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I love ending it with “his wife, children, grandchildren and all those who loved him”.
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Dec 1, 2023 04:02
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I wish a journalist would ask Biden for remarks on Shane MacGowan's death
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Dec 1, 2023 04:20
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Ms Adequate posted:Absolutely; high diplomacy means you don't get to come out and say "I'm glad that motherfucker is dead" no matter how much you (Or leftists online) wish you could, but it's the least subtle 'subtle' shade I've ever seen thrown. didn't realize that biden absolutely loving hated kissinger, but there's no other conclusion from that
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Dec 1, 2023 04:28
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Discendo Vox posted:I love ending it with “his wife, children, grandchildren and all those who loved him”. “(Not me)”
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Dec 1, 2023 04:39
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Staluigi posted:didn't realize that biden absolutely loving hated kissinger, but there's no other conclusion from that I don't think he actually hated him. He rarely talked about him over his career. I can't remember him making any major public comments about Kissinger ever and Google just brings up one statement from 2007 when Kissinger was testifying before congress where he praised his intelligence and experience, but said he disagreed with him a lot. I think he probably didn't think about him too much and all the White House/executive branch spokespeople are issuing similarly carefully worded statements when asked about it: quote:Whether you saw eye to eye with him on every issue there’s no question that he shaped foreign policy decisions for decades and he certainly had an impact on America’s role in the world. quote:There is no doubt that he was a historically brilliant man who shaped not just the United States, but the world over decades. However, history will have to grapple with the decisions he made. quote:He was extraordinarily generous with his wisdom, with his advice. He was a veteran who served this country in World War II and had multiple children and grandchildren. All of them are extremely carefully worded to just say, "He was [insert fact] and had [insert factual statement], but we can't forget [oblique reference to policies] and he is not currently alive. The date is 11/30/2023." Literal statements of fact that clearly indicates that some kind of style guide went out to acknowledge his death, but say nothing about it beyond that it happened.
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Dec 1, 2023 04:45
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Even if he does hate him I don't think it really means much if anything that the current president hates Kissinger when he's still operating and reinforcing a world shaped by him. But really this is politics and I think Biden just realizes there is no benefit in praising a controversial figure he originally owes nothing to and whose main presence for the White House the last few years has been arm chair quarterbacking the State Departments handling of China. Much like other presidents and their fans, he's not leaving you secret messages to decode.
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Dec 1, 2023 04:57
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Wrong, Biden wants me to drink more ovaltine
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Dec 1, 2023 05:10
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i mean a staffer probably wrote that, why bother biden with it, and he seems to surround himself with people who would hate the kiss singer
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Dec 1, 2023 05:17
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"I still remember the first time I met kissinger, now let me proceed to not go into the details about that the way any other eulogy that opened up with those words would" when biden's memoir has the details of that being "kissinger thought biden was a senator's aide and then got his name wrong" very much does not seem like a staffer wrote it.
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Dec 1, 2023 05:25
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InsertPotPun posted:i mean a staffer probably wrote that, why bother biden with it, and he seems to surround himself with people who would hate the kiss singer normally i would agree, but biden loves himself a eulogy. from the various ones that i've seen he seems to actually be invested in them
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Dec 1, 2023 05:26
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Compare and contrast the New York Yankees: https://twitter.com/Yankees/status/1730234838693614070
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Dec 1, 2023 06:00
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Seems like a pretty bog standard statement about someone who was largely seen as a revered elder statesman by the political leadership. Kind of a stretch to say that Biden "loving hates" Kissinger based on it. It reminds me of the time that Trump met with Queen Elizabeth and a bunch of weirdos on twitter were saying that the broach she wore was totally a major insult to him or whatever.
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Dec 1, 2023 06:24
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Fister Roboto posted:Seems like a pretty bog standard statement about someone who was largely seen as a revered elder statesman by the political leadership. Kind of a stretch to say that Biden "loving hates" Kissinger based on it. It reminds me of the time that Trump met with Queen Elizabeth and a bunch of weirdos on twitter were saying that the broach she wore was totally a major insult to him or whatever. I literally posted a link to another message on a recently deceased person and highlighted the differences.
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Dec 1, 2023 06:32
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Bird in a Blender posted:NYC is a combo of the city being pretty hostile to cars while also having a very robust transit system. They have a ton of trains. Owning a car in NYC is expensive as hell to own, park and insure and the traffic is horrible. For most people it’s way more convenient to the transit. Huh, when I visited NYC I found the public transport system there pretty horrid. Everything looks like it has been running for several decades with little or no maintenance, the stations and trains are all grimy, dirty and smell like pee, the coverage is mediocre at best. I haven't been to any other city in the US but surely it can't get much worse than that?
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Dec 1, 2023 06:39
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Sure, let's accept that it is in fact a bog standard eulogy. It's not, but let's just accept that it is for a second. If that is a bog standard eulogy, biden does not EVER give bog standard eulogies, the fact that he did in this case definitely says something. Saying that he loving hated kissinger based on that alone, definitely reading too much into it (maybe he did sure, but also maybe his feelings were much more mild), but going in the other direction seems even more foolish
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Dec 1, 2023 06:41
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BabyFur Denny posted:Huh, when I visited NYC I found the public transport system there pretty horrid. Everything looks like it has been running for several decades with little or no maintenance, the stations and trains are all grimy, dirty and smell like pee, the coverage is mediocre at best. I haven't been to any other city in the US but surely it can't get much worse than that? That’s the gold standard for American PTS. Some cities just plain don’t have subways, railcars, or trams, and struggle to have buses at all.
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Dec 1, 2023 06:48
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BabyFur Denny posted:Huh, when I visited NYC I found the public transport system there pretty horrid. Everything looks like it has been running for several decades with little or no maintenance, the stations and trains are all grimy, dirty and smell like pee, the coverage is mediocre at best. I haven't been to any other city in the US but surely it can't get much worse than that? There’s a good argument that the NYC subway is the best in all of North America. You’re also not wrong in your assessment : it’s okay-ish at best, with a lot of grime and decay on top. It is a loving dire continent if you like good transportation infrastructure. Most cities have no actual infrastructure, so maybe there’s an anemic and very spotty bus service somewhere relevant, if you’re lucky. Everything is designed to favor cars, to the point of having demolished most of the (often pretty good) pre-automobile infrastructure to build more roads.
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Dec 1, 2023 07:27
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reignonyourparade posted:Sure, let's accept that it is in fact a bog standard eulogy. It's not, but let's just accept that it is for a second. I'm not saying he loved the guy either. Just seems like a stretch. It's also completely unproveable either way so it really just comes down to vibes. Just in general, if you think that a famous person or political figure secretly agrees with you on something but they can't directly say it, you might want to get some perspective.
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Dec 1, 2023 07:31
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Fister Roboto posted:I'm not saying he loved the guy either. Just seems like a stretch. It's also completely unproveable either way so it really just comes down to vibes. You might not be saying he loved the guy but you ARE saying it's just a normal eulogy and it's very much not, so everyone is telling you "it is very much not a normal eulogy"
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Dec 1, 2023 07:37
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reignonyourparade posted:You might not be saying he loved the guy but you ARE saying it's just a normal eulogy and it's very much not, so everyone is telling you "it is very much not a normal eulogy" It's not a eulogy though, it's just a statement. He's barely been dead for 24 hours, so there will probably be a more official state proclamation to come (or not, who knows), not to mention the funeral where there will be actual eulogies. Yes I agree it's different from the Carter one (which was an official proclamation, not a statement) but there a dozen other possible reasons besides "throwing shade" or whatever so it just seems weird to leap to that conclusion. Fister Roboto fucked around with this message at 07:48 on Dec 1, 2023 |
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Dec 1, 2023 07:44
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LA has been making a massive push to expand their public transportation system ahead of the 2028 Olympic Games and the fact that they're in 2nd place for ridership is pretty impressive. Still lot more projects to be opened yet too.
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Dec 1, 2023 07:49
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Fister Roboto posted:It's not a eulogy though, it's just a statement. He's barely been dead for 24 hours, so there will probably be a more official state proclamation to come (or not, who knows), not to mention the funeral where there will be actual eulogies. Yes I agree it's different from the Carter one (which was an official proclamation, not a statement) but there a dozen other possible reasons besides "throwing shade" or whatever so it just seems weird to leap to that conclusion. Here is Biden's statement on the death of Rosalynn Carter from the day she died: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2023/11/19/statement-from-president-joe-biden-and-first-lady-jill-biden-on-the-passing-of-former-first-lady-rosalynn-carter/ posted:First Lady Rosalynn Carter walked her own path, inspiring a nation and the world along the way. As you can see, he pretty much did a find and replace for Rosalynn Carter -> Henry Kissinger.
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Dec 1, 2023 07:55
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Fister Roboto posted:It's not a eulogy though, it's just a statement. He's barely been dead for 24 hours, so there will probably be a more official state proclamation to come (or not, who knows), not to mention the funeral where there will be actual eulogies. Yes I agree it's different from the Carter one (which was an official proclamation, not a statement) but there a dozen other possible reasons besides "throwing shade" or whatever so it just seems weird to leap to that conclusion. It's not just different it's straight up damning with faint praise. Not a mind reader so I don't know in his heart of hearts why biden is damning kissinger with faint praise, but he is definitely damning kissinger with faint praise.
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Dec 1, 2023 07:58
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James Garfield posted:Here is Biden's statement on the death of Rosalynn Carter from the day she died: I don't know, to me that's a lot more complimentary.
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Dec 1, 2023 08:00
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reignonyourparade posted:It's not just different it's straight up damning with faint praise. Not a mind reader so I don't know in his heart of hearts why biden is damning kissinger with faint praise, but he is definitely damning kissinger with faint praise. Yeah sorry but I just don't see what you see 
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Dec 1, 2023 08:08
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Here's the day after Jimmy Buffett died. Biden likes his flowery eulogies. He gives them for all kinds of notable people He chose to really really not give one for someone that had a bigger impact on American politics than many people he's given them to. Make of it what you will, I guess.
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Dec 1, 2023 08:19
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Sometimes things like this end up like trying to read tea leaves, but there's a very consistent methodology to notes of condolence in political and diplomatic circles, and this one worked entirely within those rules and conventions to basically say "gently caress this guy" — there's too much of a body of work to contrast it against to claim ambiguity.
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Dec 1, 2023 08:40
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Scam Likely posted:NYC owns for being an oasis for those who understand that car culture is an abnormal blip in human history. We don't need big rear end trucks to carry our fat asses through drive-thrus while wearing opaque sunglasses, ranting to our phones about people we might encounter during the brief moments we move from air conditioned car to air conditioned building. drat right. Only thing better is the convenience stores.
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Dec 1, 2023 09:28
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BabyFur Denny posted:Huh, when I visited NYC I found the public transport system there pretty horrid. Everything looks like it has been running for several decades with little or no maintenance, the stations and trains are all grimy, dirty and smell like pee, the coverage is mediocre at best. I used to do a lot of work with the MTA and this is very much true. They will tell you it is to your face. The reason is simple - you can't actually do a lot of maintenance or upgrades on the NY subway because that would require shutting parts of it down for extended periods. The system is so far over capacity and so critical to the city that doing that is basically impossible. Any kind of shutdown takes months of planning to make sure the impact is as short and limited as possible, and the cost to the city to do it is many times more than the actual labor and parts involved. The system itself is very old and can't be scaled. For instance, they literally can't add additional trains because the system predates computerized scheduling and the tracks instead physically disconnect when a train is in a given block to prevent collisions. You can't increase the capacity of the trains because they can't be made bigger without making the tunnels wider. Trains can't go faster because turns are too tight and tracks are too narrow. Digging new tunnels is hilariously expensive because Manhattan is basically a single a giant hard boulder and you'd have to go extremely deep to avoid existing infrastructure. Nobody is willing to pay for it so it gets limped along. The NYC subway system is actually really bad and inadequate compared to pretty much every major city outside North America (that I've been to, at least). The other cities in the US aren't really worse in terms of modernization, cleanliness or reliability. They're worse in the sense that no other city even really has a mass transit system on the same scale. I used to travel 100% for work and NYC is literally the only place in the US that I didn't get around primarily by car. Even in Toronto, I would drive into the city center and then take mass transit from there (pro tip - city hall has cheap parking under it).
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Dec 1, 2023 10:16
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Discendo Vox posted:I love ending it with “his wife, children, grandchildren and all those who loved him”. Gonna write that down for later use...
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Dec 1, 2023 10:34
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 here's someone's ~Tier List~ of the major metropolitan transit systems "based off their current leadership" don't know how its accuracy will feel to other people who get around a hell of a lot more than I do but the MBTA is definitely the F standard. it's not even really about unsafe or unsanitary either, it's just that it feels like the MBTA is run by Consultant Class Idea Men who were brought in by buddies to be a part of a huge graft network and have left the system in a state where everything is so way beyond end-of-life that it costs phenomenal sums of money and breakage downtime just to keep it hobbling along that it ate up three times as much money as it would have cost to just replace and upgrade things competently, so you get a black hole of money which still pisses on you on a weekly/monthly basis and makes you want to cry and i sometimes travel to DC for work and just marvel at how everything just works
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Dec 1, 2023 11:45
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The London Tube shits on the NYC Subway from a height, but both are still great
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Dec 1, 2023 12:11
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As someone who grew up in Miami-Dade County, I refuse to believe that there is competent leadership anywhere down there
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Dec 1, 2023 12:24
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Staluigi posted:
Well yah Charlie Baker basically hosed the MBTA over 20 years. I am not going to defend the MBTA and say its good. But I will say that commuter rail gets pretty deep in Massachusetts and there is very little of Boston that isn't near a T station which is cool.
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Dec 1, 2023 12:54
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They're currently sitting on 24 billion needed for repairs which includes things like the recent green line extension track being too narrow. https://www.wgbh.org/news/local/cost-to-fix-the-t-soars-to-24-billion-new-mbta-report-estimates
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Dec 1, 2023 13:05
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Failed Imagineer posted:The London Tube shits on the NYC Subway from a height, but both are still great oh are we ranking global public transport networks  
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Dec 1, 2023 13:12
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Staluigi posted:
The CTA leadership does suck right now. They have struggled hard to get enough people for buses and trains since the pandemic so everything takes longer. Wait times for trains used to be 5-7 minutes during normal times, now 10 minutes is pretty normal and late at night is loving awful. Buses were not great before and have gotten worse. It’s been frustrating for everyone.
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Dec 1, 2023 13:28
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The MBTA is in the same "house is on fire and everything is rickety" area that the DC metro was in five years ago, but I'm cautiously optimistic about the shutdowns over the next year since Phil Eng is an actual engineer. I still only use my car for costco, hiking, and visiting friends in the sticks. Having said that I'm also glad I mainly rely on the orange line 
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Dec 1, 2023 13:40
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Staluigi posted:
how is MARTA north of 50% there, wth edit: oh, based on leadership? Why does that fricking matter when the results are dog poo poo. Zapf Dingbat fucked around with this message at 14:36 on Dec 1, 2023 |
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Dec 1, 2023 14:34
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Hypothetically if the list isn't wrong it could tell you a lot about if the system would get better or worse in 5-10 years. MBTA was having a hell of a spotlight on it because it was potentially a candidate for federal takeover for sucking too badly to be left in the hands of the state govt and most of us were like "please, yes, sounds great"Mooseontheloose posted:I am not going to defend the MBTA and say its good. But I will say that commuter rail gets pretty deep in Massachusetts and there is very little of Boston that isn't near a T station which is cool. Yeah boston kicks in a bit of luck with dense t station accommodation throughout, which averages out the pain well enough if you have an understanding employer
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Dec 1, 2023 14:52
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