So I've been reading lately that the Supreme Court is going to take up the redistricting in Texas. Yeah that is the issue that sent Texas Representatives to Oklahoma and Texas Senators to New Mexico. It is also the issue that got the Texas Speaker of the House investigated and the U.S. House Majority Leader indicted.
So what. Well, regardless if you are Democrat or Republican, in my neck of the woods redistricting was a very righteous cause. You see, in 1990 (and years before) the Democrats pulled the worst gerrymandering in the History of the world and nobody outside my area seemed to care.
It is one thing to chop up a City like Dallas or Austin into three or more congressional districts, but to chop up a city of under 90,000 (in 1990) into FOUR congressional districts is just punitive. For over a decade my representative was from San Antonio (300 Miles Away). Some in my city were lucky enough to have one only 115 miles away, but being so fractured, our 22,250 as a percentage of 572,000 per house seat (4%) means a whole lot less to a representative than 90,000 (15%). Team us up with some SMALLER surroundig towns which were split two or three ways and you really get your representatives attention.
Considering that Midland and West Texas was crippled, we held fast to our State Representative until he became the Speaker of the House and we are proud to call ourselves the Hometown of George W. Bush. In 2004 we held fast to our call for a representative of our own and pissed off a few Republican's who didn't have the spine to stick it to the Liberals. I think it is an object lesson for the the Democrats. Don't piss off West Texas Power Brokers!
If the Supreme Court let's us do our congressional districts again, I hope this time around the Texas House only puts 22,250 Austin-ites into each congressional district. By my calcualtions that's 29 different congressioanl districts. Serves the Liberal Bastards right.
Little things about me:
I'm 35. I was born and raised in West Texas. I graduated from Texas A&M University. I am a Civil Engineer. I am a Christian. I'm married to a West Texas Girl who is a redhead (my favorite). I am an Eagle Scout. I am community minded. I can't stand Liberals. My Myers-Brigs is a strong ENTJ. I have two dogs (Sandy & Buddy). They are both mutts.
I actually have a job I like to do for a living. I have spent a great deal of my adult life connected to the internet in some form or fashion.
And lo, on the thrid re-install did Fedora Core 4 install, and it was good. And lo, did the Apache Web Server run, with FTP, SSL, and MySQL, and that was good. And lo, were the ports open and pinging and packeting, and that was very good.
And then the RPM of Firefox 1.5 was found lurking in the garden and tempted the penguin with the power to surf the internet better. And the penguin ate of this fruit and it wasn't YUM(my)..
Next time, don't use the development RPM, stupid. At least I didn't force the YUM install!
It has been really cold around here the last two days. The temperature is coold enough make anything you do outside statutory!
I have two dogs which usually stay outside wile the wife and I are at work where they terrorize our back-yard. However, they have been kept in their kennels or in the house becasue it is so freaking cold.
So if my online nick has been Opus for a long time, why do I use Ospurt?
Well first off, being content with my internet existence, I neglected to log on to every free email/blog site de jour and gobble up the name during the dot.com boom. Heck, I'm lucky my name is obscure enough that I was able to get my first initinal last name at Hotmail... (but not Yahoo, Gmail, etc...)
So I resorted to my dark username: Ospurt. Which was courtsey of a community of VMS FORUM / mIRC addicts, malcontents, MUD Players, and assorted characters. I was the non-drinking member of this rag-tag band. At a particular Friday the 13th Party they decided to spike my normal IBC RootBeers with Everclear and proceeded to get me hammered. At some point during the party I blew chunks and the name Ospurt was born.
