Heading toward Sacramento?

Can we maybe stop using Sacramento as a model for the future and start using it as a warning? There were some people who did some pretty good forward planning in years past in California, but Jerry Brown (for example) ignored his dad's plans for water storage reservoirs and concentrated on the dream of a bullet train. He later decided that he would need to drain the Sacramento delta to serve urban water needs. Does this sound like a long-term solution to you?

As for the bullet train dream, the lack of reservoir water in the foothill elevations of the Central Valley led to a lot of ground water pumping, and parts of the beginning phases of construction of the (no longer quite high-speed) rail system were flooded because the ground where some of the construction sits has sunk up to 24 feet. The high-speed rail people had done their own elevation study, with similar results, but decided that risking having the rail line underwater was no big deal. Some of them apparently thought that drought was permanent, due to "Climate Change".

When the construction sites flooded in March, water had to be pumped into flood control canals. In the past, it flowed into the canals naturally.

This is the first hot weekend since the record snowpack in the Sierras. Nail-biting time for lots of people. They're getting serious about flood control in Bakersfield. Finally. And for the first time in 17 years, water from the Kern River will be released into the California Aqueduct to keep it out of the growing Tulare Lake. Usually, the water from the California Aqueduct carries water from sources much further to the north.

When the water gets high enough in the revived Tulare Lake, some of it flows through the San Joaquin river up to the Delta. For years, I thought that water was being diverted from farmland in the Central Valley to the Delta to maintain the Delta Smelt. I didn't know that both Jerry Brown and Gavin Newsom had plans to drain the Delta for urban water.

Gavin Newsom makes a short comment on the situation from time to time, sometimes interrupting his "Scold the Red States" tour to "Scold Certain People in California".

Newsom and Reparations

J.J. Sefton posted some great links this week on Gavin Newsom's Reparations Task Force and his rejection of their recommendations.

They were only asking for $1.2 million for each black resident. Citizens allowed to comment to the Task Force recommended up to $200 million dollars each. No amount of reparations will ever be enough.

But Larry Elder has been having some fun with the issue.

TOO FAR for GAVIN?! Newsom Refuses to Back Massive Reparations Package for Black Californianshttps://t.co/O1aX0fAZNn#Reparations pic.twitter.com/NFtG4iyxco

— Larry Elder (@larryelder) May 11, 2023

What about white people who identify as black?

What about descendants of early Chinese immigrants to California who were victims of racism?

Welcome to #California, a state with a $20billion budget deficit! Entered the union as a free state—but its majority non-white population, none of whom OWNED slaves, is expected to pay up to $800billion in reparations to black residents, none of whom WERE slaves. #Reparations pic.twitter.com/WSdaAxILFT

— Larry Elder (@larryelder) May 10, 2023

Socialists thrilled by California Jungle Primaries

James Lindsay recommends that people who follow him read a piece in the far-left Jacobin mag, The Road to American Socialism Runs Through California. You can follow the link in his tweet if you feel the need.

Socialists have unique advantages in California, where a "jungle" primary system elevates the top two candidates to the general election regardless of party affiliation, and the Republican Party is moribund. Let's take advantage of it.

They are talking out-and-proud socialists here. Not Socialists pretending to be Democrats. There are a few other advantages they cite for socialists in California.

And the Republican Party in California is in the process of disappearing.

Can we maybe pay more attention to state and local elections and avoid some of these innovations like "jungle primaries"? Check the comments in the Twitter thread:

A must-read article. https://t.co/ZvECbPLIrx

— James Lindsay, tapping the sign (@ConceptualJames) May 12, 2023

Conspiracy Theory Corner

The problem with conspiracies is they collapse very large swathes of our mental landscape. If they are false conspiracies the old landscape immediately recovers, to our reassurance. It is when the landscape stays shattered that you begin to suspect the stories are true.

— wretchardthecat (@wretchardthecat) May 8, 2023

Last year, one week before the U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security announced a "Disinformation Governance Board" for government censorship online, @BarackObama gave a speech at Stanford calling for precisely that. The timing & content suggest an orchestrated influence operation. pic.twitter.com/1OyvDQ5t0M

— Michael Shellenberger (@shellenberger) May 8, 2023

James Lindsay is not happy with Elon Musk's choice for the new CEO of Twitter, partly due to history with the WEF.

Lots of history of calling for "radical transformations" from this one.

"Now is the time for marketers to prioritize equity and inclusion, while also committing to a new open marketplace built on trust, radical transparency, and meaningful collaboration.”https://t.co/JC5JhNO7vA

— James Lindsay, tapping the sign (@ConceptualJames) May 13, 2023

Resistance

An online acquaintance has been participating in volunteer uploading of (technical/scientific) knowledge to ChatGPT. That's one way to push back against the kind of result from a ChatGPT query below. But the Left is ahead:

ChatGPT is basically a way for the woke elite to outsource enforcement of their demented views to a machine. Read to the end. pic.twitter.com/89xKjjPzG2

— Konstantin Kisin (@KonstantinKisin) April 1, 2023

Here's another possible form of resistance. One that is probably more practical for more people:

In his rousing keynote address at The Heritage Foundation's 50th anniversary gala last month, then-Fox News host Tucker Carlson offered an unexpected piece of advice: "Don't throw away your hard-copy books."

Unlike digitized books, films, and albums that can be canceled, rewritten, or vanished altogether, physical copies are "the enduring repository that cannot be disappeared."

With their resurrection of poetry recitation requirements, educators in Georgia and Arkansas are protecting that repository in more ways than one, steeping students in a reality they can affirm, trust, and love.

Both states' departments of education recently proposed revised K-12 English language arts standards that would require that students recite "all or part of significant poems and speeches as appropriate by grade level," as the Georgia standards put it.

Music

Just act naturally.

Hope you have something nice planned for this weekend.

This is the Thread before the Gardening Thread.

Last week's thread, Momentous Thread before the Gardening Thread, May 6

Comments are closed so you won't ban yourself by trying to comment on a week-old thread. But don't try it anyway.

posted by K.T. at 11:15 AM

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