Mandatory evac all along Texas coast. I'm hearing lots.

• Mandatory evac all along Texas coast. I'm hearing lots. - about lipstick and PreK sex ed. sm
  • CNN lead story this am: How to pray - Ike away. Where's the beef? nm
    • That was all they said. Brazoria county evacuation routes? - Overlooked. nm
  • Brazoria county now mandatory. - nm
  • So far all I can find is Freeport Tx mand evac. - Brazoria county vol evac. More to come. nm

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I was in Gulfport, MS before, during and after Katrina.  About a year after, all the rent on the coast went sky high (was paying $425 for an efficiency, raised it to $800).  I was working 7 days a week at two hospitals (many MTs had already left the coast), and I had to leave too, leaving them even more short handed.  There have been many articles regarding the majority of the rebuild on the coast is new casinos and high-end housing.  I have no idea how they expect anyone in the service industries to live there without affordable housing.  You cannot have tourist industry without people that support it - casino workers, fast food folk, maids, low-end hospital jobs.

What drove me nuts is the way they portrayed the people in the media - as if we were all illiterate crackheads.  I worked with many fine people at those hospitals, and it would take pages to descibe their suffering.  It disgusts me how there will always be money to accomodate the disposable income players, while the backbone of the community, hard working, serious, responsible people, were left with a trashed out house with no roof, a mortgage to pay and an insurance company that said they didn't have to give them a dime to rebuild.

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.

80R1572 SGA-F

By:  Kuempel                                      H.B. No. 308

A BILL TO BE ENTITLED

AN ACT

relating to the use of laser sighting devices by hunters who are legally blind.

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF 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.

(c)  The legally blind hunter must carry proof of being 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.

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.”

Especially Reagan, but nothing new. 

The Chickenhawk argument goes something like this: anyone who favors military action should not be taken seriously unless they themselves are willing to go and do the actual fighting. This particular piece of work is an anti-war crowd attempt to silence the debate by ruling that the other side is out of bounds for the duration. Like all ad hominem attacks, (argumentum ad hominem means “argument against the person”) it is an act of intellectual surrender. The person who employs an ad hominem attack is admitting they cannot win the debate on merit, and hope to chuck the entire thing out the window by attacking the messenger. This is a logical fallacy of the first order, because the messenger is not the message.

The messenger is not the message. That’s all you need to throw away the entire Chickenhawk response. But why stop there when this one is so much fun?

If you are ever see this charge again, you may want to reflect that person’s own logical reasoning in the following fashion: You may not talk about education unless you are willing to become a teacher. You may not discuss poverty unless you yourself are willing to go and form a homeless shelter. How dare you criticize Congress unless you are willing to go out and get elected yourself? Your opinion on a National Health Care System is negated out of hand since you are unwilling to get a medical degree and open a clinic. And as far as your opinions regarding the Democratic Underground or The Huffington Post are concerned, well, you can just keep them to yourself, mister, unless you can produce an advanced degree in Abnormal Psychology and Narcissistic Personality Disorder.

Using the internal reasoning behind the Chickenhawk argument means you cannot comment on, speak about or even hold an opinion on any subject that is not part of your paying day job. It is simple-minded and profoundly anti-democratic, which is why it so deeply appeals to those who sling it around the most.

But wait! There’s more!

If you accept the Chickenhawk argument – that only those actually willing to go and fight have a legitimate opinion on the subject of war – then that means that any decision to go to war must rest exclusively in the hands of the military. Is that what this person really wants? To abandon civilian control of the military? That’s the box they have trapped themselves in with this argument. Now to be perfectly honest, I think Robert Heinlein made a very compelling case for just this line of reasoning in Starship Troopers (the book, not the clueless projected travesty). Heinlein said that the only people who should be allowed to vote are those that have served in the military, since only they are willing to make the ultimate sacrifice on behalf of the state. I don’t agree with that. I think civilian control of the military has been one of the pillars of our nation’s success, and it has withstood the test of both World Wars and Civil ones. But that is the world you are stuck in when you toss that little Chickenhawk grenade.

Finally, if the only legitimate opinion on Iraq, say, is that held by the troops themselves, then they are overwhelmingly in favor of being there and finishing what they started. I recently received an e-mail from an Army major who is heading back for his fourth tour. The Chickenhawk argument, coming from an anti-war commentator, legitimizes only those voices that overwhelmingly contradict the anti-war argument.

Bill Whittle wrote that. He's a real live veteran and I happen to agree with him.