CardinalBacker

Truer words have never been spoken. Vidor is more of a "Homecoming Celebration School."

Heck, I'd move to Vidor if I could afford it... I mean, I can afford the house, I just don't have enough money for the old boats, appliances, junk cars, and other things you need out front to fit in over there.

To be fair, some communities want their kids get used to accepting defeat early in life. I mean, it is a part of life, right?

No.... you can win a lot of games with average players and good coaching.... and you can lose a lot of games with good players and bad coaching. Players/coaching are practically of identical worth in my mind. This past season should have taught us that, when you look at schools getting new coaches and excelling in some instances (PNG) and falling on their faces (WOS) with the same talent as the year before. Both remarkable turnarounds that have to attributed to coaching. LCM from 2021 is another fine example. Why the great turnaround that year? Peavey. Why the slump this past year? Players, or lack thereof. They're gonna be in the mix in District from hear on out, and will likely make noise in the playoffs in years when they have more talent on the field. That was NOT the case under the previous LCM coach. WOS had enough talent on the field to be playing into the fourth round in 2022, no question. Silsbee had a good year, but losing to HF, Jasper, and Silsbee in the same year? How very un-Mustanglike. Especially considering the number of seniors they had returning that year.

I didn't. We moved there when the kids were younger. There's no better place to raise kids in Orange County. Or on the Planet of Earth, for that matter.

I think it's obvious that the community over there sees winning as something different than the rest of us. That job opening should be for a "Great Man," not a HFC/AD.

You talking about state championships?

So why did Vidor keep catching Lindale in the first round? I thought 1s usually matches up with 4s, etc?

They dropped to 4a two years ago… yet haven’t won a playoff game.

I think that's what bugs me the most.... While I believe it's sinful for ME to participate in those activities, that's about as far as my opinion needs to go. I've never heard a good reason why a gay couple shouldn't be allowed to get married. I think it's perfectly acceptable for me to think something is wrong without feeling the need to make sure that everybody else has to abide by my beliefs and standards. But it's just gone too far when a person is labeled as "hateful" or "homophobic" not because of their actions, but for refusing to embrace the new norm. FWIW, those people who embrace "story time with a drag queen" at the local library wouldn't be very accepting of me teaching their kids about Leviticus. You teach your kids and I'll teach mine, and we'll just leave the schools out of it.... how's that sound?

True story... I can remember my mom refusing to let us watch Three's Company when I was kid because Jack Tripper "pretended" to be gay so he could live with the girls. She said something like "first they get you to laugh at it, then it's acceptable." My views are a lot more moderate on the subject than hers were. I'm a live and let live kind of person. But as I watch the Alphabet Mafia force drag queen shows on kids in some areas and people being labeled hateful for saying "you know, the Bible DOES say it's wrong" or refusing to wear a pride jersey (in this case), I think my poor old mama might have been partially right. Somewhere between her stance back then and where we are today is where we should have stopped on the LGBTQ issues.

I'm as conservative as they come and after the first debate in 2020, I had to really fight with myself as to whether or not I'd just stay home. He doesn't deserve to be the President. Watch the first couple of minutes of this clip from 2007. See if you can tell what's missing from US Politics today.

If he wins the nomination, ANY Democrat beats him worse than they did last time. The fact that he's leading in polls this early is not a reason to celebrate... It's a terrible omen. We already know that the he will drive Dems to vote against him like no other candidate in our history, and if by some chance a different Republican wins the nomination, a huge number of Trump's crybaby election deniers will refuse to vote for the Republican nominee... Either way, Trump's presence in the race assures a Dem President will be elected in 2024. Nobody that voted against Trump has "learned their lesson." They still hate him and WILL vote against him again. The only question is who will get their vote-because Trump certainly won't.

Bc fans have earned a reputation for being over-the-top, especially in baseball. I think it was ‘18 when our baseball got knocked out of the playoffs on a “bad call.” A solid pitch that would have been a called strike to end the game was called a ball… the opponents then scored to win on the next pitch. The only problem is that our fans had been in the umpire’s ear BRUTALLY all night long. Yeah, you might have made your point, but all you did was guarantee that the ref wasn’t going to give us the benefit of the doubt on a close one. The verbal assault all game long was terrible, and I’m confident it affected the ump’s performance, and not in a positive way.

I remember when my Dad (Marine) told me that he didn't feel like he owned anything worth killing somebody over... and I found it odd. I've reached an age where I'd defend myself or others, but I don't think I'd take a man's life over the contents of my wallet. I don't know if that's age or having kids or what.... I haven't watched the video, but as described it seems like it didn't have to happen this way.

You can go to any HS Varsity football game and you'll hear people howling at the refs on practically any play that has a bad outcome for the team in whose bleachers you're sitting. As you can only imagine, the other side howls every time that something doesn't go like it "should" for their team. The refs are getting an earful from one side or the other on practically every play. I've seen the crew send coaches up into our stands to tell parents to tone it down or they were going to be ejected for yelling over and over and over. I've seen our kids get bad calls (or no calls) in baseball games and I'm confident that it has a whole lot to do with "Dads" like yourself who know it all... and don't mind giving the ref and earful.... because it's their job, right? Every time someone has suggested that you, sir, should give reffing a try... you crawfish like the do-nothing, know-it-all that I'm sure that you are. It's all fun and games to scream at a ref, but knowing deep down in your heart you don't have the stones to do that job.... All you can do is complain.

It's a simple cause/effect problem.... There's a shortage of officials, so the quality of the officiating has gone down. There are a multitude of reasons, but the main thing is the abuse that officials have to endure these days. You can recognize that fact, or ignore it and watch as the sport(s) suffer. Whether "Dad" wants to believe it or not, the refs are the most important people at the game. Coach has a heart attack? Assistant steps up. A few kids go down? Second string comes in. Cheerleaders all get knocked up? Change the school mascot to the rabbits and play on. Lock the entire audience out of the gym? Nothing but squeaky shoes. Refs don't show up? That's a wrap. The blatant disrespect that the OP is tossing in all of his postings is the reason that people don't want to officiate... for any amount of money. It's simple.... fan/player/coach behavior is the number one reason for the officiating shortage we see today. Recognize it or don't.... but that's the problem and "they just need to call better games and then we'd leave them alone" is a really bad plan, Daddy.

I never said that… it just seems to me like Newton was making deep runs almost every year but they’ve been pretty quiet since that last trip to Dallas with the old man… have they made it out of the third round since?

It seems like they made deep, deep runs on a pretty regular basis. It just doesn't seem like that these last few years. I'm too lazy to go check the records.

I'm curious how long it will be before Coach Johnston's seat starts warming up in Newton.... Are any of the locals out behind the ag barn plotting for changes, or is the job his-win or lose?

That’s the problem we’ve got now. The bills are so large that small percentage increases are actually big dollar amounts. It’s affecting peoples’ retirement plans. I know a young family that just bought in port Neches and their monthly tax bill comes out to $800/month on a $400k house. That’s before principal, interest, or insurance. $800/ month with 355 more payments to go, and they should expect that tax bill to double at least twice (to $3200/month) before the mortgage pays off. My $1500 tax bill 15 years ago is a $3k dollar bill now, but thanks to compounding of tax rates, you can expect that $3k bill to double in 15 more years to $6k.

That was pretty involved.. I'll use this example instead. The maximum allowed rate for some Fire Districts are allowed to tax up to $.10/per $100. That's the absolute highest rate that they can adopt. They're also limited to how much they can increase their total revenue (3.5%, max, w/o voter approval). Numerous ESD just keep adopting "10 cents, because our rate has always been ten cents." If property values go up by 20% but the rate stays at .10, your taxes also go up by 20 percent, not the 3.5% cap as per the legislature. But the taxpayers have a mechanism to fight, but somebody has to do it.

They "addressed" it with SB2 a couple of years ago. It limited the growth of new tax revenue by cities/counties to 3.5% per year (with exceptions), but did nothing about the biggest offender-ISDs. FWIW, the local governments have just rocked on and ignored the 3.5% rule in a lot of places because nobody was complaining- those governments seem to like the old rule where a mere 8% increase in total revenue every year without requiring voter approval is okay. SB2 allows a jump to 8% if there's a disaster. So basically they claim that Hurricane Laura and the Pandemic were both "disasters" and therefore allowed them to raise taxes beyond 3.5%. In a nutshell, local taxes are based on a tax rate adopted by the taxing units multiplied by the appraised values set by the Appraisal District. When tax rates are being considered for the coming year, the entities calculate what rate it would take to raise the same amount of money as last year using the new, higher values. Imagine that your total value of all of the property in your county was worth a billion dollars last year.... and the county needed 2 million dollars to operate. Last year's tax rate would have been .002 This year, the certified value of all of the properties in the area were raised to 1.2 billion (a 20% increase in value). The local government would only need a tax rate of .001666 to raise the same 2 million dollars that they raised last year. The legislature allows them to increase revenue by no more than 3.5% without an election.... that 3.5% increase would yield a rate of .001725 to raise $2,070,000,000. Basically speaking, if values go up, rates will have to go down.... but the most people don't understand the math. I've watched local politicians with the above scenario adopt a rate of .00199 (a much higher increase in tax revenue than allowed by law), then proudly crow "we cut your taxes" because the RATE is lower than last years.... and people clapped like seals. Meanwhile their raising much more than just 3.5% as allowed. It happens everywhere.

One of the bigger problems that I've seen is that they need approval to start "phasing in" the teeny, tiny consumption tax until they get around to eliminating the property tax. and we all know that the first would happen, but they'd forget about the second. Then the consumption tax would skyrocket, too.