Sure but every large city and many medium to small cities have mass transit via buses. Not technically trains but if we’re talking passenger mass transit it’s better than nothing. America isn’t really a developing country when it comes to passenger service, that sort of insults everyone. India is a developing country and they pack so deep onto trains that they ride the roofs and hang off the sides. America had a very large passenger network at one time, which downsized because of the publics adoption of automobiles. It’s very developed, you’re ignoring cities that have a metropolis rail system like LA, Philly, etc. The cities that tend to have none at all are southern cities that got built up in the last 50ish years once AC became common place (Texas.) Even then I think some of those communities are pushing for some passenger rail service.

Thing to remember is we’ll never have anything like Europes system because most European countries are the size of an American state. We have such vast distances between some major cities (new york to LA) that you can’t reasonably expect a passenger rail system.

And the precursors to the freight companies were often the railroad companies themselves who at one time offered passenger service until the services became unprofitable. Society killed mass passenger service. The government then bailed them out and created a subsidized passenger rail service, which the public widely mocked for decades, because car culture was king.

And while this was happening the more profitable sectors of passenger railroads in the USA (big city subways/trolleys and metropolis rail) were actually profitable and experienced a continued growth for the most part. Amtrak still has its problems but has achieved some success in these areas (east coast is better suited for passenger rail and sure enough Amtraks most popular lines are on the east coast.)

Good time slot. Decent writing. Good on screen talent (for the most part) surrounding Seinfeld which often helped to fill out the stories. Think of all the guest appearances over the years, lots of quality actors who all grew into their characters.

And its all about the kids bar mitzvah, which in reality does sometimes involve hiring a woman to bang the 13 year old kid to make him a man. What’s more disturbing is in some cases people allegedly use girls (below the age of consent) to do this.

Give it the old Jerry Seinfeld second try, remember you’re never too old to date a 17 year old!

Trains work great in the USA. We didn’t invent them but we’ve sure had our way with them.

• We have thousands of miles of track which ships millions of tons of freight every year.
• We have a system of moving passengers around the country which, while not perfect, still manages to function despite multiple alternatives.
• We have thousands of miles of commuter trains around metropolises that move people to the city and out of the city everyday.
• We have above ground light rail trolleys in some places, though not as many as we once had.
• We have multiple kinds of underground trains; ones that move people through subways and ones that move material out of mines.
• We even have trains that are purely for entertainment value, usually called heritage railroads or tourist trains.
• Oh and lots of airports have a small automatically controlled train that ferries passengers along the terminals.

I’ve seen people keep the wall mounted ones up even after they were no longer usable (these used “pulse” which was phased out around 2000 for “tone” which had been around for a while prior to that but for a decade or so you could chose to keep pulse.)

Yeah she was fun. Shame she didn’t do more stuff. I’d probably blow up my time machine and live with her instead of going back too.

That and the machine itself are the real star of the film. I came across some behind the scenes of the build years ago and it was impressive. The wood deck is all steel painted to look like wood. Since the spinning bits weighed a ton, acrylic and brass, they had to have it be secure. Even the geared computer (forget what it’s called… a baggage computer?) worked. Really impressive prop that doesn’t get enough love. Makes the Pal time machine look like a joke.

Don’t you know you’re suppose to wait till your 35 to date a 17 year old

The core problem is the source material is also boring. Aside from the motivation issues and the fact Wells never even bothers to name the Time Traveller, the whole plot is a bit slow. Sure, the morlocks eating people is creepy but it never manages to get to the horror level like how Jurassic Park or Jaws was able to achieve. You never really felt like they were going to sneak up behind you and slash you or tear you limb from limb.

The changes they made to the story helped: named the character, moved him to New York instead of London, gave him a deep motivation, even the morlocks had a more organized system that was more believable (hunted the Eloi and were controlled telepathically by Jeremy Irons.)

Maybe having more Irons in it would’ve helped but with the plot elements they had to work with it would’ve been tricky. The good thing is they didn’t drag it out, 90 minutes is the proper length. Nowadays they’d try to make it 2 1/2 and it’d be bogged down.

(2002) Time Machine with Guy Pierce and Jeremy Irons

Wasn’t a big hit when it came out and it’ll never be as iconic as the George Pal Time Machine from the 60’s. But the 2003 adaptation has the coolest looking time machine to come around in a while (at the time it was the most expensive prop ever built, might still be but I’m not sure.)

Critics shit on it for not having the cataclysmic event that destroys humanity be global warming. While I’m all for talking about global warming I can kind of understand why they didn’t use that and why they didn’t reuse the 60’s disaster of nuclear war.

But to be fair to the writers their choice to destroying humanity was original, kind of a tongue-in-cheek joke about the elderly crisis we’re currently entering into and the plan is in fact an idea that has been discussed before.

Aside from that the film is pretty solid. In the book by HG Wells and the 60’s film the Time Traveller (doesn’t even have a name) has zero motivation aside from achieving a new scientific advancement. Thats cool and all but modern audiences, having had several successful time travel stories since Wells time, do need a better eureka moment than that. The 2002 film provides a good and believable motivation.

The film also features a believable super-distant future where the human species splits, just like in the original stories. Samantha Mumba is a member of the tribe of humans that live above ground and are technologically ignorant, thought not exactly like the child-like race we see in the 60’s version. They do maintain that there are no old people and why that is.

Samantha Mumba did a great job in her role and while I don’t normally discuss a persons race the fact her father was Zambian and her mother Irish did kind of lean into what a future race of people could look like. She has a distinct look which played to the role.

Orlando Jones makes a couple appearances as a sort of AI librarian. It’s nice to see him in the odd movie role.

Jeremy Irons is the head morlock, the race of humans that stayed underground, and doesn’t disappoint, although his character is more of a cameo.

The film also had a good soundtrack and special effects that features the classic “years passing in seconds” stuff that was iconic from the 60’s film.

But ultimately the film is mostly forgotten to audiences.

Cue incidental music

Bop bop pow pow

Cut to commercial break

Nyet comrade, we have exactly as much humor as our dear leader has ordered us to have.

Monkey Putin deserves a crown for solving the Russian bot problem

So many members have contacted me to warn that LocalAreaMan is in fact a Russian shill.

Are you mad that your internet got disrupted this week?

So you feel like Vladimir Putin? The stupidest “man” in the history of the world.

Nevermind that it’s punishment this is used for and not rehabilitation.

Lots of time work programs for prisoners are used for rehabilitation.

No, slavery generally is considered forcing someone to work for free and the person is generally enslaved as a matter of prejudice: sometimes because their considered inferior by race, sometimes because they’ve been captured in war, sometimes because they are considered inferior for some other reason like belonging to a different tribe. Some slaves are born into slavery, but the prejudice that enslaved their parents tends to be why they themselves are considered slaves as well.

The key here is it’s forced upon them and they aren’t usually paid for it.

Prison labor doesn’t fit that description. For one thing they’re almost always paid, granted at a reduced rate but this is typically because a portion of their earnings are used to offset their costs (prisons aren’t free to operate.) A prisoner might be forced to work but many prison labor programs are voluntary, at least the better jobs require some amount of cooperation by the prisoner.

Finally, a prisoner has been imprisoned because they violated a law, a jury of their peers found them guilty of that crime and the judge believed a fair and equal punishment was to incarcerate the individual. Though not always perfect in the USA criminal court is designed to favor allowing a guilty person to go free if the evidence is lacking verse punishing a potentially innocent person-the so called 99% certainty rule. This is much different than how slaves were generally come by.