Promoted from the comments.
Is President Musk or his orange assistant smart enough to understand that they (and we) are being mocked around the world?
If yes, do they understand that is not a good thing?
h/t sentient ai from the future
The beacon of democracy is rolling in its grave.
And as long as we are laughing through the tears, this is one of the best protest signs ever.
I’m pretty sure this photo was from AM in NC.
Baud
Via reddit, post title and top comment
dc
Great video, but the butts of the joke either won’t see it or won’t/can’t understand it.
AM in NC
Would love to take credit, but that was not from me.
what a great sign!!
narya
Despite my gloomy doom this morning, I actually AM heartened by the stuff that Maddow shows nearly every night. Protest here! Protest there! Protest in THIS seemingly unlikely place! Here’s a Senator whose hair is on fire and bringing attention to THIS issue! Also too: I’m trying to pull together some people who might be able to help when my current consulting client goes completely down the drain.
Steve LaBonne
Here’s a random thought that just popped into my head. China has been propping up Russia in limited but significant ways as a cudgel against the US. I wonder how the sight of Trump and Putin playing kissy-face changes their calculations.
sentient ai from the future
the thing that had me doubled over was the “bikers yelling at pedestrians” thing tbh.
also the jets diss.
Ohio Mom
I chuckle. In my Queens, NY fourth grade class, we learned the history of our great city. We learned about Indians living in wigwams (sic) and the Dutch building up the city, with their stepped-gabled rooflines.
For some reason, the English taking over and renaming New Amsterdam, New York, was given short shrift.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@sentient ai from the future:
Time for my Bike Bro Dunks (which I’m sure will offend some):
Things bike bros like:
bikes,
bike lanes,
fellow bike bros,
Amsterdam,
streateries,
Spandex costumes,
breaking traffic laws,
and yelling at pedestrians, joggers, and motorists.
Things bike bros hate:
Everything and everyone else.
Bike bros love to:
Play the Victim
Act Like Street Thugs
Fetishize Poverty
Bike bros are a lot like Canada geese: loud, nasty, and territorial while contributing virtually nothing to society. If you doubt this, try jogging in a bike lane or just observe bike bros in their native habitat.
sentient ai from the future
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
you are now my sworn enemy, for both inaccuracy and ideological opposition
cain
Russia and China fighting for the soul of MAGA. Bet they’ll start sending them checks at some point.
lowtechcyclist
@cain:
“Where’s my Vladbucks? Where are my Xibucks?”
Marc
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: I agree with you that some of the bike bros here in sunny Oakland are just as annoying as the tech bros, likely because the Venn diagrams overlap. But, when our kid actually was a kid, we used to ride bikes with her on occasion to/from her uptown middle school, which was all of 2 miles away. She was only allowed to bike with one of us, but she could take public bus or walk on her own. The reason was the vast numbers of oblivious California drivers. Even I felt vulnerable enough that I rarely rode downtown. Now we have a network of mostly poorly thought out protected bike lanes, but they are a hell of a lot better than nothing. Thanks bike bros!
Jay
bsky.app/profile/vatniksoup.bsky.social/post/3lihcxj4vo22k
debit
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: you can jog anywhere. Why in a bike lane?
eta: if it’s a MUP, fine. But if it’s designated just a bike lane then yes, I am going to be an absolute bitch if you’re jogging in it. I will be even worse if you’re an ass hole when I pointedly say “on your left” and you don’t get out of the way.
Geminid
Ukraine’s President Zelensky met today with Turkish Pesident Erdogan. Ragip Soylu covers the meeting in a Middle East Eye article titled “Turkey should be included in Russia/Ukraine war talks.”
In his statement after the meeting, Edogsn expressed his willingness to host talks between Ukraine and Russia. He also said that Ukraine’s full territorial integrity and sovereignity are “indispensable” for a durable peace. It sounds like the two leaders are talking about negotiations leading to a ceasefire, not a permanent peace treaty.
Soylu also posted a picture of the two men posing for pictures at the entryway to the Turkish presidential palace. Behind are two rows of soldiers standing at attention on either side of the entrance hall. It’s a rainy day, and Erdogan is holding a big black umbrella over Zelensky and himself.
The soldiers are in formal uniform. That includes a knee length, sky-blue coat and with a white belt, white helmet and white boots. Aside from the rifles thIs might not seem very warlike, but the Turks have no insecurities in that area.
Layer8Problem
@Steve LaBonne: China probably knew just how close Trump and Putin were a long time ago; this almost top 10,000 blog did and we aren’t a three-letter agency. Any responsible intelligence service or foreign ministry probably has their list of responsive actions and alternatives already written up.
AS
@Ohio Mom:
youtube.com/watch?v=Uqnb_nU7RBE
Steve LaBonne
@Layer8Problem: I’m sure. It’s going to be fun, or “fun”, to see what those will be. A multipolar world with few rules of the road is going to be, um, interesting.
Layer8Problem
@Steve LaBonne: Let’s hope not like Thirty Years War or Hundred Years War or Warring States Period (Chinese or Japanese, take your pick) interesting. With nukes.
Steve LaBonne
@Layer8Problem: I wish I were 10 years older and I’m thankful I’m not 10 years younger.
Baud
@Geminid:
Can’t believe we have to look to Turkiye for leadership.
ArchTeryx
@Layer8Problem: There won’t be Thirty or a Hundred Years’ War with nukes. Just a burning planet and the extinction of most life on it after one button press. As true now as it ever was.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Layer8Problem:
Or the Three Kingdoms/Western Jin period (220-316) but particularly the Northern & Southern Dynasties period (317-589).
Prof David Graff at K-State once told me he had to have a big board with post-it notes and lines between them (ala that conspiracy theorist meme with the thumbtacks and yard) to keep all the kingdoms straight. He emphasized nobody could keep them straight in their head.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Steve LaBonne: How so? Russia is about the explode because the demographic and banking crises Putin created with his stupid war, which means China gets Siberia. The new world order with be China and the EU.
lowtechcyclist
@Layer8Problem:
I could see a domestic version of the Thirty Years’ War, given that the ‘Christian’ nationalists want to force what they call Christianity on the rest of us. But if they were to start throwing nukes at the Blue State cities, they’d find out fast just how badly they needed us. It would be a short war, with no winners. Just different degrees of loserhood.
Leto
@debit:
Because AMERICA, and FUCK YOU; that’s why. Also so I can then play the victim card and complain about “bike bros.” Might as well run in the street then complain about getting hit by “car bros.”
ArchTeryx
@lowtechcyclist: That’s actually been brought up as a suggestion: Nuke blue cities. It’s one of a whole bunch of things that came tumbling out of Trump’s mouth during the campaign, and went almost wholly unnoticed by the media. Like most all of his insane ramblings, they blacked it out.
If they’re seriously talking about it, we are well and truly fucked. That’s cutting your own throat to spite your nose.
Hoodie
@Steve LaBonne: China is probably all too happy to have Russia bleeding out in Ukraine. I do wonder what they’re really up to, if they’re playing all sides against one another. How is Ukraine getting so many drones? What are they getting from China, either directly or through back channels (Chinese are masters at avoiding source restrictions)? Are they giving anything back in terms of the interesting mods they’ve developed by virtue of their experience in warfare? Secondly, China has made at least two technology reveals that seem strategically timed. These include revealing new low-cost EVs, which apparently shook the auto industry, and later, DeepSeek, an open source AI that threatens to blow up the entire financial model on which US AI systems like ChatGPT are based on. I do wonder if a lot of this tech bro cozying up to Trump is because these guys are desperate to sell their AI to someone – e.g., the US government – before they get their lunches eaten by foreign competition. DOGE could even be viewed as an attempt to blow up government systems – which generally work fairly efficiently in the area of customer service – so the Feds will turn to AI to replace all the expertise they’re losing through Musk’s predations.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@ArchTeryx:
Not that global nuclear war wouldn’t be horrible, but I’ve read that the studies predicting nuclear winter were flawed or wrong and that it wouldn’t actually play out that way, and that we had proof when a lot of oil wells burned during the Gulf War and there were no ill effects in that regard. Something about volcanic ash vs aerosols. That it was volcanic ash from volcanic eruptions of the past that caused global cooling and that nuclear detonations would not cause that same effect
Baud
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
That’s too bad. I was hoping nuclear war would counteract climate change.
Nettoyeur
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): And, if that theory turns out wrong, at least nuclear winter would counteract global warning by changing Earths albedo (maybe libido as well).
hueyplong
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): “I’m not saying we won’t get our hair mussed, but 20, 30 million dead, tops.”
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Marc:
That’s up for debate. The Bike Segregationists pushed such “improvements” as a big safety feature but there’s growing scrutiny about whether or not they’re actually all that safe. Couple of links:
forbes.com/sites/dianafurchtgott-roth/2022/09/08/bike-lanes-dont-make-cycling-safe/?sh=e0b99324ca8e
This one is an op-ed but really worth a read:
gazette.com/opinion/denver-columns/perspective-a-cyclist-s-case-against-bike-lanes/article_a43a4006-…
Again, there’s no systematic data covering years and geography to make any sweeping conclusions.
There’s also the political marker that has become the zero-sum game of cycling infrastructure pushed by bike bros and white/market urbanists (the Venn diagram overlap there is massive). More links:
nebraskapress.unl.edu/nebraska/9780803276789/bike-lanes-are-white-lanes/
melaninbasecamp.com/trip-reports/2022/10/14/what-bike-lanes-taught-me-about-racism
sfbike.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Bike-Lanes-Gentrification-and-AntiBlackness-Transcript.pdf
@sentient ai from the future:
There are more than a few people here who feel the same way about me. I’m sure they’ll welcome you into the club.
In all seriousness, I’m all for throwing money at bike stuff as long as it’s not done in such a way as to screw with other transit modes and not done as a cover for white urbanism.
The best places in the Front Range for cycling stuff are the burbs. They’re great at allocating plenty of money toward that as development moves along. It’s cities like Denver that make it a zero sum game which ends up alienating a ton of people who would otherwise support such efforts.
It’s poorly thought out, even more poorly implemented and seldom used. Businesses in Denver are finally starting to push back on the City’s efforts to plop this stuff everywhere. Yeah, bike bros will often say “studies say” that such infrastructure is a boon to businesses. The actual affected businesses here say otherwise. Several have quietly threatened to sue the City over some of the future proposals should they go thru because they’ve seen what’s happened when most people can’t get to their businesses.
I bike all over the City, my wife even more. We bitch about how it’s been done, how it could have been done better and with more community buy in. The problem is that the people pushing this don’t want to be bothered with those pesky little details.
BlueGuitarist
@AM in NC:
In the post with your Raleigh rally photos, I added that photo from the Boston demonstration, having seen it on BlueSky and thinking it should get more attention.
Heard that Musk is dropping $670k for to corrupt the Wisconsin Supreme Court, glancing at the thermometer right here, and getting more postcard addresses; as Gandhi said, it might be insignificant but still important to do it.
sentient ai from the future
@Leto: yeah, i mean “spandex costumes” and “fetishize poverty” are like diametrically opposed factions of bike culture (and i would argue that the “fetishization” is simply a preemptive dismissal of the actual poverty of many bike crusties) so it’s clear they don’t get it.
lowtechcyclist
@ArchTeryx:
I personally have no idea who’s talking what, other than the notion of a red-v.-blue civil war has been around for awhile now. And given that blue Americans tend to be concentrated in cities, if we had such a war, someone on their side would at least think about nuking the major Northeast and West Coast cities.
sab
@Steve LaBonne: They know their geography well, and they have a border on Russia and we are on the opposite side of the same ocean. So that makes us a rival and Russia a local possibly annoying inconvenience.
sentient ai from the future
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
“The actual affected businesses here say otherwise.”
yes, small-business-owners, the most progressive of the many varieties of capitalists. always on the vanguard, they are, and always willing to see how improvements might actually work before complaining.
sab
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: In my city cops are now ticketing drivers-while-black for driving in the bike lane while making a right turn across an unoccupied bike lane. Dad’s nurse’s aide got one in her own neighborhood. Nobody rides bikes there.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Leto:
That general messaging is a key feature in the ‘Owning A Car Makes You Worse Than Hitler” crowd. They seem to think that “looking both ways before crossing the street” is some quaint thing their ancestors had to do.
So, you got it right but with the wrong crowd.
Jay
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Nuclear Winter studies were wrong, in that they under estimated the effects.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_winter
Just like early Climate Change models under estimated the rate of temperature change and the rate of change.
sentient ai from the future
@sab: ironic, because at an intersection, it’s safer for the car and bikes to switch positions, with the cyclist in the center and the car to the right, in order to prevent the dreaded “right hook” of inattentive drivers (often deadly).
DC solves this on some thoroughfares by simply putting bikes in the center. it can be disconcerting for noobs though.
Quinerly
“Musk is a parasitic illegal immigrant. He wants to impose his freak experiment and play-act as God without any respect for the country’s history, tradition or values.” Steve Bannon over the weekend
newrepublic.com/post/191652/steve-bannon-slams-parasite-elon-musk
Matt McIrvin
@lowtechcyclist: I’ve been talking about the possibility of the Republicans nuking American cities ever since the George W. Bush administration. Back then I figured they’d do it as a false-flag terrorist attack. These days I figure they’d just do it right out in the open and the majority of Americans would cheer as the mushroom clouds went up and all the libs and minorities got vaporized and burned to death.
Matt McIrvin
@Quinerly: “That was my job!”
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@sab:
I’m trying to find more of my links on this. One quick Twitter link:
x.com/DriveBikeWalk/status/1546731196477976576
Goes to one study in DC showing the problematic nature of the approach.
Again, the link I have to the op-ed piece above from an avid cyclist here in Denver is one of the better, balanced looks at this general subject.
sentient ai from the future
@Matt McIrvin: well, now that the muskovites have almost certainly introduced malware into critical infrastructure, it can more plausibly look, in the immediate aftermath, like an accident instead of an attack.
FelonyGovt
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: As a frequent pedestrian, I’m with you 100%. Bike bros do not obey traffic signals intended for either cars or pedestrians, and seem to consider themselves better and more important than pedestrians.
ETA I don’t walk in bike lanes. Just hope to cross the street in one piece.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Jay:
Under the Critical Response to the More Modern Papers:
Ruckus
@Steve LaBonne:
In some ways I wish I was ten years younger, even if I want to live another 20-25 yrs from today.
Your concept changes when you get to be the age you wondered if you’d ever see. Believe me. Add in the current US political bullshit at the top of the heap (of whatever you think that heap is made of…..) and if you don’t feel robbed of your country……
Trollhattan
Good god these are weird times.
Anybody believing bicycles, bicyclists, bicycling advocates are “the problem” has their head so far up their ass they’re going to need an ENT clinic visit. It’s on par with blaming PETA for, well, anything.
For the paradigm of smart city grid design, we need to look at the great state of New Jersey. Honest. apnews.com/article/hoboken-zero-traffic-deaths-daylighting-pedestrian-safety-007dec67706c1c09129da14…
Hoboken.
Sister Golden Bear
In today’s edition of trans erasure. Texas Gov: I Will Criminalize Use Of “Wrong” Pronouns
In a Tweet, Abbots vowed “If this is not already illegal, it will be after this session.”
How long before this becomes a federal crime as well….
Trollhattan
@Sister Golden Bear: For a state “about to turn purple” Texas sure hides it well.
Marc
The problem with community buy in here, is that the “communities” that generally screw up the plans are the local “Business Improvement Districts”. They are the ones who are unwilling to give up even a couple of parking spaces or a lane. So end up with crappy parking protected bike lanes through the commercial areas, now complicated by the presence of numerous parklets. The last couple of times I’ve nearly been hit by bikes were stepping out of parklets with obstructed views.
Sister Golden Bear
@Marc:
Some of the bike bros here in the Bay Area have been their own worst enemies. Including ablism, fat shaming, and a lack of fucking empathy for anyone who isn’t them. I agree with their goals, but Jeebus some of them can be complete assholes in how they go about trying to achieve them.
Jay
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
As we are discovering with the Boreal Forest Fires, there is no “rain out model”.
Soprano2
It’s Snowmageddon here today. They’re forecasting between 11-14″ of snow with high confidence. So far it looks like we have about 3″ on the ground. If we do get 14″ I’ll be staying at home tomorrow because my car can’t make it through snow that deep. Everyone is freaking out as if they’ve never seen this much snow before! I guess some of them haven’t…….
sab
@Sister Golden Bear: Yes. My mother spent fifteen unhappy years using a walker. In her youth she was an excellent ice skater. In her last years she could barely make it from the house to the car (driven by someone else.)
Starfish (she/her)
@sentient ai from the future: It’s okay. Scott’s only happy when we all want to argue with him.
But we can never dislike him as much as we dislike Trump or Elon Musk.
It is all quibbles about aesthetics and his dislike of spandex.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Jay:
So it’s not just the United States that’s potentially going down the crazy train?
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Trollhattan:
Everybody in the white/market urbanist crowd likes to bring up Hoboken. The issue there is that Hoboken’s never had a problem, thus, it’s not as if new policies fundamentally fixed anything. It’s simply another way of lying with stats to prove a point.
Also too, one can take Hoboken’s geographic footprint and overlay it on larger cities in such a way as to get similar accident results. The results there aren’t necessarily indicative of any broader improvements nationally.
And sure, we’ve got bigger issues to contend with. But we also talk about ‘normies’ all the time here and one thing I’ve learned wading into this morass with supposedly fellow Democrats (these are the pale blue, entitled white professionals that have moved here en masse over the last ten years) is that low-info/low-motivated voters see stuff like this being implemented by (D)s at the local level, bitch about it for a variety of appropriate reasons, and translate that into a broader picture about what Democrats do. Thus, they either don’t vote or vote for somebody else because from where they stand, all they see is the everyday efforts of local Dems to ignore their concerns, tell them how to live, make their daily activities more of a hassle, or move.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Jay:
It’s a discredited theory. You claimed that the original studies were only wrong in that they underestimated the effects when the opposite actually happened. With each new model released, the effects were less severe
JML
@Soprano2: good luck with Smowmaggedon! Definitely stay home on any snowfall over 10″. (frankly, stay home when it’s over 6″, if you can) I mean, I’m an experienced driver in snow and even with SUV ground clearance and AWD I want nothing to do with that nonsense.
(I would love a snowpocalyspe here though. staying home and watching the snow fall in a warm house sounds awesome right now)
Jay
cbc.ca/news/science/trump-american-scientists-international-engagements-1.7461238
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Marc:
The BIDs here are the exact opposite. They are pro-development/hyper-gentrification types who push this infrastructure and it’s underlying agenda to the max.
I swear in at least one BID case, the Exec Director wants all the existing businesses to fail so he can help bring in “better” ones.
Starfish (she/her)
@Hoodie: China has been upping its EV game for a number of years now. There was fierce competition in the EV market, and they have some cute and sporty EVs. BYD is coming to eat Tesla’s lunch.
Marc
They tried that in San Francisco, but took a minimalist approach towards “protecting” the bike lanes (lots of flexible plastic posts). So bikes would get hit when a driver decides to make a sudden U-turn, or the new “left hook” at intersections. Drivers, bike-riders, and pedestrians all hated it, as the city officials had been told prior to installation.
Sister Golden Bear
@Sister Golden Bear: An example of ablism… A few nights ago I read a jeremiad by a bike bro about electric bikes using bike lanes in San Francisco. I have absolutely no disagreement that there’s likely issues — some electric bike folks can disregard others and regulations as much as some physically-powered bike bros do. But this dude’s real complaint was the folks on e-bikes were “not real cyclists” because they weren’t pedaling the bikes entirely themselves, and therefore unworthy of sharing bike lanes with those of sufficient pedal purity.
Trollhattan
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
Bull.
Fucking.
Shit.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Sister Golden Bear:
I tried to make that clear in a remark above. I’m up to my eyeballs in this over two neighborhoods at the moment and there are a lot of people supportive of any variety of methods to make streets safer for *everybody*. But the attitudes and methods of the bike bros writ large alienate a ton of people who would otherwise be onboard with the general aim. I’m one of those people.
NutmegAgain
Love the video! Had to send it to my EU-dwelling kiddo. (Alas New England, where I live, would mostly be re-colonized by the Brits. :/ )
Starfish (she/her)
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: Hey, that one bicycle lady that flipped off the Trump motorcade and got fired was the best, and she won a local election.
Jay
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
LMFAO,
No, it’s an unproven scientific theory and model, simply because we have not had a Global Thermonuclear War yet.
And the “rain out” theory has been disproven for the past 10 years by Eastern Seaboard and European cities choking under the smoke, ash and soot from Canadian Boreal Forest fires for months.
lowtechcyclist
@Starfish (she/her):
And the sooner the better. I understand the Biden Administration imposed tariffs on the Chinese EVs in order to give domestic manufacturers a chance to catch up. Who knows what will happen to these tariffs under Trump, but as long as Muskrat has a say in it, they’ll be here for awhile.
Starfish (she/her)
So I am not on Twitter anymore, but this discussion between the Department of Justice and a judge on the attempt to drive trans folks out of the military got spicy. Does Kyle Cheney put his stuff on any non-Twitter platform?
debit
@Marc: Minneapolis also tried that downtown on Hennepin ave, but with no physical barriers at all. You took your life in your hands to ride there, with raging SUV drivers riding right on your ass while screaming at you to get in the fucking bike lane.
I can’t help but note my question was ignored by Scott, probably because there is no good reason to jog in a bike only lane.
Marc
Most of the business districts around here are owned by a few wealthy landlords and they dominate the BIDs. They are prioritizing raising rents and picking the right moment to sell out to a new developer. They want unfettered car traffic to support those goals.
sab
@Soprano2: Yikes. I hope that is not coming our way but it might. Snowiest winter in years for us and none of it lake effect ( Lake Erie.)
We just bought an electric snow shovel and we are actually having fun with it. It has a rotor, but on the user end it just feels like snow shovel you don’t have to lift or even push too much. It just spits snow out the side.
Years ago one of our neighbor’s kids got an agriculture degree in green landscaping. He had a very cool snow shovel that had a rotor. He had to push it but it spit the snow out the side. I have wanted one ever since I saw his, bit there were none available.
Our new electric snow shovel is the exact same thing, but with electric wheels so you don’t need to shove or throw the snow.
Professor Bigfoot recommended it.
sab
@Soprano2: Yikes. I hope that is not coming our way but it might. Snowiest winter in years for us and none of it lake effect ( Lake Erie.)
We just bought an electric snow shovel and we are actually having fun with it. It has a rotor, but on the user end it just feels like snow shovel you don’t have to lift or even push too much. It just spits snow out the side.
Years ago one of our neighbor’s kids got an agriculture degree in green landscaping. He had a very cool snow shovel that had a rotor. He had to push it but it spit the snow out the side. I have wanted one ever since I saw his, bit there were none available.
Our new electric snow shovel is the exact same thing, but with electric wheels so you don’t need to shove or throw the snow.
Professor Bigfoot recommended it.
Trollhattan
@debit: This is what we are experiencing, locally. And are comparatively speaking, a cycling mecca.
There’s a new mayor, council, city manager since the dateline and IDK where the declaration process sits. I fear federal money to address things has just become impossible to acquire, but perhaps there was some in the pipeline.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@debit:
You’re right, there is no typical reason to jog in a bike lane. It does happen at certain choke points depending on one’s route and I’ve observed (thus, anecdotal) ‘conflict’ there. There is a tendency in some of our more dense areas to see runners on bike lanes because there’s not much else there. Sidewalks, sure but if the sidewalk is torn up and the only option is a bike lane, then the runners use the bike lane.
You referenced MUPs and yeah, as a runner, I get over if I hear the “on your left” request.
All too often, that simply never happens. Cyclists of the “bike bro” kind simply blow up on somebody thinking they’re Lance Armstrong and if the person in the way isn’t somebody psychic, they get a tongue lashing–and this isn’t happening in a dedicated bike lane.
bbleh
@Steve LaBonne: was musing about that very thing earlier. Agree we seem almost certainly to be moving toward a multipolar world, which the Idiot Administration is doing a great deal to advance by breaking with Europe. (Putin is playing a weak hand brilliantly, but in the long run Russia is a secondary power at best, and that only because it has nukes.)
As to rules, though, I think there WOULD be some important and powerful ones, and they would be primarily mercantile rather than legal. I would guess that hegemony will be established first and most often economically, and that military force increasingly will be used for enforcement rather than conquest (although the latter admittedly is a bit of an optimistic take).
Not saying this would necessarily be less violent — secondary actors would cause local trouble, and there would remain the possibility of military conflicts between competing hegemons over, say, “unconquered territory”. And I don’t want to think about the implications for human rights…
sab
@debit: If you are on a street that has and needs bike lanes, joggers really need to be elsewhere (sidewalk or side street). You are a danger to yourself and others on that street. Jogging is exercise not transportation. You can do it better slightly elsewhere.
Jay
@Starfish (she/her):
Everything on the Dead Bird Site is mirrored with out “clicks” on Nitter,
nitter.poast.org/pic/orig/media%2FGkF-EogWIAA9SB0.png
Ruckus
@FelonyGovt:
Here in the LA area bikers (the relatively small % of the population that they are) mostly have issues because of their small percentage and the very not insignificant number of motor vehicles. Dying for your right of way is not a very bright way to exist. And on the concept of large numbers of self powered wheeled vehicles we actually do have a not unreasonable public transit system, rail and bus lines. Not everywhere is as reasonable as some areas but it works reasonably well.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Jay:
That “LMAO” was rude and completely unnecessary.
From Wiki:
Trivia Man
@Steve LaBonne: one possibility: these 3 are all happy to align against the rest of the world. Team Bullies carves up the rest. Shifting as needed from AB vs C to AC vs B to BC vs A.
But that is a good observation.
sab
The street I live on is technically residential,but a busy short cut to elsewhere. It is about two miles long, two lanes and very curvy up and down and right to left. Many of the curves are completely blind even for cars turning. No parking on either side. There are sidewalks. There are side streets.
Why the phuck do runners feel they are entitled to run there when there are any number of safer side streets?
cw moss
@sab: that’s not evidence that bike lanes are good, bad, or neutral. It is, however, evidence that cops are racist assholes
AWOL
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Yup. Even after volcanic ash leaves the atmosphere, an oil resin it produces remains in the ozone; it blocks sunlight, causing severe weather change, drought, and death.
debit
@Trollhattan: I like to point people toward Groningen as an example of how it can be done. It wouldn’t be easy, but they are proof that a bike friendly infrastructure absolutely can be accomplished.
this is one of my favorite videos. youtu.be/fv38J7SKH_g?si=ZYK4komufLewcMn3
Jay
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Funny how that “rain out” theory that skeptics are relying on, in which rain miraculously removes radioactive soot from the troposphere, before it reaches the stratosphere*, (hummmmm, where does all that radioactive rain go?), can’t handle a few forest fires.
*it does not rain in the stratosphere and only rains in the lower troposphere
Geminid
@Baud: Turkiye has always been attentive to Ukraine matters. The two nations are natural economic and security partners, and they share a centuries-old nemisis, that being Russia.
In 2014, when Russia invaded Crimea and Donetz, Erdogan saw the weak response by Western nations and concluded that Turkiye could not rely on them to protect security in the Black Sea region. And he never trusted the US anyway after Bush invaded Iraq and destabilized the region south of Turkiye.
One thing that has changed since 2014 is that Turkiye become self-sufficient in armaments production. They and Ukraine keep quiet about Turkish arms shipments to Ukraine, but they’ve been substantial, especially in the run up to this war.
Stijn Mitzer wrote a good article for Oryx about this in November of 2022, titled “The Stalwart Ally: Turkish Arms Shipments to Ukraine.” Mitzer noted that Turkiye was the only Nato country that did not bar use of their weapons on targets in Russian territory. They were like, “So these weapons might kill Russians on Russian soil? What’s the problem?”
Turkiye has also built one corvette for the Turkish navy, the Hetman Ivan Mazeppa and are building another one. For now the Mazeppa‘s crew trains in the Sea of Marmara, out of reach of Russian missiles.
There was a an interesting incident in October of 2022. Turkiye had brokered the Blsck Ses Grain Deal that established a shipping lane through which Ukrainian grain could be shipped to the Mediterranean Sea and onwards.
Then Ukraine attacked Sevastopol harbor with sea drones, and the Russians responded by declaring the grain deal over. They backed down when Erdogan and his defense minister made seperzte statements to journalists that the considered continuation of the deal a “vital national interest.” They basically told the Russians “We’ll fight over this.” So Russia let the shipments continue.
When the deal expired, Turkiye helped Ukraine ship its grain, seed oil and iron ore on a coastal route by helping keep it clear of mines. That’s a joint project with Romania and Bulgaria, with Turkiye supplying the minesweepers.
Jay
We had bike lanes here, but the ABC, (A Better City wingnuts) trashed a lot of them, so now we have a lot of conflicts between cyclists, e-bikes, e-scooters and pedestrians over sidewalks.
I still ride, recreationally and to commute. I take the bike path when there is one, take the shoulder when there isn’t, walk the crosswalks at intersections, wear a skull mask, (cedar dust) and have a massive heavy chain with a massive padlock over my shoulder, ready if needed.
I don’t for some reason, get harassed by SUV’s or cars.
sab
@cw moss: Agreed. That was actually my point. Her neighborhood doesn’t need bike lanes but cops are happy to misuse them.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@sab:
The “bro” mentality cuts across many, many lines.
I’ve mentioned before that I’ve been an ultramarathoner since my mid-30s. Thus, I’ve run everywhere, often in training when on a work trip etc.
I know those kinds of blind areas and it’s stupid and inconsiderate for someone to run there. If you’re in a strange place and running, it’s so easy anymore to plot out routes ahead of time and if you have any doubt about it, google street view is your friend.
Oh wait, that would require time and consideration of others, not something the “bro” mentality has.
As someone said above, dying over something like this is stupid. I’ve motorcycled for 40 years and the first thing you’re taught is “everybody else on the road is out to kill you, don’t take it personally but take responsibility for as much of your own safety as you can.”
That ethos is lost nowadays. Better to be alive than morally right and dead.
Miss Bianca
@Quinerly: Let.them.fight.
HopefullyNotcassandra
@Steve LaBonne:
The Chinese government, I would wager, loves seeing our country subservient to the pathetic one run by the Russian kleptocratic chief-thief.
Jay
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
I was told by the guy who sold me my Suzuki 550 that 50% of new riders are dead in a year. Yes, everyone, including some other riders, when they are in a car, truck or SUV, are out to kill you.
My Suzuki was a John Player Special limited edition model, painted to match their race bikes. It died on Kingsway street. I was stopped at a red, noticed the pickup in my wing mirrors was not slowing down, got one foot up on the seat, launched myself in the air, as the truck trashed my bike and ran the red.
I still miss it, I put a lot of work and parts into that bike.
Quinerly
@Miss Bianca: in a real fight, my money would be on drunk Bannon. What say you?
sab
OTBirthday and late in the day. Woke up very late this morning. Had intended to go to work. Can make it up Saturday.
Best birthday ever: Solly our adopted cat, rarely upstairs, decided to not only come upstairs, but to come to my bedroom. His sister was sleeping on a box in my bedroom. But he jumped up on my bed and snuggled down next to me. For two hours. So I didn’t go to work. Sol and I snuggled. I never expected this.
There go two miscreants
This must be how I’m getting punished for my sins: finding myself agreeing with Bannon!
Jay
@sab:
Happy happy B’Day. Just what you wanted for a gift, rare cat snuggles.
Emily B.
OT Recently I started subscribing to NewsGuard’s (free) Reality Check newsletter, which factchecks current misinformation. It’s refreshingly…sane. This week they tackled 28 false claims from Elon.
Quinerly
Weird
Trump will sign new EOs from Florida during his first joint TV interview with Elon Musk which is airing in prime time tonight. There will also be an awards program by a conservative group led by Mike Flynn.
Trump is golfing today in Florida.
NBC reporting
Quinerly
@There go two miscreants:
It’s a great quote….
When you’ve lost Steve Bannon…….
Quinerly
@Emily B.: Thanks for this.
Quinerly
From HuffPost
Trump’s DOJ Erases Report On Violence Against Native American Women
The Justice Department has removed a report from its website that lays out recommendations for tackling the crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous women.
The Not Invisible Act Commission’s final report, which was mandated by bipartisan legislation with the same title, was the product of a joint effort between the Justice Department and the Interior Department to combat the disproportionate rates of violent crime, human trafficking and cases of Indigenous people going missing or being murdered.
For all the work of this commission, which the Senate unanimously voted to create in March 2020, there is now a dead link on the Justice Department’s website where its report used to be. Trump signed this bill into law in his first term in office.
The Justice Department did not respond to requests for comment on why this report no longer exists on its website, and if it is related to Trump’s efforts to eliminate any programs or language it considers to be related to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives.
“The Not Invisible Act was passed with bipartisan support, President Trump himself signed it into law, and the final report included critical information to help us combat the crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls,” Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.), a sponsor of the bill, told HuffPost. “President Trump says he wants to keep communities safe, but his actions say otherwise.”
Republican Sens. Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), Dan Sullivan (Alaska), Jim Moran (Kansas) and Steve Daines (Mont.) were all co-sponsors of this law. None responded to requests for comment.
huffpost.com/entry/donald-trump-white-house-live-updates_n_67aa443de4b0cced3687c9ec/liveblog_67b4f9e…
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Quinerly:
They had to have had ample time to respond to this piece. They’re all cowards, even Murkowski, who owes her continued presence in the Senate to indigenous voters in Alaska. I hope they give her hell for this silent betrayal
prostratedragon
@ArchTeryx:
@hueyplong:
Oh good grief! I’ve had the clip sitting in a tab for a while, but it was for metaphorical use, from when the cutting and firing got started.
WTFGhost
@Quinerly: I hope OAN is the only entity who sends a reporter.
@sab: They may be going somewhere (… he said, wondering why runners need a *reason* to use a public throughway, so long as they are on the sidewalk, and use appropriate caution, but aware that, when he ran, things were different.)
@sab: 100% agree – though if a jogger *were* in the bike lane, with no sidewalk, said jogger should be facing traffic, and it’s on the jogger to avoid collisions (that’s why you go *facing* traffic on foot – with traffic on a bicycle).
prostratedragon
@Quinerly:
“That’s your job, eh Steve?”
Really weird version of The Leopards Eating My Face.
Geminid
@Quinerly: This reminds me of another story.
Yesterday the Financial Times reported that Trump officials were leaning on their Ukrainian counterparts to lift travel restrictions on the Tate brothers. Trump envoy Richard Grenell played a part; last week he lobbied Romania’s foreign minister on the Tate’s behalf, at the Munich Security Conference.
Andrew Tate parleyed a mixed martial arts career into internet celebrity and financial success. Last year Romanian authorities charged Andrew and his brother Tristan with human trafficking, “sexual misconduct,” money laundering and creating an organized crime gang.
My friend Stephanie knows about about the Tates, so I texted her a news account with the comment, “This administration hates women.” Stephanie texted back, “Yep.”
Mr. Bemused Senior
@prostratedragon: could we please not have a nuclear war? Just sayin’.
Quinerly
@Geminid:
Thanks again for all your interesting, thoughtful, and informative posts.
I’m going to dip over to the tribal sites/groups/community boards on FB (yes, I know evil FB but the NA FB groups are incredibly interesting with real, live people. As some folks say here, “comments are spicy.” Especially by the older women). Trump made significant inroads with Navajo voters and the NN Pres is definitely Trump curious….I think an out and out Trumper. Will be interesting to see what is being said about the removal of the report.
Quinerly
@WTFGhost: I Just caught a snippet of it. Hannity interviewing Trump and Musk sitting side by side. Like H&W.
YY_Sima Qian
@Hoodie: The PRC, especially the corporate entities (state owned or otherwise) tend to sell to the market. There is tremendous demand for civilian drones & drone components from Ukraine & Russia, & the PRC dominate the entire supply chain echo system. Just like the PRC sold weapons to both Iraq & Iran during their war in the ’80s.
The PRC bet on EVs over a decade ago, & nurtured it w/ consistent investments, subsidies, favorable regulations, & creating demand. It did so because decades of tech transfers through JVs had not in fact allowed the PRC automotive industry to catch up on ICEs. EVs represented a blank slate w/ everyone at the same starting line, & played to the PRC’s increasing strengths in electronics & batteries. (It has now finally caught up in ICE, the advances coming from players not involved in JVs w/ Western legacy automakers, & then made moot by the transition to EVs & PHEVs.)
There is a bit of the accidental to the DeepSeek disruption. Even before the launch of DeepSeek‘s V3 & R1 models, Chinese tech firms have demonstrated the capability to be close to or at the AI frontier for a year, w/ Alibaba‘s Qwen general models, as well as more specific tools focused on video/images/translation (not to mention for industrial applications) from a host of Chinese Big Techs & startups. DeepSeek is just the 1st that penetrated general consciousness in the West. OTOH, DeepSeek being so powerful & yet resource efficient & open source dramatically expanded & democratized access to front tier models across the world. The Chinese AI landscape has been disrupted, too, DeepSeek was little known outside of AI industry circles in the PRC before it blew up in the w/, now it is being adopted by every platform out there. Chinese players are less disrupted because most had taken the open source approach already. Except Baidu, who has not been forced to open source its mediocre ErnieBot model going forward.
I understand the compulsion to see conspiracy, but this is really just the trailing downstream effects of inevitable tech. diffusion, & the PRC leveraging its rapidly growing human capital & its wide & deep tech. ecosystems to catch up & even vault ahead. Expect more such disruptions to come out of the PRC across a wide range of sectors in the coming years.
YY_Sima Qian
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: Specifically the transition from the Eastern Han Dynasty to the Three Kingdoms, when dozens of warlords vied for regional & imperial control. By the time it got to Three Kingdoms things were relatively stable. Same w/ the end of the Western Jin Dynasty, when imperial collapse gave the opportunity for federated & settled nomads, as well as nomads from the steppes, to seize territory & build kingdoms, incessantly fighting each other & the Eastern Jin rump. Things had stabilized (relatively speaking) by the time it got to the Northern & Southern Dynasties, w/ conflicts largely being civil wars in the northern & southern dynasties.
Dynastic transitions in Chinese history had always been extremely messy & bloody, from the hundreds of states during the Spring & Autumn Period coalescing into the 7 Warring States & the Qin unification. The Qin collapse to the consolidate to the Western Han Dynasty. The collapse of the Western Han & reconsolidate to the Eastern Han. The collapse of the Sui Dynasty & reunification under the Tang. The slow motion collapse of the Tang after the An Rokshan Rebellion. The collapse of the Mongol Yuan Empire, & the emergence of dozens of rebellions fight each other & the remanent Yuan court, before consolidation into the Ming Empire. The collapse of the Ming Empire, all the massive peasant rebellions, before conquest by the Manchus. The slow motion collapse of the Qing Empire, the ruinous internal rebellion & damaging foreign invasions. The period of warlordism post-Qing collapse, w/ the ROC never becoming an effective unitary state, the Japanese invasion from 1931 – 1945 adding calamity on ruin.
Timill
@Mr. Bemused Senior: You never let us have any fun…
The Lodger
@debit: It’s nice to see your nym again.