High-Speed Rail

…and the broken state of California and its political class:

The blue social model can’t produce great results anymore. If you want to think big, you can no longer think blue. This is Governor Brown’s problem in a nutshell. The political coalition that backs him cannot produce coherent and workable plans anymore. The greens, the unions, the planning bureaucrats, the mayors and so forth each bring so many requirements to the table that the only designs that make them all happy are so cumbersome and expensive that they cannot be built. The political imagination of the blue coalition can no longer visualize the future: it can only project its nostalgia ahead.

Jerry Brown is stuck in the sixties. What a tragedy that the Republicans can’t put up decent statewide candidates in California. And I very much fear that Mitt Romney will be Meg Whitman on a national scale.

Liberalism And The Democrats

Can they be saved from the Left?

If Obama is defeated in November 2012 and the Republicans take Congress in a landslide, would that be enough to shatter the far left’s cultural-educational hegemony and liberate the Democratic Party from its grip? Can a real opposition movement arise?

Or would the left be able to hold on, using hatred and demonization to maintain control?

They’re pretty well dug in. The good news is that the places they’re dug in — mainstream media and the academy, are about to collapse and become disintermediated by the Internet.

The 5000 Climaquiddick Emails

Reading all of them:

So far, it’s been fascinating to get a look at the climate hoax from the inside. The data fudging, the demonization of doubters, the knee-jerk rejection of alternate hypotheses, the quest for funding, the travel to exotic locations, the pal review, the left-wing politics, the fear of debate, the swagger in the early days, then the panic as the skeptics closed in–it’s all there.

It’s a dirty job, but somebody’s got to do it.

Biting Commentary about Infinity…and Beyond!