response 79 of 140:

Dec 18 03:25 UTC 2003

Re #47:  Okay, I stand corrected.  I try to listen to ATC but
I don't always have time to listen while it's on.  (Just because
it has biases doesn't mean it isn't informative, so I follow it.)

The BBC's interviewers have rather extreme biases, as you can
tell by their combative questioning of certain people and
kid-glove handling of others.

response 81 of 140:

Dec 18 10:51 UTC 2003

So, another blow for those who say the Arabs aren't even capable of
conciliation and making peace. yay and hooray.

response 83 of 140:

Dec 18 15:07 UTC 2003

Re resp:74: You don't remember the Presidential campaign?  Bush, with a
big smirk on his face, saying "They're going to be put to death."
Or the interview where, when Bush was asked about Karla Faye Tucker's
clemency plea, he imitated her saying "Please don't kill me" in a
mocking voice?  He obviously doesn't just favor the death penalty, he
finds it *funny*.

response 85 of 140:

Dec 18 15:49 UTC 2003

Well, y'all voted for him...

response 87 of 140:

Dec 18 16:43 UTC 2003

Presumably, some Texans voted for him, and some didn't.

I've noticed in a lot of places that are known for having something special
about them that there seems to be a schism between the natives, who think
they shouldn't have to move to get what the rest of the country has, and those
who have moved there for the place's uniqueness, who want to keep it
different.  I have no idea how that applies to Texas and its ideas of frontier
"justice," but I'll note that the Bushes are an old line rich Connecticut
family who decided to play at being Texans.  Between the ranch and the obvious
joy over executions, our current President seems to have gotten more into it
than the rest of them.

My impression is also that those who move to Austin tend to be looking for
something significantly different than those who move to other parts of Texas.

response 89 of 140:

Dec 18 17:00 UTC 2003

yes, and you claim that Americans don't have a sense of sarcasm.

response 91 of 140:

Dec 18 17:12 UTC 2003

Full disclosure:  There are two states I've decided to never live in;
Texas and California.  I feel these two states are our national
laboratories for testing bad legislation.  Texas performs this useful
function on the right, and California on the left.

Not coincidentally, California governments have a tendancy to act like a
Republican's caricature of liberalism -- they do the kinds of things
that make most of us roll our eyes but that Republicans imagine all
liberals want.  Texas governments are the same way, but with the roles
reversed.

response 93 of 140:

Dec 18 17:23 UTC 2003

resp:90 - Again, my apologies. That statement of mine that you dragged 
in here from party was said completely tongue-in-cheek, with this 
section of this item in mind. 

response 95 of 140:

Dec 18 18:47 UTC 2003

the best thing about texas is
ann richards...


...and my uncle milton.


well, spring creek bbq is pretty good as is the chicken fried
steak.

response 97 of 140:

Dec 18 22:53 UTC 2003

  I don't think he owes Mickey an apology.  I think the offense stems
  from differing interpretations of what gull wrote, that Mickey has
  chosen the most objectionable interpretation, and that another quite
  justifiable meaning is probably what gull had in mind.

  If I write a statement of the form "Texans enjoy <x>" you can choose
  to read that as "all Texans enjoy <x>" or you can accept that what I
  almost certainly meant was "many (possibly most) Texans enjoy <x>"
  I doubt we'd even be having this discussion if the claim in question
  was something like "Texans enjoy barbecue", even if a Texan respondent
  had piped up with "I'm a militant vegetarian and a Texan and *I* don't
  enjoy barbecue," because none of us would think that gull had meant to
  imply *all* Texans by such a statement.

response 99 of 140:

Dec 18 23:22 UTC 2003

Re resp:96: I'm sorry he felt I was implying that.  It wasn't my intention.

response 101 of 140:

Dec 19 05:43 UTC 2003

As a person of Californian domicile, I resent gull's statement about
California. ;)

I used to complain that nothing worked in California, and complain about
excessive liberalism as a cause.  Certainly, having considered myself a left
wing liberal all my life, moving somewhere where my views at the time were
the right of the mainstream was a bit unsettling.  I still do think the left
wing politics is a bit weird sometimes, for instance the bizarre insistence
that increasing the supply of housing is what makes housing more expensive,
or the mass transit system that shuts down shortly after midnight, when the
trains are still quite crowded, because nobody would want to be out that late
anyway.  But mostly what I see, at least in my chunk of California, is
something I've come to like.  Some of the laws may be bizarre, but they're
there because people cared.  The live and let live and have lots of fun in
the process attitude, as strange as it may seem to those wondering why those
strange people can't just conform, makes life a lot more enjoyable.  And, when
the politics gets really strange, it still makes for good entertainment.

I met a guy a few years ago in a little village in Italy, who said he had come
back there from Rome because "here, life comes first."  The Bay Area, or at
least the less suburban parts of it, seems to do well at that too.

response 103 of 140:

Dec 19 15:14 UTC 2003

Re resp:101: I guess that watching from the outside, it never struck me
as a "live and let live" attitude; in fact the enforced political
correctness in California sounds awfully oppressive to me.  A good
example is the recent L.A. city government decision to ban the use of
the terms "master" and "slave" for electronic equipment in their
offices.  I'm not sure I'd want to live in a state where it was
basically illegal to ever do anything that might offend anyone.