LTE: On the brink

Regarding "Texas GOP cool to immigration plan" (Page A1, Tuesday), Republican Senator John McCain is quoted as saying that the amnesty plan supported by him and three other Republican senators is all about "elections. … The Republican Party is losing support of our Hispanic citizens."

 

Put aside the curious notion that a path to citizenship for 11 million illegal aliens will benefit anybody other than the Democratic Party. Why would McCain purposely make the Republican Party look like a bunch of hacks grasping for votes while the nation wallows in an economic crisis unlike any since the Great Depression?

Embracing this distraction is to be expected of the Democrats: They have every reason to change the subject when it comes to government spending, and if Republicans want to gift-wrap millions of additional voters for the Democratic Party, it would be crazy for them to say no. From Republicans, though, it is downright bizarre: It is legislative malpractice for our elected officials to be distracted by this issue when our nation is being ruined by berserk government spending; yet these Republicans not only went down this road, they led the way. Even more bizarre is the inevitable outcome if the immigration reform they have proposed is successful: hundreds of billions of additional government spending.

One can only hope that Texas Republicans can help haul the party back from the brink of self-destruction.

Pete Smith, Cypress

Read more: http://www.chron.com/opinion/letters/article/Letters-Skeptics-of-immigration-reform-4244560.php#ixzz2KYjDvPHi

John McCain Strikes Again

So yesterday, John McCain declared that the amnesty plan supported by him and 3 other Republican senators is all about "Elections....The Republican Party is losing support of our Hispanic citizens.” Put aside the curious notion that a path to citizenship for 11 million Illegal Aliens will benefit anybody other than the Democrat Party; why would McCain purposely make the Republican Party look like a bunch of hacks grasping for votes while the nation wallows in an economic crisis unlike any since the Great Depression?

Embracing this distraction is to be expected of the Democrats: they have every reason to change the subject when it comes to government spending, and if Republicans want to gift-wrap millions of additional voters for the Democrat Party, it would be crazy for them to say no. From Republicans, though, it is downright bizarre: it is legislative malpractice for our elected officials to be distracted by this issue when our nation is being ruined by berserk government spending, yet these Republican Senators not only went down this road, they lead the way.

Even more bizarre is the inevitable outcome if the "immigration reform" they have proposed is successful: hundreds of billions of additional government spending every year.

Don't waste these words on John McCain though.  He is the Republican Party's answer to Joe Biden: an egotistical, clueless, incompetent nincompoop, interminably sucking off the taxpayer teat, albeit that Democrats, at least, have had the sense not to put Biden in a position where he can do any great damage.  McCain is a different animal, managing to let the air out of tires of the Republican Party for most of his 50+ years of "public service", and reaching its zenith - we thought - with his hapless run for the presidency in 2008.

OffHisMeds is sorry to say that the Republican Party has offered yet further evidence that it is nothing more than an appendage of the Democrat Party, wholly embracing its role from the 70s that was such a comfort to Bob Michel and Nelson Rockefeller.

It's the Tea Party or nothing, people.  The Repubs are a lost cause.

A Professional Victim

It's not every day that the activities of a bench warmer command one prominent article in the Chronicle, much less two, but such was the case in the Jan 24 Sports Section regarding Royce White and his battles with the Houston Rockets, specifically the endless drama over treatment for his Generalized Anxiety Disorder.  This season, more has been written about White than all the rest of his teammates combined, and frankly, it's getting old.  As this thing has played out, any fair-minded person would conclude that the Rockets have bent over backwards to accommodate White, yet his response time and again has been to accuse them of bad faith and threatening his health.

 

This is not to say that he doesn't have mental health issues.  It is to say that just because he's got a problem, he's not excused from at least trying to do his job, and there's precious little evidence that he's tried at all.  From my perspective, White expects to be waited on hand and foot, allowed to come and go as he pleases, hurl unwarranted insults at his employer and draw his $3 Million paycheck. 

 

The shame of this whole ordeal is that White's behavior has trivialized a genuine mental health issue, and is an insult to folks with similar problems who don't consider themselves victims, don't spend all of their energies blaming somebody else, and bravely do the work necessary to make their lives better. 

 

It's time for White to grow up.

 

Pete Smith

Cypress

Murderous Pit Bulls, Part 17

Regarding "4-year-old dies after neighbor’s pit bull attacks" (Monday City & State, page B2), the only thing more distressing than the title of the article is the disclaimer in the first sentence stating "Criminal charges are not expected to be filed....".   It appears that because the pit bull that killed the four year old was chained up, that everything is fine.  And if a toddler comes on your property and is torn apart, well, that's his problem.

 

As much as I distrust the use of our civil courts in pursuing justice, it appears that this is the only venue left to the public.  We need to start suing pit bull owners, pit bull breeders, neighborhood associations, insurance companies and even municipalities, since our public servants - after decades of killings and maimings by pit bulls - seems content to do nothing.

 

Let a thousand lawsuits bloom.

 

Pete Smith

Cypress

Cats Are Stupid

To The Editors:

 

Regarding "House cat manages 200-mile trek home" (Sunday Page A2 Newsmakers), as a cat owner of some 35 years, I feel compelled to throw some cold water on the assumption in the article that Holly the cat performed some amazing feat of navigation by travelling on foot 200 miles from Daytona Beach, Fla - where she was lost - to her West Palm Beach neighborhood. For perspective, it's important to remember that there are some 86 million cats as house pets in America, cat owners are notorious for travelling with their pets, and cats are notorious for getting lost.

 

If only 10% of all cat owners took their cats on vacation, and only 10% of those got themselves lost, that would still be a total of 860,000 cats lost on vacation each year. As reported in the news, there's typically only a single story of a lost cat successfully returning a long distance to their home each year, for an abysmal success rate of .000001%. Common sense tells you that with that many lost cats, it's not a matter of smarts that sees the cat safely home; it's the law of averages.

 

Don't get me wrong: I like a feel-good story as much as the next person, but that doesn't alter the fact that cats - as much as we love 'em - are stupid, and routinely get themselves lost travelling to the end of the driveway, much less across state. Our greater concern should be ensuring that cats aren't lost on vacation in the first place, but please don't mention this to the Obama Administration, lest they attempt to fund such an effort with taxpayers' dollars.

Pete Smith
Cypress

The Real Culprits

Regarding "Mystery no closer to clarity" (Friday Sports Page C3), Notre Dame All American Manti Te'o has been inundated - as has most of America - by the deluge of speculation about whether he was complicit in spreading a fraudulent story about an online girlfriend who died of Leukemia.  While the Chronicle article was a balanced account of what is known, most other media outlets have already proclaimed him guilty, even going so far as compare him to Lance Armstrong and speculate that his NFL prospects are perhaps fatally damaged. 

 

What is largely unremarked upon are the true culprits in this story and dozens like it: the greedy college administrators that exploit young athletes, making millions for their universities while the athlete gets thrown to the wolves.  If Notre Dame truly had the interests of Te'o at heart, they would have provided an environment similar to the one Coach Kevin Sumlin and Texas A&M provided to Heisman winner Johnny Mannziel: the Media were kept at bay, as were the promoters and Talking Heads eager to exploit everything and anything about Mannziel's amazing story.  Unfortunately, Notre Dame saw the same opportunity as it related to Te'o, and made a conscious decision to milk it for all the Heisman hype they could, putting him front and center in countless stage-managed media appearances, and flogging this patently phony story for all it was worth. 

 

Te'o is learning the most important lesson he ever could in college: the adults around you who claim to have your interests at heart should not be trusted when big bucks are in play.  That should serve him very well in his professional career as well.

 

Pete Smith

Cypress

Calculating Longitude

To: Dava Sobel

 

Ms Sobel:

 

I recently re-read "Longitude", having first encountered it whilst reading O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin novels. Not having much of a scientific bent, your book was - and is - a delight, and this is my third go-round.

 

I did have one question about the use of Chronometers to determine longitude: since the timepieces prior to Harrison's era were inconsistent to one degree or another, could not the desired accuracy required to calculate longitude have been attained by employing some number of timepieces whose inaccuracies had been documented beforehand? For example, if you had one timepiece known to run two minutes fast per day, and another that ran, say, 90 seconds slow, would they not each be reliably as fast or slow, and thus, reconcilable not only to each other, but to Greenwich time?

 

My Layman's sense would be that a minimum of three such chronometers reconciled on a regular basis would be sufficient to calculate longitude to a very fine degree. Further, that relatively cheap timepieces could have been employed, since their inaccuracy would in this instance be a virtue.

 

Is there anything to my theory?
-----------------------------------------------------
Dear Peter Smith,

Thank you for your nice note. I loved the Aubrey-Maturin novels, and am delighted to know a fellow fan of theirs is re-re-reading Longitude.

You raise an interesting question. In truth, there's nothing wrong with your idea in theory, except that it was not practiced, so far as I know. My sense is that no one had enough faith in the available timekeepers to bother checking their accuracy the way Harrison tested his clocks. Having several such timepieces aboard ship would have been both costly and of questionable value.

As you know, however, once Harrison's invention proved the virtue of the timekeeper method, ships carried several at a time. This is how the noon report came to say, "The chronometers have been wound and compared." Even the good ones differed from one another, but in manageable or predictable ways.

Again, thanks for sharing, and all best regards,
Dava Sobel
dava@davasobel.com
 

Kubiak The Meek

After making it to the AFC championships for the second year in a row in 1980, Bum Phillips famously said "Last year we knocked on the door. This year we beat on it. Next year we're going to kick the.....s.o.b.... in." In six years, Bum Phillips compiled a 59-38 record and took Houston to the playoffs three times, and this in a division that included the legendary Pittsburgh Steelers. Despite that, he was fired by the Oilers after the 1980 season.

 

How times have changed. By comparison, Gary Kubiak has in seven years compiled a record just a few games over .500, has gone backwards in late season play in the past two years, and wasn't even close to a second round playoff win this year. It's interesting to speculate how the timid Kubiak might have paraphrased Phillips though: He barely knocked on the door last year. He wasn't even close to banging on it this year. And nobody would seriously claim that he's going to kick anything next year, except perhaps the can down the road.

Playoff contenders must be bold, as are perennial winners like Bill Belichick of the Patriots and up-and-comers like Jim Harbaugh of the 49ers. If Kubiak even wants to make it to the playoffs next year, he needs to focus on winning games, not avoiding defeat.

Pete Smith

Cypress

LTE: A bonus for quitting

Regarding "HISD’s cash bonus for early resignation notice is up for vote" (Wednesday City & State), I would have thought HISD administrators would by now have exhausted the possible means of paying teachers for doing something other than their jobs.  Past articles have told of bonuses for performance against vague standards, bonuses for moving to another school, and bonuses for nothing more than hanging in there for the whole school year.  Teachers are paid stipends out of slush funds and qualify not only for pay raises, but cost of living increases as well.

 

Now they are paying teachers a bonus for: quitting.  How nice.  Was I to ask a question, though, it would be this: why would any teacher need to be incented to promptly tell their principle that they were leaving?  Either the teacher has plans to leave, or they do not.  It is incomprehensible that they should sit on this knowledge if they are responsible human beings. 

 

At least until now.

 

Pete Smith

Cypress

--------------------------------------------

A bonus for quitting
Regarding “HISD’s cash bonus for early resignation notice is up for vote” (Page B1, Wednesday), I would have thought the Houston Independent School District’s administrators would by now have exhausted the possible means of paying teachers for doing something other than their jobs. Past articles have told of bonuses for performance against vague standards, bonuses for moving to another school and bonuses for nothing more than hanging in there for the whole school year.

Now they are paying teachers a bonus for quitting. How nice. Why would any teacher need to be given an incentive to promptly tell his or her principal that they were leaving? Either the teacher plans to leave, or he does not. It is incomprehensible that he should sit on this knowledge if he is a responsible human being.

Pete Smith, Cypress

http://www.houstonchronicle.com/opinion/letters/article/Letters-A-pity-to-lose-Camp-Strake-4200217.php

Biggio Is A Slam Dunk

Regarding "First swing at immortality" (Sunday Sports, Page 1), Brian T. Smith proclaims "Even if Biggio doesn’t get the needed 75 percent Wednesday, the Astros icon relishs a full life".  Is there any doubt he will get it?  In addition to the 3000 hits and other gaudy offensive stats, you can count on one finger the number of Hall of Fame nominees who have also played three distinct skill positions (catcher, infield and outfield), much less played them with distinction, much less whilst being a world-class base stealer.

 

And that doesn't begin to address the intangibles: Craig Biggio was a Leader, mentoring younger players his entire career and demonstrating how to be a world class ballplayer during the Steroid era through hard work alone.  Those qualities won the Astros additional games, no doubt about it.

 

Biggio making it into the Hall on the first ballot should be a no-brainer.

 

Pete Smith

Cypress

Natural Disaster Money Grab

Regarding "Boehner blasted after withdrawing aid bill" (Thursday Page A5), it was not surprising that Democrats demonized Republican congressional leaders for delaying a vote on the $60 Billion Hurricane Sandy package.  What was surprising was the over-the-top comments of East Coast Republicans.  New Jersey Governor Chris Christie "accused the congressional leadership of his own party of 'duplicity' and 'selfishness' and called them 'irresponsible.'.  Among his milder criticisms, New York Rep Peter King called the delay "a knife in the back".

 

Left unmentioned in the article or by the East Coast politicians lining up for the latest multi-billion dollar payout were the reasons as to why the vote was delayed.  Even a cursory review shows that the bill is larded with pork, including $150 million for Alaska fisheries and billions for public transportation improvements having nothing to do with storm damage.  It also included $17 Billion for Community Development Block Grants, historically notorious not only as pork, but particularly unaccountable pork. 

Also unmentioned by Messrs King and Christie was the fact that Senate Democrats had presented this pork laden monstrosity to the House of Representatives only a few days prior, and were attempting to ram it through without serious scrutiny, just as they had the "fiscal cliff" bill, which included $41 of new taxes for every dollar of spending reductions.  Bottom line, Christie and King went "all in", trying to demagogue the whole $60 Billion through Congress, instead of settling for the $9 Billion needed this year. 

 

Calm deliberation will likely show that there is genuine need to spend considerably less than $60 Billion on Sandy.  Kudos to the politicians with the courage to do so, and a big Bronx Cheer for the Big Spenders who won't.

 

Pete Smith

Cypress

-----------------------------------------------

Rejected pork
Regarding "Boehner blasted after withdrawing aid bill" (Page A5, Thursday), it was not surprising that Democrats demonized Republican congressional leaders for delaying a vote on the $60 billion Hurricane Sandy package. What was surprising was the over-the-top comments of East Coast Republicans, including New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.

 

Left unmentioned by the East Coast politicians lining up for the latest multibillion-dollar payout were the reasons as to why the vote was delayed. The bill is larded with pork, including $150 million for Alaska fisheries and billions for public transportation improvements having nothing to do with storm damage. It also included $17 billion for Community Development Block Grants, historically notorious not only as pork, but particularly unaccountable pork.

Calm deliberation will likely show that there is genuine need to spend considerably less than $60 billion on Sandy.

Pete Smith, Cypress

http://www.houstonchronicle.com/opinion/letters/article/Letters-Pork-combat-cancer-odds-4168601.php

The Whole Nine Yards

The article "The whole nine yards about a phrase’s origin" (Tuesday Star, pg D4) is proof positive that in a digital age characterized by a media attention span measured in milliseconds, any fact not commonly accessible to folks with access to the Internet by consensus couldn't possibly have existed in any other medium or any earlier period of time.

 

Take the phrase in question: "the whole nine yards".  The New York Times couldn't source it any further back than the turn of the 20th century, nor propose any plausible source of origin other than baseball.  That's funny because, being an avid consumer of what Blank Reg of the epic TV series Max Headroom referred to as a "non-volatile storage medium" - otherwise known as books - I can reference at least two pre-Internet sources for the phrase, dating back from a few to several hundred years. 

 

Citing historical novelist Patrick O'Brian, the meaning is proposed to be a reference to the three main sails of the three masts of a square-rigged ship dating back as early as the 17th century.  And while I can't instantly produce a source, I have read various books on the origins of the English language that propose that "yards" is a term referring to the defensive perimeters set up around a town in medieval times, and the necessity of an invader to breach "the whole nine yards" in order to capture the town. 

 

Ironically, some small amount of research will find both of these sources are readily available on the Internet.

 

Pete Smith

Cypress

Adios, Republican Party

Dear Senator Cornyn:

Please be advised that I am abandoning the Republican Party, in part because of your decision to support Mitch "Earmarks" McConnell in abandoning Republican principles of small government, in full because the Republican Establishment - that pragmatical element that functions as an appurtenance of the Democrat Party – has apparently captured the soul of the Republican Party.

A rational person can't even conceive of what Senate Republicans were thinking in supporting Joe Biden’s package, nor do your explanations make any sense.  On taxes, not only did you concede to the Democrats siphoning an additional $600 Billion from the Private Sector over ten years, you got nothing in return, not even a permanent respite from the so-called Fiscal Cliff.  And not only did you get nothing on reducing berserk government spending, you agreed to hundreds of billions of additional spending over the next decade.

Republicans historically have distinguished themselves from Democrats by standing on principle instead of political expediency; that is the reason right-minded people supported the Party.  Now, with the exception of a few senators and a small House caucus, that is all gone.  Your moves have played right into the Democrats’ hands, and as a consequence Democrat spending will continue out of control, as will the expropriation of personal wealth to finance their berserk theft.  In two months, you will cave on extending the deficit, and given what has occurred to date, it is not inconceivable that you will eventually give Obama unilateral control of the debt ceiling, as he has demanded.  Is that not the natural consequence of a political strategy driven by the desire to avoid blame?  That is, sir, all that you Establishment Republicans have to offer.

I could not be more disappointed in you or your peers, nor your concerted efforts to destroy the Republican Party.