Today’s posting comes to you from Friedo. Friedo is already in Detroit for Super Bowl XL. He arrived Saturday. I will land in Detroit sometime around 10pm tonight. I will withhold judgment on this year’s host city until I have been there for a day or two. So here are some thoughts from Friedo.

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Dallas is the middle of a huge drought.  Right?  Right.  Water is critical.  Right?  Yet, every day a leak in a water main in front of my house pours water down the street.  How much.  I personally wouldn't hazard a guess.  But a plumber who was out the other day on other matters, and knows something about water, guesses it is in excess of 1000 gallons per day.  In the big picture, is that a lot of water?  I don't know but we are in a drought. 

I reported this leak two weeks ago and within an hour a city employee was on the spot.  Yep, he said, a leak.  A saw horse was left behind to mark the spot (as if it need marking).  It is still leaking.  The asphalt is coming up from the street for a block.  No sign of a repair crew.  I have tried to find out from the Water Department when a repair crew might appear.  No answer.  I sent an email to my council member.  No answer.  I wonder how many similar leaks there are around town.  I wonder what the cost of the repair bill will be to taxpayers.  I wonder how long this would take in Plano.

It's Super Bowl XL: The Steelers vs. the Seahawks. ... and the Seahawks vs. Texas A&M?! The Fish tells the story. ...

Alan Abelson has an interesting column in the new issue of Barron's.  He addresses the "housing boom" issue and turns to David Rosenberg of Merrill Lynch for some interesting data on the subject.  Rosenberg cites "the startling collapse of sales of existing single-family homes in the October-December span--they fell at a 36% annual rate."  He also points out that "some 43% of first-time buyers put zero money down on their home purchases last year."  Abelson sees rising inventories in the resale housing ("up 26% above the December '04 level") as yet another sign that the housing boom is over.  If that is the case, he and Rosenberg ask what will carry the US economy once the "housing parade" is over?  Good question.

Okay, it's not locally focused, but since we're a little more than 30 days away from a primary election here in Texas (vote March 7), it has direct bearing.

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Skillman and Walnut HillCaroline Walker and husband fled New Orleans in 1991. They made a happy comfortable life for themselves and their children in Dallas.

“And yet….whenever I get the occasional call from Calvary Hill about putting down a deposit on a cemetery plot, I bristle. Who, Me? Buried Here? In Big D? That’s when it hits me: even after all this time, I still feel like a stranger in a strange land.

Why?  Everyone who lives in Dallas should hear why and ponder.

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It's been - what? - five months since Katrina, right?

So I see this and I wonder, you know, how long before, well, this.

I mean, right there on that very DMN Job Center page.

The daily's second most unremarkable columnist wants to put government in charge of administering and rationing one-size-fits-all liability insurance.

What could possibly go wrong?

Vince Young convinced a lot of people that he was America's future QB.  Including Norm.  But last week he did something that made him a goat. 

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Jon Buell makes the case for why the recent Court decision in the so-called "intelligent design" case in Pennsylvania was based on faulty evidence.

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