If he does end up in The Hague, the IDF raid to free him will turn out to have been conducted with extensive UK assistance.

Also the cover of the least street R&B album of 1991

From what I understand, it’s slow because along much of the route it uses legacy rights of way with level crossings. Brightline West will have all new grade-separated right of way, which will allow higher speeds.

Is it the case that the US fundamentally can’t do what, say, Spain and South Korea and Algeria have been able to, and that they have been able to do with, say, NASA, the military and numerous private corporate logistics systems, or just that they haven’t done it yet?

Once the US has one working world-class HSR line (probably Brightline West, or possibly CAHSR), the appetite for more lines will increase. HSR will have become something that is common for Americans to ride when not on holiday to Japan or Italian hilltop towns, and reflexively dismissing it as “it wouldn’t work here because we have too much (space/liberty/big cars)” won’t work anymore. New plans will be proposed (a midwest network connecting Chicago to Cleveland and St. Louis?) and old ones (such as the Texas one) dusted off. And the Canadians will notice and jump on the bandwagon (given that a big chunk of their population would be reached by a line from Detroit/Windsor to Quebec City makes it a no-brainer).

As Jamie Zawinski put it, it’s like a non-profit animal shelter setting up a sideline selling kitten meat to satisfy demands for hockey-stick growth. If somebody castigates them for it, they can point out that the demand for kitten deli slices didn’t going to go away, and if they didn’t sell them, someone else would step in and do it less humanely.

And if an app like Signal bypasses blocks, having it installed could become a crime.

Basil Wolverton was great. His cartoons had a horrible viscerality about them.

It’s a good thing that communist parties are immune to having sexual predators in their ranks.

Quality shitpost

Long bovid