Water De-Abundance

An article that was written by a classmate of mine, Kaylin J on her blog: Lone Star Austin Coalition, which I think is an important issue to the state of Texas as a whole due to the recent drought and extreme heat conditions state wide can be found here: Water De-Abundance

My comment about her article can be found at the link above or pasted below:

I agree with everything you posted. I think the local government as you stated truly needs to work on fining people who aren't following water conservation matters and others who are using bad practices. As I was jogging yesterday I passed one house who was watering their lawn in the heat of the day. Another lawn had a busted sprinkler head so instead of lightly spraying the lawn it was gushing water all over the place, clearly wasting it. If somebody could step in and fine them I'd sure that would be incentive enough to move their watering time towards the evening or morning when it would be much more affective for the lawn and repair any broken sprinkler heads.

I am also glad that the government is monitoring people that are deemed to be at high risk for danger due to the heat. This is a good step, but I think ourselves as a community should pride ourselves on occasionally checking up on our elderly neighbors and such to make sure they're doing ok. Also I think the state could step in when it comes to football. Two a day football practices out in this heat are no joke, and some football coaches definitely don't know when to call it quits or when to give the players a break. More education on this matter for coaches and the community would result in less heat related deaths of these players.

I think it's cool how you said you're taking up the city's offer to get new low-flow toilets. I think that's a great idea and if enough people do it, it would definitely help to conserve water. I know a principle that my parents practice in their house during times like this is kind of gross to some, but "if it's yellow let it mellow". That also helps to conserve water in a sense.

Perry's official praying for water hasn't been answered yet, so until then we do definitely need to make more of a conscious effort to conserve our water. Every little bit helps, even if it means your car may not be shiny for a few more weeks, it is important for the community.

Future of Energy

One thing my professors have been telling me more and more recently is that the problem of our generation is going to be providing energy for the world. This is one of my major interests. This is such a huge problem because of the energy required to satisfy the worlds needs is going to grow incredibly over the next few decades. I was initially a petroleum engineering major, but have recently switched to mechanical engineering because it is my very desire to help solve this problem in the future.

Texas is one of the states that produces the most oil in the U.S., it is in the upper echelon with states like California and Alaska. However, extracting and consuming all of this oil doesn't go without potential for harming the enviornment. Two articles I was reading shows exactly this:
http://www.texastribune.org/texas-energy/energy/josh-fox-gasland-creator-on-hazards-fracking/
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/04/us/04natgas.html?pagewanted=2&src=un&feedurl=http://json8.nytimes.com/pages/national/index.jsonp
It is tough to see that many people are suffering and affected by hazardous drilling techniques. If almost anything else was polluting peoples waters supplies I have no doubt in my mind that the state of Texas would step in and help to stop whatever was causing it. However, since it's gas and oil that is causing the contamination of drinking water backed by major oil companies it's unlikely the state will step in and that's truly unfortunate.

The step that the state ultimately needs to take is to encourage the growth of renewable energy sources. Whether this is subsidizing them or giving them other benefits, the state needs to back these efforts. Texas is a state where technology thrives and has many of the things necessary for these renewable energy sources. The sun is always shining, the wind is often blowing, and many rivers flow through Texas. Without encouraging the growth of these renewable resources the state of Texas and the world will continue to use more and more oil. This is a problem because many of the state and worlds oil reservoirs that are easy to access have already been depleted. With new technologies there are new methods to extract gas that lies even deeper in the Earth. Some of these can be dangerous and damaging to the environment.

A good read about the big picture of energy can be found at this article here: http://www.pe.tamu.edu/Job-Resources/Energy_NAP.pdf.

I think that the state of Texas needs to stand up to some big oil companies to protect our environment and our future. Texas has a wide variety of resources and therefore should lead the country into a new era or energy that is powered by clean, green, and renewable resources. Doing so will be a lot better for the state of Texas as a whole. Researching and actually getting these projects going can be a bit costly so I think a portion of the budget should be dedicated to getting these projects started in Texas.

Let's Help Raise Higher Education Standards

An article that was written by a classmate of mine, Sheila G on her blog: Texan View Point, which I think is an important issue to the state of Texas can be found here: Let's Help Raise Higher Education Standards

My comment about her article can be found at the link above or pasted below:

I agree with you that education is one of the most important things that we as a state should be focused on to maintain a good outlook in the business climate. While reforming college education is important I think it can start even a little bit earlier than that to help prepare us kids. I know from personal experience that friends attending other high schools in the area had to do almost nothing to be in their top quartile or top ten percentile while at our high school it was an uphill battle. By helping to prepare these kids for college earlier and not letting them just coast through high school like many teachers sometimes do these students would be much more prepared for college.

I think you cited some great and telling statistics. It's dangerous to think about what may happen to our state if soon 63% of jobs will require a degree and right now only 30% in the age group immediately following college have a degree. This makes me think Texas may lose out to some outsourcing and some business over time making business decline.

I'm also hoping the state can help to get control on rising tuition rates. Some of the hardest working people I know can't afford to go to college right out of school and therefore must start working a minimum wage job to start saving up. This of course isn't necessarily a bad thing, but I think they could have so much more potential just if tuition rates were kept reasonable.

I am personally against the Seven Break Through Solutions simply because many professors I know and respect at A&M are strongly against them. I do agree overall with you though that higher education and education in general needs to be reformed in order for continued success and prosperity in the state of Texas. The statistics you posted really opened my eyes to what could happen over the next few years.

Texas Legislatures Place in Conference Alignment

The University of Texas recently made a great deal with ESPN to launch their own network, "The Longhorn Network." This gives Texas a large amount of money, new facilities, and a recruiting advantage over other Texas schools. This is why I am with a large proportion of A&M fans when I say that Texas A&M needs to jump conferences to the SEC. The SEC would level back out the playing field for A&M as far as recruiting goes in Texas, and is significantly more economically feasible for the university.

You can argue either way as to who is causing the destruction of the conference, in many peoples opinions it's Texas, but I can't necessarily blame them for making good business decisions. However, I would be extremely surprised if within 5 years the Big 12 Conference still existed. Many people think when the conference ultimately falls apart that some schools will end up in the PAC and others in the SEC. Texas A&M needs to be proactive though to protect their own interests and get into the best conference they can.

The Texas Legislature is ultimately going to try and block any proactive move that Texas A&M makes because of how it would affect the rest of the state. If Texas A&M jumps ship to the SEC this leaves Baylor and Texas Tech, two other Big 12 schools without too much of an option. Texas will obviously be fine, with their money and new deal, whether that is being independent or by going to the PAC. What concerns the legislature is if a power conference doesn't scoop up Texas Tech or Baylor. If a power conference doesn't scoop up these schools it means a significant loss in revenue for the schools. I truly do not believe that this is the legislatures place to say which conference a school should be aligned with. With as big as college sports are in Texas it's hard for it to not have an impact on elections. Legislatures that are given political fundraising by Baylor or Tech alumni may be influenced to repay the favor and help to keep the Big 12 conference alive because for those schools it looks like that is currently their best option.

Ultimately the Texas Legislature should stay out of which school a conference wants to be aligned with. I think the Big 12 conference will be dead within a few years, so there is no need to keep a boat that's sinking afloat. A&M should be allowed to move to the SEC with Oklahoma, while Texas either goes independent or moves to the PAC 12. Hopefully Texas Tech and Baylor can see the writing on the wall to try and secure a place in a decent conference so that the legislature doesn't step in to try and block any of this from happening. The legislatures place isn't in college sports.

Big House for $16

I was reading this article written by Robbie Cooper that was written on July 17th. His intended audience I believe are the many homeowners across the state of Texas. It is from his blog on UrbanGrounds. The article I'm referring to is: Man pays $16 and stakes claim to $300,000 home under little-known Texas Adverse Possession law

I think what the man did is genius in a sense. If he acted within the bounds of the law to do what he did then I give a lot of credit to him for knowing the laws and acting on them in order for his benefit. However, I agree with Robbie that this is a law that needs to change, and overall what this man did is wrong. I think adverse possession in this sense is in a way like stealing. Not only stealing for his own gain, but stealing away value from neighbors and the neighborhood. Since he was able to pay simply $16 to live in the house he may not be able to keep up in the neighborhood that is described as well manicured and well kept. If he is unable to afford to put money into his house or property to keep things nice and updated like the other neighbors do this could drive down the property value of surrounding houses which is unfair to the homeowners that he isn't willing to put the same type of passion and financial investments into his property as the others.

Bill For Grade Inflation

I was reading an article that directly relates to myself as a college student, as I will be in college for at least a few more years before graduating. The bill for grade inflation would alter funding depending on a schools graduation rate. I agree with the author in saying that if a school is going to get more money for more kids graduating, they are likely to curve or inflate the grades in order to achieve this. I also agree with the author in believing this is a bad thing. I believe the author is writing to a large portion of people because many people will be affected by higher education in the state of Texas sooner or later.

The author makes a few very logical arguments, the first being that, "The bottom line is that schools shouldn't be deterred financially from setting high standards and professors ought to be able to flunk an entire class that doesn't meet them." A teacher being pressured into changing grades even if the students didn't work hard enough to deserve these grades is ridiculous just so the school can have some financial gain.

The author further argues that by lowering the cost of college and by improving earlier education we can help to improve graduation rates which is what this bill is overall trying to do. Again the author provides a very logical argument in the fact that if we are better educated in kindergarten through the twelfth grade, the challenges that are sometimes presented to us in college and in our upper level classes won't be impossible to overcome. However, if we are babied as many are in high school completing all of the sometimes tough and challenging obstacles will be impossible. Also some of the hardest working most motivated kids that work for everything they have are unable to attend college simply because they can't afford it. These are the kids that need to be in college. They will really be able to push themselves with their drive and become successful in whatever they want to be.

I think the main gist the author is trying to argue is that this bill needs to be rejected and other steps need to be taken to make sure our education system is successful. He presents very logical arguments to accomplish this and I completely agree with him. The author is simply listed as the editorial board, but since this editorial has been written and published by a respectable news paper I believe that it is credible.

While searching for editorials I came across this article which tells how some of Austin's high schools are doing. Furthermore from reading these statistics and personal experience I believe the author makes an even more logical argument. The above article mentions that the high school that I attended is ranked 47th in the nation. I feel like I received a great education there, and was well prepared for college and the challenges that are ahead. When I got to Texas A&M I was very surprised that some so-called valedictorians were less than impressive and much less prepared for the curriculum and college itself. The author's argument that education needs to be improved from kindergarten to twelfth grades is extremely true and it needs to happen across the state so we can begin to see higher and higher success rates in college.

Immigration Issues

I was reading two articles that both talk about the same issue. These two articles discuss the issue that Rick Perry placed on the agenda of special sessions. The issue raising these questions is the banning of "sanctuary cities." A sanctuary city is a place where illegal immigrants have certain protections. I do think that whether you believe that illegal immigration is a big problem or isn't a problem at all that these articles bring important and interesting points up. This issue will have a major impact on the political and social scenes of our state.

First, this is important because of the impact on the politics of Texas. Hispanics are the quickest growing group of people in the state. As their population grows so will their influence in elections. Most Hispanics have been traditionally Democratic. With this new issue being brought up even more may become left-leaning. "Last week, a group of Hispanic evangelical ministers that normally support Republicans because of social issues like abortion publicly broke with the governor." This issue could cause many Hispanics that do support the Republican party to switch sides and start to support the Democratic party. As the Hispanic population grows and issues cause some Hispanic people to switch sides, the political landscape may be shifting in Texas.

Second, this legislation would bring up new issues on racial profiling. "She said questions about immigration status cannot be raised without racial profiling unless officers ask everyone they detain." It is very unfortunate and unfair that a legislative matter such as this could cause people to be treated unfairly or hassled unnecessarily simply based on the color or appearance of their skin.

Links to Articles:
On the Agenda: Immigration politics problematic for Perry
Perry Adds Sanctuary Cities to Special Session