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Vegas64

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Everything posted by Vegas64

  1. Watched Captain America Brave New World. Very meh and Aldous Huxley is rolling in his grave with the sullying of that good name. Caught Wayne's World on cable. Haven't seen it since the early 90's. Actually a lot smarter and interesting and funny than I remember as a 20-something when it was a popular movie. It was a fun re-watch.
  2. I've been traveling to Houston a lot this year for work. 2 or 3 times a month I'm in Houston. I'm also regularly in places in like New York City and San Francisco. I haven't been to Austin regularly for at least a year and a half-- I was downtown at the Omni for two days in the spring. I give that context before I say: It feels like this year Houston is giving those places a run for it's money in what you traditionally think of as unchecked mental illness, drug use/abuse, and harrassment from those experiencing homelessness. I've seen more barefoot, screaming into the void mental illness and homeless people veering and intimidating the white collar population than I've seen in SF recently. Louisiana, Texas, Main, Fannin, Rusk, you name it, it's on every corner. From the JW Marriott to Vinson & Elkins to Shell Plaza it's crazy. And I've seen more downtown police and enforcement patrols just ignore it and look the other way (and to be fair, most finance and o&g workers downtown seem to be used to it) as they focus on ticketing parked cars. tl;dr Houston is rivaling San Fran in 2025 in smelling like urine.
  3. Memphis is the scariest place in America. I read somewhere "Memphis is what the right tries to tell America what Chicago is" and I felt that.
  4. And now you are 63. 3 years closer to Sheol. kidding, I’m in my 60’s as well and went so far as to get x-rays done and get a consultation for a surgery. Just never pulled the trigger. I throw a football with the grandsons like a girl, but that may because I’m weak and old now though I like to blame it on the shoulder.
  5. Exactly. But it's make believe value and wealth that has been materialized (on paper and in markets). GM and their shuttered autonous driving tech Cruise can't say that. Etc. Sure it's all fugayzi fugazzi but there is a big difference when you have the cult of personality to actually create the fungible value versus just talk about it. And that is it's own debate.
  6. Lots of ink has been spilled about this particular part of Musk's controversies, but I happen to think he "earned" the money, in the sense that is described as below. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/04/business/dealbook/musk-tesla-compensation-billion.html
  7. Gillie da Kid has always been unhinged. He's one of those rappers who never made it, but could have possibly made it? I don't know. I think his claim to fame was being a ghostwriter for all the big name rappers of the 00's.
  8. Tesla shares are up today after the company revealed its plan to give Elon Musk part of his long-promised blockbuster payday — some $29 billion, as its original proposal remains stuck in the Delaware courts.
  9. Another AI-theletes $$$ news drop: In 2021, NBA legend Steph Curry finalized a four-year, $215 million contract extension. Mark Zuckerberg recently offered 24-year-old Matt Deitke $250 million over four years to come work at Meta’s superintelligence lab, and he accepted. Ars Technica compared that to J. Robert Oppenheimer’s $10,000 annual salary in 1943 for leading the Manhattan Project, which, adjusted for inflation, would be $190,865 today.
  10. While I hear you, I for one am enjoying the mildest summer in DFW I can remember. Thanks to an above average wet spring and summer (which itself brought tragedy, though).
  11. This is good. I specifically came here for the Sidney Sweeney memes because it has creates a lot of ridiculous internet content on both sides. But just one funny meme and no thread. Alas, too much serious pain in the world to focus on innocuous funny.
  12. Not sure I agree 100% with your police work there Lou!
  13. Here is the existential problem, my dudes.... The endangerment finding isn't just a technical legal document; it's the foundation for federal climate action in the United States. Without it, you don't have the ability for the EPA to regulate and there is effectively no Clean Air Act. The good news? 1000% there will be legal challenges from states, multiple states, a coalition of states, environmental agencies, etc. that will tie this thing in legal morass for many, many years. Hopefully we can run out the clock in courts until 2028, seems to be the best case.
  14. FYI for those with kids and grandkids who really appreciate the family programming of PBS Kids: PBS Kids will not shut down, but some shows will be cancelled, and the surviving shows will make fewer new episodes, at least for the next couple of years. If you want to see PBS Kids survive, the best thing you can do is become a member of your local PBS station. If you're already a member, raise your donation level if you can.
  15. I love this, it's actually quite brilliant.
  16. The position is that for a representative democracy and federal system to work as a federation of (United) States, then it makes sense to have the system we have. If you want to re-architect the system (burn down and build from the ground up, as you or someone else suggested was the way to break free from the chokehold of a two-party system) then I can see doing away with the EC for something else that might a) be deemed more appropriate for 2025 and b) something that would need buy-in or ratification. Maybe just the former small-state resident in me (Live Free or Die!), but I find it personally distasteful to have agreed and entered into a political system and construct with an architecture undergirding the federal system of states that was agreed to and then completely changing the system to a population system where 3 or 4 states effectively run the rest of the 46-47. I won't use "pull the rug" or "bait and switch" as granted it's been 250 years, but it's definitely not something to be undertaken lightly.
  17. I deeply disagree. Unless you are talking about blowing everything up and starting from scratch, this time without an EC, then I could see it depending on the re-archituring of the nation.
  18. Which goes back to, if you supported the formation of a third party those 19 "democrats" who voted against bernie's bill, you'd have room for more democrats that would have voted for that bill.
  19. Thanks for the response and it really is helpful after you spelled out the comparison for me to understand what you were saying. I don’t disagree really at all with you when you’ve put it that way. Sorry to make you have to work a bit this late in the afternoon.
  20. Maybe unpopular opinion, but in a pinch and for convenience (and bang for your buck) HEB's BBQ offerings are pretty dang good. Better than Rudy's.
  21. have you ever heard the cognitive psychology behind the word "but"? If not formerly, I think you might have internalized it somewhere along the way in life because when you re-quoted yourself you conveniently left it out, as it was used after the word "deplorable". when you say "yes the actions were deplorable, but..." it's inviting defense. Just like in therapy you are taught that a real apology is not a "I'm sorry, but" (that's actually known as a non-apology apology), your sentence here you are citing actually does make it seem defensive. Ultimately, and I'll quote here "reserach shows that people itnerpret what comes AFTER the word but as the real message, and what comes before as less sincere or even irrelevant in arguments" https://ala-apa.org/newsletter/2010/11/01/the-dreadful-but/
  22. Then why, my dear David, do you two hours ago say "Our country needs more than 2 parties". What's a solution to get to 3 (or more!) parties?
  23. I need to re-read this two or three more times because I've tried to get through it at least twice now and what I keep hearing is a pretty overt apologia for 10/7 on behalf of Hamas and Palestine. edit: maybe I'll just ask directly, is that intentional? are you intending to defend 10/7 (to any degree)?
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