Redistricting Problems in Texas

In this article Supreme Court Freezes Texas Elections. The supreme court is freezing the texas elections  because it seems that the districting is flawed and skewed to give us different reuslts. The courts demanded to have a oral argument ready Jan 9th. The court is making sure the Voting Rights' Act is protecting the interests of minority voters and for some reason they said " particularly the Hispanics what about African Americans and the other races? they said protecting the rights of the minority, hispanics make up about 37% and all the other races combined make up about 20% excluding whites. they should have pointed out particularly Hispanics because if it were truly represented they would have left the part where it said particularly Hispanics.

They said they want to change the district lines in Texas but that is too late there already has been money sent to different districts to build bigger buildings for school for example Round Rock High school has people leaving there school because of the new district lines drawn and then the court system would have to make them move again? Parents purposely moved to a certain district for their child to stick with their friends. District lines have been drawn and money sent to build these buildings like for example RRHS has a new 3000 building and has all these changes been done to it because of new district lines. If they redraw the district lines again, people would have gained money and lost money for the wrong reasons.  

Response to Allison's blog

My colleague, Allison wrote a post about “Childhood Hunger”. There is an Organization called the No Kid Hungry Campaign which helps feed kids that have parents that have low income levels. Of course this is a great idea but how could they raise this money and fund this by 2015? It says it has 3 levels to accomplish this goal which are Live, learn, and play as simple as this may sound it could actually be the great seed to get out of the recession. This is because our kids are the future and if we provide them the correct nutrition they have happier healthy brains that could perform better for the future society but once again providing this organization with money would be difficult.

Students at public schools already get this benefit from tax payers where underprivileged kids get their breakfast and lunches free because there parents didn't have enough income which I personally think is unfair. The reason why I have food to eat is because my parents worked hard. Why would we have to take care of kids because their parents didn't work hard. I know its the moral thing to do but lazy people shouldn't be carried and really it's too bad that their bad parenting has lead their kids into their world. Why would the income kids have meals brought to them during the summer low? That would be money lost to the kids that already have rich parents it's because to see that would hurt society much more. Like the students at my Round Rock High school you wouldn't know who had free lunch and free breakfast because we all go under the same protocol. It's all about trying to keep things seem fair when there really not so no one makes a big fuss.

Government regulations, plastic bags

Austin American-statesmen about plastic bags  This link is an article about weighing the pros and cons to use plastic bags versus paper bags. In this article it seems that using paper bags is not such a positive outcome because plastic bags can be recycled, but the problem is that how many people really recycle plastic bags and put them in the recycle bin? I recycle a lot of items. I'm all about the go green movement helping out the world by doing my part. To solve this issue about banning plastic bags maybe a bit far stretched, I would encourage more your own special bags that you reuse over and over again because the government is already in so much debt that this simple ban of plastic bags would cost us too much money. We can save the earth later but this ban is not too much of a problem just maybe put a thirty second commercial of saying go green buy you own special bag with this happy shopper using her brightly covered see through bag. In the article it says that it takes much less energy to make then a paper bag but we should create a much more special bag made with different material thats much more robust. This might increase energy consumption for a short period but in the long period it would save us energy throughout the life of this earth. Our land fills won't need as much space and they won't fill up as quickly and we won't have to cut down as much trees. Trees is not really a issue because I heard from my physics teacher that they have plenty of pine trees to cut down but still having more trees is the right way to go because if we kept cutting down pine trees for paper our world would end up with only pine tree species and the other would go extinct but then again that is unlikely maybe in the next thousand years.

Texas Should Have The Right To Manage It's Own Money

My classmates article link from the Lone Star Blog
http://www.statesman.com/opinion/smith-let-texas-make-its-own-choices-1349387.html
I agree, Texas should be able to spend their money the way they want to but somehow Lloyd Dogget is so politically powerful that he prevented Texas getting $831 million from the federal government. The the national debt is about 13 trillion dollar so then 831 million dollars would be a small % of money that he denied so maybe that money could be of better use else where. Taking money from the "rainy day fund" for education is wrong its called the "rainy day fund" for accidents and natural disasters and funding more school programs is neither of them. Whats funny about Lloyd Dogget is that he wanted to increase the overall education spending in a time like this? I don't know where he gets his logic there must be a deeper reason for this but it does sound crazy to increase the spending for education and also taking it out of the rainy day fund sounds even more crazy.
I agree, I rather the federal government  go "in the hole" because those funds should be strictly for disasters like Hurricane Katrina or else the government would raise taxes as usual to build up the $3.5 trillion all over again. How corrupt could this government be if basically Lloyd Dogget had his way with the Texas spending budget especially with his logic sounds crazy unless I am misunderstanding something. 

Watts: Texting ban a safety issue

Austin American Statesman

There needs to be a law for no texting while driving. In this article it says, "A texting driver runs more stop signs, changes lanes more abruptly, and brakes more erratically than a drunk driver." This is true I have found myself texting and driving changing lanes abruptly and braking suddenly. It is very dangerous texting and driving but I think the problem is that it is so difficult to implement this law because that’s like making a law for taking you eyes of the road someone could be reading a newspaper. This impairs your cognitive thinking towards your surroundings. Another reason why it would be tough to implement is there are smart phones with GPS systems and officers could stop the citizen and their excuse could be I was trying to navigate my way with the iPhone. In the article "Perry argues that a texting ban is a  "government effort to micromanage the behavior of adults."" I think it’s a smart way of getting around the subject because really it would be just too difficult to implement this law in the state of Texas. If local government pass the law people know its dangerous and against the law but people will still will text anyway, its an addiction for some people their way of connecting even when it causes them to be in danger. The government could get a great amount of tax dollars from fining people that break this law. It would have been law but Rick Perry vetoed the bill maybe from underlying pressure because what’s wrong with managing the behavior of adults if its going to save lives. What should happen in the government is that the bill needs to be brought back up and revised for a second chance with Rick Perry changing his mind or when he's out of office.

Again, education woes fall to courts

http://www.statesman.com/opinion/again-education-woes-fall-to-courts-1910554.html


It says in this editorial that the poor public schools are suing the states for not distributing the money evenly throughout schools even when they are all paying the same tax rates. The commentary doesn't expect much because Rick Perry is a republican and republicans represent cutting down school funding and public services to take care of the national and local debt that they owe. The people in those school districts such as Pflugerville, Hutto ,and Taylor have to suffer from the republican part of the government because they are in command. Lawmakers slashed $4billion from public education, the first decrease in per-student funding in Texas since World War 2. It has been established that the public education system was in the hands of the states but yet again, the system is flawed and has to go back to the Legislature to settle things out
Whats sad is not only the republicans cutting down school funding but with less school funding there are more likely to drop out and have higher crime rates. The way the republicans see it is cut down public services have less debt but its a lose lose situation. The Authors audience was most likely to inform Texas and and a bit on the national level. Their argument is broad but I would agree that is true and his logic does make sense, it may not be sound but I do agree with the statements he said.

Critique an editorial or commentary from a Texas newspaper

http://www.statesman.com/blogs/content/shared-gen/blogs/austin/editorial/entries/2008/07/02/stay_safe_in_the_water.html


Information was found from the Medical Center say that threefold increase of the number of water related incidents involving children since 2006. Where they found this information is quite convincing that it is a significant problem but he later states its partially because of the higher temperatures young children are looking for relief in the cooler waters. Where he bases his this statement is questionable may not be the root of the problem but i would approximately guess it is 20% of the problem. Later in the editorial he finds more information from the directer of the YMCA saying that she found less people signing up for swimming lessons. This may also be the cause of why people are drowning the population is increasing with the temperature increasing could be a big part of the reason why there are 3 times as much drowning incidents. I do agree with his argument because he  says he knows its not entirely the exact reasons for the drownings there are other unknown causes.
Then it talks about how to prevent drownings such as keep super vision of your children in the lake. Know your child's swimming capabilities and limits. Know your own drinking limits because 50% of the cases involved alcohol so really don't drink and swim especially if you have children to watch out for. Since this editorial has given us useful information about the increase of drownings and tips on how not to drown, the most likely audience it was intended for is most adults with children and people that can't swim.