We had a great time in our quest to see two College Football games Saturday.  Having never been to Amon Carter Stadium before I chose to park by the baseball field and walk the mile or so to the football field.  The Stadium really is in need of some more concession stands and more bathrooms.  The lines for both were very long on the visitor side throughout the game.  If TCU is to be a ranked team every year, they will need to put a little more money into the place they play.

Traffic wasn’t horrible getting into TCU, but it did take some time.  I-30 was backed up before the University Drive Exit at 10:30 with a 12pm kickoff, and even though I knew better, I exited University and went through campus.  I should have went west of campus on 30 and come in from that direction.

The crowd at TCU was older and I think we were one of only a handful of people not in purple from head to toe (I was in my Tech Red Raider gear(actually Texas Ranger, but it was red)). 

Cowboys Stadium is as good as they say it is.  Even though I’ve been to the stadium for a George Strait concert, it was my first visit for a football game.  Traffic at 3:30pm for a 5:00pm kickoff was non existant.  Parked easily at a Rangers parking lot and found our buddies tailgate party with ease.  Even though I scored tickets on the 50 yard line 8 rows up for my Uncle and Son, I was relegated to the 400 level upper deck.  They were still good seats and the replays on the Jerry Tron made for a great experience. 

I think I will be making the trek out to Amon Carter a bit more in the years to come, they really do have a good program and a bunch of friendly fans.

This just in from Giovani:

On December 8th, the NE Tarrant Tea Party is hosting an event at the Highland Meadow Montessori Academy. The guest speakers will be Giovanni Capriglione  and Vicki Truitt, both candidates for Texas State Representative.

Time: 6:30 – 8:00pm

Address: 1060 E. Highland St, Southlake TX 76092

www.NETarrantTeaParty.com

Should be a very interesting evening.

Update:  There will be a Q&A Session.  Giovanni sends along this message:

The structure is 15 minutes of speaking by Mrs. Truitt followed by 15 minutes of Q/A for her. Then I speak for 15 minutes, then 15 minutes of Q/A.

Yes, a huge day.  Number 4 TCU takes on New Mexico at Amon Carter at noon and then Texas Tech and Baylor kickoff at 5pm.  My uncle is in town for the Holiday and my son and I plan on making a day of it.  Heading to TCU for the early game and then off to Jerry World for the Tech/Baylor game.  I hope I have the energy to make it through the day.

 My thoughts?  The Law is broken and no matter how you slice it will be found unconstitutional.  In order to save it it needs to be fixed rather than stick your head in the sand and say that it should be upheld as it is written.  See my previous post on this subject here. 

As anyone who has endured a nine-hour Dallas City Council meeting can attest, open government is messy. And mundane. Some weeks, it’s uncomfortably confrontational. Other meetings make watching paint dry seem action-packed.

In any case, the council does the people’s business in public. As elected officials contemplate how to spend your tax dollars or whether to allow a factory to be built in your neighborhood, they voice their views and cast their votes in open meetings.

Texas law makes sure of it.

The Open Meetings Act helps keep public officials accountable, spelling out prohibitions on secret deliberations. Violating the act is a misdemeanor, punishable by a fine of up to $500 and six months in jail.

For city councils and other government bodies, avoiding these consequences is pretty simple: Don’t schedule secret meetings or make decisions behind closed doors.

Amazingly, the Texas Municipal League and some Texas cities have decided that’s too much to ask.

The league, which is funded with taxpayer dollars, has passed a resolution seeking a law that would strip the teeth out of the Open Meetings Act. Additionally, officials from more than a dozen cities across the state plan to file a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the law.

In both cases, the groups argue that the criminal penalties are too harsh and that preventing public officials from colluding in private somehow restricts their free speech. Of course, arguing that a weak open-meetings law would somehow bolster free speech requires some tortured logic, but that’s their argument, and they’re sticking to it.

Quite simply, these efforts aim to water down the Open Meetings Act by removing the threat of criminal penalties, rendering the law toothless and somewhat pointless.

Supporters of these changes contend that they’re not advocating that government business get done in smoky backrooms. But without legitimate protections in place, some officials could be tempted to take their discussions offline – and out of public view.

Criminal prosecutions under the existing Open Meetings Act are rare, but the penalties on the books serve as an important reminder that government business shouldn’t be kept under wraps.

Taxpayers in every Texas city have a stake in this.

If open-government laws are watered down, public officials could ease down a slippery slope. Conversations among a quorum of council members could easily morph into informal votes and the opportunity to orchestrate the outcome before a public meeting commences.

As city council members hash out the budget, deciding whether to close the library down the street or raise taxes, voters deserve the chance to hear their representative’s thoughts and see how officials voted. If the end result is pre-determined and the actual deliberations are conducted in secret, taxpayers are short-changed.

The promised lawsuit and the Texas Municipal League resolution aim to address a non-existent problem. As long as public officials are willing to do government business in public, what’s there to be afraid of?

This song sums it pretty well

I’m for wildflowers in the window
Mechanics you can trust
I’m for crackers in my chili
And leavin’ grudges in the dust

I’m for drive thru order takers
Who can muster up a smile
I’m for takin’ in that stray dog
That’s been hangin’ ’round for awhile

I’m for turning off the TV
Gettin’ off the internet
I’m for learning all the words
To the Gettysburg Address

I’m for dusty pawn shop guitars
And boxers passed their prime
I’m for soakin’ up the wisdom
When an old man speaks his mind.

I’m for laid off factory workers
When the wolf is at the door
You don’t have to guess what I’m against
If you know what I’m for

I’m for Texas Margaritas
Gettin’ outta debt
I’m for havin’ faith in something
That hasn’t happened yet

For the shy kid in the corner
Afraid to ask the girl to dance
For the ex-con outta prison
Who just wants a second chance

For the inner city teacher
With her heart stuck in her throat
Can still see God in every child
And never gives up hope

I’m for dusty pawn shop guitars
And boxers passed their prime
I’m for soakin’ up the wisdom
When and old man speaks his mind

I’m for Detroit factory workers
When the wolf is at the door
You don’t have to guess what I’m against
If you know what I’m for

I’m counting all my blessings
When the wolf is at my door
You don’t have to ask what I’m against
You don’t have to guess what I’m against
You know what I’m for

From Baseball Time in Arlington comes a breakdown of players salaries and the realization that $10,000,000 seems to be missing from the equation:

Even if you elect to get really conservative and factor an $8 million allowance for contract buyouts/deferred money into the equation, you should — based on what we know to date, anyway — still be looking at having $10-plus million available for roster-strengthening purposes … and that’s where this really bizarre discrepancy between the company line and the media line comes into play. Sure, you probably can’t sign an elite free agent or trade for a premiumly-priced talent with that sum of money, but there are a lot of other things you can do. Conversely, there isn’t much you can do with nothing.

If these chilling reports are indeed accurate and the Rangers seriously cannot afford to even marginally upgrade their payroll, then there’s a very simple question to be asked: what on earth transpired in the last two months that warranted snatching $10-plus million out of management’s hands and effectively crippling the ballclub’s limited, but still-existing market maneuverability? Did it mysteriously vanish into the ether or something? If the answer is actually “nothing,” then why did Ryan say what he said in front of the Ballpark media contingent on October 6th? And if all of the reports are erroneous, is there some compelling reason why the ballclub hasn’t made an effort to set the record straight?

It’s certainly not my intention to descend into the realm of conspiracy theorizing, but it would seem that there are questions to be asked here — questions that the Rangers obviously can’t respond to with the luxury of full disclosure, but questions that should, if nothing else, remain within our sphere of consciousness. It’s highly agitating to envision a scenario where any and all enticing offers and opportunities for roster improvement communicated to the general manager are sadly rejected due to something so inexcusable as a cash shortage. With all due respect to Tom Hicks, that is not “business as usual.” That’s a fool’s game.

Again, the quibble here does not concern Hicks’ once-upon-a-time proclamation that Texas could field a championship-caliber team with a payroll between $70-80 million. Forget payroll expansion altogether for a moment. If the Rangers’ financial situation has actually achieved critical mass, the concern progresses from not being able to improve the roster to not being able to sustain the roster. At that point, you have to begin worrying about whether a payroll reduction might be on the horizon before the ownership situation becomes settled, and what sort of long-term ramifications could stem from such drastic actions … and even if you’re only thinking about that possibility, you have justifiable cause to be alarmed.

According to Murray Chass, pretty bad:

With 99.99 percent certainty, it won’t be Hicks. “The banks and baseball would never accept him,” said the person who knows Hicks. “And he has no money. He hasn’t been paying the players. Major League Baseball has.”

Hicks has not paid interest on his bank loans since March, thus triggering a higher rate of interest. It is estimated that he owes $600 million. “Every day he waits he’s paying interest on $600 million,” said the person who knows Hicks. “He’ll never get any equity out of this. He needs about $700 million to get out of this.”

From Global Investing:

Just when investors were settling down to lock in a few of the year’s profits and put their feet up for the end of the year holidays, a black swan has come waddling out of the desert to put everything on edge.

The unwelcome cygnus atratus came in the form of Gulf emirate Dubai telling creditors of Dubai World and property group Nakheel that debt repayments would be delayed.  Fears of contagion spread widely, hitting world stocks, lifting the dollar out of its basement and driving demand for European debt so much that a roughly 6-month trading range for futures was breached.

It all may settle down soon. Dubai says the problem does not apply to its big international ports group.  Meanwhile, the emirate is a pretty leveraged place, but fellow emirates and neighbouring countries such as Abu Dhabi, Qatar and Saudia Arabia are pretty flush with cash. They could even step in to help as a matter of solidarity.

At least for now, though,  it is showing just how interlinked everything is.  Ok, of course, banks get hit when people worry about expsosure. But who would have thought that a European car company  would get clobbered by a debt problem in the Gulf?

The issue is those sovereign wealth funds that have been recycling their country surpluses into investments elsewhere. Qatar owns 10 percent of Porsche, Abu Dhabi and Kuwait own 17 percent of Daimler between them. So it is not just investors worrying about their money in the region, it is investors also worrying about where the region’s money is.

S&P  Futures plunged overnight and Gold is on another elevator up.  Should be an interesting short trading day tomorrow.

The video from the other nights meeting has been posted and can be watched by going here and then scrolling down to the November 23rd meeting and click “Video”.  It’s a Java link and while it is possible to link to it directly, it is beyond my web skills.