Texas State Senator Mario Gallegos, Jr., Don’t Let This Bill Die

by

Did you contact your Representative yesterday?  Excellent!  Today, we are contacting our state Senator…

The Texas State Legislature has once again convened (for the 81st time), and there is another attempt to pass a minor, simple, and obvious bill that will set right the current inability of small brewers to sell their product from their breweries – a right that was restored to the craft vintners of the state in 2005.

Whenever this bill arises, it is usually killed in committee, thanks to big money distributors (Eagle among them).  See I Love Beer for more information on what you can do, and please contact your state senator!  The more light that shines on an issue, the harder it is for a legislative committee to keep it from seeing the house floor.

Open Letter:

Representative Gallego,

Read more

Texas State Representative Jessica Farrar, Don’t Let This Bill Die

by

The Texas State Legislature has once again convened (for the 81st time), and there is another attempt to pass a minor, simple, and obvious bill that will set right the current inability of small brewers to sell their product from their breweries – a right restored to craft vintners of the state in 2005.

Whenever this bill arises, it is usually killed in committee, thanks to big money distributors (Eagle among them).  See I Love Beer for more information, and please contact your state representative!  The more light that shines on an issue, the harder it is for a legislative committee to keep it from seeing the house floor.

Open Letter:

Read more

Natural Gas Usage

by

Center Point Energy’s web site is stupid for not providing me the ability to schedule a payment. They send me the bill two weeks in advance and I can either “pay now” or try to remember to pay closer to the date, forget about it, pay late, get reported for late payments, get dinged on my credit score …

One thing they do have is this nifty histogram of my natural gas usage. I lost my water heater in June, and that was the only thing using gas. I didn’t much notice it at the time, but I was paying something for a small leak that bloomed into a massive leak one friday night in August.

My very leaky house peaks at heater usage in December and January obviously.

Gas Usage Histogram
Gas Usage Histogram

And if you’d like to see what that costs me, here in Houston, here’s that data…

Read more

Republicans Scared?

by

Can the Republican State Senators provide three examples of “election day vote fraud” in the past two elections? Why are they trying to fix something that isn’t broken? Why are they using the inauguration news cycle to hide their actions? (Similar to the current Israeli incursion.)

Just when it appeared that the Texas Legislature was putting partisan politics behind it with a consensus speaker in the House to replace the autocratic Tom Craddick, GOP state senators spoiled the session kickoff last week with a bare-knuckled power play.

Determined to clear the way for a controversial measure to require voters to present photo ID at polling places, Republican senators led by Tommy Williams of The Woodlands and Dan Patrick of Houston pushed through a rules change to suspend the normal two-thirds margin needed to bring legislation to the Senate floor.

Read more

Souvenir 1997: Socks

by

Everyone needs a souvenir at an inauguration. Which one will you choose? Something just struck me as humorous as I walked by this mostly full board of inauguration souvenir buttons in 1997.