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POPSWhy Doctors Have "GTT" This has allowed doctors and hospitals to cut costs and even increase the resources devoted to charity care. Take Christus Health, a nonprofit Catholic health system across the state. Thanks to tort reform, over the past four years Christus saved $100 million that it otherwise would have spent fending off bogus lawsuits or paying higher insurance premiums. Every dollar saved was reinvested in helping poor patients. Texas recently became home to more Fortune 500 companies than New York and California. Things are trending well for the Lone Star State. Anecdotally, we can see that while doctors are moving in, trial lawyers are packing up and heading west. They're GTC -- Gone to California.
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POPSStarry-eyed Quetzalcoatl in Texas Quetzalcoatl was one of the most important gods in Mesoamerica, and was worshipped by most major Mesoamerican cultures, from the Olmecs and Maya to the Aztecs.
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POPSSecret Texas Hurricane of 1943 The only news of the hurricane was published in the two states that were affected, Texas and Louisiana. An added historical note on this storm...the first documented intentional flight into a hurricane was accomplished as the storm moved into Houston from the Bay.
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POPSPaint Rock These alignments suggest that several groups may have gathered at this site on the solstices for rituals, trade, or other purposes. Religious ceremonies may have led up to the moment of local noon, when the Sun stood highest in the sky.
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POPSWichita Meteorite Traders pilfered the rock in 1856 and moved it to San Antonio. Later it was moved to the Texas Capitol in Austin. When the building burned down in 1881, the meteorite was pulled from the ashes and stored in a warehouse. It was part of the Texas exhibition at the St. Louis world's fair in 1904, and the Texas centennial celebration in Austin in 1936. A few pieces of the Wichita meteorite have been chipped off and sent to scientists and museums around the world. But the bulk of the meteorite -- about 225 pounds of it -- is on display at the Texas Memorial Museum in Austin.
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POPSMedicine Rock After a year of effort, though, they finally arrived in Louisiana. The men turned down several offers for the meteorite and shipped it to New York, where a chemist found that it was made not of platinum, but of iron. The explorers didn't profit from the meteorite, which was named the Texas Iron. But their foray prompted Spain to step up its patrols. And the meteorite was one of the first to receive extensive scientific review. Today, it's on display at the Peabody Museum at Yale University.
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POPSLone Star Statement I'm not the biggest fan of Gov. Perry, but I give credit where it's due. Governor Perry is saving Texan businesses $260 million all told in unnecessary unemployment taxes. In recent months he has also directed the state to rebate $170 million that employers paid into the trust fund in 2007.
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POPSTexas v Ohio There's no doubt times are tough in Ohio. The state has lost 200,000 manufacturing jobs since 2000, home foreclosures are soaring, and real family income is lower now than in 2000. Meanwhile, the Texas economy has boomed since 2004, with nearly twice the rate of new job creation as the rest of the nation. Ohio now ranks 47th out of 50 in economic competitiveness...Ohio politicians deplore plant closings even as they impose the third highest corporate income tax in the country (10.5%) and the sixth highest personal income tax (8.87%)...By contrast, Texas has no income tax, a huge competitive advantage.
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POPSThe 10 Weirdest Facts about American Presidents 7. Calvin Coolidge, the 30th president, was reported to be a very interesting character. When not having his head massaged with Vaseline during breakfasts in bed or riding his own mechanical bull, he was ringing the White House doorbell and then running off to hide. 8. So far, all American presidents have claimed ancestry limited to one or more of just seven nationalities: Dutch, English, German, Irish, Scottish, Swiss, and Welsh. 9. Grover Cleveland was the only president to openly admit that he had fathered an illegitimate child. 10. There were four presidents who were not actual presidents of the United States: Sam Houston, Mirabeau Lamar, and Anson Jones were all presidents of the Republic of Texas. Jefferson Davis was President of the Confederate States of America.
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POPSEmployer Arrested after Illegal Immigrant Murders a Police Officer They're required to say that Quintero "allegedly" shot the officer, but there's no question...he was handcuffed and locked in the back seat where he pulled out a pistol and shot him in the head 4 times. Robert Rutt, ICE Special Agent in charge of Houston: ''They are economic migrants, and if you take away their ability to get employment, the immigration problem will solve itself for the most part," he said. ''Our biggest weakness is not the porous border, but employers hiring illegal aliens." Worksite arrests by ICE agents have risen dramatically, according to agency statistics, which show criminal arrests — mostly company managers and contractors — jumped from 176 in fiscal 2005 to 863 in fiscal 2007. And administrative arrests of undocumented workers in worksite raids have increased from 1,116 in fiscal 2005 to 4,077 in fiscal 2007.
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POPSIllegal Immigration Crimes on the Rise in Houston " ICE officials could not say if they would review the immigration status of anyone within the Gonzalez family. In addition to the family member that Gonzalez's mother paid to have brought to the United States, the 14-year-old kidnapping victim is himself an illegal immigrant."
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POPSClassical Guitarists: Aaron Brock & Elliot Frank Aaron Brock died at the age of 32 shortly after this interview/performance of a rare undiagnosed heart ailment. Such a shame. Here he tunes his guitar to an open tuning. The two movements he plays start out very somber and slow increasing to a dramatically intense flurry of right-hand picking and left-hand slurs (hammer-ons/pull-offs), and finally decelerating back to the original motif.
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POPSGalveston Hospital Considers Denying Healthcare to Illegals "Painful cost-cutting measures included 381 layoffs last year, which shattered morale at the island campus and may have driven off some highly regarded staff and faculty members." This move hit particularly close to home. A solution isn't very clearcut either. I have compassion, but there's got to be limits at some point. There's only so much UTMB can do. This problem is bigger than them. Hell...it's bigger than Texas!
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POPSSupreme Court to Decide Presidential Power There's a lot going on here, and the clip prolly doesn't do it justice. To name a few: state vs. federal, executive vs judiciary, presidential powers, foreign policy, due process and ultimately justice. I can't say I know what the answer is either, just that I feel for the parents of those girls who are living this brutal event repeatedly in court.
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POPSAl Qaeda Targets Our Schoolchildren I don't know why I read this kind of stuff. As I was walking my grandchildren to school on their first day this year, I looked around and imagined how easily these kinds of things could happen. Perhaps ignorance is better than vigilance. (I wish I really believed that.) This is a seriously scary article.
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