California Spending vs Texas Spending

[Texas Jim]

The Governor of California is jogging with his dog along a nature trail.

A coyote jumps out and attacks the Governor's dog, then bites the Governor.

1. The Governor starts to intervene, but reflects upon the movie "Bambi" and then realizes he should stop because the coyote is only doing what is natural.

2. He calls animal control. Animal Control captures the coyote and bills the State $200 testing it for diseases and $500 for relocating it.

3. He calls a veterinarian. The vet collects the dead dog and bills the State $200 testing it for diseases.

4. The Governor goes to hospital and spends $3,500 getting checked for diseases from the coyote and on getting his bite wound bandaged.

5. The running trail gets shut down for 6 months while Fish & Game conducts a $100,000 survey to make sure the area is now free of dangerous animals.

6. The Governor spends $50,000 in state funds implementing a "coyote awareness program" for residents of the area.

7. The State Legislature spends $2 million to study how to better treat rabies and how to permanently eradicate the disease throughout the world.

8. The Governor's security agent is fired for not stopping the attack. The State spends $150,000 to hire and train a new agent with additional special training re: the nature of coyotes.

9. PETA protests the coyote's relocation and files a $5 million suit against the State.

TEXAS:

The Governor of Texas is jogging with his dog along a nature trail.

A Coyote jumps out and attacks his dog.

1. The Governor shoots the coyote with his State-issued pistol and keeps jogging.

The Governor has spent $0.50 on a .45 ACP hollow point cartridge.

2. The Buzzards eat the dead coyote.

And that, my friends, is why California is broke and Texas is not....

[Marika]

Oh so true!

My cousin has relatives living in Texas.

[Cadillac Jim]

Marika - your signature tag would re-enable Darwin's principle of natural selection to the motoring public. I agree in some part, that's why I don't believe in motorcycle helmet laws. Besides, when the law says that you must have a helmet to ride, the scum-bags steal your helmet.

The problem is that if a law-abiding driver is subjected to a serious accident involving an idiot, that's unfair to the law-abiding driver, who suffers emotional trauma, property damage, or even injury or death. Think the young mother with babies in car seats who is rammed in the rear by a motorcycle weaving through traffic at high speed and is killed because he wasn't wearing a helmet. This can scar the woman and perhaps her children for life. The same argument applies if the idiot is driving a Toyota Tercel through a stop sign or red light and driving in front of her or into the side of the car, or even down the block in sight of her and her children.

I was born and raised in Texas and left after college for my job. I've been back on business a number of times because I speak the language. I recall a time in the 1980's (I was already long gone, but my mother sent me clippings until she died) when the Texas Legislature was debating the on-again-off-again requirement to wear a helmet to ride. The Hells Angels rode in from California and had a parade down Congress Avenue, the main street in Austin that ends at the State Capitol, in support of no helmet requirement. The night before the vote, the President of the Hell's Angels was riding at high speed on an access road alongside IH 35 south of town when he ran onto a creek that did not have bridges for the access roads, only the Interstate itself. He was killed, primarily because he wasn't wearing a helmet.

The next morning, the Texas Legislature voted overwhelmingly that riders were NOT required to wear a helmet to ride.

I love Texas.