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Mimosa, Bloody Mary, nice flute of champagne — or maybe a favorite tipple in your coffee. Make yourself one and join me at our own Algonquin Round Table, the spirit of Dorothy Parker abides.
It’s a little disconcerting to realize my list of things to chat about exceeds the space (and my sanity). However, the house has promised to keep us in champagne and pastries … here, try this delectable tarte framboise … so let’s get to it.
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This is what the left wants for the entire country.
Los Angeles’ new unarmed block by block security ambassadors sit back and watch as a person in West Hollywood gets assaulted right in front of them.
“There was this man kicking his vehicle and I turned my head and I saw the… pic.twitter.com/MWtMALC9jN
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) April 28, 2023
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California socialists who run the state have long considered their values as the most enlightened, forward thinking, better than New Coke — and certainly better than yours — thoughts ever thunk. Therefore, their policies must prevail across the land, regardless of what it costs you poor benighted folk in flyover country.
On Thursday, the California Air Resource Board (CARB), a state agency tasked with protecting air quality and reducing harmful pollution, announced that it would pursue aggressive regulations to limit freight train emissions. The so-called In-Use Locomotive Regulation makes California the first state to tackle freight train emissions which represent just 0.5% of total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, according to federal data. (snip)
Under the regulation, California will ban any locomotive engine that was constructed more than 23 years ago by 2030. And the rule would require all new switch, industrial and passenger locomotives to be zero-emissions while in California beginning in 2030 and 2035 for freight line haul.
Raise of hands of any rational adult who feels an EV train to be able to haul in any equivalent capacity to a diesel-fueled one?
The magical thinking of a ruling board of Democrat appointees will not cost them much. It’ll be everyone else forced to pay more — much more — for any good grown or created outside of their immediate hometown.
Of course, that could be a feature, not a bug. Oh, dears, let me take a long sip of champagne before I break out singing …
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When professors are triggered by the Constitution …
Hundreds of professors at the University of North Carolina signed a public letter Tuesday opposing legislation that would require university students to take courses on America’s government and founding documents.
The 673 UNC Chapel Hill professors revealed the public letter Tuesday, arguing the new courses and another bill in the North Carolina House of Representatives would constitute an infringement on the university’s “academic freedom.”
HOW DARE you plebes believe that a taxpayer-supported, public university ever be so … so … downright pedestrian as to give even one 3-unit course that covers America’s founding documents. You’re stepping on the toes of professors more dedicated to CRT, DEI, Marxism, “anti-racism” and Queer Theory as part of their world-class expertise indoctrination of the youngest generation. Surely, these professors are the enemy within.
A plate full of chocolate-dipped strawberries is yours next Sunday if you can find one of those 673 anti-American professors who ever once objected to required Angry Study courses.
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What’s Sunday without a story of an alleged “ordained pastor” gone rogue?
An Arizona House Democrat and ordained minister recorded on video hiding Bibles at a lounge at the state capitol apologized to her peers for her actions. (snip)
The missing Bibles were a “mystery” that went on for weeks until House Speaker Ben Toma, R-Glendale, took the advice of capitol security personnel and ordered a camera placed in the House members’ lounge, said Speaker Pro Tempore Travis Grantham, R-Gilbert.
Some of the Bibles were discovered under seat cushions in the lawmakers’ lounge, and one was found in the refrigerator, he said. The lounge is a private area for House members off the main floor.
Stephanie Stahl Hamilton, caught on tape, did the usual south-end-of-a-donkey apology that while she was sorry to offend, she was only being playful and, by golly, it was her GOP counterparts who forced her to do it seeing how they weaponize the Bible everyday!
She is also really really disturbed by seeing a Bible, right there out in the open, in a :::gasp::: government building!
Someone should read her … slowly and with notes … the First Amendment. Or the next time she leaves her copy of the Communist Manifesto – or Washington Post, hard to tell the difference – on the breakroom table, toss it in the trash and see if she gets it.
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Don’t judge a generation by the actions of some, or even many, … especially when there are middle-schoolers like this exceptional young lad out there.
Bravo to Dylan Reeves and kudos to his parents. They are all doing a great job.
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It’s a beautiful spring day and after a delightful morning with you, I plan to get out into it and take some calm in the sunshine and blue skies. Please do it for yourself, too, and we’ll get together here next Sunday. Cheers!
featured image, original graphic by Darleen Click
Andrew Y. says: Actually the CARB proposal to electrify California’s rail lines (unlike the tractor trailer proposals) is not completely nuts. Electric lines powered via third rail (New York Subway) or overhead catenary lines (Northeast corridor, multiple European lines, etc.). Are common enough it could be done. The two hurdles it faces are the cost of building an electrified catenary network on every line in the state (extending in to anointing states as far as the nearest yard, to allow trains to change motive power, and third rail would be too dangerous outside a subway) , and the poor state of California’s electrical grid with brownouts bringing rail traffic to a halt.
Darleen Click says: Except places like SoCal already have electric commuter trains e.g. the “light rail” Metro system in Los Angeles*. What the ecofascists are demanding is a way to ban the heavy diesel trains that move goods from the Port of Los Angeles to all points North and East. There is no way they can “electrify” the rails that support 100+ freight cars going up the Cajon Pass.
What it means is that everything moved by train and truck will get scarcer and more expensive. It’s a way to isolate communities again. A move back to the 18th century.
*Los Angeles had an efficient electrified streetcar system, the Red Car, the first half of the 20th century. It died due to greedy politicians.
George V says: Actually, in the dim distant past of the railroad industry there were a number of electrified lines hauling freight in rough country. But….. it ain’t cheap and was only cost effective when the other motive power is steam locomotives. The Great Northern and the Milwaukee Road electrified sections in the Rocky Mountains and Cascades to eliminate steam helpers and asphyxiating crews in the tunnels. Both railroads pulled down the wires when dieselization happened.
This is another attempt, in my view, to force electrification no matter the cost. Yes, CA can force railroads to electrify. The result is fewer railroads, more expensive transportation and more expensive goods.
GWB says: And less electricity for everyone else.
Cameron says: Moments like that kid’s actions are why I don’t give up on things yet.
Lewis says: Thanks, Audrey….er, Darleen! I enjoy this so much every Sunday morning! Almost as much as the cowgirl coffee and peanut butter cookies!
GWB says: Raise of hands of any rational adult who feels an EV train to be able to haul in any equivalent capacity to a diesel-fueled one?
Yes, it could. But it would require an infrastructure that doesn’t exist, and would require an amount of electricity that does not exist in California. And it would require some sort of transition infrastructure at the state border.
But, cheer up! After all, California is well known for its ability to build new hi-tech rail lines, right? Right?
infringement on the university’s “academic freedom.”
Much like the expansion of “freedom” in the 60s, “academic freedom” was never more than a way of getting the communist nose under the tent. It was only ever about getting all of those bogus marxist courses in and the old fuddy-duddy courses out.
there are middle-schoolers like this exceptional young lad out there
Some people are taught to move into action. Others – like progressive/Democrat voters – learn to sit and watch in horror and fear as something happens, hoping a hero will come along to save them. Kudos to Dylan for being a man of action.
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