McClatchy reports that Barbara Ann Radnofsky is a Democratic candidate for attorney general who thinks Texas' 2005 ban on gay marriage inadvertently "eliminates marriage in Texas," every single one.

The amendment, approved by the Legislature and overwhelmingly ratified by voters, declares that "marriage in this state shall consist only of the union of one man and one woman." But the troublemaking phrase, as Radnofsky sees it, is Subsection B, which declares:

"This state or a political subdivision of this state may not create or recognize any legal status identical or similar to marriage."

Uh, whoops? Texas' current attorney general, Republican Greg Abbott, stands by the amendment. Others accuse Radnofsky of rabble rousing (Fancy that! Denying innocent couples the legal right to marry makes them very angry.) because the chance of all married Texans becoming unwitting divorcees apparently remains slim:

"It's a silly argument," said Kelly Shackelford, president of the Liberty Legal Institute in Plano. Any lawsuit based on the wording of Subsection B, he said, would have "about one chance in a trillion" of being successful.

But, it'd be pretty funny. [McClatchy]

Former schoolteacher Deborah Parish (we're unsure on the spelling, since we got her name from the video), wanted to impress upon the agency that you can teach kids to get sexy without taking their clothes off, a proposition for which the fact that she had gone all her 56 years without "technically" having sex somehow serves as evidence. But before she could testify about all her gratifying fully clothed sexual experiences, the agency's members informed her that they were taking testimony on alcohol awareness—the sex ed stuff, when her virginal status would have been relevant, had all happened the day before. Read the agenda, virgin!

(Also on the agenda yesterday was a proposal to teach all Texans about Newt Gingrich in history class, but Parish didn't weigh in on that.)

To be sure: Sheila Jackson Lee represents inner-city Houston, Texas. Her district is 40% black and 36% Hispanic. (Jackson Lee's last Republican opponent, coincidentally, received 20% of the vote.) This woman questioning her has never and will never vote for Jackson Lee, and if her story of being an unemployed, divorcing cancer survivor without insurance is correct, she would be directly and immensely helped by any of the health care reform bills currently sitting in the House, whereas in our current American system, her lack of employment and her preexisting condition mean she is most likely fucked.

And this version of the video abruptly ends when the woman finishes her question, because Jackson Lee answered it by sort of explaining that fact.

But the health care argument is entirely, purely, 100% divorced from facts, reason, and logic. It is just fear, paranoia, and hatred. And murmuring on a phone (even if you're just calling the House health care hotline!) while a cancer survivor accuses you of wanting to kill her is just dumb.

Back in 2004, the "Rick Perry's wife is going to divorce him because he had a gay affair with a staffer" rumors made it all the way to The Austin Chronicle, but his wife never did actually divorce him, so the world will never know how gay Rick Perry is. But, you know, it's a term people have been known to search for. And so it ended up in this massive tone poem of the Texan internet user's psyche.

democrat rick perry education rick perry election rick perry email rick perry email address rick perry family rick perry gay rick perry governor rick perry governor of texas rick perry governor texas rick perry immigration rick perry inauguration rick

SCANDAL! Someone viewed the source of Kay Bailey Hutchison's campaign website and searched for the word "gay" for some reason! And Kay Bailey Hutchison is clearly buying her SEO software from people who design porn sites!

Kay's spokesman deserves a raise for this response:

Sadosky said: "We did not know these offensive word associations were being searched for by hundreds of thousands of Texans everyday nor do we condone the computer-generated existence on our Web site. They will be removed promptly."

The Hutchinson campaign had no idea so many thousands of Texans were curious about how gay Rick Perry is! Whoops!

Daily Finance's Jeff Bercovici did some poking around and discovered that Limbaugh hasn't bothered to put his Fifth Avenue penthouse on the market.

Limbaugh has yet to make any such arrangements — or, if he has, he's been keeping them from Kit Carson, his producer and "chief of staff." When I attempted to contact Limbaugh to ask him about his relocation plans, I was directed to Carson, who told me he'd forwarded my remarks to his boss, to no avail. "All I can tell you is, I put the question into him, and I got nothing back," Carson said.

Rush, what the heck are you waiting for, man?! Remember when Alec Baldwin lied about moving to Europe if Bush won? Do you want to be viewed as the conservative version of a lying liar like Alec Baldwin? Of course not! You have a sterling reputation for personal integrity to uphold. Now get the hell out before it's too late! Just go man, please. Texas beckons you.

Rush Limbaugh Threatens, Fails To Leave Manhattan After Tax Tirade [Daily Finance via Cityfile]
Illustration by the amazing Jim Cooke

As you'll learn in this video, it's easy to label someone like Mike a "racist" for posting the sign—until you learn that one of his best friends in the military was a Hispanic guy, "Taking pictures of each other at the urinals, and so on." So, yea. Nachos unite us all. [Guanabee]

Original Video - More videos at TinyPic

"States' rights" is usually just code for "racism," but in Rick Perry's case he is just mad as hell about how he is being forced to spend billions of dollar in federal stimulus money in ways the federal government demands, rather than just blowing it on bribing Rush Limbaugh to move to Austin or whatever.

So he joined some state legislators in supporting a Texas House bill affirming Texas' sovereignty under the 10th Amendment.

It also designates that all compulsory federal legislation that requires states to comply under threat of civil or criminal penalties, or that requires states to pass legislation or lose federal funding, be prohibited or repealed

Yes well we hope they do pass this bill, mostly because of that last bit, about the federal funding "incentives" for passing new laws. That was a favorite tool of Reagan and Bush II, who used it to raise the drinking age and enforce federal marijuana laws with raids on legal medicinal marijuana clinics and other fun things like those (and the Supreme Court has said that it's kosher).

If Texas actually becomes a legal underaged .10 blood-alcohol content spliff-smoking 100-mph libertarian autobahn paradise we will take Perry at his word, that he is concerned about the constitution and not just looking to aid his reelection bid by going hard-line anti-feds making him help poor people. Also if all that happens we might just move there! Who doesn't love getting wasted and speeding with high school seniors?

So don't you dare give Rick Perry some of the money necessary to fund the state's bankrupt unemployment trust fund and expect him to do something about that forthcoming $750 million shortfall! (He would really appreciate more federal help with those wildfires, though!)

It would be a good way for the teens to settle their disputes, see? This principal, Donald Moten, "is a former Dallas police officer who once lied about being kidnapped and robbed at gunpoint to get out of work." Sounds like something fellow Texan George W. Bush would do!

In Moten's defense, one witness says he once stopped one of the cage fights and said, "I don't want any of that shit...I've killed with my bare hands."

Sounds like something fellow Texan George W. Bush would say!

This has been your Texas Cage-Fighting School News of the day. Carry on. [DMN. Pic via]

As Eve Brice, 86, waited for the action to begin at Town East Bingo last week, she thumbed through the September issue.

There she learned that the day's lucky color was blue, that fellow bingo enthusiast Rodger Hall grew up in Dunseith, N.D., (population 739) and that the newspaper's advice columnist, "Nosy," counsels readers to protect their lucky seats by arriving early rather than by confronting interlopers.

"I don't go out to shows, I don't run around with men, but I'm here every night," Mrs. Brice said. "And I love her paper."

The secrets of Ms. Mouser's success: Don't shy away from hard-hitting topics ("recent issues, for example, have urged readers to educate themselves about which candidates will support the bingo industry"); keep it upbeat ( "'I like to do profiles, anything that's lighthearted. I don't do negative stuff,' Ms. Mouser said."); and, most critically, don't be afraid to push the envelope:

The biggest buzz generator, she said, is the joke section – which runs two full pages.

"The jokes are the most popular thing I have in there," she said. "But I get a lot of complaints from people who think they're too risqué."

Mrs. Brice thinks the jokes are great.

"It's just how people are," she said. "It's racy, but it's fun."

A few tables over, Jean Wheat, 80, of Mesquite, acknowledges that some of the humor is bluer than you would find in your average church bulletin, but she likes Bingo Gossip enough that she not only reads it from cover to cover but also passes it on.

New York is waiting, Ms. Mouser.

[Dallas Morning News]

Now we obviously don't want to make light of the situation the individual residents find themselves in, because it is personal for someone with a basement that is now underwater. But if you want to tell the human drama of natural disaster, is it really necessary to turn the low pressure system into a sentient being with a grudge? Hurricane Katrina Changed Everything, of course, but a little perspective on "catastrophic" storms might be in order. The death toll currently stands at three (one was a nursing home patient and an other a 10-year-old struck by a tree branch) but, sad as that is, it's still less than the death toll from that California train crash—another disaster that the cable news networks have all but ignored.

Oh, and the big Galveston Hurricane of 1900? 8,000 dead and the town was nearly erased from the map. That rain cloud must have been pissed.

[Check the local coverage from the Houston Chronicle.]

Edward Glaeser, an Econ professor at Harvard, has a long study in the New York Sun today about why Houston's population grew more than seven times faster than NYC over the last seven years. My guess would have been "nothing to do down there but make babies," but no! Turns out the answer is Houston's "ability to provide affordable living for middle-income Americans, something that is increasingly hard to achieve in the Big Apple."

• Housing costs are way cheaper in Houston. Middle class people can buy houses.
• There's no state or city income tax in Houston.
• Property taxes are lower in Houston.
• You earn less money in Houston, but not that much less. You pay more in transportation costs, but not that much more. And you get to ride around in an air conditioned SUV, rather than a subway car.
• It's cheaper to build sprawling, hellacious strip developments in Houston because there's less government regulation of construction.

Houston: the model for our collective dystopian future. Go there now, so I can have your apartment!

[NYS]

SECTION 4. Section 1702.104, Occupations Code, is amended to read as follows:

Sec. 1702.104. INVESTIGATIONS COMPANY. (a) A person acts as an investigations company for the purposes of this chapter if the person:

(1) engages in the business of obtaining or furnishing, or accepts employment to obtain or furnish, information related to:

(A) crime or wrongs done or threatened against a state or the United States;

(B) the identity, habits, business, occupation, knowledge, efficiency, loyalty, movement, location, affiliations, associations, transactions, acts, reputation, or character of a person;

(C) the location, disposition, or recovery of lost or stolen property; or

(D) the cause or responsibility for a fire, libel, loss, accident, damage, or injury to a person or to property;

(2) engages in the business of securing, or accepts employment to secure, evidence for use before a court, board, officer, or investigating committee;

(3) engages in the business of securing, or accepts employment to secure, the electronic tracking of the location of an individual or motor vehicle other than for criminal justice purposes by or on behalf of a governmental entity; or

(4) engages in the business of protecting, or accepts employment to protect, an individual from bodily harm through the use of a personal protection officer.

(b) For purposes of Subsection (a)(1), obtaining or furnishing information includes information obtained or furnished through the review and analysis of, and the investigation into the content of, computer-based data not available to the public.

Burr said his departure from the Express-News was over editorial differences.

"For 18 years my syndicated music column has run in several newspapers and I have always claimed the rights to ownership of the column, all editorial decisions and the subsequent column revenues from those newspapers. The Express-News has never disputed those rights.

"I may have been a little overzealous, or overreached in trying to be the best reporter columnist I could be. For the past 20 years I have worked with university interns and always supported the philosophy of bringing others up behind me. I have no regrets for helping others, especially Latinos, with training and guidance to become journalists.

Journalists don't have ghost writers.

[MySA, Ramiro Burr via Romenesko]

HIV has been found in saliva and tears in very low quantities from some AIDS patients. It is important to understand that finding a small amount of HIV in a body fluid does not necessarily mean that HIV can be transmitted by that body fluid. HIV has not been recovered from the sweat of HIV-infected persons. Contact with saliva, tears, or sweat has never been shown to result in transmission of HIV.

Oh, Texas. You never cease to make us want to give you back to Mexico.

Thanks to a 1992 Supreme Court ruling, that means Texas can collect sales tax. It's unclear how much more Amazon.com customers will have to pay, but in New York, Comptroller Susan Combs says the state would have picked up $541 million from Amazon in 2006 if it collected sales tax on orders shipped to New York residents. (Photo by Robert Scoble)