Developed.

OK… it’s 5:30 on a Friday afternoon and you’ve got less than 24 hours to get your firm’s uranium-enrichment gas centrifuges to an important client in Natanz–who do you turn to?

DHL.

British executive Robert Mills says his express delivery firm is enjoying explosive growth in Iran, despite tightening international sanctions on the Islamic Republic over its disputed nuclear plans.

With a longstanding U.S. embargo barring two key rivals from entering the world’s fourth-largest crude producer, DHL Express claims a share of at least 60 percent of what Mills called one of the region’s fastest-growing markets for the sector.

“Business is good, business is improving year-on-year,” enthused the 40-year-old country manager of DHL, a unit of mail and logistics group Deutsche Post.

For Mills, financial and other punitive measures imposed by the United Nations and the United States since late 2006 over Tehran’s nuclear programme have not slowed business: “I can’t feel them, I can’t see them,” he said.For DHL’s Mills, the absence of U.S. competitors United Parcel Service Inc and FedEx Corp “takes a lot of pressure off for the obvious reason”.

DHL’s strength in Iran is in contrast with the United States market, where the company is struggling to take on UPS and FedEx on their home turf and is losing money.

Vote with your wallet.

• FedEx
• UPS

It looks like Hillary’s Texas firewall is crumbling:

The survey found Obama leading 48.2 percent to 41.7 percent over Clinton statewide. The poll, conducted Tuesday through Thursday for the Houston Chronicle, Reuters and C-SPAN by Zogby International, has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.8 percentage points.

Hillary leads in heavily Hispanic South Texas, while Obama leads everywhere else - including 60% in both Houston and Dallas.

Meanwhile, it appears that the prospects of any major “message vote” to John McCain by conservatives might be fading.

McCain led with 53.4 percent support to Huckabee’s 26.8 percent and Paul’s 10.7 percent in a survey that had a margin of error of plus or minus 4.1 percentage points. McCain led among all groups, including self-identified conservatives.

It looks like the general election campaign will be starting Wednesday - Obama, the most liberal United States Senator,  vs. McCain, who is, well, far less liberal.  Plus, for the first time since 1960, a sitting Senator will finally have won the White House.

As early voting ends and Election Day nears, the proverbial rubber is about to meet the road, and we’re all going to learn if Chris Peden had what it took to beat Ron Paul.

An outfit called Public Policy Polling has come out with some numbers showing Paul up by +33 points, 63% to 30%, although a few caveats are in order:

• First, PPP is a Democratic leaning firm. That doesn’t mean they are intentionally distorting results (in fact, I’m confident they aren’t), but it is healthy to wonder how well they know how to survey a GOP primary.
• For instance, according to my quick look, PPP got the GOP Presidential primaries wrong in Florida (said Romney would beat McCain 35/28; in fact McCain beat Romney 36/31), in Georgia (said Huckabee would come in behind McCain and Romney with only 27%; in fact The Huckster came in first with 34%), and in Tennessee (had Huckabee losing to McCain by -6 points; in fact Huckleberry beat McCain 35/32).
• These are “robo-polls”, i.e. “If you are voting for Ron Paul, press one; if you are voting for Chris Peden, press two”; I don’t trust ‘em much, for a variety of reasons too esoteric and boring to go into here.
• All of the calls were made on a single night–February 27th. That’s just freaking crazy, and introduces all types of potential biases into the results. (I’d feel more confident if the calling had been done over three nights, with at least one being either a weekend or a week night, i.e., Sat/Sun/Mon or Sun/Mon/Tue; or even three weeknights Tue/Wed/Thu; but just one night? Nuts.)
• Not real clear what their methodology was for weighting results.

In other words, I’m highly skeptical of a +33 point Paul margin.

That said, it is in fact plausible that the results are dead-on accurate. At the very least, and even accounting for all types of problems and errors, it suggests Paul enjoys a fairly solid edge.

Incumbency–as every principled defended of limited-government well-knows–has its privileges, and Dr. Paul has been advocating across the 14th District his strong and deeply-held belief in the wisdom of a truly citizen-legislature since at least February 12th, 1997–which, just to help jog your memory (and according to the always accurate Wikipedia) was back before the release of the first Harry Potter (book), the appointment of Tony Blair as Prime Minister of England, the death of Princess Diana, and the political assassination by a joint CIA-Zionist hit squad of rapper Notorious B.I.G.

That’s an awfully long time for an incumbent to “brand” themselves into the minds of voters–and Ron Paul is nothing if not a brilliant political marketeer, able to tap into Americans’ (and particularly Texans’) authentic and deep-rooted love of Liberty, distrust of Federal power, and admiration for the plucky underdog who is an unswerving Fighter for Principle.

Look we get it; LST endorsed Dan Patrick for State Senate in no small part because even if doesn’t accomplish one damn thing, at least he’ll bug the Hell out of people and institutional forces we want to torment.

To Peden’s credit, he and his team have worked awfully hard. Conventional political wisdom has long been that Paul was well-ensconced in the 14th, so there was little point taking him on. Peden has attempted to ride a “perfect storm”–Paul distracted with a national stage and adulation; increased awareness (and embarrassment) back-home of Herr Doktor’s zanier beliefs and rhetoric; and a growing desire for “practical” representation in Congress, especially in newer, suburban Houston parts of the district–into an upset win. He was underfunded and frankly, made some significant strategic blunders–but where others’ feared to tread, he joined the fight and fought hard, and for that alone deserves credit.

Was it enough?

That’s a question only eligible voters of District 14 can decide.

Chronicle editor Jeff Cohen has been named Editor of the Year by the National Press Foundation:

Houston Chronicle Editor Jeff Cohen accepted the National Press Foundation’s Benjamin C. Bradlee Editor of the Year Award on Thursday, telling a group of fellow journalists that burgeoning competition from diverse Internet information sources is an opportunity for traditional newspapers to excel.

Cohen’s accomplishments at the Houston Chronicle include:

• Helping the environment by reducing circulation
• Keeping costs low through massive layoffs
• Getting his golf handicap below 9

Congratulations, Jeff!

Can any good come from the ugly allegations being throw about in the GOP primary race for Harris Co. Judge?

Well, actually, yeah–LST can massively increase its hit count by providing an open forum for stooges from both campaigns to beat each other silly.

Red-meat courtesy the Houston Chronicle:

A forum for Harris County judge candidates Ed Emmett and Charles Bacarisse quickly became heated Thursday when both Republican hopefuls accused each other of mudslinging.

Emmett spent all his time discussing two recent allegations made by Bacarisse, forcing the former district clerk to use most of his time defending his remarks.

Emmett demanded Bacarisse explain why he had said on a radio show Thursday morning that the county judge had “filed an assault charge” against an opponent’s campaign during a previous election — a claim Emmett said was baseless.

A woman attending the lunchtime forum, held at the Spaghetti Warehouse by the Downtown Pachyderm Club, asked Bacarisse to provide evidence to back up the allegation.

Bacarisse, who has made ethics a central part of his campaign, said, “I will get the details and e-mail them to you.” He gave a Chronicle reporter a similar answer after the debate.

“To go on radio and make an allegation that I filed a personal assault charge and have nothing to back it up is not the kind of judgment we want in a county judge,” Emmett said.

Afterward, Bacarisse campaign spokesman Jim McGrath e-mailed a 1988 Chronicle article that he said supported Bacarisse’s claim. The story related an instance in which Emmett, who was running for the Texas Railroad Commission at the time, demanded an apology from Democratic incumbent Jim Nugent for what Emmett described as a “veiled threat” meant to intimidate him by one of Nugent’s consultants.

McGrath said Bacarisse, in making his remark on the radio, had not meant that Emmett had filed a criminal assault charge, but “alleged the man threatened him verbally.” He said Emmett and a reporter raising questions about Bacarisse’s remarks were engaged in “semantics.”

The other allegation Emmett attacked involved a letter Bacarisse sent to the county attorney on Wednesday, asking it to investigate whether Emmett, who was appointed to the county judge post last March, has violated state conflict-of-interest statutes.

Bacarisse wrote that the county judge’s Emmett Co., a transportation consulting business, may have “an open contract” with the Port of Houston Authority. Bacarisse has included the conflict-of-interest allegations in remarks on talk shows and in a radio ad.

During the debate, Emmett read a letter from Erik Eriksson, the port’s general counsel that said the port has no contract with the Emmett Co.

“We take it very seriously when incorrect claims are circulated regarding the Port Authority or indeed any public agency or official,” Eriksson wrote.

A woman at the forum asked Bacarisse to discuss what appeared to be his own ethics issue — while district clerk, he ran a private consulting business that netted him $78,000 a year.

Bacarisse said his private clients, a building management company that put siding on buildings and a process-serving and courier company, hired him as a marketing strategist.

He said it was not illegal for him to do the work.

Emmett questioned whether it was ethical for Bacarisse to do anything marketing-related for a courier service while he, as district clerk, worked with law firms daily and was in a position to recommend courier services.

You don’t have to be a professional political consultant to know that it is a bad thing to have Paul Bettencourt and Edd Hendee on the radio in the morning slapping you around for spreading lies about your opponent–and that is exactly the message on KSEV they both just sent to the Bacarisse camp.

I’d advise a quick retraction and a re-focus by all sides on issues.

Oh, and lots and lots of comments/page-hits in response to this post.

LoneStarTimes.com–
“Where public service and self-interest exist in peaceful harmony”

Had a bad day?  Looks like drowning your sorrows at the bar won’t help get over it.

TOKYO (AFP) - The age-old belief goes that alcohol helps people drown their sorrows, but in truth the bottle only makes bad memories linger, a Japanese study said Friday.

Researchers at the University of Tokyo concluded that ethanol — an intoxicating agent in alcohol — does not cause memory to decrease, as widely believed, but instead locks it in place.

I’ll say this:  some of that sake I’ve had makes me want to forget drinking anything Japanese.

But, being the lemons-into-lemonade kind of guy that I am, look at the bright side:  booze can “lock” memories in place.

So the next time you have a particularly good day or night, and want to savor the memory, here’s my advice:  hit the gin.

Yeehaa! Can you believe it? Texas is better than California and Pennsylvania combined when it comes to emitting CO2! Check it out.

But even though the state is improving, Texas still outpaces the combined emissions of California and Pennsylvania, the states with the second- and third-highest CO2 outputs.

That’s awesome! Even better are the reasons this article cites for our dominance.

Considering its role in the U.S. economy, it’s no surprise Texas ranks as it does. As the nation’s leading producer of energy, and with more cattle and oil refineries than any other state, it is essentially America’s power plant, gas pump and beef basket. Yes, all those cows play a part.

That’s a great line. We’re the power plant, gas pump and beef basket for all the whiners in America. But the cows are the biggest problem. Or would it be our eating habits?

A study released last summer by Japanese scientists showed that production of just 1 kilogram of beef results in more CO2 emissions than going for a three-hour drive while leaving all the lights on at home.

For those of you in Pasadena, 1 kilogram is 2.2 lbs, which will give you four double meat Whataburgers plus one childs burger. Which equates to about 2 BigJolly meals. There are some funny lines in this one.

The state’s 23.5 million residents use nearly 3,000 more kilowatt-hours of electricity every year than the average American and a higher percentage of them drive large, gas-guzzling vehicles.

I bet we don’t consume half as much on average as Nobel prize winning Albert Gore. For some reason, they really don’t like our transportation systems.

With so much wide-open space, Texas hasn’t needed the kind of urban planning that promotes density.

A better way to say that is that we haven’t let “urban planners” ruin our housing markets. Texas housing is affordable precisely because we don’t let do-gooders tell us how best to live. Urban planning is driving people to Texas. Keep on planning, boys, we have lots of space to develop. The next line is particularly funny in Houston. Read more

Interesting.

• Foreign-born men make up about 35 percent of the state’s adult male population, but they make up roughly 17 percent of the state’s overall prison inmates.
• U.S.-born men are jailed in state prisons at a rate more than three times higher than foreign-born men, and they are 10 times more likely to land behind bars.
• Male Mexican nationals ages 18 to 40 — those more likely to have entered the country illegally — are more than eight times less likely than their U.S.-born counterparts to be imprisoned.
• Those who entered the country when they were 1 year old or younger make up about 0.8 percent of those institutionalized.

The bullet points come from this report. There are some startling findings in the report, including this:

When we consider all institutionalization (not only prisons but also jails, halfway houses, and the like) and focus on the population that is most likely to be in institutions because of criminal activity (men ages 18–40), we find that, in California, U.S.-born men have an institutionalization rate that is 10 times higher than that of foreign-born men (4.2% vs. 0.42%).

10 times higher. That isn’t what we normally think of when we think of illegal immigrants. This is the closing paragraph of the report’s summary:

Taken together, our findings suggest that spending additional dollars to reduce immigration or to increase enforcement against the foreign-born will not have a high return in terms of public safety. The foreign-born in California already have extremely low rates of criminal activity.

Like I said, interesting, no?

Happy Leap Day!

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Now here’s something you don’t see everyday: a major league baseball player cut from a team due to his drunken exploits:

IRVINE, Calif. (AP) — Utilityman Scott Spiezio was cut by the St. Louis Cardinals on Wednesday, released after being charged in a six-count complaint involving drunken driving and assault in a December car crash.

Spiezio was charged with several different misdemeanors as a result of the incident.  While the editors of some papers and websites limited the details of the incident, other reports said the player apparently crashed into a fence near his California home, staggered to a neighbor’s, uh, “got sick” all over the neighbor’s apartment and then, for good measure, beat the crap out of the neighbor.

Spiezio was no superstar, but he was also no scrub - a decent talent who contributed significantly to the Cards’ World Series Championship season in 2006.  Would St. Louis have reacted the same way if the player had been Albert Pujols?  Who knows.  But, aside from getting rid of a bad influence, the Cardinals had little incentive to cut him loose, as the club could owe Spiezio up to $2.4 million for the remainder of his contract.

Asked about Spiezio’s release, Cardinals manager Tony La Russa said, “I think it’s a consistent message about what the team represents.”

Or maybe the Cardinals have just been burned once too often.  A year ago, Spiezio’s friend, pitcher Josh Hancock was killed when he slammed his car into the back of a truck - he was legally drunk at the time.  Several years before that, star pitcher (and former Astro) Darrell Kile was found dead in his hotel room.  Marijuana was found in his system (though there was no finding that it caused or contributed to his death).

Whatever the ultimate reason, perhaps a few more such decisions and our kids might realize that not anything goes, even for a sports star.

PS - The Cardinals were not completely heartless.  They took Spiezio back last year after he was treated for substance abuse.  I guess it was two strikes and you’re out in this game.  It remains to be seen whether we will hear protests that he is innocent until proven guilty.

I guess I must’ve fallen asleep for a decade or so, because I just awoke to this news:

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declared on Thursday that Iran was the world’s “number one” power, as he launched a bitter new assault on domestic critics he accused of siding with the enemy.

“Everybody has understood that Iran is the number one power in the world,” Ahmadinejad said in a speech to families who lost loved ones in the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war.

You can toss all those neckties, guys.  And, gals, your wardrobe choices just got infinitely simpler.

USA, RIP.

Those of you who get your blood pressure up over the government’s investigations of drug use in sports might want to skip this story.

Within a day of reports of a letter from two congressmen asking the Justice Department to investigate whether Roger Clemens lied under oath, the FBI is on the job.

WASHINGTON - The FBI has begun investigating whether Roger Clemens lied to Congress when he denied taking performance-enhancing drugs. FBI agents in Washington opened the case a little more than two weeks after Clemens and Brian McNamee, his former personal trainer, testified at a House committee hearing Feb. 13, each accusing the other of lying.

The inquiry announcement came one day after two leaders of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee asked Attorney General Michael Mukasey to investigate Clemens. The probe could result in charges against Clemens of perjury, making false statements or obstruction of justice. Lawmakers did not ask for a similar investigation of McNamee.

No matter how the Clemens-worshipers (like some of the committee members who acted like 60 year old kids gushing over their sports idol) want to spin it, it is not good news that the one person who Congress asked to be investigated is the Rocket.

As if Roger needed it to get worse:

IRS Special Agent Jeff Novitzky, a key member of the government’s prosecution in the BALCO drug cases, attended the hearing and watched from the second row.

You will recall that the BALCO investigation has already resulted in a number of athletes and non-athletes pleading guilty, and the indictment of Barry Bonds on perjury and obstruction of justice charges.

The FBI and the IRS?  Ouch.

Andy Pettitte and Chuck Knoblauch admitted that McNamee was telling the truth when he said they used performance enhancers.  Clemens denied it, though Pettitte testified under oath that Clemens told him a different story.

Anyone who wants to minimize the seriousness of these developments should remember this:

Former Olympic track gold medalist Marion Jones was sentenced in January to six months in prison for lying to federal investigators about taking the designer steroid “the clear.”

I don’t know about you, but I don’t consider six months in prison anything to sneeze at.  Maybe the feds really shouldn’t be involved in this, but stomping one’s feet in protest will not make it go away.

Some apparently think it’s okay to lie under oath about things like sex and steroids.  The problem is, the folks who can put people in jail don’t.

UPDATED: Vote in the new poll!

I’m not quite sure what to think about this, but a website called “Manterns” is selling male-themed scented candles. Here’s a sample:

Whiskey: A candle Mr. Daniels and Mr. Beam would be proud of. This whiskey candle has the rustic smell of a glass of whiskey on the rocks. The perfect candle for our 8oz whiskey glass size.

4th of July: The combination of gunpowder and sulfer gives this man candle the distinctive fireworks smell all guys appreciate. What man won’t love the scent of colorful explosions?

Bacon Cheeseburger: The delicious smell of a big, meaty bacon cheeseburger. This candle will ignite the fire within your man as he hungers for flame-broiled beef. This man-scent smells so much like a burger you’ll think the grill is on!

Leave your own man-scent ideas in the comments.

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