Jump to content

Ghost of LL

Burnt Ends
  • Posts

    5830
  • Joined

  • Days Won

    1

Posts posted by Ghost of LL

  1. XR4's comments really are the bottom line--there is a large constituency in Oklahoma and elsewhere that is heavily invested in destroying the public school system in order to benefit the parochial school system.  The Oklahoma teachers already got most of their demands vis-a-vis salary, but that's only part of what they're asking for.  The education system in Oklahoma is so underfunded that 20% of schools have only four days of class per week.  Buildings are in poor repair, and textbooks are old and out of date.  In-class computers are almost unheard-of in Oklahoma. 

    And then conservatives throw up their hands and say "our education system sucks," as though they have no fault in its suckitude.

  2. Could easily be a false flag attack.
    Some people really want the US to pump more money into Syria. 

    Has it seriously not occurred to you that Russia could have lied about a coming false-flag operation because they knew Assad was going to use real chemical weapons in the near future?


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
  3. I know you say you don't want a minivan, but the Chrysler Pacifica Limited Hybrid is great.  That fucking thing has a USB port for every seat in the thing, and it gets 80 MPG on the highway.

    Look--I resisted the minivan.  But the sliding doors are such a game-changer.  You can just pull up somewhere, hit a button, and the kids climb in.  Hit the button again, and off you go.  You don't have to worry how close you are to another car and whether your kids will hit it with their door; there's none of that heartburn.  Just hit the button and the damned sliding doors open right up. 

  4. 7 minutes ago, 6th Street said:

    What's Hannity so outraged about? Mild joke about Melania's accent? 

    No shit--I mean, it's not like he called her a "gold-digging whore whose eyes betray the death of her soul after fucking a corpulent orange blob as the price of admission for her family to get into the United States."

    Oh, my mistake--that's not really a joke, is it?

    • Like 5
  5. And I think you're going to see a serious change in that before 2020.  There is an article in the Washington Post today about the Koch brothers' increasing alarm at the direction of the GOP, and their increasing willingness to talk to Democrats.  They are radical free-traders, and I think you're going to see more and more money put into candidates who are willing forcefully to espouse that view.

  6. 10 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

    The Nigerians I've met are better educated and have a stronger work ethic.

    Well, of course.  I there are a lot of characteristics about the citizenry that are different.  But there is a big similarity between the states themselves: they are failed states owing almost entirely to the corrupting influence of the O&G industry.

  7. 1 minute ago, Fozzz said:

    He's a denialist because that position conforms to the interests of the industries that have supported him financially throughout his career.  He's owned by O&G.  

    He's an Okie--of course he's owned by O&G.  

    Except in the complexion of its citizenry, there's really no difference between Oklahoma and Nigeria.



  8. Trump’s a fucking idiot, but fuck Mexico. What the U.S. does on our side of the border is none of their fucking business

    They might say the same.


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
    • Like 4
    • Haha 1
  9. Wisconsin is going to be really interesting.  It goes Democratic in almost every presidential election, but virtually all of its statewide offices are held by Republicans.  And the gerrymander of its state legislature is ridiculous--to the point of being the subject of a Supreme Court case pending right now.

    If, as I've speculated, the GOP gerrymander is broken because it rests on the assumption that educated suburban white voters are overwhelmingly Republicans, then there could be a really big swing in the Wisconsin legislature, even without a Supreme Court decision.

  10. 14 hours ago, The Dog said:

    re: Delta putting anything (crew base or hub) in Austin - I'm going to reach out to my friends at DL and see if they have heard anything. Would make sense but the airport needs to be a bit bigger. DL has always been a fan of the "oddball" hubs to compete with bigger ones (and O/D in Austin is no slouch) so this would fit their historical MO perfectly.

    I have to wonder what Southwest's response would be to a DL hub/focus city here...

    Southwest has historically been a vicious competitor against anyone who tried to enter what they see as their home turf, see, e.g., their reaction to Virgin America's entry into DAL.  I would expect them to add frequencies on routes on which they compete and reduce fares.  I'd also expect some retaliatory moves, such as an increase in service to SLC or ATL.

    An interesting thing about this is Delta's fleet--it has 717s and A319s that are relatively small, while not being regional lets.  That allows them to open routes with high frequency, while not completely flooding the market with capacity.  For example, they could put in 2x AUS-MAF with a 717, and that'd only be 220 seats/day.  I mean, that's a lot--nobody even flies the route (nonstop) now.  But there are passengers who are currently connecting, so there's demand.  And a 717 may be the right plane to serve it.

  11. 2 hours ago, dieucla98 said:

    If that's the case, it's conceivable we pass DAL this year given how strong the year has started for AUS. 

    DAL is limited by law to 20 gates.  Southwest currently has 18 of those gates, and they utilize the shit out of them.  The rest are used by United, Alaska, and Delta, and are somewhat under-utilized.  

    So even assuming that those two gates are brought up to full utilization, and even assuming that Southwest starts flying more 738s out of DAL, you're only talking about marginal increases in capacity.  And since Southwest is generally flying 80% load factors out of DAL, it's hard to see how that could go much higher.

  12. 7 minutes ago, Dutchrudder said:

    Fox News had an "Alert" that Mueller confirmed Trump isn't the target of criminal investigation, and that was all they reported. I went to look up what real story was, and sure enough, it's omitting the context of the investigation. Pretty funny, but also SAD.

    They're going to be responsible for tricking Dotard into talking to Mueller.

    • Like 1
  13. 2 minutes ago, Chuckie Finster said:

    Am I misreading this or is this Okie saying that if the Republican lawmakers don't fix this, he will punish them by voting for Republicans?

    I'm sure he misspoke and meant "D," right?  

     

     

    I mean, right?

  14. 12 hours ago, Vaporware said:

     

     


    Thank you. Great recommendations for Paris.

    Staying near Paddington in London.


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

     

     

    Ok--and you've got noon-to-noon in London, right?

    It's really hard not to recommend seeing a soccer fixture while you're there.  I would join Wiler in recommending Craven Cottage, which is Fulham's home ground.  

    For the "sights," if you haven't been to the Imperial War Museum, I would highly recommend that.  Alternatively, if you haven't been to St. Paul's, you should really do that.  Just three blocks up St. Martin-le-Grande is the Museum of London, which gives a really good overview of the city's history.

    For Saturday night, I would say start out on the Golden Jubilee Bridges for the view, then walk north along Northumberland Ave. to Trafalgar Square.  From there, go west on Cockspur St. and take a right on Haymarket, and you end up in Picadilly.  From there, you can just go north and get lost in Soho and find your evening's entertainment therein.  On the old board, there was the story of the John Snow, which sits across the street from the old water well where the eponymous doctor first discovered that cholera was a water-borne disease in 1854.  That's in Soho at the corner of Lexington and Broadwick.

  15. Where are you staying in London?

    Paris I think is somewhat easier.

    Thursday in the afternoon, you can go over to d'Orsay and knock it out in a couple hours.  After that, you can walk down the bank of the Seine and you'll come to the Esplanade des Invalides--a big park fronting Invalides.  At the back of that building is Napoleon's tomb, which is definitely worth a visit.  Buried with him are a number of Marshals of France, including Ferdinand Foch.

    For dinner, I still love Laurent.  The building was Louis XIV's hunting lodge It's a couple blocks from Elysee Palace, so you often see French politicos there--ten years ago, I freaked out when Dominique de Villepin was at the next table; Mrs.LL was unimpressed.  Anyway--the food is outstanding, and at 159E per head, not crazy overpriced, considering its location.

    Thursday night wind up in the Bar Hemingway at the Hotel Ritz.  As the name would indicate, it was one of Hemingway's favorite bars before the War.  During the War, the hotel served as the headquarters of the Luftwaffe in France, and Goering liked to drink there.  As it happened, Hemingway was embedded as a war correspondent with an American unit approaching Paris in 1944.  He took it on himself to rally his unit and liberate the Ritz (and drink all of the liquor left behind by the Nazis).  The bar is expensive, and there's a dress code.  But it's still worth it for at least one cocktail.

    Saturday may be a good day to just head over to Marais and find a bistro, sit outside, and watch people.  Alternatively, if you want to do stuff, then go check out Notre Dame and Sainte Chappelle in the morning, and then take the Metro down to the Catacombs.  That is a wonderfully morbid sight.

    • Like 1
  16. I have to tell you--you're not giving us a lot to go on.  Saying "tell me what to do with a couple days in two of the most diverse cities in the world" is pretty impossible if we don't know your interests.  Do you like art?  Are you a history buff?  If you're a history guy, what era?  I'm not going to send you to the Churchill War Rooms if you're primarily interested in Medieval history.  Or are you more of an outdoor/stroll through a park type of guy?

×
×
  • Create New...