I promise that I want to update this thing more frequently, but the job leaves me not interested in posting anything at the end of the day. I also am not quite sure in what direction the policy talk on this thing should be going. I tend to focus on the budget and tax issues, but with my newfound juvenile justice responsibilities, I may start focusing on issues related to that. I'll start with this:
TYC, is that place fucked up or what? If I wanted to fix a horribly broken juvenile justice agency, I don't think I'd bring in a bunch of people for a horribly broken adult justice agency along with tax lawyers to fix things. I may hire a competent juvenile justice person to run things. Fortunately for me and my coworkers, the state hasn't done that and we get to keep our boss and lawyers.
More juvenile justice stuff. Despite some grits for breakfast induced fear, nobody showed up to the TJPC board meeting. The few people who did show up had only good things to say about the funding plan for the new money. That was a shock. An even bigger shock may be that Texas now uses some juvenile justice money to attempt to equalize based on property wealth, so that the poorer counties get more money to spend on state-mandated services. Some really smart guy must have created that funding formula.
GA GA GA GA GA is awesome. Spoon consistently puts out great albums. I don't think it's Series of Sneaks good, but it does share some elements with that earlier brilliant album. The disappointment in GA to me is that Spoon recorded a really good Natural History song from their still unreleased follow-up to Beat Beat Heartbeat. Spoon does 'Don't you evah' really well, but it makes me long for some Natural History nonetheless. One shocking thing about GA is that the bonus album Get Nice, is nearly as good as the featured album. It's just a terrific album that people should be buying.
Transformers is awesome, if you played with the toys and watched the cartoons as a small child. The new Die Hard is awesome, if you like the first Die Hard movie. Harry Potter is good too.
Collaboration not Litigation Ale is really good. They have it at my Central Market. Two microbreweries discovered that they each brewed a beer by the name of Salvation and instead of involving the most nefarious of creatures, the dreaded beer lawyer, they just decided to bottle a mixture of the two beers. One is dark and the other is a golden ale. It's a pleasant and complex combination. It's also relatively high in alchohol content, so it may give your wife a hangover. Just a warning.
