It looks like you’re about to get ratioed. Would you like help with that?

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Apologize to Hilldawg

https://twitter.com/wajahatali/status/1323987404726947842

PodJon would like you to keep your thoughts to yourself

https://twitter.com/rrvdsa/status/1324040619325640706

“Phony economic theory”

https://twitter.com/drjasonjohnson/status/1324193961431470085

Some Takeaways From Abby

https://twitter.com/huntsmanabby/status/1324175401246023680

You Gotta Feel For Trump

https://twitter.com/joyannreid/status/1324598153740492800

It’s time to Come Together

https://twitter.com/plakov/status/1324841572698042378

https://twitter.com/maxblumenthal/status/1324600589741887488?s=21

“Illinoisans For Independent Work”

https://twitter.com/catrsharp/status/1324262316326723586

https://twitter.com/adamjohnsonnyc/status/1324936752285556736

Claire McCaskill’s thoughts

https://twitter.com/tonykchoi/status/1324208890729431041

https://twitter.com/byyourlogic/status/1324236439496859649

https://twitter.com/adamjohnsonNYC/status/1083105661024681984

Joe Biden Will Destroy Northern Ireland

https://twitter.com/TPointUK/status/1325093400920649728

The Short Hotdog

https://twitter.com/jplur_/status/1323709818285314055?s=21

We preview the 2020 Election. Also, beans.

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Lincoln Project follow up

https://twitter.com/mlcalderone/status/1321049144320995329

Uh…. thanks, Scott?

https://twitter.com/profgalloway/status/1321433036093870080

The Media Bias Chart™

https://twitter.com/vlotero/status/1317212659175976961

Noshing on a smack barm pey wet, thinking about TaB.

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British Trump

https://twitter.com/besf0rt/status/1316459325150425088?s=21

The Economist’s description of a cheesesteak

https://twitter.com/rw_briggs/status/1317126412793311232

The Boring Company

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1316258179689443328

The Lincoln Project

https://twitter.com/rpyers/status/1316359719225749506

https://twitter.com/sawyerhackett/status/1316413492061261825

Voting: It’s Just Like Concerts

https://twitter.com/asymmetricinfo/status/1316770240475398145

https://twitter.com/asymmetricinfo/status/1316770586530545664?s=20

Only boxcars are good, all other freight sucks.

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Today Andrew is joined by Friend of the Show Liz to discuss rail freight transport, and other, lesser, forms of freight transport.

This is the first of a new format of special bonus “Pop Off” episodes that will be premiering first on Patreon, so support Goodstuff today to get new episodes as soon as they come out!

Allows for “intermodal” transport, but almost always requires trucks for the last mile (the drayage portion). Also requires cranes or other specialized lifting equipment.

Also requires trucks for the last mile, and also requires cranes or other lifting equipment. Trailer-on-flatcar also wastes space relative to a roadrailer or containerized freight. The space between the trailer and flatcar is essentially unused. Double-stack intermodal container cars use this entire space. On roadrailers, this space is just the usual space under the railcar that is not typically used.

Requires trucks for the last mile, but, crucially, requires minimal special equipment. Trailers can be driven right into the yard and connected to bogies.

However, roadrailer trailers are considerably heavier than conventional semi trailers because they must bear the weight of an entire train. This concept is dying out anyway.

Boxcars are the classic, and they kind of got it right. Can be delivered by rail to the end customer (assuming they have a spur). Doors on each side allow for easy loading and unloading. No need for specialized lifting equipment. Can be shuttled around easily with a railcar mover (which is comparable to a yard truck or some forklifts).

Boxcars must be loaded and unloaded and are not really intermodal. This is a process called “break bulk” freight and it is out of fashion because of how inefficient it is considered versus loading an intermodal container from a ship directly onto a truck or train, which requires no unloading of any kind.

For some uses, especially of bulk cargo, containers remain unpopular, because they simply don’t make as much sense. It’s much easier to use tank cars to transport liquids or gas than containerized tanks (which exist, but are needlessly complex), and transporting bulk materials like rock or coal, etc., rarely requires containerization, and can go into specialized hopper or gondola cars.

One of the great things about rail freight, though, is the variety of cars that can be used to transport goods. These include:

And all of these can be combined in any combination on a single train and hauled with only a few locomotives. Rail freight transport is often far more efficient than truck haulage. The longest train ever, an iron ore train ran by BHP Billton in Australia, had a weight of 99,734 metric tons, hauling 82,000 tonnes of ore in 682 cars along 7.3 km. It used 8 locomotives, with a total power of 35,200 hp. This would equivalently require 4,017 semi trucks with a required 2,048,670 hp. Imagine the fuel consumption difference.

Long trains in the US can reach about 2.29 miles across 180 cars, typically hauled by 4 locomotives.

UP Shuts Down Cold Connect - Railway Age

Staggers Act Lessons Remain Relevant in 2020 - Railway Age

Well There’s Your Problem - Episode 7: Lac-Megantic - YouTube

Just want to be curled up on the couch reading about camcorders.

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PodJons On Quibi

https://twitter.com/TVietor08/status/1308101904933638145?s=20

https://twitter.com/tvietor08/status/1308122598773907456

https://twitter.com/bjorlax_/status/1309618761767419904

https://twitter.com/sivasiann/status/1309680087122554880

Environmentalists plan lawsuit challenging Newsom over gas drilling - Los Angeles Times

Newsom during his first year in office vowed to protect Californians against the hazards of oil and gas production, but environmental groups have grown increasingly frustrated with what they consider a lack of consequential action.

Siegel and other environmental advocates also criticized Newsom for allowing the California Geologic Energy Management Division, known as CalGEM, to issue close to 50 new hydraulic fracturing permits to Chevron and Aera Energy, a partnership of Shell Oil and ExxonMobil, since April.

The permits were issued after a November announcement by Newsom that he would temporarily block new hydraulic fracturing permits until those projects could be reviewed by an independent panel of scientists at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

California oil: Companies profit from illegal spills; the state lets them

One Chevron spill has been running since 2003, and is bigger than the 1989 Exxon Valdez tanker disaster. In the last three years alone, the crude collected from it has generated an estimated $11.6 million, according to an analysis of data provided by the state.

Clean Air for All (millionaires who can afford it)

He had installed a state-of-the-art ventilation system for energy efficiency, but it also kept fresh filtered air moving through the building. Something clicked. “My late wife looked at me and said, ‘Truly, the greatest luxury in life is your health.’”

The house sold for more than $13 million, and Malin began marketing air as a health-and-wellness amenity, the same way builders of yore pitched hot tubs or home gyms.

Malin was early, but the world is catching up. Increasingly, the atmosphere is palpably dangerous. California is burning through the grand finale of its worst fire decade on record, with smoke clouds choking most of the state for much of the last month. The next decade is likely to be worse, as climate change steadily cooks the West Coast. A deadly pandemic is lingering in the air, keeping people cooped up at home, or anxiously thinking about aerosols and air flow whenever they venture outdoors.

For buyers at the upper reaches of the real estate market, peace of mind can be purchased in the form of deluxe air filtration systems that keep the world at bay.

Absolutely destroying my teeth on a caramel apple.

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Brain Genius Scott Adams

https://twitter.com/scottadamssays/status/1303672781930811392?s=21

https://twitter.com/scottadamssays/status/1303301975451213825?s=21

https://twitter.com/MichaelCoudrey/status/1306718229151145984

https://mobile.twitter.com/hip_soccer_mom/status/1307154987949207552

Nature is an asset. That we can financialize.

https://twitter.com/bjmbraun/status/1303337513453527041

Callback to S01E01 where Dianne Fienstein turned away sunrise movement kids

https://twitter.com/SenFeinstein/status/1306639321810849792

Don’t worry, there’s some good stuff in this episode too.

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What’s the worst twitter account?

Stop Personifying The Year Challenge 2020

Smith’s main grievance against unions is that organized labor is, in itself, a political act, something that institutions like the Times avoid like the plague lest someone accuse them of “bias.” Smith in particular picks at recent support for unions (including the one he had such doubts about at BuzzFeed) by popular progressive politicians like Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, as well as the NewsGuild’s request for public stimulus funding for recession-plagued journalists. To drive this point home, he quotes Peter Baker, the Times’ White House Correspondent who is so psychotically horny for objectivity that he doesn’t even vote. The thing that Smith and his boss Dean Baquet obstinately refuse to recognize is that sustaining the illusion of objectivity people like Baker clearly yank it to on a nightly basis is really only possible for people like Baker who work at institutions like the Times. The rest of us work in the real world, where bad-faith critics will always assume you’re biased no matter how many Midwestern rest-stop diners you interview. The only way to combat this is not through both-sidesing and hedging, but by being open and honest about biases in reporting and striving above all for fairness, not balance.

Hyped for Honbatz.

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https://twitter.com/RAILMag/status/1296442322310365190

It’s Keyboard Opening Time! Also, we joined the KHive.

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The pundits have thoughts

https://twitter.com/aliceavizandum/status/1294426568350142464

Jeff Stein curating posts from r/unemployment

https://twitter.com/JStein_WaPo/status/1293354767419310080

Thinking about the stupendous crisis that awaits us.

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Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti on Sunday said L.A. opened too quickly and again warned that the city was close to imposing some type of new stay-at-home order as coronavirus cases continued to spike.

Speaking on CNN, Garcetti was asked about a Los Angeles Times editorial that criticized the rapid reopening of California, which was followed by a major surge in both new COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations.

“I think a lot of people don’t understand, mayors often have no control what opens up and doesn’t — that’s either at a state or county level,” Garcetti said. “And I do agree that those things happened too quickly.”

Just pretending to be federal agents now

https://twitter.com/kalhanr/status/1291807199292010496

More tax-advantaged savings accounts!

https://twitter.com/garybham/status/1290999316543344642

They’ve got their eye on the ball