AtticaFlinch

I have a family too, but my two month old drinks like an Irish sailor, tips generously and never so much as raises her voice above a whisper while eating out. If her excessive drinking was even remotely socially acceptable, we'd be able to please both the restaurant patrons and the waitstaff. Too bad we're not in Europe. Her er... habit... is acceptable there, but her generous tipping comes across as insulting. I guess you just can't win.

One more good reason to never go to the north side of Houston.

Again, they've retrofitted an underpass at Studemont, Yale and now that I think about it, Houston Ave. Studemont stays busy, but neither Yale nor Houston really warrant the underpasses, so economics and traffic flow are probably not the biggest reasons for getting this done. I can't fathom why Yale has the underpass, but neither Heights Blvd, Durham nor Shepherd have it. Also (and again now that I think about it), if they were to build any tunnels from the Galleria area to the innerloop bypassing the train tracks, it would make much more sense to do it on Richmond and San Felipe. There's already considerably less traffic that would be displaced by the construction, and the land is considerably less congested with development currently. But, if this wasn't built on all three roads, including Westheimer, I could foresee the residential neighborhoods separating the streets would become high speed racing paths as impatient people would try to avoid waiting by taking the backroads to get around the train. There is no good solution unless it's a complete solution.

It's been done at Yale and Studemont before. The only problem I see with it, besides the construction making me take an alternate route to and from work, would be making room if side lanes are necessary to access the shopping centers, which I would imagine they would be. I think, as the innerloop continues to get denser, either the tracks will need to be abandoned or a tunnel will need to be built.

I just glanced at Lola's B4-U-Eat profile, and it indicates the restaurant is "kid friendly." I would take that to mean "kid friendly" during all hours of business operations and not just when it was convenient to those without children. Just a hunch.

Yep. If you choose to hoof it from either Downtown, Midtown, Binz or the TMC, it makes more financial sense to hop the train to Wheeler and shop at the Fiesta. It's got a bigger parking lot than the Randall's, so be prepared for a blistering trek to pick up your fresh tortillas and milk.

It's a conspiracy! His doctor had a practice in Houston too!

Again, this has nothing to do with zoning. Zoning won't fix corporate greed. What you want are laws regulating community standards. That would be pretty tough to get in Houston though, especially considering our wacky easement laws and business parking requirements. " Retail stores are also saddled with these parking minimums, and even barsas Lewyn notes are required to build “10 parking spaces per 1000 feetof gross area,” flying in the face of common sense. To add insult toinjury, the city requires that structures on major roads have asignificant setback from the street, and the only rational thing to dowith this unbuildable space is to put the mandated parking there,meaning that Houston actual codifies the hideous and inconvenientparking lot-out-front model of sprawl that is so typical across the US." http://marketurbanism.com/2008/12/10/is-houston-really-unplanned/ These building codes need to change. We don't need zoning. By pointing to cities that are more "urban" and also just so happen to have zoning doesn't mean that zoning has had anything to do with the urbanism. I guarantee even if Houston had zoning, the CVSs in Midtown would have been built identically to the current standard. The only way they could have skirted the current laws and built to the edge of the property would have been if they'd been built as part of a larger mix-used development that already had parking built or if they had built an unnecessarily expensive parking garage on the property. Yeah, the use of Randall's as a positive example kind of boggles me. Midtown is full of strip malls, old and new. They're just less obvious than the the 'burbs' strip malls because the lots are smaller.

I had Collina's again last night. I got the Rustica and added pepperoni to the eggplant, red bell peppers and sausage already on the pie. I say this without exaggeration, and I've had pies in Italy and the rest of Europe, New York and Chicago, that was the best pizza I've ever eaten, bar none.

But why are everybody's rights defended. Some people need to not talk. Sad but true. I'm sure nobody, least of all my wife, is yet ready for me to give them up, but if teeth ever formed on the Democratic platform, I'd consider making the sacrifice. 'Twould require a bit more than platitudes though. I expect action!

You know what else is whack? Crack. Crack is whack. So yeah, you've reiterated a great point. What's now considered "left" was at one time not too long ago considered "moderate" or even "middle right." People calling themselves moderate in this day and age are either out of touch or actually pretty far to the right. But hey, it's all relative, right? And for fairness' sake, GTO did also mention Pacifica and Rush as being offenders. I consider myself a fairly liberal guy (would probably be considered "moderate" thirty years ago), and I find myself having a regular one-sided argument with the occasional KPFT down-with-America pansy (I'm even a member!). The problem with the left is that there's an overwhelming consensus that every facet of an issue is valid, which IMHO is complete BS. That's the same reason the Average Joe thinks the ACLU is garbage. How can Joe Unthinking Everyman support an organization that helps the KKK and flag burners both? People on the left are so fearful of the term elitist, they've decided the best thing to do is support every cockamamie idea out there, regardless of merit. It's like the legitimacy of the creationism-in-textbooks debate that never ends in Austin. Someone needs to stand up and say, "Your idea is dumb, it has no merit, sit back down and lick that tasty window." I'd probably give my own balls if the Democratic party would grow a pair of their own.

Both of you guys are in the Heights, starting fires? Hmm...

I don't think that concept is on anyone's radar, no matter where in the world they are. Even New York City. Even Europe. They've got buses too.

Someone needs to throw you a pity party with as much as I'm apparently victimizing you. Can't you understand that those of us with a training in the sciences and a love of history get offended every time we have to revisit this tired textbook debate? I was making jokes because this insipid, seemingly annual debate incites anger from those of us who actually understand the principles underlying the sciences and actually read a history book or two from time to time. Unfortunately, it's pretty much impossible to guide blind-faith followers into a reasoned debate, so why try? But, in order not to make anymore brash assumptions about all the various colors in the conservative rainbow, and rather than you just calling me names like "classless" and "jerk," define where you stand on the issue. By the way, I'm very glad you don't believe for a second that God and science are mutually exclusive, otherwise you'd have to believe that the glowing word box in front of you right now was sent from the heavens by God himself. Were computer technologies devised by scientists or by angels? We may never know, but just to be safe, in textbooks we should present arguments for both, you know... just to be fair, because you know... both arguments are valid. Does that sound ridiculous to you? Well, that's the way creationism sounds to me.

I don't know. The loudest wackos seem to be shouting from the right, but you're right about Bush II's pushing us far to the right though. What's considered left wing these days would have been considered fairly moderate only three decades ago. The disparity is in that the radicals on the right have been lent legitimacy by news outlets like Fox News and the Wall Street Journal while the radicals on the left, the really radical lefties, are still considered wackos by everyone, including the media.

Merde is female? 'Splains a lot!

They have them in Austin on I-35 on a random basis. The way they skirt the law is by calling them "Multi-Jurisdictional Task Forces." You see, their supposed primary purpose is to flush out drug smuggling coming from Mexico, but if they happen to nab some drunks too, well... that's just dandy. Oddly, these checkpoints tend to be in the southbound lanes, headed towards Mexico, not away from it. Very curious, but still slightly legal... sorta.

Well... Considering everything that pisses off conservatives is Obama's fault (the lil debbil!), and the thread is titled "The Chronicles of Obama," it's appropriately named. Anyhow, did you hear what Obama did? He made Ms O'Leary's cow kick that kerosene lantern that started the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. It's the truth!!

I dunno. How do they justify the constitutionality of mandatory blood tests for DUI suspects on holiday weekends? How do they justify roadblocks and other checkpoints? All they have to do is use the word "random" and it's then pretty much guaranteed to be immune to any objective oversight.

Le merde, Rockwell! MJ sang back-up though.

White people have to be stopped too. Only American Indians will be exempt.* * Unless they look like Mexicans.

Great. Now I've got Michael Jackson stuck in my head.

I hope they get all the bums out this time.

Agreed. Now back (kinda sorta) to the topic at hand. Illegal immigrants: What to do about the ones already here? Should we round 'em up and throw 'em out, or should we grant them gradual amnesty with restrictions and a path towards eventual citizenship? I say the latter. They can't be wished away so let's deal with the issue pragmatically and with level heads - which would necessarily include some provisions for healthcare.