The Midday Brief: July 21, 2011

Your afternoon reading:

• "A reader forwards this email that Mike Huckabee sent to his distribution list, in which he takes a harsh shot at his former fellow governor, Rick Perry, just as the Texas chief executive appears poised to join the 2012 fray." — Mike Huckabee raps Rick Perry, Politico

• "A look inside the numbers affirm the sense that Perry — along with Bachmann and Paul — are performing as any generic Republican matched against Obama would." — Rick Perry, a step up for the GOP?, The Washington Post

• "One indicator of the threat Perry poses to Bachmann’s base of support is the growing involvement of a broad array of Christian Right figures, including such warhorses as James Dobson and Richard Land, in the August 6 prayer gathering the governor is hosting in Houston." — Michele Bachmann’s Very Rough Road Ahead, The New Republic

• "'The race will come down to Romney and him, and I think he can beat Romney,' veteran Texas Republican consultant Reggie Bashur said. 'He's got a consistent conservative philosophy and he knows how to articulate it.'" — Analysis: Perry candidacy would reshape 2012 race, Reuters

• "A Southern Methodist University professor expressed embarrassment earlier this morning when he laid out some basic scientific parameters before a State Board of Education public hearing on supplemental science materials for public school classrooms." — SMU professor: Science doesn’t choose between Christians and non-believers, Texas Politics

• "With one-third fewer people, the Texas Education Agency just can’t do everything it used to do." — Feeling the effects of layoffs at TEA, Postcards

New in The Texas Tribune:

• "Houston’s official nickname since 1967: Space City. It’s NBA team: the Rockets. Its MLB franchise is the Astros, and they played in the Astrodome. No wonder the city that for decades has considered itself an aerospace leader is in a funk as space shuttle Atlantis makes its final landing today." — The Final Frontier for Space City?

• "When Rick O'Donnell, a controversial former advisor to the University of Texas System, released an analysis of faculty data from University of Texas and Texas A&M, he anticipated that it might receive criticism. He was right." — UT, Coalition Strike Back at O'Donnell Analysis