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August 6, 2011
Why did Californians get an $80 billion high-speed rail boondoggle shoved up their backsides? They asked for it. [Bumped]
Ah, California voters. Always ready to assume the position:Less than a month after his testimony, voters approved Proposition 1A, authorizing Sacramento to sell a few billion dollars in bonds for a project most experts, now including the state’s nonpartisan Legislative Analyst Office and the University of California, say will cost tens of billions of dollars more than the official $43 billion estimate. -- High-Speed Train Wreck by Cynthia Ward - City JournalMy new program for watching California flush itself down the drain of history? Cooler. Six pack. Lawn chair.
Posted by Vanderleun at August 6, 2011 8:45 AM. This is an entry on the sideblog of American Digest: Check it out.
Your Say
I have got to get out of this state. Love the weather. Love that I'm close to brothers and sisters. But, man, everything else is just too freaking insane around here.
Posted by: Cameron Wood at August 3, 2011 8:36 PM
While I relish the destruction of the Communist State of California, the saddest part is that its demise means all of the takers and fakers will flee the state. Those takers and fakers will then promptly rejoin their smug campaign to fix the next state, and the next state, and the next state. Those people are utterly, and willfully, incapable of making contact with reality. They will demand a bailout of their turd, and they will get it, and they will be back for another bailout. Ditto for Michigan. The South is full of transplanted OH & MI yankees demanding their new home convert to the ever successful Unicorn Ranch Utopia Plan like they had back home. Rats don't change, especially if you let them flee the sinking ship they created. Force them to live in their smoking hole of a utopia, for their sake, but mostly for our sake.
Posted by: Scott M at August 4, 2011 2:08 AM
This should be forwarded to every politician and liberal hack who bemoaned Chris Christie for cancelling that "Access to the Region Core" tunnel project last year. He's been around long enough to know that this is exactly what happens with big public works projects. We may have to give back a few million to the Feds, but at least we'll save a several billion by not doing it.
Posted by: Daniel at August 4, 2011 3:48 AM
Scott, allowances for the rules of on-line snark notwithstanding, I don't relish any of this.
Posted by: Cameron Wood at August 4, 2011 7:07 AM
That is exactly what happened in Montana. The Utopians moved into pictoresque towns like Bozeman and Kalispell and inflicted their whackism on the place, setting the natives against them and driving up property taxes in order to fund their madness. The place has never been the same, since.
Posted by: Jewel at August 4, 2011 9:25 AM
The only way to prevent this from happening is to run for office. You have to keep them out of the town council seats. This requires full involvement of every person in the town/voting district which usually locals eschew.
If they get control, it's over.
Posted by: Peccable at August 4, 2011 10:31 AM
Cameron, I relish the collapse of CA for the same reason I rejoice in stories of scrap thieves getting electrocuted. They brought misery on themselves, called us names when we warned them. It is called sweet justice. It couldn't not happen to more deserving people. For the country's sake let us hope the last 2 Californians kill each other fighting over a car pool lane or parking space at Whole Foods. No snark.
Posted by: Scott M at August 4, 2011 12:48 PM
Scott,
Let me try this from another direction: I am a Californian. Born here, raised here, all my friends are here, most of my family is here. Never been on welfare - I'm proud of that - and I'm currently hanging on to my job with a death grip.
I disagree with your contention that I am deserving of whatever terrible consequences are giving you your pre-schadenfreude boner which you feel so comfortable stroking in public.
I'm going to do something I know is silly and take you at your word that your posts are snark-free and that you do, in fact, mean everything you've written to be taken literally. The only response that seems appropriate is this one.
Posted by: Cameron Wood at August 4, 2011 6:18 PM
Cameron, there were allegedly some "good" Germans too, but that didn't stop the allies from bombing the crap out of Germany to defeat its scumbag government and leaders.
Posted by: St. Thor at August 5, 2011 8:01 AM
I was born and raised a Buckeye, but at 19 I stepped off a plane at Lindbergh Field, and knew I had found my people. Over a lifetime, I've collectively lived there for twenty years. I love California, but the public employees and the third world mother fuckers have made it unlivable for me. After a dozen years living by the beach in Coronado, I left last year. I may go back if the wheels fall off. I'd like to rebuild it one day. I miss fishing in the Sierras, and all that cheap good wine, but I no longer have a dyke representing me in the state assembly, nor an airhead twat in the congress. Still, those who use the broad brush on California don't know the place. There is nothing wrong with California that popping a nuke in LA or the bay won't fix. I'm just waiting for the Iranians to get their act together.
Posted by: Casca at August 5, 2011 8:47 AM
Well, once the rot has gotten so deep and so wide and so intractable it does seem like the only thing that will work is finding and pushing some sort of very large RESET button.
Posted by: vanderleun at August 5, 2011 10:54 AM
I have only been to California one time, way back in '79. My impression of it was this: If you have no business in California, you have no business being in California.
Posted by: Jewel at August 5, 2011 12:49 PM
The Utopians moved into pictoresque towns like Bozeman and Kalispell and inflicted their whackism on the place...
The first thing they always do on arriving in a new locale is set about creating the entitlements and programs they left behind, which in turn create the very conditions which caused them to decamp from their previous homes.
And then they spawn...
Posted by: BillT at August 5, 2011 3:09 PM
"Cameron, there were allegedly some "good" Germans too, but that didn't stop the allies from bombing the crap out of Germany to defeat its scumbag government and leaders."
Holy shit, St Thor. You've actually used a Nazi allusion for this little discussion. Can't say I'm completely amazed as this is the internet and all, but still.
Even in my worst days as a political blogger - and I was a TERRIBLE political blogger, quite possibly the worst - I don't think I ever got that silly, unless I put it in sonnet form.
OK. So I'm now a "good German." Soon to be destroyed - to the sorrowful tears and weeping of St. Thor and other like-minded soldiers, I'm sure - as part of the unavoidable collateral damage of the coming Great American Reset, or whatever the new eschatology is being called.
And furtherm . . .
Hey, wait! I just realized I hit the Public-Perceived Obnoxiousness trifecta!
I used to tell my liberal co-workers that I was probably the most politically incorrect person they'd ever work with because I'm [1] conservative Republican - which means liberals by definition must hate me - and [2] Mormon, which means politically conservative evangelical types must also by definition hate me (though they'll tone down the rhetoric a barely discernable smidge when they need our votes).
But now I can add "[3] Californian" to the list, which means that everyone else in America must also by definition hate me. I'm like the personification of Greece in the EU.
Hat trick, assholes.
[Yes - I sometimes employ profanity; I can do that because I'm whatever it is I am that you happen to hate: Republican/Mormon/Californian.]
If I drank alcohol, this would be a good day to start off with a cold beer. I'll compromise and get a Dr Pepper on the way to work, instead. A bubbly soft drink gives me all of the perceived religious backsliding (according to you ignorant gentiles) without any of the drunkenness. Win/win.
This also deserves at least a celebratory couplet. Maybe a wretched, overwrought sonnet.
I'll scribble something up during my breaks at work today.
Oh, did you know I have a job? Some of us good Germans do. I only wish I still drove a car so I'd stop having to be polite to people who commend me for being green. I don't like that their assumption of what they take to be my Gaia-positive attitude detracts from my inherent unworthiness as a Republican/Mormon/Californian.
Gerard - OK if I post my terrible poem here?
Posted by: Cameron Wood at August 6, 2011 7:33 AM
Post away!
Posted by: vanderleun at August 6, 2011 10:20 AM
"Never been on welfare - I'm proud of that--"
Whoever is proud to have never done a thing is also someone who finds that thing attractive.
Take Red. I'm not proud of not being Red, which in the re-invented Gaia universe is Green, a new primary color.
But hey, if Protestants can go Red, and they do, and Catholics can manufacture homosexual pedophile priest, Mormans can swear and hug the earth until Joseph Smith comes back and wacks you over the head with the golden scriptures. After he drops it on Harry Reid.
Posted by: james wilson at August 6, 2011 11:16 AM
I apologize for what said, and I further apologize for saying it on Gerard's blog.
But the only thing I'm actually sorry about is that I don't mean a word of either of these apologies, but that's an argument I'll be fighting - and losing - with God for the next few weeks. He's got all the time in the world and His patience can outlast my pique.
I'll be honest: the "good German" remark still rankles, even though it comes via the ridiculous sewage line known as the Internet. It will rankle for a while. Bad enough I put up with that shit from the liberals in my life, but that's what they've been trained to believe about conservatives and so they don't really know any better. It frankly sucks to hear it from people who theoretically do know better.
Good Germans. Honestly.
On the plus side, you all have been spared 16 lines of furious, sarcastic iambs. Your loss is the world of poetry's relief.
Posted by: Cameron Wood at August 6, 2011 8:58 PM
The good Californians love CA so much they've done precisely what to save CA? If you have a gangrenous leg, it must be amputated. It doesn't matter if we would all prefer the leg was healthy, or having 2 healthy legs is better than not.
We all keep making the easiest of available choices because we hope things aren't drastic enough to warrant being uncomfortable. We don't want to hurt people's feelings, someone else is probably going to stop this thing before much longer, things will magically turn around once the unicorns arrive, etc. Those magic things are not going to happen. If we don't do the things to prevent the ugly future it will be here. So the thing to decide is what are the policies and actions that will prevent the ugly future, and then support those policies and actions.
Frankly, conservatives would rather lose the country than have someone not like them. Liberals have spent 100 years ignoring their consequences and conservatives have spent the 100 years running from the advancing liberals. We talk to ourselves, using arguments that only convince people that already agree with us, and we hope against hope what has happened 100 times before won't happen again because we don't like that thing. "The GOP won't sell us out again because the last time they sold us out we got very mad and GOP flunkies went on Hugh Hewitt and said they learned their lesson and this time it will be different."
Black people knew what to do when they were oppressed and outnumbered. They did it and took the consequences and they changed the world. Conservatives move to gated communities and keep watching MSM and movies and trying to prove they aren't racist, anti-poor, etc. All liberals have to do is threaten to have a bad opinion of us and we do backflips and back down and cluck about picking up our trash when we leave the house. Nobody but us cares about how well we play by Mayberry Rules. Our enemies are playing by Prison Rules and know no limits.
Liberals call us racists and we think if we act fairly to all races then we will get brownie points and they will like us. Liberals use the charge of racism to put us on defensive and make the moderates and independents avoid us. Nothing we do will make them like us or play by fair rules. We are rule based, they are not. Liberals love racism, in fact they demand racism, and they benefit from racism. Ditto for every liberal charge.
Fight back like it's important, like your country and life depends on the outcome. Self-imposed limits of conservatives are the liberal's path to victory. When have conservatives flash mobbed and shut down liberal functions?
Posted by: Scott M at August 6, 2011 10:38 PM
Us conservatives are busy hoping one of our POTUS contenders will become the Messiah, so awesome not even the MSM can find fault, and every real and fake black mark we learn will take a little bit of our hope away.
I support anyone that will fight back. I don't care if he/she has sex with blenders or divorced his underaged wife during a hoolahoop festival for tornado victims. I'm not looking for a best friend, a messiah, a supermodel, college professor, MacGuyver all rolled up into one. All of us will be indicted by the Left, don't follow their rules. "Is my guy drunk now? no? Then he's still my guy." Is my guy a sharia-following Muslim now? No? Then he's my guy." Is my guy unwilling to routinely use undiplomatic beltway speak? Yes? Then he's already surrendered to the commie-libs. That ain't my guy.
I'm not an "Anybody But Obama" voter. ABO leads to meek acceptance of meek candidates who are coached to be ever more meek. You can't win a war without fighters. Support your fighter. I'm going to knock the teeth out of the next conservative that feeds me the conventional wisdom on who is likely to get elected so that's who they support. "We've never elected a POTUS from the House, etc." That's how we got GHWB,Bob Dole, GWB, McCain, and that would lead to Romney today. There aren't levels of acceptable defeat, there is only victory or defeat. If you think Romney will withstand beltway pressure you are the weak link in this chain. It;s not about niceness. It's not about the routine qualifications and hitting the check marks. We are not the cargo-cult. Having Reagan's hairstyle or advisor won't make another Reagan.
We are electing a life-support system for a Veto pen, not a messiah. We have to make every liberal miserable for opening their mouth wherever we find one mouthing off. If you won't fight for America at the office, the grocery store, etc stop calling yourself conservative.
Posted by: Scott M at August 6, 2011 11:22 PM
"My new program for watching California flush itself down the drain of history? Cooler. Six pack. Lawn chair."
Add a rifle and put the chair in a well-supported LP/OP and I think you just might have it.
California is the vanguard of the devolution.
Posted by: monkeyfan at August 7, 2011 8:29 AM
Y'all re-elected jerry brown. Nuff said.
Posted by: Cheezburgrrr at August 7, 2011 9:25 AM
Sorry not to hear your poem, Cameron. Gerard did give you permission to post it after all.
As an ex- native Californian, I think I understand your response to the Germany comparison, but I don't take Thor's remark that way. He's just saying that collateral damage happens. Like Jesus' parable about the wheat and the tares. Being a biblical person, maybe you can understand. I still have most of my family back in California to worry about. Sometimes I feel like Abram praying that God won't utterly destroy Sodom. (Sorry, that's probably worse that the Germany comparison, isn't it?)
Posted by: Grizzly at August 7, 2011 8:20 PM