TexPol: abundant mosquitoes so big they can stand flat-footed and fuck a chicken

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > TexPol: abundant mosquitoes so big they can stand flat-footed and fuck a chicken

«‹›1633 »

Dameius: Apr 3, 2006

Cojawfee posted:

I moved here from California back in 1999.

Lookit this hipster over here.

# ? May 16, 2024 21:00

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? Jun 6, 2024 20:23

zoux: Apr 28, 2006

https://x.com/lmcgaughy/status/1791195810836742274?s=46&t=A_iY-gupVf13dcIJPetZhQ

This is the guy that shot the guy at the BLM protest in Austin a couple years back

# ? May 16, 2024 21:02

Cojawfee: May 31, 2006; I think the US is dumb for not using Celsius

Not surprised, Greg loves when people die.

# ? May 16, 2024 21:05

Jiro: Jan 13, 2004

Cojawfee posted:

Not surprised, Greg loves when people die.

Especially when it's POC

# ? May 16, 2024 21:25

Dameius: Apr 3, 2006

And it's that self hatred that has made him the governor that he is.

# ? May 16, 2024 21:28

Jiro: Jan 13, 2004

If he hated himself that badly we would have way less physically handicapped white people alive in this state.

# ? May 16, 2024 22:04

Dameius: Apr 3, 2006

On the other hand, tort reform.

# ? May 16, 2024 22:14

i say swears online: Mar 4, 2005

Jiro posted:

If he hated himself that badly we would have way less physically handicapped white people alive in this state.

at least one fewer

# ? May 16, 2024 22:26

The Bananana: May 21, 2008; This is a metaphor, a Christian allegory. The fact that I have to explain to you that Jesus is the Warthog, and the Banana is drepanocytosis is just embarrassing for you.

It's horseshit

# ? May 16, 2024 23:14

Jiro: Jan 13, 2004

The Bananana posted:

It's horseshit

Speaking of

https://www.reuters.com/technology/space/musks-spacex-is-quick-build-texas-slow-pay-its-bills-2024-05-13/

Reuters posted:

May 13 (Reuters) - SpaceX is building launch facilities, office buildings and even a shopping center in rural Texas, as billionaire Elon Musk's space venture rapidly expands its rocket and satellite business across the Lone Star state.

But a Reuters review of Texas property records shows that SpaceX and its contractors can be far slower to pay builders and suppliers than they are to break ground. Unpaid bills and finger-pointing among contractors, Reuters found, have led many construction-industry businesses to file liens against SpaceX properties in efforts to get compensated. The result, several of those businesses told Reuters, is a reluctance to work on SpaceX-related projects again. "If they were to call me today, I'd tell them to gently caress off," said Brian Rozelle, an owner of Hydroz Energy Services LLC. The excavating business was hired by SpaceX to clear storm drains at a facility near Brownsville, the south Texas city where much of the company's development has taken place. Until about two weeks after Hydroz filed a lien last June � months after it had performed the work � SpaceX didn't pay its $19,214 bill. "We're not some hundred-million-dollar company," Rozelle said. "It was hard on us."

SpaceX didn't respond to requests from Reuters for comment on the liens and complaints from subcontractors and suppliers. Texas property records show that Hydroz is one of more than two dozen companies that have filed at least 72 liens since 2019 against sites developed by SpaceX and its contractors. Combined, Reuters found, the liens have sought payments totaling more than $2.5 million. Reuters couldn't determine for every lien whether outstanding bills were owed by SpaceX or by one of its contractors who commissioned work or materials on its behalf. Either way, the liens are a legal mechanism through which creditors can secure claims against SpaceX for work done at its properties: Under Texas law, landowners can be held responsible for any unpaid bills related to construction on their real estate.

Even with such legal provisions, property and construction industry experts say collecting can be difficult, especially for small companies without the resources or legal know-how to force bigger businesses to pay up. At times, small businesses may also put up with delays in hopes they'll ultimately get more work from a larger enterprise.
"SpaceX is the big bully on the playground," said Carlos Cascos, an accountant and former Texas secretary of state. Previously, as a county official in Brownsville, Cascos, a Republican, voted to approve SpaceX developments there. "They get away with this stuff because people want to do business with them."
Musk, one of the world's richest people and best-known entrepreneurs, has been accused of failing to pay creditors before. After his 2022 purchase of the social media platform Twitter, now known as X, he faced a wave of lawsuits from contractors alleging unpaid bills. Many have since been settled.
An X spokesperson didn't respond to a request for comment.

For SpaceX, the roughly $2.5 million in liens is tiny compared with the size of its business.
Since its founding over two decades ago, the company has steadily won contracts from clients including U.S. space, defense and intelligence agencies. It is now one of the most valuable privately held ventures in the United States, valued by some financial analysts at more than $180 billion.
Through 2022, according to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the agency paid SpaceX at least $11.8 billion for various projects and services. In 2021, SpaceX signed a classified, $1.8 billion contract with a U.S. intelligence agency to develop a network of spy satellites.
Reuters examined SpaceX and other Musk manufacturing businesses in a series of reports last year.

"DIDDLY-SQUAT"
SpaceX's recent expansion has benefited several rural areas in Texas � particularly around Boca Chica, a community east of Brownsville, in Cameron County. With the help of a 10-year tax abatement from the county, SpaceX broke ground there in 2014. Near the mouth of the Rio Grande and next to the Gulf of Mexico, Boca Chica soon became a hub for SpaceX rocket launches. It built a launch pad for its Starship rocket system, taller than the Statue of Liberty, and new buildings related to rocket manufacturing. SpaceX has remodeled homes and plans to build others. According to filings with the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation, it has plans for facilities including a shopping center and a $100 million office complex nearby.
Cameron County officials didn't respond to requests for comment about the developments, SpaceX's impact on the local economy or the liens. SpaceX has brought thousands of new jobs to the region and a boon for some builders. The liens, though, reflect frustration for others.
To understand the extent of the claims against SpaceX by Texas construction businesses, Reuters reviewed liens filed over the past five years in Cameron, Bastrop and McLennan counties, where most of the company's recent developments have been built.
The claimants range from small businesses, like excavator Hydroz, to big companies like Martin Marietta Materials Inc, a construction supply giant based in North Carolina. At least 41 of the 72 liens were filed this year.

Some of the liens have succeeded. SpaceX, the records show, paid Martin Marietta the $557,611 it claimed in March 2023, about two months after the supplier filed the lien. Martin Marietta didn't respond to emails or phone calls from Reuters seeking comment.
But many of the liens reviewed by Reuters remain outstanding. That may be because liens sometimes become effective only when a property goes up for sale, blocking a transaction until the claim is settled. "The liens don't mean diddly-squat to SpaceX because they're not going anywhere anytime soon," said Cascos, the former secretary of state and Cameron County official.
Even some big companies are struggling to get paid. CMC Construction Services, a Texas-based materials supplier, has 26 locations and a legal department. Starting in July 2022, CMC supplied $129,592 worth of materials for a SpaceX project in Bastrop, near Austin, the state capital. Although CMC filed a lien in January 2023, it still hasn't been paid, a company official told Reuters.
Osburn Contractors LLC, the contractor to whom CMC sold the supplies, itself has filed a lien citing an unpaid bill by SpaceX, lien records show. Filed last September, the lien seeks $67,289 for concrete work for a related SpaceX project in McGregor, McLennan County. Michael Correra, the Osburn representative who filed that claim, declined to comment.
Sometimes the chain of suppliers and subcontractors confounds the very companies involved in the SpaceX projects. GC Steel & Accessories LLC, a family-owned company near Brownsville, has been waiting more than 18 months for payment after supplying steel bars and other materials for SpaceX rocket facilities.

According to lien records and Sylvia Garza, one of GC's owners, the materials were to be used in storage sites for Raptors, a type of SpaceX engine, and a "blast wall," a barrier used to protect sensitive areas from explosions. GC supplied the materials between August and October 2022 to another subcontractor, RGV Five Star Concrete LLC.
After repeated efforts to get paid, GC last December filed the first of five liens against SpaceX property, claiming a total of $99,591.25. "It's a lot of money for our company," Garza told Reuters. "We can't reach anyone to pay." RGV Five Star Concrete, for its part, told Reuters it couldn't pay GC because it, too, had gone unpaid by yet another contractor involved in the SpaceX project. "We didn't have money to pay," said Nancy Garcia, one of the concrete company's owners. Garcia declined to identify the other contractor. Reuters couldn't determine whether SpaceX had paid any company for work or goods that included the materials GC supplied.
Garza said the lack of accountability has strained finances for GC, employer of a dozen workers. "I don't care who has the money," she said. "We never got paid."

Reported by Marisa Taylor in Washington and Steve Stecklow in London. Additional reporting by Mike Scarcella and Joey Roulette in Washington and Ver�nica Gabriela C�rdenas in Brownsville, Texas. Edited by Paulo Prada.

# ? May 16, 2024 23:44

JUST MAKING CHILI: Feb 14, 2008

George H.W. oval office posted:

My path to Texas was all over the country then my parents got me here in 2000 to start high school. My mom was born and raised in Pasadena and I assume its matrilineal

Birthright citizenship, if they put Texas dirt under your mom�s hospital bed.

# ? May 17, 2024 01:26

Hasturtium: May 19, 2020; And that year, for his birthday, he got six pink ping pong balls in a little pink backpack.

Son of the Republic here, eighth generation. A tweet from a few years back sums up a great deal of what I feel and think about this place now.

https://twitter.com/evan7257/status/1375615721225486339

I feel it in my bones. Driving to see my 97 year old grandmother, I feel an uneasy pit on my stomach when I zoom past Bee Cave and see how many McMansions are springing up to house Austin�s outliers. I don�t know what it would take to fix it here, and I don�t want to move.

# ? May 17, 2024 02:54

Kull the Conqueror: Apr 8, 2006; Take me to the green valley,
lay the sod o'er me,
I'm a young cowboy,
I know I've done wrong

That smart piece was already written, several times, by McMurtry himself over the years.

# ? May 17, 2024 03:29

zoux: Apr 28, 2006

Hasturtium posted:

Son of the Republic here, eighth generation. A tweet from a few years back sums up a great deal of what I feel and think about this place now.

https://twitter.com/evan7257/status/1375615721225486339

I feel it in my bones. Driving to see my 97 year old grandmother, I feel an uneasy pit on my stomach when I zoom past Bee Cave and see how many McMansions are springing up to house Austin�s outliers. I don�t know what it would take to fix it here, and I don�t want to move.

It was different here when I was younger, and not just because I was a kid. People used to be proud of the mexican influence on our culture, my dad was so proud of the lovely little bit of spanish he knew

# ? May 17, 2024 03:33

Yngwie Mangosteen: Aug 23, 2007

Native born Texan here.

Not enough respect from the transplants in this thread imo.

# ? May 17, 2024 03:46

Dameius: Apr 3, 2006

Hasturtium posted:

Son of the Republic here, eighth generation. A tweet from a few years back sums up a great deal of what I feel and think about this place now.

https://twitter.com/evan7257/status/1375615721225486339

I feel it in my bones. Driving to see my 97 year old grandmother, I feel an uneasy pit on my stomach when I zoom past Bee Cave and see how many McMansions are springing up to house Austin’s outliers. I don’t know what it would take to fix it here, and I don’t want to move.

Sixth, though my family goes all the way back to the American revolution on one branch. It makes for complicated feelings whenever I think about it.

zoux posted:

It was different here when I was younger, and not just because I was a kid. People used to be proud of the mexican influence on our culture, my dad was so proud of the lovely little bit of spanish he knew

This is spot on.

# ? May 17, 2024 03:48

SlothfulCobra: Mar 27, 2011

There is something fascinating about the Texas that you run into in older media where they're proud of being different and weird and even eccentric as opposed to now after the red state stuff has calcified and everyone "proud" of the state is recieving marching orders from the party that come mainly from like New York, just like most American culture. There's a similar but lesser effect when you look at older media from Florida, they too used to have proud independent spirits that have alternately been beaten down or subordinated into the national party.

Maybe some other parts of the state culture being overwritten are better, like Texas no longer has a major thing about drunk driving. But then maybe the republican party can reengineer a new version of that, they seem to like going across the entire board of anything good in this world to find an angle just to repeal it, and if you resist you are the enemy.

# ? May 17, 2024 04:34

George H.W. Cunt: Oct 6, 2010

The Texas of yesteryear died with the Chicken Ranch being shut down.

# ? May 17, 2024 04:57

lobster shirt: Jun 14, 2021

houston has fallen

# ? May 17, 2024 05:12

Integrated Houston: Oct 21, 2008

Pshhhh it ain�t even fuckin flooded. We�re chilling in the A/C powered by generators burning our mighty state�s cheap and plentiful supply of natural gas.

# ? May 17, 2024 05:23

Gripweed: Nov 8, 2018; Women are wonderful animals, they should be making music and writing novels about having a complex relationship with your mother.

Houston went from normal to hosed in half an hour.

My work is not only closed today, they told everyone to stay away because the streets downtown are covered in broken glass.

# ? May 17, 2024 13:17

IT BURNS: Nov 19, 2012

Gripweed posted:

Houston went from normal to hosed in half an hour.

My work is not only closed today, they told everyone to stay away because the streets downtown are covered in broken glass.

loving Antifa

# ? May 17, 2024 13:24

lobster shirt: Jun 14, 2021

it looked like the world was ending yesterday, absolutely crazy poo poo lol

# ? May 17, 2024 13:58

Dameius: Apr 3, 2006

it went from cloudy overhead to it's now darker than 10 pm at about 6:15 and that's when I lost power. Still don't have it back.

# ? May 17, 2024 14:04

Gripweed: Nov 8, 2018; Women are wonderful animals, they should be making music and writing novels about having a complex relationship with your mother.

Dameius posted:

it went from cloudy overhead to it's now darker than 10 pm at about 6:15 and that's when I lost power. Still don't have it back.

And by like 7:30 it was bright and calm enough to go out and survey the damage. I�ve never seen a storm like it.

# ? May 17, 2024 14:27

The Bananana: May 21, 2008; This is a metaphor, a Christian allegory. The fact that I have to explain to you that Jesus is the Warthog, and the Banana is drepanocytosis is just embarrassing for you.

I think it's just guerrilla marketing for the new Twister movie.

# ? May 17, 2024 14:45

Yngwie Mangosteen: Aug 23, 2007

That storm was like the eye wall of a category 2-3 hurricane blasting through the city without the rest of the hurricane. Wild stuff.

# ? May 17, 2024 15:03

zoux: Apr 28, 2006

Houston has like the worst weather in the country

# ? May 17, 2024 15:14

i say swears online: Mar 4, 2005

the nigerian expats i know say it gets too cold there in winter and the storms are too violent, unlike blissful lagos

# ? May 17, 2024 15:15

jokes: Dec 20, 2012; Uh... Kupo?

zoux posted:

Houston has like the worst weather in the country

If everyone is fat as poo poo they're less likely to be sucked up into the air or knocked down by storm surges. Survival of the fttest

# ? May 17, 2024 15:41

IT BURNS: Nov 19, 2012

Yngwie Mangosteen posted:

That storm was like the eye wall of a category 2-3 hurricane blasting through the city without the rest of the hurricane. Wild stuff.

We had something similar in the Valley last spring. Out of nowhere an 80-100MPH windstorm ripped through and wreaked havoc. There was a big Anime/ComicCon supposed to happen that weekend with Giancarlo Esposito headlining and they had to basically cancel it because the convention center had no utilities.

# ? May 17, 2024 17:05

Dameius: Apr 3, 2006

Same thing happened in Iowa last year only on a larger scale, too.

# ? May 17, 2024 17:30

Jiro: Jan 13, 2004

jokes posted:

If everyone is fat as poo poo they're less likely to be sucked up into the air or knocked down by storm surges. Survival of the fattest

IT BURNS posted:

We had something similar in the Valley last spring. Out of nowhere an 80-100MPH windstorm ripped through and wreaked havoc. There was a big Anime/ComicCon supposed to happen that weekend with Giancarlo Esposito headlining and they had to basically cancel it because the convention center had no utilities.

LMAO they didn't cancel it, it still happened just without ANY A/C going on, people still lined up to go since no one wanted to gently caress with their broken trees and or had no power.

# ? May 17, 2024 17:30

Cael: Feb 2, 2004; I get this funky high on the yellow sun.

Thank god my cell data seems to be better now. I�m in Spring Branch and practically the entire area is without power. I�m definitely strapping in for this being a week long ordeal if it�s as bad as they say in some places.

# ? May 17, 2024 22:08

Oil!: Nov 5, 2008; Der's e'rl in dem der hills!; Ham Wrangler

Spring Branch is pretty hosed since it has a lot of older houses with big rear end trees that were probably dying already. I drove down a road with maybe 8 line breaks over the course of a mile. Also really shocked in my part of the area that trees all seemed to break away from the houses.

HEB will save us all though.

# ? May 17, 2024 22:12

Gripweed: Nov 8, 2018; Women are wonderful animals, they should be making music and writing novels about having a complex relationship with your mother.

Dameius posted:

Same thing happened in Iowa last year only on a larger scale, too.

No, it�s bigger in Texas.

# ? May 17, 2024 22:31

lobster shirt: Jun 14, 2021

the outage tracker says that most of my zip code has its power restored but i don't want to drive over there and check. unfortunately my neighbors have also decamped for places with electricity so they don't know anything either lol

# ? May 17, 2024 22:37

Arcella: Dec 16, 2013; Shiny and Chrome

That's nuts, I'm seeing all the aftermath from downtown and Spring Branch; but in Clear Lake it was a pretty quick thunderstorm. Though it was kind of green out after the storm passed which is never a good sign.

# ? May 17, 2024 22:41

Goatse James Bond: Mar 28, 2010; If you see me posting please remind me that I have Charlie Work in the reports forum to do instead

I'm up in Brazos county and the flooding was a bit of a problem for some people but it was nothing like the Houston situation.

# ? May 17, 2024 23:14

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? Jun 6, 2024 20:23

Dameius: Apr 3, 2006

I'm bracing for being without power for a week. There's barely been any movement on my zipcode on the tracker.

# ? May 17, 2024 23:17

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > TexPol: abundant mosquitoes so big they can stand flat-footed and fuck a chicken

«‹›1633 »