Highway6

I'm all for rail, but rail down Washington would be a total waste of money. The current rail design connects important landmarks and employment centers (Downtown, Rice, Hermann Park, Med Center, Reliant, Galleria, New Dynamo Stadium, etc.). Washington Avenue has none of those things... just bars. The scene on Washington will have moved by the time anything could get funded and built... and there will be plenty of bars along the future rail that you don't have to drive to.

From the Katy LRT thread linked to above...

Washington isnt ideal for a phase III route because its now a hotspot... it's ideal because it's 1 of 3 E-W corridors connecting the NWTC ( North end of the Uptown Line and numerous commuter bus routes ) and downtown (converge into current East End line).

The other two being I-10 and the tracks.

Washington is the best of those 3 for splitting SN22 and its dense boat load of residents as well as hitting up the current and any future commercial/retail buildings. Let the bar scene move... doesn't really change Washington Ave's importance.

Just a dream.... what do you guys think? plus it would really tie in the other future lines that are going in.

I think you're several years behind in the dreams dept. It's all a fine idea but let's just get through the current phase of LRT and CRT before we start tacking on more lines.

http://www.houstonarchitecture.com/haif/topic/23371-inner-katy-lrt/

http://www.ctchouston.org/information/factsheets/railexpansion/railexpansion2.shtml

One of the constables, Bill Bailey of Pct 8, laid himself off after letting go of 11 people and finding his budget still wasn't low enough.

http://blogs.chron.c...igns_in_pr.html

My girlfriend got me one of these (surprise gift, haven't talked about it in a long time) after visiting family in Mexico. I sported it to dinner tonight and have taken it to work once. lol

Did she get you a Jack pack?

You going to post a photo or link to the specific one you got so we may all judge accordingly?

Oh no, not another one demolished for a parking lot. That's sad.

Thanks fro the info. and pic.

I know I've heard that bldg. name before, somewhere in my reading.

That article didn't have a date... and their last course of action was to do nothing because it was getting interest from developers. I wouldn't be too worried.

I don't recall seeing that bldg. in pic two. Where is it located? And what's the name on the side of it? Looks like HOGAN ALLNOON DRY GOODS CO.

Can anyone confirm?

Yeah...Nice pics.

Not a bad looking building.. I've never noticed it before though.

1923 Hogan-Allnoch Dry Goods Co. Building

So much publicity I'm thinking the first thing her lawyers request is a change of venue. Some place far from Houston.

If she were to just plead Guilty... does she still have a jury for sentencing ?

Return of the Tata...

http://www.chron.com...le/7484319.html

Nice. Where was the Stevie Ray mural?

Maybe county court. I thought constables original purpose was to track down warrants, and they managed to expand themselves to do whatever HPD already do. To me it's a duplication of effort, a waste.

I grew up in 2 different neighborhoods outside the city limits in NW houston. The only law enforcement that ever patrolled either neighborhood were constables and they were a welcome sight. I've always seen them as legitimate peace officers, an extension of the sheriff's dept. there to pick up the slack. There will always be more residential neighborhoods on county land to serve than there are sheriffs to do so.

It is hardly a duplication of effort.

So they are semi-publicly funded harassers for hire, that's even worse.

They are fully public county entities. They are available for hire in the same way cops are available for funeral processions or event security because the demand for authority will always be greater than the supply.

I think one way to look at is - HPD has all these duties, traffic enforcement, crime Investigation, patrol, etc... within the city limits. The county has the same responsibilities with less officers covering a greater area outside the city limits. Constables are the County's Jr. Varsity team, there to do the less important duties, like community patrol and some traffic enforcement.

Uh oh...high expections. We all know where that leads, so here a quick preview of the next few pages of this thread.

- First renderings posted

- followed by - complaints of how pedestrian the design is

- which lead to - complaints that nothing cool ever gets built in Houston

- and ultimately lead to - calls to tear the whole thing down and bring back the homeless people.

You posted Scenario A.

Scenario B of course is:

- First renderings posted

- everyone falls in love with how stunning the design is due to (unrealistic glazing/see-through buildings, amazing lighting, happy silhouette people, unrealistic overabundance of landscaping, lack of realistic site context)

- everyone falls in love with the renderings themselves

- everyone forgets that renderings are NOT promises between the developer and the public

- everyone fails to realize that renderings are shelved once construction starts and change-orders and fiscal realities start rolling in

- followed by complaints of how unlike the renderings the built project is

- which lead to - complaints that nothing cool ever gets built in Houston

- and ultimately lead to - calls to tear the whole thing down and bring back the homeless people and/or surface lot.

Want to watch every game streaming on your iphone or ipad? There's an App for that.

http://itunes.apple....&ign-mpt=uo%3D2

Wanna keep track as Highway6 kicks your butt in your bracket challenge? There's an app for that too.

http://itunes.apple....&ign-mpt=uo%3D2

Louisville jacked up everyone's bracket! But basically it affected us all the same, no one had them getting past Kansas, only lockmat had them losing in the 2nd round. Crazy though.

Yeah.. but he has Texas winning it all... psshhh.. as if.

For the record.. i don't like Espn. I don't like that their Group results page is so basic. If i remember correctly from last yr, CBS Sportsline included each person's Champion on that page. Here you gotta click on each person's bracket

Nevermind. They've activated the champion column in the past half hour.

I have found a rendering of this Midtown-defining project...

Behold !!

Bastrop county has a lot of entries for a Jimmie Luecke - random ones showed "Hidden Pines" subdivision (none have a situs address) and Hidden Pines Dr. runs along the west side of the LUECKE cutout - the GIS viewer lands the plots right around there too.

Yeah.. I misspelled Luecke, never mind the end of my last post.

One would think that with 3100' tall letters that wouldn't be a problem.

Tourney has started.

For the record.. i don't like Espn. I don't like that their Group results page is so basic. If i remember correctly from last yr, CBS Sportsline included each person's Champion on that page. Here you gotta click on each person's bracket

20thDad - Champ - Kansas.

Final 4 - OhioSt over Uconn & Kansas over Pitt..

RedScare - Champ - Duke.

Final 4 - Duke over UNC & Pitt over A&M..

Brijonmang - Champ - Duke.

Final 4 - Duke over UNC & Kansas over Florida..

Highway6 - Champ - Kansas.

Final 4 - Uconn over UNC & Kansas over Florida..

Aggie 92 - Champ - Kansas.

Final 4 - OhioSt over Duke & Kansas over BYU..

asurbt - Champ - OhioSt.

Final 4 - OhioSt over Uconn & Kansas over KState..

AgstoSA (ProHouston?) - Champ - Duke.

Final 4 - Duke over Syracuse & Kansas over Pitt..

Pumapayam - Champ - Kansas.

Final 4 - Uconn over OhioSt & Kansas over Pitt..

Lockmat - Champ - Texas.

Final 4 - Texas over UNC & Kansas over Pitt..

Pretty neat.

There are several hits on this including this one from NASA...http://earth.jsc.nas...es/default5.htm

It's hard to be sure since Bastrop CAD doesn't have a map feature online to get the address or account #, but I think this might be the name of a former landowner since Lueke didn't pull up anything in their Name database.

We got 9 in.. and the league is still open. First game is at 11:15 Central so anyone who is still thinking about joining, you have a little over an hr left.

My picks are horrible by the way.. hardly any going out a limb picks... mostly chalk.

I guess one flip-side to that is if the standards are set too high then you don't get enough recruits to fill the open positions. Then response times go down since you don't have enough officers available. The obvious answer to that is to raise pay and benefits to see if you can attract better qualified candidates and fill all the needed positions. But then you have to raise taxes and nobody likes that.

The previous standard in Dayton was get a 66% on that particular entrance exam. It's not like they were only accepting A students... or B students... or even C students.

I guess having an incompetent person fill a position might be slightly better than having that position unfilled in some cases, but it could also make matters worse, depending on the job.

If you are not yet aware, a story making the rounds this week is that the Police Dept. of the City of Dayton, Ohio recently has been ordered by the Dept of Justice to lower their testing standards because not enough black applicants were getting in.

Coming in from the right, I would like to present exhibit A as one viewpoint on this- http://boortz.com/ne...w-dayton-p.html

I know this isn't unique to Dayton, I think the Justice Dept has been doing this since 1990.

My two comments on this are: I don't see how an individual's right to a job can trump their ability to do that job. Public jobs serve the public and only those qualified should hold those jobs. This also leads to my dislike of public unions, esp for schools, and their protection of unqualified teachers but that's another topic. Dayton rookies can now get as low as a 58% on one of the entrance exams and still protect and serve. I don't know what are on these tests, but if the DOJ has determined that qualifications be damned, then they might as well do away with it altogether. Avg IQ, common sense, ability to learn and retain rules and regulations be damned.. be drug free and have no record and you're in.

My other comment is that I'm really tired of this excuse - " I'm smart, I just don't test well". It has been used here to defend these particular unqualified black applicants. It's used to diminish the value of standardized testing in schools. It's used everywhere these days. "Tests have no value" is what that amounts to. BS. If you're supposed to know something that qualifies you for a job, a LEED certification, a drivers license, the right to go up a grade, the right to get into law school, anything... the only way to measure if you know what you are supposed to know is to test you. You either know the material that you're supposed to know, or you don't. It's simple. I'm sick to death of that BS excuse being used everywhere by unqualified parties.

Anyways.. let the convo begin. I'd love to hear my left leaning haifers side on this - esp the "right to a public job trumping qualifications to hold that public job". I'd like to think that even you would have a hard time stomaching that.

Edit:

Link to DOJ news Release - http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2009/February/09-crt-172.html

Wouldn't the trendy name be W-O-P?

edit: Apparently, that racial slur is excluded by built-in software.

I don't know what's trendy about that by itself

... maybe WopDo though.. DagoDo.. I don't know.

But you're right.. Little Italy district just isn't trendy enough.. Order now on hold pending a more trendy name for my district.

Actually.. wait. I need a prominent Italian do-gooder to name my district after. Too bad the Pope isn't Italian.

For me, just because an ethnic group is highly concentrated in one area, unless they are also in the vast majority, then they shouldn't get naming rights.. and I'm sorry, but that view does eliminate lots of ethnic groups from contention. If 100 Mongolians moved to the East End and became the highest concentration of Mongolians outside of Mongolia.. who cares.. their .01% of the East End population reality trumps the highest concentration claim. Hispanics are the majority ethnic group of the Ghandi District. (based on the most up to date census data I've seen)

And really, I don't care, I'm just playing devil's advocate. Plus, I now get to rename Montrose.

Though, after reading Ltawacs post, and doing some googling.. I did find numerous links that he did in fact not think too highly of South African blacks. That was interesting. I also found it interesting that he approved of Hitler exterminating the Jews.. But heck, both of those tibits appear to be from sources quoting the same book, so who knows the accuracy of that. And who cares.. because I now get to rename Montrose.

The Pakistan/India split occurred after Gandhi led the independence movement from England. He also spoke out against Muslim/Hindu violence and held a fast to protest violence against Muslims and the Indian government's failure to make agreed payments to Pakistan. I'll yield to anyone who has a more detailed knowledge of the situation, but I don't think that is an issue.

Besides how is this any different than any designated ethnic district in any other major city in the country?

True. Gandhi was before the split, and maybe I'm wrong on how Pakistanis feel about him, but lumping them together as if they were one ignores the fact that they've been at war most of the past 60 years.

Little Italy in NewYork wasn't populated by 50 other ethnic groups when it was given its namesake.

Chinatown in SF wasn't populated by 50 other ethnic groups when it was given its namesake.

Harwin in Houston is as multi-ethnic as you can get... Are Indians even the majority minority group there? There are countless other ethnic groups on Harwin that would have as legitimate a claim to the namesake of the district.

The NYT's census mapping project shows that the 3 tracts along Harwin are 60% Hispanic.

EDIT :

I hate negotiating around the Census website so by all means if anyone can find better info, go for it, but here is the data sheet for one of those 3 tracts as of 2000.

Indian population was a whopping 3.7%. I'm sure it's more now esp. if you want to combine the Pak population.. but even if they were 51%, which they are nowhere near, would that even merit naming rights when so many other ethnic groups are represented there.. I don't think so.

Can we designate Montrose area the Timothy Leary District?

Nope.. Sorry.. I've already put an order in with the local sign manufacturer for 20 "Little Italy District" signs for all the major intersections in Montrose. Go get your own district you non-italian.