I’m about to head over to the weekly gathering of the Seattle Chapter of Drinking Liberally. Won’t you join me?
We meet tonight and every Tuesday at the Roanoke Park Place Tavern, 2409 10th Ave E, Seattle. You will find us in the courtyard out back starting around 8:00pm. Note that you will need to bring a mask and proof of vaccination to get into the bar.
Chapters of DL are re-opening all over the place. If you can’t make it to the Seattle chapter tonight, find a location and date near you.
Biden isn’t Trump, and that’s good enough.
With the German election, they do have a Senate, but no version of McConnell, Sinema, or Manchin. The Bundesrat membership is based on state governments, and have between 3 and six members, with a minimum of 3, but states with 2 million get 4, 6 million get 5, and 7 million get 6. The party that has managed to exploit the way it is organized to their effect, the Green Party. They are in coalitions in 11 of 16 states, with a diverse group of partners.
https://eu.boell.org/en/2020/11/02/federal-climate-force-how-german-greens-shaped-climate-package-through-lander
Let’s be crystal clear. First Vegetable Joe Biden’s cowardice and uncaring dismissal of Americans still trapped in Afghanistan ended whatever leverage Democrats had to pass a major reconciliation bill.
It will be interesting if Bernie and Pramila are successful in taking down what little First Vegetable Joe Biden has done without an EO.
Fun, too.
Looks like Amtrak 7/27 was traveling just under the speed limit for that section of track.. The limit was 79mph, surprised they had sections like that in Montana. I know there are still sections of the Southwest Chiefs route that are signaled for 90 if Amtrak wanted too.
https://www.trains.com/trn/news-reviews/news-wire/feds-empire-builder-was-traveling-under-speed-limit-at-time-of-crash/
The Superliner bi-level is a great design, not perfect. I wonder if the rumors of passengers being ejected happened in the Sightseer Lounge car, which as bugger windows. The Superliner is an evolution of the Santa Fe’s Hi-Level coaches, and although they were built in the 50s and 60s, Amtrak still uses a few Hi-levels alongside Superliners.
If the message was clear, Terry McAuliffe wouldn’t be in a tossup race in a state in which he has already once served as governor.
The message in 2022 will be absolutely clear. Think 2010.
This week’s vocabulary builder is
Coping With Siderodromophobia, or the Fear of Trains
I think it’s particularly pertinent since the derailed train is known as the Empire Builder.
Or, you know, maybe just don’t ride the train.
In which we learn that Obamacare is dead.
I can live, quite comfortably, with a DeSantis/Abbott administration. So can Stephen Breyer, from all appearances.
Someone had to do it.
The mandated system upgrade not turned on with the Lakeview Subdivision when 501 derailed, was active on this stretch of Hi-Line. I’ve been aboard a train when the brakes were tripped in a penalty application. It was on 501 bound for Portland, on a stretch between Olympia and Centralia, and apparently it had gone just over the limit. Came to an abrupt stop, but no derailment.
http://www.bnsf.com/in-the-com.....ntrol.page
By the way, unlike the troll, I had been in communication with one of the people killed on 501, the night before. He and a few others with All Aboard Washington decided to take one last trip out of the old Amshack in Tacoma. In fact, he had bought what would have been the last ticket sold at the station. Said he turned around, computer had already been packed up for the move to the new station. I asked him in his Facebook post, just a question about whether it was for 508(evening departure from Portland Union Station), or a special train. He said it was the former. Still have a message from him on my messenger app feed from 5 years before that. It was just a suggestion, since I liked a lot of their posts, and did some good comments, why don’t I join All Aboard Washington as a dues paying member. I had been following his work online for awhile. He was a bus fan too, had a website for awhile where he posted pictures, under the name Busdude, later turned into a Flickr page. He also had bought at auction a used Pierce Teansit bus and restored it. Good Man.
@3 See #1 for canned reply.
@9 “I can live, quite comfortably, with a DeSantis/Abbott administration.”
So can every other Trumper, so you’re nothing special, just another red hat in the screaming anti-mask mob.
Police don’t do what you think they do. For example, when they pull over a deaf man, instead of realizing he can’t hear their verbal commands, they beat the shit out of him for not complying with their verbal commands. I wonder how much this will cost the town of Idaho Springs, pop. 1`800?
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/deaf-colorado-man-arrested-not-complying-police-commands-he-couldn-n1280272
Among the allegations in the lawsuit are that the cop broke his own leg himself while beating the stuffing out of the deaf guy.
@ 10
Speaking of the 501, the dumbfuck who took a turn, intended to be navigated at 30 mph, doing 80 mph wants his job back.
He may also get his six-figure salary because apparently gross negligence isn’t enough to fire a dumbfuck unless there is zero contributing additional cause. Gotta love unions.
15)Would rather have them than drivers making minimum wage. Doubt you would get hired at Metro. A regular drivers license won’t do. You need a CDL with a Passenger Endorsement. One of my high school teachers drives for Metro, but at O’Dea, most teachers were coaches, and that included driving the team bus.
In San Francisco, the Cable Car Gripman training has a high wash out rate, and they don’t even allow new hires to try it until they have a few years under their belt. Even then they still have to meet the physical requirements. That hasn’t disqualified women from the job, MUNI has had a few female grips.
Wished Amtrak had at least one member of the OBS crew have medical training. Northern Pacific had Stewardess-Nurses , but the program ended around 1967 because 9 of the 10 didn’t want to report th a supervisor that was the former secretary of a senior officer of the railroad. Most of the other supervisors had been RN’s like them. Read a book about the North Coast Limited, and it covered the turbulent year of 1962 where the NCL had THREE Derailments. One because an Engineer was trying to set a speed record, and another because the engine crew was passed out drunk and went downgrade at excessive speed. At Evaro Hill, a child became the train’s only passenger fatality, but the author considered two NP employees victims too. One of the drunks who after losing his job, kept drinking and got into a bar fight with somebody stronger. Then their was the Road Foreman of Engines, who after being hounded and made scapegoat by early versions of people like you, committed suicide. The Engineer never worked again for NP or any other railroad, but his son had a long career at. BN, and made sure to never violate Rule G.
After each derailment with the NCL, the stewardess-Nurse jumped into action rendering treatment before fire and rescue arrived. It was a skill some NP Officers didn’t value. Between the pay, and uniform requirement, and then there is how one of them was treated by management after a wreck, where she also learned her mother was ill.
Plus with 1962, both NP and Great Northern had a passenger boost, big nearly year long international event going on in Seattle. Evaro Hill, the NCL was unusually long, 17 cars. Read a good article in a special issue of Classic Trains magazine about Evaro Hill, co-written by the head of the NP Historical Society, and the surviving sisters of the victim.
The Engine crew were found not to have criminal intent,so no charges. Still, as Isaid, they never worked again. They should have known better, the NCL was the premier train, so you had to have a lot of seniority to even bid on it. That alone should have kept the crew out of the bar. Prior to 1959, when NP instituted a mandatory retirement age, it wasn’t uncommon to have engineers with over 50-55 years of experience.
What “leverage” does Josh Gottheimer have?
He and the dozen or so conservatives that he represents will eagerly vote for the infrastructure bill whenever it comes to the floor, whether it’s this week or next month. And if they want to go it alone on debt default they get to join Republicans in carrying that into the midterms next year all on their own.
Meanwhile, on the other side you’ve got now about sixty House Democrats who say they will vote down infrastructure if it is brought to them ahead of reconciliation.
It’s not as “dramatic” as the press would like it to sound.
@ 15
I had to laugh when I read
… after being hounded and made scapegoat by early versions of people like you…
That’s QoS McHillbilly’s entire shtick toward me. It’s my fault, not the fault of the DNC and the gullible liberal electorate, that #CrookedHillary lost. It’s my fault, even though I have never cast a vote for him, that Donald Trump won.
The thing is, if QoS McHillbilly can’t blame me, the only ones left to blame are himself, and people like him.
“Hounding people” is what liberals do. Every time they decide to protest outside of the home of a politician, or even outside the home of, say, the chief of police, that’s what they’re doing. Every time they dox somebody or do the “Has Justine landed yet?” thing, that’s what they’re doing.
You’re a nice guy, Railfan. But oftentimes you’re tonedeaf as hell. Look around in the chat room at your fellow libbies and at what they write. All they do is blame people other than themselves. They’re about to blame Manchin and Sinema for the failure of a $3.5 trillion joke of a bill.
Manchin and Sinema are the only two liberal engineers who still know how to brake, Railfan, and the Democrat party is hurtling toward that cliff just past the end of the track.
@ 17
It’s not as “dramatic” as the press would like it to sound.
Is it as dramatic as Chuck Schumer wants it to sound?
“There is no scenario in God’s green Earth where it should be worth risking millions of jobs, trillions in household wealth, people’s social security checks, veterans benefits, and another recession, just to score short-term meaningless political points,” the New York Democrat warned in a Senate Floor speech on Monday. “That’s what Republicans seem fixated on doing.”
Steady and fairly consistent declines since 1989 in the rate of births for children aged 15 to 19
https://mobile.twitter.com/familyunequal/status/1442867277435596817
Pregnancy rate among teens peaked at about the same time, and show the very same steep decline from the peak in 1990 of 117.6 per 1000 to around 30.
Those declines did not come about as a result of Daddy-Daughter contracts and “Purity Rings”.
Here. Have an abortion.
Getting the derpified pathological lying going extra early this morning.
Burka Bob never made up fake “FB friends in CO” either.
Yup!
@ 17
It’s not as “dramatic” as the press would like it to sound.
Indeed.
@ 20
I think it’s more like, “Here. Have an iPad.”
19,
Oh, defaulting on the debt would absolutely be dramatic.
And if it were to happen, it would cost incumbents in Congress about half their seats in next year’s election.
That’s why plugging the debt ceiling into the reconciliation bill makes it so much harder for Manchin to fuck around.
Because he just might “find out”.
And that scenario does not favor Republicans. And it certainly does not favor “moderates” from either party.
Virginia parents, you know what to do.
Good point!
It’s quite true that the widespread availability of affordable smartphones with browsers and data plans has put greatly increased both the access to “abortion on demand” for teens but also increased privacy and confidentiality.
Isn’t progress wonderful!
@ 24
We do the debt ceiling dance far too often.
If Dems are that concerned about default Armageddon there’s a CR that would sail through if brought up for a vote.
And hey, I wasn’t planning to visit a national park on Friday, anyway. Shut it down if you wanna be melodramatic about it.
18,
Hey, thanks for the kind reference. I really appreciate it.
Now cry more, please.
@ 26
Not quite.
The point I made was that providing alternatives to fucking seems to reduce incidence of fucking.
There’s nothing attractive or arousing about twerking glutes, and I don’t care what color the skin is.
27,
If we’re in luck, you may discover that the ceiling doesn’t have to be dealt with in a CR.
It’s true, they can pass a “clean” omnibus rec bill handling revenues and spending, and deal with the debt ceiling in a separate, 50-vote bill. But they could also use that same 50-vote bill to eliminate the ceiling entirely.
And in fact, the President can do that all on his own by simply using his Article 2 authority to mint money. He can also simply order his Treasury Sec. to ignore the limit and continue to issue debt, citing sec. 4 of the 14th Amendment as his authority. After all, if a “clean” rec bill were to pass, the President would be legally obligated under the Constitution to raise and spend the funds as dictated in the law passed by Congress. His hands would be “tied”, as it were. And as Executive, Biden can also use the same trick that most states use to get around their own debt limits. He can use an EO to create a special purpose debt authority outside the Treasury to issue the bonds.
Any or all of these would fall well outside recognized historical norms.
But then again, some “former guy” with all the help he needed from Moscow Mitch, very proudly broke “all the norms”.
So who really cares?
Defaulting on the debt would be dramatic as fuck. Threatening to refuse to vote on the debt ceiling is no longer very dramatic at all. But it’s all Mitch has got.
Yet there it is, anyway. Millions of U.S. teens with their own private payment accounts and their own private browser histories unleashed upon the world.
It’s almost as if there’s this whole world going on out there that Burka Bob, and Ginni Thomas know absolutely nothing about.
And that whole world doesn’t even seem to care.
Matt Gaetz knows.
A lot of progressive vitriol directed at Senator Sinema this week.
It’s not just Sinema and it’s not just Sinema and Manchin. There are rumored to be several additional less-far-left senators who are relieved to be able to remain silent while the above-mentioned two take the heat.
I think Pelosi will pull the bill tomorrow, reneging on her agreement. Otherwise AOC, Sanders, and Jayapal take down what little is left of Biden’s presidency.
https://www.politico.com/f/?id=0000017a-53b6-d92f-a1fe-d3f62f8b0000
https://www.dataforprogress.org/blog/2021/7/20/who-is-kyrsten-sinema-really-representing
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/senate/arizona/
If she is too stubborn to pay attention then she deserves to lose.
18,
After calming my laughter at Burka Bob trying to win Railfan over to the dark side by crying like a bitch, and wiping up the spit-take, I had to take a moment to ponder not only why Trump came to dominate Bob’s party back in 2016, but perhaps more importantly why Trump continues to absolutely dominate the GOP today. Obviously, yes, a whole helluvalot of former “conservatives” like Burka Bob have found themselves somehow transformed into something different in recent years. But why is that?
https://www.therighting.com/august-2021-traffic-to-top-conservative-websites
Credit FOX and Roger Ailes for having the vision to break the 20th century dominant paradigm of “unbiased” media. They saw the future and grabbed it. And the results speak largely for themselves. But while it might not be the Murdoch family’s job to secure the survival of “conservatism”, it is their job to ensure the survival of News Corp.
And what they may have failed to grasp, like Burka Bob and so many “conservatives”, is that when you allow your worldviews to become unmoored from objectivity (as opposed to bias) then you also cede control of the defining narrative. Now Bob, and FOX, and Every Republican You Know are forced to dwell for all eternity in a world defined by spotty faced Nazis from Attomwaffen, Moldovan Script Kids peddling Hugo Chavez’ ghost, and hysterical Krypto-Karens screaming at baristas about horse paste.
They did this entirely to themselves. And now they see that there can be no stopping it. So at least Bob has to blame somebody else.
Remember: Robert Mueller is a “conservative” Republican, who was appointed by a “conservative” Republican, and approved by “conservative” Republicans. I’d honestly love to claim some credit for their misery. But that would be dishonest. I’ll just leave dishonesty to Burka Bob while I sit back and enjoy watching their misery. I invite everyone to do likewise.
You’ve been a real asshole to Railfan. So uncalled for, and yet no surprise.
Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger wish to speak with you.
Too bad we no longer have a conservative party. The GOP was once America’s conservative party, as in being anti-Democrat. A conservative GOP was vital to our democracy, the Ying to the Democrat’s progressive Yang.
Liz and Mike might agree with me that today’s fascist GQP is anti-democracy and a hugely serious threat to traditional American conservatism as well as progressivism.
American democracy is on the line and it’s all your fault. After all, we gotta blame somebody. Why not blame you and your 7,089 pro-Putin hashtags?
After you, Liz and Mike talk about how and when to apply the brakes, Jaime would like to have a chat with you about that, too.
Race to become top challenger to Jaime Herrera Beutler in the 3rd Congressional District heats up with Donald Trump’s endorsement