementing the project plan for the zone;

(H) interest before and during construction and for one year after completion of construction, whether or not capitalized;

(I) the cost of operating the reinvestment zone and project facilities;

(J) the amount of any contributions made by the municipality or county from general revenue for the implementation of the project plan; and

(K) payments made at the discretion of the governing body of the municipality or county that the governing body finds necessary or convenient to the creation of the zone or to
the implementation of the project plans for the zone.

When the TIRZ had no money, everybody could look at the plan and say "someday.". However now that the TIRZ has submitted its latest annual report (which isn't on their website) which reportedly shows a bank of around $785,000, one has to wonder what the TIRZ board is waiting to spend this money on?

To date, the TIRZ could have refunded to the City of Midland the cost of TIRZ Planning which was paid from a 1998 GP Certificate of Obligation, or the TIRZ could have refunded some dollars for City Staff salaries to administer the TIRZ, or the TIRZ could have participated in the City's rate modifications for the disposal costs of the demolition debris, or the cost of City installed infrastructure in Wall Street, but there is no evidence that they have in the Annual Audit or Current City Budget.

To be fair, since September of 2007, some of these things could have been done, but since the required annual report has not be posted on the TIRZ or City websites, we must rely on the media and snippets from the City Council agendas to flesh out the operation of the TIRZ and nothing in the audits or City Budget seem to indicate any expenditures of TIRZ funds.

Exit Question: What is the TIRZ waiting to fund, and when will the City of Midland general fund be "refunded" for planning and infrastructure projects already completed in the TIRZ?

...because they are incapable of rational thought.

I have always thought of myself as a conservationist, and with the rising price of oil I am finding that there are some folks out there who's voices are starting to rise above the din of wacko environmentalism with rational conservation principles.

Case in point. I found this article on MarketWatch.com which talks about the debate about drilling off the coast of California, particularly Santa Barbara. Here are a few choice quotes:

Oil is still so plentiful in the region that it often bubbles uncontrollably to the surface, and shows up in the form of tar globules on some of the area's beaches. Tourists and new residents often curse the offshore platforms as they scrub their blackened feet, but long-time residents know the phenomenon has occurred naturally for thousands of years.

Bubbling Crude in California? I thought only Jed Clampett had that stuff.

[Bruce] Allen is the president of a group called Stop Oil Seeps, which argues that additional offshore drilling could be used to prevent oil from bubbling up on to beaches. And the region could produce nearly 2 billion barrels over a period of 25 years, he says.

Natural seepage alone over a four-year period amounts to roughly the same amount of oil that spilled from the Exxon Valdez incident in Alaska in 1989. He points out that a University of California, Santa Barbara study conducted in the mid-1990s shows that seepage around one of the nearby oil rigs known as Platform Holly dropped by more than 50% over 22 years as a result of production.

Drill more to save California Beaches!? Ohhh...wait, but there is the "local environmentalist" who hearkens back to a drilling accident in 1969 that fissured the caprock and spilled oil into the sea and thinks it is risky.

I guess we need to add a few more dollars to the price for fuel to quiet everyone down.

A friend just died, a man whom I've known for decades. After WWII he and his brother came back to their home town and opened a full-service gas station, one of the two that all the old-time people in town used. He was always cheerful, willing, helpful and was a man of his word.

His son told me that after the funeral he was going through his father's closet and opened a box, which contained the Distinguished Flying Cross. He was a pilot on a dive bomber. He'd worked as a service-station owner for decades and had never mentioned it.

Michelle Obama, she who would be First Lady, complains of repaying student loans, and that since Barry could run for president she's proud of her country for the first time. And she was an intimate with Reverend Jeremiah "God Damn America" Wright, until it was politically impossible to be further associated with him. In trying to justify that association, the father of her children, in her lapidary (and ghetto) phrase, threw his grandmother, the woman who stepped in and raised him, under the bus, saying she was a "typical white woman." Now we know the tenor of the first post-racist president.

I miss Hillary. I really do. Where is that mean, arrogant, power-mad totalitarian? Come back, Hillary. All is forgiven.

On Friday, the Midland Development Corporation will consider the expenditure of funds in an amount not to exceed $329,661.82, for the removal, relocation and replacement of electrical facilities, and the improvement of electrical service to Blocks 55 and 56 in Downtown Midland.

For those who don't know, the demolition of the buildings between Wall, Texas, Big Spring and Colorado has been slowed by the fact the electrical service for a large portion of Downtown was routed through the center of the now demolished Permian Building and given one of the remaining buildings was the old Electric Company (TESCO) office, I'm sure they have found more of the same that needs to be fixed.

Now, the expenditure of $329.661.82 to remove, relocated and replace electrical facilities is a necessary and worthy project that will ensure the economic viability of downtown Midland...but why is the MDC forking over the dough for this project?

Aren't projects like this exactly why we created a Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone (TIRZ)? According to Monday's MRT, the TIRZ had cumulative revenues of approximately $785,000 and revenue of $345,000 last year.

According to the City's 2007 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (pg 100) no funds had been expended through September 30, 2007, so there was a balance of $423,952. With this years revenue around $345,000, that means the TIRZ fund has a bank of around $785,000.

Which is curious, because under the TIRZ heading in the 2007 CAFR summary, there is a list of projects including improvements to Wall Street, the Midland Hilton, new water lines and infrastructure reimbursements for new housing built in the zone by the MCDC, yet no funds were allocated for these projects from the TIRZ account?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the CAFR would seem to indicate the City is publicizing projects as TIRZ based, but they are really banking the TIRZ money and using other funds and entities to do projects the TIRZ was created to do. How do you credit the TIRZ for something they didn't fund?

I wonder how the other taxing entities feel about the City banking TIRZ funds and paying for downtown infrastructure improvements with other funds? I'm sure that revenue differential could have helped reduce the property taxes for the County, Hospital and College Taxpayers.

Sure I understood the practice when the TIRZ generated no $$$, but the City seems to have been operating like they always have and now they wake up with over three-quarters of a million dollars in an account funded by the other Midland Taxing entities and they haven't spent a dime of it, all the while the citizens are unnecessarily paying higher taxes to those other entities.

This is pretty outrageous and yet par for the course. At least the Obamassiah is giving us fair warning: "vero possumus" translates to "possum to the people" or "you'll be eating possum". I think.

If this has been photoshopped, then I have fallen for the gag...

Update: OK, so I am way behind the curve on this one, and way, way behind on my reading. Check here and here and here.

And it would appear to not be photoshop but the real thing. I kinda was hoping for a hoax. Then I would have a higher opinion of Obama's staff's IQ.

No word from the Midland Development Corporation on whether it is "still satisfied" with all of the answers Dean Baldwin Painting provided them regarding any possible problems with the company.

To Review: This is the company that the Midland Development Corporation wanted to spend over $20 mu...mu...mu...million of your tax dollars on (most of it borrowed, by the way) in order to bring them to Midland.

But it was all really just a breakdown in communications you see.

The article is here.

In the private sector something like this would cause resignations. Or worse.

Or even in the pseudo-governmental agency sector in a "fiscally conservative" place like Midland.

Well, Midland about 20 years ago.

More Obama jetsam:

Barack Obama is abandoning public financing for his presidential campaign, reversing his earlier stance in bold certainty he can raise millions more on his own as the first major-party candidate to bypass the tax-checkoff system that was hurried into place after the Watergate scandal.

It gets better.

Last year, Obama filled out a questionnaire where he vowed to "aggressively pursue an agreement with the Republican nominee to preserve a publicly financed general election." But since clinching the Democratic nomination earlier this month, Obama has not broached the subject with McCain.

You can just feel the Change.

And Hope.

I know I do.

According to Forbes.com, NGSG VP of Accounting cashed out shares of the company last Friday for about $30 a share:

The vice president of accounting for Natural Gas Services Group Inc., a provider of compression equipment and services to the natural gas industry, sold 5,000 shares of common stock, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing Monday.

I am thrilled that NGSG is doing so well the directors of the company can cash out shares and bring home profits into their personal accounts. More power to them!

However, a company that is doing so well its directors can cash out about $450,000 in corporate shares over the last two weeks doesn't seem like a company that needs a $275,000 forgivable loan from the MDC. Right or wrong, the perception of spending economic DEVELOPMENT money on a business doing so well their directors can cash out hundreds of thousands of dollars is very poor.

I guess we shouldn't be that hard on the McCain campaign for not knowing about Claytie's famous quote. According to the Dallas Morning News TrailBlazers Blog, the Washington Post had a little help from Planned Parenthood on their little trip through the political way-back-machine.

Turns out, Planned Parenthood contacted the Washington Post and ABC, reminding the Beltway media of what happened in Texas 18 years ago. After reporters called the campaign asking about the episode, McCain pulled the plug on the fundraiser.

And who heads Planned Parenthood? Cecile Richards, the daughter of the late Texas governor, who was at her mother's side much of the 1990 campaign.

I guess that hatchet wasn't buried with the late Ann Richards.

Exit Question: does this mean that joke is now a generational political grudge, kinda like the old testament curses that pass down to the third or fifth generation?

...and the campaign contribution jackpot from Midland is now a reported $1.5 to $2 Million ++.

MyWestTexas.com is reporting that Midland County Republican Chairwoman, Sue Brannon said the event will happen.

... Brannon said the visit was postponed because McCain "had a personal conflict" and 400-500 people had already bought tickets -- far too many for Williams, an oilman, and his wife Modesta to accommodate in their home.

"It's going to be rescheduled at the (Hilton Midland Plaza)," said Brannon, who has been heavily involved in the preparations.

"That's just a bad story and not true. McCain is coming and will meet with the people giving megabucks. Everything is fine."

Exit Question No. 2: Who is McCain Spokesman Brian Rogers and just how politically clueless is he?

UPDATE:The Houston Chronicle analyzes the political dance about donors and surrogates in the internet age:

Stuart Rothenberg, publisher of the nonpartisan Rothenberg Political Report, said the recycling of ancient controversies reflects a new reality of politics in the Internet Age.

"This whole campaign is about destroying the candidate by destroying the surrogates," Rothenberg said. The trend "is enhanced by the Internet and the ability to do research on those connected to the campaigns."

Because attacks spread so quickly on the Internet, campaigns have adopted a new philosophy, he said: "If there is a hot potato, drop it as soon as possible."

Dr. Johnson was asked his opinion of a performance of Shakespeare's Cymbeline, and he said, "It is impossible to criticize unresisting imbecility." For years I misinterpreted that remark, and may still be doing so. But it was fetched up in my memory last night watching Meet the Spartans.

This movie satirizes itself in a postmodern way as being a cheap rip-off of 300, and I've never been that much of a fan of those movies of the Airport type, but then in the 80s I was a very serious young man about what I considered to be art. Now I figure that it's entertainment, and not art, and that it's in the eye of the beholder, this beholder. This gives me the added benefit of instantly turning off music that is labeled "challenging" but is really only ugly even if someone supposedly knowledgeable about music is listening.

MTS is a movie of, well, unresisting imbecility. The gags are sophomoric with an emphasis on the moron part of that word. Too many barf jokes, but no poo, pee or fart jokes, and the jokes are benign. Christopher Guest's mockumentaries such as Waiting for Guffman and Best of Show are very funny but there is an essential meanness to them. Guest takes simple people, fly-over country people, who are invested in some slightly ridiculous pursuit and hones and refines their lives down to being nothing but that, and mocks their artless sincerity mercilessly. It's rather British in effect, like the Mr. Bean movies. Very funny, but you have to steel yourself, to relax to the pain as you empathize with these dolts. At first you don't know where to look.

No such pain in MTS. One gag has the battle at Thermopylae between Xerxes and the Persians and Leonidas and the Spartans, one of the two or three most important to Western civilization, reduced to ghetto name-calling and break-dancing. "Yo mamma is so fat..." with side-to-side head action. Relax and enjoy it--I did. I don't know if it was meant to be a send-up of ghetto culture.

Another fetching gag is the bottomless pit, which Leonidas pushes irritating people into, and they are irritating. It's every curmudgeon's dream, the bottomless pit to shove whining people into, and Leonidas kicks fool after moron into it. This always works for me, and like a great Vaudevillian he left me wanting more.

Witless and fun.

--------------------

From Greek to Geek: Blu-ray really has won. This utterly trivial movie was released in a good transfer and with DTS-HD Master Audio. It is uncompressed, the same bit-rate and resolution as the original recording. The normal Dolby AC3 was wonderful, but this is as much above that as SACD is above the CD. And all this technical splendor for this movie. It's like eating a Big Mac off of Wedgwood but the potential is obvious. Warning. If you have a sound system capable of it, don't turn it up as loud as you normally would; you'll notice the airiness and transparency of the soundtrack, for compression always feels leaden, but after a while your ears will start hurting at sound levels that didn't seem all that loud. Yes, there is that much compression in normal DVDs.

ABC News Blogs are reporting that John McCain has canceled his scheduled appearance in Midland.

Sen. John McCain on Friday abruptly canceled a Monday fundraiser that had been scheduled at the home of a Texas oilman, after ABC News contacted the campaign inquiring about a verbal blunder the Texan made during an unsuccessful 1990 campaign for governor.

Clayton Williams stirred controversy during his 1990 campaign for governor of Texas with a botched attempt at humor in which he compared rape to weather. Within earshot of a reporter, Williams said: "As long as it's inevitable, you might as well lie back and enjoy it."

Just about any political junkie can remember all the way back to the 1990 Governor's Race, you know the now famous quote...but apparently John McCain and the rest of his staff didn't. I can't believe this is still making hay some 18 years later.

UPDATE:The Democratic National Committee is now pushing McCain to give back the $300,000 reportedly raised by Claytie.

"Mr. Williams' comments are not only outrageous and disgusting, they degrade our values as Americans," DNC spokeswoman Karen Finney said in a statement Saturday. "John McCain should make it clear that he understands just how offensive these comments are by not only canceling a fund raising event but also returning the money Williams raised for his campaign."

Yeah, a little colorful Cowboy metaphor at the Ranch over 18 years ago qualifies as "outrageous and disgusting" and "degrades our values as Americans"!?

Talk about a hypocrite. I couldn't begin to list the scores of elected Democrats and Democrat supporters who in word and deed have done things that are "outrageous, disgusting and degrading to our American Values" in this election cycle, much less since 1990. Add to that, most of those folks are celebrated by the liberals.

UPDATE: Houston Chronicle's Texas on the Potomac Blog reaction. Along with CNN, and just about every news/blog in political punditry.

Exit Question: Why didn't Giuliani back away from Claytie?

ANWR Exploration
House Republicans: 91% Supported
House Democrats: 86% Opposed

Coal-to-Liquid
House Republicans: 97% Supported
House Democrats: 78% Opposed

Oil Shale Exploration
House Republicans: 90% Supported
House Democrats: 86% Opposed

Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) Exploration
House Republicans: 81% Supported
House Democrats: 83% Opposed

Refinery Increased Capacity
House Republicans: 97% Supported
House Democrats: 96% Opposed

SUMMARY

91% of House Republicans have historically voted to increase the production of American-made oil and gas.

86% of House Democrats have historically voted against increasing the production of American-made oil and gas.

Via Powerline blog.

Yesterday, among the WellHead chatter caused by the Texans for Public Justice piece, CNNMoney.com reported:

The vice president of technical services for Natural Gas Services Group Inc. sold 10,000 shares of common stock, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing Wednesday.

The article goes on to say that the stock was sold at a price between $30.50 and $30.71, which means he banked $305,000 on the low end. Now, about that $275,000 dollar forgivable loan from the MDC?

From the New York Sun:

"I am very angry, frankly, at the oil companies not only because of the obscene profits they've made but at their failure to invest in alternate energy to help us eliminate our dependence on foreign oil," the senator said. "They're making huge profits and that happens, but not to say, 'We're in this so we can over time eliminate America's dependence on foreign oil,' I think is an abrogation of their responsibilities as citizens."

Since when was it solely...Hell, when was it ever the job of the oil industry to develop alternative energy sources? Alternative energy sources are as much a technology problem as anything so why isn't candidate McCain hectoring Apple for not developing alternative sources of energy. Or Microsoft? Or GE?

All of those profits from iPods and iPhones and what does Apple do with it? They just develop more and better iPods and iPhones! How selfish!

How about hectoring George Lucas and Industrial Light and Magic? Lucas has a greater net worth than any major oil company CEO yet instead of alternative energy sources we get Jar-Jar Binks and "Indiana Jones Phones the Last One In. Collect."

What about beer distributorships, Senator? You beer-fortune heiress wife is worth a bunch of money that came at the expense of public health! Yet has she ever seen fit to help fund an alternative energy start-up? Ever?

And here is the kicker. Senator McCain has been in office for, what, twenty years now? And doesn't the Federal Government actually make more profit off of a gallon of gas than the oil companies? So if oil company profits from a gallon of gas are obscene what would you call that made by the feds? And with all of their obscene profits what alternative sources of energy have they developed?

It will be interesting to see what the good Senator says in front of his Midland audience and how it matches up with the fiery anti-capitalistic rhetoric he uses elsewhere.

Senator McCain has made an offer to Senator Obama to accompany him to Iraq to see for himself the situation on the ground there.

Perhaps one of the local bigs could make a similar offer to McCain and offer to take him up to ANWR so he can see for himself the environmental impact of taking 2,000 acres out of roughly 19,000,000 acres of nasty, frozen, flat, and mosquito-infested wilderness in order that we may help reduce prices and the nation's energy dependence.

We have a shortage of the supply of oil right now. Sure, let's fix it by doing everything we can to decrease the incentive of those who actually take the risks and do the work to go out and find it, bring it to the surface, refine it, and make sure that it is available at every corner grocery. And at a price (right now) that Europeans would absolutely love to be paying.

Here is a question for someone to ask the good Senator when he arrives in town: "Senator, if you were actually trying to drive the price of a gallon of gasoline through the roof, what would you do differently?"

The alternative? Saint Changy Luther McHoperton of Arc, Jr., Lightworker.

This just depresses the hell out of me.

A report on the Midland Development Corporation from Texans for Public Justice.

Apparently, Ospurt and Walsingham's efforts have earned us some ink.

An excerpt:

A review of MDC's top-dollar projects suggests that the agency lacks enough good development ideas to wisely invest more than $5 million in annual tax revenue. Too many dollars chasing too few good ideas may have inspired the "new business model" that MDC pioneered with Countrywide. Under that model, MDC offers more public funds with fewer strings attached. The agency also seems to dedicate ever more tax funds to bigger and riskier deals. In this way it keeps up with its income stream and need not return public funds. Yet Entrada, Countrywide and Dean Baldwin stand out as some of the agency's most reckless schemes. Asked why the agency's biggest deals have been challenging at best, Hatley said larger capital investments attract more critics. Yet he also added, "I think our best years are still ahead of us."

One yardstick by which to judge the MDC might be to ask the question: Would a conservative Midland investor embrace such deals as Entrada, Countywide and Dean Baldwin? The answer may turn on how much of his or her own money was at stake.

Later commentary from the OsWals Axis will no doubt follow.

Full Disclosure: Jessica's Well was approached via e-mail (06/09/08) by Texans for Public Justice for "on the record" and/or "background" information regarding the MDC. We kicked around the idea of whether or not we should respond and ultimately we did not, mainly because thought that it would end up as more of a hit piece on Tom Craddick than a report on the MDC.

In fairness, it isn't the hit piece we thought it would be and fairly well hammers home the question we have been asking since the beginning of this blog, which is "How is it that the local* "fiscally conservative" pols can only recognize unwarranted taxpayer subsidies and corporate welfare when other pols are doing it but not when they themselves are?"

UPDATE: * I say "local" above, but this isn't a Midland problem. This is a universal problem. The question has to be asked: Is "Texans for Public Justice" really bothered by what we at this blog consider to be inherent problems with development corporations no matter who is running or assisting them or are they only interested in the MDC because it is the devcorp most closely tied to Speaker Craddick?

UPDATE: Texans for Public Justice responds:

RE: Is "Texans for Public Justice" really bothered by ... development corps ... or are they only interested in the MDC because it is closely tied to Craddick?

This is a worthwhile question. One thing to consider is that this is hardly the first time our Watch Your Assets series has probed the development incentives by local governments. In fact, last October we did a piece on subsidies by our own City of Austin, home of innumerable liberals, Democrats, tree huggers, homosexuals or whatever [Longhorn Fans? Eeewwwwww! --- Ed.]. There, again, we concluded that Austin really doesn't need to hand out taxpayer money to private businesses--which are flocking here in droves anyway. On the question of taxpayer handouts to private businesses we're pretty consistently conservative.

As for Craddick, it would've been silly not to mention that Craddick is from Midland and has a major hand in the TX Enterprise Fund. But we didn't obsess on the guy. If we did, we would've included such choice morsels as Craddick boasting that he got Countrywide head Mozilo to land in Midland on his way home to Calif.

Anyway, we welcome your dissection and critiques.

Best,

Andrew Wheat

TPJ on Austin subsidies:

http://www.tpj.org/watchyourassets/austin/

Austin's Not-So-Smart Growth Subsidies
The City of Austin is doling out $117 million in publicly financed incentives to attract a select few businesses to the mushrooming metropolis, but many businesses are flocking to the city without the benefit of taxpayer-funded handouts. An analysis of the city's seven economic development incentive deals shows that the costs of these incentives often outweigh the city's optimistic estimates of their long-term benefits.

I was a fan of David Letterman from the very beginning. Watching almost religiously from the time when he started at NBC and then following him to CBS, I have been a fan for more than two decades. I have watched through the ratings highs and lows, the heart by-pass, the Oscar Night hosting that everyone in the biz dumped on but I loved because he refused to take those in the audience as seriously as they always demand.....and as seriously as he now takes himself, I guess.

The night was June 9, 2008, when the channel switched for good. The guest was Tom Brokaw and instead of interviewing Brokaw he broke off on a rant about the last eight years and how miserable everything was and how nothing has gone right. In other words, he spent his time and his audience's time on how Bush is a moron, a dope, a liar, and the cause of everything bad from global terrorism to global warming. It was hot for New York City that day..even a record for La Guardia airport...but not for most other locations in the area. Clearly Bush's fault. And the fault of others who have decided for themselves that they like to drive alone to work. Like Letterman. Or like non-commercial jet travel. Like Letterman. The operative word being "others".

I never thought that I would say this but, "Thank God for Tom Brokaw."

I noticed early on in Letterman's rant that Brokaw was becoming increasingly uncomfortable. Brokaw is no member of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy and still you could begin to see that he...politely...may have lost patience with Dave's Bush Derangement Syndrome-driven seizure.

Because he called Letterman on his hypocrisy right there, while sitting in the guest chair.

The exchange:

LETTERMAN: Now here the other day I hear that the Senate, they were monkeying around, they had some kind of climate change bill and it just ran out of gas and it dropped dead. And people are all talking about, "okay we're going to change the emissions by 2035, by 2020." That's too late. I mean, it's a hundred degrees now! In 2020, honest to God, what's it going to be?

BROKAW: Well, everybody has to dive into this. A lot of businesses are making the turn because they think there's an opportunity-

LETTERMAN: But it's got to come from the government. They have to lead us. We need leadership here.

BROKAW: The government has to lead and those of us who drive - uhh uhh - big carbon-emitting vehicles or fly in airplanes that have only two passengers on them-

LETTERMAN: Alright, alright, that's fine Tom.

Bravo, Tom Brokaw.

Okay, so a talk show host gets overly political and because his politics don't slant my way I am not amused. It happens a lot. And working in an industry that considers Bill Maher a deep thinker it has to be almost irresistable to not branch out and try to be seen as something more than a delivery van for other people's words and thoughts. That happens a lot too.

But here is the real issue: Can they at least take care of their real business first? The business of entertaining comedy? The bait part of what is now become bait and switch?

What was most maddening about the fateful show of June 9 is that Letterman very obviously spent more time on his "Bush is responsible for everything bad" rant than he spent on his Top Ten list.

Here is that night's Top Ten List.

It sucks.

Truly, if you are going to make me wade through your sophomoric political views there ought to be something else in it for me somewhere.

And June 9, 2008 is the night I realized that the Late Show with David Letterman is mostly switch with very little bait. And, looking back, I have been in denial for quite some time regarding the decline of the show.

I had always believed that Dave was the type of guy that would give up his show before he lost interest in doing it. Like Johnny Carson did. Obviously, I was wrong.

At his best, Dave was as good as Carson but wasn't as steady. Any veteran Letterman watcher remembers the periods of snarkiness, or bitterness, or total NYC inside humor, or whatever that would permeate the show for weeks at a time sometimes.

But this is different. He has mentally checked out.

The good news is that if you want to see fresh, new, funny stuff free of bitter personal politics you only have to look to the Late, Late Show with Craig Ferguson. Ironically, Ferguson's show is owned by Letterman's production company, "Worldwide Pants."

It is tremendously funny...like Dave's show used to be. I highly recommend it.

(Note to Craig Ferguson on the one chance in a kajillion that he actually reads this post: Stay out of the politics. There are a lot of people out there like me that tune in because the show is truly funny. And judging from the occasional Rush Limbaugh oxycontin joke or the McCain "oldster" jokes....but the noticeable lack of Obamessiah jokes...I am pretty sure that we don't share a lot of political views. I don't ever expect a show to flatter my politics. I don't seek that. I do seek out your show partly because it is generally free of politics and I hope it remains that way.)

Great! This a good opportunity to ask him if he is smoking crack. Or something.

From NRO's The Corner:

When asked about gas prices at the pump, and whether they could go any lower, Sen. McCain said he didn't think so because "You've got a finite supply, basically, and a cartel controlling it."

This is exactly wrong. There is no finite supply, or if there is we are 100 years away from it. I don't know who has put this thought into the senator's mind, but it is a bad thought in terms of energy and a bad thought in terms of the politics of this campaign.

Look, we have the Bakken fields, the outer continental shelf and all the offshore drilling opportunities, ANWR, and so forth. There's probably over a trillion barrels worth of reserves out there. And Republicans in the Senate are trying to move a deregulated drilling bill through the process. McCain should be backing this and talking about it.

Democrats are out there pushing cap-and-trade, which would jack up gasoline and oil energy prices, damage the economy, and create a massive central-planning exercise. The Democratic Congress has done nothing to alleviate the oil shortage. They're captured by the greenies. They should be blamed.

This is a real turnaround issue for the Republicans and Mr. McCain. But McCain's not going there.

Incidentally, in the Today Show interview, the senator takes a whack at oil-company profits, suggesting they should return some of these profits to consumers. And he would consider voting for a windfall profits tax. And then he used the phrase "obscene profits." Make that two oh my goshes.

The media have been crucial to Barack Obama's whole candidacy. His only achievements of national significance in his entire career have been media achievements and rhetorical achievements.

The rest is here.

Obamagoguery. Feel it!

Living as I do in Culo del Pecos, I can only watch with sour amusement the frolics of the elected board that Midland has to spend OPM for what seems to be increasingly desperate justifications for its own existence.

Theodore Dalrymple wrote Junk Medicine: Doctors, Lies and the Addiction Bureaucracy, and the thrust of the book is that both junkies and the addiction bureaucracy have a vested interest in making sure that no one really is cured from opiate addition. In a word, the bureaucracy needs addicts more than addicts need the bureaucracy. This applies to nearly every government program.

One of the (rare) amusing things that comes to me over the internet was

Research has led to the discovery of the heaviest element yet known to science. The new element, Governmentium (Gv), has one neutron, 25 assistant neutrons, 88 deputy neutrons, and 198 assistant deputy neutrons, giving it an atomic mass of 312. These 312 particles are held together by forces called morons, which are surrounded by vast quantities of lepton-like particles called peons. Since Governmentium has no electrons, it is inert; however, it can be detected, because it impedes every action with which it comes into contact.
A minute amount of Governmentium can cause a reaction that would normally take less than a second to take from four days to four years to complete. Governmentium has a normal half-life of 2-6 years; it does not decay, but instead undergoes a reorganization in which a portion of the assistant neutrons and deputy neutrons exchange places.
In fact, Governmentium's mass will actually increase over time, since each reorganization will cause more morons to become neutrons, forming isodopes. This characteristic of moron promotion leads some scientists to believe that Governmentium is formed whenever morons reach a critical concentration. This hypothetical quantity is referred to as critical morass. When catalyzed with money, Governmentium becomes Administratium, an element that radiates just as much energy as Governmentium since it has half as many peons but twice as many morons.

In the past several years Wikipedia has grown considerably in stature--it's the place can you go for a fast and sufficient explanation of how many channels at what sampling and resolution DVD-Audio has. Or even a thumbnail comparison of that new all-important buzz word "existential" and how that might lead, in hedonistic or just sloppy hands, to nihilism. And how I, who tend to be utilitarian and unspiritual, need to watch especially carefully that I do not cross some of those lines myself. And it is immeasurably helpful to poseurs and wannabe authorities and bloggers but then I'm being redundant.

You'll have noticed that some Wikipedia articles are flagged as being biased; some others, however, which transparently are, are not so flagged. I personally think that the article on the late, unlamented Abbie Hoffman is, or was, biased, suggesting that he could not possibly have committed suicide (when it seems obvious that he did), and instead tends, faute de mieux, toward a conspiracy theory. Well, why not? When facts about a leftie are uncongenial, it's because of the VWRC (Vast Right Wing Conspiracy) did it. I am indebted to Mrs. Clinton for that.

But there are true sinister forces at work, a Vast Left Wing Conspiracy. A site I once visited stated that there is a Wikipedia editress named Tabletop who takes a religiously green stance toward all environmental issues and whenever someone would cite any authority which did not toe her line of lockstep ideological purity, she would, good foot-soldier in the totalitarianism des nos jours edit it out, as the apocrypha were edited out of the Bible. Lawrence Solomon of The National Post did a good article on the green Nazis at Wikipedia. This puts us on notice that Wikipedia is not perfect. But it is not say that it is not good for other things, and it's up to us to decide what it's good for.

And thus Wikipedia is a case study in the Art of the Web. What to believe is up to the reader, especially in the realm of anonymous authors.

Who can take in even seasoned people. Recall the humiliation of Pierre Salinger who insisted that a Navy missile shot down TWA flight 800. This is from CNN, and it doesn't seem to be spun. Of course Salinger is best known for his friendship with the Kennedys, making his exposure as a gull very enjoyable on many levels. Salinger covered himself in ordure with his loopy conspiracy theory, proving to the nation that even a seasoned reporter could be had. Well, he believed in Camelot so he'd telegraphed what he was capable of.

I don't know. But that is what I heard.

UPDATE: It's official: MyWestTexas.com has the story.

I am not a Mac Addict in any way. I do love my iPod and my iPhone, though. I love my iPhone so much that I fully expected to be one of the first in town to get the new iPhone 2.0 that was announced today by Apple.

I expected to be one of the first based upon what I just knew....excuse me....based upon what new features and capabilities very much should have come with the iPhone 2.0.

Guess what? Apple has pretty much forfeited the right to talk about Microsoft's "Vista" problem because they now have one of their own.

I am not the only one to notice how underwhelming the new iPhone is.

...by writing a letter to the Editor. Seems kind of silly. It is kind of like fighting a regional television advertisement with a print ad in another region's local "Dollar Saver." Though the irony really sets in when the parties needing to combat the mis-information and unhelpful articles in these blogs, maintain their own internet presence with the capabilities to directly interface with those in the public who oppose their plans.

I'd link the letter, but MyWestTexas.com doesn't seem to post letters to the editor, and if they do, their navigation and search don't let you access them, easily.

Never the less, MOTRAN, with the support of their member agencies (M/O Chambers & M/O Economic Development Corporations) wrote a letter editor which appeared in the Sunday MRT which basically said "La Entrada isn't Dead." This comes on the heels of a couple of less than stellar reports from various transportation consultants on the amount of trade volume from Mexico through Presidio, and the Santa Teresa / Chihuahua in-land ports agreements which were recently signed.

Now, each of these stories received minor coverage in the Midland Odessa papers, but they have been burning up the local papers, message boards, club websites and blogs in the Big Bend region. Each of these groups have essentially declared victory over La Entrada and are looking to drive the stake through the heart of this trade corridor for good.

So, a quick trip to the Midland Economic Development Corporation and MOTRAN shows they don't even have a copy of the letter to the editor in their "news sections." Nor, do these websites have any updated information on their position, links to public hearings, links to consultant reports, or anything that puts their spin on the issue in the hands of the public. To top it off, it doesn't look like the MOTRAN site has been updated since early to mid-2007.

To make matters worse, since the letter to the editor was in the Midland paper, what good does that do when the Big Bend region doesn't even get that paper, and Midland support is tacit, because we are too busy trying to solve a housing crisis and making money on oil to worry about trade with Mexico.

I bet there are a couple of local web-consultants who could have worked for the both the MDC and MOTRAN to help them keep an updated and relevant site for about the same amount of money that's been spent on out of town consultants telling them they need to do these things.

One of these days these entities might figure out how to properly utilize the media they control....but until then, they are going to continue to get hammered.

And in an organ of the liberal-left press even more revered, by the precious, than The Washington Post, comes something even more jaw-dropping, mind-boggling, and gob-smacking.

[Hillary] and a self-pitying Bill continued to pull focus

This is from an article by Maureen Dowd. Remember her? She's as reliably wrong as Eleanor Clift, except this once.

Ah, Hillary. The gift that keeps giving. Tearing the Democratic party apart, and wearing out the patience of the liberal elite who defended their sleaze for years. Nothing was too coarse to be defended, no action too crass or common to be overlooked.

And now the Clintons' coarse opportunism, their self-pity, their sharp-elbowed self-promotion, their naked need, his for adulation, hers for absolute autocratic power, are finally on the radar screen of the liberals.

Every conservative in the nation now has a right, and maybe an obligation, to stand in the face of every liberal and say, in an intensely irritating, school-yard, sing-song voice, "I told you so, I told you so, I told you so. If you hadn't defended them, they'd be gone and you wouldn't be going through this. You sold your party to a pair of cheap hick hustlers from Arkansas, reeking with corruption and deceit. You ignored Bill's temper and petulance, praising his intelligence while ignoring that it was in service to nothing but his own childish desires. You ignored Hillary's totalitarian instincts, not realizing that totalitarians are cannibals and you're on the menu. And you just may be sauced with a Republican president. Nyah nyah nyah."

Enjoy.

Lionzed by the MSM as a "peace activist" and a mother with "absolute moral authority" concerning the war, Saint Cindy was big news for a good period of time.....As long as she was dogging Bush.

Then she made the mistake of dogging Nancy Pelosi, and the MSM and the Democrat Party establishment flushed her straight down the memory hole.

She no longer fit their narrative.

I think that you should consider making the same kind of purchase. Go here to find out how.

I've checked the skies; are they intact? I've checked to make sure my affairs are in order. There is a headline. In a respected (by the liberals) newspaper. Which reads

The Iraqi Upturn
Don't look now, but the U.S.-backed government and army may be winning the war.

Sit down before you click on this link.

If you didn't click on it or are in shock, here's a choice bit:

...and it ought to mandate an already-overdue rethinking by the "this-war-is-lost" caucus in Washington, including Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.).

This seems to be a sea-change, as out of place as Bishop Spong conducting his orgies on a church altar.

When the supercilious left-liberal press writes an article like this, you may bet that they know that it's time to do it now before it's too embarrassing later on.

Enjoy. I expect that HopePeaceChangeYadaYadaYada isn't enjoying it.

With gasoline prices at all time highs, and Midland roads becoming congested outside our famous 15-minute rush hour, is anybody taking the bus?

The Federal Transit Authority's National Transit Database is finally putting out ridership figures about 45 days after they are submitted to the agency, so lets see how EZ-Rider is doing in our current economy:

October 2007 was an all-time high point for EZ-Rider with 41,191 UPT Bus Trips and 2,422 UPT Para-Transit. (UPT = Un-linked passenger trip, or every time a rider gets on a Bus)

March 2008 is not so good for EZ-Rider, with 35,733 UPT Bus and 1,915 UPT Para-Transit.

So, while gasoline prices have risen about 50% during that time, ridership is down by 5,458 Bus UPT (-13.25%) and 507 Para-Transit UPT (-20.93%).

So what really drives Midland/Odessa residents (Midland more than Odessa) to use the bus over driving a car if rising fuel prices doesn't seem to pack more people on the bus? What is happening at EZ-Rider now that fuel prices are rising like crazy and ridership is dropping significantly from all-time highs?

UPDATE: Here's the ridership figures graph from inception of service to March 2008.
Excel swapped my lables on the two series, but you get the drift.

I was curious to see if the most current "monthly" report from the Midland Development Corporation was still October, 2007, but, lo and behold, they have posted a monthly report for April of this year.

The following information is a couple of screen grabs from that monthly report of some numbers that caught my eye. I don't want to go too far out on a limb and would rather leave it to our resident expert on how official numbers are arrived at. (That would be you, os).

The chart below shows the hopes and dreams of the MDC in their endeavor to bring jobs to the city. In each of the last two MDC fiscal years the MDC has set a goal of 100-400 "jobs created" and that (assuming full credit for this job creation should go to the MDC...which it shouldn't) they have created 37 jobs.

The other chart that I clipped from the MDC's April report shows the Workforce Commission's Labor Market Information covering April, 2007 to April, 2008.

I will have to defer to Ospurt's interpretation of the meaning of these numbers but what I see in the raw data is that the Midland Development Corporation is sucking over $4 million per year out of the local economy and in the last two years has "created" 37 jobs.

In contrast, in the interval between March, 2008 and April, 2008, the local economy by itself put 1105 more people to work. From April, 2007 to April, 2008, the employment numbers grew by 5,604.

Even if the Dean Baldwin Painting deal had gone through and we had spent a ton of money AND loaded up on a ton of debt to get them here it would have brought in 200! New! Jobs!

Which represents about one-fifth of the increase in employment figures for the 30 days between March and April of this year.

Os, your thoughts?

UPDATE: I kind of botched the numbers in that I have overstated the employment expansion numbers by using the number for the entire Permian Basin Workforce instead of just the Midland MSA. This is why we run things by the Great Oz. Read the comments for Os' input concerning the numbers.

Round midnight Comedy Central shows Team America: World Police, and it has to be after midnight because if it weren't the bleeping would make it unintelligible. It's a movie by Trey Parker and Matt Stone, who gave us, and many thanks, South Park.

No doubt you've heard of South Park but here are a few facts. It's generated a cottage industry of books, and even a category of people called South Park conservatives. This term was coined by Andrew Sullivan, who describes himself as fiscally conservative and socially liberal.

Not only is South Park sidesplittingly funny in their abattoir of sacred liberal cows, but they're so successful that they've signed onto their 15th season, and I hope that the pinks on Comedy Central realize what whores they, Comedy Central, are.

Oh wait. I forgot. It's all about them, isn't it? That's why they say it's about other people and they believe it. So that's okay then.

The Wikipedia article cited

Team America itself satirizes the perceived jingoism that leads American administrations to take unilateral foreign policy action that critics deride as "policing the world". The Film Actors Guild (F.A.G.) satirizes the naïve and egotistical nature of Hollywood celebrities' political activism. The "Film Actors Guild" is a reference to the Screen Actors Guild.

I didn't get, or choose to get, the supposed jingoism of our unilateral foreign policy for I'm of the opinion that the foreign policy of people who consider themselves our betters, and I mean Swedish socialists and Eurocrats and their brethren under the skin that we paid for, is hopeless, founded in a toxic stew of immature wishful thinking and a false consciousness of statist moral superiority. Well, in 25 years' time I shall be vindicated when the EU is Eurabia and under Sharia.

I do get, however, Team America's satire of the opinions of Hollywood bubbleheads. Let's never forget that actors read the world of other people, are dressed by yet other people, managed by still more people and so forth until one wonders what really is left. But they look decent compared to the professional leftists that one hears, or would if one had the stomach for it, on Air America.

Team America deals with an attempt by Kim Jong-Il to coordinate terrorist attacks all over the world to reduce everything to third-world status, and the Hollywood bubbleheads are all actively engaged in helping Dear Leader do just that. Wait. Is this a satire or a documentary?

The Sean Penn marionette announces, "Before Team America showed up, [Iraq] was a happy place. They had flowery meadows, and rainbow skies and rivers made of chocolate, where the children danced and laughed and played with gumdrop smiles." Janeane Garofalo's marionette, but with more life in its plastic eyes, declaims, "Our job as actors is to read the newspapers, and repeat what we've read on TV, like it is our own opinion." What made my jaw drop is learning that Garofalo can read.

Parker and Stone have a grudge against the dishonest Michael Moore, who is referred to by the supercomputer as a "giant socialist weasel." Colorful, accurate but limited. But we could sit up all night in a contest for the perfect five-word epithet for the tendentious, lying, sensationalist, oh all right, giant socialist weasel Michael Moore and still not find it.

At the end is, of course, a fight scene and we have the splendid, cathartic sight of Janeane Garofolo's head being blown off, and Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins also being liquidated.

But be warned. You must have a DVR or VCR--the last hour is so interlarded with commercials advertising hot, steamy texting with hotties in your area that it brings to mind that old Carson skit of the late late late show with two seconds of movie interrupting the commercials.

From MyWestTexas.com:

The MDC agreed to partner with the airport in applying for the grant by being the required local non-airport revenue source to contribute $100,000.

City airport director Marv Esterly said he hopes to receive a $500,000 grant from the federal government with the MDC contribution and an additional $100,000 approved by the City Council earlier this week.

To review: Airport authorities hope to combine a $100,000 subsidy from the MDC with another $100,000 subsidy from the City of Midland in the hopes that we can rack up a third subsidy from the Feds for the amount of $500,000.

Why are we doing this?

"This will further help us with our efforts to recruit and retain airline service," [Airport Director Marv] Esterly said. "The airline industry has been plagued with rising fuel costs -- it becoming their No. 1 expense. These funds can help us with incentives to help ease the companies."

We are hoping that we can pay them enough money to not look so hard at actual boarding numbers to determine how many flights in and out of Midland they should have.

Like $700,000 is going to do that.