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Alon

@Alon@mastodon.social

I write about public transport and do research for NYU's Marron Institute. I've previously lived in Tel Aviv, Singapore, the Riviera, New York, Providence, Vancouver, Stockholm, Paris.

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Alon, to random
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It looks like 293-234-16. The NDA is relying on two regional parties for its majority, both of which are notorious alliance switchers: JD(U) by Bihar's chief minister for life, Nitish Kumar; and TDP by the corrupt N. Chandrababu Naidu. INDIA is reaching out to both, but both have said they'll attend the NDA meeting today. https://www.livemint.com/politics/news/elections-results-2024-yashwant-singh-asks-chandrababu-naidu-nitish-kumar-to-switch-to-india-bloc-nda-pm-modi-11717519502678.html https://www.thehindu.com/elections/lok-sabha/elections-results-2024-nitish-kumar-chandrababu-naidu-emerge-kingmakers/article68252063.ece

Alon, to random
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35 years ago, nothing happened in Beijing. Here's a serene photo of a city center attraction.

Alon, to random
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...275 seats for the NDA out of 543 is incredibly frustrating. A BJP landslide means it was not possible to do much about this; a BJP majority of seven seats means a slightly more competent Congress could have beaten them. This is not at all final - it's assigning who is leading in each constituency - but it looks like the maximally frustrating outcome: BJP still in power but INDIA could have won. https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/elections/results

Alon,
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296, fuck.

Alon,
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Can someone explain why Uttar Pradesh is left-shifting so much? I get what's going on in Maharashtra, where Shiv Sena joined the UPA for a change coalition excluding the BJP and then split over whether to stick to this or go back to the NDA, but what's the story in UP?

Alon,
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@Colinvparker I mean, INDIA didn't campaign optimally - for example, it's still running the Gandhi family as candidates. If the NDA did as well as it thought it would have done, then okay, whatever, getting non-nepotists wouldn't have gotten INDIA the victory. But if it's 290-253 then campaign effects matter.

Alon,
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@Colinvparker All the Indians I talk to (who, granted, are a middle-class bunch) and the analysts I read say that while the Mahatma and Nehru are loved, the modern Gandhi family is unpopular for its nepotism. Sonia Gandhi has to exercise power behind the scenes, because open influence by her is unpopular; one party, NCP, split from Congress (while remaining in the UPA and now INDIA) over this, and in 2004 she had to cede the prime minister's post to Manmohan Singh.

Alon,
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@Colinvparker The Gandhis are not at all like the Kennedys. To capture how nepotistic this is, imagine that Ted Kennedy were the Democrats' presidential nominee in 1980, 1984, and 1988, and then when Clinton won the Kennedy family picked the cabinet, and then Kathleen Kennedy Townsend were the nominee in the 2000s, etc.

Alon, to random
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The ANC lost its majority. https://x.com/AfricaElect/status/1797364111715524737

Alon, to random
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The Moral Economy of the Shire: https://nathangoldwag.wordpress.com/2024/05/31/the-moral-economy-of-the-shire/

VeroniqueB99, to random
@VeroniqueB99@mastodon.social avatar

"Never forget that it only takes one political, economic or religious crisis for women's rights to be put in jeopardy. Those rights are never to be taken for granted; you must remain vigilant throughout your life."
Simone de Beauvoir

Alon,
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@VeroniqueB99 In 1979, female literacy in Afghanistan was 5%. The picture from 1972 isn't showing you anything typical of the situation of women in that time and place. https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SE.ADT.LITR.FE.ZS?locations=AF

18+ gavi, to random

Calling to protest outside Hillel and demand it be removed from campus is antisemitic as fuck. What the fuck is wrong with people

Alon,
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@gavi How many people at the CUNY Jewish Antizionist Collective do we think are even Jewish?

Alon,
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@gavi The converts I know know what direction Hebrew is written in, at least?

Alon, to random
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Israel should show that it is the most moral country in the world and can convict not just a former leader but also a sitting one. Do us all proud, Supreme Court of Israel, and return a guilty verdict quickly.

jon, to random
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Welcome to today's thread - South East Europe Day 02 31 May 2024 - Tallinn - Lelle - Pärnu - Häädemeeste

Crossing these borders:
None – only crossing Estonia, getting close to Latvia

These borders on the borders map:
https://umap.openstreetmap.fr/en/map/crossborderrail-all-the-borders_935041#8/58.744/24.192

Today's routes on the routes map:
https://umap.openstreetmap.fr/en/map/crossborderrail-all-the-borders_935041#8/58.744/24.192

Alon,
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@DiegoBeghin @pony @jon It's not about absolute empty but relative empty. The LGV Sud-Est passes through a lot of nothing between a megacity and a metro area of 2.5 million. In that it's like Madrid-Zaragoza-Barcelona or Berlin-Hamburg or Berlin-Hanover - it's not about the absolute population density in between but about the relative density to the sizes of the cities at the ends.

Alon,
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@DiegoBeghin @pony @jon They do, but that's relative to the population density of other places in France, is the point.

Alon, to random
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Guilty. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/05/30/trump-hush-money-trial-live-updates-jury-deliberations/

ww3real, to random
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Amiti and Apak agree not to attack the Baghdad pocket frontally, but instead deepen the encirclement, deplete Iraqi and Iranian forces operationally, and compel a surrender.

Alon,
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@Truckasauruslex @ww3real For China and India, after this many military dead on both sides, nothing short of destruction of the other's ability to fight counts. In the Middle East... yeah, Israel and Turkey don't have the same aims, which is sometimes made explicit in the story.

Alon,
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@Truckasauruslex @ww3real The fight is in the periphery but it is not quite for the periphery; the tension is that if the Yangon perimeter is reduced, China does have the troops to crest over the mountains and attack Northeast India, which is why both sides care about a city that has way fewer troops than Bangkok did.

foxandcity, to random
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What Class 1s fear will happen if you run double stack freight cars under wire...

video/mp4

Alon,
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@foxandcity Where is this from? :D

wollman, to random
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We are told that it is very rare for languages to borrow "function words" -- fundamental grammatical role-players like pronouns, auxiliary verbs, prepositions, etc. Yet English is known to have done this ("they"/"them" is borrowed from Old Norse). In modern times, the Swedish gender-neutral pronoun "hen" is borrowed from Finnish, a language to which is it not even related.

I forget where this post was going. Any other examples?

Alon,
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@wollman Bound morphemes get borrowed: -er is a Latin suffix that got borrowed into proto-Germanic, -able got borrowed into English (but not German), pre- and post- got borrowed into English and are sometimes also used as prepositions...

Alon, to random
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The world has progressed past the need for Tablet to exist.

Alon, to random
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Pedestrian Observations: Scheduling Trains in New Jersey with the Gateway Project https://pedestrianobservations.com/2024/05/29/scheduling-trains-in-new-jersey-with-the-gateway-project/

Alon, to random
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I waited nine minutes, and it didn't look like I'd just missed the M10 tram. Do better, BVG.

Alon, to random
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Timetabling Northeast Corridor commuter and intercity trains in New Jersey is as close to a "God exists and is good" moment as possible. Local commuter trains, express commuter trains, and intercity trains... and they somehow all naturally overtake on the long six-track Linden-Rahway section.

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