I’m gonna leave this up because people are commenting on it, but IMO it’s borderline off-topic. This is an article about political corruption in Federal procurement, and only incidentally mentions cars because they happen to be the item being procured. Try to stick a little closer to “problems of car centric infrastructure or how it hurts us all” next time.
Edit: I just noticed that the person who posted this is the other mod, LOL. I guess we should have a chat to make sure we’re on the same page re: rule 4.
I dunno, there isn’t much more “fuck cars” than this particular “fuck these cars”. Thanks for leaving it up either way.
there isn’t much more “fuck cars” than this particular “fuck these cars”.
On the contrary, I believe that in a lot of cases (not necessarily this case, but others) trying to single out particular kinds of cars to oppose is a divide-and-conquer tactic by car-apologists. If they get us frothing about ‘swastikars’ (or, more often, ‘bro-dozers’) in particular, they distract us from e.g. the fact that all cars, even down to the humblest hatchback economy car, take up the same amount of space (1 parking space each) and thus contribute equally to things like driving demand for subsidized parking and wrecking walkability. I see the fuck cars movement as being about the detrimental effect car dependency has on urbanism, climate change, public health, etc. in a macro sense, not hate for cars as individual devices.
In other words, I think “particular ‘fuck these cars’” is 100% missing the point of “fuck cars.”
I hope this isn’t one of those instances where I 90% agree with you, but you’re gonna be angry with me over the 10% difference.
Aren’t parking spaces smaller in Europe than the US? There is value is having smaller cars.
To go farther into the 10%, there’s a lot of rural America that needs cars. It’s not practical to lay track literally everywhere. And Park n’ Rides are much, much more tolerable if the demand and use for them is much smaller. I don’t expect places like nowhere Ohio to give up their cars. I just want all towns to be more walkable, and I want the biggest transformation to be in the cities.
Aren’t parking spaces smaller in Europe than the US? There is value is having smaller cars.
Maybe, but if so, it’s only a marginal difference. First of all, keep in mind that you have to design spaces for the biggest cars (or at least the 90th percentile or something, excluding outliers), not the average. Second and more importantly, the big win for urbanism isn’t shaving a foot off the width of a space; it’s having fewer spaces to begin with. It’s also an issue of the proportion of people doing trips in cars vs. other modes, and things like that. If you’re building with the expectation that everybody is entitled to free and abundant parking at their destination, you’re going to destroy walkability regardless of whether they show up in Smart Cars or Suburbans.
To go farther into the 10%…
100% agreed with the whole paragraph. And that’s another reason why I think dog-piling about pickup trucks and other specific automobile makes/models/styles is unhelpful: it often gives ammunition for those special-snowflake types who really do need that kind of vehicle an excuse to claim their exception disproves the rule and dismiss us all as irrational truck-hating reactionaries instead of urbanists with legitimate concerns.
Wow, you’re an asshole. People post fucking images of text all the time, and you do nothing.
Someone posts a link to an actual on topic article from a credible source and you say you almost ban it.
How about actually cleaning up all the low effort crap posted here? That’s where you should be focusing your efforts.
You shouldn’t insult people doing volunteer work, period. You look like someone who’d scream at referees in children’s football games.
So you’re saying that’s frowned upon?
Not if you’re loud enough
So you’re saying skip the referees and scream directly at the children?
That’ll get Timmy to cover the damn goal, for once!
I’d be less upset if they were absent. But when they only abuse their job, they deserve to be called out.
Weigh down a vehicle who’s performance harshly degrades as weight is added, and put it on the battlefield when those batteries have a habit of catching fire.
WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG?!
I’m just hoping they don’t have to tow anything…
I do!
The sooner it is a shit show the sooner I get to laugh about it.
Who could have possibly foreseen this level of corruption happening?
I mean, other than anyone with 2 or more brain cells to rub together.
I mean, I expected corruption. I didn’t expect this level of corruption.
On the bright side, that 400m might not be worth much after they’re done with the economy. Wait… fuck.
In the future that would be the price of apartment rent per month.
That was naive of you.
Even my orange tabby cat could see it coming.
And it’s ORANGE!!
Hehehe I love tabbies. :D
Another handout for Musk. Not to mention all the repairs those pieces of trash will need.
Repairs? Hah! That’d be logical!
We know already these things are like rolling Chromebooks. Meant to be constructed cheaply, fall apart quickly, to get regularly thrown into a landfill and replaced as “service.”
…Then they try to turn around and do the whole greenwashed “EVs save the planet” marketing thing.
Oh, so kids don’t deserve an education but we need to blow money on obviously defective bullshit from the de facto president’s company.
That screenshot is fantastic. It captures multiple broken promises at once. The unbreakable windows work great and the starting price miraculously doubled.
This is it. Welcome to all-out, blatant oligarchy. Ready to donate your last food stamps so the State Department goons get to wear brand new swastika shirts?
Carl’s Jr. — Fuck you, I’m eating.
Oh jeez, just shove it into your face in front of everyone why don’t ya.
Fucking corrupt bastards.
Woah, hold up. I thought the government said All EVs are bad and we should stick to gas. Now Tesla EVs are okay? Oh, the hypocrisy! /s
I hate this timeline.
So we can’t have a consumer protection agency but we can spend half a billion on shitty cars
1 Billion stolen from the department of education.
half a billion in food/aid they refused to deliver that went bad.
half a billion to this fuck’s pocket.
Wait, I think we should add the first two to the total so it’s 2 Billion total to this fuck’s pocket.
… Because seriously where else would it be going?
They’re using the same math to define their wealth, so why the hell not!
The silver lining is that the deathtraps will end up killing cops
So that’s why they were cutting the budget. It’s so they could afford all these new cars.
Quid pro quo
Wow, what a stunning coincidence! The State Department, those champions of transparency and accountability, just happen to have an arms deal for $400 million worth of ‘armored’ Teslas from none other than Elon Musk. How convenient for the billionaire entrepreneur who’s been quietly gutting government agencies left and right. It’s not like he has a vested interest in lining his pockets with taxpayer dollars or anything.
Meanwhile, our so-called leaders are too busy patting themselves on the back for their ‘fiscal responsibility’ to notice the glaring favoritism at play here. The Cybertruck, that tech-savvy publicity stunt gone wrong, just happens to tick all the boxes for the feds’ needs. It’s like it was designed specifically with their corrupt wallets in mind.
Let’s be real folks, this ‘gift’ from Elon Musk is nothing more than a cash injection into his already overflowing bank account. The State Department’s official story is a thinly veiled attempt to whitewash the deal as some sort of public service. But we’re not buying it (pun intended). This is just another example of crony capitalism and corruption in action.
Is this a bailout?
