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Samson's Wig

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Everything posted by Samson's Wig

  1. Thanks for the link. It's the old density over individual rights argument. Politicians love it as it allows them to lay all blame at the feet of NIMBY homeowners. It's effective because it's largely true, but it also allows supposed progressive elected officials to get away with doing nothing. All they have to do is pass new zoning rules, but they can't seem to write anything up that isn't dripping with graft. Then when citizens fight it, they bring out the NIMBY excuse again. Rinse and repeat. However, I don't blame anybody who makes a serious investment in a residential home not wanting a giant development going in nearby with subsidized housing. Nobody likes crime, and nobody likes traffic. Adding a development like Mehra wants to do in that article will increase both. There's no way around it. His high minded talk about giving regular folks access to power in Austin is either insanely misguided or carefully considered self flagellation. Moving a poor or lower middle class family into a condo near downtown won't change a fucking thing in terms of their access to power or anything else. Mehra and those like him are no different than other developers, he's just using the feel-good play book to either assuage his own guilt or that of others. He will get paid whether it's by the government or wealthy homebuyers. Either way he's out the door with cash and it's the residents' problem to deal with the aftermath. I don't know what the solution is, ultimately, but finding a way to limit corporate investment of residential real estate, and completely ending foreign purchases of residential real estate, would go a whole lot farther than hoping corrupt elected officials and the spawn of satan (i.e. real estate developers) will magically sort things out. This quote from the article sums it up well, I think. Even people who agree that density should happen sure as hell don't want it on their block. And who can blame them? But we still have to figure out a way to get housing in this city. So the council will either have to nut up and pass zoning that actually fucking works, or maybe we say fuck it and just go full Houston. If they approve projects like this one, they should be paying off the homeowners on the block who will see major losses in home value. It's a form of imminent domain and should be treated as such. Otherwise, it's just theft of property without fair compensation.
  2. There aren't really "both sides". They're all in on it together. All we get is theater. If there is one group who has no clue how to do anything to impact the cost of housing in Austin, it's the city council. And it's all a joke anyway, with developers in bed with local government (like most cities). They won't ever do a damn thing if it slows down the money train. If we continue to elect people with connections to real estate to public office, we'll continue to get nothing but grifting pieces of shit. The outlier on this may be fitlump, which is mind-numbing. I'm sure she'll be in bed with developers soon if she's not already.
  3. Shirt tuckers. Must be aggy.
  4. Has anyone actually named their kid Chad since sometime in the late 70s? I'm sure they exist, but I don't think I've met a Chad younger than 45. Kudos to the Patagonia folks for at least trying to do something with a net benefit. Whether or not such gestures actually result in a net positive is debatable, I suppose, but it's most likely better than doing nothing at all. And yes, if you wear Patagonia it says something about you whether you like it or not. Any clothing that puts its label forward is going to send a message to others and it will almost always be negative except to other douches wearing the same brand. I've tried, over the years, to never buy clothes with visible labels. It's a pathetic thing to do in general, with extreme examples being Euro-dude wearing Gucci/Prada/whatever labels. Nonetheless, I've got a Patagonia fleece that I enjoy in Texas winters, but I'm fully aware that I look like a complete douchebag when I wear it. I just don't care. The puff jackets are like a bright shining beacon announcing the arrival of an insufferable cunt, but they work really damn well. I haven't been able to pull that trigger, but I understand why some do. They're well made.
  5. Better than being a whiny bitch, which is a common theme in threads like this one.
  6. They also called two (one questionable) PI calls to give us a shot at a TD before half. This crew isn't any good, but some Longhorn fans whine about refs way more than is justified. It's like a doctor's kid whining that the free pills he steals from his parents aren't brand name.
  7. Complaining about the refs when Bama has all the penalties takes some serious mental gymnastics.
  8. Well, we all know who the safeties coach is.
  9. Almost the exact same thing happened to me the first week of August. Was at a bar downtown and had 4-5 drinks over the course of a few hours - nothing to make even a lightweight sick. Have no memory of getting home. Wife found me on the bathroom floor unresponsive and called ambulance. All screening came back negative, BAC was nothing special, and I've come to the same conclusion that someone had to have spiked my drink. I couldn't eat for about a week, and I've never been more miserable. I was with a buddy which may have prevented someone from robbing me or whatever they were hoping to do.
  10. Austin will never get its shit together. I guess that's part of the charm, but it's not as cute as it was when the town was small.
  11. YGIFS touched on this, but a big part of the problem is that the killers and many of their victims are First Nations folks. Their own community members have come forward discussing how drugs played a role in all of this, and how drugs and alcohol are a huge problem in their community, which shouldn't be a surprise to anyone. I think these factors have left the Canadian press and the Canadian Government a bit squishy-brained in their response, as it opens up the discussion as to the underlying cause in a way that makes many Canadians squirm. Canada has been on a heavy hitting campaign for a few years now trying to formally apologize and make amends for the treatment of native people in Canada, but it has largely come in the form of window dressing (e.g. First Nations night on Hockey Night in Canada), as these things so often do. It will be interesting to see if this terrible incident leads to any meaningful action. But these underlying issues are also stymying the discussion to a degree, as no one wants to bring up the elephant in the room.
  12. When the phrase "nurse fight" comes up, this isn't what immediately comes to mind. Carry on though, please, as this has potential.
  13. I've never fully trusted anesthesiologists, even the ones who have been friends. They are near the top the list of professions with drug addiction problems for a reason. Most of the anesthesiologists I've met seem a bit "off", drugs or no. Shame on BSW for giving hospital access to someone with this guy's record, but it's not surprising.
  14. I would spend every waking moment hunting that mother fucker down once I regained consciousness. What a piece of human garbage.
  15. Seems like more of an anti-apple crusade from some here than anything else. The only people receiving unwanted shit on planes are people who actively set their phones to receive unwanted shit from other people. I don't know why anyone would do that, but the world is clearly full of dumbasses who can still somehow afford to fly (and buy iPhones). Some seem to think these idiots should be protected from themselves. I say let them eat cake dick pics.
  16. I'm fascinated by the prison logic of some folks on this thread, but perhaps you're right. I would fight a circle saw if it looked at me funny, from elementary all the way through high school, and that was 100% the best way to put an end to shenanigans like this. When the asshole kids know you'll fight no matter the situation, they tend to eventually leave you alone. but those days are behind us and aggressors hold all the cards now thanks to zero tolerance policies (which seem to not apply to this young woman for some reason). When the kids who behave are left with absolutely no way to defend themselves or take action to stop shit like this, what is left but to involve law enforcement? Snitches get stitches? That shit doesn't work in the current climate. I'm flabbergasted that her ass wasn't kicked out of school immediately, what's the point of most district's zero tolerance policies if they don't enforce them? And that's where visiting her parents might come in handy. A brief conversation with dad about whether he'd like to keep his kid at the same school or have functioning kneecaps (can't have both) might go a long way to putting an end to this.
  17. Press charges. No question. I have a son and daughter just a year behind yours in school. I'm scared to death for them regarding middle school next year. I'm even more concerned about how I would handle something like this. The True Detective clip above could easily be me when my blood is up, and fucking with my kids will do that faster than anything else. Whoever this girl is, she likely has parents who are either pieces of shit or complete absentee parents (which is the same thing). Nip that shit in the bud. Another option is for your son to scout out blind spots in the security camera system and return the favor. (Not really, but kinda, no not really...maybe.). That might ensure he's isn't fucked with again though.
  18. Where are the lists? I would love to help but finding that I'm too stupid to find the links to the wishlists.
  19. Nope. In the city limits. They aren't all over 4000 sf, but there are a ton over 3000, with 4+ bedrooms, a pool, a three car garage, etc. Not quite as McMansion feeling as the Dallas suburb vibe, but cut from a similar cloth. I think some of you think the city stops at Mopac.
  20. The west side of town is littered with houses like that for about that money.
  21. It's all perspective, but that describes what seems like the majority of suburban houses built in the last twenty years, sans perhaps the tennis court. I would have guessed $1.5M in Plano would get you a whole lot more than that house. You could easily buy that house in Austin for that price. Like all the giant ass houses in all the suburbs in Texas and beyond, she likely paid a fuckton less than that zestimate anyway. We're surrounded by homes worth over a million dollars in our neighborhood, but there wasn't one worth over $650k three years ago. Now some are selling for $1.5 or more. Esmi would blame immigrants for the huge spike in prices, but we all know it's the Illuminati shifting their portfolios to real estate after Robin Hood brought retail trading to the masses.
  22. Have you met many church people?
  23. Because youth sports has nothing to do with the kids. It's about the parents and the *community. Can't go a full season with out Friday nights, y'all! *by community I mean the large number of weirdos who don't have kids in sports but who follow high school sports for the "entertainment" value. I'll never understand how watching shitty football is entertaining for anyone not directly connected to one of the players on the field.
  24. I would have thought that hyper-closeted jocks and frat boys would be a thing of the past in the more permissive culture we now live in.
  25. I hate to admit it, but I'm pretty sure I'm the one who says and does stupid shit in our house. Outside of the occasional car accident due to the inherent dangers of driving while female, my wife has her shit together way better than I do. I think it's because she didn't go to public school in America, and I did.
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