But it never hurts to thank God to be alive.Just keep praying for rain.
Also the Texas Rangers are still in the hunt. End of July and time maybe to start getting excited about baseball in Texas again.
Sunday, July 31, 2011
Thursday, July 28, 2011
Comments on Jon Stewart's comments
I am a huge fan of the Daily show and Jon Stewart. I feel he has a pretty good take on what is going on and he is funny. I understand what he does is humor etc, but the other night he touched on something I think he should have taken another approach. Reason is purely from my advantage point , but I did laugh. He was talking about the speeches on Monday night and one of his comments was about the President asking the American people to write to Congress. He went off about isn't that Obama's job to speak to the Congress and had a few jokes around it. All in all it was part of a much larger bit he was doing.
I know no one will really give a rat's back end about me commenting on Jon Stewart's bits, however, I do believe the American people should be heavily involved in writing Congress right now.There is way too much influence peddling going on in Washington for the American people not to have their say.And with Democrats and Republicans parting like the Red Sea Congress needs to realize there is more at stake than their egos.
Yep, this is cry in the wilderness times, but soon the epitaph may be written on democracy if more people don't get involved. I just hate watching the greatest document ever written by man alone get thrown out with the trash because of apathy and for a few pieces of silver (private lobbyists). God save the Constitution, the Constitution is dying.
I know no one will really give a rat's back end about me commenting on Jon Stewart's bits, however, I do believe the American people should be heavily involved in writing Congress right now.There is way too much influence peddling going on in Washington for the American people not to have their say.And with Democrats and Republicans parting like the Red Sea Congress needs to realize there is more at stake than their egos.
Yep, this is cry in the wilderness times, but soon the epitaph may be written on democracy if more people don't get involved. I just hate watching the greatest document ever written by man alone get thrown out with the trash because of apathy and for a few pieces of silver (private lobbyists). God save the Constitution, the Constitution is dying.
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Praying for a bit of rain all over Texas and even further west. NFL lockout is over, lets see what the Cowboys can do.They got some competition with the recent success of the Rangers and Mavericks.
Otherwise can our government solve the budget situation without splitting the haves and have nots further apart. I know it is hard for some to believe, but a weakening middle class and lower middle class does not bode well for the future of democracy. Conservative values include developing a strong middle class to support our country's freedoms and values. Our economy needs people to develop jobs and more independent wealth. Less people dependent on the government not just cutting government programs is a better way to help solve our budget situation.
Our education system is in a shambles which leads to another problem for a strong democracy. Educated people prevent racism and fascism by knowing what is crap and what isn't.Too many decades of mediocrity is starting to hurt us.
So not only is their a drought out west there is a drought in common sense in Washington DC
Otherwise can our government solve the budget situation without splitting the haves and have nots further apart. I know it is hard for some to believe, but a weakening middle class and lower middle class does not bode well for the future of democracy. Conservative values include developing a strong middle class to support our country's freedoms and values. Our economy needs people to develop jobs and more independent wealth. Less people dependent on the government not just cutting government programs is a better way to help solve our budget situation.
Our education system is in a shambles which leads to another problem for a strong democracy. Educated people prevent racism and fascism by knowing what is crap and what isn't.Too many decades of mediocrity is starting to hurt us.
So not only is their a drought out west there is a drought in common sense in Washington DC
Sunday, July 24, 2011
A bit of Texas Politics 101 and a bit about Perry
With all the noise about Gov Perry running for president it might be good for people outside of Texas to know that the Governor's office is not the most powerful political office in Texas. The Lt Governor's office actually has more clout in the Texas system.
There is a bunch of noise about leadership etc in the Grand Old Party and many conservatives are ready to jump on Perry's bandwagon so no matter what anyone says they won't listen, but for any moderates in the GOP it might be time to know the above fact and second there really hasn't been any crisis in the State of Texas to test Perry's true leadership capabilities.
I am not much of a Perry supporter because I see more PR out of him than action. Also he talks job growth, but he has had very little direct or even indirect affect on Texas employment rate,basically things have been pretty good here, because of the environment that has always been Texas. And what he has said he has done is in a bit of a controversy based on some news reports.
Anyway just be aware the Governor's role in Texas is not the true legislative leadership role in the day to day world of Texas politics.
There is a bunch of noise about leadership etc in the Grand Old Party and many conservatives are ready to jump on Perry's bandwagon so no matter what anyone says they won't listen, but for any moderates in the GOP it might be time to know the above fact and second there really hasn't been any crisis in the State of Texas to test Perry's true leadership capabilities.
I am not much of a Perry supporter because I see more PR out of him than action. Also he talks job growth, but he has had very little direct or even indirect affect on Texas employment rate,basically things have been pretty good here, because of the environment that has always been Texas. And what he has said he has done is in a bit of a controversy based on some news reports.
Anyway just be aware the Governor's role in Texas is not the true legislative leadership role in the day to day world of Texas politics.
Sunday, July 17, 2011
A few different topics
Well time flies when you are having fun. I thought I was going to sit down to write about a couple of articles I read in last week's Sunday Dallas Morning News. I went to the recycle stack to pull out the paper and it was from 2 weeks ago. Anyway we didn't even buy the paper last week and didn't realize it till now. Oh well life is keeping me somewhat busy.
Well two weeks ago in the Points section of the Dallas Morning News were two columns about natural gas. One by Michael Lind and the other by Mindy Lubber. Mr Lind's article was just this bombastic raise the flag shoot off the fireworks the world is saved because we now have hydraulic fracturing or fracking. Now actually I am somewhat in favor of expanding natural gas as an energy source for our country.(This type of thinking will also be mentioned further down) It is just that his article was so; all the problems in the world have been solved now; that I have to take what he says with more than a few grains of salt. He casually dismisses all other sources of energy and says fossil fuels are back and better than ever. Honestly I am not an expert on fracking, but the little I have heard suggests we should spend more time developing this technology before we make this our sole way to develop energy in this country. Ms Lind seems to be more on point when she suggests we probably need to develop diversified sources of energy for the future.
And this is a fact that many people in this country cannot seem to digest. There is still way too many people married to the idea that fossil fuels are the only way to move this country forward. It scares me how closed minded people are to what we need to do to stay an economic giant now and in the future. Many people look at oil as what drove our economic engine in the 20th century. But really oil is oil, if everytime people said how great oil was in the above context just change the word oil to inexpensive domestically produced energy. Well yes it is a big mouthful change,but really that is more what happened in the 20th century. And that is what all the fossil fuel proponents need to realize. Right now fossil fuel is not present and may not be that in the future and for the benefit of our country we need to open our eyes to all possible sources of energy to bring back inexpensive domestically produced energy.Whatever it may be we need to accept the possible changes for all our benefit.And just because you can use fracking it may or may not be the best idea.Mr. Lind's article is so pro fracking and even glosses over any problems with fracking that this kind of thinking is what gets our country into trouble.
Now though we do need to look at natural gas as a potential source of energy though and I am going to come back to this in a minute.Right now though the news is and our country rightfully so is obsessed with the debt problem of our government. And everything both democrats and republicans quibble about is short term fixes to a much larger problem.Lets go back a bit, the last time we ran in the black was the 1990's and no it wasn't because of Clinton's administration or anything the republicans had done before hand even though they like to think their tax cuts of the 80's did it all.By the late 70's geopolitical problems had caused oil to skyrocket so our main source of energy or expense there of strangled our economy. By the end of the 80's oil relatively had come down in price/cost to consumer so people could afford to do other things which rebuilt our economy. Add the technology boom ( and remeber there was job growth and some independent wealth growth with the technology boom) and you get the real reason we ran in the black: people had jobs to pay taxes, people had money to invest to drive more growth, so the government needed to do less, ie it cost less to run the government
So no matter what we do in the short term the real way to solve our country's problems is to go back to what works, less government based on less need, real job growth which means we need real investment in new products that we can export to bring wealth back to our country and lower our need to borrow. More people with jobs that pay mean more people are paying taxes and more people with jobs mean less people relying on the government.I know this isn't the whole problem, but it is how we start rebuilding. If people can save more on their own then there is less need for Social Security etc so we can phase out some of the costs shift some of the medicare costs to the private sector and all this takes a ton of work and some people will balk,but until we can create a sefl reliant middle class again we will only have more fiscal problems with our government.
So finally again natural gas and I bring this up as part of a diversified energy model to grow jobs. In the article by Mr. Lind he mentions other countries (most non OPEC) that have large resources of natural gas.Okay helping them develop is one industry to build, but other ideas are building industries that rely on new sources of energy, specifically products that rely on new sources of energy that we can sell here and abroad.There are the obvious ideas like cars that run on natural gas or electric cars because of new technology for electricity. Build electric trains for freight or trains for natural gas. If we set new standards for large industries and help other countries develop energy sources for ourselves this is just one way we can work our way out of our current morass.
There are other ideas out there to develop new sources of energy such as biofuels/biodiesel, again keep open all options and let the market eventually produce the winner and I bet the market is going to open up to some to all,.but not definitely one like oil or specifically fossil fuels anymore.
Anyway as always there is more to say, but time right now is short.Also I wanted to talk about getting wall street off it's back end to invest in our future. We really need to get rid of back room lobbying. What wall street doesn't realize is that hoarding investable money is not in their best interest in the short or long term. They really need a strong middle class as much as democracy does.
Wall Street seems to think it should be able to tell our government what it needs it to do so Wall Street can stay successful. I truly believe capitalism will serve our country well for a long time to come,but the government needs to be able to do its job separate from the influence of people who want to benefit from their success. When you accept the concept of economic winners and losers you have to accept the concept that the winners cannot make all the rules or you lose economic competition that benefits the country as a whole.Folks this is not complaining this is just common sense.
We really don't need a ton of regulations (also helps to lower government costs) but we need in place policies that hold people accountable for their actions. If corporate leaders had to answer for some of the things they do they would be more aware of what they were doing and if some people say then people would not take risks to move our economy forward, then they are short sighted. People who like to make money will find ways to make money even if they have to work harder at it.
I am starting to go all over the place so will stop for now, had some more thoughts about getting wall street on board to reinvesting in our infrastruture earlier today,but they have slipped my mind a bit now, will regroup and try again.
Hot as heck here in Dallas, and huge droughts all over the west. Desalinization is just another industry we should build to rebuild our economy,,,, helps agriculture too. Anyway the weather is starting to become an issue in Texas especially when someone mentions it wouldn't hurt for a small category one hurricane to come through and drench the state. Okay how about a long tropical storm, no damage just moving rain.
Stay cool
Well two weeks ago in the Points section of the Dallas Morning News were two columns about natural gas. One by Michael Lind and the other by Mindy Lubber. Mr Lind's article was just this bombastic raise the flag shoot off the fireworks the world is saved because we now have hydraulic fracturing or fracking. Now actually I am somewhat in favor of expanding natural gas as an energy source for our country.(This type of thinking will also be mentioned further down) It is just that his article was so; all the problems in the world have been solved now; that I have to take what he says with more than a few grains of salt. He casually dismisses all other sources of energy and says fossil fuels are back and better than ever. Honestly I am not an expert on fracking, but the little I have heard suggests we should spend more time developing this technology before we make this our sole way to develop energy in this country. Ms Lind seems to be more on point when she suggests we probably need to develop diversified sources of energy for the future.
And this is a fact that many people in this country cannot seem to digest. There is still way too many people married to the idea that fossil fuels are the only way to move this country forward. It scares me how closed minded people are to what we need to do to stay an economic giant now and in the future. Many people look at oil as what drove our economic engine in the 20th century. But really oil is oil, if everytime people said how great oil was in the above context just change the word oil to inexpensive domestically produced energy. Well yes it is a big mouthful change,but really that is more what happened in the 20th century. And that is what all the fossil fuel proponents need to realize. Right now fossil fuel is not present and may not be that in the future and for the benefit of our country we need to open our eyes to all possible sources of energy to bring back inexpensive domestically produced energy.Whatever it may be we need to accept the possible changes for all our benefit.And just because you can use fracking it may or may not be the best idea.Mr. Lind's article is so pro fracking and even glosses over any problems with fracking that this kind of thinking is what gets our country into trouble.
Now though we do need to look at natural gas as a potential source of energy though and I am going to come back to this in a minute.Right now though the news is and our country rightfully so is obsessed with the debt problem of our government. And everything both democrats and republicans quibble about is short term fixes to a much larger problem.Lets go back a bit, the last time we ran in the black was the 1990's and no it wasn't because of Clinton's administration or anything the republicans had done before hand even though they like to think their tax cuts of the 80's did it all.By the late 70's geopolitical problems had caused oil to skyrocket so our main source of energy or expense there of strangled our economy. By the end of the 80's oil relatively had come down in price/cost to consumer so people could afford to do other things which rebuilt our economy. Add the technology boom ( and remeber there was job growth and some independent wealth growth with the technology boom) and you get the real reason we ran in the black: people had jobs to pay taxes, people had money to invest to drive more growth, so the government needed to do less, ie it cost less to run the government
So no matter what we do in the short term the real way to solve our country's problems is to go back to what works, less government based on less need, real job growth which means we need real investment in new products that we can export to bring wealth back to our country and lower our need to borrow. More people with jobs that pay mean more people are paying taxes and more people with jobs mean less people relying on the government.I know this isn't the whole problem, but it is how we start rebuilding. If people can save more on their own then there is less need for Social Security etc so we can phase out some of the costs shift some of the medicare costs to the private sector and all this takes a ton of work and some people will balk,but until we can create a sefl reliant middle class again we will only have more fiscal problems with our government.
So finally again natural gas and I bring this up as part of a diversified energy model to grow jobs. In the article by Mr. Lind he mentions other countries (most non OPEC) that have large resources of natural gas.Okay helping them develop is one industry to build, but other ideas are building industries that rely on new sources of energy, specifically products that rely on new sources of energy that we can sell here and abroad.There are the obvious ideas like cars that run on natural gas or electric cars because of new technology for electricity. Build electric trains for freight or trains for natural gas. If we set new standards for large industries and help other countries develop energy sources for ourselves this is just one way we can work our way out of our current morass.
There are other ideas out there to develop new sources of energy such as biofuels/biodiesel, again keep open all options and let the market eventually produce the winner and I bet the market is going to open up to some to all,.but not definitely one like oil or specifically fossil fuels anymore.
Anyway as always there is more to say, but time right now is short.Also I wanted to talk about getting wall street off it's back end to invest in our future. We really need to get rid of back room lobbying. What wall street doesn't realize is that hoarding investable money is not in their best interest in the short or long term. They really need a strong middle class as much as democracy does.
Wall Street seems to think it should be able to tell our government what it needs it to do so Wall Street can stay successful. I truly believe capitalism will serve our country well for a long time to come,but the government needs to be able to do its job separate from the influence of people who want to benefit from their success. When you accept the concept of economic winners and losers you have to accept the concept that the winners cannot make all the rules or you lose economic competition that benefits the country as a whole.Folks this is not complaining this is just common sense.
We really don't need a ton of regulations (also helps to lower government costs) but we need in place policies that hold people accountable for their actions. If corporate leaders had to answer for some of the things they do they would be more aware of what they were doing and if some people say then people would not take risks to move our economy forward, then they are short sighted. People who like to make money will find ways to make money even if they have to work harder at it.
I am starting to go all over the place so will stop for now, had some more thoughts about getting wall street on board to reinvesting in our infrastruture earlier today,but they have slipped my mind a bit now, will regroup and try again.
Hot as heck here in Dallas, and huge droughts all over the west. Desalinization is just another industry we should build to rebuild our economy,,,, helps agriculture too. Anyway the weather is starting to become an issue in Texas especially when someone mentions it wouldn't hurt for a small category one hurricane to come through and drench the state. Okay how about a long tropical storm, no damage just moving rain.
Stay cool
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