Soaring Gas Prices

In Sedge Downing's article titled "Bikes", he talks about the soaring gas prices and the effects it is having on the american economy such as increased transportation and food cost. His advice on confronting this worsening problem is to use bikes as a mode of transportation. I agree with Sedge on using bikes as a way to help relieve the rising gas prices. Using bikes benefits society as a whole in several ways including more exercise and less pollution and noise. In reality if everyone did start riding there bikes it would really kill two birds with one stone, because not only is rising gas prices a major problem in the U.S right now, but we also have an obesity problem that is getting worse so everyone who did ride their bikes would get exercise just by traveling to their desired location. Not only would people be getting more exercise and saving money on gas, but riding bikes would also greatly reduce the amount of pollution in the air which is another plus. There are both pros and cons to this option, but in my opinion the pros greatly outweigh the cons, the only cons I can think of is increased travel time and the disabled not being able to ride bikes.
I think Sedge did a great job on this article as he addressed the problem, offered a solution, and used common sense and logic to explain his solution. In my opinion he did everything required and does not need to change anything about it.

Concealed Guns on Campus

Samantha's blog titled Guns=Bad News Bears, she talks about a current bill that is attempting to get passed in the Texas Legislature that would allow anyone with a license to carry guns on university campuses. I agree with Samantha that this bill is ridiculous and should not be passed as it will cause more harm than protection. I think that college students are not responsible enough to carry guns, and have too much stress which could lead to violent outbreaks that would be much worse with a gun in their possession.

I think that Samantha did a really good job in her blog. She stated her opinion and gave plenty of evidence to back up her opinion, and also got the opinion from a source who was involved with the 2007 Virginia Tech shooting to show that shootings have in fact occurred on college campuses in the past. The only thing i would suggest is to have put in an opinion that was for the bill and then state an argument against that opinion.  

Texas Prisoner Health Funding

    I found an article from the Austin American-Statesman titled "Options running out on prison health funding" that talks about the Texas budget for correctional managed health care. The current House version of the two-year budget allocates about $700 million for prisoner health care, which medical officials say is about $200 million less than what is likely needed to care for Texas' 112 state prisons. Top aides of Governor Rick Perry have suggested privatization for parts of Texas' prisoner health care network to help curb the spiraling cost, currently the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston provides care for two-thirds of Texas prisoners while Texas Tech provides for the rest. Another option being discussed is to set a single reimbursement rate statewide for prison health care instead of two different rates for the universities providing health care. I think that the Texas Legislature should go with the single reimbursement rate plan, as this plan is will take much less time and effort to set up compared to privatizing portions of the health care network. Time is an issue for the Legislature as they say in the article that there are only 55 days left in the session, and there are still lots of other issues concerning budgets left to plan for, I think it would be the best solution to use the proposed plan for a single reimbursement rate. 

Cost of testing in Texas

On Tuesday March 22, 2011, Phillip Martin posted a blog titled Cost of Standardized Testing in Texas Increases Ten-Fold From 2000-2009 in which he shows evidence from several sources that the cost of standardized testing in Texas has increased ten-fold from 2000-2009. In this blog Phillip paste a excerpt from the Austin American-Statesman by Jason Embry that explains that as the Texas student population changes the demands on schools and students alike have also changed. Some of these changes include a TAKS, or Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills, given to all students, and students in grades three, four, and eight are required to pass the reading section of the TAKS in order to advance to the next grade. I believe Phillips intended audience are Texas taxpayers, because his last paragraph in the blog is an excerpt from a 2009 Statesman blog that says "taxpayers will pay about 93 million this year to administer standardized tests to Texas students, or nearly ten times the cost of just nine years earlier". I think the author is credible, as most of his blog is excerpts from the Austin American-Statesman, which is a credible source. Using these excerpts from the Austin American-Statesman also helps justify his argument that the cost of test have in fact increased ten-fold from 2000-2009.

John Wiley Price out of control

       I found an article in the Dallas Morning News titled "Shouting match between speakers, John Wiley Price shuts down Dallas County Commissioners Court" that I found very interesting. The article talks about the commotion that Dallas County Commissioner John Wiley Price caused in a meeting early Tuesday morning. The article talks about Price's actions as he was confronted by speakers about his actions that lead to Bruce Sherbet's leave from office. During the confrontation Price noticed all the speakers were white and asked out loud why all the speakers were white and acted as if he was a victim of racism. This outbreak and uncalled for behavior by Price caused county security personnel to clear the court and shut down the meeting as it intensified. I think that a grown man that was elected to represent Dallas County acting like this is childish and ridiculous. It is embarrassing that people who are capable of ignorance of this level actually are elected and have a place in office.