Stuff like this was inevitable. Leaders of two Christian groups want City Council to stop extending benefits to domestic partners of city employees, now that the state attorney general has called the benefits unconstitutional. City officials reject the demand, at least for now. Pastor Gerald Ripley of Voices for Marriage and Philip Sevilla of Texas [...]
Posts under ‘The great state of Texas’
Watch out for snails
The invasive species keep coming, and there’s only so much we can do about it. Ominous red dots pepper the war room maps, and the story they tell is ugly. Foreign enemies are advancing on Texas by the millions – by wing, by foot and free ride. They are coming to chomp, sting, slime and [...]
“An accident waiting to happen”
I don’t even know what to say. There were no sprinklers. No firewalls. No water deluge systems. Safety inspections were rare at the fertilizer company in West, Texas, that exploded and killed at least 14 people this week. This is not unusual. Small fertilizer plants nationwide fall under the purview of several government agencies, each [...]
How you can help West, TX
Horrible. A massive explosion ripped through a fertilizer plant in the town of West, Texas, Wednesday night, sending scores of injured to area hospitals, sparking fires and triggering evacuations. WHAT’S NEW – “It was like a nuclear bomb went off,” West Mayor Tommy Muska said. – Some 10 to 15 buildings have been “totally demolished” [...]
It’s still OK to be gay at Texas A&M
It was touch and go for awhile there. Here’s the Dallas Voice from Friday: Texas A&M Student Body President John L. Claybrook has vetoed an anti-gay bill passed by the Student Senate on Wednesday that would have allowed students to opt out of funding the campus GLBT Resource Center with their activity fees if they have religious [...]
Our drought is severe again
Not good, y’all. The situation continues to worsen across the state, with now more than 87 percent of Texas in a moderate or worse drought. It’s not clear when relief might be coming. After the very cold start to this week southerly winds have now returned to the Houston metro area, which will bring more [...]
On managing health care costs
Fascinating story in the Statesman on one approach they are taking to manage health care costs in Travis County. A new world of health care is unfolding for some chronically ill Austin-area residents like [Marshall] Kettelhut, who was a cook at Long John Silver’s before he became too sick to work in 2010. Health care [...]
We’re exporting feral hogs
You’re welcome, neighboring states. Feral pigs have already taken over Texas and are expanding their numbers in other states, but federal and state land managers think they have a chance to tip the balance in New Mexico. They’re willing to bet $1 million in federal funds on a yearlong pilot project aimed at eradicating the [...]
Still fighting the Waller County landfill
I’ve written before about a battle in Waller County over a proposed landfill that would be built there. While the landfill has moved closer to being approved, it’s not yet a done deal, and its opponents are still fighting against it. “This landfill has done more to divide our county than anything I’ve ever seen. [...]
Adventures in water marketing
The headline on this story is about Texans’ increasing interest in recycling water. That sounds nice, doesn’t it? But there’s another way of describing it that maybe isn’t so appealing. Experts say recycled wastewater will play a key role in satisfying the thirst of a rapidly growing population. While reuse now provides 2 percent of [...]
The parks that weren’t there
Very sad. For 30 years, the state parks department has owned 1,700 acres of diverse wilderness about 45 minutes east of downtown Houston. It stretches from the highest hill on the Texas coastal plain down to a pristine, white sandy beach on the Trinity River. Yet the public never has had access to this indigenous [...]
LBJ Wildflower Center helping to restore pine trees to Texas
Very cool. The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center of The University of Texas at Austin has been selected by the Texas A&M Forest Service (TFS) to serve as the local grower of loblolly pines to restore wildfire-damaged Bastrop County. The 2011 Bastrop County Complex fire destroyed 1,691 homes while burning 33,000 acres that gave the [...]
White Stallion coal plant deep sixed
I mentioned this in passing the other day, but the news that White Stallion has been shelved deserves its own post. Developers have dropped plans for the White Stallion Energy Center about 90 miles southwest of Houston, signaling the end of a once heady rush to build several new coal-fired power plants across Texas. White [...]
Working the county Medicaid expansion angle
As statewide Medicaid expansion is being pushed in Austin, some activists are going to various County Commissioners Courts to push for the county option to expand Medicaid as well. “A broad spectrum of people across business, faith and health care communities are coming together to ask that we find a way to draw down these [...]
We’ve got mercury, yes we do
Once again, Texas overachieves at something bad. Even though mercury and other hazardous air pollution from U.S. power plants are declining, the progress at the coal-fired power plants are uneven, leaving in place a significant remaining risk to the health of the public and environment, according to a new report by the Environmental Integrity Project [...]
That drought we’re having? It’s still bad
So says our state climatologist in testimony before the Lege. John Nielsen-Gammon, the state climatologist, said that during the past two years Texas received only 68 percent of its typical rainfall, making it the third driest period on record. If the extreme conditions extend through the summer, only the 1950s drought would be drier, he [...]
Hog killin’ update
Because I know you like to know about this sort of thing. After a competition to kill feral hogs left more than 1,000 of the destructive animals dead in Hays and Caldwell counties, plans are emerging to further control the population. Both counties participated in the state’s Hog Out County Grants Program, a competition among [...]
Will we have enough power?
Maybe not. From the EDF. It’s understandable that no one seems to have noticed a strongly worded letter to the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) from the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) last Monday demanding more action to ensure electric reliability in Texas, and asking ERCOT to report back to NERC by April [...]
Pushing for equality in Waco
Glad to hear it. A group of Waco residents is seeking a city ordinance to bar public and private employers from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation. Advocates of the measure plan to propose it Thursday to the city’s Equal Employment Opportunity Advisory Committee and hope to get Waco City Council to consider it [...]
San Antonio strip club lawsuit
If you’re a lawyer representing strip clubs these days, you sure don’t lack for business. More than a dozen strip clubs have sued the city of San Antonio over amendments to ordinances requiring entertainers to wear bikinis, claiming the changes are another heavy-handed attempt to shut the cabarets down. The federal lawsuit resembles one at [...]
Who gets the water?
This will be worth watching. A simple idea has guided appropriations of Texas water for decades: First come, first served. Now, with drought conditions returning to almost the entire state, the principle is being put to the test by a fight over water in the Brazos River. The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality is withholding [...]
The Eagle Ford Shale UFO
Look! Up in the sky! It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s a UFO! Strange things are afoot in the South Texas oil patch and in the sky above. In a region that’s seen its tax rolls and traffic problems swell from the scores of new residents, could extraterrestrials be the next wave? Roughnecks working [...]
Expanding Medicaid is about more than money
It’s a matter of life and death If Texas doesn’t expand Medicaid, it will reject more than $100 billion in federal money the first decade, according to the state’s own figures. To get that sizeable federal reimbursement, the state would have to spend about $16 billion over 10 years. The governor’s refusal to take the [...]
We’re still looking at a drought here
I know we just got a lot of rain this week, but that doesn’t mean that drought conditions are over. The latest seasonal drought outlook from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) shows that for much of Texas and the rest of the Southwest, the drought is likely to “persist or intensify” over the [...]
Curbside composting
Way to go, Austin. City officials are asking Austinites in 7,900 households in five parts of the city to separate their banana peels, egg shells, meat, chicken bones, milk cartons, leaves and any other organic material from their household trash and put the material into a new rolling garbage cart. The one-year trial run will [...]
Tar Sands Protesters Are Texas Progressive Alliance 2012 Texans Of The Year
The Texas Progressive Alliance, a consortium of Lone Star-based liberal weblogs, has selected the protesters of the Tar Sands Blockade as Texans of the Year for 2012. The award has been given annually to the person, or persons or organization, who had the most significance influence — for good or ill — on the advancement of progressive [...]
Get well soon, Elf Louise
If you’ve ever lived in San Antonio, you are undoubtedly familiar with the Elf Louise Christmas Project. I’m sad to say that “Elf” Louise Locker has suffered a heart attack, but thankfully appears to be recovering nicely. The woman behind one of San Antonio’s most prolific Christmas-based charities, Louise Locker, had a heart attack Sunday [...]
Happy birthday, Lady Bird
Lady Bird Johnson would be celebrating her 100th birthday today if she were still with us. Catherine Robb’s eyes blurred with tears and she paused, overcome by the emotion of trying to find the right words to express how much she misses “Nini” – the affectionate name she called her grandmother, Lady Bird Johnson. After [...]
The Municipal Equality Index
From the inbox: A new report on lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) equality in America’s cities by the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest LGBT civil rights organization, in partnership with the Equality Federation Institute and the Gay and Lesbian Victory Institute, rated 137 cities across the nation, including seven Texas cities. TheMunicipal Equality Index (MEI), the first ever nationwide [...]
Save those seeds
What would have been worse than the drought and the wildfires in Central Texas that wiped out millions of trees? Not having the wherewithal to properly reforest afterward. Thankfully, that didn’t happen, but it was a closer call than you’d have thought. The Texas A&M Forest Service was making plans to dump more than a [...]
How long before marriage equality comes to Texas?
As is so often the case, the state of Texas will lag behind the rest of the country on the issue. If DOMA is struck down, questions will be raised about states that don’t recognize same-sex marriages and if it matters where a couple lives to receive federal benefits, [Ken Upton, a senior staff attorney [...]
Have I mentioned the that drought is back?
I hate to say it, but it is. A dry winter that’s on track to making the record books has sent portions of Texas, including Houston and Fort Worth, back into severe drought, raising concerns about wildfires and the health of wheat crops and tree farms. September and November could be the driest of those [...]
DRT vs OAG: OAG wins
Perhaps it’s more accurate to say that the Daughters of the Republic of Texas have conceded in the fight over how the Alamo has been maintained. In a news release Tuesday, the Daughters acknowledged recent troubles at the shrine and vowed to use a critical report issued Nov. 20 by the Texas attorney general’s office [...]