1. Texas Secession and all that crap
Not to be outdone by Gov. Rick Perry's inane hints about secession, the Texas State Legislature is now getting in on the act, proposing to use up limited legislative time on a motion re-affirming the existence of the 10th Amendment to the Constitution.
Texas Rep. John Culbertson has also gotten in on the act, pointing out that Texas has the right to subdivide itself into up to 5 states. In his world, this somehow means that Texas can SHAZAM! morph into 5 states overnight, each with 2 Republican senators. Leaving aside any practical considerations of whether all the Senators would be Republican, Culbertson is either stupid or talking total BS, or both. The clause in the agreement by which Texas joined the Union which refers to Texas splitting also states that this must be done within the rules laid down in the U.S. Constitution i.e. the other states have to agree. Somehow I do not see other states agreeing to this sort of a split without some form of matching split (California, which has more electors than Texas, will probably want the same sort of split). Culbertson's bloviating nonsense is yet more evidence that the GOP in Texas are currently a whiny-ass bunch of losers.

2. That Darned Taxpayer Hotel in Dallas
Harlan Crow has spent in excess of $4 million on the campaign against the hotel and convention center backed by the Dallas City Council and the Mayor. I am getting tired of this group's adverts - they are slick and narrated by people with resonant well-modulated voices, but they are nothing more than innuendo-ridden polemical slams, mostly consisting of ad hominem attacks on Mayor Tom Leppert. Whenever I see a campaign like this relying almost exclusively on the ad hominem fallacy, my BS/sleaze meter gets pegged to the end-stop. Where's the argument?
There is also a rich vein of hypocrisy lurking in the adverts - Crow himself refuses to talk publicly about the campaign, claiming he wants it to be about issues, but as the Dallas Morning News has pointed out, one of the most recent adverts is nothing more than an ad hominem slam against Mayor Tom Leppert.
Crow's campaign is the most egregious example of special pleading (his family business just happens to own the Anatole hotels) that I have seen since the Dallas Cowboys spent millions to con the city of Arlington into ponying up for a second major-league sports stadium in 10 years. That campaign was similarly one-sided in terms of the amount of money being spent by the pro and anti stadium factions.
The Dallas Obsever has a fairly comprehensive article outlining the main facts and issues in this unfolding saga.
UPDATE - The ballot initiative to prevent Dallas City Council from supporting the hotel was narrowly voted down by the city voters.

3. The Big Bank Bailout
Here is a pretty cogent explanation for why the recent bank bailout was not a very good idea...