Clipmarks | Rustee's 'texas' clips

Teachers Pack Heat In Tiny Texas School

Sat, 16 Aug 2008 00:10:48 GMT

clipped by: Rustee

HARROLD, Texas — A tiny Texas school district may be the first in the nation to allow teachers and staff to pack guns for protection when classes begin later this month, a newspaper reported.

Trustees at the Harrold Independent School District approved a district policy change last October so employees can carry concealed firearms to deter and protect against school shootings, provided the gun-toting teachers follow certain requirements.

Superintendent David Thweatt said the small community is a 30-minute drive from the sheriff's office, leaving students and teachers without protection. He said the district's lone campus sits 500 feet from heavily trafficked U.S. 287, which could make it a target.

"The naysayers think (a shooting) won't happen here. If something were to happen here, I'd much rather be calling a parent to tell them that their child is OK because we were able to protect them," Thweatt said.

Tags: crime

Medellin Executed

Wed, 06 Aug 2008 05:29:52 GMT

clipped by: Rustee
clipper's remarks: The end of what became a divided international struggle for justice.

Clip Source: www.khou.com

HUNTSVILLE, Texas—A Mexican-born condemned prisoner was executed Tuesday night for the rape and murder of two teenage girls 15 years ago after a divided U.S. Supreme Court rejected his request for a reprieve.

Medellin’s attorneys contended he was denied the protections of the Vienna Convention, which calls for people arrested to have access to their home country’s consular officials.

President Bush asked states to review the cases, but the U.S. Supreme Court ruled earlier this year neither the president nor the international court can force Texas to wait.

Medellin, 33, was condemned for participating in the 1993 gang rape, beating and strangling of Elizabeth Pena, 16, and Jennifer Ertman, 14.

“I don’t want sympathy or pity, I’d rather have your anger,” Medellin had written on an anti-death penalty Web site where prisoners seek pen pals. “Don’t feel sorry for me. I’m where I’m at because I made an adolescent choice. That’s it!”

Tags: crime, death penalty, texas

Home Invasions by Columbian Gangs

Sat, 02 Aug 2008 06:12:20 GMT

clipped by: Rustee

Clip Source: www.khou.com

HOUSTON -- Three years ago, a group of well-trained MS-13 gang members wearing black FBI shirts executed several home invasions in the Houston area.

Thirty-six months later, home invasions across the country are on the rise. In Houston, investigators believe a Colombian gang is targeting the wealthy.

Earlier this month, Dallas police arrested a group of men they think are responsible for 70 home invasions in 20 North Texas cities.

Moreover, it appears that the gang would research their victims by going online. They would also usually pose as cops.

“They would on many occasions dress in law enforcement-type gear. They would often tell the homeowners they had a warrant for their arrest,” said Dallas Police Detective Duane Boy. “Once they got in, they would bind them and in some cases they did torture them.”

Tags: crime, illegal immigration

Texas v U.N.

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 01:08:01 GMT

clipped by: Rustee

Clip Source: www.chron.com

Texas will go ahead with the scheduled Aug. 5 execution of Houston rapist-killer Jose Medellin despite Wednesday's United Nations world court order for a stay, a spokesman for Gov. Rick Perry said.

The U.N.'s International Court of Justice's call for stays in the cases of Medellin and four other Mexican nationals awaiting execution in Texas came in response to a petition filed last month by the Mexican government.

Perry's office dismissed the argument.

"The world court has no standing in Texas and Texas is not bound by a ruling or edict from a foreign court," Perry spokesman Robert Black said.

Medellin, 33, was condemned for the 1993 killings of Jennifer Ertman, 14, and Elizabeth Peña, 16, who stumbled into a drunken midnight gang initiation rite

Meanwhile, Randy Ertman, father of Jennifer Ertman, hotly denounced the world court's order for stays.

"The world court don't mean diddly," he said.

Tags: houston, texas, united nations, mexico, illegal immigration

Houston, We Have No Problem

Fri, 27 Jun 2008 02:10:03 GMT

clipped by: Rustee

Clip Source: www.newsweek.com

In May, the unemployment rate in the nation's sixth largest metropolitan area was a measly 3.8 percent. In the past year, Houston-based companies, which include 26 Fortune 500 firms, added 71,000 jobs to their payrolls. The local United Way closed out its fiscal year with a record $76.1 million in donations.

Pessimists are as rare as Birkenstock sandals, or OBAMA '08 stickers in ExxonMobil's parking garage.

At Houston's port, the second busiest in America, cranes are loading ships with industrial equipment. Exports rose 25 percent in 2007, to $72 billion.

Houston has 70,000 engineers and architects (a concentration 60 percent higher than is typical for the United States).

The residential market, which avoided a bubbly run-up—thanks to endless supplies of land and a lack of zoning laws—has remained buoyant. Development is rampant, from $200,000 single-family homes in suburban planned communities to $1.4 million town houses that have replaced student apartment buildings near Rice University.

Tags: houston, texas, economy

Magnetic Rain

Fri, 23 May 2008 05:46:20 GMT

clipped by: Rustee
clipper's remarks: Texas sized blobs eh? Whoa.

Clip Source: spaceweather.com

MAGNETIC RAIN: There's a rainstorm underway on the sun's eastern limb. You'd better bring your asbestos umbrella, though, because the "droplets" are Texas-sized blobs of hot plasma:

Prominences are clouds of hydrogen held above the surface of the sun by magnetic fields. While this particular cloud appears to be raining like a summer shower on Earth, the true situation is more complicated. Look carefully: Some of the plasma raindrops are falling "up." That's because the motions are controlled by not only gravity but also magnetism, a force of little importance in terrestrial rainstorms. The solar magnetic field is rooted below the sun's visible surface; roiling motions in the body of the sun itself cause magnetic fields high overhead to shift, wriggle, and "rain" in all directions. No wonder prominences are so much fun to watch.

Tags: science, astronomy, sun

Why Doctors Have "GTT"

Wed, 21 May 2008 06:12:57 GMT

clipped by: Rustee
clipper's remarks:

This has allowed doctors and hospitals to cut costs and even increase the resources devoted to charity care. Take Christus Health, a nonprofit Catholic health system across the state. Thanks to tort reform, over the past four years Christus saved $100 million that it otherwise would have spent fending off bogus lawsuits or paying higher insurance premiums. Every dollar saved was reinvested in helping poor patients.

Texas recently became home to more Fortune 500 companies than New York and California. Things are trending well for the Lone Star State. Anecdotally, we can see that while doctors are moving in, trial lawyers are packing up and heading west. They're GTC -- Gone to California.

Clip Source: online.wsj.com

Over the past three years, some 7,000 M.D.s have flooded into Texas

Why? Two words: Tort reform.

In 2003 and in 2005, Texas enacted a series of reforms to the state's civil justice system. They are stunning in their success. Texas Medical Liability Trust, one of the largest malpractice insurance companies in the state, has slashed its premiums by 35%, saving doctors some $217 million over four years. There is also a competitive malpractice insurance industry in Texas, with over 30 companies competing for business. This is driving rates down.

The full costs of large settlements and runaway malpractice suits may never be known. But it is clear that the costs were paid for by consumers through the increased price of goods, by pensioners through diminished stock prices, and by workers through lost jobs. Another group often overlooked is those who are priced out of health care, or who didn't receive charity care because doctors were squeezed by tort lawyers.

Tags: medicine, texas, healthcare

Starry-eyed Quetzalcoatl in Texas

Sat, 05 Apr 2008 05:40:13 GMT

clipped by: Rustee
clipper's remarks:

Quetzalcoatl was one of the most important gods in Mesoamerica, and was worshipped by most major Mesoamerican cultures, from the Olmecs and Maya to the Aztecs.

Clip Source: texasnativeskies.org

Hueco Tanks didn’t serve as a permanent habitation for any group. However, its seasonal water supplies attracted many people, who stayed for days or weeks at a time. The earliest confirmed visitors were Archaic hunter-gatherers, who inhabited western Texas at least 6,000 years ago. However, evidence of even earlier cultures -- dating as early as 11,000 years ago -- shows up in sites not far from Hueco Tanks, so it’s likely that people visited the site at least that far in the past.

Over the centuries, many of these visitors drew pictures in caves and rock shelters -- about 5,000 pictures in all.

The most impressive paintings are the hundreds of stylized faces known as masks.

Many of the masks at the site depict versions of Mesoamerican gods, including the rain god Tlaloc, and Quetzalcoatl, the plumed serpent.

Quetzalcoatl was associated with the planet Venus in both its “morning-star” and “evening-star” forms.

One particular mask at Hueco Tanks depicts Quetzalcoatl with stars for eyes.

Clip Source: texasnativeskies.org

Tags: history, texas, archeoastronomy

Suspected Medium-Sized Black Hole in Omega Centauri

Sat, 05 Apr 2008 05:14:20 GMT

clipped by: Rustee
clipper's remarks:

Although the presence of an intermediate-mass black hole is the most likely reason for the stellar speedway near the cluster’s center, the astronomers said they have not ruled out a couple of other possible causes.

Clip Source: www.randybrewer.net

Clip Source: mcdonaldobservatory.org

A well-known star cluster that glitters with the light of millions of stars may have a mysterious dark object tugging at its core, according to researchers at The University of Texas at Austin.

Astronomer Karl Gebhardt has teamed up with recent Ph.D. graduate Eva Noyola to find evidence for a medium-size black hole at the core of Omega Centauri, one of the largest and most massive globular star clusters orbiting the Milky Way galaxy. The finding will appear in the April 10 issue of The Astrophysical Journal.

The black hole in Omega Centauri is estimated to be about 40,000 times the mass of the Sun, falling in between the masses of supermassive black holes at the hearts of galaxies like the Milky Way and stellar-mass black holes that result when the most massive stars explode as supernovae.

Measuring the speed of the stars swirling near the cluster’s center with the Gemini Observatory, the astronomers found that the stars closer to the core are moving faster than the stars farther away.

Tags: astronomy, science

Secret Texas Hurricane of 1943

Fri, 21 Mar 2008 19:51:48 GMT

clipped by: Rustee
clipper's remarks:

The only news of the hurricane was published in the two states that were affected, Texas and Louisiana.

An added historical note on this storm...the first documented intentional flight into a hurricane was accomplished as the storm moved into Houston from the Bay.

Clip Source: www.history.noaa.gov

It was in the dead of summer along the upper Texas coast. The nation was rightfully preoccupied with the events of the Second World War. All news underwent censorship. Because of German U-boat activity expected in the Gulf of Mexico, all ships radio broadcasts were silenced. This included any reports of weather...even adverse weather such as a hurricane.

There is virtually no reference to the storm in records kept at the local Houston NWS office or the former Galveston NWS office.

Many of the plant sites producing war materials were damaged from high winds and water.

Refineries at Texas City, and Deer Park joined the list of war production being suspended as they were also badly damaged

The loss of production of war materials couldn t be found out by the Axis Powers.

There was a report that the FBI shutdown the telegraph office in La Porte because someone had sent a telegram out of the state informing someone of the damages from the hurricane.

Tags: history, wwii, weather, hurricanes

Paint Rock

Fri, 21 Mar 2008 03:36:04 GMT

clipped by: Rustee
clipper's remarks:

These alignments suggest that several groups may have gathered at this site on the solstices for rituals, trade, or other purposes. Religious ceremonies may have led up to the moment of local noon, when the Sun stood highest in the sky.

Clip Source: texasnativeskies.org

Paint Rock is home to more than 1,000 pictographs painted on a limestone cliff that is as much as 70 feet high on the north bank of the Concho River. The paintings, done in red, black, yellow, and white, stretch for more than a half-mile along the layered cliff face.

Kay Campbell, whose family has owned the site for more than a century, began wondering whether there was any astronomical significance to the pictographs or the overall site after learning that many other ancient Indian sites in the southwest served astronomical functions.

She contacted R. Robert Robbins, a University of Texas astronomer who had done research in the field of archaeoastronomy.

On the December solstice in 1996, Campbell discovered that a dagger of sunlight sliced through a shield pictograph at precisely local noon.

The dagger is formed by sunlight shining through a crack in the rocks above the glyph.

Two years later, Robbins discovered a similar alignment on another glyph at the summer solstice in June.

Clip Source: texasnativeskies.org

Tags: history, archaeoastronomy, texas

Wichita Meteorite

Fri, 21 Mar 2008 03:23:33 GMT

clipped by: Rustee
clipper's remarks:

Traders pilfered the rock in 1856 and moved it to San Antonio. Later it was moved to the Texas Capitol in Austin. When the building burned down in 1881, the meteorite was pulled from the ashes and stored in a warehouse.

It was part of the Texas exhibition at the St. Louis world's fair in 1904, and the Texas centennial celebration in Austin in 1936.

A few pieces of the Wichita meteorite have been chipped off and sent to scientists and museums around the world. But the bulk of the meteorite -- about 225 pounds of it -- is on display at the Texas Memorial Museum in Austin.

Clip Source: texasnativeskies.org

Every meteorite follows a long and winding path before it reaches Earth. But some of them follow more fascinating paths after they get here.

An example is the Wichita meteorite -- a 320-pound piece of iron and nickel that traveled around Texas during the 19th and early 20th centuries.

Because such chunks of metal are rare, the meteorite was revered by several Texas Indian tribes, including the Osage, Wichita, and Comanche. One trader reported that the Comanche rubbed their bodies against it to cure illnesses. There are also reports that Comanche leaders held their most important meetings around the meteorite in a secret cave until the cave collapsed. The Comanche spent two years digging it out and moving it to a rock ledge, where artist George Catlin may have painted a picture of it in 1834.

Tags: history, science, texas

Medicine Rock

Fri, 21 Mar 2008 03:20:39 GMT

clipped by: Rustee
clipper's remarks:

After a year of effort, though, they finally arrived in Louisiana. The men turned down several offers for the meteorite and shipped it to New York, where a chemist found that it was made not of platinum, but of iron.

The explorers didn't profit from the meteorite, which was named the Texas Iron. But their foray prompted Spain to step up its patrols. And the meteorite was one of the first to receive extensive scientific review. Today, it's on display at the Peabody Museum at Yale University.

Clip Source: texasnativeskies.org

Anthony Glass was an American trader who was lured westward by tales of treasure in the unexplored territory known as Texas. In 1808 he led an expedition that saw a big treasure -- one that had a big influence on the politics and science of the day.

Glass and his party traded with the Wichita Indians along the Red River. And they became the first white men to see a large meteorite that was known as the "medicine rock" because it was revered by several tribes. Glass chipped off a piece and brought it back to his home base in Louisiana.

The fragment caused a sensation. Many thought it was platinum, and two teams set out to fetch the rest of the meteorite. The first to arrive couldn't move the one-ton meteorite, though, so it was left for the second team, which traded guns and blankets for it.

But this second team had trouble, too. The meteorite was hard to move. What's more, Spain claimed the territory, and a Spanish military force set out to stop the trespassers.

Tags: history, science, texas

Lone Star Statement

Sat, 15 Mar 2008 05:45:45 GMT

clipped by: Rustee
clipper's remarks: I'm not the biggest fan of Gov. Perry, but I give credit where it's due.

Governor Perry is saving Texan businesses $260 million all told in unnecessary unemployment taxes. In recent months he has also directed the state to rebate $170 million that employers paid into the trust fund in 2007.

Clip Source: online.wsj.com

When budgets begin to tighten, many state politicians start to talk tax hikes. So credit Texas Governor Rick Perry for cutting taxes this week as a way to keep his state as a national leader in job creation. Mr. Perry suspended the state unemployment insurance "replenishment" tax for the rest of the year on grounds that government doesn't need the money but employers do.

By law, Texas must keep at least 1% of all taxable wages in the state in its unemployment trust fund, or some $920 million today. The trust fund now stands at $1.6 billion, is growing by the day and isn't in any immediate danger of being drained. Texas has a near record low unemployment rate of 4.3%, enjoys a job creation rate that is twice the national average, and in January added 28,000 net new jobs -- more than any state in the union. With numbers like that, there is little reason for employers to "replenish" a trust fund that is already flowing over.

Tags: employment, taxes, government, texas

1900 Storm - America's Deadliest Natural Disaster

Wed, 12 Mar 2008 05:42:41 GMT

clipped by: Rustee
clipper's remarks: How many perished can only be estimated at around 10,000, or 1 out of every 6 residents.
This was Galveston, Texas btw.

Clip Source: archives.cnn.com

The Category 4 hurricane struck September 8, 1900.

Before dawn September 8, the water crept ashore and kept rising, despite strengthening north winds that should have repelled the storm.

As people fled to higher ground, waves raged inward from both the gulf and the bay. Homes disintegrated and rushing waters swept people away.

St. Mary's Orphanage, home to 93 children and 10 Catholic nuns, stood near the beach and was one of the first buildings to succumb to the storm. The only survivors were three boys who managed to cling to an uprooted tree as it was tossed around by the rising waters.

Water continued to rise until the whole island was submerged by 3 p.m.

There were too many dead to bury, so the remains were initially weighted down and dropped into the Gulf of Mexico. But the bodies floated back to shore and were eventually burned in funeral pyres.

Human remains were found as late as February of 1901.

Clip Source: www.1900storm.com

Tags: history, hurricanes, disaster, texas