Keller City Limits

Is it really all that important that school board members hold their ISD officials to a high level of responsibility and accountability?

Well, it is in Arlington.The AISD school board members demonstrated great courage in dealing with this highly regarded, near ‘rock-star’ status Superintendent.

‘Requesting the resignation’ from this Superintendent could not have been an easy decision.The AISD school board members had to know that they were going to face criticism from both inside the Arlington area and outside the AISD. And that criticism has certainly happened, yet, their priorities as school board members overcame any fear of repercussions, accusations of racism, etc.

My guess is that the overwhelming majority of AISD residents believe, and rightly so, that their school board is representing them to school officials, not representing school officials to the public.

In my opinion, this is why it is so important that voters elect unbiased and nonpartisan school board members.

Worthwhile video from Channel11 and other articles:

CBS 11

Star Telegram

Texas Monthly

Dallasite Richard Bitner explains the subprime mess on the The Daily Show. You can order his book here.

I plan on reading the book on the beach in Cabo this weekend, I’ll try to get a review up after I return.

Angela Hunt is a City Councilwoman from Dallas, if you remember, she is the one that tried to get the Trinity Project stopped. You know, the project that will put a tollway in the Trinity Floodplain?

She’s way to the left of me, but I like her style. She’s not one to take what is presented at face value and really works hard for her constituants.

You might have heard about the Dallas Zoo sending an old elephant to a safari park in Mexico. Well, Ms. Hunt decided to do some research of her own and DMN columnist Steve Blow had a column mocking her for it and calling her a meddler (sound like Bud Kennedy?).

Key quote from Mr. Blow’s piece:

You can read the details of this brouhaha on DallasNews.com. But briefly, Ms. Hunt believes the Dallas Zoo’s elephant, Jenny, should go to a sanctuary in Tennessee rather than a respected zoological park in Mexico.

Or to put it more succinctly, Ms. Hunt believes she knows more than the professionals hired to run the Dallas Zoo

Well, Ms. Hunt fired back today, key quote:

He asked why I didn’t agree with staff’s recommendation to move the elephant to Mexico. I explained that if the council never disagreed with city staff’s recommendations, there would be no need for a city council. In this instance, as I explained to Mr. Blow, the Dallas Zoo belongs to the AZA (Association of Zoos and Aquariums), an organization that does not approve of relocating animals to facilities outside of its business association.

Because most sanctuaries are not members of the AZA (due to philosophical differences), the AZA opposed such a move and may threaten to sanction our zoo if we place Jenny with a sanctuary. I pointed out that, despite the AZA’s position, many other zoos across the country had relocated animals to sanctuaries over the objections of the AZA, and even referred him to a 2001 article in The Washington Post on a similar situation in Detroit.

The boondoggle continues

Top Australian greenhouse expert now a skeptic

Leaving the church of Al Gore and entering the bright sunshine of climate reality.

I DEVOTED six years to carbon accounting, building models for the Australian Greenhouse Office. I am the rocket scientist who wrote the carbon accounting model (FullCAM) that measures Australia’s compliance with the Kyoto Protocol, in the land use change and forestry sector. . .

There has not been a public debate about the causes of global warming and most of the public and our decision makers are not aware of the most basic salient facts:

1. The greenhouse signature is missing. We have been looking and measuring for years, and cannot find it. . . .
2. There is no evidence to support the idea that carbon emissions cause significant global warming. None. . . .
3. The satellites that measure the world’s temperature all say that the warming trend ended in 2001, and that the temperature has dropped about 0.6C in the past year. . .
4. The new ice cores show that in the past six global warmings over the past half a million years, the temperature rises occurred on average 800 years before the accompanying rise in atmospheric carbon. Which says something important about which was cause and which was effect.

None of these points are controversial. The alarmist scientists agree with them, though they would dispute their relevance.The last point was known and past dispute by 2003, yet Al Gore made his movie in 2005 and presented the ice cores as the sole reason for believing that carbon emissions cause global warming. In any other political context our cynical and experienced press corps would surely have called this dishonest and widely questioned the politician’s assertion. . . .

The world has spent $50 billion on global warming since 1990, and we have not found any actual evidence that carbon emissions cause global warming. Evidence consists of observations made by someone at some time that supports the idea that carbon emissions cause global warming. Computer models and theoretical calculations are not evidence, they are just theory. . .

American Physical Society members re-open global warming debate

• A portion of the American Physical Society (APS) membership is sponsoring public debate on the validity of global warming science in a member newsletter.
• Christopher Monckton demonstrates via 30 equations that computer models used by the UN’s climate panel (IPCC) were pre-programmed with overstated values for the three variables whose product is “climate sensitivity” (temperature increase in response to greenhouse gas increase), resulting in a 500-2000% overstatement of CO2’s effect on temperature in the IPCC’s 2007 climate assessment report.
  • “. . . we must get the science right, or we shall get the policy wrong. If the concluding equation in this analysis (Eqn. 30) is correct, the IPCC’s estimates of climate sensitivity must have been very much exaggerated. There may, therefore, be a good reason why, contrary to the projections of the models on which the IPCC relies, temperatures have not risen for a decade and have been falling since the phase-transition in global temperature trends that occurred in late 2001. Perhaps real-world climate sensitivity is very much below the IPCC’s estimates. Perhaps, therefore, there is no “climate crisis” at all. At present, then, in policy terms there is no case for doing anything. The correct policy approach to a non-problem is to have the courage to do nothing.”
    
• Comments reported by the New Zealand Climate Science Coalition on Monckton’s paper and his Connecticut lecture in 2008:
  • Larry Gould, Professor of Physics at the University of Hartford and Chair (2004) of the New England Section of the American Physical Society (APS), has been studying climate-change science for four years. He said: “I was impressed by an hour-long academic lecture which criticized claims about ‘global warming’ and explained the implications of the physics of radiative transfer for climate change. I was pleased that the audience responded to the informative presentation with a prolonged, standing ovation. That is what happened when, at the invitation of the President of our University, Christopher Monckton lectured here in Hartford this spring [2008]. I am delighted that Physics and Society, an APS journal, has published his detailed paper refining and reporting his important and revealing results.”
    
• Actions taken by the APS after publishing Lord Monckton’s invited and reviewed paper indicate the duplicity and arm-twisting going on behind the scenes as people and organizations supporting the superstition of man-made global warming see their house of cards begin to crumble. Check out this blow-by-blow account. Here is the actual letter sent by Lord Monckton to the APS President on 19Jul08 calling attention to their unethical and unprofessional behavior. There will be more on this as the debate continues.

Evidence doesn’t bare out alarmist claims of global warming

Australia is openly debating the theory of global warming. Check out the seven charts hosted by the polar bear.

John Coleman, Weather Channel founder

• Global Warming and the Price of a Gallon of Gas . Coleman’s speech to the San Diego Chamber of Commerce in June 2008.

“I am very serious about this issue. I think stamping out the global warming scam is vital to saving our wonderful way of life. So the Global warming frenzy is, indeed, threatening our civilization. Not because global warming is real; it is not. But because of the all the horrible side effects of the global warming scam. I love this civilization. I want to do my part to protect it. If Al Gore and his global warming scare dictates the future policy of our governments, the current economic downturn could indeed become a recession, drift into a depression and our modern civilization could fall into an abyss. And it would largely be a direct result of the global warming frenzy. My mission, in what is left of a long and exciting lifetime, is to stamp out this Global Warming silliness and let all of us get on with enjoying our lives and loving our planet, Earth.”

Grapevine City Council wasting tax dollars to fight a non-problem

So why is the Grapevine City Council spending tax dollars to reduce ‘greenhouse gas’ emissions when there is no problem?

“. . .the City Council voted unanimously to join the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives, a Toronto-based association. For a $600 annual membership fee, the city gets software and help in further cutting energy consumption and harmful emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. “ICLEI’S goal is to determine emissions of greenhouse gases,” said Matt Singleton, Grapevine’s Public Works director. “We will determine what our greenhouse gas emissions are, set a goal and work toward achieving that goal.. . .

By talking with other cities in the group and using the software, Grapevine will have a clearer picture of where it stands in its efforts to cap greenhouse emissions, Grapevine City Councilman Mike Lease said. “I’m excited that we have already been taking steps all along to reduce our carbon footprint on the planet,” Lease said. “I think that . . . we will create a baseline to monitor our progress.” - “Grapevine joins group that helps the environment.” Fort Worth Star-Telegram, July 4, 2008

“When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?” -  John Maynard Keynes

KISD has an annual budget of around $200,000,000( This does NOT include the millions from bond funds).

-There are about 30 schools in the KISD, which broken down equals around $6,700,000 per school each year

-In a 9 month school year, that is $745,000 every month for each and every school

-There are around 30,000 students, at a cost of over $7000 per student each and every year

-Remember, the buildings are paid for from bond initiatives. So, we are looking at $200,000,000 a year for maintenance and operations…

And still every few years the taxpayers are asked to pass multi-million dollar bond packages to” improve our children’s education…”

“-but (KISD) officials want to propose a smaller package that would allow for another sizeable bond measure in the next few years. “

The KISD would like $10,000,000 for a multipurpose facility “that would allow the district to implement ALL DAY kindergarten at all 23 elementary campuses…” Perhaps we should give birth at these “multipurpose facilities”and let the TEA start then…?

“Kids are 22% more likely to pass all their classes if they are involved in one or more sports,”KISD Athletic Director Bob DeJonge said,” So we want to provide a greater opportunity for kids in athletics to see greater success overall.” Perhaps the proposed $32,000,000 requested for various sports related needs( for the infinitely small percentage of affected kids that we are talking about), would lead to far more successful kids if the funds were focused on the 25-33% of kids who are dropping out of school before they graduate?

Do we really need all these new schools? Would it make more sense to use portables for a few years, rather than ‘board up’ a bunch of schools in the not-so-far future?

$1,300,000 for 10 new tennis courts? There are numerous court builders who will build fully finished courts for $60,000 to $70,000per court. So, I can save the KISD more than $650,00 with one phone call…

What does it say about the TEA and the teachers union that they both are so adamant against vouchers and parental school choice?

Can anyone confirm that Dr. Veitenheimer has increased personnel at the KISD District Office by 30-40% since he got here?

My primary question is this-Just exactly what are the priorities of the KISD?

The KISD may not have enough millions in cash, or athletic stadiums, or new schools, or astro-turf fields, etc., but there is definitely NO shortage of …Chutzpah!

Congressman Burgess will be having a town hall at the Old Rock Gym on Keller Pkwy on Saturday July 26th from 2-3pm

Again, I’ll be out of town on vacation, somebody post some details. I know some of you will show up.

Shannon’s dog Cutter has been a member of our household for over 15 years. He’s a lhasa apso/pomeranian mix, and unlike the girly breeds that make up his mix, he’s a good old American mutt. His name came from when he was a puppy, he was as fast as a cutting horse.

He’s also the smartest dog I’ve every been around (you can tell I didn’t have a hand in training him). Back when Shannon and I got married, I adopted Cutter and he and I became fast friends. It was I that spoiled him, giving him a bone when my wife wasn’t looking and a treat every time I headed in the pantry.

Cutter would head out to the lake with us on some weekends and hang out at the dock or go swimming when we’d go anchor out. Even though he was old, he still acted like a puppy. People would be amazed when we told them how old he actually was.

It was easy to keep track of his birthday, it was New Years Day. Every year he’d get a new toy or something to mark the celebration. He wasn’t a sissy dog, but he would occasionally wear a bandana or some other such foolishness that one of my daughters would put on him. Shannon would groom him on the back porch, just like she did her sheep she showed growing up. He would love to run around the yard and get dirty after those occasions.

This week Cutter started acting weird and quit eating. Every morning I would get a breakfast bar out of the pantry, he’d be right on my heels, not so on Tuesday, so I knew something was up. I took him to the Vet yesterday and found out that he has cancer so bad that he is lucky to be alive. Shannon is off on one of her trips and won’t be back until late tonight, and tomorrow we will let our loving dog have some peace.

It will be one of the hardest, if not the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do, giving the instructions to the Vet. Cutter isn’t just a dog, but a member of our family. I grew up on a farm knowing that the animals that we raised would someday be on our plates. Our 4-H projects that we spent hours upon hours halter and show training would someday be sold at auction and then sent off to a meat processor.

I never cried at a 4-H auction, I can’t say that about tomorrow.