Rick Perrys prayer for rain

These are long term very expensive propositions. Are they necessary? How often does Texas have a drought? Should we spend billions on something that is needed a few times a century? Should we build these everywhere is case a drought comes along?

The Aussies and those in the Mid East seem to disagree with your assessment.

Funny, they're being used in drought stricken areas around the world. Something is better than nothing, especially in a case like this, where farmers are being forced to sell everything they own thanks to the drought.

Almost all of them are low maintenance (if you watch the video I linked to, you'll see that ones in India have been around for hundreds of years), and fresh water is becoming a serious issue even in the US, so building them would be a good hedge against future problems.

Low maintenance is nice. Very high cost to build is not. Don't forget enviro regs make building stuff like that in the US much more expensive than in India.

Nope. There's not a lot he could really do with a drought this bad though. This is historic. I'm in favor of local measures. Too many people think they need a nice, lush lawn and water conservation be damned. In Central Texas, there needs to be a push towards natural yards. A nice Hill Country yard is actually pretty attractive. The problem is that the HOA's will fuck you over if you let your precious St. Augustine wither away. Of course, the bigger issue is that our population is getting to big for our aquifers. We need a big ass hurricane that can power through this high pressure dome.

My God isn't a bubble-gum machine - He doesn't do things on my schedule, no matter how much I'd like it.

One thing to consider is that the type of govt. operation that would REALLY prepare for a large scale drought WAAAYYYY exceeds the power of a state governor.

Especially the governor of Texas where the Lt. Governor actually has more immediate impact over actual legislation getting passed.

The only ones where the enviro regs would be a significant issue would be the desalination plant and the pipeline/canals from the Mississippi. The desal plant would be the hardest to get approved, but not impossible, since Texas doesn't really care too much about tar balls washing up on their beaches, so a little extra salt in their ocean probably won't bother them. For the pipleline/canal, since it would have to run across a couple of other states, it could be sold to the public by showing clips of all the flooding that's happened along the Mississippi in recent years with some kind of "Think of the children" tagline to make it an easy sell.

Like it as not, however, we're probably going to have to building those things sooner or later. The issue of freshwater is getting bigger and bigger all the time, with many of the giant aquafers in the US drying up. Doing it now, will be a lot easier (from the standpoint of red tape) than doing it a couple of decades from now (when they're be more red tape and labor costs will be higher).

Quote!!! AhwiwjebssjjskVwba

Ah, the lawn-watering. I hear ya. In New York during drought years, drought means drought, and if you're caught watering your lawn at all, you're fined.

In California, it means: Only water your lawn on Mondays and Thursdays. Unless you've got an automatic sprinkler system. And if the latter, pretty-please try to maintain it so that the sprinkler head you ran over with your power mower doesn't fire off like Old Faithful every afternoon at 5 p.m.

There is - finally - a push toward natural yards around here. My town will even provide free tutorials and sometimes even free desert plants, and all the city-owned median strips are planted with native trees and shrubs that don't need constant watering.

Just a little common sense, and you can still have green things even in a drought.

He needs a constitution to do that?

Shit. Watch this.

I, MAN AFRAID OF HIS SHOES, No One Of Note, under the authority vested in my by Jack Shit, do hereby proclaim this day as a Day of Prayer for My Pasty White Ass.

Kneel! Kneel and pray for my ass!

And what helps the rain come? Haven't seen anything that science has offered start any rain anywhere.

sorry maohs - did that yesterday. Today it's someone else's turn for my prayer.

err.. versus the government being paid to proclaim "pray for rain" days? And to a nominally solar deity as well???

you know that it musta cost a few hundred grand to get that done.

Meanwhile, is it really so bad to use taxes on infrastructure?

Nuke Ireland.

Sorry, Turk. Gonna have to see some proof that it costs the government very much at all for the proclamation (Oh, I'm sure there was some paperwork involved but buying bus shells from Canada at a million plus each? C'mon...)

And you're going to have to start a thread proving Jehovah is a solar deity.

Considering there is no proof Jehovah exists as a deity at all, it'll be kinda hard to prove what kind of deity he is!

Well, then. Logically, shouldn't you have jumped on Spaceturkey for bringing it up rather than for my challenging him on it?

You're falling down on your skepticism here, methinks.

There is no proof that alien life exists either but we spend a few million a year looking for it do we not?

Spaceturkey isn't claiming he really exists:

Nominally : existing or being something in name or form only <nominal head of his party>
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/nominally

Now he may actually believe Jehovah exists outside of the belief systems we've built around the idea, but his post doesn't say that.

You on the other hand were talking about proof not only of existence, but of the nature.

That's actually a pretty good comparison as the existence/non existence of a god has about as much effect on my daily life as the existence/non existence of aliens.

Get back to me when either one decides to communicate their existence outside of grilled cheese sandwiches or crop circles.

Re: nominally - I don't think Turkey was using the word that way... He made a supposition /statement about the God that I believe in. I asked him to back it up. Why you feel obligated to try to do that is beyond me.

Regardless, neither you nor he can have it both ways here. I believe in God and I believe in him according to my understanding of the Bible. I could be wrong, of course, but nowhere in the Bible is he presented as the solar deity Turkey is insinuating.

The nature of the Christian God is pretty well spelled out for me - not by the Catholic church or by some televangelist but by the Bible and my relationship with him. Prayer is part of that. I understand very well that it doesn't always make logical sense to everyone who hasn't actually experienced the relationship and that's where I leave the consequences of that up to God himself. I trust him to be just, fair, and loving.

He started out as a god of war, I think. Although he's been combined with several other deities over the years, including a solar deity (Sol Invictus) during Roman times.

First he's the sun god, then he doesn't exist, then he's the god of war, then he's a combo god... No wonder I'm so confused about what all y'all's religious beliefs are.

The fact that different people have different religious beliefs confuses you?

It is a common misconception by the ignorant and the prejudiced, that Texas is a desert. I think it comes from watching too many 1950s Westerns, shot in the desert outside Los Angeles. I remember the first time I flew into Dallas/Fort Worth, being surprised at how green everything was.

Yeah, maybe that was a poor way to put it. That doesn't get me so much, I guess. It's that sometimes it seems I'm expected to battle every single theistic belief out there, especially the incorrect ones about Christianity. And do the same ones over and over.

Im voting for Perry in the primary. Then in the general election Ill vote for the winner, Obama.

Everything east of DFW is fine. Between there and Abiline is ok. From Midland/Odessa/Big Spring on west is a desolate wasteland. A good 1/4 of the state is uninhabitable, IMHO.