XN: The Takeover

Published on: July 2nd, 2020 | Last updated: June 29, 2020 | Written by: Bad Guy Joe

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That New Tunnel Smell
If you’ve got magic access behind the Financial Time’s paywall, this article about Japan having some trouble completing a high speed rail tunnel might be interesting.

Sydney (Australia) is opening a new road tunnel that contains some super interesting visual displays.

Hell, even the former USSR nation of Georgia is doing better than the US when it comes to building new tunnels.

ACAB
For the foreseeable future, this newsletter will feature this new section…

…and here is an example why: For a short while, the NYPD was moving in the right direction on recruiting POCs as officers. That effort has fallen off a cliff, and their leadership has remained almost entirely white. The NYPD’s budget has swelled over the past two decades, while crime has dropped to unheard of levels. In fact, crime is so low that in order to make their quota, cops often have to frame people to make their monthly arrest requirements.

The NYPD’s rank and file officers have always had a very ‘us vs. them’ attitude. Add on a layer of whiteness, and causally referring to civilians as ‘savages’, and it’s a pretty ugly picture… Just this past weekend cops assaulted peaceful Pride marchers. (Speaking of which the stonewall uprising, and struggle for gay rights in America, began as a riot against against the police)

This week the city council will vote on a city budget that may include cuts to the NYPD. It is overdue. These cuts seem to be based largely on cutting overtime and shifting ‘school safety officer’ funding from NYPD to the DOE (which honestly doesn’t sound like enough: there shouldn’t be cops in our schools, regardless of who is paying them). We don’t need 36k officers, and we certainly do not need the 2000+ out on ‘modified duty’ for doing who-knows-what to civilians. Fire them.

And if cops are feeling ‘attacked’ here, they should realize their workload could become way more manageable via these defunding efforts. Legalizing weed would take away one less crime for them to worry about. Transferring the paperwork bullshit involved in car accidents or home break ins to some sort of enhanced 311 system would remove bullshit paperwork tasks that are a waste of an officers time. Creating a true homeless outreach organization instead of having this baked into the NYPD would remove one more non-violent thing for cops to have to deal with. In short: will there always been a need for some sort of police force? Probably. Does that police force need to be huge, required to arrest non criminals, and busy with bullshit paperwork vs. actual criminal investigations? Nope.

Meanwhile, Seattle cops are still trying to figure out how to reopen their bando police station… they seem only fixated on reopening it, instead of re-imagining it. So yeah fuck them.

ASS: Assorted Subway Shenanigans
The R32s will be running on the J and Z lines again on Wednesday, this after the absolute failure of the ‘new’ R-179 fleet. These new cars were built by Bombardier, and may well be the biggest lemons the NYCTA has ever purchased.

The MTA has put all major projects on hold. This is a very bad sign for the future of transit in NYC.

A SWARM OF SHORTIES
A huge hotel in White Plains will be a quasi-bando for a few months while it is renovated.

There’s a big administrative building bando in Dalton, GA that is begging for exploration.

Oversized basement or actual secret tunnels? Either way this is a neat underground mystery in El Paso.

Doomsday Bunkers are the new backyard must-have amenity. Too tame for you? Maybe you want to buy a submarine instead?

Could you drive from NYC to LA in under 26 hours? One man did, basically driving a 160mph rocket solo, with only massive extra fuel tanks to keep him company. This set a new record for the Cannonball Run, while ironically giving new meaning to the name. Covid-19 has resulted in some very empty roads, and daredevil drivers definitely took notice.

Bando BBQ
A big office bando near Atlantic City burned up last week.

An abandoned school in St. Louis suffered minor damage when it’s roof caught fire due to people shooting off fireworks.

A big industrial band in Sioux City Iowa got hit with some fire this past weekend.

International Update
Quarterly reminder that if you crack open the surface of North Korea, you might find the most robust underground living spaces anywhere on the planet.

Sounds like this European explorer stumbled upon a strange shipping theft in progress at a bando. Fuck a property crime, but also a good highlight that exploring can actually prevent crime, if you’re the goody goody two shoes sort.

The Canadian city of Guelph is going to demolish an abandoned recycling plant they built twenty years ago.

And that’s a Wrap:
It has been two months today since Garrett Goble’s death was ruled a homicide, and the NYPD appears to be no closer to arresting the perp responsible. This despite the subway system and city streets being covered in cameras, and the NYPD having a six billion dollar budget. Where is the justice for this hard working POC dad who gave his life saving others?

This case is such a huge metaphor for everything that is wrong with policing in NYC. They will deploy thousands of cops to go start fights in repressed communities but when it comes to solving a murder case—one that could also be argued as a case of terrorism—and these do nothing cops can’t catch the perp. The whole city is covered in cameras. The subways have cameras at nearly ever entrance… It’s not that they can’t find the person responsible—it’s that they’re not even trying. Reforming the police should include taking cops off the street and training actual detectives, to do the meticulous work of tracing a perps’ footprints to identify and arrest them.

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