12/30: Texas Round-Up

by: Karl-Thomas Musselman

Tue Dec 30, 2008 at 08:09 PM CST

• Eileen posts Austin based Rep. Eddie Rodriguez's letter to colleagues in the Spekaer's Race.


• Sen. Kirk Watson writes an editorial.


• Austin to go for a new comprehensive city plan. The current Austin Tomorrow Plan was drawn up in 1979.


• A KVUE news van rolled over today near Round Rock. Cameraman Kenneth Null was driving and reporter Quita Culpepper was the passenger (both are ok). Of course, had it been Elise Hu, she would have twittered "holy fucking shit I wasbjust in a van rollover! Elise Hu reporting."


• DMN writer Karen Brooks to join KXAN according to Quorum Report.

  Dallas Morning News reporter Karen Brooks will be joining Austin's KXAN TV station on January 12, the day before the session begins. Her title is Digital Executive Producer. While she will be focusing on the TV station's web presence, Brooks will still be working the Lege with an ocassional blog or two.



• Texas lottery sales are down 4% over last fiscal year. Why? Hurricanes knocked out lots of spending in the Houston area which provides 1/4th of state sales. And people are cutting back and spending on food and gas instead.


• San Antonio teacher at Catholic high school terminated because she got married.


• Even Dallas housing prices are sliding.


• Only in Texas would you see a "drill here, drill now" sticker on a Prius.


• Big Fucking Lasers that make fucking fusion. Fuck yeah!

  Inside a structure covering an area the size of three football pitches, a single infrared laser will be sent through almost a mile of lenses, mirrors and amplifiers to create a beam more than 10 billion times more powerful than a household light bulb.

  Housed within a hanger-sized room that has to be pumped clear of dust to prevent impurities getting into the beam, the laser will then be split into 192 separate beams, converted into ultraviolet light and focused into a capsule at the centre of an aluminium and concrete-coated target chamber. When the laser beams hit the inside of the capsule, they should generate high-energy X-rays that, within a few billionths of a second, compress the fuel pellet inside until its outer shell blows off.

  This explosion of the fuel pellet shell produces an equal and opposite reaction that compresses the fuel itself together until nuclear fusion begins, releasing vast amounts of energy.



• And lastly, a NY boy scout has earned all 121 merit badges. I got my fair share (enough for a bronze and gold palm beyond my own Eagle) but my hat is off to him. (Yes, I'm a gay Eagle Scout. There are lots, you'd be amazed.)