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Call it Niall Ferguson's Pauline Kael moment . . . During the roundtable segment this morning on ABC's This Week, Ferguson, an academic with appointments at Harvard, Stanford and Oxford, said that "all the Texans I know" can't stand Rick Perry. Ferguson was reacting to host Christiane Amanpour's question about Perry's highly-animated New Hampshire address. Ferguson professed to like the "swaggering Texan" side of Perry he apparently saw in the speech. George Will had a caustic comeback. View the video here.

Christopher Hitchens said that his 'time' is coming as he made his first public appearance in months...The controversial writer and fervent atheist, who is suffering from oesophagus cancer, attended the Atheist Alliance of America conference in Texas where he was presented an award by Richard Dawkins. The 62-year-old said that he had been determined to attend the conference because of the state's Bible Belt devotion. Receiving the Richard Dawkins Freethinker of the Year Award, Hitchens looked gaunt and his voice was soft. ... During his speech Hitchens said that he appreciated the fact that Texas governor Rick Perry had been...

More Texans disapprove of Rick Perry’s performance as governor than approve of his work for them, a new poll finds. Forty-five percent of Texas voters have a positive view of Perry’s job performance while 48 percent disapprove, according to the latest poll of Texas voters released by Public Policy Polling today: . The good news for Perry: The Republican presidential contender has finally moved ahead of President Obama in the Lone Star State, 51 percent to 44 percent, after trailing the Democratic incumbent a month ago.

Do you live in Texas, but hate governor Rick Perry? Do you love coyotes and hate concealed weapons and lower taxes? Well the Obama campaign is anxious to hear from you. "Your feedback will help hold him (Perry) accountable on the campaign trail, inspire fellow Texans to get involved, and introduce his record -- his actual record -- to voters across the country," Hector Nieto, the campaign's Texas director, told Texas supporters in an email blast today. "Your words will remind him that even as he runs, he won't be able to hide --

Texas Gov. Rick Perry sounds more like a presidential candidate by the day. This weekend he gave a rousing speech at the Republican Leadership Conference in which he blasted the Obama administration as a bunch of smarty-pants busy-bodies. “They clearly think they know best,” said Governor Perry. “And let me tell you, I vehemently disagree. They don’t know best.” As he kept speaking he was interrupted by audience members chanting “Run Rick, Run!” But here’s a question: Is it too late for Gov. Perry to throw his drawl into the ring? It gets late early when it comes to running...

Badass ole Stevie, I miss him...

Authorities are still searching for a Rio Grande City woman after busting a Starr County-based gun ring. A federal grand jury indicted Jeniffer Lopez and nine others on federal firearms charges last week. U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, & Explosives (ATF) agents arrested two ringleaders and seven suspects but 28-year-old Lopez remains at large. The group is accused of “straw purchasing” about 60 high-powered handguns and assault rifles between December 2008 and April 2009. Straw purchasing is buying a gun for a criminal or someone else. The federal crime is punishable up to five years in prison. Court records...

Four Houston Texans were named to the 2010 AFC/NFC Pro Bowl, the NFL announced today....

Playoff Hopes Still Alive With One Week to Play I facetiously told a friend ago that I had a better chance of nabbing a Pulitzer Prize than the Texans had of making the playoffs after losing their fourth in a row and falling to 5-7 a few weeks back. But after watching how the stars have seemingly lined-up perfectly in favor of the Texans over the past few weeks, maybe a trip to Columbia University during the month of May just might be in the cards for me after all someday.

Playoffs Hopes Remote With Four Games Remaining The Houston Texas had one major objective heading into the 2009 season: Playoffs or bust. With a 5-7 record and four games to remaining, I guess it’s pretty safe to say the 2009 season has been a colossal bust.

It was Charles Dickens who once wrote “It was the best of times; it was the worst of times.” It’s almost as though Mr. Dickens had privy to a time machine and was in attendance to witness the same pain and agony that Texan’s fans saw first hand on Sunday after noon at Reliant Stadium.

The sound of the air being knocked out of the guts of over 71,000 people all at once is devastating. It’s the sound that ended the Monday Night Football battle between the Titans and Texans as Kris Brown missed his second field goal of the night.

Young’s confidence is now at an all time high. Plus, he’ll be even more motivated by the fact that home in Houston was where he was hoping to stay after being bypassed by the Texans’ brass during the 2006 draft. Young then took out his revenge in tantalizing form, as he raced through the middle of the field to lead his Titans to an overtime victory during his Reliant Stadium debut .To further heighten the humiliation that game, there was a deafening roar of the crowd cascading though Reliant Stadium as though it were a Texans’ player who had scored...

No one knows for sure what the outcome of the game would have been if Kris Brown's field goal attempt would have been good as time expired in Indianapolis on Sunday. But we do know that the game would have been extended to overtime; and the way the Texans’ offense was clicking, chances are, they probably would have found the end zone.

Heading into Sunday’s match up against the Cincinnati Bengals, the Texans had posted two wins this season against teams with a combined record of 1-9. Beating a red-hot Bengals team, who were riding a four game winning streak, would certainly be a needed shot in the arm, and a great way to silence critics who claim that this is indeed another Texans team going nowhere soon. Heart wrenching losses and erratic decision making over the past few weeks have certainly heightened that uncertainty, and falling to 2-4 would have placed the team in a very precarious position, but Matt Schaub...

Inches short and a half too late would be the best way to sum up the Texans’ latest loss. Down by a touchdown and three tries from just outside the Cardinals' 1-yard line, the Texans were in what appeared to be a perfect situation to tie up the game and take their chances in overtime.

Reliant Stadium --- Stocked with a lineage of Hall-of Fame players, three Super Bowl championships and a reputation of intimidating its opponents like no other team in history, the Oakland Raiders were once a revered NFL franchise. Since their Super Bowl appearance after the 2001 season, the Raiders have won fewer games than any other team and are now the laughingstock of the league.

It was supposed to be the beginning of something special here in Houston. After slaying the mighty Titans on the road last week, most Texans fans felt as though their franchise had finally turned the corner. The organization even tagged Sunday’s homecoming as “Battle Red Day.” With a history of routinely dispatching the suddenly-struggling Jacksonville Jaguars, and the inept Raiders heading into town next week, a 3-1 start to the season appeared to be all but a done deal. But as the venerable Lee Corso of ESPN frequently quips: not so fast my friend!

oft and uninspired, were a couple of the terms used to describe the play of the Texans after the loss to the Jets last week during the season opener. Some fans were even calling for a coaching change after the debacle, hoping the Texans brass would keep the telephone numbers of Bill Cower and Tony Dungy on speed dial. Things can really change fast in one week. Despite being down by 14 points in the second quarter and unable to establish any sort of running game, the Houston Texans earned perhaps its most monumental win in team history with a...

It was all set up so perfectly. The NFL schedule gods gift-wrapped a home game featuring a rookie quarterback--- who by the way had only started 16 college games--- to feast upon for the much-anticipated season opener in front of the Texans faithful. After all, this is supposed to be the season where the franchise had finally turned the corner; a season that on paper, is considered to be the best team ever fielded by the Texans organization, after a solid draft and a myriad of off-season moves. There is no way a team slated to challenge for supremacy in...