US Political Discussion: Biden/Harris Edition (Rules in OP)

[ThePIGI King]

Maryland is not in New England... now I am confused.

Really? I've always been told it is...maybe that's because I'm from Ohio, and Ohio isn't really a part of the Midwest, but we get lumped in with all the states that are actually in the Midwest. We are more Appalachia, at least the part I'm from.

 

[spawnofthesith]

Well guys, lets lock this thread up. We won the culture wars, both sides together as a team

 

[spudmunkey]

Really? I've always been told it is...maybe that's because I'm from Ohio, and Ohio isn't really a part of the Midwest, but we get lumped in with all the states that are actually in the Midwest. We are more Appalachia, at least the part I'm from.

I think people conflate/equate "New England" with "13 Original American Colonies" in their mind.

Though the "midwest" thing is a bit of a mess, too.

 

[bostjan]

If MN is not in the midwest, where is it?!

 

[spudmunkey]

If MN is not in the midwest, where is it?!

"Great Lakes Region", or "America's Canada".

IMO "midwest" should roughly mean the central plains states.

 

[bostjan]

"Great Lakes Region", or "America's Canada".

IMO "midwest" should roughly mean the central plains states.

Being the westernmost state that could be called "Great Lakes Region," and the fact that probably nearly everyone would agree that Midwest overlaps the Great Lakes... or how if you look up Minnesota on wikipedia, the very first sentence is about how it is in the midwest... yeah, IDK.

 

[spawnofthesith]

Minnesota seems unquestionably midwest to me

now, why colorado, montana and wyoming were even polled to begin with is strange to me. That line is pretty solidly where "the west" begins. No mids here

 

[CTID]

When I lived in Boise, that whole region - Idaho, Montana, Colorado, Utah, etc was referred to by everyone as "Mountain West"

 

[ThePIGI King]

Minnesota seems unquestionably midwest to me

now, why colorado, montana and wyoming were even polled to begin with is strange to me. That line is pretty solidly where "the west" begins. No mids here

When I lived in Boise, that whole region - Idaho, Montana, Colorado, Utah, etc was referred to by everyone as "Mountain West"

This is on track with what I've always heard them called as well.

As for the "Great Lakes Region", Ohio needs to split up, because I don't want to be put into that category, but they can have the Cleveland-ers and Toledo-ans. I stand by MD being New England (may as well own my stupidity) and Ohio is either Midwest or Appalachia.

This is officially now the US Geography thread.

 

[Xaios]

As a Canuck, I've always found this mildly amusing. Sorry.

 

[spudmunkey]

"Midwest" makes a little more sense when you consider that it was coined in 1880 for the Kansas-Nebraska region.

This was the US in 1880:


3 decades later in 1910, those Great Lakes states, IA, MO, ND and SD were added.

This was the US in 1912 (AZ, NM, AK and HI were added after 1910)

 

[TedEH]

"America's Canada"

Is that a thing?

 

[CTID]

Is that a thing?

On an actual national categorization level? Not that I've ever heard. But I've definitely heard people refer to Wisconsinites and Minnesotans as "basically Canadian". I think it's the accents, mostly. And the snow.

 

[StevenC]

I read there were 7 people / cars who ended up in the water, but still a relative "count your blessings" moment compared to the alternative, I suppose.

And here we have an actual moment for the construction experts to shine - could a bridge like that ever really be expected to sustain a head-on collision from a cargo ship? I would have guess a bridge is typically designed to withstand certain kinds of extreme weather and some small impacts, but a cargo ship has got to be an unimaginable amount of force to sustain.

Not an expert, but my understanding is that generally modern bridges can be built to withstand such an impact, but it's generally prohibitively expensive. Instead bridges are protected by structures called "dolphins" which are meant to take the impact instead.

There was a similar accident with the Sunshine Skyway Bridge in Florida, and when rebuilding it they installed some big ass dolphins.

 

[DrewH]

I read there were 7 people / cars who ended up in the water, but still a relative "count your blessings" moment compared to the alternative, I suppose.

And here we have an actual moment for the construction experts to shine - could a bridge like that ever really be expected to sustain a head-on collision from a cargo ship? I would have guess a bridge is typically designed to withstand certain kinds of extreme weather and some small impacts, but a cargo ship has got to be an unimaginable amount of force to sustain.

The ship in Baltimore was 95,000 tons going at 9mph. In a blunt impact scenario, most bridges will not survive that. What designers do now is to eliminate the blunt impact scenario the best they can. If you look at a lot of new bridge foundations in areas with heavy boat/ship traffic, they are shaped to deflect ships to one side or the other. Example below. Sometimes a designer will actually set the bridge supports on an artificial island which is very soft compared to concrete and will easily absorb the impact of a ship that runs into it . As previously mentioned, there are the dolphin structures which can be placed as well.

 

[narad]

Jeez what the hell happened to this thread while I was asleep!?

So, despite all your protestations to the contrary, you're not actually arguing the intent of the bill is to create enough wiggle room for Florida to age-restrict sex education (as well as very likely trans rights for teens and preteens)? Instead, youre basically wagering that the federal checks and balances hold, and Florida isn't able to do what I believe they're trying to, not because I'm wrong and they're not trying, but because the federal government will stop them and federal rights will trump state rights on this issue? And the bet isn't on the actions of the Florida government, so much as the actions of the US government and US Supreme Court?

Just want to make sure I perfectly understand what the bet you're offering is.

Well we can't observe the true intent. And the bill is a reflection of many voices, and not a singular intent. I can't speak to why the bill is the way it is. But what I can speak to in a testable/verifiable way is what the actual implications for the bill will be, and what interpretations of the bill are likely to be allowed under the larger system of checks and balances.

But to clarify, I'm not necessarily wagering that a federal check is necessary. It can still be under the jurisdiction of state courts. The bet certainly isn't on the Florida legislature, simply that some where in the system of checks, starting with Florida courts and potentially moving up to the federal level, the future that people are trying to get mad about is not going to happen.

Then, apart from the legal issue, is the mere implementation of such a policy, which would be so extremely far reaching to be possible that it would involve a change in how every american citizen uses the internet. Forget net neutrality -- this would be like big-brother, the death of the entire spirit of the internet, death of end-to-end encryption. It's not really feasible at all in today's America. In China, yes. So you have to really ask what hill are Florida conservatives going to die on for minors to not be able to access sex education sites. We're going to transform America into the most over-reaching government in the west?

 

[narad]

Speaking of Baltimore and @DrewH , I used to volunteer in a program that helped "inner city" youths in Baltimore come to university to study science. Unpaid ;-)

 

[MetalDestroyer]

So in other current events, who had "P Diddy fleeing the country to avoid sex trafficking prison" on their 2024 bingo?

 

[narad]

Personally, I will never apologise to narad.

May I remind you sir of the fucking kamikaze headstock?

 

[TedEH]

It's not really feasible at all in today's America.

There's precedent that when some when random unfeasible-to-implement law exists in some part of the world, a website will just throw their hands up and block that location to avoid having to fight it. A good number of links that get posted in this thread need a workaround because they aren't visible from where I am. I'm pretty sure the ol 'hub is currently doing this to a number of states and countries that have been pushing for IDs. I assume because they know how bad an idea it is to actually implement the ID system, and because they know that the general public knows how to use VPNs at this point. While I don't think anyone is going to actually be able to accomlish blocking anyone meaningfully from raunchy internet stuff, I don't doubt that a fair number of politicians (and a fair number of conservative voters for that matter) don't understand the internet well enough to know that it's a poor choice of hill to die on.