Sleepless in Midland

Pharming

A good play on words is always entertaining, but this one spells conduct that could be unhealthy if not hazardous. It's the use of prescription and OTC drugs for purposes other than what they were intended and in higher than appropriate doses. The Illinois Poison Center Blog tells us that due to Pharming "the number of people abusing prescription and OTC medications is growing to about the same as the amount of people using street drugs!" And this:

The top prescription and OTC medications that are likely to be abused include:

Opioid analgesics (pain medications such as Vicodin, Oxycontin, etc.)
Stimulants (hyperactivity and attention deficit disorder medications such as Ritalin, Adderall, etc.)
Sedative-hypnotics (sleep and anxiety medications such as Xanax, Klonopin, etc.)
Dextromethorphan (OTC cough product)

Mix them with alcohol and it really can spell trouble.

So how does one properly dispose of unused prescription or OTC drugs? Some cities have programs in place for accepting and disposing of them -- the city of Midland, Texas, does not. Harvard.edu says in that event take them to a pharmacist for disposal. Or dilute pills with water and liquids with flour, seal them in watertight containers then toss them in the trash. That should delay contaminating the ground water somewhat longer than if they were simply flushed down the toilet.

The urge to get high seems to be insatiable in some people. What we need is a pill to make the urge go away but not feed it.

Glenn Beck launches new website

Glenn Beck launched a new website called The Blaze, about which Mr. Beck himself says:

Too many important stories are overlooked. And too many times we see mainstream media outlets distorting facts to fit rigid agendas. Not that you’ve ever heard me complain about the media before. Okay, maybe once or twice. ...

We want this to be a place where you can find breaking news, original reporting, insightful opinions and engaging videos about the stories that matter most.

The Blaze will be about current news — and more. It’s not just politics and policy. It’s looking for insight wherever we find it. We’ll examine our culture, deal with matters of faith and family, and we won’t be afraid of a history lesson.

Seems that most conservatives who get bit time media recognition these days end up loved by some and loathed by others with few in between. If you fall in the "loathe" camp you might enjoy gawker.com's derisive piece, Glenn Beck Launches News Website Mostly About Glenn Beck. But judge for yourself whether the items about Beck at The Blaze are as self serving as gawker.com would like you to infer.

A liberal bumps up against the media template

Harry Shearer is probably best known for giving a voice in "The Simpsons" to some of the pillars of Springfield such as Principal Skinner, Montgomery Burns and Ned Flanders.

But Shearer, an outspoken liberal, bumped up against a media template when he produced The Big Uneasy, a documentary which placed the blame for the New Orleans Katrina flooding squarely on design and construction errors by the Army Corps of Engineering but didn't deal with the flood aftermath or the response. That didn't fit the media template, and he hit a brick wall in trying to get coverage for his documentary.

He even bought NPR commercial time -- NPR calls them "underwriting announcements" -- but had to change the wording "documentary about why New Orleans flooded" to "documentary about New Orleans and Hurricane Katrina."

But hey, he can tell it best. Read it in his own words at Media: The Template Theory.

They get more news from Jon Stewart than from newspapers -- facts about college freshmen 2011

Being a latchkey kid has never been a big deal.

They learned about JFK from Oliver Stone and Malcolm X from Spike Lee.

Tiananmen Square is a 2008 Olympics venue, not the scene of a massacre.

See the whole list at Beloit College's Mindset list.

The ancients dumped spare coins in jars, too

 And I thought this was a modern habit. No, in fact, people have been dumping spare coins in jars for a long, long time.

Archeologists were excavating a medieval fort in Bulgaria, and they found a jar containing 166 silver 14th century coins. Link. Via ArchaeoBlog.

I hope the owner didn't need them for the parking meter.

The photo on the right shows a fabricated rendition of the ancient coin storage device, seasonally adjusted.

Yes, but they'll do a much better job running ObamaCare, won't they?

In an interesting post titled How it sounds vs. how it really works, Russ Roberts compares some White House sound bites with an on-the-ground report. Excerpts, first from the White House:

At an event with homeowners and workers who benefited from the program, today in Manchester, New Hampshire, Vice President Joe Biden announced a major Recovery Act milestone – the weatherizing of 200,000 homes under the Recovery Act.  As a result of the Administration’s unprecedented commitment to energy efficiency, more than 200,000 low-income families have been able to save money on their energy bills while saving energy, and thousands of people have been put to work. ...

However, a skeptical AP article cited by Mr. Roberts says this:

... In Delaware, where Biden served as a U.S. senator for 36 years, the tangible benefits of weatherization are hard to find. The program is suspended, and last month federal officials released an audit that found lax oversight, conflicts of interest and possible fraud. The results of the audit were first reported by The News Journal of Wilmington, Del....

We can probably expect the Obama health care plan to run with equal efficiency.

Aside: White House Sound bites fact checked by AP? Apparently so. Just as we had hoped, once the wind shifted the main stream media may have stopped fawning over Obama.

The spy who bugged me -- Spy viruses spread through USB drives

Malware delivered through a USB drive infected a U.S. military laptop in the Middle East in 2008 and ended up on classified computers in the U.S. Central Command network. From there info was sent to an unnamed foreign intelligence agency. Now that's some real spyware.  Source: News.Cnet.com.

The article doesn't say how the USB drive came to be infected, but there's an easy way to trick people into using a poisoned thumb drive. A security expert explained it on a panel about cyber espionage broadcast recently on C-SPAN. Simply scatter a few tempting thumb drives in the parking lot of the target installation. Someone will pick one up and plug it into his/her computer out of curiosity. Then Windows AutoRun, AutoPlay or a similar feature on another OS, awakens the malware and sets it free on that curious cat's computer. If the computer is connected to a network, it's off and running.

Security people are aware of the risk these days, and any company serious about internet threats will have strict rules regarding USB drives. Nevertheless, InformationWeek.com says, "About 25% of malware today is designed to spread via USB storage devices that connect directly to PCs. " And a virus-carrying USB thumb drive may have been a contributing cause of a plane crash.

Although the typical home computer probably wouldn't yield classified info or industrial secrets, they could still be targeted by vandals or thieves.

So right up there with the rule against clicking a link in email spam should be a rule to never attempt to use a found USB drive no matter how cute it is.

Windows 7 is supposed to disable AutoRun, but users of earlier Microsoft operating systems need to do it manually. Instructions here.

Porky Pig vs the suicide bomber - 1940s cartoon

The concept of an Arabic suicide bomber is certainly not a new one. Porky Pig battled one in this 1940s cartoon.

Via Astuteblogger via Directorblue.

The colorized original can also be found at Archive.org which notes, along with some technical information, the following:

The Arabs look evil and behave really bad in this racist cartoon, but the heroic pig looks a little strange too. There are no references to religion here, but some of the Arab stereotypes depicted have been revitalized in recent caricatures of Muslims, notably in the caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed.

Spoiler alert! !

Suicide Bomber runs at the fort with a bomb strapped to his head. Porky opens the front door, Ms. Camel and Junior Camel open the back door, and Suicide Bomber runs straight through the fort smack dab into his fellow thugs, Ali Baba and his Dirty Sleeves.

Th th th that's all folks!

"Cahoots!"

Jason Moore has posted a recording containing the infamous word he used when he addressed the Midland City Council and which got a reaction from the Midland Reporter Telegram. Here's a link to Mr. Moore's recording. Listen to it and decide for yourself whether it is "maybe even slanderous" as the newspaper editorial said, or simply a taxpayer noting an opinion convergence of two powerful institutions.

Here's a homemade transcript of Mr. Moore's recording:

"Uh, you agree that I'm in a much better mood when I come to these meetings, but, uh, as the last couple of weeks have gone on as I've watched the scenario of the public hearings play out in the public square, I've become a little bit disturbed that it appears to me that some members of the city council have been in cahoots with the editorial board of the Midland paper to sell a version of this budget that puts the burden again on the taxpayer basically to prove that they are worthy to have lower taxes. As I read though the latest editorials it appears that it's our job now as the taxpayers to go out and figure out for you guys where to cut the budget or else, uh, you know we're not doing our due diligence as citizens. I, I don't like that tone being set on the people, uh, of any town."

The naughty word was "cahoots." My word processor offers "connivance" and "collusion" as synonyms. So was Mr. Moore alerting us to a conspiracy or merely noting the coincidence with a colloquialism?

It's quite possible the MRT editorial board made up its mind on the tax issue and took the tact it did based on reports from the newspaper's own reporters. So there could have been a meeting of the minds without a meeting of the bodies -- an unspoken collusion. (Synonym: agreement.)

Was there a meeting of the minds? Probably. Was there a surreptitious meeting in a smoke free room? Probably not.

The day the editorial appeared in the paper, 8/18/10, I tuned in the car radio to Mr. Moore's radio show to hear what he would say about it. Podcasts are posted at CitizenWatchdogs.com, and you can hear the 8/18/10 show here. At the 21:45 mark someone called in and asked him about the editorial. And he said this: "I'm not at liberty to discuss it, that's all I can say. As much as I would love to I'm just not at liberty to do that."

Hmm. It sounds as if he took "maybe even slanderous" as an implied threat to bring the weight of the civil justice system down on him. No one wants to be sued. A defendant who wins in court is still out a lot of money, time, energy and emotion.

Newspapers were the only means of mass news transmission when the Constitution was written, and by specific wording, the "press" was one of the first beneficiaries of the First Amendment. So we have here today the great irony of a newspaper chilling the speech of a radio show host.

For the newspaper's side of it, Stewart Doreen has set the record straight that he doesn't want to leave people questioning how seriously the newspaper takes its role in helping keep government in check, that being one of the more important things they do.

He's right.

So there are two sides. Stewart and Jason are both smart men, nice guys, and influential in their own right. Both seem to have reasonable positions from their own standpoint. But from the bleachers it's a great match to watch.

State Bar of Texas released 63,000 lawyers' email addresses

Not too long ago someone accidentally sent out an email to the members of a shooting club with a spreadsheet attached containing email addresses of a few thousand other members. But so far nothing has come of it -- shooters are generally respectful of one another.

But that was nothing. Now Law.com reports that a lady named Marni von Wilpert, a law student in New York City who clerked this summer at the Texas Civil Rights Project in Austin, sued the State Bar of Texas to get Texas lawyers' email addresses. Rather than fight the case, the SBOT handed over emails addresses of lawyers who had not opted for privacy.

Apparently, she wanted to email Texas lawyers to tell them that the proposed disciplinary rules don't measure up. Don Cruse of SCOTXblog.com got one of the emails and says this:

The email asks recipients to vote against the proposed new disciplinary rules about sex with clients because the rules are not strict enough, which so far as I can tell, would leave in place the relatively more lax rules we have today. The ways of politics are mysterious to me.

Here's what the proposed rule says (pdf):

Rule 1.13. Prohibited Sexual Relations [new, renumbered]
(a) A lawyer shall not condition the representation of a client or prospective client, or the quality of such representation, on having any person engage in sexual relations with the lawyer.
(b) A lawyer shall not solicit or accept sexual relations as payment of fees.
(c) A lawyer shall not have sexual relations with a client that the lawyer is personally representing unless the lawyer and client are married to each other, or are engaged in an ongoing consensual sexual relationship that began before the representation.

The English language is constantly evolving, but there was a sudden and major change of word meaning during the Clinton administration. Do you suppose Ms. von Wilpert wants a clarification of whether "sexual relations" include oral sex?

Using satellite photos to see how business is shaping up

Back during the cold war, satellite images provided quite a challenge to the people back home trying to figure out what they were seeing. One story from back then described how the analysts struggled with before and after overhead photos of a small Russian town where a soccer field appeared with teams of players where there had been none before. The analysts figured out that a military installation had been established, and the players were off duty soldiers. Luckily we never had to use that info for anything other than entertainment.

Now it's the wall street analysts scrutinizing the photos to estimate the next quarter earnings of the big box stores based on the number of vehicles in the parking lot. Read all about it at CNBC.com.

Part two tells how agribusiness uses the photos to predict crop prices.

Big brother, inc., is watching you.

What are you doing online? Nielson says social networking.

Nielson.com tells us that in June 2010 Americans spent 22.7% of their online time on social networking sites and blogs. That's a increase of 43% from June 2009.

Online gaming took up 10.2% of the online, up 10% from a year earlier. And emailing took up 8.3%, down 28%.

Source: What Americans Do Online: Social Media And Games Dominate Activity.

The Nielson link was found at NewmarksDoor who also provides a link to another informative item titled How I sold a blog for $20,000 in 8 months. But don't wait too long to sell -- 6 Real Reasons Your Blog Won’t Last the Year.

Midland County Fair

A recent TV news report said the last county fair in Midland, Texas, took place in 1966. So after a long rest, this Rip Van Winkle is waking up this weekend for a relaxing, slow start.

The crowd was small which was a benefit for fair goers. No long lines, no tussling with mobs straining to see something, and easy movement throughout the whole thing.

Food booths helped satiate the fair goers' appetites. Your loyal blogger had a delicious chicken fajita burrito. Yum! They piled on shaved cheese and chopped lettuce with their bare hands, but any fear of germ transmission was dispelled by the hope that any germs on their fingers probably rubbed off onto the currency they had just handled.

Livestock was the star attraction with beautiful horses, shorn sheep, and cows with horns sticking out a yard on each side.

 

The little guy on the left above is a gorgeous 5 month old pony named Tonka. Isn't he a doll? Audry Cuyler is his proud owner.

 

The entry was a little different. The entrance to the Horse Shoe Arena on Cotton Flat Road was manned by a guy whose job it was to tell people that that entrance was for exit only. Fair goers had to travel the road and locate inconspicuous signs directing them to the I-20 entrance.  But it was all worth the effort to see those beautiful animals.

It can only get better.  Fair to Midland!

Texas Sales Tax Holiday

This is a good weekend to be in Texas.

I didn't remember when it started, but the DallasNews.com says this is the 12th year for it, and fortunately the Texas legislature hasn't yet repealed it. So on August 20, 21 and 22, 2010, shoppers in Texas can purchase items on the list without having to cough up the 8.25% sales tax.

State and local taxing entities are going to get it one way or the other, though. Just this week the Midland, Texas, City Council voted to raise the local property tax, and one of the excuses was that less money than they wanted came in via the sales tax.

But it's an opportunity for taxpayers to tell themselves they are sticking it to the man if only for one brief weekend.

Oh, one more thing -- those internet purchases from vendors that don't collect the Texas sales tax. Well, currently it's the honor system, and buyers are supposed to report them. Got your reporting form?

Conaway comes to town

Yesterday, 8/18/10, Texas District 11 Representative Mike Conaway was in town conducting what he said was his 11th town hall meeting since the first of June. With a few exceptions, he told the people in attendance some of the things one might have expected to hear. Get tough at the border. Revoke Obamacare. Stop spending.

Many of us out here in flyover country have wondered if the Republicans really could or would repeal Obamacare. And Mr. Conaway admitted that there is only a narrow window of opportunity to do that in 2013. Once the benefits kick in in 2014, repealing it would be very difficult.

About illegal drug usage and the problems that brings with it, his solution is tougher enforcement. The problem is caused by America's insatiable drug demands, he said. The prospect of ending prohibition as a possible solution did not come up.

Mr. Conaway kept tight control over the people who came to hear him. He said teachers ask children to use an "inside voice" when they come in from the playground. So like the children in his metaphor, the people in attendance were asked to use their inside voices, line up single file against the wall, and await their turn.

He thought Elizabeth Wooldridge of the Odessa Tea Party had too many questions, so he sent her to the back of the line to wait about an hour for second turn. As soon as she got back to the front of the line she started to ask about the Republican Tea Party Coalition. Before she could even finish her question he interrupted to say the call she had received about that had been a mistake and that he was not going to join that coalition. Ms. Wooldridge said she and the other Tea Party groups in the region concurred in his conclusion.

Finally, as readers of this blog know, what goes on behind the scene can sometimes be interesting. And in this case there was a camera woman taking video almost the whole time. Maybe she was with a local TV station, but she gave the appearance of a professional videographer making a movie. So who knows? Mr. Conaway said he has someone on staff whose full time job is to get him on TV. So maybe there's a documentary in the works. Coming this summer to your local government access channel: "A Politician Mollifies his Constituents!"

P.S. A gripe topic the other day was about all the tax dollars being handed out through the Farm Bill, the problems it has caused, and Mr. Conaway's aggressive involvement in getting the bill passed. Link. He's angling for a top spot on the Agriculture Committee, so any hope for a reform there will have to come from elsewhere.

Drama unfolds in City Council tax session -- now for the performance awards (Satire alert)

The Midland, Texas, City Council spent many grueling hours yesterday listening to, arguing with, and explaining to citizens why the citizens should want higher taxes.

As everyone knows by now, when the clock struck 9:22 last night they closed the public hearing, made their speeches, and voted unanimously to raise our property taxes and garbage fees.

It was a gut wrenching experience for anyone who sat or stood through the whole thing, but it was rewarding in its own way. It was a reality show come to life. And some of the stars gave such outstanding performances that they deserve recognition. And now it's time to pass out the awards.

2010 Midland Budget Process Awards

Better Left Unsaid Award -- The winner is Jeff Sparks, the only Council member who voted "NO" to the motion to hold an evening session thereby telegraphing to the audience that he had already made up his mind. He sat silently throughout the entire proceeding, but wins this award hands down by saying to the citizens at the end: "Stay involved," leaving citizens thinking, "Fat lot of good it does."

Thinnest Skin Award -- The judges had a very hard time with this one as there were so many qualified candidates. But they finally settled on the Midland Reporter-Telegram, the official newspaper of the city of Midland -- it's in the Code -- for its editorial "Our View" in the 8/18/2010 print edition which chastised Jason Moore for his use of the word "cahoots" as a synonym for "agreement" in comparing the City Council's and MRT editorial board's attitude about the tax hike. The tipping point for the judges was the statement in the editorial that Mr. Moore's remark was "maybe even slanderous."

The Do As I Say Not As I Do Award -- To the City Council, for telling the citizens to read the budget, yet ducking all questions about the budget by handing them off to the Director of Finance or someone else to answer.

Tenacious Reporter Award -- This one goes to Midland Reporter-Telegram reporter Bob Campbell who patiently sat through almost 2/3 of the evening session surpassing all the TV crews by far.

Anger Mismanagement Award -- Councilman Scott Dufford, a self described "tax activist" who said, "I was angry when I first ran in 2001, but now I'm not so angry." He's still angry all right. Only now it's directed at people who disagree with him.

Think Inside the Box Award -- The award goes to Councilman John James. A citizen (me) tried to suggest to the Council that the public meetings could be broadcast on the government access channel without cost by using cameras the city already owns and city employees or volunteers to operate them. Mr. James, in a glib summation of the morning proceedings to attempt to explain why he wanted to raise taxes, put that citizen (me again) in the same category as another individual who went before the council asking for thousands of dollars in largess from the city. Tax payers would like to think the council members can, to use a phrase that got abundant usage at the hearings, "think outside the box" to find ways to cut expenses. The inability to distinguish a resourceful suggestion from a request for a handout earned Mr. James this award.

New Media Awareness Award -- Councilman Scott Dufford for making a begrudging acknowledgment of the existence of blogs. He proclaimed that he never reads blogs, but with one and only one exception: When they agree with him.

Sore Winner Award -- The Mayor and each of the Council members fought hard to defeat their political opponents and win enough votes to get to sit in governance of the rest of us. This prize goes to those members who belly ached about not getting enough thanks for all they've done for the city. Here's a tardy "Thank You." I guess you showed us.

You-Can't-Fight-City-Hall Award -- This one goes to all the people who patiently waited their turn, overcame their fears, faced possible humiliation and spoke out against higher taxes. Also known as the "The Don Quixote Award."

---------

OK, all finished now. I'm sure any Council member who accidentally stumbles onto this blog post knows it's all in good fun. No hard feelings, and hopefully we can all laugh about it now. The Council members told us over and over again that they did the best they could, and we have to believe them. The same thing is probably true up and down the city hierarchy, from the three guys who screw in the stop signs all the way up to the financial wizards who produced the finished budget. Everyone performed at the maximum of their ability, and that's all we can ask. So thanks, City Council. See ya next time.

City Council tax hearing 8/17/10

Things got testy at times today at the Midland, Texas, City Council hearing. The Council did its best to convince everyone that there is no way to cut the budget. And the citizens did their best to convince the Council members that they didn't want to pay any more in taxes.

Neither side budged. A couple of the citizens got a little hot under the collar, and the same could be said about at least one of the Council members. The "Even Keel" award goes to Mayor Wes Perry who managed to keep a calm and sometimes cheerful attitude throughout the entire procession.

Then there was the incomparable Jason Moore. Those who saw him for the first time may have thought he could have been the star player on his high school football team when he was younger. And those who heard him spar with the Council may have thought he had been the captain of his high school debate team. He made some eloquent and artful remarks, and he held everyone's attention when he spoke.

The Council voted to recess the morning session and reconvene tonight at 7:00pm to let the rest of the community have a say, so it's not over.

But one thing was abundantly clear. Those of us who gripe about high taxes really have not given them enough credit for what they've done in the past. Raise taxes and the taxpayers let them have it. Cut services and the citizens who want those services let them have it. Cut jobs or salaries and the city workers let them have it. There is no way to please everyone, and they've taken on a thankless job.

Anyway, take a look at some photos from this morning's meeting.

If body language could talk! Whew!

Mike Conaway and the Tea Parties

Rumor has it that Texas District 11 Representative Mike Conaway has invited the Odessa Tea Party to a "town Hall" meeting at the CEED Building on August 18 at 5:30pm as part of a listening tour before he joins the Congressional TEA Party Caucus.

Other stops included San Angelo, where we get this from goSanAngelo.com:

San Angelo Tea Party activists’ reactions ranged from outrage to wariness to the caucus rolled out Wednesday by caucus leader Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota.

Tea Party member and former Republican congressional candidate Chris Younts said the GOP is supposed to stand for fiscal responsibility, limited government and free markets, so if lawmakers have stood on those tenets, why would a caucus be necessary?

“I have to call them out,” Younts said. “Is this a return to the principles of fiscal conservatism or is it just plain old political pandering?”

Representative Conaway is a frequent mention in the Citizens Against Government Waste annual Pig Book, most recently in 2010.

$206,000 for wool research in three states (Montana, Texas and Wyoming) by Reps. Mike Conaway (R-Texas) and Ciro Rodriguez (D-Texas). Since 1995, CAGW has uncovered 14 earmarks worth $3,623,453 for wool research, always in those three states. According to the USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Resource Center, “Shorn wool production in the United States was approximately 33 million pounds of greasy wool in 2008, down 5 percent from 2007… the average price paid for wool in 2008 was 99 cents per pound, with a total value of $32.5 million.” Congress shouldn’t wooly bully the American taxpayer.

So does the wool research business need a government handout? You bet your booties. Conway's own Conaway.house.gov quotes this:

The sheep and goat industry would not be here today without government funding through grants and incentive programs which have advanced service to the world through research. The funding has been a part of farm policy since the late O.C. Fisher was our congressman for 30 years in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s.

It's a wool research bailout that's been going on since the 1940s for an industry that couldn't exist without it. Good thing the Republicans don't know about it.

But wait, we are just now getting to the good part, the King Cotton bailout. Astonishingly, District 11 farmers have raked in almost $1.8 billion in government subsidies between 1995 and 2009.

But the subsidies came under threat from the Bush Administration. Agriculture Mike Johanns in 2007 had the audacity to propose that people with already high incomes shouldn't get richer off of government handouts. Specifically :

Decrease the Adjusted Gross Income (AGI) eligibility cap for all farm commodity program payments from the current $2.5 million to $200,000 annually.

Representative Conaway went into action to defend the entitlement for the rich. He was firmly committed to the egalitarian position that anyone should be able to get on the Farm Bill dole regardless of how high their income was. Maybe the spin here should have been that he opposed discrimination. But no, it was to provide a stable and predictable farm policy.  Got to maintain those entitlements to keep things stable.  (George Bush vetoed the bill, but Congress, cheered on by Conaway, overrode the veto. Bush caved and signed it.)

And finally, the best part. Flash forward a few years, and we have Brazil bringing action against the U.S. in the World Trade Organization over the U.S. cotton bailouts. The U.S. lost. And President Obama agreed to subsidize Brazil with a minimum of $147.3 million per year. The joke is on us for sure.  But isn't that a hilarious outcome?

So to the Tea Parties who are tempted by Mr. Conaway's new born conservatism there must be a Paul Revere out there somewhere crying out, "The red ink is coming! The red ink is coming!"

City Council needs to hear from taxpayers

The local Sunday paper had a nice collection of letters to the editor about the announced tax hike by the Midland, Texas, City Council. As you might suspect, the taxpayers are against it. But you can't fight city hall. Or can you?

The next Council meeting is scheduled to begin on Tuesday, August 17, at 8:30am -- not an ideal time of day for anyone who has a day job. But, apparently a couple of the city council members told the audience at the last meeting that they might move to temporarily adjourn the 8/17 morning meeting and reconvene at 7:00pm so that local taxpayers could have their voices heard.

The Midland Tea Party and others may want to take advantage of that. In fact, they might just show up at the city hall that night even if the city council decides not to reconvene.

Go to the Midland Tea Party meeting on Monday night to add your two cents on the subject.

Buy Twitter Followers?

Do you tweet? Are you satisfied with number of twitterers following you? If not, buy some more. Addtwitterfollowers.com promises to get you followers, from 500 to 10,000, if you pay a fee. No, this doesn't appear to be a joke.

Found the other day, however today my Zonealarm tells me the site is not to be trusted. Go figure.

"I bought 500 twitter followers and didn't even get a lousy T-shirt!"

Tom Coburn for President, part 2

We said it before. See Tom Coburn for President in 2012.

Others are saying it, too. Check out President Coburn?. Excerpt:

One name seems not to be on anyone's list, though he could be a conservative candidate of unquestioned commitment to our values: Tom Coburn. Consider those virtues which are vitally important to a Republican revolution. Our next president must be able to ignore completely the blandishments and bribes of Washington insiders; he must recognize that our federal capital bewitches and hypnotizes most politicians. Our next president must be a man of his own, who is not owned by any party leaders or by any cliques.

Yes, it's time for a president who knows how to use a scalpel.

Two demonstrations of tolerance: The ground zero mosque and the health worker massacre in Afghanistan

Dan Henninger's column Tolerance at Ground Zero (subscription) is a nice essay highlighting the tolerance NYC Mayor Bloomberg wants to display versus the lack of tolerance from those who want to celebrate the ground zero mosque. Excerpt:

Along the way, Mr. Bloomberg noted that denying someone the right to build a house of worship "may happen in other countries" but shouldn't here. There is a school of thought in this controversy that bringing up the denial of religious practice in "other countries" is irrelevant to discussing the appropriateness of the Ground Zero mosque. I disagree.

We all remember the TV footage of the dancing in the Arab street as we recovered from the shock of 9/11/01. Not a lot of tolerance on display there.

So just the other day our sensibilities were assaulted once again by the headlines about the massacre of ten members of an eye care team, including six Americans, in Afghanistan. See Washington Post. They were part of the International Assistance Mission working in remote areas of Afghanistan to help people with eye problems, problems that would not be cured without that help. And they were massacred in cold blood. The Taliban took credit alleging that the volunteers were trying to convert Muslims to Christianity. No trial, no jurisprudence, no hearing of both sides of the issue. Just bam, you're dead. That's the type of tolerance they've demonstrated time and time again.

To be fair, we can't say that the Taliban Muslims are representative of all Muslims everywhere. But it's safe to say the Taliban Muslims represent the Wahhabi extremism driven by religious fervor to murder innocent people who disagree with them, the same fervor that drove the 19 terrorists to fly the planes that created the hole called ground zero.

While there are a few exceptions, the tolerance we see in Muslims seems to be toward the murderous extremists. Americans demonstrating tolerance to the ground zero mosque are practicing the turn-the-other-cheek behavior that merely invites a slap to the other cheek.

A tax funded joke machine -- hilarity ensues

Senator Coburn found it. His and John McCain's document is titled Summertime Blues, subtitled "Stimulus projects that give taxpayers the blues." Via Ricochet.

Click and scroll down to number 36:

Scientist Attempts to Create Joke Machine (Evanston, IL) - $712,883 ... researchers at Northwestern University are using stimulus money to develop “machine-generated humor." ...

The lead designer plans to use artificial intelligence to create a “comedic performance agent” that “will be funny no matter what it is talking about.”₂₆₆  Computer systems will mine jokes from the Internet and then use them to create hilarious presentations that mimic real-life comedians.₂₆₇ The lead designer hopes to model his new creation off of News at Seven, ₂₆₈ a web-based “entertainment oriented system that combines clips from CSPAN with topics [sic] humor and comments pulled from Twitter to create a Daily Show-like experience.”₂₆₉

Move over Max Headroom.

It's hard to come up with a good joke, otherwise comedians wouldn't need to buy them for their performances.  But our government writes enough jokes already, they just call them "laws."

Jail break - Build it and they will come, or leave

Anyone who took the tent jail tour on opening weekend probably noticed how thick the walls were in that new Midland, County, Texas, facility. They were thick but not very substantial with a coating of some sort sandwiching another sort of synthetic material. But for fans of "Prison Break" the walls looked as though it would not take much effort to carve a hole big enough to crawl through.

Not to worry, the guide explained. The prisoners in the tent facility would be there for minor crimes and would not want to risk the felony charge an escape attempt would bring about. So the front door would be left unlocked.

Tyric Andrews didn't get the memo. He walked out the front door while the guard wasn't looking and was on the loose for a day and a half. See Escaped Midland County inmate found.

So we are left to speculate what the thought process must have been when the jail was planned. The taxpayers really couldn't spare a lot of money on a first class facility, so the tent provided a cheap alternative. But couldn't the prisoners claw their way out leaving behind costly repair jobs, not to mention the expense of rounding up escapees? Well, we could leave the door unlocked and take the chance, then if someone did escape let the other law enforcement departments handle the manhunt. Bingo.

Know your neighborhood - spot crimes on a map

Crimemapping.com is a service that provides a map showing the locations where crimes have been reported in participating cities. The one for Midland, Texas, utilizes the data supplied by the MPD Crime Analysis section, and it's essentially the same map they used to post online at the city website. So it frees up the Crime Analysis folks for more crime analyzing and less mapping. And the Crimemapping map has a few more bells and whistles, like email notices when a crime occurs near the address the user registers.

Currently, only two Texas cities subscribe to the service, Midland and Fort Worth. According to a city insider it costs a couple hundred bucks a month. So expense has to be a factor for any municipality trying to watch its budget. The insider says its paid for here from funds provided by a federal grant.  (So those of us trying to be tax hawks need to direct our complaints to DC where $200 probably wouldn't cover a lawmaker's monthly lunch tips.)

In the meantime, for the security conscious citizen, a glance at the crime map can give a snapshot of the recent activity where he/she can learn, for example, that sexual assaults occurred at Midland Memorial Hospital on Tuesday and Friday last week at 10:50pm and 8:55pm, respectively. Is that a pattern? Call Crime Analysis. Stat!

Portable toilets for firefighters -- good enough for Chelsea Clinton

A while back a tiny non-profit group kicked around an idea about buying a trailer, putting a port-a-potty on it, and giving it to the Midland Fire Department so it could be hauled to the scene when firefighters had to spend hours at a stubborn fire.

The Sheriff's Office has one they use for inmate work crews, see photos of it here.

But the fire department had no place to store it. The MFD has some first class facilities with fire engines costing nearly a million dollars. To stick a port-a-potty on the premises would create an eyesore. So the idea got shelved.

You may be wondering, what do the firefighters do when they get stuck for hours at a stubborn fire and have to pee? The answer to that question is: "Don't ask."

But hold on. Chelsea Clinton got married the other day, and one of the most intriguing news bite that came from that was the story about the bathrooms for the rich and famous. Lemondrop.com calls them one of the 9 'Uber' Bridal Trends Chelsea Clinton's Wedding Will Launch:

Trend #2: Uber-Toilets
Well-clad backsides, meet the Presidential Series Luxury Washrooms. "They're bringing in three: one for service personnel, one for men and one for women," confides Donnie. The loos, from Room to Go, Inc., come complete with skylights, marble countertops and multiple stalls -- for around $15,000.

TMZ has more:

The portable latrines have actual porcelain toilets that flush, stereo music and hot running water -- oh yeah, and they're HUGE.

We're told Chelsea's getting between 4-6 trailers for the big day -- with a total cost of about $15,000.

The 15 grand must be for a short term rental with delivery included, because those things are quite expensive to buy outright. The photos and floor plan at TMZ look identical to the ELtia Luxury Restroom Trailer 28 available from Black Tie Services.

Chelsea established that they are good enough for the Clintons. So downsize a little bit, say, to the two holer OPTimum Basic Restroom Trailer 14 (same link), and now we're talking. It's two bathrooms on a trailer. The price quoted a few months ago was $16,500 plus $2,000 for the fresh water system. To have it delivered would cost $1.65/Mile from Goshen, Indiana, which appears to be about $2,200 away from the MFD central station. So for a mere $21,000 the firefighters would have a place to pee in private.

Would it be worth it? Well sure. The city can't afford it, but if some altruistic person or organization has some money burning a hole in their pocket and wants to make a tax deductible donation, there's a good use for the money.

Thank you Chelsea.

Obama's Obirthday

Don't you just hate it when you miss a celebrity's birthday?

Yesterday, August 4, was President Obama's birthday. And to make sure we didn't miss it BarackObama.com helpfully provided a Google map showing where all the birthday parties would be. But they weren't just parties, they were phone banks and voter registration drives. (I wonder why?)

Check out all the parties in the Dallas, Ft. Worth and Houston areas. Oddly, only one in Austin. Via Ricochet.com.

His official horoscope?

Leo (Aug. 4): Making a transition from public to private life is easy for you. You feel as though you are "on" all the time.

Unofficial horoscope: Learn when to turn it "off" and listen to the people for a change.

And speaking of president's birthdays, if you haven't seen it in a while, check out a previous happy birthday Mr. President from a popular beauty back at a time when Democrat presidents were more well liked.

Who could do that for Obama's birthday? Roseanne Barr has already demonstrated a talent appropriate for the occasion.

Local newspaper editorial invites Tea Party to step in trap

So I'm reading the morning newspaper¹ and came across an editorial about the local efforts by the city council to hike city taxes -- see it just off to the right -- in which the editorial board tells the Tea Party group to go home and do their homework:

In the long run, the tea party is right in taking the opportunity to debate the tax issue and to decide for themselves whether the tax increase is feasible or not. Citizens should know the pros and cons of the issue before the council places the proposal on the books.

However, like our city officials, they should be prepared to make real suggestions on what should be cut or what services should be eliminated.

As Tea Party groups all over the country have discovered, the news media folks really like to scrutinize them, complain about them, and in this case, tell them what to do.  Can anyone get in on that? If so, here's some more advice to opponents of the city tax hike.

Don't step into the trap the newspaper editorial board and tax hike proponents have laid for you when they invite you to examine the budget and come up with some cuts. The city budget isn't like the federal budget which is packed with obvious pork. For every penny in the 463 page city budget -- almost a half page per employee -- there is someone who will make a very reasonable and logical argument for why they need that penny. They are very good at that, and those proposing the cuts will come across as stingy, mean and uninformed.

In past budget periods the city management simply told the department heads that they had to cut by a certain percent. The resulting cuts had the advantage of having been thought through by the people in charge of implementing them.

If the citizens take the budget apart and replace it with their own and by some miracle it got passed, it would create a potential for backlash from those who would have benefited from the funds that were cut. And I-told-you-we-needed-that-money moments would surely arise.

Last year at a budget hearing an exasperated council member threw up his hands and asked a citizen, "Well, where would you cut?" The citizen responded that the city council members got elected because they were supposed to be able to do the tough job of running a city. If they are as good as advertised, they should be able to come up with solutions.

Footnote-
¹A few years ago a local newspaper columnist apologized to his readers for using the internet to seek information. What a laugh riot that guy was. This time I need to apologize to readers for being such an old fuddy-duddy who reads the local newspaper. It's an old habit, and besides, what else can I do? I can spill my porridge on the paper or drool all over it without worrying about it. Not so with a laptop or e-reader.

Kindles in place of schoolbooks? Forget it. Discriminates against the blind.

In this over-litigated age of political correctness is seems that you can't even turn around without bumping into someone claiming discrimination. That's what happened when several colleges experimented with the Kindle in place of text books.

The problem, you see, is that a blind person can't use them. Even though the Kindle might have a feature that reads the words aloud, it takes sight to navigate the menu.

So the National Federation of the Blind filed a complaint with the Justice Department, and the Civil Rights Division went to work. The resulting settlement put books back into students' backpacks.

Read about it at the WashingtonExaminer.com in Why did feds claim Kindle violates civil rights?

Via Carpe Diem.

Midland City Council tax hike hearing 8/3/10

This morning the Midland, Texas, City Council listened patiently as three citizens expressed their opinions that the city taxes shouldn't be raised.

 One speaker, Tom Heller, made some memorable points as he asked the council members to focus on the bigger picture and recognize that taxes are going up everywhere. Capital gains taxes are set to rise along with dividend taxes and estate taxes. The Medicare surtax is set to go up. And when Medicare payments to hospitals get cut then we have no idea what hospital districts will do. Texas business franchise taxes are up. And when the council members tell us that taxes are only going up just a little bit we must remember the fable about the frog in the pan of water with the heat rising ever so slowly.

In the meantime, business owners are cutting like crazy due to the downturn, but our taxing entities can't seem to find a way to cut spending.

Will this make any difference? It's anyone's guess. The mayor and city council member are already on record as supporting the tax hike.  But they invited feedback, so time will tell if they were persuaded by the citizens or by those who have something to gain from an increased tax revenue.