Greg Abbott doesn't like it at all.

Attorney General Greg Abbott, in an ironic twist of timing, has struck down the ability of cities, counties and school districts to offer domestic partner benefits.

By almost any measure, today was a landmark day for the GLBT community, with all eyes focused on basketball player Jason Collins, the first and only gay working professional athlete in any major sport. However, that announcement, hailed by many in the NBA community, is being bookended in Texas with Abbott's decision that benefits cannot be created since the state cannot create a legal status identical or similar to marriage.

The opinion is non-binding, but undoubtedly pleasurable to the rightwing crowd.

Sen. Dan Patrick, R-Houston, requested the decision. In his November letter, Patrick noted that Texas voters went to the polls back in 2005 to specifically define marriage as a state between one man and one woman.

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You thought the George W. Bush presidency was a thrill a minute, what with the pointless Iraq war, the tax gifts that nearly shattered the economy and Dick Cheney waving around his shotgun?

Kid stuff. Get ready to head to Dallas and experience the thrill of a lifetime when you walk over the W Danger Bridge at his official library at the SMU campus.

New artist's renderings of the library, which will be dedicated with great ceremony this month, give the impression that the thing will dominate the Rice-sized campus in the toity Highland Park/University Park enclave.

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Photos by Mauricio Zepeda.

Mason says, "You wanna adopt me? Like I could give two shits."

Friday brings another pair of allegedly adoptable pets from BARC and Mayor Annise Parker. And if you think you're bored with the routine, you've got nothing on today's Cat of the Week, Mason.

What could his expression here be saying?
a) "What're you looking at, loser?"
b) "Forget it -- she's mine."
c) "Yeah. Like I'd go home with you."
d) "Swear to God, you take one more fucking picture..."

Of course, you could just argue that it's all standard cat posing and attitude.

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Still not as terrifying as Democrats.

There aren't terribly many things that can actually threaten Texas. Mexico hasn't put up much of a fight in nearly two centuries. We've sufficiently assimilated into the non-slave states from which we once broke. Global warming and environmental degradation may present some cause for concern, but, according to at least one theorist, Texas stands as the early favorite if and when dystopia shreds the Constitution.

Suffice it to say, there are few things that could sway the state from the track of job growth and population boom it's currently on, even if one includes, say, nuke-tipped missiles. But State Attorney General Greg Abbott refuses to believe that the greatest menace facing us is some baby-faced loon holed in Pyongyang, but, rather, a series of politically motivated young'uns that are seeping and sweeping through the state, aiming directly for ... us.

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Just out of curiosity, do eagles in the wild actually like to stand on rifles?

Figuring that the pen is mightier than the, uh, firearm, the National Rifle Association's legislative director has sent an open letter to the U.S. Senate, stating the association's stance against a Senate bill that would regulate private gun transfers and expand background checks.

Senate Bill 649, aka the Safe Communities, Safe Schools Act of 2013, "would criminalize the private transfer of firearms by honest citizens, requiring friends, neighbors, and many family members to get government permission to exercise a fundamental right or face prosecution," Chris W. Cox writes.

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Dan Patrick has a plan.

Sen. Dan Patrick, R-Houston, is determined to get his taxpayer-funded scholarship bill through the Senate, and he's even willing to scale it back to do so.

Patrick, with few members of the Senate Education Committee but plenty of audience, laid out Senate Bill 23 yesterday The bill, co-sponsored with Sen. Donna Campbell, R-San Antonio, would provide taxpayer-funded private- and parochial-school scholarships for low-income children in failing schools.

Patrick, in his substitute, has limited the pot of money for these scholarships to $100 million, which would be culled from donations from participating businesses. Those businesses would earn a tax credit for the franchise tax they deposit in the fund. A total of three non-profit entities would be authorized to distribute the scholarships.

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Photo by Groovehouse

When he's not jammin', he's killin'.

Apparently, there is a debate over the practice of hunting deer in captivity in the state of Texas. I grew up with a father who loved the outdoors, so much so he worked as an outdoor writer and broadcaster for many years. While he was more into fishing than hunting, he did like to go out and shoot at the occasional critter, though he gave up deer hunting later in life, I think because he developed a soft spot for furry creatures.

Even I have hunted, when I was a kid, but I really have no dog in this race. Ted Nugent, who is a Texas resident (God help us), clearly does and told a Texas House committee that he hunts 300 days every year. Holy crap, that's a lot of hunting. As you might imagine, the Motor City Madman takes issue with being told what he can hunt.

But, to be honest, that isn't what interested me about this story. What interested me is the fact that the committee that handles these matters is the Culture, Recreation and Tourism Committee. I understand that they represent quite a wide range of issues and hunting certainly falls under recreation in the Lone Star State, but it made me wonder what else they manage.

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NFISD: One step closer to oblivion.

The likelihood of North Forest Independent School District being annexed into Houston Independent School District seems imminently probable, even though North Forest promises at least one more appeal of the decision.

North Forest, which has been in disarray for almost two decades now, threw a Hail Mary pass at the 11th hour, using a record review of its closure order before the Texas Education Agency as a chance to pitch a proposed hybrid public-charter district concept to rescue the district from its academic dirge.

North Forest's proposed partnership was with the new PHILO Management Group. PHILO, not to be confused with the inestimable character Philo Beddoe in Every Which Way But Loose, actually stands for Public, High Impact, Low-income community focused, Open-enrollment schools.

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Harold Dutton, starring as Sisyphus.

State Rep. Harold Dutton, the bomb thrower of the Texas House, made the most compelling argument for not passing the state's new graduation and accountability bill last night: It doesn't fix the problem.

No Child Left Behind, and its precursor Texas system, were created to make sure that, well, no child would be left behind. But to Dutton's way of thinking, no version of accountability, from the past to the present, has touched the lives of African-American males in the Texas school system. So Dutton, being Dutton, proposed our accountability system be based solely on the progress of African-American males.

Aw, ever the jokester, that Dutton. On the floor, near the tail end of yesterday's debate, Dutton talked about the dominance of African-American males in the state jails, county jails and the probation system.

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You've left the water running, Mr. President.

The pseudointellectual parsings of Dubya's most recent batch of hacked paintings are dumb. The screengrabs, the half-finished backings, the skewed perspectives -- all of these paintings' realities illustrate that Bush remains a novice, whose talent, while extant, still needs progress before he can convey whatever's truly happening in his Iraq-addled mind. The promise is there, but the quality still lacks. Let's leave all armchair analysis aside.

Still, while we all look at the paintings with some brew of chagrin and confusion -- the ache in his topless, thousand-yard shower scene is as palpable as the economic crater he left behind -- we can also see where Bush may have reached to for inspiration. Leaving Cheney and Rove and Rummy to influence his horrific policy decisions, Bush seems to have reached out to other sources to influence the subjects and styles of his paintings.

Again, while this is all reading the tea leaves, Hair Balls wanted to share five theories as to where Dubya may have looked for aesthetic inspiration. Because, hey, who knows -- it's entirely possible Bush spent most of his days in the White House examining different strains of artistic history. Guy certainly wasn't studying up on much else.

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