The 2024 U.S. Presidential race

[Soen Eber]

I might consider visiting America as a tourist after it has overcome its car-centric delusions and built enough public transportation to free the millions of people imprisoned in the suburbs - under the condition that it also abolishes municipal law enforcement and recognizes access to free health care as a human right.

Edit: oh, the segregationist partitioning of urban areas and oppressive zoning regulations also need to go.

But can we still have our guns?

 

[Noodles]

What?

No no, this is accurate.

All of the unmarried women who want to kill babies at term (0 people), have swapped from Harris to Trump. They have done this like a hundred times now, the flip flopping.

 

[Noodles]

But can we still have our guns?

In the future, cars will have been replaced with giant guns that shoot very long bullets capable of holding many many people that are guided ny some sort of railing system. These "long bullets", will zip along very fast to their destinations!

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

Even her core base is deserting her. In fact every demographic is deserting her, even unmarried women that want to kill their unborn babies at term

We should really open up a new topic here named "The current state of the USA according to Trump and Vance" - and sell it as dark fantasy novel later. Something like that. Make money real fast!

 

[Beebo Brink]

We should really open up a new topic here named "The current state of the USA according to Trump and Vance" - and sell it as dark fantasy novel later. Something like that. Make money real fast!

Here'e hoping it doesn't become a documentary.

 

[Cindy Claveau]

I might consider visiting America as a tourist after it has overcome its car-centric delusions

You can stop right there. Come to Kansas, where the major cities here are many hours apart across long empty highways - and we're not quite as bad as western Nebraska or Wyoming.

Automobiles are essential to us rural inhabitants out here in the wide open. It's not a delusion.

 

[Soen Eber]

Look at a map of the U.S., north central: Minnesota and Wisconsin. Together we're roughly the same size as the U K. or Germany, with around 60 million or 80 million people, respectively, for each country. There are also similar cultural norms: educated, progressive north-central European.

Combined, we're 11 million. Our population density is typical for most of the U.S.

We just don't have the population density or the tax base to support a European-style infrastructure. Our urban cores can support it, maybe for a 15-20 km radius, but that's about it.

Edit: grammar.

 

[Casey Pelous]

[... we're not quite as bad as western Nebraska or Wyoming.
[/QUOTE]

Now, now, don't sell Kansas short.

 

[Noodles]

Look at a map of the U.S., north central: Minnesota and Wisconsin. Together we're roughly the same size as the U K. or Germany, with around 60 million or 80 million people, respectively, for each country. Similar cultural norms: educated, progressive north-central European.

Combined, we're 11 million. Our population density is typical for most of the U.S.

We just don't have the population density or the tax base to support a European-style infrastructure. Our urban cores can support it, maybe for a 15-20 km radius, but that's about it.

Yeah, this is the real thing keeping the US back from a "proper rail system", as cool at it sounds.

The US is pretty massive land area wise, and there are a lot of wode open land area.

You kight think that makes it better for HSR, but it means a massive build out of new or upgraded tracks, and maintaining them. Not to mention a lot kore hassle probably with monitoring them for sabotage aince we have a ton of idiot crazies. I can see some dumbass yokels purposely damaging tracks and causing derailment at high speeds because "the trains are creating sonic mind control waves" or some idiot conspiracy nonsense.

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

You can stop right there. Come to Kansas, where the major cities here are many hours apart across long empty highways - and we're not quite as bad as western Nebraska or Wyoming.

Automobiles are essential to us rural inhabitants out here in the wide open. It's not a delusion.

The US railroad system at its peak in 1917 according to Wikipedia had a total length of 428.180 km, today 220.044 km. So a lot of it was probably scrapped, many stuff also in favor for cars. I mean car lobbying did its thing in many cities to prevent the installation of public transport for sure, which is why many cities are they way today they are.

But for me the epitome of car delusions is not lack of railroads or other stuff, but the Las Vegas Loop. That's just bonkers, totally idiotic, something not even Mad Magazine would have come up with. That's what civil engineers really need to rip out of their minds.

It's never too late to start laying out new stuff. And yup, country side you will never have lanes to everywhere with public transport, totally fine. But for big cities it's quite an improvement in many aspects if it is there and works.

Let's take for example Norway. Comparable in size to California, but only 5 million people. So of course cars are there a necessity as well.

 

[Soen Eber]

The US railroad system at its peak in 1917 according to Wikipedia had a total length of 428.180 km, today 220.044 km. So a lot of it was probably scrapped, many stuff also in favor for cars. I mean car lobbying did its thing in many cities to prevent the installation of public transport for sure, which is why many cities are they way today they are.

But for me the epitome of car delusions is not lack of railroads or other stuff, but the Las Vegas Loop. That's just bonkers, totally idiotic, something not even Mad Magazine would have come up with. That's what civil engineers really need to rip out of their minds.

It's never too late to start laying out new stuff. And yup, country side you will never have lanes to everywhere with public transport, totally fine. But for big cities it's quite an improvement in many aspects if it is there and works.

Let's take for example Norway. Comparable in size to California, but only 5 million people. So of course cars are there a necessity as well.

Well, to be honest, people in the theater cheered when Matthew Broderick targeted Las Vegas in the movie "War Games" when I was watching it. In the movie he thought it was a computer game and not really-real.

 

[Free]

Well, to be honest, people in the theater cheered when Matthew Broderick targeted Las Vegas in the movie "War Games" when I was watching it, when he thought it was a computer game and not real-real.

That's only because Las Vegas was where Randall Flagg, the Dark Man in Stephen King's "The Stand, " gathered his forces. Matthew Broderick had no other option but to nuke it (from orbit or not).

 

[Casey Pelous]

The US railroad system at its peak in 1917 according to Wikipedia had a total length of 428.180 km, today 220.044 km. So a lot of it was probably scrapped, many stuff also in favor for cars. I mean car lobbying did its thing in many cities to prevent the installation of public transport for sure, which is why many cities are they way today they are.

But for me the epitome of car delusions is not lack of railroads or other stuff, but the Las Vegas Loop. That's just bonkers, totally idiotic, something not even Mad Magazine would have come up with. That's what civil engineers really need to rip out of their minds.

It's never too late to start laying out new stuff. And yup, country side you will never have lanes to everywhere with public transport, totally fine. But for big cities it's quite an improvement in many aspects if it is there and works.

Let's take for example Norway. Comparable in size to California, but only 5 million people. So of course cars are there a necessity as well.

Let's say Cindy lives in Wichita. (I'm not sure where she is in Kansas, so this is no reflection on her taste or judgment...) She decides she'd enjoy a trip to Chicago. If you could travel in a perfectly straight line from Wichita to Chicago that's a trip of nearly 1,000 miles. Even high-speed trains don't average those high speeds, and the chances of non-stop service from Wichita to Chicago are slim. So, let's say we have a really fast train and super-efficient boarding and deboarding and luggage/freight loading and unloading (and maybe some fueling that is done by a NASCAR pit crew) and we can average 80 mph over that (perfectly straight) 1,000 miles. That's still an unrealistically optimistic 12.5 hours of travel. Via air -- about 2.5 hours. Of course, the route cannot be perfectly straight, either, so that adds even more time. How many people are going to give up a long day to travel by train when, with the same amount of misery, they can fly?

Train travel is quite popular here in places where the numbers make sense. San Diego to LA is a popular route. The California Starlight route, from Seattle to LA, is well-traveled, but far more because of the views (awesome) than practical travel. Put it this way; I've never met anyone who took that trip twice. Come to think of it, I haven't met anyone who took the round-trip! The East Coast is well served, and cities are close enough together to make the Washington DC - NYC corridor a highly ridden and, indeed, profitable part of our national passenger rail company, Amtrak.

What we do superbly with rail in the US is move freight, and that is really what our system is built to support.

 

[Veritable Quandry]

Yes. We need to build up on the coasts where the population density makes sense for interurban trains. But coast to coast flying still makes more sense.

 

[Isabeau]

Trains, planes, and automobiles… who needs them? My trusty jet pack gets me where I want to go.

Just bring a snack if you’re thinking of going from coast to coast.

Maybe wear diapers.

 

[Free]

Bye, Corey!

Trump aide Corey Lewandowski said to have lost campaign power struggle

Two months after he swept into the 2024 campaign as a senior adviser and suggested he would be taking it over, Corey Lewandowski, Donald Trump’s onetime 2016 campaign chief, has lost that power struggle and been told to focus on being a surrogate, according to people familiar with the matter.

The reassignment may sting for Lewandowski, who technically returned to Trump’s orbit in a leadership role in the summer but quickly made enemies over his suggestion he would mount a power play and questions about whether the campaign mismanaged funds, the people said.

 

[Soen Eber]

Bye, Corey!

Trump aide Corey Lewandowski said to have lost campaign power struggle

This is reading more and more like "Inside the Third Reich"

 

[Free]

 

[Soen Eber]

The US railroad system at its peak in 1917 according to Wikipedia had a total length of 428.180 km, today 220.044 km. So a lot of it was probably scrapped, many stuff also in favor for cars. I mean car lobbying did its thing in many cities to prevent the installation of public transport for sure, which is why many cities are they way today they are.

If I remember right, a lot of that scrapped trackage was the "last mile" equivalent (well, last 10 miles more likely) creating a dense web of branching local networks, not unlike 18th-19th century canal systems in Europe. With the introduction of motorized road transport, a lot of that became superfluous (sorry, word snob here ... redundant, no longer needed).

 

[WolfEyes]

Sado. Narcissistic. Supply.

I miss Bronx and Sal.