rkhalloran 's BestNetTech Comments

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  • On the post: School President Throws Library Dean Under The Bus After Florida College’s LGBTQ-Books-In-A-Dumpster Dumpster Fire

    rkhalloran ( profile ), 29 Aug, 2024 @ 05:22am

    DeStupid following the playbook..

    The FL state dept for environmental protection, with jurisdiction over the state parks, recently proposed out of the blue to develop a handful of state parks with golf courses, hotels (er, "lodges" :-)), pickleball courts etc. https://www.tampabay.com/news/environment/2024/08/21/florida-state-parks-jonathan-dickinson-golf-course/ The plan was not well received: https://www.tallahassee.com/story/news/politics/2024/08/28/florida-gov-desantis-puts-controversial-state-parks-plans-on-hold-jonathan-dickinson/74980449007/ "Republican leaders, including U.S. Sens. Rick Scott and Marco Rubio, and state Senate President Kathleen Passidomo, criticized the plan and came out against it. U.S. Rep. Brian Mast, a Republican who represents the Treasure Coast, said the plan would go forward “over my dead body.” " Now DeSantis' comments: ""It was not approved by me, I never saw that. They're going back to the drawing board," DeSantis told reporters. "A lot of that stuff was half-baked and it was not ready for prime time and it was intentionally leaked out to a left wing group to try to create a narrative," DeSantis said.

  • On the post: Press Struggles To Explain How The GOP Killed A Popular Broadband Discount Program, Driving Millions Of Poor Americans Off The Internet

    rkhalloran ( profile ), 28 Aug, 2024 @ 07:17am

    "Fairness" != "calling out BS"

    The press is bending over backwards to not appear biased in their reporting, even if what they're reporting on is politically-motivated bovine waste and likely to cause problems to the people they're supposedly informing. Unbiased reporting is expected, but willingness to speak truth to power when necessary is also expected as a core value of the Fourth Estate. Otherwise you may as well be Fawx News and simply pander to whatever faction best pays the advertising bills.

  • On the post: School President Throws Library Dean Under The Bus After Florida College’s LGBTQ-Books-In-A-Dumpster Dumpster Fire

    rkhalloran ( profile ), 28 Aug, 2024 @ 06:58am

    Not the first librarian dismissed

    Just after Corcoran & company arrived early 2023, they dismissed the librarian at the time, just in time for the students hitting finals to lose their reference librarian, with little explanation. Her being publicly out in the middle of their anti-LGBTQ rampage is generally considered to be a primary cause. https://www.insidehighered.com/news/quick-takes/2023/05/04/new-college-florida-abruptly-dismisses-librarian

  • On the post: Florida College Throws Out A Bunch Of LGBTQ+ Books Just Because

    rkhalloran ( profile ), 25 Aug, 2024 @ 07:34pm

    GQP has abandoned principles

    As a younger guy I bought into the small-government arguments the Reagan era party was peddling. At this point they've thrown that aside to intrude into any number of aspects of people's lives and most recently jumped onto the authoritarian crap TFG is selling, hopefully with no more success than recently.

  • On the post: Florida College Throws Out A Bunch Of LGBTQ+ Books Just Because

    rkhalloran ( profile ), 24 Aug, 2024 @ 03:08pm

    Getting The F Out...

    A handful of other schools have offered fast transfer to NCF students looking to GTFO given the overhaul by DeStupid & co, which my kid thankfully took advantage of.

  • On the post: Florida College Throws Out A Bunch Of LGBTQ+ Books Just Because

    rkhalloran ( profile ), 24 Aug, 2024 @ 03:05pm

    um, state school?

    New College is a STATE College, not private.

  • On the post: Florida College Throws Out A Bunch Of LGBTQ+ Books Just Because

    rkhalloran ( profile ), 24 Aug, 2024 @ 08:43am

    ground zero for DeSantis' culture war

    NCF was a small (800-900 students), LGBTQ-friendly state school and the official honors college of the state system. DeStupid chose it as an easy target for his "anti-woke" campaign for that reason. My kid was there for their first two years but has left in the wake of all the turmoil. Roughly a third of the returning students haven't, along with about the same proportion of the existing faculty, leaving some departments stripped. The new admins have started a sports program, recruited from various Xian schools in the area (read: couldn’t get in elsewhere), relaxed admission standards to take them, provided "presidential scholarships" to provide free rides, and moved many of the existing students to off-campus hotels to make room for the jocks. The local Sarasota newspaper has been following this fairly closely the whole time. So far Ronnie's efforts to spread this to other FL state schools has failed, thankfully, but he still has two years in office and a friendly GOP-majority legislature, dammit.

  • On the post: Trump’s Movie Meltdown: A Teachable Moment For Free Speech

    rkhalloran ( profile ), 30 May, 2024 @ 12:18pm

    SOP for Trump

    When anything unflattering about him gets published, his MO is threatening legal action and sometimes actually taking it to court, where he invariably loses (see suits against NYT & WaPo). For most cases the threat is meant to chill critics by the threat of legal costs. Another case showing the need for a federal-level SLAPP law to cut these off at the start.

  • On the post: City Pays $900k To Man Tortured Into Confessing Committing A Murder That Never Happened

    rkhalloran ( profile ), 29 May, 2024 @ 04:33am

    re:

    Still say the fastest solution to these problems is having the payouts taken from the PD retirement funds; watch the "thin blue line" get shredded in short order if it means these guys' pensions are being affected.

  • On the post: Grandmother Awarded Nearly $4 Million Over SWAT Raid Predicated On A Faulty ‘Find My Phone’ Ping

    rkhalloran ( profile ), 22 Mar, 2024 @ 11:57am

    re: who pays?

    As usual, this will come out of the city's general funds, which gives the PD license to keep being a-holes; no skin in the game for them. Have these judgments come out of the police pension fund and see how fast the "thin blue line" gets shredded and the bad apples get thrown out of the barrel as quickly as possible.

  • On the post: Does Elon Grok The Trademark Issues With ‘Grok’? AI Chip Company Groq Does

    rkhalloran ( profile ), 16 Nov, 2023 @ 05:48am

    Then the company motto becomes...

    So the sign out front would say "Go stick your head in a pig"?

  • On the post: A New Low: Just 46% Of U.S. Households Subscribe To Traditional Cable TV

    rkhalloran ( profile ), 18 Sep, 2023 @ 11:37am

    TV quality

    Sure, a lot of low-quality “reality” TV appeared about 15-25 years ago, but we’ve also been getting a lot more good TV.
    For better or worse, a lot of "reality" programming began with the last big writers' strike, when the studios were looking for ANYTHING to fill timeslots. This gives me concern with the current strike; are we doomed to more Real Housewives and pseudo-sports drivel? At the same time, the rise of streamers looking to draw eyeballs and not beholden to the cable carriers has led to a lot of very watchable shows. Netflix & Amazon have seemed willing to invest in longer-term productionw with an eye to retaining viewers.

  • On the post: Disney, Spectrum End Cable Blackout, Nothing Meaningfully Changes

    rkhalloran ( profile ), 14 Sep, 2023 @ 06:02am

    Carriage disputes - Cox Media

    My local Fox station is owned by Cox Media, who has been in a carriage dispute with Dish since end-November '22. Of course they're whining about being able to serve their customers and pointing them to the other providers (surprisingly including Hulu, YouTube & Fubo streaming) and OTA antenna. Doesn't look like it's settling anytime soon.

  • On the post: Florida’s Governor Continues To Abuse His Executive Power To Eject His Political Opponents

    rkhalloran ( profile ), 16 Aug, 2023 @ 01:48pm

    don't be "soft on crime"

    The GOP going back to Reagan v Dukakis (if not earlier) have pushed the story that the Dems are weak on crime and electing them will have "those people" ransacking your family & home. Classic trope from the Dixiecrat contingent that moved to the GOP post-LBJ.

  • On the post: Florida’s Governor Continues To Abuse His Executive Power To Eject His Political Opponents

    rkhalloran ( profile ), 16 Aug, 2023 @ 01:43pm

    "they cheat"

    He said from the start the only way he could lose was if "they" cheated, setting up the whole situation we're in now.

  • On the post: Florida’s Governor Continues To Abuse His Executive Power To Eject His Political Opponents

    rkhalloran ( profile ), 16 Aug, 2023 @ 09:47am

    Current GOP

    Remember that much of what calls itself the GOP these days are the result of Nixon's "Southern Strategy" where the segregationist southern wing of the Dems were invited to "cross the aisle" with a wink to their racism after LBJ signed the Civil Rights Act. Their policies have become the default for the party since the Reagan era.

  • On the post: Florida’s Governor Continues To Abuse His Executive Power To Eject His Political Opponents

    rkhalloran ( profile ), 16 Aug, 2023 @ 09:24am

    DeStupid

    The dismantling of Disney's Reedy Creek management operation as payback for their speaking out against the Don't-Say-Gay bill. The dismissal of two county-level AGs for not prosecuting cases hard enough. On a personal note, his upheaval of the state honors school, New College in Sarasota, where my kid *was* attending, now led by his former education commissioner and Ron's CRT attack dog Christopher Rufo. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/14/us/ron-desantis-new-college-florida.html https://www.tampabay.com/news/education/2023/07/19/new-college-florida-struggles-through-overhaul/ https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2023/01/11/desantis-seeks-overhaul-small-liberal-arts-college My kid has taken the offer from Hampshire College in Amherst MA for a soft landing, even though we'll be out of pocket for some thousands for them to be able to complete their degree; with the faculty departures at NCF this wasn't going to happen there.

  • On the post: ‘Max’ Loses Millions Of Streaming Subs After Ongoing Merger Incompetence Bonanza

    rkhalloran ( profile ), 14 Aug, 2023 @ 04:47am

    If I wasn't getting it free...

    I'm still getting HBO -> Max free since I'm on AT&T's gig fiber ISP, presumably a carry-over from when they still owned it. We've watched some stuff there, but especially after the WB/Disco switch, if they expected my *money* for it...

  • On the post: After Bodycam Footage Undoes Its Narrative, NYPD Agrees To Pay $13 Million To Anti-Police Violence Protesters

    rkhalloran ( profile ), 08 Aug, 2023 @ 04:59am

    Fines

    Better still, fines against a department come out of their precious pension fund; *this* would push them to police their own (pun unintended) to protect their retirement $$.

  • On the post: After Bodycam Footage Undoes Its Narrative, NYPD Agrees To Pay $13 Million To Anti-Police Violence Protesters

    rkhalloran ( profile ), 08 Aug, 2023 @ 04:54am

    possible solution?

    If the payouts for these settlements started coming out of the PD's pension fund, I expect the "thin blue line" would shred to bits in short order (yes I know, their contracts insulate them, but items like this may give the cities/counties more leverage in future negotiations).

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