Hambone v3.0

Criminal Benign Neglect Friday Open Comments


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?

 

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Shannon

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45 responses to “Criminal Benign Neglect Friday Open Comments”

  1. Texpat Avatar
    Texpat

    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

  2. Texpat Avatar
    Texpat

    The world wouldn’t be the same without donkeys…uh, the four-legged kind, not the two-legged criminal type.

    1. Super Dave Avatar
      Super Dave

      I love donkeys, every morning our alarm clocks are our big Rhode Island Red Rooster and Garcia’s donkey down in front of our house. I love to hear him braying for his breakfast in the morning.

  3. Texpat Avatar
    Texpat

    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 weeks

    Hiring process streamlined to reduce timeline by five months, focusing on merit-based selection and cutting bureaucratic red tape

    Starting salaries for Academy trainees increased by 30%, with certified professional controllers earning over $160,000 annually

    Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and President Trump have prioritized addressing the controller shortage amid heightening air safety concerns

    The National Air Traffic Controllers Association estimates a critical need for 3,600 more controllers

  4. Texpat Avatar
    Texpat

    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 of the Trump administration.

    and,

    The Signal Foundation’s president, Meredith Whittaker, described as the “woman in charge of the secure communication channel”, became famous leading a revolt against Google when it dared to add the black female president of the Heritage Foundation to its AI council.

    plus,

    Other foundation board members include Katherine Maher, the current head of NPR and former head of Wikimedia, who famously claimed that “our reverence for the truth might be a distraction that’s getting in the way of finding common ground and getting things done.”

    1. Super Dave Avatar
      Super Dave

      I mentioned this the other day. I can’t see how the most evil Trump hater in the news business wound up on the group chat list other than something nefarious.

  5. Super Dave Avatar
    Super Dave

    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

  6. Shannon Avatar
    Shannon

    VDH has a column about the Signal psychodrama..
    Read it while it is still available on X.

  7. Shannon Avatar
    Shannon

    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.

    1. Super Dave Avatar
      Super Dave

      I say, go for it! 😀

      But Scudder also has a reputation among some in the party as being divisive, including for his past willingness to criticize leadership for not listening to the grassroots.

      “It’s important that our leadership listens to activists and grassroots on the ground when they tell us things are important to them, and that hasn’t been happening,” Scudder said.

      Then of course there is this;

      In May, Scudder was elected to the Dallas Central Appraisal District board after two unsuccessful bids for the Legislature. However, he resigned that seat on Thursday to quell concerns after the Texas Democratic Party’s lawyer issued an opinion saying he couldn’t hold the DCAD and run for party chair at the same time.

      Emphasis mine.

      Yup, lets get a 2 time loser with Lezbo parents to head up the party. That ought to get the independents on board. 😀

  8. Super Dave Avatar
    Super Dave

    I caught an old Andy Griffith show; “Opie finds a baby” and guess who was the young daddy? Jack Nicholson. 😉

  9. Tedtam Avatar
    Tedtam

    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.

  10. Tedtam Avatar
    Tedtam

    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 and historic reorganization at HHS under Kennedy’s muscular leadership; RFK promises everything about vaccines is going to change; lefty influencers finally triggered by Biden’s broadband blunder; Mississippi murders its state income tax; Alabama authorizes commonsense over-the-counter drug purchases; and the latest peer-reviewed study pans the jabs and publishes another long-term risk nobody ever told us about.

  11. Tedtam Avatar
    Tedtam

    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 new priorities in reversing the chronic disease epidemic.”…

    Call me crazy, but reversing the chronic disease epidemic should always have been HHS’s top priority, But that’s because I am a stupid moron who didn’t get into an Ivy League school where I’d have learned that the country’s real problems don’t come from viruses, bacteria, or chemicals.

    ****

    Finally, enjoy yesterday’s headline from Fierce Healthcare: “CDC, DOGE claw back $11 billion in COVID-19 grants nationwide as agency roots out ‘censorship’ contracts.”

    ****

    The redpilling continues. This week, Jon Stewart hosted far-left New York Times journalist and podcaster Ezra Klein, who explained why Biden’s massive, $65-billion broadband initiative and his $7.5 billion electric charging station program never got off the ground. Since the bill’s passage in 2021, not one household has been connected and not one charging station has been installed.

    ****

    “The elimination of the [Mississippi] income tax is not just a win for our economy. It’s a win for freedom,” the Governor gushed. Well, sort of. The state income tax will be phased out over the next five to ten years, depending on the budget effects. I suppose that’s probably fiscally prudent, but it is somewhat less satisfying than just cutting it off cold. Oh— and the state gas tax will double from 9 cents to 18 cents a gallon.

    ****

    On Wednesday, NBC affiliate KARK ran a story headlined, “Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders signs over-the-counter ivermectin sales bill into law.” The new law says simply, “ivermectin suitable for human use may be sold or purchased as an over-the-counter medication in this state without a prescription or consultation with a healthcare professional.” It’s not exactly poetry, but sweeter words were never lawyered up into a bill.

    ****
    It’s not over yet. The FDA has not approved ivermectin for OTC sale. So some Arkansan pharmacists may avoid carrying it over the counter and will still require a prescription. The FDA should either approve the drug for OTC sale, or change the rules so states can decide. I am sure FDA officials have heard about Arkansas’s new law. It’s their move.

    ****
    The study’s conclusions were bleak. The Spanish team found that repeated covid mRNA shots —especially the third jab and beyond— shift injectees’ antibodies toward a usually rare “non-fighter” type of antibidy called IgG4. IgG4 is the immune system’s version of a conflict-avoiding diplomat. Instead of gearing up to attack invaders, the body treats the virus like it’s a persistent uninvited houseguest: inconvenient, maybe even annoying, but not worth an unpleasant confrontation.

    The study unsurprisingly showed that the more this IgG4 antibody “class switching” happened, the more often people got reinfected. Meaning, more shots, more sickness. Exactly the opposite of what the experts promised.

     Even worse, the results showed that the IgG4 increase lasted for years after repeated mRNA doses. The elevated IgG4 (and IgG2) levels stabilized above normal baseline levels and stayed that way for the rest of the study period— nearly three years. The researchers saw no sign of those levels returning to pre-booster norms.

    ***
    Finally, since it was out of the study’s scope, the researchers did not consider whether chronically elevated IgG4 levels could suppress immune responses to other things besides covid, like infections, cancer, parasites, or any number of foreign invaders. The problem though is that elevated IgG4 is immunologically anti-inflammatory. It’s like issuing a permanent, body-wide “stand down” order to your immune system—the opposite of staying on high alert.

    Rather, it’s on low alert. Like Jeffrey Epstein’s guards snoozing during his mur, I mean suicide.

    The public health morons played the most dangerous shell game in human history, and we still don’t know the full scope.

    ****

    Okay, gotta run. Check in later.

  12. Super Dave Avatar
    Super Dave

    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.

    1. Tedtam Avatar
      Tedtam

      It’s a form of blog roulette.

    2. Texpat Avatar
      Texpat

      It’s happened to me a lot. WP waits until I’ve typed a 4 paragraph comment with 3 links and then hits me with “comments are closed”. Just copy your whole comment, go to “login” and then paste it into the refreshed page. You don’t have to start over.

      1. Super Dave Avatar
        Super Dave

        Yes, I copied and pasted it, Block Quotes and all. 😉

  13. CFree Avatar
    CFree

    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?

    1. Texpat Avatar
      Texpat

      It’s a shame this story didn’t get front page coverage. You would think the leftwing media would be all over this except the money was going to illegal aliens. Destitute, foreign invaders, many with criminal histories, trump “the world is going to end tomorrow” hysteria. Those same mass media types are trading in Teslas for Chevy Tahoes and Ford Explorers. The whole climate change theme is a farce.

  14. squawkbox Avatar
    squawkbox

    Friday brunette Super Dave Edition

    1. Texpat Avatar
      Texpat

      That girl has one helluva soybean patch. Not sure about the make of the tractor, but it looks like a Ford 9N knockoff.

      1. squawkbox Avatar
        squawkbox

        Couldn’t find a vintage Kubota had to settle for that.

    2. Super Dave Avatar
      Super Dave

      That’ll work and I’m pretty sure the tractor is an old Massey Ferguson. They had those grills in the late 40’s.

      1. Texpat Avatar
        Texpat

        Yeah, I think you’re right.

  15. Shannon Avatar
    Shannon

    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.

    1. Texpat Avatar
      Texpat

      Beto O’Rourke, Tim Walz, Jasmine Crockett, Sanders, AOC, Maxine Waters, Kamala…these people look and act like a 1905 traveling vaudeville comedy troupe.

    2. Super Dave Avatar
      Super Dave

      Dumb and Dumber but you can’t tell which is which. 😀

  16. Texpat Avatar
    Texpat

    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 shouldn’t spend a trillion bucks on a larger Navy we aren’t going to use properly is one that I do.

    A couple excerpts from his reaction to Vance:

    Here’s why this exchange bothers me. Either the Vice President does not understand global trade and the importance of the role the U.S. Navy plays in enabling it (for instance, when it schwacks Houthi’s in the manner described in deeply classified detail elsewhere in these texts), or he understands it, and simply doesn’t think it is important. Either way, this is a dangerous and uninformed view for the Vice President to hold, and frankly, that he holds it is yet another reason for the whatever adults that remain in Congress to look with great skepticism at the President’s desire to dramatically increase the size of the Navy.

    plus,

    …the Vice President and his buddy Bridge Colby at OSD—is increasingly uninterested in using the Navy to do one of its most important jobs (as the world’s STILL most dominant Navy—and that is to secure the sea lanes for the benefit of ALL. Do the Europeans get a good deal out of this “good” we provide the world? Why yes, yes they do. But we get more. We benefit more than ANY of the nations the Vice President would have us believe we are “bailing out”. 

  17. Super Dave Avatar
    Super Dave

    Inflation is Bad!!! 😀

  18. Texpat Avatar
    Texpat

    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 release the remaining hostages held by the terrorist group.

    “Witkoff’s performance is disqualifying because it demonstrates his utter incompetence,” Levine said in a scathing email sent to his professional network on Wednesday, while calling the Trump official “an embarrassment to” the “country and the president he serves.”

    and this,

    Witkoff has faced backlash following interviews with Fox News as well as on Tucker Carlson’s podcast in which he said he did not “regard Putin as a bad guy,” suggested Hamas could be “involved politically” in post-war Gaza and said he did not believe the terrorist group is “ideologically intractable,” among other comments that raised alarms with Republican lawmakers and national security experts. 

    1. Bonecrusher Avatar
      Bonecrusher

      suggested Hamas could be “involved politically” in post-war Gaza and said he did not believe the terrorist group is “ideologically intractable

      To quote one of the most vile and disgusting humans ever to inflict themselves on the body politic, Hilary Clinton: “It would take an active suspension of disbelief to consider any of this to be true”

  19. Dr phil Good-E=1984 Avatar
    Dr phil Good-E=1984

    Day 68

    Tyrannical kangarooed penguins – 45
    republcant’s led by bumblin fumblin and stumblin Peter popoff Johnson – 0

  20. Tedtam Avatar
    Tedtam

    Language warning

    Liberal Tesla rage results in a little girl getting hit

    What the heck is wrong with these people?

    1. Bonecrusher Avatar
      Bonecrusher

      That driver needs to be charged with reckless endangerment, injury to a child and not released from prison for at least 20 years.

  21. Bonecrusher Avatar
    Bonecrusher

    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.

  22. Bonecrusher Avatar
    Bonecrusher

    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.

  23. Tedtam Avatar
    Tedtam

    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.

    1. bsue54 Avatar
      bsue54

      how’d you process the ginger to FreezeDry?

  24. Shannon Avatar
    Shannon

    Sec. Kennedy is not backing off his desire to remove sugary soft drinks from approved SNAP purchases.

    American Beverage Association squealing like baby pigs.

  25. Tedtam Avatar
    Tedtam

    Didn’t see this one coming:

    1. Adee Avatar
      Adee

      Adee,
      Me either. This surely must be a giant’s giant by now. The Lefties must be in shock and unable to speak/write coherently for some time. Ummm, gotta stretch the coherent part in their cases.

  26. Tedtam Avatar
    Tedtam

    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.

    1. Super Dave Avatar
      Super Dave

      I mentioned that Jack Nicholson was on a Andy Griffith episode, (Opie finds a baby, 1966) and while looking it up on IMDb I found out that he also played the defendant on another episode, (Aunt Bee The Juror, 1967). He was playing a “nothing part” in his early 30’s so I guess that it took some time for him to break through and become a star?

  27. Super Dave Avatar
    Super Dave

    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.

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