Tag: austin

Welp, Bethesda’s doing SOMETHING in Austin.

Nobody’s really sure, but then nobody ever really knows what Bethesda does until it does it:

According to a press release from Bethesda, the publisher and developer has expressed its desire to expand “development capacity for future titles” by including Austin, Texas’ BattleCry Studios as a part of the company. As stated by Bethesda Game Studios’ Game Director and Executive Producer, Todd Howard, “As the vision, scale and ambitions for our games continue to grow, so does Bethesda Game Studios. We’ve had the pleasure to know the talented developers at BattleCry and knew we could do great things together.”

Continue reading Welp, Bethesda’s doing SOMETHING in Austin.

The (liberal) Austin, Texas City Council’s War on Barbecue.

(H/T Reason): Yikes.

If you live on the outskirts of Austin, your suburb might be the new target for barbecue joints looking to open in Travis County. That is if prospective restaurateurs see a new resolution from the Austin City Council as too onerous. It requires that barbecue smokers (and other wood-fired cooking devices) be placed at least 100 feet from adjacent residential property lines, or that they “mitigate the impact of smoke emissions” on their neighbors.

And, yeah, this is serious: Continue reading The (liberal) Austin, Texas City Council’s War on Barbecue.

Barack Obama opines on border crisis… nowhere near where the border crisis actually is.

Not that the news will mention that:

Let me give you some perspective. Eyeballing a map of Texas, the closest border from Austin looks to be Del Rio. That’s reasonable, sure?

Texas

  Continue reading Barack Obama opines on border crisis… nowhere near where the border crisis actually is.

Rick Perry gets cheered, amiably booed, on Jimmy Kimmel show.

Jimmy was doing the show in Austin, you see. It’s fascinating viewing; I get the impression that Austin and Rick Perry cheerfully despise each other in a very complicated way that lesser (read: non-Texan) beings can only hope to dimly understand. I mean, obviously Austin doesn’t like him, but they’re pleased as punch that he came by so as to let them boo him personally – and Governor Perry seems content to bask in their warm disapproval*.  It’s all very cozy.

Here’s the first clip:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPJqeDzf5UQ

I swear to God, I wish that he hadn’t had that back pain in 2012. Although he might be a better candidate for it in 2016: negative reinforcement can be a powerful teaching tool.

Moe Lane

*I have to say: Rick Perry’s stance of I think that all you hippies are clearly idiots for smoking the marijuana, but I’m tired of the Great State of Texas locking you up for it is… a workable way to approach the subject.

Donation links for groups dealing with the Austin flash flood (the one affecting @sjgames).

Steve Jackson reported that he’s not in need of a relief fund – but I don’t think that he’ll object if folks help out his less fortunate neighbors. Here are a couple of links:

I tossed in some cash because, hey, I’m just going to spend it on role-playing games otherwise.

 

Flash flooding in Austin, TX.

Prayers for the folks caught up in this.

One man was killed as heavy rains across Central Texas swelled rivers and creeks and triggered flash flooding Thursday, prompting dozens of rescues across a region that’s been dealing with a long, punishing drought.

About 10 miles south of Austin, one frightening rescue involved a couple whose SUV was swept away by floodwaters. They were forced to cling to trees for hours until a helicopter rescued them on Halloween morning.

In all, the National Weather Service said, more than a foot of rain fell across Texas’ midsection, including up to 14 inches in Wimberley, southwest of the state capital.

For those wondering: yeah, Steve Jackson is in Austin; and, yeah, his house was totaled. He’s fine, but he’s going to need a new house.

Moe Lane

Upcoming trial in Austin domestic terrorism case?

(Via Instapundit) Apparently at least one member of the Austin left-activist community was upset to at the way that one of their ‘own’ betrayed them.  And by ‘betrayed them’ I mean ‘revealed details of a terrorist plot to the FBI:’

A Texas woman faces trial this month in Austin on charges she threatened to kill a government informant who infiltrated an Austin-based group that planned to bomb the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minn., last fall.

Katyanne Marie Kibby, 25, was indicted in June by a federal grand jury in Austin. She is accused of retaliating against Brandon Darby, the community activist-turned-informant who helped federal prosecutors win convictions against Bradley Neal Crowder, 24, and David Guy McKay, 23.

Prosecutors say the e-mail threat was made Jan. 10. That was two days after Crowder reached a plea bargain with federal prosecutors in Minneapolis for his role in the plot to build Molotov cocktails and attack the GOP convention in September 2008.

See also Say Anything – and, speaking as somebody who was actually at the RNC, you’ll understand that I’m not all that sympathetic to the plight of people who, you know, wanted to kill me.  And yes: that’s a fair attitude for me to take.  When you build an incendiary device and plan to throw it in my general direction, I get to assume that you’d be happy if I got it in the face.

Don’t like it?  Don’t make bombs.  Or stand next to the people who do.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

Non-hate crime in Austin, TX.

(Via Instapundit) I was going to be tedious and heavy-handed about this story, but I’ve decided not to be. Somebody apparently threw this:


(Text: “Keep Eastside Black. Keep Eastside Strong.”)

…through a four-year-old’s window in East Austin, TX: and the cops have decided that it was not in fact a hate crime.

Which is of course nonsense.

UPDATE: Erick Erickson over at RS had some more comments on this.

Crossposted to RedState.