Texas vs National Government

On April 9, 2012, the Long Star Strong published an article about Texas rejecting the Obamacare and how the national government opposed to the Texas ID voting card. 26 state attorneys were against the Obama Administration on the health care law. One of them was the Texas Attorney, General Greg Abbott. For some people who have no idea of who he is, he is a former Texas Republican who challenge issues from voter ID to women’s health care. Another issue they were debating about was Planned Parenthood. Hutchinson expressed “We can’t afford to lose the Medicaid funding for low- income women.” Some Democrats view the Medicaid funding as another “frivolous lawsuits.” While Perry saw it as another attempt “To carry out the will of the people.” The intended audiences are Texans over 18, since this article is about health care, planning parenthood and Texas ID law. On the Texas ID law subject, the article talks about how in early March, the U.S. Department of justice rejected the Texas’ newly voted ID law, but Abbott fought back saying that the VRA exceeds the enumerated powers of congress and conflicts with the constitution. The author’s credibility is really good, since she shows the links of where she got the information from. The text is well organized and easy to read. Even though she doesn’t use many arguments to support the main point, which is the never ending war between National Government and Texas.

In my opinion, she didn’t do a well job describing the Obamacare. The Obamacare is not that bad after all. All this started two years ago when Obama signed the reform. One of the requirements is that everyone needs to buy health insurance so that way we will have universal coverage. The point is, that whenever people without insurance go to hospitals, they won’t end up paying crazy amounts. I will leave the link to the Long Star Strong and feel free to leave any comments about how you feel about the article.

 

Water, water , water.

On Sep. 10, 2012, The Austin American Statesman published an article about how water rules should be norm and how the lake was only 49% full. The writer is trying to pursuade adults who live in the Austin and surrounding areas.

The city started doing some water restrictions and everything was based on the lake Travis’ water level. Honestly, I don’t think a whole city should base their water restriction on how full a lake is. Austin has a once-a-week watering restriction and there are only certain hours where residents can waste that precious water. Just like the author says “Austin’s watering restrictions shouldn’t be set to tighten when lake levels drop to a certain point; instead, they should be set to loosen only when lake level rises to near-full or full”. With this, the author is very clear about the argument, if we are getting the restrictions because of the lakes water level, why we are not going back to normal if the lake is almost half-full?

The author shows a good amount of evidence. According to the writer, the stage 2 take effect when Lakes Buchanan and Travis drop to combined 900,000 acre-feet and they currently hold 882,531 acre-feet.

According to city estimates, 1200 trees on city land died last year because of drought conditions. Some landowners are opting for Drip irrigations because it’s more efficient than sprinklers and loses less water. It is reasonable that residents need to be more precautious, we need to stop wasting water because we never know how quickly the benefits of good rain can vanish. Overall, the author describes how water rules should be norm in a very organized way.