Several Amarillo-area lawyers, and at least one sitting judge, have let it be known they want to become the next 47th District judge, replacing the late Hal Miner.

Their names have been forwarded to the Republican Party chairs of Potter, Randall and Armstrong counties. More names could surface before the filing deadline.

But there might be a catch for whomever the chairs select.

This gets a little complicated, but I’ll try to explain it.

Only Republican chairs will take part, given that no Democratic candidates are on the ballot this year; GOP Judge Miner was running unopposed for re-election when he died this past month. The chairs will get to select someone to run for election this fall.

But Gov. Rick Perry has the authority to appoint someone to serve the remainder of the term, which he very well could do.

The word on the street is that Perry would pick whomever the party chairs choose, allowing that person to serve as judge while running for election as the incumbent. But then again, he might veto that choice.

Why? Because name of the person chosen by the chairs could show up on a campaign contribution list for one of Perry’s GOP primary opponents, namely U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison. Thus, is the governor going to appoint someone who gave money to his chief primary foe?

Yeah. That’ll happen about the time cattle start flying out of our feedlots.

Thus, it just might turn out that the county party chairs are going to be sure that their chosen successor has supported the “right” candidate for governor before publicizing his name.

Then comes the questions: Are they going to select the most qualified person for the job? Or will they be hamstrung by political loyalty?

Amarillo ought to be a great bicycling city.

It isn’t, at least not yet.

Our weather is quite good most of the year — the recent wind notwithstanding. Our terrain is relatively level, which is good for bicyclists with bad knees. Most of our streets are relatively wide, giving motor vehicle traffic sufficient room to maneuver past slower-moving bicycle riders.

But the city hasn’t yet turned into a bike-friendly city.

City Parks Director Larry Offerdahl is talking now about improving the city’s biking image. The city Traffic Commission will get revisions to the city’s bike plan that could add to the city’s 26 miles of striped bike lanes.

I’ve noticed a few of the city’s bike lanes near my neighborhood. To be candid, they don’t make a lot of sense. The bike lanes start, make a few turns around some blocks and then end. The lanes around Windsor Elementary School, for instance, don’t seem to have any rhyme or reason.

I am hopeful that Offerdahl and his parks staff can put together a comprehensive bike plan that creates a friendly atmosphere for those who want to get out of their air-polluting cars and enjoy the outdoors atop a bike seat.

But there might be a major educational initiative in the works: The city should aim it at motorists who don’t want to share the road.

Talk about the pot calling the kettle black! What’s Sarah Palin doing criticizing Barack Hussein Obama’s NUCLEAR policy experience when she is so ignorant that she doesn’t even know how to properly pronounce the word? Notice, that I refuse to address Obama as President until I see a copy of his (long form) birth certificate. It would proove that he was born in Hawaii and not Kenya, as many sources claim.. I have seen a “Certificate Of Live Birth” but, according to credible sources, that could easily have been obtained by Obama even if he was born in Kenya. I took an oath when I entered the military to “support and defend the Constitution” and that Constitution requires that Obama proove that he is a “natural born citizen” in order to occupy the office of President. I have seen nothing that prooves that fact. Until I see the proof, I refuse to recognize him as President.

The above note came to me this week. It’s from an Amarillo resident who writes letters to the editor of the paper on occasion. It won’t see print, but I thought I’d share it here — without attribution — to illustrate the lunacy of some of our friends and neighbors. Alas, this guy isn’t the only person who believes this malarkey.

This note made me curious about something. The writer insists that President Obama prove his U.S. citizenship. Have we ever asked such a thing of any of the men who preceded him? Has anyone ever seen George W. Bush’s proof that he was born in Connecticut, or any record of Bill Clinton’s birth in Arkansas? Was Ronald Reagan really and truly born in Illinois?

I’ve never been a big fan of electing judges, but that’s what we do in Texas.

Today’s runoff for the Texas Supreme Court offers a Grade A example of why it’s a bad idea. Rick Green, a former legislator from Dripping Springs with no judicial experience, is running against Debra Lehrmann, a 22-year veteran of the bench from Fort Worth. Why this contest even went to a runoff is beyond me.

These two candidates were the top two finishers in a crowded Republican primary; Justice Harriett O’Neill is retiring at the end of her term, thus the open seat brought out a number of challengers.

Green arguably may have been the least qualified of the bunch, but here he is in the runoff.

Texans have been watching over many election cycles good judicial candidates getting beat by inferior opponents for a number of reasons that have nothing to do with qualifications. Most of them have lost because merely because they’re Democrats, which is the curse of political death in such a Republican-leaning state. Others have lost because they have “foreign-sounding” surnames; that’s been the case in Republican primaries.

Electing judges is the Texas way. But surely we need to do a better job of educating ourselves as to the qualifications and philosophy of those who seek to do the serious job of adminstering justice in a fair and impartial manner.

We’re going to publish another letter in a couple of days from someone who doesn’t like one of the columnists who appears on our Opinion page. The target of the latest letter once again is Leonard Pitts Jr.

I’ve been stewing about this all day.

Billy Payne, the chairman of the Augusta National golf club board, chewed the daylights out of Tiger Woods. I admit he’s entitled to his opinion about the misbehavior of the world’s greatest golfer.

But the tongue lashing he delivered the day before Woods teed it up to start his 2010 golf season after all the scandal that has engulfed him for the past five months baffled me.

What did Payne say that hasn’t been said by thousands of pundits already? What new insight did he provide? What was the point of the lecture?

Woods’ problems are among the most documented of any athlete/celebrity in the past decade, or longer. The whole world, it seems, has an opinion of Woods’ behavior, his dalliances, his infidelity, his incredible arrogance. None of it is favorable to Woods.

So here comes Billy Payne to weigh in at the last minute. Why?

Payne has taken some grief from those who contend that he has no moral standing to lecture Woods about anything, given that Augusta National includes zero women among its members and only recently desegregated its ranks. That criticism has merit.

But my concern is that he said nothing that hasn’t been said already. He regurgitated the litany of well-deserved condemnation that has been heaped on Woods already. Had the chairman remained silent, he wouldn’t have exposed himself and his organization to the criticism they’re getting now.

There. I feel better.

Now, back to golf.

Good news for those of us who think green.

Allied Waste is installing additional recycling bins at a new drop off site on Plains Boulevard, near the Hastings Distribution Center.

The new bins make it easier for residents in central Amarillo to take waste products for recycling, rather than tossing them into the Dumpster, and eventually ending up in the landfill.

I like to recycle. I grew up in Oregon, the founding capital of the U.S. environmental movement. I haven’t been as recycling conscious since moving to Texas more than 25 years ago. But my family and I adapted nicely to a curbside recycling program that Beaumont instituted some years ago. Much less garbage ended up in the landfill while the program was in effect.

To that end, it still baffles me that Amarillo hasn’t instituted a curbside program. I know it’s costly, but the energy savings accrued from using recycled products — rather than making them from scratch — is significant over the long term.

The addition of the bins at Plains Boulevard is a welcome addition to the city’s recycling infrastructure.

I’ve been watching the trouble brewing with the Republican National Committee with a bit of amusement.

The party that blasts the daylights out of those big-spending Democrats — with good reason — now has been caught spending a bit lavishly as well. RNC Chairman Michael Steele likes to live large. He travels in pricey limos, rakes in big money with speaking fees, sleeps in posh hotels and lavishes donors with lots of perks and goodies.

And all the while, his party preaches moral rectitude as part of its political platform.

And then comes the latest: It seems that a staffer arranged for some donors to visit a strip club in Los Angeles that features lesbians and “bondage.” Hoo boy.

I’m not concerned much with how the Republican political leadership spends its donors’ money. None of it comes from my pocket. (Full disclosure: I don’t give to the Democrats, either.)

What does pique my interest is how one major party can portray itself as the protector of family values and fiscal responsibility while behaving in a manner that is quite contrary to the message it is delivering to the masses.

We toss the word “hypocrite” around a lot these days. Many politicians of both parties have been branded with the word: John Edwards, John Ensign, David Vitter and Newt Gingrich are four who come immediately to mind. Gingrich is my favorite hypocrite, having blasted President Clinton for his dalliances while at the same time cavorting with a much-younger House staffer behind his own wife’s back.

The RNC has some serious housecleaning ahead of it, starting with what to do about a chairman on whose watch all this nonsense has occurred.

A real leader would accept responsibility — and then quit.

The threats of violence against those members of Congress who voted in favor of President Obama’s health care reform law have been beyond disgusting. They’re downright scary if you believe that in the civility that is supposed to be a hallmark of political discourse in this country.

But some of the response to critics of those who were lobbing the threats has been, well, a bit strange.

Consider this nugget from U.S. Rep. Mac Thornberry, the Panhandle’s senior member of Congress. Yes, he has condemned the the threats of violence and the racial slurs. Good for him.

Then he said this: “I do get somewhat of a feel that some Democrats are trying to use these incidents to smear everybody who opposed health care and that’s not fair.”

He is right, but he’s also missing the point.

So what if Democrats are using the slurs and threats of violence against the health care foes, who happen to be mainly Republicans? That’s what happens in this rough-and-tumble political world.

And surely the congressman, a decent and intelligent lawmaker, doesn’t believe that Democrats somehow possess a monopoly on boorishness. If the tables were turned and Democrats were leveling this kind of hateful speech at their foes, Republicans would be all over them in precisely the same manner and most likely would try to lump all Democrats together. The parties may differ on matters of policy, but their humanity — and human fallibility — bind people of all political stripes together.

So, let’s just stick to the relevant issue. The racial slurs and homophobic epithets thrown at health reform supporters never should have occurred in the first place.

I don’t begrudge Kay Bailey Hutchison one bit for taking back her promise to leave office.