Houstonist defends our fair city to naysayers all the time. They say, "Houston sucks. I was stuck at the airport and then at my relatives' place in Pearland." "That's Pearland, jackass. Not Houston," we reply. "You should hang out with us instead. We'll show you our Houston." The Greater Houston Convention & Visitor's Bureau has formalized this approach in the form of the "My Houston" publicity campaign that will involve local celebrities (HELLO! Where's......

Good morning, Houston. Sure, the national economy may be going to hell in a handbasket, but look on the bright side: Houston's housing market is remaining pretty strong, so at least you homeowners have something of value! According to a new report, the median home value in Houston fell just $500 between the end of the third quarter 2007 and the end of the year, to $119,300 from $119,800 — still a gain of......

>> Two Houston Area Offshore Drilling Companies Win Big: The oil and money are flowing freely for two drilling companies based in Houston. A report in the Houston Business Journal, lists 2007 revenue for mammoth behemoth, Transocean closed out at $3.1 billion. The company also announced a $586 million contract extension with client Anadarko, another Houston company. The HBJ also reports that The Rowan Companies also inked a three year deal. The Rowan deal......

>> There are some big changes coming to Memorial Park: Houston's most popular park with a running trail and a burger joint is slated to get more improved features to help you sweat to the oldies. According to ABC13, Mayor Bill White's improvement plan will include a bridge across Memorial Parkway for cyclists and pedestrians, extended running trails, an improved tennis facility and a new shower facility for you dirty folks. Sounds pricey, huh?......

Good morning, Houston. Here's one of those things that ended up selling for much more than we would have expected: A Rosenberg man bought a lock of Che Guevara's hair yesterday for $100,000. Bill Butler, a bookstore owner, was the only bidder; he said he collects items from the 1960s and that the hair will fit in well. "A lot of his writings are still worth reading today," Butler said of Guevara. Gustavo Villodo,......

Good morning, Houston. If you'd like a little more Kinky in your life, you may be in luck. Erstwhile gubernatorial candidate and the bane of Chris Bell's existence Kinky Friedman said he might make another run for the office in 2010. This time, though, he's thinking about losing the independent label and running as a Democrat. Consultant Kelly Fero said, "They're going to be looking for real serious, legitimate candidates. Kinky should throw his......

Wow — it's still six months to Christmas, and yet we're getting gifts already: The AP reports that everyone's favorite golden-haired politico, Shelley Sekula Gibbs, is laying the groundwork for her campaign to return to Congress. Oh, yes. Sekula Gibbs (notice that she's dropped the hyphen, which she worried could be a problem during her write-in campaign for Congress last year) announced that she has some high-profile Republican supporters for her 2008 campaign, including homebuilder......

Senator Mario Gallegos, a Houston Democrat, can finally return home after jeopardizing his health to fight a controversial voter ID bill. Gallegos recently underwent a liver transplant and a follow-up procedure due to concerns that his body was rejecting the liver. He even had a hospital bed set up in the Senate sergeant's office, just a hop, skip, and a jump from the Senate floor. Doctors advised Gallegos to stay in Houston to recuperate, but......

Rep. Ellen Cohen is all grown up and getting her legislation passed. The freshman Democrat from Houston proposed a bill that would add a $5 tax to strip club entry fees, and it passed in the Texas House yesterday in a 110-28 vote. The "sin tax" is expected to generate $87 million in revenue, $18 million of which will be used to fund women's crisis centers and sexual assault education. Strip club managers opposed the......

Mayor White traveled to Austin two weeks ago to speak to the state legislature about SB 1317, a bill that would prevent cities from creating ordinances that protect air quality. It was no secret that the bill was targeted at the mayor's recent move to minimize the pollution caused by refineries that lie outside Houston city limits. The bill, authored by State Sen. Mike Jackson (R - LaPorte), was passed by the Senate yesterday, despite......

More on the resignation of Harris County Judge Robert Eckels: The Chronicle is reporting that Eckels plans to make tomorrow his last day in office, and it looks like former state Rep. Ed Emmett will take his place. Eckels has "strongly hinted" that he will support Emmett to serve as county judge until an election can be held next year for someone to fill the remaining two years of Eckels' term — an election in......

Good morning, Houston. We're beginning today with news that's not happening in Texas, but could have had repercussions in our transportation industry: In Arizona, lawmakers just missed banning truck mudflaps with silhouettes of naked women on them. The ban came in a proposed amendment to a bill regarding the legal height of truck fender splash guards, and it took aim not at racist slogans and busty outlines on mudflaps. "I personally am tired of......

There's some news today on Metro's plan to expand its rapid-transit system: Two members of Congress from Houston have said they'll push for federal funding for more light rail, not the bus rapid transit lines Metro proposed for the northside, East End, southeast side and Uptown. The announcement from U.S. Reps. Sheila Jackson Lee and Al Green, both Democrats, came at a Metro board meeting yesterday where the agency OK'd negotiating with a team headed......

Looks like everyone's favorite brief-tenure congresswoman, Shelley Sekula-Gibbs, has made an impact on Washington already: According to Roll Call, the Capitol Hill newspaper, former Congressman Tom DeLay's aides quit en masse yesterday, apparently after finding the golden-haired Sekula-Gibbs a little hard to work with. The full text of the Roll Call article is only available to subscribers, but we'll summarize: As you remember, Sekula-Gibbs won the special election last week to fill former Congressman Tom......

Shelley Sekula-Gibbs told the Chronicle this morning that she will resign her seat on the Houston City Council as soon as the results of Tuesday's Congressional District 22 special election are certified, paving the way for her to head to Washington to spread a little sunshine around the halls of Congress. For a few weeks, anyway. Sekula-Gibbs, a write-in Republican candidate to fill out Tom DeLay's expired term in the House, beat out three other......

Houstonist stayed up half the night glued to our television just to bring you the latest election results, locally, state-wide, and nationally. Let's look at how things went down yesterday. Locally: Much to the mayor's delight, propositions A-H all passed. This means good things for Houston's libraries, parks, police force, airports, etc. Mayor White is keeping the city moving, literally and figuratively. The Chronicle offers complete election results, but we're going to look at a......

So you'd think being dead would put a slight kink into the campaign of a candidate for state representative, right? Think again: Glenda Dawson's campaign seems to be going full steam ahead — though Dawson died Sept. 12. Dawson, a Republican, was running against Democrat Anthony DiNovo for a third term in the Texas House when she died. But it seems her campaign didn't slow down a whole lot; a new flier mailed to voters......

So there's good news and bad news for Gov. Rick Perry. The good news: According to a new poll, he should easily win re-election in November if things keep going like they are. The bad news: According to the same poll, a lot of Texans think he's kind of a sucky governor. Ah, politics. The poll, conducted by The Dallas Morning News (check out the results here), found that Perry leads the pack of five......

During a campaign stop in Houston yesterday, Gov. Rick Perry announced his plan for fighting crime in Houston: a $10 million effort to coordinate law enforcement efforts among more than 100 agencies in Harris, Fort Bend, Brazoria and Galveston counties. The joint operations and intelligence center will put more police officers on the streets, improve local agencies' technology and better link state and local intelligence. "We will not stand idly by as our innocent citizens......

It looks like Kinky's in and Grandma is out on the November gubernatorial ballot: Texas Secretary of State Roger Williams ruled today that Richard "Kinky" Friedman can use his nickname on the ballot, but Carole Keeton "Grandma" Strayhorn can't because her nickname is actually a campaign slogan. The nickname issue came up a while back, when polling indicated that many voters don't know Strayhorn by her name — she's had a variety of last names......

This year's governor's race may come down to a matter of nicknames — or so Carole Keeton Strayhorn, who hopes to make it on the ballot as an independent candidate, seems to believe. Strayhorn is asking to appear on the ballot as Carole Keeton "Grandma" Strayhorn, reflecting that she's campaigned as "One Tough Grandma" since 1998. It seems all her name changes — she started her political career as Carole McClellan, became railroad commissioner and......

Gov. Rick Perry said he doesn't plan to hold a special election to fill Tom DeLay's seat unless DeLay resigns by the end of the week Meanwhile, DeLay supporters gathered in Sugar Land's fake downtown to heckle Democrat Nick Lampson as he called on DeLay to resign immediately In the Panhandle, several wildfires erupted today, prompting the evacuation of the town of Lefors in Gray County Have a problem with feral cats? Call county animal......

According to Time magazine, Tom Delay will not seek reelection and plans on dropping out of congress in May and changing his place of residency to Virginia? Wow, this guy knows how to quit cold turkey. The money quote: "I'm going to announce tomorrow that I'm not running for reelection and that I'm going to leave Congress," DeLay, who turns 59 on Saturday, said during a 90-minute interview on Monday. "I'm very much at peace......

So here's the thing about this year's gubernatorial race: It promises to be intetesting. On the one hand, we have incumbent Republican Gov. Rick Perry, who has more than $9 million on hand and hair that's feathered like the wings of a majestic mockingbird, and Chris Bell, a Democrat who observers say needs to build statewide name recognition and only has $100,000 in his campaign chest at this point. And then there are the independent......

Imagine Houston overrun with Republicans. Oh, wait. Houston is one of 31 cities invited yesterday to compete for the 2008 Republican National Convention, and it looks like the city might go after the event. Though it's unclear who worked to get Houston on the list of possible host cities, we all know how much attention the Republican convention can bring a town — just look at New York in 2004. The funny thing is, Mayor......

First-day individual sales for the Rodeo were up this year, with George Strait's opening-night performance the hottest seller Thousands of people turned out downtown today to see Vince Young in a parade — oh, and to remember MLK, too Gexa Energy's lack of recognition for MLK Day is prompting calls for a boycott against the electricity provider A northeast Harris County woman ran over her granddaughter and another little girl who were playing in her......

Gov. Rick Perry announced plans to go after private funding for Texas' portion of the proposed Interstate 69 rather than waiting on federal money The city will investigate a contract with a garbage collection firm that billed Houston for the disposal of tons of garbage it collected in neighboring cities Management system failures led to the deadly BP plant explosion in Texas City in March, BP's final report on the accident said The Brazosport Facts......

More bad news for Tom Delay (R-Sugar Land)… it seems that if he ran for election today, he’d lose to an unknown Democrat. The question was: If Tom DeLay runs for re-election in 2006, in general, are you more likely to vote for the Republican candidate Tom DeLay or for the Democratic Party's candidate for Congress? Tom DeLay: 36% The Democrat: 49% Voters' Opinion of Tom DeLay: Favorable: 37% Unfavorable: 52% Unfamiliar: 11% Of course,......