End Of Vacation Blues

My vacation was over a week ago and I still have not been able to get back to my daily routine. This has me disappointed in myself as well as being a little depressed. My house is a mess considering the fact that I have been home for only a week. I have not unpacked my luggage nor have I sorted through all of the junk mail.

I am usually a very organized person. I have made a promise to myself: Don't beat yourself up; just start over and continue to do better.

State Opens Inquiry Into Houston DA's Actions

Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott launched an investigation Thursday into whether Harris County's top prosecutor, Chuck Rosenthal, violated state laws by using a government computer for campaign activities.

County commissioners last month set aside $50,000 for a private attorney to defend Rosenthal and two top assistants in their attempt to keep Rosenthal's e-mails private and defend Rosenthal against allegations that he illegally deleted e-mails. It wasn't clear Thursday whether county taxpayers might also pay for lawyers to defend Rosenthal in the attorney general's inquiry.

The new investigation, possible under a provision in state law that allows the removal of a district attorney for "official misconduct," is the latest development in an unfolding scandal over Rosenthal's e-mails, which included campaign fundraising invitations and discussions of his one-time political opponent, former Houston Police Chief C.O. Bradford.

Jacques Morial Gets Home Detention

According to the T-P, the saga of Jacques Morial has finally come to an end:

Jacques Morial, the younger brother of former New Orleans mayor and current National Urban League President Marc Morial, was sentenced Wednesday to six months of home confinement and three years of probation for failing to file federal income tax returns for three years.

The sentence, imposed by U.S. District Judge Mary Ann Vial Lemmon, brought a quiet end to a controversial investigation that began in 2004, when armed federal agents used a battering ram to knock down the door of the younger Morial's French Quarter townhouse so they could execute a search warrant.

If everyone, who failed to pay taxes, had their front doors knocked down with battering rams, there would be a stampede at Home Depot.

Five Former Marines Punished For Fraudulently Enlisting Recruits

What do you do when you are under pressure to find recruits to fight in Irag and Afghanistan? If you are a Marine, you follow your superiors' orders by finding stand-in substitutes to take a military entrance exam for potential recruits who might not otherwise qualify for service.

Five former Marine recruiters were punished for fraudulently enlisting recruits from the Houston area said they were part of a web operating with tacit approval of some superiors.

The men confirmed they helped would-be recruits sneak past an exhaustive test by using a tactic established before they'd joined the Corps, served in Iraq or hit the streets as recruiters.

One question: Who will punish their superiors?

The Army Corps of Engineers Is Once Again In The Spotlight

The Army Corps of Engineers may soon have to pay the piper for its neglect and faulty design that led to the levees breaking after Hurricane Katrina.

The most expensive Katrina claims filed so far against the Army Corps of Engineers -- those specifying damages of at least $1 billion each -- total $3 quadrillion, according to a thumbnail set of figures released Monday by the agency.

That's $3,013,283,057,589,910, to be exact. And no cents.

One claim alone accounts for all but $13.3 trillion of the total, and that one came from Baker -- 93 miles northwest of New Orleans and far outside the Katrina flood zone. Federal privacy laws prohibit the corps and plaintiffs' attorneys from identifying claimants by name, so the basis for the Baker claim was not immediately clear.

The corps released a list of 247 claims of $1 billion or more in response to requests from news organizations. Most claims were filed by individuals. Fourteen of them included compensation requests for "wrongful deaths."

Even if these claims are paid, no one truly wins.

Ex-Astro's Pitcher, Roger Clemens Files Suit Against Ex-Trainer

If you want to throw stones at Roger Clemens, you better have the balls to back it up:

In a defamation lawsuit filed Sunday night, Roger Clemens claims Brian McNamee, his longtime trainer and chief accuser of steroid abuse, was threatened with jail if he didn't connect the pitcher to steroids.

The lawsuit was filed electronically with the Harris County civil courts Sunday evening just before CBS locally aired Clemens' interview on 60 Minutes.

"I don't know if I'll ever get the naysayers back. I don't know what I'm going to get. Maybe some of my name back," a frustrated Clemens said Sunday. Clemens said this lawsuit will not keep him from testifying before Congress, which he plans to do without asking for immunity or invoking any rights.

The former Houston Astro is being called to testify about McNamee's allegations that the trainer injected Clemens with steroids and human growth hormones between 1998 and 2001.

The lawsuit doesn't request a specific dollar amount and Clemens' Houston lawyer, Rusty Hardin, said they filed the suit not to get money, but to clear Clemens' name and discover how the allegations against Clemens came about.

Hardin said they want to learn exactly what was done and not done by federal agents and other investigators who helped U.S. Sen. George Mitchell implicate Clemens in a report on steroid use for Major League Baseball.

Houston fans are outraged at these allegations and they hope the ex-trainer has to pay the piper in more ways than one.

LSU, Ohio State Team Up To Save Wetlands

From: T-P

The solution to restoring Louisiana's coastline and revitalizing the Gulf of Mexico starts on farms in Ohio and other Midwestern states.

That's the operating principle behind a 4 1/2-year-old partnership between Louisiana State and Ohio State universities -- the rivals in Monday night's battle for the college football crown -- that is designed to staunch as much as possible the flow of damaging nitrogen compounds called nitrates before they get into rivers that flow into the Mississippi River and, eventually, to the Gulf, where they kill off oxygen and create a dead zone of about 975 square miles.

Year by year, the nitrates' passage to the open sea has become steadily easier because Louisiana has lost so many of the coastal wetlands that could have removed the nitrogen from the water. One football field of this land is lost every 35 minutes, and 200 square miles of marshland have become open water because of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, according to America's Wetland Foundation, an advocacy organization formed to educate the public about the situation.

I hope others follow their example. Wetland conservation is so important to our environment.