TXsharon went undercover this week to Map Methane plumes in the Barnett Shale: “Stealth” measurements contradict Shale Gas industry safe air claims, new technology shows. Big Gas is so BUSTED! And it’s all reported on Bluedaze: DRILLING REFORM FOR TEXAS.

This week on Left of College Station, Teddy covers all of the results of the primary elections including the surprising defeat of Don McLeroy in the State Board of Education District 9 Republican primary. Left of College Station also covers the week in headlines, and this week will begin coverage of the local municipal elections.

The Texas Cloverleaf provides a Denton County and Texas primary roundup.

Texas Vox celebrated last week as the student governments of two Texas rivals, UT and A&M, passed “green fees” to support sustainability initiatives on campus.

WCNews at Eye On Williamson takes a first look at the general election race for governor in Texas, White vs. Perry is a toss up.

Neil at Texas Liberal offered up a video of him reading the first ten amendments of the U.S. Constitution in front of the Beer Can House in Houston. This is a house made out of beer cans.

Off the Kuff looks at primary results in the SBOE races.

Bay Area Houston thinks Harris County Democrats are going to get LaRouched in the upcoming Democratic Judicial primaries.

Justin at Asian American Action Fund Blog warns those outside Texas to Stop Being Federal Snobs and begin to concern themselves with the State Board of Education.

WhosPlayin is watching all hell break loose in Flower Mound, as a group circulating a gas drilling permit moratorium petition is blown off by Town Council, and a political organization in the town tried to have the local school district call the police on them if the group used school parking lots for signature gathering.

Over at TexasKaos, libby shaw writes that Senator Cornyn has found himself a hero: Senator Bunning. Yes that Bunning, the one who scores political grandstanding points at the expense of the unemployed. Read the rest here: GOP Senator to the Jobless and Uninsured: Tough S$it. Cornyn defends him.

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Runoffs were also avoided in the other contested statewide races. Linda Chavez-Thompson won the nomination for Lt. Governor on the Democratic side. Hank Gilbert defeated Kinky Friedman in the Ag. Commissioner’s race and Hector Uribe will be the Dem’s Land Commissioner candidate. All of our endorsed candidates won except for Ronnie Earle in the Lt. Governor race.

On the Republican side, the crazy wing of the party didn’t do as well as you might have thought they would. Tea Party challengers to Republican incumbents were mostly defeated across the state, doing better in state legislative races than Congressional ones. Thomas Ratliff, a more moderate Republican, managed to beat State Board of Education member and prominent social conservative Don McLeroy – a victory for those of us who still want science to be taught to our kids. State Rep. Todd Smith, whom conservatives blame for letting the Voter ID bill die, easily defeated his challenger Jeff Cason.

Statewide Democratic Results

Statewide Republican Results

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As of 10:35 PM:

Candidate	Votes	Vote %	Winner
Loretta Haldenwang	881	56%
Kim Limberg	685	44%

Congratulations go to Loretta Haldenwang. Looks like overall voter turnout was not so bad in Irving, but I think by looking at the numbers of people who voted in the governor’s races overall, you can tell the Republicans were much more involved in their primary than Democrats were in theirs. I’m sure my co-bloggers will have more to say on the subject, but obviously, the big (and not surprising news) is that Rick Perry won the Republican primary race for governor, and Bill White won the Democratic primary. My speculation is that Democratic turnout wasn’t as strong simply because the races weren’t as interesting. Bill White is a perfectly acceptable candidate to most Democrats and the other contenders lost by so large a margin it’s easy to justify sitting this one out. Thankfully, Kinky lost so we’ll be able to run a real candidate for Ag commissioner.

For more results, go to Burnt Orange: http://www.burntorangereport.com/

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The Senate approved a $15 billion job-creation bill that would give businesses tax breaks for hiring the unemployed and states more money for infrastructure projects. The House may vote on it next week. The Senate also followed the House in voting for a bill to boost U.S. tourism.

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Justin at Asian American Action Fund Blog notes that Houston is the first locale President Obama named in his Lunar New Year Greeting. Could there be a political meaning behind it?

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme marvels at the jackassery presented to voters on the Republican ballot. No, we’re not talking about the candidates. It’s the propositions that disenfranchise voters, turn Texas into Colorado Springs or California, and humiliate pregnant women.

Fake Consultant, over at TexasKaos, gives us a tale from the health care frontier. He points out that even in the little things the present system is fundamentally broken. Check it out here.

From TXsharon: How Oil and Gas industry bullies turned an ordinary, honest man into a modern day hero. Read it on Bluedaze: DRILLING REFORM FOR TEXAS.

WhosPlayin is watching candidates file for the 2010 Lewisville ISD School board election.

Contrary to what the Star Telegram keeps repeating, the Texas Cloverleaf reminds everyone that there is a Democrat running in CD-26.

“Why I’m supporting Dr. Alma Aguado for Texas governor” is PDiddie’s endorsement in the Democratic gubernatorial primary. Read more at Brains and Eggs.

MeanRachel endorses Bill White and Linda Chavez-Thompson in the two top spots on the Democratic primary ticket.

Adam at Three Wise Men lays out our blog’s endorsements for the 2010 Texas Democratic Primary.

Off the Kuff says there’s a smart way to do budget cuts and a dumb way to do budget cuts, and we need to do it the smart way.

Neil at Texas Liberal endorsed Hank Gilbert in the Democratic Primary for Texas Commissioner of Agriculture. The post includes a picture of a Longhorn steer, a watermelon, and of a Channel Catfish.

WCNews at Eye On Williamson posts on the coming budget woes and that we can’t balance the budget on the back of the poor again, the 2011 budget cannot be balanced like in 2003, not this time.

This week at McBlogger, Mojito takes a look at a Travis County JP race and find the challenger lacking.

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The first item is the truly astounding bit of information that quite possibly YouTube (owned by Google), is responsible for 10% of all internet traffic. That is an amazing and truly mind-blowing number. And there’s something in there about how Google doesn’t pay for any of the bandwidth. Simply amazing.

Second, and even more mind-blowing, is that Google plans to roll out super-fast internet in select areas.

Search and advertising giant Google plans to build and test super fast fiber-optic broadband networks in a few communities around the U.S., promising up to a one gigabit per second service — a hundred-fold increase over what most Americans currently can subscribe to.

The article gives a good discussion of the reasoning behind this action, but it really boils down to Google delivering a kick to the nuts of the ISPs. They’re over-priced, too slow, and they want to institute new systems of charging people by the amount of bandwidth they use. Google says this is bad for business, and of course, it’s bad for us users. So screw those ISPs! I just hope this does force them to change.

Lastly, Google has a handy tool to find out whether your ISP is throttling your BitTorrent downloads. Check it out here.

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Governor: Bill White

Former Houston governor Bill White is by far the most promising candidate running on the gubernatorial side. Hands down he has the most experience with his three terms as governor of what is one of Texas’s largest cities. There he gained popularity and was known as being able to work with Democrats and Republicans. In the governor’s race, he offers the clearest chance (as supported by polling) that Democrats have of beating whomever wins the Republican primary with his popularity, name recognition, common sense ideas, and ability to organize and fundraise. There’s a real shot for Democrats to win the governorship this time around and the choice is clear.

http://www.billwhitefortexas.com/

Lt. Governor: Ronnie Earle

Unlike the other contested races where I feel there is clearly a best candidate, this race features two solid candidates: former DA for Travis County Ronnie Earle (who has gone after Kay Bailey Hutchison and Tom Delay for corruption charges) and ex-VP of the AFL-CIO and vice chair of the DNC, Linda Chavez-Thompson. Both have proud credentials that will excite the base, but I believe Ronnie Earle edges out as the toughest challenger to someone like David Dewhurst. Chavez-Thompson would too easily be painted as an out-of-step liberal with this state, while Earle knows how to fight off charges that he’s a partisan hack (he’s prosecuted just as many Democrats, if not more).

http://www.ronnieearle.com/

Ag. Commissioner: Hank Gilbert

Gilbert is running again and his opposition is Kinky Friedman. Given that information, I almost feel I don’t need to say much more. Hank is the only real Democrat and this race, but he’s also a good candidate. When he ran back in 2006, he carried 46 counties in Texas, many of which had not been carried by a Democratic candidate in years.

http://hankgilbert.com/

Land Commissioner:  Hector Uribe

Former State Senator Hector Uribe is the best choice over Bill Burton, who served as a JP in Henderson County. I give Burton props for being elected in that part of the state (where my parents live actually), but Uribe has the edge on experience and would be the most likely to pull out a victory.

http://hectoruribe.com/

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The Texas Cloverleaf sentencing of GOP Denton County Constable Ken Jannereth. Probation, anger management, laying off the bottle, and maybe more to come for the disgraced lawman.

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme is watching 2 Texas Counties fight it out with their DAs over legal duties.

Bay Area Houston says Teabaggers claim illiterate Blacks elected Obama.

Is your gas wet or dry? Despite industry spin, it seems to not matter. TCEQ testing shows Barnett Shale “Dry Gas” health hazard. TXsharon thanks State Representative Lon Burnam for wading through the recent TCEQ testing report to find the truth. Bluedaze: DRILLING REFORM FOR TEXAS.

Over at TexasKaos, lightseeker connects Obama’s big picture with our big picture, in Obama’s Problem is Our Problem In a Nutshell. Is our future Sarah Palin, Tea Partyers and failure?

This week at Left of College Station, Teddy interviews several members of the gay, lesbian, and bisexual community at Texas A&M while investigating what it is like to be gay in Aggieland. Left of College Station also takes a look at American’s ignorance of current events and the political process, and a report on the local campaign spending and donations. Left of College Station also covers the week in headlines.

The Nuge was campaigning for 39% over the weekend. Can’t you just feel the greasy, smelly excitement?

WCNews at Eye On Williamson looks at how the legislature is already laying the groundwork for adding sales taxes to items currently excluded like bottled water, basic internet service, and coin operated services, House Ways and Means Committee to look at “Certain Sales Tax Exemptions & Exclusions.

Off the Kuff looks at the effect of the “Citizens United” ruling on judicial elections in Texas.

WhosPlayin is neck-deep in local issues in North Texas, having spent the weekend with the Lewisville City Council at their retreat, and noting that he local school district is discouraging candidates from running for school board.

This week at Texas Vox Citizen Sarah geeked out on the new energy generation plan presented to Austin City Council. May not sound too snazzy but there’s enormous potential there to reduce carbon emissions, build up our local economy, and improve public health with this plan, so she thinks it is pretty cool.

Neil at Texas Liberal commented that office building janitors in Houston have set up a Facebook page as they prepare for a new round of contract negotiations in 2010. All work has merit and all people should be paid a living wage.

Yesterday was huge for New Orleans but it was also TeaBagger Rally Day in northwest Harris County, as PDiddie at Brains and Eggs recounted in “Rick and Ted’s (and Sarah’s) Excellent Super Bowl Sunday Venture”.

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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 poverty in his 18th U.S. House District primary fight with incumbent Sheila Jackson Lee. However, it will take some solid ideas and not just talk to feel that Mr. Johnson is really serious about the issue.

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