I heard they moved to Texas already. nm

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Most likely, as McCain said about Obama, he is a "good man, a family man." I think he has run a campaign that could be described as win at any cost, no matter what lie or deceit has to be used. The black fellow who stood up and said, "please sir, I'm begging you" right before the little old lady, is anyone so dumb that they didn't recognize that man was planted? Many, many people can't see past the end of their nose.

I'm voting for LOU DOBBS for president. Seems he's about the only one these days who tells it like it is and fries both candidates.

it important to do so, so please move the link for this to the top too so we may see where the rebuttal '"facts" are verified. Though, it is obvious that most of this is editorian/rhetoric/whatever you want to call it.

To that end, I am so tired of the he said this, she said that. They ALL say one thing but mean another. They and their teams are all spinners. It is always a mystery because you never know what you are going to get when they get in there, especially since they are not the ones calling all the shots - there is congress too.

Hunting blind - only in Texas

Fort Worth Star Telegram - Dec 12, 2006

House Bill 308 would allow Texans who are blind to go hunting. With guns. With real bullets...
Perhaps Dick Cheney's hunting performance inspired the bill. Cheney is apparently blind and he is permitted to hunt birds in Texas.

SECTION 1. Section 62.005, Parks and Wildlife Code, is amended to read as follows:

Sec. 62.005. HUNTING WITH LIGHT. Except as provided by Section 62.0055, no [No] person may hunt a game animal or bird protected by this code with the aid of an artificial light that casts or reflects a beam of light onto or otherwise illuminates the game animal or bird, including the headlights of a motor vehicle.

SECTION 2. Subchapter A, Chapter 62, Parks and Wildlife Code, is amended by adding Section 62.0055 to read as follows:

Sec. 62.0055. HUNTING WITH LASER SIGHTING DEVICE BY LEGALLY BLIND HUNTER. (a) In this section, legally blind has the meaning assigned by Section 62.104, Government Code.

(b) A legally blind hunter may use a laser sighting device during regular hunting hours when assisted by a person who is not legally blind.

SECTION 3. (a) Not later than January 1, 2008, the Parks and Wildlife Commission shall adopt rules that prescribe what is acceptable as proof of being legally blind under Section 62.0055, Parks and Wildlife Code, as added by this Act.

(b) The Parks and Wildlife Department may not enforce Section 62.0055(c), Parks and Wildlife Code, as added by this Act, until the rules adopted under Subsection (a) of this section take effect.

SECTION 4. This Act takes effect immediately if it receives a vote of two-thirds of all the members elected to each house, as provided by Section 39, Article III, Texas Constitution. If this Act does not receive the vote necessary for immediate effect, this Act takes effect September 1, 2007.

I think it is like the old saying; you can take the person out of Texas but you can't take Texas out of the person. LOL I miss the BBQ most I think.

We must be in the same age group, 'm.........arg.........65. Unfortunately I didn't know a lot about my family, didn't get interested in genealogy until most of the older members of my family had passed, small family to begin with. I only remember bits and pieces of stories they told. I found it interesting that my G-G-grandfather freed his slaves before the War, yet my G-grandfather fought and died to preserve the rights of slave owners. One can find out some interesting things. I go back to one G-G-grandfather who was born in VA and then moved to TN before moving to AR in 1830. Everyone searching that family branch comes to a dead end with him. It is said that there was some kind of family scandal about the time of his birth but either no one knows or they aren't sharing what the scandal was. He doesn't match DNA with any of the other branches of the family. Strange indeed.

Maybe we should continue this discussion in email? I've taken us way off topic haven't I?

I hope Texas does secede -- I'd leave this sinking ship in a heartbeat, right ahead of the rats.

(Almost five years after 9/11, just how committed is Bush to keeping Americans safe?)

By JOHN SOLOMON, Associated Press WriterFri Aug 11, 5:56 PM ET

While the British terror suspects were hatching their plot, the Bush administration was quietly seeking permission to divert $6 million that was supposed to be spent this year developing new homeland explosives detection technology.

Congressional leaders rejected the idea, the latest in a series of steps by the Homeland Security Department that has left lawmakers and some of the department's own experts questioning the commitment to create better anti-terror technologies.

Homeland Security's research arm, called the Sciences & Technology Directorate, is a rudderless ship without a clear way to get back on course, Republican and Democratic senators on the Appropriations Committee declared recently.

The committee is extremely disappointed with the manner in which S&T is being managed within the Department of Homeland Security, the panel wrote June 29 in a bipartisan report accompanying the agency's 2007 budget.

Rep. Martin Sabo, D-Minn., who joined Republicans to block the administration's recent diversion of explosives detection money, said research and development is crucial to thwarting future attacks and there is bipartisan agreement that Homeland Security has fallen short.

They clearly have been given lots of resources that they haven't been using, Sabo said.

Homeland Security said Friday its research arm has just gotten a new leader, former Navy research chief Rear Adm. Jay Cohen, and there is strong optimism for developing new detection technologies in the future.

I don't have any criticisms of anyone, said Kip Hawley, the assistant secretary for transportation security. I have great hope for the future. There is tremendous intensity on this issue among the senior management of this department to make this area a strength.

Lawmakers and recently retired Homeland Security officials say they are concerned the department's research and development effort is bogged down by bureaucracy, lack of strategic planning and failure to use money wisely.

The department failed to spend $200 million in research and development money from past years, forcing lawmakers to rescind the money this summer.

The administration also was slow to start testing a new liquid explosives detector that the Japanese government provided to the United States earlier this year.

The British plot to blow up as many as 10 American airlines on trans-Atlantic flights was to involve liquid explosives.

Hawley said Homeland Security now is going to test the detector in six American airports. It is very promising technology and we are extremely interested in it to help us operationally in the next several years, he said.

Japan has been using the liquid explosive detectors in its Narita International Airport in Tokyo and demonstrated the technology to U.S. officials at a conference in January, the Japanese Embassy in Washington said.

Homeland Security is spending a total of $732 million this year on various explosives deterrents and has tested several commercial liquid explosive detectors over the past few years but hasn't been satisfied enough with the results to deploy them.

Hawley said current liquid detectors that can scan only individual containers aren't suitable for wide deployment because they would bring security check lines to a crawl.

For more than four years, officials inside Homeland Security also have debated whether to deploy smaller trace explosive detectors � already in most American airports � to foreign airports to help stop any bomb chemicals or devices from making it onto U.S.-destined flights.

A 2002 Homeland report recommended immediate deployment of the trace units to key European airports, highlighting their low cost, $40,000 per unit, and their detection capabilities. The report said one such unit was able, 25 days later, to detect explosives residue inside the airplane where convicted shoe bomber Richard Reid was foiled in his attack in December 2001.

A 2005 report to Congress similarly urged that the trace detectors be used more aggressively, and strongly warned the continuing failure to distribute such detectors to foreign airports may be an invitation to terrorist to ply their trade, using techniques that they have already used on a number of occasions.

Tony Fainberg, who formerly oversaw Homeland Security's explosive and radiation detection research with the national labs, said he strongly urged deployment of the detectors overseas but was rebuffed.

It is not that expensive, said Fainberg, who retired recently. There was no resistance from any country that I was aware of, and yet we didn't deploy it.

Fainberg said research efforts were often frustrated inside Homeland Security by bureaucratic games, a lack of strategic goals and months-long delays in distributing money Congress had already approved.

There has not been a focused and coherent strategic plan for defining what we need ... and then matching the research and development plans to that overall strategy, he said.

Rep. Peter DeFazio (news, bio, voting record) of Oregon, a senior Democrat on the Homeland Security Committee, said he urged the administration three years ago to buy electron scanners, like the ones used at London's airport to detect plastics that might be hidden beneath passenger clothes.

It's been an ongoing frustration about their resistance to purchase off-the-shelf, state-of-the-art equipment that can meet these threats, he said.

The administration's most recent budget request also mystified lawmakers. It asked to take $6 million from Homeland S&T's 2006 budget that was supposed to be used to develop explosives detection technology and instead divert it to cover a budget shortfall in the Federal Protective Service, which provides security around government buildings.

Sens. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., and Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., the top two lawmakers for Senate homeland appropriations, rejected the idea shortly after it arrived late last month, Senate leadership officials said.

Their House counterparts, Reps. Hal Rogers, R-Ky., and Sabo, likewise rejected the request in recent days, Appropriations Committee spokeswoman Kirsten Brost said. Homeland said Friday it won't divert the money.

___

Associated Press writer Leslie Miller contributed to this story.

The Texas state supreme court ruled unanimously on Friday that a town which had altered its zoning to ban two church-sponsored halfway houses in a residential neighborhood was in violation of the Texas Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

That act, which was passed in 1999 and endorsed by then-Governor George W. Bush, affords greater legal protection to religious operations than to equivalent secular operations.

Under its provisions, cities have to prove that zoning regulations � like the one passed by the town of Sinton to ban jails and rehabs within 1000 feet of a home, school, or church � further a �compelling� interest, such as protecting public safety, and do not place a �substantial burden� on the free exercise of religion.

Town officials asserted that the zoning regulations placed no restrictions on worship or the practice of religion and were merely intended to protect the safety of residents. This position was upheld at the local and appeals court levels.

However, the all-Republican and generally conservative state supreme court agreed with Pastor Richard Barr�s claim that because the town of Sinton is so small, the regulation had the effect of excluding him from operating his �ministry� for parolees anywhere.

Barr�s case was argued by the conservative Liberty Legal Institute (LLI) and was also supported by the American Center for Law and Justice � founded by Pat Robertson � and by the ACLU.

LLI was involved several years ago in a widely-noted case against a Texas school district which its litigation director, Hiram Sasser, claimed had demonstrated �pervasive religious hostility� by banning the distribution at Christmas time of candy canes with a religious message.

According to Sasser, today�s decision �means that in zoning cases you have to give churches special treatment. � You have to have very special reasons for telling a church you can�t locate here and locate there. That�s going to be a touch burden for cities.�

�This is a home run,� Sasser proclaimed. �I think it will be a model for other states.�

that it is "HARD WORK" and he is "WORKIN HARD" I know this is true coz this is what he told us in the last prez debate.