upside down fines An observation of reality by Lori Wertheim

Duration : 1 min 13 sec

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Do you see the corruption? CORRUPTION! They get paid high salaries, and they are not even on the job! Are they serious? If you feel insulted and wronged…REPOST THIS VIDEO! http://www.ehow.com/how_5957479_download-vid-youtube.html

Duration : 0:3:55

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I know it’s been in the works for years now, but does anyone know the updated status on the conversion of Tarleton – Central Texas to Texas A&M Central Texas. The last bit of info I can find on the net says some state legislation was passed back in May ‘07. Is this going to actually happen sometime soon?

Yes probably very soon

http://click.linksynergy.com/fs-bin/stat?id=M0/cMfOAbQo&offerid=146261&type=3&subid=0&tmpid=1826&RD_PARM1=http%253A%252F%252Fphobos.apple.com%252FWebObjects%252FMZStore.woa%252Fwa%252FviewAlbum%253Fi%253D261105647%2526id%253D261104853%2526s%253D143441%2526partnerId%253D30

Duration : 1 min 10 sec

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This is the first in a series of videos on tracking legislation through the Texas Legislature. I apologize for the fuzziness, but right now it is the best I can do.

Duration : 0:6:53

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Enchanted Rock Texas

Duration : 6 min 40 sec

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Joining the throng of car makers dedicated to help ease the world’s dependence on fossil fuels is DaimlerChrysler, the largest truck manufacturer in the world. At the National Biodiesel Board Annual Conference, Deb Morrissett, the Vice President of Regulatory Affairs for the said company, persuades the growing biodiesel industry to carry on their commitment to develop a natural standard for B20 as car makers are focusing their attention on developing and producing vehicles that will use run on alternative fuels.

The challenge to create a national specification for biodiesel is issued by Morrissett while stating that doing so would speed up the adoption of biodiesel. He further added that doing so would also help in the harnessing and directing the diverse research and investment efforts put into the development of such alternative fuel. He said that biodiesel should have a national fuel specification just like other fuels. “I’m looking forward to the time when anyone can fuel up with B20, but we’re not there yet,” he also added.

Morrissett also encouraged the industry to stay tuned for the company is intending to build on their diesel engine leadership for the coming future. They would do this with help from their partners like Cummins. As a sign of the company’s dedication to produce vehicles that will run on more environment friendly fuel, they have unveiled their Dodge Ram 2500 and 3500 vehicles which come equipped with a 6.7-liter Cummins turbodiesel engine. This engine can run on B5 and B20 biodiesel. The said vehicles will become available in the market in March this year. The two trucks already meet emission standards that will be implemented in 2010 and this simply shows the company’s dedication to make their trucks not only to be high performance vehicles but are also safe just like EBC brake pads.

The company’s dedication to lessen the dependence on fossil fuel does not end in their use of efficient and clean diesel engines but they are also one of the car manufacturers which are developing the use of alternative fuels on their vehicles. A concrete example of this is the usage of B5 fuel of their Jeep Liberty and Jeep Grand Cherokee models. Both vehicles are approved for regular use of the B5 biodiesel fuel. Furthermore, their 2007 Dodge Ram can run on B20 biodiesel fuel and can be used for commercial, government, and military fleets.

Their support for the alternative fuel industry does not end there either. The company is planning to develop and produce cars that would be equipped with efficient gasoline engines, hybrid cars, flex-fuel vehicles which can run on gasoline as well as alternative fuel like bio-ethanol, electric vehicles and a test fleet of more than 100 fuel cell powered vehicles.

Their commitment to produce flexi-fuel vehicles will see them producing 250,000 units of the said vehicle which can run on E85 fuel – a fuel that is a mixture of gasoline and bio-ethanol. The 85 in the E85 stands for the percentage of bio-ethanol in the fuel which means that the E85 is 85 percent bio-ethanol and 15 percent gasoline. The flexi-fuel vehicles that DaimlerChrysler will produce can also run on conventional gasoline efficiently. The company aims to double the production of their FFV fleet to 500,000 units in 2008.

During the conference, Loren Beard, manager of Fuel Legislation, Regulation and Policy, along with Scott Schramm, Manager of Regulatory and Technical Affairs, also tackled engine warranty issues, OEM experience with alternative fuels and how to deal with new regulations. The National Biodiesel Board Conference was held last February 5 in San Antonio, Texas.

Anthony Fontanelle
http://www.articlesbase.com/automotive-articles/daimlerchryslers-commitment-to-alternative-fuels-outlined-102162.html

Texas legislator proposes $500 to stop abortions
- A Texas legislator has proposed that pregnant women considering abortion be offered $500 not to end their pregnancies.
Republican State Sen. Dan Patrick, who also is a conservative radio talk show host, said on Friday the money might convince the women to go ahead and have babies, then give them up for adoption.
He said during a legislative conference in New Braunfels, 45 miles south of Austin, there were 75,000 abortions in Texas last year.
"If this incentive would give pause and change the mind of 5 percent of those woman, that’s 3,000 lives. That’s almost as many people as we’ve lost in Iraq," Patrick said.
Patrick has filed legislation to make the payment state law, but the legislature has not yet voted on it.
His proposal calls for giving any woman going to an abortion clinic the $500 option, to be paid no more than 30 days after the baby is born and given up for adoption.
Critics say the proposal would violate Texas and
federal laws against buying babies, which Patrick rejected as "the typical ridiculous criticism."

Heather Paffe, political director of Planned Parenthood of Texas, said Patrick’s proposal "is very cynical and insulting to women and their families."

"It’s insulting to think women would make that kind of decision so easily," she said
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070324/od_nm/texas_abortion1_dc;_ylt=Ai8bf.xytkCDhY_r9ZEgjo7tiBIF
It’s not $500 to keep it after they give birth, it’s $500 when the put the child up for adoption.

If a woman would go ahead with accepting $500 to carry a child to term that she doesn’t want, its going to cost a whole lot more to the state to take care of the baby once its born and even if its given up for adoption, the costs of investigation of the adoptive parents, the court costs, and paperwork are far in excess of that. Even if you charge the adoptive parents for costs, you won’t recover the money the state must lay out for an abandoned child.
If the $500 will make her change her mind, well, that assumes she had no reason in the first place, so either she is an amoral idiot, or too stupid to know anything more than getting her hands on $500 for drugs, and babies damaged by drugs or alcohol aren’t readily adopted so that means a lifelong dependency on the state for them. Costing us much more than a $250 abortion.
It may or may not be against Texas law, but it does call into question the idea that any and all life must be sacrosanct. Fetal alcohol syndrome and ancephaly (born without parts of their brains or parts of the skull)and the additional horrors that can be inflicted on the innocent infant afflicted by an uncaring mother, will only end up costing and costing and costing as we try to take care of the infants that will only grow in size not ability or intelligence.
As with so much of the anti-abortion movement, there is little discussion of what happens when that innocent is severely defective and the effects that will have on our already stressed health care system, in their world all babies and pink and white and ready for desperate new families, like some sort of good-fairy-stork. In their world its all good, in the real world its not.

CNN reports on the fireball that fell during a marathon in Austin, Texas.
Sparks were still coming from it at tree level, so I would guess that it hit the ground!

Duration : 1 min 27 sec

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1. What was the chief goal of the Compromise of 1850?
(Points: 3)
to resolve Texas’s statehood issues

to preserve the Union

to improve the economy in both the North and the South

to preserve the balance between slave states and free states

2. What theory promoted by Stephen Douglas would allow the people of a territory to allow or forbid slavery? (Points: 3)
Legislative options
Popular sovereignty
Territorial rights
Northwest Ordinance

3. What legislation attempted to satisfy the southern demand to maintain a balance in the Senate between free states and slave states?
(Points: 3)
Kansas-Nebraska Act

Fugitive Slave Act

Citizens Choice Act of 1854

Nebraska Compromise

4. What political party was formed by uniting several northern antislavery coalitions? (Points: 3)
Whig
Democrat
Know-Nothing
Republican

5. Who did not believe slavery should be abolished? (Points: 3)
Stephen Douglas
Frederick Douglass
William Lloyd Garrison
John Brown

6. Which group describes the elements of the Supreme Court decision in the Dred Scott case?

(Points: 3)
Group A

Group B

7. What helped bring Abraham Lincoln to national prominence? (Points: 3)
his debates with Stephen Douglas
the Dred Scott decision
his willingness to campaign for James Buchanan
his efforts to abolish slavery

8. What was not an element of Abraham Lincoln’s platform in 1860?
(Points: 3)
stopping the spread of slavery

building a transcontinental railroad

passing a homestead act for western settlement

reducing tariffs on foreign goods

9. What was one reason South Carolina gave for its decision to secede? (Points: 3)
to avoid paying federal taxes
to uphold the rights of property owners
to break its contract with the federal government
to form its own military

10. What were Michigan, Minnesota, Iowa, and Oregon part of during the Civil War? (Points: 3)
Union states
border states
organized territories
Confederate states

11. Which border state’s loyalty to the Union was critical to keeping Washington, D.C. from being surrounded by the Confederacy?
(Points: 3)
Kentucky

Maryland

West Virginia

Delaware

12. Which is accurate in regard to the North’s and the South’s strengths at the beginning of the Civil War?
(Points: 3)
The North’s well-established government gave it a distinct advantage.

The South produced the vast majority of food crops in the United States.

The North had numerous experienced military officers to lead its army.

The South’s superior railroads gave it a distinct advantage.

13. Which was not a strength of the North at the beginning of the Civil War? (Points: 3)
ability to manufacture firearms
a standing army
miles of railroad tracks
several military colleges

14. Who were George McClellan, Winfield Scott, and John Pope?
(Points: 3)
Confederate military leaders

military leaders from border states

Union military leaders

military leaders from organized territories

15. What was the result of the Confederate attack on Fort Sumter, South Carolina, on April 12, 1861?
(Points: 3)
President Lincoln and President Davis held a series of talks to avert war and settle the issues.

The Civil War began and President Lincoln called up militia to help put down the rebellion.

The Union forces repelled the attack.

The Civil War began and President Davis sent troops to Richmond.

16. What had Abraham Lincoln expected before the First Battle of Bull Run? (Points: 3)
The South could easily be defeated.
He would have to recruit many more soldiers.
Slaves would rebel and join the Northern forces.
The Union could continue with both free states and slave states.

17. What strategy could the North implement as a result of victories at Hampton Roads, Shiloh, and New Orleans?
(Points: 3)
controlling Southern trade routes

holding leaders hostage to exchange for weapons

breaking up the Confederacy by getting Virginia and Louisiana to rejoin the Union

forcing Jefferson Davis to begin a series of peace talks with Abraham Lincoln

18. What happened when newer, more accurate weapons were used against close-order formations at Antietam?
(Points: 3)
The South won and moved north to Gettysburg.

The North won and quickly followed Lee’s troops into Virginia.

Both sides suffered huge losses.

It looks like you really need to find out your self if you need this much help. Seriously 18 ?’s are you that helpless.