Weekend Wonkiness

15 yrs, $BILLIONS, not a mile of track & running out of money - what am I?

Good morning. I have been thinking lately about some things that are wonky according to this definition:

liable to break down or develop a fault

Well, okay, also this one:

Mentally unbalanced; crazy.

I do not intend to insult all wonks, as a class, with the definitions above. But some wonks are definitely involved in these kinds of wonky projects.

Infrastructure

Take a look at the photo above. The section of construction shown has looked pretty much like that for months.

Last week, in this space, we talked about the California High Speed Rail people deciding to go ahead and build the rail line through a flood plain even though parts of it had sunk up to 24 feet. A construction site, along with big vehicles and other equipment, flooded in March.

But as noted in the piece linked above, that is only the beginning of the problems with this project. The photo shows a section of construction in Fresno that stayed above the floods in March. But where is the progress?

Poetry corner:

I met a traveller from an antique land, Who said - - "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert. . . .

A problem plaguing infrastructure projects in general is environmental regulations:

And there are other factors driving up costs in the USA. More than billion dollars per km for subway track in NYC (vs. 250 million elsewhere in the world)?

The Downfall of Scientific American

Wesley Yang:

What's the inside story of how Scientific American became a vector of mindless social justice copypasta?

High school trans activists are using the magazine to "prove" that human sexuality is not binary.

datepsych:

Unclear to me why the editor of Scientific American posted an article about sparrows to claim they have four sexes.

The article refers to them as male and female.

Colin Wright:

A story in 4 images. This is the Editor-in-Chief for @sciam. Truth hurts! pic.twitter.com/a9AHTlRhVg

— Colin Wright (@SwipeWright) May 17, 2023

The sparrow article is just the latest. There have been other strange pieces declaring with inapplicable (usually animal, plant or microbial) evidence that human sexuality is not binary.

El Salvador vs. NYC

Imagine being the last guy to run El Salvador & your country has all these devilish irreducible social problems & everybody's like "hey man you did your best, what are you gonna do, it's El Salvador" & then this guy shows up https://t.co/xiR4Dqi4sV

— Bennett's Phylactery (@extradeadjcb) May 20, 2023

CAREFUL

He's a commie so I'm probably giving him too much credit

OTOH

NYC Mayor Eric Adams just unveiled his new plan to combat skyrocketing retail theft in the city.

These are not serious people. https://t.co/ovD5hT7APb pic.twitter.com/WCGai1CRHA

— AG (@AGHamilton29) May 20, 2023

Reparations

There has been A LOT of talk about reparations since Gavin Newsom and the California Assembly established the nation's first Reparations Task Force (whose recommendations Newsom rejected). I think that the most hopeful proposal by a citizen was for $200,000,000 per individual, plus incidental benefits.

This is a bit awkward for Newsom:

Recently, a witness at one of California's reparations hearings demanded "where's the money?"

Just a year ago, Newsom was publicly celebrating a claimed budget surplus of $97 billion and said it was “simply without precedent.” https://t.co/ESe0X7cIzL

— Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) May 14, 2023

San Francisco set up an independent task force (Advisory Committee). Which may have given a resident of Florida the idea that it was appropriate to demand reparations from his city. Three million dollars per person:

“We have to put white people on notice that we want our reparations.” pic.twitter.com/PFc37vohss

— Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) May 19, 2023

Nellie Bowles commenting on a story from NPR:

$14 trillion reparations bill: A group of prominent Democrats are calling for $14 trillion to be paid as reparations to the descendants of slaves. The bill was introduced by Missouri Rep. Cori Bush, who said: "The United States has a moral and legal obligation to provide reparations for the enslavement of Africans and its lasting harm on the lives of millions of Black people." I'm on board with reparations. At least, I think it'd be better to do a big reparations shebang--cut checks and call it a day--than the strange sort of slow-drip reparations plans we see in liberal institutions. Like, yes, $14 trillion is a lot of money. But if the alternative is Robin DiAngelo trainings till the end of time and making the MCAT illegal and allowing people to self-ID as doctors because that's more equitable, then $14 trillion is a bargain.

But here's why reparations (I'm serious, a good idea!) will never happen: simply cutting checks to the descendants of slaves means shuttering all the thousands of racial justice nonprofits that serve as an employment program for America's white grad students. . .

So, what do you think?

Slavery Continues:

Pregnant white woman tries to steal a bike from 4-5 young black men.

Wilfred X. Reilly, waiting for his reparations:

Their take is that you have a moral duty to be victimized.

Nah. I'm just not that pious, even as re MY religion. Bang bang.

Last ever on this, but another obvious point here.

Was the original narrative here that the pregnant woman was trying to rob the 4-5 fighting men - and did people just accept that as default? https://t.co/0luiyel3Do

— Wilfred X. Reilly, Californian (@wil_da_beast630) May 19, 2023

Weirdly, Nikole Hannah-Jones has picked this moment to undercut the moral basis for her "1619 Project".

Debating these people is really just too easy.

"OK. I'm from Bosnia. Now do slavery." pic.twitter.com/8FpEEh9if5

— Wilfred X. Reilly, Californian (@wil_da_beast630) May 15, 2023

Weekend

Is this getting to be a little too close to reality?

State of the Union Address

h/t Small Dead Animals

Music

Wonky Donkey

Hope you have something nice planned for this weekend.

This is the Thread before the Gardening Thread.

Last week's thread, May 13, Heading toward Sacramento?

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

And remember:

posted by K.T. at 11:02 AM

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