The whole “fiscal cliff” bullshit just about makes me too disgusted to write anything. So, I will share some articles with you, my friends. Weed ’em and reap!
This talks about political blame! Whoo-hoo!
What falling off the fiscal cliff means. It means we are f**ked!
Undermining our national unity even. The government will get your puppies!
I am just lying about your puppies. But you might have to choose between the expensive dog food for your puppy or potted meat and bread for you.
Will Texas see casinos anytime soon?
Ten years ago I would have said that kind of talk is crazy. But during a time when more and more money is needed for the state to piss away, well, let’s just say desperate times call for desperate measures.
Houston Democrat Rodney Ellis has authored Senate Joint Resolution 6, which would propose a constitutional amendment to allow casino gambling and slot machines by a limited number of licensed operators and Indian tribes. Video lottery would also be authorized at licensed horse and dog tracks as well as on Indian reservations.
The law would establish a Texas Gaming Commission to oversee the gambling. Eight horse and dog tracks would be allowed a certain number of slot machines. Six licensed “casino-anchored destination attraction development projects” would be authorized in different Texas urban areas. Hmm, sounds like Disney World meets the one-arm bandit! Two Gulf of Mexico island-based casinos could likewise operate on Galveston and Padre Island.
I have as of yet not found a specific revenue estimate all of this might bring although funds generated from such a proposal would specifically help provide property tax relief and money for higher education.
This is not, trying to be trite, the first rodeo for Texas when it comes to attempts at establishing casino gambling. I have covered efforts in both Texas at allowing parimutuel horse racing and in establishing slots at race tracks in Louisiana. I can tell you that trying to establish gaming of any kind in both states is an uphill battle. Yes, some of the opposition is based on moral and religious concerns. But the “do-gooders” aren’t those who sponsor gambling measures should worry about. It’s those in gambling who are the biggest foes.
I remember writing about the first attempt in the mid-1990s to add slot machines to the Delta Downs race track in Vinton, La. Louisiana had and still has limited casino gambling and one of the hotspots was and is Lake Charles, about 30 miles west of the Texas border off Interstate 10. Vinton is closer to Texas than that. Delta Downs is slightly more than two miles from the border, not far off of I-10. Lake Charles has long attracted customers from the Houston area and beyond, so one may only imagine how adding slots just across the Sabine River from Texas might cut into the gambling pie of the multiple Lake Charles-area spots.
The first attempt failed. But try try again and now you have Delta Downs Racetrack Casino. There are slots, off-track betting and horse racing in season. Supply and demand won.
Established casinos in Lake Charles fought like hell to keep casinos from Delta Downs. We’re talking the biggest of the bigs at the time. I think LC now has even more gambling spots after rebuilding from two hurricanes. Texas is surrounded by gambling either in commercial or Indian casinos. One can imagine that the casinos in Bossier City, Lake Charles, and those on the Oklahoma and New Mexico reservations will all have their lobbyists in Austin this spring.
It is a little too early to worry about casino gambling in Texas at this point though. Sen. Ellis only calls for a constitutional amendment. If the gambling interests from out-of-state do not take down SJR 6, then it will be up to Texas voters how such an amendment will go. If I were a betting man, I would not take a bet on whether a law allowing casinos in Texas would pass.
Only time will tell whether the special interests from the gambling industry push lawmakers away from the measure and, if passed, if Texans vote the amendment in come November a year from now. Then, it will likely end up a local-option issue. There is a lot of voting ahead before we see a Harrah’s in the Lone Star State.
It seems as if I was the only person in the country who didn’t see the controversial last play of the Monday Night Football. But that’s okay because fallout was in no short supply from the Seattle Seahawks win over Green Bay that maybe shouldn’t have been.
Here is a fairly simple explanation of what happened from an Associated Press piece published by The Washington Post. Except it really was not all that elementary my dear Watson, especially when explained by the likes of Sports Illustrated’s Peter King. Oh, and just to be perfectly perspicuous, that is NOT Peter King the Republican congressman from New York whom Reuter’s magnificent media writer Jack Shafer once referred to as “an exploding carbuncle masquerading as a member of Congress.”
If you somehow managed to miss the root of this controversy — so all-encompassing that even the President “tweeted” about it — it stems from a labor-management issue as us left-leaning, Red fellow travelers like to call it. Those of the evil rich NFL Owner Class locked out the regular referees and apparently replaced them with just about anyone who has worn a zebra-striped shirt. That is not so far from the mark if the statement by Mitch Mortaza is true. He is the founder and president of the Lingerie Football League. Yes, there is a LFL although I’ve yet to see a game and will probably need a condition of hyper insomnia before I ever watch such a spectacle. Nonetheless, Mortaza says some of the current NFL substitute referees had worked for the lingerie league but were allegedly let go because they didn’t make the cut. I have to wonder if the refs in that league also wear lingerie? I really don’t want to know the answer though.
Blown calls happen all the time in the NFL and even the most seasoned “Zebras” are not immune from making one. The fact is, however, that these are substitute refs, “scabs” in the language of the older hard-line union members, whose train wreck of a call may have brought this whole debacle to a head. Oh, and speaking of millions, it was reported today that some $300 million in bets on the game changed hands. I don’t really want to repeat myself, but do you know what I could do with $300-freaking-million? People are pissing away $300 million that hinged on one incompetent call while who know how many others, myself among them, live week-to-week. What a world, huh Bubba?
Such are the type of calamities that make the conspiracy nuts who already think professional or even college games are fixed wonder if the “fix” was really in on this Monday night madness. So many amazing games with stunning turnarounds have been showcased on Monday night games that it is a target-rich environment for the conspiratorially-inclined.
And so, to paraphrase the immortal words of the ever-amazing Vice President Joe Biden, this was “a big f***ing deal.” It was answered by the NFL by a confusing statement that basically said: “Yeah, the call sucked but so what?” So there we have it. Another football game. Another blown call.
My Blackberry from work has lost its mind, literally, so I have to send it away to the tech folks. That’s not so bad but I also have to send my work computer along with it. That’s not so bad because I decided with my computer away, I can’t really do much at work, so I am taking a vacation beginning Saturday and ending a week from Monday. My boss signed off on it. That’s not so bad.
I wouldn’t be of envy to all workers but the fact that I have 17 days vacation on the books is quite a bit when you consider I work an average of 26 hours a week. My vacation, leave as we call it, is accounted for in hours. Thus when you say you have almost 140 hours that seems laden with a smidgen more heft. I don’t work every day. I don’t always work 8 hours a day. So when I take vacation, it is added on to days off and hours that I do not work. It makes me feel at least a little better that I am not making a pile of moolah.
What is bad is that this unexpected vacation will coincide with a time of little expendable dollars. I’ve got to do some fund-raising. Maybe I should do like the Obama campaign and hit up everyone I can think of for $3-$5. Just $3.” Please sir, I want some more.”
Hit that donation button boys and girls, men and women, dogs and cats! I need me some vacation money so maybe I can go, to the big H-E-B store and buy something to eat. I don’t have money to go anywhere, so I guess I am going to catch up on my sleep, catch up on my reading and maybe try to find a freelance gig or two. Where is that tropical storm, by the way?
Oh well, I think I will eat a hot dog. It’s not good for me. But it’s cheap and I’m so broke I can’t pay attention. Or like my Daddy used to say: “If trains were selling for a dime a dozen, I wouldn’t even have the change to buy the echo of a whistle.”
You thought I might end this with “That’s not so bad?
Polls for the 2012 presidential race make me want to chop wood. Well, that is figuratively speaking. It has been a long time since I chopped any wood and if I have it my way it will be even longer before I do it again.
It’s just that polls drive me crazy or more accurately the stories written about polls drive me nuts. Take today, for instance. Here is a snapshot of “Polls Obama” on Google News, my trusty aggregator:
President Obama, Romney Tied in Latest Washington Post-ABC Poll
Poll of Polls: Obama ahead of Romney, but slightly
Poll: Obama has 8-point lead over Romney in Va.
Obama, Mitt Romney Deadlocked In Race, Poll Finds
And so forth.
Yes, it is partly the Internet’s fault and my fault if this variety of polling results makes me a bit on the looney side. The Internet is a showcase for tons of news and partisan sites showing everything from the national take down to a precinct in Intercourse, Pa. It is my fault that I read these stories or at least the headlines and the lead.
Such variety of polls are, of course, nirvana for political junkies. To the serious political junkie putting all these pieces together into some electoral context is a Karl Rove-ish version of the board game “Risk.”
But here Schmoe is, that would be me, just trying to figure out where things stand overall. That is so because every freaking precinct in every freaking state isn’t of vital strategic importance when it comes to the Electoral College. Where I live is a good example. Yes, I live in one of the areas of Texas that has voted traditionally Democrat. Like elsewhere in this wonderful state with its misguided voters though, the Republicans are pushing their way in and trying to root out all the old Yellow Dogs, like me. Since Shrub Bush was first elected I have felt disenfranchised for pretty much every race above ticket of county judge. My vote for president means nothing.
My pocketbook is another story. Well, not my pocketbook. A guy asked me last week if he could borrow $10. I told him I don’t know ten people with a dollar. Or two people with a $5 bill either. Oh, I know you probably get tired of this, I certainly do, but you can go right here on this link and I can tell you how to send me money. I am in the process of putting a PayPal button on my blog for donations, but I am having a problem getting it up and running. How would your money be used? Oh, for things like … living. Times are harder than they’ve been in a long time and if you appreciate what you read here sometimes, even if you don’t appreciate it, you can go right here and I can tell you how to send me your money.
Obama’s people are wearing off on me, I suppose. Some of the e-mails I receive from the Obamas, and Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Joe Biden and George Clooney — they aren’t personal e-mails mind you — you would think Barack, Michelle and the girls are sitting in a dimly-lit White House making do another week on Beenie Weeniess and Shasta. And they always ask for another $3. “Just $3 more, Dick, and we can beat that old Republican money machine this month.” I doubt it. I doubt it because the Dems are always pleading poverty.
I’m glad I didn’t sign up for e-mail from the Romney people. Everybody wanting my money you would think I am Warren “Jimmy” Buffett.
But I am serious. Go here so you can send me $3. Just $3. A $3 bill. No don’t do that. I don’t need the Secret Service folks messing around here. But anything, a can of Beenie Weenies and a Shasta, even. No don’t do that. I’d hate to see Sasha and Malia go to bed hungry.
