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bolverk

Certifiably Surly
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Everything posted by bolverk

  1. I hate to agree because fuck nuclear proliferation, but yeah.
  2. Like a lot of middle-aged white women, Nicole is absolutely obsessed with true crime stuff. You can probably blame much of that on Nancy Grace on all the various podcasts, but in her defense, Nicole also says she knows someone who was murdered in Louisiana (I think) some years ago. In that case, Nicole is convinced it was the work of a serial killer, and she thinks the cops were/are too lazy to fully investigate. Because of that history, Nicole has been pretty vocal in thinking that all the bodies found in Town Lake over the past few years are also likely victims of a serial killer and that Austin PD has been inept or lazy in its investigations. Her obsession has become a running gag, where everyone accuses her of being the real Town Lake killer. Of course, Nicole has been a good sport about it and has also embraced the joke.
  3. SIAP: Poland queasy as US hints at pulling back from Eastern Europe Source is Lithuanian National Radio and Television
  4. Meanwhile, Witkoff, who had zero diplomatic experience until a couple of months ago and is the regime's special envoy leading the talks with the Kremlin, proposes giving "ownership" over SE Ukraine to Russia, basically saying we should recognize the rigged elections. Witkoff first publicly floated the idea of handing over to Russia the four Ukrainian regions - Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson - in the March 21 interview with Carlson. “They’re Russian-speaking,” he said of the eastern territories. “There have been referendums where the overwhelming majority of the people have indicated that they want to be under Russian rule.” https://www.reuters.com/world/trump-envoys-embrace-russian-demands-worries-republicans-us-allies-2025-04-11/
  5. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/12/us/jewish-groups-synagogues-ice-student-detentions.html They are a group of progressive Jewish organizations and congregations, and they are coming to the defense of Rumeysa Ozturk, a Muslim graduate student at Tufts, who faces deportation after she helped write an essay critical of Israel. The coalition includes synagogues in places like West Newton, Mass., San Francisco and the Upper West Side of New York, along with J-Street, a pro-Israel advocacy group. On Thursday, they filed a brief in federal court in Burlington, Vt., objecting to the tactics the government was using against Ms. Ozturk in the name of combating antisemitism. In the brief, the groups argued she should be released from the Louisiana immigration detention center where she has been held for over two weeks, after masked immigration agents surrounded and arrested her on a street near her home in Somerville, Mass. “Jewish people came to America to escape generations of similar predations,” the brief says. “Yet the images of Ozturk’s arrest in twenty-first century Massachusetts evoke the oppressive tactics employed by the authoritarian regimes that many ancestors of amici’s members left behind in Odessa, Kishinev, and Warsaw.” There have been reports of almost 1,000 international students and scholars at universities across the country who have lost their legal status since mid-March, according to the Association of International Educators. Anecdotally, the visas have typically been revoked with little or no notice and without telling the students what they might have done wrong. In some cases, students have committed legal infractions, like speeding or driving while drunk, according to universities and lawyers that are monitoring the revocations. But some have not. If the students do not leave voluntarily, they face deportation. The Trump administration has defended the campaign, saying it is revoking the visas of students who have broken the law, who have engaged in antisemitic harassment and violence, who pose a threat to the foreign policy interests of the United States, or who are terrorist sympathizers. A few Jewish activists have applauded the effort, echoing the Trump administration’s mantra that “a visa is a privilege, not a right.” But mainstream Jewish groups have expressed qualms about the crackdown, even while approving of the Trump administration’s focus on antisemitism. As the number of students the Trump administration is targeting has grown, Jewish groups have said that while they may not like the views of pro-Palestinian students, they cannot condone students’ being swept up for vague reasons, without formal charges against them. Ms. Ozturk’s detention followed the arrest two weeks earlier of Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia University graduate who was a spokesman for pro-Palestinian protesters. An immigration judge in Louisiana found on Friday that the Trump administration could deport Mr. Khalil. But he is still challenging the case in a separate court. In response to his case, the Boston chapter of Concerned Jewish Faculty & Staff wrote an open letter, titled “Not in Our Name,” that has been signed by nearly 3,000 faculty and staff members and students at universities across the United States. “We are united in denouncing, without equivocation, anyone who invokes our name — and cynical claims of antisemitism — to harass, expel, arrest, or deport members of our campus communities,” the letter reads. Sara Coodin, the director of academic affairs for the American Jewish Committee, said some federal interventions, including congressional investigations of antisemitism on campus, had been “transformative” in forcing universities to confront problems on their campuses. But she said Ms. Ozturk’s case appeared to be “a clear disregard on the part of the federal government for the rights of people on U.S. soil to speak their minds.” The only evidence that has surfaced against her is an opinion essay she co-wrote that was critical of Israel. “The idea that someone can be pulled off the street for something they wrote, something they think, really affects as all, and we all need to fight back against that,” said Elaine Landes, a member of Congregation Dorshei Tzedek, a Reconstructionist synagogue in West Newton, Mass., that is one of the parties to the court brief. “The whole push to fight antisemitism, to me, feels like we’re being used for another agenda, and that is not going to keep our community safe,” she said. “We need to look out for others.” Ryan Bauer, senior rabbi at Congregation Emanu-El of San Francisco, another signatory, said he supported Ms. Ozturk even though he disagreed with her essay. In it, she pushed for Tufts to end financial ties with Israel and to recognize Israeli conduct in Gaza as a genocide. “I don’t like her statements — I think they’re wrong,” Rabbi Bauer said. But, he added, he believes in free speech, and “the beauty of America is that we don’t all agree with each other.” He said he felt so strongly that Ms. Ozturk’s detention violated Jewish values that he talked about it in a recent sermon. “When you see the floor fall out from under her, it’s naïve to think that those cracks won’t eventually reach our feet,” he said. A federal judge in Vermont, where Ms. Ozturk spent a night in custody before being sent to Louisiana, is scheduled to hear her habeas corpus petition for release from detention on Monday.
  6. Northwestern Oklahoma around Weatherford would make a lot more geographic sense.
  7. Here’s a story about how Putin became the ideological head of the international far-right and why Trumpism embraces Russia. I’ve been saying it for a few years now, but Pat Buchanan was Trump’s political forebearer in the US. You can also see this thinking in Steve Bannon’s infamous Vatican speech from a decade or so ago when he proposed uniting Christendom in the Northern Hemisphere against liberal secularism and the Muslim world. Gift link to NYTimes Magazine (10-15 minute read): How the G.O.P. Fell in Love With Putin’s Russia
  8. Wordle 1,393 5/6 🟨⬛⬛⬛🟩 ⬛⬛🟩🟩🟩 ⬛🟩🟩🟩🟩 ⬛🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 Connections Puzzle #671 🟨🟨🟨🟨 🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟦🟦🟦🟦 🟪🟪🟪🟪 🙂 Daily Quordle 1174 4️⃣5️⃣ 6️⃣8️⃣ m-w.com/games/quordle/ ⬜⬜⬜🟨⬜ ⬜⬜⬜🟩⬜ ⬜🟩⬜🟩⬜ ⬜⬜🟩⬜⬜ 🟨⬜⬜⬜⬜ 🟨⬜⬜⬜⬜ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 ⬜⬜🟨⬜🟩 ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 ⬜⬜🟨⬜⬜ ⬜🟨⬜🟨⬜ 🟩⬜⬜⬜🟩 ⬜⬜⬜🟩⬜ ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜ ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜ ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜ ⬜⬜🟩🟩⬜ ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜ ⬜⬜⬜🟨⬜ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 ⬜⬜⬜🟨⬜ ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ 🟩🟩🟩🟩⬜ ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
  9. I read about this last time around. He said he's tired of picking up his own trash because the high school has janitors for that. Here's an old article: https://thehill.com/homenews/house/438178-dem-lawmaker-takes-aim-at-miller-re-emerged-video-of-high-school-speech/
  10. El Paso's on deck with three new cases. Gaines County continues to see the most infections (75% of new ones since Tuesday), with 27 new cases. Here are New Mexico's numbers. Lea County (Hobbs/Lovington) is just west of Gaines County. Okies won't say where their cases are, but I think it was mentioned a while back they were somewhere in northeastern Oklahoma. Southwest Kansas outbreak. Three cases total are reported in Colorado: Pueblo, Denver, and Pagosa Springs. So far as I know, all the above in these other states can be traced to the outbreak in Gaines County.
  11. I've got a really shitty track record. I initially supported Bradley over Gore and Dean over Kerry in the primaries because I viewed them as more progressive. By the end of the primaries, I was "okay" with Gore and Kerry as the nominees. Hell, I was on the Governor Moonbeam bandwagon in '92. Obama is the only candidate I've fully supported throughout the primaries who actually ended up getting elected president.
  12. True, but TrumpWorld has redefined anti-semitism to mean talking shit about Israel. They’re totally fine if you talk shit about Jews, though.
  13. Wordle 1,392 3/6 ⬛⬛🟨⬛⬛ ⬛🟨⬛🟩🟨 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 Connections Puzzle #670 🟦🟦🟦🟦 🟨🟨🟨🟨 🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟪🟪🟪🟪 🙂 Daily Quordle 1173 7️⃣6️⃣ 5️⃣4️⃣ m-w.com/games/quordle/ ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜ ⬜🟨⬜🟨⬜ ⬜🟨🟨⬜⬜ ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜ ⬜⬜⬜⬜🟩 ⬜⬜⬜🟨🟩 ⬜⬜⬜🟩🟩 ⬜⬜⬜⬜🟩 ⬜⬜🟨⬜🟨 ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜ ⬜⬜⬜⬜🟩 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ 🟩⬜⬜⬜⬜ ⬜⬜⬜⬜🟨 🟨🟨🟩⬜⬜ 🟩🟨⬜⬜⬜ ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜ ⬜🟩⬜⬜🟩 🟨⬜⬜🟨⬜ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛
  14. Stop it. You're such a tease, AHB.
  15. I imagine lots of wives whispering in a hushed and seductive tone to themselves, saying, “It's so big.”
  16. That view from the bottom of the stairs looking up at is an impressive sight.
  17. Six-minute interview with the attorney who represents protesters and was detained coming back to the States at the airport where they insisted on searching his phone: https://www.npr.org/2025/04/09/nx-s1-5357455/attorney-detained-by-immigration-authorities It sure is comforting to know we commingle daily with tacit fascists, who are too cowardly to even speak out on an anonymous message board, and outright Nazi wannabes who have a hard-on for this kind of shit.
  18. You don't see how those blue bars get shorter over time, but when they turn red they start to hang lower?
  19. We've seen it over and over again.
  20. Don't give credit to a toddler who continues to touch the hot stove. It hurt, so he recoiled. It's like a game of whack-a-mole. He'll place his hand on another hot burner soon. Once he's finished scorching his hand with that other one, he'll come back to this one and do it again.
  21. That guy sure has disappeared. He's still lurking, as you can see if you hover over his name tag, but I just checked, and he hasn't actually posted since February. Weird. Is he on an extended timeout?
  22. He's been a Never Trumper from the get-go and has been quite vocal about it on social media, though I don't recall him getting many invites on the talk show circuit the last decade or so and he doesn't have an army of buffoons out there waiting to kidnap him. But, yeah, fucking Whitmer just lost a lot of my respect. Show some balls, lady.
  23. I wholly agree with your point regarding the use of algorithms that manipulate and radicalize people by putting them on a particular ideological path along which people follow a trail fo crumbs leading them down a rabbit hole of radicalization. As @G650's excellent article points out, social media sites benefit tremendously from steering people toward inflammatory and often false information (clickbait lies). That same article raises an interesting question: What is the purpose of free speech? Is it to lead us to the truth, or is it to enrich the media moguls and truth be damned? Is free speech all about expressing opinions, no matter how ludicrous? Is there a place for fact-checking and accountability, as we see in academia and traditional newspapers where publications have to go through a vetting process? Are we all completely satisfied with the current environment in which cable news, radio, and social media mix reporting with opinion, leading to a befuddled audience that makes poor decisions because they rely on infotainment? Anyway, I do recommend going back and reading the FT piece that G650 posted above. I know it's an off-topic discussion, but it's a big part of how we found ourselves in a fucking multifront trade war with the world.
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