TexasTowelie
TexasTowelie's JournalKaty Votes Down $69 Million High School Stadium
It was a bad night for stadium financing in the Houston area, with one suburban district voting down a bond issue that would have built a deluxe high school football stadium.
Voters in the Katy school district on Tuesday voted down a bond package that would have provided $69.5 million for a new, 14,000-seat football stadium.
The rejection came the same day as voters in Harris County at large rejected a plan to turn the Astrodome into a convention center.
Some local tea party members opposed the Katy bond program, saying the district shouldn't take on more debt.
More at http://www.nbcdfw.com/news/politics/Houston-Suburb-Votes-Down-69-Million-High-School-Stadium-230761101.html .
[font color=green]The impetus for a new stadium came when Katy opened a seventh high school in the district which created scheduling conflicts for at the only stadium within the district.[/font]
Sarah Palin blames gays for ‘dishes running away with spoons’
WAL-MART PARKING LOT — Sarah Palin let loose a barrage of vitriol Tuesday against same-sex marriage proponents, accusing them of unleashing a wave of immoral behavior that has affected “the very dishes we eat on and the spoons our children use to to eat their cereal.”
The former vice presidential candidate and ex-governor of Alaska waved a book of nursery rhymes at the three people who had gathered to hear her, two of whom were simply collecting shopping carts in the area as part of their jobs.
“This is what it’s come to,” Palin shouted. “All those people who said same-sex marriages wouldn’t affect America’s moral code have this to answer to.”
Wiping her mouth of spittle, Palin opened the book and began reading with emphasis, glancing back and forth from her audience to the material with what appeared to be wild eyes.
“Hey diddle diddle, the cat and the fiddle, the cow jumped over the moon. The little dog laughed to see such a sport, and the dish ran away with the spoon.”
Palin removed her glasses, wiped them dramatically and then pointed them at the audience which had grown to four. An elderly man who couldn’t hear well thought Palin said Fiddle Faddle and erroneously believed she was giving away samples of the caramel popcorn treat. He walked away in disgust when he realized his error.
“First of all we have this wording of ‘diddle diddle.” Palin said. “Now if that’s not just plain nasty talk, I don’t know what is. They’re not fooling me. I know what ‘diddle diddle’ means, and so does Bristol. But that’s not the worst of it. No, sir.”
At that point Palin was forced to pause until a Wal-Mart employee finished her announcement of the sale of jumbo weenies and Bimbo bread.
“You’d think that was bad enough,” Pain continued when the announcement ended. “But I want you to realize just how low this country has come, and it’s all because of that same-sex marriage band of heathens. Because of them, now we have dishes running away with spoons!”
Palin slammed the book of nursery rhymes against her thigh, and after it quit jiggling, which was a full three minutes, she unleashed a stream of invectives against the Democrats, the media, gays, Hollywood and Judy Garland.
Judy Garland?
“She’s their siren,” Palin said, referring to the devotion gay men reportedly have for the entertainer. “It’s bad enough that now men can marry men and women can marry women, but it’s come to this. Our dishes are now running away with our spoons.”
Palin suggested everyone immediately remove their dishes from close proximity to their spoons, lest the porcelain libertines be tempted to take to the hills or wherever it is dishes and spoons go to engage in illicit behavior.
“Probably to Arkansas,” Palin said. “After all, we all know what kind of immoral people that state produces. I can just imagine what all was going on in the china cabinet during the Clinton administration.”
Palin warned her audience of the dangers of not being vigilant in guarding their flatware.
“Don’t take your eyes off your spoons for one second,” Palin warned. “The minute you turn your back, those dirty dishes will run off with them and do god knows what to them.”
Palin said such behavior was unheard of before the passage of same-sex marriage legislation in several states. She blames those actions for the “collapse of America’s morality.”
“We used to be a god-fearing country where girls waited until they were 15 to have sex like my Bristol did,” Palin said. “Now you can’t even go into your own kitchen because you’re liable to come up on an orgy with Mikasa china and Rogers silverplate. I always knew I couldn’t trust those Japanese dishes, and you shouldn’t, either. They’ve always looked shifty to me.”
Palin said she was debating whether to enter the presidential race, but with this development she sees it is now her duty to run.
“If those homosexuals think I’m going to stand by and watch them bring this country down, they got another think coming,” she said. “I’m announcing my candidacy for president of the United States. And, by god, I’m not diddle diddling around, either.”
At that point, a Wal-Mart employee cut short Pailn’s speech.
“I’m sorry, but I’ll have to take that milk crate you’re standing on,” he said. “Oh, and did you say you’re giving away samples of Fiddle Faddle?”
http://www.dallasvoice.com/sarah-palin-blames-gays-dishes-running-spoons-10160923.html
Michael Brown's missing millions in cash prompts emergency request
Out of concern that some of Michael Brown's assets are unaccounted for, including two suitcases stuffed with about $3.2 million in cash, the trustee in the former hand surgeon's bankruptcy case has asked the court to order emergency interviews with 15 people.
The interviews, known as Bankruptcy Rule 2004 examinations, have been requested on various dates between Nov. 12 and Nov. 22 in five cities.
Other assets mentioned in the Nov. 1 motion in the bankruptcy case include $1 million in artwork and valuable furniture and jewelry and another $4 million in undisclosed assets, much of it cash.
According to court documents, Brown suffered a heart attack Oct. 24 and, as of Nov. 1, was incapacitated without the ability to communicate.
More at http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Michael-Brown-s-missing-millions-in-cash-prompts-4957845.php?cmpid=hpbn .
Abbott suggests state will boost requirements on Obamacare navigators
AUSTIN — Attorney General Greg Abbott hinted strongly Tuesday that Texas may impose additional training and background checks on “navigators” hired under federal grants to help people sign up for insurance through the Affordable Care Act.
A day before President Barack Obama was to meet with navigators in Dallas, Abbott said his office and the state Department of Insurance have found weaknesses in federal rules.
The flaws could allow criminals to obtain Texans’ personal financial and health information through navigator sloppiness, Abbott warned. Crooks themselves could become navigators, he said.
In a letter to Insurance Commissioner Julia Rathgeber, he urged the department to “move quickly to establish state regulations that will protect Texans’ medical privacy.”
More at http://www.dallasnews.com/news/politics/headlines/20131105-abbott-suggests-state-will-boost-requirements-on-obamacare-navigators.ece .
As he touts health care law in Dallas, Obama will urge Rick Perry to expand Medicaid
WASHINGTON — With 6.4 million uninsured residents, Texas is a major target for anyone eager to put a dent in the number of Americans without health coverage.
It’s also a bastion of resistance to Obamacare. The governor won’t set up a state-run marketplace or expand coverage for low-income Texans. The junior senator triggered a federal shutdown with a crusade to defund the law.
President Barack Obama will use his Dallas visit Wednesday to take aim at both obstacles to his signature health care law. He will prod uninsured Texans to sign up. And he will pressure Gov. Rick Perry to relent in his refusal to expand Medicaid, a move that alone could lop 1.5 million Texans off the rolls of the uninsured.
“This isn’t a political issue,” Davis Simas, a senior White House health care adviser, said Tuesday, previewing Obama’s call for Perry to join “reasonable Republican governors in states like Ohio and Michigan and Arizona” who have agreed to expand Medicaid.
More at http://www.dallasnews.com/news/politics/headlines/20131105-as-he-touts-health-care-law-in-dallas-obama-will-urge-rick-perry-to-expand-medicaid.ece .
Abortion Providers Appeal to U.S. Supreme Court
[font color=green]I am cross-posting in GD at the request of other DUers.[/font]
U.S. Supreme Court Judge Antonin Scalia has ordered the state of Texas to respond by Nov. 12 to an appeal filed by abortion providers seeking to block implementation of the controversial requirement from House Bill 2 that abortion doctors have nearby admitting privileges.
The admitting-privilege provision went into effect Friday after a three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Court of Appeals vacated the decision of federal district Judge Lee Yeakel who ruled after a three-day trial that the provision is unconstitutional. Scalia will now be faced with determining whether to reverse the Fifth Circuit and allow the lower court ruling to stand until after the appeals court considers a full appeal of the case in January. (As the judge assigned to the Fifth Circuit, Scalia could make this decision himself or could ask the full court to weigh in. If he denies the providers' appeal, they may turn to another member of the court for reconsideration.)
In the meantime, imposition of the provision in Texas, where many abortion-performing doctors are currently without admitting privileges, is "wreaking havoc on the lives of women and their families," and on abortion providers across the state, said Louise Melling, deputy legal director for the ACLU, which with Planned Parenthood, Whole Woman's Health and other abortion providers sued Texas in September to block the provision from taking effect last month.
During a morning press call, providers and lawyers reiterated that clinics across the state have had to cease providing abortions while they wait to find out if their doctors will be granted admitting privileges at any number of hospitals. Amy Hagstrom Miller, founder and CEO of Whole Woman's Health, which has five clinics across the state – three of which are now incapable of providing abortion care because of the law – said that by her count, 14 clinics in Texas have now stopped providing care, and are having to turn away patients who had already scheduled appointments to receive the procedure before the Fifth Circuit intervened Halloween night.
More at http://www.austinchronicle.com/blogs/news/2013-11-04/breaking-abortion-providers-appeal-to-u-s-supreme-court/ .
[font color=green]The article continues with the plight of one woman that flew back to Seattle in order to obtain an abortion after sitting through the various other waiting periods. The abortion providers that remain open are experiencing volume increases as the women vie for open appointments.[/font]
Cross-posted in Texas Group.
A World Where Everything Has A Price Tag
By Carol MorganEverything has a price tag. For the wealthy, there’s nothing that can’t be purchased for the right price and unfortunately, many financially-strapped Americans are sufficiently desperate to comply with the law of supply and demand.
If you have enough money, you can buy a school on a college campus that bears your name.
If you donate enough money to certain politicians in Texas, you can become a regent for a university or sit on an important policy-making board.
Have $500,000? You can immigrate to America and buy permanent residency.
If you’re a lobbyist, you can hire someone to stand in line for you so you can attend a congressional hearing.
If you’re a corporation and don’t mind paying high-priced fines, you can pollute the Gulf with oil and foul the air in Texas.
Because of income inequality, people struggling for financial survival are willing to swallow their dignity and their physical well-being to meet the demands of those willing to pay. There are hundreds of opportunities if you don’t mind putting yourself at risk.
You can sell your plasma. Young women sell their bodies for pleasure, their eggs to a donor bank and bear children for others. The Business Insider even touted the 9 body parts that you don’t need in order to earn money. Sell-a-kidney, rent-a-womb, be a corporate mercenary in a foreign country or sell advertising space on your body in the form of corporate tattoos.
We sell babies, traffic human beings for sex and labor, and purchase murderers to kill the world leaders with whom we don’t agree. If we don’t have gainful employment, we create new revenue streams to survive, despite its legality or morality. People are that desperate for money. In one survey, 1 in 14 Americans said they would murder someone for 3 million dollars.
Whether you’re desperate or merely greedy, there are certain things that must remain priceless.
“We need to ask whether there are some things money should not buy”, says Michael J. Sandel, author of What Money Can’t Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets. This is an excellent read that spotlights the world’s evolution into an unethical and unprincipled mass with the love of money on one side and the lack of it on the other.
In a world where wages and salaries are flat and corporations’ profits are at an all-time high, I don’t see it improving, only worsening.
I recall about 150 years ago, we commoditized human beings. Sellers placed them atop platforms and buyers inspected teeth, muscle, bone and reproductive-quality to obtain the best product for their dollar. Somewhat like today, except there is no color line. The poor and marginalized have become the slaves of the new global market.
Financial desperation is the new racism that divides the world, just like cell mitosis, except it is far less equal. The poor have become a new global caste system, just like the Dalits in India who dispose of human waste and serve as caretakers for the funeral ghats.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Carol Morgan is a career counselor, writer, speaker, former Democratic candidate for the Texas House and the award-winning author of Of Tapestry, Time and Tears, a historical fiction about the 1947 Partition of India. Email her at elizabethcmorgan@sbcglobal.net or follow on Twitter @CounselorCarol1, on Facebook as CarolMorgan1 and her writer’s blog at www.carolmorgan.org
http://lubbockonline.com/interact/blog-post/carol-morgan/2013-11-05/world-where-everything-has-price-tag
Cross-posted in Texas Group.
A World Where Everything Has A Price Tag
By Carol MorganEverything has a price tag. For the wealthy, there’s nothing that can’t be purchased for the right price and unfortunately, many financially-strapped Americans are sufficiently desperate to comply with the law of supply and demand.
If you have enough money, you can buy a school on a college campus that bears your name.
If you donate enough money to certain politicians in Texas, you can become a regent for a university or sit on an important policy-making board.
Have $500,000? You can immigrate to America and buy permanent residency.
If you’re a lobbyist, you can hire someone to stand in line for you so you can attend a congressional hearing.
If you’re a corporation and don’t mind paying high-priced fines, you can pollute the Gulf with oil and foul the air in Texas.
Because of income inequality, people struggling for financial survival are willing to swallow their dignity and their physical well-being to meet the demands of those willing to pay. There are hundreds of opportunities if you don’t mind putting yourself at risk.
You can sell your plasma. Young women sell their bodies for pleasure, their eggs to a donor bank and bear children for others. The Business Insider even touted the 9 body parts that you don’t need in order to earn money. Sell-a-kidney, rent-a-womb, be a corporate mercenary in a foreign country or sell advertising space on your body in the form of corporate tattoos.
We sell babies, traffic human beings for sex and labor, and purchase murderers to kill the world leaders with whom we don’t agree. If we don’t have gainful employment, we create new revenue streams to survive, despite its legality or morality. People are that desperate for money. In one survey, 1 in 14 Americans said they would murder someone for 3 million dollars.
Whether you’re desperate or merely greedy, there are certain things that must remain priceless.
“We need to ask whether there are some things money should not buy”, says Michael J. Sandel, author of What Money Can’t Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets. This is an excellent read that spotlights the world’s evolution into an unethical and unprincipled mass with the love of money on one side and the lack of it on the other.
In a world where wages and salaries are flat and corporations’ profits are at an all-time high, I don’t see it improving, only worsening.
I recall about 150 years ago, we commoditized human beings. Sellers placed them atop platforms and buyers inspected teeth, muscle, bone and reproductive-quality to obtain the best product for their dollar. Somewhat like today, except there is no color line. The poor and marginalized have become the slaves of the new global market.
Financial desperation is the new racism that divides the world, just like cell mitosis, except it is far less equal. The poor have become a new global caste system, just like the Dalits in India who dispose of human waste and serve as caretakers for the funeral ghats.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Carol Morgan is a career counselor, writer, speaker, former Democratic candidate for the Texas House and the award-winning author of Of Tapestry, Time and Tears, a historical fiction about the 1947 Partition of India. Email her at elizabethcmorgan@sbcglobal.net or follow on Twitter @CounselorCarol1, on Facebook as CarolMorgan1 and her writer’s blog at www.carolmorgan.org
http://lubbockonline.com/interact/blog-post/carol-morgan/2013-11-05/world-where-everything-has-price-tag
Cross-posted in Good Reads forum.
John Cornyn, Ted Cruz oppose ban on anti-gay discrimination
WASHINGTON – The Senate bypassed a possible filibuster on a bill prohibiting workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity. But supporters got no help from Texas senators.
Sens. John Cornyn and Ted Cruz both voted Monday night against moving the Employment Non-Discrimination Act toward a final vote. The Senate voted 61-30 to move the bill forward.
“Sen. Cornyn opposes the legislation because it threatens Texans’ freedom of religion by tampering with constitutional protections for the expression of religious faith in the workplace,” said spokeswoman Kate Martin.
Cornyn believes the bill is overreaching, she said, and that nondiscrimination laws should be handled by states, not the federal government.
More at http://trailblazersblog.dallasnews.com/2013/11/john-cornyn-ted-cruz-oppose-ban-on-anti-gay-discrimination.html/ .
Abortion Providers Appeal to U.S. Supreme Court
U.S. Supreme Court Judge Antonin Scalia has ordered the state of Texas to respond by Nov. 12 to an appeal filed by abortion providers seeking to block implementation of the controversial requirement from House Bill 2 that abortion doctors have nearby admitting privileges.
The admitting-privilege provision went into effect Friday after a three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Court of Appeals vacated the decision of federal district Judge Lee Yeakel who ruled after a three-day trial that the provision is unconstitutional. Scalia will now be faced with determining whether to reverse the Fifth Circuit and allow the lower court ruling to stand until after the appeals court considers a full appeal of the case in January. (As the judge assigned to the Fifth Circuit, Scalia could make this decision himself or could ask the full court to weigh in. If he denies the providers' appeal, they may turn to another member of the court for reconsideration.)
In the meantime, imposition of the provision in Texas, where many abortion-performing doctors are currently without admitting privileges, is "wreaking havoc on the lives of women and their families," and on abortion providers across the state, said Louise Melling, deputy legal director for the ACLU, which with Planned Parenthood, Whole Woman's Health and other abortion providers sued Texas in September to block the provision from taking effect last month.
During a morning press call, providers and lawyers reiterated that clinics across the state have had to cease providing abortions while they wait to find out if their doctors will be granted admitting privileges at any number of hospitals. Amy Hagstrom Miller, founder and CEO of Whole Woman's Health, which has five clinics across the state – three of which are now incapable of providing abortion care because of the law – said that by her count, 14 clinics in Texas have now stopped providing care, and are having to turn away patients who had already scheduled appointments to receive the procedure before the Fifth Circuit intervened Halloween night.
More at http://www.austinchronicle.com/blogs/news/2013-11-04/breaking-abortion-providers-appeal-to-u-s-supreme-court/ .
[font color=green]The article continues with the plight of one woman that flew back to Seattle in order to obtain an abortion after sitting through the various other waiting periods. The abortion providers that remain open are experiencing volume increases as the women vie for open appointments.[/font]
Cross-posted in General Discussion forum.
Profile Information
Gender: MaleHometown: South Texas. most of my life I lived in Austin and Dallas
Home country: United States
Current location: Bryan, Texas
Member since: Sun Aug 14, 2011, 03:57 AM
Number of posts: 112,443
