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Texas Jeff

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  1. What if "It's fun to stay at the Y.M.C.A." was simply foreshadowing?
  2. "I'm sorry Cory, the camera wasn't rolling ... could you go back and take it from the top? .... April Fools! .... ha ha ha we totally got you ... look at his face!"
  3. You are correct. If I were on the other side of the negotiating table I would do absolutely nothing. Accept the tariff and plan to sell a few fewer cars in the US. Watch Trump sweat as prices rise and people complain. Don't be the first to blink. Eventually Trump would cave to the domestic pressure to get rid of the tariffs. Americans like cheap stuff, new stuff, and stuff you can drive around. We're not taking the bus.
  4. *Only* female mayor. I think Austin has elected one Hispanic (Gus Garcia) and zero Black mayors. Austin, always a town for everybody.
  5. My theory: Waltz invited random cabinet members to the chat that he thought needed to be there. Some folks invite twenty people to a meeting when four would do. He thought, ok, this might be trade related so why not invite Jamieson Greer, who is the US Trade Representative in Trump's cabinet. So he invited "JG" to the chat, who was not JG the cabinet member but JG the editor of The Atlantic. Whoops.
  6. Bonds do not have a recapture component, unless there is some weird effect I've not heard about. Districts plan for bond packages, decide what they want to fund and how much they can afford to borrow, and if the voters approve then they start borrowing and building. The money stays in the district. There are two components of school property taxes: * Maintenance and Operation (M&O) -- this is the money that pays people and it is subject to recapture * Interest and Sinking (I&S) -- this is the money collected to pay off bonds issued by the district and it is not subject to recapture. I think the I&S portion is limited to 50 cents of property tax. Austin ISD is at 12.3 cents. Keller is at 33 cents. The M&O portion consists of a "regular" tax portion, plus optional golden pennies, plus optional copper pennies. The regular portion and the copper pennies are subject to recapture. The golden pennies are not. The maximum number of golden and copper pennies is set by the state.
  7. The four elementary schools being replaced were built in 1975, 1980, 1985 and 1987. Not young but not old. Austin's Bowie HS was built in 1987 and the current Austin High was built in 1975, about the same time span. Austin ISD, by comparison, is just now replacing Travis High School, which was built in 1952, leaving rodent-rich McCallum, also class of '52, as the oldest high school building in town. As part of that 2019 bond, Keller ISD built four indoor air-conditioned football practice facilities, one at each high school, for a cost of $48 million. By today's standards that is actually a pretty good price for that kind of building. I've been paying attention to the Austin ISD bonds since they started with the big bonds in 2017. Old elementary schools get completely replaced. At the middle and especially at the high school level, there is a lot of focus on improving athletic facilities and not as much focus on academic areas. This is not exclusive to Austin ISD, there is an athletics arms war going on all around the state.
  8. Trump gave Staubach the Medal of Freedom in 2018, along with Elvis Presley, Babe Ruth, Orrin Hatch, Alan Page and Antonin Scalia at the same ceremony. Miriam Adelson got it for donating $30 million to Trump's 2016 campaign, which seems like chump change by today's standards.
  9. A little more info on the Waymo accidents: https://www.damfirm.com/waymo-accident-statistics.html Waymo has indeed been in about 700 accidents from 2021-24, but 632 of the 700 accidents involved no injuries. Waymo was not at fault in many of these accidents. Only three involved serious injuries and there has been one fatality: * One in SF involved a Waymo stopped at light. Another car crossed a double yellow light and crashed into a SUV, which hit the stopped Waymo * One in LA involved a Waymo following a box truck. The Waymo had a driver. The Waymo was hit from behind by another passenger car. That car may have been changing lanes. * One in SF involved a Waymo stopped at a light, that proceeded into the intersection on green. A cross-traffic car ran the red light and crashed into the Waymo and another car. The red light car hit a total of two cars plus pedestrians. The fatality involved a Tesla in SF traveling at a reported 98 MPH that hit a Waymo, plus other vehicles. Everyone but the Tesla was stopped at an intersection. The Waymo was unoccupied at the time. The person killed was in a Lexus that was hit by the Tesla. The Tesla had a human driver at the time. Eventually self-driving cars are going to be much, much safer than humans, either Tesla or Waymo or whatever. We may already be there. Crashes and injuries and fatalities are going to go way, way down. DWI is going to go hopefully to zero. It can't get here fast enough, IMHO.
  10. Yes Waymo is more advanced. If you ask for an Uber in central Austin and you don't need to go on a highway, there is a chance you will get a Waymo as your driver. I used to think there would be two major driverless car companies five years from now, Waymo and Tesla. I now think it will be Waymo and someone to be named later.
  11. Here's a president hauling ass in an electric F-150:
  12. Tesla makes golf carts?
  13. The list also had the Austin IRS complex on South IH-35 on it.
  14. Anyone else have the Governor of Maine as one of the first gutsy enough to stand up to a bully? Trump called her out face to face and tried to get her to comply with his Title IX orders regarding transgender participation in sports and she pushed back and said no way, see you in court. Later that day she released a statement: “I have spent my career – as a District Attorney, as Attorney General, and now as Governor – standing up for the rule of law in Maine and America. To me, that is fundamentally what is at stake here: the rule of law in our country. “No President – Republican or Democrat – can withhold Federal funding authorized and appropriated by Congress and paid for by Maine taxpayers in an attempt to coerce someone into compliance with his will. It is a violation of our Constitution and of our laws, which I took an oath to uphold. “Maine may be one of the first states to undergo an investigation by his Administration, but we won’t be the last. Today, the President of the United States has targeted one particular group on one particular issue which Maine law has addressed. But you must ask yourself: who and what will he target next, and what will he do? Will it be you? Will it be because of your race or your religion? Will it be because you look different or think differently? Where does it end? In America, the President is neither a King nor a dictator, as much as this one tries to act like it – and it is the rule of law that prevents him from being so. “I imagine that the outcome of this politically directed investigation is all but predetermined. My Administration will begin work with the Attorney General to defend the interests of Maine people in the court of law. But do not be misled: this is not just about who can compete on the athletic field, this is about whether a President can force compliance with his will, without regard for the rule of law that governs our nation. I believe he cannot.”
  15. My prediction if this happens: Congress will pass legislation authorizing a one-time payment to taxpaying Americans as an "advance" on DOGE savings. Everyone will get a check in the mail signed by Donald Trump for $500 or so with a letter saying "here is an advance payment for your portion of the savings, enjoy!!!" And they will claw it back on everyone's tax return so that the overall effect is that everyone nets about $10. A check in the fall presented with much bravado followed by a reduced refund in the spring when no one wants to do the math.
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