Yes, I’ve lived in the DFW area for over twenty years. It’s home, for better or (lately) for worse. Still, I don’t think any place is hopeless, and even today in Texas there are four blue voters for every 5 red ones. We just need more Ann Richards, Molly Ivins, and Willie Nelson, and fewer of these Christofascist assholes.
They also don’t realize that there’s a reason Abbott had to spend millions of Wilkes and Dunn’s money to primary a bunch of Republicans in the boonies. Those Friday Night Lights rural school districts, the ones that provide any sense of place, any average-paying jobs, and any excuse to go ahead and raise your kids in BFE, those are the first ones that will get ground into nothingness by the path envisioned for vouchers and ending recapture, which the rich suburban districts want.
Of course, that frees up more land for datacenters and fracking, so…
This is pretty much it.
The 2021 freeze still looms large in people’s minds, so while the grid actually has seemed to be hanging on better in Summer and Winter, things that threaten the still-isolated power supply draw attention. Then, Oracle/OpenAI set the precedent with Stargate in Abilene that you just stand these things up in the middle of nowhere because of cheap land and easy regulatory capture of the local politicians. The evolution of municipal governance in Texas also meant that the metro areas have fairly small core cities densely surrounded by independent municipalities, which often means that the tech companies can push that model into somewhat more densely packed areas, though it’s still often the exurbs (though not always… stupid Dallas city government). That means it’s the reddest parts of the state that are seeing them spring up and fuck the residents’ personal quality of life badly enough that they actually complain. There’s a big emphasis on the “M” part of NIMBY for them (because isn’t there always?) but the fact remains that no one else in the state has a big enough “BY.”
Very few of these people are ready to bail on single-party state government because they still buy the line that everything is regulatory hell and woke BS anywhere but God’s Own Property Texas, but if they see the state completely ignore them the one time they politely ask the republicans to not fuck them quite so roughly, then it’s going to be easier to stay home during the midterms. This is particularly problematic in a year when the Dems found a candidate with a pulse but who likes the Bible and looks like a Republican, and the Republicans are stuck with their primary voters’ pick, an asshole who is as corrupt as Trump but lacks even that weird sheen of “I’m your asshole” that Trump gives off to his base. Also, and this is shallow, when you’re the party that tries to project strength and vitality, having a ticket that consists of a droopy-eyed slug and a paraplegic in a wheelchair is something you have to figure out how to downplay.
Worst part of it is that they’re probably still gonna win. A little part of me hopes this is the year, but mostly I’m just hoping it’s close enough to drag out the spending and fuck the GOP’s budget in Maine and elsewhere.
Too bad, because whatever the hell the Korean company was making was probably better than the upjumped twinkies that are Tokyo Bananas.
It’s hard to tell from the article whether the professor was protesting the Chinese government or intentionally getting the page blocked specifically so no Chinese students would apply.