Snortblog

We have a pond, the frogs are singing for the first time–highlight of a relatively crappy day.

I’ve spent a good portion of today feeling angry. It must be a coping mechanism. At the beginning of my day, I was angry that I can’t ride a bicycle to work without being terrorized by people completely oblivious to their surroundings aka. me. I’m angry that the state agency that I love working for is, from what I’ve been told, paying twice as much for the same services that we’ve been providing inhouse to a multi-national corporation due to a mandate by our mostly republican state legislature. With all due respect, to hell with ya’ll. By that I mean our state legislators and the multinationals that are lining their pockets and funding their campaigns. I’m angry that the President of the United States of America has been responsible for the killing, maiming, and torture of tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of human beings not much different from me. I’m even more angry that I have to pay for it through my taxes. Despite all the lies I’ve been told about what America is supposed to stand for, we pay for crimes against humanity through the force of law.

We went car camping at Stephen F. Austin State Park, outside of Houston, Texas. It is adjacent to San Felipe, Texas which was founded by Stephen F. Austin. It’s a substantial park, there were lots of families, many boy scouts, and golfers run amok. There are nice rural roads nearby for road biking and trails for mountain biking, complete with a bike/dog/child washing station.

Bands I saw at Okay Mountain:

1. The Theater Fire
2. The Weird Weeds

Bands at South by San Jose (Joe’s Coffee):

1. Brothers and Sisters
2. Amy Cook
3. What Made Milwaukee Famous

Bands I saw include:

1. Iggy Pop and the Stooges
2. Big Business
3. Electric Soft Parade
4. Ozomatli
5. Xclan
6. Public Enemy

Bands I saw:

• W-S Burn (@ the peacock)
• Valley Arena
• The Hearers

We went to see Chingo Bling, but it turned out he was signing CDs and not performing.
The Meat Puppets closed the day show at the Parish Room, bringing tears to the eyes of Marc Tweed of the Hearers. Tita Lima put on an incredible show at Visions.

I saw Julz A in an intimate crowd at the Carousel Lounge. His specialty is “squeeze rock”. He plays an accordion, strikes all the rock star poses, and raps. Think Beck with an accordion. He ended the show with Squeezebox by the Who. He talked with audience members individually afterwards, gave out CDs and was selling shirts that said “Squeeze my box”. Best accordion music I’ve ever heard.

TXU, a Dallas based utility so big the letters in it’s name don’t signify anything, recently announced they were halting efforts to get permits for 8 out of 11 new coal-fired power plants proposed for Texas. This was a surprising turnabout, considering that TXU had received Governor Rick Perry’s help in an attempt to bypass the normal permitting process, until a judge put the kibosh on that executive order. Meanwhile, back in the boardroom, TPG, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, and Goldman Sachs Group called in the Environmental Defense and the Natural Resources Defense Council to bless the biggest buyout ever. Investors bought up TXU stock.

Despite the touch of green in the buyout deal, TXU left 3 new coal plants in the queue and, as Richard Whittaker points out in the Austin Chronicle, the motion to stay the permitting process for the other 8 plants is for six months, tops. I think TXU is approaching this like any good salesperson, asking an incredibly high price initially, and hoping to wear down the public until we’re happy to pay more then we really should. We can do better.

Press release from stopthecoalplant.org.