Panic Mongering Idiocy

"Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil;
For You are with me;
Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me."
Psalm 23:4

By now now you've heard about #Sx being cancelled:  This is one of the dumbest-assed overreactions in ages.

Panic sells.  Media business models are based upon hysteria.  That's why they've been shoving this down our throats the past couple weeks.

But that doesn't excuse our local "leaders" from caving to it.

Who remembers "Ebola in Dallas" from 2014?!?  Exactly.  You don't remember it because the whole thing blew over in a month.  The same thing's going to happen here.

The great raging irony, of course, is that there probably are genuine threats to public health (*) in Austin.  They come from the festering homeless population.  Yet the same so-called "leaders" currently running around like chickens with their heads cut off won't change that insanity.

Don't get us started on traffic fatalities.

Bottom Line:  Hysteria wins.

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* - Those threats are, likewise, probably somewhat exaggerated.  The real issue with our skyrocketing homeless population is the increase in petty crime.  But the basic point about that being a real problem, as opposed to this overhyped nonsense, stands.

Wayne Christian's GLORIOUS response to Schwarzenegger's anti-Oil and Gas Lawsuit

Then God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
Genesis 1:28

By now, we assume you've heard about Arnold Schwarzenegger's dumb lawsuit against the energy industry; well, Wayne Christian's response is pretty epic....

A Hypocritical “Hero”

By Railroad Commissioner Wayne Christian

Arnold Schwarzenegger is undoubtedly best known for his legendary heroics on the silver screen. Covered in mud, he survives the Predator – killing it by exploiting its one weakness. As the Terminator, he protects John Connor from a homicidal shape-shifting machine to save humanity. An unhappy construction worker, he can’t remember who he is, but finally recalls and with his last breath saves thousands of lives by releasing air into the Martian atmosphere.

Like the character he played in Total Recall, Mr. Schwarzenegger must be having a tough time remembering who he is – a former Republican Governor.

In Austin for the South by Southwest festival, he revealed he has hired a team of California lawyers to sue oil and gas companies for “first degree murder” by “knowingly killing people all over the world.” Instead of acting like a Republican, Mr. Schwarzenegger must be trying to play the hero again. The only problem is this isn’t the movies, this is real life, and there is nothing to “save” us from.

Like many of us, Mr. Schwarzenegger had a long commute to work. After he was elected Governor of California, he decided not to move to the Governor’s Mansion at the state capitol in Sacramento, but instead traveled more than 100 miles for seven years from his mansion in Brentwood, Calif.. The only difference: he took a private jet, which cost around $30,000 a roundtrip and impacts the environment about the same amount as a small car does in three years. And when he’s not taking a private jet to work, he’s driving around in a five-ton,12-mile to the gallon Mercedes or going to lunch in a military-grade Hummer.

But now, according to the Governator it’s “absolutely irresponsible” for oil and gas companies to sell their products because they “know [their] product is killing people.” Wait a minute, here. So, it’s okay for oil and gas companies to sell their products to Mr. Schwarzenegger when he needs to fill up his private jet or Hummer, but it’s not okay for them to sell their products to regular folks so they can drive their vehicles to work? This kind of do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do hypocrisy is repulsive and offensive. Mr. Schwarzenegger is not a hero, he’s just another elitist Hollywood hypocrite telling you and me how to best live our lives.

The real heroes are the oil and gas workers – the landman, the roughneck, the petroleum engineer – who wake up every day and go to work to support their families and our way of life. Together, these workers produce around 10 million barrels of oil and 96 billion cubic feet of natural gas each day that fuel our cars, light our homes, and make plastics and many other items we use every day. The industry doesn’t just provide the raw materials to make the things we need – it creates jobs and grows our economy. In 2015, the oil and gas industry supported more than 10 million jobs in the United States with an average salary over $100,000 and contributes more than $1 trillion to our economy every year.

Despite what Mr. Schwarzenegger may think, the story of energy before oil and gas was simple – most work was done by human or animal muscle. This caused the vast majority of the population to live short lives of hard labor in extreme poverty. Before oil and gas were used to power the industrial revolution, the global average life expectancy was only 25 years old with 30 percent of children dying before age 15. During the 1800s, 80 to 90 percent of the population of the United States worked in agriculture and spent 74 percent of family income on food, clothing and shelter. Today, the average person lives more than three times longer than the average person in 1800. This is partly because climate-related deaths, such as starvation or hypothermia, have decreased 98 percent in the United States since the use of oil and gas became widespread at the beginning of the 20th Century.

It’s sad – but Mr. Schwarzenegger has gone from superstar hero to Hollywood hypocrite. On the one hand he routinely uses gas-guzzling jets and cars while on the other he sues oil and gas companies. Given this stunning hypocrisy, I have a question. If oil and gas companies are murderers for selling their ­­­­product, does that make Mr. Schwarzenegger an accessory for being such a good customer?

#TROXROX: Predictably terrible budget passes...but Troxclair KILLS SxSW SUBSIDIES!!!

"There is desirable treasure,
And oil in the dwelling of the wise,
But a foolish man squanders it.
Proverbs 21:20

Good for Ellen:



Highlights:

• $1 BILLION General Fund this year.

• "Taxpayers might be given the short end of the stick."
• Note: That's the understatement of a lifetime.

• Troxclair: At the rate city property taxes are going up, the average bill will double in nine years..."it's ABSOLUTELY unsustainable."

• Troxclair: "People's #1 complaint is the skyrocketing cost of living."

• Troxclair: Travis county has adopted the effective tax rate for the past three years.
• "That's exactly where the city of Austin should start."

• Troxclair: "When we're talking about gentrification and being economically segregated, this is one reason why; people who have lived in Austin for years cannot afford to keep paying the increases in their property taxes."

• Council only gets to determine $5 million out of the entire $4 BILLION budget.

More from this morning's Statesman:

Austin leaders on Wednesday night passed a $3.9 billion 2018 budget — a new record for the growing city — after days and months of City Council frustration over wanting to add social services money and feeling hemmed in by previous spending commitments.

The budget for the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1 includes a $1 billion general fund, which covers most city operations, plus self-sustaining funds for things like electricity, water and aviation. It raises tax revenue 7.9 percent, just under the 8 percent limit that could trigger a rollback election, for a tax rate of 44.48 cents per $100 of property value.

An owner of a median valued home of $305,510 will see a $151 increase in city taxes and other fees.

Both the budget and the tax rate passed 8-3, with Council Members Ellen Troxclair, Jimmy Flannigan and Ora Houston opposed. Those three raised concerns that the city was dipping into its 12 percent reserve fund buffer, even if only slightly, and they wanted to slightly lessen the tax increase.

The budget does not increase the city’s 8 percent homestead exemption — that ship sailed in July — but the city’s homestead exemption for senior and disabled residents to bumped up from $82,500 to $85,500. The exemption lowers the value of a home for taxation purposes.

....

Some tensions flared when Troxclair led a successful vote to have $1.2 million in hotel tax revenue pay for security at festivals, intending to follow that with a request to put the corresponding savings from the general fund toward tax relief. But Council Member Greg Casar preempted her with a motion to put $580,000 of it to various social services. That measure passed 7-4, with Troxclair, Flannigan, Houston and Alison Alter opposed.

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The 2018 budget built in cost increases for things already approved, like $1.9 million and nine new employees to staff the new Central Library, set to open next month, and 2.5 percent pay increases for civilian city employees.

 From the Monitor:

Council also voted unanimously to use $1.2 million of Hotel Occupancy Tax revenue to cover security-related costs at South by Southwest, therefore liberating that much money from the General Fund for other uses.

Troxclair, who led the effort to free up those HOT funds by reducing funding for the Austin Convention Center and Visit Austin (formerly known as the Austin Convention and Visitors Bureau), celebrated the moment by thanking her colleagues and city staff for making the effort possible. “This is a big moment. This didn’t come easy,” she said, referencing a policy decision that Mayor Steve Adler had at first vigorously opposed.

Troxclair’s delight quickly turned to outrage, however, after Adler recognized Casar, who introduced a motion to use $580,000 of that money to boost funding to many of the same programs that his previous motion had reduced funding for.

The mayor, said Troxclair, had told her that he was going to allow her to offer a motion to return the $1.2 million to taxpayers. Adler replied that she still could – after the vote on Casar’s motion. “If this passes I won’t have the opportunity to do that,” she argued, asking if she could offer a substitute motion. Adler denied her request, saying that the motion was not germane to what Casar was proposing.

The heated procedural debate between Adler and Troxclair became even more complex when Council Member Alison Alter chimed in from the other end of the dais with her own substitute motion to put the $580,000 in the city’s budget reserve. “Your difficulty is with what now?” asked the flummoxed mayor, who also rejected Alter’s motion.

After further back-and-forth over procedure, Council voted to approve Casar’s motion, with Troxclair, Alter, Flannigan and Houston in dissent.

Troxclair then motioned to essentially undo some of the prior committed spending and instead put $1 million toward reducing the property tax rate and $200,000 toward increasing the senior exemption.

Adler said that he wanted to keep taxes low but could not support the level that Troxclair proposed. Troxclair ridiculed the notion that $1 million out of a $1 billion budget was too much. “This is the absolute very least we can do,” she said, before she was joined by Flannigan, Houston, Alter and Council Member Ann Kitchen in support of her defeated motion.

TPPF also released a statement:

“Austin city government continues to make Central Texas’ affordability problem worse,” said James Quintero, who leads the Think Local Liberty project at the Texas Public Policy Foundation. “The city’s mammoth $3.9 billion budget significantly increases taxes and fees for the average Austinite, making it that much more difficult for struggling families and businesses to make ends meet. It’s disingenuous for city officials to talk about Austin’s affordability problem while endlessly growing the burden of government.”

Thoughts:

• You GO Ellen Troxclair!!!

• Of the new members: Flannigan votes no while Alter votes yes.
• Once again, we find ourselves missing Sherri Gallo (also, lesson learned).

• We certainly have our disagreements with Ora Houston, but she has a recurring habit of voting the right way on big votes.

• Adler and Casar doing something shady together...imagine that.

• "$151 increase in city taxes and other fees...."
• One top of the increase last year, and the year before that, and the year before that....

• Even if Adler and Casar had to do something cute on re-allocating the money, for Troxclair to successfully kill the SxSW subsidy remains pretty huge!!!

• So, in the end, Adler faked 14% to make 8% sound reasonable; it still doesn't sound reasonable.

Bottom Line: We've been resigned to this happening for awhile.  But there's going to be some very interesting coalition opportunities in the coming months.  To quote Jonathan Stickland, #onward....

More on SxSW fee waivers....

"Dishonest scales are an abomination to the Lord,
But a just weight is His delight."
Proverbs 11:1

More background from Austin Affordability:

For the past several years, various citizen groups, City Commissions and the Austin American-Statesman editorial board have called for doing away with taxpayer funded fee waivers for large for-profit special events. This endless stream of subsidies adds up to somewhere around $2 million per year. Of course, the granddaddy of them all is South By Southwest.

The Old Guard message has always been the same. That these big festivals bring in tourists and boost the economy. They claim that the fee waivers are a “sound investment.” In reality, they put a strain on the taxpayers that has persisted for far too long. At the biggest events, public safety is severely compromised, with police shortages in neighborhoods citywide. It’s time for the New Guard at City Hall to stand up and tell these event promoters that we just can’t afford it anymore.

The question comes down to priorities. If the City insists on not making the for-profit event companies pay their own fees, then they could easily fund the subsidies with the Hotel Occupancy Tax. The revenues from that fund have ballooned from $51 million in 2012 to over $70 million in 2014.

The Old Guard prefers to restrict every penny of the Hotel Occupancy Tax for tourism and convention activities. Their lobbyists have erected a wall of resistance around City Hall. But what are the community’s priorities? Do we have a crisis in Austin with low tourism rates, or do we see new hotels popping up like mushrooms? A couple of million dollars per year would be a minor tick to the tourism fund, but it would certainly help offset the tax burden when combined with other affordabilty reforms.

Read the whole thing here.

#TroxRox: Eliminate local taxpayer subsidies to #SxSW....

"Dishonest scales are an abomination to the Lord,
But a just weight is His delight."
Proverbs 11:1

We're actually in the process of developing a more comprehensive proposal that encompasses this issue, but in the meantime Ellen Troxclair hits on the basic unfairness of asking local taxpayers to subsidize for-profit enterprises:

In 2016, it was estimated that 230,000 people came to Austin during the spring festival season, which also the city’s most popular time for tourism. SXSW has helped put Austin on the map, pouring millions into the local economy and boosting local restaurants, hotels and businesses. It is a vital event for our city.

But, it’s not without its drawbacks for full-time residents, the vast majority of whom do not attend the event. Traffic is even more of a nightmare. The city is crowded, noisy and littered.

It is unfair to ask Austinites to put up with these inconveniences year in and year out — and then be forced to pay for it, too. Our already property tax-burdened residents should not foot the bill for the ever-increasing public safety costs associated with these special events.

Despite a previous commitment to finding a long-term solution to this perennial problem, the city is continuing to ignore it. The persistence of this issue is frustrating, given such an obvious solution.

If the city deems it necessary to provide financial incentives to large, for-profit events that drive tourism in Austin, we should do it through hotel occupancy taxes — the city’s huge and growing pot of money set up specifically for this purpose.

....

It’s time for the city to take the growing burden of these public safety costs off the backs of taxpayers. A simple change could collect fees from the tourists who attend the event, continue to provide an incentive to SXSW, protect the current recipients of hotel occupancy tax funds and provide relief to taxpayers. Everyone wins.

This is yet another opportunity for the City Council to address Austin’s affordability crisis without impacting critical city services. According to the city’s calculations, the property tax burden for the median-value home has risen 29.2 percent since 2012. Over that same time period, the median-family income has only risen 3.7 percent. This proportion is wildly unsustainable.

We'll have more to say on this topic in late-December or early-January (hint: The Legisalture has jurisdiction.) but, for now, read the whole thing here.

#HAILSATANTX: Pro-Eugenics Group to Present at SxSW Eco

"Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil;
Who put darkness for light, and light for darkness;
Who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!"
Isaiah 5:20

Remember the pro-Eugenics booth at the #HAILSATANTX Democrat Convention?!?  Looks like they're coming to town.  Keep Austin Weird:

Population Media Center Part of First Wave of SXSW Eco Programming
June 12th, 2014 |

SHELBURNE, VT – The people have voted! Population Media Center, a global leader in entertainment-education for social good, has been chosen to be part of the program line-up at the 2014 South by Southwest Eco (SXSW Eco) conference taking place October 6-8 in Austin, Texas.

SXSW Eco attracts several thousand members of the global community to explore, engage, and co-create solutions for a sustainable world each year. This piqued the interest of Population Media Center’s Texas-based state chapter (PMC-TX) – which works to engage local elected officials, community leaders, and the Texas public on population and sustainability issues, explaining how Population Media Center (PMC) addresses these issues in ways that enhance human health, human rights, the environment, and economic justice.

PMC submitted a proposal for the panel “Women First: Improve Society and Protect the Environment” featuring four female panelists from a diverse group of organizations that focus on entertainment-education, technology for social good and women’s rights and empowerment.

“It is an honor to be part of this event and take a leadership role in convening this panel,” says Keith Annis, the Director of PMC-TX. “SXSW is well known and respected around the world, and the competition to be selected was tough.”

 Screenshot:

SxSWEco's Website Confirms:

An expert discussion on innovative approaches to empowering women around the world and how this benefits individuals, societies, and the environment. Women’s rights resulting in individual economic and social empowerment is well-documented. This panel discussion will not only solidify that connection, but will also examine the links between strong sexual and reproductive health and rights and sustainable and healthy societies. Attendees will also learn about diverse barriers faced by women both domestically and internationally; the wide-ranging social, economic and environmental benefits of women having the freedom to access reproductive health care and plan their own families; and, finally, will learn about cutting-edge and avant-garde approaches incorporating technology, entertainment-education and on-the-ground advocacy to empower women and address other global health challenges.

Screenshot:

Now who, pray tell, is the Population Media Center?!?

Population Media Center was founded in 1998 by William Ryerson, with the intention of using the extensive experience of experts in entertainment-education to spread the application of the Sabido methodology in addressing population and reproductive health issues. In the fourteen years since PMC’s inception, the organization has been a pioneer in the use of new methodologies for informing people about reproductive health issues and promoting behavior change. [Emphasis Added]

 Screenshot:

Here's their President describing what they do [they ACTUALLY go after plastic bags]:



And what issues to they address?!?

The Magnitude Of Population Growth And Its Consequences

The world’s population is growing by nearly 80 million people per year. While population growth rates have slowed since their peak in the 1960s, the numbers being added to the population each year continue to be huge, in part because of the growth in the numbers of people of reproductive age. At current rates of birth and death, the world’s population is on a trajectory to double in 49 years.

....

The median projection of population size by the U.N. Population Division envisions that population growth rates will decline over the coming several decades. But even if that median projection is achieved, the number of people expected to be added to the world’s population in the next 50 years will be almost as large as the number added in the last 50 years.

That magnitude of increase, coming on top of the unprecedented growth that has occurred in the last half-century, will be felt in all aspects of life. It will further stress already strained ecological systems and worsen poverty in much of the developing world, thus aggravating threats to international security. [Emphasis added]

Screenshot:

To learn more about the Population Media Center, in their own words, click here, then here, then here, then here, then check out their whole website.

Remember, these people were an AUTHORIZED exhibitor at the #HAILSATANTX Democrat Convention...vote for Wendy!!!

Because, obviously, #HAILSATANTX!!!

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Concerned readers can contact SxSWEco via Twitter: @SxSWEco

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One final, Texas specific, note: They're Aggies!!!

Contributions from and partnerships with the following organizations have enabled us to do work which initiates improved health in people all around the world, while providing engaging entertainment!

....

Texas A&M University

Screenshot:

Because, what can possibly go wrong if Texas A&M works with USAID, Unicef, and the U.N. Population agency?!?