This makes one of the “solutions” from the article: “A law was introduced at the end of 2023 that will eliminate the need for permits and environmental impact assessments for bridges that are being widened to add lanes as part of renovations.” look particularly shortsighted. Infrastructure is a maintenance debt that we are reckoning with, so we will make it easier to build specifically bigger infrastructure so that in 25 years we will have an even bigger problem to solve? Not to mention the concept of induced demand meaning that those lanes are going to increase the amount of vehicles using the bridge, which would be exactly the kind of thing that should get an environmental assessment, versus repurposing some lanes for sustainable transit or building a separate bridge for those modes

Low key convinced this started out as “monster hail” and then got butchered by an AI or like 5 Google translate passes

Buses and trains. That, or spaghetti interchange that are bigger than the rest of the city. Also, replace key arterial roads with a pedestrian path, call that path a park, and charge $20 for entry. That will easily fund all the city services and nobody will be too inconvenienced by having to pocket their car as they walk across the “park” to get between neighborhoods. Now excuse me, I have to go murder a little blue bird that won’t shut up about the garbage piling up

The monkeys paw curls, everyone now has to drive from the perspective of a back seat passenger looking over the driver’s shoulder

Ah yes, the “Boris Johnson gambit”

The story is told with hindsight after talking to the dad. Could be that the memory of being taught the secret language had faded and OP was genuinely curious why everything he was learning in Japanese class was so intuitive, like it was knowledge they already had, but could not remember where from (because they don’t think they’ve been exposed to Japanese before and don’t have enough conscious memory of the secret language lessons to make the connection, just enough in the subconscious to provide deja vu)

Congratulations, you now speak Khitan and only Khitan. Good luck finding one of the few researchers in the world who will understand that you are speaking an extinct language before being thrown in the looney bin for spouting nonsense Andreas Toma-style

Last one in Europe other than those two. Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, China, Mongolia, and North Korea all remain in Asia. None are likely to join NATO anytime soon. Georgia may be the most likely, but they have the same problem with outstanding Russian occupation that Ukraine has/had going into 2022. Azerbaijan is aligned with Turkey, who is a NATO member, but does not have contiguous borders with NATO. Kazakhstan has distanced itself from the Ukraine invasion, but is otherwise more similar to Belarus than Finland in terms of alignment. China and North Korea have nukes. Mongolia is up shit creek without a paddle hoping that China and Russia continue to rival each other enough to not want the other to expand into Mongolia really