NEWS REVUE
Washington State Says Goodbye! Second Train to Nowhere Gone Dry! Obama-era Solar Plant About to Fry! Comic Doug Stanhope isn't Shy!
This appeared in Santa Barbara Current.
“Seattle Mayor Laughs off Millionaires Leaving Washington State Over Taxes, Waves ‘Bye’” (Fox News)
“Seattle’s mayor waves goodbye to prosperity” (WaPo)
And Starbucks just waved goodbye back. (Their new operational hub is in Nashville.) Following in its footsteps is its founder, Howard Schultz (gone to Florida), Amazon founder Jeff Bezos (gone to Florida), billionaires Ken Fisher and Marc Barros.
Microsoft, Boeing, and T-Mobile are reducing production and eliminating jobs.
The Emerald City better be careful about waving “bye” as it begins to look more like a jewelry store after closing time: the display cases still there, lights still on, but the merchandise is gone.
“California’s other transit ‘boondoggle’ laid bare as costs double” (Cali Post)
Another train to nowhere?
You betcha!
Not content with building one slow-motion infrastructure epic, the state decided to launch a sequel—a kind of cinematic comedy of rail projects where the trains are arriving late and the money is already gone.
Enter Valley Link, a modest 26-mile rail line intended to connect the Bay Area to the San Joaquin Valley—someday, somehow… maybe.
This is the California High-Speed Rail Business Model:
Announce a visionary project.
Underestimate the cost by a factor of “don’t worry about it.”
Miss the deadline by a decade or two.
Continue building anyway, because stopping would be embarrassing.
This original high-speed rail was sold to voters in 2008 as a $33 billion project that would be finished by 2020.
Today, it’s somewhere north of $100 billion… possibly heading toward $126 billion, with completion projected sometime in the 2030s.
And what does California have to show for nearly two decades of effort?
A partially built stretch in the Central Valley.
Because in California, the journey isn’t measured in miles—it’s measured in appropriations.
“Everything Trump has tried to put his name on – it’s a long list” (The Telegraph)
Someone in Trump’s entourage needs to grow a pair and tell the boss this is not 1984, he is not Big Brother, and the United States is not North Korea, where cult of personality is imposed, practiced, and enforced.
Orwell: The poster was everywhere. It stared down from the corners of buildings, from the sides of buses, from the blank walls of stairwells where no decoration had hung before. The face was vast, filling the frame, the eyes set deep beneath a heavy brow, calm yet unmistakably watchful.
What’s next, mandatory portraits in every living room?
“Ex-FBI Director James Comey surrenders to feds on charges he threatened to kill Trump in Instagram post” (NY Post)
James Comey may be dickhead, but this is trivial bullshit.
Sally Selling Sea Shells by the Sea Shore
Aside from anything else, 86’d means getting thrown out of an establishment, not assassination.
Memo to DOJ: Get real, cut the crap.
“Obama–backed $2.2B solar power plant is a ‘money pit’ that’s leaving taxpayers to foot the bill” (Daily Mail)
Out in the Mojave Desert stands a glittering monument to modern governance:
173,500 mirrors reflecting sunlight back into the sky.
I’ve passed it many times on road trips, looks like it’s there to welcome extraterrestrials in UFOs.
The Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System opened in 2014 as the world’s largest solar thermal plant.
It was supposed to save the planet.
Instead, it mostly saved consultants’ mortgages.
Federal taxpayers helped finance this debacle, and now electricity customers are being asked to keep paying for it—even as officials debate whether it makes sense to keep it running at all.
In other words: The government bought the car, the public pays for the gas, and nobody is entirely sure where the keys went.
Naturally, the project was hailed as visionary at the time.
Politicians cut ribbons. Activists applauded. Reporters wrote glowing headlines about the dawn of a clean-energy future.
And now the world’s most advanced solar plant looks like a Betamax player in a Netflix age.
But here’s the real genius of the arrangement:
When private companies make a bad investment, they lose money.
When governments make a bad investment, their failure is promoted as “making progress” because (they tell us) losses are learning experiences.
No shareholder revolt. No bankruptcy judge.
Just a quiet vote to keep the subsidies flowing while everyone pretends the mirrors are still reflecting success.
Somewhere, in a climate-controlled office far from the desert, a bureaucrat is undoubtedly preparing the next bold initiative—another multi-billion-dollar project designed to save humanity, stimulate the economy, and employ several thousand PowerPoint slides.
Because in modern government, there is only one renewable resource more reliable than sunlight: Your money.
“Doomsday for California as last barrel of oil from the Middle East arrives in Long Beach” (Cali Post)
Better fill your gas tank…
“Iran offers Trump one-month deal to end war as world faces ‘tipping point” (The Telegraph)
Iran has unveiled a bold new negotiating strategy: lose the war, then set the terms.
“Thirty days,” they insist, as though this is a limited-time offer on rugs.
With few weapons remaining, they’re reduced to billboard warfare in Tehran.
It is time for Iran to skip the theatrics, stop pretending they get to deal the next hand, and hand over the yellowcake.
“‘Butcher of Bosnia’ Ratko Mladic should be released immediately, say lawyers” (The Telegraph)
No early checkout—this rat is exactly where he belongs.
And Mad Vlad Putin belongs in the cage next to him.
And finally…
“No Chuckleheads? Doug Stanhope Says Try City Council for Standup Time” (My Herald Review)
In Bisbee, Arizona, comedian Doug Stanhope has solved a civic crisis with elegant simplicity: when your local comedy club dies, take your act to city council.
Calling all Santa Barbara comedians: Take a lesson from Doug and get your butts to SB City Council meetings—Tuesdays at 2 p.m.
You get three minutes, a microphone, and a captive audience that cannot legally leave.
“Why are there more bike lanes in town than the Tour de France…?”
“I asked about ‘affordable housing,’ and they said, ‘Absolutely—just lower your expectations, your standards, and your definition of housing.’”
“I thought I was applying for a to permit to build a deck. Turns out I’m funding a municipal retirement plan.” Add: “I checked my permit’s timeline—it’s the same schedule as a maturing Napa cabernet.”
What a week—whew!
And you should too.
Lots of good material there, friend Robert, The West coast gives you lots of material,,,you will never run out ( sad to say) I hope the folks that should read this do , it should provide them the mirror they should often look in
AKJ in WA