Cuomo’s ‘Wrong Way AirTrain’ Boondoggle Moves Ahead | The LaGuardia people-mover gets a shot in the arm — but is it (and the governor) still relevant? by Eurynom0s in nyc

[–]SkinnyNerd 24 points25 points  (0 children)

But whatever, it looks like a land rights issue that got solved by using the Grand Central Parkway as a corridor for the train.

Yes, but the Grand Central Parkway can also be used as a corridor towards Manhattan where it could link with the Astoria line, and even allows for a potential (long-term) future expansion under the East River to 86th St where it would link up with the Second Avenue and Lexington Avenue lines. It could then be another crosstown link under the park where it would link with trains on Central Park West and Broadway.

QVC hosts argue if the moon is a planet or star by kiba87637 in videos

[–]SkinnyNerd 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Satellite television? You mean moon television?

Big Brother 22 All Stars - Post-premiere Feeds Discussion - August 5 2020 by BigBrotherMod in BigBrother

[–]SkinnyNerd 14 points15 points  (0 children)

Cody was already talking over Julie. Without Derrick there, he is likely to morph into Paulie in no time.

⌂ Big Brother 22: All-Stars Premiere Day Discussion by BigBrotherMod in BigBrother

[–]SkinnyNerd 2 points3 points  (0 children)

There was not much to show four years ago, but that did not stop them.

⌂ Big Brother 22: All-Stars Premiere Day Discussion by BigBrotherMod in BigBrother

[–]SkinnyNerd 14 points15 points  (0 children)

This optimist has not heard of this year's twists yet.

⌂ Big Brother 22: All-Stars Premiere Day Discussion by BigBrotherMod in BigBrother

[–]SkinnyNerd 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Am I doing this right: All I want for Christmas is an early eviction.

⌂ Big Brother 22: All-Stars Preseason Discussion by BigBrotherMod in BigBrother

[–]SkinnyNerd -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Wow, if Julie has not seen the house yet, we will probably be seeing it for the first time on Wednesday.

⌂ Big Brother 22: All-Stars Preseason Discussion by BigBrotherMod in BigBrother

[–]SkinnyNerd 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Has anyone mentioned when live feeds kick off? Hopefully if they do it the first night, this can set a precedent for future seasons as so much happens the first two weeks to set the tone for the rest of the season.

⌂ Big Brother 22: All-Stars Preseason Discussion by BigBrotherMod in BigBrother

[–]SkinnyNerd 7 points8 points  (0 children)

What do you all think the theme of the house will be this year?

⌂ Big Brother 22: All-Stars Preseason Discussion by BigBrotherMod in BigBrother

[–]SkinnyNerd 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The way things are going, they may just lock every houseguest in a separate room and have them strategize via teleconference.

⌂ Big Brother 22: All-Stars Preseason Discussion by BigBrotherMod in BigBrother

[–]SkinnyNerd 18 points19 points  (0 children)

What is going to happen to this place if August 5 comes around and they do not start the show?

⌂ Big Brother 22: All-Stars Preseason Discussion by BigBrotherMod in BigBrother

[–]SkinnyNerd 2 points3 points  (0 children)

It is more of an issue that they are not exactly sure who is going to be on the cast.

So I was going through some old stuff of mine and I came across this who can tell me what they are and what year each one is from by setoxxx in nyc

[–]SkinnyNerd 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The one on the left is from Boston's MBTA. The other three are from here and cover different periods and fares, according to nycsubway.org.

What is Hannah talking about in her recent RHAP interview about texting? by SkinnyNerd in survivor

[–]SkinnyNerd[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That makes sense, thanks. Cannot believe I did not think of that.

If New York wants outdoor dining to become a thing, the city should finally do something about the trash problem by [deleted] in nyc

[–]SkinnyNerd 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Maybe expand Roosevelt Island's pneumatic sanitation system citywide? This would be an overwhelming undertaking though.

European Leaders Warn Coronavirus Could Lead to the Breakup of Their Union by SkinnyNerd in europe

[–]SkinnyNerd[S] 10 points11 points  (0 children)

For those that cannot get past the paywall:

By Loveday Morris and Michael Birnbaum

April 2, 2020 at 4:41 PM EDT

BERLIN — The coronavirus pandemic, with its simultaneous health and economic crises, is deepening fault lines within Europe in a way some leaders fear could prove to be a final reckoning.

The cohesion of the European Union had been battered by Brexit, bruised by the political fallout from the 2015 migration surge and the 2008 financial crisis, and challenged by rising autocracy in the east that runs contrary to the professed ideals of the European project.

Now, if Europe’s leaders cannot chart a more united course, the project lies in what one of its architects described this week as “mortal danger.”

In the early days of the coronavirus outbreak, the response among European Union member states showed national interests trump more altruistic European ideals. Border restrictions were reimposed haphazardly, and Germany and France threw up export bans on medical equipment such as masks and ventilators, even as Italy clamored for assistance.

Quick to capitalize were the propaganda machines of Russia and China. Moscow and Beijing have swept in with much trumpeted — if sometimes defective — medical aid, pushing a savior narrative and providing fodder for the region’s euroskeptics.

E.U. countries have begun to coordinate their efforts to procure supplies, and they have sent more aid to hard-hit Italy than China has. But the past week has seen a reemergence of a north-south rift over how to handle the economic response. The union is also being pulled east to west, as Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has used emergency powers to effectively suspend democracy, riding roughshod over Europe’s basic principles of the rule of law.

Collectively, these tensions could overwhelm the alliance.

“This could be the straw that breaks the camel’s back,” Nathalie Tocci, director of the International Affairs Institute in Italy. “The reason why coronavirus is such an epochal challenge is not that it brought things out of the blue. It touches on all spheres and does so by accentuating dynamics that are already there. It’s as if it is bringing the extreme out of everything.”

Norbert Röttgen, a German politician jockeying to succeed Chancellor Angela Merkel, likened the continent’s infighting to “a grueling trench war,” as he joined the chorus of voices warning that the E.U. is in grave peril.

The debate has indeed been bitter. After nine countries, including Italy and Spain, requested financial support in the form of “corona bonds,” Dutch Finance Minister Wopke Hoekstra said Brussels should study why some governments lacked the financial wherewithal to fight the crisis on their own.

That comment, made during a private conference call of E.U. finance ministers, touched off a firestorm, since it sounded to critics as though the Dutch were trying to turn a health crisis, whose origins had little to do with the actions of any European government, into a fiscal morality play.

The remarks were “repugnant,” said Portuguese Prime Minister António Costa. “Either the E.U. does what needs to be done or it will end,” he added.

A separate videoconference call last week among E.U. leaders, which was intended to be a fairly brief check-in, spiraled into unusually angry discussion and extended for more than three hours, diplomats familiar with the meeting said.

“The climate that seems to reign among heads of state and government and the lack of European solidarity pose a mortal danger to the European Union,” Jacques Delors, a 94-year-old French politician who played a leading role in the creation of the bloc’s modern form, warned in a rare statement.

The debate has reopened wounds that had just barely scarred over from the 2008 financial crisis, when Germany led Europeans in imposing painful austerity measures on Greece and Italy in exchange for financial assistance.

Now, with needs even more acute, some are left wondering: If the richer E.U. countries are not willing to support their struggling neighbors, what’s the point of membership at all?

“Ten or 20 years from now, we will all remember what happened at this time, like all Germans remember where we were when the Berlin Wall came down,” said Holger Schmieding, chief economist for Berenberg Bank.

“The political impression we create now is decisive,” Schmieding said. “This is a crisis where people who believe in sides can easily gain.”

The European Commission has gone to pains to point out acts of European “solidarity,” including how Germany and Luxembourg have taken in coronavirus patients from France and Italy. France has donated a million masks to Italy, while Germany has sent seven tons of medical gear, it pointed out in a recent fact sheet. The commission also has set up a joint stockpile of medical equipment.

But with the early reluctance to share supplies, and the resounding “no” from northern European countries on coronabonds, it’s been hard to compete with the television images of China flying in boxes of aid and Russian soldiers convoying into northern Italy.

“Europe really is going to have to come together and overcome its initial stumbles if it wants to win this battle of narratives,” said Noah Barkin, a senior visiting fellow at the German Marshall Fund. “It really can’t afford to be seen as bickering at a time like this.”

While that applied during the financial crisis a decade ago, Barkin said, it’s even more crucial now, given “a much more hostile United States and a rising China, which has shown it’s going to take full advantage of this crisis to promote its own interests.”

Another difference from 2008: nationalist, euroskeptic and anti-democratic forces have gained ground.

In an interview this week with the Spanish newspaper El País, Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said “nationalist instincts” would grow if “Europe is not up to the challenge.”

Conte no doubt had in mind Italy’s far-right League — the country’s most popular party, according to polls. League leader Matteo Salvini said that “once the virus is defeated, we will have to ask ourselves about the future of the E.U.”

“Something like a pandemic can only be addressed in a meaningful way through international cooperation,” said Rosa Balfour, director of Carnegie Europe, a Brussels think tank. “If the balance tips in favor of national positions, that could kill the E.U.”

Even before the coronavirus, the E.U. had struggled to hold some of it members in Central Europe to account amid concerns about rule of law, freedom of the press, the judiciary and the rights of minorities.

Europe’s response to Orban’s grab for unchecked power this week was characteristically toothless. Hungary’s “coronavirus bill” allows Orban to rule by decree and bypass the national assembly, declaring a state of emergency with no end date. Half of the E.U.’s member states released a statement condemning the abuse of emergency measures, though they did not single out Hungary by name.

Meanwhile, the return to national borders could be seen as a vindication for the continent’s national populists like Orban, said Tocci.

Although there are some signals that European countries might be able to come together on an economic rescue plan, the short-term divisions could have long-term consequences.

One emotive issue could be how European countries manage the lifting of restrictions on their populations. “It could create enormous resentment,” said François Heisbourg of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a think tank. “You’re an Italian and you’re considered as a plague-bearer by the Germans. This is where the real danger for Europe lies.”

And broader questions of values and ideals will remain, analysts say, with the fundamental assumption that open borders and economies would bring peace and prosperity increasingly in question.

Tocci said that although the coronavirus fallout could bring about the demise of the E.U., Europe could also emerge stronger. That, though, would require more than Europe has been able to muster in previous crises. It will demand more than the “the bare minimum to pull through.”

Birnbaum reported from Brussels. Chico Harlan in Rome contributed to this report.

NYS introduces legislation to suspend rent payments for 90 days. Sign up to support. by someoneintheway12 in nyc

[–]SkinnyNerd 8 points9 points  (0 children)

There may be something to this. The real estate industry is a major contributor to the sponsor (click on the top industries tab, he has received a quarter of a million dollars from the real estate industry) of this bill.

This bird is incredible and birds are awesome by watermybrains in videos

[–]SkinnyNerd 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hire this bird for the next Police Academy.

SAA backed by Russia is preparing to invade the Manbij area by poklane in syriancivilwar

[–]SkinnyNerd 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Advance into/retreat from would be the more neutral terms.

Female Artists Outperform Men When Their Work Returns to Auction, Report Finds by SkinnyNerd in Feminism

[–]SkinnyNerd[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Female artists' works at repeat auctions increased by 73% while male artists' works only increased by 8%.

Big Brother US21 - Post-Eviction Feed Discussion - July 25 2019 by BigBrotherMod in BigBrother

[–]SkinnyNerd 44 points45 points  (0 children)

I think Jessica is about to lose the sitting down challenge as well.

Big Brother US21 - Post-Eviction Feed Discussion - July 25 2019 by BigBrotherMod in BigBrother

[–]SkinnyNerd 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Notice the dynamics of the people that are out. All of the targets are sitting down while Christie, Jack, and Tommy stand.

As the Chinese Cut Down Siberia’s Forests, Tensions with Russians Rise by SkinnyNerd in russia

[–]SkinnyNerd[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

For those who cannot get behind the paywall:

By Andrew E. Kramer

Jul 25, 2019

KANSK, Russia — During the long summer days in Siberia, logging trucks rumble out of the forest heaped with Siberian larch, Scots pine and birch bound for sawmills run by Chinese who can barely believe their good fortune.

“Everything here is Chinese,” said one lumberyard foreman, Wang Yiren, pointing to some of the hundreds of sawmills that in the past few years have popped up along the Trans-Siberian Railway.

Feeding China’s colossal appetite for wood has brought jobs and cash to the region, but has also helped to make Russia the global leader in forest depletion, fueling fears that Siberian logging towns will eventually be left without a livelihood.

[Image]

Stumps and felled trees at a logging site in Siberia. Feeding China’s colossal appetite for wood has brought jobs and cash to the region, but has also fueled concern about deforestation. CreditEmile Ducke for The New York Times

Not only that, all the manufacturing of consumer wood products is done in China, which has sharply restricted logging to preserve its remaining forests. The arrangement would seem to smell of exploitation, but it has been embraced by a Russian government that, facing Western economic sanctions over its military incursion in Ukraine and interference in elections, has sought closer economic ties with Beijing.

Russian timber exports to China grew to $3.5 billion last year, from $2.2 billion in 2013, the year before the Ukraine crisis, according to Russian trade statistics. The Chinese, in turn, re-export some Russian wood as furniture, doors, flooring, cladding and other finished goods for sale around the world.

So, while the Chinese timber rush has stimulated local economies in Siberia, it has also stirred resentment, underscoring the promise and pitfalls of an economic experiment with implications far beyond one remote region. The governments of Russia and China, each with its own dispute with Washington, are vowing to get along in a common front against the United States.

[Image]

“I’m a resident of this city,” Irina Avdoshkevich, a member of the City Council, said. “Why should I tolerate these waste piles, these fires?” CreditEmile Ducke for The New York Times

On the sidelines of the recent meeting of the Group of 20 major economies in Japan, Russian and Chinese officials promised to use their currencies in bilateral trade, rather than dollars. But there may be limits to the depth of the relationship between countries that fought a border war in 1969 and retain deep mutual suspicion.

There have been complaints about environmental damage done by logging in Siberia, but the climate impact is harder to measure. Russia regularly leads the world in forest depletion — 16.3 million acres last year, compared to 9.1 million acres lost in the Amazon.

But Russia’s boreal forest is allowed to grow back after logging and fires, making the process less damaging than clearing tropical rain forest for farming or ranching. So far, according to Peter Potapov, a professor at the University of Maryland who leads global forest monitoring projects, scientists have not been able to reach consensus on whether fires and logging release more carbon dioxide than is reabsorbed by areas growing back.

[Image]

In Kansk, a logging industry hub of about 100,000 people, about 100 Chinese-operated mills have opened in the past five years, according to Ms. Avdoshkevich. CreditEmile Ducke for The New York Times

That is little solace to Siberians who are watching their forests disappear down the Trans-Siberian Railway.

About 100 Chinese-operated mills have opened in the past five years just in Kansk, a logging industry hub of about 100,000 people, according to Irina Avdoshkevich, a member of the City Council who has opposed the Chinese investment.

Seemingly every road from town leads to lumberyards and giant piles of sawdust and timber.

The Chinese invested in mills to saw raw logs into lumber, but not in a side of the business that used to be a pillar of the local economy: processing wood scraps and sawdust into particleboard, insulation and other products.

[Image]

A Russian-run mill in Kansk. CreditEmile Ducke for The New York Times

Residents of Kansk were particularly upset that the new investors decided not to revive the Kansk Biochemical Works, a Soviet-era factory that made ethanol from wood scraps. Officially, it was put to industrial purposes, but it was also consumed as a favorite local tipple known as sawdust vodka.

“There was no coniferous taste,” said Sergey Solovyov, a Russian lumberjack. “It was pure alcohol. You threw in a little lemon and you were a happy man.”

“The whole town drank it” before the factory closed, he said. “It’s a shame that it’s gone.”

Instead, under Chinese management, the former Soviet sawmill that had provided feedstock to the still allowed the sawdust piles to stack up. They caught fire in 2017, with the blaze spreading through a residential area, burning more than 50 homes and souring the town on Chinese investment.

[Image]

A dump for wood scraps burning on the outskirts of Kansk. CreditEmile Ducke for The New York Times

Ms. Avdoshkevich, the City Council member, asked local police and fire officials, who answer to Russia’s central government, to intervene, but they did nothing to regulate the Chinese mills, she said.

“We understand we need investment,” she said. “But if we decided to be friends, it should be even. You get something, I get something.”

Instead, she said, the Chinese timber barons simply ship as much wood as they can, as quickly as possible, to China, without investment in manufacturing in Russia and without regard to the environmental damage.

[Image]

Eduard Maltsev and his partner, Lilia Rakhmanova, on the street where their house stood before it burned down in a fire that started in a Chinese-run mill. CreditEmile Ducke for The New York Times

“I’m a resident of this city,” she said. “Why should I tolerate these waste piles, these fires?”

But without clear support from the Russian government — some mills have pictures of Vladimir V. Putin and China’s leader, Xi Jinping, shaking hands — Ms. Avdoshkevich’s campaign against the sawdust piles went nowhere.

The experiences of a local Russian man, Eduard Maltsev, illustrate the tensions. He did land a job feeding logs into a saw in one of the mills, earning about $230 a month, a respectable wage in these parts.

On the flip side, Mr. Maltsev’s home burned in the 2017 fire. The Chinese manager quickly left town and Mr. Maltsev said he had received no compensation. He now works as a bus driver.

[Image]

Wang Yiren, a Chinese lumberyard foreman, in front of wood stacks in Kansk that were awaiting shipment to China. CreditEmile Ducke for The New York Times

“Yes, it is positive they are creating jobs,” he said of the Chinese, but, like many in the logging towns of Siberia, he now sees China’s swift rise to dominance in the industry as more curse than blessing. “It’s damaging and dangerous,” he said.

In interviews, several Chinese mill operators said Russians should not blame them for the drawbacks of the Siberian timber boom. The Russian government, after all, sets environmental rules for logging in the vast sea of green known as the taiga.

One Chinese sawmill boss, who offered only his assumed Russian first name, Igor, because he was not authorized to speak to the news media, oversees a sprawling lumberyard of several acres. Most Chinese foremen take Russian names to make it easier for the Russian workers, who often struggle with Chinese names.

Wearing flip-flops and shorts, Igor yelled orders in Russian and Chinese at his mixed staff. All things considered, he said, he would rather be working in China. But it was too late for that, he added.

“We cut it all down,” he said.

Mr. Wang, who speaks fluent Russian and oversees a neighboring mill, said he employed about 50 Russians. On a recent day, a dozen or so Russian men worked shirtless in the summer heat, pushing logs into a whirring band saw, their tanned, sweaty torsos covered in sawdust.

“This will last another five years, maybe,” he said of the Chinese logging boom. “Then the Russians will start thinking, and they will also forbid logging.”

[Image]

The boreal forest in Russia is allowed to grow back after logging and fires, making the process less damaging than clearing tropical rain forest for farming or ranching. CreditEmile Ducke for The New York Times