The move to give Texas a law to protect journalists and whistle-blowers from vindictive prosecution was stabbed in the heart this week – and in the back. Rep. Debbie Riddle, R-Tomball, called a procedural motion on journalist shield law Senate Bill 966 and stopped the bill dead in its tracks.

It's not just that; in killing the shield law, she scuppered a concept that has been adopted in the majority of states and is on the way to becoming a federal statute. It's not just that just about every journalist and editor in the state plus 27 senators have backed this bill and that the only vocal opposition, unsurprisingly, has come from district attorneys. It was the way that it was done. The House didn't let the bill come to a clean vote, instead taking it down with a bureaucratic point of order about how it was handled in committee. Because then they might have had to explain their opposition to protecting whistle-blowers.

To set the time frame out, the House has had the bill since May 1. It has been out of the House Judiciary Committee since May 17. And now Riddle uses a pen-pusher's tool to a block yay or nay decision, knowing there is no further chance for debate before session's end.

What a difference three weeks make …

"The way we're going, that's not the only agency that's going to be underfunded come 2013." – Sen. Steve Ogden, R-Bryan, while debating Senate Bill 1, the state budget for the next two years. He was talking as chair of Senate Finance Conference Committee to Rep. Sylvester Turner, D-Houston, on May 3 on fears for the bankruptcy of the Crime Victim Compensation Fund.

"In many areas, it addresses problems that the state has needed addressed for a long time. It's still balanced, the state can afford it and I hope people vote for it." – Ogden on SB1, May 25.

So, has Ogden mystically solved the budget? Find out when the final version of SB 1 comes to a vote near you before sine die.

Guess where this quote comes from:

"The Middle East looked nice and cozy for a while, everything looked fine on the surface, but beneath the surface there was a lot of resentment, a lot of frustration, such that 19 kids got on a plane and killed 3,000 Americans. It's in the long-term interests of this country to redress the long-term causes of these extremists and radicals exploiting people and causing them to kill themselves and kill Americans and others."

If you said a Democrat who then got ripped apart by the punditocracy for calling the 9/11 hijackers exploited and victims of greater forces – you'd be wrong. If you said President George Bush in his Rose Garden press conference yesterday and that nothing was said by the Foxians, you'd be correct.

So – can Bill Maher have his job back?

We really have no idea who Mike Litt is, but the Scoot Inn (1308 E. Fourth) hosts the first-ever veggie-hot-dog-eating competition Saturday at 1pm. Special local guests include the Famous Vegan Firefighters (www.engine2.org), the grub will be provided by the Hot Dog King, and the goal is to stuff as many of the meat-free dogs, plus buns, into your gullet in 12 minutes. If the thought of firefighters is getting you all flustered, there is one disclaimer: "Eating a lot very quickly presents certain risks. Please don't choke just so a Vegan Firefighter will give you mouth to mouth."

Visit Veggiedog Contest for more details.

The mist and rain has canceled the procession down Congress Avenue, but the 11am ceremony unveiling a plaque renaming the Congress Avenue bridge for Gov. Ann Richards is still on, says the city.

Good for them. Chronic has more on the renaming here and here.

Update: Nope, the ceremony's canceled, too. Our apologies.

Update: Oops. A commenter points out the ROT Rally is next weekend, not this one. Our apologies – see where bathtub crank gets you?

If your engine isn't already revved, get it going, because the self-proclaimed Longest Motorcycle Parade in the History of Texas bombs through town next Friday night, and – biker or not – it's worth checking out. According to a press release from Roadway Productions, the event's promoter, the 13th annual Republic of Texas Biker Rally "starts with an escorted parade that leaves the Expo Center rally site at 7:30 PM sharp. The bikes negotiate a 10-mile route to the State Capital. As the first bikes start the parade on Congress, the last bikes are still waiting to leave the Expo Center!"

That's a hell of a lot of hogs – more than 60,000, according to the press release, which says the parade ends with the "motorcycles parking down the center of Congress Avenue from 3rd Street to the Capital. 2 Stages of live entertainment keep the party going until midnight with loud rock & roll and sexy young ladies." That’s right, you heard it here: "sexy young ladies." The press release also says two half-hour burlesque shows are scheduled – one for 8:30pm and one for 12mid – although it doesn't specify if they feature sexy young ladies or sexy young gents. (Don't get your hopes up, girls.)

The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 1624 has sent out a press release regarding the ugly, unceremonious end-of-legislation promising meet-and-confer bargaining for Austin employees. As we report this week, House Bill 2184, which would allow AFSCME to represent the city's non-public-safety workers in meet-and-confer bargaining, seemed destined for passage in the Senate until Sen. Florence Shapiro, R-Plano, intervened. Citing vague concerns that M&C was being overimplemented throughout the state, she objected to Senate sponsor Sen. Kirk Watson's motion to bring the bill up for a vote. The two-thirds vote narrowly failed by 18 to 10, preventing senators from voting on it.

"Despite deep division in both houses of the Legislature, this legislation passed both houses at least once," reads the releases from 1624's Executive Director Greg Powell. "However, it appears we were ambushed by partisan politics at the end of a bitter session." True that.

AFSCME says they'll renew the push for meet and confer, "starting right now." Click here for the press release.

While the Senate argued about whether teaching religion was a good idea or not, the House was doing its best to get God through the classroom door.

Last night Rep. Debbie Riddle, R-Tomball, got her Texas-pledge altering House Bill 1034 through the House on a 142-1 vote. Only our own Rep. Donna Howard, D-Austin, stood up to this bill that would cram the words "under God" into the text. Because, without it, Christianity has obviously become a marginalized, minority religion in the state of Texas.

The bill analysis, the tool by which the Lege measures the impact of a law, claims that "references to God have been included in important documents such as the Declaration of Independence" (see today's earlier posting why that's specious). But it ignores the fact that the original authors of many other significant documents, such as (oops) the national Pledge of Allegiance, did not include those words. Apart from the fact that the words "under God" weren't added to the Pledge until 1954 by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, it's absolutely spot-on. It would bring the Texas pledge into line with the U.S. pledge – rewritten on a political whim.

So Bible study – sorry, classes in religious literature – will be coming to an independent school district near you with the passage of House Bill 1287 through the Senate.

Of course, the term "religious literature" is wonderfully vague and raises the image of a bunch of kids up in the Panhandle spending a semester brushing up on Zoroastrianism, Aleister Crowley, and Cargo Cultists. A brief war of words during the debate between Sen. Royce West, D-Dallas, and Senate sponsor Sen. Craig Estes, R-Wichita Falls, pointed out that this is more likely to end up with heated discussions of the Left Behind books. Initially condemning the bill as badly written and coming from a pretty obvious agenda, West just wanted Estes to admit what this was: a way to get Bible studies back in school.

Estes tried to flannel through, claiming that it would be impossible to understand significant documents like the Declaration of Independence without understanding the Bible.