I do have to agree since I would see tourists visit, DC, London, Paris, and even NYC and love the public transportation.
Definitely, things can and should change since it makes no sense to sit on a road when riding public transporation can get you where you want to go much faster. I find having a car is more of a problem than an asset: especially since the thing sits idle most of the time.
This is a great video from Not Just Bikes on why this is:
Anyway, more on this subject if you want to take the time:
OK, this is from France 24, but there is enough English for an intelligent person to figure out what is going on:
The basic gist of it is that the town of Newtok, Alaska is the first North American settlement to move because of climate change. Ok, there are only 400 people who live there and they are Yup'ik, but this is not an isolated incident. South Pacific Islanders are seeing their countries since into the ocean.
So, if you don't trust the US government, in particular DoD and NOAA, maybe you might listen to a Yup'ik person tell you that climate change is real.
This is an interesting video on how the suburbs are not as profitable as pedestrian friendly downtowns.
Being from the lost city of Detroit has coloured my opinions on US development. This pretty much confirms my belief that it was indeed the city that committed suicide, as is the case with Flint and Saginaw. Nevermind that I haven't spent a lot of time in Detroit since I was a toddler, and even really been to the other two, but my encounters with the city make me think of European cities.
Particularly the ones that were bombed to shit during World War II. At least there was the Marshall plan for Europe. The US isn't as kind to its cities. One can come up with all sorts of glib reasons for why US cities are messed up, but I think Strong Towns pretty much has the problem figured out.
Still, the US hates its cities for some reason. They would prefer to see unprofitable development as opposed to having people live in population dense areas. Is this divide and conquer? Keep the people apart and alone so they are easier to manipulate?
Anyway, Urban3 is a consulting company that helps cities better understand the economic impact of development. They have worked with many American cities to better understand and visualize the costs of development, and uncover which properties are productive, and which are not. Some municipalities have been willing to share that information, and it has provided a fascinating glimpse into the financial problems caused by sprawling car-centric suburban development.
https://www.urbanthree.com/
The bottom line is that the current US model of sprawl is not sustainable.
I was tempted to call this "Of Angels, Aliens, and Impeachment" since people are believing the existance of Aliens and UFOs with less of a factual basis than the evidence that Joe Biden was on the take.
The House Oversight committee subpoenaed four banks and received thousands of
records, the memo said. Based on those records, the committee said Biden
family members, associates and their companies received more than $10 million in payments from people or companies with foreign ties, during and after Biden’s vice presidency.
A selection of the released bank records show that, from 2015 to
2017, Biden family members received money from a foreign company
connected to Gabriel Popoviciu, The New York Times reported. Popoviciu is a Romanian businessman who was convicted in Romania on criminal corruption charges.
I'm with Joe Rogan that if this were Trump, the media would be up his asshole with a microscope, but it's Biden and the equal before the law and rule of law shit evaporates for the people liked by the Oligarchy.
They might have a point if there was proof that these allegations were being investigated, but nothing has happened while Trump seems to be a litigation magnet. But Trump was cast as a distraction. He's not a real villain, he's the heel in the Kayfabe world of WWF.
On the other hand, Biden is real, but is he being given the scrutiny he deserves?
It's amusing that the one person who is not from Minnesota, and has only been there on a layover flight knows about Strong Towns. This organisation was started by a planning engineer from Minnesota.
This explains the phenomenon of sprawl and traffic.
The previous clip mentioning Strong Towns was posted by someone who is of the same opinion I am about the US and urban planning: Emmigrate. On the other hand, people need to think about the points made by Strong Towns.
But my my point in the posts about the I-95 Bridge collapse is that there does need to be more options and alternatives to driving on an "arterial" road for the reasons presented in this video. Arterial roads get congested. Not to mention there isn't an alternative to an arterial form of transit if it becomes unusable.
The current US lifestyle is not sustainable for the reasons presented by Strong Towns. I am going to post their New Member Orientation Video, even though I have been supporting this group for a while now.
Like Strong Towns, I want to be a delivery mechanism for ideas that should become viral, whether that is in regard to urban development, the environment, addressing the US gun issue, US politics in general, and so on.
But these are ideas which need to be out there and discussed. Unfortunately, I think the institutions will keep them from being as widely disseminated and discussed as they should be.
I don't really care what political bias News Nation has, the segment this picture comes from was fairly accurate as to the problems that will be caused by this one small bridge having collapsed. They are talking about MILLIONS of people being inconvenienced by this. Toss in that the detour will take people onto a road which is even worse. It has TWO accident black spots in this stretch of highway. Both of these are on the detour route:
Accident Black Spot Philadelphia - Grant Ave and E Roosevelt Blvd
Accident Black Spot Philadelphia - Red Lion Rd and E Roosevelt Blvd
This means that the traffic following the detour will be on a very bad stretch of road.
Sure, SEPTA is talking about adding cars to the already over used regional rail, but that is not even a band aid on the wound. We are talking arterial bleeding in terms of what a disaster this one small bridge collapsing will cause.
I would be ecstatic if I were a terrorist and this sort of target had been taken out. In fact, there is another spot on I-95 which the results would have been far worse for traffic in this corridor than this had the accident happened there. That gives you an idea of how bad having an accident like this will effect transportation on the East Coast.
Unfortunately, the US is unprepared to deal with the problems caused by its failure to address the issues that this disaster has raised. I really wish that it would cut the partisan bullshit and start working on the problems the US is causing itself.
The US has to pull its head out of its ass sometime, and I hope it is soon.
One interesting thing about US politics is that the concept of subsidies is well camouflaged. Taxpayers subsidise Wal-Mart because the employees need to resort to social services to live on the low wages. Likewise, the US subsidises the automobile by giving free parking, not fully funding highway maintenance, Land use laws that favour sprawl, and so on.
The major one is the cost of petrol since that would be the one place where adding a road tax would make sense: make the users pay for maintaining the roads they use. The other alternative would be to have more toll roads.
But the issue of making sure that transportation is somehow set up to handle varied modes of transportation so that the country doesn't shut down if the main forms are put out of commission due to poor maintenance or weather.
Also, transportation and the issues related to it need to be addressed, since those are yet another thing which is ignored due to distractions in the US political process.
The term is also kind of nonsensical since it comes from the British sitcom "Yes, Minister" episode "The Bed of Nails"(S3E5). On the other hand, the US has pretty much put its transportation into cars and highways along with air. Rail transportation is of the third world calibre I would expect for the world's most affluent third world nation.
Which is disappointing since the US was once a leader in rail transportation.
I tossed in canals for good measure since I like canals: the old fashioned jobbies with longboats and towpaths. You can bike or hike beside them, or take a small craft for a leisurely jaunt around the countryside. Which are yet another thing that has been trashed in the US.
But the reason for this is that I heard that a section of I-95 in Philadelphia has collapsed which is a major transportation fuck up. And appropriate that it happened in the city that doesn't work. Philadelphia is a totally messed up city with a road system which was designed for horse drawn vehicles trying to deal with 21 century traffic. It has the subway to nowhere and destroyed its tramways. This means that a good section of the US east coast has been fucked by failing to have alternative forms of transportation which are actually viable for commuters.
Remember that air traffic on the east coast was buggered for several days due to the Canadian wild fires. So, air traffic is also not the answer.
This means that the two main forms of transportation in the US, highways and air traffic, really don't do the job. And rail is pathetic where it exists. Sure, the above video is in French, but the point is that the French have kept their rail transport viable and up to date. They are even proposing to stop internal flights of 500km or less in favour of air travel.
I would hate to have to rely on US rail transport to address the traffic on the east coast at this point.
Additionally, the US is going to have to make the road users pay for the proper maintenance of the roads which is going to truly bugger that method of transport, because the US can't run its current level of traffic on dirt roads and goat paths. And the problems with infrastructure are getting painfully obvious.
The real bottom line is that the US has been dodging issues using hot button issues ("culture wars") and not addressing the real problems of society: like health care, transportation, energy, the environment, and so on.
It ain't the Russians who make me want to see a change in the US political system. It's the homegrown oligarchs.
OK, Fox news may be the "dissenting opinion", but they are often WRONG, as is their sister service, Sky News Australia. Who are engaging in climate change denial and basically suffering from having their heads up their asses about the need to start adopting renewable resources.
Fox can call AOC and idiot, but it's hard to argue that NOAA and the US Department of Defence are ignorant on this issue.
On the other hand, "Kennedy" said something along the lines of if AOC is for clean power, she should be all in for Nuclear.
Who is calling whom an idiot? Does Kennedy know about Chernobyl? Fukushima? Does she understand why people were worried when the Russians occupied the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant? Three Mile Island? I'm sure there are more reasons that people who know anything about nuclear power would never make a comment like that.
Jesus.
Personally, I would trust NOAA and DoD long before I would trust most of the clowns on Fox.
I find it interesting that to hear about Hunter Biden and his laptop one has to dig for that information in the US media. On the other hand, I was saying "WHOA!" when I heard about the Bidens and Ukraine. Lots of other things going on which have me wondering, but the silence is bothersome. Particularly from my co-bloggers.
There are lots of ways to rig an election, one of which is to control the information. It's one thing to call Fox News viewers misinformed. Especially if one doesn't get good information from their news source: and US media is terribly untrustworthy.
My first reaction to Fox News was to want to turn the Television to the window and take a walk the way Poles did during martial law in the 1980s. I feel that way toward US media as a whole now. Fortunately, I don't have to watch it, but I am curious as to how Joe Biden can manage to maintain power given his obvious flaws. There are too many questions, but one is labelled a conspiracy theorist if they mention them.
If I have any influence from the Soviet Bloc, it is to question the party line. Especially if that party line is left unchallenged. Add in that the people who question are persecuted for airing the opinions. It's nice that the internet allows for the publication of opposing viewpoints, but whether those viewpoints are seen is another matter.
The reality is that there may be another sham election where a weak candidate may end winning against a much stronger opposition. Where districts which should be impossible to win are won.
One doesn't need to be a conspiracy theorist to question that.
I often wonder how long it would have taken me to get up to speed linguistically if I had been allowed to join the international legion. I know I could drive a truck and free up a space, but I am too old. Anyway, I find I am talking to people in Ukraine and helping in the ways that I can. I don't feel too useful, which is incredibly frustrating for me.
I just had a conversation with someone in Lv'iv, which is in the west and "away" from the heavy fighting in the east. It's an area close to the Polish border. Still, they are having a hard time.
My family is firmly in the "Here they beat you up for the Russian language" territory. Nationalist relations prevented my gaining Polish citizenship. Amusingly, I am not sure if I qualify for Ukrainian citizenship, which would be analogous to denying one of the Kennedy clan (ya know, JFK, RFK, etc.) Irish citizenship. I saw an interesting comparison of Ukraine and Ireland, which I sort of agree with. And why I compare myself to the Kennedys.
This is pretty good on the differences between the two languages.
Or Just because a language belongs to a particular family doesn't mean that they will sound alike since English is a Germanic language. It shares a lot of similarities with Dutch, but most English speakers can't understand spoken Dutch.
I'm reposting this here since Wordpress stinks for editing. There's a quote in here which it doesn't do. I also wanted to add a video. That said:
I made a comment about how people in Europe kill each other over what religion they practise or language they speak. Slavic languages have the added factor of varying alphabets, which is interesting when you deal with the pan-Slavic crowd. They sort of have a point in that the languages are similar enough that you can be understood about the way most Scandanavians can understand each other. Then you get to the Alphabets. The former Yugoslavia was torn apart by religion and differences in Alphabets. Likewise, Polish and Ukrainian are fairly similar until you get to the Alphabet.
This is the Polish alphabet.
The Ł is pronounced like Elmer Fudd saying the letter "W". So, Wrocław is pronounced like Vroswav. In my opinion, the German transliteration of Breslaw (with a German accent) works better for non-Poles. The alphabet is a romanised version of Ukrainian/cyrillic.
Ukrainian and Russian both use the Cyrillic alphabet, but slightly different versions. There are four letters in Ukrainian missing from Russian (ґ, є, і, ї), and four letters in Russian missing from Ukrainian (ё, ъ, ы, э). Also:
One frequently cited figure is that Ukrainian and Russian share about 62% of their vocabulary. This is about the same amount of shared vocabulary that English has with Dutch, according to the same calculations. If you expand your sample by scraping internet data to compare a broader range of words than just those 200 ancient “core” words, the proportion of shared words declines. One computational model suggests that Russian and Ukrainian share about 55% of their vocabulary.
Using that higher figure of 62%, though, a Russian with no knowledge of Ukrainian (or vice versa) would understand roughly five in eight words. To understand this, have a friend cross out three out of every eight words in a newspaper and see how much of the text you can follow.
Anyway, the Cyrillic alphabet also was a force which prevented Russians from invading a good part of Western Europe. I mean, can most people read Cyrillic? Now, turn it around to the Roman alphabet for the average Slavic language speaker. You don't need guns to prevent a Russian invasion--Road signs work quite well.
On the other hand, these nations have different enough cultures that it requires a certain amount of sensitivity toward that fact which gets into how one transliterates Kyiv (or pronounces it for that matter).
More like Kew, or the "ł" in Polish, which I learned from my Ukrainian cousin.
My "slavic" heritage is more western (Ukraine, Poland, "Czechoslovakia"{1}, etc.) with my ancestors being definitely Austro-Hungarian. This is why I was musing on this topic: way more variation in Slavic languages outside of Russia.
Footnote:
{1} this saves listing a bunch of former and current countries due to European cartographical changes.
I used a picture of a costume Gendarme the last time I did this post on this subject. This time I am using actual material from the French Gendarmerie Nationale. Those who do not understand French can turn on autotranslated English subtitles.
The Maréchaussée, a precursor to the Gendarmerie Nationale dates back to the Middle Ages. Some historians tracing it back to the early 12th century around the commencement of the Hundred Years War.. The Current version of the Gendarmerie dates to when Maréchaussée was organised in 1536, or, formally, the Constabulary and Marshalcy of France (connétablie et maréchaussée de France). Gens d'Armes (men at arms) is a term used in even older sources. That's why I included "Second Amendment History" as a subject here. The Gendarmerie is a force of the nation for the protection and security of the people. It has been a military force since its inception. This is different from the Anglo-American sense of the police, and military, as being subordinate to the citizenry.
The basics:
The National Gendarmerie is one of two
national law enforcement forces of France, along with the National
Police. The Gendarmerie is a branch of the French Armed Forces placed
under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of the Interior, with additional
duties from the Ministry of Armed Forces.
In short, it is an internal army, which is a no-no in Anglo-American, especially American, tradition.
The first video is a short video on the history of the Gendarmerie Nationale:
The next clip requires some explanation since there are two different branches of the Gendarmerie Nationale: the Gendarmerie Départementale and the Gendarmerie Mobile (OK, three if you count the Garde Républicaine). The next video has more than you ever wanted to know about the organisation of the Gendarmerie Nationale. It does a lot of things.
Now, let's get specific as to the two main groups
The Gendarmerie Départementale is best explained by comparing it to US state police forces. It is in charge of policing small towns and rural areas. The Departmental Gendarmerie carries out the general public order duties
in municipalities with a population of up to 20,000 citizens. When that limit is exceeded, the jurisdiction over the municipality is turned over to the National Police.
The Gendarmerie Mobile is an internal military force organized into the seven regions of the Mobile Gendarmerie (one for each of the seven military regions of metropolitan France, called (Zones de Défense). It comprises 18 Groups (Groupements de Gendarmerie mobile) featuring 109 squadrons for a total of approximately 11,300 personnel. Its main responsibilities are:
crowd and riot control
general security in support of the Departmental Gendarmerie
military and defense missions
missions that require large amounts of personnel (Vigipirate counter-terrorism patrols, searches in the countryside...)
Nearly 20% of the Mobile Gendarmerie squadrons are permanently deployed on a rotational basis in the French overseas territories. Other units deploy occasionally abroad alongside French troops engaged in military operations (OPEX or external operations).
The Mobile Gendarmerie includes GBGM (Groupement Blindé de la Gendarmerie Nationale), an armored grouping composed of seven squadrons equipped with VXB armoured personnel carriers, better known in the Gendarmerie as VBRG (Véhicule Blindé à Roues de la Gendarmerie, "Gendarmerie armoured wheeled vehicle"). It is based at Versailles-Satory. This unit also specializes in Chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear defense (CBRN) defense.
This system is unlike the US, which has the Posse Comitatus Act a United
States law which limits the powers of the federal government in the use of
federal military personnel to enforce domestic policies within the
United States, France has a professional military which works internally with no issues to that. To some extent, the British also use their military for civil defence. The Militia in the United States, which is now the National Guard, and has the powers to enforce internal order given to it under Article I, Section 8, Clauses 15 & 16:
To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;
To provide for organizing, arming,
and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as
may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the
States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority
of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by
Congress;
The founders' intent was to have a civilian force, instead of a professional military one, to handle the tasks which are delegated to the Gendarmerie Mobile in France. This is due to a cultural difference where the Anglo-American tendency is to dislike large standing military forces. Or as the Virginia Constitution of 1776 states in its Bill of Rights:
Sec. 13. That a well-regulated militia,
composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the proper,
natural, and safe defence of a free State; that standing armies, in time
of peace, should be avoided, as dangerous to liberty; and that in all
cases the military should be under strict subordination to, and governed
by, the civil power.
I should add that modern police forces are a new thing in Anglo-American tradition dating back to the early to mid 19th Century. There were night watches and other non-professional forms of law enforcement early on. Modern policing only began to emerge in the U.S. in the mid-nineteenth century, influenced by the British model of policing established in 1829 based on the principles of Sir Robert Peel.
Sir Robert Peel created what is termed an ethical police force. The approach expressed in these principles is commonly known as policing by consent in the United Kingdom and other countries such as Ireland, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.
In this model of policing, police officers are regarded as citizens in uniform. They exercise their powers to police their fellow citizens with the implicit consent of those fellow citizens. "Policing by consent" indicates that the legitimacy of policing in the eyes of the public is based upon a consensus of support that follows from transparency about their powers, their integrity in exercising those powers and their accountability for doing so.
The first organized, publicly-funded professional full-time police services were established in Boston in 1838, New York in 1844, and Philadelphia in 1854.
As I said, the difference in attitude is based upon cultural differences.
This is interesting. I wouldn't say that I am a total Tucker Carlson fan, but I did start watching him during the Covid. This is an interesting take on him and his show. I have to agree with this since I feel the same way as Russell Brand does and he makes a lot of very interesting points.
These videos are more press release than research paper, designed to show
the subject in the best possible light. I doubt we’ll see Atlas running
cross-country races any time soon, and there are a whole host of
limitations, from battery life to noisiness, which would need to be
overcome for success in the wild, or even a warehouse. Still, if you’re
in any doubt as to what its creators have accomplished, or how hard this
is to do, I’ll leave you with a compilation of some of its peers.
Sure, it's neat to see videos of robots jumping up and down while doing things that would be impossible for most people. On the other hand, I wonder how fake those happen to be. Are the interviews with AI chatbots staged by people who know what to ask.
Yes, yet another attempt to get information from a computer "gatekeeper" which ended in failure.
You can't really complain to the company since the AI won't let you talk to a person: especially if your query isn't in their menu of options. This is why a human is far better than a machine--no matter how "intelligent" it may appear.
In this current case--I have received notice that a shipment is on its way from a company I am not familiar with. I contacted the company, but this shipment appears to be a mistake. So, I thought I would try to find out more from the carrier.
Unfortunately, the AI works as a gatekeeper to prevent me from actually getting help with my issue.
As I said, AI is more useless than trying to talk to someone in a call centre who happens to speak my language as a second language: if even that. At least the person in the call centre will make some effort. The machine lacks empathy and understanding of the actual issue.
The only thing to worry about artificial intelligence is that there isn't some form of human check to keep if from doing what it does best.
It was very weird for me to watch the coronations of Charles and Camilla on French TV. There was the distance caused by the language and commentary. Also, it seemed like something from the past, which it is. But it seemed even more anachronistic.
Toss in that it is way more ostentatious than any of the other European monarchies, there are 12 of them, six of which are members of the EU (Belgium, Denmark, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Spain and Sweden). Things have changed quite a bit since at the start of the 20th century only France, Switzerland and San Marino were the only European nations to have a republican form of government.
Unfortunately for the people who want to say the US is a republic, not a democracy, the only real difference between those two systems of government are that democracy has the ability to be a monarchy. Euronews has an interesting article: Politics and popularity: Why are there still so many monarchies in Europe? It's not the only news source discussing European monarchies.
I'm not sure how I feel about monarchy these days. Although I do side with the comment that “There is no contradiction between a country being a monarchy and being an advanced democracy”. Also, “One of the roles for the royal family is to be a symbol for the nation as a whole and therefore the monarch as an institution has to strive to represent the whole of the nation.”
Monarchy unifies a nation as Clement Atlee said: “Far less danger under a constitutional monarchy of being carried away by a Hitler, a Mussolini or even a de Gaulle.” That's an interesting thought to ponder in light of US politics.
Hang around me and start talking about technology and you will hear the term Luddite. The Luddites were people in early 19th Century England who hated technology. They are the ones who put the spanner in the machine. These days, they would just unplug the thing. Or to quote History.com:
“Luddite” is now a blanket term used to describe people who dislike new
technology, but its origins date back to an early 19th-century labor
movement that railed against the ways that mechanized manufactures and
their unskilled laborers undermined the skilled craftsmen of the day.
I'm not exactly sure where I stand in this spectrum, but I am less enthusiastic, or frightened, about AI than most people. On the other hand, it does tend to replace humans who are actually much better at interacting with other humans than a machine.
Machines are like people who have a limited understanding of a language, yet are working where they need total fluency and proficiency. Sometimes, they don't even rise to that level as the Comcast "intelligent assistant demonstrates". I kept asking it the same question and wanting to speak to a human, but it ended up disconnecting me.
I find interactions with Artificial Intelligence to be more frustrating than helpful. And once one sees past the illusion, AI proves to be totally useless. One doesn't need Luddites to smash the machine: the machine is useless. Still, the bosses would prefer to spend the money on technological toys than hire people to actually do the job.
I was going to give ChatGPT a try to see how long it would take to show it isn't worth the hype, but I would need to sign up for an account. That doesn't make me trust it since there is no disclaimer as to what this company will do with my information.
I have tinkered with AI art programmes with varying results: most of which I would consider crap. Of course, some people find the results to be incredible.
On the other hand, AI is worse than the call centres in some country where they do not speak my language as a first language. Although, in reality, they are both pretty bad. At least the human is making an effort to communicate.
A computer can't.
It cannot truly empathise with your situation. It doesn't really understand what is happening. It only compares what it is being told to possible scripts, but life is not scripted.
So, don't worry--just unplug the thing. And hope that business will realise that it isn't saving money in the long run--especially if they start haemorraging customers.
