Englebert

I'm surprised by that myself. In fact, I'm surprised this is not a hot topic. I'm guessing that maybe many people are torn between the thought of giving up their freedom in return for safety. I personally am not prepared to let the government deprive me and all fellow Americans of our privacy because they can't retrieve data from one phone. And I sure don't want the government thinking they can order me or anyone else to perform work for them.

I'm surprised more people are not extremely worried about what this judge has ordered Apple to do. (Maybe many of y'all are and just haven't responded.) This judge has ordered a private company to create a product for the federal government. Since when can the federal government force a private company to perform work for them. And as far as I know, the government does not have to compensate Apple for their work. And what's really appalling, not only is the judge ordering Apple to create a product for the government, for free, he/she is ordering Apple to create a product that is detrimental to the integrity of one of their own products. I'm all for national security, but I'll be damned if it means throwing the constitution out of the window. I've heard today a few people saying that the FBI should send the phone to Apple and let Apple crack the phone to retrieve the data. This would still be detrimental to the integrity of the iPhone 6 and all future products. As of now, no code exists to decrypt the phone. Once the code is written, it proves it can be done and the code exists. This opens Apple to hack attacks and bribery attempts. Everyone will know that the code exists, and even if Apple destroys the code, someone or some people have the knowledge to hack the iOS. And every (potential) consumer knows that the decryption code exists.

I'm not going to bother posting a link because this is all over the news right now, a Bing search can get you the info.. In short, Apple is "defying" a court order to create code that will decrypt the data stored on an iPhone owned by one of the San Bernadino terrorists. I've never been an Apple fan. I learned about them illegally tracking and storing customer data a long time ago (I'm guessing 7 or 8 years ago). They paid a substantial fine (multi multi million dollar fine but not near enough in my opinion) and then changed their user agreement to state that they will still track and store your data. I've boycotted them and in fact have hated Apple ever since. So now that you know my feelings of Apple, IMO the judge in this case needs to be disbarred immediately and should never hear another case in his/her life. Specifically, how in the hell is Apple responsible for retrieving a customer's personal data. Apple doesn't own the data. Apple created a tool that encrypts the data for which Apple has no decryption tool. What is illegal about that? How is Apple liable for the data? And if Apple complies they potentially compromise the very thing they marketed the iPhone 6 on. In fact, I am seriously considering breaking my boycott of Apple for this one feature alone. If Apple complies, I will no longer consider their product. I hate using analogies on blogs, but this analogy fits. Let's say I am a safe manufacturer, and I build a safe and market it as the combination being totally user controlled...that is the user buys the safe then creates their own combination. I have no way of using any method of opening that safe after the user purchases the safe. The customer buys the safe, creates his/her combination and later dies. The subsequent inheritors cannot find the user created combination. So they sue me and the judge says I have to create a back door way of getting into the safe. This is total bull! Another thing in this argument that has me livid. I've heard quite a few pundits today saying Apple is "Un-American" for not creating this decryption code and that by not complying it puts America in danger. I think that if this country's existence and safety is solely dependent on data from one iPhone, maybe we shouldn't be a country anymore. That argument is so over the top it makes all campaign promises sound reasonable. Maybe we should get the people that approve immigration requests to retrieve the data, because according to the Obama administration, they can determine who is a danger to America based on data that doesn't exist. If they are that good at deciphering unknown data, I'm sure cracking a cell phone shouldn't be a problem. Thoughts?

I'm sure Schumer has "evolved" since that speech.

Thanks.

I have a question on this. TVC, you can probably answer this one. Is a woman culpable in the death of an unborn child if she is the one that causes it? Instead of getting her boyfriend to stomp on her stomach, if she would have, say, dropped a sack of cement on her stomach to cause the same result, could she be prosecuted for murder? (It feels creepy just typing that scenario.)

Are you the same person as LastCall?

I was not defending the coach or the parents. I was simply replying to the "fact" that LastCall called HF coaches quicksand and to the "fact" that he said people at HF aren't the brightest. The HF coaches were cleared of criminal charges, but I think there is a UIL or TEA investigation still going on. This whole situation does sound like a bunch of whiny parents complaining about their out-of-shape kids. I guess for some this is justification to make inaccurate generalized statements about the rest of the HF community as a whole.

Three coaches that had losing records were "ran off" in the last 2 decades and you want to characterize that as coaches quicksand? Can you name any school that retains a coach for many consecutive losing seasons? Your posts seem to be long on negative generalizations and short on facts.

Apparently the former HF superintendent lied to you or you made up the story. The only fact you got right was that in 1974 HF was #1 in the state and Newton was #2. Newton was not in the same district as HF. Newton was in 17-2A and HF was in 18-2A. Newton started the year as the preseason #1 team. HF and Newton played a non-district game the second week of the season in which HF won 13-8. HF moved up in the rankings and took over the #1 ranking in Week 6. By the end of the year HF was ranked #1 and Newton had moved up to #2. Newton beat HF 14-13 in Bidistrict on their way to winning State. The following year (1975) HF made it to the Semi-Finals where they lost to eventual State Champion La Grange 20-14. Head coach Les Keonning was then hired by 4A (largest division in the state) Spring Branch Memorial as their head coach. I remember when the announcement came over the intercom in school. Everyone at school and in the communities was sad to see him go. And your statement of HF being fairly un-noticed ever since in nonsense. HF won 3 district championships under Phil Danaher. And no, Danaher was not run off. Like Koenning, he also took a higher paying job, going to Corpus Christi Calallen. During the late 80s through the 90s, HF had one of the best winning percentages of any team in the area under Claude Tarver. And no, HF did not run Tarver off. He took a higher paying job at Bridge City. After Tarver left is when the HF program started going downhill. Paul Walker had 5 subpar years. He was followed by Walt Mangum who had 3 very subpar years. Don Price left after 2 years for a higher paying job. Which brings us to Kane Harris, who has 1 winning season in 4 years. The only coaches "ran off" have had losing records. I find it very hypocritical that you say HF people aren't the brightest when you follow that with inaccurate statements.

If we can't get enough support to secede, how about we vote on kicking New Hampshire out of the Union. While we're at it, I wouldn't be opposed to kicking out all of the northeastern states, and throw out the west coast states with them.

We are now down to one. Ted Cruz is now the only presidential candidate that wants to follow the constitution. I was torn between Rand Paul and Cruz as my favorite to win. Now with Paul dropping out I'm 100% Cruz. Of all of the candidates (on both sides), these two are the only ones that want to shrink government and get back on track to the America our forefathers envisioned. Rand Paul is the only one I know standing up for the rights of all Americans not to be spied upon by Big Brother. I salute him for that and hope he has a long future in government. Ronald Reagan had the most profound statement I've ever heard. He said, "The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help.'" If you listen to all of the other candidates except for Cruz and Paul, all you hear is how they will help. The focus should be on what they can repeal. This is a sad day for me, but hopefully Cruz will be the torch bearer.

I don't understand how anybody with more than two functioning brain cells can vote for Sanders or Hillary. Both spew non-sense of spending more and more on "free" stuff. Do either of them realize that we spend $220 billion a year on interest alone. If we got rid of our debt and kept taxes the same, we would have $220 billion extra dollars a year. But yet they want to increase spending. Stupidity does not even come close to describing these clueless voters. I'm also sick of all these pundits on TV talking about how honest and sincere Bernie is. He is a stupid, moronic, verging on the brink of retardism of a man. He actually believes what he is saying. He thinks that socialism will work. That is the zenith of stupidity. I don't care how honest or sincere you are, if you are that much of a wacko you should not be allowed behind any microphone. And anybody that "honestly" believes the crap he is spewing should get a one-way ticket to Rusk, TX (if that facility is still open) or some other mental facility. I actually don't know which is worse. Bernie actually believing his own non-sense or Hillary pandering her crap. She has the nerve to keep repeating the lie that women make less money than men for equal work. That lie was debunked at least as far back as the early 90s. When years of service is introduced into the equation, the disparity between gender pay disappears completely. This has been known for years, but Hillary will look you in the eye and tell you there's a gender pay gap. When Bernie says it, he is just too stupid to even realize he's lying.

That is definitely a plus with Trump. In fact, that was a key issue for me in giving him a look. But his policy on eminent domain is a deal-breaker for me. I'm also highly skeptical of many of his other policies, and I can't stand his childish antics.

I think this is spot on. When the Trump got in the presidential race I sort of liked him, but was highly skeptical of his quick flip from liberal to conservative. I then began to like him more and more as the race went on (although he was never my first choice). But over the past few months he has shown his true colors. He is a narcissistic thin-skinned crybaby that uses sophomoric childish tactics to belittle the other candidates, just like the current one occupying the White House. I have absolutely no clue as to how he is garnering so many faithful followers. A couple of weeks ago I was talking to a group of friends that were gung-ho on Trump. I asked them if they would support a candidate that would use eminent domain to take their property to give to a private company. They all started laughing and said they would never support someone like that. None of them even knew Trump is a firm believer in this tenant. They also didn't know that in the not so long ago past that Trump supported Obamacare and single payer healthcare (many of them didn't even know what single payer healthcare means). The Democrats are known for having low information voters, but apparently there's plenty of them in the Republican party also.

When this country is at a point where it is unpatriotic to question the president or any other politician, then it's definitely time to secede!

I have no idea what you are trying to say. Are you saying the government (and private businesses) do not encourage recruitment and hiring of minorities?

Do you actually think exercising our first amendment rights is un-American? Do you think the government taking half of everyone's paycheck and is still $20,000,000,000,000 (that is trillion) in debt is American?

I know plenty of white and black people who got positions over more qualified people. This is encouraged by the government and is actually legal, as long as you don't pick the white guy.

In job hiring the best guy always gets the job. Oh wait, that's racism.

I've learned in the past not to use analogies on blogs because it is inevitable that some yahoo will misconstrue the whole thing. But I'll try one anyway. I tend to look at the federal spending as a traditional American family's spending. When one spouse wants to spend too much money, the other spouse should use everything at his/her disposal to keep the spending in check. So if the family's income is $50,000/year and the husband starts spending $100,000/year, the wife can't call herself conservative unless she uses all of the tools at her disposal to curtail the husband's spending. Stop cooking meals, stop washing his clothes, withhold sex, whatever it takes. You can argue that this could lead to more and different problems, but I would argue that the out-of-control spending is the top priority and should be dealt with immediately, regardless of the perceived consequences. And she can't call herself conservative if she takes over the checkbook then agrees to cut the spending down to $75,000/year. And if none of this works, maybe it's time for a divorce!

Why didn't the rest of the GOP call him out then. Well-intentioned conservatives would expunge these people if they were truly conservative. And yet, the majority of the conservatives have done the same thing at one time or another in their tenure. Vote with me on my crappy bill and I'll vote for your crappy bill is the mantra in Congress...regardless of party affiliation. No I'm not forgetting that half of the debt came under the democrats. I'm also not forgetting the fight was minimal at best. I'm also not forgetting that the conservatives had a few tools to use to curtail this and didn't. I'm also not forgetting that they were not shouting from the rooftops about the liberal spending. Yes, they can do more. I will give them credit for cutting some of the deficit. But a $20 trillion debt is unforgivable. It's funny, we're both on the same page but just disagree about the degree to what should have and can be done. My whole contention is that I would not call a body of politicians "Conservative" after their performance in office in the last say 20 years (probably more). Especially during Obama's first 6 years.

I do blame the Republicans for their part in letting the debt get out of hand. They could have done a lot more. Now that they have control, they still can do a lot more. Granted progress is being made, but the GOP can and should have done so much more. You act like we have a bunch of saints in Congress in which their one and only goal is to provide an efficient well-ran conservative government. That is far from the truth. And to top it off, they will not call anyone out when they see this crap. I'm surprised that you think we can accumulate a $20 trillion debt with a bunch well-intentioned conservative politicians.

I'll state it again. A conservative "true" and/or "pure" would never have let the deficit get to the way it is now. A good true pure conservative would be calling out fellow politicians that make side deals to get pork-ridden deals passed. A good true pure conservative would call out fellow politicians that try to insert pork-ridden riders to the budget, and vote no to that budget. To say that the politicians had to vote yes on the budget to keep from defaulting is a cop-out cover to the politicians, for they are the ones that let it get to that point. A true conservative would do their job and have the budget proposals and debates far ahead of crunch time. The politicians know that they can get crappy legislation passed by waiting to the last minute then giving the excuse "well we had to do it". That's not conservatism.

Public utilities are already being paid by the public. We don't need the US Government for that. The federal money for schools, highways and waterways would be stopped. But so would every Texas citizen's tax payments to the federal government. That money would go to the Texas government which could be used for these purposes. I'm sure the cost for schools will drop dramatically when the Texas government says that no government money shall go towards illegal immigrants. Social Security will be an issue because that money has already been paid to the federal government, who squandered it. I'm fairly certain that every Texan knows we will still pay taxes. Instead of our tax money going to the bloated fraud-ridden federal government, it will now be going to the Texas government. And it will be our duty as a Texas National to make sure that our new Texas National government does not follow the same path as our current federal government.