It's also been pointed out that this will supposedly result in a massive tax increase in Orange county, because Disney (via RCID) spends a lot more on maintaining better quality roads than the surrounding area.
Except what it REALLY means is that if Disney wants a road fixed, they're at the mercy of the county, which is composed of Florida man.
That may actually be the worst bit for Disney, that they could potentially lose control over Osceola Parkway, World Drive, Buena Vista Drive, Western Way, and DEFINITELY a segment of US 192 and its intersection with Interstate 4.
You can see right here the point where you go from county to RCID roads...
Guess what Disney, you're in FLORIDA now.
Remember, Babylon 5's main story premise is basically "Arthurian Legend in Space".
You can see bits of Tolkien's influence mixed in too.
In Thirdspace we learn that the Vorlons tried to transcend the universe, open a doorway to the beyond... and they succeeded. And only barely managed to get it closed again before what they found on the other side could destroy everything.
I loved the show, but I have a question, did Sheridan actually die?
He took the Straight Road to Aman.
Sheridan after Za'ha'dum is basically Gandalf the White.
European cars may be safer than American ones but for about four decades you couldn't buy one here if they didn't have giant ass sealed beam headlights that European builders hated.
If the RCID drops, the same sort of thing will happen to Disney's parks when Orange County Dept of Building Safety comes in.
It doesn't matter if what Disney has is safer than the rule. Only whether it CONFORMS to the rule. Because exceeding and conforming are not the same thing.
I suspect that a great many buildings in the Disney parks do not fully conform to building, electrical, accessibility, and fire codes as written, and if they're not as written, then they don't conform, period.
The most in danger is probably the elevated monorail. I can't imagine any bridge inspector looking at the steel plate struts holding the spans and not immediately deeming them structurally deficient and obsolete. You just can't have a single solid plate supporting that much load. They're gonna get up there, find fatigue cracks, and that's it, done, shut'er'down.
For those who don't know the history...
When Walt started working on the Florida project, his main personal focus was on EPCOT (Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow). He'd gone full futurist and wanted to build a model community that would address all the problems he'd seen in urbanization.
To facilitate this, once Disney went public with their land acquisitions, they asked Florida to create a special watershed improvement district for them. This was known as the Reedy Creek Improvement District. Effectively, it emancipated their land from Orange and Osceola counties.
Within its boundaries, the RCID had primary responsibility for most county and municipal levels of government. In practical application, this means that RCID has its own fire dept, its own building codes, it's own health and environmental depts, and responsibility and authority over roads and utilities.
This was, obviously, an enormous boon to Disney, and a huge "fuck you" to the involved counties.
Walt died before realizing Epcot, and Roy had the whole thing redone as a park. By all rights the RCID should have ended there. But it carried on due to momentum and Florida generally liking the money that was rolling in.
BECAUSE INSIDE VERY GOOK THERE IS AN AMERICAN TRYING TO GET OUT.
It's a hardball world, son. We gotta try keep our heads until this peace craze blows over.
My community. I'm quaker. We don't carry grudges, but I don't appreciate the fact that nobody remembers that we tried.
All the "progress" everyone else has made has just been them catching up to a norm we embraced in the 1650's.
It wasn't founded on the inverse either. It was a federation of states, some of which WERE built on equality as a principle.
And I'm really annoyed that side gets left out simply because a lot of us died in the Civil War.
Yes and no.
You see, prior to 1838, black men could vote in PA. They lost that in the 1838 convention and regained it in 1870.
But that occurred because PA was no longer majority Quaker, they'd moved west (and been outnumbered by Irish pouring into Philadelphia). Ohio had de facto black suffrage (despite its crummy 1802 constitution), and Iowa had explicit black suffrage from the day its constitution was enacted to now.
Quakers.
There is a forgotten history to this country, that a large number of people came here GENUINELY believing that all people were equals, and had been believing that since the English civil war.
At the time of founding a large minority of the population of America were Quakers. By the Civil War, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Iowa were Quaker majority states.
The only reason we're forgotten is because the Civil War wiped us out. Huge numbers of Quaker men (paradoxically) enlisted in the early "Union Generals are shit" phase of the war, and continued enlisting in the "Grant gets people killed" phase of the war.
The survivors mostly converted to Lutheranism or Methodism because they were sending all the Union Army chaplains.
It's revisionist history to say that America was a "color blind" meritocracy at its founding.
You can pretend Pennsylvania colony didn't exist all you like, but it did. It's not our fault all the rest of the colonies were founded by sects that thought it was righteous to be a prig.
It's at the point where I can't really tell if it's being ironic about it or not.
Remember, The Next Generation was pro-SJW in its time, and Lower Decks is quite deliberately kicking TNG in the shin.
If you want to take a clipboard and rundown all the SJW best-of tropes, does it check a lot of boxes? Sure. But not in a flattering way.
I mean take Becket. Archetypal perfect strong minority female? Yes, and no. Because she's played so far over the top into mary sue territory that she's basically just a font of chaos like Rick Sanchez. And when look at her actual flaws, they're very, very human (again just like Rick) because it's all an act to cover insecurity and having awkward relationships with friends and family on account of not wanting to show any vulnerability.
Boimler on the other hand lampoons Roddenberry's ideals. His lived experiences serve to undermine all those ready room speeches Picard gave. Mark Hamill once said that Luke Skywalker was "the Abbott in a universe of Costellos". That's basically what Boimler is, illustrating how detached Gene's clinically professional sense of morality would be from the reality of a universe full of aliens that MIGHT ACTUALLY think like us (and be as fucked up as us).
Vanguard Group upped its stake to 10.3%
Because Elon's buying drove up the price.
Vanguard is an index fund, their buying and selling is market capitalization weighted. Reading "into" their buying and selling habits is futile, their behavior is almost entirely algorithmic. It was absolutely predictable that if Elon drove up twitter's market cap, within a couple days Vanguard would have to buy accordingly to rebalance.
Can he even pull this off?
In short, he can but the ball right now is in the board's court. They can accept his offer (in which case the shares are recalled by the company at $54.20) or they can refuse.
If they refuse, Elon can try to buy a 50.1% stake on the open market. Attempting to do so would be... expensive.
You're ignoring the immediately obvious.
The United States has a built in safety valve, despite Lincoln's attempt to disable it. We are not one government, we're a federation of governments. Most STATE governments are comparatively popular, because they're more representative of the their constituents values.
The federal government will fall apart. The states will replace it.
The only question is which side will initiate it this time, and whether the other side will (again) make the mistake of trying to prevent it.
Only if Florida man decides to raise taxes instead of cutting spending.
In which case Disney gets to enjoy the same shit roads the rest of Florida lives with.