Here’s a little rundown of Sunday night in the Bayou City:

11:05 p.m.:

a man and woman died in a what police said today was a murder-suicide in the 16000 block of Angel Island. The man shot the woman in the head, then killed himself, police said.

11:25 p.m.:

The victim, identified by relatives as Ahmed Oscar Zuri, was shot by another teen about 11:20 p.m. at the Sonic in the 1800 block of South Dairy Ashford, said Sgt. H.R. Hernandez of HPD’s homicide division.

11:25 p.m.:

a man was shot in the chest and died in the street on the 4600 block of Oxford, they said.

I’m gonna go out on a limb, and say that maybe we should have a police chief who actually lives in Houston.

Lookie what we have here:

Borris Miles told police he was fixing a leak on the second floor of the Houston house he’s building Sunday night when he heard a noise downstairs and saw two men trying to steal the copper. After Miles confronted the pair, one of the men threw a pocketknife at him, Houston Police spokesman Victor Senties.

Miles, a former law enforcement officer, shot the man in the left leg, police said. The wounded suspect was being treated at a Houston hospital. Police were trying to identify the other suspect.

Looks like a clean shooting to me. The problem, though, is that Mr. Miles is a state legislator who doesn’t think you should be able to do the same thing:

Miles, a Democrat, voted against a bill that gives Texans stronger legal right to defend themselves with deadly force in their homes, vehicles, and workplaces. The so-called “castle doctrine,” passed by the Legislature this year, states that a person has no duty to retreat from an intruder before using deadly force.

Tsk-tsk, Rep. Miles. How do you feel about that castle doctrine now?

I just ran across an interesting comment on “Happy Furry Puppy Story with Norbizness,” a leftist blog from Austin. Commenter and Missouri innkeeper Scott Holder writes:

Norby:

Have you ever stumbled across one Matt Bramanti down there? He’s around your age and has some radio station, network, or something, and is a TX member of the right wing noise machine. If you’re familiar with him, go take a s— [Redacted by LST] on his car for me. Oh wait, you probably wouldn’t be let in the all white, gated surburban community I’m sure he lives in.

No idea if he’s in Austin. I’d go to his web site but I don’t want him to increase his hit count.

First, we ought to clear up the facts. Norby is 34, and I’m 25. I don’t have a radio station, alas. And the gated suburban community I live in isn’t all white. He is right on saying that he wouldn’t be let in. Not because of race, of course, but because my homeowners’ association frowns on public defecation.

Anyway, just thought I’d give y’all an example of the love and tolerance exemplified by the contemporary left.

LoneStarTimes.com: Dodging liberals’ feces so you don’t have to.™

Well, I guess our friends down at the Houston Chronicle deserve “credit” for at least putting this whopper where it belongs–in an opinion editorial– instead of sneaking it into a supposedly “straight” news story.

HEADLINE
Bright spot: Supreme Court ruling backing parents of learning impaired children is a rare victory for the little guy.

With recent rulings favoring corporate over shareholder rights and opposing school districts attempting to promote classroom diversity, the U.S. Supreme Court has persuaded many observers that it has tilted toward big business and conservative ideologues.

I’m not familiar with the “favoring corporate over shareholder rights” ruling the Chronicle is referencing; perhaps Owen of RickG will wish to weigh in.

But as far as “opposing school districts attempting to promote classroom diversity,” that’s just piffle. (h/t Courreges)

School districts are still perfectly able to promote classroom diversity–they just can’t judge individuals by the color of their skin while trying to do it. (Or as Chief Justice Robert’s quipped, “The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.”)

Newsflash to the editors of the Chronicle– not all black and brown people think alike. (I’ve even known white folks to occasionally disagree.) Counting ethnic beans may make the bean-counters feel good, but genuine classroom diversity is much more likely to be achieved–without discriminating between people on the basis of race–by taking into account a student’s socio-economic status. And that remains perfectly legal.

And the more we learn about the case being highlighted by the Chronicle, the more absurd becomes its headline and lede paragraph, which posits the dichotomy of “little guy” on the one side vs. “conservative ideologues” on the other.

In a welcome exception, the nation’s highest court put its opinion behind the rights of parents of special needs children to take school districts to court without having to hire high-priced lawyers.

Facing off against publicly paid school district attorneys specializing in education law is not an even contest, but at least parents can now get their arguments before a judge.

In the case heard by the Supreme Court, Winkelman v. Parma City School District, an Ohio couple sued to force the school district to pay for private school for their autistic child because the public system offered no equivalent services. They were threatened with a steep fine by the Cleveland Bar Association for practicing law without a license.

To review, this case involves…

1. Parents trying to secure the freedom to escape an inadequate educational monopoly, who were…
2. Forced to fight taxpayer-funded government lawyers, and then…
3. Attacked by a guild seeking to use licensing regulations backed by the coercive power of the State to ward off competition.

Yeah, “conservative ideologues” don’t care about those sorts of issues at all.

For what it’s worth, I’ve heard that “religious liberty” plaintiff’s oftentimes think of themselves as “the little guy” too.

Remember all the fuss a few years ago when Texas put limits on malpractice suits? Well, the evidence is in: it’s working.

An influx of doctors into Texas has caused long waits for medical licenses, inconveniences for patients wanting to see certain specialists and anxiety for physicians awaiting new colleagues to help with high caseloads.

People in the medical field say the state’s limits on malpractice lawsuits have generated a surge of doctors, including specialists, who want to practice in Texas, which is helping bring more doctors to areas of the state that don’t have enough.

How much have the rates dropped?

On average, malpractice insurance premiums in Texas have gone down 21.3 percent since the tort law took effect in September 2003, said Jon Opelt, executive director of Texas Alliance for Patient Access. The alliance, which supported changing the medical liability law, describes itself as a coalition of doctors, hospitals, nursing homes, health care providers and medical liability insurers.

The gap is huge for doctors in the big cities in the north.

The law is “a big factor why Texas has become a popular state to practice in,” said Dr. Punit Chadha, an oncologist who moved to Austin from Chicago last summer. “When medical recruitment firms send out information, . . . they will tout the friendliness” of the malpractice environment.

Chadha, who grew up in Houston, said he wanted to come back to Texas but would not have returned if not for the 2003 law. His malpractice insurance premium is now about one-fourth of what it would have been in Chicago, which has some of the highest rates in the nation, he said.

Even doctors from our southern neighbors are coming on over.

Brown said he and his wife paid $130,000 a year for both of them to have malpractice insurance in Georgia. Now, they pay a combined premium of $82,000 a year, he said.

“It was a $24,000 raise for each of us before we even got started,” Brown said.

Scoreboard. Texas patients 1. Texas trial lawyers 0.

Your state hi-way taxes at work for you.

Photo courtesy of southerntragedy

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