UrbanGrounds

The Alamo Drafthouse’s New PSA On Texting in Their Theaters

Posted by Robbie Cooper at 7:22 am 6 Responses »

Jun 072011

I don’t go to the movies very often (once or twice a year after enough begging from my lovely wife, who loves the movies) — and not just because almost everything coming out of Hollywood these days is pure suck. Mostly because of their admitted Liberal agenda and biases, and their open contempt for Christianity and Conservative values. I’d rather burn small stacks of dollars bills in the fire place than give them to Hollywood.

One of the things that I hate even more than Hollywood, though, is inconsiderate jackasses. Serial texters fall into this category. Doesn’t matter where they are (the movie theater), or what else they might be doing (driving a car), their thumbs are moving a mile-a-minute while they are oblivious to the world around them.

Which is why I really love this new public service announcement created by Austin’s Alamo Drafthouse using a profanity-laced voice message left by an irate (and likely semi-retarded) moviegoer who was kicked out for texting during the movie (after being warned twice not to):

Alamo Drafthouse says it will play this video before all of their upcoming R-rated movies. Well done, Alamo Drafthouse. Well done.

Austin Police Catch Woman-punching, Purse-snatching Thug

Posted by Robbie Cooper at 7:50 am No Responses »

May 282011

Do you remember this surveillance video taken on May 13th in downtown Austin:

Well, APD caught the bitch-ass punk who sucker punched that totally-unaware-of-her-surroundings hippie:

Steven Keller

Story here from My Fox Austin:

Austin Police have charged Steven Keller with the aggravated robbery of a woman outside a bar on May 6.

According to police, Keller approached the victim who was walking by herself outside the Liberty Bar in the 1600 block of East 6th Street. Investigators say that Keller punched the woman in the head. She fell to the ground and was knocked unconscious. Keller then took her purse and walked away according to police. The entire attack was captured on surveillance cameras outside the bar.

Keller was arrested early Saturday morning on unrelated charges. According to police, a bouncer at Fuel spotted Keller walking downtown and flagged police. The bouncer told the officer that he believed Keller was the suspect wanted in the purse snatching.

As police approached Keller, they said he attempted to run away from them. Keller was fleeing one officer but then ran into a wall of other officers. Police say that Keller then voluntarily lied on the ground but put both hands under his torso. According to court documents, Keller refused to put his hands behind his back and be handcuffed.

Memo to Steven Keller: You are not a man. You are a bitch and a coward. Every single time you are being made somebody’s bitch in prison, remember how manly you felt sucker punching a woman in the face.

Areli Escobar Sentenced to Death by a Travis County Jury

Posted by Robbie Cooper at 1:25 pm 20 Responses »

May 212011

Areli Escobar's mug shot

The trial and sentencing of Areli Carbajal Escobar has been a pretty big story here in Austin for the last few weeks.

For those of you not keeping up, Escobar is the piece-of-shit who fatally stabbed and sexually assaulted his 17-year-old neighbor, Bianca Maldonado.

I didn’t know whether the Travis County jury would have enough non-bleeding heart, criminal-coddling Liberals on it to sentence Escobar to death like he deserves — but I’m happy to report that’s exactly the sentence that was handed down yesterday:

Areli Carbajal Escobar closed his eyes briefly and exhaled [when he heard the death sentence].

The slight display of emotion is more than Escobar, 32, had betrayed for most of his 11-day capital murder trial, including when pictures of Bianca Maldonado’s mutilated body were shown on a large screen in the courtroom and when Maldonado’s mother described the horror of finding her dead.

Some of Escobar’s family members and friends, who during the trial’s punishment phase said positive things about the man prosecutors called “the worst of the worst,” began crying at the verdict, delivered after a Travis County jury deliberated the punishment for about 2½ hours.

Maldonado’s relatives and friends sat calmly in the front row on the other side of state District Judge Mike Lynch’s courtroom. They appeared relieved.

Sitting among them, with Maldonado’s two school-age sisters and her mother, was Maldonado’s 3-year-old son, whom they are now raising. He was wearing a black suit with a white dress shirt.

The victim was a mother at 14-years old? What a tragic, tragic story this is in every regard.

Maldonado was alone with the boy, who had just turned 1, on May 31, 2009, when Escobar attacked them in their apartment on Decker Lane in far East Austin.

Maldonado, who did not know Escobar, was stabbed more than 40 times and was sexually assaulted with an object before dying from loss of blood, according to testimony.

The boy was stabbed in his hand and suffered bruises on his face in the attack. He was alone with his mother’s body for about 2½ hours. He has recovered from his injuries.

Escobar is a sick, sick animal for whom the death penalty is a much more merciful and delayed death than he deserves. With the way that child rapists and murderers are treated in prison, it’s almost a shame he didn’t get life in a gen-pop prison.

Obama Raises $2 Million from Affluent Disingenuous White Liberals (DWLs) in Austin

Posted by Robbie Cooper at 9:33 am 14 Responses »

May 112011

Yesterday, our Campaigner-in-Chief flew into Austin (costing the tax payers of the US and Austin untold tax dollars) in order to raise $2 million dollars for himself for an election that is still 79 weeks out.

And because he flew into Austin at exactly the same time as rush hour traffic started, this was a common scene all around the downtown corridor, where hardworking and exasperated Austinites idled in the heat, burning $4 gasoline while the President zipped past at 65 mph without a care in the world as to how he was disrupting their little lives:

Emily McLean is stuck in a traffic jam on Colorado Street after President Barack Obama gave a speech at ACL Live at the Moody Theater on Tuesday May 10, 2011. She got stuck waiting to turn onto Cesar Chavez Street. The street was closed for about half an hour for the president's motorcade.

At the first fundraiser, he spoke at the Austin City Limits Moody Theater in downtown, where attendees like these vapid old Disingenuous White Liberals (DWLs), forked over $1000 each to listen to their Messiah give a 15 minute speech ($66.66/minute).

Disingenuous White Liberals, with their white guilt on full display for their Messiah

Students only had to pay $44, which wasn’t so much an attempt to give students an opportunity to see the President, as it was to make sure there was a little ethnic diversity in what would have otherwise been a lily-white crowd.

Apparently Obama got his biggest cheer of the night when he pounded his fist on the podium (careful not to disrupt his teleprompter, lest he lose his place) and promised to raise taxes on the “top 2 percent” of earners. Ironically, the idiots in this crowd who can afford to throw away $1000 for a 15 minute speech, are likely in that demographic.

These are the same moronic DWLs who are whining about school closures and teacher lay offs. Just imagine if all of these rich DWLs had, instead of giving $2 million dollars to Obama (who himself is an exceptionally wealthy man), they had instead simply written checks to Austin ISD. Think of the teachers’ jobs they could have saved…

Meanwhile, at his second fundraiser in the affluent (and mostly Conservative) West Lake Hills neighborhood home of “venture capitalist Blaine Wesner and philanthropist Alexa Wesner,” guests paid $35,800 per person and more than $50,000 for couples to have dinner with their false idol.

I love how DWL women who marry exceptionally wealthy men are listed as “philanthropists” as if though it’s an actual job or profession. Which means that they spend all day giving away their rich husband’s money. Good gig if you can get it.

While the folks who were only out of pocket $1000 to hear Obama read from a teleprompter earlier in the evening are certainly amongst the more affluent folks in the area, there is little doubt that anybody who forked out $35800 for dinner (with anybody) are easily in the top 2 percent of earners in the US. Which makes me wonder if Obama promised them privately he would be raising their taxes, too, like he did in his earlier recorded speech to the public?

I doubt it.

Oh, and if you wonder what type of people fork over that kind of scratch for dinner, it’s people like the CEO of Planned Parenthood, Cecile Richards. According to Jill Stanek, who caught this tweet by Ms. Richards outing herself as one of the guests:

Dinner with President Obama in my home town! Doesn't get nuch better than that

5/10/2011 9:13 pm via txt ReplyRetweetFavorite

@CecileRichards

Cecile Richards

An experienced lobbyist, Cecile Richards knows that’s the way to do it: As often as possible remind your political friends why you’re political friends. In this case Cecile was displaying not just her money but also her influence in Austin, the capital of Texas, where her mother was once governor.

And share not just bad times, when you’re asking (or demanding) something, but also good times.

We see here an example of the abortion industry’s major strong suit: political savvy.

Here’s also an example of the other side’s unfair advantage: Obama just ensured Planned Parenthood continues to get a boatload of money from his end, and Cecile was just returning the favor.

When Lobbyist and other supporters donate a relatively small amount of money to a candidate in exchange for a huge return on investment, it’s called quid pro quo. Or, as a savvy Jersey businessman would call it, money laundering.

A commenter at Weasel Zippers summarizes: “Let’s see now. The head of a government funded agency whose salary is in the $500k range attending a fundraising dinner for the POTUS and forking out $38,500 a plate. Nothing wrong with that, huh?”

_________

Oh, and while I do despise everything about the current Resident in Chief, I gotta admit, I really do like this photograph of Air Force One at sunset in Austin:

Air Force One at on the tarmac as the sun sets in Austin, Texas

The Campaigner in Chief Visits Texas

Posted by Robbie Cooper at 8:29 am 9 Responses »

May 102011

Dear Teleprompter: How do you say "sucker" in Spanish?

President Obama is visiting Texas today to:

pander to Hispanic voters (Hispandering) in El Paso
fund raise from the hippie-dippy rich Liberals in Austin

Let’s start in El Paso

I hope Obama brought in his very best Secret Service guys, but even that might not be enough. He might also want to have those SEAL Team SIX members on hand, too, as the Texas/Mexico border (especially in Ciudad Juarez,right across the border from El Paso) ir one of the most dangerous places on the planet. He might not want to stand too close to the border while he’s pandering for illegal immigrant votes, lest he gets caught in some crossfire like this incident from yesterday:

Mexican military patrolling the Falcon Lake reservoir along the Texas border killed 12 presumed Zeta drug gang members in a gunbattle that erupted after they discovered a drug encampment on an island, the Mexican navy said Monday.

Thankfully Gov. Rick Perry was wise enough to decline Obama’s invitation to greet him at his plane in El Paso. Or, as Jim Hoft at Gateway Pundit phrases it, “Governor Perry Declines to Be Obama’s Prop for El Paso Stump Speech.”

“We did try to arrange something with the White House,” Lucy Nashed, a spokeswoman for Perry, told POLITICO. “They asked us if we wanted to meet him out on the tarmac in El Paso, but we weren’t able to work anything out, based on the fact that it’s probably going to be a 10-minute greeting.”

Exactly. Our Governor has much more important things to do than be a political prop (and likely punching bag) for the Resident in Chief) — like welcoming two more companies that have fled California for Texas.

And Texas Senator John Cornyn (R) had this to say:

“It’s disappointing that the only time border security and immigration reform get President Obama’s attention is when he is campaigning. The bottom line is that nothing President Obama says, or where he says it, can change the fact that he failed to deliver on his promise to make immigration reform a priority during his first year in office.”

Then on to Austin

And while the Great Pretender is in Texas, he’s planning on hitting up the Liberal enclave of Austin for a bit of fundraising. Oh, and to tie traffic up in knots right around rush hour this evening.

So when it takes you 2.5 hours to make the 15-mile drive home this evening, remember that it’s all a courtesy brought to you by Mr. Obama. As one commenter at the Statesman summarizes:

Usually it’s $10K–$30K per plate to attend. So all the elite libs will be eating high on the hog while the working guy will idle his car on $4 gas so the Obama entourage can go the speed limit.

Yep. That’s exactly what’s going to happen.

The only upside is that whatever money he raises for himself here in Texas is money that won’t be available for state and local Dem candidates. Oh, and since Obama has as much chance of winning Texas in 2012 as I do of winning the Heisman Trophy —- it’s just money down the drain.

Homeless Man Leaves at Least 10 Austin Families Homeless After Causing Fire That Burned Down Their Homes

Posted by Robbie Cooper at 8:38 am 8 Responses »

Apr 182011

After riding into Austin from yesterday’s MS 150 bike ride, we stopped at the Dog and Duck pub for a bite to eat a few frosty adult beverages. Two of our teammates live just a few miles from the Y-intersection in Southwest Austin, and were alerted by friends and neighbors that their neighborhood was being evacuated because of a quickly-spreading wild fire…so they had to rush home to gather important papers and their pets.

As it turns out, the fire was accidentally started by a man at a homeless camp in the area who was cooking some eggs…

Texas authorities have made an arrest in connection with one of hundreds of blazes scorching the state in what a forest service official called the “perfect storm for wildfires.”

A man has been arrested and charged with reckless endangerment, which is a felony under Texas law, Austin Fire Department Battalion Chief Palmer Buck said early Monday. The man, who authorities have not yet identified, is being held under a $50,000 bond.

According to Buck, the man started a campfire at a homeless camp in a remote area, which got out of control and prompted evacuations. The fire has burned about 60 acres and raised concerns as it crept near 100 homes, 10 businesses and Austin Community College.

More from the Statesman, who failed to report that the man who started the fire was at a homeless camp setting illegal open fires.

The homeless guy who caused this? Now has a home in jail. Meanwhile, his criminal acts have left this family and at least 9 others homeless.

C-130 aircraft fighting the Austin wild fires

Driving home from downtown, we watched these C-130s trying to help contain the wild fires

You Really Don’t Want to Know What’s in the Special Sauce at this McDonald’s

Posted by Robbie Cooper at 4:41 pm 3 Responses »

Apr 102011

Gives a whole new meaning to "i'm loving it," doesn't it?

Like I needed one more reason to not eat at McDonald’s:

PFLUGERVILLE, Texas (KXAN) – The father of a 5-year-old called police Saturday after he said he saw Samuel Rodriguez, 36, expose his genitals and start masturbating under a table at a Pflugerville McDonald’s while he watched children in the restaurant’s play area.

Police said two children under the age of 17 were only a couple feet away from Rodriguez at the time.

Surveillance video from the McDonald’s, which is off FM 685 , shows Rodriguez spitting into his hand intermittently and then placing that hand under the table in a stroking motion to sexual gratify himself, a court affidavit states.

Police said children could also be seen nearby in the video.

A court affidavit shows Rodriguez has been convicted of public lewdness and public indecency nine times in the State of New York over the past 15 years. Rodriguez has also been convicted of sexual abuse, harassment and endangering the welfare of a child.

Rodriguez is now facing a charge of indecency with a child, a third degree felony.

The dude is obviously a sick bastard, and a long, long prison sentence is exactly what he deserves. Hopefully he won’t be able to plead down so that he’s tagged with being a registered sex offender if he ever does get out.

Street Pianos in Austin: Play Me, I’m Yours

Posted by Robbie Cooper at 4:37 pm 3 Responses »

Apr 022011

This morning my wife and I headed down to Auditorium Shores park on Town Lake (great leash-free dog park right on the water). We were strolling across the First Street bridge when we heard the unmistakable sounds of Pachelbel’s Canon coming from a piano.

And then , almost exactly half-way across the pedestrian footbridge, was one of the 16 pianos that have been placed around downtown Austin as part of the Art Alliance Austin’s “Play Me, I’m Your” art project (part of the Street Pianos project).

So we stopped for about 15 minutes and listened to this amazing talented little girl play the piano on a Saturday morning on the middle of a bridge overlooking a river full of kayakers and rowers:

Little girl playing the Play Me, I'm Yours piano

This scene couldn't have been any more Austin...

And we weren’t the only ones who stopped to listen to her play. As joggers ran by (hundreds of joggers in the few minutes we were there), they slowed, then stopped, removed their ear phones, and listened for a few minutes before resuming their loop around Town Lake.

I can’t tell you how happy it made me feel, listening to this little girl play beautiful music on a perfect Austin morning.

After a few minutes her little brother and another kid joined her:

The more the merrier is always my motto when it comes to little kids playing a street piano

And here’s a great picture from the Statesman’s article:

Jack, 4, and his sister Katherine, 2, Thompson play a piano on the South First Street bridge on Thursday.

And from the article:

Each piano’s location was strategically chosen, Walker said, so that one piano is often within earshot of another. He said he hopes people playing will be able to respond to one another, a sort of call-and-return musical duet traveling above the hubbub of an increasingly growing city. A professional tuner is assigned to each instrument to make sure all remain in working condition for the duration of the exhibit.

But the exhibit goes further than simply adding a little flavor to downtown street corners. It is mostly designed to change the way people relate to their urban environments and to instigate a sense of ownership within local residents about where they live.

People grow used to how their cities and local environments look and feel, Walker said. “Play Me, I’m Yours,” draws people’s attention so that they can no longer ignore their surroundings, he said. The point of the exhibit is to disrupt that familiarity with both music and the curious presence of an instrument typically seen in people’s homes.

Limited Government Advocates — Your Help is Needed at the Texas Capitol on April 6

Posted by Robbie Cooper at 9:55 am 3 Responses »

Mar 312011

Just got this email from Peggy Venable at Americans For Prosperity (if you’ve never met Peggy, she’s a whirlwind of thought and energy; truly one of the sharpest minds on public policy here in Texas):

Tea party voters and limited government advocates have been vastly outnumbered at the Capitol this legislative session.

On March 30, the group Cover Texas Now (advocating for ObamaCare) and school administrators and their lobby organizations converged on the Capitol with similar messages: don’t cut spending, and drain all of the rainy day fund.

Earlier in the week, a group rallied at the Capitol chanting “3 point 2 just won’t do” referring to the rainy day funds the legislature might use to fill this year’s revenue shortfall.

These groups are calling on legislators to use all of the rainy day funds.

We realize you work hard to take care of your family and pay your taxes, but you are needed at the Capitol on Wednesday, April 6 to stand up for the taxpayers!

We’re sending a message to the Texas legislature that you support cutting the budget. We must remind lawmakers that the voters demanded in November that our lawmakers stop overspending and stop mortgaging our children’s futures.

It is short notice, but the House will likely pass the budget this weekend and send it to the Senate. We want to support the spending cuts the House will be making and provide support for those in the Senate.

You can help shape the future of Texas. If we don’t cut spending now, then when?

Please share this with your friends and plan to be at the Capitol on Wednesday, April 6 mid-morning. We will provide more specific information tomorrow.

I plan on heading to the Capitol on Wednesday to make sure my voice is heard.

Though I did want to comment on her first sentence about our voices being in the minority during the legislative session: that’s because ‘Tea Party voters and limited government advocates’ are at work, earning an honest-day’s salary for an honest-day’s wage, and paying taxes to subsidize the other half of Americans who simply vote for a living rather than work.

Austin City Council Misappropriates Bond Money Meant for Park

Posted by Robbie Cooper at 6:35 pm 1 Response »

Mar 272011

The water fountain no longer works...I guess we ran out of money to keep it maintained

And this is exactly why I vote NO on all bond proposals in Austin. Because you can’t trust the crooks on City Council to use the money for what it was designated for:

Money initially meant for Butler Park redirected to Palmer Center expenses

Thirteen years ago, voters approved millions for the project [improvements to Butler Park at Auditorium Shores].

Today there is a trail for joggers, a wide grassy area and an on-again, off-again fountain alongside the Palmer Events Center. Yet much of Butler Park remains undeveloped and unfinished — an affront to parks advocates and neighborhood activists who say the city violated a public mandate by siphoning off nearly $15 million for other uses, including employee salaries.

Rep. Paul Workman (R-TX) Introduces Bills That Support His Private Construction Business

Posted by Robbie Cooper at 11:55 am 3 Responses »

Mar 152011

Rep. Paul Workman

My district’s freshman state representative (the only Conservative Representative in Travis County) Paul Workman (R-HD 47) has introduced two bills kinda related — one I strongly oppose, and the other I strongly support. But both of them not-too-transparently would benefit Rep. Workman’s construction business (and thus the businesses of a lot of his friends and supporters).

House Bill 2886, the one I oppose, would create a guest worker program in Texas.

Workman, who owns a construction company, said the proposed Texas Immigration Reconciliation Act also would help fill the needs of Texas businesses and serve as a way to collect more taxes to “pay for services provided.”

Workman’s bill would offer undocumented immigrants the opportunity to apply for resident alien cards. The card, which would be valid only in Texas, would cost $4,000 — what he estimated a human smuggler, or coyote, would charge to bring someone across the border. The card would be valid for eight years and would require the applicant to pass criminal background checks.

Except that exactly nothing would change with his bill. Illegal immigrants are coming over here right now and finding abundant construction jobs without having to pay the $4K fee. What makes Workman think they’re going to do so now? Hint: They’re not.

Workman’s second bill, which would still benefit his construction industry, more importantly also benefits Texas students, workers, and tax payers. HB 1370 would establish the Texas Construction Academy for high school juniors and seniors interested in a career in the construction industry.

The academy would be a residential training center for high school juniors and seniors that, in addition to providing a typical high school curriculum necessary for high school juniors and seniors to graduate from the academy with a high school diploma, would also teach and give hands on experience to kids in the all areas of civil, commercial, residential, and industrial construction, including training in the following specific areas:

installing electrical, heating, ventilating, and air conditioning, and plumbing systems
drywall
framing
welding
pipefitting
operating heavy equipment
surveying
estimating the costs of materials and projects
managing construction projects
worksite safety

Not every kid wants to nor should go to college. And the average American high school does little to prepare students for any real careers. There should be a whole lot more vocational training going on in our high schools to prepare kids for great jobs that pro-illegal immigration advocates are always telling us “Americans are too lazy to do.” When the truth is that many young kids would gladly go into construction if 1) they knew anything at all about construction, and 2) they didn’t have to compete with the illegal labor of immigrants.

The largest contributor to Workman’s election campaign (besides my $25 donation) was the Associated General Contractors of America (AGCA). It should come as little surprise then that nearly every bill he’s proposed in his first session are construction industry dreams. Which makes me a little sick in my stomach to have supported him over the two lawyers who opposed him in the primary (I don’t like voting for lawyers…way too many of them in politics already)…plus one of them was a carpetbagger, to boot.

Is it really that hard to find a single politician who is interested in representing the best interests of their constituents rather than lining their and their friends’ pockets first? Apparently so.

Update on Texas HD-48 Race

Posted by Robbie Cooper at 6:53 pm No Responses »

Feb 072011

Update from Dan Neil who narrowly lost to Donna Howard (D-TX) in HD 48, which was my district prior to moving last year:

Today was the last day of our hearing before the special master in our election contest in House District 48. Currently, we are down by 3 votes with a margin of error of 4 illegal voters. We also have voters who have lived outside the district for 2 years or more who voted in this election and voted for Donna Howard, while their voter registration was on suspense.

At this point, it is clear that we do not know who the winner of this election is. The only possible remedy is a new election.

The next step in the process is that Master Hartnett will report his findings to the committee by Friday. We will see what the Master reports and we will make a determination about our next step at that time. We intend to fight for this seat until the end.

Illegal voters? Voting for a Democrat? Say it isn’t true, Dan…

If my wife and I hadn’t of moved 10 months prior to the election, that would have been 2 more votes for Dan. Plus, the two hippies we sold our house to wouldn’t have been able to cast their votes for, I assume, Howard. Plus, I would have worked hard for the Neil campaign, which I know would have been good enough for more than the handful of votes he might fall short.

With that said, I am not hopeful that he will win this fight, and we’ll just have to work a bit harder to throw Howard out at the next election.

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