WOW! Quite a day to celebrate Texas Independence.First some great news, Texas has topped a list of U.S. states with the most new and expanded corporate facilities, with 424 new or expanded corporate projects, yielding a 50% project increase over the state's second-place finish last year to Ohio. The Governor, "Slick Rick" claims to have worked diligently in recent years to make Texas pro-business which is why Texas ranks as high as it does on matters of interest to site selectors, according to Mark Arend, editor in chief of Site Selection. Hopefully this influx of businesses will bring some money into our school systems through more employees and property taxes. The Houston-Sugarland-Baytown metro area ranked second among areas with populations over 1 million with 152 projects, placing second to Chicago with 184 projects. All of this data, with the exception of calling Governor Perry, "slick rick", I read about in the Houston Business Journal but was tracked down by Conway's Data Inc.'s new plant database and in the official publication of the Industrial Asset Managerial Council, this does not include retail and government projects, schools or hospitals.
Interesting article of the day #2, comes from Michael Berry's facebook page. Congressional Bosses from Hell: Sheila Jackson Lee. Michael posted a link to the Daily Caller. Apparently SJL as I will call her going forward, likes to call her employees "you stupid MF'er" and not just once, but constantly reported one of her staffers. There are several stories about SJL in this article, and i recommend it for a full hour of laughing, and perhaps impersonating her in your own office, just make sure the people know that you are impersonating her and not truly calling them a stupid MF'er or a stupid idiot, moron and foolish girl. http://dailycaller.com/2011/03/02/congressional-bosses-from-hell-sheila-jackson-lee/print/
Stress and long hours must be expected when working in a Congressional Office, but the screaming and swearing in the office, in the car, eating, or at events is probably a little much. The stories about her drivers are hilarious, reminds me of going places with my sister, the being late part, not necessarily the mean yelling and screaming part. One woman who interviewed for a job in SJL's office, arrived at 5:00 pm and waited for hours, sat there from 5pm-10:30 pm. SJL actually went out to dinner while she was waiting for an interview. The woman got a call from a staffer at 11:15 asking her to come back as SJL was finally ready. She also made the secretary of transportation wait for an hour and a half before he left, he was there to discuss funding for Houston, of course, the story goes that SJL was waiting for her chance to appear in front of the C-SPAN cameras on the House floor.
This is a great article, she refers to herself as a "Queen", throws cell-phones at people, staffers have to miss Christmas Eve mass and of course the story of watching a camera pointed at Mars, asking to see the American Flag that Neil Armstrong planted on the surface... ummm, "Queen SJL" that was the moon, not Mars. Her reported outburst regarding a Pepsi commercial during a Super Bowl game, preventing Rush Limbaugh from becoming an NFL owner, more Hurricane names with African American sounding names, the fun just doesn't stop with SJL. Thank you Michael Berry, for sending this along.
The last interesting piece of Texas information comes from an updated model many insurance companies use to measure the risk of hurricane damage could mean higher rates for those with property far from the coast. This article was in today's Houston Chronicle, but Purva Patel. Reporting that Risk management Solutions expects to see the window risk for hurricane-prone states, including Texas, increase. In Houston, there are already so few companies that will write homeowners insurance, this is just going to make it more difficult for Houston homeowners to get insurance on their homes, not just the homes near the coast, but inner city Houston. Ike did show that damages can occur hundreds of miles inland at lower wind speeds, but we are already paying these increased costs for the recent damages that were mostly caused by wind, the insurance companies have already made these increases, to increase again due to wind research is going to be problematic in the coastal area.
