Of course they did

The Tarrant Regional Water District voted to open a drive-in theatre as part of the Trinity River Vision, you know, that "flood control" project downtown.

Don't worry, there is finally one aspect of this billion plus dollar boondoggle they say you aren't paying for.

You should read the comments from THE PEOPLE on some of these articles and Facebook. 

Priceless.

Don't kid yourself, YOU are still paying. 

 What a crock.  In June 2010, as Carl Bell faced foreclosure on LaGrave Field, the TRWD sweeps to his rescue with a $17.5 million gift by buying his parking lot.  His parking lot!  Of course, according to the always reliably forthright TRWD board, these 42 acres were direly needed for flood control for the futuristic boondoggle known as Trinity River Vision. 

Now stuck with a bankrupt LaGrave Field and FW Cats, the TRWD is saddled with a $17.5 million environmentally contaminated parking lot.  What can you do with a contaminated parking lot?  Why, put up a few screens and call it a drive-in theater.  Surely there will be enough suckers brave enough to shell out a few bucks to experience the thrill of making it home alive after spending a few hours after dark huddled in a car in this neighborhood, feasting on breakfast burritos from the handy dandy food truck. 

How many will come?  Well, according to the mathematically challenged scion of that truth in government pinup girl, Congresswoman Kay Granger, over 300,000 annually.  Really now?  That's over 800 a night every night all year.  Even when it's 110 in July and August.  Even when it's 32 in March.  But never mind.  JD said it so it must be true and the ST dutifully reports it as Gospel.  Welcome to the future of Fort Worth and the bold Trinity River Vision: environmentally contaminated drive-in theaters!  Please turn off your headlights.  You'll be glowing in the dark anyway.

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How much does fuzzy math cost YOU?

Same story, different state.

An industry "study" includes made up job numbers.  Shocking!  Not.  What is shocking is a reporter actually got to the bottom of it.

Read about the Washington Post Keystone Pipeline bust here.

What is shocking is that we can somehow figure out how to run a dangerous pipeline across our great nation, but we can't figure out how to pipe water from the states that are flooding to those in a drought...huh.  How many jobs would that create?

In an explosive story posted online in the Washington Post this afternoon, pipeline company TransCanada admitted that it has grossly misrepresented the number of jobs the controversial Keystone XL project would create.

The 20,000 jobs involved in pipeline construction? A fabrication supported by misleading mathematics. The 250,000 indirect jobs? A number based on one oil-industry funded study that counted jobs for “dancers, choreographers and speech therapists,” according to the Post.

“Thank heavens some reporter actually questioned this jobs number, instead of just repeating it,” said Bill McKibben, who is leading a major protest against Keystone XL this Sunday at the White House. 

In fact, in the only jobs study not funded by TransCanada, the Cornell Global Labor Institute concluded that any jobs stemming from the pipeline’s construction were likely be outweighed by the environmental damage it caused, along with a possible rise in Midwest gasoline prices because a new pipeline would divert that region’s current oversupply of oil to the Gulf Coast.

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More Dallas and Fort Worth

This time, it's the Trinity River.  If the boondoggle in Fort Worth doesn't work as it should (we're basing that assumption on other things in Fort Worth that don't work like they should) what happens downstream in Dallas?

Check out some comparisons on Durango.

The Dallas project began before the Fort Worth project. The Dallas project has been voted on by the Dallas voters. The Fort Worth project has not been voted on by the Fort Worth voters.

We really liked one of the comments....

Another difference in the project, Dallas media admitted they were misled by the politicians concerning their boondoggle, what?! Misled by a politician, say it ain't so...can you imagine that article in the ST?? Though it won't be the ST that outs it all, it will be a national outlet...how long will the ST stay afloat then?

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It worked on YOUR kids

So WHY wouldn't it work on you?

The NCTCOG (yes, the COG that held the TDML meeting last week and the Recreational Use Attainability Study meeting this week) is sponsoring a video contest with TREES and WFAA to solicit YOUR ideas to clean up the Trinity River.

Does that mean those responsible for doing so have no idea of their own?

While we support public participation in matters that concern the public, we ain't buying it.

The commercial for the WFAA Project Green is ironic and amusing.  It opens with pictures of trash in the Trinity River in Fort Worth, as they say "You may have heard about the problem."  Problem?  WHAT problem?  The local paper, city staff and elected officials, the Tarrant Regional Water District and the Trinity River Vision Authority say there's no problem.  If they say anything at all, it's jump on in, suckers.

(Isn't the local paper and WFAA owned by the same folks?)

The commercial for the WFAA Trinity River video contest goes on to say, "Now it's time for this generation to stop pointing fingers..."  Really, that is what they said.  "...to save the Trinity.  We can do it".  Where have we heard "save the Trinity" before?  Oh yes, the Trinity River Improvement Partnership.  www.savethetrinityriver.org. Those that recently made the video, Up a Creek. THE PEOPLE who are trying to save the river and YOUR money.  For YOU and YOUR kids.

If you have an idea, sounds like they need it.  YOU could win $1,500.  $1,500 is nothing, printing had to cost more than that.

Somebody help 'em out already, would ya? 


Due to the WFAA site asking us to disable security to view contest information, we didn't link to it in the above references.

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Reporting Reporters

We love them.

We learned about this one from the Fort Worth Weekly.  

Read about Lee Morris in the Fort Worth Weekly here. Then you'll know what's wrong with the local "news".

Once a paper loses its willingness to write the truth, poke sacred cows, and point out graft and corruption, it’s dead.

So Morris wrote a scathing column about the new owner and the new policies, predicted the “end of real journalism at the Times-Record,” changed his byline, and placed the story under a vague headline so as not to attract attention.

He managed to get the story published without his overseers catching on to his one-finger salute.

Then he resigned.

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Trinity Turnaround

Don't get too excited yet, this one is in Dallas.  Though the truth is finally coming out about the Dallas Trinity River project/toll road, the FBI has arrived in Big D, and Erin Brochovich is almost to Texas (Oklahoma) - there's still hope for Cowtown.

Read about it in the Observer.  There are some good links on the page to other articles where pushers of the project are bailing off the bandwagon. 

 After a good 14 years of Trinity toll road rah-rahing and questioning the integrity of anyone who suggested that putting a road between the Trinity River levees was a bad idea, D Magazine has apparently (and quietly) changed its mind.

D, remember, mailed out a special section before the first Trinity bond election in 1998, tantalizing readers with pictures of boats sailing on downtown lakes.

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Divided they fail

The Fort Worth Star-Telegram's recent article concerning the Fort Worth School Board was so divided it was laughable.  Leave it to the Fort Worth Weekly to turn the lights on. What happens when you turn on the lights?  They scurry, quick.  Notice WHO didn't respond for the article.  The very same ones that "failed to show up" for a recent meeting.  Failed to show up?  For something they have been elected to do? Concerning our kids?  And these are the ones the S-T claims are above board?  The same ones that sent emails attacking the others by namecalling?  Elections can't come soon enough. 

No wonder the recent speaker at City Hall pointed out the difference of the "news" papers to Mayor Price.

Betsy Price ran this week’s city council meetings in the same manner she handles herself — she was pleasant, efficient, and confident. She remained calm after a resident took his turn to speak, lectured the council on how to vote, and told them not to believe anything in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram while urging them to take Fort Worth Weekly stories to the bank. Price smiled and joked with the guy about using her big gavel to keep the council in line. Former Mayor Mike Moncrief would have smiled in that situation too — but only after saying, “Release the dogs” and watching a pack of Dobermans maul the dissenter.

Back to the school board, be sure and read the article, otherwise, YOU don't know what you're missing.

After Johnson’s resignation, Vasquez, Sims, Sutherland, and Rangel asked board president Ray Dickerson to call a special meeting to name an interim superintendent; Dansby’s name had already been raised as the likeliest candidate. He had strong support from the local educational employees union and from a coalition of activists and ministers representing the city’s minority communities.

Needham, Norm Robbins, Christene Moss, and Jackson — all failed to show up. With no quorum, the meeting was cancelled even though the auditorium was full of Dansby supporters. A week later, on June 7, Dickerson called another special meeting, and Dansby was appointed.

Since May 2010, the daily has written 30 editorials implying dirty dealings and collusion by Sutherland, Rangel, and Vasquez, in particular in the awarding of a lucrative tax collection contract to the Austin-based law firm of Linebarger, Goggan, Blair & Sampson rather than to the local joint venture of Perdue, Brackett, Flores, Utt and Burns. Perdue had the contract for 17 years but lost it after the election of Sutherland and Jackson, both of whom voted with Rangel and Vasquez to hire Linebarger. Sims and Needham voted for Linebarger as well but faced no criticism from the daily paper.

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"Inaccurate and Misleading"

No we're not referring to our politicians or local "news". 

Seconds after the back to back real newspaper articles (New York Times) concerning natural gas drilling might just be the Ponzi scheme many have warned about for years, the drillers started their spin.  Yeah, no one saw that coming.

Gas drilling companies called the information (which came from industry insider emails) "inaccurate and misleading".  Isn't that what the Times articles said about their propaganda, just in a more professional way?

As usual, local "news" jumped on the spin wagon. 

Here's a copy of what a local concerned citizen sent to the local paper.  Since you won't see the letter in the paper, we'll share it here.  Think they'll get a response?

You might tell your friends in the business that people are wary of propaganda pieces like this one masquerading as news. If Aubrey wants to put forward something that people will not consider to be "inaccurate and misleading" hype from the business end of the industry, then they need to get their most credible geophysicist and petroleum engineer to write a piece explaining how refracking can be made to work sufficiently well to keep these wells productive for 30-50 years. Oh, and the article needs to be signed and stamped with a Professional Engineer's seal so that his career is on the line. Also please stop putting out the hype about there being no chance of raw gas invading the aquifers because the fracking is done 7000-8000 feet below the surface and an aquifer is typically only a few hundred feet deep.

That dog won't hunt any longer. Look at any flagstone patio or sidewalk. You've never seen one without cracks. That's what happens in the wellbore at the interfaces between the cement and the casing and between the cement and the rock wall. There's the conduit for transporting the raw gas up the wellbore to the aquifer.

I'd be ashamed to be writing propaganda for CHK. If you want to do that then go to work for them. Hey, they'd even pay you more than the S-T does.

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MHMR Client calls 911

From MHMR lobby.  WHY didn't you see it on the "news"?  Good question.  ASK them.

You can see it on the Paradise Center Scandal blog.

Be sure and read the comments.  It tells you who the elected officials are that should be paying attention.  ASK them WHY they aren't.

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Up on the Hill

For days now Durango has been scoping out the pre-drilling activities taking place near what's known as Broadcast Hill on the Tandy Hills of Fort Worth.

Now the council has voted unanimously to give an existing Fort Worth business a tax abatement to move to another location in Fort Worth.  Read about it in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.  You have to read it to believe it.

So Channel 5 moves their station, Fort Worth keeps the land and mineral rights, and gives NBC 5 a tax abatement.  Yet we can't find the money to help companies who have spent decades creating business, jobs and revenue in Fort Worth?  Or to keep Arlington Heights from flooding?  Or to fix any roads?  Or to have adequate emergency services north of the loop?

Scarth and other council members pledged that the neighborhood will fully vet the land use.

Didn't they pledge Riverside Park wouldn't be flooded if the neighbors didn't want to as well?  What happened to that pledge?  Wasn't Scarth the councilman with some conflict of interest issues?  See why YOU should vote?

Something smells fishy.  It ain't just the Trinity River.

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Different City, Same Story

What's the difference in Dallas and Fort Worth?  Not much, except Dallas is ahead of the game.

In both cities, it all comes down to the river, the money, the politicians and the "news". 

Yesterday we told you what the Dallas Morning News did.

Read what the Observer had to say about the Trinity River Boondoggle, Dallas edition.

For 14 years the Morning News has been a principal proponent of the Trinity River Project, a highway-building and real estate redevelopment scheme along the river in downtown and southern Dallas. In the meantime the Morning News editorial page has been especially muscular about calling for certain types of businesses to be thrown off land that they own and occupy near the river, by any means possible.

Wake up, Fort Worth, before you're sold down the river.

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Trinity River Shocker!

A newspaper admits they were misled by politicians and in return misled voters.

Shocked? 

Well, don't be, because this paper that manned up and admitted it is in Dallas, not Fort Worth.

Same Trinity River, different story.

Read what the Advocate had to say about it here.

Kudos, Dallas Morning News, better late than never.  Hear that, Fort Worth? 

If the "news" becomes just a "pimp" for the politicians, what does that make YOU? ASK your local media.

...the incident will “shake some people’s confidence in city government. And the next time elected officials say, ‘Trust us,’ voters may not.”

In fact, the newspaper was pimping the Tollway just as much as the supposed city “leaders” were, and that’s the main reason Leppert and others were able to get away with misleading voters — it wasn’t in the DMN‘s interest to find the real facts related to the Tollway because the paper had already come down hard in favor of the project, and against opponent Angela Hunt, so many times and so stridently.

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Fort Worth gets Flood control

Finally!  A wakeboard park.

We did notice the "news" left out the words "flood control" following Trinity River Vision, that may be a first. 

"It introduces people to the river that otherwise would never jump in," Granger said.

People aren't jumping in for a reason. 

Read about it in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.  You can't make this stuff up.

Meanwhile, on Rush Creek in Arlington 50 houses and 100 condos are being demolished due to repeated flooding.  Maybe they should get a wakeboard park too.

Flooding in the Shady Valley area has worsened over the decades as development has occurred along Rush Creek.

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Guess that answers that...

There must not be a real reporter in the whole damn country. The video is just an example of the problem with the "news". 

If there ain't any, they'll make some.  If there is some, they'll change it.

Notice what the very last word you see in the video is. WHEN are you going to wake up and protect YOUR kids? No one is going to do it for you.  WHAT are you going to say when they ask WHY you didn't?

If the "news" can sell you crap like this, what are the politicians, water districts, and gas drillers selling YOU? 

OUT.

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Ditto

A recent Letter to the Editor in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram speaks for itself...

Political neutrality

I don't agree with the Star-Telegram's practice of recommending political candidates. The idea of media endorsements is a holdover from when newspapers were affiliated with political parties.

In my opinion, this is a chink in what should be an impenetrable armor of objectivity.

Your role in the political process is to fairly present the candidates to potential voters.

Voters should be swayed by the candidates, not by those whose credibility requires neutrality.

As the 2008 presidential primaries were heating up, Time magazine Managing Editor Rick Stengel raised the same issue: "How can a newspaper be objective on the front page when it endorses a candidate on the editorial page? [Readers are] dubious about whether the reporter who covers Hillary Clinton can be objective if his newspaper has endorsed Barack Obama -- and vice versa. And they're right."

I agree.

-- Tim Tune, Fort Worth

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We hear you Argyle!

Kudos to Save Argyle Texas!

More citizens sharing information.  It's contagious.  Try it today!

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