micnd90
joined 5 years ago
Никто не даст нам избавленья: Ни бог, ни царь и ни герой. Добьёмся мы освобожденья Своею собственной рукой. Чтоб свергнуть гнёт рукой умелой, Отвоевать своё добро, — Вздувайте горн и куйте смело, Пока железо горячо! Это есть наш последний И решительный бой. С Интернационалом Воспрянет род людской!
Shiba inus didn't deserve this, they are perfectly loveable doggos
Thanks! My bad
Outdated car rules haha, I also don't like gizmos and touchscreens in cars, and BYD seems to techy for my taste. Teslas not having gear shifters and you do swipes on touchscreen to reverse is just yuck. My dream car is the early 2000s Crown Vic - it is such an iconic taxi cab and police interceptor for the 90s and early 2000s generation. But sadly realism calls, and I need a reliable car with good mileage, so I drive a 2014 Prius instead.
When Americans made fun of people in Soviet Union for driving outdated Ladas and Trabants, that's how Chinese people today looking at us in North American market.
They better have Blastoise in case their house catch on fire, because lolbertarians don't believe in fire department
Yes, that's the thing. People who cycle simply for transport don't sweat at all and don't bother doing any physical exertions. This is why the most common commuter bikes in Denmark are the 3 speed internal gear hub upright bike with coaster brakes. You chat and joke casually with your friends on a bike lane riding side by side just like how you would chat on a car. Everyone is doing the same thing and traveling at same slow speed. In comparison, all cyclists in NA are tryhards.
This is also why I'm quite confident and safe cyclist in NA. I know road rules, right of way, I take a whole lane when necessary (so cars behind me have no choice but to wait until the road is wider to pass me), I don't hide and cycle in sidewalks (which is proven to be more dangerous than being on the road), but I also don't zip across traffic and be unpredictable. The noise cancelling headphones also helps so I don't have to hear the occasional verbal insults hurled at me by angry carbrained Yankee.
Yes, people fall and eat shit, even with robust cycling infrastructure. Drunk cycling is a thing in Denmark, and beyond 12am a lot of people cycles in zigzags going home from bars. There are no rule against drunk cycling because it is way safer than drunk driving, and public sector workers are annoyed at drunks who take public transport. Every other week or so drunks will fall off into the canals etc., especially on this bridge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inderhavnsbroen that was built wrong, off the most famous bar street/harbor in Copenhagen, Nyhavn. The bridge was the biggest public infrastructure scandal in Denmark (they miscalculated the length, so the bridge doesn't connect and they have to add zigzags, which caused drunk people to crash and sometimes fell off bikes). These accidents are all taken with humor by most people, and Copenhagen is still amongst the safest city for cyclist.
Here's the thing, for commuting and transport most people cycle slowly. In Denmark the speed of traffic for cyclist is usually not more than 10 mph (because you have to accommodate the elderly, kids, people in cargo bikes delivering packages, parents carrying their kids in cargo bikes, etc.) and it is pretty hard to get seriously hurt cycling at 10 mph even if you crash into utility pole head on. Even amongst bike commuters in NA, a lot of people want to cycle fast "to get workout" done in the morning then take a shower at work - this is by far the least safe way of commuting because you are exerting at near physical limit and likely not paying attention to traffic.
It is clear to me that the true menace is not other cyclist or stationary objects, but cars, more importantly cars that are not used to cyclists. There are safety in numbers, a group of cyclists is more visible than individual cyclist zipping in and out parked cars on side of a street. The only way to get more people to cycle is to provide safe cycling infrastructure, and I'm only one person, so in my own way, to get my co-workers to advocate or at least strongly think about these things is to show up at work not wearing helmet and being belligerent.
I appreciate the good-faith argument you and many other people brought up. But I think it is a matter of cultural perspective. Let me try to explain the other way around. In North America, and other English speaking countries (UK, Australia, New Zealand), cycling is first and foremost a sport. With "sports" you inherently internalize two things: (1) inherent risk of physical injury and (2) wearing sports gizmos to mitigate the risk of physical injury. Furthermore, the cost of injury is fully on the person doing the sports as personal responsibility (broke your leg playing soccer? well, noone forced you to do soccer).
Where I come from (Copenhagen, Denmark), cycling is a utilitarian mode of transport. This is how I grew up culturally. You see not only young adults, but people of all ages, from literal 6 years old toddler to grannies cycling, predominantly without helmet. It is a simple efficient, and unglamorous way to get from point A to point B. Yes, of course, even in cities with safe cycling infrastructure like Copenhagen, or Netherlands everyone will be better off cycling with helmet. But this is putting the emphasis the wrong way. Cycling, and bike lanes in general should be accessible to everyone (including mobility assist vehicles), and as a collective we have to demand more inclusive, safer cycling infrastructure so toddlers and the elderly can feel safe cycling in a bike lane.
I feel agitated when I, coming from a city where cycling is inclusive and accessible for all, am told off by people who never lived extensively outside North America that I have to wear all kinds of gizmos, helmets, reflector vests, multiple reflectors, side mirrors, side mirrors glasses, helmets with side mirrors and lamps otherwise I am not a responsible person. I'm not wrong, it is North American urban planning that is wrong. I'm an experienced and confident cyclist, I never been in any cycling accident and I've spent almost a good 5-10% of my life on bicycle, I've been commuting since I was a kid, cycling by myself to grade school. I follow road rules and feel like I'm comfortable with the inherent risk of eating shit on my own. If I got hit by a car, most likely it is the drivers fault, and maybe from the accident the city will develop a safer infrastructure. My co-workers always say that they are for cycling infrastructure, but it is not only yay or nay, it is how bad they want it. Maybe being argumentative about not wearing helmet, and explaining that it is North American urban planning that is wrong, and there is a better way for the city and kids who grew up in the city will put demanding safe cycling infrastructure up higher on my co-worker priority list.
I legitimately don't understand how libs are mad at Continuing Resolution and seething at Chuck Schumer, other than calling for Chuck to retire and calling for him to be primaried, which admittedly is quite fun. Back in December we had Continuing Resolution as well to continue funding the govt. Continuing Resolution means govt budget stays the same, and this one is a Continuing Resolution from December, so this is essentially a Biden budget. What am I missing? Why libs happy in December but mad now, is it because Orange man president? Or is there any provision that made December bill GOOD but March bill bad? What's the difference?
The lib meltdown would be glorious. Usually not a fan of Erdogan or NATO, but this would be so funny
SPOILER: the article itself is not worth reading, it is classic boring, Hillary platitude with no substance
By apes I meant political capital
97
Democrats already giving up: First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then you give up
(hexbear.net)
Earlier this year, I wrote a long story arguing that the dominant mood of the American political scene is the exhaustion of the anti-Trump coalition. While Donald Trump’s will to power, and that of his allies, burns hotter than ever, his opponents have slunk into resignation and despair.
I reiterated the theme in a column last week, suggesting the Democrats were prepared to essentially abdicate the presidency rather than undertake the difficult and painful work of confronting and replacing a candidate they believe can’t win.
This is a very strange explanation for political events — so strange I’ve often questioned my own thinking. Political parties exist in order to win. Sometimes they sacrifice their chances of winning to pursue other political goals (say, advocating an unpopular position they consider important). But the political-science models I learned as an undergraduate generally assume they are attempting to maximize their power in one form or another. There’s no factor in any model I know of to account for a party simply giving up. Yet a raft of new reports this weekend suggest precisely that. Consider the following items from the news in the immediate wake of the failed assassination attempt against Donald Trump.
Robert Costa reports:
“Those Democrats who have concerns about President Biden are now standing down, politically, will back President Biden, because of this fragile political moment. All of that talk of the debate faded almost instantly among my top Democratic sources as this unfolded. They say it’s time for the country to stick together, and that means Democrats sticking together as well.”
Costa is saying that Democrats who believe Biden is the wrong nominee for their party are “standing down.” The reason is that the country has to stick together and therefore Democrats also have to stick together. This rationale is incoherent, even contradictory. The country sticking together means something different from, and close to the opposite of, the parties cohering internally. President Biden is deeply unpopular.
There’s no theory of national unity that requires Democrats to stand behind a president disliked by the entire Republican Party and most independents, unless the theory is to give up on trying to win the election and let Trump have it.
Crazy as it sounds, that may be the theory. NBC quotes a “longtime Democratic insider” complaining, ‘“We’re so beyond fucked,” as well as “a veteran Democratic consultant” who says, “The presidential contest ended last night,” and, “Now it’s time to focus on keeping the Senate and trying to pick up the House. The only positive thing to come out of last night for Democrats is we are no longer talking about Joe Biden’s age today.”
Semafor quotes a Democrat in Congress who supports Biden as the nominee, who moans, “That’s the whole fucking election. Every image from that is iconic and couldn’t have been created on a Hollywood movie.” The belief, to be clear, is that Biden cannot win and the Democrats should not try to nominate a different presidential candidate. Politico’s Playbook this morning has a blind quote from a Democratic aide who wants to replace Biden but says, “I think this is over.” And finally, a “senior House Democrat” tells Axios, “We’ve all resigned ourselves to a second Trump presidency.” When I wrote about the fraying of the anti-Trump coalition, my main focus was on its edges. The most left-wing portions of the coalition were disgusted with Biden’s support for Israel, and the most conservative elements were bizarrely focused on punishing Biden in response to his left-wing critics.
The sagging morale on display right now is taking place within the very heart of the Democratic Party. It does not have an especially pronounced ideological character. The party is responding to the shock of the attempted assassination of Donald Trump by standing down its efforts to deny him office.
The spirit of the last two days is strikingly reminiscent of the post-9/11 atmosphere. Democrats decided en masse that national unity required withholding all political criticism of the Bush administration. Democrats actively praised Bush’s leadership, putting aside all questions of his administration’s failure to heed warnings of the attacks. The news media followed suit, pulling Phil Donahue (at the time the only liberal voice on prime-time cable news) off the air in favor of a flag-waving message.
The mainstream media painted George W. Bush as a transformed man, jolted into seriousness and elevated to statesmanship by the call of history. Republicans proclaimed he had been divinely chosen to lead the nation. (While it has been forgotten in embarrassment, the Bush personality cult rivaled the current Trump cult in its scope and quasi-theological character). Republicans used the moment to delegitimize all critiques of their leader as unpatriotic. Many Democrats, carrying out what they believed was their responsible institutional role, complied. The result of this dangerously unbalanced equation was a comprehensive political and moral disaster.
The current moment bears many of the same traits. You have the mainstream news media depicting the Republican leader as a newly sober and changed figure, an intensified personality cult on the right, all of which are pressuring Democrats to silence or dampen their critiques. The news media is both following and driving the changes — MSNBC has temporarily pulled Morning Joe off the air for fear a guest would utter an offensive remark, echoing its post-9/11 instincts.
Democrats may not be rallying to Trump as they did to Bush, but they have followed the herdlike instinct to depict the assassination attempt as though it cleanses him of sin. Here is another quote, from a senior Democratic Senate aide, in Semafor’s story: Trump “was already on track to win and the fact that he is now a victim of political violence rather than the perpetrator undermines Biden’s core appeal [emphasis added].” Trump did not stop being a perpetrator of political violence because he was targeted. Nor did the danger of his authoritarian inclinations shrink. But Trump has seen an opportunity to use the tragedy to reshape his image, and the opposition feels either helpless in the face of it or resigned to cooperate.
The most revealing thing about the Democratic response is the confessions by Democrats that they can’t or shouldn’t continue their efforts to replace Biden as the nominee. Of course, some Democrats believe Biden is their strongest nominee, or that the act of replacing him would itself do more harm than good. Their behavior is rational.
What isn’t rational is the decision by Democrats who believe a different candidate would stand a better chance of winning but who have decided to give up. For them, the assassination attempt provides an excuse to avoid the intraparty conflict this undertaking would require, with all its professional risks and personal discomfort.
And while the current moment, with its calls to “lower the temperature” and wishcasting of a new Trump, is likely to expire much faster than the post-9/11 Bush rally, it doesn’t need to last long to have irreversible effects. Biden is playing for time. The longer Democrats drag out their choice, the greater his odds of outlasting his doubters and securing the nomination.
Nothing about the last two days made Biden’s plan for beating Trump more plausible. The plan, to the extent one existed, consisted of hoping the polls were wrong and/or that the passage of time would make voters focus more on their concerns regarding Trump and less on their concerns with the incumbent. What has changed is that his intraparty skeptics have begun succumbing to defeatism. Having passed through the stages of denial, anger, and bargaining, they are progressing to depression, then inevitably to acceptance. If you have a certain institutional mind-set, it is easy to rationalize this surrender as an act of responsibility. But it is not. It is sad and pathetic.
63
Is it copium to hope that Trump will change for the better as a person after the attempt?
(hexbear.net)
On a human level, he kinda has to, right?
I sure do love voteball, if only anything ever changes