In 1824, a man called Vallance took out a patent and built a short demonstration line; his system consisted of a 6-foot (1.8 m) diameter cast-iron tube with rails cast in to the lower part; the vehicle was the full size of the tube, and bear skin was used to seal the annular space.

Back in the days before vulcanized rubber and plastics if you wanted to make a somewhat air tight seal you had to soak an animal skin in fat. With the amount of pressure you need to move a train, you need a pretty big and durable animal skin.

Same to you!

what do you suppose the Taliban would have done to those same people and more if the US had not pulled out when Trump told them we would?

I don’t really think slowing down a pull out a few weeks or even months would really upset the Taliban anymore than what we had already done, I mean we’ve been there for more than a decade.

The point would be that it would have given more time for people to make their way to the airbase, and for more than just a couple airplanes full of people evacuate.

The only reason the Taliban was able to capture Kabul so quickly is because they and the security forces knew that the US wasn’t providing any air cover.

Eh, I guess it’s a matter of opinion. To me knowingly finishing your opponents mistake is worse than making an honest one yourself.

I may be a little biased though, as I have had the opportunity to provide healthcare to a few of the Afghan interpreters that were lucky enough to evacuate and make it state side.

I work in orthopedics and rehabilitation, so they had all been pretty banged up, missing limbs, or had lower limbs injuries that affected their mobility. But their personal injuries were nothing compared to how much uncertainty they faced about not knowing about the well being of extended family and friends still in Afghanistan, a home they will likely never have the chance to ever visit again.

don’t see how this is laid on Biden since Trump agreed to the withdrawal and timeline

Trump made the original withdrawal date and Biden arbitrarily stuck to it when he came into office.

He was under no real obligation to stick to the timeline and it was a betrayal to every Afghan citizen that worked with us. I don’t really care what Republicans bitch and moan about.

Yeah, not really comparable when it comes to war crimes. If someone wanted to conflate a topic that makes both countries look similarly bad in an honest light, it would be the treatment of ethnic minorities.

Oh yeah, the people mover is really cool. Always been a goal to actually ride it if I ever make it down to Brazil.

It’s a little bit easier to make them work nowadays with modern materials, rubber is probably a little more pleasant of a sealing material to work with compared to the og bearskin and lard.

Though one of the benefits of the lard is that the og one always smelled like a fry up when in use.

Feel like that speech would have meant more when he still had the power to do anything about it. Instead of going to war against this oligarchy he chose to cash his political capital on a rushed pull out of Afghanistan, and to kill a bunch of Palestinians.

Pneumatic transit and atmospheric rail were kinda a fad in the 1800s. Even if it had been built it would have mainly been an attraction rather than a mode of transport. They were never really able to hammer out the kinks with maintenance and safety.

Funnily enough an atmospheric rail incident on the Dalkey atmospheric railway was more than likely the first time a human sustained a land speed over 100mph.

The son of the owner accidentally loosed the break on a single carriage that was supposed to convey a whole train and accidentally shot himself off alone, covering about 2 miles of track in less than 75 sec. Which in the 1840’s would have been like engaging a Victorian warp drive.

Man, these old heartless fucks just won’t die. Part of me thinks we have shot ourselves in the foot coming out with the vaccine so quickly. Maybe if we would have let COVID cook a little longer we could have shaken off a few of these parasites.