Everything posted by Texas Jeff
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Austin ISD School Consolidation
TEA officially released Austin ISD from their state monitorship. This was a ton of work by the district and it's a big victory for the board and the administration. For the past 2-3 years, the board has effectively had a "shot clock" put on them for discussions not directly related to student outcomes. Time was limited for things like the budget and consolidations. That's now gone. Hopefully they won't backslide into bad habits, but at least now they can have more in-depth public conversations about important things like money and who is going to go to school where without worrying about a running clock. Congrats to the administration, it was a lot of hard work.
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Jeffrey Epstein needs his own thread
It seems like everyone at the top of our society knows everyone else. Like one giant ball of nepotism, but with friends rather than relatives. In a country of 400 million folks, seems like we should have a little more diversity of control and power.
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Trump’s America
An additional incentive: The owner of the private bridge also sells duty-free gas, which is cheaper than surrounding stations because it's not taxed. Some of the savings goes to folks filling up and some of it is profit to the bridge owner. The bridge owner would prefer to continue doing this.
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Trump’s America
Yes, it looks like the new toll bridge will charge tolls, but there is not a single source I can find that says what they will be. Canada financed the project and will own it. According to some sources, they will charge a toll to recoup the costs of building the bridge, and after it is paid for they will share the toll revenue with the state of Michigan. Looks like Canada made agreements with the US and Michigan as far back as 2012, started construction in 2018, completely paid for it, and now is close to opening it. Along the way the owners of the other bridge were trying to slow or stop progress to maintain their private monopoly. Now the project is about to open so Trump wants to change the agreement to screw those that did the work. Imagine that... Honestly it is embarrassing that America cannot suck it up and provide for our own infrastructure or share the costs where appropriate. In general I like the idea of toll roads, because the users of the roads pay for the road, but I feel that once the road is paid for the tolls should be limited to improving or repairing the road that is tolled. There are other reasons to maintain a toll for the bridge. Gas prices are different between the US and Canada. You don't want to fill up the bridge with a bunch of people seeking cheaper gas by driving across the bridge, filling up, and driving back. It's OK to move goods for free trade purposes, people or trucks moving goods to lower costs for everyone, but you want to toll it somewhat to keep people from trying to arbitrage a commodity and filling the bridge with traffic to do so.
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2025 Texas High School Football
LBJ is a 4A div 1 school. They get: Northeast (aka Reagan) Travis Comal Canyon Lake Comal Davenport Fredricksburg Kervill Tivy Taylor Austin ISD has done an unbelievable job of putting their schools into as many divisions as possible. Really they could not actively try harder and end up with their schools spread out more than they have. LBJ has about a fourth of the enrollment of Bowie.
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2025 Texas High School Football
I watched a lot of Austin High vs those schools when my kids were in band. Honestly, that's a league with lots of competitive games ... once you take out the LT/Westlake/Drip schools. The "lesser" schools will never compete with the western folks. But for parents and players of the not-as-great schools it's a lot more fun to attend an actual contest rather than a beating.
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2025 Texas High School Football
LASA Navarro Bastrop Elgin Pflugerville Should be a nice two years for Crockett
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What the fuck is wrong with you, Austin?
The Statesman has an article out on city of Austin salaries: https://www.statesman.com/projects/2025/austin-salary-database/ The median earnings in the police department is $130k per year. There are many examples of officers making more in overtime pay than they are making in base pay. Lots of officers over $200k and nine over $300k. If you search for a few of the names you'll find the some of the same officers getting similar high pay for previous years. What exactly are they doing to merit $300k per year?
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Austin ISD School Consolidation
The admin shared an update at last Thursday's board meeting. 22 schools were approved in the first pass. TEA requested more information on two of them. You are correct that TEA wanted more detail in cases where F students are going to a school with an F rating. The superintendent said that TEA asked for additional financial details in those cases, beyond what they would ask for in a turnaround plan that did not involve F to F, and that the district was preparing the information that TEA requested. Considering the scope of the turnaround plans and school closures, they got a lot right on the first pass.
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Pluribus - Vince Gilligan and Rhea Seehorn
The pilot showed a whiteboard with some science stuff, but it was only shown for a few seconds. It showed something attaching to an OR1D2 olfactory nerve receptor, and mentioned that something was also found in the brain endothelium and GI tract. So, maybe you smell something or you eat something and it crosses your blood-brain barrier and you are then one with the hive. On the night where everyone was infected, they showed planes flying in formation dumping something in parallel lines. I think they later said they had to speed up the process because there was some disturbance at military bases. I'm left wondering how the alien life knew enough about us and our DNA to send the perfect encoded stream to infect us. Are humans inevitable on planets like ours?
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Surly kids who can't get into UT
Stuff happens. I once signed up for what I thought was "Personal Management" ... I thought it was a class in personal financial management. No, it was "Personnel Management", a class about all things HR. Whatever ... I needed the writing component, it fit in my schedule, and I just wanted out of the Erwin Center.
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2026 Celebrity Death Watch Pool
J. David Bamberger died at age 97. He helped build Church's Fried Chicken and then set out to restore the worst land he could find in the hill country. A half a century later:
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Trump’s America
I have zero medical training but Trump's bruises look like old people IV bruises. I have old parents and they bruise easily but it's usually a forearm or leg. Rarely directly on the back of a hand unless ... they've had an IV. First one hand, then the other. What do experts think is going on?
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Trump’s America
All we have to do to turn Trump around on this thing is to create a Nobel Green Energy Prize and give one to Biden.
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Trump’s America
One lap down, three to go. This time next year, we'll be halfway there.
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Austin ISD School Consolidation
Mendez is built to hold 1200 students. Before the charter school takeover, before COVID, the school had about 600-700 students. Last year they enrolled about 200 kids in 7-8, and this year they were expanding to 6-8 and hoping for 300 kids. Enrollment plummeted during the charter school years. The school was a tough academic environment and the kids were advancing a lot faster than their peers. But many zoned kids transferred out. Mendez school leadership was required to present quarterly status reports to the board of trustees. No other school in the district has to do that. Scores went way up but enrollment went way down. The building is more empty than full. Down the road, Bedichek is closing because of low academic performance. What a mess...
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ICE activity/raids
A troop surge in a winter wonderland with Americans facing off against Americans. What could go wrong?
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Waymo cars Hit the Freeways
Waymo expanded their Austin coverage area from 90 to 130 sq miles. Most of the expansion was in north, east and far south Austin. No airport coverage yet. The coverage is about 4x what it was a year ago. The new map:
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Greenland - Tassa Eller Asu !!!!
Don't overthink this. Think about the dumbest possible reason for everything and you have Trump's motivation. For example: Trump wants to make Greenland part of the United States so that he will be remembered for the largest expansion, by area, in the history of the United States. He dreams of renaming Greenland to be Trump Island so that once he is gone, his name will appear in a Sharpie sized font on world maps. He can't get credit for an expansion or rename it after himself until we own it. So we have to own it. He's all about his perception of the biggest and the best, and stuff named after him. It's not that complicated.