The reader comments on this news story break my heart. I can hardly believe what I read from ordinary citizens in what I thought was one of the most highly educated and progressive cities in the country.

Hey Y'all! Welcome to Friday. I am thrilled to put a period at the end of this week, how about you? Can you believe I haven't had any Veuve Clicquot since Sunday? This working 17 hour days is for the birds! I don't see how you poor people do it. I'm exhausted.

I didn't watch the YouTube/CNN debates last night. I turned it on, but kept the TV on mute. (Watching TV with it on mute is pretty much a standard thing around here.) Wolf Blitzer was the moderator. I guess he's got news credibility, but I'd rather watch Andersen Cooper. He's dreamy...and a Vanderbilt. That'll turn my East Coast motor on in NY minute...mmmm, old money...PLU (People Like Us) and all that.

I'll check in on y'all later in the day and maybe talk about politics and outrageous behavior and maybe one day soon we'll catch a Texas legislature in a public restroom soliciting gay sex and we'll all have something fun to talk about. Let's all hope!

Chris Bell is suing the Perry campaign. I took a look at the filed complaint. Robert Black has called the suite, "sour grapes." Well, maybe...kind of...but, technically the Perry campaign had the information but just did not bother to file it as required.

I've worked in heavily regulated industries for years and I can tell you that getting things into regulatory agencies on time is a priority in the business world. If you don't they have a tendency to walk into your building unannounced and start discussing things like "cease and desist" and "fines" and all the things people get fired for if the boss hears about. In politics, there's always an empty threat but with no backbone to actually impose the fine or shut something down. For that reason, I'd say it's not sour grapes but an attempt to introduce accountability into politics. The fact that the suit had to come from Chris Bell is more of an embarrassment to an agency that is supposed to monitor and control campaign spending reports than it is of Chris Bell trying to stir up some shit.

Candidate for Senator, Rick Noriega, will be traveling to Las Vegas to meet national Democratic Party donors this week. Now that millionaire Mikal Watts has dropped out of the race, Noriega is getting some attention from major donors. That's because people are starting to say, "Texas is in play."

I don't know about you, but sweeter words were never heard. Say it with me, "Texas is in play." Doesn't it fill you with a giddiness? That's not because I don't like Republicans and want Democrats to win every race. It's because I believe in a two-party system. I believe in debate and I despise one-party rule. I think it ruins America. We can see what one-party rule has done to Texas. This state has gone from being great to being mediocre. I don't care for mediocrity. I like to be number one. How about you?

You don't get to be number one by status quo, or challenge to one narrow school of thought. Laser focus and dogged ideology are not what make America great.

The Statesman is reporting that Perry neglected to file the required campaign finance reports during the election. The fact that the money came from controversial Texan, Bob Perry, also gives the story that unique angle.

Black said it wouldn't have made any difference if Texans had known before the election that Bob Perry (no relation to the governor) had given money to the association because the Houston builder, noted for financing the Swift Boat attacks against John Kerry during the 2004 presidential campaign, already was one of the governor's biggest campaign donors.

By unique, I mean the Statesman gets to somehow try to tie Rick Perry to the Swift Boat attacks against John Kerry. Robert Black's statement is unintentionally funny. He says that the voters were focused on the $2.5 million given to Chris Bell by a lawyer in Houston. Funny, though, because, the fact that Chris Bell got $2.5 million has nothing to do with the fact that the Perry campaign may have neglected, intentionally or unintentionally, to perform required submissions of campaign finance reports and could face serious fines for the act.

Who knows? Maybe Perry's treasurer was some A&M graduate that just couldn't quite grasp how to submit an Excel spreadsheet via email. Anything's possible.

I've been watching KXAN's series on Afghanistan. Did I mention they have a blog and YouTube videos? KXAN Austin News sent reporter Jenny Hoff to Afghanistan and so far we've seen her interview a Texas mom serving her tour in Afghanistan, a Round Rock soldier training Afghan Military, then his wife back here at home, and last night we followed her on a humanitarian mission to a village.

Her earlier blog posts were her personal accounts from the trip and now that I'm watching the produced for news versions, I am learning more about what the U.S. Military is doing over there. I have to say, it's changing my opinion a little bit. The images, heartbreaking that some of them are, show that our military is trying to rebuild that country.

Ok, so...to wrap up. Read the blog. Watch the YouTube videos. Then tune in and watch on KXAN. Was I clear?

Expect Craddick to release some of the House interim charges beginning tomorrow, with the remainder in the next few days.

And given the number of chairmen that have defected on him, he's having to load up the few committees left with loyalists - like appropriations, regulated industries, elections, county affairs, etc.

Remember when we feared those electronic voting machines and were convinced they could lead to rampant voter fraud? Then, we all got over it and resigned ourselves to their use. We used 'cognitive dissonance' to reassure ourselves that surely the electronic machines would be faster and even more accurate than the old ballots.

Then Houston had a voting error in their ballot and the vote totals had to be adjusted. My illusion was ruined and now election reform goes right back up to the top of my list.

Barack Obama stated that were he a Muslim, he would tell us. Well then. We aren't even sure why that came up. Is there some sort of effort to claim he is a Muslim.....which must means he is a terrorist....which must mean he will suicide bomb the White House if he's president.....then monkeys will fall from the sky and the earth will stop rotating on its axis.

Or...whomever is continuing this whisper campaign could just say..."he's black" and then we'd know what they really mean. What they really mean is that whomever is saying this is racist and thinks that the subtlety won't be lost on us.

A state representative in a runoff election infuriated civil rights leaders after she ended a conversation with the mother of the NAACP's local president by saying, "Talk to you later, Buckwheat."

It gets better, apparently her husband, Lenny, who is a member of the Democratic Party's State Central Committee, was indicted on charges of allegedly harboring illegal aliens through his construction business.

Niiice.

Ok. I can understand that there are things you should never do at work. But hitting on your boss? How in the hell will you ever get promoted? Even if the boss is a troll...

We may be many things -- but we are not vain! We are just CHEAP!!!!!

T. Boone Pickens has recently completed his $165 million to the OSU athletic program. How could we hook up our billionaires with some of our real needs?

Ok. Rick Perry has raised the specter of the terror of a Hillary Presidency. How about the terror of a Rick Perry vice presidency?

Florida legislator Bob Allen was the one that solicited some cop in a bathroom for oral sex...for $20 (cheap bastard) then denied it. He was found guilty and now the Speaker of the House is already calling for his resignation. "I have done nothing wrong, and my family, my God and my good constituents know that," Allen said as he left the courtroom flanked by his three attorneys. "We're going to continue to seek justice." I love how people are all about the rule of law until it applies to them.

See, here's the thing. If you are gay...that is o.k. Be a man and come out and deal with it. When you try to hide that it is going to lead to self-destructive behavior like this, Foley, Craig, that guy in Washington state, and so on and so forth.

What is worse for America? Gay men living their lives openly and honestly and contributing to society? Or anti-gay, self-loathing closet cases getting blow jobs from strangers in a public restroom. Pitiful, cowards and perverts.

John Washburn is successfully keeping Governor Rick Perry from deleting his emails. Perhaps we could get him to help us see the capitol videos of Leininger doing back-hall deals with Craddick.

To our nation's veterans: Thank you.

Now, Therefore, I, Dwight D. Eisenhower, President of the United States of America , do hereby call upon all of our citizens to observe Thursday, November 11, 1954 , as Veterans Day. On that day let us solemnly remember the sacrifices of all those who fought so valiantly, on the seas, in the air, and on foreign shores, to preserve our heritage of freedom, and let us reconsecrate ourselves to the task of promoting an enduring peace so that their efforts shall not have been in vain.

Should you be at work? Mostly. Here's a list of what's closed in Austin.

Speaker Tom Craddick is out peddling his story of leadership. He leaves out the threats, arm-twisting and dirty tricks and gives a more subtle tale of majority rule. By majority rule he means crushing any opposition.

Do you remember when you had hope? When you thought naively that public service and policy and doing what is right for Texans would be what politics would be like? That you would get to make a difference? That you would get to use the power and influence of the State to make lives better from Tyler to El Paso?

Then you get elected or you get a job as a staffer or an a campaign and you find out it's not about that at all. It's about winning, it's about the game, it's about the campaign donations or the ambition of the candidate and if someone mentions "the people" it gets a hearty laugh in the office.

In spite of all that, I hold out hope that the voters will see through it all one day. One day they won't swallow the bullshit that comes from the people like Craddick and Perry and they'll vote for someone forthright and strong and courageous and honorable.

Every year, that hope fades. But, I have to keep it because how can I live a life so full of cynicism and pessimism about our future?

An activist learned that the governor's office purged all emails after seven days and since he is also a computer programmer he created a widget to send an open records request automatically every week. Once a request has been made, the office cannot delete the messages. The governor's office says they have disabled the auto-delete feature as of Thursday. Did someone hear Robert Black say the "F" word on Thursday?

Seriously. What the hell is up with this crap? The latest story is a 25 year old woman escaping Nebraska for Mexico with her 13 year old student. The shades of wrong are so bad that I'm going to just start blaming people. Let's get started.

1. The parents of these teachers that do this. Let's blame them. They obviously did not teach their own children the difference between right and wrong. They also did not teach them the character it takes to be a teacher and influencer and the power that can have over people.

2. The parents of the children getting sexed up. What the hell were you doing while your 13 year old is getting laid...by his teacher?

3. The schools. At the first indication a teacher is having inappropriate relationships with kids you need to nip it, nip it in the bud.

4. The media. The sensationalized world we live in focuses on how people get away with things, they don't focus on accountability.

Anybody else?

A woman has been jailed for having a discussion about sex with her own children. While I agree the graphic discussion about sex using your own experience may be inappropriate, for it to land you in jail is the real shocker here.

If my kid got me put in jail, when I got out I hope he'd saved up enough to escape to Mexico because, as my father would say, "I'm gonna give you something to send me to jail for."