Azalin

aside from a brief and terrible seven months spent in Dallas in '98-'99, I've lived in Austin since 1996. it's actually a great place overall. one or two places actually make pizza that you can eat, but the food is nothing like Buffalo. there's a lot of little shops around where I live that are so strange and specialized that I'm amazed that they've been able to stay open all these years. Austin is pretty leftist for a Texas city, but that's mainly due to state government bureaucrats and the UT campus. it's still right smack in the heart of Texas, so if someone comes here expecting a miniature San Fransisco, they're in for a rude awakening. still, I like it here. pretty much all my closest friends are leftists, or at least hold a philosophy to the left of mine, but that doesn't bother me unless they wear it on their sleeve and are bitter about it all the time. my biggest beef with them is that they seem to want to change the world and the behavior of those that they disapprove of, instead of learning to grow as an individual in order to better fit into the world around them. they're good people and their hearts are in the right place, so while I may disagree with their world view, I admire them for their caring, as inconsequential as it may be.

as far as I'm concerned, all you really need for a good Godzilla movie is a Godzilla modeled after the original....same basic look, sound, demeanor, radioactive-based abilities, and preferably a credible antagonist (aside from an impotent military). remember, the original Godzilla was not only impervious to nuclear explosions & radiation, they actually increased his strength. if you can stick true to the original concept while using good actors and good cgi, then it's an automatic winner in my book.

a fish leaving the water is supposedly what paved the way for the development of humanity, right? besides, I actually live in the neighborhood that the whole 'keep austin weird' thing comes from. here, if you want to be weird, you don't wear one. when I really want to stand out, I wear a Bills shirt.

it costs 42.75? I live in Austin......I can pretty much look out my window and see the same thing for free.

I'm not used to being in whole-hearted agreement with the president, but West is indeed a jackass.

Purple should have been inducted decades ago, at least while Jon Lord was still alive.

it hasn't been taken away, nor will it. Texas is pretty much the same as any other state....maybe a little worse than some, maybe a little better than others, but you find the same problem everywhere with regard to access to legal counsel. people with money, especially those connected with local authorities, are always going to have access to the most powerful and effective attorneys, while middle class shlubs like me will go broke defending themselves. those that require court-appointed attorneys don't always fare very well.

in fact, that is very nearly an oxymoron.

honestly, I'd be surprised if we weren't.

there are inner-city schools where gang violence is a serious concern, so they have students enter by passing through metal detectors. wouldn't it go a long way in restricting the ability of people to bring a firearm on campus if they had 2 or 3 armed security personnel minding a metal detector at the entranceways? it's good enough for the county courthouse, why not the schools?

I heard he was a community organizer, but I never heard anything about him being good at it.

it does have that look to it. a distant cousin of skuzzlebutt, perhaps?

so far, there are five civil cases pending, according to what I heard on the local radio this morning.

and he would deserve such a sentence. driving drunk, running a person down, and leaving them to die is much more than simply using bad judgement behind the wheel. there's no need to interject race into this....Texas does not racially discriminate when handing out a death sentence. it's a factor of how much money you have and how well connected you are. being able to afford a good attorney makes all the difference. of all the death row inmates in Texas, whites and latinos are equal, at just under 29% each, with blacks at just under 41%. there are a lot more well-to-do and connected hispanics in Texas than there are well-to-do african-americans, and the TDCJ numbers bear this out. http://www.tdcj.state.tx.us/stat/dr_gender_racial_stats.html

but he said he saw angels, so he can't be a bad person.

that was a disgusting display of privilege. if I remember it correctly, the victim was actually out for an early morning jog, and it was said that she likely wasn't killed instantly, but died slowly, lying in the tall grass along the side of the road. my biggest problem with justice here in Texas is that if you're wealthy or connected, you'll almost always be able to buy leniency that the rest of us will never see.

the last thing I want is some gold-digger coming after my sweet $15/hour.

classic!

Ultraman! when channel 29 first went on the air they used to show Ultraman as part of their weekday line up. even as a kid it seemed really, really cheesy, but there's enough of a nostalgia factor that I'd probably enjoy seeing one or two episodes nowadays.

I think I know what may have happened.....he was actually signing correctly but had studied one of these: drop your panties sir Arthur, I cannot wait until lunch time...... classic.

these people are kinder in their analysis of the movie than I am I've seen most, if not all of them, but I'll make a note and try to track them down since all I own at home is Godzilla 2000 and a 2-disc DVD of both the original Gojira and the american version with Raymond Burr. thanks! when I was very young, I talked my parents into taking me to the drive-in to see King Kong versus Godzilla, which I thought was amazing at the time. I happened to see it a decade or so ago and thought it was the most godawful piece of crap I'd ever seen

well then, there's no controversy. thank you madame secretary. I'm so glad you had the opportunity to so effectively serve our great nation as our chief diplomat. got any plans for 2016?

I'll have to be convinced that a balanced budget will require cutting military, medicare, or social security when there are so many other things upon which we spend our money. social security is a whole other issue, because of how many people get assistance from it that aren't retirees, not to mention all the baby boomers facing retirement, so something will need to be done ro reign it in, but nobody dares do so. waste is a huge issue in Washington, and nobody is incented to reduce their spending because they'll receive smaller budgets if they do. or why do we need the department of health, education, and welfare when all the states have their own education systems, health boards, and welfare systems already in place? taking an objective look at everything the feds are into, I suspect there are many things that we could get by just fine without.

indeed. I mean at this point, what difference does it make?

and how many on the left are actually doing anything about reducing spending? I'm not talking about % of GDP measurements, just simply balancing a budget. why does it need to be any more complicated than that?