Category Archives: News

Walmart Caskets: Save Money, Sleep Well

By Robert Doyal | Published: October 30, 2009
From the cradle to the grave, Walmart wants to help you save money and sleep well. Consumers can now pick up more than just a baby bed from Walmart.com. Walmart, the world’s largest retailer, has entered the funeral business by adding caskets and urns to its online inventory. Caskets are priced from $895 for the Lady de [...]
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A Flicker at Flickr

By Robert Doyal | Published: October 20, 2009
This morning the popular online photo sharing and management site Flickr.com experienced an unexpected disruption in service. A pesky bug is to blame for the two and a half hour outage. According to Flickr, a change was deployed earlier this morning, which introduced a bug causing their Web servers and API to become overwhelmed. Photos being [...]
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New Generation of State Employees

By Robert Doyal | Published: October 9, 2008
The following article appeared in the September 2008 issue of “Fiscal Notes,” a monthly publication and by-product of the Texas Comptroller’s constitutional responsibilities to monitor the state’s economy and to estimate state government revenues. Clint Shields, Fiscal Notes staff writer, interviewed me in July about my beginnings in state government. The article includes how I first [...]
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Yikes! It's Ike! – Hurricane Ike Update

By Robert Doyal | Published: September 13, 2008
At 2 a.m., Hurricane Ike was located 10 miles southeast of Galveston and 60 miles southeast of Port Arthur, Texas. Ike officially made landfall in Galveston, Texas at 2:10 a.m. CDT. as a Category 2 on the Saffir-Simpson Scale with winds around 110 mph. A wind advisory is effect for Austin, Texas until 7 p.m. and [...]
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Hurricane Ike (6 p.m.)

By Robert Doyal | Published: September 12, 2008
As of 6 p.m. CDT, the National Hurricane Center had the center of Hurricane Ike located 100 miles southeast of Galveston and about 105 miles south of Beaumont. Maximum sustained wind gusts have increased to 110 mph and the center has been better organized. These increasing the chances for the hurricane to be upgraded to [...]
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Hurricane Ike (7 a.m.)

By Robert Doyal | Published: September 12, 2008
As of 7 a.m. CDT, the National Hurricane Center had the center of Hurricane Ike located 365 miles east of Corpus Christi and about 230 miles southeast of Galveston. Ike is moving west/northwest at about 13 mph with a turn toward the northwest expected later today. On Saturday, a turn to the north is expected Maximum [...]
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Patriot Day, 2008

By Robert Doyal | Published: September 10, 2008
A Proclamation by the President of the United States of America September 11, 2001, was etched into America’s memory when 19 terrorists attacked us with barbarity unequaled in our history. On Patriot Day, we cherish the memory of the thousands of innocent victims lost, extend our thoughts and prayers to their families, and honor the heroic [...]
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