The Midday Brief: December 10, 2009

Your afternoon reading:

• “Railroad Commissioners Elizabeth Ames Jones and Michael Williams continue to duke it out on the endorsement front.” — Republican endorsements in the, er, U.S. Senate race — Texas Politics

• “El Paso has been battling Asarco and its parent organization Grupo Mexico for years to clean up a century's worth of toxic muck.” — Pigs Fly, Lawyers Claim Bonuses — La Linea

• “The numbers, released this week, suggest that an economic recovery may yet be some distance away.” — Sales tax revenues plunge across Texas — The Associated Press

• “The TCEQ advises that people with wells get monthly bacterial tests and annual standard water quality tests.” — Unseen danger — The Kerrville Daily Times

• “On September 21, before a television audience of 17.5 million viewers, former House majority leader Tom DeLay pranced into our plans as a contestant on season nine of Dancing With the Stars.” — A Sneak Peek at Our January (Bum Steer) Cover… — Page Break

• “The entire flight crew and hundreds of other volunteers were donating their time for Snowball Express – a charity operation that collected about 1,300 children and spouses of fallen soldiers from all over the country and brought them to Dallas on Wednesday for a much-needed holiday.” — Families of fallen soldiers arrive for Texas holiday — The Dallas Morning News

New in The Texas Tribune:

• “Who's better to speak for Farouk Shami on the various issues in Texas than Farouk Shami?” — Letting Farouk Be Farouk — The Texas Tribune

• "In our latest weekly skirmish, Evan, Ross, Ben and Elise talk unemployment insurance, the state of the GOP race, and the curious case of Farouk Shami." — The Weekly TribCast: Episode 007 — The Texas Tribune

• “This morning, in keeping with our whole it's-not-just journalism-it's-information schtick, we launched what may be our coolest app yet” — T-Squared: What's Up, Docs? — The Texas Tribune

• “Trouble is, one wonders if anything will really change in the classroom, as the new El Paso policy is larded with caveats.” — TribBlog: El Paso ISD Embraces Honest Grading, Sort Of — The Texas Tribune