Zippidy Doo Da

I'm not stupid, I'm from Texas!

Sunday, June 29, 2008

Possibility of ice-free North Pole set at 50-50

Associated Press
“WASHINGTON — There's a 50-50 chance that the North Pole will be ice-free this summer, which would be a first in recorded history, a leading ice scientist says.

The weather and ocean conditions in the next couple of weeks will determine how much of the sea ice will melt, and early signs are not good, said Mark Serreze. He's a senior researcher at the National Snow and Ice Data Center and the University of Colorado in Boulder, Colo.

The chances for a total meltdown at the pole are higher than ever because the layer of ice coating the sea is thinner than ever, he said.”

-It’s been twenty years since NASA’s Dr James Hansen testified before Congress that our emissions of greenhouse gases are changing earth’s climate.

Last week he said that the only thing that has changed in those twenty years is that we’ve lost any slack built into the timeline.

“Climate is nearing dangerous tipping points,” he said. “Elements of a "perfect storm," a global cataclysm, are assembled.”

“Climate can reach points such that amplifying feedbacks spur large rapid changes. Arctic sea ice is a current example. Global warming initiated sea ice melt, exposing darker ocean that absorbs more sunlight, melting more ice. As a result, without any additional greenhouse gases, the Arctic soon will be ice-free in the summer. “

-That’s when things really start to happen. Thawing of the Greenland and Antarctic ice shelves accelerate, and rising sea levels flood coastlines, displacing millions worldwide. We’ll have drought in some places, and flooding in others, along with more and more severe storms. Sounds apocalyptic, doesn’t it?

Or hear this from Indian scientist Rajendra Pachauri, head of the Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change :

“If there’s no action before 2012, that’s too late. What we do in the next two to three years will determine our future. This is the defining moment.”

-This is another reason why I can see becoming a yellow dog Democrat and voting a straight ticket this year. I want to preserve, as Dr. Hansen says, "a planet similar to that on which civilization developed."

When the Dems took over the Senate, Barbara Boxer replaced James Inhofe as Chairman of the Committee on Environment and Public Works. Inhofe has said that global warming is a “hoax,” and “a ruse to raise taxes.”

Now under Chairman Boxer, the Senate has passed the Climate Security Act, which sets a declining cap on US greenhouse gas emissions. Our Senator John Cornyn called this the “Boxer climate tax.”

Cornyn’s got to go. I like to go to the beach: I don’t want the beach to come to me.

Saturday, June 28, 2008

New GI Bill Passes Senate


The Webb/Hegel GI Bill passed the senate as part of the supplemental war spending bill. Notice that John McCain and our own John Cornyn are now taking credit for the bill’s passage even though a few weeks ago they were trying to kill it. McCain didn’t even show up to vote for it, but the Republicans figured out that people were getting wise to their phony grandstanding and scrambled to get on the right side of this issue.

You probably heard about Defense Secretary Robert Gates firing two Air Force Generals because they lost track of some nuclear weapons in the skies over America. Did you read about the speech he gave to a business group in DC last month where he said that our troops were buying their own body armor and welding scrap metal to the outside of their vehicles to protect themselves against roadside bombs because defense contractors didn’t want to interrupt the supply chain to deliver needed equipment while they had lucrative supply contracts still in effect.

So our sons and daughters are risking their lives for “business as usual.”

We gotta vote these bastards out of office.

Friday, June 27, 2008

Perry Right for Once!?

Texas Governor Rick Perry was in Washington last week calling for a reduction in ethanol production.

What’s the matter, did Cargill and Archer Daniels Midland forget to send him a check?

No, it’s because of his history with the Cattleman’s Association. They backed his campaign for Agriculture Commissioner against Jim Hightower to stop Hightower’s crazy talk about organic farming and pesticide regulations. Later, when Oprah Winfrey aired a program about mad cow disease Perry called for the Texas Attorney General to sue her for violating the Texas Food Disparagement Act.

So when six dollar a bushel corn threatens the livelihood of cattle ranchers, they call their man Perry.

Just because he’s talking sense for once, coming out against a wasteful boondoggle that contributes to food insecurity around the world, doesn’t mean that he doing right.

He just remembers which side his butt is breaded on.

At least this shows that he isn’t planning to campaign in the next Iowa caucuses.

Thursday, June 26, 2008

Sorry Nails, If it’s not politics it’s economics..


I was in a meeting yesterday hearing about the next fiscal year and got the word that there will be no increase in my health insurance premiums.

Hallelujah.

After ten years in which premium increases averaged in double digits, while inflation bounced around two percent, why do we get a break now?

I figure that the American Cartel for Health Expense (ACHE) perceive the coming regime change in the US as a threat to their gravy train and are trying to lay low.

According to the National Coalition on Health Care, we spent 16% of GDP on healthcare last year, over four times what we spend on the national defense.

Let’s compare that to some other developed countries with universal coverage:

10.9% Switzerland
10.7% Germany
9.7% Canada
9.5% France

We can do it here, too. Don’t let some insurance salesman or Pharma flack tell you different.

Monday, June 23, 2008

A Word With Gurf Morlix


Nails smacked me around the other day. Too much politics! He's right; we've got months until we have to hash around that stuff, now that we have a nominee.

So, back to the stuff I love best: music.

How fortunate we are to have a brief conversation with the man behind the curtain. Gurf Morlix has produced some of the best records of the last 20 years. Nearly all of Ray Wylie Hubbard, two with Lucinda Williams, his long-time musical partner, and a host of others. His latest record of his own music, "Diamonds to Dust" is an instant classic. A work of a musical genius, still unknown to many. Get to know him:

q. You might be the Godfather of "Americana Music" or at least the Lou Cabrozzi (before sleeping with the fishes). What do you think makes everybody from Dave Alvin to Lucinda Williams seek your production talents for their records?

I'VE BEEN REALLY LUCKY TO WORK WITH SOME OF THE BEST SONGWRITERS IN THE BUSINESS. IT STARTED WITH LUCINDA. SINCE THEN I'VE HAD THE AMAZING LUXURY OF BEING ABLE TO PICK ONLY THE PROJECTS I REALL WANT TO WORK ON - THE ONES I CAN COMPLETELY RELATE TO, AND THEREFORE DIG IN DEEP. EVEN WHEN I WAS SCUFFLING, I TURNED DOWN A LOT OF WORK. I'M INTERESTED IN MAKING GREAT ALBUMS. ART, HOPEFULLY.

q. Is there a Gurf Morlix "sound"?

I THINK IT HAS MORE TO DO WITH ARRANGING THAN ANY PARTICULAR "SOUND". I LIKE TO HEAR SOME SPACE MIXED IN WITH THE NOTES.

q. You report from the continent. How are things overseas different from Texas in your way of thinking?

YOU ASSUME THAT I'M ON THE CONTINENT, YET THAT HAS NOT BEEN ESTABLISHED.

I DO FIND THAT THE ART GOES DEEPER IN EUROPE THAN IT DOES IN THE STATES. MAYBE BECAUSE IT'S SO MUCH OLDER THERE, BUT THEY SEEM TO HAVE A HEAVIER APPRECIATION THERE.

q. Is there such a thing as "Texas Music"?

THE TEXAS SONGWRITERS ARE DEFINITELY A DIFFERENT BREED THAN THOSE IN THE REST OF THE WORLD. IT'S KIND OF LIKE THE DEPTH OF ART APPRECIATION IN EUROPE. I THINK THE ROOTS GO VERY DEEP IN TEXAS AS WELL.

q. CD sales accross the board are down in the last decade or so. To you, what does the future hold for the music industry?

NOBODY REALLY KNOWS, AND IT'S ALL CHANGING REALLY FAST. 20 YEAR OLDS AREN'T BUYING CDS, SO I GUESS THAT'S GONNA GRADUALLY GO AWAY. I'M SURE MOST OF THE RECORD COMPANIES, ESPECIALLY THE INDIES, MUST BE LOOKING OVER THEIR SHOULDER FOR THE DUST CLOUD OF DOOM. THE MAJORS WILL PROBABLY SURVIVE BY CO-OPTING SOME OTHER KIND OF BUSINESS. I THINK THEY'RE TOO BIG TO JUST GO AWAY.

q. Not that you are a fossil or something, but does the generation coming up in music have the same level of talent and creativity as those who have come before?

THE YOUNGER SONGWRITERS ARE TRYING, AND THERE WILL BE SOME GREAT ONES. I DO THINK THAT THERE WILL BE LESS AND LESS OF THE KIND OF MUSIC I LIKE, BUT IT WILL SURVIVE.

q. On "Daimonds to Dust" you seem to hint at something apocryphal, from God on Our Side to Worth Dyin' For. Is there a God, and is there anything worth dying for?

NOBODY REALLY KNOWS THE ANSWER TO THAT. THERE ARE THINGS WORTH DYIN' FOR - TRUTH, LOVE, WORK, FRIENDS, FAMILY....PASSION....ART

Mr. Morlix, I think you are entirely too special and complicated a person to capture in a few questions, but I sure am grateful for your time, and wish you the best.

Sunday, June 22, 2008

We ain't seen nothing yet.

Urban planner and Houston City Council member Peter Brown writes in today’s Outlook about “planning for sustainable growth, multimodal transportation choices, more compact development and energy conservation, on the assumption that gasoline prices will continue to double every four to five years.”

Remember that February 28th press conference on energy when President Deer-In-The-Headlights was startled when a reporter asked him about the prospect of $4 a gallon gasoline? Now the Repubs are blaming Congress for high prices and suggesting that we can drill our way out of this trouble.

Don’t believe it.

Yes we have more oil underground. Problem is that a lot of it costs over $100 a barrel to pump it out of there.

I hear the trade-in value on a Humvee is about $10,000 these days, or approximately $2.00 per pound. The price of scrap metal is about 20 cents a pound. Look for these prices to come more into line in the future.

Friday, June 20, 2008

Chupacabra Report

-This news ..

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Oil prices sank nearly $5 on Thursday after China said it would raise gas prices by lifting subsidies that have been blamed for driving oil prices higher. The move could curb demand from the country's rapidly growing economy.

China's National Development and Reform Commission said that prices of gasoline, diesel and aviation fuel will increase by 8% beginning Friday.

-Reminded me of this..

BEIJING (AP) - China has overtaken the United States as the world's top producer of carbon dioxide emissions - the biggest man-made contributor to global warming - based on the latest widely accepted energy consumption data, a Dutch research group says.

According to a report released Tuesday by the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, China overtook the U.S. in emissions of CO2 by about 7.5 percent in 2006. While China was 2 percent below the United States in 2005, voracious coal consumption and increased cement production caused the numbers to rise rapidly, the group said.

-But on an emissions per person per year basis, it’s not even close, which is why I opened with the fat Homer in a mu-mu:

US 19.4 tons
Russia 11.8 tons
EU 8.6 tons
China 5.1 tons
India 1.8 tons

-The high price of energy will have us driving less in more efficient vehicles, and cutting energy use at home. Rising food costs will cut our consumption of meat, processed foods, and produce that has been shipped around the world and trucked across the country.

These changes will benefit our health, give us cleaner air and water, and reduce our exposure to geopolitics.

If it’s not already too late.

Let's Ride Down To Sunnyside


Here are the five rail lines H-Town City Council voted for by 2012. If I lived there again, I'd be riding these everyday.

Monday, June 16, 2008

Channeling Dr. Huxtable


Mr. Obama made an inspiring speech in church on Father's Day in which he preached the value of personal responsibility, especially as it concerned young black males, "missing in action."

In all fairness to the presumptive nominee, he did suggest some ways his administration would try to help lure African American men back to home and hearth, but didn't seem to acknowledge the underlying problem of the lack of good jobs and education in minority communities. 50% would still drop out, 25% would be un- or under employed, and future prospects would still be dismal even if Young Black America stayed home with the kids 24/7. Besides, everybody pays child support now; they take the money right out of one's paycheck.

The fact is that any poor man who wants to make sure his offspring have medical coverage, food assistance, safe housing and and any other means-tested social program that would benefit the children would risk placing these out of reach the day he moved in and got a job. He would merely be condemning his family to the ranks of the uninsured working poor: sickly, hungry, cold and working all the time. A family with two, three or four minimum wage jobs could never afford decent housing, transportation, food, medical care, and child care these days. Much less leisure and any spare time with the family.

Poor men love their children as much as anybody, maybe more. Mr. Obama knows that without more and better paying jobs, and health care reform, continuing to beat up on our young men, (everybody's scared of black guys anyway) is just a minstrel show for the benefit of white voters.

Saturday, June 14, 2008

Floods Biblical?


I expect you’ve all been hearing of the effects of corn-based ethanol production on the price of food. This bogus alternative fuel, which costs more energy to produce than it ultimately yields, has a spillover effect because as farmers plant more corn to cash in on high prices, wheat, soybeans, and other crops rise in price as less is produced.

Now, freak storms have flooded the state of Iowa, America’s biggest corn producer. The Governor has declared 83 of 99 counties to be disaster areas. Even if the fields dry out enough to replant this years crop, they’re sure to come up short of this years estimated 2 billion bushels.

I haven’t heard of Jerry Falwell or John Hagee announcing that God has smitten the Midwest for all their fornication and sodomy, like He did Florida and New Orleans.

(Haven’t heard of any natural disasters striking Lynchburg Virginia, have you? That probably shows that having Falwell’s outfit there is plague enough.)

If this was a real case of divine retribution, I think it would smite the Corn Belt politicians that have been enabling the insidious Archer Daniels Midland agribusiness corporation with ethanol subsidies, sugar tariffs, and other considerations. With $44 billion in revenues last year, ADM may be the biggest corporate welfare queen in history.

Trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, mo-fo..


Governor 39% Perry was signing books at the GOP convention yesterday, and although I try not to buy books by crooks, I have a pretty good idea what’s in his.

I saw him shilling his book on CSPAN, and since I can hear dog whistles, I was able to translate the code words he uses to push his supporter’s buttons.

You see, Perry’s book isn’t really about the Boy Scouts as much as it is about Perry’s perceived “culture wars,” that is, the idea that Mom and apple pie are under attack by the moral relativism of the secular humanists, the latest boogeyman now that the comminist threat has receeded.

When you’re in the business of pandering for the powers that be, the idea is to keep it simple, as if we were all still dopey white folks just off the farm in some Norman Rockwell painting.

Problem is that the good old days weren’t all good either, and trying to make hay off the way things weren’t is crazy. When I was a scout, they weren’t kicking kids out because they were agnostic or effeminate, the leaders were happy if they could just keep a lid on us evil little twerps till they could get us out of town to blow off some steam.

Our troop was like an old prison movie. One character ran the black market, another was a master thief, a third could pick any lock, we had runners, thugs, a mad scientist and of course our patsies, scapegoats, and fall guys; a good cross-section.

I’m glad I was in my troop and not Rick Perry’s.

Friday, June 13, 2008

Chupacabra Report

-News that gets my goat..

-Columnist Froma Harrop surprised me today, suggesting that disaffected pro-choice women could do worse than supporting John McCain because “While he has positioned himself as “pro-life” during this campaign, his statements over the years have shown considerable latitude.”

It is just such “latitude” that has made it impossible for me to entertain voting for Senator McCain.

To win the Republican nomination, he has found it expedient to flip on Jerry Falwell, Grover Norquist and the Wyly brothers. He has reversed his position on torture, the inheritance tax, the Bush tax cuts, ethanol, gay marriage, the confederate flag, and the Martin Luther King holiday.

Cynical weasel or dithering dust brain, he’s lost me.

-Police are now guarding the house of state District Judge Barbara Walthers after authorities in Arizona and Utah warned of danger from “enforcers” from the FLDS polygamist sect.

Salt Lake City attorney Rod Parker, mouthpiece for the FLDS cult replied:

"Have they ever seen an act of intimidation or violence against law enforcement from the FLDS community at all, ever?" he told the newspaper. "Before they start spreading those kinds of rumors, they ought to be able to ID an example of them ever doing that in the past."

Well, as a matter of fact, polygamist cult leader Ervil Lebaron had about 25 people killed. On June 27th 1988 they killed four people across the state, one of them an eight year old girl who witnessed her father’s killing.

I’m guessing they didn’t play up that angle on HBO’s “Big Love.”

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

We Can't Wait


Impeachment is back in the news again. Rep. Kucinich has introduced 35 articles to the floor today alleging various high crimes and misdemeanors against Bush, (and Cheney, I hope). There is a nice discussion of this throughout the lefty blogosphere.

I had been thinking the other day that the House should adopt the Senate Armed Services Committee report from last week wherein the members, including 2 Republicans, found that Bush and Cheney lied us into war, as articles of impeachment, and plan for a rapid, expedited process for prosecution in the event of some new national calamity. That way, if something happens that effects our national security, Speaker Pelosi would be president until the election, and during that time, effective bipartisan action could be underway to address the emergency.

I don't want to lose another great American city, or have another war, or see gas prices bury the middle class, or see our national prestige trampled in the dirt and pissed on by incompetent, evil little cowards anymore.

Right now, Bush is flushing our currency down the toilet for his own purposes, and while other nations are raising interest rates, we will be the ones holding worthless greenbacks. That by itself convinces me that the time for the people to act is near at hand.

Call your congress critters and let them know that the eyes of Texas are upon them.

Monday, June 09, 2008

Chupacabra Report

An electoral sea change is at hand for our nation, with Republican officeholders running for cover, but here in Texas, our elected officials are still in the sway of the local ayatollahs.

The right wing Bible-beaters appointed to the State Board of Education by Governor Perry recently re-wrote the language curriculum in such a way as to give the state’s English teachers fits, and now they are doing the same with the science curriculum, inserting non-existent controversy into biology and earth science to lend credence to the creationists.

Down the road from me a high school principal responded to anti-Muslim hate crimes by having representatives of the Council on American Islamic Relations address the student body at an assembly.

The conservative Houston Area Pastors Council responded to this by pressuring the Friendswood School District until the principal was re-assigned.

It seems that if it’s not their church, these folks are suddenly in favor of separation of church and state.

The Pastors Council is all for bible classes in the public schools. They also favor public prayer, except, as last year when they shared the outrage of blowhard Senator Dan Patrick, who marched out of the senate chamber in a huff when the invocation was given by a Muslim Imam.

This leads me to have no patience for Democrats threatening to sit out the election or cross over because their favorite candidate came up short for the nomination. This election is about a lot more than the top of the ticket. If we want to set things right in this country, we gotta “get thar fustest with the mostest.”

Saturday, June 07, 2008

President Cheney in Houston for Olson Fundraiser

Tens of right-wing millionaires gathered in billionaire Dan Duncan’s River Oaks home Friday to bankroll former Phil Gramm staffer Pete Olson’s campaign to replace nominal Democrat Nick Lampson as congressman from the Texas House seat that until recently was defiled by Tom DeLay.

Attendees paid between $2,500 and $14,600 to hear Dick Cheney speak.
(You can go to http://www.mydamnchannel.com/Harry_Shearer/Music_Videos/935Lies_687.aspx# and see Harry Shearer do Cheney for free)

Olson’s campaign is in debt after dispatching wacky dermatologist Shelly Sekula Rodriguez-Gibbs in the Republican primary run-off.

Ironically, Duncan testified in Federal Court in Houston this week about a Russian hunting trip he took in which five moose and four sheep were illegally shot from a helicopter.

No word yet as to whether any of the animals were shot in the face.

Thursday, June 05, 2008

Housework

A lot of sites I visit often change to a sturdier server. These changes sometimes include access information for users, or require page flips or patience for ghostly add banners that float across the screen when loading. This is a natural evolutionary event, I think, as blogs grow in popularity.

My Luddite reaction is to plow through them as I do when driving in freeway construction situations. So I miss the significance of these blog moves to the detriment of our link section.

Juanita, for instance, has been offering some of the best blog goodies for years now, and reigns at www.kissmybigbluebutt.com. She is deservedly contributing to the Texas Observer, as pointed out by Hizonner. We are delighted for her, and for ourselves, and wish her to keep up the good work.

And props to Vince Liebowitz, a monster of political journalism around these parts, and the daddy of www.capitolannex.com. I don't mention his good efforts nearly enough, although I love his site and enjoy reading his thoughtful writing at SA Current, among other places. Go say hi, and show some love to both these guys.

Wednesday, June 04, 2008

Just for Laughs

I saw this in Chron.com today and thought I'd pass it on for the edification of all the slobs who read this rag.

For the ladies, if you ever meet someone like this, let me know so we can quickly put the circle on him.

Yes, a gentleman follows some established rules. But in a revised and expanded edition of How To Be A Gentleman (Thomas Nelson, 160 pp. $14.99)author John Bridges insists that gentlemanly behavior is not about do's and don't's; it's about common sense and courtesy.

Take away even a few of Bridges' pointers, and your friends, lovers and business partners will be impressed.

A gentleman . . .

1. Keeps to the right, whether he is walking on a sidewalk, down a hallway or on the stairs.

2. . . . does not attempt to walk and send text messages simultaneously.

3. . . . waits for a woman to initiate a social kiss. If she leans toward him, he turns his cheek toward her lips. And when she graces him with a light, brushing kiss, he doesn't dawdle in accepting it.

4. . . . doesn't wipe away a lipstick smudge in the presence of the woman who planted it on him. He bears it, even if briefly, as a badge of honor, wiping it away later with a handkerchief.

5. . . . waits until a lady at the table lifts her fork before he takes his first bite.

6. . . . eats the garnish on his dinner plate if he so desires.

7. . . . places his knife and his fork on his plate side by side, as if they were the hands of a clock set at 5:25, when he's finished eating.

8. . . . always has an umbrella to share.

9. . . . never wears a belt when he is wearing suspenders.

10. . . . leaves the bottom button of his vest undone.

11. . . . never wears a bow-tie with a button-down shirt.

12. . . . owns at least one pair of black lace-up shoes.

13. . . . usually takes his shirts to the laundry but knows how to use an iron and spray starch.

14. . . . is careful about what he says in e-mails. He meticulously reviews his messages, editing if necessary to make sure recipients will understand what he's saying — and the tone in which he says it.

15. . . . knows how to make a grilled cheese sandwich at 2 a.m. and an omelet at 7 a.m.

16. . . . doesn't flaunt his newest gadgets, no matter how expensive or cutting-edge they may be.

17. . . . feels no necessity to wear socks after Memorial Day — at least in casual situations. If he is Southern, he may not even wear them to church.

18. . . . never wears the same pair of blue jeans two days in a row.

19. . . . puts the liquor away when he wants guests to leave.

20. . . . always offers to get up and make the coffee in the morning.

21. . . . never waits for something better to turn up.

Tuesday, June 03, 2008

That's What He Said..


"Evolution is not a fact. Evolution is a theory and, as such, cannot be proven,
students need to be able to jump to their own conclusions."
-David Bradley, R-Beaumont, Vice Chairman, State Board of Education

Monday, June 02, 2008

Judge orders the return of polygamous sect's kids to parents


By Brooke AdamsThe Salt Lake Tribune

SAN ANGELO, Texas -- A Texas judge today signed an order that said hundreds of children seized during a raid on a polygamist compound.The terms of the release remain tough for sect members. Parents must agree to be photographed picking up their children, and to be fingerprinted and provide identification, as well as agree to attending "standard parenting classes," according to the order.

They also must agree not to interfere with the Texas Child Protective Services' ongoing investigation into alleged child abuse and neglect; allow CPS workers to visit, question and examine the children, both medically and psychologically, in their homes.

Further, the parents must provide seven days notice before any moves, and 48 hours notice of any travel more than 100 miles from their homes -- and they are prohibited from leaving Texas with their children.

Marleigh Meisner, a CPS spokeswoman, said the agency was "very pleased" with the order because it allows for the investigation to continue while providing for the safe return of the children, which CPS will try to do in a "prompt and orderly" manner. amous sect's ranch must immediately be released to their families.

Meisner said CPS is hoping to provide services to FLDS families to help them become "better parents." The agency also still feels "very strongly" there is cause for concern for the safety of some chidlren, she said.

At one point, the state claimed there were 31 underage girls were who were pregnant or mothers or both. That number dwindled to five as the state conceded most of the girls are actually adults. Those five girls will also be released under Walther's order, Meisner said.

The raid has "certainly been one of the most diffcult things we've ever been involved in as an agency," Meisner said, praising CPS staff.

Governor and Attorney General Missing

Janet Elliot and Clay Robison of the Chronicle’s Austin Bureau, and columnist Rick Casey have been all over Perry and Abbot over their non-handling of the FLDS case.

Rick Perry has done little but to trot out his spokespersons to utter platitudes such as “the state’s first priority is protecting children,” but that figures, since religious nuts is Perry’s base. How do you think that crazy cult got so established out there? It wasn’t just benign neglect that allowed it either, this outfit parlayed six-figure bank loans into million dollar defense contracts.

And Attorney General Greg Abbott’s office informed the Texas Supreme Court that they may be filing a brief in the case, but later informed the court that they wouldn’t.
Hot potato.

Rick Casey says that the CPS just got out-lawyered and out- public relationed, suggesting that their legal arm is resourced like their caseworkers, who have twice the national average caseload. Here’s how he wrapped up his last piece:

“If this state had leaders, they would be trying to help CPS handle this terribly difficult case in the best possible manner – not treating the agency like the proverbial red-headed stepchild.”

Sunday, June 01, 2008

Chupy Files:

The NYT today printed several replies to Thomas Friedman’s recent column bemoaning the lack of leadership on the fuel front:

Marilyn Simon of Boca Raton said, “let’s not forget the effect on working people when both the price of fuel and the price of fuel efficient cars are high.”

-That’s a good counterpoint to a story I just read about sales of million-dollar mid-town condos heating up because of the rising cost of commuting; while the rest of us poor schlubs are taking it in the neck because, as Willie Sutton said, “that’s where the money is.”

And Mary Ann Kae of Seattle opined “I envision a future president setting an oil independence deadline reminiscent of JFK’s declaration that the US would land a man at the moon within ten years.”

-I like the sound of that, but I suggest reading chapter four of Kuntsler’s book “The Long Emergency” (see previous post, “Castles in the sand”) about how alternative fuels will fail us. He maintains that modern miracles such as the Manhattan Project were all made possible by cheap and abundant fossil fuels that are no longer available to us.

The Bushite’s response to Kyoto was that the “American Way of Life” was not negotiable

It’s about time that we understand that it’s unsustainable.

Castles made of sand..


‘Scuse me, I’ve been busy. After a short workweek, I joined the Rice FE&P Sandcastle team for the 22nd annual AIA Sandcastle contest, my first. Eight-four teams competed in various categories, a five-hour race against wind, tide, and gravity. It was a great event, even for a certain schlepper relegated to operating a wheelbarrow and shovel.

One entry represented a gas gauge, giving someone an opportunity to demagogue on the subject of energy prices. The theme I gathered is that we have a God-given right to emit two tons of carbon per capita per year.

This theme was reinforced as we left, traffic crawling through acres of beach filled with pick-ups and SUVs, our forty- mile drive taking almost two hours.

Now this morning I turn to The Chronicle’s Sunday Outlook section and see the lead article by James Howard Kunstler, “Our motoring utopia is all in the rearview.” He tells us that the global energy situation has changed the way that we will trade, travel, produce food, use land, govern ourselves, and get healthcare and education. He says:

“These systems will run into trouble. Instability in one sector will bleed into another.

Shocks to the oil markets will hurt trucking, which will slow commerce and food distribution, manufacturing and the tourist industry in a chain of cascading effects. Problems in finance will squeeze any enterprise that requires capital, including oil exploration and production, as well as government spending.

These systems are all interrelated. They all face a crisis. What's more, the stress induced by the failure of these systems will only increase the wishful thinking across our nation.”

I have just been reading Kunstler’s book “The Long Emergency.” What I had expected to be a piece of dry nonfiction has turned out to be riveting.

He’s got me thinking that this spike in energy prices, which we think is killing us, may turn out to be a blessing if it turns us away from an unsustainable way of life that can only lead us to war and misery as we despoil our planet.’