And if they do look, here’s a little of what they’ll find, compared to the other 49 states:

→ Percent of population 25 or over possessing a high school diploma: 50th

→ Percent of non-elderly women who have health insurance: 50th

→ Tax expenditures per capita: 50th

→ Homeowners Insurance affordability: 50th

→ Percent of voting-age population that actually votes: 50th

→ Percent of population without health insurance: 1st

→ Percent of uninsured children: 1st

→ Teenage birth rate: 1st

→ Air pollution emissions: 1st

→ Amount of toxic chemicals released into water: 1st

→ Amount of carbon dioxide emissions: 1st

→ Number of executions: 1st

In my opinion, the above factoids are just the tip of the iceberg – and if anything, they represent a blueprint for why Texans should’ve stopped voting for Rick Perry about seven years ago, not that the do-nothing senator planning on opposing him shows any promise whatsoever either.

Really, unless the Democrats produce someone with name recognition, good credentials and a brain really soon, people are probably going to go out and vote for some clown in protest.

I lived in Arizona during similar times, when the establishment choices for governor were so pathetic that the people elected millionaire crack-pot car dealer Evan Mecham. Trust me, the results were horrible, and I pray Texas doesn’t drive down that road.

Because awful as state government is under Perry, it could be even worse.

If Obama follows through on this plan, I hope he and his advisors will, for the benefit of the kids putting their lives on the line and for the rest of us who love them, explain the intent behind this action.

I don’t think there’s any doubt about Al Qaeda, our sworn enemy playing hide-and-seek along the Pakistan border. But their sometime-friends the Taliban? Are we in Afghanistan and growing our presence there because we are trying to uproot and destroy the Taliban?

What about the country we’ve invaded? Are we there to “save” Afghanistan from the Taliban? Are we there to enforce some sort of democracy? If we’re backing Afghanistan democracy, then what if rural Afghans elect Taliban leaders?

And if we’re fans of democracy, how do we square rigged elections that give President Hamid Karzai more than a million fake votes?

Not to mention heroin – the addicitve narcotic derived from opium poppies grown within a large swath of Afghanistan, much of it in a region controlled by Karzai’s brother who, according to reports, controls opium distribution routes in southern Afghanistan and, oh yeah, has been collecting hefty payments from the CIA for years, in exchange for some damn thing.

So are we fixin’ to send another 30,000 of our finest children off to serve as cannon fodder (195 dead, 1,000-plus wounded since July) to keep the world’s strongest heroin dealers in power?

Just curious, really damn curious, to hear the justification for sending our hope and our future off to die some more.

As noted here at the time, neither vaccine was available to most of his fellows – thanks in great part to government ineptitude and free-market forces gone awry.

But it’s nice to know that, while many of the 25 million residents of Texas have already contracted swine flu while waiting for the vaccine cavalry that never arrived, at least some high-risk citizens have found inoculation against the Pig Plague:

Employees of Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Time Warner and several other big New York companies. Cross my heart. You just can’t make up stuff like this.

Even though it sounds like something out of the Black Helicopters Subscription Service, the same Centers for Disease Control that couldn’t get any swine flu vaccine into the Lone Star state before every cowboy caught the pandemic nonetheless managed to help get the vaccine into the veins of elite private employers – many of them, coincidentally, the same ones we bailed out with billions of our tax dollars after they blew up the financial system.

Obviously, then, if you’re Johnny Nobody out in the sticks, or if you’re unemployed anywhere – or even if you have an OK job right there in Emerald City – you’re just not quite as good as the citizens at JPGoldmanCiti, riding First Class and disease-free with Jesus, on the backs of the New American Peasantry.

Bitter? Who’s bitter?

The hottest in the garden is the Jamaican Hot Chocolate, a rich, dark brown habanero pepper that I’ve found difficult to bring to fruition because it has a very long growing season but also refuses to set flowers when the temperature’s much above 85 degrees.

This year, we’re enjoying the first good Hot Chocolate harvest in three years. One of the plants doing most of the producing is actually a perennial, having survived two winters now. These browns, while truly hot, are not by any means among the hottest of habaneros. But they are really flavorful. To me, the trick is getting at that flavor without searing the inside of my mouth.

I’ve been experimenting with Caribbean habanero sauce and salsa recipes, and hit upon one recently I think might be worthy of mention. It’s derived from Bruce Moffitt’s Salsa Mataguerro recipe, but with more fruit and far fewer habaneros. I’ve made this with ingredients that happened to be on hand in the garden. Substitute and experiment at will. Lets call it

Tropical Habanero Sauce:

Before You Start
→ Put on a pair of kitchen gloves, because you will need protection from the extreme heat of the habanero. These aren’t your mama’s jalapeños (about 200,000 Scoville heat units per habanero, compared to about 4,000 in a jalapeño.) Don’t try to handle these chiles bare-handed or, trust me, you’ll regret it.

Ingredients
→ 2 Tablespoons peanut oil
→ 1 Tablespoon dry mustard
→ 6 Jamaican Hot Chocolate habanero peppers, seeded and chopped fine
→ 6 Mirasol hot peppers, seeded and chopped coarsely
→ 6 Green chiles, chopped coarsely
→ 1/2 a sweet onion, chopped
→ 4 garlic cloves, smashed and chopped fine
→ 2 Tablespoons chopped fresh ginger root
→ 3 tablespoons raisins
→ 1 ripe Hachiya persimmon, halved
→ 1/3 cup cider vinegar
→ 1/3 cup brown sugar
→ 2 Tablespoons dark molasses
→ 1/2 teaspoon Cardamom
→ 2 cups chopped fresh pineapple
→ 1/2 cup water

Method
→ Heat the peanut oil in a large, heavy pan. Add the mustard and the garlic cloves, stirring over medium heat for two or three minutes. Add onion and ginger to the pan and stir.

→ After onion has softened, add Mirasol chiles, sauté for three minutes or so and then add vinegar, water, raisins, brown sugar, molasses, Cardamom, green chiles and habaneros. Stir together for five minutes.

→ Add the persimmon and pineapple, stir through until mixture comes to a low boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.

→ Pour mixture into a food processor or blender; blend until smooth and about the consistency of ketchup. If necessary, add another quarter-cup water or pineapple juice.

→ Pour blended sauce into sterilized pint jars and seal. (Yields about two pints of yellow-brown hot sauce).

I was really pleased with this stuff. It has an initial tropical, fruity taste followed by the sweet-hot flavor of the Mirasol peppers and the longer-lasting, gradually building smokey heat of the Jamaican Hot Chocolates. Make no mistake – this sauce is extremely hot! However, the heat isn’t so overbearing that it masks the great taste of these chiles.

This will go well on a smoked pork tenderloin, no lie.