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Ghost of LL

Certifiably Surly
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Everything posted by Ghost of LL

  1. As if you’re not going to be asking to use my season tickets.
  2. Agree completely. They want to turn this into a resource-extraction colony of Eastern capital akin to Wyoming and West Virginia. And for my part, I’m kinda already there, mentally. Mrs.LL is from New York, and that’s where we’re retiring to. I’m a sixth-generation Texan—my family arrived here shortly after the Past Unpleasantness Between the States—but I’ve already started regarding myself as an New Yorker in waiting. I’m just here long enough to extract my share of the state’s wealth before getting the fuck out.
  3. I was just at a professional conference here in Austin. Talked to a couple of people who are retiring. Talked to a few others about their retirement plans. Talked to many others about their kids and their plans. All of them are outside Texas. i don’t think people are prepared for the serious brain drain this state is going to suffer over the next decade.
  4. October 1 on the Silver Nova? Oooooh--fancy. This . . . is really sound advice. I hadn't really thought through the difference between Japan and, say, Rome or Paris. But your thoughts mirror my own.
  5. Rhode Island was founded when the Massachusetts dickheads went full dickhead and expelled Roger Williams over his religious and political beliefs. Among other unforgivables--and the Pilgrim dickheads had a long list of things that were unforgivable--he argued that the Massachusetts Bay Charter was unlawful because the Crown had not legally purchased the land from the Native Americans. So Williams established Rhode Island, one of the founding principles of which was toleration of religious diversity. So Rhode Island was kind of a buffer zone between the Dutch of New Netherland and the Pilgrim dickheads in Massachusetts. By pedigree, the Rhode Islanders were themselves dickheads. But often they had been expelled because they either were too big of dickheads or too little. And Massachusetts wanted only those who would be just the right amount of dickheadishness. Even so, it was more closely aligned with Massachusetts than with New York in the Revolution and in subsequent interregional disputes.
  6. It actually adds some depth to the New York-Boston antipathy. The Pilgrims were dicks who got kicked out of the Netherlands because they were dicks. So they went to Massachusetts, which was right near by New Netherland. And the New Netherland Dutch didn't like those dicks any more than the Dutch in the old Netherlands. Because just like old Netherlands, New Netherland was a cosmopolitan society built on commerce. And commerce requires tolerance of things like religious diversity. So when the English conquered New Netherland, the Dutch were very "fuck that." The last thing they wanted was to be under the thumb of those Pilgrim dickheads. Because among other reasons, puritanical dickheadishness is bad for business. So the New Netherland Dutch negotiated a pretty favorable surrender by which the Dutch retain their freedoms, including freedom of religion. The Massachusetts dickheads didn't support that compromise, and have always had a different culture from New York. That Pilgrim dickheadishness made another appearance in the late 1760s, with their general freakout over the Quebec Act after the French and Indian War. The Quebec Act allowed for freedom of religion in Quebec, which is to say that the Catholics in Quebec got to stay Catholic. And the dickheads didn't like that. And the role of the Quebec Act in straining relations between Massachusetts/Boston and the Crown is understated in the lead up to the American Revolution. Boston's opposition to religious toleration, and New York's fear of falling under Boston's Pilgrim-dickhead tyrannical rule is a key reason why New York was pretty fucking Loyalist during the Revolution. And you can trace that mutual antipathy down through American history clear through to today. And fuck the Red Sox.
  7. Things can change, obvs. But this series just isn’t all that competitive.
  8. I actually didn’t have a problem with that call. It was in the crease, and Benn didn’t do much to avoid the contact.
  9. That’s the call you make in this game?
  10. So much for cross-checks being a point of emphasis.
  11. Goddamnit, we look like shit. Just sitting back passive and watching the game go by.
  12. Just incredible some of the shit that is going uncalled.
  13. The kid is looking to earn his postgame BEERRRRRRRS!
  14. I gotta tell you, I'm pretty fucking unimpressed by Jack Leiter thus far in his career.
  15. Wait--2244 (i.e., Bee Cave Road) used to extend over to Lamar?
  16. He'll almost certainly see a polling bump of 2 or 3 points because of this.
  17. That’s fair. But the water-storage issue isn’t a basis to say Lost Creek will “regret” disannexation. It’s going to be exactly the same whether the neighborhood stayed in the City or not.
  18. Pre-annexation, there was a municipal utility district that was the retail water utility. I believe it got its wholesale water from the City of Austin. When Lost Creek was annexed in 2015, the MUD was dissolved, and the retail water utility became the City of Austin. And the City of Austin is going to continue being the retail water utility post-disannexation. The problem is the size of the surface water tanks. Every neighborhood has to have surface water-storage capacity to keep pressure in the water lines. For Lost Creek, that surface storage is the tanks that are at the highest point in the neighborhood at Lost Creek Blvd and Quaker Ridge. Those storage tanks are plenty to meet demand in Lost Creek and keep pressure in the water lines. And generally speaking, they're enough to meet fire demand. But if there's a wildfire down in the Barton Creek Greenbelt that sweeps up into the neighborhood, Lost Creek is turbofucked. And that has been pointed out to the City for decades--first when it was the wholesaler and over the past decade when it was the retail provider and provider of emergency services. The City has shrugged its shoulders. The whole history is just kind of indicative of the benign neglect with which the City has treated Lost Creek, and why I scoff at jimmyjazz when he cites the wildfire risk as a reason to oppose disannexation.
  19. And the Musers had the absurd stat this morning that the head coaches of the Dallas teams in sports that have seen-game playoff series are now a collective 16-0 in Games 7. Jason Kidd is 2-0. Bruce Bochy is 6-0. Pete DeBoer is 8-0. That's incredible. I can't imagine any other city having anything similar in the history of ever.
  20. On what is your feeling based? Because I asked around for anybody to make the case against disannexation. I asked a lot. And literally nobody I talked to could even articulate any argument. As part of the City of Austin, Lost Creek has been on its own for wildfires for a long time. The neighborhood has been part of the City of Austin since 2015. And throughout that time, the area has water-storage capacity for 1.5 house fires. That's right--if there are two house fires in the area at the same time, there isn't enough capacity in those storage tanks at the corner of Lost Creek and Quaker Ridge to effectively fight both fires. That fact has been known to the City of Austin and AFD throughout the time Lost Creek has been in the City. And the wildfire danger has also been known to the City. And despite that, and even with bond issue after bond issue, do you knwo what the City has done to address that issue? Jack. Shit. Yeah, my brother--Lost Creek is quite literally on the front line of the Austin metro for wildfires. And being inside the City's corporate limits has done absolutely nothing to provide any protection.
  21. Goddamnit, these late starts suck.
  22. I’m just glad Matt Stone can go back and resume his convalescence and regain his health.
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