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Ghost of LL

Certifiably Surly
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Everything posted by Ghost of LL

  1. I'm typically a fan of John Oliver's, but there are a number of points in here that are just plain wrong or are really overexaggerated. To identify a few: 1) McDonnell Douglas wasn't a "deathtrap manufacturer." It's fair to say that the DC-10-10 had some real problems. But that was 25 years before the Boeing merger. The more recent models produced by McDonnell Douglas were both very safe and commercially successful. The MD-11, which was a revision to the DC-10, is kind of a wonky bird that requires some careful handling on takeoff and landing, but it's perfectly safe and has had relatively few incidents relative to its flight hours. And the MD-80 family was a great plane. In a lot of ways, I'd argue it was superior to the 737. 2) The HQ move wasn't aimed at getting away from the engineers; it was all about getting a tax break. Boeing basically put its headquarters out to bid, with the finalists being Chicago and Dallas. The primary determiner was which city/state was going to give it the most tax breaks. I'm not going to argue that getting away from the engineers wasn't a side benefit (from the b-school boys' perspective). But it wasn't the chief motivator. 3) It's just wrong to say that keeping the 737 certification on the new model was about costs. As I pointed out in a post some weeks ago, it was primarily about satisfying customers (chiefly, Southwest Airlines). Absolutely none of which is to say that there isn't a major culture problem at Boeing. But it is to say that when you get this many details wrong, it's hard for me not to find your conclusions to be suspect.
  2. No. What I'm saying is . . . Finkel is Einhorn . . . Einhorn is Finkel . . . Nicole is A MAN!
  3. So last night I learned from a friend that all of the victims were gay men. At least that's the story that is circulating in the Austin gay community. No idea whether that is the case. But if it is true, then I'm definitely off Team Accidental Drowning and looking to sign a long-term deal with Team Serial Killer.
  4. I don't know. On a scale of "I'm Totally Chill" to "Brisket-level hysteria," how much of an angsty teenage bitch are you acting like? If you're totally chill, then voting is probably enough. But if you're being an hysterical bitch like Brisket, then I'm going to suggest that you ought to channel your energy in a positive direction by working for a campaign, raising money, or severing the brakes on the cars of MAGA voters. Joking on that last one. Or maybe not. I'll let you decide.
  5. Ok. But let me just say for a minute that I didn't like how Hilary dealt with her emails. Anyone who has spent any time in public service understand that those documents belong to the government and are public information. And I don't like how Biden handled some of the material in his custody. That was just flat negligent. But elections are binary choices. And in that binary choice, there is no equivalency.
  6. But Buttigeig isn't in the field because Biden is sufficiently strong that he cleared the field of any challengers. George H.W. Bush wasn't weak because Pat Buchanan got 35% in New Hampshire in 1992. The fact that Pat Buchanan was in the race to begin with reflected Bush's underlying weakness. And it's a weakness that Trump shares but Biden does not. Democrats need to stop this fucking pity party. It's self-defeating. It's just going to cause people who would vote for Biden to stay home out of a sense of malaise and hopelessness. And the true fact is that Biden has huge built-in advantages and should win this election pretty easily. So stop feeling sorry for yourselves like a bunch of angsty teenage bitches and get ready for a fight. Because your fucking country depends on it.
  7. Yep--that is a nice fairy tale the oppressed tell themselves at night to make themselves feel better about their condition. But it's a lie. There isn't a moral-universe arc. There's just power and force and what you can do with it. The GQP gets that.
  8. I had a similar conversation with my son this morning, but probably for different reasons. It is damned near guaranteed that the 89th Legislature will get rid of tenure at state universities. And so I explained to him what that's going to mean for the quality of his education and the value of his degree, and he was like "oh, shit." And then he asked, "but our football team will still be good, right?" Yeah, son--because we're now basically Oklahoma.
  9. Ha--yeah, she's definitely not doing any sports. She's an arts kid. And look--nothing really affects her right now. When they pass vouchers, our school district will be about the last to be really impacted. When she needs contraceptives, we'll be able to get them from out of state. There's really no present reason to uproot the family because I can see what's coming (but not here yet). And I'd pay to go see that band.
  10. My friend, Mrs.LL and I will be joining you in NYC in just a few years. I have to get the youngest out of the house and safely into college (she's in 7th Grade now). But once that's done, I can get the fuck out of this shithole and never fucking look back. And by the way, I'm a 6th Generation Texan. Saying that pains me. But then I remember that one set of great-grandparents were Nth Generation Czechs; another set of ancestors were once Nth Generation English. But they all figured out at some point that they needed to leave the shithole they were in to seek their entertainment and fortunes elsewhere. And it won't take six more generations for my descendants to wonder "why the fuck did our family ever live in Texas?"
  11. The neighborhood is kind of unique in that it was fully built out decades before annexation. So the roads and utilities were already built out. Austin Water would continue to do the utilities; road maintenance would be done by the MUD through a contractor (road maintenance on neighborhood streets is really pretty cheap). Police would be through the sheriff; fire through West Lake Hills (as it functionally currently is). That being said, there is only a slight break on the taxes. Properties that are disannexed would still be on the hook for debt service on debt incurred while those properties were part of the City.
  12. Google "Letters of Last Resort." It's a very British way of dealing with this issue.
  13. Real talk here for a minute—there are a bunch of sports that are suddenly going to be competitive in the Big XII next year for the first time. Imagine: Baylor or Iowa State could actually win a conference championship in swimming or volleyball. That’s wild.
  14. Oh, and ok NYT—tell me more about how women have shifted 11 points to the right post-Dobbs.
  15. Just out of curiosity, let’s check the methodology. They actually ran a telephone poll in … lemme check my calendar … 20 motherfucking 24? Is this a joke? The NYT actually paid Siena for this shit. That’s unreal.
  16. We could only be so lucky. Greg has even less charisma than DeSantis. He'd be a complete shitshow on the national stage.
  17. I don't know exactly how to review it. As an experience, it's really cool. It's an historical site as much as a restaurant. The pipes smoked by various famous people going back to the Nineteenth Century is really a unique thing. As a restaurant, it was good and fairly unique. But my experience was atypical--Mrs.LL and I went before the Billy Joel concert. So our reservation was at 6:30, and we don't typically eat until 9:00. So neither one of us were very hungry. We split a seafood tower (pretty good, but standard fare--hard to give much of a critique on that). For a second course, she had the lobster bisque (good, not spectacular) and I had the appetizer portion of mutton. Now, here's the fun thing: you don't see many steakhouses with mutton on the menu. And I like mutton. It was good damned mutton. But I'll also recognize that not everyone digs on the sheep. And man--they turned that table in an hour. And that was cool with us, because we were going to the show (and I think we told the waiter we were going to the show). We didn't exactly feel rushed. But as we headed out, I had the very conscious thought, "damn--we weren't in there very long." I'm not sure if that was the standard service plan; I suspect they were hustling on a kind of pre-show plan. But if that is standard, I would understand how one would feel rushed.
  18. It's just Lost Creek that is being put to a vote. It's the result of a very specific piece of legislation passed last year by the 88th Legislature, following years of lobbying by a handful of residents. Perhaps it won't surprise you to learn that there are a few lobbyists who live in Lost Creek. Anyway, it's just a majority of votes cast needed for disannexation. That's why the City's move here is so puzzling. In a low-turnout election, it's going to be the highly motivated people who carry the day. And on this issue, that's clearly the pro-disannexation people.
  19. Sure. Give me a bit more information, though. Where are you flying into and out of? Are you open to flying into someplace like Frankfurt and out Zurich? Or are you intent on flying out of the same place you flew into? And what about internal transit? Are you doing trains or renting a car? And how ambitious do you want to be on transit? Like a "if it's Friday, it must be Munich" itinerary? Or more of a "let's find one or two bases of operations and go from there?" And what do you mean by "culture?" Are you looking for art museums? Cites of historical significance (and if so, what era)? Or more like street art and the KitKat Club? Just three ideas: Rhine: Fly into Frankfurt and drive up to the Romantic Rhine (i.e., the stretch roughly from Bingen to Koblenz). Spend a couple days there checking out the various castles. Drive down to Strasbourg and spend a few days there. Then drive down to Basel and spend a couple days there exploring the Rhine as it exits the Alps. Fly out of Zurich. Berlin & Dresden: Fly into Berlin (will require a connection) and spend five days there. Drive down to Dresden, which is an under-visited and -appreciated city by Americans. About halfway is the Spreewald, which is where the River Spree naturally spreads out into a huge floodplain but has, over the millennia, been carved up by small canals. It's just a beautiful area that you can now get a gondola, a bike, or just hike around. Munich & the Bavarian Alps: Fly into Munich and spend three or four days there. Then drive down to Garmisch-Partenkirchen, see King Ludwig's castles, hike the Partnachklamm and the Alpspitze, take the gondola up to the top of the Zugspitze (the highest mountain in Germany). Maybe go over to Salzburg and check out Berchtesgaden if there's time. Those are just some ideas.
  20. Definitely Keen's. I think Mrs.LL and I sat at that exact table about a month ago.
  21. I'm pretty sympathetic to UCF because Mrs.LL is an alumna. But even so, seeing "UCF" on your schedule isn't going to get any Iowa State fan excited (or fan of Kansas State or Texas Tech or Utah). And let's be real--the same goes for Cincinnati and Houston. BYU excites Utah fans because of that historical rivalry, but that's about it. I mean, I get why the Big XII did it at the time. But woof--those additions just look worse and worse on a schedule that is now lacking Texas and Oklahoma. And by the way--how the fuck did Iowa State not get one of the new Pac-10 refugees on its home schedule? That would add a little spice to this otherwise completely shitty and bland Hot Dish.
  22. I really like Cologne, but for me it's no more than a day. See the Cathedral. Check out the Roman Museum across the street. Have a few little tiny glasses of Kolsch. And then you've pretty much exhausted Cologne. I'm not saying don't go. I'm saying not to spend too much time there. If you're interested in Medieval History--and I mean, really, who isn't?--go over to Aachen. It is generally regarded as the oldest city in Germany and was Charlemagne's capital. The chapel from his palace is still there (most of the palace was destroyed by the Vikings in 1000), and is kind of the remaining masterpiece of Carolingian architecture.
  23. I'm just slightly gratified to see Mitch McConnell live to see himself drummed out of the party that he did a lot to create. Revolutions always eat their young, do they not?
  24. I think this is the high likelihood. In all honesty, yeah.
  25. ETJ isn't really a thing anymore with legislation that has passed over the last decade. I mean, it still exists. But it doesn't have a real material impact on anybody who actually lives in the ETJ. It only matters for developers (and it doesn't really matter to them anymore). So it really wouldn't matter for you. As to @TKthunder2's question--the disannexation vote is specific to Lost Creek. It was annexed back in 2015 just before legislation took effect limiting (pretty much eliminating) cities' ability to annex. Since then, a bunch of residents have been trying to get the Legislature to allow for a disannexation vote. And that's what finally happened this last session. But the legislation is very specific to Lost Creek. Nobody else anywhere in the state is going to be able to do it without passing new legislation.
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