What's right with Texas?

[Surfah]

Wow. What a great article. Highly recommended.

I googled the address. All of this (both murders) occurred when we lived in Austin and were less than one mile from our apartment. Yowza.

Wow indeed. Thanks for posting that DH. That was a fantastic article. It took me forever to read though. I didn't know it was a novella. I got so engrossed in it that before I knew it an hour had passed.

I hope Ken Anderson and his team get theirs. Too bad Buddy the Sheriff isn't around to get his. Unbelievable story.

[Uncle Ted]

The Texas has its own power grid...

[ATTACH=CONFIG]2073[/ATTACH]

[...]
The separation of the Texas grid from the rest of the country has its origins in the evolution of electric utilities early last century. In the decades after Thomas Edison turned on the country's first power plant in Manhattan in 1882, small generating plants sprouted across Texas, bringing electric light to cities. Later, particularly during the first world war, utilities began to link themselves together. These ties, and the accompanying transmission network, grew further during the second world war, when several Texas utilities joined together to form the Texas Interconnected System, which allowed them to link to the big dams along Texas rivers and also send extra electricity to support the ramped-up factories aiding the war effort.

The Texas Interconnected System — which for a long time was actually operated by two discrete entities, one for northern Texas and one for southern Texas — had another priority: staying out of the reach of federal regulators. In 1935, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Federal Power Act, which charged the Federal Power Commission with overseeing interstate electricity sales. By not crossing state lines, Texas utilities avoided being subjected to federal rules. "Freedom from federal regulation was a cherished goal — more so because Texas had no regulation until the 1970s," writes Richard D. Cudahy in a 1995 article, "The Second Battle of the Alamo: The Midnight Connection." (Self-reliance was also made easier in Texas, especially in the early days, because the state has substantial coal, natural gas and oil resources of its own to fuel power plants.)


[...]

Bottom line: Texas has its own grid to avoid dealing with the feds.

http://www.texastribune.org/texas-en...wn-power-grid/

[Moliere]

The Texas has its own power grid...



http://www.texastribune.org/texas-en...wn-power-grid/

We can also choose our retail electric provider among 80 or so choices. There are some good deals to be had if you don't mind going with a small shop power provider. I switched a couple months ago to one that I had never heard of and my bill is about 10% cheaper than before when I was with TXU.

[Uncle Ted]

Texas maintains sovereignty over its state-water boundary...

Texas has demonstrated its sovereignty over state waters insofar as red snapper is concerned since 1997. The state has stood firm despite increasing pressure from the National Marine Fisheries Service and the Gulf of Mexico Fisheries Management Council to fall in line with tighter federal regulations on the overfished species.


Last year federal snapper season was reduced to 46 days, with a two-fish daily limit and a 16-inch minimum length. Within nine nautical miles of Texas shores the season runs year round with a four-fish daily limit and a 15-inch minimum length.


The proposed season length in federal waters this year is 27 days with no change in the bag and size limits. But several weeks ago the fisheries management council voted in favor of an emergency to allow for shorter seasons in federal waters offshore of states that do not comply with federal snapper rules. That’s what prompted Tuesday’s TPWD Commission meeting.


The federal emergency rule followed a move by Louisiana to open its state waters to snapper fishing for 88 days mostly on weekends, March through September, with a three-fish bag limit. This also came with a push to extend Louisiana state waters to match Texas’ 10.3 miles offshore, though the state Legislature recognizes it has no authority to do this. Currently Louisiana state waters extend out three miles.


The origin of Texas’ generous state-water boundary goes back to 1836 when Sam Houston negotiated the point as a condition of statehood.


While the federal government must acknowledge Texas’s state water sovereignty, Crabtree said his agency would not recognize Louisiana’s unofficial state water reach.

http://www.caller.com/news/2013/feb/28/texas-parks-and-wildlife-stands-firm-in-defiance/

[myboynoah]

The Texas has its own power grid...

Texas maintains sovereignty over its state-water boundary...

It's like it's its own country down there waiting for Tennessee to again come bail it out.

Go Vols!

[Guest]

You guys seen this? I looked through the many pages of this thread to see if someone had already posted it but I didn't see one.

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=S92fTz_-kQE#

[Uncle Ted]

You guys seen this? I looked through the many pages of this thread to see if someone had already posted it but I didn't see one.

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=S92fTz_-kQE#

We may not be able to secede from the union (thanks to the civil war and a bunch of yankee judges) but we are well prepared to step off this ship at the first signs of it sinking. Hopefully that ship doesn't sink.

[Clark Addison]

What's right with Texas is that I am here right now! All Texas folks feel free to drop by and say hello over the next couple of days.

You know Texas loves me, since this is the view from the hotel room they gave me:

hotel2.jpg

[Jeff Lebowski]

What's right with Texas is that I am here right now! All Texas folks feel free to drop by and say hello over the next couple of days.

You know Texas loves me, since this is the view from the hotel room they gave me:

We expect a full report on your BBQ experience. Preferably with pics.

[Uncle Ted]

What's right with Texas is that I am here right now! All Texas folks feel free to drop by and say hello over the next couple of days.

You know Texas loves me, since this is the view from the hotel room they gave me:

Howdy!

That stuff in front of the window cuts down on the sunlight... which is a good thing.

[Moliere]

What's right with Texas is that I am here right now! All Texas folks feel free to drop by and say hello over the next couple of days.

You know Texas loves me, since this is the view from the hotel room they gave me:

[ATTACH]2100[/ATTACH]

What city are you in?

[Uncle Ted]

Apple Macs... soon to be labeled "Made in Texas":

Last week, we learned that Apple was looking to devote about $100 million to bring the manufacturing of one of its Mac product lines back to the United States. At yesterday's Senate hearings on the company's untaxed overseas pile of cash, Apple CEO Tim Cook confirmed that the new Mac would be manufactured in Texas. The computer will also "include components made in Illinois and Florida and rely on equipment produced in Kentucky and Michigan.”


Moving away from solid facts and into informed speculation, AllThingsD notes that longtime Apple manufacturing partner Foxconn has facilities in Texas that may be used to build the new Mac. Apple is also building a campus in Austin, Texas, indicating that the company may continue to expand in the state. The new Mac is likely to be an updated version of one of Apple's existing product lines—a new MacBook Air refresh looks possible for the company's Worldwide Developer Conference next month—but we don't know which just yet.


If Apple were to move production of any of its product lines back into the country's borders, it makes sense to start with Macs—they still sell well, but compared to the iPhone and iPad they make up a relatively small portion of Apple's sales, and Apple has less to lose if there are hiccups. The company has been testing the waters with domestic production since at least the launch of the 2012 iMac. Some of these computers (including our 21.5-inch review unit but not our 27-inch review unit) are (or were) already being made domestically, most likely nearer to Apple's California headquarters.

http://arstechnica.com/apple/2013/05...macs-in-texas/

Edit: I can't wait to get my "Texas edition" Mac to match my Texas edition Toyota truck. I wonder if Apple will put a Texas star on it too.

[Uncle Ted]

Texas outperformed every other state in the nation on jobs and growth over the past decade, according to the latest annual report on state economic performance released Thursday by the American Legislative Exchange Council. Michigan came in dead last.

The rankings are based on state GDP growth, population shifts, and changes in non-farm payroll jobs between 2001 and 2011.

http://news.investors.com/052313-657...onomy-jobs.htm

[Color Me Badd Fan]

http://news.investors.com/052313-657...onomy-jobs.htm

Some of that is due to energy production -- especially in the case of Wyoming and North Dakota. But doesn't Colorado also have a crapload of shale? Or does it suffer from the same problem that Utah has -- namely, the federal gov't owns an overwhelming majority of the land where the shale is or at least maintains the mineral rights on privately held land.

Nevada is a unique state in that the state gov't has traditionally been very aggressive about courting business (i.e. no state income taxes, generous bankruptcy exemptions, building restrictions are minimal compared to, say, California -- all in all following the Texas model), but the rapid population growth is gradually turning the state government into something more dysfunctional like you'd find in California. So the massive growth that occurred between 2001 and 2007 (Nevada probably was number one on a list like this that ran between 1997 and 2007) was due to policies that may eventually be eroded away.

Then again, Washington, the one blue state in the top 10, doesn't have a state income tax and it's now been blue at the local level for awhile.

[il Padrino Ute]

It never hurts to repeat that Sen. Cruz is what's right with Texas: