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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: June 2nd, 2023

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  • America is owned and operated by rich people. They couldn’t make money running passenger trains so once we were ordered to invest in car-only infrastructure the trains were mostly disbanded and shut down. There’s a ghost of a system left with just a few corridors that could be considered bare minimum service in a developed nation.

    How many kilometers of high speed rail does the US have? Zero. We have some that gets close, but not really.

    My mid-sized city has two trains per day, one each direction, and they both leave between 1am and 2am. In Germany you would have 30+ trains per day in a city this size, likely a notable S-Bahn network, and also some trams and/or U-Bahns in the city to compliment busses. I’ve got busses in town, but they operated about every 30-45 minutes each, with evening service being every 60 minutes. Here’s the fun part: our busses are the most used public transit system for a mid-sized city in the US right now and it’s still pathetic when compared to even basic services in Europe.

    DB needs to keep getting investment. Germany must get to a dedicated passenger rail network to separate out the freight trains. DB should also be re-nationalized and operated as a national service, not a for profit system that will inevitably fail as a commercial venture, leading to yet more terrible service. Here’s hoping the latest German Parliament follows through on investment money that they pushed through at the start of the year! Also, keep the Deutschland Karte! That’s such a great resource for everyone.




  • She lost her green card as a youth for stealing something under $200. She then kept going to immigration court and was told “you’re fine” by the authorities for 25 years.

    The US immigration system has been a tragedy for many decades. It doesn’t work well, efficiently,not clearly. It’s basically designed to allow in people who fit certain profiles, but any weirdness in your situation puts you in indefinite limbo and at the whims of various officials. It makes an underclass of grey zone residents. This was generally fine, but openly set up conditions for a racist regime to start snatching people out of their homes. People who played by the rules for decades.

    The US immigration system today: When Kafka meets Hitler.







  • The hotel itself was nice, and the balcony had a great view. The problem was the mattress. It was so soft that it provided zero back support. No other options were available.

    The net result was both my wife and I ended up with month long back muscle spasms. It taught us a lot about how to resolve back issues, but it’s not a lesson I wanted from a relatively expensive hotel in Leavenworth, Washington.


  • I’m already on the road ahead of you.

    Spent 30 years campaigning, calling, sign waving, writing letters, donating to candidates, causes, and groups. Even ran for office a couple of times. Every year it gets worse and I’ve got kids. They don’t need to live in a dystopian place so we’re on the road. Headed to a developed nation. Greener pastures,.but it’s worth a try.


  • The dumbest part of the US’s “fuck you poor people, die in the gutter” approach to homelessness is that it’s more expensive than using a system to provide homes to people:

    “A further study of Finland’s Housing First program found that giving a homeless person a home and support resulted in cost savings for the society of at least €15,000 per person per year, with potentially even higher cost savings in the long term.[7] These cost savings for society are in part a result of reductions in usage of emergency healthcare, police, and the justice system when homeless people are given a home.”

    [7]“London wants to eradicate homelessness. Here’s how Finland is doing it”. cbc.ca. Canadian Broadcasting Centre (CBC). 28 January 2023. Retrieved 10 January 2024.

    (From Wikipedia)

    Children are especially vulnerable and costly to not provide housing to. The US is, at its core, an essentially a selfish and heartless nation. You can removed all you want about that stance, but a budget is a statement of your values. Those values don’t include helping people and they don’t include being cost effective, so what is being achieved here except paying more to be cruel to children and their families?