Good riddance. The world is rid of a horrible person who has done horrible things, and who has never once tried to do the right thing in the face of adversity.
She could have done so much more, spoken out against so many atrocities, in her own family and Britain's role in the world in general. She could have attempted to use the last vestiges of monarchical power - likely ending the monarchy in the process - and stopped Brexit, or this turmoil that has ensued because of it.
But she chose not to do any of this. Because the "prestige" of this disgusting tradition was worth more to her than the lives of any of the citizens she "rules" (symbolically) over.
It would have been hard to have had a worse monarch than her.
If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. They're here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
There are countless comments praising her that are allowed to stand. She is a historical figure, there will be people disagreeing. Labeling comments that criticizes her as "flamewar" and banning their accounts isn't enabling curious discussion, it is creating an echo chamber that protects the status quo.
oh no dipshits who sell their cars can no longer be paid in $7k worth of cash and need to be paid with a bank transfer won't somebody please think of the dipshits
great another example of abusing public taxpayer dollars to subsidize rural homes that shouldnt exist
infrastructure outside of dense towns is unsustainable with the extremely low amount in taxes rural areas pay
these people do not deserve the same standard of living as those in sustainable areas
subsidize them to move to urban areas, not their lifestyle that uses 20x the infrastructure load an urbanite does
Amerika can't keep building out the same levels of roads utilities and municipal water to rural areas as it does to cities. this standard of living does not scale. it is not sustainable.
if you don't believe me, go look at 100 year infrastructure costs once a suburb needs replacing. this is why every town in America is failing
I thought I was smart by not paying Home Depot to install my replacement overhead microwave unit and carry away the old one. Then I discovered it's almost impossible to throw away a microwave. Garbage won't take it, e-waste recycling drives were always "Sorry, all full" after the first 15 minutes... I held onto that thing for 7 years until an old gypsy scrapper and his dog happened to see it while I was working in my garage. God bless him and his dog.
I always thoroughly disassemble all electronics, much easier to properly dispose that way. Outer shell goes in recycling, along with all plastic pieces with a recycling symbol. Inert stuff goes into the trash. The stuff that is actually e waste is then much easier to drop off at a recycler. Just a couple circuit boards or batteries.
I chucked my overhead microwave in the dumpster in the alley last week. It’s pretty wild how different something as germane as trash collection is so different from place to place.
I've lived places where the city didn't want to, or was legally unable, to increase taxes to fund enhanced trash collection.
I've lived in places where the city spends tons of money on trash collection, and everyone got new wheelie bins every year, and trash pick-up three days a week.
When I lived in the desert, trash collection was frequent, and cheap as chips because the city didn't want to give people any reason to dump their trash in the desert.
They'll be abused by businesses. There's a reason any time you rent a dumpster it has a locking cover: any open dumpster will be filled overnight by carpet installers who want to dump old carpet without paying disposal fees.
I like the places where you can bring anything you want to the dump. They weigh your car on the way in, and weigh it again on the way out, and calculate your fee based on the difference.
Every man should own a sledge hammer and a bolt cutters and some decency to do what is right. Make that shit fit in your alotted bin and be grateful for the never ending courtesy of personal trash removal.
It’s a deliberate double meaning, maybe even a triple meaning.
(1) a ‘dog pill’ as in ‘a pill for dogs’ as in ivermectin
(2) that document you mention which is one of the most remarkable expressions of postmodernism in that it parodies the rest of that Incel wiki and all of the literature of the social sciences going back to durkheim’s book on suicide. In short that document calls into question the possibility that you could understand anything about human suffering no matter how much rhyme or reason you use.
(3) the logical endpoint of the idea that you can give someone a ‘pill’ that alters their world view permanently and changes everything about them. With bad ideas you can make people storm the capitol building or drop out of school, work and life (e.g. happened to incels I know)
I could see this being true. we only ever see him attack. Republicans, because most of what they do is so idiotic and insane. there's an implicit agreement with the viewer that He's doing this because the Democrats are so much more tame in comparison, that he doesn't need to spend time on them
it's from this cloth of shadows. we can infer his political beliefs and projector own. but he very well. could be a neoliberal hack who blindly trusts in his party, like Biden
He and Colbert had routinely poked entirely un-ironic fun at their own formula, by way of poking fun at Republicans for writing their material for them. I could believe they understood exactly what they were doing.
> could be a neoliberal hack who blindly trusts in his party, like Biden
So, I don't think Biden is exactly a hack but I do think he is a status-quo guy who doesn't understand when a long-term predictable plan makes him a sitting duck.
On the other hand, Jon does have to make a case for pretty much _any_ political expertise outside of punditry. I'd like to give him a chance sooner than any Republican.
I'm torn between doubting his actual efficacy from never holding office nor being in government, with that of thinking it doesn't really matter, that what we really need is an effective leader with moral and ideological direction, who leaves the policies up to our bureaucratic state
because biden- and almost every other recent president – have been politicians for decades, then yet still get nothing done.
John Stewart, at least has the truck record of being able to deeply research issues and find and stand for his moral ground in a consistent, predictable manner
I wouldn't trust him to " run the country" by himself. but I also don't think you need to be able to do that to be president. John Kennedy in a 1960s filled his kitchen cabinet full of highly intelligent people to help him govern. as a counterexample, George w. Bush was rather unintelligent, but filled his cabinet full of insanely intelligent( but evil ) and was highly effective in pursuing his agenda
If nothing else, John Stewart would be moral compass for the country
to preempt somebody jumping in on this with a dumb take on Trump: he accomplished rather little as a president, certainly far less than he could have, because he filled his cabinet with blithering yes men, Rather than a cohesive team that could strategize
I don't think penning a comedy bit counts as any kind of serious 'research'.
It's super easy to say something facile but funny about a subject and to clown around with rage when you don't have to actually do anything about it. I think he's said himself when challenged that it's just comedy and he's just a comedian.
I think what matters more is not his current views on any particular subject or knowledge thereof. but rather his well demonstrated ability to not only challenge his own views( and the current prevailing views/ countercurrent views ) - but also that of being able to surround himself by writers and collaboraters and and other people who can challenge his views.
it's very analogous to empiricism in research. I wouldn't trust him to get the right answer on his own, nor on the first time. but, I'd trust him, that it put up the the task on the issue of governance, he wouldn't be arrogant enough to assume he knows the only right way to do something, and hed actually try to sorround himself by intelligent capable people, and rely on their advice to get things done
I understand where you’re coming from. From my perspective, leadership in Washington is already surrounded by a cadre of policy wonks and researchers who guide policy and inform the lawmakers. While it is no-doubt true that the personalities of the politicians involved determine how open to reflection they are, the POTUS is often just picking between a handful of proposals which have been compiled for consideration.
This is something touched on with Bush Jr.’s Decision Points. The president has so many things to handle that they end up having little time to truly delve deep into the problem and wind up delegating most of that to their staff. It was a meme when Bush said he was “the decider”, but it’s very accurate.
Challenge himself, surround himself etc - but to make better jokes. They’re just jokes not genuine positions. He’s said that himself - it’s just done for comedy. He looks for the funniest thing to say over looking for the truth.
> he accomplished rather little as a president, certainly far less than he could have, because he filled his cabinet with blithering yes men, Rather than a cohesive team that could strategize
I agree that his cabinet was a mess, but he also had a firmly GOP congress his first two years that gave him incredible backing and they passed a fair amount of legislation because congressional GOP leadership are very organized.
Now that the GOP controls the Supreme Court and quite likely will control congress in the next cycle, the next Republican president is going to have an unprecedented amount of power.
a ham sandwich could have accomplished what he did. Rather, probably could have accomplished more than him. he was so incompetent that he probably accomplished less Republican agenda than if a lobotomized generic Republican candidate was in his stead. any generic Republican president would have been able to appoint the same Supreme Court judges. he changed nothing about this calculus after getting elected.
essentially, I believe almost any other person other than him could have accomplished more towards the Republican agenda than he did. it's almost unprecedented how little he did in spite of the power the Republicans had in 2016.
What's really weird about Biden is that he tried to govern as though he had a strong legislative majority. He didn't, and it didn't work. He could have done better if he didn't act like he could run everything without the Republicans. Instead, he keeps proposing things that are too extreme for the most conservative members of his own party, and then being surprised that they don't pass the Senate.
And, as you say, he has been a politician for decades. He should know this.
Unless... is it possible that he's smart? Is he pandering to the liberal wing of his own party, throwing out ideas that he knows are extreme and not good policy, and then letting them die in Congress?
Or is he trying to shine a spotlight on Manchin and Systema, and get them primaried?
All in all, I don't understand his strategy. It seems to not work very well, and it seems that he should know better.
I wonder what working with the Republicans to legislate would actually produce these days. For instance, they considered Roe extreme and so they unilaterally overturned it. They considered banning prayer in public schools as extreme and unilaterally overturned that. I wonder what it is that they could agree on and actually pass?
you are a either a blithering moron, or acting in bad faith
few people are saying "the gestapo will literally be called to your house the second you miss a period in a red state"
but rather, that this data can and will be used as collaborating evidence in a criminal trial.
a state prosecuting an abortion will have to prove the person is actually pregnant, and there is zero reason to believe they wouldn't use this data as one more tool in their arsenal building a rock solid case. it's not as if people undergoing illegal abortions are going to have good records that can be looked up otherwise
a bridge to nowhere, that's a blight on that neighborhood in SF (in the middle of a beautiful park), and has served to fuel and encourage car culture, and does not integrate with public transit in the slightest
few civic minded people celebrate the freeways that have torn 20th century cities apart, and this bridge is (a very pretty) extension of this
If I imagine it as an ugly bridge then I can see your points well. But I really think you have to figure the beauty of it into the equation. It draws unbelievable tourism to the city. My wife (a Brazilian) has a tattoo of it - that's how strong the allure is for some people (although of course there are people all around the world who have a tattoo of whatever architectural icon that drew them to their adopted city). $35M to make your city an international icon is a bargain. Of course the creators probably had no idea it would have that kind of impact but my only point is that when talking about the GGB the beauty is an inextricable part of the equation.
People need to live somewhere, and we sure haven't built up enough to allow most people to live within the city itself. Is "encouraging car culture" the new NIMBY angle? It's just the flip-side of the housing crisis. I'd live closer to work too if I could afford Woodside or whatever.
Do you feel that reaching Point Reyes and other areas in the north does not "serve them in any way"? Bridges have existed for millennia because they're useful to both sides of the bridge.
this garbage bridge does not serve it's residents above replacement.
ferries already existed, as well as other ways to get to the areas north of the city.
the main issue with this bridge is that it is the enemy of better, and a bridge/tunnel with forward thinking infrastructure and transit can now never be built, now that we have this antiquated garbage bridge built, merely for the myth of car ownership
the civil planning doesn't even extend to the rest of the city, it's merely plopped down onto an arbitrary section of it.
it would have been better to not have been built at all. a more ugly bridge built later on wouldn't have had the nimbys we have today, and could have been torn down and retrofitted without it being sacrilegious
It reads like you don't understand the needs of SF back when that bridge was built. It could also carry rail, but that portion was not completed - because, and here's the shocker, a city's needs change over time. The Wikipedia page about this bridge covers a lot of these details.
Ah yes - a bridge from the top of a peninsula to the other side. Surely nowhere else would people think to make one of those. Just have everyone take the long way around where they will then need to cross TWO bridges if they want to travel north!
A huge loss is that when Bart was built Marin voted against extending it north.
The Bridge that we need foot and bike traffic access on is the Bay Bridge. That’s far more disappointing as it would better connect Oakland and SF (and Treasure Island!). With ebikes so popular now, that could actually displace cars significantly in the Bay Area.
> A huge loss is that when Bart was built Marin voted against extending it north.
Marin was kicked out, as a result of San Mateo pulling out leaving Bart under funded. As they said at the time, "We are withdrawing involuntarily and upon request,". A 1956 poll found that 87.7 percent of Marin residents wanted a BART line.
The eastern span has one. Mostly useless without one on the western span though. They seem to have a project up for it, but i'm not sure what the status is:
> The Bridge that we need foot and bike traffic access on is the Bay Bridge.
I'm not sure how useful that would be. The Bay Bridge is quite long, at ~4.5 miles end-to-end, and the east span terminates in a huge toll plaza in an industrial area of Oakland which is neither bike- nor pedestrian-friendly. I wouldn't realistically expect any significant number of bikers to use the bridge, and those that did would probably be using it more for recreation than transport. Like it or not, the Bay Bridge was built as a highway connector.
You may be unaware, but the east bay portion of Bay trail connects to a lot of great bike infrastructure from the Eastern Span of the Bay Bridge already. It's a very gentle grade up the entire bridge, which makes it approachable for even casual riders. The connection there has many bike paths that lead between all the East Bay cities, Oakland, Emeryville, Berkeley, Albany, and Richmond.
From Oakland it would be approximately a 45 minute bike ride (if it existed), on an ebike probably 20 minutes. About an hour from Berkeley (and 30 minutes on ebike). These times would compete with cars during rush hour.
It's true you wouldn't want to dump bikes at the literal terminus of the bridge, but a surface-level bike path could take you a little past the Maze to the vicinity of the Frontage Road & Powell St or Mandela Parkway / Horton St, both very comfortably bikeable. I used those streets for years cycling from Berkeley to West Oakland BART and the Jack London Square ferry terminal.
When I lived in SF, I really enjoyed taking the Muni 76X express bus from downtown SF across the Golden Gate Bridge to Muir Woods. It only runs on the weekends, but that's not the bridge's fault.
and does not integrate with public transit in the slightest
I used to live in SF and commuted to Sausalito daily, either by GGT bus or bike (or rarely, took the ferry but riding home from the ferry wasn't much shorter than just riding to Sausalito).
Of all the bridges in the bay area, the Golden Gate is the least deserving of such contempt IMHO.
At least pedestrians and cyclists can make use of it, I've done multiple bike rides from The Sunset to Marin/Sausalito/Larkspur via the GGB. Never a bad time.
The Bay Bridge however, now that's a bridge I can get behind hating on. Lots of lost opportunity.
She could have done so much more, spoken out against so many atrocities, in her own family and Britain's role in the world in general. She could have attempted to use the last vestiges of monarchical power - likely ending the monarchy in the process - and stopped Brexit, or this turmoil that has ensued because of it.
But she chose not to do any of this. Because the "prestige" of this disgusting tradition was worth more to her than the lives of any of the citizens she "rules" (symbolically) over.
It would have been hard to have had a worse monarch than her.