Free Republic

I’ve always found it tough to get too mad at T. Boone Pickens. Sure, just a few years ago he warned the world that we are at or close to Peak Oil — while simultaneously making billions of dollars betting on oil futures. Which led some to make specific comments during Congressional testimony, to the effect that his public doomsaying was a posture designed to drive the market for oil — and therefore his personal profits — higher. [snip] Boone wants America on wind-generated electricity — to solve "our oil problems." [snip] Because wind farms are an unreliable source for...

The Southern city welcomes the middle class; heavily regulated and expensive Gotham drives it away.___ New Yorkers are rightly proud of their city's renaissance over the last two decades, but when it comes to growth, Gotham pales beside Houston. Between 2000 and 2007, the New York region grew by just 2.7%, while greater Houston — the country's sixth-largest metropolitan area — grew by 19.4%, expanding to 5.6 million people from 4.7 million. To East Coast urbanites, Houston's appeal must be mysterious: The city isn't all that economically productive — earnings per employee in Manhattan are almost double those in Houston...

Despite pleas from the White House and the State Department, as well as an international court order to review their cases, Texas will execute five Mexicans on death row, a spokeswoman for the governor said Thursday. The first of the executions — that of José Ernesto Medellín, 33, convicted in the 1993 rape and murder of two teenage girls here — is scheduled for Aug. 5. The decision by Gov. Rick Perry to allow the executions is the latest twist in a long-running battle between Mexico, which has no death penalty, and the United States over the fate of 51...

Two days after telling an online town hall meeting that NASA had "failed us miserably" and "wastes a vast amount of money," Houston Rep. John Culberson said Thursday he was weighing legislation to overhaul the structure of the space agency responsible for about 20,000 Houston-area jobs. (snip) "We need revolutionary change, a complete restructuring," Culberson told the Houston Chronicle. "NASA needs complete freedom to hire and fire based on performance, it needs to be driven by the scientists and the engineers, and it needs to be free of politics as much as possible." The fourth-term lawmaker said he was "kicking...

If your child came across a gun, what do you think they would do with it? Tell an adult? Pick it up? Pull the trigger? We wanted to try something. With a Northside ISD police officer's help, we put a group of children in a room with a real, unloaded gun to see what they would do when they thought no one was watching... ...During our experiment, several of the children picked up the gun and played with it. At least one boy walked up to another child and pointed it at the child's face. In the second group, comprised...

Houston, TX (AHN) - Enrollment in online classes at the University of Houston is enabling students to cope with high gas prices. According to Marshall Schott, assistant vice president for instructional support and outreach at the University of Houston, enrollment in online classes went up 40 percent during the summer. Hybrid classes, in which some class time is done on the Internet, increased by 50 percent. Online classes have been available in Texas for about two decades. The University of Phoenix, one of the early supporters of online education, indicated enrollment at its four Houston campuses are halved between online...

REYNOSA -- Two Rio Grande Valley residents remained in a Reynosa jail Wednesday, accused of kidnapping a local businessman, Mexican authorities said. Police arrested the two Valley residents along with a Reynosa resident Tuesday after the trio retrieved a $50,000 ransom for the man, whom police suspect they kidnapped July 9 in Reynosa. The ransom was left at a mall on the city's south side. Authorities declined to identify the victim but said he was a Reynosa resident. Once in police custody, the three suspects led investigators to the hostage, who appeared badly beaten and malnourished, said Ernesto Eduardo Saenz...

Pasadena officers talked to girlfriend after shootings A woman who knew one of the burglars gunned down by Pasadena homeowner Joe Horn told police she had warned her friend that his habit of breaking into homes would cost him his life, according to recently released police records. As part of a 31-page police report, Diamond Morgan, 24, of Houston, told Pasadena police investigators that she knew Diego Ortiz was a criminal. "Morgan stated that she told Ortiz three days ago that he was going to end up dead for the things that he was doing," police detective M.E. Bruegger wrote...

Father of victim says U.N. body's order 'don't mean diddly' Texas is refusing to bow to yesterday's World Court order to stay the Aug. 5 lethal injection of convicted rapist-killer and illegal alien Jose Medellin. (snip) Texas Gov. Rick Perry's office rejected Mexico's complaint. "The world court has no standing in Texas, and Texas is not bound by a ruling or edict from a foreign court," Perry spokesman Robert Black said. "It is easy to get caught up in discussions of international law and justice and treaties. It's very important to remember that these individuals are on death row for...

Two former officials with the Houston Police Officers' Union -- one a police officer, the other a recently retired officer -- were indicted this morning on charges accusing them of stealing more than $100,000 from the union. A Harris County grand jury indicted ex-board secretary Ronny Martin on charges of misapplication of fiduciary property and theft by a public servant. Former board treasurer Jeff Larson is charged with misapplication of fiduciary property. All of the charges allege that $100,000 to $200,000 was taken. Both men were relieved of duty in mid-January in the midst of an investigation, police union officials...

NOAA-supported scientists from the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium and Louisiana State University are forecasting that the "dead zone" off the coast of Louisiana and Texas in the Gulf of Mexico this summer could be the largest on record. The researchers are predicting the area could measure a record 8,800 square miles, or roughly the size of New Jersey. In 2007, the dead zone was 7,903 square miles. The largest dead zone on record was in 2002, when it measured 8,481 square miles. The official measurement of this year's dead zone is slated to be released in late July. Researchers began...

Here is the piece I was telling you about. It is a little tough to read because the webmaster, for reasons I still do not understand even though he explained it, occasionally omits spacing between paragraphs. http://www.thebulletin.us/site/index.cfm?newsid=19857067&BRD=2737&PAG=461&dept_id=576361&rfi=8 I will also include the link in the first reply.

HOLLAND - The mayor of this small community 15 miles south of Temple said Tuesday the commission of which she is president is ready to take by the horns the Texas Department of Transportation and its controversial proposal, the Trans-Texas Corridor. Armed with an 80-page manual, “How to Fight the TTC,” and backed by two non-profits who say they protect private property rights, Holland mayor Mae Smith said rural Bell County is ready for a fight. “Bell County sits here like a stepchild and they’re cramming this corridor down our throats,” Ms. Smith said, regarding the commission’s relationship with TxDOT....

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Gov. Howard Dean, Markos Moulitsas of Daily Kos, and former White House security adviser Richard Clarke are among the keynote speakers at the Yearly Kos convention in Autin, Texas now called the Netroots Nation event. The event will include training in how to recruit volunteers, looking and sounding good on TV and getting media exposure. A convention of conservative bloggers called RightOnline will feature nationally known blogger Michelle Malkin and columnist Robert Novak as headline speakers will be across town Friday & Saturday.

There's apparently some grumbling from Hill Democrats about their lack of input into Obama's Democratic victory strategy -- such is par for the course at this quadrennial U.S. Open we call a presidential race. But the Obama campaign has found a smart way to keep the party's reigning elder statesman, Howard Dean, busy: they're sending him on a cross-country voter registration tour. He'll travel in style on a 45 foot long biodisel bus flagged in red, white and blue. The tour kicks off in Crawford, TX on Thursday, heads to Austin where Dean will say hi to peeps at the...

Excerpt - Acting on a claim by Mexico’s government that the U.S. government has not done enough to assure the treaty rights of Mexican nationals facing execution for murders in the U.S., the World Court on Wednesday ordered the U.S. — by a 7-5 vote — to stop five imminent executions in Texas. Leaving it up to the U.S. to choose the way to carry out the order, the international tribunal — formally, the International Court of Justice that sits in The Hague, Netherlands — told the U.S. only to “take all measures necessary to ensure” that Texas does not...

Mexican authorities arrested two Rio Grande Valley residents for their alleged involvement in a kidnapping ring that terrorized the border city of Reynosa. Tamaulipas State Police told Action 4 News that three suspects were arrested in a kidnapping case on Tuesday evening. Police recovered hundreds of thousands of dollars, jewelry and other valuables. The group was allegedly arrested following an investigation into the July 9 kidnapping of a Reynosa businessman. The suspects were identified as: Agustín Edmundo Torres Flores (San Juan, Texas) Cantalicia Cantú (McAllen, Texas) Francisca Dianey Martínez Hernández (Reynosa, Tamaulipas) Action 4 News reporter Victor Castillo will have...

When 59-year-old Round Rock grandmother Linda Smith couldn’t shake jet lag after a December trip to Europe, she figured she was going through menopause. It turned out she was pregnant. “It was a big shock,” Smith said Tuesday, a day after giving birth to a 5-pound, 11-ounce boy named Django. “My husband was jumping up and down for joy, and I was just dumbfounded.” Linda and Steve Smith’s first son died in a motorcycle accident in December 2005 at the age of 20. “Some people might think we’re trying to replace him but we’re not,” Linda Smith said. “We’re trying...

When Netroots Nation organizers were considering New Orleans as the host site of their convention devoted to the Internet as an instrument of the political left, Texas Netroots members made a convincing case that Texas is at the center of the blogging culture driving the political discussion for liberals. In an online vote conducted by Netroots Nation, a Web site for liberal bloggers to exchange ideas, the nation overwhelmingly chose Austin for this year's conference, said Vince Leibowitz, a blogger from Tyler. So on Thursday, more than 3,000 bloggers are expected to fill the Austin Convention Center for the four-day...

SANTA ROSA, Texas — During a recent afternoon storm, brothers Angel and Salvador Badillo sat under a tin roof with a couple of friends, sipping beers as the open drainage ditch in front of their clapboard house filled like a moat. Soon, neighbors' septic tanks could begin to overflow, creating a smelly and potentially disease-ridden mess. The homes in Grande Acres - a colonia, or slapped-together neighborhood, on low-lying land 12 miles north of the Rio Grande - were supposed to get sewer service years ago through a nearly $4 million grant from the Environmental Protection Agency. But the city...

Houston-based Rowan Companies, Inc. announced Wednesday morning that its wholly owned manufacturing subsidiary, LeTourneau Technologies, Inc., has entered into a $90 million contract to provide major components for nine new 1500 horsepower land drilling rigs. The contract is with Nomac Drilling, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Chesapeake Energy Corporation, and is valued at approximately $90 million. LeTourneau Technologies is based in Longview. Each of the rigs will feature AC drive technology and incorporate key LeTourneau Technologies drilling equipment, including the mud pumps and drawworks. Delivery of the components is expected to begin in the fourth quarter of 2008 and...

A school district near Austin, TX wants to name a new high school there Vandegrift High School after a fallen Marine who graduated in 1999. He was killed in Iraq serving his country, and the local school board voted to name a new high school after him. This is a great gesture of appreciation. But unfortunately some lunatic leftists are protesting this decision. Please contact the Leander ISD to let them know you support their decision, despite what a vocal, anti-American minority of fringe activists think. Call the school district at 512-434-5000. Fax a letter to them at 512-434-5398. Email...

Member of the Texas Sunset Commission today recommended 'radical' changes in the administration of the Texas Department of Transportation, including placing the troubled and controversial agency into a four year legislative 'receivership' and abolishing the Texas Transportation Commission, which runs TexDOT, and appointment of a Transportation Commissioner who would be answerable to the Legislature, 1200 WOAI news reports. But Sunset Commission member Rep. Ruth Jones McClendon (D-San Antonio) suggested going one step further. "What I am hearing form the public is that they are wanting to see an elected commissioner," she said to loud applause from the TexDOT opponents who...

Christian Methodist Episcopal Bishop Kenneth Wayne Carter has been suspended by the church until his criminal case is resolved. Carter, 51, was indicted by a Tarrant County grand jury last month on sexual assault charges involving a 46-year-old Dallas County man. The man was applying for a job as the bishop’s driver and says he was assaulted at Carter’s home in Arlington. Carter was released on $10,000 bail last week. The CME’s College of Bishops made the decision to suspend Carter with pay during a special meeting last week. Under the suspension, Carter is barred from performing sacramental duties. Although...

Melissa mayor mailing resolutions to fellow mayors to stop state from using gas tax funds for non-road projects BY DANNY GALLAGHER, McKinney Courier-Gazette Melissa Mayor David Dorman said he sits in his office everyday and watches as cars zoom down State Highway 121, a road that will soon start collecting tolls from drivers who use it to get to Dallas, McKinney, Frisco or the Dallas North Tollway and back again. Dorman said before that happens, he wants to know the roads his citizens and drivers are paying the state to use will be maintained and built with those funds. “I...

A downtown Laredo street bearing the name for more than a century of a Mexican hero was changed by the Laredo City Council on Monday to remove offensive connotations it may have against Arabs or Muslims.Since moving to Laredo nearly 30 years ago, Kamel M. Shrek has studied the meaning of "Matamoros," which means Moor killer or Moor slayer. The phrase was used as a battle cry by the Spaniards during the battle of Clavijo in 844 AD, according to Shrek's research, meant to encourage killing of Muslims. After becoming a nickname in Spain related to killing Catholic Spain's Arabic...

Toll road opponents today will ask the Sunset Advisory Committee of the Texas Legislature to abolish the Texas Department of Transportation, saying the agency has become too corrupt and too dysfunctional to fix, 1200 WOAI news reports. "We want to see elected leadership at the helm of Tex-DOT," says long time toll road opponent Terri Hall, the founder of the citizen action group Texans Uniting for Reform and Freedom. "We are done with this unelected beaurocracy that is just an arm of private road building companies and the lackeys of this governor." The idea of eliminating TexDOT and establishing a...

A Denton pizza restaurant employee surprised by a robbery Friday says she was even more surprised by whom the robbers were. As Stephanie Martinez was getting money out of a cash drawer Friday night, another clerk fought back against the gunman, knocking off the wig and sunglasses disguising him. "I dropped the money," Ms. Martinez said. "I said, 'Don't hit him again! That's my dad!' And he said, 'What's he doing here?' and I said, 'I don't know!' " Police say the suspect, Benjamin Ramirez, 41, ran out of the Pizza Patron in the 100 block of East University Drive...

EDINBURG - The Texas National Guard is set to end a two-year border security mission this week. And while the guardsmen's arrival in South Texas was met with concern from civil liberties groups, the soldiers have departed with relatively little fanfare. Most of the more than 500 guardsmen once stationed in the Rio Grande Valley have already been released from border duty even though their mission isn't set to expire until Tuesday, said Dan Doty, a local spokesman for the U.S. Border Patrol. "I still see one or two of them around occasionally," he said. "But most of them have...

Quick! What state symbolizes the old petroleum economy? Texas, of course. Now, what state leads the way towards a future of clean, renewable wind energy? Texas again! By early 2008, Texas had installed more than 5,300 megawatts of wind production -- more than twice second place state California -- and had another 2,000 megawatts under production. Why in the name of Sam Houston is the state of Spindletop messing with wind?

READING, WRITING, WEAPONS Texas students join a nationwide movement for the right to bear arms while at college BLANCO — Cameron Schober, a 22-year-old Texas State University student, aimed his semi-automatic pistol at the outline of a man's torso just as a gust of wind blew down the target. "Everybody hold up!" hollered instructor Mike Cox. As six other shooters lowered their weapons, Schober scrambled to brace the cardboard target at a makeshift range on a deserted Hill Country ranch. Schober and fellow student Bill Downs were among 13 people who recently completed Cox's shooting proficiency and eight-hour classroom course,...

An online petition for residents to carry handguns in plain sight in Texas had obtained more than 20,000 signatures last week. The petition will be submitted to Gov. Rick Perry and the Texas Legislature sometime in the future. According to the petition, Texas is one of only six states in the U.S. that ban the use of publicly displayed handguns – also known as "open-carry" handguns. Ten states – Arizona, Alaska, Idaho, Kentucky, Montana, New Mexico, South Dakota, Virginia, Vermont and Wyoming – allow residents to openly carry a handgun without a license, the petition stated, including those states as...

Census Bureau says New Orleans is the fastest-growing large city in the nation, recovering from being wiped out by Hurricane Katrina. NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- After being pummeled by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, New Orleans is showing signs of recovery - ranking as the fastest-growing large city in the nation, according to a government report released Thursday. The Census Bureau said New Orleans' population rose 13.8%, to 239,124, in the year ended July 1, 2007. That was a faster growth rate than any other city with a population of 100,000 or more.

EDINBURG -- Hundreds of people chanting "No border wall" marched to the Hidalgo County Courthouse on Saturday evening seeking to persuade local politicians to abandon their support for the planned barrier. Protesters specifically targeted Hidalgo County Judge J.D. Salinas and other county officials for linking the building of the wall to the repair of the county's deteriorating levee system. Salinas has consistently said he opposes the border wall. But when it began to seem the barrier's construction was inevitable, he and other officials started lobbying the federal government to combine the project with levee repairs to better leverage federal money...

Local toll road activist Terri Hall, the Spring Branch home schooling mom who's campaign against toll roads made her WOAI's San Antonian of the Year for 2007,. is taking her populist campaign nationwide. Hall is among the speakers for Saturday's 'Freedom March,' in Washington DC, organized by supporters of former Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul, and designed to keep alive his message of smaller government and vigilance against encroaching government power. "They wanted someone to speak about the Trans Texas Corridor, and what's happening here, and the eminent domain abuses, and how all these toll roads are tied to corporate...

Dr. Michael Ellis DeBakey, internationally acclaimed as the father of modern cardiovascular surgery — and considered by many to be the greatest surgeon ever — died Friday night at The Methodist Hospital in Houston. He was 99. Methodist officials said DeBakey died of natural causes. They gave no additional details. Medical statesman, chancellor emeritus of Baylor College of Medicine, and a surgeon at The Methodist Hospital since 1949, DeBakey trained thousands of surgeons over several generations, achieving legendary status decades before his death. During his career, he estimated he had performed more than 60,000 operations. His patients included the famous...

A coalition of military groups is planning a nationally televised town-hall-style meeting with the presidential candidates near Fort Hood, Tex., the largest active-duty military installation in the country. But so far, only Senator John McCain of Arizona, the presumptive Republican nominee, has agreed to attend. CBS has agreed to broadcast the meeting live from 9 to 11 p.m. Eastern time on Monday, Aug. 11. The candidates would face questions directly from an audience of 6,000 people, made up of veterans, service members and military families from the base. Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, the presumptive Democratic nominee, has not agreed...

FORT SAM HOUSTON, Texas, July 11, 2008 – Years of preparation by U.S. Army South, Brooke Army Medical Center, Northrop Grumman Corp. and family members finally came to fruition on the night of July 2 when three American civilian contractors set foot in San Antonio. Former hostage Marc Gonsalves hugs his daughter, Destiny, during July 7, 2008, at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio. U.S. Army photo  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. Marc Gonsalves, Thomas Howes and Keith Stansell, who were held captive for five and half years in a Colombian jungle, were escorted to Brooke Army...

Many angry landowners have contacted us about a plan that, contrary to good public policy, will negatively impact property rights of rural Texans from Roberts to Jack County. The brand-new Roberts County Fresh Water Supply District No. 1, acting as an alter ego of businessman T. Boone Pickens and Mesa Power Pampa, LLC, has launched a private venture that may force landowners in 11 counties to submit to the power of eminent domain so they can pump water from the shrinking Ogallala Aquifer and sell wind-generated electricity. This new governmental entity is composed of only five people, all employees or...

A Baytown businessman could hold the solution to the nation's energy crisis. The joke around the office at Sustainable Power Corp. these days is what Chairman John Rivera likes to call the, "Liars Club." Why? "Anyone you tell about this will call you a liar," he said. In an economy that has been held hostage by oil prices rapidly approaching the stratosphere, this Baytown-based alternate energy company has found a way to make substantial amounts of crude oil from farm waste. Now Rivera must convince potential investors that his trade secret - 21 years and $31 million dollars in the...

LAKE WORTH – The case against a teenager accused of delivering drug-tainted cookies to police crumbled Thursday after scientific tests revealed no traces of narcotics. Christian Phillips, 18, became a cookie monster and the butt of jokes around the globe following his arrest Tuesday after he left a basket of treats at Lake Worth police headquarters. Authorities said then that "field tests" they conducted on the cookies showed traces of marijuana and LSD. But lab tests performed by the Tarrant County medical examiner's office were negative for drugs, and Mr. Phillips – who had been charged with tampering with a...

DALLAS — What do "black hole," "angel food cake," and "devil's food cake" have in common? They're all racist terms, says a Dallas County, Texas, official. A county commissioners' meeting this week over traffic tickets turned into a tense discussion over race when one commissioner said the county's collections office was like a certain astronomical phenomenon. "It sounds like Central Collections has become a black hole," Commissioner Kenneth Mayfield, who is white, said during the Monday meeting. One black official demanded an apology, and Commissioner John Wiley Price, who also is black, said that type of language is unacceptable. At...

Kerrville Texas - A bitter divorce trial slated to begin in a Kerr County courtroom in late August between Joseph and Kimberly Burkett already is making national headlines. Public interest in the case grew when CBS’s chief foreign affairs correspondent, Lara Logan, announced she was pregnant. The father, she claims, is Joseph Burkett of Kerrville. Their relationship began while Logan was on assignment in Iraq, where Burkett was stationed as a federal contractor, according to news reports. The relationship reportedly began shortly after Logan broke off another relationship with a fellow journalist last November. Burkett and Logan apparently met years...

A local FBI agent who reportedly shot and killed a 3-pound Chihuahua named Sassy in front of his home near Lorena in February was indicted Wednesday on felony charges that could end his career. A McLennan County grand jury indicted 39-year-old Lovett Leslie Ledger Jr. for cruelty to animals, a state jail felony punishable by up to two years in a state jail and a $10,000 fine. Before the grand jury decided to indict Ledger, prosecutor Crawford Long granted his request to tell them his side of the story. Ledger was in the closed-door grand jury room for about 25...

Garland police say they planned no criminal charges against a 25-year-old man who fatally shot a suspected copper thief this morning. The shooting happened shortly before 1:20 a.m. at the Bargain Town Variety & Furniture store in the 5700 block of Broadway Boulevard. The business owner’s son, identified by police as Sunny Sheu, had been guarding the roof after the store had been recently hit by copper thieves. The son said he confronted a man who had climbed on the roof, police said. The son fired his gun, striking the man in the torso, police said. The man fled, climbing...

Yesterday morning, I marveled at the p.c. idiocy of Dallas County (TX) commissioner John Wiley Price, who protested when his colleague Kenneth Mayfield used the term “black hole” to refer to lost paperwork. The local Fox station in Dallas-Fort Worth has the video of the exchange. The ignorance and sanctimony of John Wiley Price are something to behold.

HUNTSVILLE, Texas (Reuters) - A man convicted of murdering his adoptive parents was put to death by lethal injection in Texas on Thursday, the second prisoner executed in the state since the U.S. Supreme Court lifted an unofficial death penalty moratorium in April. Carlton Turner's was the first of three executions scheduled for July in Texas -- the country's busiest death penalty state. Texas has 14 more executions slated for this year. Turner, 29, was convicted of fatally shooting his adoptive parents -- Carlton Sr., 43, and Tonya, 40 -- in their Irving, Texas, home in August 1998. Turner, 19...

Texas' Defending the American Dream summit will include topics for bloggers. Move over, Netroots Nation: The conservatives are coming. As an estimated 3,000 people, mostly liberal bloggers and online activists, convene in Austin next week, the Texas chapter of Americans for Prosperity, a grassroots organization that champions limited government and free markets, has added for the first time a new-media emphasis to its traditional Defending the American Dream state summit. "We're not trying to go toe-to-toe with Netroots," said Peggy Venable, Texas director of Americans for Prosperity, noting that the conservative meeting might be one-tenth the size of the Netroots...

Want pico de gallo on your fajita taco? You just might have to settle for chopped onion. Jalapeño and serrano chiles, as well as cilantro, have been implicated in the multistate outbreak of salmonella infections. They join the list that began with tomatoes — and all are ingredients in the enormously popular Tex-Mex relish, pico de gallo. San Antonio’s hundreds of Tex-Mex restaurateurs are faced with some important decisions this week. Blanca Aldaco, owner of two local Aldaco restaurants, said she’s not serving pico de gallo at this time. “We’re only using our cooked salsa,” she said. Tomatoes, connected with...

ARLINGTON — Police are looking for two men accused of kidnapping a woman from a south Arlington Wal-Mart on Tuesday and then robbing her at gunpoint. The 51-year-old victim was shopping at the Supercenter at 4801 S. Cooper St. about 3 p.m. when she was approached by two men, one of whom asked her for change, police said Wednesday. Surveillance images show the men leaving the store at the same time as the victim. In the parking lot, she approached their vehicle to answer a question, and the men forced her into a silver or gray four-door car, police said....