32 Days till College Football Season

Here's a look at when Big 12 teams will report and begin practice this week.

Oklahoma State: Players report Tuesday, first practice Wednesday.

Iowa State: Players report Tuesday, first practice Thursday.

Baylor: Players report Wednesday, first practice Thursday.

Kansas State: Players report Wednesday, first practice Thursday.

Missouri: Players report Wednesday, first practice Thursday.

Oklahoma: Players report Wednesday, first practice Thursday.

Colorado: Players report Thursday, first practice Friday.

Kansas: Players report Thursday, first practice Friday.

Nebraska: Players report Friday, first practice Saturday.

Texas Tech: Players report Friday, first practice Saturday.

Texas: Players report Saturday, first practice Sunday.

Texas A&M: Players report Sunday, first practice Monday Aug. 10.

The Blue Dog Family Tree

By: Dave

If you are trying to keep up with what is going on nationally with health care, you may have encountered an animal called a blue dog. Are you asking yourself, what in the world is this? Well, let me help you out. A blue dog is a Democrat that primarily comes from the South and politically sits to the right of the rest of the Democrat Party, but left of the Republicans, except those Republicans from the Northeast. But this is about blue dogs, not rinos, that is for another day. The blue dog has just turned 15 years old and is acting like a true teen-ager and is rebelling against Mama Pelosi. Now, to really understand the blue dog, you have to examine its family tree.

The lineage gets lost before the 1920’s, but in the 1928 presidential election, a group of Southern Democrats, mainly from the old Confederacy border states of Kentucky and Tennessee, were in a real bind on whom to support for President. Al Smith, the Governor of New York and a Roman Catholic, was the Democrat nominee. When pressed, a prominent Southern Democrat stated he would rather vote for a yellow dog before he would vote for a Republican, even if the democrat was a Northern Catholic. Thus the breed was born.

You have to remember that prior to the 1930 Congressional elections; US politics was fractured into several political movements and multiple political parties. The Democrats and the Republicans were the two largest, but you had socialists, the American Communists, the Grange, and others. The Democrats were the home for the labor movement and university elites, at least those elites who were not socialists or communists. The Republicans were generally the business and industry leaders. The Grange was a Midwestern farm movement. And there were others. But with the collapse of the stock market in 1929, it turned out to be really fortunate for the democrats that their yellow dog lost to Mr. Hoover, the democrats first rode a electoral wave in 1930 and then again in 1932 that generally kept them in power until the 1990’s. During the 1930’s, as the Great Depression worsened and the Dust Bowl hit the Great Plains, businesses, industry and agriculture all collapsed. Seizing on this, the democrats successfully pulled all of the stray dogs from the various political movements, except the Republicans, into their party and ruled the country until the end of WWII.

With the war over and veterans returning home, people started to drift back to their old ways. The democrat coalition that had dominated the country for 16 years began to fracture. In the South, a group of democrats known as the Dixiecrats broke away from the party. All the talk of Civil Rights was too much for the Dixiecrats to bear. So in 1948 they nominated Strom Thurman of South Carolina for President. Yes, the same Strom Thurman who celebrated his 100^th birthday as a Republican Senator. Lloyd Bentsen may have known JFK as he so eloquently told the nation in the 1988 VP debate with Dan Quayle, but ole’ Strom new FDR, heck he knew Teddy Roosevelt, but that again is another story. This second generation of dogs stayed together through the George Wallace days of the 1960’s before quietly wandering off. When the main reason to stay together is to keep the south white, your days really are numbered.

The 3^rd generation of yellow dogs became known not as a dog but as an agricultural insect, the boll weevil. As the social activists of the 1960’s began to rise in power within the democrat party in the 1970’s, especially in 1974 after Watergate, the Southern Democrat once again felt the need to organize. With the great migration to the suburbs by Anglos in the 1970’s and the redistricting that followed after the 1980 Census, most southern cities began to hold large numbers of black democrats and most of their suburbs went Republican. That left only a few rural districts for the traditional Southern Democrat. It was in these rural southern districts that you could find the remaining boll weevils. When Ronald Reagan began building the largest Republican Coalition of the 20^th century, he successfully applied pesticide on the Democrats and picked off sizeable numbers in the South and Midwest. These people became known as Reagan democrats. Trying to survive during the Reagan years, boll weevils generally voted with the Republicans. Their peak of influence, which never was very much, was during the Bush 41 Presidency and the first two years of Clinton. However, when Newt Gingrich made his Contract with America in 1994, the boll weevils were finally eradicated.

So now we make it to the Blue Dogs. Basically, any southern democrat who survived in 1994, quietly reorganized as a blue dog. The blue comes from the color the television news gave the democrats and the dog is a reference to it being a 4^th generation yellow dog. Unlike previous attempts, this time they built an organization. The alpha dogs run this pack. The kennel now holds 52 dogs and has picked up some new breeds from rural New York, the Midwest and even Cal-ee-fornia. And as the War in Iraq became less popular, they were able to attract a few of their stray cousin Reagan Democrats back.

So now that you know them, let’s ask; are they an effective political group? History will say that their signature moment will be health care reform. Only time will tell us what their impact was, but to date they have been more bark than bite. However, we are in the dog days of summer, so if they ever do exert any influence, you would think this would be their season. But then again, most people try to go on vacation during these doggy summer days. So they may just wind up barking to themselves.

Summer Reading Recommendation: "Lone Survivor"

Lone Survivor: The Eyewitness Account of Operation Redwing and the Lost Heroes of SEAL Team 10

Dehydration was the least of his concerns, the Navy SEAL knew if he didn’t find a secure place he would be captured and eventually killed by the fast approaching Taliban warriors. He had just been catapulted 30 yards over a ravine by a Russian-made RPG, stolen by the Taliban. His pants had been ripped off by the blast and his legs were covered with shrapnel. Blood was flowing profusely from his legs. He could not manage the strength to stand. His only option was to crawl. The next few minutes were a blur but somehow, with the help of his Creator, he managed to snake his way to cover and for now, he was out of sight from the enemies’ bullets.

Marcus Luttrell, a 6’5” son of an East Texas rancher, did not know how he had just survived the onslaught from the Taliban warriors. All that mattered was that he was alive. His SEAL training would keep him alive until the American forces came in search for him; at least that’s what he thought.

It was June 28th, 2005. The United States Military had just suffered the worst loss of Special Operations Forces since the invasion of Afghanistan had begun in 2001. Taliban forces had attacked Luttrell's four-man team on a remote ridge shortly after 1 p.m. on June 28. By day's end, 19 Americans had died.

Out of the darkness of this horrific day comes this vivacity of a story: a tale of moral choices and brut strength. It reflects the courage and intelligence it takes to become one of the America’s elite warriors, a United States Navy SEAL.

This is one of the best books about the struggles of War that you'll ever read. I highly, highly recommend it!

Can You See Tomorrow?

By: Dave Roberson and John Roberson

Some people spend their entire lives trying to see tomorrow. Weather forecasters concentrate their careers predicting what tomorrow’s weather will bring. Gamblers hedge their bets in belief that tomorrow will bring them a self-fulfilling, extravagant lifestyle. Insurance companies accept or deny candidates based on computer models that predict future outcomes. Nevertheless, in spite of the best models that the most up-to-date computers can run, we seem no closer today of knowing what will happen tomorrow than a generation or two ago. I will admit, the graphics today are a little more accurate and a lot prettier, but it is still several hundred miles from Port O’Conner to Sabine Pass when the eye of the hurricane is 100 miles off shore.

If you were to ask people what they want tomorrow to look like, what do you think they would say? My guess is that they would want it to look a lot like yesterday. Granted, the unemployed sure would like to get a job. The person in the troubled relationship might want to be set free. And without question, the family of the heroic soldier would like the call, email, or text notifying them of the trip home. But my read on most people is that predictability is a preference to uncertainty. Some will call this boring, but I think it reflects reality. So if the theory is accurate, why is it then that the current administration is running wide-open pushing major environmental (Cap and Trade) and social (Health Care) legislation with an extreme sense of urgency? I think the answer can be found in history.

When a new President is elected, there is generally a two-year shelf life on implementing an agenda. Going back as far back as Eisenhower, think of some of the signature moments in their administrations and when it occurred. Eisenhower – Interstate Highway Act – began in ‘54 signed in ‘56; Kennedy – Space Program – ‘61,’62; Johnson – Civil Rights – ‘65,’66; Carter – Airline Deregulation – ‘78; Reagan – eliminate price controls and windfall profit tax – ‘81 and after a landslide in ‘84 – lower income tax brackets –‘86; George H.W. Bush – American with Disabilities Act - ’90; Clinton – NAFTA – ‘93; George W Bush – No Child Left Behind – ‘02. The reason that a new administration has to act quickly is because toward the end of the first two years, all of the House and 1/3 of the Senate is worried about re-election and the President’s re-election campaign starts soon thereafter in the 3^rd year. So naturally, Obama is shaping his right now.

So what did tomorrow look like after each of these notable events? The Interstate Highway Act of 1956 not only paved our countries roads and bridges but stimulated a new lifestyle known as “suburbia”. I believe most folks will say that the Space Program has worked out really well and does anybody want to object to Civil Rights for all Americans? Some will say that the courts overstepped in many of the areas, but that was not Johnson’s fault. Lot’s of people have benefited from reduced airfares, but smaller airports have struggled to keep air service. Reaganomics created a tremendous economic boom, but lack of spending restraint by Congress created massive deficits. NAFTA kept inflation in check for over a decade, but many say it destroyed millions of jobs for Americans. Reading skills for all children is great, but others say the testing that came with it narrows our educational objectives. So what will Obama’s tomorrow bring? You need to really consider this question before you get too excited one way or the other.

So now that you are in the proper mindset, let’s look at the two signature agendas for Obama. First, Cap and Trade. If you are not following the national agenda closely, this is the save the Polar Bear Act, also known as man-made global warming. Since ‘global cooling’ didn’t scare enough people during the Carter Administration of the 1970’s and ‘we are all going to die because of the hole in the ozone’ faded fast during the Clinton years, liberal minded politicians decided that this decade’s environmental scare tactic would be ‘man-made global warming’. Apparently there is some great video out now of polar bears floating around on icebergs. Ten year olds and Al Gore really eat this up. Now, do not get me wrong, I am a firm believer in global warming. By my read, it has been going on since the Last Glacial Maximum about 20,000 years ago. Have you ever thought about how the Great Lakes got scooped out and filled with billions and billions of gallons of water? Some pretty smart people have convinced me that Kansas was once covered by ice. I still think it is pretty cold there in the winter, think KU basketball, but one of the reasons you can drive I-70 from Kansas City to Denver is that all of that ice is now gone. Sounds like global warming to me. And it all started a long time before George W Bush. Plus, who is to say what “normal” is anyways?

So now let’s look at Health Care. First we hear about a problem; so many tens of millions of uninsured people. Then we hear a solution; the government needs to run the health care industry. All I can say is that the next time you are in the line at the Post Office or the DPS, ask yourself about how government run health care would work out.

Now you have to ask yourself why. Why does the administration want to push these two agendas? My response is religion and control. Say what, you ask? Yeah that’s right, religion, and control. See, your hard-core environmentalist does not hang out at your local church, mosque, temple, or synagogue. But just because they do not worship in what most folks would consider a conventional manner, they do have spiritual needs and beliefs. They worship the creation, not the Creator. So when they see “harm” coming to the earth they respond with the same passion for jihad as an extremist Muslim would. And since the hard-core environmentalist voted overwhelming for Obama, he tosses them a bone. Or what if he believes this? The control comes with Health Care. Under the current draft of the Democratic Legislation, members of Congress are currently exempt from the government-run health care option, keeping their private-run health care plan intact. Now, if Obama and his persnickety friends in Washington D.C. are so distraught with how privatized health care is, why don’t they include themselves in this new government-run legislation? The answer is control and power. One of the key components lost in the hubris of this debate is the fact that the administration desperately wants a national database of everyone’s health records. Why? Think about it. The upside is if you are on vacation and have an accident, it would be really nice for the ER physician to know that you are allergic to certain drugs. But what if you are not particularly supportive of the current administration’s policies and a little too outspoken about it, a little medication from the government doctor could fix that. If you want to control a population, but do not want to use the military, then controlling the health care system can be pretty effective. Look, if it is really an insurance issue, I think we can solve that. We seemed to figure out how to insure homes and cars without the government running the home and auto industry. Oh wait, Fannie Mae, AIG and Government Motors are run by the government. Well, a few yesterdays ago we had a pretty good system, but today I do not know.

So how do you want tomorrow to look? Do you want your health care to look a lot like it did yesterday or would you rather roll the dice and see if that government clinic is a little more efficient than the Social Security office? Do you want to try to stop climate change and kill millions of jobs or accept that climate is dynamic and is far beyond our control?

My tomorrow says let’s tackle the insurance issue and talk the Canadians into setting aside a giant nature reserve in the Yukon Territory. They can put in some wind turbines to generate the electricity needed to air condition the polar bear dens. Build an airport to bring in tourists to pay for it. That’s my tomorrow; what is yours?

Is There Such Thing As a Weather Machine?

Day after day, since the weather pattern changed late last week we have seen rain develop north, south, east and west of Austin, but still very little in and around the metro area.

Need proof? The chart below shows where precipitation has fallen the last 7 days.

Note the "hole" centered right over the Austin area.

Back in high school we used to joke that Coach Willig created a weather machine behind The Woodlands High School that placed a "bubble" over the practice field in order to keep the rain away, now I'm starting to wonder if such a machine does exist!

So, why hasn't rain fallen here? Well, there are several reasons (timing, our latitude and position to the coast all play factors), but bad luck is more to blame than anything else.

Big XII Schedule

50 Days till Kickoff!!

The “We The People” Stimulus Package & The 2nd American Revolution - “Common Sense” From A Modern Day Thomas Paine

In 1776 one of our founding fathers Thomas Paine, anonymously published a pamphlet entitled “Common Sense” (http://www.constitution.org/civ/comsense.htm) which challenged the authority of the British government and the royal monarchy. The plain language that Paine used resonated with the common man and was the first publication to openly push for independence from Great Britain.

Maintaining “the cause of America is in a great measure the cause of all mankind,” Paine passionately argued for independence from Great Britain, and painted the picture of a prosperous future, if freed from the oppressive and economically draining English government.

Now two hundred and thirty three years later, America once again finds itself being taxed without representation, and being drained economically by an oppressive government. This time, it’s own government run amuck.

What would Thomas Paine say about America’s plight today?

http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=jeYscnFpEyA