A Veteran Speaks on Gay Rights

Harris County Voting Info

2009 locations,dates & times for early voting in Harris County

	Location	Address	City	City
	Harris County Administration Building	1001 Preston, 1st Floor	Houston	77002
	Moody Park Recreation Center	3725 Fulton	Houston	77009
	Julia C. Hester House	2020 Solo St.	Houston	77020
	Ripley House	4410 Navigation Blvd.	Houston	77011
	H.C.C. Southeast College-Learning Hub	6815 Rustic	Houston	77087
	Palm Center-Justice of the Peace/Constable Entry	5300 Griggs Road	Houston	77021
	Fiesta Mart., Inc.	8130 Kirby Drive	Houston	77054
	Metropolitan Multi-Service Center	1475 W. Gray	Houston	77019
	Northeast Multi-Service Center	9720 Spaulding	Houston	77016
	Galena Park Branch Library	1500 Keene Street	Galena Park	77547
	I.B.E.W Hall #66	4345 Allen Genoa Road	Pasadena	77504
	Sunnyside Multi-Service Center	4605 Wilmington	Houston	77051
	The Power Center	12401 South Post Oak Road	Houston	77045
	Bayland Park Community Center	6400 Bissonnet (near Hillcroft)	Houston	77074
	Tracy Gee Community Center	3599 Westcenter Drive	Houston	77042
	Trini Mendenhall Sosa Community Center	1414 Wirt Road	Houston	77055
	Acres Homes Multi-Service Center	6719 W. Montgomery Road	Houston	77091
	Hardy Senior Center	11901 West Hardy Road	Houston	77076
	Octavia Fields Branch Library	1503 South Houston Ave.	Humble	77338
	Humble ISD Instructional Support Center	4810 Magnolia Cove	Kingwood	77345
	North Channel Branch Library	15741 Wallisville Road	Houston	77049
	Baytown Community Center	2407 Market Street	Baytown	77520
	East Harris County Activity Center	7340 Spencer Highway	Pasadena	77505
	Freeman Branch Library	16616 Diana Lane,	Houston	77062
	Henington-Alief Regional Library	7979 South Kirkwood	Houston	77072
	Lac Hong Square	6628 Wilcrest Drive	Houston	77072
	Courtyard by Marriott	12401 Katy Freeway	Houston	77079
	Franz Road Storefront (DPS)	19818 Franz Road	Katy	77449
	Bear Creek Park Community Center	3055 Bear Creek Drive	Houston	77084
	City of Jersey Village-City Hall	16327 Lakeview Drive	Jersey Village	77040
	Tomball Public Works Building	501 B James St.	Tomball	77375
	Barbara Bush Branch Library	6817 Cypresswood Drive	Spring	77379
	Ponderosa Fire Station No. 1	17061 Rolling Creek Drive	Houston	77090
	Cypress Top Park	26026 Hempstead Highway	Cypress	77429
	George Bush Park-Glen Cheek Education Building	16002 Westheimer Parkway	Houston	77082
	Lone Star College-Willowchase Campus	9449 Grant Road	Houston	77070
	Crosby ISD Administration Building	706 Runneburg Road	Crosby	77532

Early Vote Hours of Operations

Oct 19 - 23rd

8:00 a.m. - 4:30 p.m.

October 24th

7:00 a.m. - 7:00 p.m.

October 25th

1:00 p.m. - 6:00 p.m.

October 26th - October 30th

7:00 a.m. - 7:00 p.m.

Early Locations, PDF

- www.harrisvotes.org/docs/EV/earlyvotinglocations_schedule_ENG.pdf

- http://www.harrisvotes.org/docs/EV/earlyvotinglocations_schedule_SPAN.pdf

Election Day, Look-up: www.harrisvotes.com or (713) 755-6965

Constitutional Amendments - November 2009

Here is where to vote in Harris County. The map is by Greg Wythe.

When to Vote:

Early Voting Hours
» 10/19 - 10/23 : 8:00 a.m. - 4:30 p.m.
» 10/24 : 7:00 a.m. - 7:00 p.m.
» 10/25 : 1:00 p.m. - 6:00 p.m.
» 10/26 - 10/30 : 7:00 a.m. - 7:00 p.m.

Election Day is November 3rd : 7:00 a.m. - 7:00 p.m..

What to Vote For:

Proposition 1: Allowing cities and counties to issue bonds for improvements around military bases.

Proposition 2: Prohibiting property tax appraisals of homes from being based on the property's potential use as a business.

Proposition 3: Providing for uniform statewide enforcement of property tax appraisal standards.

Proposition 4: Establishing a permanent fund for the advancement of Texas public research universities.

Proposition 5: Allowing neighboring counties to share appraisal review boards.

Proposition 6: Allowing the Veterans' Land Board to reissue bonds that had been previously paid off.

Proposition 7: Removing the provision that prevents officeholders from serving in the Texas State Guard.

Proposition 8: Allowing state funds to be used for federal veterans hospitals.

Proposition 9: Placing provisions of the Texas Open Beaches Act in the Constitution.

Proposition 10: Extending the terms of Emergency Services District boards to four years.

Proposition 11: Placing restrictions on the use of eminent domain in the Constitution.

I think I am for all of these. Some beach property owners and developers are against 9 because they hate the open beach laws Texas has. Number 4 is particularly good, the University of Houston should qualify for state research money next year and it is money the state has but is simply not using. Tier One Research Universities are job creating machines. Number 11 has drawn some opposition because the actual amendment is worded poorly and contains loop holes even if it is better than what we have now.

Scott Hochberg has a lot more on these amendments.

League of Women Voters Guide to Amendments -PDF.

Milestones in the Quest for the Historical Jesus

This is a the new heretics view.

I consider myself to be one on the outskirts. More a mostly skeptical Universalist.

Saul who became Paul is very bad and Jesus seems a religious fanatic who thought he could bring on the End Times. James the Just, the brother of Jesus, seems the real leader and hero. When Jerusalem and most of Israel was destroyed only the Jewish communities outside survived and the Pauline Christianity community in Rome eventually became the most powerful and wrote the Bible, they also received the authority to destroy books that they did not support throughout the Empire. Jesus did not talk about atonement, that innovation came from Paul of Tarsus. It is to Paul that Christianity should trace its roots. The origins of Christianity as we know it came, not from Jesus, but from Paul.

The New Testament are letters that often chronicle the disputes between the Family of Jesus Church and Paul. The mysticism and miracles that are in the New Testament are superstitions that were copied down. A number of the Dead Sea Scrolls are from the first century and recount the struggles of the early church against "the liar" we now know as Paul.

Some of this is summarized here.

You Can't Please Everyone - WP edition

In Today's Viral World Who Keeps a Civil Tongue? the Washington Post asks in a front page story about someone who read at a school suddenly becoming hated by the right. Not for something she said but because at the school some children sang a song about Obama. Michelle Malkin was one of the first to lead the attacks.

Of course, the WP is scolded over this front-page column by the conservative so-called fact-checker Newsbusters.

They get facts wrong, of course. The repeal of "don't ask - don't tell" is something Obama has pledged many times before. In a nothing new speech he pledged it again and that speech was not a front page story. You rarely get front page stories when the President says nothing new - you might get angry editorials about him saying nothing new which is Andrew Sullivan's function for the Atlantic.

Another righty blog is outraged that the subject of the story is a government worker who has time to be a writer as well. Other than slams at the liberalness of it all that is about all that is there.

Pandagon.net has someone scolding the WP for only focusing on the nastiness of the right, not doing fact-checking on the inaccuracies.

Anytime the Washington Post puts an article scolding Michelle Malkin on the front page instead of one praising her I'll take it.

Climate Change - Is It Just Too Damn Late?

No

We must start now to not only decrease emissions but also to increase the rate of atmospheric carbon reduction.

Dying because of no healthcare in Texas

“If you don’t qualify for Medicaid or the county indigent program, you are in no-man’s land. If you can’t pay for your treatment, you are out of luck.”

Anyone who thinks that America has the best health care system in the world should visit the county clinics around Texas as people come there as a last resort. If they have gotten sick enough to can't keep a job they may get help - if the county clinic can find someone to take them.

Usually poor people would be on Medicaid. But Texas has the most misery Medicaid qualification in the country. To qualify in Texas a family of three can't make more than $188 - a month.

Texas Observer - Sick + Tired
How Texas' health-care system bleeds county coffers and sends some to early graves.

Shroud of Turin replicated

Jobsanger has the info on the Shroud of Turin being replicated using materials easily available several centuries ago. Scientists proved by radio-carbon dating it was made in the Middle Ages but conservative Catholic members on the teams disputed the findings. This touched off a long debate with supposedly scientific evidence against the radio-carbon results presented.

Wiki has a good article on the controversies.

Goppy lies over National Competition

"Why are you so viscerally opposed to personal choice (ability to buy policies across state lines, HSAs, etc.) and instead insist on a government solution ? - Someone in the Washington Post comments.

"Why are Democrats opposing the real way to reduce costs, allowing health insurance companies to cross state lines?" Republican strategist on MSNBC.

The last time conservatives went on a big campaign for personal choice and increased competition by crossing state lines it was over credit cards. Increased competition would lower rates they cried.

Immediately after it passed every credit card company went to the states with the least regulations. Competition diminished and rates skyrocketed past the usury levels most states had set.

They count on people not knowing history and buying into these supposedly free market myths.

Are we past the global warming tipping plateau?

There is a fair amount of new evidence on global climate change in the last 10 or so years. Unfortunately it doesn't fully support the deniers views.

The effects of global warming, a misnomer as it is really global climate change and some smaller areas will see temperature decreases, are clearly in evidence and accelerating faster than predicted. See rate of glacier loss, ice cap reductions and high altitude micro-climes changes.

Global warming as measured by temperatures, actually quite difficult to do in a standard way over long time periods, according to skeptics has leveled off even as CO2 continues an accelerating rise. Other temperature series which include ocean data reportedly show continued increases.

Increasing amounts of CO2 will have limited effects on blocking infrared radiation. Some experiments indicate it is already blocking most of the rays it can.

Putting these together it looks like temperatures may not continue to increase but that we have reached a plateau that is past the tipping point of extreme effects from climate change, warming permafrost and melting glaciers.

The smarter deniers have long since given up arguing against the evidence of warming that is everywhere but just deny it is man caused.

Future climate change regulations will have to not slow down the growth of emissions but reduce emissions steeply to lower the amount of CO2 already present.

Congratulations deniers, there was no tipping point, but we are past the tipping plateau.

A lot of this evidence comes from global warming denier websites and pamphlets, they just haven't put it together in pursuit of their own agendas of reduced government regulation and denying industrialization is responsible.

A lot of this new evidence was presented to me by a global warming skeptic. Most of the stuff presented in The Skeptics Handbook were distortions and special pleadings and smears of scientists and politicians who support the idea of global warming. Her evidence was often incomplete - an ice core that has both ends cut off where presumably only the part that supports her belief that warming temperatures cause rising CO2 was presented. I admit to not being an expert on ice cores and how they measure both temperature and CO2 concentration. A rebuttal to The Skeptic's Handbook explains why rising temperatures lead to rising CO2 and how the ice cores prove they are coupled. A shorter rebuttal of her four points is here.

Her case did not logically hold up and was worse science and more smears than what she accused the global warming warners of engaging in. That was a shame as she did have some evidence that indicates the standard climate change models may need to be revised. It is even possible that CO2 is having only a minor affect on temperature but that warming is something external that is occurring in the solar system.

The real scientists say that I am crediting her data too much, the claims she makes aren't supported. I am pointing out that even if she is right we have to brace for continued climate change.

Her new evidence and interpretation does point to that further temperature rises may be unlikely except for that brought about by the dangerous and accelerating changes in the world ecology caused by the already new temperatures.

Ironically, we had better hope that most of the warming is caused by man made CO2 and we can reverse it. If instead the warming is primarily caused by an unknown factor (solar radiation?) that will be much more difficult to change.

TPA Blog Posts For 9/28/09

As early voting for the November elections looms on the horizon, the Texas Progressive Alliance says good-bye to September and hello to another weekly blog roundup.

BREAKING NEWS: Natural Gas Development Brings "amazing and very high" Levels of Carcinogens and Neurotoxins to Barnett Shale area! Take a deep breath before you read this study because the findings will take your breath away! TXsharon at Bluedaze: DRILLING REFORM FOR TEXAS broke this story and the study evaluation by MacAuthur (Genius) Award winner, Wilma Subra.

This week Left of College Station, Teddy reports on why the anti-choice movement is not about abortion but about the oppression of women. Also, guest blogger Litia writes about asking non-tradition questions about Texas A&M traditions; Litia writes a weekly guest blog for College Station about a liberal teaching in Aggieland. Left of College Station also coves the week in headlines.

Neil at Texas Liberal writes that Socialist candidate for Mayor of Houston Amanda Ulman should run a serious campaign or not run at all. There once was a solid base of socialist voters in Texas and the U.S. Who says that cannot someday happen again?

McBlogger takes aim at people who think that adjusting to climate change is just something that will unfairly hurt the poor.

Off the Kuff contemplates the possible entry of Farouk Shami into the Governor's race.

The old Easter Lemming has a useful post on voting for the Constitutional Amendments in his area.

The Texas Cloverleaf looks at the 22 year high TX unemployment rate. What recession? We're in one?

Agriculture commissioner Todd Staples opened his mouth and out fell a big wad of stupid. Stupid so ignorant that it topped anything Rick Perry or John Cornyn or even Glenn Beck could manage this week. PDiddie at Brains and Eggs has it -- if you can stand it.

WhosPlayin followed up on an open records request for internal emails related to Lewisville ISD's decision to ban President Obama's speech to children. The emails, including a racially charged email from a board member to the superintendant, do not paint a pretty picture..

WCNews at Eye On Williamson posts on money, energy, and the economy in the Texas governor's race, Perry's cap and trade photo op.

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme notes Rick Perry does his best George Bush cowboy imitation with Ranger Recon.

Over at TexasKaos, boadicea, Warrior Queen, is seeking a pulse, any pulse over at the Tom Schieffer campaign, as she opines that Tom Schieffer Needs Something Original to Offer. It seems that lifting policy ideas from Hank Gilbert is the best he can do right now. Read the rest at TexasKaos.

New York Times announces Secret Editor to Monitor WingNut News

Concerned they miss terribly important stories like young conservative activists dressing up like pimp and ho and getting spoofed by poor ACORN employees they appoint someone to tell reporters you better cover these new nutty stories.

Where have I seen that before?

Oh yeah, as satire in 2006.

The moral roots of politics

The moral differences between liberals and conservatives



How this applies to the health care reform debate.

...when Palin threw out the term "death panels," the term struck a chord that had been played many times in recent years. Liberals were flabbergasted, because it's a blatant lie, but it's false only in a logical sense, not an emotional one. And once again, logic has little to do with morality. If a pro-life social conservative asks himself whether Obama is secretly plotting to create death panels, he is not asking whether this is likely to be true, he is asking only "can I believe it," and the answer is usually yes.

Republican Gomorrah - Escape from Freedom to a Glorious Leader

The new Republican party is American authoritarian fundamentalism, the weak and fearful seeking a God and Party of strength.

Republican Gomorrah: Inside the Movement that Shattered the Party - a five year odyssey into the new Republican party. Buy at Amazon.com Excerpt:

In the chaotic 2008 Republican presidential primary, the Republican base split its vote between Mitt Romney, the economic conservative, and Mike Huckabee, the social conservative, creating space for John McCain, distrusted by all factions, to emerge. McCain wished to have as his running mate an independent-minded politician who could garner votes outside the Republicans’ increasingly narrow sphere of influence. His intention was to name Senator Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut, who had been the Democratic candidate for vice president in 2000. But the movement rejected his appeal to pragmatism, threatened a full-scale revolt, and demanded to vet his running mate as a condition for support. From the Last Frontier of Alaska, a self-proclaimed “hardcore pro-lifer” and “prayer warrior,” Governor Sarah Palin, was summoned to deliver to McCain the political elements he had once labeled “agents of intolerance.”

Through Palin, archetype of the right-wing woman, the movement’s influence over the party reached its zenith. As a direct result, however, the party sank to its nadir, suffering crushing defeats in the presidential and congressional races. Palin’s candidacy mobilized the Christian right elements that McCain alienated, but she repelled independents and moderate Republicans in droves, winnowing away the party’s constituency in every region of the country except the Deep South. Palin fatally tarnished McCain’s image while laying the groundwork for her potential resurrection—and that of the movement—in the presidential contest of 2012.

The Christian right reached the mountaintop with the presidency of George W. Bush, shrouding science and reason in the shadow of the cross and the flag. But even at the height of Bush’s glory, in his 2004 campaign, a few isolated moderate Republicans warned that the Republican Party was in danger of collapse. Of course their jeremiads were ignored. That year, Christie Todd Whitman published a book titled It’s My Party Too, decrying the takeover by what she called the “social fundamentalists.” A member of a distinguished and wealthy eastern Republican family, with deep ties to the party, she had been governor of New Jersey and head of the Environmental Protection Agency under Bush, only to quit when fundamentalist ideologues substituted right-wing doctrine for science in its studies. After the 2008 Republican debacle, Whitman pointed out that even though McCain was not considered a champion of the religious right, his percentage of so-called “values voters” increased by 3 percent over Bush’s in 2004. McCain, the last Republican moderate on the national stage, had lost among “moderate voters” by 21 points to Obama.

As soon as Obama took office, the movement camped in the wilderness prepared to take political advantage of the worst economic troubles since the Great Depression by injecting a renewed sense of anti-government resentment. As most people agonized and even panicked over the sudden economic collapse, the Christian right’s peddlers of crisis lifted their hands to the heavens. They had a whole new world of trauma to exploit, more desperate and embittered followers to manipulate, and maybe—just maybe—another chance at power.

Republican Gomorrah is an intimate portrayal of a political, social, and religious movement defined by an “escape from freedom.” As Erich Fromm explained, those who join the ranks of an authoritarian cause to resolve inner turmoil and self-doubt are always its most fervent, rigidly ideological, and loyal members. They are often its most politically influential members as well. President Eisenhower described the “mental stress and burden” that animates such movements. His admonition to beware the danger posed to democracy by those who seek “freedom from the necessity of informing themselves and making up their own minds concerning these tremendous complex and difficult questions” should be as memorable in history as his caution about the “military-industrial complex” in his farewell address.

Wow, just wow....

The right leaning Washington Post's editor presses his reporters that they are not conservative enough and pulls them from reporting on real billion dollar scandals to chase stories of kids dressing up like a ho and a pimp and being spoofed by ACORN employees.

Balloon Juice has more. I may have mentioned before some of my favorite bloggers are former Republicans.

Spoofing the Spoofer's and the So-Called-Liberal Washington Post

A great majority of the attempts at ACORN offices were turned away.

Many of the ACORN staffer remarks to the bad whitebread young actor activists trying to portray a pimp and prostitute were spoofs. Watch the videos - what urban dweller would think those conservative activists were real?

The videos are heavily edited and the originals are not shown.

The so-called-liberal-media refuses to look at the true story which is how Fox News does no real journalism investigating the videos instead being a branch of the Republican party PR machine.

Only limited coverage has been given to the ACORN staffer who told the bad actors she was a a prostitute, drug user and murderer - all untrue which a simple call to the police revealed which would be the first step of real journalism. Spoofing the spoofers, what a concept.

This seems a typical hard right conservative hit piece. This is not an unbiased ombudsman column.

This comment above supposedly violated the Washington Post's comment policy. OK, it appears the original of this column used a more common word for prostitute which the so-called liberal newspaper does not tolerate.