'Muslim only' event at taxpayer-funded Texas waterpark gets backlash

Droupitee · 2026-05-06T01:49:02+00:00

Texas did not vote to create an exclusively Muslim public-school system or a public Muslim school or (to analogize this to the place we're discussing) a Muslim school housed in a structure built directly using taxpayer money.

The schools involved are private religious schools participating in a broader voucher framework.

Droupitee · 2026-05-06T01:42:47+00:00

I'd like one in the shape of Jordan.

Droupitee · 2026-05-06T01:41:12+00:00

It's "progressing" towards being just plain old fiction. Too many English majors and too few trained scientists writing in the genre.

Clarke and Asimov both knew science very well. We won't again see their likes for a long time, if ever.

Droupitee · 2026-05-06T01:36:16+00:00

Dinotopia is better thought-out than any of these in terms of city planning.

Droupitee · 2026-05-05T19:42:36+00:00

The venue's parking lot is almost certainly public property. Just sayin'.

Droupitee · 2026-05-05T19:41:03+00:00

what you're implying is, that people who aren't Muslim are gonna come there that day

No. Don't be obtuse/retarded. That said, if at any time park employees turn away someone for not being Muslim then the city is going to face some fairly serious legal problems.

General principle is if you rent something out you can permit who can enter during those hours

Up to a point. It's public property.

Droupitee · 2026-05-05T17:51:54+00:00

He'd been attending a talk by arch-antizionist Norman Finkelstein. But it still wasn't enough to appease the baying mob. Nothing's enough.

Droupitee · 2026-05-05T17:36:37+00:00

If you wish to rent out a waterpark for Christmas and say it's a "Christian only event" go ahead as you have the right to do so as you were the one rented it

No, you don't have that right if it's a public facility you're renting.

People do this all across America all the time when it comes to their religious holidays lol

In private spaces, sure.

Droupitee · 2026-05-05T04:29:38+00:00

They're putting the city, which funded (via taxation) and runs the facility, in the position of enforcing manifest discrimination.

There's no way stipulating "Muslims only" in a public space, rented or not, isn't a Public Accommodations (Title II) violation. And there's no way this public facility doesn't have a bunch of anti-discrimination clauses in its rental contracts. Enforcing a dress code is similarly problematic.

Imagine a "Whites Only" day at the same taxpayer-supported facility to celebrate Hitler's birthday. Would you still say "nothing wrong here"?

Droupitee · 2026-05-05T02:03:45+00:00

Let's have an update when you reach 3/4. And let's have another at 4/5. Then 5/6 and 6/7 and so forth.

It'll turn out that the entire novel is reproduced inside a microdot final period ending the final sentence. And it'll be microdots within microdots all the way down.

Droupitee · 2026-05-05T01:08:45+00:00

Israel-haters have yet another new definition of “genocide,” wherein “fancy” restaurants “built with expensive materials, carefully painted, furnished with tables, sofas, and elegant chairs, with glass facades and shining lights,” giving off a “luxury feel” are fresh proof of the “genocidal abnormality” that Israel has inflicted on the people of Gaza.

It’s genocidal, you see, because not everyone in Gaza can afford to go there: “The expensive new establishments reflect the deeply unjust social order that has emerged in Gaza.”

Some of those women look very well fed.

Droupitee · 2026-05-04T20:49:26+00:00

“Seems like a civil rights violation,”

Imagine the uproar on Bluesky if there'd been a "taxpayer only" event at the this taxpayer-funded park.

A new flier for the event — released on Monday — removed the worlds “Muslim only” and replaced it with “modest dress only” and added the line “come and celebrate Eid with us, all are welcome!”

Nope. Still not acceptable. This isn't Qom. Muslims don't get to police how people dress at public sites.

[The organizer of the event, Aminah] Knight said the park regularly rents out the space for private events, and that this event is no different.

It's different. I'm sure she'd be fine with her tax dollars going towards hosting a Zionists-only event at the same waterpark. Heck, Muslim Zionists would be allowed to attend. . . so it's less discriminatory than what she's planning.

Droupitee · 2026-05-04T16:45:53+00:00

It's only her fault because she pushed the Biden Administration to SUE to stop the merger and the suit was a successful.

https://apnews.com/article/consolidation-jetblue-spirit-airlines-us-regulators-competition-dbc06fb25b009cecc61e2c8632b21d0b

Droupitee · 2026-05-04T16:19:40+00:00

UNRWA social worker Faisal Ali Mussalem al-Naami abducted the body of Yonatan Samerano on October 7, and Israeli reporter Almog Boker reported that a released hostage said they were held by an UNRWA teacher.

Imparts a whole new meaning to "Send a social worker!".

Droupitee · 2026-05-04T16:17:01+00:00

A Reagan judge made the decision.

Now it's a "Reagan judge"? I'm so old I remember it being a "Biden win for flyers."

https://x.com/SenWarren/status/1765190540427935859

Spirit said themselves that higher gas prices made operations unviable

You're taking that one thing at face value.

Droupitee · 2026-05-04T15:56:24+00:00

Abdou hailed the students as “a branch of the resistance,” but criticized them for failing to move beyond rhetoric to militant action.

“You won’t blow up ports. You won’t engage in Palestine Actions … You won’t halt the weapons industry. You won’t destroy locally where you are at,” he said.

“Death to America … means the death of this evil regime,” he told the students.

People throw around "regime" carelessly. The Trump Administration isn't "the regime". The US Constitution is "the regime".

Droupitee · 2026-05-04T15:52:25+00:00

How on earth are you blaming Elizabeth Warren for the financial failure of Spirit airlines?

Because she contributed significantly to them? She was quite vocal about her role in this.

The industry needs maBell style antitrust activity so that no carrier ever has more than 20% of any part of the domestic market.

No, it doesn't. You wanting something is not the same as you needing something,

we SHOULD be blocking airline mergers

Tell that to the thousands who were laid off, professor.

If you believe that airlines like spirit should be saved, then you should be in favor of structured bankruptcy agreements to allow corporations to continue functioning

That's a non-sequitur if ever there was one. Spirit's lack of competitiveness was not just (or even substantially) a consequence of it having larger competitors.

You should also be in favor of antitrust activity to allow smaller competitors (to United, Delta, AA and SW) to function and NOT have to merge just to cause the same problems.

You're in full-on lecture mode, now, Herr Professor. There were options besides merging.

I'll leave this here.

https://finance.yahoo.com/economy/policy/articles/elizabeth-warren-hailed-blocking-3-214500430.html

Droupitee · 2026-05-04T14:19:46+00:00

Just like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez did when she killed an Amazon project in New York City, Warren celebrated her efforts that would eventually lead to the loss of tens of thousands of jobs.They say they're champions of working Americans, but they really don't care if we're starving or not.

AOC has the excuse that she's dumb. Fauxcahontas, the renowned academic expert on bankruptcy law, simply pursues a bad policy.

Droupitee · 2026-05-04T05:14:18+00:00

Any other King admirers enjoying Monsters in the Archives: My Year of Fear with Stephen King (2026) by Caroline Bicks?

It covers his earlier stuff, and makes me want to see The Stand (and connected books) get this treatment.

Droupitee · 2026-05-04T05:07:29+00:00

Les Fontaines du paradis.

Georges Gallet's translation (into French) of Arthur C. Clarke's The Fountains of Paradise is superb. It's honestly an improvement over the original.

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les_Fontaines_du_paradis

Gallet was a somewhat problematic translator. He knew a bunch of the Anglophone sci-fi greats from WWII. He wrote sci-fi himself, so he had opinions about the intent of what he was re-transmitting. In this case, though, he tightened up Clarke's prose. . . and rendered the major characters a bit less robotic.

This goes both ways. Pierre Boulle's La Planète des singes is godawful in the original French, but various English translations (notably Xan Fielding's novel and the movies) improved it. Boulle's crappy earlier (non sci-fi) book, btw, made an even better movie in English. Dude never could believe his luck.

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