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Ghost of LL

Burnt Ends
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Posts posted by Ghost of LL

  1. 20 hours ago, dieucla98 said:

    Where are you seeing that? I can book biz and first seats on the flight to LHR both for today's flight and tomorrow's. 

    I just flew it yesterday, and J was completely full.

    And the way BA does it, even frequent-flyer J class is "paid" with all the damned fees they tack on.

  2. For those paying attention at home, J-class has been completely full on the BA flight to LHR the last couple of days (and is again tomorrow).  And today, they're flying a Super-J configuration (i.e., 86 J seats rather than 52) as BA 190/191.  I don't know whether that is a planned substitution to get more J seats or whether it's a maintenance substitution.  

    But regardless--the load factors in the premium cabins is definitely a positive sign.

  3. I'm not real sure I understand that play.  It's not like Republicans have been doing really well in special elections this year.  

    That's also an area where Beto didn't do particularly well in the primary (likely owing to low name recognition).  A special election in that district could give Beto a chance to campaign in that region with a focused and energized Dem electorate and improve his name recognition.  And if a Dem somehow wins, Beto can get a lot of the credit, upping his buzz and contributions.

  4. If you're a child of the 70's, then any vegetables were disgusting.

    It was probably the mid- to late-80's before logistics and trade got to the point where you got a significant amount  of fresh produce in grocery stores.  Before that, the produce aisle was just that: one aisle.  And it was probably half taken up by apples, oranges, bananas, and heads of iceberg lettuce.  The rest of it was onions and potatoes and a few other things that might be in season (e.g., strawberries or grapes or cherries, depending on the time of year).  As far as vegetables go--if you wanted anything much more exotic than squash or carrots, you were fresh out of luck.

    The only brussels sprouts or asparagus or green beans on offer were usually either canned or frozen.  And there's a limited set of techniques you can use with canned or frozen vegetables.  So yeah--boiled frozen brussels sprouts were common in my house.  Fucking canned peas--we had that shit at least twice a week.

    I love vegetables now.  Asparagus on the grill; brussels sprouts any number of ways; sugar snap peas with just a touch of salt--those are all great.  But none of that fresh shit was available when I was a kid.

  5. Sorry, but 650 is right. London:England. Paris:France. Seoul:South Korea.

    Not to say that there aren’t other things to see in those countries. But it is to say that those countries are dominated by their capitals in a way that world-city capitals in a way as to make the rest of the countries an afterthought.


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  6. Am I right that we are guaranteed to finish ahead of Arsenal is this result holds?

    Oh, and fuck the Gooners.


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    Fucking Hammers. Fucking sorry-ass bubble purveyors.


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  7. so much this. poch is a good manager and has been great for spurs, but he has shown a few times this year that he believes he is a bit more infallible than his results bear out. 4 years in it's starting to get old listening to him say that they should have won but need more time to build a winning mentality. that starts with making the right team selection in games like this, and he did not by starting lloris and sanchez (and i have been a big sanchez apologist this season).

    Am I right that we are guaranteed to finish ahead of Arsenal is this result holds?

    Oh, and fuck the Gooners.


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  8. I remain fascinated how using plain language to predict every stage of this train wreck is “hysteria.”

    Predicting that Charlie Strong’s last Texas team was a mess, and could lose to anyone - even Kansas - wasn’t hysteria. It was right.

    Sorry that I seem to be one of the few who sees the 1900 storm heading our way and saying “we oughta evacuate the island.” Y’all call it hysteria. It makes you feel better, or something. That’s fine. None of that changes the fact that the storm’s coming, and we’re 4 feet above sea level.

    Shit the fuck up, Cassandra, you stupid bitch!


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  9. 56 minutes ago, dieucla98 said:

    Also.... I love how nearly everyone complains about how Austin as a city isn't forward thinking and can't plan for growth worth a shit but when we actually do try to plan for growth it turns into "look at little Austin, being so silly". 

    Preach.



  10. My dad is a pilot and has always expressed concern that SWA’s turn-and-burn model was a little dangerous.

    Also, he’s ex-USAF and vastly prefers when he has another ex-military person in the right seat. They are trained to be much more consistent and crisp, a lot less casual.

    Southwest has been flying for damned near 50 years without a passenger death. I think that indicates that your dad’s concerns are unfounded.


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  11. 1 hour ago, oSuJeff97 said:

    Same here.

    I fucking hate turbulence, but as much as people get hyperbolic about it, it's generally going to be harmless unless you aren't buckled in.

    There's a reason they urge you to leave your seatbelt on when seated.  This isn't that reason--the real reason is severe turbulance--but still . . . it's a practice that should always be followed.  

  12. 5 hours ago, Gucci_Suit said:

    300?cb=20150703064521

     

    you guys ever go to the short lived sesame place? I loved this joint. 

    Hell yeah, I do.

    We went when I was about 7, so my sister was about 2.  I went down some slide onto a mat or something, and my father went down behind me with my sister riding on his lap.  Somehow, he went onto his side, and with a toddler in his arms had to break his fall/slide with his elbow rather than his hands.  He sliced his elbow up so badly that we had to cut short our trip to Sesame Place in favor of a trip to the emergency room.

    Good times.

  13. 11 hours ago, DixonHur said:

    First off, I'd like to point out that the Constitution was a compromise (primarily) between the Federalists, and Anti-Federalists.  I'm not sure why people only seem to cite the Federalist papers when talking about the Founding Fathers. 

    The truth is both sides were against a political class, i.e. professional politicians, but the Federalists simply had more faith in the people than turned out to be warranted.   Their argument against term limits were 3 fold:

    1. The people have a right to determine who they will and will not elect
    2. It reduces the incentives for accountability
    3. Deprives the society of experienced public servants

    Some of the evidence that supports the idea that the Founding Fathers did not want career politicians are:

    • Term limits for Congress were included in the Articles of Confederation (Article 5)
    • During the first 66 years of the US, from 1789 to 1855, there were only 2 years that the members of Congress earned an annual salary.  The other 64 years members of Congress got paid $6 - $8 a day, and then only when they met...that's about $115/day in today's money
    • These quotes from Thomas Jefferson (Anti-Federalist) and John Adams (Federalist)

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    • Even good ole Constitutional expert Ted Cruz got into the issue in his Op-ed with Sen. DeSantis.

    So those are some of the reasons I think that...

     

    But as you point out--term limits were in the Articles of Confederation.  And the Constitution specifically omits term limits.  So when they were drafting the Constitution, the Framers knew how to write a term-limit provision, and they made the specific decision not to.

    Moreover, as you point out, Congress was an unpaid gig.  That doesn't indicate that they didn't want "a political class," as you conclude.  It indicates that they completely wanted a political class.  By making Congress an unpaid gig, they excluded all but the upper class from holding office.  Farmers who worked their own land couldn't afford to be in Washington for most of the year away from their farms.  Merchants whose livelihoods depended on day-to-day trade couldn't afford to abandon their shops and trade for years at a time.  Only the plantation class from the South and the wealthiest of the merchant class in the North could afford to hold congressional office.

    The expansion of the franchise gets a lot of the recognition, but the democratizing force of making Congress a paid position is under-recognized. 

    Finally, I think your reliance on Adams and Jefferson is misplaced.  Adams and Jefferson are looking back at the only previous republic available for comparison at their time: the Roman Republic.  And their view was that the Republic fell because of the hyper-ambition of a small number of politicians (Caesar, Sulla, Marius).  They took inspiration from the system of electing magistrates annually, and preventing a consul from holding consecutive terms.  But that doesn't mean that you didn't have professional politicians--you absolutely did.  The senatorial class was a distinct class in Rome that held office from the time of maturity to retirement.  Consuls became proconsuls.  And then they would come back and run for another consulship.  Their idea was that, as in Rome, offices would rotate among a very small class of politicians.

  14. 1 hour ago, DixonHur said:

    We really need congressional term limits.  Anytime I hear the term "retire" in reference to a politician it makes me angry.

    The founders never intended serving in congress to be a full-time career.  It was supposed to be a type of public service, like joining the military.  But these jackasses just go to Washington to stuff their pockets.  It's always interesting how most of these leeches see their net worth go up dramatically while in office, while "we the people"  get to pick up the tab.  And I hardly blame them, they're just taking advantage of the system that's in place.  And it's unlikely to change because most of the population treats voting like an inconvenience instead of a duty.

    Ok, sorry, had to vent.  Rant over.

    Yeah--would you care to provide a cite for that?  It's been a long time since I read through the Federalist, but I don't remember anything that would support your conclusion.

  15. 1 minute ago, atomheartbevo said:

    Yeah. If this was planned, a month or two ago he could have lined up somebody who wasn’t a neo-Nazi. 

    Turning your district over to the wannabe Nazi or the Iron Stache is going to be remembered by a lot of people.  

    But it does provide him a chance to be pseudo-Presidential, if he supports the Democrat over the neo-Nazi. That would help him out with moderates. 

    They still have time--the Wisconsin filing deadline isn't until June 1.

  16. I don't know, but my son is in a similar situation.  He's in Westlake Jr. Academy right now, and I'm not terribly happy with the situation.  He needs to be in select with other kids who take the shit seriously; not just as a "hey, let's run around on the field for an hour."  But they don't start doing select for another year--he's a 2009 birthday, and the youngest they're doing tryouts for right now is 2008s.  So any suggestions would be appreciated.

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