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bolverk

Certifiably Surly
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Everything posted by bolverk

  1. No worries. Just a note of caution: There are a lot of bad-faith actors on Twitter and elsewhere. I personally try to vet sources before sharing from their accounts, though I've dumped Twitter in the last six months or so.
  2. I agree with everything except the bolded.
  3. I think we need to be cautious with some of these Tweets, especially if they're not coming from actual journalists. For example, the reports from UCLA are that the cops had erected a barrier between pro-Israel and pro-Palestine protestors had been breached but it was unsure who broke through it first. The report also stated there were clashes between the two groups. This short clip shows a girl who was hurt and people are trying to help her. We don't actually know how she was hurt, only that "Collin Rugg" says she was beaten up by a group. It might be true, but it might also be total bullshit that it happened in the way that Collin Rugg says it happened. Well, who the hell is Collin Rugg and why should we believe him? Having never heard of him, I go to his Twitter page and see a long list of extremely lopsided and political tweets from a very conservative angle. He also claims to be the Co-Owner of Trending Politics and there's a fucking cybertruck on his profile page. I'm sorry, but at this point, you start to lose a lot of fucking credibility as a news source. Let's take a visit to this "media personality's" website. It's a bunch of bullshit "articles" making a lot of very dubious claims. https://trendingpolitics.com/ So, please, let's try to stick with credible news sources or clips that fully show what's going on.
  4. I think someone said somewhere up-thread that UT didn't enact a mask ban until after last week's protest, but I could be wrong on that.
  5. Can we get a Reader's Digest version of the backstory here? I don't watch ESPN during the offseason and generally don't follow political commentary from sports broadcasters. Does Acho have a history of inflammatory rhetoric or something?
  6. I wish there were more money in drag. George could've stuck to entertaining people and making them feel good instead of resorting to becoming a con artist, thief, and Trumpanzee. But I repeat myself.
  7. Yeah, that one seemed a stretch. To be honest, his points about the freeze line, the type of soil, and/or the lack of topsoil seemed more relevant. I do also wonder if there's something to be said about when most of the housing stock was constructed. I'd guess that well over half of the homes in Texas were built after 1980, and it seems that most of those houses were built by big corporate homebuilders who are mostly motivated by maximizing the bottom line. And, as you rightly point out, adding basements adds to construction costs. I grew up in West Texas in the 1970s and '80s and only had one buddy whose house had a full basement. I can't think of any others, but the area was kind of hilly, so there were a lot of those split-level homes, though.
  8. This "hard line liberal" created this thread specifically to give you a safe place to vent so that the UT news thread would get unfucked. You're welcome.
  9. This is the problem I see with a lot of "conservatives" I know: they don't think shit through. I put quotes around "conservative" because they're actually just knee-jerk reactionaries. Yours is a great example. Another would be the lower-my-taxes-no-matter-what crowd (Roads will crumble, yo. That fire truck won't pay for itself.). Or the I-want-God-back-in-school (Are you sure you want *their* god in your kid's school?). And the people-shouldn't-be-on-welfare folks (Cool. So, are you willing to have your mother-in-law, who's on social security, move in with you?). I imagine most of them are really shitty chess players, as they can't seem to think more than a step or two ahead. Of course, this applies to some liberals as well, mostly younger people, but the majority of them eventually grow out of it.
  10. https://www.texasmonthly.com/being-texan/texanist-dont-texas-houses-basements/
  11. I don't know the extent of it or its history, and I can't speak to its veracity, but a very quick (and cursory) Google search led me to this article, which mentions Austin as one of the participating police forces. This is the first I can ever recall hearing about any of this. https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-us-police-training-end-knee-neck-protests
  12. I'm not saying negs or fatwas don't happen in the CR, but it's not nearly as commonplace as perceived. It's mostly restricted to posters persistently spouting disproven lies, stating malignant opinions as facts without evidence, or saying racist/homophobic kind of shit, just like anywhere else on this board. The difference is that, by its political nature, the CR attracts people who like to stir the pot with that stuff.
  13. I invite you to visit the Hartzell thread in CR, which discusses this very topic. It's six pages of debate/discussion/dissent, with lots of back-and-forth. Having just skimmed the entire thing just now, I counted 1 "fuck you" emoji. I'll also ask you to look at the last page, where one poster came in well over an hour ago with a flaming hot take on the current president of the US (not the university). Guess what? Not a single neg. Here's a link if you'd like to check for yourself: https://www.surlyhorns.com/board/topic/35367-jay-hartzell-is-not-out-standard/page/6/ If you're really concerned about avoiding neg reps on this site, I'd suggest never, ever visiting the Football board.
  14. Are you unfamiliar with the mugshot thread? I'm sure a lot of them end up with no charges.
  15. Crossposting this from the Abbott thread because it's just as relevant to the discussion here. Very strong opinion piece from a UT professor that puts these protests into context with the broader assault on higher education in this state.
  16. I largely agree. As you're aware, I'm sure, my position on the Palestine issue is pretty clear in that I think Palestinians have a fundamental right to self-determination. Israel's 50-year-old occupation and settlement policy are as responsible for the radicalization of the population as anything else. While I believe the conduct of the IDF in Gaza has been overly reckless and cruel to civilians, I also fully acknowledge that Israel has a right to self-defense and support its defeat of Hamas's military. As an American citizen and taxpayer, I'm really uncomfortable with the degree of military support and diplomatic cover we provide their government, which allows them to operate in such a brazen manner in both Gaza and the West Bank. The kinetic nature of warfare, with all its ongoing deaths and destruction, inflames passions and gives a sense of urgency and energy to protests. I fully understand that, but there's little that these protestors can accomplish in the short time necessary to affect what's happening RIGHT NOW. So, I'm not sure this particular issue is where I'd invest all my blood, sweat, and tears if I were a student activist. Now, I'm not saying it's unworthy of protests, and, to be honest, 60-some-odd protestors (initial count from yesterday) on a campus of 50,000 students probably isn't far out of line with how people prioritize issues. To me, it's the heavy-handed response by Hartzell and the State that's created the media firestorm. Having said all that, they (we all) need to be focusing more on the bigger picture, which is defeating theocratic fascism and white nationalism at home as that encompasses so many fucking other issues (free elections, racial equality, abortion rights, privacy rights, LGBTQ rights, gender equality, public education, etc.). Without tackling this fundamental shit, we won't be able to tackle any of the other challenges we're facing, including climate change and assaults on democracy abroad. I'd love those kids to be building a much broader coalition focusing on fighting authoritarianism at home, giving them the moral authority and context for their protestations against Israeli policies in the Occupied Territories.
  17. A bit earlier, I was listening to the Texas Standard and a KUT reporter who was being interviewed said at least 10 protestors who'd been arrested had to get medical attention. One apparently had been struck by a DPS motorcycle, and another may have had a "bad reaction to chemicals" (pepper spray?). More detailed information I came across: https://www.texastribune.org/2024/04/29/university-texas-pro-palestinian-protest-arrest/
  18. It's becoming increasingly difficult to muddle through all the various hot takes about other places to find information about what's happening on OUR university campus. Anyone who'd like to discuss protests NOT taking place on the UT campus, please feel free to do so in this brand new thread. Thank you.
  19. This thread is for posters to discuss protests not taking place on the UT campus.
  20. Very lucky second guess. Wordle 1,046 3/6 ⬛🟨⬛⬛⬛ ⬛🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 Connections Puzzle #324 🟦🟦🟦🟦 🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟨🟨🟨🟨 🟪🟪🟪🟪 Had to stare at SE corner for a good while. Daily Quordle 827 5️⃣4️⃣ 6️⃣7️⃣ m-w.com/games/quordle/ 🟩🟩🟩⬜⬜ 🟨⬜⬜⬜⬜ ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜ ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜ ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜ ⬜🟩⬜⬜🟩 ⬜⬜🟨🟩⬜ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ ⬜⬜⬜⬜🟨 ⬜🟨🟨⬜⬜ ⬜⬜⬜⬜🟨 ⬜🟨⬜⬜⬜ 🟨⬜⬜⬜🟩 ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜ ⬜⬜⬜⬜🟩 ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜ ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜ ⬜🟨🟨⬜⬜ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜ ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 ClickWord.org Daily 451: 552 points (top 30% 🎉) 13 words: ⚛️🟪🟪🟪🟪🟥🟧🟧🟨🟨🟩🟩🟩 💪 Best word: 172 points 🔥 Streak: 4 days #ClickWord #ClickWordDaily451
  21. Let's see if we can sum up the events of the last few days: Today, some protestors may or may not have violated a poorly worded campus rule about tents before 10 p.m. Some of those protestors also violated a brand new campus rule about not wearing masks. In response, riot police were called in to promptly clear them out. At the same time, the university is violating a five-year-old law affirmatively stating that non-students are allowed to protest on college campuses. All this on the heels of last week, when riot police physically assaulted protesters exercising their First Amendment rights. Meanwhile, in our little corner of the internet, we have at least one lawyer (and vocal Christian) saying these campus rules must be fully enforced. At the same time, he simultaneously maintains a stance in support of illegal actions by a foreign government, such as ethnic cleansing and other war crimes. Also, we have a few other posters that have expressed a desire to see police be even rougher on campus protesters up to and including "cracking skulls," no matter that the children of other posters currently attend the university. Finally, we have a local journalist/cameraman who tripped into an officer, an accident for which DPS is aggressively pursuing charges after the local DA declined to do so. Is any of the above incorrect?
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