That should put paid to the myth that Trump is 'the antidote to all the wars'.
I always thought that the argument 'no wars were started during his presidency' was bullshit.
He was educated. Didn't make him smart.
I'd say the entire Abbott/Turnbull/Morrison trifecta was terrible.
Abbott was definitely out of his depth as PM, he never stopped being the leader of the opposition and was always pugilistic, impulsive and didn't think things through. He promised stable leadership but didn't have his party under enough control to ensure it - probably because he sort of skated into the role because those who the party actually wanted didn't make it. He got into power on the back of a campaign focused on debt and deficit, but had no policies to address it and I don't think he ever intended to. He played his pet issues but was aggressively ineffective at everything else.
Turnbull was a devastating disappointment. Hated by his own party, only used as a more popular and sensible replacement for the ousted Abbott, but never having any party backing for his agenda. I'd say he flamed out, but he was never even on fire. Reneged on his promises and ambitions for fear of reprisals from his party - a spineless creature whose years in power were an absolute waste and a net loss for the country.
And then of course Morrison. A sociopath who bradbury'd into the role because enough people in the party room had the self-awareness to realise Dutton as party leader would be a disaster. Obviously Morrison schemed his way through that entire leadership crisis and lied whenever he opened his mouth, not least when professing his support for the embattled Turnbull. He was probably the most useless PM, out of the country in times of crisis and actively refusing to show leadership. Not to mention the shameful mishandling of the pandemic.
Collectively these three set back social, economic and political development in this country back by at least a decade. We're all worse off thanks to the nine years of having these three clowns in power.
Howard was to Australia what Thatcher was to the UK and Reagan to the US. He ushered in neoliberalism and set the Liberal Party on an accelerated course towards right wing christian fundamentalism.
Riva TNT 16MB, brand name Elsa, card called Erazor.
Good on this kid for going to such lengths to verify his hypothesis and show a serious weakness in railway infrastructure. I hope he goes on to become a serious railway enthusiast and advocate for safe, efficient rail.
However, there are way too many factors in the number of derailments and safety incidents in US rail operations to pin them down to this one issue. Once the major operators embarked on a journey to squeeze more and more money out of the business, a lot of things happened. Trains became longer - excessively so. Used to be that a train 1.4 miles long was considered massive. These days they are the norm. Can you imagine a train so long that, in hilly terrain, sections of it are being dragged uphill while other sections are pushing downhill?
Reductions in staff, motive power fleets and maintenance have led to trains being badly composed, with loads being distributed in a less than optimal way. An old railway man once told me that the only time he broke a train was when he, in a rush and under pressure, agreed to attach a rake of fully loaded freight cars to the end of a train of empties. Unequal load distribution played a role in a number major derailment incidents, among them a derailment in Hyndman, PA, which required the town to be evacuated for several days.
ProPublica have a series of articles regarding rail safety, and specifically one about the dangers of long trains. So while the worn out springs certainly don't help, they are only one of many things that are impacting rail safety, and probably not even the lowest hanging fruit.
That's nice, but how does that help people who, to this day, can't get any 'NBN' other than satellite?
By that token, I would also recommend the one-season X-Files spin-off 'The Lone Gunmen'. It can come across as a bit hokey for the first few episodes, but they found their pace and it became really enjoyable. I don't think it was ever meant to be more than a single - and, by then-current standards, short - season but I really enjoyed it. The show blended the comic relief of the three geeks from the main series with some more serious storytelling and even had an episode with a plot that resembled a later real-life world-changing event.
Devil's advocacy is supposed to be, ultimately, constructive to the discussion. If that's what you're doing, then good on you. A lot of people just do it to throw a spanner in the works.
The only thing worse than people misusing the term 'enshittification' are people who criticise that but can't be bothered to get their facts straight.
No, it's not a meaningless buzzword. And no, it was not made up by nostalgic millennials. It would have taken you a mere minute of online research to figure that out yourself.
'Playing Devil's advocate'.
Mostly because most people who use it do so in glaringly wrong ways.
Actually, he seems to be a guy who's just gallivanting all over the world and posting about it on social media, while others are doing the hard work.
Then again, all I have to go by is his LinkedIn profile...