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wood

Certifiably Surly
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  1. nsiap ... Looks like Abbott is taking some heat from both sides of the aisle. Texas Gov. Abbott faces backlash after mass arrest at UT Austin pro-Palestine protest  https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/4620838-texas-governor-abbott-backlash-mass-arrest-ut-austin-pro-palestine-protest/

    Spoiler

     

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    After Texas state troopers arrested more than 50 people at a University of Texas at Austin protest this week, Gov. Greg Abbott (R) is facing accusations that the state went too far.

    Police in riot gear broke up an unsanctioned but nonviolent demonstration at the state’s flagship university Wednesday.

    Among those arrested was a journalist with the local Fox 7 news affiliate, who has been charged with criminal trespassing, according to the news organization.

    Demonstrators have scheduled a second day of protest for Thursday.

    The students had called on UT to divest from arms manufacturers and U.S. and Israeli companies profiting off Israel’s war in Gaza. The university endowment has an estimated $52.5 million invested with arms manufacturers.

    Students and off-campus supporters began to gather before noon in a protest the university forbade them to hold. They chanted slogans such as, “Free, free Palestine. Killing children is a crime,” according to Texas Public Radio.

    Jews on campus were divided over whether this constituted an offensive act.

    Texas Hillel, the Jewish student union, called the protests “hateful,” noting they took place on the second day of Passover, the Jewish festival of freedom.

    Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, joined by fellow governors during a news conference. (Eric Gay / The Associated Press)

    Others disagreed. “They’re not shouting anything antisemitic, they’re not harassing anyone, they’re standing on the green lawn, expressing themselves,” Jeremi Suri, a Jewish UT-Austin history professor, told The Texas Tribune.

    “The appropriate response would be to ask them to be contained in an area, let them stay on the grass and let them shout until they have no voices left,” Suri added.


    Instead, Abbott called in the state troopers.

    In a post Wednesday on the social platform X, Abbott declared the protests antisemitic and called for the university to expel students who participated. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick (R), meanwhile, has made suppressing alleged campus antisemitism a key priority for next year’s legislative session.

    “Today, Greg Abbott’s [Department of Public Safety] has more courage to arrest peaceful student protesters than when an active shooter entered an elementary school in Uvalde,” state Democrats wrote in a statement Wednesday evening.


    The party called the crackdown an Abbott “campaign ad.”

    A Democratic state representative from Austin called the response “out of hand.” 

    “In normal times when I was a student I was in a ‘sit in’ [with the Rev. Jesse Jackson] INSIDE the actual UT law school and administration just ignored us,” state Rep. Gina Hinojosa, (D-Austin), wrote on X.


    A group of UT professors issued a statement condemning university president Jay Hartzell’s decision to call in the police.

    The administrators noted the event “was to have included teach-ins, study sessions, pizza, and an art workshop. There was no threat of violence, no plan to disrupt classes, no intimidation of the campus community.”

    In response, they wrote, “we have witnessed police punching a female student, knocking over a legal observer, dragging a student over a chain link fence, and violently arresting students simply for standing at the front of the crowd.”


    Local journalists decried the arrest of the Fox photographer.

    “If he’s guilty of criminal trespass, then I am too, as are a dozen other credentialed, on-the-clock journalists who were peacefully recording on a public lawn,” Ryan Chandler of KXAN wrote on X.

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    Similar criticism came from libertarian and right-wing groups that previously supported Abbott’s campaign against diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs — which the state government had called anti-free speech.


    “Sending in a phalanx of law enforcement threatens protected speech where it should be at its most free: a public university like UT Austin,” Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) legal director Will Creeley wrote after the arrests.

    FIRE, a longtime critic of DEI, said Abbott’s use of police to break up the demonstration “makes his disregard for the First Amendment’s protection of political speech clear.”

    The crackdown followed Abbott’s controversial March executive order that critics characterized as a reversal of sweeping free-speech protections he signed into law in 2019. 

    In March, the governor signed an executive order directing universities to change their free speech policies to properly punish antisemitic speech — a category state Republican leadership applies to criticism of the war in Gaza.

    “I am committed to the fight against antisemitism on campus, but I am concerned about the highlighted provisions in Governor Abbott’s executive order,” right-wing activist Chris Rufo of the Manhattan Institute, who has been a longtime critic of DEI, safe spaces and pro-Palestine campus protests, wrote at the time.

    “How is such a policy different from DEI programs promising to prohibit ‘anti-black speech’? And why not include ‘anti-white speech,’ which, as I have shown in my reporting, is institutionalized at University of Texas?” Rufo asked.

    Writers at the far-right magazine The Federalist called Abbott’s March executive order an endorsement of “the DEI cult” with its “demands for Jewish safe spaces.”

    Muslim students told the press the university hasn’t protected them from abuse and assault on campus.

    Earlier this month, three men assaulted a Muslim student wearing traditional dress while mocking him in “fake Arabic,” according to a complaint filed by the Council of American-Islamic Relations.

    Texas Republican leadership has long combined dogged support for Israel’s right-wing government with a more complicated relationship with antisemitic groups on the state’s far right.

    Last year, a leading state PAC aligned with state Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) changed its name and fired its director after video surfaced of him meeting with white nationalist Nick Fuentes, a vocal fan of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler and a proponent of a “holy war” against Jews.

    After the video came to light, Republican recipients of the PAC’s donations in the state Legislature countered criticisms and calls to donate the funds by espousing their support for Israel, as The Hill reported.

    Patrick, for example, received $3 million from the PAC in the lead-up to the 2023 impeachment of Paxton, one of his allies.

    In the face of criticism over the donation, Patrick announced he would use it to buy Israeli bonds.

    In December, the state Republican committee voted 39-32 to continue permitting members to meet with groups “known to espouse or tolerate antisemitism, pro-Nazi sympathies or Holocaust denial,” stripping a clause that would have banned such meetings from a statement of support for Israel, according to The Texas Tribune.

    Half the board also voted not to keep any record of that vote. 

    In voting down a measure that would have restricted such meetings, members raised concerns about free speech. A ban on such meetings was reminiscent of “Marxist” tactics, members said. 

    Banning them “could put you on a slippery slope,” committee member Dan Tully told the Tribune.

    In the aftermath of Wednesday’s arrests, a local journalist with the left-wing Texas Observer called out the apparent contradiction between the state’s broader response to antisemitic speech and its crackdown on the college demonstrations.

    “I’ve seen no credible reporting of actual antisemitic incidents at the UT Austin protest,” Steven Monacelli wrote on X.

    “What I can tell you is that I’ve reported on numerous neo-Nazi events and Greg Abbott never once tried to put any of them in jail.”

     

     

  2. 23 minutes ago, Pato del Muerto said:

    Does UT still allow the anti-abortion group to set up shop at the corner in front of Gregory with their giant pictures of aborted fetuses like they did in the late 90s?

    I also recall in 1994 I believe the KKK marched down Dallas Ave in grapevine, fully permitted, after some racial incidents at GHS got their attention. 
     

    was told 1st amendment allowed for it. 

    Yep. I was at UT in the mid-late 80s when the KKK marched down the drag chanting their racist shit. We were told it was their right, and of course, it was. So we just watched for a couple of minutes while we waited to cross, then ignored their shit and went on about our binness. 

    I've always told my kids that so much of the freedom so many take for granted is incredibly fragile, and here is a great example. It doesn't matter if the protesters or anyone else there is 'right' or 'wrong'. They were protesting peacefully. About as peaceful a protest as I've ever seen with that many people. So sad. I can't believe how far we've fallen in so short a time. /csb

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  3. 7 hours ago, Captainant said:

    It's almost like abbott is choosing to escalate this as a culture war issue, or something. 

    He's also framing this action as being "against antisemitism" which is bad because that means he thinks he's justified in arresting those protesters. 

    Abbott? Needlessly escalating shit for personal gain? 

    Shocking.

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  4. 2 hours ago, Hate said:

    It’s Mexico. Finding weed if you really need it is not a problem. Seriously.

    Este.

    Heading back in July. Been a while. Can't wait. Got some good news re: the beach. Back in January 2023 I posted the photo below.

    On 1/15/2023 at 5:49 PM, wood said:

    Damn. I just checked the live webcam for the first time in a long time and I has a serious sad...

    I've posted about the beach erosion on Playa Norte before, but got damn, it's really fucking shit up now. Look to the right, right next to Chimbo's. The beach has receded probably another 15-20 just since we weree there in March. Fucking hell.

    Isla Mujeres live, Isla Mujeres - Webcams of Mexico - Google Chrome 1_15_2023 5_31_02 PM.png

    Then the webcam was down for like a year. Webcam's back now, and so is the beach. Made my day. So we got that goin' for us ... which is nice.

    Playa Norte live cam stream, Isla Mujeres - Google Chrome 4_24_2024 2_58_28 PM.png

    On 2/1/2024 at 1:32 PM, Zepol87 said:

    Gf getting her hair braided here so I’m chilling

     

    IMG_9085.jpeg

    IMG_9082.jpeg

    Looks like you were at Oscar's. Good people there.

    On 3/28/2024 at 12:28 PM, rage-a-holic said:

    Holbox is like a smaller, shittier version of Tulum you need to take a ferry to. And the water is Gulf of Mexico, not Caribbean. 

    Go to El Cuyo instead. Unless you enjoy crowds of douchey influencer types, then definitely stick with Holbox.

    200w.gif?cid=6c09b952fd035bpyptk7rsl3gk7

  5. On 8/2/2023 at 8:49 AM, midtown said:

    Anyone want to or have knowledge of the ability to bring gummies through CUN? 

    Nurse likes to take a gummie, send her teen son to bed, put on music and spend a few hours being tied up.

    You could hide 'em in the kid's camera bag to get through customs, the way my dipshit dumbass ex-BIL hid pot on my wife's sister's kid (no pics) a few years ago without telling anyone. Told everyone after we got to Cozumel. He thought it was cool and no big deal. I though the kid's dad was gonna break other BIL's neck right fucking there. I know I woulda if it had been my kid.

  6. I thought about this, too, after seeing the lack of any apparent reasonable logic in the application of penalties in China. He's not wrong. Why risk it?

    'Better not to race' in Sprints – Alonso https://racer.com/2024/04/23/better-not-to-race-in-sprints-alonso/

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    Fernando Alonso says the Sprint format is showing it is “better not to race” on a Saturday due to the impact on tire usage and the penalty points he received at the Chinese Grand Prix.

    The stewards gave Alonso a retrospective 10-second time penalty and three penalty points for causing a collision with Carlos Sainz when fighting for a top three position in China’s Sprint, leaving him halfway to a race ban. The penalty points appeared particularly harsh despite the pair making contact, and with Alonso then forced into an unusual strategy on Sunday where he made an extra pit stop due to a lack of hard tires, he says sitting out the Sprint would have been a better option.

    “I think getting more tires will be good because in FP1 it is a game of who can run less and who uses less sets of tires, so it is a shame for the fans,” Alonso said. “And then, the Sprint, if they want it for the show and for overtaking and you don’t let them race, it is better not to race.

    “We didn’t have any more hard tires (on Sunday). We had one soft and one medium and 35 laps in front of us, which, in our calculations, it was not possible to make it to the end. Obviously, there were a lot of safety car laps to remove the Sauber and once the safety car came in – more safety car laps because they crashed.

    “The best thing is not to do the Sprint, probably, on Saturday, to keep a set of tires for Sunday. There are few points on the table for us if you are not winning the race and you risk penalty points and things like that, so it is better maybe not to race.”

     

     

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  7. 5 hours ago, MR David said:

    Fernando’s performance was indeed remarkable, showcasing his exceptional skill. The decision not to switch back to medium tires might have been a strategic call, but his ability to handle the car at high speeds, especially during that save, was pure talent.

    Yeah I thought at the time it was a bad call to go to softs, but since then I've been told they did it because they didn't have any hards left for him and didn't think they'd make it to the end on mediums. So they put soft tires on to take advantage of the field being bunched up for the restart. Makes sense, but I could have sworn some of the others went with mediums to the end. I could be wrong though and haven't bothered to go back and check. That second incident happening so quickly really screwed their strategy on the softs.

    What's most striking to me about that save, as mentioned above, is the reflexes it takes to do that. Especially at his age, and especially for a guy who many have said for years is too old to do this at a high level. Not only is he doing it, he's still doing it at an elite level, even among F1 drivers.

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  8. So ...

    - Alonso gets it wrong and bumps wheels with Sainz in the Sprint, with no consequences to Sainz, and ending his own race. He gets 10s and 3 points on his license, for something we've frequently seen not even get investigated or go unpenalized in GPs. 

    - Sainz completely ignores the apex en route to causing a collision with his teammate. No penalty.

    - Stroll drives into the back of RIC in the GP because he wasn't paying attention, ending RIC's race and damaging another car. 10s and only 2 points.  

    - KMag literally drives all the way across the track and ends Yuki's race when he had all the room in the world. In the GP. 10s and 2 points.

    How does any of that make any sense?

    Oh, and KMag is just bad. That collision late was particularly terrible. People talk about taking seats from guys like Fernando or Lewis to make room for young new drivers, lol. I would suggest they're looking at the wrong end of the grid.

    Then you have Sargeant getting to the safety car line a millisecond after Hulkenberg but passing him on pit exit. Penalty: 10s and 2 points. The fact that he got the same penalty as Magnussen and Stroll for something that wasn't his fault (no way he would have seen it, the team needed to tell him) is a joke.

    What a shitshow.

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  9. 1 hour ago, deft said:


    It was wild that he controlled that much of the sprint for so long and then boxed by the end. And for that matter, any time we talk about drs trains, it involves him. Is that good or bad?

    There have been loads of DRS trains for years that haven't involved him. It's just a couple recently. DRS trains aren't usually really the fault of the guy in front though. They're a symptom of having DRS. I.E. everyone has DRS, so they can't get by each other. If the 2nd guy (who has DRS) can't get past the guy in front who doesn't have it, then that's not on the guy in front. And the guy leading the train, who can't keep up with the car in front, is usually in that position because his car is too slow in race pace and he qualified it higher than it would normally be positioned, for one reason or another. But in the GP today I don't think he really caused a DRS train. For example as soon as Checo started putting pressure on him, he just moved over and let him past because his race really wasn't with Checo anyway.

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  10. In other news, man, Aston Martin should have put Fernando back on medium tires during that SC, but his run on mediums at the end was absolutely epic and almost covered that mistake. He was a rocket, and the save on the front straight ... just wow.  Should have been a Code Brown moment, but Fernando didn’t miss a beat. Immediately pressed the DRS button and got after Lewis.

  11. 2 hours ago, TonyTexas said:

    Netflix just released a DTS style show for the Indy Car series. It’s startling to see how minor league it is compared to F1.  I’m not talking AAA but more A ball

    Still hasn't recovered from The Split. IndyCar was right there with F1 before that.

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