Photo credit: Matthew Busch
On Tuesday, Texpat posted a comment about a big sinkhole in West Texas, which prompts me to bring up one of my pet peeves.
The State of Texas currently has a $23.8 billion dollar budget surplus.
Additionally, we have another $28 billion dollars in the “Rainy Day” Fund.
Texas only plugs a thousand orphaned oil wells a year, while a thousand more are abandoned each year. There are more than 8,000 wells on the state’s to-plug list.
Texas Waters
“Between Baffin Bay, south of Corpus Christi, and Sabine Lake, on the Louisiana border, about 300 wells in state waters sit abandoned by defunct owners. The largest concentration of these is the 119 in Trinity Bay, which is also home to about a dozen decaying platforms.” A recent study found that all the abandoned wells in Texas waters could be plugged for $177 million dollars.
The situation is an outrage. There is no defense for dragging out for decades the plugging of these wells in Texas shore waters. Or on land for that matter.
How many wells could be plugged for just one of those surplus billion dollars?
I watched Bret Baier’s Thursday show where he interviewed Elon Musk and the main DOGE players. It was very interesting and worth the watch if anyone is interested. If this has been covered here, sorry I missed it.
It took me a few seconds to recognize a young Tyne Daley in this old Ironsides episode. It wasn’t until I looked at the cast listing that I recognized the skipper of the Minnow as the bad guy.
Didn’t see this one coming:
Sec. Kennedy is not backing off his desire to remove sugary soft drinks from approved SNAP purchases.
American Beverage Association squealing like baby pigs.
I just finished processing 3 of my 4 trays. The chicken stock needs more drying time, but the other stuff looks great. I powdered my freezer dried ginger and my kitchen smelled fabulous until I sealed my jars and washed those dishes.
Now, to make rosaries to replace the six I gave away at church today.
Mostly pink and purple, of course.
While I disagree with the host on this YouTube episode about removing federal judges via impeachment, he is spot on about congress turning off the money and/or abolishing the particular district outright. This would only take a simple majority in both houses. Remember, all spending bills must originate in the House.
The House and Senate could vote to remove a particular district(s), fire the judges, then redraw the districts and have Trump nominate new judges to replace all in the same week.
I’m pretty sure this guy is somewhere on the autism spectrum, however, his work is extraordinary. As far as fine detail and exquisite craftsmanship, he is world class. There are likely links to some of his other works.
Language warning
Liberal Tesla rage results in a little girl getting hit
What the heck is wrong with these people?
Day 68
Tyrannical kangarooed penguins – 45
republcant’s led by bumblin fumblin and stumblin Peter popoff Johnson – 0
I’m glad to see these guys wake up. I’ve been calling for Witkoff to resign since not long after he was first appointed by Trump. His withdrawn special hostage envoy nominee, Adam Boehler, was a disaster from the get go. I couldn’t believe he lasted as long as he did. Eric Levine, a top GOP fundraiser and a board member of the Republican Jewish Coalition, is calling for Steve Witkoff’s dismissal over a recent series of media appearances in which the Trump administration’s Middle East envoy praised Russian President Vladimir Putin and said he was “duped” by Hamas during failed negations to… Read more »
Inflation is Bad!!! 😀
When the discussions in the Signal snafu came out and VP JD Vance was complaining to Hegseth about the US having to protect the Suez Canal/Red Sea navigation based on supposed 3% American commercial traffic (since debunked), I blew a gasket. I’m still mad about it. I came across the Substack pages of Commander Bryan McGrath USN (Ret.) and his reaction to Vance was the same as mine. Here is McGrath’s biography and resume including his stint as deputy director of Hudson Institute’s Center for American Seapower. I may not agree with McGrath on every issue, but his opinion we… Read more »
FYI Texpat.
Beto O’Rourke and Tim Walz appeared at a Fort Bend County town hall meeting last night, providing an endless amount of ammunition for ridicule on local radio.
Friday brunette Super Dave Edition
re: abandoned wells-thousands across the state need to be plugged. Had a client doing just that. Trying to grow and then Bam! State cut funding-almost put him out of business. His comment on why “State diverted $ to care for immigrants” this was in 23/24 term.
Even $500M/year could solve this. Not really about protecting environment is it?
How about that? I just had to Log-In to post of Shannon’s @ 8:32 AM. I had it all typed out and when I hit “Go” a note popped up that commenting was closed. SO I refreshed and it told me to Log-In. Not complaining BTW since I seldom have to Log-In just wondering how and when it decides to kick you off.
Quick excerpts from the C&C: Welp, be of great cheer. Today is our day. It’s finally here! Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., strode into the Department of Health and Human Services like a multi-armed spanking robot set on ‘high.’ Yesterday, HHS announced a total downsizing of 20,000 jobs, reducing headcount from 82,000 to 62,000. Not only that, but Kennedy is slashing the total number of divisions within HHS practically in half, evaporating the health behemoth to 15 divisions from 28 (it had been happily shooting for 30). **** … Secretary Kennedy explained, “We aren’t just reducing bureaucratic sprawl. We are realigning the organization with its core mission and our… Read more »
Today is a Lenten meatless Friday, and I didn’t get any exercise in yesterday. This morning’s schedule is: eat breakfast (an unusual exercise for me, but done), finish the coffee, and then get some treadmill time in while rubber banding the give-away rosaries to take to church. I should have *just enough* time to shower and get the lunch making supplies together before Hubby chauffeurs me to the church. But before I go, here’s the C&C roundup: Good morning, C&C, it’s Friday! By Monday, another month will have fallen into the can. Time is flying. Today’s roundup includes: massive layoffs… Read more »
I’m still working my way through the old Ironsides series, and am tickled when I see a familiar face from other shows make an appearance.
I caught an old Andy Griffith show; “Opie finds a baby” and guess who was the young daddy? Jack Nicholson. 😉
Texas Democrats preparing to elect a new state party leader.
Kendall has two mommies
The leading contender is Kendall Scudder, the party’s current vice chair for finance and an East Texas native from a family with lesbian moms. He said he comes from the type of nontraditional family Democrats should be advocating for. He worked in affordable housing and real estate analytics, and came onto the state party stage through the executive committee.
VDH has a column about the Signal psychodrama..
Read it while it is still available on X.
Well it’s gonna’ be another great day here, not sure what I have in work yet but I’m getting in gear.
Mornin’ Gang
Does anyone in the US government pay attention to the critical details ? Does anyone like me believe the creator of the Signal app embedded backdoor access…just in case ??? But there may be bigger reasons why the Trump administration and everyone in D.C. should be wary about using Signal. While the app is ubiquitous because it’s perceived as being more ‘private’ than WhatsApp, which is owned by Facebook, Brian Acton, the man behind WhatsApp, created the Signal Foundation and is a major liberal donor. Moxie Marlinspike, Signal’s other founder and coder, claims to be an anarchist, and no fan… Read more »
Why didn’t the Biden/Harris administration do this ? They did reject over 3,000 qualified applicants in 2021-2023 based on DEI criteria alone. FAA tackles critical air traffic controller shortage with unprecedented 10,000 applications in just three weeks, slashing hiring time while raising salaries to over $160,000.The FAA’s new supercharged hiring initiative has attracted 10,000 applicants for air traffic controller positions in just three weeksHiring process streamlined to reduce timeline by five months, focusing on merit-based selection and cutting bureaucratic red tapeStarting salaries for Academy trainees increased by 30%, with certified professional controllers earning over $160,000 annuallyTransportation Secretary Sean Duffy and… Read more »
The world wouldn’t be the same without donkeys…uh, the four-legged kind, not the two-legged criminal type.
Good job, Shannon. There should be plenty of legislators and politicians in Texas with a brother-in-law in the well plugging & abandonment business who would love to take on that $177,000,000 contract. You are right to rant about this. There is no excuse. $177M is about what USAID gave away in a short week. It is chump change to these OPM* tycoons.
*other peoples’ money