Everything’s Getting Bigger In Texas
August 20, 2021
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“If particular care and attention is not paid to the ladies, we are determined to foment a rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any laws in which we have no voice or representation.” — Abigail Adams
Everything’s Getting Bigger In Texas
Texas has long been a popular destination for newcomers, thanks to cheaper land and housing, more job opportunities, lower taxes, and fewer regulations. There’s also the great weather, food, schools, and medical facilities, the abundant resources and year-round recreation and outdoor activities, artistic and cultural events, fairs, festivals, music venues, and the diverse and friendly people — you know, just to name a few.
Texas has always been a business-friendly environment, which has certainly not been lost on tech and financial companies headquartered in strictly-regulated and high-priced states like California and New York. There are 237 corporate relocation and expansion projects in the works in Texas just since the pandemic hit. Tech giant Oracle moved its headquarters to Austin in late 2020; Tesla is building its new Gigafactory there, and Apple will have its second-largest campus there as well. Both Google and Facebook have satellite offices in Austin, and the file hosting services company Dropbox will be leaving San Francisco for Austin. Recently, the global real estate services firm CBRE and multinational financial services behemoth Charles Schwab moved their headquarters from California to the Dallas area. Hewlett Packard’s cofounders were two of the original grandfathers of Silicon Valley, who started their company in a Palo Alto garage in 1939. Now, the corporation is moving its headquarters from San Jose to Houston. And the number of mega-wealthy individuals who’ve moved to Texas are too numerous to mention.
It’s not just big cities like Dallas, Houston, Austin, and San Antonio that are seeing an influx of people — bedroom communities are growing by leaps and bounds as well. New Braunfels, located in the Texas Hill Country, used to be a quaint small town known for its German roots and a fabulous water park. The stretch of Interstate 35 on the way there used to be surrounded by vast fields of wildflowers and pastures of grazing cattle. But its location in the thriving corridor between Austin and San Antonio has made New Braunfels the third-fastest-growing city in America. The cattle are gone, replaced by clusters of sleek apartments, gated communities, and big-box stores. “People have found New Braunfels — the word is out,” said mayor Rusty Brockman. “And I think we are going to continue to deal with this growth for a long time.” Equally flourishing are places like Conroe, 40 miles north of Houston, and McKinney, just 30 minutes up U.S. 75 from Dallas.
There’s one important caveat to the news of how well business is doing in the Lone Star State — it’s the coming brawl over political representation. According to the 2020 census, while Texas has gained more residents than any other state since 2010, 95% of its explosive growth has been driven by people of color. The state’s Hispanic population is now almost as large as its non-Hispanic white population. Since 2010, for every white resident gained, Texas gained nearly 11 Hispanics. Together, the Hispanic, Black, and Asian populations significantly outgrew the white population in the last decade.
That collective growth has earned Texas two additional congressional seats, which is ratcheting up efforts by Republicans — who control every level of power in the state — to hold onto that power. One way is to pass the kinds of restrictive voting laws lawmakers are passing. The other will be how successful Republicans are at redrawing the state’s political maps to favor their shrinking base, while confronting a demographic reality that just might challenge the party’s stranglehold on power. (AP News, CNBC, Forbes, NYT, Texas Tribune)
A Singa-Poor Decision
- A Brit who decided Singapore’s strict mask mandate didn’t apply to him was found guilty on four criminal charges after his failure to wear a mask on a train in May, and at a subsequent court appearance in July. He was also charged with causing a public nuisance and using threatening words towards public servants.
- Before 40-year-old Benjamin Glynn was sentenced to six weeks in jail on Wednesday, the judge had ordered him to undergo a psychiatric assessment. Glynn represented himself in court. He asked the judge to drop what he called “unlawful charges” and for the return of his passport so he could go back to Britain to be with his family. Media quoted the judge as telling Glynn he was “completely misguided” in believing he was exempt from Singapore’s laws on mask-wearing. (CNN)
Future Of Afghan Women Uncertain
- Britain’s Home Secretary Priti Patel announced a multi-year plan Wednesday in which the country would first take in 5,000 refugees forced to flee Afghanistan after the Taliban takeover. Asked whether the scheme would reflect all those in need of aid, Patel insisted the number of refugees eligible to come to the U.K. under its terms is not capped, but said the government would have to be realistic about the number of people it could resettle “in a safe and secure way.” She urged other European nations to follow in the U.K.’s footsteps by taking in Afghan refugees.
- Patel said her government has committed to resettling up to 20,000 Afghan refugees in the U.K. in the long term, and she wants the majority of those to be women and girls and persecuted minorities. While Taliban leaders promised the rights of women in Afghanistan will be respected “within the framework of Islamic law,” the home secretary said the group had a history of oppressing women, and “that’s not going to change overnight.”
- The brutal, hardline Islamist group has tried to reassure Afghans since seizing power that “there would be no revenge.” But a confidential document prepared by a Norwegian organization providing intelligence to the U.N. says: “There are a high number of individuals that are currently being targeted by the Taliban and the threat is crystal clear.” The report said the militants were going door-to-door to find the “collaborators,” and threatening family members to give up those being targeted. The leader of the group preparing the report warned that anyone on the Taliban’s blacklist was in severe danger, and there could be mass executions. (BBC)
Additional World News
- Death toll since Myanmar coup tops 1,000, says activist group (CNN)
- Algeria blames groups it links to Morocco, Israel for wildfires (Al Jazeera)
- Malaysia’s king wants new premier to face confidence vote (Reuters)
- Erdogan backs peaceful resolution to Ethiopia’s Tigray conflict (Al Jazeera)
- China Aims Its Propaganda Firehose at the BBC (Wired)
- NIH director says Israeli data builds case for COVID-19 boosters (The Hill)
- Rain fell at the normally snowy summit of Greenland for the first time on record (CNN)
A Frozen Project
- A large planned oil project on Alaska’s North Slope, approved by the Trump administration in late 2020 and defended in court by the Biden administration, has been shelved by a federal judge in Anchorage. U.S. District Court Judge Sharon Gleason vacated permits for ConocoPhillips’ Willow Project in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska in a 110-page ruling issued Wednesday.
- Gleason concluded the environmental review conducted by the Bureau of Land Management was flawed, and that its exclusion of foreign greenhouse gas emissions in the review was “arbitrary and capricious.” She said the agency acted contrary to law to the extent it developed its “alternatives analysis based on the view that ConocoPhillips has the right to extract all possible oil and gas on its leases.” She also voided a report by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for failing to include mitigation measures for polar bears.
- The adequacy of the review process had been challenged by conservation groups and Sovereign Inupiat for a Living Arctic, a grassroots organization. Alaska’s program director for Defenders of Wildlife called the decision “a win for our climate, for imperiled species like polar bears, and for the local residents whose concerns have been ignored.” Alaska’s Republican governor, however, called the decision “horrible.” (NPR)
Apparition Ammunition
- San Francisco’s district attorney filed a civil complaint Wednesday in California’s Superior Court against three online retailers for selling “ghost guns,” untraceable firearms that can be made from do-it-yourself kits. D.A. Chesa Boudin accused G.S. Performance, BlackHawk Manufacturing Group, and MDX Corporation of marketing a range of products in the state that furnish buyers with parts and accessories that can be quickly assembled into a functional weapon. The lawsuit was filed in conjunction with the gun control group founded by former Representative Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona.
- Defendants claim their products comply with federal and state laws. Plaintiffs say the companies are targeting buyers who want to evade criminal background checks and buy guns without traceable serial numbers; they’re asking the court to outlaw sales of such parts. “Ghost guns are a massive problem in San Francisco — they are becoming increasingly involved in murders, attempted murders and assaults with firearms,” Boudin said. (NYT)
Additional USA News
- Billions in US weaponry seized by Taliban (The Hill)
- Inside Mississippi’s 4th Covid wave: Younger patients, crying nurses and 7 ICU beds left (NBC)
- 3 senators announce testing positive for Covid on Thursday (CNN)
- US Capitol rioter sentencing delayed after online sleuths uncover new footage of alleged police assault (CNN)
- GOP governors embrace Covid cocktails over masks as cases surge (Politico)
- Biden to tie vaccines for nursing home staff to Medicare and Medicaid funding (CBS)
- Dozens missing in North Carolina severe weather, flooding (WaPo, $)
I Will Remember Food
Who knew cuttlefish were so intelligent? Turns out these mollusks, who are related to squid, octopus, and nautiluses, can delay gratification and exhibit a form of episodic memory that doesn’t decrease as they age.
We have Dr. Alexandra Schnell to thank for this news. A research fellow in behavioral ecology, Schnell set out to determine whether cephalopods possess comparable cognitive abilities to cognitively advanced vertebrates such as corvids. She says comparative data between such distantly related taxa will provide a unique perspective for understanding the origins of complex intelligence.
Basically, are they as smart as a fifth-grader? Well, maybe not a fifth-grader, but for sure some kindergarteners. In March, Schnell and her colleagues showed that cuttlefish could pass a cephalopod version of the Stanford marshmallow test — the delayed gratification experiment from the 1970s. That original study wanted to determine if a child who was offered one marshmallow right now, could wait 15 minutes if it would mean he or she could get two marshmallows. Schnell showed cuttlefish could wait for prey they preferred to eat, rather than immediately going for prey they didn’t like as much.
In the new study Schnell co-authored, she says: “Cuttlefish can remember what they ate, where, and when, and use this to guide their feeding decisions in the future. What’s surprising is that they don’t lose this ability with age, despite showing other signs of aging like loss of muscle function and appetite.”
Yeah, but can they remember where they put their keys? (ResearchGate, Ars Technica)
Additional Reads
- The Next Big Challenge for Lunar Astronauts? Moon Dust (Wired)
- Big bird on water is mystery, but town calls it just ducky (AP)
- Newly discovered prehistoric creature named after The Hobbit character (CNET)
- Cuttlefish remember the what, when, and where of meals—even into old age (Ars Technica)
- How you may see Jupiter and her moons tonight (Seattle Times)
- It’s time to rethink personal carbon allowances, research suggests (Ars Technica)
- What happens to your brain when you give up sugar (BBC)