Sleepless in Midland

Celebrities against consumerism -- what an irony

There was a time when actors were considered lower class. But then movies were invented, and shrewd entrepreneurs developed a very profitable business. Promoting actors into stars enhanced that business enterprise and elevated the status of actors.

The job of an actor is to pretend to be some other character. Actors are simply people with a talent for convincing others that they are something they really aren't. A celebrity worship cult developed, and the actors capitalized on that to become fabulously wealthy. And somehow they convinced themselves that people wanted to hear what they themselves had to say.

Eyebrows get raised when celebrities pontificate about how normal people should live their lives. Here's a case in point. Stars and scientists call for world not to 'go back to normal':

"The pursuit of consumerism and an obsession with productivity have led us to deny the value of life itself: that of plants, that of animals, and that of a great number of human beings," the short letter added. "Pollution, climate change, and the destruction of our remaining natural zones has brought the world to a breaking point."

So here we are. Working people are struggling to make ends meet, and celebs richer than Croesus are railing against consumerism. What a scene.

Kat Timpf takes them down a notch:

Now, to be clear, I’m not attacking them for their success – or even for them enjoying it with lavish lifestyles. What I am saying, however, is that I can’t help but be irked by the unconscionable lack of awareness you’d have to have in order to sign something like this while you’re sitting in an extravagant home surrounded by servants.

After all, if any of the super-wealthy people who signed this letter had any real interest in stopping the “pursuit of consumerism,” they would certainly have started with taking a look at their own habits in that area.

Here's an idea. Let's support their battle against "consumerism" by avoiding any movie, TV show, concert, or other performance involving those actors. Yeah! We're in this fight together!

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3:11 PM 5/12/2020

AirSho 2019 -- ho hum

AirSho 2019 took place last weekend at Midland International Airport. It was OK. But the show was a shadow of what it was before the CAF abandoned the region for the big city.

Maybe I'm being unfair since I'm still feeling the sting of not getting a T-shirt in spite of 16 hours working as a volunteer over the weekend. Hey, there's an idea for my own custom T-shirt: "I worked 16 hours and didn't even get a lousy T-shirt!"

On the bright side, here is something that got my attention. Remember those mechanical bulls from a few decades ago that cowboys and city dudes used to ride in saloons like Gilley's? Well, an entrepreneur came up with a new use for an old product. The kids' area had a mechanical bull, except it wasn't a bull. It was made to look like a space shuttle. Now that was innovative. Hooray for capitalism!

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12:51 PM 9/16/2019

Improve meetings by inviting only people who might benefit from them

This is not our first dive into the business of meetings and likely won't be the last. I'm no expert on meetings, but I know what I don't like when I see it, to paraphrase someone's famous quote.

Others have written about this, too.  For example, see You're running your meetings wrong. Here's how to make them more effective. Here are this expert's bullet points:

Keep the invite list exclusive
Have a clear agenda
Get broad participation (assuming you kept the list exclusive)
Limit your own talk time
Have a call to action
Limit tech
Avoid lip-service meetings
If it's daily, keep it short and try standing
Track how much time you spend in meetings

Here's something with which many might agree: "People don't hate meetings, they hate meetings that waste their time."

Maybe some people hate all meetings. My solution would be to dispense with meetings and collect information, share ideas, and issue instructions some other way.

Previously: Meetings for people who hate meetings; and
80% of meetings are waste of time

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2:43 PM 8/20/2019

Prisoners voting -- do we really need another voting bloc?

There's a movement underway that leans toward a higher level of acceptance in civilian life for people who have been convicted of a crime and have served their time. And there's a compassionate argument to be made for that. But the problem is that too often the time served in prison was advanced education for many of them in their fields of crime. It's tempting to say that juvie is elementary school, county jail is high school, and prison is college. The solution to the problem is to transform prisons into places that don't just restrain but actually rehabilitate the inmates. But that has been a goal for centuries.

Along comes a class of individuals so compassionate they want to give convicts the right to vote while they are doing time.

What we don't need is another class of voters to whom politicians will pander for their votes. Can you imagine campaign rallies in prisons? If so, you can imagine the promises the politicians will make. A guaranteed income; early releases; pardons.

A vote for me will set you free!

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1:55 PM 6/25/2019

Public libraries -- lots of spaces but not so many books

A few weeks ago we talked about something missing from modern libraries. See libraries today -- books or visual experiences? That was my reaction to the new Centennial Library in Midland, Texas. But it also pertains to the remodeled and recently reopened Downtown Library. We can probably thank Library Director John Trischitti III for that:

“We are excited to reopen the new incarnation of the Downtown Library for the Midland community,” Library Director John Trischitti III said. He continued, “I also appreciate the community’s patience as the project took longer than expected, however, we hope that everyone will feel it was worth the wait. Midland is now blessed to have not one but two top-shelf public library facilities to serve its citizens”.

"Top-shelf." That's cute, given that there is much more open space than there are book shelves. While there were plenty of computers available for card holders' use, there was no card catalog - or the high tech equivalent - available for customer use at the new, old library when I was there the other day. If you want a book and don't know where to look, you have to ask a librarian for help.

The phrase, "on the right side of history," was popularized by a former president. And that's probably where Mr. Trischitti tried to position himself with all the new library innovations he has implemented. After all, the intellectuals say things like Populism can be beaten back by libraries. Really and Millennials are the most likely generation of Americans to use public libraries.

Be that as it may, the crusty curmudgeon writing this blog still likes to read books, not screens.

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3:52 PM 5/31/2019

libraries today -- books or visual experiences?

The director of the libraries in Midland, Texas, John Trischilli lll, was recently elected to a school board position. Maybe we can expect to see the same thing happen to the schools as happened to the library.

The new library -- called Centennial Library -- is visually pleasing and very trendy. The library has some really interesting displays of swimming fish projected onto the floor. It's got oodles of computers for visitors. It has meeting rooms -- although you have get yourself on the approved users list. And it has various visiting exhibits. What's missing from this list? Books.

To be fair, it has books but not nearly enough. And a search of the library online card category for any book over a few years old comes up negative. The old books must be at the old library which is undergoing remodeling. Here's hoping they will become available again once the old library is reopened. In the meantime, the nearby Ector County Library is the go-to library for many books that the Midland County Library doesn't have.

And I might add in passing, although I don't know what to make of this. The Midland County Library has removed at least two conservative writers' books from its shelves: Jonah Golberg and Greg Gutfeld.

[Aside: Maybe the libraries are helping create, or at least adapting to a world without books. One has to wonder whether schools are undergoing the same type of transformation.]

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2:04 PM 4/16/2019

More creepy AI uses -- voice analysis

Just what we need -- people on the other end of phone learning about our emotional state and other things from an AI program. Cogito software is sold to companies that use call centers, and the purpose is supposed to be to help train employees to stay alert to the customers' needs.

But wouldn't it be just a easy to use the program on the customer to determine the most likely way to close a sale?

Anyway, it's just one more way AI is creeping into our lives. But at least computers aren't reading lips like a Hal 9000, at least not yet.

Related:
What AI Can Tell From Listening to You (Alternate link;
Call Center Agents Get a Human Touch;
Emotion AI Will Personalize Interactions and
This Call May Be Monitored for Tone and Emotion.

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3:02 PM 4/3/2019

DNA results -- some things are better left alone

Those DNA testing kits are becoming quite popular as curious people seek to find out they're related to some famous person or perhaps to learn more about their lineage. But the buyers had better beware. WSJ.com published an article about how it's creating rifts in some families. For example, two sisters submitted their DNA for test and got some shocking news. Their father had fathered another child with a woman other then their mother. They had a brother they never knew about. But that's not all. The other sister had a different father who had had an affair with their mother. That sort of news can disrupt the family Thanksgiving dinner.

If interested in the whole story, see: Two Sisters Bought DNA Kits. The Results Blew Apart Their Family. Alternate link.

But it gets worse. FamilyTreeDNA Hands the FBI Access to Its Database. So not only can test results let a family discover their parents have wandered outside the marital bounds, they make it possible to become involved in a criminal investigation. There's at least one company already collecting public database DNA and using it to solve crimes. Perhaps getting a serial killer off the streets might be an exception, but becoming involved with an investigation of a close relative doesn't lead to family unity.

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2:47 PM 2/6/2019

Buy stamps now to save a nickle -- price goes up 1-27-2019

The United States Postal Service has suffered from a declining business due to former customers communicating with the internet.

But there are a few old timers around who still send cards for various occasions. I would speculate that Christmas is the main one with sympathy for illness or death of a loved one coming in second.

Anyway, a half buck for a single First Class Forever stamp seemed a bit high when that price was implemented. But now we are looking at a nickel hike to $.55 per stamp. U.S. Postal Service Announces New Prices for 2019.

The new price goes into effect on Sunday, January 27, 2019. Buy them now if you need them.

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3:13 PM 1/23/2019

Midland, TX, city leaders have adopted the crossing guard mentality when it comes to bicycles

Anyone who has ever directed traffic knows or should know that they should attempt not to impede the flow of traffic. Too often a crossing guard will stop a line of cars and make them wait until a pedestrian crosses the street. They'll stop the vehicle traffic before the pedestrian even gets to the crosswalk. Common sense says that the guard should allow a large block of vehicles to pass before stopping traffic for the pedestrian simply because the pedestrian has the right of way.

Our elected city leaders have adopted the crossing guard mentality when it comes to bicycles. Maybe it's a concern for safety, or maybe it's an effort to encourage people to use bicycles in a misguided attempt to diminish car exhaust. In any event, it is giving rights to a minority over the needs of the majority.

Cities all over the country are doing it. And they're doing it right here in Midland, Texas, smack dab in the middle of oil producing country. See City will be installing downtown bike lanes. The number of people commuting by bicycle has been trending downward. So Midland's leaders are way behind the curve.

Here's a sample of a four lane street converted into a two lane street by the addition of two lane bicycle lanes. Don't strain looking for bicycles. I've never seen a bicycle on this road.

What a waste.

I used to ride a bicycle back when bicyclists assumed every vehicle had the right of way. That was common sense at the time, and it still should be.

There's a least one opinion writer who agrees that we don't need so many bicycle lanes. See Is the bike-lane fever breaking?. Excerpt:

So maybe it’s time for public officials and policy makers to turn their backs on the militant, self-righteous bike lobby and its fantasy of a world in which drivers defer to cyclists as the rightful kings of the road. Bicycles — nimble, healthful, nonpolluting, cheap — have many advantages. But they don’t belong in crowded urban traffic.

Ain't that truth?!

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2:15 PM 1/19/2019

Marco Rubio's bill to lock in Daylight Saving all year -- slim chance it passes

Last Spring, around the time we had to Spring Forward with our clocks, the Florida legislature passed, and the governor signed, a bill which would request the U.S. Congress to authorize Daylight Saving Time all year for Florida. That would have eliminated the annoying twice a year clock change Floridians had to endure.

Marco Rubio presented a bill in the U.S. Senate to implement it and put the principle in effect for the entire U.S. in S. 2537: Sunshine Protection Act of 2018.

The bill went nowhere.

The above linked govtrack.us site tells us it has a 3% chance of passing. What a shame.

Oh I know that using government time is optional for each individual. But being out of sync with those around us is too big a price to pay.

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6:51 AM 11/3/2018

So you think you're unbiased? A Harvard test is here to tell you otherwise

An interesting article appeared in the Wall Street Journal titled Why We Stereotype Strangers. The point they drive home is that we all have unconscious biases about people, and those biases may influence our behavior. Here's an excerpt:

One way to think about implicit bias is as a habit we developed from the moment we were born and started perceiving the world around us. “Everything we take in—everything our parents tell us, everything we see on TV or hear in music, that we learn in school or from friends or see on the streets—all of this adds up to associations in our brain,” Dr. Chugh says. We may not consciously believe these influences, but they’re there, idling in the background.

Unconscious bias is “sticky and malleable,” Dr. Chugh says, meaning that it fluctuates according to what is happening in the world and in the mind of the bias holder. It can be higher or lower on different days and in different situations.

(Alternate link.)

There's even a test you can take to identify your biases. Link. I'll have to take their word for it that I'm biased. I would take the test but for the bias I have against sites that require registration for use. In any event, a person could go so far to overcome a particular bias that he/she develops an intolerance for others.

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10:58 AM 10/30/2018

What I learned this week -- what is NPC?

I'm so far behind the crowd I didn't even know "NPC" was a meme much less what it meant.

So if you're even farther behind me in the realm of what's cool, here's the meaning, found at What is an NPC? The liberal-bashing meme sweeping social media ahead of the US midterms. The literal meaning of the acronym is "Non Playable Character." More:

“NPC” stands for “Non-playable character”, a phrase taken from video games referring to any figure a gamer encounters while roaming a digital landscape that they cannot control themselves.

Rather than the hero of the game, these are often supporting characters who offer a quest or recite dialogue to further the plot. Unthinking automatons, they have no minds of their own.

The slang - “born in the fever swamps of 4chan and Reddit message boards”, as Kevin Roose of The New York Times puts it - has been adopted by right-wing social media users, many backers of President Donald Trump, as a means of attacking conformist liberal voters ahead of the 2018 midterm elections.

And there you have it. Feel cooler now?

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4:00 PM 10/22/2018

Yahoo, AOL selling email data to advertisers

This is how much a curmudgeon I am. For months -- since Yahoo sold out to Verizon and Oath -- I've been scrolling to the bottom of the first page and clicking "I'll do this later." That first page is a long winded script telling us what all they can do with our emails. I read enough of it to conclude they could do plenty with whatever users said in their emails and that I didn't want any part of it.

So it's nice to see some push back on them. Phil Baker at pjmedia.com summarizes a wsj.com article today. Baker at Yahoo Admits It Scans Emails to Collect Data to Sell to Advertisers and wsj at Yahoo, Bucking Industry, Scans Emails for Data to Sell Advertisers.

Here's an excerpt from Baker:

Doug Sharp, Oath’s vice president of data, measurements and insights, told the Wall Street Journal that email scanning is an effective method for improving ad targeting. "He said that the practice applies only to commercial emails in people’s accounts—from retailers, say, or mass mailings—and that users have the ability to opt out," the WSJ wrote.

Opting out is a challenge. A search for the word "opt" in the document turns up nothing. So by avoiding accepting maybe I haven't yet opted in.

But get a load of this:

"Yahoo paid $4 million in 2016 to settle a federal class-action lawsuit that claimed its scanning of email violated federal wiretap laws," the WSJ noted. "Yahoo, which didn’t admit wrongdoing, agreed as part of the settlement terms to make a technical change: Rather than scanning emails while they are 'in transit,' Yahoo now waits until they arrive in an inbox to scan them."

Well, isn't that sweet of them to wait until the email is actually delivered before purloining the user's conversation?

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2:04 PM 8/29/2018

Our vehicles will soon be spying on us

It's bad enough that our phones and TVs are spying on us, it turns out that our vehicles have that capability, too. Or if they don't have it now, they soon will have.

Does that worry car owners? It should, but people seem to have gotten very complacent about all those devices watching and listening to us.

Anyway, for a rundown on what's in the pipeline, see What Your Car Knows About You. Alternate link. Excerpt:

Already, some car makers are gathering this data to provide feedback to help improve a car’s performance, refine features and alert them to any potential quality problems early on. They’re also using it to create new and more personalized services for drivers.

But many car makers have bigger plans, including using the data to craft targeted in-car advertisements or selling it to mapping firms looking to provide more accurate traffic information.

General Motors Co. , Ford Motor Co. and other major car makers are hoping these connected-car services will generate new revenue streams that can help them diversify beyond their core business of building and selling cars. While it is still early days, McKinsey & Co. estimates monetizing data from connected cars will be worth up to $750 billion by 2030 as more cars are shipped with pre-installed modems and other internet-connected devices. ...

Car companies stress that they get the owner’s consent first before gathering any data. In cases where it is collected and provided to third parties, the data is anonymized, meaning it is scrubbed of all personal information and batched together with data from other vehicles to provide a more generalized picture of a car’s operations or consumer driving habits.

You did click "Accept," didn't you?

Still, privacy experts say it is not always clear to consumers when they are giving consent. As with other electronic devices, the data disclosures are often buried in the terms and service agreement and described in ways that aren’t always easy for customers to understand.

“That’s not going to give consumers a full sense of how their data is being used and collected any more than it is online,” said Ryan Calo, a law professor at the University of Washington, who specializes in digital privacy.

This is all the more reason for drivers to hang on to those clunkers as long as possible.

The company rushing to get your data moving out of the vehicle is Otonomo of Israel.

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1:20 PM 8/19/2018

How long before self driving car gets hacked?

As we hear more and more about self driving vehicles it's tempting to get complacent and dream of the possibilities.

But it doesn't take a pessimist to imagine one negative aspect -- the possibility of remote hacking. We've already heard of vehicles being hijacked by laptop, i.e., locks and brakes disengaged without the owners' approval.

Making some computer device unhackable is probably impossible. The process can be slowed, but the risk can't be eliminated.

According to Reuters, a meeting was held in March in which Transportation Department officials met with interested individuals to compile information about self-driving vehicles in which law enforcement representatives wanted the ability to take over such a vehicle. That would be a lot safer than what they can do now to a moving vehicle.

But if law enforcement could take over an autonomous vehicle, it follows that hackers could eventually do it, too.

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1:26 PM 7/27/2018

Once again local taxing entity expresses surprise at high sales tax revenue

Local taxing entities plug a number into their annual budgets to account for an expected revenue from sales taxes. And they are always shocked, shocked, that too much money came in. If only all of us could get such surprises on such a regular basis.

The latest example comes to us by way of Stewart Doreen at MRT.com in County breaks record for sales tax collected in fiscal year.

The only problem the taxing entities have is deciding what to buy with all that money. They never give any thought to giving it back to the tax payers.

Fortunately at the Midland County level, the winner of the Republican Party runoff for County Judge, Terry Johnson, having been the one least favored by the establishment, is likely to win the position in November. Those of us on the paying side of the tax equation have high hopes for the future.

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2:32 PM 7/13/2018

Los Angeles mayor is so compassionate he's giving away your space to the homeless

L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti should feel some responsibility for the homeless in Los Angeles. It's not because he's so compassionate, it's because housing is so heavily regulated few can build anything, so he's part of the problem.

Not to worry. The government is here to help. Andrew Malcolm tells us about the proposed solution in How about housing some homeless in your backyard?. Here's how the proposal would work:

Under the program the county would lend $75,000 to homeowners to build a backyard house or $50,000 for a garage-type renovation for up to six units. Loan principal would be reduced for each year a formerly homeless person occupies the unit.

After 10 years, the loan would be forgiven and homeowners would be free to do as they want with the building.

One should wonder whether the formerly homeless residents of these dwellings would care enough about them to perform regular upkeep and what recourse, if any, the homeowner would have if they didn't.

Meanwhile, this video uploaded on Christmas day 2016 made the rounds a while back. It's rather astonishing to see how many people live on the streets in downtown Los Angeles. Aside from refugee camps, there's really no worthwhile solution.

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1:13 PM 4/12/2018

With all the honors bestowed on Colin Kaepernick it follows that high school cheerleaders will take a knee, too

Oh, Kaepernick is not disloyal, he's simply dissenting. That's according to the executive director of the ACLU of Southern California who bestowed an award on Kaepernick.

You could have fooled me. Kaepernick seems more favorable to the Cuban style of government than what the U.S. has to offer. And any Cuban dissenters are more likely found in the prisons than on the playing fields.

Let's not forget that he was recently named GQ’s Citizen of the Year. And note this: a couple of high school cheerleaders are following his lead as they take a knee during the national anthem. Sadly, they were inspired by their teachers.

What is remarkable, and ironic to most of us, is that he probably has more fans now than when he played football. It's disheartening, too, as we are seeing a sea change in attitude toward the things this country stands for. The path, this road to serfdom, down which they are trying to lead us cannot have a happy end.

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1:09 PM 12/4/2017

Beauty and the Beast, the fairy tale life of Harvey Weinstein

If I remember the story of Beauty and the Beast correctly, the beauty was held captive by a scary looking but very rich beast like man. But in the end, the beauty acquiesced to whatever the beast wanted. One has to wonder if that fairy tale guided Harvey Weinstein in his conquests of young beauties.

I hate to sound cynical, but one has to wonder if it really was much of a moral dilemma for the young ladies who encountered Weinstein. Recall the video in which Donald Trump described to a wide eyed Billy Bush how acquiescent women are around men in power.

Reese Witherspoon contends that she was one of his victims. And if so, she certainly came out ahead of the game.

Deciding to go along with the beast and get a shot at fame and fortune rather than go home empty handed seems almost like a form of prostitution.

John Podhoretz describes how it is in Why Hollywood is the perfect hunting ground for pervs :

Unlike most other industries, the entertainment industry runs on scarcity. The unemployment rate in the United States is 4.2 percent right now. But for people who want to go before the cameras or stand at center stage, it’s closer to 90 percent — always has been, always will be.

What’s more, the jobs performers do get are mostly short-term and evanescent. This means the power imbalance between the person who doles out the work and the person who is looking for work is more extreme than in almost any other situation you can think of. Unless you’re a huge star, you’re often a supplicant. You live a life of almost constant rejection.

Those of us out here in flyover country can call showbiz aspirants either vulnerable or eager-to-please. Take your pick.

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8:25 AM 10/18/2017

reaching the acceptance stage of grief about the national anthem sit-downs

OK, I've rounded the bend. I no longer care whether pro football players take a knee during the national anthem. It's a disgrace that the underlying reason for their behavior was based on a lie about what happened in Ferguson that day the police officer shot the black guy. But that belief in a lie is there, whether we like it or not.

In any event, taking a knee is probably more tolerable than burning the flag. As we all know, burning a flag is a Supreme Court sanctioned method of protest. And a certain news channel, whatever the motive, cheapened the national anthem by playing it on weekend mornings preceding the start of their live programming. Are we supposed to stand up at our breakfast tables while it plays? I'd like to see a hidden video showing what the staff and crews of that channel do while it's playing.

Along these lines, Tim Carney carefully eviscerates the argument that the millionaire sports stars don't have any basis for complaining in Being rich and privileged doesn't undermine the protests by Colin Kaepernick and other NFL player. That, he explained, was because Kaepernick stated at the outset that he was doing it for others, not himself. Well, it would be nice if he could also acknowledge that the black-lives-matter movement was based on a lie. But that's probably asking too much. Being a fan of Fidel Castro means being able to accept a lie as truth.

Or as Jason Brennan implies in How Kneeling Athletes Reveal the True Nature of Politics, the kneelers may just be showing allegiance to the tribes with which they want to identify. Perhaps not coincidentally, it's the same tribe to which most of the others in the entertainment industry also identify.

They can do whatever they want. And on weekend mornings I'll continue to remain seated, eating my porridge, and reading the morning paper as the cable news channel plays the national anthem.

Editor's note: Whoa! You're some kinda alt-libertarian.- Robo-ed.|  |Hmm. Maybe. - Sleepless.

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1:26 PM 9/28/2017

More warnings about EMPs

This post was originally going to be about how the local newspaper -- The Midland Reporter-Telegram -- is too reliant on a Houston Chronicle columnist for information about the petroleum industry all while the local paper brags that this part of the country leads the nation in petroleum production. But the post got hijacked by this article: As North Korea threatens electromagnetic pulse attack, questions over lapses in US grid security rise.

This wasn't a new threat, Kim Jong Un has been threatening something bad for a very long time, and it is certainly no secret that his missile crew has the capability to deliver a nuclear bomb into the air and explode it high over the U.S. We've been told that 90% of the people in the U.S. would be dead within a year. That's merely conjecture, but it certainly sounds reasonable given that everything we currently take for granted will disappear and roving gangs of armed marauders will be scouring residential neighborhoods for scraps.

For a sampling of a best case scenario, look at the news from Puerto Rico following their utility wipe-out. But at least there the personally owned electrical devices still work.

Anyway, utilities on the mainland don't appear to be all that prepared for an EMP power interruption. Maybe they they really are prepared and are just keeping it secret. But that seems doubtful given how they would have to spend money to do it. And while it seems reasonable that utility commissions would grant authority to raise rates for that, there doesn't appear to be any evidence that the utilities have asked.

So let's get back to the original purpose of this post. An article by Chris Tomlinson that was in the Houston Chronicle was presented to readers of the Midland Reporter-Telegram recently as top of the front page news. Here's the link to Too much energy creates a challenge for Texas electricity grid.

Tomlinson explains in that column how all the natural gas in Texas is driving down prices and hurting the electric utilities. He closes with this:

Texas led the nation in doing away with government-regulated monopolies and introducing less-regulated competition. That has led to some of the lowest power prices in the country and a boom in industrial construction.

The state should not abandon its faith in the competitive market by fixing the game to protect incumbents. Driving out the old and inefficient is what the market is all about, and we should welcome the creative destruction created by our enormous energy potential.

But what about putting some money into protecting the grid from an EMP attack? The MRT.com is very fond of Mr. Tomlinson's columns, so maybe they could request him to address that issue in one of his columns.

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1:06 PM 9/26/2017

Taking a knee and biting the hand

All those rich professionals ball players on the field who refuse to respect the U.S. flag have every right to do so. They should thank our founding fathers for giving them that right, but that wouldn't fit the narrative.

In any event, the politicization of pro sports could have a positive effect. The case for taxpayer funded ball parks for pampered professionals and wealthy owners has always been a misuse of tax dollars. Voters who will inevitably be asked to pay for new sports stadiums might have second thoughts about that concept.

So maybe voters will balk the next time some pro team owner comes to them with his hand out. The ballot box is where conservatives protest. Let the millionaire players pay for their own stadium.

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9:13 AM 9/24/2017

College Students want to pave the road to serfdom

We've grown so used to being shocked by young people's ignorance of the constitution that new revaluations are met with a resignation that we really are headed down a path most of us have spent our lives thinking could never happen.

Heather Mac Donald recently put in front of us the hideous response college administrators had to two professors' suggestion that young people should, “Get married before you have children and strive to stay married for their sake. Get the education you need for gainful employment, work hard, and avoid idleness. . . . Eschew substance abuse and crime.” (Her article was originally published in the Wall Street Journal, but for non-subscribers it can be seen at Sigforum.com. Click Higher Ed's Latest Taboo Is 'Bourgeois Norms'.) These days anything that refers positively to good character traits is racism. And the two professors caught hell from their respective colleges.

Well, here's another troubling sign as survey results came to light from a Brookings survey of college students about the First Amendment. See Views among college students regarding the First Amendment: Results from a new survey. Some highlights:

Over 60% either think hate speech isn't protected by the First Amendment or answered "Don't know."

51% believed it was acceptable to shout down a speaker with whom they disagreed.

19% believed it was acceptable to use violence to prevent the speaker from speaking.

62% believed the First Amendment legally required an organization who brought in a speaker with whom many people disagree to ensure that the opposing view is also presented.

53% believed colleges should prohibiting certain expression of viewpoints that are offensive or biased against certain groups of people.

Where does this come from? Is it from their teachers? Their parents? The mainstream media?

In any event, it appears as though many college students want to pave The Road to Serfdom, ignorant of where it ends. And it's only a matter of time before Democrats will begin pandering to them.

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12:23 PM 9/20/2017

Happy Constitution Day

With all the effort currently devoted to abolishing our Constitutional rights, it's high time we celebrated Constitution Dayon September 18, 2017. Actually, it should be observed on September 17, but no, it will be Monday, September 18. Whenever. It doesn't matter that much.

But it is important that we acknowledge where our freedoms come from and hope we can keep them alive. With that in mind, it might be useful to note the survey results in The scariest stat you'll see all day. Spoiler alert!

In a poll conducted for the Annenberg Public Policy Center ahead of this weekend’s celebration of the 229th anniversary of the ratification of the Constitution, only 26 percent of respondents could identify the executive, legislative and judicial branches, while 40 percent could name only one or two.

The threats we face right here at home are as challenging as those from abroad. Staying free in this environment will be a real test of faith in the Constitution and our founding fathers.

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2:19 PM 9/15/2017

Monument destroyers best not target Texas heroes

After watching videos of lefties toppling Civil War monuments one has to wonder why they haven't targeted Texas heroes. The Texas Revolution, when cast in a light least favorable to the winners, could be described as a war between whites and browns whereby the whites stole a large swath of land. By today's standards that could be made to sound like racism straight up. And here we are today with a president who ran partly on the promise of a border wall.

I joked with a friend in the early days of the Obama administration that it was a good thing Barack Obama didn't know much about history. Otherwise, he would be apologizing to Mexico for that business at San Jacinto and offering to give back Texas.

In any event, those people are probably right who suggest that if the left gets an inch in the Civil War monuments battle, they'll take a mile and go after America's founding fathers. If they come after Texas' founding fathers they'll likely hear, "Remember the Alamo," for the first time in their history-free lives.

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10:59 AM 8/17/2017

P.S. The "Come and Take It" flag was used in the Texas Revolution, too. We might see it again if lefties come for Sam Houston.

XCOR not looking so good -- the cargo cult lesson should have been a warning, not a blueprint

The Midland Development Board dumped a load of money into the rosy idea of Midland, Texas, having a space port from which Xcor could carry paying passengers on short trips into space. That dreamy outlook wasn't shared by many of the taxpayers whose money was used to fund the company's plan.

Now we are learning that the whole thing may be falling apart. See XCOR Aerospace lays off remaining employees.

"Build it and they will come," was a line from a movie. And rather than accepting it as a statement of fact, it probably should be categorized with the cargo cults whereby primitive tribes built rudimentary airports to draw in airliners.

Meanwhile, SpaceX is the company to watch with their ingenious plan to reuse rockets to increase the frequency of launches.

Previously at this blog:
Would you buy stock in XCOR?
With the sizzle XCOR provided, Midland could probably live without the steak
Midland Development Corporation should watch Shark Tank
Midland Space Port -- "build it and they will come" sounds so much better than "cargo cult".

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1:25 PM 7/11/2017

If bathroom bills trigger suicides that pretty much confirms that the transgender condition is more mental than physical

There was a time not too awfully long ago when a person who identified as the opposite sex was thought to have a psychological problem. Special interest groups put so much pressure on the psychology industry that they acquiesced to the idea that it was no longer a disorder. These days someone who disagrees is a bigot, a redneck, a hillbilly, or a plain old, politically incorrect, curmudgeon.

But how do we square that with this: Texas House Speaker Didn’t Want Suicide Over ‘Bathroom Bill’:

“I’m not a lawyer, but I am a Texan,” said Straus, according to the magazine. “I’m disgusted by all this. Tell the lieutenant governor I don’t want the suicide of a single Texan on my hands.”

Aides to Straus did not return emails Monday.

The comment appeared to echo concerns raised by LGBT rights groups that efforts to restrict which bathrooms transgender people can use further marginalize a group of people who at least one recent survey has shown attempt suicide at a higher-than-average rate.

Well, I'm not a shrink, but I am a Texan, to paraphrase Speaker Straus. And it seems to me that if suicide is so common among transgender people, that should serve as evidence that there is a serious psychological issue at play here.

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1:16 PM 7/4/2017

Jaw dropping numbers -- Fox paid out $45 million to settle sex claims

It doesn't seem too long ago that a man's crude language around women was generally considered rude, and listeners shamed the guy or simply shrugged it off. Or the woman intended as the target fought back with wit and verbal skills. Now it could be a company-bankrupting offense. The Fox network won't likely go bankrupt any time soon, but consider this:

Fox's bill for Roger Ailes settlements is now $45 million. Surely I'm not the only curmudgeon out there who is astonished that crude language has become so expensive.

One would think that any woman hired in the positions the aggrieved victims held at the Fox network would have above average wit and verbal skills. Too bad it didn't occur to them to use those skills against the alleged abusers.

Long ago women were called "the weaker sex." But decades of feminism beat back that proposition. Well, you've come a long way baby, full circle, in fact, to become the weaker sex again.

Furthermore, one has to suspect that in the minds of a lot of employers there's an unspoken bias against female job applicants, because the males will have to walk on egg shells around them. Any slip-up could ruin the company.

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1:32 PM 5/12/2017

ACLU advising people not to go to Texas -- not bad advice for card carrying members of ACLU

There was a time long ago when the ACLU might have been counted on to defend classical liberal values:

Classical liberalism" is the term used to designate the ideology advocating private property, an unhampered market economy, the rule of law, constitutional guarantees of freedom of religion and of the press, and international peace based on free trade.

Those days are gone. Lately the ACLU has gone all-in for the lefty agenda. And now their boogeyman is the Texas law prohibiting city governments from passing ordinances that would prohibit police from inquiring about immigration status of suspects, i.e., the infamous sanctuary city law recently signed by Governor Gregg Abbott.

But ACLU's advice to people to stay away from Texas may not be such a bad thing. There has been an influx of folks moving to Texas from failing Democrat held states. And the fear is that they don't understand what made the states of their former occupancy so bad. And they might bring their politics with them -- a desire for a big state government with high taxes, heavy regulations, and oodles of freebies.

So anyone in the ACLU's audience who thinks that way should probably heed the advice and not mess with Texas.

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10:39 AM 5/10/2017