Why stop the quote there?
Because none of that information contradicts the statement, “Its 1.7 billion in tax exceptions,” so the rest of the quote was irrelevant information.
Why stop the quote there?
Because none of that information contradicts the statement, “Its 1.7 billion in tax exceptions,” so the rest of the quote was irrelevant information.
I like watching old sci-fi to see how the tech of the day was reflected in the tech or the, “future.” The original Enterprise looks like it was run on colorful 8-tracks. The TGN Enterprise looked like it was full of microwave touch-screen interfaces. The Abrams Enterprise…looks like an Apple store with a big chrome throttle. The original Alien movies probably hold up the best; aside from the CRTVs, that technology still seems like a plausible future.
It says exactly what they claim it does:
Good Jobs First, among other things, serves as a watchdog for government subsidies, and maintains a database of subsidies and tax bonuses awarded to companies. Of note is the page for Royal Dutch Shell…The value presented on the page for RDS is $1.725 Billion…
For me, what becomes even more dated than the old tech are the cultural attitudes. The original series is supposed to be an egalitarian, utopian society, but they men treat the women like it’s an episode of Mad Men. TGN, on the other hand, is trying so hard not to be sexist that the romance scenes sound like they were written by a virgin who only learned about sex from HR meetings.
I didn’t mind the first Abrams movie. I thought the story was pretty mediocre, but it looked good visually, and they captured the characters nicely. The second movie went off the rails, though. They invented interplanetary transporters and cured death. It feels like that would have had massive, status quo changing consequences for the entire franchise, but I guess not.
The original movies certainly have more action in them than the series (though they’re definitely not as action-packed as the Abrams movies), and they’re also not as interested in exploring sci-fi concepts as the show, but to me, they’re defined by fan-service more than anything else. They found an excuse to put the characters in modern times, let Kirk create peace with the Klingons, and literally met God.
A lot of Star Trek fans didn’t like them. Star Trek trends more towards, “traditional,” sci-fi, which is more focused on exploring scientific and philosophical concepts in fiction (think Jules Verne or Isaac Asimov). What Abrams produced was basically just an action movie in a futuristic setting. It’s sorta like how, even though Star Wars is set in an advanced galactic civilization, it has more in common with the fantasy genre than traditional sci-fi.
That doesn’t necessarily mean classic Star Trek is better or smarter than the Abrams movies or Star Wars. In fact, a lot of Star Trek is cheesy, dated, and kinda dumb (and not just the original series; even TNG has a lot of cringe in it). However, it does mean that the Abrams films were a pretty big genre shift that put a lot of fans off.
Women want one thing and it’s disgusting.
Why would the U.S. have started trying to expand democracy after the Cold War? They were willing to support anti-Democratic coups in Iran, Syria, Brazil, Iraq, Bolivia, and probably dozens of others I’m forgetting. America was promoting capitalism during the Cold War, not democracy.
The Last Dinner Party’s Prelude to Ecstasy.
I mean…what did you want us to do? Invade Europe?
Everyone has this drawer, but this one is too organized. It appears to be 100% kitchen tools. You need to add a deck of playing cards, a bunch of soy sauce packets, a few half-used books of matches, a few take-out menus, and some loose keys in order to do this drawer properly.
I mean, someone literally drove up to one of their softball games and tried to kill them all, and they still didn’t support gun control. It won’t be until the majority of their billionaire oligarchics tell them it’s OK that they’ll start supporting it.
Sure, Congress will act, but the Supreme Court has spent the last 15 years making sure that even the most moderate, milquetoast gun reforms get struck down. I know the current Justices are hypocrites that make a mockery of precedent, but considering they’re the ones that created the precedent (particularly Alito, Roberts, and Thomas), it’s going to be hard for Congress to write a gun control law that doesn’t force several Justices to either strike it down or invalidated their own opinions.
A constitutional amendment isn’t impossible, but I think the NRA would still have enough juice to prevent Congress from reaching a two-thirds consensus, and definitely enough to stop three-quarters of states from ratifying it. The billionaire class has spent a lot of money making gun control extremely difficult, and I think that’s about to bite them in the ass.
You really think this is over? Columbine was a shocking, once in a lifetime event when I was in middle school. By the time I was in college, school shootings were a fact of life. The only difference is that people weren’t rooting for school shooters. They may have caught this guy, but a new era of gun violence is just getting started.
If you could explain more about the difficulty of driving in hills, maybe that would help me understand what you’re getting at. I drive stick but also automatic.
I only drive automatic. When I was in Vermont, I found it tricky to make some of the sharper turn-offs going uphill, having to gun it a little more than I wanted on a turn just to keep moving, then having more momentum on the turn than I intended. Coming downhill, it made me very nervous to try and turn off some of those side roads; I’d pull out as far as I could to get as much visibility as possible, but the crest of a hill would mean I couldn’t see traffic more than 20 or 30 feet. I’d find myself wanting to turn as quickly as possible for fear of getting hit by someone with right of way, but accidentally giving it a little too much and turning too fast and hard.
I also just generally found myself constantly needing to monitor my speed downhill, to the point where it was a little distracting. I’ve never driven stick, but my friend does, and after listening to her break it down a bit, it seems even more stressful; accidentally rolling downhill because you’re not properly maintaining momentum seems insane to me.
A lot of us routinely drive too fast for the conditions, but it’s still our responsibility as operator of the vehicle.
I agree that the driver is responsible for maintaining safe speeds, and I know my biases lie way more with pedestrians than drivers. I grew up in New York City, and I think there’s nothing wrong with crossing against the light or outside of a crosswalk if you’re paying attention. However, whenever I see someone going 5 miles over the speed limit or not using their blinker, I can’t help but think they’re an irresponsible asshole.
Honestly, I’m in my late thirties, and I didn’t even have a license or car until 2 years ago, when my wife and I had a kid. Public transit where I live now (Boston) is not great, and the two ER visits we’ve had to make with my son alone have made the car worth it to me. If we never had kids, though, I don’t think we’d ever own a car.
In fog, weather, or low light conditions, it makes sense to be a defensive driver or pedestrian, in case the other driver is being irresponsible, but the responsibility is still on the driver to drive safely.
I mean, what you’re saying about being a defensive pedestrian is basically what I’m getting at. There are cities I’ve been to (mostly in the South) where drivers are just pieces of shit. In New Orleans, no one yielded to pedestrians, and I almost got hit by some asshole at 40 mph because the giant SUV parked in front of the crosswalk meant I couldn’t see them coming. I don’t think there’s any reason pedestrians need to be the ones behaving defensively in the flattest city I’ve ever seen in my life.
But to me, half of the intersections in San Francisco felt like a hazardous condition. While I think that all safety regulations should be aimed at cars, and I normally get annoyed at safety campaigns that focus on pedestrians’ behavior instead of drivers’, I do think encouraging cautious pedestrian habits is justified there.
I mean, that’s the dream for every city. But, on the off chance that we can’t immediately reverse a century of car-centric urban design, maybe we should look at some alternatives?
I mean, I agree it’s a safety issue, I just don’t think it’s as simple to say, “go slower.” As I’ve said, I’ve never driven in San Francisco, but I have driven in Vermont, and trying to make a turn at the top of one of those mountain hills is tough, and keeping your momentum going down them is equally tricky. I can only imagine doing that in the middle of a city, and I don’t know how I would stop on one of those hills when driving stick.
I think this is like any other hazardous road condition; yes, the driver has the responsibility to slow down and be cautious, but pedestrians also need to be more alert. Like, I expect drivers to stop at crosswalks. I’ll take my right of way and won’t take shit if they honk or get pissy. But if I’m crossing the street in the middle of a snowstorm, I’m not going act that way; I’m going to acknowledge that, even if the driver is going slow, low visibility and bad conditions means he might not stop in time, and I’m going to wait to make sure he’s coming to a stop before I start crossing.
To be clear, I’m not saying that San Fran drivers are all responsible and that the pedestrians are being reckless. It’s very possible (likely, even) that these traffic deaths are mostly the fault of bad driving. I’m just saying that I get what people are saying when they say that pedestrians need to be responsible too. I’m someone who jay walks all the time, and I don’t do that in that city.
Yeah, but those hills are so steep that you’ve got to give it a ton of gas just to get up them. Like, imagine laying on the gas super hard just to keep yourself going above 20. As you crest the hill, the sun hits your eyes, blinding you to the person that was invisible to you until a millisecond ago, who is crossing against the light at exactly the time you’re trying to lay off the gas so you don’t start accelerating.
Don’t get me wrong, I support every measure listed in the article, and I think the people who want them repealed because they find them inconvenient are assholes. If Daylighting makes it too hard to park, well, maybe don’t drive; it’s an extremely walkable city with a good public transit system anyway. But this is the only city I’ve ever been to where, when I hear drivers say, “pedestrians need do better,” I think, “well, that’s not just entitlement, everyone really does need act responsibly here, even pedestrians.”
Normally, I’m 100% on the pedestrian’s side, and I think drivers bear the responsibility in basically all urban traffic situation. However, after visiting San Francisco, I can see why it’s a bit different. Those hills severely limit visibility on so many of those crosswalks, and if you’re driving up one of them, and the sun is in your eyes, I don’t know how you would approach an intersection safely. After less than a week in that city, I realized that pedestrians really do have to cross responsibly (and also I would never, ever drive there).
That being said, I’ve never seen less people jay walking in an American city than I did in San Francisco. Also, all of the measures laid out in this article seem like good, common sense ideas. If drivers think that the pedestrians need to be more responsible, fine, but that’s no reason to demand the rollback of potentially lifesaving safety measures.
That’s why like Emma Vigeland. She’s calm, cool, and pretty open minded, and when things do get confrontational, it’s Tim Pool that’s screeching, not her.
That’s 0.9% more than the last time I checked. I know those are still really low odds, but we can hope…