And Aftter Sandy Hook

A bunch of Republican members of Congress almost got killed by a shooter and even that wasn't enough.

Morning Thread

And, yes, it's too f*&king early to start drinking.

Failed Political System

It isn't just guns, but also guns. When the response to Sandy Hook was:




I don't know what our system is capable of responding to.

My Second Op-Ed In The New York Times Today

Is creeping on a teenage girl because she makes me so horny mad.

What a newspaper!

Saturday Saturday

While me, a man of advancing age, has not spent time on a college campuses in over 25 years, I have heard that they are just like North Korean indoctrination camps now.

Morning Thread

It's Saturday, a perfect day to chill out.

Friday, Friday

Gotta get down on...

What's It All About Then

CAP's VP of Health Policy saying it's absurd to focus on... health policy (resign then, bitch!)... is just part of the "whatever The Left happens to think is important that day must be shouted down" and the more general "anything which sounds like it's criticizing Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton, even obliquely, must not be tolerated, at least if the wrong people are saying it" and also, too, "Biden 2020!"

The argument against Democrats and the left criticizing and distancing themselves from Obama is an argument against evolution and progress. Practically speaking, it’s also an argument against the left, which is the real crux of the argument that Obama’s defenders are making.

The underlying reason why the Obama criticism stings so much is that it equally serves as an indictment of these defenders, and of their politics over the past decade. For most of these people, a return to “normal”—life under Obama, or even George W. Bush—is all that’s needed, because life was perfectly fine for them under these presidents. As others within the Democratic Party have slowly but surely started to realize, it wasn’t fine for everyone, and so the party is now having a thorough debate about how to deal with that. And you cannot have that conversation without talking about the last president of the United States.

Why Are You Focused On This When You Should Be Focused On That?

Always focusing on the wrong thing that like [checks notes] everything else has no chance of passing the senate.

We're in a planetary emergency and we're debating health care plans that stand no chance of enactment in 2021. https://t.co/CCZeyZ6j3x

— Topher Spiro (@TopherSpiro) August 2, 2019

hmm...

Can't quite see. Gonna zoom in a bit.

Zooming in a bit more...

Can't quite see...

Holy shitballs

Move To Cherry Hill

I have no idea why people even spend time in cities if they just want door to door car service and an otherwise hostile pedestrian environment. Almost the entire country is set up that way! Take your stupid self-driving cars there.

Kim

Trump's fixation with the North Korean leader is not... normal... and is not even in the same basic framework as his love of dictators generally or his fondess for Putin. It is...weird.

They Aren't Going To Work

But they're going to do their best to finish the job that the automobile industry started a hundred years ago.

In New York, the unwritten rule is plain: Cross the street whenever and wherever — just don’t get hit. It’s a practice that separates New Yorkers from tourists, who innocently wait at the corner for the walk symbol. But if pedestrians know they’ll never be run over, jaywalking could explode, grinding traffic to a halt.

One solution, suggested by an automotive industry official, is gates at each corner, which would periodically open to allow pedestrians to cross.

...

“With autonomous vehicles, the technical stuff will get worked out. It’s the societal part that’s the most challenging,” said Mark Rosekind, a head of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration under President Barack Obama and now the chief safety innovation officer for Zoox, an autonomous vehicle developer.

"Societal part" = anything outside but cars.

Musk Versus The Monrail

Pretty sure this is never going to be completed, certainly not on schedule. But it's going to be hilarious if it is!

According to a TechCrunch report, TBC’s Las Vegas project may significantly damage support columns for the existing monorail. And it will still require human drivers. In the past, The Boring Company has promised some type of efficient travel through narrow tunnels with “electric autonomous vehicles with alignment wheels.”

How is this even possible?

Loop plans submitted by TBC to Las Vegas show a modest glass structure at surface level, with elevators, escalators and stairs leading down to a mezzanine level with gates, and then down again to three platforms. With no room at the platform level for vehicles to turn around, it appears TBC’s people movers will operate in both forward and reverse.

These are supposedly modified Teslas (I have no idea how this makes sense) so you're going to have to put pedals and steering wheels on both sides?

Sorry, Las Vegas, shoulda left this one to Shelbyville.

Friday Morning

Thursday Night

Had to drive out to the 'burbs.

Afternoon Thread

enjoy

Better Things Are Not Possible

Details vary, but basically this debate is between those who think that the only way to achieve better things is to aim for one more cookie crumb, and those who think it is better to aim for more. Those who support the former push it as smart strategy even though one more cookie crumb is really want they want.

Think what you want about Obama generally, but it is hard to defend his "if I come to Republicans with a reasonable compromise they will be so impressed by how reasonable it is that they will have to support it." This worked precisely zero times and I am not sure why anyone would think this group of Republicans (not your father's Republican party! Joe Biden keeps saying) is more receptive to this than the early groups.

And the voters who matter - swing and irregular ones - don't reward "reasonableness" no matter how often they tell pollsters it's something they value.

And It Never Will

You might create some sort of transit service which will be useful to some people (particularly employees), but you can't build something at that spot and then as an afterthought figure out how to get a significant number of people there.

Anxious shoppers trying to figure out how they will get to the American Dream were supposed to begin seeing advertisements explaining transit options to the mega-mall last week. But, there’s one problem. The bigger plan for train and bus service to the development is still being finalized.

HAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

It has a lofty goal of getting 50% of mall customers out of their cars and on trains or buses. Even the conservative estimate in a 2012 transit plan by consultants Parsons Brinkerhoff calls for one-third of American Dream customers to shun their cars for transit. The mall expects 40 million visitors each year.

Boris

John Oliver covers it pretty well.

Morning Thread