Finding Frozen Pork Heads After Texas Mail-In Voting Mayhem

Mailing my mail-in ballot today, after procrastinating doing so for a couple weeks, with the election less than two weeks away, I went from the post office to Walmart where I was surprised to see Thanksgiving stuff already available, as in dozens upon dozens of frozen Turkeys.

Frozen Turkeys and frozen Pork Heads.

A couple of which you see photo documented above. A frozen Pork Head costs less than ten bucks. What does one do with a Pork Head? I suppose I might find the answer to that probing question via Googling.

Today marked the first time I experienced the Texas version of mail-in balloting. It seemed way more complex than what I remember of the permanent mail-in voting method in my old home state of Washington.

One thing nice about voting in Texas is there are so few things to vote on.

Texas does not seem to embrace the concept of Initiatives, Referendums, Propositions and other ballot measures of the sort one found multiple instances of on a Washington ballot.

I do not think Texas has the Initiative method of getting something on the ballot, where a citizen can come up with an Initiative, something like legalizing marijuana, and if the citizen can get enough signatures the Initiative goes on the ballot.

Back to my experience with today's Texas ballot. I may have rendered it not worthy of being counted. There were two pages to vote on, then those two pages go in an envelope, and then that envelope goes into another envelope addressed to the Elections Administrator.

Well.

I did my voting, folded the two pages. And stuck them in the mailing envelope. Licked the seal, folded down the flap, and signed on the X.

And then I realized I had not put the ballot in the first envelope before sticking it in the mailing envelope. I tried to pry open the mailing envelope. That did not go well. So, I fired up a kettle til I had it steaming, and was soon able to open the envelope.

I extracted the ballot and stuck it in the correct envelope, then stuck that envelope in the mailing envelope which is what I should have done in the first place.

Well, the places where the X marked my signature did not quite line up. Where I'd entered my Driver's License ID number, phone number, last four SS digits and email address, had been slightly mucked up. I was able to over-write the mucked-up parts. And then tried to re-seal the envelope via once again licking, but that was no longer viable.

And so I Scotch taped the envelope closed. 

We shall see if I hear from the Elections Administrator. I suspect I am not the first to make this mistake... 

Voting The Fort Worth Way In A Hellacious Downpour Today

This afternoon, in Texas, I'm feeling like I have been teleported back to a stereotypical Pacific Northwest winter day.

I was all suited up and ready to take off for a salubrious hour of Tandy Hills hiking, around noon, when a hellacious downpour, with lightning aftershocks, put an end to that plan.

So, I quickly switched to Plan B. Go vote and then go push a cart around inside Sam's Club. In the picture you are looking out my windshield at Sam's Club and a downpour.

There was no line to vote, but it was busy.

I don't know why, but this time you had the option of voting with a paper ballot. Or use the video game-like voting machine I've gotten used to using. The polling place I voted at had only one of the video game voting machines.

I was confused as soon as I signed in and was pointed to the paper ballot. I asked where was the code I needed to enter in the video game voting machine? Oh, you want to vote that way? We can do that. Some scrambling took place to find me the code. When I realized what the deal was, I said I can just use the paper ballot and vote the old-fashioned way.

Only it really was not like the old-fashioned way, except you did mark off your votes with a penned checkmark in a box. When done you inserted your ballot into a machine that scanned it. And I assumed tallied the votes.

I never did trust those video game voting machines, due to there being no hard copy record of the vote. Video game machines are known to malfunction at times.

I tell you, voting in Texas is so not what I was used to in Washington.

Today in Washington there are 2 Initiatives on the ballot to take the state out of the liquor selling business, those Initiatives being I-1100 and I-1105. I-1098 is for a state income tax. I-1053 would require a two-thirds super-majority vote for any new tax, or tax loophole removal. I-1082 would privatize the state's worker compensation system. Various counties, including King, have Propositions on the ballot to increase the sales tax.

In California the voters are deciding whether to make California the first state to legalize the recreational use of marijuana. Proposition 19, titled the Regulate, Control and Tax Cannabis Act would permit adults over 21 to buy up to an ounce of marijuana, to be consumed in private places, where no children are present. Oh, and Californians would be allowed to grow pot in small private gardens.

Meanwhile, today in Texas, I had nothing to vote on except people, state officials, like the governor, a whole lot of judges and other people about whom I knew nothing and who mattered to me not in the slightest.

In Washington if some bonehead came up with a boneheaded plan to take down levees, that have prevented flooding for decades, in order to build a teeny lake and 3 bridges across an un-needed flood diversion channel.

And somehow put this Boneheaded Boondoggle in motion without the citizens having a vote on the matter.

Well, when the Boneheaded Boondoggle began to spin noticeably out of control, with exposes of drunken junkets to inspect other town's rivers and lakes, with building goofy things like the World's Premiere Wake Boarding Lake, well, I can tell you what would happen.

A pissed of Washingtonian would get enough signatures on a petition to put the issue of the Boneheaded Boondoggle on the ballot.

But, here in Texas that sort of thing just does not take place. It is not the Fort Worth Way.

I have come to think that what the Fort Worth Way means is to emulate the daily herding of the longhorns in the Stockyards, just march along, following orders, going one direction in the morning, another in the afternoon, never questioning if this really is the direction you want to be going. And never getting anywhere good.

Voting on Boondoggles in Texas and Washington

I mentioned last week, or was it the week before, that voting is so different in Texas than I was used to in Washington. In Texas it seems you vote on dozens upon dozens of judges. And a couple other things. I didn't bother voting on the judges because I knew nothing about them. It took me less than 15 seconds to vote in Texas. It used to take way longer in Washington.

I did vote yes on the only to non-human things on the ballot, that being allowing booze to be sold in stores and restaurants in Fort Worth. I did not understand the need for these two propositions because you can already buy booze in stores and restaurants in Fort Worth.

By way of showing the extreme contrast in what the citizens get to vote for in Washington and Texas, three Washington counties, King, Pierce and Snohomish voted in favor of expanding the, soon to open, light rail. And to expand the regional bus system. The light rail will now go north to Lynnwood in Snohomish County, south to Federal Way and east, across the I-90 floating bridge, to Bellevue and Redmond. Redmond is where Microsoft is located.

I can't imagine any combo of the counties that make up the D/FW Metroplex voting on a proposition together for their mutual benefit. When the Dallas Cowboys demanded a new stadium there was no suggestion that all of North Texas vote to fund it, or the towns of the D/FW Metroplex, or even one county of the Metroplex. Instead it fell to the little town of Arlington to vote to tax themselves to build the $billion plus stadium. And abuse their neighbors with the most outrageous use of eminent domain in American history.

Contrast what was done to Arlington to get a new stadium for Jerry Jones with what was done in Seattle to get the Seahawks a new stadium. The entire state of Washington voted and passed the proposal to tear down the Kingdome and build a new stadium. The population of Washington is smaller than the population of the D/FW Metroplex.

Fort Worth is moving ahead with a, in my opinion, bizarre, likely boondoggle plan, to alter the Trinity River to build a little lake, some canals, a flood control diversion channel and some wetlands restoration. This is called the Trinity River Vision. The main trouble I see with this supposed vision is that the citizens of Fort Worth have not been allowed to vote on this project which will greatly alter their city.

In my opinion it should be against the law to use eminent domain to take property for projects the public has not approved of via the ballot box.

The fact that the citizens of Fort Worth do not get to vote on Fort Worth projects may be why so many of them turn into boondoggles. The Ruling Junta does not have to make its case to the people, they just plow ahead, like a dictatorship. Stalin used to come up with some rather goofy Trinity River Vision type boondoggles. There I would have been likely shot for calling a Stalin project a boondoggle.

Here in Fort Worth I feel relatively safe from the Ruling Junta. Relatively.