Because You Never Know
I think I may have told you the story about me being a young reporter at a city council meeting where the fire department was presenting their projected budget. Among other fancy pants things the fire chief wanted in this small town was an eight story fire ladder.
A councilwoman was confused and asked, “Chief, why do you need an eight story fire truck ladder when the tallest building in town is two stories?” She asked it nicely because she assumed it was something she didn’t understand about fire ladders.
The chief puffed himself up all tall, smug, and knowledgeable and answered, “Because you never know.”
Well, I had to write a straight news story about that answer and it was the hardest writing I have ever done. You never know. Only sometimes you do. You kinda know you won’t have to have an eight story ladder to fight a two story fire.
“You never know” happens about as often as you’d suspect in Texas. However, there are some examples of you-absolutely-do-know.
Texas Republican State Representative J M Lozano is a man of vision. And that vision is drones. HB 3429
As soon as practicable after the effective date of this Act, the office of the governor shall adopt the policies and procedures, establish the unmanned aircraft program, and acquire unmanned aircraft for state agency use as required by Section 490G.001, Government Code, as added by this Act.
The drones will be operated by the “Office of the Governor.”
We can’t pay for education. We can’t pay for health care. We can’t build or fix roads. But, bygawd, we can let the Gov and JM have a drone to play with on the the weekends to crash-land on the roof of my house. Fortunately, my house is only two stories so the fire chief has got that covered if we need to put out the subsequent fire.
A drone. Somebody who can find Austin on a map and has the good sense to get there wants Texas to have drones because … you never know.
Heads up to Glen Maxey, who is forced to work with the guys.
JJ’s right. “We can’t pay for education. We can’t pay for health care. We can’t build or fix roads. But, bygawd, we can let the Gov and JM have a drone to play with…”
But I suspect drones are coming in every size and for every purpose. PDs are gonna want them to fly around their jurisdiction on “patrol”. FDs will want them to give fireground commanders a God’s eye view. etc etc. 14 year old boys will acquire and hack them for purposes only 14 year old boys can understand.
I disagree that the Governor should be the keeper in chief of the drones that are ultimately acquired.
1Alabama became a state on December 14th, 1819. They have made no recognizable progress since that date.
Mississippi 12/10/1817 …
Texas 12/29/1845 …
So sure, give them drones, what could possibly go wrong? For those tired of “fun with guns,” bring on the drones.
2Texas is so screwed up they will probably send the drones over Oklahoma.
3Well, good heavens, these boys NEED toys– drones and eight-story fire engines and guns and bombs– to make up for a) not getting a train set for Christmas when they were a few years younger than they are now and b) the laughably small size of a certain part of their anatomy.
What? I was thinking brains. What were you thinking?
4Can you have too many toys? You never know.
Us guys know better,Rhea. Some of us don’t got brains. 🙂
5Drones will give all those open carriers something to shoot at and never mind the collateral damage.
6I have small one objection to this article.
It’s not really true that we cannot pay for health care, roads and education.
The problem is that a lot of people in this state choose not to.
7Um, I don’t think drones are that easily acquired by private or public sources, especially if their purpose is armament or espionage. Somebody from the federal guvmint is gonna pop up and make somebody else need a fresh change of underwear on this subject. Good luck to Lozano. He’s gonna need it . . .
8maggie, drones are easy to buy and fly–for now. You can get them from Amazon or even WalMart.
I read an article about the aircraft carriers that we are building. It turns out that a $400 drone with a $300 IED can land on the deck and disable a $13 billion aircraft carrier, and wipe out several expense planes to boot. I expect to see a lot more regulation in the future.
9We are watching “14” –it’s painful to see the boys and their toys expanding into the modern war machine, the poison gas toys, the toys that blow up, and all the amazing damage that gets done to bodies and hearts—our Vets get no care, our children are not going to be able to read cursive, so the founding documents and letters of the framers will not be able to be read…and most of our elected officials seem to be bonobo’s—desperately
10trying to get that special (boys being “special” on the outside) part to be satisfied….it’s a sickness. Save us from the crazy riders of the bomb, so in love with things that go boom!
Ralph Wiggam, our little town doesn’t have the scourge of a Walmart, but we can purchase a drone from the local 7-11. Knowing what a bird strike can do to a jet intake, the thought of drones flocking the skies is nearly as ‘welcome’ as roaming ammosexuals with military grade weapons.
11@Ralph Wiggam: For a hobbyist-level drone to seriously harm an aircraft carrier, it would need to successfully attack a fully-fueled and armed plane getting ready to be launched, sort of like the USS Forrestal fire.
Plus, I doubt a hobbyist-level drone would have the range to get far enough offshore to attack an aircraft carrier – unless it was being operated from a nearby ship. One would hope non-Navy ships are kept far enough away from an aircraft carrier during flight operations to make such attacks impossible.
12elise, our elected officials aren’t bonobos. We’d be better off if they were. Bonobos (“pygmy chimps”) are peaceful people who settle disputes and make bonds by having sex, not necessarily male-female. Granted our elected officials do that a lot, but not in a peace-making way. Unfortunately we’re more closely related to chimpanzees, who have been known to wipe out other clans in a form of killing warfare and even eat each other’s babies. Bonobos would be a definite improvement.
13Funny, that attitude doesn’t extend to Climate Change.
14RepubAnon, all they have to do is damage the landing surface and the carrier is disabled. And a carrier in port is vulnerable, remember Pearl Harbor.
A hobbyist-level drone can put 4oz of C4 anywhere you don’t want it, from oil storage facilities to national landmarks. And our enemies are not limited to hobbyist-level drones. If I lived in the White House right now, I’d be worried.
The gist of the article I read was that Aircraft Carriers are great for fighting the last war, not the next war. In recent war games a Canadian sub defeated all the defenses of an US aircraft carrier and “destroyed” it. our Naval assets may be impressive to poor third world countries but not to oil-rich terrorists. Or even Canadians.
15Bonobos are into full time sexcapades with ANY and ALL members of either sex and ANY AGE. Seen it in a documentary and it wasn’t pretty,but then neither are Bonobos.
16According to what I hear from the younger generation, drones are the natural off-shoot of all those battery controlled toy airplanes that one used to see being controlled by children in a park on a nice day. I thus do know about hobby drones. What I was referring to were killer drones armed with some real double down weaponry. Frankly, they are not cartridge type thingies and do not really fit into the Second Amendment. At least right now. Want to bet that somebody from the NRA will propose an amendment to that amendment?
17Amazon’s prospective home delivery drones can deliver 5 pounds in a 10 mile radius, farther if you don’t expect it to return. If Amazon can get their hands on these drones, the Bundy Militia can too. That’s American exceptionalism!
18Remember what happened when Conroe (Montgomery County Sheriff’s Department) got a drone?
http://tek-bull.com/2012/03/conroe-tx-police-drone-crashes-into-police/
They’ve managed to crash their drones TWICE! The other time it crashed into Lake Conroe.
19One early form of dispute settling was kite fighting. Could we just go back to that? People are too stupid to be allowed to use sophisticated drones and innocent people will be injured and killed as these things become cheap and available.
20Perhaps what’s really going on is forward thinking by the Texas Governor’s office. Currently, lots of police departments are getting military surplus vehicles and weapons: MRAPs, HummVees, M-16s, and the like. What happens when the Predator drones start going on the surplus list?
I expect the Texas Governor’s office wants to be ready to accept surplus Predator drones. After all, you never can tell when some activists might start a voter registration drive requiring a Hellfire missile response.
21Peta plans to use drones(you can purchase one from Peta) with cameras to videotape slob hunters. NRA,for some reason,is not amused.
This is one of them unintended consequences of allowing the gubmint to spy on all of us. Pretty soon it becomes accepted norm and then everyone wants to do it for their own benefit.
Maybe everyone should have a drone,use it until you get tired of it and move on to the next fad.
22On the other hand,I seen a groundhog on my sidewalk this morning and a drone with a hellfire missile might be just the thing to smoke that wooly bugger out of his hideout. Just make sure proprty multi-peril insurance is maxed out.
23What can go wrong when you have a TX government drone operating along an international border…..
24Oh, but we CAN fix roads, at least in DFW. We can tie up freeway traffic for a whole week filling potholes with something called “cold mix,” which is only temporary and will only hold up for a couple of weeks. But they had to use it, because the regular stuff won’t work when temperatures are below 60 degrees. Not to worry, though, they expect to send the crews back out NEXT WEEK with the hot mix.
25Welcome to Texas.
Off Topic but I see Grifter Junior from Wasilla,Alaska is engaged to a Medal of Honor winner her mother-Grifter Senior lured to Alaska for a reality show. Wonder if she’ll left hook him or just nag him to death?
26e platypus onion, it must be the grifter way of announcing Brisket is due with little Biscuit soon. Or, $arah has traded in her non-performing son Trap for a new “I support the military” prop.
Circle the drones to drop firecrackers, it’s a hillbilly wedding Wasilla style.
27If this poor Marine doesn’t have ptsd,he will by the time his marriage to Sarah fails and yes he is marrying the whole family. Ambushes in Iraq were never this coldblooded.
I don’t believe this marriage will ever be consummated because a CMH doesn’t make him god like.
28Hmmm. Makes me want to know what drone manufacturer has been “chatting” with said Rep. Lozano. Cynic? Moi? I prefer to call myself a realist.
29Good grief.
30Well, J.M. is one of those guys coming at you from all directions, sonograms and drones, look out Mama (quote from his campaign link given ):
“In past legislative sessions, J.M. and other conservatives voted against every single Democrat attempt to defeat the “sonogram bill” and they won.”
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Lozano was first elected as a Democrat in 2010, then switched for 2012,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._M._Lozano , read the Wiki page carefully, y’all.
(“…financial support by, among others, the Hispanic Republicans of Texas political action committee.[11] Lozano said that he was inspired to switch after meeting with George P. Bush, the creator of the political action committee, Hispanic Republicans of Texas and the grandson of former U.S. President George Herbert Walker Bush.[12]…
After Lozano switched parties contributions to his campaign budget sharply increased. Compared to his 2010 race as a Democrat the 2012 budget jumped up by 71 percent, from $551,801 to $945,257. In that year, the biggest contributors to his campaign were corporate PACs including Texans For Lawsuit Reform ($214,281).[14]”)
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The Democrats had better pay attention here, the Rescummies are feverishly working away.
Listed below are the four South Texas/Coastal Bend counties Lozano represents, and most of the towns therein (quoted again from his page). This is (one of) my stomping area(s) too, and fifty years of close familiarity with it has convinced me it is, indeed, overwhelmingly Hispanic.
They voted 61% for the Reptaliban.
The part of same area is within the TX-27th (US Rep, now, post-redistricting, slightly majority minority)) held by Blake (Jammies) Farenthold against Dem (LtCol) Wesley Reed in 2014
“Kleberg, Jim Wells, San Patricio and Bee County. It looks great so far but we can never take anything for granted so if you can, please tell your friends in Kingsville, Ricardo, Riviera, Alice, Orange Grove, Premont, La Gloria, Ben Bolt, Palito Blanco, Mathis, Odem, Edroy, Sinton, Taft, Gregory, Portland, Ingleside, Ingleside on the Bay, Aransas Pass, Mineral, Normanna, Pawnee, Pettus, Skidmore, Tynan, Tuleta and Beeville ”
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The Democrats need to win these kinds of places back.
(Loazano also owns/franchises some “Wingstop” restaurants in that area…just sayin’, might be interesting to know how he acquired them)
31This kind of ladder truck is used to fight fires in large apartment and commercial buildings. Getting above the building and fighting the fire. In tall buildings you fight the fire from inside the building not from the outside.
32