So, over the next few years, it is planned to more than double the capacity of Dublin's commuter rail network. Pretty much all of the commuter rail network meets at Connolly station (closest thing Dublin has to a central station; for historical reasons it kind of has two barely-connected ones), which has only three through platforms and is already overloaded at peak times. Worryingly, no-one has even started talking about upgrading Connolly yet. The commuter rail network upgrade is split into four largely concurrent stages, and none of them _on their own_ are likely to break anything, but when they're all done it seems completely impossible that Connolly could cope.
There are worse things than expensively and slowly upgrading a station. Such as not doing that even though it will obviously be needed by, at latest, 2028 or so.
(I _think_ maybe Irish Rail's rationale is that people on the western and south-western commuter lines will transfer to Metrolink a few stations before Connolly, but see above; Metrolink stubbornly persists in not existing.)
To be clear, thus far that cost is _before anything is built_ (except for one station box which will not now be used because it's in the wrong place for the current design). It does look like it will finally go ahead now, but it had been a long, long road to get there.
i’ve observed with trepidation how terribly ireland has been run in the last 5 years or so. that’s when i’ve been on the ground. with that experience it’s easy to understand why the country is the way it is and will remain so for the foreseeable future. in private conversations, i’ve lamented with rigorous arguments based on both the history of the island, their hatred for the english, the number one priority of their struggle for independence (ie for the expulsion of the english and not a maturity into statehood), etc.
ireland, like all independent african states, doesn’t know what statehood is, its people (aka elite) not practiced in statecraft. but its the configuration of the world that they also get a god-given right to atrociously run and mismanage some god-given resources. it’s a terrible thing to experience from within. a nightmare!
cont: compare the speeches and comments of other leaders at the just ended wef summit to the comments of the irish prime minister at the same summit. it’s as if ireland is insulated from the threats facing europe. we’re not, but that’s how oblivious and non-chalant our first citizen is. it’s heartbreaking to watch.
Strictly speaking, their existence was verified by Sputnik 2 (though the Soviets only released data on it after the fact, corroborating data from Explorer 1), so if you have a highly _specific_ conspiracy theory, around NASA rather than space stuff in general, that _could_ still work, I suppose?
No, because the Soviets have to in on faking the moon landing. They were also landing a spacecraft at the same time as the landings. To fake the moon landing you'd also have to fake the entire cold war.
Wouldn't it be great for the US and the USSR if most of the cold war was fake?
Both sides get a great boogie man to denounce. Save a bunch of money on arms if they're mostly fake. Once you learn about the Van Allen Belt, you call over on the red phone and say hey guys, we know we can't send people, but think about the ratings? Maybe we send you a case of Pepsi and we're good?
What if large wars are coordinated by the rulers of opposing sides with the purpose of killing off as many of their own young men as possible - thus reducing the threat of an uprising?
It's disappointingly difficult to get a positive case for what happened from deniers, that attempts to explain these things. Very eager to tell you what didn't happen, though.
Netanyahu has wanted to do this for decades. If you rob a bank, you don't get to say "oh, well, my crazy friend down the pub has been saying we should rob a bank for ages, and I suddenly decided he was right"; you do have some personal responsibility.
Sidenote; there's this weird thing that people sometimes do wrt to Trump (and I think it's both his supporters and detractors to an extent) where they kind of treat him as if he's without agency, and stuff is just happening to him. I think it might be a kind of subconscious response to him being old and coming across as a bit senile, but it is nonsensical.
This happens with Dublin (capital of Ireland), as well. Half the country outside Dublin seems to think it's pretty much a warzone, based on internet nonsense.
Not sure what can be done about any of this, beyond people _hopefully_ getting more sceptical about random crap they see on the internet (my vague feeling is that unquestioningly believing crap on the internet is primarily an older-person thing).
What I’m curious about is, how are Trump’s fans justifying this complete fuck-up to themselves? _Are_ they? Like, I assume so, because they tend to take whatever shit they’re given, but it’s hard to imagine a “this is good, actually” spin in this one.
No justification is necessary. Their goal for voting for him was to give a big “fuck you” to “the libs”. So they already got what they wanted. Any downsides can be blamed on “leftists”.
I flatly refuse to believe that people will vote for _JD Vance_. Trump, like him or loathe him (I’d be firmly in the ‘loathe’ camp) has a style/personality which is appealing to some people. Vance, by contrast, is a non-entity.
Also, generally, very, very, VERY slow. The massive fines you hear about are usually for behaviour _years_ ago.
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