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Showing content with the highest reputation on 02/12/25 in all areas

  1. Texas is going to have its pick of the litter at OL. I'm interested to see where this winds up because, man, there's a good chance that they're going to have to tell some guys "no" that anyone would take. Circumstances might resemble that same situation at DT, WR, and Edge.
    30 points
  2. I am going to (against my better judgment) make a high-effort post. All of us now live under an authoritarian government. Not an authoritarian state (yet) but the authoritarian government is here, and that has implications for how you should comport yourself and arrange your own private life. There is still time to turn off the authoritarian path, but that time is growing short and the way back rather harder than it was. Donald Trump fired the board of the Kennedy Center and replaced it with a new one who then elected Donald Trump chair of the Center. This is pretty stupid, and clearly the act of a petty and vain narcissist and most people will never go to the Kennedy Center. However, it’s clearly important to the Trump regime that Trump be seen as a leading, shaping figure in American cultural life in a way no president has ever been. Stalin created a union of writers in the Soviet Union despite a clear lack of interest in fiction. It was important to him. A smart citizen should ask why— why does the President also need to be a cultural luminary? The AP was ejected from the White House press pool for refusing to call the Gulf of Mexico by its new, Trump assigned name. Google and Apple, notably, have updated their maps. This is a stupid and small thing, clearly a fit of idiocy by Trump that has no real impact on your life. But it was important to the White House that the AP use the White House’s words. In 2017, neither Google or Apple would have changed their maps, in 2025 they will. An observant citizen will ask: if Google will not defy the White House in a trifling manner, what will they for a serious matter? Trump’s firings of independent boards, IGs, commissioners, and others is patently illegal. That needs no comment. No other president tried to do it or needed to. The White House claims that no president has faced the opposition Trump faces. An observant citizen will note: the White House wants you to know Trump is special and different. Trump has a nebulous, undefined, set of people he works for (with Musk): “the people” and he exercise “their will.” “The will of the people” is a phrase very much en vogue. But the enemies are very defined and specific: federal employees, immigrants, transgender people, NGOs, disfavored politicians. They all deserve what is coming to them; they fleece, rob, humiliate, and get fat off of “the American people.” The citizen should ask: once defeated, what specific enemy will be found next? We are picking fights with all our friends, making enemies of Allies, and rapidly turning an American passport into a liability. At the same time we are dismantling the structures we used to make America attractive and exchanging soft power for a better uppercut. We will be very successful at using our latent power to get cringing acceptance and concessions. The Chinese do, too. The Chinese are also welcome nowhere on earth, their expat communities are universally loathed. One should ask— where would I go if America was no longer a safe home? Who might want me and who might want to help my country? My prediction is fairly boring. The end state here is somewhere between today’s Hungary and China as experienced by Han Chinese. No massive internment camps, no executions. America is very rich, very powerful, and can coast for a very long time by consuming itself and returning rewards to select beneficiaries. The Great Terror is not coming; there will be no Full Self Drive Black Marias. But some people you don’t know will go to jail for nothing. Some inconvenient people will go into exile. And, if we don’t take the hard road, we will find that we will go through the forms of democracy to no end, that our world will be grayer, our dreams dimmer, our choices constrained, our voices subdued. So what to do? First, realize that all who are not openly against this are for it. Do not trust them. You may not need to cut them out, you may not be advised to confront them. But, realize that you need to be as cagey as a Soviet. They may be invited to your home, but never to your kitchen table. Remember, they want to destroy your home. Read. Read Bulgakov, and Havel, and Orwell, and Huxley and Akhmatova and do not take them as warnings. Read them to understand where you live now. Cowardice is the gravest of vices. Put cowards and collaborators on ignore, here and in your life.
    21 points
  3. As someone who hasn't really gotten to know 2026 names yet, this is the craziest collection of words I've ever read.
    20 points
  4. Why the fuck do people still engage with him?
    19 points
  5. Looks like IT (Charlie Williams) has entered an RPM pick for Javian Osborne to come to Texas.
    18 points
  6. Oh....fucking bullshit. Nobody has ever said our society or ANY of our systems -- private, public, local, state, federal, etc. -- are perfect. Far from it -- we have long offered plenty of criticism of their various failings. But you are a the classic throw the baby out with the bathwater burn it down type. You ignore the fact that all the things you hate....also perform a metric shitton of workaday functions, reasonably well, that make the relatively prosperous life we have possible. Clean water, sewage treatment, roads, functioning courts to enforce contracts, laws, and the like, a social safety net apparatus that has helped drive down stark poverty (yes, SS really works), etc. etc. ad infinitum. You 1) dismiss every bit of that with a handwave, 2) focus on only the failings (without conceding that all of your criticisms are valid, presume they are), and propose as a solution....3) burn the whole fucking thing down. FFS, my wife is an incredibly positive part of my life. She provides strength when I need it, she co-parents, she feeds me intellectually and emotionally, she helps keep our house running, all of the good stuff. She is ALSO fiscally irresponsible when it comes to buying purses (she has more than enough, just stop). She drives me mad with her preference to drive on surface streets instead of taking faster and more efficient freeways. Her refusal to see any movie that involves lots of violence or horror limits the fuck out of my movie choices. You would characterize my wife as an unreasonably picky, fiscally irresponsible, inefficient driver....ignoring every single good thing I listed first. And would thus be happy seeing her tossed out the door and onto the trash heap. It's fucking insane and psychopathic. So, now you've gotten what you always wanted: we are burning down our collective house. And for years, plenty of us have warned about exactly what's happening -- the house in engulfed in flames, with a shitload of people inside, who are going to suffer immensely. You. Don't. Care. And you do so for the stupidest of reasons. Because our system is FLAWED.....all of it, the good and bad, must be destroyed. And damn the suffering. That was ALWAYS going to be the outcome. If you burn down the house that 350 million of us live in, lots of people are going to be horrifically burned. Burned people is what you have always wanted.
    16 points
  7. The caption is why these are so enjoyable. That is their truth that they'll never admit. It's not that they didn't vote for people getting hurt, it's that they voted for other people getting hurt. Fuck 'em.
    16 points
  8. In case you haven't noticed, Republicans have been in charge of Texas public education for the past 30 years. But sure, both sides.
    16 points
  9. i have a lot of thoughts on this as the son of a public school teacher and a private school principal, along with the husband to an public school elementary school reading specialist for kids with learning disabilities or dyslexia. i am not going to do a "Surly Hijack™®" on the Trump's America thread with a full exploration, i'll just quickly note that while there is obviously nothing objectionable about your post in concept, it ignores both the reality of what primary education's mission capabilities are in terms of arming as wide a swath of children as possible with fundamental building blocks to begin the process of critical thinking (arithmetic, fundamental science concepts, reading, etc...), as well as the unfortunate reality of what would happen if one attempted to impose the school of athens on the wider population of children and not self-segregated smaller communities of predisposed children that have both the contextual privilege (economically, family) and the innate desire to be exceptionally driven. it is, of course, what we all want and strive for but it betrays a lack of experience in both sides of the primary education machinations to believe that the reason "the system" is not ideal has nothing to do with being forced to integrate accommodation for an extreme breadth of circumstances in the human condition including the fact that not all students are exceptional and some students are there and the school is simply trying to ensure their literal survival...and everything in between. the system has evolved to what it is as a reflection of the human condition because we made a decision as a society some time back that all kids need to be educated...not just the ones that are privileged enough to be economically positioned to or that are elevated thinkers. it is easy to run the school of athens when your pupils are plato, aristotle, thomas aquinas, kant, copernicus, galileo, hume, newton, tesla, lao tzu, and descartes. the system (and unfortunately the outcomes) is going to be impacted by having to also deal with the broader spectrum. (hence the disingenuous nature of the state's voucher bullshit/welfare for the upper middle class) i don't share any hostility towards your thoughts here and i don't disagree that we have unfortunate consequences of having to force a more normally distributed system on a non-normally distributed population in primary education but it is a bit fantastical to espouse these idealized learning proposals without acknowledging the vast array of realities that undermine their effectuation and prospect of broader success. and of course, none of that is to say anything about the hostility towards public education and the lack of valuing teachers altogether in a way that inspires more exceptional people to take that path. imagine being a high quality teacher in oklahoma and the superintendent of schools shoots a dumbass phone video in his car in which he ties the new orleans terrorist attack to you.
    16 points
  10. The right calls critical thinking woke. Critical thinking can result in complex world views which the right calls indoctrination. The right is who made test scores the end all be all. But you knew that you fucking tool.
    16 points
  11. Putting Ana on ignore had almost zero effect becuase you people (YOU PEOPLE) keep quoting him. The irony that closeted MAGAs like him don't want to acknowledge is that the current "burn it down" will completely burn it down. Any chance of democracy, done. Biden or Harris? No fucking chance. Well done, you simple fucking traitor. You won't escape what is coming, you're too arrogant to figure it out.
    15 points
  12. I don't care if it goes 0-60 in 1 second because I'm not a Nazi supporter, don't ever need to accelerate that quickly and don't want to be seen in an ugly ass car.
    15 points
  13. He singlehandedly had the power to stop this, all of it, if he would have whipped for impeachment after January 6. While the blood may be on Trump's hands, Mitch gave him the knife.
    15 points
  14. Allsup's is a NM chain. I've been going to Allsups since I was kneehigh to a chapulín. They are some of the nastiest establishments on the planet. When you open the door, you're assaulted by the rank smell wave of rancid grease and body odor. Each step needs to be taken carefully because the perpetual grease film on the tile floor, that is occasionally stirred around with the same mop water that gets regularly changed once a year. God help you if you use the bathroom. And the food? It's a good way to harden your digestive tract so you're immune to botulism, ecoli, listeria, and hepatitis. When you walk out, you notice that the stench has stuck to your clothes, your hair, your nose hair, your eye membranes, your mouth tissue, and any other organ or orifice you exposed to the miasma inside. It will stick to your car, your pet, anything that you come within 5 feet of for the next 24 hours. You should just burn your clothes immediately. Your car may never be the same.
    14 points
  15. For the record we’ve not always sucked at education. Last time we had a democrat as governor we were fucking 17th. I didn’t know the fall was all under that cunt Mary Fallin.
    14 points
  16. Holy shit this site has become facebook
    14 points
  17. So he's been on staffs with Choate, Saban, and Schiano and has Houston/Texas ties. Not going to act like this is some no-doubter but seems like it can work just fine to me.
    13 points
  18. Holy shit, musks crotch goblin told trump "you are not the president and you need to go away" aeboad3q6rie1DASH_480.mp4 Truly, fucking, insane. If a little kid is saying something like that, he heard it somewhere else and is repeating it. Edit: here's a timestamped YouTube link too, in case you think it's an edit
    13 points
  19. I literally don't care. She doesn't give a shit when it's other women, so why should anyone care if it's her, even if she's telling the truth? https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/us-politics/nancy-mace-trump-rape-interview-b2510729.html In an interview with ABC News on Sunday, the congresswoman was repeatedly asked to square her support for Mr Trump against the jury’s findings, while she argued she was being “shamed” for her “political choices” as a rape survivor herself. “Donald Trump has been found liable for rape by a jury. Donald Trump has been found liable for defaming the victim of that rape by a jury. It’s been affirmed by a judge,” ABC’s This Week host George Stephanopoulos told Ms Mace on Sunday. “If you want to go ahead and defend a woman who made a mockery out of rape, then you go ahead and do that,” Ms Mace said at one point. “Well, actually what you’re doing is defending a man who has been found liable for rape, Mr Stephanopoulos replied. “I don’t understand how you can do that.”
    13 points
  20. And...who drove that "SCHOOL AND TEACHER ACCOUNTABILITY!" bus over the last few decades that led to exactly that sort of system? Your heroes on the right....who now want to destroy public education altogether, because the shit machine they built doesn't work well, which is therefore proof that public education is bad. Step 1 -- take power. Step 2 -- break the fuck out of something. Step 3 -- move to abolish/eliminate that something, because it's broken, and hey, we should get rid of things that don't work. Step 4 -- repeat, as to literally fucking everything.
    13 points
  21. The heater continues. Wordle 1,334 2/6* 🟨⬛🟨⬛⬛ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
    13 points
  22. I wonder how schools became such victims of political footballs, but I just can't quite place my finger on it. I mean i vote for people who say we need to defund the schools, break up education, who ignore their own guidelines over class room sizes, who try to break teacher unions, and siphon money from blue districts to feed red districts because no one wants to live there. I mean I have no fucking clue how this could have happened?
    12 points
  23. I’ve stopped following because this is who we are and we deserve it, but I had to check in to make sure we are making fun of the dipshit tech programming genius for not knowing what SQL is.
    12 points
  24. Wordle 1,334 2/6 🟩🟩⬛⬛⬛ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 🙂 Daily Quordle 1115 5️⃣4️⃣ 7️⃣6️⃣ m-w.com/games/quordle/ 🟩⬜⬜⬜⬜ ⬜⬜🟩🟨🟩 ⬜🟨⬜⬜⬜ ⬜⬜⬜⬜🟨 ⬜🟩⬜⬜⬜ ⬜⬜⬜⬜🟨 ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ ⬜⬜🟨🟨⬜ 🟩⬜⬜⬜🟨 ⬜🟩⬜🟨⬜ ⬜⬜⬜⬜🟨 ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜ ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜ ⬜🟨🟨⬜⬜ ⬜⬜⬜🟩🟨 ⬜⬜🟨⬜⬜ 🟩⬜⬜⬜⬜ ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛
    12 points
  25. And you're a cunt.
    11 points
  26. As critical as I am of our current regime, and as much as I expect them to betray Ukraine and bend over for Russia.....we have plenty of posts on this and the CR thread by posters around here (including me) acknowledging that the final resolution to this war is almost certainly going to involve some Ukrainian territory staying in Russian hands. That's just real talk. Now, whether member of the US presidential cabinet should be fucking SAYING that out loud is another question.
    11 points
  27. 11 points
  28. Love the picture. AxiC3PO picking his nose, which he subsequently ate and Trump sittling there like a chump listening to Elon talk about nonsense.
    11 points
  29. Wordle 1,334 2/6 🟨🟨🟨⬜⬜ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
    11 points
  30. Wordle 1,334 2/6 ⬛⬛🟨⬛⬛ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 Connections Puzzle #612 🟨🟨🟨🟨 🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟪🟪🟪🟦 🟪🟪🟪🟪 🟦🟦🟦🟦 🙂 Daily Quordle 1115 7️⃣4️⃣ 6️⃣5️⃣ m-w.com/games/quordle/ 🟩⬜⬜⬜⬜ ⬜⬜🟩⬜🟨 ⬜⬜🟩⬜⬜ ⬜⬜⬜⬜🟩 ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜ 🟨⬜⬜⬜⬜ ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟩⬜⬜⬜⬜ ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ ⬜🟨⬜⬜⬜ ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ ⬜⬜🟨⬜🟩 🟩⬜⬜⬜⬜ ⬜🟨🟨⬜⬜ ⬜⬜⬜⬜🟨 ⬜⬜⬜🟨⬜ 🟨⬜⬜⬜🟩 ⬜🟨🟨⬜⬜ ⬜⬜⬜🟩🟨 ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛
    11 points
  31. Well, one thing for certain. SMU isn't hiring Chris Del Conte. There was a stupid discussion started, whoever that was.
    11 points
  32. We are priming the fucking pump. Appointing presidents to cultural boards? Renaming centuries old geographic features. Military parades are coming. And there’s another place where the discourse should be freaking people out. Our military’s job is now to “secure the homeland.” Generations of Americans have understood that the homeland is most secure and that America’s military strength is best used far, far away. Fucking Lincoln explained that a foreign army could not lay a track on the Blue Ridge even if it were funded by the combined might of the Old World. That is a goddam luxury. Dipshits like Anastasis will celebrate this reorientation but a thoughtful American will ask why the fuck, all of a sudden, an exquisite and terrifying fighting force now needs to focus on America instead of the world abroad.
    10 points
  33. 10 points
  34. Oh hmm, I wonder how we can get more exceptionally compelling individual educators in our public schools??? It's a mystery for sure.
    10 points
  35. Maybe that asshole would've had more time to research if he didn't make hundreds of Tikky Tokky videos humble-bragging about the $1.2M farm he bought.
    10 points
  36. Eat shit, Lucinda. That may be all you can afford to eat going forward.
    10 points
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