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Ghost of LL

Certifiably Surly
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Everything posted by Ghost of LL

  1. But you can’t remove politics from it. Somebody who would support causing this much suffering is not a good person. They’re great people to you. But they’re bad people. It’s something we all have to deal with. My brother-in-law is a guy whose company I enjoy. He’s been good to me. But knowing his politics and listening to what he has to say about various out groups and the joy he takes in Trump hurting them—he’s a bad person. And I very frankly don’t want to be around him.
  2. Which would suggest that the people you know are not, in fact, either smart or good.
  3. I'm not talking about Protestants broadly. I commented on "Protestants who fetishize the Ten Commandments." And that's a lot of them. But it's certainly not all. I'm fairly atheistic these days, but I grew up Catholic. And at least when I went through CCD, the Church was pretty fucking supersessionist. I assume it still is, based on my occasional readings of what the Pope has to say. So I tend to think of this weird love of the Ten Commandments among purported "Christians" as a purely Protestant phenomenon.
  4. I don't think it's even a matter of squaring that circle. It's just a fucking circle. If you look back at the original text--and any Biblical scholar worth a damn will agree with this--Yahweh isn't saying "I am the only god out there." He's saying that "you shall have no other gods before me." That necessarily implies the existence of "other gods." Now, Yahweh is a jealous fucker. He doesn't want you putting Baal or Zeus ahead of him. But he's not saying that they can't be co-equal. And he's sure as shit not saying that Baal and Zeus don't exist. So fire away and hang your Vedas and Sutras and whatever else. Just don't hang them above the Ten Commandments, I suppose. Or maybe do. Jesus told y'all fuckers that the Ten Commandments don't really matter. There are really just Two Commandments: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” I'll just never understand Protestants who absolutely fetishize the Ten Commandments in the face of Jesus's actual fucking words.
  5. AMERICA FIRST! This is every client I've ever had who said "we're just filing a quick suit for declaratory judgment." Yeah--those counterclaims are a real bitch, though.
  6. Don't worry. The Department of Homeland Security's counter-terrorism center is led by . . . hold on . . . let me check my notes . . . oh, god--a kid who was working at HEB last year.
  7. Jesus Christ--we're a fucking vassal state of Israel. I don't know how you can come to any other conclusion when listening to Donald Trump, who congratulates the Israeli military before he congratulates our own.
  8. Oh my god I’m cheering for Tucker Carlson.
  9. Well, Bibi’s coalition was about to collapse. So he had to do something to prevent that or else he’d go to prison.
  10. The EAS program is one of those DEI programs that rural Republicans don't realize is a DEI program. It's a Democratic program. It's always been supported by Democrats. The only people who oppose the EAS program are Republicans. The EAS program comes from the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978. Rural Democrats objected to airline deregulation on the basis that it was inequitable to their constituents. While people in Dallas and Houston might get the benefit of lower fares resulting from airline competition, their constituents in Beaumont and Tyler would be left without air service altogether. To assuage that concern, Congress created the EAS program. The Biden Administration increased funding to the EAS program by $1.7B. The argument was the same: we want to be fair and equitable to rural communities and include them in American prosperity. It's a complete DEI program. But equity and inclusion are now passe. Fuck-youism is now the order of the day. So sorry, Cordova and Beaumont and Tyler and Enid--you're going to lose your air service. And if that is inequitable and excludes you from being able to participate as effectively in the American economy . . . well, that's exactly what you voted for.
  11. Well shit--I am going to be downtown in my office writing a brief anyway. I might as well walk over to the Capitol for a few hours Saturday and run the very serious risk of getting shot by the SS.
  12. I think that's wrong. Just put into Google Maps "Minot AFB," "Barksdale AFB," and "Dyess AFB" and count the number of B-52 are out on the flight line of the first two and how many B-1s are on the flight line at Dyess. And to be real honest, I don't see just a whole lot in the way of hardened shelters for the aircraft at those bases. I see the hardened shelters for the weapons. But it looks like those would be driven to the flight line and loaded on to the aircraft.
  13. Yep. I'm going to be at Eventide Labor Day weekend. I plan to eat all the oysters.
  14. The two I had at Tsukiji were unreal. It's like they were the gozira of oysters. They were every bit as good as a Wellfleet (which is generally my go-to). But they took three or four bites to get through. It was just unbelievable. My general preference is PNW. But they're hard to get here in Austin. About ten years ago, I was up in Seattle with a group of guys going to a Rangers-Mariners game. That's a great park, and we were just bar-hopping from our hotel to the stadium. Along the way, we happened into a place that had Happy Hour $1 Puget Sound oysters. The first dozen went down quick. We're snacking on the second dozen when a couple of the guys said "we need to go or we're going to miss first pitch." Fuck that--I'm missing first pitch. I think I finally made it for the third inning after downing a couple dozen more.
  15. With the contract situation with the core of this team, you've got probably five years to win a Cup. That's plenty of time if you're thinking DeBoer isn't the guy. Even if it takes a year or two for the new coach to implement his system, you've got the players locked down for that. But if you think DeBoer might not be the guy, then you've got to pull that trigger now. And I have no problem with that decision.
  16. I think Israel has a right to exist as a uniquely Jewish entity. But the right to exist is different from a supposed right to expansion. And that's particularly true where it want to retain its Jewish character. If Israel is going to be both an expansionist entity, then it either needs to be a multi-ethnic country or a practitioner of ethnic clensing. I don't support the latter option. But that's the option that this Israeli government is undertaking. I don't think opposing that renders one either anti-Semitic, anti-Zionist, or anti-Israel. Is there a legal justificiation for removing someone from the country based on the actions of a family member? Can you please cite the legal authority for that proposition? Punishing family members for actions in which they did not participate is pretty anathema to our system of justice. And I'm not familiar with any circumstance in which we have done that before.
  17. So ICE has arrested the guy's entire family and is undertaking expedited deportation proceedings (they appear to be here legally). And I just don't know how I feel about that.
  18. I'm just going to tell you this: doing the kind of thing the City is proposing here is really very challenging under Texas constitutional and statutory law and could very well lead to expensive litigation. And as a lawyer, I consider that to be a very satisfactory outcome.
  19. Goddamn--that looked like a hurricane Downtown for about ten minutes there.
  20. We did a "walking safari" in the Serengeti. We didn't go really far from the lodge. I honestly don't think we were much out of sight of the lodge the entire time. But actually, that made it all the more terrifying. We walked out with a guide and one Ranger with a rifle at the front and two Rangers with rifles at the back (one of whom was kind of always walking backwards). We were told to walk single-file. Along the way, we came across a herd of buffalo, and they started to get into defensive position. That's when our guide said very calmly that we were going to change direction a little bit and to make sure you didn't look directly at the buffalo. They'll fuck you up. But the whole way, the floor of the Serengeti was covered in bones. You couldn't walk more than a couple feet without walking over a bone from a large animal. And generally, these were not peaceful deaths; buffalo don't die peacefully in their sleep in the Serengeti. And again--we're within sight of the lodge almost the entire way. It's every night--there is death and terror just steps from your very nice room at the Four Seasons. Sleep tight.
  21. Just blow up this team at this point. Start with Simien and see where we go. But this team is going nowhere as currently constituted.
  22. Particularly if you're doing South Africa, call Daisy du Plessis (https://www.rhinoafrica.com/en/about-us/meet-the-team/daisy-du-plessis/131). She worked with us on our southern Africa stint and was a lifesaver when Covid shut down South Africa. As you can probably see from my initial post, I am not a big fan of travel agents. I like doing my own research and booking my own shit directly. But in Africa, there is still a strong culture of using travel agents. Some lodges won't even let you book directly; they only deal with travel agents. That's how I came to use Daisy--I really wanted the Thorntree River Lodge in Zambia, but I couldn't book with them directly. By the way--I do strongly recommend taking a few days to see Victoria Falls. It's amazing. I was like "ok--it's just a waterfall." Yeah; no. It absolutely blew me away. But beyond the Falls, staying at Thorntree was great. You're right on the River, and you wake up to the sounds of the hippos snorting.
  23. Just a wild change in the game when we got into the third.
  24. I was in court all day and only got to see the last ten minutes. But damn that was fantastic.
  25. I just hope I live my life in a way such that when I get the news that I'm at death's door, I won't need to recant most of my prior opinions.
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