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Ghost of LL

Burnt Ends
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Posts posted by Ghost of LL

  1. 4 minutes ago, BrickHorn said:

    Seems pyrrhic at best. “Haha! Israel is discredited in the eyes of the world. And all it cost us was our homes, our lands, and our lives.”

    I think their rejoinder would be that after a decades-long siege, they didn't have much left to lose.  Gaza was slowly being strangled.  Israel has speeded up the process, but it is a process that Israel started a long time ago.

    And if that's the price to pay for fundamentally undermining Israel as an independent and hegemonic state, then it was a price worth paying.

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  2. On 8/4/2025 at 12:28 PM, Ted Lange said:

     

     

    Among Sun Tsu's many instructions for warfare was to "know yourself and know your enemy."  If this was Hamas's plan from the outset--adn I think there's plenty of reason to believe that it was--then Hamas is demonstrating that it knew its enemy.

    It's a pretty serious indictment of Israeli leadership, culture, and society that it is living up to Hamas's expectations of how it would react to October 7.

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  3. On 8/4/2025 at 9:16 PM, HenryJames said:

     

    Don Bacon thinks he can retain his seat in Congress by being truthful and representing his district, and I just think that's the most adorable fucking thing I've ever seen.

    On 8/6/2025 at 2:37 PM, The Dog said:

    “Don’t make this a political post.”

    TAXES ARE POLITICAL YOU STUPID BITCH

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    Goddamn it's expensive to be stupid in America.

    1 hour ago, Biff Tannen said:

    shocker.  History is going to look back on this as a horrifying ethnic cleansing genocide and America just sat there and watched.

    That's not true.  America stood up and actively assisted in this horrifying ethnic-cleansing genocide.

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  4. On 7/23/2025 at 3:29 PM, midtown said:

    I would much prefer jumping on a train and relaxing for a few hours while I sip champagne, watch the countryside pass and read vs dealing with all that an airport has to offer.  So maybe Ill just find my way into Belgium again and hit up Ghent and end up in with a one night stop in Rotterdam or Antwerp before cruising into Amsterdam.  And yes I like all the great things about Amsterdam. Art, beer, weed etc and I could hang out in De Pijp all day.  THe food scene is gettting way better.  FYI there is a red light district in De Pijp.  It's smaller and not touristy.  Thats what a friend told me. 

    I was going back on the 3rd due to custody but my daguther will be out of town at a showcase so I can push this an extra day or two easily and also try to find a match in either Belgium or Netherlands

    It seems to me that if you're going to London, you probably ought to stay in the UK both to avoid flights and to limit unnecessary customs difficulties.  In the UK, I might do

    1) The Caledonian Sleeper to Edinburgh and spend a few days in Scotland

    2) The Night Riveria Sleeper to Cornwall and check out that (really under-visited) part of the country

    3) Oxford or Cambridge

    I'm going to push back on Paris a bit and the concept of saving it for a trip with future Mrs.Midtown.  I'm going to tell you--chicks dig it when you know your way around a European city, especially Paris. 

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  5. 13 hours ago, HenryJames said:

     

    I mean, sure.  Why not?

    The concept that the House of Representatives is representative of very much of anything is pretty much dead.  All we're doing now is putting a second bullet in the head of our democracy.

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  6. 19 hours ago, bolverk said:

    New poll -- I wonder if they'll try to rejoin in the nearish future.

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    So the footnote is interesting in that it "excludes Northern Ireland."  I really have no feel for public opinion on this issue in Northern Ireland because (1) Brexit has impacted them so differently with the agreement to retain an open border with the Republic, and (2) it blends in with so many other sectarian issues.

    My sense is that those numbers for a referendum would have to be a lot closer to 70% to get Parliament to order another vote.  Labour just really doesn't want any part of it.

  7. 1 hour ago, Dr Fear said:

    Astros about to get swept by the Red Sox. Also looking like we are going to catch the Yankees at a great time.

    At the extreme risk of stating the obvious, this feels like a pretty fucking huge game.  A win would get us within 3.5 of the Astros and tied for the wild card (notwithstanding a pretty fucking underwhelming road trip).

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  8. On 3/31/2025 at 2:14 PM, Covri said:

    These are not ROT Rally motorcyclists in for one weekend a year. Austin has the same problem now every big city has of dirt bike 4 wheelers and other sport bike street take over rides. 

    By the way, what the hell ever happened to the ROT Rally?  I haven't heard of that even in years.  And maybe more to the point, I haven't heard the motorcycles downtown in years.  Is the ROT Rally just dead?

  9. 56 minutes ago, Rip76 said:

    Anyone been to the Houston or Austin location?

    Just wondering if it's any good.  I love the look.

    https://www.clarksoysterbar.com/locations/houston

    I really like Clark's.  I go there probably once a month with Mrs.LL.  They don't reserve spots on the bar on the patio.  So you can just show up and get a seat on a Friday afternoon, order a martini, watch the people along West 6th, and slurp down some damned good oysters (and a very good lobster roll).

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  10. On 7/22/2025 at 3:03 PM, GenXer said:

    I got there at 11:30. Ordered and got my food by 1:00.

    I'm sorry, but that's just ridiculous when you have Sprague's across the street and Jolie Rogers around the corner.

  11. Vienna is also a helluva good food town.  You would expect it to be when maybe a third of the population was born outside Austria.  We had some absolutely fantastic Asian and Middle Eastern food in Vienna.

    Last Thursday, though, we went to Doubek.  It's really wild because they don't use any electricity or gas in the kitchen (apart from lighting).  Everything is cooked on fire, either directly or indirectly in an oven.  It's really cool to watch.

    Of particular interest to my Cajun and Cajun-adjacent friends @Brisketexan @Kyrie Eleison @Pescado_Rojo is what they did with the Carabinero.  It's a prawn, but it looks a bit like a really long crawfish.  Anyway, they cooked the thing and then tossed the heads into a press to extract the tamale, which was then made into a sauce.  It was goddamned incredible.

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  12. 3 hours ago, 52-80 said:

    The habsburgs have an crypt below the capuchin church thats also dope. 
     

    unrelated but the imperial treasury displays the holy roman imperial crown which is super cool, and 1 of 3 claimed spears of destiny, a lore i first read about as a kid playing the wolfenstein game

    Vienna is full of actual history.  It reminds the movie buff of Belloch's statement to Indiana Jones who is holding a bazooka to the Ark of the Covenant: "We are only passing through history; this is history."

    In the Imperial Treasury, you have the crown of the Austrian Empire dating back to the 17th Century.  But in another room, there is the crown of the Holy Roman Empire, which dates to the mid-10th Century.  Next to it they have a reproduction of Durer's woodcut of Charmlemagne wearing that crown.  Charlemagne never wore that crown.  It was made a few generations after Charlemagne died.  It doesn't matter.  It's cool.

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    You also have all the relics.  The Spear of Destiny.  That's great.  But you also have a tooth of St. John the Baptist and a piece of the tablecloth from the Last Supper.  Oh, and a strip of Jesus's loincloth and one of the nails from the Cross.

    But those are of dubious provenance. What’s not are Charlemagne’s Bible and bag. These are things Charlemagne actually touched and used 1,200 years ago.

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    In the Capuchin Crypt, you've got all the tombs.  The saddest ones are the children.  And there are a lot of them.  And then there are the ones of the children with the mother who both died in childbirth.  There's more than a few of those.

    The best though is Maximilian, Emperor of Mexico.  He's down there.  And his tomb is always decorated by visitors from Mexico.

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    But if you are interested in history in Vienna, don't skip out on the Army History Museum.  They have the car in which Franz Ferdinand was riding when he was assassinated, along with his bullet-pierced uniform.

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  13. So another quick-hit from Vienna. We are at the Hotel Imperial. It’s a Marriott property, and I have a lot of points/status. So I booked one of our rooms on points, and the other got a nice upgrade to some sort of junior suite.

    All great.  Until yesterday, when a rain storm moved in.  When I tell you it was raining in the junior suite bathroom, that doesn’t really describe it.  Like a lot of water coming from all over.  Mrs LL’s hairdryer and some of her makeup was destroyed. 

    So to apologize, we got another upgrade. This time to the Royal Suite. It’s … adequate.

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  14. There’s going to be a much more comprehensive post on my travels in Germany and Austria over the last couple weeks forthcoming. But as a quick teaser, here’s my view from my hotel in Salzburg as I enjoy a bier and clean out some emails.

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    I hope everyone has a lovely Friday. Tchuss.

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