TexasTowelie
TexasTowelie's JournalCoast Guard Proposal to Allow Barges to Haul Fracking Wastewater Draws Fire From Environmentalists
The U.S. Coast Guard released plans that would allow wastewater from shale gas to be shipped via barge in the nation’s rivers and waterways on October 30 — and those rules have kicked up a storm of controversy. The proposal is drawing fire from locals and environmentalists along the Ohio and Mississippi rivers who say the Coast Guard failed to examine the environmental impacts of a spill and is only giving the public 30 days to comment on the plan.
Three million people get their water from the Ohio River, and further downstream, millions more rely on drinking water from the Mississippi. If the Coast Guard's proposed policy is approved, barges carrying 10,000 barrels of fracking wastewater would float downstream from northern Appalachia to Ohio, Texas and Louisiana.
Environmentalists say a spill could be disastrous, because the wastewater would contaminate drinking water and the complicated brew of contaminants in fracking waste, which include corrosive salts and radioactive materials, would be nearly impossible to clean up.
The billions of gallons of wastewater from fracking represent one of the biggest bottlenecks for the shale gas industry.
More at http://www.desmogblog.com/2013/11/09/coast-guard-plans-allow-fracking-wastewater-shipment-barge-under-fire .
Navy christens next generation of aircraft carrier
Source: AP
NORFOLK, Va. (AP) — The Navy christened the USS Gerald Ford on Saturday with the traditional smashing of a bottle of sparkling wine across the bow of the ship — the most technologically advanced aircraft carrier the United States has built.
The Ford is the lead ship in the Navy's next class of nuclear-powered aircraft carriers. It's designed to get more fighter planes in the sky in less time and to be ready to incorporate unmanned aircraft into its air wing. It's the first carrier redesign in four decades and is scheduled to join the fleet in 2016.
"She is truly a technological marvel," Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Jonathan Greenert said in a webcast ceremony at the Newport News, Va., shipyard where the Ford is being built. "She will carry unmanned aircraft, joint strike fighters, and she will deploy lasers."
Saturday's christening was one part tribute to the future of Naval warfare and one part tribute to the ship's namesake, former President Gerald R. Ford. Ford was a lieutenant commander aboard an aircraft carrier during World War II and frequently spoke fondly of his time in the Navy.
Read more: http://www.chron.com/news/us/article/Navy-christens-next-generation-of-aircraft-carrier-4970285.php?cmpid=hpbn
The Book of Matt--A Laramie Project
Sometimes, you don’t know what to think. You hear both sides of a story, both conflicting. Rumors are whispered, denials issued, and you’re left to make up your own mind. Right or wrong, there are some things you’ll never know for sure. And that goes for what’s inside The Book of Matt.
In early 2000, Stephen Jimenez went to Laramie, Wyo., to start work on a story for which he thought he had an “abundance of detail.” He had, in fact, planned on writing a screenplay about the murder of Matthew Shepard.
Laramie residents were friendly, he says, and it didn’t take long to find the prosecutor who won conviction of the two men who murdered Shepard. He hinted to Jimenez that there was more to the story than the news media had reported.
Intrigued, Jimenez dug for information and consequently, he says, discovered corruption and odd loose ends in the Shepard murder (and other cases). He spoke with witnesses and with people who knew Shepard and his killers. And, he claims, with some who were overlooked or inadequately interviewed by officials during the investigation. He believes that he was physically endangered many times because someone wanted him to stop asking questions.
More at http://www.dallasvoice.com/laramie-project-10161084.html .
Jay Leno presses Sen. Ted Cruz on his image, gay marriage and his dad
WASHINGTON – Jay Leno wasted no time Friday night confronting Sen. Ted Cruz with the unflattering image he’s developed in his short time in office.
“I’ve been reading a lot about you lately,” Leno said, welcoming the Texas tea partier to The Tonight Show set, “and they describe you as aggressive, arrogant and abrasive. Accurate?”
“I don’t know that you can believe everything you read,” Cruz, making his late-night debut, smiled. “You know, what I’m trying to do is do my job. And occasionally people don’t like that.”
NBC released excerpts from the interview, which airs later tonight. Leno asked Cruz about his views on Obamacare and gay marriage. The senator, 42 and perhaps the best known senator of 10 months’ tenure in history, after a 21-hour anti-Obamacare filibuster and countless confrontations with colleagues in both parties, wore a suit with no tie and seemed at ease.
More at http://trailblazersblog.dallasnews.com/2013/11/sen-ted-cruz-and-jay-leno-first-peek.html/ .
Don't Tread on Me: Snake signs up near Galveston County Courthouse
GALVESTON, Texas —
People heading for a South Texas courthouse have been advised to watch where they walk for reptile reasons.
Signs posted this week outside the Galveston County Courthouse warn about "Rattlesnakes in Area" and to stay away from overgrown sites. The signs also say: "Do not walk through the grass. Remain on concrete walkways. Do not leave children unattended."
The Galveston County Daily News (http://bit.ly/1ac8zwi ) reported Friday that nobody has been bitten and County Judge Mark Henry wants to keep it that way.
Deputies on Nov. 1 removed a rattlesnake from the grass.
More at http://www.statesman.com/ap/ap/texas/snake-signs-up-near-galveston-county-courthouse/nbmW3/ .
4 charged with severing pot clinic owner's penis
NEWPORT BEACH, Calif. (AP) — Four people were charged with kidnapping a California marijuana dispensary owner, torturing him with a blowtorch and cutting off his penis during a robbery because they thought he was burying piles of cash in the desert, authorities said Friday.
Ryan Anthony Kevorkian, 34, and Naomi Josette Kevorkian, 33, were arrested Friday in Fresno, a day after the FBI arrested 34-year-old Hossein Nayeri in Prague in the Czech Republic, Orange County authorities said in a statement.
Nayeri was expected to face extradition proceedings.
Another man, Kyle Shirakawa Handley, 34, was arrested in October of last year.
More at http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/crime/article/4-charged-with-severing-pot-clinic-owner-s-penis-4968848.php .
Texas public libraries face 70% cut in federal funding
Texas is finding out that you have to pay to play when it comes to federal funding for public libraries.
Two years ago, when Texas was confronting a $27 billion budget shortfall, state lawmakers chain-sawed the 2012-13 funding for the Texas State Library and Archives Commission by 64 percent.
Now that cut may be creating an even more dire financial problem for libraries.
Since the state isn’t meeting its mandated share of funding, the federal government is threatening to cut nearly 70 percent of its annual funding for Texas public libraries, saying the state has failed to pull its own weight.
More at http://www.star-telegram.com/2013/11/08/5319383/texas-public-libraries-face-70.html?rh=1 .
The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
By Carol MorganIt was strange. On Tuesday, November 5th, 200,000 people marched through D.C. and thousands of others did the same in 800 cities across the world. The mostly youthful and clamoring hordes protested against worldwide government corruption in the Million Mask March.
Yet…as volatile and inspiring as it was, no mainstream news network uttered a peep or wrote a word. Thousands upon thousands of citizen journalists posted pictures and videos. Protestors felled by water cannons in Turkey, teargas in Lisbon, arrests in Washington. The energy was contagious. Throughout the day, I searched for establishment media's accounts, and nothing… The MSM focused on Kanye West’s bad choice of couture and drama within the NFL.
Why? Are they afraid it will encourage others to join or is it because sports and celebrity pop culture garners more attention and revenue? It made me wonder what other events they ignored.
From 448 days in 1979 Iran to Tiananmem Square and the Ukraine and more recently, the Arab Spring, we see the timeless truths in Crane Brinton’s 1938 academic work: Anatomy of a Revolution. He simplifies the process of revolution into a series of predictable steps: financial breakdown, organization of the discontented to find a solution, demands by the dissenters that threaten the existence of the governing, leading to government force and its failure and finally, the attainment of power by the revolutionaries. Sadly, it's the same human narrative over and over. The revolutionists become the establishment and another splinter group renews the conflict.
Dr. Brinton summarized it simply: “Revolutions are born of hope rather than misery”. He must have taken his lead from Trotsky who once claimed that if poverty was the cause of revolutions, the world would be in a constant state of revolt because most of the world is poor.
In my mind, it’s more like dry kindling and a random spark. If you look at past insurgencies, a series of repeated governmental wrongs led to a final saturation point and the lighting of the fire. The spark could be Brazil’s transporation fare increase, the face-off with tanks in Tiananmen Square or the self-immolation of the Tunisian fruit vendor, Mohammed Bouazizi.
In the end, with few exceptions, revolutions are always bloody and violent affairs and those who romanticize that notion don’t realize the real consequences. Revolutions require discipline and sacrifices and I really don’t believe Americans are up to that; they have too many comforts and conveniences to lose. And then there’s the predictable results that the revolutionaries become the tyrants, where, as W.B. Yeats once wrote, “Hurrah for revolution and cannon come again, the beggars have changed places, but the lash goes on.”
In the midst of my morning’s mind-odyssey, I recalled an old song from the early 70’s by Gil Scott-Heron entitled: “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised”. He borrowed the slogan from the Black Power Movement and connected it to pop-culture and consumption to reiterate that lasting change occurs within. The crux of the tune is this: Changing your mind comes first, then changing the way you live. No one’s going to be able to capture that transformation on film. Just like the tank-man or the fruit vendor, it will just be an inner spark and the realization that you’re on the wrong road.
Perhaps, rather than a revolution, we simply need to look inward and assess our contribution to the chaos in the world. Maybe there should be fewer revolutions, but more personal epiphanies. And that is something we can’t experience via television.
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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. Contact her by email at elizabethcmorgan@sbcglobal.net follow her on Twitter @CounselorCarol1, on Facebook: CarolMorgan1 and her writer’s blog at www.carolmorgan.org
http://lubbockonline.com/interact/blog-post/carol-morgan/2013-11-08/revolution-will-not-be-televised
Lubbock County Judge Tom Head (the UN is coming) to announce candidacy for re-election
Lubbock County Judge Tom Head will announce his candidacy for a fifth consecutive four-year term as judge during a news conference set for 2 p.m. today, Nov. 8, in the Lubbock County Courthouse.
Head will make the announcement in the Commissioners’ Courtroom on the fifth floor of the courthouse, said Karen Sweat, county probate coordinator.
Head, a Republican, was first elected in 1998 after serving as Precinct 2 justice of the peace for six years.
The Republican primary is set for March 4 ahead of the Nov. 2014 general election.
More at http://lubbockonline.com/filed-online/2013-11-07/lubbock-county-judge-tom-head-announce-candidacy-re-election#comment-310870 .
[font color=green]Before the election last year, Judge Head was in the news for the following remarks:[/font]
“He is going to try to hand over the sovereignty of the United States to the U.N.,” Mr. Head said on Fox 34 last week. “O.K., what’s going to happen when that happens? I’m thinking worst-case scenario: civil unrest, civil disobedience, civil war, maybe. And we’re not talking just a few riots here and demonstrations. We’re talking Lexington, Concord, take up arms and get rid of the guy.”
And if the president did send in United Nations troops, Mr. Head continued, “I don’t want ’em in Lubbock County. O.K. So I’m going to stand in front of their armored personnel carriers and say, ‘You’re not coming in here.’ And the sheriff, I’ve already asked him. I said, ‘You gonna back me?’ He said, ‘Yeah, I’ll back you.’
“Well, I don’t want a bunch of rookies back there,” Mr. Head said. “I want trained, equipped, seasoned veteran officers to back me.”
More at http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/28/us/lubbock-official-tom-head-stirs-city-with-remark.html?_r=0 .
Republican cites ‘mental health’ claim from Wendy Davis lawsuit
AUSTIN – Republicans are making hay of the lawsuit that Sen. Wendy Davis, D-Fort Worth, filed against the Fort Worth Star-Telegram after a losing race for city council.
Erick Erickson of RedState zeroed in on language in the lawsuit that cites “damages to her mental health” among the wrongs she had allegedly suffered.
In a post that uses the insulting nickname, “Abortion Barbie,” by which Erickson refers to Davis due to her filibuster against an abortion measure and her appearance, he wrote:
Davis campaign spokesman Bo Delp responded:
More at http://blog.mysanantonio.com/texas-politics/2013/11/republican-cites-mental-health-claim-from-wendy-davis-lawsuit/ .
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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: 112,168
