To prevent Texas Vox from being flooded by pictures of all the cool stuff we’re up to, Public Citizen Texas has created a photostream on Flickr. Check it out. We’ll keep you updated as we make new additions.
Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
Public Citizen Texas on Flickr
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged flickr, photostream, Public Citizen, public citizen texas, Texas, texas vox on February 23, 2009 |
Public Citizen Knows How to Party!
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Public Citizen, Texas, texas energy future on February 19, 2009 |
We had a meet a greet after the Texas Energy Future conference yesterday, and Boy Oh Boy was it a rip-roaring good time. Here are a few pictures of last night’s festivities. Look for yourself if you were there, and if you missed out… be jealous, and next time, Get Your Butts Over Here! Public Citizen knows how to party!
More embarrassing photos after the jump!
Drill no more, baby, drill no more
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Bureau of Land Management, bush administration, drill baby dirll, earthjustice, obama, Oil and Gas Leases, robin cooley, sarah palin, Texas, tim dechris, Tim DeChristopher, utah on February 4, 2009 |
The promise by Obama to overturn Bush administration policies on energy is already being fulfilled. Today the Obama administration said it will cancel oil drilling leases on more than 100,000 acres in Utah and return $6 million in bids including those of activist Tim DeChristopher, who added an interesting twist to the Bush administration’s rush to sell oil and gas leases during their last weeks in office.
In December DeChristopher bid on and won several of these leases in protest, even though he didn’t have the money to pay for them. By early January he had raised $45,000 from supporters and promised if he didn’t have to use the money he would contact donors to determine what do do with the cash.
In the meantime, an alliance of conservation groups filed a lawsuit to try to stop the leasing, citing concerns it would pollute the air in the protected areas. They were granted a temporary restraining order preventing the Bureau of Land Management from moving forward with the leases.
These delaying tactics have proved to be most effective in light of this announcement.
So thank you Tim DeChristopher, for your unorthadox approach to good stewardship of some of our nation’s most precious landscapes in Utah. It took a lot of chutzpah to do what you did in the face of an administration whose motto has long been (as Sarah Palin puts it) “DRILL-BABY-DRILL” regardless of the consequences to environmentally sensitive areas.
And thank you Robin Cooley, the Earthjustice attorney who represented the conservation groups, for convincing the court that the one and a half hours of use we would get from the oil produced on these lands should be weighed more carefully against the impacts on our national parks and protected areas.
The best video game since World of Warcraft- Redistricting: The Game!!
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged independent redistricting commission, redistricting, Texas, Tom Delay, World of Warcraft on February 3, 2009 |
Texas faces the possibility of real reform on how we draw our districts next time around, hopefully preventing the repeat of the debacle from last time around when a partisan agenda prompted a walkout by members of the Legislature. So, while doing some research about redistricting reform this morning I stumbled upon a “gem” of a “video game.”
Get Your Gerrymander On!
In Redistricting: The Game, you’re taken through the pitfalls of partisan gerrymandering. You get to draw your own districts, put voters in districts based on whether they’re Republican, Democrat, White, Black, Hispanic, etc, bribe people– you know, just like the real process.
It’s not really that spectacular in terms of graphics, gameplay, etc, but it gives you a fair amount of idea what it would be like to have the power to draw the lines for your own purposes.
Play it online (no download required) at http://www.redistrictinggame.org/
Enjoy, and be sure to comment below on how you think redistricting should be approached.
Double Take
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged frigate birds, George W. Bush, guano, Joshua Reichert, lame duck, Northern Mariana Islands, Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, Pacific Ocean islands, Texas, Today Bush on January 6, 2009 |
John Broder at The New York Times reports:
“With the designation of the world’s largest marine reserve in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands in 2006, and now these three other sites, George W. Bush has done more to protect unique areas of the world’s oceans than any other person in history,” said Joshua Reichert, managing director of the Pew Environmental Group.
Wow. Maybe after eight years I have low expectations, but that’s not something I expected to hear at any point in my life this morning. Turns out our outgoing lame duck president has decided to do something positive with his last remaining days. Today Bush is set to designate over 195, 280 square miles of “American-controlled Pacific Ocean islands, reefs, surface waters and sea floor as marine national monuments.”
Apparently the islands are remote and for the most part, uninhabited. The article reports, however, that there was some opposition to the designation by commercial and recreational fishing groups, as well as government officials from the nearby Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands who feared potentially negative commercial impacts.
The article continues,
The islands, atolls, reefs and underwater mountain ranges offer unique habitat to hundreds of rare species of birds and fish. Among them are tropicbirds, boobies, frigate birds, terns, noddies, petrels, shearwaters and albatrosses, according to environmental groups who pushed for the protection. It is also the habitat of the rare Micronesian megapode, a bird that incubates its eggs using subterranean volcanic heat.
Yay! I love frigate birds. My favorite part of this story, however, is how America came to control this land in the first place. I’m a big history nerd, so you’ll have to bear with me as I geek out. You see kiddoes, in 1856 we passed the Guano Island Act, a law that allowed sea captains to just claim any islands that were rich in guano. This encouraged sailors to seek out the poopy-est islands possible and claim them in the name of America. These rock solid legal claims kept those lands under our dominance for over 150 years. Weird.
Anyway, thank you Bush, for protecting these lands as a final parting shot. This is a welcome change from your other last minute presidential actions, such as auctioning off public lands in Utah to oil and gas drilling letting his EPA administrator make up bogus rules.
UPDATE: Looks like I spoke too soon: Bush’s One Last Blow to the Environment
Raise a glass to… glass
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged economic recession, glass, Green Inc, Kate Galbraith, Ms. Fisk, New Year's Eve, Real Ale, recyclables, recycling downturn, Texas on December 30, 2008 |
In case you haven’t heard, word on the street is that we’re in an economic recession. Apparently lots of people are losing money, markets are down, and everything is on sale, sale, sale!
Things aren’t any different in the market for recycled goods. Recyling industries are hurting, city government’s aren’t making as much money from their recycling programs, and some are even having to scrap various aspects of their programs. Thankfully, Ms. Fisk’s second grade classroom has taken a stand.
While paper, plastic, and cardboard prices have all plunged, glass prices have remained stable. Explains Kate Galbraith at Green, Inc:
Why? The main reason, experts say, is that it gets reused domestically. Whereas paper and plastics are shipped to China to be recycled, the glass is often crushed in the United States.
So this New Year’s, raise your glass of bubbly secure in the knowledge that you’ve made the best possible environmental decision in purchasing that recyclable and lucrative glass bottle. If you’re a beer drinker, spring for the longneck over that classy aluminum can. Or better yet, get it on draft! May I suggest Real Ale’s Coffee Porter? The you can feel extra smug because on top of being low-waste, its local! Real Ale brews out of Blanco, and the Coffee Porter is made with organic barley and organic fair trade coffee roasted by Avi Katz in Houston.
Hoppy New Year! (yuk, yuk, yuk) Be safe, y’all.
Supress the Vote!
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Elections, harris county, Paul Bettencourt, Texas, Voter supression on October 24, 2008 |
Another post from our field contributor Sarah McDonald:
When I was deputized as a voter registrar in Harris County, I was warned to carefully double-check all forms to make sure every box was checked, every “i” dotted and each “t” crossed. If anyone forgot to check the appropriate boxes, include their full address, or listed a nickname rather than legal name, their registration could be denied. It made me angry that someone could lose the fundamental right to vote over such a silly mistake, but I figured — that’s bureaucracy for you.
So imagine my shock to learn that many valid, clearly legible, and perfectly completed voter registration applications were being denied by Paul Bettencourt’s Harris County Tax-Assessor Collector’s office.
It is bad enough when the vote is denied due to ridiculous human errors such as typos, misspellings, or nicknames that don’t match up to driver’s license databases. But when 18-year-olds are told repeatedly that they are too young to vote, and applications with social security numbers clearly listed on carbon copy-receipts are rejected as incomplete due to that “missing” identification information – one has to wonder whether something more sinister is afoot.
KHOU-TV, channel 11 news in Houston, aired an investigative report to that effect which you can watch here. So amazing was the response to this story, they followed up with another story last night which you can see here.
Mounting evidence demonstrates that the Harris County trend of voter registration denial may be the result not of incompetence, but actual voter suppression. An editorial that ran this week in the New York Times claims that Republicans in states across the nation (more…)
Don’t forget to register to vote!
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Texas on October 6, 2008 |
Today is the deadline to register to vote in Texas. If you’re not currently registered and you want to vote in the election, contact your county’s election office and find out where you can register.
Happy hunting!
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