Current Events Activity 4.1 - Texas Tea

1.
Glenn Hager is the Texas that comptroller and a man trying to keep the Texas Democrats from making a fuss about the price of oil. Royce West, a state Democratic representative, asked him a prodding question about the price of oil, which has plummeted down to around $30 a barrel. State government is vile. The Democrats are a bunch of whiners who haven't been in charge since they were the party of white people and the Republicans have free reign to do whatever the hell they want with impunity. Hager pointed out that the Texas oil industry isn't some miracle economic weathervane and that the state had actually gained 179,000 jobs in the last 12 months. The state may have lost some money from severance taxes on oil and natural gas, but that doesn't mean that Texas is going to fall off the deep end and into a recession.

2.
"Trump says he won't take party in Thursday's GOP debate" Well shucks, he was the only reason anybody was going to watch the show, but now there is faux outrage and a controversy and Fox News issued a statement and who knows what the Donald will do next. So here's what I imagine, the seven other candidates get on stage and Megyn Kelly and Chris Wallace or whoever are there at the moderator's desk and the crowd is sort of tense and then Jeb! Bush tries to make a joke about Donald Trump and then a voice calls out "NOT SO FAST!" and then a cloud of smoke fils the backstage and heavy metal music starts playing and the curtains part like the red sea, a spotlight shines down to illuminate HE, the greatest presidential candidate of all time, the ten billion dollar man, the miracle from manhattan, Donald Trump, in full WWE attire, with a huge f-off belt and flowing locks of combover hair. From below the stage, a new podium rises, embellished in gold and diamonds, and on the front, in big bold letters, TRUMP. All kidding aside (again), it doesn't matter if Trump makes it to the debate or not, he's like 20 points ahead of all of his competition, and wether he is selected for the candidacy or not, he has made this probably one of the coolest got damn election cycles to watch probably ever or at least post-Lincoln. The Democrats, meanwhile, have buckled down for a serious competition between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, between the old line centrist democrats and the new left-wing idealists, a true challenge to the party's established doctrine of incrementalism and pragmatic third way solutions with new radical ideas creating some sort of socialist(?) utopia like Denmark of Ikea or the other one. There may or may not be a debate on Feb. 4, and that really isn't the big issue, what is interesting is who is going to win in Iowa, Bernie Sanders or Hillary Clinton. Whoever emerges victorious from that competition will likely have a much better chance at attaining the nomination, especially in Bernie's case. A loss for him on monday means that New Hampshire may be one of his only pickups in the primary race.

3.
Brazil is trying to eradicate a mosquito which carries the Zika virus, a disease which the WHO now believes is linked to microcephaly, a condition where babies have small heads and developmental problems because of the aforementioned head size. Brazil has deployed the troops literally to go door-to-door to give pregnant women mosquito repellent, which is a great plan. Imagine if we did stuff like that in the United States. Instead we just occasionally mail people cheese. The WHO doesn't like that the Brazilian health minister said that they were losing the war with the mosquitos, and they may have a point. Nobody is going to want to go to Carnaval or to the silly olympics if mosquitos are gonna give their babies tiny heads.

4.
So you can now have a gun concealed on a university campus, and Steven Weinberg, a nobel laureate is going to ban them in his classroom, perhaps. The Chancellor at UT, Bill McRaven said that the university would be complying with the law. The preparations for the guns in the classroom bill had started when the bill passed on August 1 and starting January 1 the law has been made effective.

5.
Ken Paxton, the Texas Attorney General and all-round shitty guy does not like Muslim or Arabs, really he's not a fan of people who aren't white. He knows many of his constituents share in his nativist, racist, islamophobic sentiments and so he continues to blow the stupid dog whistle in hopes that, what? Obama is just going to turn around and say, the Pigheaded racist bigot is right! We shouldn't allow refugees in this country. That would be the day. Paxton tried to tell a judge to stop resettlement plans, and the judge said that Paxton's reasoning was speculative hearsay, which is a really polite way to say it was bullshit.

6.
Texas Women's Basketball is close to winning 1,000 games! Wowee! The team is 18-1, and ranked sixth or second depending on who you ask and they would be first if it weren't for all of the turnovers. Texas just needs to hold on to the ball or play more passive or something I don't know but what I do know is they are gonna beat the shot out of Kansas and win their 1,000th game! Go Lady Longhorns! Is that possible though, it's like being a lady bull, wouldn't you just be a longhorn cow, or do both male and female longhorns have horns? I don't know.

7.
Abe Vigoda, of Godfather fame, died at 94. I preferred the New York Times lede, mostly because I felt like the information was more readily available and it felt like it had more consistently stuck to the orthodoxy of obit writing. I honestly don't really care all that much for the obituaries, it would be a much better tribute to just watch the godfather and appreciate the man for who he was and what he did than to read a silly article that entails it, but those are just my two cents.