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Eastwood

Certifiably Surly
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Everything posted by Eastwood

  1. It is all family with me. I blocked friends who are deep into it. This actually started a decade ago. Forwards from grandpa. Lots of easily refutable information. I even had a compassionate sit down with him to explain exactly what he was forwarding. I showed him that the House Bill referenced in one of his emails was not about confiscating guns, but was a bill affecting nurses. I did this with several emails, picking apart all of the patently false information. I carefully explained to him that these emails are created by people who know the information is false in order to dupe trusting souls into buying their products and agenda. He nodded along like he understood. Two days later I got 5 more forwards from him. About once a month, I will get a text or phone call from my mom. She'll start with a soft opening then dive in once she feels comfortable. She's more blunt over text. For example, she sent a simple "Have you seen this, yet?" with a link to the Plandemic video. I do a quick Google search, see the doctor that is the centerpiece to all this. "Mom, this doctor is an anti-vaxxer." Her response: "She's not against all vaccines. She spoke out against the big medical companies about what they put in them and they had her arrested." Fuck's sake. Happening this way to a lot of my friends, too. My friends and I actually had a long conversation about it last week. Our parents have become everything they taught us not to be: gullible, lacking sympathy or empathy, cruel in thought, bigoted... Turns out TV and Facebook really do rot your brain. It's a positive feedback loop for them. It's an addiction. It's a shame that my final memories of them might be from this period of time.
  2. I know I've repeated it ad naseum on here, but please wait until the 19th. The 13th was an extension by Abbott that is under attack in the courts. Until it is a 100% settled matter, please plan on voting during the early voting period starting on the 19th. My concern is that the courts will find the extension illegal, thereby invalidating any votes cast between the 13th and the 19th. If you are able through your circumstances, I would wait until the 19th or later.
  3. They'll just revert a lot quicker to "just asking questions" to end the conversation. It's been a fairly consistent formula. Step 1: plan on bringing up a topic out of the blue to someone that they clearly have been reading about the past day. They have all these talking points to bum rush someone with and that someone doesn't have actual facts on hand because they didn't know that friend/family member/coworker was going to be doing this today. Step 2: simple logic would usually be enough of a rebuttal, but whatever they read or listened to already addressed the easy logical counterarguments and prepared them with a rebuttal to memorize. Step 3: their victim is now irritated enough to go to a credible source to try to shut the conversation down so everyone can move on with their day. However, that source is "fake news" and not a credible source to them, even though it could even be a .gov website or the NIH or CDC, etc. Step 4: their victim now pulls 5 to 10 more sources saying the same thing and asks the aggressor for their sources. Surprise, it's only one source and it's some far right or worse propaganda machine, it's their only source, and when you ask them for more... Step 5: "I'm just asking questions." That's their parachute for when the jump out of a conversation. They are all out of the arguments and rebuttals that were prepared for them by their source. They did none of the leg work themselves, their education doesn't go much farther beyond that, and once that supply is exhausted they have to end the conversation as soon as possible to preserve what little false sense of superiority they feel they have left. Someone acting in good faith would actually visit some of the opposing sources to see if maybe they were in the wrong there, but instead they run back to the propaganda playbook to see where they went wrong and move on to the next opponent. I do this dance about once a month with my mom and have recognized this pattern with friends who are also dealing with loved ones and friends who are deep in it. I don't think it will go away, but the source material will be less. I think we are still in for a tumultuous year 1 of Biden's presidency. What happened over the last 4 years isn't going away on 01/20/2021. It's going to have to burn itself out and there is going to be some lashing out, unfortunately. I think it will go the opposite of NO POLITICS for at least a year. Think of the screaming woman at the inauguration that was memed. We're going to get a lot of that in 2021 from the other side.
  4. Worse. Trump is Wonka himself. Whips the world into an unhealthy consumerism frenzy that caused mobs in the streets. The select few that are chosen by pure fate are then subjected to a quick horror show, followed by each person meeting a horrible end that exemplifies their worst qualities. He then leaves the horror show to be inherited by the sole survivor who was originally going to assist in Wonka's destruction but in the end had a change of heart because Wonka was able to use the deaths, that he caused by the way, as evidence of how people are awful and that Charlie should continue his evil works as Wonka retires without consequence.
  5. You know what's fitting about this meme? Most of the people who applauded Willy Wonka after this either died or lost a loved one.
  6. Don't be fatuous, Jeffery.
  7. Our Bar analytics showed that 100% of those who completed 80% or more of their Bar prep program, regardless of program (Barbri, Themis, etc.) passed and 100% of those who completed 20% or less failed. The average amount of studying per day over a 10 week period for those who passed was around 8 hours per day. Those who failed, around 6.7 hours per day. The margin was surprisingly small. However, that portion of the survey required people to be honest. I'm sure there was some lying about how much those who failed actually studied.
  8. The transition to the UBE was announced during my 2L year and my school began advising people to focus on UBE classes and leave Texas specific classes as electives. They don't even require Texas Civ Pro anymore, just highly recommend it. I took it before the announcement, but I'm glad I did because Texas Civ Pro can be kind of wild, at times.
  9. https://www.ncbex.org/exams/ube/ Texas is joining the majority of states that use the UBE. The quick and short of it is that each state has its own pass threshold. A Texas JD taking the UBE can apply for admission to a UBE state's Bar if they pass that state's minimum score threshold.
  10. This year's bar exam process, country wide, has been a disaster. I have a friend sitting for this one, as well. People generally want to peak in their studying in July before taking the exam and that timing has been thrown off by a mile. Also, this will be the last Texas bar exam given because the switch to the UBE happens in February. This led to some feeling immense pressure to go ahead and take this one anyway instead of delaying until February since their study material would have to change a good bit. Good luck to your son. I'll be sitting for it next July and I'm simultaneously looking forward to it/dreading it.
  11. Certain companies are more than happy to do the bare minimum of contact and then force pool if they don't get something signed. Don't like it? Sue.
  12. Yeah, they are probably pooling some leases out of those two units to make a new unit that is in a different formation. It's been a long time since I was involved in Karnes, but Marathon at one time was tinkering with formations as deep as the Pearsall, which is very deep. I don't think they ever got anything really going that deep, though. Shoot me a PM and I'll see what the permit situation looks like in that area when I get some free time. If anything is concerning you, though, I'd give them a call. There are so many variables in these situations that I wouldn't be able to give you a 100% answer.
  13. Might be hitting a different formation in a field using Leases that are held by production. If you have older leases that don't have Pugh clauses or depth severance that haven't been released, you can pool the old leases to form new units.
  14. Yeah, but he also might tweet "I spoke to Big Ben last night. Great guy. Biggest Ben you've ever seen. Best chime in the world. Never chimes at the wrong time. Amazing. Smartest clock out there. He thinks we should nuke France. INTERESTING?!"
  15. I'm no doctor, but fevers and antivirals lead to delirium at times, do they not? Maybe they took his tweeting phone while he was down and not giving it back until he's done with fever and antivirals.
  16. That was my first writing class, as well. Blue Book, how to navigate Westlaw/Lexis, and then the books in the library. I took an advanced legal writing that focused on structure and how to present your argument effectively in light of the evidence.
  17. What's crazy is that a lot of jobs you apply for in law school require you to submit a writing sample. I can't believe some of the legal writing I've come across over the years.
  18. Can't. If they don't get this next round of stimulus through before election, airlines are laying off mid 5 figures worth of people, the PPP forgiveness guidelines are still up in the air for a final determination with first payments coming due in November and December, and the market will tank when people won't be getting a second round of direct payments. House is going nowhere. Gotta get to an agreement with the White House on it and force Mitch to either vote or deny even his own constituents further relief.
  19. I wish there was some way someone could have foreseen this White House outbreak...
  20. Well, I was going to use this as a buying opportunity but nothing dropped low enough and it's already on its way back up.
  21. I think he dies within a couple of years after the presidency. Especially after red lining it for so long during this election cycle. Poor diet and no sleep on top of that, his body comes crashing down when he no longer has to keep it running and the threat of prosecution looms. That's what got Paterno, at least.
  22. I have family still stuck in Small Town, Texas. I say stuck, but they don't see it that way. They see it as home and I can't seem to get them to leave. Small towns have horrible internet, a lot of them are food deserts, housing is old and falling apart, they are at least 30 minutes to an hour from even basic chain restaurants, etc., etc. Being in a small town is really disconnecting for most people, especially people 40+ years old who don't use the internet for more than email and their Facebook echo chamber. They've been in small towns for so long and the cities have changed so much, even in the last 5 - 10 years, that merely visiting a city for a day rattles them pretty hard. They're already on edge because they keep hearing all the hyperbole about the "warzone," then they show up and have to deal with the traffic, construction, large numbers of people, and they go haywire. When my dad comes to visit his grandkids, I have to let him vent for almost an hour about how awful driving in was, how many people there were at Buccee's, and how he must have practically almost died getting here before he actually remembers why he is here in the first place. So the kids who grow up in small towns now go off to college and never come back because they've been away long enough for the nostalgia of home to wear off and the town's warts start to show through. They spend four or more years having the entire world and everything they need at their fingertips and have absolutely zero desire to return to Pearsall or Muleshoe or Ben Bolt or Nixon. The only outlier I can think of is Texas A&M. I know a good number of people who went to A&M and then went running back to their small town, whether it be to teach, work the family farming business, or take what little jobs there are in banking and county-wide IT work. I think most of us on this board can parse why that is.
  23. The ones on my Twitter feed haven't been posting, but they have been running around liking all the positive spin they can find, scrambling for someone to calm them down and tell them it wasn't as bad as their eyes and ears told them it was.
  24. Why in the world would anyone read a paper copy of a TO in this day and age? A PDF TO, especially if the attorney was super generous and bookmarked or hot linked everything, allows you to immediately find whatever you want. Is a Requirement calling to an interest or other requirement? Ctrl F the name or Requirement or click the hyperlink. Especially if it is a DOTO. This actually reminded me that last Nov. I had to contact an old wildcatter out of OK because he had a small WI in a unit I was working. Refused to deal over the phone and didn't have email. Said he would only correspond about the interest over snail mail. By the time we ever started getting any traction on it, the unit had been reshuffled in the drilling schedule. How that guy ever got anything done in a timely fashion in this day and age, I'll never know.
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