In reply to Bastards

I read this article with my tongue planted firmly in my cheek. I do not agree with Mr. Pickle on this issue and personally I feel less safe now that House Bill 1815 has been passed. I find it appauling that my safety and that of my fellow texans has been compromised by the irresponsibility of the legislature. Being from west Texas I know the kind of people who own guns and I really don't want them to be able to carry them in thier vehicle ready to shoot on whim. Road rage in this country is insane. People get angry over nothing. Seriously though why is this a safety issue? I have personally never felt threatned enough in my car to need a firearm for reassurance but, I might now that this bill has been ammended. This article I found in the Dallas Morning News sheds some light on the horrors of road rage:



A man shot and killed a 15-year-old boy in east Oak Cliff early Friday during a road rage incident in which each pulled a gun on the other.
Anthony Gray, 30, told police he was heading home along Marsalis Avenue about 3:45 a.m. when the teenager, Frank Vega, cut him off in a 2004 Cadillac.
The two exchanged words at the stoplight where Marsalis meets Saner Avenue.
Either at the stoplight or soon after, both men pulled out handguns.
Mr. Gray fired multiple shots, and a bullet hit the teenager in the chest.
The teen's Cadillac ran off the road nearly a mile away near Overton Road. Mr. Gray pulled off the road and called 911.
"We don't know who displayed a weapon first, but both were armed, and we believe it could be a case of self-defense," said Sgt. Bruce McDonald, a Dallas police homicide supervisor.
Authorities say the teenager did not fire his weapon.
Police plan to refer the case to a grand jury.
Mr. Gray could not be reached for comment.
"It's sad that we have a 15-year-old out on the street at that time of the morning armed," Sgt. McDonald said.

Juicing up

Today the UIL annouced a state wide steroid testing program for High School student athletes. The program would not test for illegal substances but focus solely on performance enhanceing drugs. It will cost an estimated 6 million dollars to check only 3% of the 720,000 student athletes in Texas. Despite the small percentage we will be testing more athletes than the NCAA and Olympic committee combined. No vendor has been selected but 15 firms have a applied for the 6 million + dollars a year gig. While this cause is indead noble it really says a lot for Texas when our highest priority is to make sure the friday night football game is fair, whenever we have millions of uninsured texas children and things like higher education getting cut. And sadly there isn't even a surefire test for steroids. Many new drugs on the market are untraceable which has led to much controversy in Major League Baseball. So really whats the point? We are spending 6 million dollars to test 3% of athletes that may or may not take steroids that may or may not be traceable. And in order to suspended from sports they have to be caught three times but with this random testing that is very unlikely to happen.

Gloom & Doom?

This is an article that I found in the Houston chronicle about Governor Perry's refusal to call a special legislative session to address the record number Texas homes that will most likely be foreclosed on. This is due to the high level of subprime loans in the state. The situation has gotten so bad that in august alone 16,970 foreclosures were filed. Texas Sen. Eliot Shapleigh warned Governor Perry that the economy could slip into a recession due to the sub-prime loans going under. And yet Gov. Perry seems surprisingly optimistic calling the impending crisis a simple "housing trend that occurs both in good and bad times". His dismissal of this issue is highly irresponsible. Texas is going to be in real trouble when these loans are recalled. Out of the top ten subprime urban centers we have seven including the top five: El Paso, Corpus Christi, Laredo, Killeen-Temple and Beaumont-Port Arthur.

But honestly I don't know where the blame should fall. On those who lack the will to help, or on those who allowed such impossible loans to be lent in the 1st place. The American people have all become little profit engines for the elite while the economy depends on the ability of the average joe worker to earn just enough to pay the minimum on his lifelong debt , never paying off, but always paying. Something really needs to be done about subprime lending. Too many Texans are getiing trapt in this vicious cycle.

Freedom, Sweet Freedom

There is an article that I stumbled upon in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram that describes the predicament of Dallas county and its 14 DNA exonerations. It talks about Texas Sen. Rodney Ellis's bill that pushes for the creation of an Innocence Council to open cases to review DNA evidence. Which seems like a good idea on paper but, of course you have your trigger-happy Republicans ready to shoot it down. State Rep. Kim Brimer declared it to be "just another level of bureaucracy". I guess everything is "bureaucracy" for subscribers of the less is more theory. I say lets get to exoneraterating, the prisons are already overcrowed as it is. Why keep innocent people incarerated? There shouldn't even be a debate, this is good for Texas. There's only six other states who have innocence councils therefore this would be really progressive and might even help to weaken the perception that all Texans are SUV driving, fencebuilding redneck bigots.

here's the link:

http://www.star-telegram.com/news/story/252116.html

This is an article that I found on the Houston Chronicle's website about the sell of the Christmas Mountains in West Texas. The Christmas Mountains were donated to the State of Texas in 1991 by the conservation fund. And since only fve percent of Texas land is still considered public, their is a lot of contreversy surounding this issue. Many believe that if the state sells this land it will discourage other organizations from donating tracts of land to any state. For fear that it will be sold for a quick profit. And while the money from the sale is promised to Texas education, the trivial figure is not enough to be a factor in the Texas education budget. Currently this sale is halted due to a map error in west Texas.

Here is the link:

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/5146844.html