Jonathan D. Blundell

Unfair Park has released info that the Shops at West End Marketplace will be no more come July 1.

Moments ago, Bill Nabors at Ecom Real Estate Management confirmed something Unfair Park learned only this afternoon: Come July 1, the Shops at West End Marketplace will be no more.
Though there has been no official announcement, Nabors says Ecom decided at the beginning of the year that the 20-year-old mall in the West End was no longer a viable retail space–a fact driven home in recent years, as the 10-screen multiplex, Planet Hollywood, Dallas Cowboys store and other anchor retailers moved out for myriad reasons, leaving the once-thriving mall a desolate island of inactivity.

I’ve been told that the Fort Worth Star Telegram has re-tagged Joe Barton’s, R-Ennis, home as Arlington, saying that he lives there with his wife and child and spends most of his time away from D.C. in Arlington.
Should a newspaper be able to decide where a congressman’s home is or should it be up to the congressman and/or his staff?
This is from a Barton spokesperson:

The Star Telegram’s decision to change the Congressman’s tagline to Arlington was against our wishes. He maintains a residence in Ennis and still spends a considerable amount of time there. We will continue to refer to him as R-Ennis, and I don’t foresee changing that any time soon. But if anything changes, I will let you know.

From Capital Annex:

The Dallas Morning News had a story about the GOP wearing its faith on its sleeves relative to this weekend’s convention. I saw a couple of other pieces of GOP garbage that even further expose the hypocrisy of that party:

At Saturday morning’s prayer meeting, party leader Tina Benkiser assured them that God was watching over the two-day confab.
“He is the chairman of this party,” she said against a backdrop of flags and a GOP seal with its red, white and blue logo.
By that very statement, Benkiser intimates that God is on the side of the Republicans and only the Republicans.

Maybe the Dems should take that stance too?
From a story I did earlier this year:

Several in the group (Ellis County Democratic Coffee Club) said they felt Democrats have let the Republican Party paint the Democrats as anti-religious and anti-morality.
“There are a lot of church-based people who still hold to the idea that the Democrats are only about gay marriage and abortion,” Bud Brannon said. “But I think people are starting to realize there are other issues out there besides those two. There are issues such as school funding, the price of gas, medical care, health insurance and other areas that involve taking care of people.”
“How can any person in their right mind claim to be a Christian and vote for Bush?” Harry Grier asked. “It doesn’t matter to them that he started a war where thousands of people are getting killed.”
“The GOP has done a good job of grouping us together as baby killers and anti-morality,” Larry Harris said. “And we’ve just let them do it.”
“They’ve let them define us and that’s our mistake,” Brannon said.
Harris said there are a number of misconceptions about Democrats that the party needs to overcome.
“Morality is the biggest misconception,” Harris said. “People also think we’re the big spenders and for big government. We’re the party for the people and for helping people, and we’re for government that works.”
Wilson pointed out that despite the notion that Republicans are for smaller government and less spending, the Bush administration has approved raising the cap on the national deficit four times during his term in office.
“It’s a big deal that Congress is voting to approve increasing the national debt,” Larry Wilson said. “They say ‘We’re going to control spending’ and then they turn around and make huge budget amendments, sending us further into debt.”

Any thoughts? Does God really side with the GOP or Dems? Should God play such an important role in politics? Should Christians fight to take control of our country and government?
Here’s a great final thought from my pastor yesterday (loose quote):
“Even if all the things Christians fight for took place tomorrow, it wouldn’t change our country back to a Christian country. If abortion, homosexuality and more were outlawed, it wouldn’t change the hearts of the people.”
Does it relate?

Michael did what I normally do to any forward I get, and actually Snooped the Bill Gates story.
Guess I should have thought about that ;-).
I still think it’s good advice, but the original was not attributed to Bill Gates.

No, this list didn’t originate with Microsoft head Bill Gates. (It’s frequently cited on the Internet as having come from his book Business @ The Speed of Thought, but it didn’t.) Why it’s attributed to Gates is a mystery to us; it doesn’t really sound the least bit like something he would write. Possibly, the item the Internet-circulated version of the list generally ends with (“Be nice to nerds”) struck a chord with someone who views Gates as the ultimate successful nerd of all time……
This list is the work of Charles J. Sykes, author of the book Dumbing Down Our Kids: Why American Children Feel Good About Themselves But Can’t Read, Write, Or Add. (The list has appeared in newspapers, although not necessarily in this book.) Many versions omit the last three rules:

Rule No. 12: Smoking does not make you look cool. It makes you look moronic. Next time you’re out cruising, watch an 11-year-old with a butt in his mouth. That’s what you look like to anyone over 20. Ditto for “expressing yourself” with purple hair and/or pierced body parts.
Rule No. 13: You are not immortal. (See Rule No. 12.) If you are under the impression that living fast, dying young and leaving a beautiful corpse is romantic, you obviously haven’t seen one of your peers at room temperature lately.
Rule No. 14: Enjoy this while you can. Sure parents are a pain, school’s a bother, and life is depressing. But someday you’ll realize how wonderful it was to be a kid. Maybe you should start now. You’re welcome.

Cobalt Tree
Originally uploaded by Jdblundell.

Who knew blue colbalt bottles grew on trees.
This was built and installed at a home in Waxahachie and seen as part of the 2006 Gingerbread Home Tour.