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Texas Jeff

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Everything posted by Texas Jeff

  1. Well, just a guess here but I suspect he had Russian "investors" who were propping him up after his casino failures, and those came with strings attached. They are discussing the strings and how we don't want to tell anyone else about the strings. Trump seems to have respect for Putin either as a leader or as someone who has information that could be used against Trump.
  2. It's possible that Trump is not guilty of collusion because he is a moron. Trump on the campaign trail mostly held rallies where he belittled people to the cheers of the crowd, attended debates where he belittled people to the cheers of the crowd, and tweeted deragotory stuff about people to the cheers of the twitterverse. He also wore a hat. That seems to be about the extent of his efforts. There were others around him who were smarter and more devious and were trying to help him win so that they could affect policy at the highest levels of the US government. And, to their surprise, they won. And, then they had to govern, which was probably boring. Trump returns to the rallies again and again because that's his thing, ranting to a friendly crowd and looking powerful by firing and insulting others. It's entirely possible that he is not guilty (but others around him are) because he just was not plugged into the mechanics of the campaign, because he is a moron.
  3. / Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro
  4. The NY Times had a graphic that showed 220,000 different scenarios, each one either with a tax cut or a tax hike. About 75% of the scenarios resulted in a tax cut, but the average overall cut was about a dollar a day. You can hover on the graphic and see the scenario behind each dot. Some folks got a cut and some got a hike, and the effect is more extreme with higher earners.
  5. “I prefer astronauts who actually land on the moon”
  6. Man, Austin's water reeks right now. In theory this was caused by a two-inch layer of zebra mussels on the water intake pipe, but we have gone from zero to super smell in 24 hours and it does not seem to be getting better, although Austin Water has said it should be over soon. Anybody understand how this could suddenly happen? Did they clear out the pipe and cause a ton of zebra bits to flow into the system?
  7. Trump brought a 10 year old cancer survivor who smiled, waved, and according to the photo above stayed awake. We know he wants $5 billion for a wall ASAP and he's willing to shut down the government to get it. But in his speech he also proposed $500 million in new cancer research over the next ten years. I thought at the time he mis-spoke. Surely curing cancer, especially in children, merits a bigger number. I thought maybe he was supposed to say $500 billion over the next ten years. I checked the transcript and googled a bit to see if he misspoke. He did not. He brought that little girl to the speech and then proposed $50 million per year to help her, in a country of 325 million people. I am no fan of Trump but a call to action to spend $50 billion per year to eliminate childhood cancer would have impressed me. That is an audacious goal I could get behind. A gift to humanity like antibiotics and vaccinations. That's still around $150 per person per year, less than fifty cents per day per person. Fifty million per year seems like window dressing, a token payment for a nation that could do more.
  8. BTW this is a cheddar cheese warehouse in the UK. Why does England need this much cheddar? Why do they suck at stacking it? England, stop eating so much cheese -- you are endangering people!
  9. Casis/O'Henry/Austin High is fine today, but I can understand why people choose another path. A lot of parents feel they have to "make a move" in 5th grade so they go private or try a magnet, but the regular track was fine for our kids. O'Henry is shrinking a bit in population but is becoming "wealthier" because they are mostly losing low-income kids. The band program is great at O'Henry and Austin High. O'Henry does needs some major repairs or a complete redo, like many AISD schools. The AISD master plan has it slated for a "full modernization" in a future bond package, planned for the next 6-12 years. Austin ISD voters are putting up big bucks to improve schools district wide and improvement is really needed.
  10. What makes Anderson different than any other area HS? Test results, demographics, other measurements look similar.
  11. What could possibly go wrong? Is school also shut down? After 9/11, I remember National Guard/Army guys with weapons at checkpoints, something I had only seen before in Europe. We have come a long way...
  12. You would probably first have to explain that there *is* a Big Bend ... start with the basics.
  13. We just passed the mid-point of the eclipse
  14. Live tracker here, if you want to see what phase of the eclipse is happening now: https://www.timeanddate.com/eclipse/lunar/2019-january-21
  15. The Earth is going to get between the Moon and the Sun tonight, starting in about an hour or so. Skies in Austin just cleared and the Moon is about to go away for a bit. I think it starts around 9:30 and the maximum eclipse is around 11:12 central time. This is a "blood Moon" so it might turn red or orange during the eclipse.
  16. Unfit Mitt Slovenly Romney
  17. Here's another Hauser (one of the 2 Cellos) piece:
  18. Everyone gather 'round the pole and celebrate, today is Festivus! ... I've got a lot of problems with you people! 🙂
  19. Eventually, thoughts and prayers for some group, same as always....
  20. City of Austin + Wilco ... keep it weird but don't get busted.
  21. The new Apple campus is part of Robinson Ranch, which is the big undeveloped triangle of land between 45, Mopac North, and Parmer Lane. I did some searching yesterday and discovered that the area is already covered by a PUD agreement that allows high density, transit oriented development. The city signed the agreement with the Robinson family in 2004. The Ranch is about 6050 acres, which is about 8-9 times the size of the Mueller development. Some of it is in a flood plain, but there is probably room for at least 7.5 Muellers. The city claims that Mueller will eventually have about 13,000 residents and 13,000 jobs. At the same level of development, Robinson could have about 100,000 jobs and 100,000 residents. That's similar to the number of jobs as Austin has downtown. Capital Metro's Red Line runs right through the property and you can ride it from the Howard Station to Highland Mall in 20 minutes, and all the way downtown in 38 minutes. In the other direction, you can get from Howard to Lakeline in 14 minutes and it's about 30 minutes to the end of the line in Leander. IMHO, the city needs to work with the Robinson family, the ranch owners, to come up with a long term plan for that area and start development, before it becomes a string of unconnected corporate campuses and a parade of slow-moving SUVs up and down Parmer.
  22. There was an earlier plan to rework Red River so that it goes straight north from where it is today when passing the Erwin Center, passes by the swim center (where the parking lot is today in front of the swim center), and connects to Robert Dedman Drive as it goes past DKR, which might become "Red River" and continue through campus. I"m not sure if that is still the plan, but there were a few images around that showed that alignment.
  23. Texas Jeff

    Tax reform

    I think there are a lot of people that though of themselves as "well off" or "upper middle class" because they were able to itemize and get credit for property taxes, mortgage interest, and so on. The new $24,000 standard deduction for MFJ is going to make the standard deduction the better choice for a lot of middle and upper-middle income taxpayers. In theory this is a tax break but I think it's going to piss a bunch of people off. People are going to feel like they spent money on property tax and mortgage interest payments and got no income tax benefit for doing that. It's going to be harder for charities to get donations because fewer people are itemizing. Also, the new re-arranged 1040 sucks. What a lame idea. Move some of the numbers to other statements so that the end result kinda looks like it might be around the size of a large postcard, in an era when more of us are just filing electronically.
  24. Forget it, he’s rolling...
  25. I think there is still a requirement to have coverage, but the penalty for not having coverage is $0. Technically the tax is still there -- it was not repealed, it's just set to zero right now. It could be set to something other than zero by a future Congress.
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