A Texas Energy Proposal:

Texas is one of the few states that have all the flavors of power generation with in her state borders. We have coal and natural gas power generation as well as several nuclear power plants. We also have wind farms and limited use local solar panels.

What Texas lacks is a side by side approach to power generation. If the state of Texas were to build solar generation power plants using the parabolic trough approach and locate those plants side by side with the coal and natural gas plants in far west Texas duplicating the connections to the grid could be reduced. Parabolic troughs is where long, curved mirrors that concentrate sunlight on a liquid inside a tube that runs parallel to the mirror are used as a source of thermal energy.

See this URL:

http://www.ucsusa.org/clean_energy/renewable_energy_basics/how-solar-energy-works.html#Solar_Thermal_Concentrating_Systems

Because the sun does not shine 24 hours a day even in West Texas the side by side locating of this new solar plant would insure on cloudy days the energy from fossil fuel burning could still be pumped onto the power transmission grid. The same approach could be used after sunset until the engineers can come up with an efficient way of storing vast amounts of electrical energy.

Texas has the right to tax her citizens and I for one would like to see an additional energy tax added to all consumption of fossil fuels. These tax dollars to directly fund solar power plant construction in this side be side approach. I think TXU would jump at a chance to receive additional funding and at the same time be branching out in their basic industry.

Attention Politicians:

Politicians are the only people in the world who create problems and then campaign against them.

Have you ever wondered why, if both the Democrats and the Republicans are against deficits, we have deficits?

Have you ever wondered why, if all the politicians are against inflation and high taxes, we have inflation and high taxes?

You and I don't propose a federal budget. The president does.

You and I don't have the Constitutional authority to vote on appropriations. The House of Representatives does.

You and I don't write the tax code, Congress does.

You and I don't set fiscal policy, Congress does.

You and I don't control monetary policy, the Federal Reserve Bank does.

One hundred senators, 435 congressmen, one president, and nine Supreme Court justices

545 human beings out of the 300 million are directly, legally, morally, and individually responsible for the domestic problems that plague this country.

I excluded the members of the Federal Reserve Board because that problem was created by the Congress. In 1913, Congress delegated its Constitutional duty to provide a sound currency to a federally chartered, but private, central bank.

I excluded all the special interests and lobbyists for a sound reason. They have no legal authority. They have no ability to coerce a senator, a congressman, or a president to do one cotton-picking thing. I don't care if they offer a politician $1 million dollars in cash. The politician has the power to accept or reject it. No matter what the lobbyist promises, it is the legislator's responsibility to determine how he votes.

Those 545 human beings spend much of their energy convincing you that what they did is not their fault. They cooperate in this common con regardless of party.

What separates a politician from a normal human being is an excessive amount of gall. No normal human being would have the gall of a Speaker, who stood up and criticized the President for creating deficits. The president can only propose a budget. He cannot force the Congress to accept it.

The Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land, gives sole responsibility to the House of Representatives for originating and approving appropriations and taxes. Who is the speaker of the House? She is the leader of the majority party, and fellow House members, not the president, can approve any budget they want. If the president vetoes it, they can pass it over his veto if they agree to.

It seems inconceivable to me that a nation of 300 million cannot replace 545 people who stand convicted -- by present facts -- of incompetence and irresponsibility. I can't think of a single domestic problem that is not traceable directly to those 545 people. When you fully grasp the plain truth that 545 people exercise the power of the federal government, then it must follow that what exists is what they want to exist.

If the tax code is unfair, it's because they want it unfair.

If the budget is in the red, it's because they want it in the red.

If the Marines are in IRAQ, it's because they want them in IRAQ.

If they do not receive social security but are on an elite retirement plan not available to the people, it's because they want it that way.

There are no insoluble government problems.

Do not let these 545 people shift the blame to bureaucrats, whom they hire and whose jobs they can abolish; to lobbyists, whose gifts and advice they can reject; to regulators, to whom they give the power to regulate and from whom they can take this power. Above all, do not let them con you into the belief that there exists disembodied mystical forces like 'the economy,' 'inflation,' or 'politics' that prevent them from doing what they take an oath to do.

Those 545 people, and they alone, are responsible.

They, and they alone, have the power.

They, and they alone, should be held accountable by the people who are their bosses, provided the voters have the gumption to manage their own employees. We should vote all of them out of office and clean up their mess!

This was by:
Charlie Reese is a former columnist of the Orlando Sentinel Newspaper.

What you do with this article now that you have read it is up to you.

Use this URL to find your Congress persons Email address:
http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/

The Mindset of Slavery:

Just when you think it is over it is not. America today faces a crisis of leadership again. The fundamental question is can a Black man be elected to the office of President of the United States of America. I think if we look back at America and the history of the Black race’s contributions the answer is that such a thing is long over due. Some will say Barack Obama is not the right man at the right time. To those folks I say Herbert Hoover might have been the worst possible choice when elected.

If we are ever to bind up the wounds that racial hatred and racial violence has caused I fear it will not be accomplished by a white president. As enlightened as LBJ was he served in Congress when there was an occasional lynching in Texas. White Texans even today can not understand how terrified both the Black and the Brown citizens of Texas were in those days.

Most of this was due to what I call the Mindset of Slavery. This type of thinking corrupts both the slave and the master. The slave learns to do those things required to get along and the master learns to become arrogant and uncaring. Neither attitude is helpful to build a strong democracy. I would argue that the wedge driven in the society of Texas is only now being addressed and is far from just or equitable at this point in time.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1810307/posts

The above URL has quotes from the Lynch manual on slave training. The word lynching is derived from this man’s last name. The incidents occurred not 200 years ago in Virginia but rather last spring in Paris Texas. Such events are enough or should be enough to make any citizen of Texas see red and write letters to the state and federal authorities.

To all this talk of not ready I say as is attributes to William E. Gladstone “Justice delayed is justice denied.” Gladstone also said "Liberalism is trust of the people tempered by prudence. Conservatism is distrust of the people tempered by fear.” I think both apply in America today. I despair that we are becoming or have become uncaring and unjust.