Water is a problem almost everywhere, but I’ve lived in central texas for 45 years and I’ve never seen anything like this recent drought and the accompanying heat.

Significant Texas rivers, like the Pedernales which I’ve fished for decades, are bone dry. The Highland Lakes of central Texas are at the lowest levels I’ve ever seen.

Recently I’ve wondered if Texas is undergoing the same sort of sudden desertification that the Sahara region experienced hundreds of years ago, as some climate change models apparently predict.

Vast regions of Texas are highly dependent on the small amount of water they have historically received, and if the rains continue to fall short, the majority of Texas (the rural parts) will hardly be a model of economic success going forward.

I suggest that writers for The Economist are missing key parts of the Big Picture for Texas going forward, such as water shortages, and significantly, the highly inadequate transportation infrastructure. At $4.00 plus per gallon, Texas will become a mighty big and pricey state to move through.

I’ve long thought one of the best things for the future economic health of Texas would be the long talked about high-speed rail corridor connecting El Paso to Houston and Dallas to San Antonio (through Austin). The whole rail line would, in effect, form a big T, for Texas! They could even call it “The T.” This would be a huge boost to tourism and commerce, especially intra-state tourism by Texans themselves… imagine going to Dallas from Austin cheaply and quickly to catch a show or museum, or to San Antonio for an evening on the River Walk. These things will be prohibitively expensive for many Texans once gas again reaches $4.00 plus per gallon.

Evan Smith will be very familiar with these two main questions of water and transportation, and I’d enjoy hearing his point of view regarding how Texas will be affected by these two problems.

Thanks!

If California was a nation, it would have one of the world’s top economies. Instead, California is forced to send billions of dollars every year to an inept federal bureaucracy in D.C. where California’s return is a miserable 70 cents on the dollar. California would be much better off if it became an independent nation.

JP — You and I live along the banks of the same river, though down the hill here there’s still some tepid water in the Pedernales to boast about! But we are in greater peril from diminishing groundwater nationwide than we are from losing “unlimited” oil supplies and are facing yet more willful ignorance from the same sector of the population which just can’t (won’t) accept that our abundance won’t last forever.

You didn’t mention the wildfires. They have been more dramatic, or at least getting more media coverage, in California. But they’re bad here in TX, too, and won’t go away as long as we suck the land dry.

As i used to live in cali in the 90’s it sadden me it is having such problems as most my family live in poway and ranch bernardo.

Can u talk about what JP stated about the about of money from the dollar that cali receives, wild fire, and the drag on cali economy from the prison systems cost. i think its more than education combine? or 2/3rd majority to get anything passed?

Can u also talk about the amount Texas gets back from the dollar i think its actually high

i found this about whose a donor state(cali) and whose not(Texas) also can u talk about the massive amount of money texas receives from the military as a cause for there current standing?

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/matthews-hits-back-whining-about-texas-being-donor
(chris Matthews )

thanks,

Joe B., CA is in deep financial doo-doo, and much of it is due to homegrown mismanagement. The feds aren’t exactly brilliant, but CA is better off being part of the US. After living in CA and seeing TX, I say Mexico can have them both back.

It is a fallacy to think one “state” can be a model for other states. I do think certain states have envisioned and implemented model “programs” (eg, water, health, education, hunger, etc). I think the future model state is the one that can aggregate the model programs of its choice. In sum, a state can only be a model for itself.

Tom asks “which model is preferable, TX or CA”? Neither. I’ve lived in both states and I’m glad I no longer do. Give me New Hampshire anytime.

The liberals and illegals ran California into the dirt. It’s become a 3rd world country and there is no hope of recovery. I loved living there back in the 1960’s but saw by the 1980’s it was being destroyed. Texas has it’s problems but is much better run that California.

Regardless of its current economic troubles, California continues to lead in environmental action and awareness. Policy makers there see the big picture. Their attention to this all-important matter means that, for me, California wins over Texas any day.

This is the mother of all false dichotomies. Can we get another choice?

This argument is absurd.
Texas, versus California?

The water issue is something to think about, huge problem.

If global warming continues Texas along with most of southern California and most of the South West will become a desert by the latter part of this century.

Texas sucks with regard to racial and cultural issues. It is one of the most racist states in the nation hands down!!!

Excuse me: there’s a substantive difference between “racist jerks” and the vicious murderers of James Byrd. And beyond this incident and the many like it that go less reported, I think of Texas as a cold-blooded state, with its highest in the nation rate of state-sanctioned executions, exemplified most brutally by the Bush-approved execution of the seemingly wholly converted Karla Fay Tucker. I’ll stick with Massachusetts, thanks, or even California.

I have been to Texas 6 times and my over whealming impression is the stink of cow dung. Texas is run by racist, backward, ignorant hicks. Corrupt police who are just as bad as the thugs they allegedly police.
-Just look at who the Governor just choose for Education Comm.
I have visited and worked in California and while the overcrowding/pollution/taxes are issues I would live there now except for the current economic crisis. Every state has it problems and we can point almost all of them to greed and ignorance.
I just say no to Texas.

What is with this program? California is basket case.
Texas, well outside of producing some of the great musicians it does not have anything to show for itself in regards to progressive politics. It also has the distinction of giving the country one of the worse presidents in history, G.W. Bush.

What did I hear? Illegals don’t have a downside? Are these guys crazy? Apparently you have not put your child into a LA school lately.

How about addressing the politics of Texas.
This was the state where one party locked the other party out of the legislature!
This is also the state that reapportioned its electoral map to eliminate the only Democratic district.
This is the state that Tom DeLay gerrimandered (sp?) to keep the state in Republican hands “in perpetuity.”
Sounds like a banana republic to me…

I also used to have a lot of prejudices against Texas but have come to think that while this state has problems it is not anywhere near as bad as some of your commentators think. It is not like a Third World country (I have lived in a Third World country and not even Third World countries are as bad as your callers think!). I would like to hear from African-Americans from Texas. Not all are oppressed, not all are poor, not all are dying to leave Texas…in fact, there has been some in migration to Texas by African-Americans in recent years. And racism is not dead elsewhere in the US, not by a long shot.

The type of growth that Texas is participating in reminds me a lot of what China is doing. They have broken down or failed to implement a lot of the regulatory structure and social support structure in order to be attractive to businesses who want to maximize profits.

While it is great now, what cost is it going to come at? I have family in Austin and I visit them regularly, and as an example their Public Transportation system is abysmal.

Bob great point! I forgot about that:

Governor Perry Picks Creationist To Run State Education Board.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/07/12/gail-lowe-perry-picks-cre_n_230167.html

I think this shows how backward Texas is, they elect people who want a theocratic state.

i live in NH. i’d move to texas in a nanosecond if i didn’t have family up here. very affordable housing, wonderfully friendly people, and a mix of cultures. oh, and you can get from point A to point B in a logical sequence: well marked streets and highways. what a joy!

I live in Texas and I do not see racism in the state. I think if you took a survey you would find Blacks fair very well in Texas compared to other states. Since Texas is such a diverse state I think you would have a hard time coping if you were a racist. Therefore I think the charges some people are leveling against Texas as racist have no basis for their opinion. Also comparing Texas to China seems ridiculous. Texas is probably one of the richest places on Earth while China is still a 2nd or 3rd world county.

I was listening to the second half of the program. A listener from Michigan called and mentioned about the lack of progressiveness in Texas regarding race issue and also the so called experts on economy openly supported the illegal immigrants. I have two points to make.

India have not been able to completely eradicate caste based atrocities on the under privileged people by the powerful groups in the period of at least 3 millennium relative to that US has done much better a black president within 500 years of independence. People may argue that India has been independent for only 60 years but India had a lot of leaders religious, spiritual and political who has opposed it for example Buddha, the one who started Buddhism is a prominent one among those.

In regard to the economic benefits of illegal immigrants, I have this question. Note that they are ILLEGAL, meaning they don’t care to break the law. Has there been a comparison of law enforcement costs in places with rising illegal immigrant population and is this economic drain factored into calculating the economic benefits by illegal immigrants working in jobs at low wages?

Jayanta Choudhury sorry to correct you but the US has only been independent form our fellow imperialist rulers (the British) for 233 years.

Texas has been lucky in a few ways in this economy. We had a worse housing speculation boom in the 80s than most places, and learned from it, but then also we don’t restrict building so badly that it causes houses to get overvalued — developers can simply build some more nearby. Texas works that way with little restriction, lots of land, and great roads. Still, there is some bubble, like in Austin, just not as bad as Cal. The other luck is while the national bubble was bursting in 2008, the oil price boom (speculation btw) helped Texas some, since it still produces some oil. So, luck, but…even being near the top of a sinking ship is only good if the ship stops sinking.

Occassionally I see “On Point as an oasis from the usual barren desert of pro-war, pro big business that NPR has become. However this hour suggests to me that the oasis has dried up. Can someone on the staff of OP explain to me the rationale for giving the mike exclusively to the Economist which is a “free market” pro-corporate magazine who’s only interest is the bottom line? Why on a “public’ radio program is the discussion based soleley on the interests of corporate America? Where are the voices of left wing progressives or socialists?

I think this discussion focuses us on some fundamental issues that the country is currently struggling with. The most poignant topic that was raised by one caller really nails it. The caller illustrates a flaw in California’s ‘philosophy’ of regulation by recalling the energy crisis in California in 2000/2001, when electric rates went through the roof and the state suffered from rolling blackouts. At the time of the crisis, conservatives blamed excessive regulation on power generation for diminished supply. After investigating the crisis, it became clear the crisis was caused by manipulation of the market by Enron and other energy traders in a newly deregulated market. The state had never experienced blackouts of this sort until deregulation was put into effect.

Enron was a Texas (it was proudly held up as a Texas model of the free market success) company and typified the exploitative nature that conservatives hold up as what the world should look like. On the other hand, California is a state that believes in social structures that protect society and hence embraces regulation and social structures for the benefit of the population at large to prevent ‘free-market’ predatory behavior.

The caller has it wrong when he sites California regulation as a problem. It was a Texas company and philosophy that caused the crisis. As we have learned from the recent market implosion, free markets need adult supervision. Maybe we need more California and less Texas in the US to save our water, air, and cultures. At some point, we have to come to terms with the fact that you gotta pay a price for bragging rights to the ‘greatest country’ title.

As a side note, discussions about taxes avoid the inevitable conclusion. We grouse about taxes but find ourselves paying ever higher rates for health care, child care, schools (including the migration to neighborhoods with better schools and the price differentials those neighborhoods bring), higher education, senior care, retirement and pensions (how’s your 401K doing free-market guys?), and lots of other charges that go to corporate America as opposed to government programs. Taken as a whole, I could argue that we are much more heavily taxed than any European country but we choose to give our taxes directly to corporate interests. We are willing to put everything at risk including our wealth and health to make a point about the free market and taxation rather than thinking about whether it really works.

I have been to CA once and have never been to TX. I know little about these states. I am really surprised to hear about all these problems with CA. It’s big, has great climate, a sea coast, very diverse economy (agriculture, wine, tourism, high tech, Hollywood, sea port, international airports, U.S. navy bases, etc., etc.). A lot of countries in the world may only dream about conditions like that. What the !@#$?

Alex — what happened to Cal is so simple, and happens over and over in history — a speculative bubble — and the aftereffects, from history, of speculative bubbles, are devastating.

California is in depression. This is solely from the real estate bubble. It’s that the bubble went on so long, from 2000-2006 — very long for a bubble to expand — that then results in such a fall from so far up.

It’s a long way to the ground when you go crazy for 6 years.

Gotta say I cringed when the predictable “surfboards or cowboy boots” rolled out.

As a Texan that loves the state, and enjoys California, I’d say give me surfboard any day. In fact, I’d pay not to wear boots, lol.

Thankfully, I haven’t seen a cowboy boot for months…many tens of thousands of people, no boots.

Texas is not a place for me. As a minority professional I will take California’s freedom over Texas racism any day. Texas doesn’t rank high for minorities to move up in the world. Schools in the urban areas are dismal and there is no voice from economic or political stand point for minorities in Texas.

Amazed that the most obvious lesson was not mentioned: CA is choking from its big government and anti business liberalism and TX is gaining ground because of its smaller government and pro-business conservatism. So, which model are the Obamanistas marching us toward? Yup, the CA model toward bankruptcy. The Economist comparison will next be US vs China, and the lesson will be the same.

California is the model that the USA will become in a few years. Latinos make up the majority in that state. Texas will follow in a few years. TWENTY MILLION ILLEGALS are in this country now and more to come. If you buy the bull that illegals benefit this country, you must be from Mexico. Legal immigrants are your more educated people who know what “illegal” means, they go through the process. The illegals are your less educated and could care less what “illegal” means, they are flooding our systems to the point of failure. They will become a ever increasing drain on our system. Check out Wal-mart, most immigrants have 3 or 4 kids in the buggy and one on the way. Why not its free! Check
this site for the truth on the benefits of illegals. http://www.immigrationcounters.com/ Also, if they are on foodstamps our Govt. may give and pay for them to have a free cell phone. All the illegals in my area get free Ambulance rides to the ER and free care when they get there. Lets see, free food, free healthcare, maybe a free cell phone, free education, scholarships to our universities, freedom to protest on our streets, free housing, and the list goes on. Many will argue that this is not true, check out the various news reports across our country. There is alot that we don’t know.

Steve wrote: Amazed that the most obvious lesson was not mentioned: CA is choking from its big government and anti business liberalism and TX is gaining ground because of its smaller government and pro-business conservatism. So, which model are the Obamanistas marching us toward? Yup, the CA model toward bankruptcy. The Economist comparison will next be US vs China, and the lesson will be the same.
————-
Yes Steve,

as opposed to the Bush-era of BIG government and BIG businness leading to a GLOBAL meltdown in the economy. How easy one forgets, and how easy you would like to re-write FACTS. Last time I checked California was being run by a REPUBLICAN. Additionally, unlike Texas Ca is being run the way republicans want the federal government to run-via special interest props and ballets.

Lastly California is the #8 largest economy in the WORLD, what is Texas #40, 50?? Texas IS rapidly expanding but from a grade of an F to a grade of a C. Whereas Ca is going from an A to B. From education, to water, to beautiful landscapes, I would choose California over Texas ANY DAY and three times on Sunday.

Your China phobia is the similar xenophobic claptrap that was said about Japan in the 80’s and 90’s. Since you have a fear of China taking over, why not simply move there and then all your anxieties over loosing to Obama can magically go away!

I’m looking at Lynchburg VA….Tom…can you do a show on Lynchburg?

I commend you for putting this story on your show. I hope people will listen to this one, and take pause before we allow the Obama administration to take the U.S. down the road California has gone down, full steam ahead toward bankruptcy. If Americans look at the case study of California versus Texas, does it give them pause in thinking more government will solve all our problems? How about the case studies of all the European countries that were once the leaders of the industrial world, but have since gone down the Big Government road and are no longer the leaders of anything? Is that what we want for America?

Labels mean nothing, Republican’s can be Big Government proponents just like Democrats can, and both can be corrupted easily by special interests. To me the best hope is to rely on Personal Responsibility. That’s about the size of it, and I think people in Texas get that, where lots of American’s don’t. And interestingly, those who believe in personal responsibility also believe in Charity, and tend to contribute far more than those who believe in Big Government. We believe we can best help people by helping them take responsibility for their own lives, not by teaching them how to find a free lunch. So if you want to label me, call me a libertarian, I guess. But I am not a big fan of Ron Paul either, so let’s just drop the labels and talk about ideas.

What about innovation? Where are the rays of genius being reflected and combined? My impression is, if I were being a young man with new ideas, I would be executed summarily.

I was disappointed that Tom didn’t call the guests out on their bogus and intellectually dishonest claim that the illegal aliens are “doing jobs Americans won’t do.”

Anyone who has spent more than a single week in an Economics 101 course knows that the supply, such as the supply of people willing to do certain jobs, increases when the price point (wages) increases. In other words–Americans will do the “jobs Americans won’t do” for American wages but not Mexican, Chinese, or third world wages.

Surely the guests, who supposedly know a little bit about basic economics, must be aware of that. It is thus intellectually dishonest of them to claim that “jobs that Americans won’t do” even exist. Anyone who even mentions that phrase should be called out and verbally castigated and exposed as being either ignorant of basic economic concepts or blatantly intellectually dishonest.

This upper-middle-class white dude from Britain who has national-health-service coverage, fine public services, a largely educated workforce and extraordinary cultural advantages should have to spend a year in Texas. He would be high-tailing it back to civilization.

I think the choice is stupid. The fascination with big numbers is also stupid. You have chosen two of the three worst states I can imagine. California has been in trouble since prop 13 year and year ago, their citizens keep electing people to give them more services and at the same time don’t want to pay for them.

Texas has been a troglodyte state for years and proud of it. If you are rich or well off then its a comfortable place for you to live and ignore the invisible people… the poor who are not getting education and health services among others.

These are large states and like NYC you seem to think that they are somehow a picture of the US. They are just big collections of numbers and just a cross our country must bear. More of something than anywhere else is hardly a reason to say a place is an indicator. These places are big easily visible anomaly’s and over time their successes will reverse themselves.

Years ago, Silicon valley was a dream and then they discovered that toxic waste was a problem, voila more environmental regulation and superfund sites.

The question, what is your model? THERE IS NO MODEL.
Quit looking for quick answers. The answers are in the minds of individuals and small groups of people who work together. Political leaders in large places like CA and TX and NYC have to overlook lots of small things in order to make.

Leaders in families, small groups, businesses, and small communities will make the differences and they will be spread all over. We are a giant quilt. No two squares are the same. No one square is a model for the rest. No square is the model for the entire quilt.

TOM: I frequently have to turn off your show and it’s stressful and breathless search for the OMG looks what’s coming, most of your topics are cliche, tempest in the teapot.

Houston is so backward it doesn’t have a day time NPR talk format.

The “Texas Model” is for the most part, “big-oil” binging from the spoils which have come from the fleecing of the average American. The “haves” have no sense of community whatsoever.

Texas comes in first for obesity, high school drop out rate, no health insurance, teen pregnancy, and the largest income disparity between rich and poor. Sounds like I’ll just stay put in Colorado.

Doesn’t sound like anyplace to raise a family too me.

Posted by Herrmannator: Americans look at the case study of California versus Texas, does it give them pause in thinking more government will solve all our problems?
———————————
Who do you think Rick Perry is, the tooth fairy? He is the GOVERNMENT that has created CORPORATE WELFARE in Texas giving corporations cheap land, low taxes and low regulations. Let me see…low taxes and deregulation, where have we seen that movie before? That would be the Bush doctrine of economics that worked well enough to result in a GLOBAL MELTDOWN.

The premise of the show is simply dishonest. We are supposed to see Texas as the new model of the American dream where corporations get filthy rich and the people are simply happy to get low wage jobs, cheap nasty food and the following Texas conditions?:

#1 in teenage pregnancy
#1 in the country for people LACKING health insurance
3rd highest in poverty
2nd highest prison rate
Last in voter participation
Last in high school graduation rate
School boards filled with nutty religious zealots

THAT’S the new American dream? Why stop there, let’s just bring back slavery so that these corporations can make 100% profits and the people can live as cattle!

The premise of this show seemed flawed and absurd.
Ann-Marie has pointed out the social economic realities of the Lone Star state and why on earth would anyone want to follow this a model for the “American dream” is beyond me.

The whole idea of the “American dream” is a flawed ideal based on a myth that has it’s roots in manifest destiny.

Texas gave us GW Bush, Tom Delay, John Cornyn, Phil Gramm, Kay Bailey Hutchison, Enron, enough said.

Vermont has Senators Bernie Sanders and Patrick Leahy, is a small state trying to find progressive ways to sustain itself. It promotes small sustainable agriculture and afforable health care.

Did I mention is has Bernie Sanders, can’t say enough good things about Bernie, he’s one of the few people in Washington who speak the truth and is generally there to do the peoples bidding.

I use Vermont as a point in contrast to the absurd notion that On Point has presented. That these two extreme examples of failed states should be models for the future of our country is a fools errand.

I work for a company of about 30 people–we do kitchen/bath remodeling plus a hardware/home/garden business.

Since Feb., we have hired 8 PEOPLE! I run the kitchen/bath remodeling business.

Tuesday, I made the biggest sale of the company’s business–40K of cabinetry. Yesterday, I did a 31K sale. I could tell we were in a recession in Dec 2007 because of the slow down of remodeling. But the owner of the business bought another one last summer and we are still growing. Please don’t tell me CA is anti business–this guy is from Arizona and lives in San Diego.

A lot of the energy BS problems in CA was started by Cheney and ENRON thieves, cheered on by the Wall Street THUGS.

Our real problem is the initiative process where some rich group gets something on the ballot saying it isn’t going to cost any thing, but it does. This combined with our Legislators not wanting to look soft on crime so they can get reelected before they are termed out. They punt the initiative stuff to the electorate instead of doing their real jobs-getting a real, working budget.

The 3-Strikes on criminals is one of those initiatives. We are being bankrupted by this. But as I said above, business are still growing and hiring here, so don’t write us off.

Plus, we are creative and solve problems as evidenced by the article from the LA Times below:

ENERGY
Onions produce tears and energy at an Oxnard plant
Spencer Weiner / Los Angeles Times
Steve Gill with some of the onions that he grows. Waste from his family’s processing plant in Oxnard is used to run two fuel cells that produce 600-kilowatts of electricity, enough to operate the plant’s refrigeration units and lighting. .
A farming company uses juice from the vegetable to run a fuel cell. It’s one of a growing number of businesses that use their waste to produce electricity.
By Tiffany Hsu >>>
July 17, 2009
After more than 20 years farming onions, Steve Gill still breaks out in tears at his processing facility. ¶ Only now he’s crying all the way to the bank. ¶ He recently began using juice from his pungent crop to create energy to run his refrigerators and lighting. That’s slicing $700,000 annually off the electric bill at his 14-acre plant in Oxnard. He’s also saving $400,000 a year on disposal costs. And he has secured more than $3 million in government and power company incentives to do it. ¶ Gill figures the $9.5-million system will pay for itself in less than six years while eliminating up to 30,000 tons of carbon dioxide-equivalent emissions a year. ¶ “It’s a great sustainability story, but it was first a business decision to solve a waste problem,” said Gill, 59, who co-owns the company with his brother David. “But in doing so, we solved a lot of environmental problems too.” ¶ Gills Onions is one of a small but growing cadre of U.S. companies generating their own electricity on site with waste from their production processes. In addition to plant material, firms are using a variety of feedstocks, including animal manure, vegetable oil, whey — even beer.

The massive upfront costs limit the appeal of these so-called closed-loop systems. But volatile energy prices and the rising cost of waste disposal are compelling more firms to take a look.

* Energy with a peel
Energy with a peel

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Farmers and processors in California’s $37-billion agricultural industry in particular are looking for ways to save money and reduce their environmental footprint, said Sonia Salas, science and technology manager for the Western Growers Assn.

“Many growers want technology that helps them handle waste,” she said. “This is a concept that other operations can definitely use.”

The system at Gills Onions, which will be unveiled to the public today, converts methane from fermented onion juice into energy burned in two on-site fuel cells.

The company has farms throughout California that send onions year-round to the Oxnard plant, where they are skinned, diced, sliced or packaged whole in a numbingly frigid facility by 400 employees. The vegetables are then shipped all over the country to wholesalers and retailers such as Ralphs.

Machines slice off about 40% of each onion. That leaves 150 tons of waste a day. For years, the Gills spread these leavings as fertilizer over their fields or sold them as cattle feed. But the refuse was expensive to handle, and it posed a hazard to the atmosphere and groundwater.

So the brothers decided to turn it into energy instead.

Machines extract about 30,000 gallons of onion juice that is then sent to a 145,000-gallon holding tank kept at a toasty 95 degrees. Inside, bacteria purchased from an Anheuser-Busch beer brewery produce methane gas by feasting on the carbohydrates in the fermenting juice.

“It’s like a big stomach,” said project manager Bill Deaton.

The gas is purified, dehumidified and compressed, then burned in the fuel cells at temperatures that exceed 1,000 degrees. The 600-kilowatt system produces enough power to operate the plant’s refrigeration units and lighting.

The Gills are also looking into installing a battery at the plant that can store excess electricity from the fuel cells. Reserve energy could be used during peak hours in the summer, when electricity is more expensive.

“I didn’t want to depend on anyone taking my waste for me,” Gill said. “It was my problem, and I had to solve it. It’s a relief to find a solution.”

Producing biofuel for a single company’s closed-loop system is one thing, but integrating the energy into the public grid is still a prohibitively expensive and difficult endeavor.

Fuel from organic matter, such as crushed palm nuts or fermented wheat, is rarely pure enough to blend with commercial energy sources, said Ross McCracken, editor of Platts Energy Economist.

As a result, companies would have to sink funds into cleaning the biogas and then invest in a pipeline or other delivery system to hook the fuel into the national pool.

And even large companies would struggle to produce enough fuel to make a significant contribution.

The drawbacks make many experts skeptical of the large-scale potential of any biogas.

“There’s no silver bullet,” McCracken said. “The technology isn’t quite there.

Meanwhile, Gills Onions is keeping its eco-friendly aspirations close to home. Gill hopes to turn the plant into a zero-waste facility by revamping packaging and by recycling employees’ lunch leftovers.

The company even cleans its own wastewater and funnels it into a cooling tower.

“We consider this a long-term investment for the company,” Gill said.

tiffany.hsu@latimes.com

I was raised in MI, lived in TX for 26 years, also in DE and CT.

From my experience, FT Worth TX is one of the most racially unified places I’ve ever worked, even when, or maybe especially because, problems are exposed in the news media and addressed locally. I loved teaching school there, embracing educators and support personnel from all cultural backgrounds, celebrating our efforts to bring a quality experience to our students, and giving each other joyful support to sustain our efforts despite the oppressive state political system that puts testing ahead of best practices in learning and human development.

Texas govt is not effective. Millions are wasted at the state level and the local level is poor. Taxes are reasonable. The state sales tax is progressive and I prefered it to an income tax.

Social services are limited in TX. Insurance coverage is limited. However, the cost of medical care, from my experience, is much more accessible without insurance to drive the expenses up. When I moved to CT last year I was shocked to learn that having a root canal and crown done here WITH insurance is more expensive than having it done WITHOUT insurance in TX.

Thanks to Orpheus,the other caller from Boston and the gentleman who commented on the atitudes of the likes of Louis Fyne,the hour was not a complete waste of time. The Economist is a propaganda rag. For better insight rent the following films:

The Big Libowski;
Big;
True Stories (David Byrne);
Paris,Texas;and
The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada.

Llano

P.S. Contrary to Mr. Ashbrook’s use of stereotype to spice up the discussion, I have found the Texans of the Trans Pecos humble in their pride, and very polite and considerate.

[...] [...]

“How about addressing the politics of Texas.
This was the state where one party locked the other party out of the legislature!
This is also the state that reapportioned its electoral map to eliminate the only Democratic district.
This is the state that Tom DeLay gerrimandered (sp?) to keep the state in Republican hands “in perpetuity.”
Sounds like a banana republic to me…”

Fran, I have news for you. The Democrats indulge in gerrymandering too, to keep control of those districts that they have won. What do you think forced Mike Finneran – a DEMOCRAT – to resign from MA legislature?

Sheesh, I am amazed by how deluded some Democrats are, and how willingly they ignore unsavory facts about the politicians from their own party, laboring under the false aphorism of “Democrats good-Republicans bad”. No wonder our country is in a mess, with the corrupt two parties and their willing apologists – two sides of the same coin.

Hello. I thought this forum was Cali v. Texas.

Anyway… I feel that it is a misnomer to believe that one state is the model for the entire country. I always thought that America was as progressive as it is b/c of the variations in culture, beliefs, geography, etc. This is what continues to push it towards the future. I do however, understand what was meant by pitting Cali against the Lone Star. Technology, research and development-wise, it is true that large states tend to lead the way. This however, is simply b/c the sheer size of population in a large state creates situations that may not occur [or do not occur as fast] in smaller states.

Moving on… Cali v Lone Star? What makes a great state?

Lowest Cost of Living: Lone Star
Higher % Home Ownership: Lone Star
Greater Availability of jobs: Lone Star
Highest % Employment: Lone Star
Most Avail (unused) Resources: Lone Star
Lowest Cost of Utilities: Cali
Lowest Income Taxes: Lone Star
Lowest Property Taxes: Cali
Lowest Overall Taxes: Lone Star
Avail Education Access (public): Similar
Most Education expenditure: Similar
Highest % Post-Secondary Education: Cali
Most Avail Health Programs: Cali
Most Avail Rx Programs: Cali
Lowest Cost Medical Exp: Lone Star
More Avail % Hospitals: Lone Star
Transportation: Similar
Most Diversity: Cali
Lowest Overall % Hate Crimes: Lone Star
Most Beaches: Cali
Innovation: By vote
Affordable Entertainment: By vote

Sorry about the length, just wanted people to look at facts. Let me know any I missed, or any links to info.