TexasTowelie
TexasTowelie's JournalJulián Castro’s move to Cabinet could be boon for Texas Democrats
WASHINGTON — A Cabinet stint could prove a huge boon to San Antonio Mayor Julián Castro’s career. There’s already talk of the vice presidency or, at the least, a statewide run in 2018 — when Ted Cruz’s Senate seat and the governorship will be on the ballot.
But his promotion could mean just as much for Texas Democrats. They see Castro as exactly the sort of catalyst they’ve needed to capitalize on demographic trends and break Republicans’ enduring grip on the state.
President Barack Obama made no mention of such dominoes Friday as he introduced Castro at a White House ceremony as his next secretary of Housing and Urban Development. He called the 39-year-old mayor an “all-star” who embodies the American dream, with a moving family story and a bright future.
Democrats see a charismatic up-and-comer whose name on a statewide ballot could bring out legions of new voters in Texas in 2016 or beyond, with big implications on national politics.
More at http://www.dallasnews.com/news/politics/state-politics/20140523-julian-castros-move-to-cabinet-could-be-boon-for-texas-democrats.ece .
Seeing hidden passwords in a browser easier than you think
Passwords are a royal pain in our digital lives. If you create one that’s simple, it isn’t safe. If you create one that’s safe, you’ll never remember it.
On top of that, you really need to have a unique password for every account and Web site in case a hacker gets hold of one of them. With regular data breaches of millions of usernames and passwords happening at major companies like Target and Michaels, it’s a very real worry.
That’s why it’s such a relief your Web browser stores passwords for you. You can create the hardest passwords around and not have to remember any of them. Even better, your browser will fill in passwords automatically for you.
Unfortunately, there is a catch that no one likes to talk about. If I got on your computer right now, I bet I could see every one of your super-secret hard-to-guess passwords in no time flat.
More at http://www.freep.com/article/20140523/FEATURES01/305230072/Seeing-hidden-passwords-in-a-browser-is-too-easy .
Bryan dentist expected to resign from State Board of Dental Examiners for filming female employee
BRYAN -- Local dentist Bill Birdwell was expected to resign from the State Board of Medical Dental Examiners Friday following his arrest earlier in the week for allegedly filming in secret a female employee changing in the bathroom.
The 67-year-old former Bryan school board president, who's well-known for his philanthropic contributions to the community, was asked to resign by the chair for the 15-member state board, according to a spokeswoman for Gov. Rick Perry.
Perry appointed Birdwell to serve a six-year term on the board in 2009. Though the spokeswoman was unable to confirm that Birdwell turned in his resignation, the dentist's name had been removed from the board website.
Birdwell was charged with improper visual recording, a state-jail felony punishable by up to two years in jail, on Wednesday after police showed up at his office on Osler Boulevard in Bryan shortly after a female employee reported finding a camcorder in the bathroom when she went in to change, according to a police report.
More at http://www.theeagle.com/news/local/bill-birdwell-expected-to-resign-from-state-board-after-arrest/article_f96b31d8-48f3-54ed-aaa4-e236988173b7.html .
A separate report from KBTX:
BRYAN, Texas - A longtime Bryan dentist and well known member of the community has been charged with felony improper photography, after telling police officers he taped a female employee changing in a bathroom.
Dr. William Reagan Birdwell, 67, was arrested Wednesday after an employee called Bryan police saying she'd found a camera in the employee changing room.
According to the arrest report, the female employee went in to change before going to the gym. Birdwell asked the employee if he could go into the bathroom before her, and the employee said yes. Moments later, Birdwell came back out.
The employee told officers the bathroom has cubby boxes for each of the employees. When she went back in, the employee started changing and removed her shirt. She noticed that Birdwell's box was pulled out and angled toward a large mirror in the bathroom. According to the report, she told officers that when she went to push the box back in to the cubby, she noticed the camcorder. The employee put her shirt back on and told a co-worker about the camera. She went back into the bathroom, took a picture of the camera with her cellphone and left the office.
More at http://www.kbtx.com/home/headlines/Local-Dentist-Arrested-Admits-to-Taping-Employees-Changing-260284591.html .
[font color=green]Governor Perry appointed Birdwell to the State Board of Dental Examiners in 2009.[/font]
Saturday morning kitty porn!
This picture was when the kittens were about seven months old. They were in a litter of four kittens born in April 2011.
The kitten on the left is Jezebel and she escaped from my apartment soon after the package was taken. I was told that another girl in my apartment complex adopted her and I didn't want to reclaim her since I knew that I was going to move in the near future and had two other kittens.
The kitten of the right is AC and she is currently being cared for by my sister in Houston due to limited space and my current financial circumstances. I miss her a lot since she is my lap kitty and the skinniest of the litter.
A gray and white striped male kitten left my apartment at about six months and was caught in a trap. His name is AJ and he is being looked after by the family of man that caught him. There was another black male cat named Mario that disappeared from the house in Brenham in February 2013 and never returned. All four of the kittens used to curl up in that green chair when they were smaller.
Here's a Sneak Peek of the Lady Bird Lake Boardwalk (Austin)
The boardwalk provides some new views of downtown from near water level.
Sections of the boardwalk are built over land and surrounded by trees.
The Lady Bird Lake Boardwalk is set to open to the public on June 7.
The 1.3 mile boardwalk will complete a ten-mile loop of trail around the lake. Howard Lazarus with Austin’s Public Works Department says the boardwalk will play a key role in expanding biking and pedestrian options throughout the region.
“We have work over on the Southern Walnut Creek trail which ties into the Lance Armstrong Bikeway, so you’ll be able to see opportunities to get around that will, over the next couple of years, take you from all the way up near Manor down through the center part of the city, down to Oak Hill [and] Circle C,” Lazarus says.
He puts the total price tag of the boardwalk at around $27 million. Much of that came from a 2010 transportation bond with additional funding from Austin’s Trail Foundation and others.
More to the story and additional photos at http://kut.org/post/photos-heres-sneak-peek-lady-bird-lake-boardwalk .
Historian: Vincent Harding (1931-2014)
"For those who seek a gentle, nonabrasive hero whose recorded speeches can be used as inspirational resources for rocking our memories to sleep, Martin Luther King Jr. is surely the wrong man."
-- Vincent Harding, who wrote MLK's 1967 anti-Vietnam War speech, to the National Catholic Reporter in 1997.
No, the name of Dr. Harding, who died from an aneurysm on Tuesday at 83, wasn't familiar to me. It's a shame that an obituary has to be the way we learn about people we should have know about, but better late than never.
In his Washington Post obit, Matt Schudel describes Dr. Harding as "a historian who was an influential behind-the-scenes figure during the civil rights movement and who wrote a controversial speech for Martin Luther King Jr. that condemned the war in Vietnam." That speech, Matt says later, "was seen as bringing together the two major tides of protest in the 1960s: civil rights and the antiwar movement."
Here's how Matt chronicles the speech that, nearly 50 years later, still provided the hook for its author's obit:
Soon afterward, Dr. Harding and his wife founded the Mennonite House, one of the South’s first interracial gathering places for proponents of civil rights.
While teaching at Atlanta’s Spelman College in the mid-1960s, Dr. Harding began to explore the moral implications of U.S. involvement in Vietnam. He wrote a letter to King and other civil rights leaders outlining a critical stance toward the war, then composed a speech for King that addressed Vietnam in the context of civil rights.
King delivered the speech at New York’s Riverside Church on April 4, 1967 — one year to the day before he was assassinated in Memphis. The speech, often called “A Time to Break Silence,” was little changed from Dr. Harding’s original draft.
“A time comes when silence is betrayal,” King said. “And that time has come for us in Vietnam.”
He called the U.S. government “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today” and said it was morally indefensible to send African American troops to “guarantee liberties in Southeast Asia which they had not found in southwest Georgia and East Harlem.”
King concluded that “a nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.”
An overflow crowd of 3,000 gave King a standing ovation, but his message was not well received in other circles. A New York Times editorial criticized King’s views, and the NAACP called the speech a “serious tactical error.”
Sen. Barry Goldwater (Ariz.), who was the Republican presidential nominee in 1964, said the speech “could border a bit on treason.”
- See more at: http://downwithtyranny.blogspot.com/2014/05/vincent-harding-1931-2014.html#sthash.2drUFHZ8.D1Z2PZv9.dpuf
Iran billionaire executed over $2.6B fraud
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iranian state television says a billionaire businessman at the heart of a $2.6 billion state bank scam, the largest fraud case since the country's 1979 Islamic Revolution, has been executed.
The TV report Saturday said authorities put Mahafarid Amir Khosravi, also known as Amir Mansour Aria, to death at Evin prison, just north of the capital, Tehran. The report said the execution came after Iran's Supreme Court upheld his death sentence.
Three others also face death sentences in the case, which involved using forged documents to get credit at one of Iran's top banks to purchase assets including major state-owned companies. The trial raised questions about corruption at senior levels in Iran's tightly controlled economy during the administration of former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
More at http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/crime/article/Report-Iran-billionaire-executed-over-2-6B-fraud-5502157.php .
Tarrant jury awards $20,000 to homeowners in nuisance suit against Chesapeake
FORT WORTH — A Tarrant County jury on Friday awarded a southwest Fort Worth homeowner $20,000 after finding that a nearby Chesapeake Energy well site constituted a nuisance.
Samuel Crowder sued Chesapeake Operating in 2011, saying its well site at McCart Avenue and West Cleburne Road was noisy and smelly, infringing on the enjoyment of Madrid Drive home where he and his wife, Jane, have lived since 1973. He had asked for about $108,000 in past and future damages.
A six-person county court jury found that Chesapeake intentionally created a nuisance with its well site, and that the facility was abnormal and out of place for its environment. The finding of a private nuisance means the jury agreed that the well site substantially interfered with the Crowders’ ability to enjoy their property.
But the jury also found the nuisance to be temporary, rather than permanent. It did not award future damages, which accounted for more than $80,000 of the Crowders’ request.
Read more here: http://www.star-telegram.com/2014/05/23/5843320/tarrant-jury-awards-20000-to-homeowners.html#my-headlines-default?rh=1#storylink=cpy
Gates: Would have allowed gay adults in Scouts
Source: AP
DALLAS (AP) — Robert Gates, the new president of the Boy Scouts of America, said Friday that he would have moved last year to allow openly gay adults in the organization but said he opposes any further attempts to address the policy now.
Gates took over an organization this week that serves about 2.5 million youth but faces continued membership declines and fights over its inclusion of openly gay boys, but not adults. Gates, the former secretary of defense who oversaw the end of the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy, addressed those issues Friday, a day after Scouting's national leadership elected him president.
"I was prepared to go further than the decision that was made," Gates told The Associated Press in an interview in advance of a speech before the group's national leaders at its annual meeting in Nashville, Tennessee. "I would have supported having gay Scoutmasters, but at the same time, I fully accept the decision that was democratically arrived at by 1,500 volunteers from across the entire country."
The BSA's National Council voted at last year's annual meeting to accept openly gay youth, after a monthslong process with protests on both sides. Gates planned to tell Scouting's leaders Friday that a continued fight over the issue threatens BSA's future.
Read more: http://www.chron.com/news/texas/article/Gates-Would-have-allowed-gay-adults-in-Scouts-5501983.php
This Gates:
Not this Gates:
Dallas Voice: Inaugural Swimsuit Edition - 2014 (NSFW)
It’s the first major holiday weekend of Dallas’ pool party season and, appropriately, we’re covering (but not too much) ridiculously good-looking guys in some of this summer’s hottest swim designs. We’re featuring international exotic brands from far away beaches, fetching all-American designs and simple yet sexy accessories that will have you turning heads whether you’re in Ipanema or at the ilume.
The importance of swimwear cut has never been more important than it is now. Shorts, trunks and itty-bitty bikinis fit bodies differently, and confidently knowing which works for your shape could be the difference between an 8 and a 10 on the hotness scale. Color/print options, especially for men’s styles, have grown significantly in variety, but what’s really popping this season is bright colors and bold patterns.
So welcome to the wonderful world of summer in Texas with Dallas Voice’s inaugural Swimsuit Edition!
Photography by Chuck Marcelo and Arnold Wayne Jones
http://www.dallasvoice.com/dallas-voice-swimsuit-edition-2014-10173382.html
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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: 112,392
