august948
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Posts posted by august948
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On 8/29/2023 at 9:38 PM, hindesky said:
Now we pretty much have to elect Trump in 2024, whether we like it or not.
Democratic party operatives have already shown that impeaching during a election year and burning and rioting in American cities in the run up to the election can influence the presidential election. Now, if they are successful with this they will prove that weaponizing the legal system and pursuing political prosecutions can also influence the presidential election. If they are successful with that you can be sure that you will be seeing these tactics used over and over and over again every election cycle from now on.
Good job Dems, I'm sure y'all thought this all the way through.
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6 hours ago, Twinsanity02 said:
This is pathetic. How can anyone get their facts so twisted up? Good luck to you all if she becomes your mayor.
If elected she will be a major representative of Houston, which is soon to receive enhanced publicity from the Moon landings and other events.
If she's elected I'll really feel bad for COH employees. She's got a long, dismal track record with staff.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/sheila-jackson-lee-chiefs-of-staff-tunrnover_n_880330
https://dailycaller.com/2011/03/02/congressional-bosses-from-hell-sheila-jackson-lee/
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9 hours ago, Twinsanity02 said:
Under the "Shame of Texas"
Are those quotes for real? Did she actually state those things? Some of these things suggest either misquotes, deep ignorance, or no respect for the public on her part.
Democrat Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee: "I Stand Here as a Freed Slave"
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4 hours ago, Twinsanity02 said:
Under the "Shame of Texas"
Are those quotes for real? Did she actually state those things? Some of these things suggest either misquotes, deep ignorance, or no respect for the public on her part.
Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee on North and South Vietnam
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4 hours ago, Twinsanity02 said:
Under the "Shame of Texas"
Are those quotes for real? Did she actually state those things? Some of these things suggest either misquotes, deep ignorance, or no respect for the public on her part.
From Texas Monthly...
https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/mooned/
QuoteWhile there, according to an article by Sandy Hume in The Hill, a weekly newspaper that covers Congress, Jackson Lee asked if the Pathfinder succeeded in taking pictures of the American flag planted on Mars by Neil Armstrong in 1969. Of course, Armstrong planted the flag on the Moon, as any high schooler should be able to tell you, let alone a 47-year-old Yale graduate.
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4 hours ago, Twinsanity02 said:
Under the "Shame of Texas"
Are those quotes for real? Did she actually state those things? Some of these things suggest either misquotes, deep ignorance, or no respect for the public on her part.
....this will be fun...
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51 minutes ago, hindesky said:
"Simply put it means that the car shouldn't be humped. There are two ways that freight RR's build their trains. The first is called "Flat Switching", where you have a switch engine that moves the cars around from track to track as necessary to put the cars in the proper order.
The second way is through a hump yard. Cars are pushed over a small hill and are allowed to roll down the hill one at a time. Meanwhile a worker sitting in a tower throws the necessary switches to allow the cars to roll onto the proper tracks for classification.
So if a car says do not hump, then it should always be flat switched and not humped."https://www.amtraktrains.com/threads/do-not-hump.725/
Dear Cecil: Whilst driving around recently a friend and I got stuck at a railroad crossing waiting for a freight train to go by. To pass the time, we began speculating on the meaning of a sign we saw on some of the cars saying DO NOT HUMP. We conjectured that this might be some sort of safe-sex campaign organized by the railroads in the wake of the AIDS crisis, but eventually rejected the idea. So we put it to you, Cecil — what is the meaning of this odd instruction? Gene W., Dallas
Illustration by Slug Signorino
Cecil replies:
Dear Gene:
I am saddened to report that DO NOT HUMP does not have any of the off-color significance that seems to give many of the Teeming Millions their principal reason to go on living. It refers to a common method used to sort freight cars known as “humping,” which involves the use of a man-made hill, or hump. A track heads up the hill and branches into numerous parallel tracks on its way down the other side. To make up new trains, a switch engine pushes a string of cars to the top of the hump, where the cars are uncoupled one at a time. Having determined the car’s destination, a worker in a nearby tower pushes buttons or throws levers or whatever to get the track switches (you know, those things where one track divides into two) lined up properly. The car is then given a nudge, causing it to roll down the hump and onto the right track.
The advantage of humping is that it’s a lot faster than having switch engines shuttle back and forth all day making up trains. The disadvantage is that it’s sometimes a little rough on the freight cars and their contents. Occasionally a car derails going down the hill, meaning the crew has to stop working and try to get the wheels back on the rails, which is not much fun, particularly in the middle of winter. What’s worse is the possibility that the car may roll down the hill too fast and crash into the car in front of it, jostling or damaging both the cars and what’s inside them. Special gimmicks on the rails called “retarders” are supposed to slow things down and prevent this, but they have been known to fail. Accordingly, cars with especially delicate contents are marked DO NOT HUMP, which tells the yard crew to set the car aside for special handling. This applies particularly to the tank cars used to haul hazardous chemicals, many of which have DO NOT HUMP stenciled permanently on their sides.
The railroad business, I might note, is one of the few fields where a guy without advanced training can still hope to wreak major environmental havoc. An old high school teacher of mine once told me about the time he worked in the steel mills helping switch coal cars. During his first week on the job, he was asked to participate in a risky maneuver known as a “flying switch.” The idea was that the locomotive would head toward a switch pulling a single coal car behind it. At the right moment, somebody would uncouple the car and the locomotive would scoot ahead through the switch onto the main line. Once the locomotive was clear, my high school teacher was supposed to throw the switch so the coal car would roll onto the side track.
Everything worked great until they got to the part where the teacher was supposed to throw the switch. For reasons that time has mercifully expunged from his memory, he waited to throw the switch until after the coal car’s front set of wheels had headed out toward the main line. The back set, however, was now headed onto the siding. You see the obvious problem this presents. My teacher had the privilege of watching a magnificent slow-motion disaster in the making as the coal car sort of rolled sidesaddle down the line until the tracks got too far apart, whereupon it toppled over and spilled 50 tons of coal all over creation. A great moment in railroading — nearly as funny as the time I almost knocked out the side of a building with an overhead crane. But we’ll get to that story some other day.
Cecil Adams
https://www.straightdope.com/21341767/what-does-do-not-hump-mean-on-the-side-of-railroad-cars
Where is this?
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Jackson Lee wants to be ‘education mayor.’ With Miles at HISD, how would that work? (Editorial)
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Drove over the new path today on Synott and it looks complete in both directions as far as you can see. I'm hoping they will at least get the Fiorenza to Storey park segment complete asap, even if there's more to do connecting it east to the existing trail at 59.
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35 minutes ago, samagon said:
this is a larger discussion than something METRO themselves should be responsible for though right?
if you look at Houston, streets are not designed for people, they're designed for cars. METRO buses have to share the streets with cars, so rather than a person waiting 5-10 minutes for a train that runs on a very strict schedule, they have to wait on a bus that has a schedule, but that schedule is subject to the whims of the vehicles it is forced to cohabitate with.
what's worse, it can even be said the whole city is built to serve cars, not people, so by extension, all the departments and organizations of the city, have to follow suit and design themselves to work around the primary need of cars, and then serve people.
The waiting times comparison for busses vs trains are only ever going to be valid on a very limited set of routes. There's no way you will ever be able to serve any significant fraction of the total bus stops by rail. So, first and foremost, METRO should be taking the lead on improving shade at bus stops. That's far easier and quicker than rebuilding entire roads.
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15 hours ago, mattyt36 said:
Worst thing that has ever happened as far as city planning goes in Houston as far as I'm concerned is the absolute inattention to a requirement for trees in public rights-of-way, sidewalks (well, yeah, I guess we don't have those, I suppose they go hand-in-hand) and roadways. And I'm not talking about the 19th century, even if someone made an effort in my lifetime, this city would be an entirely different and more livable place. Atlanta, of course, is the most prominent example.
Apparently, the city has a plan to plant 4.6 million trees in the next 7 years.
Last go around for this sort of thing, 10 years ago or so, they planted a lot of the trees in the medians. Prettier for driving but not so much for walking. We'll see how it goes this time around.
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They're continuing to make progress on the segments between Eldridge and the beltway (Fiorenza->Driscoll->Storey parks). Haven't investigated east of the beltway yet. Also haven't heard the opening date.
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15 hours ago, samagon said:
there isn't a car capable connection, but there is a crosswalk at the pharmacy building that accesses the Brays Bayou Greenway, they even have a lane for golfcarts, so there's access for pedestrian, bike, or cart to the energy park via this greenway.
I confess I've only ever ridden past the energy park entrance on my bike, and haven't investigated how easy it is to access that section of campus from that trail, but it exists.
I've walked that section a couple of times. It's a really nice trail. From the main campus you end up in one of the parking lots.
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2 hours ago, j_cuevas713 said:
If we continue building just for cars then yes it won't incentivize anyone to take transit, walk, or bike. It's all learned behavior just like anything else. It took me about 6 months to really get used to just taking transit and now I don't even have to think about it. Calling this area a car wash desert is crazy in my opinion.
I'm sure the folks in the multi-million dollar homes in University Place just need that extra little incentive to sell their cars and take transit instead.
"What? No car wash? Barbie, we need to sell the Rolls now!"
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5 hours ago, editor said:
The cooling centers are few and far between.
For example, there are zero cooling centers in downtown Houston. The nearest one is a 40-minute walk, mostly in full sun, in 100+° heat, and heat indicies over 110°.
Many of the people who live on the street have problems which require them to take various medicines. A lot of medicines exacerbate any exposure to heat and sun. As an example, many high blood pressure medications make people very sensitive to heat and direct sun.
Moreover, many of the people living on the streets congregate downtown because that's where they can get help. Either from the Beacon, or from the city-designated places where charities are permitted to hand out food, or from other municipal and social services, or from the suburban churches that drive vans into downtown and hand meals and hygiene packs out through the barely-cracked windows of their vans because they're afraid of the homeless, but have to keep up their charitable appearance so they can drive back to their McMansions in Spring and The Woodlands and tell their friends what good Christians they are for braving the scary, dark, crime-infested streets of the big city for their pastor and hey, I ordered a double-foam doppio oat milk frap, and this is a single-foam doppio oat milk frap, I demand you get your manager while I rant about this injustice on FaceTube.
I don't like that sometimes there's a guy who sleeps in the planter in front of my building during the day. But I can also understand why he might not want to walk an hour in the hot sun just so he can sit in an air conditioned room for a few hours, and then get kicked out on the street again.
The cooling centers are only open 9am to 5pm. The same hours that most social services are available. So, the choice has to be made — sit in a cooled room, or find food Sit in a cooled room, or try to get your stolen ID replaced so you can get a mailbox and eventually a job. Sit in a cooled room, or sweep the gas station parking lots in Midtown for a few bucks so you can eat tonight. Sit in a cooled room, or direct tourists into the parking lots for Astros games so you can earn a few bucks to buy some bandages to cover the sores on your feet you got from being shuffled from neighborhood to neighborhood.
When I lived in the desert, it was well-known that 5pm is the hottest time of the day. I don't know if that's true in Houston, as well, but it always seemed strange to me to kick people out of cooling centers at 5pm. It's like saying, "Wow, it's really hot out. Like life-threateningly hot out. But my shift is over, so out you go. Good luck. Try not to die."
No doubt mostly true, though a double-foam doppio oat milk frap seems more stereotypical of a different sort of poser. However, the original community org post doesn't really seem targeted to the homeless population.
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32 minutes ago, editor said:
Easy to say when you have an inside in which to seek refuge.
It is, but for the tiny fraction of people who are homeless, suggesting they go to the park when there are in fact many public places that have air conditioning plus the cooling centers set up by the city seems a bit silly.
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10 hours ago, trymahjong said:
Beat the Heat - Stay Cool During Scorching Temperatures!
Did you know that choosing natural spaces over concrete can make a significant difference in temperature? Concrete absorbs and retains heat, contributing to the formation of heat islands in urban areas (learn more here). By seeking out green spaces like parks or gardens, you'll experience cooler temperatures and enjoy the added benefit of being close to nature.
So when the sun's rays feel relentless, there's no need to suffer - embrace the power of nature to stay cool! Seek out the shelter of leafy trees to escape the direct heat of the sun. Plus, shade provides a tranquil and inviting atmosphere to relax and unwind. So, grab a good book or a picnic blanket and find the perfect shady spot to spend your summer days. Maybe one of our favorite Houston natural spaces, found below:
- Baytown Nature Center
- Buffalo Bayou Partnership
- Discovery Green Conservancy
- Exploration Green
- Friends of Mandell Park
- Friends of Woodland Park
- Houston Parks & Recreation
- Houston Parks Board
- Herman Park Conservancy
- Houston Arboretum & Nature Center
- Houston Botanic Garden
- Jesse H. Jones Park & Nature Center
- Mercer Arboretum & Botanic Gardens
- Nature Discovery Center
- White Oak Bayou Association
Apart from shade, there are a few more tricks up our sleeves to combat the heat. Staying hydrated is crucial, so keep a reusable water bottle handy and drink plenty of fluids throughout the day. Opt for loose, breathable clothing made from natural fibers like cotton, as they allow air to circulate around your body, preventing overheating.
So, don't let the summer heat get you down! Seek refuge outside, stay cool, and enjoy the beauty of summer!
When it's 101 outside, seek refuge inside.
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9 hours ago, editor said:
I think they're probably legal. The older portion of what is now The Star has one.
In downtown Chicago, they're encouraged. If your building has an arcade, you can get an extra floor or two on your permitted height. Same if you allow the public to use your lobby to traverse from one side of the block to the other.
Obviously, that don't work in Houston, since there is no zoning.
No zoning = No way to encourage good design.
On the other hand, except when the sun is directly overhead, tall buildings on both sides of the road in a built-up urban environment will provide shade (as seen in the picture above). Not against the concept, but it would be more relevant in suburban areas.
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7 hours ago, j_cuevas713 said:
SMH
According to Google Maps, West University is a bit of a car wash desert. Surely you don't think these folks are going to be dumping their cars and taking the bus.
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On 7/11/2023 at 6:04 PM, mattyt36 said:
Should’ve waited until 713 Day!
In Spring it's 832 day.
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I'll trade you a pedestrianized Allen Pkwy for wider freeways. Win win!
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44 minutes ago, BeerNut said:
OPEC has more to do with gas prices than Biden.
Perhaps, but shutting down pipelines and publicly stating he wants to eliminate fossil fuels has it's effect. Plus, it makes him the visible target for higher prices going into 2024.
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7 minutes ago, Ross said:
Biden didn't cause any of those. That all would have happened regardless of who sits in the Oval Office.
Perhaps, although an administration opposed to fossil fuels doesn't help gas prices. Which in turn drives other goods higher. Regardless, he gets to take the blame.
You can argue prices would have gone up anyway, but the percentages would likely have been different. Swing voters in 2024 won't likely give much weight to the list in blue, but they will remember that their cost of living is much higher than it was 4 years prior. That's why the Democratic party has fully embraced banana republic tactics of late.
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On 1/26/2023 at 1:47 PM, Amlaham said:
This could be a good thing or a bad thing. A new developer could really make this festival a lot larger; adding attractions, adding a small town center with the same aesthetics. However, a new developer could also bulldoze this down a build a giant Walmart with a 500+ parking lot.
Walmartophobia strikes again.
I'd be far more afraid of vendors, artists and entertainers trying to run it.
TxDOT Proposes Elevating I-10 near I-45
in Traffic and Transportation
Posted
Just released conceptual for the extra lanes...