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  1. PenelopeWitherspoon

    PenelopeWitherspoon

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    Brisketexan

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    TwiceHorn

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    troph

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Popular Content

Showing content with the highest reputation on 02/17/21 in all areas

  1. I think that it’s now safe to say that we Texans now live in a failed state. 30 years of GOP rule, setting our own standard, living the “Texas Dream,” which they’ve bragged about relentlessly…and let’s see where we are: A majority of the state in complete failure, unable to deliver the most BASIC of services (things that are called “utilities,” not “luxuries,” for a reason). No power. No water. No means of clearing roads (that one, I can’t fault the state so much….but it wouldn’t be as big a crisis if people weren’t stuck in their homes with no power and water). So citizens are stuck in their homes, some of them dying there. Water resource planning? After pretending for decades that a drought would never happen again, and not doing ANYTHING to develop resources in the state water plan (a document actually developed using science and mathematical projections), we had several locations, including actual cities, down to a few days of water supply. We’ve finally gotten on our horse a bit, but it may be too late if the next drought comes anytime soon. State rank in key categories: Education – 34 Health Care - 37 Infrastructure - 33 Opportunity - 39 Environment - 44 Infrastructure - 33 In overall quality of life ranking by US News, we are now #38, down from #36 just two years ago. At that rate, we’ll be in the bottom 3 within ten years. We are SUPER independent, and FUCK the feds….but we have requested federal disaster assistance more than any other state in the past decade or so. But hey, our economy is ranked #15! That’s right, we have a “roaring economy” and the “Texas Miracle!” But we can’t deliver the basics for our citizens. The economy is VERY efficient at funneling bazillions to the very few…..with little of it “trickling down” to most Texans. Yeah, the people on this board generally do fine, but face the facts – we’re the top 10% or so. We are educated, older, and fortunate. Our federal system allows for state-by-state experiments. Texas is the poster child for near anarcho-capitalism and zero regulation or oversight. We have tested that approach, for over a generation now (30 years of Republican rule). That approach is a failure. The evidence is undeniable, and overwhelming. It doesn’t matter how many River Oaks millionaires you produce if the rest of your people are dying in their homes. Shit, some of those River Oaks millionaires might be freezing to death today, too. The kids of a middle class family can hardly afford to go to a good state school. Their prospects for employment are mediocre. Their prospects of suffering crippling medical debt at some point are significant. Their chances of not having basic utilities needed for life safety at some point – all but certain. Their chances of becoming ill or dying from a pollution-caused illness are material. What’s the result? Our leaders have sold Texas as a paradise – move here! Bring your business here! And some businesses have done so, adding opportunity…..but providing little to no tax support for the infrastructure we all depend on. To the contrary, over the past few years, I know more and more people – educated people, people who can do their jobs elsewhere, who are looking to bail on this state. It’s people with young kids, who want them to grow up in a better place. It’s people in their working years, who simply want a better path. It’s retirees, who want a safe and secure place to live. We have consumed our seed stock. We have burned through our reserves. We are now consuming ourselves. The ability to pitch Texas as the land of opportunity is done. Seeing what we have become, the tentative thought/plan my wife and I had of wrapping up our careers here and then getting the hell out of Dodge is becoming much more concrete. My children are already unlikely to make their future in this state. Now we are, too. But the response from the Republican leadership and their sycophants – “how are you gonna pay for it? Taxes? That’s socialism! You want that stuff, you have to pay for it!” Fuck yes I do, and I’m okay with that. I want groceries…so I have to pay HEB. I want a car…so I have to pay Ford. I want clothes…..so I have to pay Dillards. I want my population educated….so I have to pay the school district. I want electricity, with enough capacity to keep us running when we need it…..so I have to pay my bill, maybe with a capacity surcharge. I want water to come out of the taps….so I have to pay for development of resources and maintenance of infrastructure. I want roads….so I pay taxes to build and maintain them. YES, I have to pay for all of those things, and “nothing is free” – no fucking shit. So, let’s pay for it. We have the #15 economy….we HAVE the funds in this state. An economy with the flow of funds that ours has can produce and maintain all of those results. But we have chosen a different path; funnel all the dollars to the top, and spend next to nothing for the public good. We have privatized profit….we have socialized the costs. And we are dying because of it. My fellow Texans are dying in their homes….and there’s nothing I can do about it today. And I am enraged. I love Texas. I am 6th generation here. My ancestors have Texas historical markers on their graves. We helped make this state, and this state helped make us. It educated us (back when college was affordable). But it’s time to face the fact – this state is a failure, and on its current path, with its current leadership and philosophy, it will only get worse. This state has a terrible future, unless we dramatically change our path. Chances of that happening? 0.0% -- because we’ll continue to vote for the guys who make our leadership priorities bathroom bills, and transgender sports, and requiring the national anthem be played at certain events. Any bill that has been proposed to improve emergency preparedness of gov’t entities has been crushed by the Republicans controlling the lege….but we will definitely stick with those guys. No taxes. No government functionality. What we are seeing happening right now is our system working EXACTLY AS IT WAS DESIGNED AND INTENDED TO WORK. And we will, I guarantee it, collectively decide to stick with that. This state is in free-fall, and anyone with eyes can see it. And anyone with a brain is starting to think of ways to make their life elsewhere. It breaks my goddamned heart to see us commit collective suicide, but here we are.
    45 points
  2. I was driving around just now, listening to NPR, and they called out Abbot for his bullshit. I believe the direct quote was something like "Governor Abbot falsely claimed renewable energy was the cause of the power outages in Texas." Sidenote: The reason I was driving around was because the local federally subsidized apartment housing complex for the elderly and disabled doesn't have power. One of the tenants is a client of my wife. She called my wife and my wife found out her client was freezing in her crappy little apartment. My wife called the managers, who said there was nothing they could do, then she called the local police, who said there was nothing they could do but there was a "warming shelter" set up in the county fire house, so it fell to me to go pick up my wife's client and drive her to the warming shelter. When I got there, I learned that there were probably 20 additional old people who needed rides. By that time, my wife had called a few other people, so between the three of us, we got them all to the shelter in about an hour. After that I went to fill up on gas, and there were lines of cars at the gas station. I don't know if that is because of stupid people panicking, or because all the other gas stations not having power, or what. And so it goes. Its the end times, fellas.
    25 points
  3. Joke's on them I don't have water.
    21 points
  4. I got power back after almost 60 hours without it (78731, near Bull Creek and 2222). First thing I did was take a shower. Second thing I did was make a whole mess of breakfast tacos since they reheat easily. Third thing was post on Surly.
    19 points
  5. They just dragged Abbot on Morning Joe. Laid out the info that's been posted here regarding wind vs natural gas failures, used his own words against him in his tweets and wrapped it up by essentially calling him a psychopath for going on TV during a disaster and blaming a representative from New York and a green new deal that doesn't exist for the deaths of the people he is in charge of governing.
    19 points
  6. That’s like saying Hitler was one of the best motivational speakers ever. Rush was a piece of shit who is partially responsible for destroying this country due to his angry rhetoric. Fuck him.
    18 points
  7. Been without water and electricity for 3 days now, with a 3 year old, and somehow this thread is worse than this fucking ice storm. The last two pages are hot garbage smeared with steaming liquid shit. Fuck you people. to make this relevant to recruiting the post quoted is fucking bullshit and completely fabricated. Ewers’s family, and I don’t mean a fucking cousin or uncle, want him at Texas.
    17 points
  8. Finally back online. We lost power for 32 hours. The water plant for our subdivision froze so we didn't have water either. Once we had power and water, we had a pipe burst in out ceiling so we don't have water again. We just had to go to the MIL's house just to shower. Yesterday when I was turning the water off at the street I heard a faint cry for help. I looked around and saw a lady sitting in her driveway. She had fallen and couldn't get up. Her family was inside and couldn't hear her calling for help. I opened their door and yelled for the husband to come get her, but he was moving in slow motion for some reason. He seemed more annoyed than concerned. They are Russian so maybe they just react to situations differently than others. I helped he up and that when we realized she had broken her leg. It was dangling from about 3 inches above her ankle. It hadn't broken the skin, but it was definitely just flopping around. They put her in the car and drove her to the hospital. It's been a crazy last few days. I can't go back and read this whole thread so I hope everyone here is at least safe and warm.
    16 points
  9. Total madness. People are fleeing in droves, if they can make it out. Some crazed, Rasputinish man seems to have taken total control in an attempt to proselytize the masses. Laughing stock of the entire nation. And that's just the football team.
    15 points
  10. Finally! After 68 fucking hours. I’m expecting it to go back out in five minutes.
    14 points
  11. I will say my consideration of leaving Texas is not based on the politicians. Yeah the Texas Republicans that run this state are vile and awful but they are not who I interact with on a daily basis. My problem is the people living here. I am in an affluent suburb north of Dallas. I am honestly sick of being around people that watch Fox News all day long and are anti science and against overall progress and more concerned with religious stuff. I can’t tell you how many people I know near me that are blaming this winter weather fiasco on renewable energy. I think I want to be around let’s say more intelligent people. This includes for my 15 year old sons sake also. He is surrounded by a bunch of dumb asses and that is probably not the best environment to raise a child in. It’s the little things like seeing my district spend 10 million dollars on a middle school football field as opposed to improving the actual education of the children just pisses me off and I am all for school athletics but some peoples priorities are out of whack. I blame lack of intelligence for that.
    14 points
  12. I have no power, no heat, no internet and trying to conserve cellphone battery. But I still needed to come say...fuck that cocksucker.
    14 points
  13. They arrived here ok and one little dog showed its gratitude by dropping a deuce on the living room rug.
    14 points
  14. Anyone surprised Slorch is the mayor of Colorado City?
    13 points
  15. There probably aren't too many of you in Ellis County, but if you are, and need help, please PM me. I bought over $250 worth of firewood today to deliver to people in need and still have some left. I also have bottled water, propane, and blankets I can give away.
    13 points
  16. Update: my son's fiance's parents offered to house us for a little while. The dad has a four wheeler so he came and got us, so we're warm and toasty for a while at least. He's also a high ranking power plant manager app if he can get away from his job right now he has a lot of good info on who's to blame. Hopefully I can find out and post here later. For now I'm just so glad to feel my fingers and toes again!
    12 points
  17. We're literally a punchline
    12 points
  18. Say what you want about Gacey, but he was really good at killing those boys. - slorch
    12 points
  19. Ah, yes. The classy, witty Rush of the '90s who made a joke to a national audience about 12 year old Chelsea Clinton being the White House dog.
    12 points
  20. 67 hours in. No power. We are surviving on a nice diet of Campbell’s soup and bourbon. The dogs are tired of our shit. But huddle close when they shiver from the cold. Wife has begun plotting against Governor and the fully lit empty Porche dealership. I am pretty sure if we didn’t heat up soup for our neighbors every day they would have died by now. I think they believe this is also a hoax. will report back later
    11 points
  21. I've dug out all the camping gear and found a small propane cooker I totally forgot about. Blew up the mattress and about to sling my tent up in the living room. Just like camping except nearby campers wont be able hear me fapping.
    11 points
  22. I’m having a really hard time with this one. A year of existential crisis for all of us some more than others. Meme worthy statements of distraction from leadership. you know what? Our leadership spent the last two cycles demonizing me and where I pee instead of making sure Texans have healthcare, reliable power, public health resources and quality education. this shouldn’t be hard, government services need to be the priority not demonizing the different. I’m so mad I’m almost ready to pause my career and run for office on the idea that bathroom rights are not the conversation, power grids, education, health care, water planning, access to rural Texas and corruption are the only topics that matter. I’m just spitting mad about this right now.
    11 points
  23. Also, let's address this, your post stating that I "spent a few years as an intern or analyst in a utilities practice,". Fuck off with your condescension. You have been REPEATEDLY told you are wrong, that your takes are wrong. We have repeatedly explained how the fucking system works. Stop being an obtuse, gormless chucklehead, and get the fuck off this thread.
    11 points
  24. Dfw surly-ites. While I would love to offer our spare bedroom, and would have no qualms in non-covid times, my wife is 8 months pregnant so we’re in hermit level social-distancing mode. That said, ANYTHING else one of y’all up here may need (propane bottles, wood, water, groceries, camp stove... you name it, we have it and are more than happy to help out any way we can. We’re in Grapevine, but I can run whatever y’all need over if y’all don’t have 4wd. Just pm me.
    11 points
  25. Update: POWER! Yes, they finally got it fixed. It wasn't a grid shutoff but a faulty transformer or something. No doubt the snow/wind on Sun. night knocked it out. Terrible timing. I feared that since it was mechanical that we would get lost in the pigeonhole with all the focus on grid routing, etc. So I wrote our mayor and city manager and said plz haz not forget us. Manager wrote me back and said that they'd fwd it to AE Field Operations. He was on it and found that if he flipped us onto the grid it wouldn't make a dent (only 160 homes). So he sent the crews out this evening, it took them 3 tries to get us lit up (apparently the hardest part about re-entering the juice is to make the initial connection - think of pull starting a lawnmower or something). Anyway, my thoughts, prayers, and heart goes out to you still in the cold/dark. 45 straight hours is enough to feel like I've earned my cred badge, but some of you are hitting near 70, trust me, I understand the madness. If you have anyone to help take you in for a few hours even, and get warmed up, take it. It makes a big difference. Now tomorrow I have to go out and re-pressurize all my water, hopefully it'll work (was working great until the power cut off). A little afraid of the spigots, since they likely froze again, but inside not too worried (I depressurized it). Will try to defreeze the spigots tomorrow and SLOWLY pressurize the house. Hopefully my pipes held and there won't be a weak spot. We'll see. One day/crisis at a time, right? Weather Update: I can type now on my desktop, and by now I'm sure the weather is almost academic... stop telling me about the fucking snow/cold, etc. Yep, I get it. I'm sick of it too. All I'll say is that this next, last storm will hit hardest in counties west and south of ATX (Uvalde, Blanco, Kendall, Comal, Bandera, Kerr, etc. However, the very northern belt of mostly snow (maybe starting out as sleet) will graze Travis. SW part of county maybe 2-3 inches, NE part, maybe 1-2 inches. North of that, a dusting. This is a southern-tracking storm. However, I realize that who gives a shit, I'm sick of snow by now, even 1/2 fucking inch. Yeah. So let's talk about temps: - Thurs day forecast calls for about 35° ATX, but like almost all of the last 7 days, probably high; instead, probably at or near freezing for ATX, 2-3 degrees below on W/N sides. Normally stuff would melt like today, but with the precip coming down, probably a wash. Thurs night unfortunately a colder night than tonight, lows around 22° ATX. probably about 20° N/W. Geez, have we gotten so used to this now that that seems warmer than it used to? Anyway, hang on one more night. - Fri day noticeable warm up to mid-40's. This will be a significant melting day, enough to get the secondary streets passable (and the food and gas riots to begin in earnest - but it's a step forward). Fri night sorry, another cold one (about 22° ATX). But after all-day melting, this will be easier to deal with. Then unicorns and rainbow: - Sat day near 50°, decent! But the big thing here is that Sat night, above freezing!!! Lows about 37°. And from there on the temps stop fucking freezing, for good - night and day!! Fuck off you fucking cold bastard. Go back to the Fucking North Pole, where you belong. - Sun-Tues: 50's/30's - Wed-Fri: 60's/40's (normal!!) And, a week from this coming Saturday, we'll be near EIGHTY FUCKING DEGREES. Please chase that Polar Vortex bastard out of Texas and bury its corpse at Santa's Workshop! That's it. Continued T&P's for the Big Melt and as little damage as possible. Talk to you all later. God bless, esp. those who haven't gotten warm in the last EIGHT days. It's coming!
    10 points
  26. 70hours w/o power. I'm fucking livid.
    10 points
  27. Just got power back in 78758 - right before hitting the 60 hour without mark. THANK YOU BABY JESUS! (Of course we haven't had water for a couple hours now 😆)
    10 points
  28. You people are rich. My poor ass had to shop at Weiner's when I was a kid and hope to find a polo shirt with an upside down logo to wear.
    10 points
  29. I don't think rolling blackouts during an extreme weather event that doesn't happen even every decade is an unreasonable issue. What isn't forgivable is 1) not notifying the public this will happen and energy needs to be conserved in advance, 2) not doing everything to cut power to unused commercial space and frivolous usage like decorative lighting for skylines and such, and 3) not actually rotating the blackouts where some people get no power interruption and others get it shut off for days. Having to make sacrifices in an extreme event isn't unreasonable, but not having any plan in place for efficient and equitable conservation and distribution of the resources in an extreme event is criminal. The deregulation has a lot of advantages for consumers as well as producers but it shouldn't be completely void of regulation. There needs to be basic safety net protocols and efficient plans for events like this when they do happen. What happened here is akin to someone losing their job and deciding that's the time to take that $8k trip to Vegas to blow their resources. The waste and lack of planning to manage and distribute efficiently was criminal. Also need to have discussions about using funds to outfit critical and emergency services like hospitals, fire stations, etc with backup generator capability for keeping their most essential power needs met in the event their area is cut off during a rolling blackout.
    10 points
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