Texas Blog Round-Up: February 1, 2010

by: Phillip Martin, Progress Texas

Mon Feb 01, 2010 at 09:33 AM CST

The Texas Progressive Alliance is ready for the Super Bowl this Sunday as it brings you this week's blog highlights.

• CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme thinks that the Houston Chronicle caught the essence of the GOP with this headline 'Many attacks, but few suggestions'.
  
  
• WhosPlayin is tired of hearing obstructionist Republicans whining about not having a seat at the table for Health Care Insurance Reform, after they make it clear they'll vote against any attempt to harm their Pharma and Insurance benefactors.
  
  
• Off the Kuff notes that the Texas ParentPAC has endorsed Thomas Ratliff in his GOP primary fight against uber-SBOE wingnut Don McLeroy.
  
  
• Bay Area Houston watched as the Texas Association of Builders got kicked in the nuts at a hearing in Austin over the abuse of mandatory binding arbitration.
  
  
• It's been such an amazing news week in the Barnett Shale that it's hard to pick one topic for the round-up. One item that should be of interest to anyone in the DFW area who drinks water: Argyle Disposal Well in Denton Creek Flood Plain. No kidding! It's for real on Bluedaze: DRILLING REFORM FOR TEXAS.
  
  
• The Texas Cloverleaf looks at the taxing TAKS becoming the pretty STAAR that school children will have to shoot past in order to graduate.
  
  
• Has the so-called nuclear renaissance been dealt a blow by the South Texas Project's troubles? Learn more at Texas Vox.
  
  
• If you missed the GOP gov debate, check out McBlogger's rather insightful analysis of the three players performances, along with a mercifully brief comment on the sexual desirability of Rep. Louie Gohmert.
  
  
• WCNews at Eye On Williamson posts on the latest Texans for Public Justice "Watching Your Assets" report, this one about the Texas Enterprise Fund, Perry's corporate welfare not paying off for Texas.
  
  
• Over at TexasKaos, Libby Shaw puts a local spin on young James O'Keefe's foiled attempt to tamper with Mary Landrieu's phones. The roll call Texas Republican admirers is quite long. Of equal interest was the discussion that followed the outing of these Republicans. See it all at Texas Republican Lawmakers Honor James O'Keefe.
  
  
• It's a travesty that only Bill White and Farouk Shami are participating in the Texas Democratic gubernatorial debate on February 8 because the other five candidates don't meet the "standards". PDiddie at Brains and Eggs believes it's impossible to reconcile that KERA, a public broadcasting station, together with the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Univision and other corporate and media industry sponsors, would conspire to preclude candidates for the state's highest public office.
  
  
• Neil at Texas Liberal is glad that Houston City Councilmember Jarvis Johnson is talking about pov