The Texas 18th District Blog

Harry Reid

Changes We Can Believe In – American Voters Hit List #3 – Harry Reid D-Nevada

Voters will be voting many members out of Congress that have failed us this year. I sincerely hope that these are among top priorities for American voters across the nation this election year.

Harry Reid
Senate Majority Leader

The Majority leader customarily serves as the chief representative and “face” of his or her party in Senate, and sometimes even in all of Congress if the House of Representatives and thus the office of Speaker of the House is controlled by the opposition party.

As much energy as Las Vegas uses, you wouldn’t think Nevada voters would elect a brainwashed eco-nut to such an influential position as a top legislator in the Senate.

Maybe he doesn’t know that certain “fossil fuels” like natural gas burn very clean in combustion engines. Maybe he is like Nancy Pelosi and doesn’t know that natural gas is a fossil fuel. Maybe he hasn’t heard of clean coal technology. Maybe he doesn’t realize that it takes a while to turn a big ship and we are going to be dependent on various fossil fuels for at least another decade in a transitional period as we advance cleaner and renewable energy sources.

One of his worst blunders was to prematurely wave a white flag of defeat in IRAQ:

Americans just can’t tolerate this kind of irresponsible Legislative leadership grinding down realistic economically viable energy plan progress and waving the white flag of surrender, interfering in International affairs.

Why do Americans keep electing energy ignorant representatives in legislative leadership roles during the middle of an energy crisis? You would think that his limited views of what it will take in the energy conversion interim would also be indicative of his lack of financial knowledge and budgetary foresight.

I am sure I can speak for the majority of Texans and many across the Nation when I ask Nevada Voters to fire Harry Reid and elect someone who will represent the rest of the Nation responsibly.

Harry Reid has a demonstrated deficit of knowledge and prowess in dealing with American energy solutions, the economy and International Affairs. Why would anyone reelect him to office?

He oozes “grey caulk” every time he speaks… The best think he could do for America is never speak in public again!

Harry Reid took $77,000 from Freddie Mac & Fannie Mae. 

Engineer2

American Voters know which politicians failed us in the Mortgage Meltdown!

The title above is my personal opinion. 

I have read numerous times over the last 10 years in James Taranto’s Wall St Journal column about scientists disagreeing with the media on Global Warming.  Most recently about fishermen having difficulty getting to North Sea fishing areas where they normally fish in summers. The idea of Global Warming is to implement more government control over our lives by taking away our cars and making us use public transportation; by making us live in smaller houses so we can pay more taxes, and on and on. 

 MIT scientists baffled by global warming theory, contradicts scientific data

Boston (MA) - Scientists at MIT have recorded a nearly simultaneous world-wide increase in methane levels. This is the first increase in ten years, and what baffles science is that this data contradicts theories stating man is the primary source of increase for this greenhouse gas. It takes about one full year for gases generated in the highly industrial northern hemisphere to cycle through and reach the southern hemisphere. However, since all worldwide levels rose simultaneously throughout the same year, it is now believed this may be part of a natural cycle in mother nature - and not the direct result of man’s contributions.

Record snow storm triggers delays

Snow flurries throughout the night and early morning caused numerous delays for travellers using Switzerland’s rail system on Thursday.

Snow blankets London for Global Warming debate 

Recently the American media has begun to notice the odd incongruity of saturation media coverage here which insists that global warming is both man-made and urgent, and a British public which increasingly doubts either to be true. 60 per cent of the British population now doubt the influence of humans on climate change, and more people than not think Global Warming won’t be as bad “as people say”.

RECORD COLD FOR OCALA

Record cold swept over the region Wednesday

It was a record for Oct. 29 and the second lowest temperature ever recorded in October since 1850. Ocala’s official weather site is at the city water treatment plant on Southeast 24th Street.Until Wednesday, Oct. 29’s record temperature was 37 in 1943 and a close second was 38 degrees in 1957.

I heard Obama this morning condemn Bush and McCain for not doing enough to fight global warming.  From the above articles it seems they are overdoing it.  Bush and McCain need to reduce their efforts or we are going to be too cool.

More Information 

Scientists who remain calm are intimidated, and those extreme skeptics who doubt the global warming orthodoxy are abominated. A distinguished American think tank that sought an open debate on climate change, the American Enterprise Institute, was slandered in the media as a tool of Big Oil. A leading British climate scientist, Mike Hulme of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, has adumbrated the extent of this anti-intellectual campaign, saying “I have found myself increasingly chastised by climate change campaigners when my public statements and lectures on climate change have not satisfied their thirst for environmental drama and exaggerated rhetoric.”

More Here

Global Warming Gobbledygook
“Here’s a Reuters dispatch that exemplifies why “global warming” is impossible to take seriously:

Even if people stopped pumping out carbon dioxide and other pollutants tomorrow, global warming would still get worse, two teams of researchers reported on Thursday. . . .

Virtually no one disagrees human activity is fueling global warming, and a global treaty signed in Kyoto, Japan, aims to reduce polluting emissions. But the world’s biggest polluter, the United States, has withdrawn from the 1997 treaty, saying its provisions would hurt the U.S. economy.

Actually, lots of people disagree that “human activity is fueling global warming,” but Reuters seems to view them as nonpersons. (By contrast, if you think Osama bin Laden is a “freedom fighter,” you can count on Reuters’ respect.)

In any case, the first paragraph quoted above refutes the second one. If there’s nothing we can do to stop “global warming,” how can we be causing it to begin with?”

Remember to vote straight Republican on the ballot so you don’t accidentally miss John Faulk.

When congress passes a bill that covers many things they call it an omnibus bill.  I saved this document before I put a title on it and was afraid I had lost it.  Fortunately the software gave it a title, post # 298.  That wasn’t very descriptive so I changed it to something else undescriptive.

Palin envy - Katie Couric wore her hair in the Governor Palin style last night at the annual Afred E. Smith dinner.  Do you think Palin is influencing American women.

Agent provocateur - 20 people including secret service agents at the McCain speeches were interview to get more information about the hecklers shouting kill him pertaining to Obama.  No one saw or heard them.  It was made up by Obama and he said it on national TV.  I believe even the hecklers at the Obama speeches were setups by Obama to make McCain look bad.  Would someone who steals votes and pads voter roles do something like that?

I also think the person at McCain’s rallies shouting take the gloves off may be an Obama plant.  McCain has maintained a calm, polite manner when talking about Obama even in the debates.  Obama calls attention to McCain’s negative ads when there aren’t any.  An ad referring to something a person has done in his past is not negative if factual.  An ad pointing out that a senator has voted present instead of yes or no 99% of the time is not negative.

The voter registration workers in Ohio have identified 200,000 registrations they believe are fraudulent and want access to the drivers license database and social security number database to verify their suspicions (they are permitted to look at the last 4 digits only).  The Secretary of State in Ohio has refused to allow them to do that.  Federal law requires that the registration people check each new registrant against those databases.  The Secretary of State has been taken to court to force her to obey the law.  She is still refusing.  Her defense, “it would take too long”.  The registration people have already identified the suspicious cards.  Well, after going through 2 lower courts the case is now in an emergency session with the US Supreme Court.  Talk about audacity and determination to commit fraud.  I contend that a group of people could look up 200,000 social security numbers manually within 3 weeks.  My conclusion:  Obama must be desperate.

Students from Palestra, a college group, have done independent investigation on those questionable voter registration cards and have established that they are fraudulent.  One person who lives in England flew in to Ohio, registered, voted early and returned to England.  The students have identified that although he is a US citizen he has no connection to Ohio.  They have hard proof of all 200,000 being fraudulent.  The problem now is that the Supreme Court Justice, Stevens, is a liberal and may enact a new law overriding the law congress passed.  This of  course is unconstitutional but it is nothing new.  It is called judicial activism.  Ignore the actions of congress, the representatives of the people who sent them there, and do what you want to generate the outcome you want.  Supreme court judges are not elected to represent the people.  They are usually lawyers appointed by the president and congress to determine if laws are within the constitution and have been applied correctly.  What the law profession calls judge-made law is actually not law. BTW why isn’t our representative doing something about it?  What’s her name again?

McCain said the other night that nuclear power is the only way to go for the immediate future along with more offshore drilling.  Those who for whatever reason oppose nuclear power point to the 3 Mile Island nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania as an example of what can go wrong.  I lived in Pennsylvania and had spent a few months in Harrisburg at the time so I had an above average interest in the event.  No one was harmed and the safety features of the plant operated according to design.  That big concrete dome that you see in pictures of nuclear power plants is called the containment facility.  Its job is to prevent the escape of the super heated (non-radio active water) should something burst. The radioactive material is in rods deep in the ground.  The water flows through those rods and creates steam.  The steam rises and turns blades like a fan (in reverse).  The turning mechanism is attached to a generator.  The steam is then cooled and flows into cooling ponds as purified water and after reaching air temperature flows back into a river or stream.  No water escaped the plant.  When the gauges on the control panels indicated a problem, the operators shut down the plant.  Nothing was harmed.  No one was killed.  It was all media hype.  We have about a dozen nuclear power plants in this country that have been in operation since the 1960s.  Nuclear power is the main source of energy for many European countries and China.  They have hundreds.  The opposition to nuclear power has to be radical politics.

Obama also talked about farm subsidies by the taxpayers.  Small family farms today are rare.  They cannot compete.  It is not immoral.  It is a problem for those who wish to be farmers but  it is just like the Mom and Pop grocery stores.  The large grocery chains as the large agribusinesses can buy in large quantities and get better prices.  They can also hire experts to research technology, fertilizers, pesticides. etc.  Family farms were essential years ago but today they are functionally obsolete.  So if Obama subsidizes farmers with  your tax dollars, he is in fact making you pay more for your groceries.  This is occurring today already and should be stopped.  But those large agribusinesses make campaign donations that congress just can’t resist.  The answer to who is our representative today above is “Sheila jackson Lee”.

“One criticism of subsidy comes from proponents of free market economics, stating that subsidies are against the principles of free trade. Prices are the signals by which farmers, and other entrepreneurs, find out what people want.”  Go here for pro’s and con’s

More information here and more here

Agribusinesses don’t need subsidies.  It reminds me of Wall St.  Let the inefficient and mismanaged businesses go out of business or hire better management.

Let’s work together to put John Faulk in office. We need to elect members of Congress with strong financial backgrounds.

The Office of Emergency Management, Houston Mayor Bill White and Judge Emmett just concluded their 8am Hurricane Ike Update.

Over night Hurricane Ike took a more Northerly path and is now projected to make landfall in Galveston with 20-25ft sea surge and 20-25ft waves on top of that. Videos from Galveston are already showing the seawall being slammed by waves thrashing water 20-25ft in the air starting to flood coastal roads and we are still 17 or 18 hrs out from landfall there at the time of this blog posting. With the combination of a potential 20-25ft sea surge and 20-25ft waves on top of that we are looking at the potential of another 1900 Galveston Hurricane event. IMO (In my opinion) not even reporters should stay behind. Everyone should leave Galveston Island now! With up to 40-50 ft water encroachment (surge + waves) projected for Galveston, there is no safe place on the island for anyone.

All Scientific Meteorological Hurricane Path Models have converged on Galveston – HURRICANE IKE IS COMING HERE! This is a “life or death event” which has the potential to rival the 1900 Galveston Hurricane. We can most probably expect many times more property damage than what was sustained in Louisiana by Hurricane Katrina. This is most likely already the most extreme American National Disaster most of us will have witnessed in our lifetime. Fortunately, predecessor weather events have led the way for more serious national disaster planning and implementation.

Everyone in mandatory evacuation zones who have not left yet, need to do so now. The storm surge predictions have been raised by 10ft to as much as 25ft in accordance with the more direct hurricane path.

Anyone in high-rise buildings should know that for every 100ft of elevation the intensity of the storm will increase by 1 Category level. You should make preparations to move to lower levels if staying behind.

Mayor White is advising that the highways are clear for late evacuees. I-45 may become more congested than 59 to Lufkin or 290 to the Bryan - College Station areas. Mayor White also noted that we do not want people on the highways in high winds with flying debris, they will advise when the highways are no longer safe to travel. Please note that the Greater Houston area will be experiencing hurricane force winds well before projected landfall between 1 and 2am Saturday morning. Many gas stations were re-supplied over night.

If you are going to leave – LEAVE NOW!

Make sure and do last minute checks on elderly or loner neighbors and don’t leave pets behind!

This is an extremely serious life and death weather event, so serious that there is really no reason for news agencies to leave their employees exposed on Galveston Island. None of us want to see news agency reporter casualties reported by their own news agencies because they had them step out too close to the beast. This is not necessarily the view of the Faulk For Congress Organization, but it is mine and I stick behind it:

News Reporters, Emergency personnel…everyone should probably evacuate Galveston Island now… No-One needs to ride this one out there. The American public doesn’t need to witness first hand reporter’s unnecessary endangerment or deaths who were hung out too far by news agencies. I think many of us would prefer that all news agencies step back and take your employees out of harm’s way. In doing so you would also help convey the seriousness of this storm to your audiences.

Asking the rest of the nation for your prayers and best wishes,

Ken

You can help us send John Faulk to Congress today.

Wind will be the most damaging element of Hurricane Ike for most of the Houston area.

Important Update: Hurricane Ike - Texas Update #9, Run Galveston, Run!

Anyone following this Hurricane Ike Blog Series can find a great new tool showing your area’s maximum projected wind speed by passing a curser over your area on a windspeed map.

Hurricane Ike Max Wind Speed Map - Houston

IMPORTANT UPDATE - Hurricane Ike - Texas Update #9, Run Galveston, Run!strong> Re-posting other Hurricane Ike Resources:State & Federal Resources

Last night, local media reported that it looked like Hurricane Ike was diminishing in force and may hit the coast as a Cat-1 hurricane.

THAT’S NOT FACT AS BEING REPORTED THIS MORNING

Current projections as of 5am this morning are that Ike will increase in intensity to a Cat-3 with winds around 115mph just before it makes landfall in Galveston with a 15-25ft storm surge sporting huge waves on top of that surge. That’s right, the path has migrated to a worst case scenario for both Galveston and the greater Houston area.

As many as 20-30% of gas stations were reporting fuel shortages as of yesterday evening. Many of those stations have been re-supplied overnight.

As of 4am this morning, motorists headed North on I-45 were reporting slow traffic between Conroe and Centerville, with motorists on the side of the road. They also reported that rest stops, gas stations and truck stops along the way were congested.

If you are going to evacuate, you will be better off leaving as early as possible this morning.

You can follow the latest “Texas Hurricane Ike Updates” from multiple sources with us here.

Ken

Houston Mayor White, TXDOT (Texas Department of Transportation), Harris County Judge Emmett and other officials just held their 12:30pm news conference updating Greater Houston Area residents on Hurricane Ike.

Residents living in Pasadena zipcode 77057 have been added to the mandatory evacuation list. At this time officials do not see the need to add to the mandatory evacuation list any further.

TXDOT is working with Transtar (Our Local Transportation Authority), state and local law enforcement officials to make sure fuel supplies stay steady and evacuation roadways remain clear. There is no reason to panic, but no time to delay. 45 wreckers have been dispatched and the State of Texas has dispatched fuel tanker trucks to meet demand. Helicopters will remain in the sky on traffic detail as long as they can. It seems as though our officials are doing their job and doing it well. They will not open contraflow lanes to evacuate until all incomming traffic has diminished and that there is a need to determined by real time monitoring of outflow traffic.

The Red Cross has activated the Statewide shelter hub system and evacuations are under way in a well organized, orderly fashion. For anyone wishing to make sure they communicate with and can find relatives after the storm, you can self register or search at the Red Cross Safe & Well Website.

If you are a victim or observe price gouging in this Hurricane Ike weather event you should contact Harris County Attorney Mike Stafford’s office to report it at 713-755-5101. They promise to aggressively prosecute offenders.

One of Houston Mayor Bill White’s repeated concerns was that people tend to feel safer in numbers, “hunkering down together” and how that may cause a sense of false security… He repeated his caution to make sure that if you do decide to stay behind and ride it out, do so in a structurally sound location (paraphrased).

We will be blogging updates from this location as long as we can, probably for another 24hrs or so.

Be safe and don’t forget your pets!

Ken

Hurricane Ike – Texas Update #5 – Resources

State & Federal Resources

• Texas Hurricane Evacuation Information from the Texas Department of Transportation
• Texas Online Emergency Portal
• Governor’s Division of Emergency Management
• Federal Emergency Management Agency
• Special Needs Evacuation Temporarily disregard the 211 number and use 311 leading up to Ike.

Be Prepared:

• Family Disaster Planning
• Disaster Supply Kit Check List
• Checking Road Conditions

Weather Reports

• National Weather Service
• The Weather Channel
• CNN Weather

You can follow the latest “Texas Hurricane Ike Updates” from multiple sources with us here.

Prepare and stay safe,

Ken

You can help us send John Faulk to Congress today.

Mandatory evacuations for the Greater Houston area start today at noon for the following zipcodes:

• 77058
• 77059
• 77062
• 77520
• 77546
• 77571
• 77586
• 77598

15ft storm surges are expected to flood these Zone A & B areas well inland. Houston area residents in these areas should not try and ride the storm out for any reason.

If you are not in a storm surge danger region Mayor Bill White and Transtar asks that you stay put long enough for an orderly phased evacuation to occur; Coastal areas first, followed by the above zipcodes.

If you have special needs or do not have transportation out of a mandatory evacuation area and haven’t called and registered with the 211 service you should now call 311 so that the State of Texas can help you evacuate safely.

Mayor White has also asked all employers who do not have a role in essential services to please close tomorrow so all employees have time to prepare or evacuate. Bill White defined essential services mainly along the lines of public service including suppliers of essential products & services including; pharmacies, food/groceries, gas & diesel, & medical services.

Harris County government & the City of Houston will be shut down tomorrow except for essential services. Most schools we be closed.

As you make preparations in the local area and are not evacuating yet, please stay off of the highways. They need to remain as clear as possible for those evacuating from the coastal areas, low lying regions and mandatory evacuation zipcodes. 

Contraflow lanes will not be opened until sometime tonight at the earliest, giving ample time for anyone still coming in to get to their destination and for evening rush hour traffic to subside.

Houston area residents are not accustomed to the high winds accompanying hurricanes as our coastal neighbors are. Make sure your preparation plans include securing loose items in your yard such as barbeque pits, lawn furniture and the likes.

Mayor Bill White and Transtar plan a noon update. Tune into your local extended news coverage of Ike to watch that press conference.

We should expect widespread utility service outages for extended periods. Prepare now.

We wish everyone the best going through this storm.

Stay safe as possible.

You can follow the latest “Texas Hurricane Ike Updates” from multiple sources with us here.

Ken

You can help us send John Faulk to Congress today.

Hurricane Ike is projected to make landfall between Matagorda Bay and Galveston Bay Texas as a major hurricane at Cat 3 or 4 sometime early Saturday morning. Forecasted tracks are converging to a track just west of Houston placing Houston on the “dirty side” of the storm where most of the wind damage and rain will occur.

Most of Houston could see sustained winds of 80-100mph and flooding rains of 8 to 10 inches or more, if the more easterly storm track projections hold.

Galveston is expecting a storm surge of 15-20ft depending on final landfall destination.

Mandatory evacuations have begun for 4 coastal counties. Local officials are asking inland area residents to let coastal residents evacuate first. 

All Harris County and Fort Bend Tollways are now free for anyone wishing to use them for evacuation.

Our local transportation authority, Transtar has moved up their Press Conference with the Mayor of Houston to 7:00am. Greater Houston area residents should tune in to their extended local news coverage for evacuation updates.

Area residents are advised to make necessary preparations today.

You can follow the latest “Texas Hurricane Ike Updates” from multiple sources with us here.

Ken

You can help us send John Faulk to Congress today.

We don’t want to cause undue concern, but the National Weather Service has been “Spot-On” in predicting hurricane landfall from a long ways out this season.

Right now, Houston is almost “dead center” in the projected landfall path of Hurricane Ike, a dangerous Category 4 hurricane projected to make landfall somewhere in the Northern Gulf of Mexico Coast next week.

Right now Ike is screaming down on Cuba and will probably be much more devastating there than Gustav was.

Again, current future projections place Houston right in the middle of the infamous “landfall cone” projections.

The Florida Keys will be evacuating throughout the day today.

In early preparation, the Faulk For Congress Organization has posted a new dynamically updated news page on Hurricane Ike where you can easily tap into the latest news  as it approaches the Northern GOM Coast:

Hurricane Ike Update

Ike is a very dangerous, high intensity storm, playing out harder than Gustav did early on. Again, Houston is at the center of the projected landfall position right now and the National Weather Center has not missed projections, even from this far out, this year.

We don’t want to cause undue concern for our region, but this one, Houstonians should be aware of early and make preparations as necessary.

Ken

Don’t we send them there and pay them to represent us.  Sheila Jackson Lee constantly reminds us that she is on the Homeland Security Committee among others. 

As Hurricane Gustav aims for the Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas coastlines we once again worry (if not panic) about the effects.  Remember it wasn’t a direct hit from Hurricane Katrina that flooded New Orleans and caused the devastation it.  It was the failure of the levees on Lake Ponchartrain.  I remember on Sunday evening seeing Mayor Nagin and Governor Blanco telling everyone that the hurricane passed over and everything was fine.  They said they had contacted FEMA and told them officially the same.  I also remember the next day  the anxiety waiting to know if the levees would hold as the water in the lake rose from  the drainage of rain water.  They didn’t.  So 24 hours after the hurricane passed over the damage began.  Why?

Congress, the courts  and other government bodies long before Katrina made decisions that the bugs, fish and wild life were more important than the people of New Orleans. 

Read this.  New Orleans: A Green Genocide 

“As radical environmentalists continue to blame the ferocity of Hurricane Katrina’s devastation on President Bush’s ecological policies, a mainstream Louisiana media outlet inadvertently disclosed a shocking fact: Environmentalist activists were responsible for spiking a plan that may have saved New Orleans. Decades ago, the Green Left – pursuing its agenda of valuing wetlands and topographical “diversity” over human life – sued to prevent the Army Corps of Engineers from building floodgates that would have prevented significant flooding that resulted from Hurricane Katrina.”

And

 Greens vs. Levees
 ”With all that has happened in the state, it’s understandable that the Louisiana chapter of the Sierra Club may not have updated its website. But when its members get around to it, they may want to change the wording of one item in particular. The site brags that the group is “working to keep the Atchafalaya Basin,” which adjoins the Mississippi River not far from New Orleans, “wet and wild.”

“These words may seem especially inappropriate after the breaking of the levee that caused the tragic events in New Orleans last week. But “wet and wild” has a larger significance in light of those events, and so does the group using the phrase. The national Sierra Club was one of several environmental groups who sued the Army Corps of Engineers to stop a 1996 plan to raise and fortify Mississippi River levees.

The Army Corps was planning to upgrade 303 miles of levees along the river in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Arkansas. This was needed, a Corps spokesman told the Baton Rouge, La., newspaper The Advocate, because “a failure could wreak catastrophic consequences on Louisiana and Mississippi which the states would be decades in overcoming, if they overcame them at all.” “

I heard on the TV today that since Katrina, the Army corps of Engineers has reinforced the levee bases and they are expected to hold.  I believe them.  I hope I am not wrong.