Michael Rosales Gets Huntsville Lethal Needle

It's been several weeks since we've given anyone the Lethal Needle in Texas. But last night 35 year old Michael Rosales was put to sleep in the Texas Death Chamber in Huntsville.

Rosales beat a 67 year old woman, Mary Felder, to death during a burglary in June of 1997.

It does not appear that this execution might be one that could later be determined to be a mistake due to DNA testing.

Since it has been awhile since we've had a state sanctioned killing here, I don't remember what the current count for the year is. The little blurb about last night's killing, on page 3 of this morning's Dallas Morning News, did not mention what the death total for the year is.

Rosales last words were, "I love you all. May the Lord be with you. Peace. I'm done." And then he got the Lethal Needle.

Infernally Ridiculous System: Pay Your Taxes On Time

I guess sometimes I procrastinate. Particularly if there is a particularly pesky odious task I prefer to avoid. Like paying taxes.

I made it to the Post Office a bit after 5 to put my annual letter to the IRS in the mail. On the plus side, this is the first year in several that I didn't send in an extension request to put off dealing with the ugly business til August.

I don't know what made me be so responsible and on time this year. Maybe I sense that the government is desperate for money, no matter how puny the pittance.

I do feel sorry for the government.

I feel good that in my small way I'm helping send money to those who need it more than I do so they can get the big bonuses they so richly deserve. And help stimulate the economy.

I suppose I should go to one of those Tea Party deals. I got invited. It didn't seem like the sort of thing I'd enjoy though. I prefer coffee.

Alma Fixes America's Sick Economy

One of the most brilliantly bright people it is my extreme pleasure to know is Alma, the Songbird of the Texas Gulf Coast.

Alma may have the best sense of humor I've ever encountered. Usually when people send me things they think are funny, I usually don't. But Alma sends me a lot of stuff and it is almost universally either funny or interesting or both.

In other words Alma has impeccably good taste. And extraordinarily good judgment and wisdom about all sorts of things.

Including America's current economic disaster. Obama really would have had a much better Secretary of the Treasury had he picked Alma over that tax-evading Tim Geitner guy who seems way too confused to be figuring out anything complicated.

Whereas Alma has come up with a simple plan to fix the economy which she calls "Patriotic Retirement."

There are about 40 million people over 50 in the work force. Alma would pay these workers $1 million each with 3 key stipulations.

1) They quit their jobs. With 40 million fresh job openings Alma has fixed the unemployment problem.

2) Each of the new retirees is required to buy at least one NEW American car. With at least 40 million new cars bought Alma has fixed the auto industry.

3) The new retirees have to either buy a house or pay off their mortgage. Alma has now solved the housing crisis.

I am terrible at math, but it appears to me that Alma's Economic Recovery Plan is cheaper than the trillions of dollars currently being spent, or proposed to be spent.

Once the economy is back on track I wonder if the million dollar retirees can go back to work? A million dollars really is not going to tide one over for too long.

I wonder what Alma's plan for the pirate problem is?

Annoying Microsoft XP Security Updates

Microsoft has managed to make their constant XP security updates even more annoying of late.

Previously I'd get a message that updates have been downloaded and are ready to install. This allowed me to make the update when it was convenient for me.

Once previously and now again this morning Microsoft decided it can take over my computer and install the update and restart my computer with no input from me.

Now, the majority of these security updates, when you are allowed to looked at their details, tell me that the updates fixes a new found problem that might allow someone to take control of my computer.

But the only thing that seems to be able to do that is Microsoft itself. Where is the protection from the Microsoft security breech that lets Microsoft restart my computer whenever it wants?

This morning it happened at 5am. I was still in bed and I heard the computer make its start up noise. I wondered, what fresh hell is this? When I woke up the computer, I quickly saw what the fresh hell was. My computer had been restarted. Everything I had open was gone. And a little icon on the taskbar told me updates had been installed. When I clicked the little icon so I could see what the updates were, the icon went away without opening.

So, apparently, Microsoft does not want me to know what it did to my computer this time.

Where is the security update to protect me from Microsoft? And don't tell me Linux. Or Apple.

I am not alone in my aggravation over this issue. The image above had the update message in what looked like German. So, Microsoft is creating an international nuisance. Under that image on the website I got it from was the following...

This must be one of the most annoying features in Windows.

Look the other way for a minute and find out that windows update rebooted your PC after installing security updates.

Oh? By the way, all the work you've done is gone.

How about giving users an hour to react, and not 30 seconds?

The Fort Worth Sound of Freedom

Around 4 this afternoon I started hearing the very loud rumbling of jets. Very loud. About a half hour later I decided to go to Wal-Mart. As I exited my abode I heard jets roaring again, looked up and saw what I believe were a pair of those new F-22 fighter planes flying over.

The F-22's are built by Lockheed here in Fort Worth. Yes, Fort Worth has a big arms supply industry. I did not know this before I moved here. Seems like I've always lived near big plane builders. In Washington it was Boeing and their humongous 747 manufacturing plant in Everett.

In Fort Worth the jets being built are smaller and so are the buildings. But the noise is big.

In Washington I lived near the Whidbey Island Naval Air Base. I don't know if it is still open. There is a billboard near the entry to the base that says something like "Pardon Our Noise. That's the Sound of Freedom." When I'd read that I always thought, no it's not, it's the sound of noisy jets. It was an issue when the Navy was in practice mode, because Washington's most popular, most scenic state park, Deception Pass, is near by. It could be unsettling to be sitting on top of a peak in Deception Pass and have a jet roar overhead.

So, today as I drove the long 2 miles to Wal-Mart, I saw people stopped at the side of the road, looking up. By the time I got to the Wal-Mart parking lot and got out, I was able to see that there were 2 pairs of jets flying a circle that went right over Wal-Mart. It did not take long for a pair of the jets to pass over the Wal-Mart, so I could take a picture.

When I was in the store the Sound of Freedom shook the store 5 or 6 times. I forgot what I was shopping for.

Don't Mess With Texas Women

Now, that is a warning well heeded. Do Not Mess with Texas Women. A lot of them are packing heat or at least pepper spray.

I know of one Texas Woman who decided she'd had enough of Tarrant County having no newspaper covering a lot of issues or points of view that needed airing. And so the Lone Star Telegraph was born.

It was while driving into River Legacy Park today that I found myself following this particular not to be messed with Texas woman. So, when I got my new bike out of my new van, I knew I had to pedal back to where she'd parked, to get a picture, hopefully before she accused me of messing with her with the picture taking.

Currently a cabal of Not to be Messed with Texas Women are working to fix all sorts of things, like eminent domain abuse, out of control gas drilling and piping, un-fixed flooding problems and an overall system corrupted by being run by a good ol' boy network that installs a Ruling Junta that decides things like destroying the convergence of 2 forks, West and Clear, of the Trinity River, to build a little lake, some canals and a flood diversion channel. All decided by the Ruling Junta without the good citizens of Fort Worth being allowed to vote on the project that many think will likely end up being yet one more Fort Worth boondoggle, boondoggles that might not have happened had the public had input in the form of being able to vote for the boondoggle.

Anyway, here's hoping the not to be Messed with Texas Women have great success.

Don't Believe in God? You Are Not Alone According to Billboard

The billboard you see in the picture has been appearing all over America, including Dallas, which is where the one you see in the picture is located. Another appears in Fort Worth.

Somehow this would seem to be a tad provocative here in the Buckle of the Bible Belt.

The billboards are brought to America courtesy of something called FreeThoughtAction, which is part of something called the American Humanist Association.

According to the executive director of the American Humanist Association, Roy Speckhardt, "The point of the billboard is to let nontheistic people, such as atheists and agnostics, know they’re not alone."

The founder of FreeThoughtAction, Jan Meshon further explained, "For all the attention given to religion lately, the number of secular Americans is booming. The tide is definitely turning."

To which Speckhardt adds, "So why have nontheistic Americans been made to feel marginalized and deviant? This billboard demonstrates our will to push back and refuse to be passive in the culture wars. And after so many religious billboards, it’s only fair that we should have one that gives voice to nontheists."

It really is no great surprise that the news of these billboards would generate at least one embarrassingly wrong-headed letter to the editor of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. I'll copy it below. See how many erroneous beliefs you can spot in the letter....

Disturbing message

What is the world coming to when you see billboards that ask, “Don’t believe in God? You are not alone”?

Metroplex Atheists Chairman Terry McDonald is exercising his freedom of speech but, at the same time, he is confusing church and state. With America as “one nation under God,” how could we let this happen?

“In God we trust” is printed on our money. Our country was founded on God, and for this billboard to stand anywhere in this country is a mockery of our founding fathers.

— Thomas T. Risher, Fort Worth

Veterans Park Veterans Memorial

I'd not taken the time to closely look at the new Veterans Memorial in Veterans Park til today. There are paver stones on which the names of local veterans are engraved. Or notes from loved ones.

I don't quite know for sure what I think of the part of the memorial where the engraved paver stones end up at a pair of what I assume are intended to represent caskets.

The casket on the left, at the point where the pavers meet the casket, the engravings were for several Choctaw Code Talkers from World War I. I knew about the Navajo Code Talkers of World War II, but I'd never heard of Choctaw Code Talkers.

In a Burger King in Kayenta, Arizona, on or near the Navajo Nation, there is a museum, as part of the Burger King, that tells the story of the Navajo Code Talkers. That was the first I'd ever heard of them. That was in the early 1990s. Since then their story has become well known, via movies and I think a memorial other than the one in a Burger King.

There were pavers for soldiers from the current Iraq war, the previous Iraq War, Vietnam, Korea, both World Wars. And the Civil War. Two from the Civil War. I thought that was interesting. Jack Tankersley and James I Brewton, Civil War Confederate.

When I first came to Texas, we went out to Weatherford, we were walking around the county courthouse, which looked cool to our northwest eyes. And then there was a statue, a statue memorializing the War Between the State and the Confederacy. It was at that point that for the first time I realized, yikes, I'm living in a Confederate state. At the time this seemed significant. Now, not so much.

Cemeteries in Texas are very interesting to a person who grew up in the northwest. Washington only became a state in 1889. Prior to the 1850s there weren't a lot of people other than Indians living in Washington. So, if you walk around even the oldest cemeteries in Washington, like the one in the small town of Rosyln, you see some very intriguing gravestones, it's got something like 20 sections, divided by everything from religion to nation to race.

But, in a Washington cemetery you don't see anyone buried that was born in something like 1799. I never saw such a thing til I was in Texas. Texas cemeteries are like walking through a museum. If' you've not walked around the cemetery by the Dallas Convention Center and Pioneer Plaza, well, it's worth a walk. It also has the biggest Civil War monument I've seen. I think Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis, Stonewall Jackson and I forget who else are on it.

I've got to remember to blog about an interesting, pretty much hidden, war memorial that I came across in the Fort Worth Botanic Gardens. I took pictures and then forgot about it.

Veterans Park, Chinatown, Wildflowers & Golfing in Texas

Yesterday's rainy Easter kept me indoors most of the day, except for a drippy morning swim that was quite pleasant. I repeated the swim this morning, though under blue sky.

With yesterday's unpleasantness behind me I was in need of a walk and some goods from Chinatown. So, it was off to Veterans Park in Arlington to take care of the walking need and then on to Chinatown for red peppers and oyster sauce, among other things.

At Veterans Park I noticed a sign I'd not noticed before. Its list of prohibitions and warnings amused me. Number 2 said "No Golfing Allowed in Park." While #5 warned, "Caution: Disc/Frisbee Golf in Area.

So, #2 said no golfing while #5 warned you to watch out for the golfers. Sort of.

Easter's heavy rain seemed to have done no damage to the wildflowers at Veterans Park. I saw a couple I'd not seen before, like the red one in the picture.

After Chinatown my intention had been to come back here and make lunch. But, I was convinced to agree to go to The Tandoor Restaurant for their buffet again. It was good.

These type places fit in with my plan to gain weight. I got comments to my blogging yesterday about Morbid Obesity that convinced me that I should not write about such things unless I was writing from personal experience.

I figure it'll take me about 6 months to get Morbidly Obese. Give or take a month or two. Seems like this could be an expensive project. I used to know a Hugely Morbidly Obese person, in fact, it was from that unfortunate acquaintance that my fascination with the disease was born. She was so obese and had such expensive food tastes I figured she was waddling around wearing 20-30 thousand dollars worth of pure blubber. It takes a lot of cookies, pies and butter to make that much heft.

Wal-Mart Thieving Milk Scam

My one reader may remember last week, or the week before when I said I would not set foot inside that corrupt bastion of bad behavior that calls itself Krogers, due to chronic, over and over again price mistakes that I really think should have some Kroger employee sometime somewhere charged with theft just like Kroger's would with a shoplifter.

I've mentioned before that while Wal-Mart sometimes makes mistakes, with Wal-Mart it can go either way, their favor or mine, unlike Krogers where it is always in their favor. Which is what makes Krogers' pricing mistakes seem like purposeful thievery.

Now back to Wal-Mart. For months now Wal-Mart has been selling milk at $1.98 a gallon. Last week on the way back from Southlake I knew I neeed a gallon, so I stopped at the North Richland Hills Wal-Mart Supercenter, took the 2 mile walk to the back where the milk is, saw the BIG "GALLON MILK $1.98" sign.

Walked the 2 miles back to the self-checkouts. Quickly scanned the milk and it rang up as $2.00. I think to myself, how stupid, but 2 cents was not worth fussing about. That and I was in a hurry.

Now, today I was in Chinatown in Arlington. On the way back from that I went to the Tandoor Indian Restaurant (again) for their lunch buffet. After on the way back here I remembered I needed milk again.

So, I stop at my neighborhood Eastchase Wal-Mart Supercent, run in, well, more accurately I walked quickly in, made the 2 mile journey to the back of the store, saw the $1.98 sign I'm used to see. Grabbed my milk and quickly made the 2 mile trek back to the front of the store.

Scanned the milk and you can see the result in the picture of the receipt above. Again, $2.00

So, almost a week after the first incident, at a different store, and now again today, Wal-Mart got 2 cents more than I thought I was going to be paying them. Now, if Wal-Mart is running this Milk Scam system wide that could add up to a lot of pennies.

I suspect Wal-Mart employs psychologists, just like Microsoft does, to try and figure out how much pain they can inflict before their customers react. The research probably showed something like only 1 in 3,459 customers was even going to notice the mistake and that only 1 in 55,493 of those who do notice would take the time to wait in the Customer Service line to complain. The research probably also showed that something like 1 in 433,356 of those who notice the mistake will blog about it and at that time they'd have to label the blogger a crackpot.