Texas Musings
10/7/23 Now adding to this section my picks for Texas and National elections and issues for 2024 and 2025, and 2026, with reasoning. Will be adding to this. 6/18/24 Reorganized somewhat. Also adding a growing list of ways to help Texas that are more helpful than just sending money to poor people
2024 Section, created 12/9/23
2024 National Elections
- Disclaimer 1/9/24 I probably won't get done with this section in one day but I hope to shed light on it as I work at it. 5/13/24 Suggestion: in order to vote in a large group, no matter who you are voting for, it makes a lot of sense to discuss voting plans with everyone you can within a reasonable time frame before the election itself. This year, that's in late October / early November for the national election. Therefore, it probably makes sense to do this starting at the beginning of August.
- National: I still support Biden for re-election, because a. he's trying, and b. we're called the USA and not Post-Atomic Pit #1, so that's nice. Also, I know that whoever is in charge of the military isn't necessarily put there by whoever is in office but I hope Lloyd Austin stays on. He (and whoever he's working with) have been doing an incredible job. Here is the official campaign website: Joe Biden. Regarding Kamala Harris, I have absolutely no idea what she's been up to, but logically speaking she has not fucked anything up, and that's good enough for me.
National 2024 Elections
- 10/14/24 Just to make this super clear to everyone: on the godawful chance that Trump wins, we become Russia's backyard. Even the most diehard Nazi has to admit that. Oh, and there are indications that Russia's government is into Satanism. And not even the modern kinds of it that are really focused on personal rights and freedoms and generally trying to be either an ethically neutral or good person (and yes, those kinds of Satanism exist, I have met people like that, as a Pagan it is very strange to me), but the stereotypical kind that works black magic, kills the innocent and generally wreaks havoc. Look at what that government's done to Ukraine's women and children and to its own soldiers; for those of you who are psychic you're probably already aware of what they're doing. I mean, they named their special missile Satan, so what's that tell you. If you want to move to Russia be my guest. But don't call yourself American.
- 10/22/24 Here's something else you should know. There is no freedom or free will in the Nazi way of life. Nor in the Fascist way of life. Conformity is the name of the game. Part of its bullshit is persuading the adherents that as long as they toe the line they will have plenty of freedoms, because supposedly all the bad things will never happen to them. It's a lie. You can ask anyone who lived through it, and any historian, and unlike the Russians, who have actually killed off most of their elders through sheer incompetence and therefore don't know their history, we have the luxury of still having plenty of survivors of the Nazis and WWII and plenty of elderly historians. They can tell you. The same exact thing can be said of Communism, and I get that listening to immigrants from Communist countries is the last thing a tankie wants to do but they'll tell you the same exact thing. No freedom. No rights. Unless you're blowing the local official in charge of the district. Or, and this is supremely ironic, unless the people in charge are so profoundly incompetent that they don't do their jobs so it's more like anarchy than Communism. Then you just don't get reliable infrastructure or what you need and people struggle for all of their basic needs to be met til some strongman fills the power vacuum, and then you end up in feudalism or a dictatorship not too soon after.
- 7/21/24 Ok, this should be interesting. I'm voting for Kamala Harris, despite the news not covering her activities pretty much at all for the previous four years. I'm hoping they (the news folks) do their damn jobs. Considering I'd vote for a croissant instead of Trump or whoever the Republicans (or even the Democrats at this point) prop up with extra bombast and stuffing, there's that. I sincerely hope to learn more. Will tell you if/when I do. My main fear is something I need addressed: if she decides to go full far left-wing with her presidency so much so that it winds up actually Communist and/or overly Socialist in places, that will make it harder for female people to run for President for hundreds of years, and it will make it harder for every female person to get taken seriously (because that tankie stuff flat out just doesn't work!!!). That's something some Democrat candidates sometimes double down on so that's a concern, but as far as she herself goes, I don't know what she intends to do. What I am most interested in are what main policy areas her focus will be in and if she keeps those campaign promises, as Biden did. Those are some big shoes to fill. Is she qualified, as per my requirements a couple points down? Well, she managed to hang in there during a presidency facing (gestures broadly) all this, including potential nuclear armageddon, without fucking anything up, which is an accomplishment in itself. I would say so. If she helped with any of the good stuff during the previous four years, so much the better. She does have a law degree and a background as a district attorney in California. In short I'm paying attention.
- 8/7/24 The Vice President candidate Harris is running with is Tim Walz. He was a Command Sergeant Major in the Army, according to Wikipedia spent some time in an artillery regiment, got quite decorated, and actually got deployed. As a veteran (him, not me), that's more credentials than I was expecting and that's a pleasant surprise.
- Biden. I can't believe I have to explain this but this administration is the only reason we don't have craters where the nukes hit us, kthxbai
- Whoever I decide on and whatever issues I decide on are coming from a standpoint as follows: if this country does not bring back manufacturing, technological innovation and advancement, intellectual rigor, value placed on science and scientific inquiry and truth, and colleges worth attending that aren't a total ripoff, we will fall even more behind than we already have in terms of both hard and soft political power worldwide. This is not a good thing and it makes us less safe on a national level. It also has a ripple effect internationally in reducing the power of democracy as well as making dictatorships stronger and having people lose faith in democracy itself, and if you know anything about history, you know how well that goes. Any candidates I choose will have to have a proven track record of being both accomplished in academia - namely they will require at least a Master's degree in a scientific field or technological field - and they will also have to have a proven track record of holding their own as adults that did not need to rely on handouts from politics or from silver spoons or from Communist policies to earn a living. Alternatively they will require, like Biden, a track record of achieving extraordinary things for several years at least such as avoiding a nuclear holocaust - that amount of proven achievements. They will, indeed, have to have pulled themselves up by their proverbial bootstraps. This rules out a lot of candidates.
- Here is what is at stake besides political power: economic viability and stability, quality of life, safety of living conditions, and every other metric via which nations are judged. I've noticed a trend lately of people emigrating to other countries and unless this country fixes stuff, fast, we will soon find ourselves surpassed by just about every other country. This doesn't sound like a bad thing but it leads to brain drain, and yes, this is a slippery slope argument. It is, however, applicable. We lose the best scientists, inventors, innovators, educators, and even businesspeople to other countries? We lose everything that makes us viable as a world power. In fact, we find ourselves being the bottom of the heap instead of the top dog real fast, especially when it comes to our military. "But my racism! My entitlement, my intersectionality!" Yeah okay, whatever, that kind of stupidity worshipping attitude's going to get us all killed.
2024 State Elections for Texas
- 1/9/24 Real-Time Footage of 2024 Texas Election
- 1/9/24 Official pictures for the state election this year
- 1/15/24 Since this is extremely important for me I'm going to do something I don't usually do. I'm going to tell you about a specific district in Texas that I'm voting in. TX State Board of Education District 10. I am supporting Tom Maynard, a Republican incumbent for this. Here is why - his page describing his current duties and how he feels about them. He's doing a decent job and I'm okay with that. More importantly however, the other two candidates that are eligible for winning the runoff are monsters, and I don't want them anywhere near children, let alone in the educational system. This one, Raquel Saenz Ortiz wants to use kids to promote a far-left agenda. This one, Mary Bone, wants to use kids to promote a far-right agenda. And here is how I feel about it: do not use children as your political foot soldiers. What the hell is wrong with these people?! They're insane.
- State elections: Since the Republican Party here is um, insane, I unfortunately support Democrats and Independents up and down the local ballot. They'll balance out whoever is Republican and is left in office. However, Democrats in Texas are also insane, and somehow more impractical and possibly more stupid than the Republicans. And that's a low bar. Here's how they (sigh, can't believe I have to explain this) can get elected. Firstly, stop being so hardline about abortion and guns. People here have a right to defend themselves and children. Recently, there have been people successfully defending themselves with said guns. Support background checks and mandate training, sure; ensure people use guns safely and with good mental status and track the weapons, sure. But don't fucking ban guns or put bars between gun ownership and people (for instance in the country fighting wild boar) who need them. With regards to being 100% pro-choice, do not do that either. Sure, mandate legal abortions for victims of rape, incest, being underage, and those with medical conditions; make plan B legal, and ensure everyone has access to contraceptives and sex ed. Go further and you can't get elected here. It's that simple. Secondly, drop the "defund the police" shtick. People in Texas are insane and we need cops end of story. Hire more cops. Fund the police. Work on police brutality and corruption and increase transparency in the entire justice system. Simultaneously use said cops to track down and eliminate white supremacist terrorist factions, of which there are too many here. Finally, I will have preference for veterans of the military especially anyone that wants to create a statewide online library of ebooks in tandem with Overdrive / Libby software funded by whatever they can scrounge up, which any Texas resident can access with their ID card. Bonus points for anyone who can make starting (and more importantly, keeping afloat) a microbusiness or small business here inexpensive and simple enough for anyone to do. 1/16/24 I've now chosen all the candidates I'm going to vote for. Here are several things I had to do: 1. Choose some Republican and Libertarian candidates. Some candidates were just unacceptable to me otherwise so I looked at the competition and in some cases it was superior. 2. Make decisions with very few facts on the table and very little transparency. I am very irked at candidates who did not put as much information about themselves online as they could and seemingly expected people to make a blind choice based on "red party" or "blue party" instead of actual issues. Of those who did, a couple of them put actual resumes and bodies of work online and I really appreciated that - but they didn't also put down their stances on hot-button issues or their precise plans for what they aimed to do once in office. More irk. The worst ones to learn about were the folks in the judicial system, which I had to dig through scanty information about and make the best choice I could, often with cobbled together news articles and stuff on their websites, not actual court cases - thankfully I didn't have to make completely blind choices there but it was very sketch. And hands down the worst were the local heroes who didn't even have websites. For those? I chose blindly based on the (D) symbol next to their name, because a blind choice between that and fascism means a choice of the lesser evil for me. Other than that I'm proud to say I chose to abstain voting for only one choice. That I know of. In my experience, once you actually have a ballot in your hands or are at the voting booth you see little surprises of yet more things to vote for you had no idea about, which is one of the many reasons why I 100% support mail-in voting for every eligible voter. 4/17/24 By this I meant everyone 18 and older who is not a felon. I also absolutely support automatic voter registration for those folks. If you're worried about ID for voting, and that's a valid concern, ask law enforcement professionals, especially people who investigate identity theft and voter fraud, if it is worth worrying about. Bear in mind, however, that gerrymandering is an equally valid concern. So is money in politics from unknown sources.
- More bonus points for anyone in Texas that is going to modernize all the infrastructure. Guess who has us beat here? China. Yes, China. We need: sidewalks in all places (wall off roads and make them slightly more narrow and put sidewalks on either side or do whatever works best in each place), inter-Texas train systems, a sewage system in all places that doesn't uh, drain to culverts, safer and more reliable water and electrical utilities, and road systems designed for efficiency instead of seemingly to waste as much gasoline as humanly possible as well as manpower for all the incessant construction. Get some good civil engineers on these issues for once, please! If nothing else fix the roads in each place so they are logical and well designed
- 1/10/24 Probably, for me
- 1/9/24 Ahmad Hassan He claims to be capable of negotiating peace between Palestine and Israel. You know what? He might just be able to help. I recognize the presentation and social/cultural norms he's presenting on this website. They're Middle Eastern. And I don't really give a damn if you think those values are unique to either side of the conflict because they aren't, they're held by all sides. Maybe he can help that area of the world realize it for once. Maybe. I'll have to research him and his platform/background quite a bit before I can tell you more. 1/10/24 All right. Researched this candidate a bit more. Here are his qualifications. I am seriously hoping he releases his book, "Hello America" within the next couple of weeks or we might not see him win the runoff, let alone the actual election. And I like this candidate. He's not a lawyer, he puffs up his resume, he doesn't pretend to be perfect, and he schmoozes. He is absolutely perfect for negotiating peace in the Middle East, and trust me, those of you with family who live there get what I mean. Will do some more research, but I'm tentatively deciding on him for the runoff. For now, he has my vote. If newspapers in Texas feel like interviewing him it would be worth it.
- 1/10/24 Maybe, for me
- 1/9/24 Colin Allred (official website) rehashes the main Democrat talking points almost verbatim with emotional gimmicks. I've heard it all before. His background is what makes him unique. Football player, worked in the Department of Housing and Urban Development, brought a new VA hospital to Garland Texas. Sounds nice, but like a lot of Democrat talking points, what sounds nice in practice is ugly as hell in person. The VA is infamous and needs an overhaul, not expansion. The Department of Housing and Urban Development covers up a more urgent problem - the difficulty of creating and securing good jobs with microbusinesses and small businesses and minimal capital. I think there's a better way of going about things and I am not enthused about his chances of winning against a Republican. Pass. I also do not think other Democrats should vote for him, because the chances of him winning against Republicans are pretty much nil. However, as it stands now, unless and until Ahmad 'Robert' Hassan improves his website, ups his game, campaigns in person, and releases his book, he's probably the most electable option out of all of these. Even against the Republicans. And let's face it, he's still better than Ted Cruz.
- 1/10/24 Nopes, For Me
- 1/9/24 Carl Sherman Sr. has more or less pleasing ideas. With minimal details. The lack of transparency on his website is concerning. However, here's his official Texas House of Representatives page. I'm not a fan of the way he is involving religion with politics, as seen here. Pass.
- 1/9/24 Independent candidate, Dan McQueen. Weird website, says he's running for Congress when Ballotpedia says he's running for 2024 US Senate. Also uses the dog whistle word "Patriot" in a context he actually has a right to use, since he's a veteran of the Navy. Not enough information is listed on the website, and that's not something I appreciate. Puffs up his resume way too much, as seen here. If you claim to have a bachelor's of science in electrical engineering (also, what is that?) and can't produce the diploma, uhhhhhh.... Pass.
- 1/9/24 Steve Keough Another veteran of the Navy. This one's platform's main emphasis is on beating Ted Cruz. Okay, but given that every Democrat candidate's main talking point could be that, only his is. There are a bunch of nifty pictures about the issues on his website but none of his actual stances on these issues are explained in any detail. I am very leery of this lack of transparency. But will research him further. Not enough information is listed on the website, and that's not something I appreciate. Abilene Reporter News mentions he aims to assist with speeding up processing times for those who would legally immigrate to Texas from Mexico. However, again, he doesn't provide the newspaper with enough details in that interview. In this one, El Paso Times interview, he does. Yeah, this could work. In fact apparently he's visited border towns on both sides of the US border, both in Texas and in Mexico, to see what's actually going on. That's critical - and unusual for a political candidate, since they're infamous for praising themselves while doing nothing. However, I don't like his former involvement as a staff member under Clinton, considering Clinton's involvement with Ghislaine Maxwell. Unfortunately, that makes him unelectable in this current political climate. Pass.
- 1/9/24 Heli Rodriguez Prilliman The button for "Issues" doesn't work on her website. However her biography page does, indicating she's seen at least some success as an entrepreneur. The Biography part of her website indicates she plans to make Texas government-funded freebies such as universal Texas healthcare, more affordable childcare, etc. without any fiscal plan in place at all, let alone a viable one. Nice ideas, but without any actual plans. Not viable against the Republicans. Pass.
- Absolutely Nots, for me
- 1/9/24 Roland Gutierrez His immigration stance Holy shit there are so many things wrong with what he's saying I don't even know where to start but I will try. "Our country has 30 million job vacancies that Americans will not take. An increase of workers will put the U.S. economy on steroids and safeguard our social security program for the next 100 years." Okay. We have all of these job vacancies because labor laws are too lax to prevent slave labor working conditions, and he wants to PROMOTE this and also illegal immigration with which to fill these slave labor vacancies. What. The. Fuck. Not only is this wildly unethical, it makes him unelectable in a state justifiably scared of too many people coming from Mexico, with drugs and the cartels coming with. Democrats choose him? Democrats lose in November. That's all there is to it.
- 1/9/24 Tracy Andrus certainly has an interesting premise. Only two issues are mightily promoted: cancellation of student loans and reparations for descendants of former slaves. The first issue makes sense considering the ridiculous loan sharking of college my generation saw, to a certain extent. The second, however: I personally don't think that reparations are an empowering thing, in fact I think they're disempowering, therefore I don't support his platform. Bear in mind I could ask for reparations as a descendant of Holocaust survivors, and there's a reason I don't (Ironically, has a lot to do with Ayn Rand, and like I say often, her fanboys these days have no idea what she actually was saying). Upon closer inspection of the website, there's a lot of idealistic enthusiasm and I like that, it seems he actually cares, but I really don't think a lot of it is realistic. Take a look for yourself. Most importantly, this person is not electable and that's a huge deal for elections versus a mightily bankrolled and brainwashed bunch like the (Fascist) Republicans these days. Not yet - could have a lot of potential in future years if he gets more experience, perhaps as a mayor somewhere. After starting and running a successful business or achieving similar success in something extraordinary, as I explained under the 2024 section (see a couple paragraphs below this one). However - there is one thing I refuse to elect him on the basis of: drilling for oil. No. It's 2024, get with the times.
- 1/9/24 Victor Dunn No website, wtf. Pass. I believe in this day and age having a website that's comprehensive enough for people to get the gist of your campaign is the bare fucking minimum. Fail to do that and I believe you'll probably fail in other more important areas.
- 1/9/24 Meri Gomez Ballotpedia page for website only available through social media. Here's her defunct website. Pass.
- 1/9/24 Thierry Tchenko Immigration section Wants to provide a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants. As someone that's literally opened my home for people I barely knew and really regretted this, I know from experience this is absolutely insane. Pass. Also, it will absolutely make the Republicans win. There's a whole slew of issues with this idea, most notably the security risks that come with it, and people in Texas care about the safety of this place, ergo, unelectable.
- 1/9/24 Sherri Taylor No website. Pass.
- 1/9/24 Green party candidate, only relevant in November: Mason Cysewski. No website. Pass.
- 1/9/24 Mark Gonzalez No explanation on the website of where he stands on each of the issues, just a personal biography. Pass.
- 1/9/24 John Love III Apparently running for both Senate and for Congress but his website does not reflect that. John Love For Texas Can't even get the website right? Pass. Well aware I'm being hypocritical here with regards to the website. There are two reasons. 1: Dan McQueen's a veteran. 2: Dan McQueen is an Independent. I did, after all, start out Republican before they completely lost their minds to Heil Trump mindsets or similar. However he'll probably end up on the list of "absolutely nots, for me" after a few days of research anyway, we shall see
- 1/9/24 Soren Pendragon No website. Pass.
1/10/24 Texas Judicial System 2024 Elections
- State court cases search tool for Texas Using the search tool, you can click on "all courts" and copypaste a bar number in the appropriate field then hit search. A bunch of cases will come up. Click on any and you will see a dinky little PDF you can open that describes the detail of each case. You also cannot see the actual court documents without a paywall and/or registration with identity verification, as seen here. You still might not get access if you aren't a lawyer registered by the Texas Bar; that is unclear. Yes this is officially recommended by the Texas legal system, on the bottom of the page here.
- 1/10/24 Holly Taylor only Democrat candidate filing to be the presiding judge of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. State court cases search tool for Texas Her bar number is 00794721. If I happen to dislike her work, I will look into all the other options for presiding judges for the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, even Republican ones, for reason of there is less room for error in the judicial system than in the political one. As it turns out, I hate her work, because a lot of it is filing or collaborating to allow successful "motions for extensions of time to file brief" for murderers, pedos, and rapists, meaning those guys got to spend more time not facing justice and continuing to commit crimes instead of actually going to court. Oh, and those "motions to extend time" also clogged up the Texas legal system with much time-wasting. Hard pass. Other names were on those documents as well, and I will not be voting for any of them. Here's one of the documents In pdf form and here are the names listed: Darlene Byrne, Chief Justice, Thomas Baker, Justice, Gisela Triana, Justice, Charli Kelly, Justice, Edward Smith, Justice, Rosa Lopez Theofanis, Justice. Don't know how these people aren't ashamed to show their faces in public. In the interests of ethics I'll skip mentioning the attorneys representing this scum because that's the unenviable job of a criminal defense attorney.
- 1/10/24 Here's who's running against her: David J. Schenk, Republican. His bar number is 17736870. Was attorney in a case where the evidence was destroyed, a medical malpractice suit involving Brandon Urquhart, M.D.. Seems to be a recurring thing, whatever "Case file was destroyed per retention schedule" means. He seems to have a habit of getting into writ of mandamus type cases as seen here. He also seems to have a habit of at least assisting in granting motions for extensions of time to file responses in more white collar crime type cases, as seen here and here. These cases go back to the late 90s, so he has been at this a while. In theory, he could be involved in indulging some level of white collar crime by being too easy on businesses (hey, the legal world is a dirty profession), but considering the ramifications of choosing someone milquetoast on serious crime like Holly Taylor or unprofessional like Sharon Keller, that is acceptable in comparison. I'll continue to look over these case files but since the other options for this office are so bad, and since my cursory glance through these doesn't indicate any major red flags, I'm leaning towards voting for him.
- 1/10/24 Judge Sharon Keller, Republican who is the incumbent. Apparently infamous for saying "we close at five" when someone wanted her to work a little overtime regarding a death penalty case, as mentioned on Texas Monthly. I've encountered this kind of unprofessional "work comes last, I come first" attitude since I came to Texas more than a few times, and it's disgusting every time. Not voting for her.
1/10/24 Texas Railroad Commissioner 2024 Election, Not Just About Railroads, LOL
- Katherine Culbert Democrat. Supports oil and gas. Sigh.
- Bill Burch Democrat. Supports fracking. Sigh.
- Edwardo Espinoza Green party. Veteran of the US Army and Operation Desert Storm. Actually saw combat. Was a schoolteacher for 20+ years helping students gain literacy skills. Understands what's at stake with regards to transitioning to renewable energy in Texas as fast as possible and if elected will revitalize the Texas economy with renewable energy jobs that will bring long term and short term enormous economic growth to this state. If he acts in the manner he proposes to act, asthma symptoms will decrease statewide, quickly. I'm voting for him. In fact if you can donate to his campaign, you might want to. First candidate in this whole shit show I'm actually excited about voting for.
6/18/24 A growing list of things that will help poor people in Texas more than throwing money at them
Bear in mind that if people in Texas actually do any of this, both the Texas GOP and Texas Democrat Party will take credit for all the good stuff. Fuck them both.
Part 1: the obvious things
Part 3: More transportation and logistics, and maybe some other stuff
- 54. Brian Boru and Ancient Rome got at least one thing right: the wealth and well-being of nations to a large extent is determined by excellent infrastructure. If you spend like 2 weeks waiting for your shipment or your ship to come in and it never arrives, you're not exactly going to be better off because of it. However, if you have a very large population of people transporting them and/or other stuff from place to place isn't going to be easy to do if you try to keep them safe. Every effort towards better safer infrastructure that makes sense is worth pursuing.
- 55. More roundabouts, but with traffic lights at each entrance, and only single-lane roundabouts. They're more efficient than traffic lights, actually.
- 56. E-bike paths and bike paths paralleling each highway and interstate, and also almost paralleling each in-town road and street, but entirely separate from the car-and-motorcycle road system. Support these, if you're a civil engineer design some good systems, see what happens.
- 57. For individuals with cars or other vehicles, it makes the most sense to just not get on the road as much as you can manage. Bundle your trips so you run errands on only one day of the week, or even just once or twice a month, if you can. Entertain yourself at home as much as you can instead of driving out. On errand day, invite friends and family to come with you and you can all get it done at once. You can also, prior to errand day, call or text or otherwise ask friends and acquaintances if they want you to pick up anything for them. You'll save a very large amount of gas, thereby earning a lot of money, and you won't clog up the roads with unnecessary traffic. Time is money and if people get to where they need to go on time, they can live more instead of being stuck in limbo in traffic, and live better. Oh, and get to work on time.
Part 4: More less obvious stuff
- 58. Reform the Texas tax code and legal code to make all of it succinct enough to read within half an hour and comprehensible to people with a junior high school education, and draft a law making it so that all legal documents, owners manuals, and other documents needing to be subject to legal scrutiny in the state must also be that way. Or otherwise word it in such a way that people who aren't lawyers or extensively college educated have a snowball's chance in hell of understanding them and of even having the time and availability to read them.( Terms Of Service, Didn't Read is a good example of why we need this at a national level, but since that's not necessarily going to happen we can at least have this here.) I'd say high school, but in my experience if you aren't born with ALL the advantages, namely living in a large city or its suburbs, in a great zip code, with a lot of money, and even a supportive family, the quality of education varies so much from county to county and state to state that you'll be damn lucky to have an elementary school level of preparation for adulthood, let alone a junior high one, once you reach the age of 18. But don't take my word for it. Ask anyone. Here are the advantages: 1. Easier to start and run a business, thereby providing the amount of competition libertarians love so much, in theory (although these days "libertarian" so often means fascist and in some cases even communist* due to extensive parasitism on family and/or good old boy network and i want to beat some people about the head and body with a copy of Atlas Shrugged). 2. More feasible to file and pay taxes without risking your sanity, health, even life due to stress if you're poor and/or low on time. 3. Make it so it's less likely for uneducated people who are also poor get snookered by wildly unethical legal contracts, of which I've seen at least one in Texas and it was pretty batty 4. Put more pairs of eyes on all legalese in the state so unethical stuff doesn't fly under the radar as much. Were you aware that much of the Texas Legal Code is online, and at least some of it makes absolutely no sense? Look at the voting code for instance *"To each, according to their needs. From each, according to their ability. I need a new jacked up truck with truck nuts."
- 59. Establish a state fund paid for by taxes and/or donations from the public, after the current idiots in office are out of office, so that each Texas candidate for any public office no matter how small has both a free (for them) website and a small but equal to other candidates amount of money with which to run for office. Also make it illegal to use any other funds or capital to run for office here, and make it a law that all other support for people running for office here has to be publicly disclosed, with the amount or type and source put on that person's website. You want big money at
least somewhat out of politics? There you go. Repealing Citizens United would also help but that's a federal thing.
- 60. Make lobbying illegal in Texas
- 61. However you can, tackle the corruption and nepotism in universities, colleges, and other institutions of higher learning in Texas. There are a wide variety of pretty terrible things people do to get and stay in power in these places. You may wind up needing to just make your own institution of higher learning. I believe a bunch of teachers from any school could do something similar for any online college or school. Make one of these and make it affordable and accessible not just for a traditional 4-year track but also for courses in anything a person could want to learn for a better quality of life, such as night school classes for say, household repairs, or flexible hours mostly-online some-in-person courses for a traditional degree spread out over more years as a person works a job and/or raises a family, and hey, an income stream. And that's just two ideas. You can scoff at convenience all day long but it's also known as accessibility.
- 62. Social bullshit of the 2020s; this section As human beings, networking and making friends, and generally fostering good siblinghood is one of the things we do to survive both on a physical and an emotional level. Healthy groups and broader communities network together to get people jobs and resources, to collaborate for goals everyone works towards and on an individual level helps people find the jobs and the friends they need, not to mention coworkers, employees, and so on. Most adults know this. So here's the deal, you probably know at least one person that socializes like it's second nature to them, who manages to make friends just about anywhere due to the sheer number of people they interact with and the gems they find in that bunch that turn out to be good people who are great friends. That's all well and good for them, and some folks like that are fantastic people. However if you're a wallflower, like me, you probably would rather brand yourself with a fireplace poker than go out and do that these days and the reason is simple. Assholes. Assholes everywhere. If you get burned each and every time you go interact with someone because they're, for whatever reason, a dick, and only reveal this side of themselves after a good few months, then you're not going to do that after a while. So here's what the more outgoing people can do: stop supporting the dicks. Don't talk to them, don't give them money, and don't vote for them and promote more behavior like that. Because like it or not, your whole economy rests on nerd-dom and most nerds are wallflowers. Or at least not super outgoing. There's too much nerding out to do. Also your entire social network relies on truly good kind people to keep it all together and they won't stick around if you support the assholes, either. As for everyone who's stopped interacting overmuch with people as a result of all this, don't fool yourself: people complicit with the assholes are also assholes. What you are willing to put up with says a whole lot about you. For you - keep doing what you're doing, don't interact with or support the assholes or the people turning a blind eye to it, and we'll get all through this period of Texas soon-to-be-history a lot easier.
- 63. More social bullshit of the 202s; this section too This is probably a nationwide problem, but giving antivaxxers a scarlet letter and no quarter, as is suitable for all terrorists and traitors, will really help all economic growth here. I'm not the only person who knows about the child death toll from covid or the only one who got angrier than ever before, when I learned about it, and stayed that way. Same deal for people actually sympathizing with Russia, and therefore all current Trump supporters. You just don't hear about it because all the people angry about it are staying at home, and away from businesses, thereby buying stuff online instead of from Texas businesses. Also not interacting with the general public, which would explain why people aren't interacting as much in general anymore. This is not that hard to figure out.
- 64. If you happen to be a criminal prosecution attorney, consider a sliding fee scale based on client income. You will get so much business your head will spin. And, your clients will have a shot at not being poor afterwards.
- 65. Same deal and for a business attorney. Ho-ly shit, the costs are extreme if you aren't already well-off, and it's suicidal to try to take on the IRS by yourself by filing and paying your own business taxes in Texas without constantly working with a lawyer.
- 66. Probably the most expensive and most necessary captive consumerism there is is healthcare. Everything in it, but particularly mental health. That's the easiest thing to fix: find ways of providing free mental health care to the whole state, possibly by putting how-to guides for it online. It's a pseudoscience, you see. The whole thing is one big scam that's essentially well-diluted Buddhism and Witchcraft and will continue to be a scam until it becomes more scientifically rigorous. "Feeling better" is not a scientific metric. Numerical analysis is, as are biological markers, blood test results and hormone analysis. See my point? It's a discipline in its infancy. As such, I hardly think it's worth more than $20 per therapeutic session, and certainly not a cent if all you do is talk to the therapist and have them nod helpfully, say nothing (edit 7/4/24: except for encouraging you to dredge up everything from your past in lurid detail), and say "see you next week." (happened to me a good dozen times) Or, suggest pep-you-up pills, and although that helps it is not sufficient. You can put much of it if not all of it online for all. In fact, you don't even need any credentials in my experience, as the best mental health help I ever got was from people who weren't psychiatrists or psychologists at all, just wise people. Maybe in the future it will be worth a damn to pay for but for now do you have a tip or trick to help with coping with life, or dealing with anything at all? Put it online.
- 67. Speaking of scams, help get people you know out of scams, ripoffs, and traps, and prevent them from falling in. I can think of so many off the top of my head - vaping, used car lots, loan sharks, CBD gummies for people who really don't need them, alcohol, bars, lottery tickets, poor quality overpriced groceries and consumer goods that fall apart after a month, ripoffs at any given business, and on and on it goes - THAT shit keeps people poor. And yet somehow you see so much of it in poorer neighborhoods, don't ya? Spread the word about scams to everyone you can when you can and maybe we'll see this kind of shit go on the decline because a lot of people just don't know
- 68. Teach people to shop savvy and be willing to learn more. One lesser known way of helping keep people away from scams and ripoffs is to encourage them to talk to you before they spend a lot of money on something important, and for you to talk to them for same. This includes things like dentists, doctors, car vendors, realtors, and so on and so forth. There's honestly so much shit business practice going on with all of the big-ticket stuff these days and so steering people away from spending a lot on a lemon is really important. Don't forget to pay it forward by also reviewing the business online.
- 69. Another lesser known way of helping keep people away from scams and ripoffs is (sexism incoming) by having the ladies teach the gentlemen how to shop. I am not sorry for saying this. You may be a rare exception but on the whole it's been my experience that men are terrible at this. Terrible!
- 70. Help one another as often as you can. If you think someone you trust (enough for this kind of thing; family, friend, coworker, acquaintance) could use some help, ask if they'd like some help and do your best to help them. If you need some help, ask someone you trust for help. This isn't a new tip or an original one but the "as often as you can" part is. Paying it forward in good deeds is the only trickle-down theory I believe in.
- 71. There is a housing crisis here. There is also a good employment crisis here. Both of these problems can be solved by making it more feasible to start and run your own ethical business here. I've covered the employment bit but here's something. Solving the housing crisis as well as the employment crisis is going to make the Texas economy boom. You know why? Because the first few years of living in Texas, even up to ten years, are a hazing ritual. And I've been through a hazing ritual when I was in college so I would know. So if people manage to move down here and settle in comfortably with good jobs and good healthy living situations with a lack of shitty people and situations to deal with, as oppose to nearly die and/or actually die due to not adapting during the first year, they can then focus all of their efforts on working well at a new job. Boom, economic upturn. You do not even need to provide more than one-room apartment suites or even a room for a lot of new folks as long as the utilities damn well work and don't go out when they're most needed, you provide basic living accommodations that are safe and clean and work and they keep them that way, and you don't fuck with them, and they don't fuck with you, and they don't fuck with the other tenants.
- 72. For those of you who go to any kind of place of worship and come bearing gifts, such as food, clothing, charity items, and so on, particularly money (WTF) stop doing that. You're incentivizing people to come to your place of worship for the material stuff, and the notion that this somehow brings more people in to the fold and is "good" is actually wrong. You'll get all kinds of corruption that way. Plus, all that wealth could be going to local charities such as women and children's shelters, food banks, homeless shelters, drug rehab centers, donation places attached to food banks and so on. Think about all the people who are really poor who don't set foot in a place of worship due to fear of being judged or for whatever other reason. Would you deny them these material things and judge them like that? I know that's a bit extreme and probably unwarranted but you get the idea I'm going for. You could also just save what you would have given or spent until you meet someone who needs the excess stuff you do not need and hand it over to them then.
- 73. When I was a lot younger, I used to participate in sports and athletics events involving competition. Usually wound up getting my butt handed to me by competition that was either stronger or had trained better. So I took a close look at gyms and studying how to train and so on. Anyway, competition time is crunch time. Only the people lucky enough to be born with inherent strength and talent or the people who trained really, really well succeed in competition. I noticed that a lot of the time training on my own wasn't enough and that people with professional coaching that was very high quality succeeded. And it often was a matter of raw strength. So think about this: that's how important any kind of teaching or tutoring is. If that happens to be your job, getting even a little bit better at it can mean future success or failure for your pupils. Athletics and brawny stuff like that is all well and good but extrapolate that to academics. People go to gyms and stuff, but how about brain building? If people can't make intelligent decisions, or reason logically through a problem, or (much worse) solve a problem with their own original thinking, that is not exactly going to help with being poor. Bad education keeps people poor. Stupidity keeps people poor, and whether or not it's something you're born with (and every human is to a certain extent) or something you developed is not important - the fact is, you can change that by brain building and getting a good education. What I'm getting at here is if you're any kind of teacher or tutor, improve at your job, a little at a time but built on over time. If you're human, find good gyms and places to work out for sure, as that helps both mind and body. But also seek out what helps you brain build and share that knowledge with loved ones. And do the brain building and studying/getting educated stuff as much as you'd do the gym stuff. Finally, libraries and bookstores can seriously step in here with brain building tools. Why would you not work out your mind? Know what I mean?
- 74. Given that poverty and crime go hand in hand, here's another likely-to-be-unpopular but very necessary idea. You want less violent crime? You want less truly heinous and evil stuff going on? Insist that local, regional, and state police presence focus on those crimes and not as much on petty crimes that don't actually hurt anyone beyond pearl-clutching and being "offended." Some really good examples include vandalism of public taxpayer-funded property, marijuana charges, cussing on the radio (also: FUCK the FCC), sleeping in public if homeless, and loitering. Stupid crap like that diverts law enforcement from legitimate trouble spots. Speaking of which, if you aren't actually being harmed by someone doing something like that, don't call the cops on them and be a Karen; you crying wolf could easily get someone killed. Police officers and police department budgets, no matter how abundant, are a finite resource. This also applies to all legal cases; you do not need to get sue-happy and clog up the system for stupid bullshit, in fact I wish there were serious fines and jail time for that kind of thing. I'm quite tired of people (who really should know better) claiming that property, or even worse "manners and social norms" or "my freedumbs" is as valuable as a human life. Feelings can be mended. Stuff can be replaced or repaired. Humans can't.
- 75. Speaking of crying wolf, medical everything is also a finite resource. I don't know if this message will reach even one person who'd go ask a medical professional for what they "need," but if you go to a doctor and manipulate your way into getting drugs, you've just made it nearly impossible for everyone going to the doctor for help to get it. And that goes quadruple for someone poor who can't go to more than one doctor. That medical treatment could also be the difference between someone poor keeping their job or having to be unemployed for indefinite duration. Maybe choose a different drug, or try to set up a GoFundMe for some rehab, but seriously, this kind of behavior is not cool
- 76. You can also alleviate a lot of the burden on the health care system as well as on well, yourself, by altering your lifestyle choices so as to make doctor's visits less of a necessity. Doctors can't fix your lifestyle anyhow and that's probably why they don't bring it up unless you do. Things like for instance staying away from legal drugs like tobacco, alcohol, and soda; exercising, eating healthy and all that. You would be doing this not just for yourself but for everyone who is already doing these things and sick anyway; you'd free up precious time for your doctor to see other patients.
- 77. "At-risk teens" is a misleading term. Everyone is at risk. Too much pressure, and kaboom, you're off and doing stupid things to improve your mood. It's human nature. When you are poor it is hard to find fun things to do because a lot of them cost a whole lot of money. Therefore find fun things to do for free that don't hurt anyone and tell everyone you know about them. We are a society that has forgotten how to have fun. Especially when it comes to anything non-electronic or anything that does not damage the environment. Personally, I'm convinced that has a lot to do with the drugs and crime rate, especially among well, the poor. But the rich also are subject to this because when you are rich, you don't know how to have fun without money. It's a whole carousel of ridiculousness
- 78. If you're a parent or teacher, see what you can do to help get your kids/pupils to visit the local city hall and figure out what local politics is doing. They can see all the corruption up close and personal. In fact, every adult can take a visit there and see the corruption if they'd care to take some time to figure out the newspeak. I believe once the country is less stuck in a state-by-state and county-by-county small-town America mindset there will be way less corruption, nepotism and backdoor good-ol-boy policies, but it will take some doing. And yes that kind of stuff makes people poor and keeps people poor.
- 79. Seriously consider your personal habits that might be unwittingly contributing to an American caste system. For instance, any way via which you wind up actually paying for your friendships. Expensive membership fees for clubs for instance. Or, fashions and styles you don't even like, but wear to fit in. Dinner parties. Membership in something where you have to literally pay your dues. Can you even imagine how many amazing friendships you may be missing out on due to this? And what kind of a foundation is money to build a friendship on anyway? Besides the personal issues, which are in the end up to you, some of this stuff always winds up nickel-and-diming poorer people who for whatever reason are required to visit some of these places or participate in these things.
- 80. This is a predominantly Christian state, and in a way I've never seen before (you know, where people take it seriously instead of just use it to bludgeon people with and ruin their lives for profit) so this message is pretty applicable, but also applies if you're just really nice. Stop throwing pearls before swine. There are more worthy recipients of your gifts and you can't give those gifts if you chucked them at people who abused the shit out of them and also you. Think twice before being charitable to anyone, and then think a third time. You just never know.
- 81. Saying this as the fireworks go, and go, and go. Texas seems to like its fireworks big, at every hour of the day, in every residential neighborhood and area, and not restricted to just the 4th and New Year's. Damn, and I used to ilke fireworks. Anyhoo, if you live in a neighborhood where people work for a living, or are traveling through one, reconsider anything that would make it harder for them to go do their jobs the next day or for third shift. If you need or want to do anything loud or disruptive at a time people wouldn't expect, such as well, not during the evening of the 4th and New Year's, ask your neighbors first and explain why. Now don't get me wrong, parties are cool, but if you're sick and people are throwing their party essentially in your ears, or if you have to go to a stressful job the next day - and the disruptions to your daily life just keep happening over time, the stress over time will take its toll on your physical health. Poor people cannot afford that.
Part 5: Even More Stuff
- 82. Make knowingly employing illegal immigrants punishable by life in prison and fines of however much capital assets and money would be required to take that person's overall net worth and capital assets combined no more than $25,000. Make unknowingly employing illegal immigrants punishable by 20 years in prison plus a fine of 95% of all capital assets and money of that person. Reasoning? You can't regulate illegal labor. At best it's exploitation, at worst slavery. This would force all agricultural operations to for instance, use legal safe pesticides, not force employees to work during the heat of the day during a heat wave, provide a living wage, and oh yeah, employ people who are legal citizens of Texas. And the desperate people who get these jobs, well, for those see next point.
- 83. Picture immigration like allowing a stranger to live in your house. There are several ways you can go about it and I've done several. Firstly you can do so out of the goodness of your heart and let anyone who needs a roof and a place to stay into your home. Anyone at all, whether you know them well, consider them a friend, or have them recommended by someone you trust. This often results in disaster because chances are they're just using you. The assortment of ways it can go wrong is not something I'd care to get into here but you can probably imagine. Another is to let someone who is a total stranger into your home who works fairly for you or helps you pay for rent/mortgage. You don't bother them, and they don't bother you. For various reasons, this doesn't seem to go that well sometimes and other times it works out okay. It's a total crapshoot, but it's a lot better than the first option. Thirdly, you can have a very thorough years-long getting-to-know-you process at a distance through the Internet and/or snail mail, plus recommendations from mutual friends saying you can trust that person to be a good guest. And, an exact nature of the purpose of the person's stay and the duration of their stay outlined beforehand so you know there's a fair time limit on how long they'll be there, plus options for you to easily kick them out if the situation requires it. A fourth option is to help someone who is a refugee or homeless that just really needs the help, again, out of the goodness of your heart, and that's not exactly something you can predict. I've had both really good and really bad experiences with the fourth option, but if you've ever been in a bind yourself and needed a place to stay and a roof over your head, you know why it's important. You will have the best time with the third option. After a few times of trying the third option to ensure mutual compatibility for the third option, if that person wants to move in, you can then make an informed choice. In a nutshell, that's why legal immigration exists and if you look into the process, it's similar to this idea. However, legal immigration in the United States has several hurdles. This is a federal problem, but I'm saying it here because it's such a huge problem in Texas and think at some point a congressperson or senator from Texas could work on it. And here's what they could do. A. Work to speed up legal immigration. It should not take ten years. That's ridiculous. B. Work to (at a sane level; we don't want overflow of people before this country's infrastructure and so on could handle it) get as many merit-based immigrants to legally immigrate here as possible; expand the opportunity for them as much as possible. Merit-based, however, I define as people with a large amount of education or verifiable serious skill in any field of work. I do not define it as "rich" and think that should not be part of the federal immigration code. If someone can work really well, or knows their field of endeavor really well, I think that qualifies them to start the legal immigration process. (Note: this was one of the only good ideas Trump had by the way, he tried to pass a bill like that, and the Democrats killed this idea because of partisanship. Ironic, huh? That said he's still a bought-and-paid-for-by-Russia-Iran-etc traitor) C. More stuff a congressperson or senator from Texas could work to get for immigration's sake: we do have legal refugees/asylum seekers in the US that are legal citizens who came here due to lucky breaks (policies of previous presidents, etc.). Whenever that sort of thing is really justified, bring it up for debate, let everyone hash it out. It's like having a household and interfamily discussion about letting someone who really needs a place to stay come and live with you for indefinite duration, possibly moving in. D. For refugees seeking asylum, which matches up with the fourth category of guests I mentioned, the US government generally wants (for the sake of legal immigration or visas) them to have an employer vouching for them so they can get a work visa, and they may also need a host family to get started here. That's one thing average Texas citizens can help with, particularly ones that call themselves Christian. Maybe get out of the megachurch and start hosting a refugee family? Just a thought. The biggest hurdle for someone in that situation is actually getting an employer to vouch for them as an employee to the federal legal immigration system; a work sponsor is a pain in the ass to find, so maybe be part of the solution. E. As for at the border in Texas itself, this state calls itself Christian or whatever, eh? Has the state government considered constructing refugee towns at the border so the people and children stuck in legal limbo at least have air conditioning and utilities? And working with churches and charities to get them food, drink, medicine, resources? Don't get me wrong this won't completely solve the border crisis but it's a start.
- 84. Again, something a Texas senator or congressperson can work on. Make all outsourcing of labor completely illegal in the US. No more businesses and corporations having their head offices here and manufacturing plants and factories in say, India, and their customer service in say, Thailand. This is a federal issue, but it helps here too. We honestly don't need it. It's just a greed-based issue. Where'd the jobs go? Wayyyy over there, where it can't be regulated under our legal system and is not subject to OSHA or the EPA. Ugly. Come to think of it this is something any business based in Texas can do as a matter of individual business policy. If you own such a businesss maybe do that, and if you work for a business, maybe work for only ones that do that. With regards to multinational corporations, I believe those should be broken up anyhow into strictly national only; break up each corporation into for instance one gas station (and now e-vehicle charging station) corporation of a certain name here, one which is no longer the same name and in a different country with completely different management, and so on for as many countries as they're in. This is not a game of monopoly; human lives and the environment are at stake and multinational corporations are cancer. Impossible to regulate at a multinational scale, leading to rampant exploitation and white collar crime. I think most people know this.
- 85. Boycott some businesses, as explained in this point Would you like to boycott businesses that outsource labor? By all means. Share their names so everyone knows who they are and what they do. You may even decide to boycott multinational corporations and businesses, although at this point that's probably not wise in a lot of cases given that pretty much all of them are. Speaking from personal experience: don't hurt yourself with idealism, now.
- 86. People will not do the right thing out of the goodness of their hearts, all the time, in all cases. That is what regulations are for. Here is one that is necessary: if something necessary for survival (i.e. infant formula) is being priced at four (or more) times above the average market value, the seller of that item should get 20 years in prison. It's not very hard to not price gouge like that. There is no "invisible hand" in the marketplace when captive consumerism and poverty are so rampant.
- 87. Interesting but extremely dangerous career options if you have what it takes Are you one of those people that accepts risk no matter what? Are you very mentally stable, with a good support system and good therapy going? Consider giving our nation a better immune system so to speak by getting a career in any of the following: local or state law enforcement, FBI, CIA, Interpol, bounty hunting, military, anything of that nature. These are not fields that are staffed well enough and I think it shows. Like I said before, poverty and crime go hand in hand. Reduce one you reduce the other.
- 88. Business-wise, consider targeting a lower-income market. If you happen to be a businessperson of any sort, and/or an inventor, the massive voids on the market for extremely desperately needed things for people with low income (or no income) is immense. Fill that void with products that said people can actually afford. For instance, camper vans should not cost more than $5000, and neither should yearly fees for safe places to park them around a town or in the countryside. They also would require an adequate trailer home-style toilet system and water tank, and off-grid solar energy, maybe even wind energy. Or, utility hookups at a safe place - by that I mean only one small home in say, a 50 block radius, not like 50 of them packed into one small home park, (because trailer parks are um, not safe). We actually have the technology for things like this, and the housing crisis has made this kind of thing very important to provide at a price that's cheaper than average rent in each place, and (wow) safe and actually livable for a single person and not a death trap and safe for pets and guests. You see what I'm saying? And there are voids in the market for EVERY item and product and service because most if not all of them target the middle class to rich. Unless we're talking products that keep you poor such as drugs and alcohol, but that can change. It can all change.
Part 6: More Stuff
- 89. Make all government stuff as painless as possible. For instance the Texas DMV, or filing Texas state taxes. For people who are poor, often dealing with government stuff is all that they have. Reducing the time, effort, and money required to do anything related to government bureaucracy, on a local or state level, benefits everybody but poor people especially. Any effort to make these things more efficient, more transparent, easier to deal with and less corrupt is an investment in quality of life for the state.
- 90. Maybe this is more of a federal government thing, but seriously increasing all legal penalties on crimes that disproportionately harm the poor would help. For instance, stealing mail, or fucking up the postal service's actual service.
- 91. Reconsider business hours for all businesses and local and state government offices and services. Poor people do not have the business hours of 8 to 5 accessible during weekdays most of the time. Nor do they have Labor Day or most other government holidays off. It's nearly impossible for someone working a low-paying job, or any job with a lot of hours, to for instance go to a bank or courthouse or library during those times. That's an interesting way to punish people for working hard, don't you think? Incidentally, if you happen to own a business, making it have better hours would really help you actually stay viable as a business.
- 92. If you own or manage a business that employs people that don't get paid much more than minimum wage, or actually do get paid minimum wage, do whatever you can to give them their work schedules at least two weeks in advance, with their input for specific days they schedule for time off or whatever, and stick to them like glue. It's not easy for management to do but boy, would it help. And there would be less turnover.
- 93. This is not easy to remember, but it's quite accessible for literally everyone. It is: to improve quality of life for literally everyone, including yourself, do your best to not contribute to the tragedy of the commons.. You can impose sanctions and get private ownership and drag off all violators of the law to gulags all you want, the fact of the matter is that it only becomes noticeable after it's too late - after someone or many someones do the thing that fucks things up for everyone. You can stop that river at one source of the souce of its spring: your own bad habits and actions. Don't litter. Don't pollute if you don't have to. Don't negligently conceive kids that you can't afford and don't want. Don't overdevelop a wilderness then wonder why all of a sudden floods and poor air quality are a problem. Don't use other people's generosity against them or otherwise exploit their good will. Don't offload the work that is your own responsibility on to someone else. Or, to directly quote Great Teacher Onizuka, "You wipe your own ass." You really want to help people who are poor? This is a sure way to do that. The poor are the first casualties of the tragedy of the commons, at least that's been my experience.
- 94. Deliberately do your part to break down every social norm and barrier to entry for the poor that exists because of some supposed belief that "poor = inferior and bad and always your fault." For some people it's literally a lifestyle choice, for others it is something they can't help, and who's to say it's any worse, ethically speaking, than being rich?! Seriously. Same deal for breaking down similar stigmas against people who, realistically speaking, are rich but not ridiculously rich. I mean, if you're sitting on billions that's an ethical problem, but if you're earning like $100,000 a year, who the hell cares? We gonna bicker and argue about that for no good reason? This might be just from the child-of-an-immigrant's perspective, but Americans really do care too much about money and wealth and physical appearances and other superficial stuff. Too much of it, too little of it, keeping up with the Joneses, it really doesn't make sense coming from a cultural background of just trying to survive and make sure your friends and family do too.
- 95. This is not a uniquely Texas thing but it does happen here a lot. Regulations to protect the poor and the sick, the young, the innocent, the good, the weak and the helpless: I mean, it's supposedly a Christian state but I'm not seeing much of that. The usual justification for this is "big government bad" and while I totally understand that some government overreach is awful (see: government bloat of redundant offices, the IRS, government employees who shouldn't get paid to do anything let alone be in a position of power), you can't go overboard with it without making someone at the bottom of the social food chain suffer greatly, and also not be able to contribute to quality of life or the Texas economy due to being downtrodden. The effects ripple up the social food chain too, mostly in the form of crime and dysfunction. No one wins. So here's one example of a necessary regulation: outlaw Roundup (of the "if you have a blood cancer thanks to Roundup use call this number here for compensation" TV advertisement fame) and all pesticides that require the labels of Danger, or Poison on them here. We need bees, and I've seen people spraying Roundup and other questionable chemicals on an assortment of government buildings, apartment complexes and public places. Yeah, it's a Southern state, whatever, there are still less toxic alternatives, and again, people who are poor don't have the option of avoiding this kind of stuff. Another is to institute laws that protect the quality and integrity of all utilities and infrastructure here. Home generators are expensive. So is buying gallons of fresh water every week. City provided trash cans should really come with lids and bungee cords to keep rats out. Extensive recycling plants for all recyclables, reuse and upcycling stores, thrift stores and secondhand stores, maintenance and repair shops, regulations to make as much disposable & single-use stuff biodegradable as possible, hazardous waste disposal facilities, and compost piles/facilities are needed to eventually keep us from drowning in our own trash and creating a new Chiriyya here (mountain-landfill, translates as "shit heap," and it's in Tel Aviv, you're welcome for that information). Electrical companies don't exactly do a good job trimming trees from the lines, maintaining them, or protecting power lines and telephone poles from being crashed into by vehicles or damaged by weather events. People are allowed to build on flood plains here then sell the houses, and then those houses get featured on Engineering Catastrophes after hurricanes. And I could swear that the sewer system here sometimes diverts to culverts, which is both a major health hazard and literally shitty. Another is to institute a tax on CO2 emissions that helps fund rehabilitation of state lands and parks, state wilderness, and other well-run nature restoration projects. And another is to claim as much land as possible for the state government to preserve it from being "developed," and instead to preserve it as wilderness. The destruction of the environment really is a tragedy of the commons, and poor people get the short end of the stick. It comes in the form of bad air quality and asthma, hotter temperatures due to lack of tree cover in the inner city, not being able to afford air conditioning or treatment for heat exhaustion or heatstroke, less exercise due to not being able to go out and exercise outside as much, lack of transportation to get away from natural disasters, more stress due to less places to chill out, and more. I honestly don't care if you don't believe in global warming. You clearly don't garden on a small scale if you think that, and if you do, you haven't been doing it very long. If you farm or ranch, and you believe in that climate change denial stuff, then question why there are so many droughts and your crops are dying or your meadow isn't growing, you are in the wrong business. Edit: 9/12/24 Empress of Dirt tried a heavy-duty steamer on the weeds in her brick pathway and it worked. There are other steam-cleaning machines on the market too, including some from an infomercial I remember once, and there are some portable ones for household uses, like this thing Portable Household Steam Cleaner. Incidentally, the one she used and is affiliate marketing for is $150 plus shipping and tax; however it is corded so plugging it into a GFCI wall plug is important. I haven't tried any yet but I sure would like to. Do note that steam burns are nasty business and for these off-brand uses of these machines there's no guarantee you won't scald the shit out of yourself, so watch it.
- 96. I'm seriously beginning to wonder if the Texas legal code has been thoroughly investigated and looked over by an actual lawyer at any point during the last 20 years. It's all online.
- 97. Work to improve your local county's and city's services and government. As an individual citizen the bare minimum is to research who you vote for instead of blindly voting for whoever is on the shiny signs on streets or with a R or D and blue or red color by their name. Oh yeah and also to vote for local, state, and national elections and everything else on the ballot well-informed. In particular the kind of stuff that helps with quality of life at a local level, such as animal control, EMS, the fire department, the police department, the schools, the courthouse, the prison and all bureaucracy. Learn what kind of stuff is going on, and who's working on it; who's helping, who's hindering. For instance, there are a lack of no-kill animal shelters in some places here, combined with a lack of public spaying and neutering programs, leading to people just not turning in animals who overpopulate. This place is starting to look a lot like Israel.
- 98. If you really want to improve quality of life for the longest possible amount of time for the largest possible amount of people, especially those who are poor, then turn your attention to the Texas education system. I no longer believe in the Federal government's ability to purge the school system of its Communist poison and I think it's essentially choking on its own vomit. However, states still have some individual freedom to pursue and Texas can use that to make our public schools the best in the country. They can link up to all the libraries in the state and allow the pupils to read whatever from any library. They can link up to all the institutions of higher education in the state, and online, maybe even the libraries from those, for youth sit-in-at-college-classes programs and other youth outreach programs that also advertise for what a college should be like. They can link up to businesses and trade schools for youth outreach programs to help high schoolers understand what's involved in each career field. They can teach younguns financial literacy, taxes, business savvy, government politics, home ec, gardening, modern world history, logic's applications to improve quality of life, science's applications to improve quality of life, how to build and maintain your own home, laws and the legal system, and all the other adulting stuff that my generation and (for the most part) gen X and gen Z missed out on, and integrate all that with the usual math, english, social studies stuff so it's no longer a pointless waste of time but the students can see exactly how that knowledge will be put to use. There can be Makerspaces in local public libraries. There can be additional resources for all libraries, and all students can be encouraged to use them often; allowed to at least once a week. There can be field trips. There could be body cams on all teachers and school personnel to ensure no child abuse goes on. There could be extremely strict separation of religion and school, so students wouldn't be distracted from their studies by religious persecution or indoctrination (and having grown up Jewish let me assure you it's extremely distracting!), but allowed to practice their religion as students. There could be far higher teacher's wages mandated by law, stricter background checks for all school personnel, and additional degrees (Master's at least, not Bachelor's) of higher education in the field being taught by each teacher required. It could be illegal for anyone but someone with 3 years of experience teaching at a particular school to become the administrative staff of that school, and illegal for anyone but someone with 3 years of experience teaching at a particular school district to become the administrative staff of that region, and same for any educational public office in the state of Texas. "Degree in Education Administration" or management or some crap like that? Makes monsters be the ones in charge, fuck that. (note that this happens in colleges too, and that could change; college profs could certainly take over and/or start their own college, what's stopping ya?). There could be self-study computer terminals at the school with the entire contents of the school curriculum on there, with each student successfully passing each test getting one step closer to a diploma or GED, no artificial "YOU MUST WASTE 12 YEARS HERE" nonsense required. There could be single-room locker rooms and bathrooms, and trans students issues aside, come on, privacy while growing up is important, and locker room awkwardness is not required to get a good education (the towel whipping, the ruckus, the stench... ). There could be after-school programs teaching electives. There could be round-table meetings at each school consisting of every - and I do mean every - adult employed at the building each having a turn to discuss ideas and concerns. There could be a social precedent, not necessarily a law, to make everything about a school's adult personnel as public and transparent as possible - especially by putting the full bio, resume, and what each person believes in on the Internet. There could be just one bus and class for everyone in the same age group, and I'm talking about special needs kids and the infamous "short bus." There could be rights for students that keep them from having the adults at the school ruin their lives, such as by narcing on CPS about their abusive parents and making the abuse at home worse, or having the school guidance counselor blab everything the student said in confidence because they aren't considered a "real" mental health professional. Public schools and all schools with more than say ten kids could get over their superiority complex about how much "better" they are than homeschool and come to grips with the fact that they only real difference is that kids get to socialize at school and see many people in diverse circumstances and understand them better, and they have more material resources; if they really want to be superior to homeschool they gonna have to try a lot harder than they are now. Above all this state could be the first in the country to curtail the absolute, total power, legally speaking, that all adults working in the public education system (and in general) have over children and youth; the "anything goes" mentality of punishing students for any reason, at any time, to maintain "discipline" instead of actually teach can bite the dust here. And good riddance, that requires decades of therapy. This state could be the first to allow children and youth as many Constitutional rights as possible, including and especially in a school, thus treating children and youth as human beings under the law instead of property, without causing harm to the innocent. It could be really good, if people here would give a shit. And I think they might.
- 99. Everything about someone in a position of power, whether that's a business owner or manager, or a person working in any government office, or anyone that is going to get voted for: there really should be a social precedent to put as much as possible about that person online, by that person, and/or by other people. Resume, bio, beliefs, goals. Transparency for people in charge and in power doesn't have to require law to be made real and it helps everyone.
- 100. For youth and kids: I think the best way to prevent them from ruining their own lives and that of other people is simple. Let them be unique. Let them be themselves, express themselves; let them breathe, damn it. When I was growing up it was all "the youth actually enjoying themselves?! how dare!" even and especially when we weren't harming anyone at all. This actually does impact poor communities more, because culturally speaking those tend to be diverse and this country has a major problem with honoring diversity. I don't care how -ist you are, don't take it out on the kids. And I hope that other adults kick your ass for it if you do. Also, if you do this then they don't turn out to be broken cookie-cutter people, or drug dealing/using people who are trying to therapy themselves the wrong way. They get to continue being creative, innovate, and they'll someday solve problems you didn't even know were solvable, I can guarantee you that
- 101. Any effort at all to ensuring that every human gets clean, safe, pollution and contaminant-free water (and air, and if they pay for it, food or dirt on which to grow it, but right now I'm focusing on water) will help everyone, the poor most of all. What you can do about this is learn about water, how to purify it, how to conserve it, and hydrology in general, even a little. Every effort counts. You can also not dump stuff anywhere that isn't a landfill, such as a storm drain or on the Earth, and therefore not pollute rivers and waterways. You can support outlawing fracking. You can support modernizing all infrastructure and demand better quality control and regulations so there are no dangerous-to-life chemicals in tap water such as atrazine, lead, cadmium and worse. That includes in apartment buildings and all places with renters, as sometimes the end of the line (houses, apartment blocks) have the worst pipes. You can support banning chemicals to treat agricultural fields and golf courses that are dangerous for animals, and us. And you can dump hazardous waste materials at a hazardous waste disposal facility instead of even a landfill. You can skip using hazardous chemicals (ok, not all chemicals, just the ones that toxicologists have studied and know are bad news - see 9/12/24 section near the end of the entry of point #95, up on this page) and inorganic fertilizers (hello, algal blooms) on your lawn and landscape if you own a house, or property that you manage, and learn how to keep it organically, with electric tools for maintenance. You can get soaker hoses and drip irrigation going. You can find and use living mulch, such as clover or alfalfa. And you can conserve how much water you use, as producing safe-to-drink water requires a lot of electricity and labor, plus it's a finite resource. If the reservoir dips too low, you get water shortages, and that sucks. This isn't enough, and water is polluted in many places worldwide right now, so if you have a will to clean it, learning how to remediate water sources is also a good idea.
- 102. You can tell other people about any of the items on this list or direct them to it
- 103. When it comes to you as an individual, how you run your life and the ethical considerations is up to you and is your responsibility; you have to work on it to be a good person and all. Well and good. What you feed grows. Reward good, you get more good. Reward evil, you get more evil. Discernment is required to understand which is which, and that's often why we get evil people in for instance political office. I think most now understand that it's helpful to do research on who you'll be voting for or otherwise rewarding with power. However, this applies to everyone else in your daily life too. Realistically ask yourself if someone's just using you. Yeet those people from your life. There's plenty of brainwashing to convince people that staying in abusive situations is a great plan but it actually is a major player in the cycle of poverty, particularly from generation to generation. This is a problem in every state, but it's a little more obvious here.
- 104. Here's another policy that would be quite unpopular but I think the only people against it would be the people abusing the system. It is this: you know how there are surprise health inspections for all foodservice establishments to ensure they don't give people foodborne illness or worse? Surprise visits from state law enforcement inspectors with appropriate credentials for identifying evidence of child abuse and also for not requiring government benefits due to simply not needing them (i.e. Lamborghini in the garage, kids in tattered clothing and lavish in-ground swimming pool, etc.), under cover, for all recipients of unemployment benefits, welfare, food stamps, and all other government benefits are necessary. All those freebies getting cut off from the shitheads abusing the system should, by law, then go straight into helping the poor through infrastructure projects and all other stuff that would otherwise be killed by the tragedy of the commons, namely fixing utility systems, roads, power lines, maintaining public parks, buying and maintaining public lands, and so on. We gonna socialism? We gotta do it right.
- 105. Divorce religion not only from politics but from everything else that isn't actually in an individual's sphere of individual choice and lifestyle. That includes the legal system, and also business practices. For instance, have you noticed how government buildings and libraries are always closed on Sunday? Or how everything shuts down on Christmas? And have you noticed how a lot of people actually really need those places to be open at those exact times, and they aren't, resulting in tragedy in some cases? I would assume that if you haven't, you've known someone who has. Ask. It's really no trouble to have people keep these places open too, because this country contains many people of many religions, nationalities and traditions. There are also some archaic laws on the books and unethical business management practices that make it unfavorable to be any religion, spirituality or tradition that isn't either known or in the mainstream, which is why it's very important to listen to people of varying beliefs when trying to restructure the legal system to be fair and equitable to all. Heck, even Catholics get the short end of the stick sometimes.
Part 7: Additional Texas Ideas
- 106. Reading someone's comment on RoundUp as I was searching for a less toxic alternative, I remembered something. In many rural parts of this country, you see a certain attitude that says "It's STUPID to be against saving money, saving energy, and saving time. That's why we use the RoundUp, make the money, monocrop the fields, exploit the workers, and are as lazy as possible. We're country boys." I can't fix that. (There are certainly some people in rural areas who just don't understand there are better ways of doing things, but I'm not referring to them at all, and I'm not worried about them; they're fine hardworking people.) However I can promote organic farming whenever and wherever possible. It's harder, but it's honorable. And I'd like to promote that in you, the readers. You can grow organic things. You don't need a resume, a high school diploma, a degree or a recommendation, the only qualification is that you have to be a human being. It's got a learning curve like cooking does but like cooking really well, it's a long term investment in your sanity and quality of life. It's my family heritage and I recommend it to you. Also, if you do get good, and teach as many people as you can, that's a very long term solution to poverty that's sustainable. Farming lasts. Money's made of paper; it's a tool for what it is but it's still just a currency kind of like words. And just saying, it's a lot harder to bioremediate contaminated soils than to build good tilth in the first place.
- 107. Consider the feelings of people who have had friends or family die of preventable causes when you decide to do something that harms not just yourself but others. Yeah, indiscriminate and hazardous use of Roundup is one, as is smoking cigarettes indoors. That's for people who have had people die of cancer. Or, let's say you decide to make guns without background checks legal for anyone to buy, including weapons that are say, fully automatic. That's for people who have had kids die due to school shootings. Or voting for someone who doesn't do shit for veterans. That's for the families of vets who have committed suicide. What you are essentially doing is pretty much the same as going right up to someone who has lost someone they loved to that and punching them in the face. Or - and this is going to be up next on the list of shitty things of the 2020s - going full throttle into Communism. That's for the people who lost family members in Communist countries. And the thing is that I think people the people who do these things know that, and yet other people continue to associate with people who do these things. The solution to this one is: stand up to these bullies or get rekt. Poor people (and all people) benefit.
- 108. This is a vehicle-based society now. Ok, whatever, I didn't make it, but it is what it is. So have you considered what happens to people who can't afford a car or even an e-bike? How about people who want jobs but can't drive out to one because they don't have a ride? Public transit might not be the total answer but it certainly helps - only if it's reliable. We can learn a whole lot from both Germany and Japan in this regard. For instance, bus stops need to be weathersafe and in sane locations, not say along a highway or next to a location with no sidewalk (again with the no sidewalks. sigh). They also need to be far more plentiful, and there need to be buses 24/7/365 no matter what. Shuttle buses if need be. Electrify them, make them reliable, make them affordable but not free, watch your city come alive with a better economy and better everything. Haven't you ever really wanted the emergency magical bus from Harry Potter to come whisk you away when you most needed one and had it not be there?
- 109. If some time in the future, the sooner the better, infrastructure in Texas will be affordable and reliable enough to get you from point A to point B within 15 minutes of when you expect to arrive if you get to the bus stop or train stop or whatever on time, it would then make sense to make it illegal for employers to discriminate against people without vehicles when hiring.
- 110. This is based on personal experience: make it illegal to have public transportation unions in Texas. The New York City subway system and the Paris airport are the reasons why. Strikes because you want more things, you know it's captive consumerism for a lot of people therefore without regulation you can get away with it, and feel like fucking up the lives of everyone in the entire region? Fuck you! Get a different job!
- 111. Know what void on the market there is in Texas? Non-Uber, non-Lyft, and non-Doordash equivalents of the same things that pay their drivers fairly and do have a legal right to unions, which are reliable and consistently high quality. And, city-to-city and city-to-airport shuttles. We could have that kind of thing be statewide and people would pay fair prices for it. Do we? No. Why? No idea! And here's the really weird part. This is a huge deal for anyone trying to live a good life and make something of themselves. You can't move your stuff or get to the airport for a great job opportunity or a good place to live without transportation. You can't even work for a living without it, if you don't have a car and your area doesn't have public transportation. And speaking of moving stuff, we still don't have a working USPS and the alternatives are even worse and more expensive too! Another void on the market. See why I'm so insistent that it needs to be easy to open and run a legal business?
- 112. "Developing" areas into moneymaking businesses is something a lot of towns and counties seem to love doing, and it seems to be mostly based on political corruption, greed, and generally making more money. Well, if it's going to happen anyway, it doesn't make sense to plunk something random on some field because you want to expand the city outwards. More things in closer proximity to one another encourages more human interactions and less reliance on vehicles to travel 50 miles for every thing, which if you think about it even with vehicles is an absolutely pointless waste of time. Also, putting stuff in closer proximity if you're gonna develop it anyway gives you an opportunity to make pedestrian zones, parks, and other city type recreational stuff, and that is both an improvement to quality of life for people living there and a tourist attraction. Meaning, you'll make more money. And not have to pave over 50 wetlands and chop down five forests, but hey, since when have political candidates or corporations cared about that. As an added benefit that's less of an area for police to have to intensively patrol.
- 113. Try this. Go out and visit gyms and recreation centers, and recreation places, yourself. See what's good in your area. These places can't benefit you or anyone else if no one goes there, and realistically the only change you can rely on is the one you start yourself.
- 114. On the topic of "developing" areas aka making them make more money, that relates to one thing that doesn't change from Communist to Capitalist system: human greed. So if you're going to do that kind of thing anyway, whether you are a business owner, franchise owner, or corporate manager of some sort, or a real estate developer it's both more eco friendly and makes more financial sense to open a business within an already developed area, such as an inner city, instead of on the outskirts of it, creating strip malls or something. We need the trees, vegetation, and dirt on the outskirts of town for better air quality, more biodiversity, less flooding due to rain filtering into dirt and watering trees instead of just washing over cement, and also oxygen. But if you don't care about that, and I don't think a lot of people do, you're more likely to get customers when they can actually get to your business easily. So in other words you're damn right I'm all for gentrification instead of urban sprawl. In most cities, the inner city is not navigable unless you have a day to waste, so it's probably best to open up a business between inner city and outskirts.
- 115. More appraising of expensive stuff. Speaking of real estate, it's as crooked as banks. Have you heard of inspecting and appraising houses and properties? You should probably look into learning that trade if you plan to ever buy a house or business property. Save yourself a huge chunk of change when someone tries to sell you a lemon and price gouge it all to fuck. In fact, same deal for all large purchases such as cars (and you will learn to stay well away from used car lots after this); learning what's high quality versus what's crap will help you a whole lot long term. Know this? Teach your family. Teach your friends.
- 116. One reason I think local politicians are usually completely inept: when's the last time you visited an inner city that was easy to park in, free to park in, easily walkable, rich in features such as beautiful parks and hopping downtown areas, and well designed, including and especially designed without one-way streets and for ease of transporting goods and people? Right? And that's literally the center of most of these places' jurisdictions, rotting from the inside out but at the nexus of all these people who otherwise would congregate there instead of staying on the outskirts in the strip malls. Just saying.
- 117. I know how to solve one issue related to that: take the highways inside the towns that become "main street" and put them outside the towns. No one likes slowing down on those and so few people actually do, but you need people to slow down in order to have a place where people congregate. Solves problem for the town's residents, solves problem for the people on the highway. Surely civil engineers would need to adapt this for each place but many towns just haven't modernized past the day of the horse and buggy. Our vehicles go a bit faster now.
- 118. Tackle food waste. You know how if you spend less on one thing, you have more to use for other stuff? Food waste is one such area. I'm not certain that reducing how much food you buy would reduce the price for everyone, because price gouging, but here's how it can help you a lot long term. Maybe other people, because then you'd have more money to give to charity or people you personally know. Let's say you make a grocery list every week. Let's also say that you wind up throwing out food every couple of weeks to months because it builds up in your fridge and creates a new ecosystem. Ask yourself if you really need to keep buying so much if you wind up throwing out a good chunk of it. Try to focus your next grocery list on only those things you're sure you will eat before they go bad. Cross out everything else. Discipline yourself to eat it all, especially leftovers, unless you physically can't get it down. Food's quite expensive these days so over time I bet this will earn you a hefty amount.
- 119. If you plan any event that's open to the public, announce the date and location and other details, as many as possible, more than a few months in advance. If it recurs yearly, try to ensure it's at least at roughly the same place and time year after year. People with disabilities, and people low on funds, and people who work for a living, and people who are super busy with other things in their lives will not be able to attend these things if you don't. And that's a very large chunk of the potential attendees.
- 120. If you own a small business, make it accessible. By that I mean if whatever it is you're selling is something you actually aim to make a living from or a side hustle, it's important to ask yourself the following questions: 1. Is it easy for even the "laziest" (and that could mean super busy, unlucky, poor, disabled, of limited mobility, elderly, etc. etc.) person to come to my business, online or in person? 2. Is it affordable enough for such people? 3. Is it something that actually fulfills a need of my target market, specifically that improves either their quality of life or that's essential to their survival? 4. If I were a potential customer that had never heard of my own business, would I bother to go, given my overload of responsibilities? 5. What would entice me or someone in that situation to actually make a purchase and have it be worth the effort? Making your business accessible is one of the secrets to success for large businesses and corporations. The deciding factor of if something is accessible or not is actually convenience, Dead Kennedys mockery notwithstanding. (Give Me Convenience Or Give Me Death, and I believe it was more a mockery of greedy individuals glorifying the almighty Dollar than of someone actually needing something accessible). Disabled folks and other folks in need of better resources and quality of life and other good things to live off of do need more options and small businesses can fill that niche, but only if they actually think about such things. And provide such goods and services. I just don't see this particular target market (and last I checked that's a very large chunk of the population) buying pink-dyed fringe leather purses.
- 121. If you're doing something anyway, you might as well get better at it. We're in an awkward phase right now where universities and places of higher education are for the most part either not worth going to for the money because you can get the equivalent through buying textbooks and instructional DVDs, or they actually are but are both expensive and hard to get into. So this would take some consideration to figure out what would be the best fit for you education-wise, as you don't want to fork over a hefty chunk of change for a piece of paper from a college that later on turns out to actually not teach its students even remotely close to what they need to know (and trust me, you'll find out about this sooner or later; a large chunk of them do that). So do yourself a favor: if you find yourself working hard at something, go with the old foodservice maxim "work smarter not harder" and see if there's both a college education option for it and a set of library books, DVDs, and textbooks for it. The better you get at it the better conditions will be for you, your family, and whoever you're doing work for. This is helpful for anyone with not a lot of cash; you can do this research at a computer at a library and get some educational materials there as well. This is also helpful for everyone else as you can probably see the sort of sea change this would cause on a societal level.
- 122. If you are a writer, self-publish ebooks or printed books and do your best to donate some of them to a local library, and self-publish the rest. Your intellectual property, your choice, unlike the big 5 publishing companies who actually apparently rent out ebooks to libraries for a certain amount of time for an exorbitant cost. This is especially applicable for all experts in every field who know enough to write a textbook, such as college professors. That's another income stream for you and it's earned (for the stuff you'd self publish) and an investment in quality of life for everyone with regards to any textbook you donate to the library. And if for whatever reason you can't do that? Check this out: you can make any textbook free and easy to access in website form. It's legal.
- 123. Make a real point of buying goods and services that were made in America or countries of our allies, not including China or India, but not including goods peddled or made by traitors quoting bullshit like "America First," which really means Russia first. That says it all, don't you think? 9/17/24 Just to be super clear, I'm not sure what India's actual population does and thinks about Russia, but its government certainly supports Russia, so I do not wish to buy any products or services from there anymore. As for China, this is not a diatribe against Chinese people or Chinese-Americans, just the current government there and whoever supports it. Chinese culture is vast, wise, valuable, broad, deep, rich, and extremely diverse. The main reason I wish to stop buying as many goods and services from there as possible is because of the businesses within it that sent money to Russia during this war but China's government and some of its more money-hungry citizens have done far more and far worse and I don't feel comfortable supporting that. Oddly enough I'm pretty sure its current government is doing a far better job of destroying Chinese culture and traditions than anyone else could.
- 124. Avoid goods and services peddled or made by people quoting too many intersectionality benefits. It's either Communism or sheer entitlement based on privileges people didn't earn for themselves. That's the flip side of the coin of 2020s bullshit and it doesn't belong here either. Don't reward bad behavior.
- 125. Learn about international corporations and large cap corporations. This is the missing piece of financial literacy and education in much of the world. These exist and function as countries without regulation. It is in your best interest and everyone else's to know who they are and what they do, and how they exploit. Here's The Fortune 500 for starters. There are several other markets that are in your best interest to look into and at the stocks they contain. Here's StockAnalysis with some lists. Citizens United was a legal decision that allowed any corporation or business to directly fund any government official without any kind of government restriction. Repealing it would probably help. Guess who's profiting quite a bit under the current system? China. You should also be aware that a chunk of the stock market, though I don't know how substantial it is, consists of corporations that exist to peddle "money saving" and "money earning" advice. For instance, Nerdwallet is actually a corporation, and in my experience it's not great. US Bank is also a corporation and it's peddling Home Equity Loans of Credit, which were a major player in the 2008 stock market collapse. There are also a bunch of investment corporations, finance corporations, mutual funds handled by businesses investors never meet, exchange traded funds (same), development funds with no actual transparency into how the money gets spent, stock options (they're weird, look into them), and so on and so forth. In other words, this particular chunk of the market consists of corporations that make money by promising to make their customers money. There are also a bunch of corporations that realistically speaking don't actually need to exist, such as corporations renting out business offices that might not actually do any upkeep on the properties, and a bunch of corporations (as you can see on their balance sheets) that invest - in other corporations - as a substantial portion of their income. It's a foundation built on thin air, and I'm not seeing as much innovation and blue-collar work like factory work as I would hope. So that's a problem.
- 126. This idea. No matter who you are or what responsibilities you have or how much money you have, consider what you can do to break this down: in order to have freedom and happiness in America you have to pay for it. Literally. Money is what keeps you buying drugs and health care to keep you healthy. It's what keeps you away from slumlords. It's what buys your food, and defines how healthy it is. You get a car or bus pass with it, you get ID card with it so you can vote. You can afford a lawyer with it if you're getting wronged. It's what keeps you buying the clothes and the education that get you higher in this caste system so your job doesn't exploit you quite as much. And the irony is that the people who keep this country running, specifically essential workers, usually earn the least. Now the weird part is that it's easier to climb the ladder of failure than it is to climb the ladder of success. It is way easier to drug deal, become a well-bribed politician, be a generationally wealthy asshole that earns a living by exploiting people, a snake oil salesman, a used car lot person, a MLM employee,
a prostitute or OnlyFans worker (On second thought, if that's what you want to do for a living, that's your business and I respect that, but if it isn't and you're just doing it for the money, that's super dangerous), a recipient of welfare who doesn't actually need it, and even a panhandler than it is to work for a living because working for a living costs a whole helluva lot of money. There's gas and maintenance for the car. There's the house or rent you need to actually get a job, as places of work will not hire you without both of those. There's the insurance for the car and health insurance so you don't get so sick you can't work. There's what your low-income job does to you and your stuff, healthwise and damagewise, and that is substantial. There's the lack of free time. There's the huge cut from your paycheck, much of which goes straight to Social Security benefits, unemployment benefits and other benefits for the shitheads gaming the system that don't work but easily could. And the higher up you are in this American caste system the more likely it is that you are either accidentally or on purpose stepping on the poor schmucks who keep this country running. But the higher up you get in the caste system the less you get punished for everything you do wrong, no matter how unethical it is. What defines your place in this caste system? How much money you make. And that's absolutely ridiculous. I'm not into Communism, but I sure am into ensuring that people who work hard actually get paid properly and not exploited. Also into ensuring that how many rights and responsibilities a person has under the law is not defined by how wealthy they are. You know?
- 127. Buy land after saving up for it with family and friends, and only with a very strict legal agreement in place to keep the nature on it pristine. Not so much an investment in quality of life now, but an investment in quality of life for every generation after us. Real estate "developers" are, too often, cancer. If you have to have some form of income from the land so you can pay the taxes on it, then it's important to lower those damn taxes to make it affordable for someone with a city job to do so - but only if the landowner in question really is keeping the nature on it unsullied.
- 128. Most people I know have the daily grind to contend with. And most people I know have the experience of having some coworkers, and that includes supervisors and bosses, buckle down and work hard while others, instead of working hard, choose to bully and henpeck their coworkers. If this is you stop. That shit's even more exhausting for the hard workers than the daily grind itself. And... in my experience people who pull this crap often wind up wondering why they didn't get the promotion, or got demoted, or didn't get more buddy-buddy with their coworkers, etc. and the reason is that treating your coworkers like crap will get you nowhere in life. So if you suspect this is you, work on yourself. No one needs your charity more than your coworkers (or underlings) need you to do your job and not treat them like your dogsbody. All that remaining energy can go towards having a good quality of life after hours, or at least one that's less shit.
- 129. If you own a business, have less leniency for henpecking in the workplace. It's too much drama, and too much chaos, and inevitably important shit will fall through the cracks in a situation like that. Tighten up hiring procedures to prevent this as much as possible, keep a close eye on things by popping in unannounced on everyday procedures yourself and often, keep video cameras with excellent sensitive audio recording in business to prevent he-said she-said bullshit, don't hire relatives or friends if possible. A "three strikes you're out" policy versus workplace bullying could also help.
- 130. Be more patient with essential workers and show them more respect. You don't have to give them gifts, or whatever, but making their lives easier by not, say, flipping out if they say get your order wrong, but instead calmly explaining what happened, is important. Insisting that they get adequate pay and full health care benefits for their families and themselves as mandated by law - and voting in people who change the laws to make that happen - is important. Stuff like that. Not stressing out or pressuring these folks doesn't have an immediately visible impact but over time stress and pressure on a person builds, and it has consequences on that person and everyone they know; contributes a lot to erosion of communities and quality of life, especially in neighborhoods without a lot of resources. You can see the consequences of this sort of poor behavior in the Middle East, and I suggest not bringing it here. Essential workers are the grease that lubricates what makes this machine of a country actually run right for you, me, and everyone. They're in charge of the food, the water, the shelter, and all of your other survival needs, and that includes ensuring your boondocks survival compound doesn't get seized by the government for eminent domain or taxed to high heaven or some shit. (Unless you don't have a boondocks survival compound, and even if you do I highly doubt you could keep such a thing going even with a whole community on your side because that sounds suspiciously like a cult.). Don't fuck it up.
- 131. If you own a business, do not employ the useless. (It's been my experience that this has nothing to do with how a person looks, how they act, what disabilities they've got, or any of that other superficial stuff; it just relies on how much any given person is willing to do to pull their weight.) In Israel the slang for them is "chapper (Hebrew ch, kinda like the letter h but more guttural)," which is someone who works just enough to pretend that they are working, while they spend the rest of their time just fucking around. The only real way you can see this in action is to walk in on the workforce often, and see who's working for two or three people while someone else is slacking off; video cameras are also required so you can see what's going on when you aren't there, and also watch the bottom line. If you find yourself having a more profitable business when one person is on the clock and another isn't and find yourself needing to call the more reliable one more often, and this has gone on for several months, don't hesitate: fire the slacker. Your hardworking employees do not have the spoons to work for two or three people. Eventually, something's gotta give, and you don't want it to be their back with a slipped disc or something.
- 132. See exactly where the money is going for your 401k, Roth IRA, in your bank's savings and investment portfolio, and wherever else it's invested and stashed, and consider the ethical ramifications. Lots of these if not all of them are completely non-transparent about where that money is being sent. Mutual funds, for instance, are not required by law to tell you exactly how that money is being invested. For all you know it could be like that episode of Columbo with Milo "when I grow, you grow" Janus. The other alternatives of where it could be going are actually worse. Oil companies? Billionaires? Multinational corporations? Foreign countries? You just have no idea. The same is, of course, happening with our politicians, which is why we should have repealed Citizens United a long time ago; which of them got bought out and how? In any case, that is money that is very likely not being spent on research and development, originality, innovation, and competition in the marketplace. Things that Libertarians should care about these days, (and which do help everyone, the poor included) but don't (they're not actually Libertarian anymore but Fascist. Heh. Go read some Ayn Rand.) - added 12/3/24
- 133. See if doing your religious stuff at home is right for you and your family. I have no doubt that some (not a lot, and I think this is pretty rare) institutions of religion are worth going to every so often and financially supporting with an adequate amount of funds. In my experience this has been mom-and-pop (literally) places and I've seen exactly two of them - out of the hundreds or maybe thousands I saw or visited over the years (that and - of all places - Hare Krishna temples, don't ask me why, I don't know why). I also have no doubt that there is no need for most of them. Think about all the other places that money, time, energy, and social support could be going to. Consider swapping out going to a house of worship with doing kind things for people who really, really need the help. Maybe by charity, by direct financial support of a really good soup kitchen or homeless shelter, by one-on-one assistance, or just by donating all your extra stuff to a donation place.
Older material
10/9/23 November 7, 2023 Constitutional Amendment Election for the state of Texas: if you live in another state check the equivalent pages for your state because it's likely they're doing something similar now given the state of yellow journalism in the US and how news agencies are asking for more funds while steadfastly refusing to report news in a nonbiased professional manner covering all sides of a story and wondering why they're going under, gee whiz, wonder how that happened. Anyway it turns out you can attempt to railroad a lot of really corrupt and crazy stuff through last-minute elections on a local and state level if the news isn't properly covering anything
- Voter Registration Checker Tool Check to see if you are registered to vote in Texas
- Sample ballot for it
- Texas Secretary of State Elections Website
- Application for ballot by mail
- Ballot by mail and ballot by mail application tracker
- Proposition 1: Against. Reasoning: There are probably a wide variety of laws on the books at a national level for this already. This tips the local balance of power in favor of land owners, who already have plenty of it, and I fear exploitation of the environment by said landowners given too much authority over the environment in their area.
- Proposition 2: For. Reasoning: If this provides extra budget padding for child care facilities in Texas, it could help kids get what they need. That is, if daycare operations use the funds appropriately. I'd rather take the risk that they wouldn't than not give them extra money at all.
- Proposition 3: Against. Reasoning: Protecting the wealthy from reasonable taxation is another form of creating a bunch of royal families or oligarchs in the United States and is a direct threat to democracy and rule of law. Hard pass.
- Proposition 4: Against. Reasoning: This one is kind of vague, but I figure there has to be a better, less fishy way of achieving the first bit and am totally against the last bit: a four-year term of office for members of board of directors for "certain appraisal districts." That's super suspicious.
- Proposition 5: For. Reasoning: Like Proposition 2 in that the funds could in theory be misappropriated but I'd rather have research and innovation from government funds in Texas universities than none at all or less than there would be. We've got to move the economy forward and I know of no better way than R&D and better education.
- Proposition 6: For. Reasoning: it's water, we need it to survive, and our infrastructure needs to get modernized.
- Proposition 7: For. Reasoning: I live here and I like my utilities to not shut off when they're needed most thank you
- Proposition 8: For. Reasoning: Same deal, also this would majorly help people get work from home jobs and boost the economy by a lot.
- Proposition 9: For. Reasoning: To make teaching more attractive long term for teachers in Texas by showing them how we treat the retired teachers. The more the teachers earn, the more likely it is we'll have a functional education system, which only sounds like a waste of money when you haven't seen what happens when you do not properly fund this (spoilers: I have trauma)
- Proposition 10: For. Reasoning: This one was hard to decide on. I'm sure there are better ways of getting good health care here than to reduce taxes for equipment and inventory for medical manufacturing suppliers, ways that aren't as likely to fund greed, corruption etc. but those ways aren't here yet, and right now, we need better health care here. So, I'm voting for it. Also you may notice this does not cost the taxpayers here anything directly so that's good.
- Proposition 11: For. Parks and recreation departments in this country do a good job and I generally vote for anything that funds them.
- Proposition 12: Against. Why exactly would I vote to get rid of the office of the person who sees where the money is going in Galveston County, Texas?
- Proposition 13: Against. Why exactly would I vote to raise the retirement age of the cretins that are our state justices and judges? Hard pass.
- Proposition 14: For. More state parks! Awesome!
State 2026 Elections
- Literally anyone but Greg Abbott, who is keeping this state quite literally at third world development levels. Will be looking very intently at all veterans who run for governor.
7/7/22 Please check out the Shopping and the cope with heat sections, since they now have resources for buying the best AC units, solar panels, electric vehicles, and off-grid eco-friendly tech. Because fuck ERCOT.
3/13/23 Here's a musing you might find amusing. Most days I wake up and ask myself "hey what the fuck am I doing in Texas?!" And the answer is weird. Yes, it's got so much bullshit. Yes, it is odd, outlandish, and makes you feel like you are living on Mars. Yes, it's bible-thumping, bigoted, white supremacist, and annoying overall. But straight up there are some really good people here. Obviously not the white supremacist ones or the other shitlords (but frankly those are everywhere, I hate to tell you...). The land is beautiful too even if it'll kill you in a heartbeat if you aren't careful. Oh also the wildlife likes to kill other harmful wildlife. Mosquitohawks kill mosquitoes, fire ants kill basically every harmful bug that'd otherwise invade (including termites), our wasps and rattlesnakes apparently have done a number on the murder hornets, etc. - um, it's basically another country here. But the most endearing thing here is the fact that Texas culture advocates for defending yourself. Multiple articles have (for decades) cited the Texas tendency to defend oneself and loved ones with weapons versus attempted crimes and succeeding, and judges not punishing you for doing that. Good.
3/19/23 Uh, there are a lot of things about Texas that native Texans don't notice. I think it's important that I point some of them out.
- 4/14/23 Wikipedia article about Niger, the country I think you will find this to be an interesting read. This place has outdoor temperatures similar to ours throughout the year, though about 5 degrees hotter on average. I found it interesting, having moved from a northern area of the country to Texas. This seems to be a similar step in that direction for me. Northern state - Texas - Niger. Same basic changes in life quality. And this is the direction Texas is heading. Pro-life! Woo hoo! Also, this is a very good example of why I am adamant about free internet and good high quality running water for everyone worldwide. The literacy rate in Niger is super low. And they do not have enough water almost year round, and their government sure ain't helping. I am not okay with that are you?
- Other states in this country do not have a culture of family loyalty. They do not have as much of a focus on protecting kids or family or any of that. If any.
- Other states are not at all like Texas. Stop assuming they are!!! It really is like another country!
- Other states have this history of seriously mistreating kids in public schools. Texas... apparently not to the same extent. Probably has a lot to do with the whole lots of people here actually caring about their kids thing. Stop assuming everyone in every state parents like that. Sadly, no.
- The Christianity here is not at all like the Christianity in other places. Even the Catholicism here. People here often really do believe in this kind of thing instead of just pretending to. THAT IS NOT TYPICAL. In other states you will find people using Christianity in any form like a cudgel to beat and bludgeon innocent people into being poor and disadvantaged, and in some cases to run them out of town (or worse, so much worse) - and this is often just infighting amongst Christians; it's much worse versus people who are not Christian. It still happens here, but not nearly to the same extent. Case in point, our abortion laws actually allow medically necessary abortions, abortions in case of incest, and abortions in case of rape. Therefore our medical system has recently been flooded with people from other states seeking emergency pregnancy-related care. 3/22/23 LOL spoke too soon. Okay then, welcome to Texas... no sex here. Ever. For anyone. Enjoy your drought!
- Lard will kill you. There are other ways of adding flavor to food besides using this kind of stuff. Excessive saturated fat from animal products or other sources will kill you. It's traditional, and I understand Texas has less issues with facing mortality than other places but like, why speed your passage to the pearly gates in such a painful manner? First time I had Texas barbecue let's just say it was a hell of a shock. DAMN.
- There's got to be a more efficient way of killing all the wild boar besides shooting them. They'll just reproduce and get stronger and scarier. You know it. Stop using them as an excuse to ask for the fully auto weapons. Semi-auto in the boondocks is all you need anyway if it's high caliber enough (and if you reduce the difficulty of pulling the trigger so you can put more rounds into say, a ten foot boar or all his buddies). Also we do not need that shit in the city, and we don't need excessive firepower just to compensate for ahem, things, while endangering most of the population by deregulating weapons way too much. Think you can still aim with that spray-pray fully-auto bullshit? Ooookay. You suck at guns. Good day, sir.
- Please ffs travel more. People love Texas. That's great! They love it enough to never ever leave. That's not good! People here don't get life anywhere else. So they drink their beer, and eat their steak, and vote Republican, and have the same couple dozen people they've known their whole lives tell them it's the right thing to do. Unlike in other states in the US where this kind of thing is inherently toxic and evil, in Texas I daresay it's just because a lot of people here are clueless
- The number one way to improve Texas is to improve its education system from pre-K to graduate school levels and past that. Public school... uh I'm not the right person to say much about that. But colleges-wise, the ones here are stupendously nepotistic and there's a wide open field for more colleges and institutions of higher education to set up. Start your universities and colleges in Texas? Good idea.
- It's nearly impossible to open a (legal) business here thanks to the lovely lack of transparency provided by the Comptroller, the Texas government in general, and the Secretary of State. Awesome. Maybe we should fix that.
My choices for the October 2022 election with quick blurb reasons; I hope you research the candidates yourself also in great detail:
Governor: Michael Cooper - education emphasis, details not platitudes/empty promises, better qualified than beto. But Democrats being idiots we are apparently getting Beto as the airhead pretty boy choice. Okay, whatever, I guarantee he's better than whatever creepoid the Republicans shit out of their ranks.
Lt. Governor: Mike Collier - despite his being paid by oil and gas interests, Carla Brailey, the honest choice, was frankly unelectable due to supporting universal prek, and the other other choices are either meritless hacks or have stupid ideas. Still would rather have this guy than anyone Republican in Texas.
TX Attorney General: My choice was Joe Jaworski - popular, an actual attorney with a lot of experience that is current, ex-mayor of galveston, seems ok and at least not a shithead like the other republican guy, also, electable, as opposed to the relative unknowns also running. However, Democrats being idiots (again), Rochelle Garza and her hardline left-wing ideas won the runoff. After some weighing of the options, including Mike Ash, who doesn't have that much info on him online, I decided on Rochelle Garza as who I will be voting for. Because expanding healthcare access and protecting kids' safety in school is on the whole more pro-life than Ken Paxton. Ironic, considering she's hardline pro-choice. I'm not all that happy about this choice but it'd save more lives than Paxton's policies would take. her website Probably most importantly, her campaign promises to investigate the grid failure and ensure it never happens again. I think she's actually the linchpin of ensuring Texas stays safe to live in as opposed to being a danger to life and limb.
Agricultural Commissioner: Susan Hays - an actual farmer plus supports hemp farming in rural texas done ethically. Uh, for those of you who didn't know, hemp is not psychoactive; it's used to make rope, paper, and industrial lubricants.
Railroad Commissioner: Luke Warford - the best choice! if you are a Democrat, literally the only choice! also not a problem with him
Comptroller: Janet Dudding - don't really have a problem with her
Land Commissioner: Jay Kleberg, seems to be okay overall
If in doubt I plan to vote blue up and down the ballot this coming election in October, 2022. I ain't touching the Fascist KKK ideology of today's "Republican" party with a ten foot pole, esp. not in Texas. Next year and in 2024, however, I'm sure the Democrat party will double down on sending literal Communists and corrupt yes-men (who don't solve a single problem but plaster band-aid feel good "solutions" on the massive issues) up and down the ballot so will look at both parties' candidates then.
For 2024 I support Biden for re-election. Why? We need someone boring. You can even make that an unofficial campaign slogan for the guy if you want, I don't care who gets the credit. Besides that it's pretty nice that the guy and the administration has somehow managed the Russia crisis, which has been nicely hushed up by most major media sources as a potential nuclear armageddon, so we kind of owe him one. However. I want to get rid of the two-party system by voting for individuals, not parties, and plan to vote almost entirely third-party besides Biden in 2024. Please join me and tell everyone you know because honestly, the two-party system of blind partisan voting by red vs blue instead of voting for individuals and their qualifications has brought this country to its knees. I think it's high time we got rid of it.
You know, I've been trying to decipher this bizarre state since I moved here a few years ago. It's weird. Really weird. But I've got your number now, Texas. I know how you tick. And here's what I have to say. The allure of Texas is the fact that it's got a heart. The majority of people in the state have only one thing in common, and they are really diverse externally: they want to do the right thing. So I'm telling you, with every heartless action, with every cold and cruel thing done to oppress and hurt the innocent or the undeserving, that's done in the state of Texas, the spirit of Texas dies a little. I think I showed up with the state on its last legs in that regard. Will it improve? That's up to you, man.
The Texas mystique also seems to be "where dreams come true." But in reality it's usually, these days, where every last dream is shot to shit.
You want to fix Texas? Then switch from fossil fuels to renewables and from old-fashioned jobs like ranching to high-tech jobs like manufacturing of computer tech. The whole state could be another Silicon Valley. Wanna know why it isn't? Obsession with the past. Dumb as fuck.
Probably the most weird thing about Texas is the Bible-thumping obsession with harming thy neighbor. Wha?! Clearly, it's the Christians here that can fix the problems, and they have to bring this up with their pastors, families, and friends, and be like, hey, this isn't right. Obviously I'm oversimplifying but at heart there isn't more to it than that.
If you wonder why the national attention is on Texas, it's probably because in many ways Texas has a lot of soft power in the US. It's a bit like the US itself in that respect. Meaning? The civil rights battles that are fought here will make one of the biggest impacts in history, for good or for ill. If you're not a total fuck-up, and you live in Texas, you might want to bring one hell of a fight to the table. Because the people smashing everyone non-rich, non-white, diverse, non-Christian, non-connected, and non-privileged into the dirt here sure aren't going to take it easy on you just because you don't show up to the fight. Aren't you tired of this thinly disguised Texas caste system? Bring it down!!!
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