arin's attic | tagged as: texas

Tagged as: texas

texas senator to be: rick noriega

On July 16, 2007, Rick Noriega answered the call to serve from thousands of Texans across the state and formed an exploratory committee to seek the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate. But this campaign is not about one person or candidate; it’s about all of us answering the call to serve.

This weekend, the Texas AFL-CIO endorsed Rick Noriega. Rick has a record of standing up for working families. Rick voted to increase the minimum wage, provide flexibility for parents to meet with their children’s teachers, increase teacher pay and retirement benefits, and prevent discrimination in the workplace.

Please click the link below and join with the Texas AFL-CIO in supporting Rick.

Donate to Rick Noriega’s Texas Senate Campaign

I hope you will join me in supporting Rick as he takes on this new challenge, to take back our state and nation from this administration and its number one cheerleader, the junior Senator from Texas, John Cornyn. It is an awesome challenge, and Rick is going to need all of us to stand with him.

I hope you’ll join me in being a part of Rick Noriega’s campaign team. We will fight for change. We will fight for Texas. And we will do it together. Just click the link below to get started!

http://www.ricknoriega.com/

Blogged, Just for Fun, videos, Texas, Politics, election2008,
Tagged as: texas,politics,videos,elections2008 May 09, 2008 @ 08:00 am

flds, religious freedom, individual rights, and the state.

i am hearing some really disturbing arguments in defense of the flds compound and it’s practices. the arguments seem to revolve around:

1) “freedom from religious persecution”—as if our first amendment’s purpose was to allow for ~any~ behaviour under a guise of religion.

The Belief-Conduct Distinction—While the Court has consistently affirmed that the Free Exercise Clause protects religious beliefs, protection for religiously motivated conduct has waxed and waned over the years. The Free Exercise Clause ‘‘embraces two concepts—freedom to believe and freedom to act. The first is absolute, but in the nature of things, the second cannot be.’’

thus, you’ve the right to believe whatever loony thing you want to believe. acting on those beliefs is an entirely different matter. the state CAN and WILL step in if you are breaking the law.

2) “individual liberty”—this strikes me as extremely bizarre, as the children and women of this compound have had NO liberty whatsoever. they aren’t given a choice. it is not ~choice~ when you are told that if you go against the wishes of the prophet, you are worthy of death.

3) saudi arabia do it, it’s a ~cultural~ issue. —why people consistently want to turn us into places like saudi arabia, i cannot imagine. and again, you are back to there being no liberty, no real choice for these women and children.

to see people defend the likes of warren jeffs is more disturbing and offensive than i can even say. i question the motives of those who have. there must be serious issues there.

for more information on the flds:

Blogged, Just for Fun, videos, Current Events, Politics, Texas,
Tagged as: texas,videos,news,flds,constitution April 16, 2008 @ 07:30 am

espanol, district attorneys, and dirt cookies

hola, como estas? estoy bien!! i started my spanish class!! textbook finally arrived. i can now say, “la leccion es muy interesante” and “mis padres son liberales” and “mis amigos no son conservadores” :O and almost know what i’ve said

lost starts tomorrow!!! and, of course, i’m going to miss it ;( i can only pray that The Powers That Be have it available to watch quickly after. there aren’t many tv shows that i really like, but lost is one that i do. i avoided watching it for ages, because when there’s that much hoopla, i’m usually let down. then one day… i was bored. and i found all the episodes online. and. the rest is history :o i’m a fan!!! <3 jack, <3 sawyer, <3 kate, charlie, hurley and all the rest!

digging into candidates for DA… i’ve so far narrowed down the list of who i absolutely won’t vote for. i’ve detested rosenthal, our current da, and i must say that i’ve been a bit gleeful at his latest difficulties. he’s out of the race for good and may find himself in jail with any luck. here’s an idea of what our “blessed” district attorney was like:

Blogged, Current Events, Politics, Texas,
Tagged as: texas,politics,news,houston January 31, 2008 @ 12:11 am

texas, indivisible?

since 1933, the texas state pledge:

Honor the Texas flag; I pledge allegiance to thee, Texas, one and indivisible.

nice. simple. to the point. yeehaw, fellow texans, we are one.

uh. wait. no.

“Personally, I felt like the Texas pledge had a big old hole in it, and it occurred to me, ‘You know what? We need to fix that,’ ” said Riddle, R-Tomball. “Our Texas pledge is perfectly OK like it is with the exception of acknowledging that just as we are one nation under God, we are one state under God as well.”

so the new texas pledge,

Honor the Texas flag; I pledge allegiance to thee, Texas, one state under God, one and indivisible.

because… we are one and… indivisible... as long as we’re… christian.

it’s a pity that people want to complain about god being in our schools. after all, it’s ~clearly evident~ that more time should be spent on the reflection of our relationship with god than on learning useless subjects or critical thinking. after all, society could use a few less critics: anti-war, anti-smoking, anti-god :( why do they hate our freedom? :(

in the words of the great man himself: “is our children learning?”

—-

it may take a village to raise a child, but it only takes one idiot to screw the village.

——

Blogged, Current Events, Politics, Texas,
Tagged as: texas,politics,news August 02, 2007 @ 10:38 am

from sportscaster to rabid right wing talk show host to senator, whee!

back when i used to like sports in the good old houston oiler days of “luv ya blue!”, dan patrick was the local sportscaster. funny little guy. i remember something about him putting another hat on every time the team won, until he had a stack of hats…or something like that. i was just a kid and i thought he was funny.

then. later. many years later. (we won’t say just how many! ) i flipped my radio dial over to the local talk radio program and stumbled upon dan patrick. amusingly, he had as a host a certain “jon mathews”, who had once been a radio personality on one of the top rock stations in houston. not that i ever listened to it, as being a teenaged girl, i found the subject matter to be offensive, embarrassing, and utterly moronic. he apparently decided to continue in that vein as he was one of the most caustic, hateful, mean-spirited, belligerent talk radio hosts that i’ve ever heard. jon matthews would later be arrested for indecency with a child. nasty, icky man.

anyways, on to dan patrick. if jon mathews was caustic, hateful, mean-spirited and belligerent, dan patrick was all of that and more. i once called his show, after listening to him attack homosexuality by increasingly dehumanizing gays. my point to mr. patrick was that these were people, they were friends and family members, and in my particular case, my father, so while you may believe that “homosexuality” is wrong, ranting and name-calling is certainly not going to make your point for you and will instead solidify opposition to you. of course… that would have been my point to mr patrick; however, he responded to me by literally SCREAMING at me over the phone, saying how i shouldn’t even be alive, because my father’s genes were “tainted”, etc. i’ve often wondered whether or not he considered his behaviour at that moment to be “moral”. if so, irony meters beware! nevermind that i was tempted to run around houston spreading my “tainted” genes and making people catch gay i quit listening to his show after that. who wants to be subjected to that type of abuse, much less listen to it?

side note: dan patrick is sometimes credited with having “discovered” rush limbaugh.

i was saddened to see mr patrick win election to the texas senate in 2006. his district his heavily republican, so it wasn’t entirely unexpected once he announced his candidacy, but it was disheartening to say the least. to say that mr patrick is “rabidly” right wing is an understatement.

i’ve been somewhat amused in a “omg, this man is a texas senator, i’m so embarrassed” kinda way by mr patrick’s actions in the senate. i’d be so very curious to see if the onion’s readership has fallen off in recent years, because the *real* news is even more bizarre than they can print!