Wednesday Morning Rant [Joe Mannix]

As many are aware, parts of the western US are under fairly severe water supply pressures. Much of California is in need of water, as are other western states. Growing population, increased agriculture, more growth upstream in places like Colorado, environmental policy and more are all contributing to the problems. So what to do about it? Well, if you're a lefty propagandist with a newspaper at your disposal, you can create perhaps the most absurd scheme ever conceived. Hat tip to fellow Moron YD for showing me this madness.

The paper is the Desert Sun out of Palm Springs, CA. They have a proposal for solving the California water crisis. Is it completing the California Water Project's unfinished phases that were put on hold by Governor Moonbeam way back when? Is it activating their desalination plants and building new ones as well? No, of course not. This calls for a gigantic works project, not some piddling dams and plants. This calls for a national effort. This calls for the theft of the Mississippi River.

No joke. That's what the Desert Sun is agitating for. Not theft, of course - just sharing. That's right, Californians with no familiarity with reality are advocating for the Great American Dignity Canal to divert a non-trivial amount of the Mississippi flow across the country through over a thousand miles of canals, pipelines, aqueducts and pumping stations to dump it into the Colorado to increase that river's flow to satisfy California's needs. And if you rubes out in flyover country don't like it, then California ain't interested in your problems. But don't worry, it isn't entirely absurd. They understand the challenges. An engineer even wrote in about how the engineering challenges are solvable, but the problem is the rest of the country, since we've lost our appetite for mega-projects.

This story really does have it all. It's a fake scheme carried by a newspaper, flogged by the paper's writing staff, commented on by other readers and now the story has legs. Similar articles can be found even earlier in the LA Times and the SF Chronicle, starting with a Dem candidate's pipe dream exposition during a debate. This is completely artificial, and the press machinery is feeding itself to make the story bigger.

Then there's the contradiction. Oil pipelines are destructive and evil, but schemes to divert the biggest river on the continent is just awesome! Differences in water chemistry, cost, feasibility, the people in the way, etc. - none of that matters. CA needs the water, so the project is obviously great and environmentally manageable. There's also the entitlement. That water in the Mississippi is obviously California's, because California needs it. If the flyover goblins don't like it, they can go suck eggs. And let's not forget the absurdity. California can't build a railroad in under a generation or for less than a trillion dollars, and can't build a bridge without steel from China and billions of extra budget. The Federal government needs years to replace major interstate highway bridges. Despite that, we can definitely quickly build - and pay for - a transcontinental canal and pipeline system to satisfy California's immediate water crisis. Just trust them. This time, they're competent.

This story has everything. It's fake, drummed up by politicians and the press. It's contradictory and hypocritical. It's absurd. It's entitled.

It's perfect.

posted by Open Blogger at 11:00 AM

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