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Texas Jeff

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  1. Mueller (the airport) opened in 1930. My first day in town in 1983 the headline was "Austin to build new airport". In Manor. Didn't happen. Sixteen years and one giant gift of a blank slate Air Force base later, ABIA opened in 1999. Who thought that Austin might grow? Why plan for expansion? What is the point of that? DFW and ATL got it right the first time. ATL has a direct connection to Marta and signs directing people to Uber/Lyft. DFW has DART but it took a while. Austin says "shhhhhhh, if you are a horrible person who really needs unsafe non-fingerprinted ride-share, it is a half mile out in the garage but don't tell anyone."
  2. Texas - 55 UTSA - 6 Longhorn Band - 125
  3. This was at a weak moment of the debate for Harris. Harris was given a question asking about why some of her positions have changed from previous positions. Harris said she would reply to all of the points in the question but she only replied to some of them. I thought she gave a good answer tying her positions back to her values and examples of her work, but Trump had an opening to focus the discussion on Harris's changing positions. Instead, he said this: FORMER PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: She went out -- she went out in Minnesota and wanted to let criminals that killed people, that burned down Minneapolis, she went out and raised money to get them out of jail. She did things that nobody would ever think of. Now she wants to do transgender operations on illegal aliens that are in prison. This is a radical left liberal that would do this. She wants to confiscate your guns and she will never allow fracking in Pennsylvania. If she won the election, fracking in Pennsylvania will end on day one. Just to finish one thing, so important in my opinion, so, I got the oil business going like nobody has ever done before. They took, when they took over, they got rid of it, started getting rid of it, and the prices were going up the roof. They immediately let these guys go to where they were. I would have been five times, four times, five times higher because you're talking about 3 1/2 years ago. They got it up to where I was because they had no choice. Because the prices of energy were quadrupling and doubling. You saw what happened to gasoline. So, they said let's go back to Trump. But if she won the election, the day after that election, they'll go back to destroying our country and oil will be dead, fossil fuel will be dead. We'll go back to windmills and we'll go back to solar, where they need a whole desert to get some energy to come out. You ever see a solar plant? By the way, I'm a big fan of solar. But they take 400, 500 acres of desert soil-- The last portion on energy policy is an amazing word salad.
  4. These were the two fact checks I heard, both of which were insane to have to fact check them: LINSEY DAVIS: There is no state in this country where it is legal to kill a baby after it's born. DAVID MUIR: I just want to clarify here, you bring up Springfield, Ohio. And ABC News did reach out to the city manager there. He told us there have been no credible reports of specific claims of pets being harmed, injured or abused by individuals within the immigrant community. Trump's response to the second one is hilarious: FORMER PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: The people on television say my dog was taken and used for food.
  5. Somehow Trump spoke for more than five minutes more than Harris, which also happened in the Biden/Trump debate. Biden's words were so painful in the first debate it just felt like he was talking forever. In this one I wanted the mic to get back to Harris so that she could continue to slam him. Just when I thought Harris was maybe running out of gas Trump decided to try to convince us that immigrants will eat our pets. Harris needs to take the win, no more debates and just GOTV from here on out. I have never seen someone so prepared for a debate.
  6. Next up ... Polaris Dawn and the first ever commercial spacewalk ... with luck they launch at 3:38 AM.
  7. well it certainly wasn't a W
  8. Yes they took a travel band, which is maybe 60 folks or so.
  9. Starting from this, written during a time when we were a frontier nation without radios, telephones or the most powerful military in the history of the world: A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. We have made it to this, just in 2024 and this is just a sampling from this year: At least four people were killed and nine others were wounded in a shooting at Apalachee High School. A 14 year old male suspect was taken into custody. A 20 year old man opened fire on former President of the United States Donald Trump during a rally from a nearby rooftop, killing an audience member and wounding Trump and two other audience members. The shooter was killed by Secret Service personnel. A 42-year-old man from another county randomly shot nine people including two children at the Brooklands Plaza Splash Pad before driving to his home and shooting himself. Gunfire erupted during a parade at Kansas City Union Station to celebrate the Kansas City Chiefs winning Super Bowl LVIII. At least one person was killed and more than twenty others were injured. Three male suspects were detained, two of whom are juveniles and one of whom was shot. A 17-year-old male opened fire at Perry High School, killing one student and injuring seven others, including a school administrator, before committing suicide. The principal of the school, who was wounded during the incident, died from his wounds ten days later on January 14. And on and on and on. Militias everywhere it seems. Well regulated. It's all about securing our free state. Thoughts and prayers. Now is not the time.
  10. ... a well-regulated militia ...
  11. It would be interesting to know how many APD officers actually live in Austin. If you police a town you don’t call home and wouldn’t consider living in yourself, I believe you see policing as a paycheck. Austin is expensive to live in and I understand why officers may seek a home elsewhere, but it creates a disconnect that doesn’t help our city.
  12. Or they can vote at the LBJ school on campus, which is a ten minute walk east of the Union, or at the Travis County Civil Court, which is six blocks south of the Union. All are open 7-7 Mon-Sat and 12-6 on Sun during early voting. The Union location is open until 10pm on the last two days of early voting. If you want to hang out with frustrated coeds, get in line at the Union an hour before they close on Election Day.
  13. I got a jury duty notice for that courthouse which opened way back in 2023. The instructions to prospective jurors included a suggestion to park in the UT system garage. Why the hell did Travis County build a brand new family law court building without enough parking for prospective jurors? I get that there is a parking shortage around the main courthouse because it's pre-WWII but this was a brand new building.
  14. Well I get that the change might do that, but I would wait and see what they set up. It's reasonable to believe that the folks in charge might be trying to pull a fast one. However, in deep blue Travis County, it's hard to imagine that they would wish to suppress the student vote. Everyone could make voting faster by printing a sample ballot ahead of time, marking it up, and just entering your choices when you get to the booth. UT students have ample opportunity to early vote with no lines for two weeks. Lines form on election days because students are slackers who wait until the last possible minute to do something. Now, if Travis County decided to take away early voting from the UT campus I would agree that shenanigans were afoot.
  15. Yeah, it’s moving all the way to the Union next door. Squirrels could figure it out.
  16. Project Connect plans to close Guadalupe north of MLK, so maybe more of a how the heck do you go north thing…
  17. That’s just the Diet Mountain Dew talking…
  18. I would think that most people would just not sell at all and wait for a better time.
  19. This will be a tough year for Austin ISD. IMHO they have a top notch superintendent and the people implementing the bond that I have met have been fantastic. Hopefully they are up to it. In November, Austin voters will be asked to raise AISD taxes. The new tax will raise about $170 million. About $40 million will stay in the school district. The other $130 million will go to the state. Of the $170 million, about $17 million will go to teacher raises. It's a difficult decision and I think it's reasonable to vote either way on this. At the same time, the district will be considering cuts. They have a goal of cutting about $78 million over two years to get to a balanced budget. Last year they gave staff raises without new revenue to support the raises, which created a deficit budget. They were using savings to cover this deficit, but the savings fund is now down to the lowest amount they must keep. They have to get back to a balanced budget. They are going to start working through cuts this fall, which may include school closures and cutting programs. Trustees don't get elected to cut stuff, and many on the current board were elected on the heels of the last effort to close underutilized schools. The community is going to pressure the trustees to cut someone else's program or school. All of this is occurring with the school district under a state monitor for special education issues, which has the board under state guardrails for how they can behave.
  20. He and the lege control it. The state sets a value of wealth per child for each district. It can be anything they want it to be. School property tax on wealth above that value is "recaptured", i.e. sent to the state. School districts have some other options other than doing this, things like merging with another poorer district, but most choose to write a check. Lower the wealth per child or lower property tax rates and "recapture" goes down, meaning the amount sent to the state from the local property tax payer. The state sets the amount of money a school receives per child. It can be anything they want it to be. If the school district does not raise enough money to cover that amount, the state covers the rest. In theory this comes from the "recapture" fund, but in reality the state just cuts them a check. Raise the amount of money a school receives per child and school funding goes up. Lower it and it goes down. Keep it it same during times of high inflation (and that is what we are doing now) and school funding goes down ... inflation eats it away. Right now, these amounts are set such that the state is collecting more money than they are distributing, so the excess recapture money goes to the general fund. This general fund can be used for whatever the state wants. The lege can pass legislation to change this but they need the governor also pass it, and he's not doing that. He wants private vouchers to funnel public tax money into private schools. In 2016, some school districts sued the state saying that this was bullshit. They won. It was appealed to the Texas State Supreme Court. The court said no. The court said that things were screwed up, but everyone was at the wrong venue. The said everyone needed to work through this in the lege, don't take this to the courts. And eight years later the lege and the governor are draining public education through inflation and inaction while building up the general fund for whatever.
  21. He's two months younger than Trump.
  22. More than 10% of Trump's awards went to professional golfers.
  23. Sometimes they give the Medal of Freedom to a humble guy who's not expecting it:
  24. Hey man, taxes are going to go up until we make this place affordable ... it's simple math. When I was younger I thought that the city government really thought about this stuff and did the best they could to keep the place going. Now that I am older I am more cynical. It seems like there are thousands of groups that want to "do something" that in their worldview will improve the city, so they lobby the council, donate money to a politician, or get someone elected. They use this influence to fund their pet projects. This times a thousand causes budget bloat, and here we are. Each taxing authority says "we are just raising our rate a tiny bit, it's only a small increase when you look at your overall tax burden" or presents the tax rate increase as the increase, ignoring the idea that property tax valuations are also increasing faster than inflation, and your tax bill is your tax rate times your valuation.
  25. Bob Beamon will be 81 in 2028. Still holds the Olympic record in the long jump set in 1968 and his jump is still the 2nd all time unassisted by wind. He jumped almost two feet past the world record. Imagine taking off at the 10 yd line and landing close enough to the goal line to grab the pylon as you come in for a landing.
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