Cedar Park Local

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Cedar Park Local E26
The following was AI generated (another bathtub worth of water wasted):
In this episode of Cedar Park Local, host Cash Normandy dives into a variety of topics, starting with a humorous AI-generated joke about Americans, courtesy of DeepSeek. The joke sparks a discussion on cultural stereotypes and the quirks of AI humor. Cash then transitions to the Constitution Corner, focusing on the Tenth Amendment, which emphasizes the limited powers of the federal government and the rights reserved to the states and the people. This segment serves as a reminder of the foundational principles intended to protect citizens from government overreach.

Cash also covers local events and developments, including upcoming judo championships and the potential construction of a new park in Cedar Park. He discusses the importance of community involvement in governance, suggesting the formation of a volunteer group to tackle small local issues. The episode touches on the challenges of water scarcity in Central Texas and the impact of AI on resource consumption. Cash concludes with a call to civic engagement, urging listeners to stay informed and involved in local governance to ensure efficient use of resources and maintain community standards.

[00:00:09] Unknown:

Welcome to Cedar Park local episode number 26   for Wednesday, 09/03/2025.   I am Cash Normandy,   and this is the undisputed   number one local podcast in Cedar Park,   the best source for local news and views, a place for your voice to be heard.   This,   week's   AI joke is brought to you by DeepSeek.   So I asked DeepSeek to give me a joke about, Americans,   keeping in mind it is a Chinese   AI.   Why don't Americans   ever play hide and seek?   Because   good luck hiding when everyone's yelling, I found him. Right here, I see him from across the yard.   I didn't quite get it. I,   so I asked   DeepSeek to explain.  

Previous to giving me that joke,   DeepSeeker responded, of course, here's a lighthearted joke that plays on common stereotypes. And it didn't quite get the stereotype, whether it was Americans being loud, which which I'm familiar with,   or Americans,   being bad at following the fundamentals of a basic game. I don't know.   So   I asked it and it responded, great question. The stereotype   in the joke is that Americans are often perceived as loud, outgoing or enthusiastic,   sometimes to a fault. So it was a joke about Americans being loud.   I don't know. Sometimes I think that,   that this,   DeepSeek AI is messing with me by making just the worst possible jokes.  

Let's see here. So next   in our constitution corner   today, we have   the tenth amendment   to the US constitution.   Let's see. Flip through here so I can find it. I decided to go with the tenth amendment. I don't know why.   Cause I was like, what is the number 10? I haven't read this in a row. So, amendment number 10,   Roman numeral x.   The powers not delegated   to The United States by the constitution   nor prohibited   by it   to the states   nor prohibited by it to the states   are reserved   to the states respectively   or to the people.   So that was a good little reminder that   our, federal government was intended to have limited powers. The constitution was written specifically to protect the people   from the federal government   and   to limit its capacity, limit its role, and to   clarify   that whatever is not specifically   given to the federal government,   belongs to the states, and whatever they don't   have power to control, belongs to the people.  

It's refreshing to see that, and that concludes   our Constitution Corner.   What do we got? Judo.   We got,   let's see. Becerra Challenge,   September 13 in Plano, Texas.   Grab this.   And   the fifty ninth annual Dallas Open Judo Championship   on November 22 in Irving, Texas.   That's, that's a nice big one.   It attracts,   national attention and some international as well.   So that's good stuff there if you're,   looking to get your   competitive judo   minutes in.   Let's see. Local listener feedback.   So the last episode I did on the   the MUD lawsuit   has been,   spectacularly   popular. My most popular episode   so far, it has   five downloads.  

So I was,   consulting my various AI platforms to see if they can scour the Internet and find out what they're building on Lakeline,   next to it that quick trip.   And,   it looks like the most likely scenario is that it's a park, which sounds pretty good.   So that's what AI is telling me. And if it's wrong,   don't blame me.   The technology is responsible.   So let's see. With the government stuff, I, well, before I get to the government stuff, I'm gonna go over a couple of things that have come across on the community impact.   And this is, this may be a couple of weeks old, but   the regional destination, Texas' second largest retail store set to bring visitors to Cedar Park. And, this is gonna be a 117   acres,   Cedar Park oh, Cedar View Development. That's what it's called. Cedar View, that's gonna be on New Hope Drive and   Discovery.  

So there's gonna be a 117 acres, which sounds pretty large. And the picture that's,   this,   the rendering that they provided,   for the cover photo,   you you must have seen it. I think all of us get the same,   community impact, the publication,   but it has a Ferris wheel,   which is,   which is interesting.   Ferris wheel, of course, named after,   a famous engineer architect,   mister Ferris,   who   was a fierce   rival to,   mister Ifill, who was also   a architect and an engineer.   And   mister Ferris   and mister Ifill   once had a, no holds barred   catch wrestling match in Paris,   where I think one of them   bit the other one's finger off.  

That was a joke.   Nobody bit anyone's finger off.   Probably.   The Austin Chronicle, which I picked up a couple of old copies of and and, flipped through. It had a little thing about the faculty flight from UT.   That seemed   really not that interesting. Kind of a hype. Blown up stuff. I'm not sure how many people are quitting their perfectly good jobs.   Just leave.   However, there is a recurring theme in a couple of,   in a couple of stories that I read in, in both of these issues with respect to water.   And the water scarcity   scarcity in general in the Central Texas area and also   the   drought conditions,   which are, I don't know exactly what   the threshold,   scientific threshold for drought is, but   according to,   the articles,   we are still technically in drought conditions.  

If you if you're looking at a multiyear span,   maybe this year was, was was pretty wet, but   we have a lot to make up for.   And I guess   these AI plants, which are being drawn to Texas,   are   just sucking up massive amounts of water. So   I   just wanted to share that with my   three listeners,   and,   at least we're aware that the water is being taken by AI. So that   that joke that DeepSeek just did right now, you know, that cost that's like a a bathtub's worth of joke. So,   sorry.   And, and probably my research that I did trying to figure out what's being built on Lake Line, instead of just waiting,   yeah, I could have just waited a few months, and we could have seen exactly what was being built. But, no, instead, I went to AI and used up a couple more bathtubs with the water just because I'm, impatient.  

So there we have it.   We're all in it together. We're,   just   using up all the water for basically   nonsense AI,   stuff.   Okay. Now I can get to the government, the good stuff. You know, I was   thinking it,   it might be a good idea to set up,   Anderson Mill, volunteer group or volunteer corps if you wanna make it sound marshal.   But,   like eight a. M, eight a. M. To nine a. M, I was thinking Saturday mornings, eight a. M, nine a. M. Is a good way to start your weekend.   Doesn't really, cut into your other time,   ruin your day. Make make it all about this. But it gives us the community a chance to kind of address,   the small things, little things need to get done. I think this is,   this is a good beginning.  

When you ask your government to stay trim   and work towards   making itself smaller,   you also have to be prepared to   pick up the little things that the government   likes to pick up. The governments love to grow, and they're like, we'll take care of that. We'll take care of this. And then they go look for things to do, and every little tiny problem will become a government issue, which means it'll have a government budget, which means they'll have, you know,   government personnel working at it. And it just gets   absorbed into   the Borg,   you know, entity, which is,   quote unquote, government. So,   if we got little things you need to get attended to around here,   the best thing to do is to   take care of it ourselves. And if we kinda get together and   and   and spend an hour of our Saturday morning,   taking care of the neighborhood,   and,   you know, for that,   I'll happily do that   and have my,   mud taxes   cut in half.  

So   which you probably could do just just by doing something like that an hour hour and take out a little stuff.   From time to time, I've been looking at   stuff on,   on on Muducation, and   my presumption is that the documents on there are   unaltered.   And   and with with that assumption in place, I just all the numbers that I see are   just classic   government,   just government numbers. You know? It's like   $12 for this, $30 for that, $100 for this, $1,200   for that. And next thing you know, you're talking thousands and thousands. And   then, we wonder why   our property taxes are going up because   times are not going to get easier.  

Everybody   feels the times   are bad because of the inflation, which is a silent tax, just taking away everybody's wealth.   Every indication I've seen from everyone who understands this way better than I do is that things are going to get worse,   potentially considerably worse. So we need to be   getting good at,   spending less money.   Governments need to take less. People have less to give.   We need to they need to figure out   our society needs to figure out how to function   with less government   and   less tax burden on the people.   It must, otherwise, it's going to collapse.  

And that's not hyperbole. That's what happens to societies   that can't figure this out. They just they just collapse, sometimes fast and ugly and sometimes slow and ugly, but you have to figure that out. You can't just crush people with inefficiency and taxes.   The one,   thing that I noticed on the MUD website, which attracted my attention,   they have,   they have the Texas water code   section 54.237,   which is the section of,   the Texas statute   from which they derive their authority.   Let me just read it real quick. A district may take all actions necessary to enforce   a restriction, including the initiation, defense, or intervention   in litigation   or blah, blah, blah. Let me summarize this.  

So   a district may take action basically to,   quote, sustain taxable   property values in the district.   So their authority stems   from this statute, which allows them to   do what they do in order to stain the tax base.   As best as I understand, the property values, I've only been here for a few years, but the property values here have just been skyrocketing for, like,   two decades.   I don't see any   reasonable argument   to be made for   a danger   of taxable property values,   going down   or being hampered or something. It's just It's just more and more and more money all the time.   And as we know,   governments by nature   are really good at finding clever ways of spending more and more money.  

So   in their eyes, there's always not enough revenue. It's always a revenue problem. We need more taxes. We need more stuff. But if you want to look at the spirit and intent of   the authority, the statute that gives them the authority,   it is to maintain a sustainable,   sustained taxable property values   in the district, which means you can't have it all get run down, and then there's no money to maintain stuff and the community suffers.   And they,   the board,   in my view, as a limited government,   advocate,   the board should be   looking for ways of making itself smaller and smaller. When you are faced   with   ballooning property values,   so not only there's no risk of the taxable property value going down, but it's going up because of market forces,   in a very strong, very sustainable way, they should   concurrently be working to reduce and reduce and reduce their   actions and involvements.  

But it's difficult because   the board   likes to assimilate, you know?   Resistance is futile,   but it's not in the case of government.   We have to,   we have to remind them.   The the commissioner's   court, the Mudd, and,   and the Cedar Park,   city council is,   and Leander ISD. That's the other one I wanna get on top of. See what they're doing.   I remember seeing them on my, property tax bill. They got a they got a good chunk of it. So paying attention to what they're doing and making sure they're doing things efficiently is a good idea. Oh, speaking of which, I may have mentioned this on on my lawsuit episode, but it's good to reiterate.   The MUD meetings   are on the MUD website,   and   2025   all the way back to 2017.  

So you can go listen   to whatever one, two, three, eight years worth of, meetings.   I recommend listening to them in double speed because   they're pretty,   governmenty.   But,   yeah, they're there. That's a that's a great resource.   And, you know, that's that's the one thing they probably should be,   legitimately,   spending funds on is maintaining   these records and having it available to the public. So   good on them.   And for, stake matters, I am,   I am gonna refer my dear listeners   to,   the Hill Country patriot, Matt Long, the host of the Matt Long Show. He describes himself as Christian,   conservative,   Texas politics.  

And I have found that to be a very good resource for,   state matters,   as well as a representative, Brian Harrison.   And   occasionally, I listen to,   Luke Macias,   who is also   active in in in state legislative,   matters. So those are   my, three best resources currently   for keeping up on state matters.   And federal,   international, I have nothing on that today.   At housekeeping.   So make your voices heard. Contact me at [email protected].   Remember,   if nothing changes,   nothing changes.   Ask yourself,   what have I changed today?   So remember to also the 5% rule for civics. We need to spend 5% of our time, 5%, not much, paying attention to civics and governance. If If we don't pay attention, somebody will do it for us, resulting in fewer liberties and more taxes.  

That's my   contribution   to this podcast, despite the fact that it has   zero to single digit listeners.   But I I am putting in the time, and I am, doing my best to,   to contribute.   Legal.   The opinions expressed on this show belong only to the speaker and do not represent any government, NGO, not for profit, group, gaggle, mob, collective,   gang, secret society, or influencer.   All legal matters must be referred to the law firm of Dewey, Cheatham, and Howe.   You've done it again. You've wasted a perfectly good hour listening to this nonsense.   Memento mori,   life is short.  

Do difficult things, take more risk, spend less,   work less,   play more.   Till next time. Bye bye.