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Praetorium Honoris

Monday, February 27, 2017

Even a fool is thought wise if he keeps silent...*

I have commented several times on various blogs about the changing population of Texas.  In general, I don't believe it has been for the better.  I have watched the situation in a Western state (hint: it begins with California) as it has entered into and continued (IMHO) in an unsupportable death spiral.  And it looks like it's spreading here.

In a fit of truth and disclosure, my Father was stationed at Hamilton AFB, Ca when he met and married my California born and raised Mother.  He was still stationed there when I arrived on the scene.  So...yes. I was born in California.  Still have several branches of the family living there.

Therefore, I have an interest in the state not devolving into a third world hell-hole as it appears to be.

That having been said...I believe in people choosing their destiny.  If California wants to take money away from their middle class to support persons from other countries who have arrived in this country without having gone through the proper processes (can't be saying "illegal immigrants" now can we?), I suppose they have that option.

And those residents who don't want to go along with that suicide pact, have the opportunity to move elsewhere.  

However...............

I've said it before, and I'll say it again.

When you've decided to move and you have relocated in your new location,  you should probably avoid starting conversations with "I just moved here from California and back there we would......"

Your new neighbors really don't give a tinker's dam.  If they wanted to do it like it's done in your former state, they would move there.  

So....our local weekly paper has an always entertaining letters to the editor section.  A recent brouhaha was an effort to drop the speed limit on the section of 4 lane highway coming into town from Austin from 70MPH to 60.

We'd recently had a tragic accident where a couple of kids had lost control of their vehicle on a wet highway and ran into another car.  4 dead and 2 others critical.

Much wailing and gnashing of teeth about the speed limit, although there was no mention that speed had contributed to the loss of control in the accident investigation. 

But, there's the overwhelming need to "do something".  Anything...Regardless of it's efficacy.

So 60MPH it is.

Mind you, people still drive at 70.  Others drive at 45 in the left lane whilst looking down at something in their hand.  Others pull out onto the highway and directly into the left lane.  Still others visit the local wineries and get back into their cars when they really shouldn't.  But, by golly, the speed limit is 60, so we've done SOMETHING!

How about the Sheriff and Highway Patrol enforcing the existing laws?  I know....blasphemy!

In any case, when I read the letters to the editor and looked at the names at the bottom, throughout that little flurry, I didn't recognize any of the names.  Realize, most of the long term residents around here have very German names. They are also not reticent in making their opinions known either, so not recognizing any of the names was unusual.

So, I've figured these people were "new" to the area.  

This past week, there was a letter to the editor that confirms that hypothesis.  Additionally, the "brilliance" of the author is stupefying.



Let's start at the top.  Outsider from LA.... BUT I live here now...... Suggestion....... Translation: Smarter than you hicks.

4 dead deer on US 290W.  Translation: I saw them just outside the new development of high priced homes where I live, which happens to be in a heavily wooded area between two creeks and is a deer habitat.

White Tails.  Suicidal animals with a propensity to pull lead when they're crossing the road.  Lived here 19 years, hit at least one in 15 of those years. USAA and I are "friends".
Source

In LA....within 24 hours.  Translation: in a County with 4000 square miles and 10 million people and 7% unemployment, we can afford to pay someone to come clean up animals. 

You've moved to a county that's about 1000 square miles yet only has a population of  25,963  (.2% of LA) and about 200 people unemployed. We've got better ways to spend our tax dollars. 

Feed the venison to the cats and dogs in the shelters. Hmmm.  This is Texas, it's hot.  Assuming LA standards, pickup in 24 hours means that meat is spoiled.  But the good news...The only shelter here doesn't have a problem with animals "Hoping" to find a home.  I don't agree with the policy, but they've only got 72 hours to hope.  I know from experience.

Axis Deer.  We've got one that lives nearby whose antlers are at least 4' long.  Beautiful, until he runs in front of the vehicle.
Source

And then... "Tourists don't want to see Bambi all over the road."  No, with an estimated 250,000 deer in the county, they just don't want to see Bambi all over their car. 

Butt Ugly, but very efficient at removing deer.
Source

Finally, we already have a highly effective carcass removal force.   Turkey Vultures, Hawks, and even Mexican Eagles (Caracara) are prevalent.  If you remove their primary food source, they are quite likely to carry little "Fifi" off for their dining pleasure.  

Caracara, AKA Mexican Eagle.  This Bird is huge and beautiful!
Source

So, Ms Little, this would have been an excellent time to have kept your mouth shut.  Instead you opened it and removed all doubt.

*Proverbs 17:28  (I would have used the "Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and to remove all doubt." but there's some disagreement on who actually said it.)


29 comments:

  1. My standard answer to the "where I'm from we do blah blah blah" is, well then bloody well go back there.

    Get off my lawn you idiots. And, when in Rome...

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    1. Unfortunately, this group KNOWS that they escaped just in time. Yet, even though they've got a chance to start anew, they still want to make the same mistakes. Einstein's comment on insanity comes to mind.

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  2. The more PC version of what Chris said is "Different strokes for different folks". :-)

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    1. Yes, well...if you look up PC in Wikipedia, my picture will be there.

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  3. I enjoy watching buzzards fly immensely.

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    1. Unless they're orbiting over you....of course. Just sayin'. Then again, there's that old joke about the randy rooster and "Shhhhh!"

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  4. I was born at the Naval Hospital at Mare Island, just 25 miles, or so, up the road from Hamilton AFB. And we moved back to that area when my father retired from the Navy. I moved to the Washington D.C. area right after my active duty with the Marines. All I can say is that California is a good place to be from. And you are absolutely right about the efforts of all the refugees who seem determined to Californicate everywhere else.

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    1. It is a beautiful state, and as Skip frequently (ok, always) reminds me, not everybody is of the same personality as Ms. Little. But they do seem to be the most vocal.

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  5. You might consider forwarding this post to your newspaper. If she was smart enough to relocate she might be smart enough to follow the math.

    Every time I visit California I'm surprised by how pleasant and polite everyone seems to be. I go there expecting to be murdered and I have tattooed, facebolt adorned freak-punks hold the door for me, smile, and speak in English.

    We have a similar problem here; people from Colorado (often originally from Cali) who buy an acreage and then bitterly complain about having to endure neighboring tractors and cattle. "In calirado we had laws!" But they're not all that way. My present expat calirado neighbors are great; they replaced locals to the north who were thieves and to the east who were running a meth lab.

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    1. Weekly paper comes out tomorrow. I'm eagerly awaiting that for the comedic value of the responses.

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    2. "buy an acreage and then bitterly complain"

      I am sooooo embarrassed for my people..... :-(

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  6. I attended a small party the other night where some un-Texans immigrants were giving us Texans some good natured rib-pokin' over our Texas accents. The lady brought up "quite vs. quiet". I told her they were pronounced the same here in Texas. She looked horrified and asked, "Well, how do you tell the difference?" I thought, "Well, you are quite stupid, so you should be quiet." Just because you pronounce them the same, doesn't mean you can't tell the two words apart.

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    1. Dang! Now I owe the school district a new monitor. Brilliant! absolutely Brilliant!

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  7. Sue missed the obvious answer: Transport the animals from the shelters to the deer, so they can eat it while it's fresh!
    In addition, the drivers learning to swerve to miss hitting all those dogs and cats will aid them in the future to avoid hitting the deer in the first place. Brilliant!

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    1. Brilliant!.....Indeed. Well.....Maybe just a couple of teenie-wienie problems, but nothing a few years of tax payer funded studies can't solve. So, Proof, do you want to write the first draft or should I?

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  8. As a lifetime resident and fourth generation Californian I find myself in disagreement with most other residents of the state.
    Most of them came from somewhere else and foisted their ill-conceived ideas upon the earlier settlers.
    Your description of drivers fits many of those here... they're all MeFirsters (abbreviated it provides my opinion of them).

    The title reminds me of a quote attributed to Jimi Hendrix:
    "Knowledge speaks. Wisdom listens."
    It's a favorite.

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    1. You and I describe those drivers in much the same way, Skip!

      I like the Jimi Hendrix quote.

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  9. Years ago, when I went to Kenya I saw appalling ignorance about wildlife from my fellow tourists. I think it is an urban vs rural things. I am urban but count me with at least a modicum of common sense.

    Just as an example, we are out on a photographic safari - sitting in a Nissan van with a pop-up roof. The driver just goes along looking for wildlife. Lions are a-plenty and they they have all fed (the poor wildebeest) - during the night. They are full, content and just like to lay on the ground. Relax.

    So we pull up to this lioness - literally 10' from her. She doesn't mind. The tourists all stand up in the van and camera shutters are clicking. A woman turns to me and says "why don't you throw something at her so she'll look our way?

    Mind you if that cat had wanted she would have leaped into that van.

    These same people are horrified when they see a lion pounce on a zebra or wildebeest and kill it in seconds.

    I don't know where they think they are supposed to eat - McDonalds?

    I am a life long Californian and have seen the state change. There is going to be a financial reckoning soon, with a trillion dollar public labor union obligation. All thanks to our current governor who back in the 70s allowed these unions in.

    We have potholes on our freeways and dams ready to burst, but he wants to build a bullet train.

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    1. I'm sure some of those folks expect the lions to be munching on grass and maybe a bamboo shoot also. Regarding the lady who asked you to throw something to the lion, I believe I'd have told her that I'd be happy to take a picture of her if she wanted to get out and pose by the lion. Purifying the gene pool doncha' know.

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  10. Not that I'm against free speech, but with the internet, everyone has a voice. Media outlets LOVE to print, copy, highlight, broadcast, etc. the most outrageous of those voices, even if they are quite idiotic. Common sense voices aren't as exciting, and by definition, are COMMON sense, so no need to print those, hence the idiotic ones seem to get more attention. We just don't have time to counter every voice out there so the idiocy spreads.

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    1. The local paper changed hands a year or two ago. Prior to that, you kinda had to know what was going on and be coherent about what you said in order to actually make it to publishing. I have noticed a more decided leftward tilt with the new owners, so you may be right, Tuna. As I commented earlier, the next edition comes out tomorrow. It should be very interesting to read the responses.

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  11. Ah yes... And it's even worse in Austin... We just the Colorado drive throughs up here... sigh

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    1. Much worse. Even worse now than say eight years ago or so.

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  12. I often wonder how Colorado survived before all the smart people from California, Chicago, and the Acela corridor moved here (sarcasm intended).

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  13. Berkeley on the Colorado (Austin, TX for the unknowing) used to be the Central Texas lib enclave and isolated from "The Real Texas." My formerly beloved San Antonio was somewhat of a blue dog democrat holdout but Rosie and her Castro Twins are really trying to change that political demographic. If successful, that malady will rapidly spread north of Bexar County. Sad, that is. Keep up the fire Juvat, don't let the knuckleheads get you down. regards, Alemaster

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    1. Dont know the last time you were down here, SA has changed a bit. Gangs, drugs, the usual things when socialists take over. West side south through east side are pretty well dumps. But other than that its just peachy.

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  14. Great post, as usual, juvat

    Paul L. Quandt

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Just be polite... that's all I ask. (For Buck)
Can't be nice, go somewhere else...

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