A couple of weeks ago I posted about a TV Pilot called "Midland" that was in production at FOX. It seems the series has landed some serious star power, might we be the next incarnation of Dallas?

In his first regular TV series role, Jon Voight has signed on as a lead in Fox's drama pilot "Midland."

David Keith also landed co-starring role on the pilot, directed by Marc Webb.

"Midland," from 20th TV, centers on Bob (Jimmy Wolk), a con artist juggling two lives in two Texas cities with two women (Adrianne Palicki, Eloise Mumford), one of whom (Palicki), is the daughter of a Texas legend (Voight), described as a gravely voiced titan equally at home in boots or a three-piece suit.

Set your DVR's

I don't know who this woman is but she's got the key to my heart. (Click "Continue reading...." to see more. Possibly NSFW)

Question: What is an "incentive" for a company other than an opportunity to reduce it's risk in any given venture?

And if there is any sort of meaningful "clawback" provision contained in an agreement with the MDC, how can there then be reduced risk for the "incentee" company?

And doesn't it then follow that the only way a company can look at any agreement with the MDC that contains a "clawback" clause as an actual reduction of their risk is if that company believes that the clawback provision won't actually be enforced if push comes to shove?

I guess we are about to see how seriously the MDC and the City Council take these Clawback provisions that have been trumpeted as having been set in place to protect the taxpayer's interest.

Or if these companies have guessed correctly on how willing the MDC and the City Council are to actually enforce the contracts.

The headline reads, "Midand College given $1 million to train Chevron employees" but it leaves out a pretty important piece of information, i.e. that this $1 million dollar grant is coming from the federal government.

I love Midland College. And I love Chevron.

But, no kidding, with Obamaian trillion dollar per year deficits as far as the eye can see (not to mention the single largest monthly deficit in U.S. history) does the federal government have any business shelling out grant money so that Midland College can train employees for a company that makes about $15 billion per year?

When I became a contributor to Jessica's Well way back in August of 2006, the invitation was based on several factors, but first my first big look at local government was EZ-Rider.

I'm past doing the annual analysis of the ridership and the costs per passenger. I think everybody who has read this blog for some time knows EZRider exists because of the Federal dollars that have historically funded more than half of the operating costs of our bus system.

Well, on February 16, 2010, the Federal Transit Administration posted their FY 2010 Section 5307 and Section 5340 Urbanized Area Apportionments, and Midland/Odessa will be receiving $1,228,874 from the Feds this year. Our share is a pittance compared to the $1.87 Billion allocated nationwide (most of which goes to the large metros).

Under the program that EZRider receives their funds, the federal share is not supposed to exceed 50%. The State kicks some money in, but with the budget shortfall projected in Austin, that may go down.

In the end, prepare for more discussion between Midland and Odessa regarding their obligations this year. That $300~$400k sure would fill in a lot of sales tax revenue holes.

(AP) The Midland City Council has announced plans to put before the voters a $125 million dollar bond issue for the construction of the "Reality Bridge" that will almost certainly guarantee Midland's future. This follows on the heels of observations made by a consultant that, "Securing Midland's future and making it a better place can only be done if the city government is well organized and avoids pitfalls like factionalism and shortsightedness." To better leverage the effectiveness of the proposed Reality Bridge, the city council will move to use the power of eminent domain to aquire both the blighted areas of Factionalism and Shortsightedness and re-zone them to "Forward Thinking-1" and "Planned District-Visionary", respectively. Additional ground-breaking information provided by the newest round of consultancy includes:

• The very nature of change is changing.
• Younger people text a lot.
• The world is different from what it was 10 years ago.
• In 10 years the world will be different from what it is now.
• Although technically possible given the previous two statements, it is highly unlikely that the world 10 years from now will be the same as it was 10 years ago.
• The very nature of the nature of change is indeterminant due to the changing nature of change. And nature.
• The I-20 corridor isn't any prettier than it was 25 years ago when we were told it wasn't very pretty.
• Hey, here's an idea! Let's revitalize downtown!
• It is better to be a crappy doctor who gets paid than a brilliant doctor with no friends.
• You can't pay too much for good consulting.

The council is undecided as to the timing of when to put the issue before the voters but will almost certainly follow the proven method of guaging the will of the people by selecting a date on the calendar most likely to suppress voter turnout by anyone who isn't a member of the "Reality Bridge To Our Guaranteed Future" Steering Committee.

If we are to believe MDC Board member Robert Rendall (and we very much should, I fear), the Midland Development Corporation has provided a low cost (zero interest, actually) loan to a company (several companies maybe) who either wouldn't warrant traditional bank lending (or at least didn't pursue it) and now said company would probably fail should it be required to make good on the terms of it's "loan" leaving the taxpayers to foot the loss.

Gee, that's sound kind of familiar.......

Save in terms of size and scope, is there a whit of difference between the operational philosophy of the MDC in this case and that of Fannie Mae?

Earlier/Related: "So...those so-called "Clawback" provisions are really pretty worthless then, huh?".

A friend at I Own the World did this rather nice shopped job, which is the perfect visualization of one of Rush's best tropes: the people look at the U.S. as a huge sow with 300,000,000 teats.

This is what progressives want when they're not breathing fire about crazy Republicans or insane right-wingers and wishing death on them. I'm not making up the wishing death on political enemies either.

From MyWesttexas.com's article on yesterday's Council meeting:

[Midland Development Corporation Board member Robert] Rendall came to the podium and said the company might fail if the council required it to pay back the money. "We are really encouraging them to try to make it," he said.

So the money that Trace was to pay back to the taxpayers of Midland should this venture not work out as was planned can't be paid back because...well..um...this venture hasn't worked out as was planned.

Yes, I know that in some cases that money has in fact been "clawed back" from some companies who did not make good on their employment numbers. But judging from the published council agenda regarding several ongoing MDC agreements the only clawing back of anything is being done by these rent-seeking companies trying to reduce their commitment to "create" jobs.

But the question still remains of these "claw-back" provisions: If these companies have the wherewithal to return these taxpayer funded subsidies after the projects that were funded turn out to be non-performing then why do they need the subsidy in the first place? In short, if they have the money to be "clawed-back" on the back end of a failure, why don't they use that money to self-finance up front? Answer: Because it isn't about financing, it is about free money for the favored.

And although we have asked these questions many times before, back when economic mistakes in one area can be papered over by economic growth in others, I shall ask them again in the hope that our finding ourselves in the midst of a real recession and ham-fisted Obamaian attempts at "re-forming" this country's economy will provide a bit more focus and clarity.

1. Does the Federal, State, or local government have any business provding these kinds of subsidies to privately held firms?
2. Philosophically, what is the difference between the MDC taking money from the taxpayers and giving it to Trace Engines and the Obama administration taking money from the taxpayers and giving it to General Motors?
3. Should the MDC/City Council decide not to actually enforce these contracts (or should they renegotiate them down) isn't that the exact same thing as a taxpayer bailout?
4. Can six political appointees actually ever at once:
   • Be knowledgeable enough about each specfic company's operations and product line as to ascertain the viability of it's business model, and
   • Possess adequate knowledge of the sometimes world-wide industries that these subsidy-seeking companies compete in in order to make any sort of educated guess as to their long-term viability in the marketplace?
   • At least use Google every now and again?
5. Given that the whole philosophy of development corporations is to force the flow of capital into areas that the free market has already decided against funding, how is the Midland Development Corporation's/City Council's arbitrary decisions on which companies are to be subsized and which companies are not anything but a corruption of the marketplace? Even if they get one right?
6. How soon will it be before the MDC moves from referring to "jobs created" to "jobs saved"?

The article mentions that one of the members of the City Council is an investor in one of the companies in the MDC troughdom. He will probably recuse himself from any vote on the proposed renegotiations.

Although, he could always vote against a renegotiation and to actually enforce the current agreement. Such a move would have the twin virtues of being a blow struck on behalf of true free enterprise and one that would also match up with his campaign literature.

But serial claims of fiscal conservativism and a faith in the free market notwithstanding, the "dead hand" of government intervention in the marketplace always seems to mean other people in some other governmental body somewhere else.

They spend. We invest!

(Hat tip to Ospurt for doing yeoman's work on this stuff.)

According to the MRT, the Midland City Council decided to table three of the four economic development agreement amendments at their most recent meeting. From the reporting, I can't really tell if there were serious concerns, or if the council was just running out of time after the Culver Drive issue.

We don't know what the amendments to Sentry Pumping or Natural Gas Services Group entail, but we do know that the amendment with Trace Engines was to lower their employment target to 25 jobs and, I assume, reduce their letter of credit by only $75,000, leaving $325,000 for Trace to borrow against, while keeping their $400,000 forgivable loan intact (the reporting isn't too clear on this and neither the City nor the MDC posted the complete proposed amendments for the public to examine).

Councilman Scott Dufford has the money quote, too bad he's not even half way to the full story with Trace Engines:

"So we paid $400,000 for 25 jobs?"

Actually, the State of Texas Paid $456,000 for 114 jobs, then the MDC/City paid $400,000 plus provided $400,000 in credit facilities for the same 114 jobs.

I'm not sure what lowering the employment target to 25 from 114 acomplishes, except taking that liability off the books, since other reports say Trace has until 2013 to meet that target.

This is a local blog, mostly political but sometimes other things are appropriate. A friend sent me a picture of the single woman in the world with the biggest pair of boobs. Read on to see her.

Tuesday night Glenn Beck on Fox News is going to have a full hour of Eric Massa. He is the Congressman from New York who claims that he was pushed out of office by the big-box Democrats because he voted against Cap and Tax and is against Obamacare. He's the one who, remember, at first was said to have resigned from making improper advances toward a male aide and for health troubles.

The White House is calling his contention "ridiculous," which tells me that there may be something to it. When is the last time that a Democrat was ever forced from office for sexual improprieties? Remember Gerry Studs was censured in 1983 for having an affair with a 17-year-old male page. Censured but not thrown out, and in 1983 too. We've had a lot of sex since then to immunize us.

Kennedys are notoriously immune to sex scandals.

Let's remember Bonnie Fwank from Massachusetts, and his embroilment with Steve Gobie, a male prostitute.

And, again, the White House is calling Massa's charges "ridiculous." I have found that it is good strategy to believe the opposite of what this White House says.

Tonight, Tuesday, on Glenn Beck.

UPDATE: Glenn Beck apologized for wasting an hour of the viewer's time and I apologize for wasting fifteen seconds of yours. Unlike Glenn Beck I shall not claim to have wasted your time for the first time ever.

From KyleSmithOnline.com:

...an absurdly awful would-be actioner that stars Matt Damon as a US warrant officer in 2003 Baghdad who, during ongoing combat operations, security scares, political problems and the search for weapons of mass destruction, takes a break on his own initiative and decides to launch a one-man crusade to investigate....the United States and its intelligence-gathering operations.

I miss the Hollywood of Lee Marvin. Good actors who also had it in them to be real heroes. Guys who grew up in the Depression. Guys who actually did go to war.

Not guys whose idea of strife and hardship is second billing, a smaller on-set costume trailer, and a near-empty bottle of hair product.

Truly, is there a male A-Lister in Hollywood whose a** couldn't be kicked by Sarah Palin?

I went to the CNN website--got to find out what they're up to--and found this.

Nathan Daschle is the executive director of the Democratic Governors [sic] Association, which gave a half million to White to run against the Republican gubernatorial nominee. Dashle explains his enthusiasm:

Bill White is different from any other Democrat who has run in that state,"

He is smart. He is authentic.

I see. Different from any other Democrat who has run in Texas by virtue of being smart.

This from the mouth of a high-ranking Democrat.

One of the best features of the internets in general and blogs in particular is access to different points of view and thought processes. A superb example just crossed my screen.

Our President's physical this weekend has evinced lots of discussion on whether Obamacare would cover Obama's care, especially his colonoscopy procedure, done with a CAT scan rather than the long, apparently alien-designed anal probe many of us are all too familiar with. I, along with many others, was concerned/outraged that Our President partook of a procedure not offered to the rubes in flyover country. I have now been convinced of my error in thinking.

Instapundit has a commenter that came up with a stunningly pursuasive reason for us spending a ton of money on Mr. Obama's alternate colonoscopy technique.

There is one reason and one reason alone why we should give Obama a pass on the virtual colonoscopy: President Joe Biden. Colonoscopies require general anesthesia, which would require a temporary transfer of power to Biden. Who knows which country Biden would trisect during the procedure. I for one applaud this judicious use of money.

As he says, "Heh."

Van Jones was one of those sneaky czars that Barack Obama wanted to advise him; it seems he's very comfortable surrounded with a rabble of hard-lefties. Jones was the czar for green jobs, which is a phrase fraught with terror if I ever heard one, combining a hot-button word and coercion.

Mr. Jones called President Bush a crackhead and he was forced to resign in September from his job after it came out that he was allied with one of those 9/11 truther organizations. Hard to imagine behavior too raw for this administration to get rid of someone, but this was.

Mr. Jones is now a lecturer at Princeton University (Einstein's old home; I wonder if he's spinning in his grave) and at Washington's Center for American Progress, where he will be giving us the same old tale: that green is good. It is of course nothing more than an excuse for socialism. The Center for American Progress was founded by rich liberals for a left-wing think-tank; they also founded Air America, which just died, a complete and total failure. When the water reaches the top deck, follow the rats. The last rat from Air America is Senator Franken.

Mr. Jones explained in an official Princeton statement he looks forward to "exploring solutions to our nation's toughest challenges with the students and scholars of Princeton."

"America is at a crossroads, facing economic and ecological crises. The next generation of job-creating, green solutions will be even more challenging to conceive. And they will be even more difficult to implement."

But Mr. Jones feels that a university education must help students become revolutionaries and he has stated that students who are not activists are getting "worthless degrees."

On the face of it, Mr. Jones' stated aims of green jobs would require engineering and other talent to make them possible, and none of that talent is made by activists getting degrees in political science, but by non-activist engineers getting degrees in, er, engineering. I recall when I was in college we sneered at the politico types because we were doing quantifiable things.

But then for Mr. Jones and his friends, it's really all about the socialism, and destroying capitalism, which made him the perfect pick for Mr. Obama. It doesn't bother Mr. Jones, if he's thought it through, that he'll need smart scientists and engineers to have his green jobs. But then he has called himself a communist and that's his true belief, not greenery or environmentalism.

Do not expect to see Mr. Obama take a dose of reality as did Mr. Clinton in 1994. He's a True Believer too.

Glenn Beck keeps advertising for a Gore sighting. Recall that our ex-vice president canceled his appearance at the Copenhagen smash-and-grab-rich-economies summit, which should have been the tailor-made audience for his Jeremiah schtick.

The left: the gift that never quits giving. Last night Michael Malloy on America Left outdid himself. I really ought to subscribe to his podcast so I could transcribe it; surely no one is as insane has he seems to be.

After a much put-upon sigh, he got animated and went into one of his rants:

"You crazy conservatives! You're sick, pathetic cowards! You listen to this show! I know you do! You've had your heads cut off by the likes of Beck and O'Reilly!"

He then said that all the right-wing audience was Poor, Broke, Toothless People of Wal*Mart people.

"My Italian grandfather would string up eight chickens at a time!" he'd grit out, his teeth grinding. "He'd take out that big Dago knife [his word] and cut off their heads! And then do you know what they do? Do you know what they do? Do you know what they do?

"They run around! They run around! That's what you brain-dead conservatives, and I know you listen to this show, I know you do, are after you listen to Beck."

Mike took off time to call Glenn Beck Heinrich Himmler and then went back to his blood-thirsty rant.

"I can still hear it. No cluck cluck cluck--their heads had been cut off--but the whump whump whup.

"And then we put them in boiling water. Do you know why? To get the feathers off.

"You conservatives are like those chickens and we'll put you in boiling water."

This is the best that I can remember it. I don't know if it's better for me to question my sanity, since I am one loud-mouthed blogger in a small town, or his, and he has a national radio program.
----------
Graphic courtesy of www.IOwnTheWorld.com.

The Littlest President has been graced with his own board game. It's Obama Bullshit Bingo.

Warm testimonials at the link.

A friend, who goes by Opiate of the Masses, send me a testy but funny email, which I'll steal. It follows:

From the Just One Minute blog:

The Great Communicater (Obama) shared his new-found philosophy about mandates at the summit:

When I was young, just got out of college, I had to buy auto insurance. I had a beat-up old car. And I won't name the name of the insurance company, but there was a company -- let's call it Acme Insurance in Illinois. And I was paying my premiums every month. After about six months I got rear-ended and I called up Acme and said, I'd like to see if I can get my car repaired, and they laughed at me over the phone because really this was set up not to actually provide insurance; what it was set up was to meet the legal requirements. But it really wasn't serious insurance.

justoneminute

Can anyone guess what went wrong for the super genius college graduate here? Yes, he was required to buy LIABILITY insurance but was not required to have COLLISION insurance. I knew the difference when I got my license just out of HIGH SCHOOL because my parents didn't drive and I had to buy my own insurance (I did something radical - I asked the agent what the policy covered.)

We can excuse Barack Obama, super genius college graduate and future constitutional scholar for not KNOWING the difference but what is truly mind boggling is that it never occurred to him to ASK the insurance agent "Hey, if I total my car, will my insurance policy pay to fix it?" He just ASSUMED it would, didn't he? (As the late Benny Hill said, when you ASSUME, you make an ASS out of U and ME.) But the irony here is that because OBAMA was too stupid to ask a basic question about insurance, he assumes that the rest of us are also too stupid to ask these questions. And by this dubious reasoning, we need the help of DOPES LIKE HIM WHO WERE TOO STUPID TO ASK THESE QUESTIONS IN THE FIRST PLACE!!!!! In other words, if Obama is a klutz who went to replace a light bulb and ended up causing a short circuit that blacked out half of Chicago, he has decided that no one can be allowed to replace light bulbs but instead must hire him to do it. This is the type of bullshit that passes for logic in Washington. And the fact that the media can report his silliness with a straight face makes me wonder not why the old media are dying but how the hell they managed to survive this long.