English as a Language
Okay, there’s some things I just don’t understand.
My county fathers, and I do mean fathers because there is not one single female on the county’s governing body of 5 males, have decided that we need a place to seat 10,000 people in case some semi-popular band comes to town. Okay, let’s pretend we do.
So, in the heat, hurricanes, and flooding of southeast Texas they decide to build it out of glass. On a damn rice field. Seriously. This used to be riceland.
Okay, once you get your breath back, look at what these Einsteins named it. Epicenter. Look it up.
The center part of something unpleasant.
“Taxpayers Happy Town” wouldn’t fit on the sign?
Okay, okay. I’ve got another one.
There’s a company that just got fined $1,000,000 by the Department of Justice in criminal and civil penalties for a manufactured bypass of measuring emissions standards of diesel trucks.
According to court documents, [this company] from its 2010 incorporation to April 2020 – manufactured and sold parts intended to be installed on motor vehicles, particularly diesel trucks, to enable “deleting” the trucks by removing or disabling the trucks’ emissions control systems. Various products, referred to as “delete devices” or “defeat devices,” are used in the process of “deleting” a vehicle.
And the name of the company? Sinister Mfg. Company, Inc.
Do they own a dictionary because I am damn sure the Department of Justice does.
Wouldn’t it have been smarter to put out a “Welcome DOJ” doormat?
I think some people are just begging for trouble.
Pretty safe to say the sinister group thought they were smart enough to evade detection through, ahhh… well, some sort of really smart thing. Maybe they thought the defeat thing would also defeat the DOJ.
On second thought it appears to have worked for many years! So, there’s that.
I got nuttin’ to say about the Epicenter. I’m guessing it’s a pretty big expense. Actually, I do have just a little anecdote about using a lot of glass in hot climes…
1I made my living as a builder in the late 70s through the 80s. It seems that during those early years skylights, in houses, sort of came into being a thing. Forgot to mention, this was in the desert of SoCal. It’s hot there. Anyway I, personally, and many others like me thought the skylights were a pretty cool thing (pun not really intended). Well, years went by and air conditioning got expensive, and couches and carpets got bleached out, and a multitude of other reasons, and wouldn’t you know it, after a while we were back taking the skylights back out. Jus’say’n
Way back in the day, my grandmother lived in Liberty, and we always had to turn a corner where Swindle Jewelry was located! As for building anything over a former rice field – just don’t; all the big groups are going to the Woodlands!
2Looks like some in Texas are vying to be the epicenter of stoopid. At least the glass window company is happy (and the power company (?).
3I guess Sinister was just trying to be up front honest.
When it comes to being stoopid, this proves that Trumpf and his handlers and attorneys do not own stoopid.
Might I suggest this is the result of 30 years of Rethug rule in Texas? Stoopid is, after all, contagious and hard to eradicate.
4Is the Epicenter built on pontoons, or does some well-connected Republican have the contracts for repairing the inevitable flood damage? There’s also the solar oven aspect, of course, but the “aren’t rice fields typically in wetlands” question also comes to mind.
5Cut ’em some slack – maybe they thought that Cheeto needs a place to not fill for one of his campaign events.
6Way OT- something good for a change-
7https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/8/6/2184936/-Georgia-Officer-Was-Called-To-Remove-A-Black-Child-Looking-For-Lawn-Work-He-Had-A-Much-Better-Idea
My daughter and her family live in a very, very nice house built on what was once a swamp. It seems that some contractor somewhere got an unending line of loaded dump trucks to fill in the swamp, but only to a certain distance. A pocket size swamp still exists only about a half block from her house, and oh yes, when they moved in there was exactly one alligator still living in the swamp. All he did was just lay halfway up the bank and stare at the world for hours on end.Finally, someone got the gator transferred to better quarters. So far there have not been any 40 days of rain that would bring the swamp back to life aned engulf all the houses. I am betting 10 to 1 that the contractor in charge of the old ricefield gig does not realize that he is going to need a monumental suck out job, then an endless line of overloaded dump trucks for about a week. Good luck, “center of the storm!”
8It’s not even a center. It’s way the hell and gone down 59. I only noticed it when I was coming back from the recycling center one day and said what on Earth is that??!
9Clearly, Trump & Co. have not cornered the market on stoopid. Texas managed to get in before their big buy got most of the rest.
10For those non-Fort Bend County residents reading, at least some of the 5 males on the county governing body are Democrats. So idk what their excuse was for building this glass house out in the rice field!
11Also, re Oldymoldy’s point about skylights, is the same reason I rarely if ever use the sunroof on my car. I keep that baby closed up and covered up! Otherwise, the car is like a mini greenhouse.
I gotta point out that a glass building in an area subject to tornados and hurricanes is a bad idea. As a child I was doing time in El Campo when Hurricane Carla gallivanted through:
https://www.weather.gov/crp/hurricanecarla
Just what you want: several hundred square feet of glass shards whizzing around. But I suspect we’re missing the most important goal of the Epicenter: the transfer of money from taxpayers to contractors, with some dribbles fed out to the politicians.
12Oldymoldy. I can beat that.
Because of the way late afternoon clouds form off the shore of west Maui, but not over the land, you get — almost every day — direct sun beating down on a bare hillside, plus reflected sun off the clouds beating on the same spot.
It looked like a good spot for a solar farm, and it was. When the engineers turned it on, the output was much higher than expected. It turns out the ground was getting the effect of 1.3 suns.
So far, so good.
But . . . a short distance away, a large office building was built, entirely of black glass.
A short distance away, there was a gully, dry 362 days a year, that in floods was like a small Niagara. A developer wanted to build with lots straddling the top flood line.
He planned to put the houses on the higher land, driveway and carport on the floody part. As a precaution, he proposed installing a shackle in the concrete, so that homeowners could chain their cars to keep hem from being washed away.
The county planning commission approved it, and the houses sold.
13This is almost as good as Lev Parnas’s “Fraud Guarantee” company name. Prophetic, at least.
14Well I came from a city in central Pennsylvania where there was an Axe Funeral Home one block from where I lived. Fortunately there were few ‘Axe’ murders while I was there.
By the way, who owns the former rice field?
15Sinister and insanely dumb, indeed . . . . . .
16May be it’s Epic Enter.
Yeah, They’re arrogant enough to consider that a complementary comment
17Maybe they are all left handed…
18Some of us are left-handed.
19I believe arrogance and ignorance be a stronger argument.
They are not natal.
I’m glad that the origin of the negative connotations of sinister comes from “left handed” has been pointed out. Just to clarify the bias, remember that “right handed” is dexterous.
20Except for those of us who are right-handed a bit klutzy…
21Was there any kind of vote on this thing? I’ve voted in every single election since I was eligible and I don’t remember a thing about this thing. But maybe I’m getting old and forgetful.
22Meanwhile in Alta Tejas, the citizens of Tulsa have a nifty way of financing their public schools. They are letting China do it.
23Reminds me of the corporate “safety officer” who said there was really no concern about hurricanes taking out the power because all the power lines were underground. In the Clear Lake area south of Houston. I had to laugh.
24