Saturday Link Dump Bonanza! (Anna Nicole Smith Free!)

It’s the weekend, and you know that means we’re going to send you dancing around the Internets (which are a series of tubes invented by Al Gore before he discovered Global Warming) after the best stuff related to Texas politics.

And, this Link Dump, unlike every major mainstream media outlet in the Known World this weekend, it is free of all things Anna Nicole Smith—unless someone in the Legislature authors a memorial resolution in her honor or Dewhurst and Craddick create a Joint Select Committee To Determine The Impact Of The Anna Nicole Smith Litigation On The Texas Family Code.

First, the Texas Youth Commission saga is dominating news this weekend. You can hit the highlights via the MSM here, here, here, and here,or check out Charles Kuffner who hits the highlights for us. The DMN should be in the running for a Pulitzer for all of their work on this. [Make a note: I said something nice about the Dallas Morning News.] BOR’s Glenn Smith also wonders where AG Gregg Abbott’s special prosecutor is in all this.
Unfortunatly, lost in the shuffle this week were antics by Senate Finance Committee Chair Steve Ogden (R-Bryan) and Lt. Governor David Dewhurst, who threw cold water on the plan to lenghten CHIP’s enrollment period from six months to one year. The six month enrollment period is a major component of the “permanent wall” keeping eligible kids off CHIP House Democrats (and latecomer John “These Boots Were Made For Campaignin’” Davis) want to tear down. Musings ponders more on John Davis here.
Eye On Williamson tells us what unkind words Congressman John Carter (R-Round Rock) had to say about the Employee Freedom Of Choice Act this week.

State Rep. Garnet Coleman has up a new Vcast on toll roads and the Trans Texas Corridor.

Dig Deeper Texas tells us that the Radical Right is now going after percieved “liberal bias” in Wikipedia and has launched Conservapedia.

Half Empty takes a look at the Shapiro-Eissler bill to eleminate TAKS testing and notes it would require physics be taken for students to graduate on certain high school graduation plans. As someone to whom Algebra, Physics, and Spanish are all foreign languages, we’ll make a deal with Senator Shapiro: If she can answer this problem for us without any help, we’ll cut her a little slack:

A skier starting from rest descends a 24.3º slope. If the coefficient of friction is 0.122 , what is the skier’s speed (in m/s) after 6.46 seconds?

Inside The Texas Capitol has given us a new name for the 80th Legislature: The Three Letter Session. We love this, and hereby vow to use it until everyone is as tired of it as they are of Anna Nicole Smith.

Also, Rep. Senfronia Thompson is back to blogging! We gave Rep. Thompson a good-natured hard time on this blog about the need for her to get back to blogging some time ago. Then, we failed to notice that she had done so. Check out her posts on the Top 10% Rule Under Attack and her “Welcome Back” post. We can’t wait to read more.

Capitol Annex made its first foray into the world of Conservative BlogTalkRadio this week, appearing as a guest on Right of Texas‘ recent show. Unfortunatly, my phone kept dropping the call, but it was a fun experience.  Hopefully, we can appear again to actually argue with Right of Texas about something. This time, we were just discussing opinions of presidential candidates and what not.

The Texas Observer Blog has a nice post on the symposium held this week on the 2003 Redistricting and its aftermath.

Three Wise Men tells us that the Cherokee Nation is going to vote on whether or not to expel “freedmen” (ie, the descendants of slaves held by Cherokees) from their ranks. How insane.

Winding Road in Urban Area ponders why Newt Gingrich still doesn’t get “it.”

And finally, if you don’t have time to run out and see a horror film this weekend, just go to Who’s Playin? and check out this photo of Congressman Michael Burgess (R-Flower Mound).

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