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bolverk

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Everything posted by bolverk

  1. RRR serves this purpose well.
  2. Texas A&M Will Not Reinstate Lecturer Fired Over Gender Lesson The decision seemed likely to provoke a court battle in a state where Republican politicians have sought to influence public universities. Texas A&M University has declined to reinstate a faculty member who was fired after she was accused of teaching a course that recognized more than two genders, even after an appeals panel found that the dismissal was not justified. The decision to not reinstate the instructor, Melissa McCoul, is expected to set off a court battle touching on academic freedom as President Trump is pressuring universities to embrace his vision for the nation’s campuses. Few places have gone as far as Texas, the most populous Republican-led state, to align its public universities with Mr. Trump’s ideology. And few episodes have crystallized the tensions over academia as much as the one that led to Texas A&M’s firing of Dr. McCoul in September. She had displayed a “gender unicorn,” which is used to explain the differences between gender expression and gender identity, during a class on children’s literature. A student challenged Dr. McCoul, saying, “I’m not entirely sure this is legal to be teaching because, according to our president, there’s only two genders.” After listening to the student a bit more, according to a video of the exchange, Dr. McCoul responded, “You are under a misconception that what I’m saying is illegal.” Plenty of Republican officials in Texas believed that it was and demanded discipline. Texas A&M quickly fired Dr. McCoul. The university’s president, Mark Welsh, who had already been buffeted by other contentious issues during his tenure, stepped down not long afterward. Dr. McCoul appealed her dismissal, and a faculty panel ruled unanimously in November that the school was “not justified” when it ousted her. The committee’s chairman wrote in the decision that the panel had been “especially concerned by the lack of a rigorous investigation into the circumstances, details, specific events and timeline leading to Dr. McCoul’s summary dismissal.” The report also cited other misgivings about the university’s handling of the episode and repeatedly said that A&M “did not meet the burden of proof that Dr. McCoul’s summary dismissal was based on good cause.” The university system’s vice chancellor for academic affairs, James R. Hallmark, however, wrote in a Dec. 19 memo that he had “determined that Dr. McCoul’s dismissal was based upon good cause.” In the memo, Dr. Hallmark did not elaborate on his rationale. Texas A&M did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the decision, which Dr. McCoul’s lawyer shared with The New York Times on Wednesday. The lawyer, Amanda Reichek, said in a statement that Dr. McCoul was “disappointed by the university’s unexplained decision to uphold her termination but looks forward to pursuing her First Amendment, due process and breach of contract claims in court very soon.” In November, university system regents imposed new restrictions on what may be discussed in Texas A&M classrooms. One new policy declared that courses may not “advocate race or gender ideology, or topics related to sexual orientation or gender identity” without a campus president’s approval of the course and related materials. A separate though related policy said that faculty members were not allowed to “teach material that is inconsistent with the approved syllabus for the course.” Dr. McCoul’s case was not explicitly mentioned during the regents’ meeting, where officials approved the policies unanimously. But one regent said it had lately “become clear” that some faculty members were testing the rules of the system, which includes a dozen universities and a health sciences center and enrolls about 165,000 students in total.
  3. Pro-Trump Influencers Stay Conspicuously Quiet About Epstein Files Their silence contrasted with the uproar made over the weekend when the Justice Department’s first release focused on former President Bill Clinton. Pro-Trump influencers have always had a lot to say about the Jeffrey Epstein files. Several called for their release before President Trump was re-elected, certain that the files would expose a cabal of Democrats who had palled around with Mr. Epstein even though he had been exposed as a convicted sex offender. And several criticized Mr. Trump himself this year after he repeatedly sought to block the files’ release, referring to them as a “Democratic hoax.” But many of them were conspicuously quiet on Tuesday, when the Justice Department released a batch of materials that contained hundreds of mentions of Mr. Trump. Their silence contrasted with the uproar made over the weekend when the department’s first release focused on former President Bill Clinton, including an image, stripped of context, showing him reclining in a hot tub. (Mr. Clinton has never been accused of wrongdoing in connection with Mr. Epstein.) “It’s pretty rich how the Democrats falsely accused President Trump of being a pedophile, only for the Trump DOJ to release Epstein files that show Bill Clinton skinny dipping with a pedophile in the pedo’s pool,” Laura Loomer, the arch Trump ally and conservative commentator, wrote on social media on Saturday. “Maybe now the media will stop obsessing over these files.” On Tuesday, however, Ms. Loomer said nothing about the newly released materials, which showed, among other things, that federal prosecutors had determined that Mr. Trump had flown on Mr. Epstein’s private plane more times than they originally knew. Instead, Ms. Loomer seemed to post about everything except the Epstein files: immigrant work visas; “anti-white racism”; next year’s midterm elections; and Zohran Mamdani, the mayor-elect of New York. A similar pattern appeared in the X account of Rogan O’Handley, a lawyer and conservative influencer who posts under the handle DC Draino. On Friday, Mr. O’Handley assailed Mr. Clinton, writing that the Epstein files had depicted him “shirtless in a hot tub with a female that is not his wife.” But on Tuesday, Mr. O’Handley had nothing at all to say about the files. Benny Johnson, a popular pro-Trump podcaster and host of “The Benny Show,” also avoided mentioning the Epstein files on Tuesday. He focused on other issues, including a transgender instructor who was fired from the University of Oklahoma and a bus driver from Pennsylvania who lost her job after asking students she was driving to speak English. One Trump-friendly account did, however, post about the newly released files: the one run by the Justice Department. The department released a statement on Tuesday, seeking to give context to the material, some of which contained unverified or unsubstantiated accusations against Mr. Trump. “Some of these documents contain untrue and sensationalist claims made against President Trump that were submitted to the F.B.I. right before the 2020 election,” the department’s statement said. The claims, it added, were “unfounded and false, and if they had a shred of credibility, they certainly would have been weaponized against President Trump already.”
  4. Pretty sure that poster is PRONG HORN, which would explain his psychotic idiocy. It’s either him or Pimphand, who’s equally deranged.
  5. Wordle 1,649 3/6 🟩🟨⬛⬛⬛ 🟩🟩🟩⬛🟩 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 Connections Puzzle #927 🟪🟪🟪🟪 🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟦🟦🟦🟦 🟨🟨🟨🟨 🙂 Daily Quordle 1430 7️⃣4️⃣ 6️⃣5️⃣ m-w.com/games/quordle/
  6. That contingent mostly stopped posting by the end of July, when it became clear that the White House was actively covering it up.
  7. Can you surf the web on your TV? If so, I highly recommend: https://thetvapp.to/. Of course, it also works on a laptop. Either way, you don't have to deal with pop-up ads on this site. It's got a shitload of cable channels, including TNT. On the other hand, you can also stream TNT games on the HBO app -- just an FYI.
  8. Your failure to use a question mark on that last statement makes me ragey. Ending a question with a period. Really? How could you read that and not edit it to replace the period with a question mark?
  9. Location on Google Maps: https://www.google.com/maps/place/Angeles+Crest+Tunnels/@34.3626034,-117.8655474,102a,55y,3.67t/data=!3m1!1e3!4m6!3m5!1s0x80c31e9b85f98083:0x6ff6422f5f6acb39!8m2!3d34.3617092!4d-117.8626677!16s%2Fg%2F11ddx74pg9!5m1!1e1?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI1MTIwOS4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D POV of a different crash
  10. Wordle 1,648 3/6 ⬛🟩⬛🟨⬛ ⬛🟩⬛⬛🟩 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 Connections Puzzle #926 🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟨🟨🟨🟨 🟦🟦🟦🟦 🟪🟪🟪🟪 🙂 Daily Quordle 1429 7️⃣4️⃣ 5️⃣6️⃣ m-w.com/games/quordle/
  11. Fight me! There isn't such a thing.
  12. And Andrew Tate got his ass beat by a gay guy wearing pink gloves. Glorious!
  13. Not a lawyer, but it does seem to amount to a "taking."
  14. I can't recall why, but I took government in summer school with a football coach who had just moved to Texas from New Mexico. He announced that fact on the first day of class, stating something to the effect of: "Well, I'm supposed to teach you kids about Texas government, but I just moved here from New Mexico, and all I can say is, 'We have one.'" Then, I think we just moved on to US government.
  15. Wordle 1,647 4/6 ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ ⬛🟩⬛🟨⬛ ⬛🟩🟩⬛⬛ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 Connections Puzzle #925 🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟦🟦🟦🟦 🟨🟨🟨🟨 🟪🟪🟪🟪 🙂 Daily Quordle 1428 5️⃣4️⃣ 7️⃣6️⃣ m-w.com/games/quordle/
  16. Wordle 1,646 2/6 ⬛🟨⬛🟨⬛ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 Connections Puzzle #924 🟨🟨🟨🟨 🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟦🟦🟦🟦 🟪🟪🟪🟪 🙂 Daily Quordle 1427 5️⃣4️⃣ 6️⃣7️⃣ m-w.com/games/quordle/
  17. My two biggest concerns about Tech are the O-line and Morton. If they hold up, Tech will win.
  18. The most points scored against the Tech defense this past year were 26 by Arizona State.
  19. Agreed. If the Texas team really showed up, they wouldn't have had a problem with any of the first-round teams.
  20. We all saw that initial JMU drive to start the game before any excuse about getting tired would apply. I think there might be some fundamental weaknesses.
  21. This Oregon D is sus.
  22. Well, if you insist.
  23. Joey's gonna have some good film on Oregon's defense after this game.
  24. Spoons. A rolling ball of spoons.
  25. Hand signs that require using both of them are dumb.
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