Texas Survivor

Like I've said before, Alma, the Songbird of the South, performing now on the Texas Gulf Coast at Port Aransas, regularly sends me funny stuff.

One of this morning's crop of funny stuff was one I think I've seen before, I think, but it freshly amused me.

And so I'm sharing....

Due to the popularity of the "Survivor" shows, Texas is planning to do one entitled---

"Survivor, Texas Style."

The contestants will all start in Dallas, then drive to Waco, Austin, San Antonio, over to Houston and down to Brownsville.

They will then proceed up to Del Rio, El Paso, Midland, Odessa, Lubbock and Amarillo.

From there they will go on to Abilene, Fort Worth and finally back to Dallas.

Each will be driving a pink Volvo with bumper stickers that read: "I'm Gay," "I Love the Dixie Chicks," "Boycott Beef," "I Voted for Obama," " George Strait Sucks," "Hillary in 2012" and "I'm here to confiscate your guns."

The first one who makes it back to Dallas alive wins.

Don't Let Oil & Gas Drillers Mess With Texas

Fight back: help us start the
Texas Oil & Gas Accountability Project

Dear FWCanDo supporters --

I know you love Texas. And we are writing today because the oil & gas industry is "Messing with Texas" and we need your support to reform oil and gas practices in the Lone Star State, before it is too late.

A destructive new drilling boom threatens communities

In Fort Worth, amid the lush prairie hills and the Trinity River corridor, more than 1,100 oil and gas wells have been drilled within the city limits! 100 new wells are being permitted every month. Some experts predict as many as 7,000 wells could be drilled within city limits. And more than 9,000 wells have been drilled in surrounding counties -- with 5,000 more already approved.

This drilling boom is due to the discovery of the Barnett Shale formation, a prolific source of natural gas, roughly 8,000 feet below the surface. The pace of drilling to date has outstripped the ability of landowners and local governments to address the environmental and public health impacts that haunt other oil and gas producing regions like Alabama, Colorado, New Mexico and Wyoming.

We urgently need you to join our cause and help level the playing field in favor of Texans like you.

What does this mean for your community?

Drilling for gas means a spider web of gas wells, disposal wells, compressor stations, pipelines, processing facilities and traffic. With this development comes toxic emissions, water contamination, water disposal issues, safety concerns, and noise issues. The impacts to people's health from living downwind or downstream from drilling and processing is significant, and homeowners are already wrestling with declining property values as neighborhoods and rural communities are turned into industrial drilling zones.

---In Fort Worth, pipelines and wells are being located and drilled just feet from residences. Open spaces, such as the Tandy Hills, Greenbelt and other endangered, native prairie lands are turning into industrialized landscapes and drilling is encroaching upon drinking water supplies such as Lake Worth.
---In Parker County and across the Barnett Shale drilling region, massive amounts of precious water are being used to drill the wells and residents worry about the quality, quantity and future of their water resources.
---In Wise County, toxic and unfenced oil and gas waste pits dot the landscape, engines from drill rigs, trucks and compressors spoil our air quality, and massive pipeline projects create industrial noise in once quiet communities.

A solution: the Texas Oil & Gas Accountability Project

We are writing to invite you to join an exciting new project aimed at preventing and reducing the negative impacts of this unchecked drilling - the Texas Oil & Gas Accountability Project!

Over the last year, organizations and information outlets such as Bluedaze, CREDO, Fort Worth CANDO, the League of Women's Voters, PARCHED and the Sierra Club, have been getting information about gas development into the hands of residents, weighing in on our local gas drilling ordinance, and protecting the future of our neighborhoods by petitioning for gas drilling to be limited to industrial areas. In the course of this work, we have partnered with EARTHWORKS' Oil & Gas Accountability Project (OGAP), an organization with more than 20 years expertise and experience working with communities to prevent and reduce the impacts caused by mineral development.

As energy corporations have pushed to open up more areas across the country to oil and gas exploration and development, OGAP has worked to bring local, state and federal reforms to protect water and landowner rights. Their efforts helped pass the strongest surface owner protections in the United States last year in New Mexico and Colorado, and we want the same protections here for Texans.

If we are successful in forming a Texas chapter of OGAP, we will work to:

---establish strong local and state oil and gas regulations in Texas;
---ensure that where oil and gas resources are developed, companies utilize best practices to prevent and reduce their impact;
---protect key areas threatened by energy development such as the LBJ Grasslands and urban green space;
---end industry exemptions to our nation's environmental and public health laws such as the Safe Drinking Water Act and the Emergency Planning and Community Right to Know Act; and,
---advocate for an energy future that is based on clean, safe and renewable energy sources.

Will you please make a contribution to this important work and join our cause today?

Holding energy companies responsible and accountable for their impacts is a daunting task in this era of urban drilling and peak fossil fuels. I am confident that as we face the rampant development of the Barnett Shale, we need on-the-ground expertise and engaging OGAP is a critical and savvy step for North Texas.

Thank you so much for your time and concern about our great state. I look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,
Don Young, Fort Worth CANDO and
Gwen Lachelt, Director, EARTHWORKS' Oil & Gas Accountability Project

P.S. Please consider making a gift to OGAP of $35 or more to support this effort. If you'd like to review a provisional budget that provides details on expenses for Texas OGAP, or in discussing anything else relating to this initiative, don't hesitate to contact us -- Gwen (970) 259-3353 or Don (817) 731-2787.

I'm In Detox

I went to Chinatown in Arlington today, to my favorite Asian Market, to get some Detox Tea from the resident Chinese Herbalist. I'm in Detox in a desperate attempt to cure my sleep disorder. Getting up at 2am is getting a bit tiresome, though I do seem to get a lot done, well before the sun rises. And after.

My Chinese Detox Tea has over 20 potent Chinese purification herbs in it. I'm having my first pot of Detox Tea at this very moment and I'm already feeling some Detoxing going on.

On the way back from Arlington I went to Village Creek Natural Historic Area to practice taking pictures with my new camera. Indoor pictures vex me. Indoors, the new camera is not nearly as good as my dead, antique camera. I think it is obviously user error and I'll figure it out. Maybe.

There is just way too much going on with this new camera. It is way too easy for me to get lost in the menu. It does take good outdoor pictures though. The trees at Village Creek are now totally stripped of their leaves. Big Oak trees look cool without their leaves, well, they look cool with them, too, but I like the stripped down look.

Speaking of being in Detox. My one longtime reader may remember when I came back from Tacoma, last summer, I was so perplexed by what I dealt with there, for months I tried to figure it out. At one point I wrote a blog about dealing with Toxic People in Tacoma. It did not occur to me, at that time, to consult my local Chinese herbalist about a Detox remedy.

And now this morning I got an email from someone in Tacoma asking me if I'd seen Tacoma's #1 Toxic Person, due to TTP being in Texas. I had read TTP was supposedly going to be here, but how could anyone possibly think I would see TTP. I'm in Detox, for gawdsakes.

Huffine's Veridian at River Legacy Park

Yesterday I blogged about what's happening at, or to, River Legacy Park, in Arlington. I biked the trail as far as I could, til the trail was blocked by the construction of a pipeline.

Yesterday I told you what I'd learned about this project, from an Anonymous source.

Then, today, another Anonymous source made an information rich comment about the project at River Legacy.

It is called Veridian. Veridian, well, the Huffines, have a website. You can go there and see more artist renderings of what Veridian will look like, along with topographical maps. It is a way bigger project than I realized. It will totally alter River Legacy Park. In a good way, or bad way, I don't know. What I do know, almost for certain, is we'll be hearing a lot of construction noises for who knows how long, along the formerly quiet nature trail.

Below is an excerpt from the Veridian website describing the project. You can go to their website to read all about it.

"Viridian, a 2,000-acre+ mixed-use community located in Arlington, Texas, will offer the connection with nature that one yearns for in today's busy world, plus all the great advantages that come with small-town life. Its new urbanism design, sustainability and eco-friendly environment will make it exciting and vibrant.

Unique, unlike any ever developed, Viridian sets itself apart from others because of its prime urban location, its commitment to sustainability and its green living environment. It will be unlike any community ever built in the Southwest and is one of the largest infill developments in the U.S. It is the last large remaining urban tract in Arlington and the only remaining one - in the middle of five million people - where Huffines could create their vision of a true mixed-use, sustainable, green community, in which one could work, live and play in a urban environment. Huffines will make the development viable because of key local, public/private partnerships with the city, and when completed the community will boast a $1.5 billion dollar tax base."

Flock Fixed YouTube

My one longtime reader may remember a few days ago I started to be vexed by a problem with YouTube. I'd uploaded a video, which, when it finished processing and I tried to play the video I was told "We're sorry, this video is no longer available."

I Googled "We're sorry, this video is no longer available" and learned that this particular problem is epidemic, starting some time around June of 2008.

I found some people have quite a conspiratorial explanation as to what is causing the problem, speculating that some YouTube tech people were disgruntled when YouTube was absorbed into the Google empire. So, they began sabotaging YouTube.

Maybe that type explanation would explain why Feedburner has problems. Google also absorbed Feedburner. Feedburner has not been able to get the Google ads working, either within the Feedburner account via using the "monetize" tab, or after Feedburner passed off the monetizing thing to Google, with a message saying you can now control your AdSense Feedburner ads within your Adsense account. The ads do appear in Google's Newsreader, but Feedburner just displays a blank space. But you can see the ad code if you look at the HTML.

Very annoying.

Anyway, various people found various solutions to the YouTube problem. Delete your temporary Internet files, flush your DNS, use Firefox or Google Chrome, disable Google Web Accelerator. None of these fixed my YouTube problem.

Then I read several people saying something called Flock, that being a Web 2.0 browser, fixed the problem. I thought, I'd been down the try a different browser route twice already.

But, I downloaded and installed Flock anyway. And it fixed the problem. I have not seen the sorry "We're sorry" message since.

Dallas Cowboy Island at River Legacy Park

Yesterday someone named Jeff left a comment on a post called "River Legacy Park Destruction Surprise." Basically Jeff did a big "Amen" to what I'd said about what I'd seen.

So, today I decided to ride my bike on the River Legacy trail and see what the current state of destruction is. Before I go any further I will tell you I was not feeling righteously umbraged by what I learned. This surprised me.

I parked at the main part of the park at the south side of the Trinity River, near the mountain bike trailhead. Crossing the bridge to the other side of what they are now calling Snider Legacy Creek, I came upon the sign you see above. I figured this closure was likely where I'd earlier seen preparations being made for a pipeline. I decided I'd pedal all the way to the end, to check it out. Even though I'd already hiked an hour on the strenuous Tandy Hills.

There were a lot of pieces of heavy equipment moving a lot of dirt, diesel fumes and dust in the air. I was not pleased. A couple years ago I got an overly earnest email from a River Legacy Park employee demanding I make certain changes to the webpage I'd made about River Legacy. And inform her when the changes were made. I made no changes. You can read that email and more here.

The River Legacy Employee's main deal was that River Legacy offers a natural experience and is trying to restore damaged areas. I was aiding and abetting the destroyers. Soon after that I was nearly killed by a natural gas seismic tester going the wrong way on a motorized vehicle on the River Legacy mountain bike trail.

So, I was pretty fed up with the hypocrisy of some of those associated with River Legacy. It bugged me that they were keeping kids from having fun building stunt bike trails. Those kids worked hard doing that. They were doing no harm to any sort of pristine natural area.

Back to today. So I was pedalling along and I stopped to take a picture of what looked to be some sort of dam, near where the beaver dam used to be. I thought this was all flood control land in the flood plain. Then I saw a guy come into view on the other side of the temporary fence. He was walking along the fence. When he got near me I asked what he was doing. He told me.

Then I asked what's going on here? Is this the Bird's Fort Development I read about long ago? He told me it was. I said it seemed way bigger than what I'd read. He said it was.

The project has changed since its inception. Projects often do. It was always supposed to be an ecologically friendly, high end type development. Due to the flood plain issue, the Army Corps of Engineers has become involved.

The existing "lakes" will be dredged, way way deeper. A new "lake" has been created west of Collins Street, dug deep enough to tap into the Trinity River Aquifer. This new "lake" will feed a series of several "lakes" in the Bird's Fort development.

Bird's Fort has been destroyed. It was already in bad shape. A facsimile will be put in its place along with historical markers. Bird's Fort was the location of one of the first American forts in north Texas.

An island is being built, surrounded completely by the "lakes." That island will be called Cowboy Island. For the use of the Dallas Cowboys. Either for homes, or, it is rumored, the current Dallas Cowboy training camp will be moved to Cowboy Island from Valley Ranch.

The "lake" nearest Collins Street will have a white sand beach and aerating fountains to keep the water clear. And open to the public for swimming. Currently none of the water retention ponds are swimmable due to being infested with water moccasins.

The land is owned by the Huffines. According to my anonymous source, the Huffines are the second biggest property owners in Texas, after the Perots. I learned this when I asked why there seemed to be no public discussion about what is going on here? Basically I got told that in Texas people like the Huffines do what they want to do and don't worry about little things like seeing if the public is on board with such a drastic alteration of the landscape.

I was told that the area abutting River Legacy Park is going to be totally restored, planted with native Texas Prairie Grass. The "lakes" will be full year round. This will definitely be an aesthetic improvement.

What really struck me about this "lake" project and the scope of it, was both Dallas and Fort Worth have had Trinity River Vision Projects that have been going on for years, both involving lakes. But little progress can be seen. While in Arlington, somehow a Trinity River Vision Project came to be with no fanfare and is now well underway with dirt moving and lakes filling, soon with the Dallas Cowboys on an island.

It all seems almost poetic.

Surrender: Resistance is Futile

Over on FWCANDO Don Young wrote an interesting piece, advising Jim Ashford that resistance is futile, after Mr. Ashford objected to a few issues regarding the latest dirty dealings by Chesapeake Energy and Fort Worth's Ruling Junta. Go to FWCANDO to read what Jim Ashford said and the response to him.

---

Relax, Jim! Chill out, my friend.

We live in Age of Reason.

Ah, but I see you are skeptical? "Reason", like many other words, now have "new meanings" in Dirty Ol' Town. In this case, "Reason" means, whatever reason the gas drillers have is good enough for David, Susan and Sarah. Get it?

Call it, the "Pretend-Game"! It's fun for the whole family!

For example:

1) Protected Use, doesn't REALLY mean protection, it just means that gas drillers will have to pay for waivers or bribe city council to threaten public health and safety. No prob!

2) Free Money, REALLY means that hidden costs for health care, insurance, taxes, property marketability, etc. are shielded from you by the gas drillers and city. Until the bill comes due. It's kind of a, Don't ask. Don't tell, policy.

3) Clean Burning Natural Gas, isn't REALLY clean burning or natural when you factor in the production, processing and piping of it. Throw in disposal of the waste products and you begin to see more clearly.

4) Orderly Production of Minerals, is REALLY Sarah reminding you that "You are getting sleepy. VERRRY sleepy. Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain. Now close your eyes. This is not a zoning change. Repeat after me...

5) Barnett Shale Philanthropy, is REALLY extortion, bribery, graft and hush money dressed up for a night at the opera.

6) Parkland Conversion, REALLY means that gas drillers just have to call in an extra attorney to get what they want.

7) Green-space isn't REALLY a place to hike with your kids, get in touch with the natural world and see some wildlife, it's Prime Real Estate for a future pad-site, compressor station or pipeline.

8) City Attorney, Assistant City Attorney and City Planning Director, aren't REALLY working for the City (you and me). They work for "the current occupant" who works for Chesapeake, XTO, Devon, Quicksilver, Etc. Etc. ad nauseam.

9) The FW Star-Telegram isn't REALLY a Newspaper. It's a Barnett Shale drillers business partner. (Durango note: I've been saying the first sentence in #9 for years)

10) Texas Railroad Commission is REALLY an aptly named excuse for state regulation of oil/gas drilling. They "railroad" you until you're "out of commission." Their message is brought to you by Chesapeake, XTO, Devon, Quicksilver, et al.

Get with the program, man! Once you get the hang of it, it's FUN! Just like all the rapists say, "Relax and enjoy it!"

Click on this City of FW link for more "pretend" words. (See p.3):

Don Young
FWCanDo
P.O. Box 470041
Fort Worth, TX 76147

FWCANDO

"God bless Fort Worth, Texas. Help us save some of it."

Monday at Tandy Hills With a New Camera

That's downtown Fort Wort in the picture. Looking west from the Tandy Hills. As I was taking pictures a jogger zoomed by. You don't often see joggers in the Tandy Hills.

Today is the first day I've used my new camera outside. Yesterday (Sunday) hours were spent, by me, trying to figure it out. There is just way too much going on for this Senior Citizen's deteriorating thought powers to absorb.

Just deleting photos was confusing. My computer card reader recognized the media card, but wouldn't cooperate with it, so I had to leave the memory card on the camera. It was so easy to delete pictures with my old, now dead, camera.

And then I remembered my previous lesson learned regarding new electronic products that require a computer program to make them work. And that lesson is don't use the program that comes with the products. Use ones I already have or that are built into Windows. As in Windows Moviemaker works way better than the clunky program that came with my camcorder.

About 4 in the afternoon, yesterday, I found that Windows Camera/Scanner Wizard made taking the pictures off the camera and deleting them totally simple. After that I figured out the video part of the camera and I slowly quit thinking about taking it back and getting something less challenging, more geared toward the elderly.

The water was running very clear in the Tandy Hills Creek, but it was not running enough water to make much of a waterfall at the Tandy Hills Waterfall.

I guess I'm happy now with the new camera. These type things always take awhile to get used to.

I'm out of here in a bit, heading to River Legacy Park to ride my bike to check out the state of damage there. Yesterday, I got an email from a guy named Jeff, as appalled as I was at what is being done at River Legacy. More dirty dealings with no public input. I'll see if I can get some good pictures. I've not been there in maybe 2 months.

I'll likely return here full of righteous umbrage. Speaking of righteous umbrage, I just got email from Don Young with a good dose of righteousness. I'll hit the publish button and then blog about Don Young's latest.

Super Super Bowl 43

It was this morning in the Dallas Morning News that I learned that the Pittsburgh Steelers won Super Bowl XLIII. That is also when I learned I missed watching all of what is being called one of the Top 5 all time Super Bowl games.

I made it through the first quarter and well into the second, when boredom started to set in and I retreated to my computer.

The commercials were not living up to Super Bowl hype this year. Reading online and in the paper this morning I see I'm not the only one who was non-plussed. Apparently the second half had better commercials.

A few of the ads seemed borderline, well, wrong to me. Like a Bud Light ad that had some corporate workers brainstorming as to how to cut costs. All over the office there were bottles of beer. How many offices have you seen where beer is consumed during work? So, a young guy suggests they save money by cutting out the beer. The next thing you see is him being thrown out the window. The technical term for this is defenestration. Basically its murder. There were several things wrong with that commercial.

More than one ad had someone getting run over by a bus. Another had a guy able to magically remove a woman's clothes. You had to go to a website to see how that turned out. I didn't go there. The Clydesdale beer ads were okay.

I think maybe Super Bowl commercials have jumped the proverbial shark. I see TV Guide has taken over the Jump the Shark website. It's not the same.

Before the game, Jennifer Hudson sang the Star Spangled Banner. I believe it was the best national anthem singing I've ever heard. The Bruce Springsteen halftime show was about the best I remember, too.

And, apparently, if I'd made it to the 4th quarter, the football game ended up being as good as Jennifer and Bruce were. I just did not have the stamina to watch that much football.

Super Bowl XLIII All Day Today On NBC

Why do they use that pretentious Roman Numeral way of numbering Super Bowls? Wouldn't it be easier to just call it Super Bowl 43?

We don't even use Roman Numerals for something as important as President of the United States.

As in our dearly departed former leader, George W. was not known as XLIII. He was known as 43. As in the 43rd President of the United States.

What percentage of avid football fans can count in Roman Numerals? I can't help but wonder.

I knew that the Phoenix NFL team is in the Super Bowl. I knew this due to my Phoenix sister telling me they are all now Phoenix fans, meaning her husband and my nephews and, I guess, my sister. I generally don't pay much attention to the sports pages. But this morning I bothered to find out that Phoenix, well, Arizona, is playing Pittsburgh today. Apparently Arizona is the underdog with Pittsburgh expected to win.

I usually enjoy the commercials, and sometimes the halftime show. Last year I did not find the commercials amusing. I don't remember the halftime show. I blinked during Janet Jackson's infamous wardrobe malfunction, several Super Bowls ago, and had to download video of it to see what the fuss was all about. Much ado about nothing, it appeared to me.

When Seattle was in the Super Bowl, for the first and only time, a couple years ago, I actually watched both the game and the commercials and halftime show. I was appalled by the game. If a casual non-football fan can spot referee errors, well, that's pathetic. If all Super Bowls were like that one, I really don't get why people watch.

Even though I don't care for football and don't see what it is that people find so interesting, I have been known to have or go to a Super Bowl Party. On the West Coast the Super Bowl starts up about 3 in the afternoon. Here in the Central Time Zone it starts up at 5.

I was so used to West Coast start times for live events, I've never gotten used to the Central Time Zone and live events. Like the Academy Awards on the West Coast start at 6 and are over by about 10. Here it starts at 8 and goes til midnight. I've never made it to the end of an Academy Awards Show in Texas. That may be partially due to the fact that anymore I find the Academy Awards show even more boring than football.

It seems to my memory that usually the President's Annual State of the Union address is the first Tuesday after the Super Bowl. It is not scheduled this week, near as I can tell. I think on the West Coast the State of the Union came on at 7, making it 9 here.

Maybe the State of the Union is so bad this year our new President is choosing not to tell us about it. Someone needs to remind him that he is constitutionally obligated to inform the nation of the State of the Union, once a year. He can do it by written report if he isn't in the mood to give another big speech so soon after his last one.

Now, I must start to prepare for my Super Bowl Party. You are welcome to come. But I may kick you out when that game runs too deep into my bedtime.