A confluence of events (a cold, doing my taxes, and a miscellany of more minor concerns) has cut into my blogging time, so it might be a few days before my roundup piece on Libya is ready to see the light of day (and I may have to skip the usual This Week in Jihad as well). So here are a few bits of local news, including some on the the 2012 Senate race, to tide you over:
Archive for the ‘Austin’ Category
A Small LinkSwarm of Local News
Thursday, March 24th, 2011LinkSwarm for Monday, January 17, 2011
Monday, January 17th, 2011Just got back from a family trip, so here’s a small LinkSwarm while I get back into the swing of things.
- “For a decade, from the election of Bush 43 forward, the Left has lied and cheated as it tried to return to power. The left wants us to be civil — after being so uncivil for a decade. Bite me.”
- The Texas Public Policy Foundation had their annual legislative orientation over the weekend, including one on border security issues, one of several Blue Dot Blues covered.
- More than 40 year’s after Dr. Martin Luther King’s death, blacks are free to be anything they want to be…except Republicans.
One Lakeway Man’s War Against Speed Traps
Sunday, December 26th, 2010Meet Lance Mitchell, the man who runs speedtrapahead.org. He not only founded a website to warn people about speed traps, he actually stood up the road from one in his home of speedtrap-crazy Lakeway in his bright orange “Speed Trap Ahead” t-shirt…and got arrested for his troubles. The charge? Among others: illegal signage. For wearing a t-shirt.
Federal courts have pretty regularly held t-shirts to be a form of free speech (see Boroff v. Van Wert City Board of Education, for example), so it’s no surprise that all the charges were dismissed, and Mitchell has reached a settlement with Lakeway on his own lawsuit.
(Hat tip: Fark.)
Election Tomorrow
Monday, November 1st, 2010Just in case you hadn’t noticed.
Tonight would be a good time to locate your voter registration card so you have it handy tomorrow. It would also be a good time to locate your polling place:
Diana Maldonado’s Killer Issue: Gun Control
Tuesday, October 26th, 2010No, seriously.
I got a 4 panel flyer in the mail today slamming Larry Gonzales for supporting concealed carry on campus, as you can see from my picture of it below (click to embiggen):
Because, you know, one suicidal student firing an AK-47 (which was already illegal for him to bring on campus) into the ground before killing himself pretty much demands a knee-jerk call for stricter gun control laws.
Slamming Larry Gonzales for not being pro-gun control is a great tactic…if you’re running against him in the Democratic Primary. In Austin. In 1990. Unfortunately for Maldonado, she’s running in the general election in Williamson County in 2010.
And we all know what a bloodbath Texas has become since the state started issuing Concealed Handgun Licenses on January 1, 1996. Oh wait, no it hasn’t. Violent Crime numbers have been down to flat across the board even in absolute terms, and even more clearly down on a per capita basis in light of the state’s growing population.
Democrats at the national level learned that gun control was a losing issue in 1994. Evidently Maldonado didn’t get the memo. I suspect she’ll be getting a good, long vacation in the near future to contemplate that mistake at her leisure.
Williamson County Republicans Spend $5 Million on Donuts
Wednesday, October 6th, 2010Or so their filing report would lead us to believe.
Oh sure, you say it’s a typo. But just wait until they grab 100% of the police vote in November…
LinkSwarm for Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Wednesday, June 30th, 2010A collection of sundry links to enliven your day:
- Liberals are incensed that denizens of the Amazonian rain forest will actually be allowed to eat ice cream.
- Camilla Paglia essay on the wane of sex drive as a result of, um, something. Like many of Paglia’s essays, it skips around all over the place, ties together some highfalutin theory around a few interesting factual nuggets, and is frequently wrong in extremely interesting ways.
- Liberals still can’t fathom why their budget-busting Big Government initiatives are so unpopular.
- Daily KOS admits its polls were fabricated. Come December, when defeated Democrats in congress start packing up their belongings, they might pause a moment to contemplate how living in the “reality-based community”‘s fantasy bubble brought them to that juncture.
- In a development that will surprise absolutely no one, Capital Metro’s Rail Program is an underutilized, expensive failure.
- Of course, this is the same company that spent $61,000 defending itself against a $500 fine. Your tax dollars at work!
Hat tips to Instapundit, Real Clear Politics, Slashdot, Whipped Cream Difficulties.
City of Austin: How dare you do what you want with your own land?
Friday, June 11th, 2010Once again the City of Austin is living up to its reputation as a Nanny State busybody who can’t keep its nose out of other people’s business. In this case it’s decided that Joe Del Rio can’t dig under his own house.
Joe Del Rio, the retiree who excavated a huge pit underneath his East Austin home that prompted a raid by SWAT and bomb squad officers last month, is suing the city for taking his private property by filling in the hole, his lawyer said Thursday.
Earlier this week, Austin city officials had ordered the collection of tunnels and rooms, which they have characterized as a 35-foot-deep multilevel underground structure, filled with concrete to prevent Del Rio’s house from collapsing. Work crews for a private contractor were scheduled to begin filling in the underground space this morning, which officials said would take about 33 truckloads of concrete.
A spokeswoman for the Public Works Department said the estimated cost of filling Del Rio’s pit is about $61,500. The city will pay for the work and then bill Del Rio, Sara Hartley said.
In a mid-May report, city engineers, citing deep excavation under load-bearing walls and scant reinforcement of walls in the pit, declared that Del Rio’s home was “in imminent danger of collapse.”
Demolishing the home, they said in the report, would almost certainly cause a cave-in, so filling in the pit was the only option.
Here’s a Google Street View of the House.
There are also pictures, but they offer a considerably less-than-comprehensive view. (Notice how the photos from the City of Austin Code Compliance Department are carefully chosen not to give you a good idea of the layout of the space, but to make it look as ugly and haphazard as possible.)
Note that nowhere in the article does it say that Mr. Del Rio’s house is a danger to anyone but Mr. Del Rio himself. So the City of Austin comes in with guns drawn, seizes the man’s house, and is about to spend $61,000 and bill Del Rio to perform work he doesn’t want to save him from himself.
I’m not saying that Del Rio’s excavations were necessarily the smartest move in the world, and I’m not advocating people go out of their way to flaunt building codes. But government exists to protect citizens from being victimized by others, not to protect people from themselves. Unless Mr. Del Rio’s actions are a danger to others (say, if he was undermining a city street), the City of Austin should leave him the hell alone.
(Hat tip: Fark.)
Round Rock School Board Elections Saturday, May 8
Thursday, May 6th, 2010Just a reminder to vote in the upcoming Round Rock ISD Election on May 8th if you live in the district. I haven’t been following the election that closely, but Holly Hansen at Smart Girl Politics has been all over it, so give her a read if you live in these environs. Austin residents will want to read up on other local races over at Blue Dot Blues. So edumacate yourself, and vote on Saturday!