A year ago, the Richardson Coalition, a political action committee formed to elect its preferred candidates to city council, created something called the "Real Heroes Award." Many people were suspicious of the PAC's motives (and by many people, I mean me and by suspicious, I mean dead certain). Their voting procedure, requiring the public to submit their email addresses to the PAC, smacked of an email harvesting scheme. I wrote about it here.
After the jump, THEY'RE BA-ACK!
The RISD is preparing a bond package to place before voters in May. In early drafts of the package, $2 million was penciled in for new video scoreboards at the RISD's two football stadiums. That was reportedly whittled down to $400,000 by foregoing new video capabilities. In this time of state budget deficits threatening public school education, even that much is best deferred.
Even if I thought the RISD could afford them, video scoreboards are still a dumb idea, for reasons I explained a month ago. After the jump, the RISD refuses to let this dumb idea die.
Over a year ago, the presidents of three homeowners' associations in southwest Richardson lobbied the city to stop "half-hearted" development. What is half-hearted development? The answer was kind of fuzzy, but presumably converting old fast food restaurants into doctors' offices is considered to be half-hearted redevelopment. And it's clearly not wanted.
What I said about this topic when it came up in November, 2009, can be read here. After the jump, what's new.
Paul Krugman -- Nobel laureate and New York Times columnist (I don't know which of those makes him more suspect to Texas readers) -- has been looking into the conventional wisdom that the Texas economy has been a great success in this recession. He compiles a telling graph showing unemployment trends for Texas and New York for the last decade. I challenge you to tell which state is which without looking at the legend. Krugman suggests that "the miraculous Texas immunity to the recession is mythical."
After the jump, Krugman's explanation for why Texas, for a long time, has had faster-growing employment and population than the Northeast.
Twitter tracks from December, 2010:
After the jump, more Twitter tracks.
Consider that an order. This is a Public Service Announcement:
"Colorectal cancer screening helps people stay well and save lives. Regular colorectal cancer testing is one of the most powerful weapons for preventing colorectal cancer. Removing polyps prevents colorectal cancer from ever starting. And cancers found in an early stage are more easily treated. Nine out of 10 people whose colon cancer is discovered early will be alive 5 years later. And many will live a normal life span. But too often people don't get these tests. Then the cancer can grow and spread without being noticed, like a silent invader. In many cases, by the time people have any symptoms the cancer is very advanced and very hard to treat."
-- American Cancer Society
After the jump, what the PSA above doesn't tell you about colonoscopy.
