august948

Proposed trail improvements advance along Brays Bayou https://abc13.com/project-brays-bayou-improvement-trail-improvements-braeswood-and-meyerland-areas/12213693/

I think you need to read the second sentence again. My position on polls in general is that there is only one that means anything and that one won't happen until early November. So, to slightly modify your "reasonable response" above I'd say "Because I don't trust polls, I don't find this particularly concerning." That's not to say Mealer won't get shellaced in November, but I'm not going take this a definitive proof that she will either. Like I said before, let's revisit this after the election and see how close the UH/TSU polling actually got. But...just to play along here...I pulled a report from the same organization focused on the statewide races and that shows Abbott leading O'Rourke. So, just for the sake of argument, let's say the UH/TSU polls are dead on. That would leave us with Harris county blue (as you predicted, I believe) and Hidalgo as County Judge. It would also leave us with Abbott as Governor. That would be a continuation of the current status quo. I can live with that, since my primary objection to Hidalgo is her overreach during covid. Abbott stepped in and quashed that fairly quickly so we know he will act as a check on her. It's a curious coincidence that on the right side of the spectrum there is concern that Democratic party operatives want to install an authoritarian "I Know Better than You" government, most recently using California and New York as examples.

If we're talking about hands, I'll defer to @mattyt36 as the expert on that in this particular race.

Polls are fun and all, but the 2016 poll debacle showed you can't really take them very seriously. I'd say that if the trend was just the opposite as well. In the case of the poll above, I followed the link to the actual document and found this... https://uh.edu/hobby/txtrends/countyjudge22.pdf Someone let me know if I pulled the wrong document or if I'm reading this wrong but it sounds like they polled a whopping 195 people for this and ended up with a confidence of +/-7%. I have my doubts as to whether that's even a statistically significant sample. But, like I said, polling can be fun to argue about even if it's not particularly meaningful. We should pin this one and come back to it in two months to see how it turns out.

I heard a rumor they were going to paint the Embassy Suites blue...

Thanks! I didn't realize the seawall went that far east. Ever tried to ride to the ferry and take it across to the Bolivar peninsula? I'm not familiar enough with that part of Galveston to know if there's a route with a reasonable chance that you won't get run over.

Re-reading my initial post on this, I wouldn't characterize it as opining strongly. In point of fact, I agreed with you that we should be particularly skeptical of election season rhetoric. I was just pointing out that the IRS has specific rules that it applies in revoking exemptions. And at that point, I had only seen the KHOU post and wasn't inclined to dive in head-first in an analysis to try to predict what the IRS would actually do. It is true, though, that I'm not particularly obsessed with what Ed Young or any other pastor says from the pulpit. I think I explained the why on that in one of the posts above. If the IRS finds he's violating the rule and revokes his exemption, I'm fine with that. If they examine it and determine he's coloring within the lines, I'm fine with that too. But, I'm not going to be the one to call for torches and pitchforks just because he spoke his mind, right or wrong.

Total tangent here, but on my bike to-do list is to ride the seawall end to end and back again. Any tips on where to park for that? Would prefer not to pay for parking along the seawall if I can help it as I'd probably make stops along the way and would be gone for hours. Also, any other bike routes in Galveston that are worth driving down there for?

Thank you for posting the chron article. That gives a little more clarity on what he actually said. That said, I favor broad leeway on free speech and I find it disturbing that the typical reaction to speech someone doesn't like to be an attempt to shut it down. Thus, I'm not inclined to call for the punishment of someone who's speaking their mind, even if I think they're dead wrong in data or interpretation. The proper response, in my opinion, is the exercise of free speech by others to rebut or counter the speech, not to intimidate or to take legal action. As for the IRS, there are specific rules regarding what can cause an organization to lose it's tax exempt status. I am, however, no expert in this regulation and my experiences have taught me that the way things actually work in the legal world are frequently not the way we assume they work. I'm quite sure SBC is regularly complained about and perhaps investigated in this regards. I'm not going to call for that, though. Nor would I call for it if a liberal leaning pastor were to make similar statements about a Republican administration, candidates, or policies.

I feel your pain. I can't even count the number of times I've done upgrades, server moves, full environment restores, etc. over the course of my career, some taking multiple days to complete. There's a chance someone on this board is in a position at UH, particularly in the school of architecture, to archive this or has someone in their rolodex who might be interested. If so, speak up. It'd be a shame to lose this as I'm sure it's also a shame that Chicago has lost similar info.

Your hard work is much appreciated. I'm sure I'm not alone in this sentiment. Even though the IT guy in me knew this was probably just some extended maintenance (based on the timing), in the back of my mind I starting thinking about the chances the site might go offline permanently at some point. I may have brought this up before and just don't remember, but is there a plan to pass the db on to a local institution if it ever has to shut down permanently? The reason I say this is there is quite a bit of oral history encompassed here, both contemporary to events (see the Heights Walmart thread) and from people who post their recollections on Houston of old. This site is a unique resource for local history that doesn't exist anywhere else and would be valuable in the UH or HPL collections if it goes dark online. Just my two cents...

I don't think it's an automatic thing. I'm sure the IRS has to do an investigation, prompted either internally or externally.

Ok... What I see above is that Young said Houston may be the most dangerous city in the country right now. Shall we go get a rope? A quick reading of the IRS rules reveals that you have to engage in extensive political activity as a representative of the church in question. If you make it clear that this is your personal opinion, then that doesn't count (per the IRS). That makes sense since, for now, we still have a right to free speech. So, on to his actual sermon, did he couch this as his personal opinion? Did he directly blame Turner, Hidalgo, or Biden for the crime situation? Did he implore his congregation to vote Republican in November? We wouldn't know since we've only heard a paraphrase from a source of a source. I've personally heard church pastors and other church leaders inveigh against real or perceived moral issues of the day from the pulpit. That is not something new or limited to just well off, Republican leaning churches. Without further context, it sounds like he was literally preaching to the choir.

You're right to be particularly skeptical of election season rhetoric. As for rescinding tax-exempt status there are specific rules for what does or does not trigger that. I think we'd have to examine the actual speech Ed Young gave. Right now all I've seen is what someone says that someone says that he said.

As referenced above, I got this via CNN. However, since CNN isn't always a reliable source of information, mea culpa.

That must be why they work at night so much...

They must have been running against the wind, then...

The windows are beautiful. Makes me think of all the kerfluffle that went around about old windows when the Heights historic district was established.

And well done Gov. Abbott? https://gov.texas.gov/news/post/governor-abbott-txdot-announce-record-85-billion-10-year-transportation-plan

In my recollection, the 1980 election hinged on inflation and the appearance of weakness in the sitting president, not on Watergate or other political events that had happened four or more years earlier.

And so the expectation is that people will love how the Biden administration has done things and re-elect him? The brilliance of that Reagan campaign slogan was that it encapsulates the tendency of voters to consider if they are doing better or worse under the current president. That needle is decidedly in the red right now.

I don't recall the elections of 1980, 1984, and 1988 being cancelled or overridden and I can, unfortunately, remember the Carter presidency.

Not likely the RNC would officially push this. Too much hay to be made over the next two election cycles on deep state and media interference in our democracy at the behest of the DNC. It's kind of like how the Dems complain about Dreamers but then don't actually do something about it. Makes a great talking point. Plus I'm sure they want to let the Jimmy Carter II scenario play out. Could be 12 years of Republican white house ascendancy starting in 2024.

So you're saying this is fake news from CNN? I guess that's not too surprising, then... https://www.cnn.com/2022/08/29/us/mexico-border-encounter-data-analysis-cec/index.html

The trees look to be in the city right-of-way. Wouldn't that require city approval to cut them down?