GREAT MOMENTS IN PRESIDENTIAL SPEECHES.

America's unofficial Newspaper of Record never lacks for material.  "Biden Furious To Be Called Home From Beach Just Because World War 3 Starting."

"You interrupted my beach nap...for this?" screamed Biden as he looked at images of Iranian military strikes. "Ugh, what do my generals even do? This is ridiculous."

According to Pentagon sources, with American jets on ready near Israel and ships prepared to help shoot down Iranian missiles, they unfortunately had no choice but to bother President Biden. "We know he really hates when we call him during his beach trips, but sadly a massive war may be starting and he's technically supposed to be here," explained Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. "Obviously, we would all prefer to let him enjoy his vacation, but unfortunately World Wars do require the President to sign a few things."

The Babylon Bee credits Dementia Joe with more lucidity than his handlers allow him.  He was able to get out a "Don't!" or two over the weekend, and maybe take a call with the Israeli government.  Then he went to Scranton for a campaign event today and even the best triple espresso couldn't help him.

Biden's brain malfunctions trying to remember the word "Scranton" pic.twitter.com/LiJV8unKHU

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) April 16, 2024

There weren't many party faithful to view the sad spectacle. "Photos of Biden's event appeared to show just a few dozen people in attendance for a campaign speech in which he unveiled plans to increase taxes on the super-rich."  It's the same sad ranting about productive people not paying their "fair share," which, dear reader, is never enough.  Here he goes again, demonstrating his ignorance of tax incidence.

No billionaire should pay a lower tax rate than a teacher, a nurse, or a sanitation worker.

But Trump wants to give another Billionaire Tax Break. pic.twitter.com/HWs5fwGvTY

— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) April 16, 2024

Meanwhile, his opponent is doing everything HE can to make Dementia Joe look good.  Still six months of this nonsense to run.

WHY NOT BRING THE PLUG ALONG?

The railroads continue to experiment with the poor man's electric locomotive.  "CN to acquire, test first plug-in diesel-battery hybrid locomotive in British Columbia."  Apparently there are two prototypes already operating in Brazil.

The first-of-its kind unit for North America will be evaluated on CN’s main line in British Columbia, starting in Prince George and the northern part of the province, to increase the railroad and rail industry’s knowledge on battery technology and different forms of alternative locomotive technologies. The province of British Columbia is collaborating on the program, awarding approximately C$3.2 million under the Clean BC Go Electric Commercial Vehicle Pilots Program.

Everything old is new again. "Railroads have, for a long time, looked for ways to run an electric locomotive beyond the wires, either with an onboard power plant or with a battery."  The concept of bringing the plug along is nearly a century old.

Lackawanna tri-power locomotive 3501, somewhere in New Jersey.

Railroad Magazine photograph. 

Scanned from p. 302 of Middleton, When the Steam Railroads Electrified.

We've looked at developments in freight railway electrification previously.

It's not that railroaders aren't considering mainline freight electrification, possibly augmented by hybrid locomotives using something other than diesel to recharge the batteries, and by putting batteries in electric locomotives and limiting the catenary to where recharging doesn't drag down the substation.  The ideas are a century old; the imperative, whether by technology forcing or by rising fossil fuel prices, is not yet that strong.

The strategic petroleum reserve is empty and the war drums are beating in the Asia Minor oil patch.  Things might get interesting.

CAN I GET A "MARG BAR AMERICA?"

I have a relatively simple request of immigrants.  "I've long been of the view that there are Pareto improvements possible between immigrants and their new country.  'Give new arrivals an America to buy into, and an America that buys into the new arrivals, and we'll be OK.'"  That post also prayed for the Critical Studies types to rethink their priors.  "There are myriad reasons why the Great Society failed. An immigration reform of approximately the same age might have come along at precisely the worst possible time, if the intellectual current pushed deconstruction of those notions most essential for the new arrivals to buy into. At the same time, might the new arrivals to the United States have been least equipped to buy into those notions?"

LIFTED FOR A PINCH HITTER.

Word reaches Cold Spring Shops of the passing of New York Yankee pitcher Fritz Peterson, perhaps better known for his off-the field substitutions.  "Yankees pitcher Fritz Peterson, infamous for trading wives with a teammate, dies at 82."  That's the tabloid stuff.

Peterson pitched nine seasons for the Yankees from 1966 through 1974, notching a 20-win season in 1970, when he was also named to the American League All-Star team. He also pitched for Cleveland and the Texas Rangers during his career. Altogether, Peterson compiled a 3.30 ERA and 133–131 record, throwing over 2,200 innings.

Control was Peterson's best trait as a pitcher. He had a career walk rate of 1.7 per nine innings and averaged the lowest walks per nine in the AL for a five-season stretch from 1968 through 1972.

However, Peterson is perhaps best known for more infamous reasons. During spring training of 1973, he and teammate Mike Kekich revealed that they had traded families and homes. Kekich's wife and two daughters moved in with Peterson, while Peterson's wife and two sons lived with Kekich.

"It wasn't a wife swap. It was a life swap," Kekich said in an interview, via The New York Times. "We're not saying we're right and everyone else who thinks we're wrong are wrong. It's just the way we felt."

He played college baseball at Northern Illinois in the years before there was a Mid-American Conference.

Compiled 8-2 mark, 2.45 ERA, and 91 strikeouts in 91 2/3 innings as junior under NIU coach Darrel Black. Led Huskies in wins, innings, ERA, and strikeouts (1963). Named team MVP, First-Team All-IIAC, and All-Midwest in final spring. Topped NIU in strikeouts (55) and innings (65 1/3) (1962). Lettered twice (1962-63). Earned bachelors (1965) and masters (1967) from NIU. Did color on Huskie Radio Network. Played baseball on Mt. Prospect Little League All-Stars with HOFer George Bork (1954). Arlington High product.

R. I. P.

THE REAL DEBT CEILING IS JUST ABOVE YOUR HEAD.

We have The Wall Street Journal to spread the news.  "America’s Bonds Are Getting Harder to Sell."

A series of weak auctions for U.S. Treasurys are stoking investors’ concerns that markets will struggle to absorb an incoming rush of government debt.

A selloff sparked by a hotter-than-expected inflation report intensified this past week after lackluster demand for a $39 billion sale of 10-year Treasurys. Investors also showed tepid interest in auctions for three-year and 30-year Treasurys.

Stephen "Vodka Pundit" Green notes, "Other than 'I told you so,' I’m not sure what else to add."

I warned you.

Never mind that partisan wrangling about the debt ceiling.

The crisis has not been averted, it has only been deferred.

What is the real debt ceiling?  The value of the federal debt beyond which bond traders will not buy Treasuries.

When will the day of default be?  Nobody knows the day or the hour.

The hour might not yet have come, but ominous signs appear.

Buckle in.

THE POWER RULE ON THE ICE.

The National Collegiate Athletic Association attempt to generate some interest in their national hockey tournament by deferring the finals until after the basketball championship, just as the pro basketball and Stanley Cup playoffs are about to begin.  Not that it matters.  The best in the West, the heck with the East.

Jared Wright and Rieger Lorenz scored second-period goals, Matt Davis had 35 saves and Denver beat No. 1 overall seed Boston College 2-0 Saturday night to win the 10th national championship in program history.

No. 3 seed Denver (32-9-3), which finished the season on a nine-game win streak, moved past Michigan (nine) for most titles of all time. Boston College is tied with Boston University (five) for fourth, behind Wisconsin (six).

Five teams account for 35 titles in less than a century of hockey tournaments; and I can think of at least two title rounds in which Boston University eliminated Wisconsin and one in which Boston College eliminated Wisconsin; then there's Minnesota channeling the Vikings against the likes of Harvard and Quinnipiac on at least two occasions.

I wonder if there's anyone in the diversity bureaucracy at Denver, or Michigan, or Wisconsin, issuing an apology for the overrepresentation of their hockey teams on the championship trophy.

THANKS ANOTHER MILLION.

 Cold Spring Shops started operating in September 2002.

I'm not sure how good the Google visit counters are; we recorded our millionth view in April 2016.

Our two millionth view arrived in August 2020.

As of last Friday, the Google visit counter had us at three million views.

It's counting up rather quickly, and I'm not sure how much of it is people actually engaging the posts.

If you are reading and engaging with the posts, thank you.

Perhaps you've found intellectual ammunition.

Perhaps I've encouraged you to look at something differently. 

Perhaps you've resolved not to take risks crossing railroad tracks.

Perhaps I've rubbed you the wrong way.

Thanks again for looking in.  Enjoy.

A YOUNGER FERROEQUINOLOGIST'S PERSPECTIVE.

Has it really been over ten years since we featured a Performance and Practice on an Amtrak Hiawatha?  (No, it's going on six.)

There are others who see the play value in taking a short trip, and here Trains are Awesome takes a trip to Milwaukee.

It's part of a series during which the producer rode the Hiawatha to Milwaukee, a Kenosha Motor Wisconsin Coach Lines bus to Kenosha for a trolley ride, and then to Chicago on the Shoreland 400, er, a Metra commuter train.

I'm pleased to note that the producer, who explained that the dinette along on a short Hiawatha, it was late spring and their Milwaukee Hop ride showed little by way of urban activity, was there for the Wi-Fi equipment, and even more pleased to note that he called attention to the available space to hang out in the lounge, because the crew wasn't commandeering several booths for their rolling office!

With the Republican convention and the German events coming up in the summer, perhaps there will be another Performance and Practice, that is, if I'm not sleeping off the Sprecher.

FRIDAY short TAKES.

The Jarrett regency, not built back, definitely not better.  "In a sense, we were all to be lab rats of sorts, to be experimented on by the radical left and their various critical theories. Now in the last year of the Biden term, we can see the results of that experiment—and the unfortunate disasters that followed."  It's failure all the way down.  "In other words, the long-awaited Great Fundamental Transformation finally got its moment, crashed, and now has torched the nation—middle-class Americans most of all."

It's only Our Democracy^(TM) when they get their way.  "So much for the party that says it is defending democracy."  Yes, by limiting who voters can vote for.  "Since Democrats can’t win on Joe Biden’s policy, and they can’t win on Joe Biden’s record, they have to stack the deck by giving Americans fewer choices at the ballot box."  Remember when Democrats won elections by buying votes?  "There are brand new super PACs — plural — devoted to crushing third-party candidates. Democratic National Committee mobile billboards troll Kennedy at events. And party donors are funding legal efforts to try to keep him off the ballot."  They have to, because deplorable-shaming fails.  "Most Democrats do indeed see a vast difference between Biden and Trump. But they are skeptical that discontented voters — many of whom already feel alienated or patronized — will be receptive to the message that they should 'get over' themselves."  The problem with democracy is that we ask too much of it.  Then grifters claim to know what the collective will is.  "The word 'democracy' appears to have become polite shorthand for insisting that an insular minority in control of the government always knows what is best for the vast, unrepresented majority."  If that isn't abrasive, divisive, or patronizing, it's probably hectoring, condescending, or deplorable-shaming.

Don't expect any coverage of those failures on public radio.  Russiagate was not NPR’s only miscue.  Its listeners have noticed.  "NPR was not All Things Considered during the pandemic. Its motto since Trump's election has been All Approved Things Considered."  I liked the formulation "All Liberal Things Considered."  I was being kind.  "Even back then I referred to NPR’s two main shows, 'Morning Edition' and 'All Things Considered' as 'Morning Sedition' and 'All Things Distorted.' The very voice tones of Susan Stamberg and Noah Adams could peel lead-based paint, so smug, supercilious, and obnoxious as they were."  Why might we get more Trump?  He taps into discontent of long standing.  “How Do I Hate NPR? Let Me Count the Ways.”  Old, still on point.  Kids, behave, or I'll turn "Prairie Home Companion" on!  "The only downside to defunding NPR would be libertarians no longer having as many threats to deploy to incentivize good child behavior."

Public money for broadcasting is censorship per se.  "There remains the question of why the public should give huge amounts of money to a media outlet that is so politically biased. News outlets have every right to pursue such political agendas, but none but NPR claim public support, including from half of the country that embraces the viewpoints that it routinely omits from its airways."

The weekly round-up of pithy elaborations on traditional Cold Spring Shops themes follows.

THE HASH PIPES WILL BE PASSED TO A NEW GENERATION.

A USA Today visit to Chattanooga turns up quite the haul of disgruntled Biden voters.  "Young voters aren't warming up to Biden. They know it means Trump could win again."  It's a grim opening.

President Joe Biden should have a lock on Viviana Ramos' vote. She's a liberal young woman from an immigrant family working a service-industry job that keeps her living paycheck to paycheck, worried about climate change, health care, the cost of college and buying a house.

But Biden may not get her vote in November.

Ramos, 24, voted for him in 2020 but is now unsure whether she can bring herself to support him again, even if it means a second presidency for Donald Trump, who she dislikes even more.

"That fuels the rage. It's really disheartening. I have a moral battle with myself: Do I even vote this time around? I don't want to have to choose between them. One is slightly worse than the other. It's horrible," said Ramos, who works at a coffee shop inside downtown Chattanooga's historic train station.

Ramos is one of many young voters stewing with grievances over the country's future, from the existential crisis of climate change to the frustration over inflation, reproductive rights, high interest rates, Israel's war in Gaza, immigration reform and the power corporations have over their working conditions.

Read on, it only gets more cheerful.

Many young liberal voters say they understand that Biden’s reelection depends heavily on their support, and hope his campaign and administration begins addressing their concerns more forcefully. They're well aware that if they don't give Biden their vote, Trump will more easily win.

Kristian Mansel, 23 said she's willing to see a Trump victory if it means Biden and Democratic Party learn a lesson. She's mad Biden and Democrats have failed to protect reproductive rights or wipe out student loans.

"It's just there's too many strikes against him and the Democratic Party at this point in general," said Mansel, a University of Memphis student who considers herself liberal.

It's not, though, that the political class is being encouraging.

Tennessee Secretary of State Tre Hargett has also been working to improve youth voter turnout. A Republican, Hargett said his job is to make sure anyone who is legally allowed to vote gets that chance. But he dismissed concerns about whether seemingly small obstacles dissuade young voters from participating.

Hargett said low participation reflects a choice of priorities by those young people. He joked those same young people would be the first to tear their county apart piece by piece if it meant free Taylor Swift concert tickets.

Hargett said he tries to explain to young voters that whoever shows up at the polling place really does determine policy, even if it doesn't happen fast enough for some. He remains mystified, he said, by young people who withhold their votes in protest.

"When you don't go vote, what you do is turn over the keys to government to those who do," he said. "If you don't do politics, politics will be done to you."

That noted, if Ms Ramos doesn't vote, that might be fine.

She's furious that past generations could more easily buy homes, afford college, save for retirement and access high-quality health care. She said she sees Biden as only marginally better than Trump, who she considers a "dictator."

She said older voters refuse to change society because it works for them, even if it means dooming young people to a subsistence existence without homeownership, savings or affordable cars, groceries and gas.

"The people we elect don't speak for me," she said. "I try to be a mature person. But it's hard not to be angry when you were left with multiple situations where the older generations have literally messed up so much for us."

That she's laying all her ills off on the occupant of the White House might say more about how pernicious the cult of the presidency has become than it does about, oh, whatever education she got that has her not grasping why her parents might have migrated to these United States in the first place.  It gets no more uplifting to read on.  If these youngsters figure out that the political bundles are too big, and perhaps expecting less of government might make their lives less troubled, perhaps their children will have a less troubled early adulthood.

ADVANTAGE, COLD SPRING SHOPS.

A few weeks ago, we called attention to a new sort of sports bar in, doesn't it figure, Minneapolis.  That got a stringer for Milwaukee's Journal-Sentinel, Zoe Takaki, thinking.  "People are watching women’s sports now more than ever. A city known for sports and drinking; Milwaukee is the perfect candidate for a women's sports bar." I don't know if she intends the video as a loan application.

Maybe she's preparing to mau-mau a venture capitalist into funding the project, or perhaps that sort of woke language is mandatory in applications for Small Business Administration loans under the Jarrett regency.

These attributes make Milwaukee the perfect spot for a women’s sports bar. I can hear it now, the contrarian arguing that an establishment like this would fail because women don’t watch sports and male sports fans don’t watch women’s sports. This assumption is false (and sexist) especially in Wisconsin, considering where we've been and what we just experienced.

That's not going to get me interested in underwriting a business loan.  Maybe there is a Milwaukee entrepreneur so inclined.

IF YOU THINK LATE FEES ARE PREDATORY NOW, JUST WAIT UNTIL THEY'RE CAPPED.

You can always count on Common Dreams contributors, such as Brian Carss, to confuse the expected immediate consequences of some reform with the ultimate good consequences.

Poverty is expensive in this country.

Few things illustrate that truism like overdraft charges and late fees, which are often little more than outrageous penalties for not having enough money. But there are plans in the works at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) to rein in these abusive practices.

Overdraft fees occur when a customer attempts to withdraw more money from their account than is available, but the banking institution covers the transaction—for a fee. The CFPB is proposing rules to close loopholes in rules on overdraft fees by establishing a benchmark that banks cannot exceed.

Stroke of a pen, law of the land, decree the Big Rock Candy Mountain.  Let the women and minorities who are hardest hit rejoice in their liberation.

Over a quarter of Americans live in a household that was charged an overdraft fee in the past year, but especially harmed are those who have the least to begin with. These overdraft fees are structured to prey on consumers already in a financially precarious position. The impact skews toward low-income households and people of color. Young people are also more likely to be affected.

When banks hit people with an overdraft fee, they end up further in the hole—to the benefit of the bank. “Overdraft fees are not so much a useful service as they are a lucrative profit center underwritten by the most economically vulnerable consumers,” said Kimberly Fountain, consumer field manager at Americans for Financial Reform.

Overdraft fees affect credit scores and can even lead to account closures, leaving people without access to banking services altogether. More than any other group, Black Americans tend to be underbanked or unbanked.

As with overdraft fees, banks foist the burden of late fees on people living paycheck to paycheck, low to moderate income consumers, and people of color.

More than 80% of adults have at least one credit card—and these cards are full of junk fees. Late fees alone cost consumers $14 billion a year—and low-income earners pay about twice as much in fees as higher-income earners.

These late fees are not based on any sort of need for the bank. The CFPB found that banks take a fee almost five times greater than the cost to the bank of a late payment.

These practices also reinforce the racial wealth gap. Data shows that banks have often charged those living in neighborhoods with populations of color a higher interest rate. And places with a higher Black or Hispanic population are charged on average more than $25 in late fees, while in places where the Black population is nearly zero, people pay less than $20.

In a new consumer protection action, the CFPB is limiting the amount companies can charge for a late fee to a more reasonable $8.

That's a jumble of points, isn't it?  Nor does it really offer low-net-worth individuals much hope.

THE TOTAL ECLIPSE OF BOURGEOIS NORMS.

Power Line's John Hinderaker has little patience for the sort of person who uses a solar eclipse to decry the absence of diversity in astronomy.

As to why any scientific fields have been “mainly out of reach for Black folks,” I can only point out that 1) single-parent households are not, on average, conducive to academic achievement; 2) a culture in which kids who get good grades in school are disdained for “acting white” is fatal to academic achievement; and 3) black students who are encouraged to major in Black Studies and similar fields don’t become astronomers. Those factors are evidently more than 50 years of affirmative action have been able to overcome.

Put more precisely, it's fifty years of inclusive schooling that sets kids up to fail.  Start with the elementary school playground.  "Not, in my view, to throw money at disadvantaged schools, but to persuade young people away from self-destructive behaviors that only elicit contempt from people who see only the behavior and not the circumstances leading to the behavior."

THE 1950S CALLED AND THEY WANT THEIR COMMUNIST PLOTS BACK.

No, I haven't fallen into some time tunnel.  "As bans spread, fluoride in drinking water divides communities across the US."  That's yesterday's USA Today.

Regina Barrett, a 69-year-old retiree who lives in this small North Carolina city southeast of Charlotte, has not been happy with her tap water for a while.

“Our water has been cloudy and bubbly and looks milky,” said Barrett, who blames fluoride, a mineral that communities across the nation have for decades added to the water supply to help prevent cavities and improve dental health.

“I don’t want fluoride in my nothing!” said Barrett, echoing a growing number of people who not only doubt the mineral’s effectiveness but also believe it may be harmful despite decades of data pointing to public health and economic benefits.

In February, the Board of County Commissioners in Union County, whose seat is Monroe, voted 3-2 to stop adding fluoride to drinking water at the Yadkin River Water Treatment Plant, the only water source wholly owned and operated by the county. But the decision came after heated discussions among residents and county officials.

The back story on the communist plot? Mother Jones puts it in the tinfoil hat category.

The John Birch Society peddled the fluoride-as-pinko-plot idea for many years. (One Bircher recently quipped, “Don’t be surprised if we learn soon that the fluoride in Chinese toothpaste is nuclear waste from North Korea.”) Today, fluoridation opponents include scientists and environmentalists who say overexposure can cause serious health effects. The Fluoride Action Network, the most prominent anti-fluoridation group, was cofounded by former Sierra Club executive director and ecoguru David Brower.

But only up to a point, dear reader, as that mention of the Sierra Club suggests.

Those toothless paranoids may have been partly right. Though fluoride’s not eroding our moral fiber, research shows that too much of it eats away teeth and bones. Which is a problem, since it’s not just in 59 percent of Americans’ water; it’s also turning up in foods made with fluoridated water, including ice cream, hot dogs, and beer.

The plot narrative, though, was compelling enough to inspire at least one master's thesis.

A ROUND-UP ON PLATFORM FOUR.

Last December, a longhorn destined for market made a run for it.

The rogue bull that disrupted NJ Transit service between New York and New Jersey for tens of thousands of people as it raced along the tracks at Newark Penn Station a day ago has gotten a reprieve.

NJ Transit confirmed Friday that the bull, which it called "Ricardo," had been safely transported to his new home, Skylands Animal Sanctuary in Wantage, where he joins a cow that ran amok in Brooklyn in March.

It wasn't immediately clear how the bull, seen running along one of the tracks, got loose, but video showed it running up and down tracks at the station as stunned onlookers watched with bewilderment. It happened just before 11 a.m. Thursday.

This being Soft America, somebody had to question commercial agriculture.  "Can you imagine that people wanted to kill and eat him? Unreal. Do the right thing, go vegan."

IT'S LONG PAST TIME TO ROLL BACK PRESIDENTIAL POWERS.

In The Wall Street Journal, Andy Kessler prays for Donald Trump to channel his inner John Tyler, and plead inability to find that line in the Federal Constitution authorizing the latest in wishful thinking.

Expectations for a second Trump term include mass deportations, threats against allies, and huge tariffs on Chinese products. But what will be Mr. Trump’s legacy? Let’s face it, someone who splashes his name on tall buildings across the country cares about legacy. How does Mr. Trump change his legacy from authoritarian blowhard to transformative president? Simple. Go rogue. Do something no one ever thought he would do. Like Nixon going to China. Or “Bedtime for Bonzo” Hollywood actor Ronald Reagan becoming a free-market, Soviet-busting genius.

In the cases of Nixon and Reagan, there was an intellectual foundation for going to China or speaking of transcending Communism. Somehow a career rent-seeker using eminent domain to clear land for a failed casino isn't an auspicious beginning for what Mr Kessler prays for.

Reduce the power of the executive branch. Mr. Trump told Sean Hannity he plans to be a dictator for only a day. Fine, close the border, end DEI, get NATO partners to pay, cancel Mr. Biden’s executive orders, and reverse his industrial strategies, er, policies. But then pull the ladder up behind you so no future president can repeat the Biden administration’s power grabs.

Guard future generations against a strong president—or, worse, a weak one like Mr. Biden taken over by unelected administrators. The Constitution says legislators make laws, the executive branch enforces them, though it often doesn’t seem that way. Mr. Trump can make sure there are no more Obama “I’ve got a pen and I’ve got a phone” situations.

That is difficult, because a lot of the Public Purposes that Congresses deem Worthy of Attention are either Excessively Compelling or Ill Conceived, and Congresses pass and presidents sign legislation creating new Swarms of Officers to Harass the People and Eat Out their Substance, while leaving the enforcement to the Officers Themselves, in the form of "The Secretary shall issue Regulations" language.  Moreover, in political economy and public administration, you will encounter people making the argument that such delegation is necessary as no Congress can draft the proper set of policies for all time and the agency charged with enforcement has to be able to adapt, either to changed political and economic circumstances, or perhaps to a new boss in town.

SING ALONG WITH YOUR FELLOW UNITARIANS.

Or perhaps it's a team building exercise at Student Affairs.  "This one's almost physically painful to watch … so we thought we'd share"  The link takes you to other putdowns of the video should you want a few more chuckles.  Hector us some more!

You’ve died and gone to Hell. This is what welcomes you. pic.twitter.com/vUrIhNOK5n

— Oilfield Rando (@Oilfield_Rando) April 6, 2024

That's OK, Excessively Earnest People.  Hectoring, condescending, and deplorable shaming will sway the swing voters. "You're not going to win votes by shaming those people, the candidate they supported, or claiming they're not patriots.  It would be wise to just leave it alone and depend on rooms of annoying dancing liberals to convince them to vote against Biden."

Seven more months of this until the general election.

ISN'T CONGRESS SUPPOSED TO PASS LEGISLATION?

I could set this post to a Sixties rhyming chant: Two! Four! Six! Eight! Smash the Administrative State!  We've already called attention to the overreach.  "The Environmental Protection Agency allocation tsar recently set hand and seal to ukases requiring multiple changes in the personal automobiles and in the commercial trucking business."

TRANSITING THE PATH OF TOTALITY WHILST IN ORBIT.

It's been a strange spell of weather in the State Line:  temperatures normal for Christmas at Hallowe'en, a tease of a white Christmas at Thanksgiving, then no white Christmas thanks to temperatures normal for Hallowe'en, then a polar vortex rolled in for January, followed by a couple of days with highs in the seventies in February, and then came a long stretch of near normal temperatures and lots of overcast, and rain.  With that record, it would be our luck to have the eclipse obscured by clouds and a sprinkle of graupel.

UP AN ATMOSPHERIC RIVER.

Around the Great Lakes, the weather words of wisdom are "If you don't like the weather, wait five minutes."

You might have to wait a little longer in California, but come the rains eventually do.

California's largest reservoir is expected to reach its maximum capacity this year, to likely reach a full or nearly full level for the second consecutive time following several years of historically low water levels.

Lake Shasta rose 12 feet from March 1-26 and needs another 17 feet to reach its limit, the Redding Record Searchlight reported.

"We're expecting it to creep right up to the top," said Don Bader, area manager for the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, per the news outlet.

As of March 27, the lake was 90% full and 115% of the average for this time of year. However, Bader noted the difficulty for it to completely fill since the lake is narrow at the bottom and gets wider at the top.

In March, the bureau began limiting the water released from the Shasta Dam to allow the lake to fill, per the Record Searchlight. On March 13, it was releasing 14,000 cubic feet per second — equivalent to 377 million gallons an hour. It had reduced the release rate to 3,569 cubic feet per second two weeks later, as more than three times that amount flowed into the lake.

"The rain right now is perfect for us to just top it off by the end of April," Bader told the newspaper.

Lake Shasta construction required the Southern Pacific Railroad to relocate track, and every so often there is a drought severe enough that a tunnel in the former river valley (that "narrow at the bottom") reappears; then come the rains and the tunnel floods again.

The article also notes water again filling up Lake Oroville.  I wonder if there will be another "Perils of the Spillway" episode at that dam, which isn't as solid as its designers hoped it would be.

That atmospheric river left enough snow for a good late ski season, and full recreational lakes for pleasure boaters and the like could be something even the California of Kamala Harris, Gavin Newsom, Nancy Pelosi, and Adam Schiff can't mess up.

GOD WILL GET AROUND TO ANNIE LAURIE GAYLOR.

For as long as I have been paying attention to politics, one Annie Laurie Gaylor has been the voice of something called the Freedom from Religion Foundation, a Madison-based organization that punches above its weight in policy matters, probably because its indefatigable press office issues the sort of statements that make Progressive readers and participants in the local public radio pledge drive comfortable with their priors.  Mostly, the organization comes to the attention of Normals during the Festive Season, when they object to the presence of a Nativity creche on public property, or mau-mau their preferred politicians into referring to holiday trees -- I'm looking right at you, Wisconsin governor Tony "Pencil Neck" Evers (D - Public Instruction).

They also have an axe to grind with college basketball, particularly as played by women.  Years ago, before there was a professional league, there was a touring team of recent college graduates fielded by Athletes in Action (the organization still exists, although the touring team seems to have been discontinued) that would play pre-conference or non-conference games with university teams, and offer halftime testimonials.  You can imagine how that went down with the local super-seculars.

MEET ME IN MAKANDA.

The last two total solar eclipses to entertain these United States offered prime viewing in Southern Illinois.  Recently retired WGN weatherman Tom Skilling went to where the paths of totality crossed.  Orbital mechanics, don't you see, the summer 2017 eclipse path ran northwest to southeast, the one just completed (which I watched from the quadrangle at Northern Illinois University, maybe pictures to follow in a day or so) tracked southwest to northeast, including bits of Mexico and Canada.  The embedded post provides a link to the video report he filed yesterday.

Tom Skilling comes out of retirement for the solar eclipse https://t.co/Cqec0lQpA9

— Stephen Karlson (@StephenKarlson) April 8, 2024

I'm hearing traffic reports out of the cities along the path of totality that leave me grateful to have stayed close to home, actually renewed acquaintance with two of our students from years ago, who were in town; and there was a good day for practicing safe eclipse viewing, either with the special glasses or with the sun projectors the astronomy club had set up.

Whatever additional research people might be doing under the path of totality on such things as animal behavior, temperature changes, or gravity waves will get in the journals.  Eventually.  Eclipse observations don't exactly give you the same sort of time series a measles outbreak does.

BYRON BUXTON GETS CAUGHT IN A RUN-DOWN.

Fortunately, it was not on the base-paths, and he was not tagged out by a bratwurst.

Byron Buxton provided an excellent demonstration of why you should always look both ways before exiting the dugout on Tuesday.

The Minnesota Twins star nearly put himself at risk of the mother of all weird baseball injuries in the middle of the sixth inning of a road game against the Milwaukee Brewers on Tuesday, when he emerged from the dugout not realizing the Brewers' iconic sausage race was underway.

Buxton didn't realize his error until he was standing squarely in the path of Sausage No. 1, aka Bratwurst. The outfielder at least showed pro athlete reflexes in getting out the way after looking behind himself.

Roll the tape!

Byron Buxton nearly got steamrolled by the Racing Sausages 👀

(via @Cut4) pic.twitter.com/XYUKjP6T2E

— Yahoo Sports (@YahooSports) April 2, 2024

The sausage race has been going on for a long time, with additional treats taking the starting line, and different sponsors buying the naming rights.  (Still no Mash the Banger!)  It's rare for players to inject themselves into the race.  It was inadvertent for Mr Buxton.  For Pittsburgh's Randall Simon, it might have been bad karma.  "Was it Steve Bartman's fan interference or former Pirate Randall Simon's interference with the Polish sausage that kept the Cubs out of the World Series?"

Let the record show that the kielbasa won the Wednesday race.

SOMETIMES SURGE PRICING IS IMPRACTICAL.

Carly Simon might have sung about flying a Lear Jet to Nova Scotia to see a total eclipse of the sun.

In the past few years, the path of totality has crossed Middle America, and people of more modest means have been booking every available hotel, motel, and room-share room for this weekend.  It's a predictable surge, and yet difficult to plan for.

Texas county declares state of emergency ahead of America's total solar eclipse in April https://t.co/pNPU5gsSZ7 via @YahooNews

— Stephen Karlson (@StephenKarlson) April 5, 2024

You might be able to plan for peak times, in fact, your parking mandates might call for parking craters at the mall capable of handling more cars than show up for the Black Friday sales.  It's uneconomic, though, to provide motel space, let alone to stock the grocery stores, for a brief surge of eclipse travellers.

The spectacle is expected to draw crowds from around the nation as people head to areas in the path of totality to witness the eclipse. Officials across the nation have voiced concerns about stretched public safety resources, an "enormous strain" on local hospitals and congested roadways.

At least four states within the path of totality have urged residents to stock up on groceries before the eclipse. Some officials have already issued disaster declarations ahead of the event, and some schools have decided to close, citing student safety.

Texas, Oklahoma, Indiana, and Ohio are the states that have encouraged panic buying by residents, which is only going to dial up the stress at the grocery stores and gas-'n-go places as the eclipse tourists show up and then leave.

Seven years ago, Amtrak ran an extra train from Chicago to Carbondale and return for eclipse tourists.  Precision Scheduled Railroading was absent from Canadian National that afternoon.  The path of totality will again transit Carbondale this year, again in mid-day.  As far as I know, there is no Passenger Extra laid on for the eclipse watchers.

The weather forecasts here in the Nearly Total Zone are for some cloud, with hopes of mid-day clear skies.  The observatory at Northern Illinois University will have a watch party in the quadrangle.

FRIDAY short TAKES.

Reality always wins.  Voters know that.  "Democrats are the party of rich liberals who never encounter the career criminals, released onto the streets time after time, who make life miserable for many millions of Americans."  Reality isn't bundled.  "The partisan claims of a polarized America ring especially false to working-class Americans. This is because—unlike the college-educated elites who run the country—they don’t identify with the full list of policy proposals produced by either party."  Or the elite spin.  "Biden was sold as “normal,” but he is anything but."  Or the elite conceit.  "We can no more seriously suppose that a congress, parliament, or duma – or any administrative bureaus they create – will have access to such knowledge than we can suppose that a dictator will have access to such knowledge."

Discriminating for equality?  "The most consequential falsehood in American public policy today is the idea that any racial disparity in any institution is by definition the result of racial discrimination." Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties. "We must stop apologizing for Western Civilization."  And bring the fight to the cosmopolitans.  "Virtually every ideology that’s undermining the West has its patrons in these ruling cognitive elites."  The only way this will stop is citizens voting.  Well, there is the French solution.  "The modern left has become so rotten with elitism that it has grown insular and almost inbred like old-school European royalty."  Thanks, Chevron deference.  "The consent of the governed, expressed through elections that let the people turn unsatisfactory officials out of office, is trivialized."

The last thing we need are race hustlers in the white community.

The weekly round-up of pithy elaborations on traditional Cold Spring Shops themes follows.

TEMPERING PRINCIPLE WITH PRACTICALITY.

The Environmental Protection Agency allocation tsar recently set hand and seal to ukases requiring multiple changes in the personal automobiles and in the commercial trucking business.  We'll focus on the commercial trucking in this post, and highlight two ways in which principle collides with practicality.

The Biden administration has approved the strictest-ever limits on greenhouse gas emissions from heavy-duty trucks. Public health and environmental advocates are celebrating the move as a boost to zero-emission trucks, while some trucking organizations are criticizing it as unfeasible given current infrastructure.

The standards cover a wide array of vehicles, from city buses and box trucks to garbage trucks and 18-wheelers. The rules apply to manufacturers, and while it's up to manufacturers to choose how to comply, they are widely expected to lean heavily on battery-powered vehicles.

Combined with separate Environmental Protection Agency rules restricting other pollutants from heavy trucks, the slate of rules — for model years 2027 through 2032 — are meant to address both carbon emissions that drive climate change and the soot and smog that directly harms human health.

The first class of trade-offs is familiar.

"On behalf of everyone who breathes, thank you," Paul Billings of the American Lung Association said during an EPA press briefing.

EPA administrator Michael Regan said the agency's "strong and durable vehicle standards respond to the urgency of the climate crisis." The EPA estimates the net benefits to society are worth $13 billion per year, including health benefits, climate benefits and net savings to truck operators.

The oil industry has vowed to challenge the rules in court.

Heavy-duty trucks have an outsize environmental footprint; larger industrial vehicles make up about 5% of the country's vehicle fleet, but 20% of transportation emissions.

The rules were first proposed last year. After collecting comments from the public and industry, the EPA adjusted the final rule to kick in more gradually in the next few years and become more stringent in the early 2030s.

Zero-emission heavy-duty trucks exist today, but are more expensive than traditional diesel vehicles. The EPA says that despite the upfront cost, over time the rules will save fleet owners money in reduced fuel and maintenance costs. Some drivers and fleet operators disagree with that assessment and have denounced the rule as unrealistic and expensive.

"We are concerned that the final rule will end up being the most challenging, costly and potentially disruptive heavy-duty emissions rule in history," Jed Mandel, the president of the Truck and Engine Manufacturers Association, said in a statement, while maintaining that truck manufacturers "are committed to a zero-emission future" for trucking.

The American Bus Association said it supports climate initiatives that "gradually" move the U.S. toward a cleaner environment, but that the EPA's rules are a "forced march towards electric vehicles" that could potentially double equipment costs for the motorcoach industry.

"This administration appears more focused on placating extreme environmental activists who have never been inside a truck than the small-business truckers who ensure that Americans have food in their grocery stores and clothes on their backs," said Todd Spencer, president of the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association, in a statement.

"There's nothing new about polluting industries trying to avoid having to clean up," said Laura Kate Bender, of the American Lung Association, calling some of the industry claims about costs "outrageous" and untrue.

The article also notes the separate rules forthcoming for personal cars.  The grievances enumerated in the long quote above are familiar.  So, too, are the opportunities for the rent-seekers to wet their beaks.

[L]ight-duty vehicles are much easier to electrify than heavy-duty ones — they are, well, lighter, which means smaller batteries. And they're easier to charge; powering a gigantic truck takes a daunting amount of energy.

"One charging site for a heavy truck fleet could use as much power as the Empire State Building," says Matt Horton, CEO of EV charging station developer Voltera. Still, he says, that technology exists, and the EPA's rules are a boost to businesses like his because they provide some "certainty in the market" to help make long-term plans around investments.

It's not just the cost of building charging stations — the grid itself needs to improve and expand to support additional demand.

News flash: that strengthened power grid is not going to depend on windmills, solar panels, and wishful thinking, and the lawyers that will litigate.

THERE'S ALREADY A TOMATO WEDGE ON A CHICAGO HOT DOG.

I wonder if Heinz isn't installing promotional ketchup dispensers as a way of getting their yellow glop into the hot dog and beef joints in preference to French's.  "Heinz is entering hostile territory to offer ketchup packets around Chicago, a city that can be disdainful of the tomato condiment, at least where hot dogs are concerned."

Test-marketing is sometimes inspired, isn't it?

Heinz says most diners prefer to have the option of using ketchup when they eat out. To that end, the food manufacturer will temporarily be installing what it calls “smackable” billboards around the city to offer “ketchup relief.”

They work this way: Passersby can “smack” the ketchup bottle mockup protruding from the boards, and they will dispense ketchup packets.

Heinz says it’s targeting restaurant locations where ketchup is not served. It is placing a billboard, for example, outside Chicago’s Wiener’s Circle restaurant in Lincoln Park. Everyone, of course, knows that a traditional Chicago-style hot dog -- ideally "dragged through the garden" of various toppings -- contains no ketchup.

Outkick contributor Matt Reigle sees 57 varieties of crazy in the promotion.

So the idea, is that you get your food, wander outside, slap the billboard, and help yourself to some ketchup.

I don't know who is going to do this. I wouldn't trust street ketchup or any street condiments for that matter.

I'm a big mustard guy, but if I really wanted mustard on my hot dog and I was at some horrible establishment that didn't offer mustard due to some city-wide disdain for it and they said, "Well, if you really want mustard there's a billboard outside," I would eat my glizzy sans mustard.

But if you want to risk getting ketchup out of a billboard some junkie or homeless person peed on, you do you…

Speaking of which, I don't like ketchup on my dogs, but I'm not a douche about it. Still, if you get an honest-to-goodness Chicago hot dog — which has like a million things on it already — there's no need to add ketchup to the mix.

It already has tomatoes on it. You'll survive without a splash of Heinz.

The promotion is for a short time only, and it's been during an early April spell of late-wintry conditions.

SLOWLY THEY LEARN.

I've long been of the view that Big Time College Sports has more to gain than to lose by shedding the fiction of Amateur Sport that having the Ivies or the Horizon League providing that veil of innocence.

Let's set the Wayback Machine to last December.  "How long have I been carrying on about College Sports, Inc. realigning until there are four major conferences of sixteen teams each and the National Collegiate Athletic Association becomes irrelevant?"

Will you still read me, will you believe me, when there's thirty-four?  "SEC, Big Ten 'advisory group' stands as coded threat to NCAA: Figure it out, or we'll go off ourselves."  The money quote was nailed to Newmark's Door.

There's the little challenge of the basketball-heavy Big East alongside the football-powered Southeastern, Atlantic Coast, Big Ten, and Big Twelve.

UNDERMINE THEM WITH MOCKERY.

Bill Maher used to host a show called "Politically Incorrect," and he hasn't lost his edge.

I get no pleasure in having to characterize my country as panicky, inefficient, and stuck on stupid. But that’s what we are. pic.twitter.com/zq1ppbQGTs

— Bill Maher (@billmaher) March 30, 2024

Jon Stewart recently had fun with Excessively Earnest People who get outraged over pickup truck tailgate decals. (Yes, he worked the truck scrotum into the riff.)

The Maher clip came from Town Hall Media, the Stewart clip from Red State.  There are Excessively Earnest People wearing all sorts of political hats, and having people whose salaries depend on their being funny being funny is refreshing.

HOW BAD IS NORTHERN ILLINOIS BASKETBALL?

For the women, mediocrity is the regular choice.

The men can't get out of DeKalb fast enough.  "Five NIU men’s basketball players have entered the transfer portal."  The way this transfer portal works, if nobody beams you up, you retain your scholarship on your current team.  Not that the team performed all that well, they failed to qualify for the conference tournament in Cleveland.

If all five players choose to leave NIU, the Huskies will be without three former starters and their sixth man for the 2024-2025 season. Head coach Rashon Burno will be forced to retool NIU’s roster around junior guard David Coit.

I'm not sure how transferring off a bad team wrecks a team.  "Underachieving Huskies wrecked by transfer portal."

While NIU men’s basketball has never been harmed as badly as it has this season by the transfer portal, losing talent via the portal has been an issue for the Huskies for the past few seasons.

After the 2022-23 season, the Huskies’ lost three key contributors in guard Kaleb Thornton, forward Anthony Crump and guard Darweshi Hunter. Thornton was the Huskies’ top assist man, Crump led the Huskies in rebounds and Hunter was NIU’s most efficient three-point shooter.

All three players left NIU for rival MAC schools after 2022-23.

The Huskies won just nine games in the 2021-22 season and were able to retain Williams, Crump, Thornton and Hunter but lost guard Trendon Hankerson. Hankerson started all 30 games for the Huskies and finished second in the MAC in steals per game in 2021-22 before leaving for the MAC-rival University of Akron Zips.

Perhaps we're seeing that there are no bad brigades, only bad brigadiers.

During NIU men’s basketball head coach Rashon Burno’s three years at NIU, the Huskies are yet to have an overall winning record or a conference winning record. The closest they came was in 2022-23, finishing 13-19 overall and 9-9 in the MAC.

While the Huskies went just 11-20 overall and 5-13 in the MAC last season, I would argue that this roster was actually the most talented team of the Burno era, but underachieved.

"Most talented" by Mid-American standards generally isn't saying much, is it?

LCM(13,17) = 221.

For the first time in 221 years, two broods of periodic cicadas will emerge, early in the summer.

In 2024, the Midwest is expected to see the result of two cicada broods in the Spring: one that comes out every 13 years and another every 17 years.

The two broods, Brood XIX and Brood XIII last emerged simultaneously in 1803.

Amazing how that math works, isn't it?  "Central Illinois is expected to be an overlap zone of cicada activity as both Brood XIX and Brood XIII are expected to emerge in the billions."  Those broods generally hatch early in summer, whilst the annual cicadas show up during the dog days.  As will, the way Lotke and Volterra demonstrated, the annual cicada's predators.

[O]ne critter who will miss all the action is the insects’ natural enemy: the large Cicada Killer Wasp.

The cicada killer is one of the largest wasps in the United States, with females growing to a size of 2 inches in length.

The females have stingers their male counterparts lack. They use this stinger to sting and paralyze cicadas with their venom. Then, they carry the helpless insects back to their burrow and lay their eggs among their bodies, according to The Smithsonian.

The paralyzed cicadas remain alive to feed the emerging young.

Entomologists suggest that the long-period cicadas demonstrate a survival strategy expressed in prime-number years as it's harder for a long-lived (by insect standards) predator to crack that code.  I wonder if the life cycles of the annual cicadas and the large wasps also reflect those dynamics.  No doubt any early-hatching predator wasps stumbling across some of those big thirteen or seventeen year cicadas will have a feast for their spawn.  The spawn, growing to maturity, will be disappointed.

We'll see what sort of summer din manifests itself here; there are plenty of tree frogs and the annual cicadas sounding off in August.

MCKINSEY GUY'S SALARY DEPENDS ON HIS NOT GRASPING EMERGENCE.

The Jarrett regency's secretary of transportation, Pete "What, ME worry?" Buttigieg got himself mocked, again, for attempting to disparage people who resisted buying an enclosed golf cart electric car.  "Pete Buttigieg Says Moving to EVs Is Like Moving From a Landline to a Cell Phone."

🚨 Pete Buttigieg disparages Americans who don't want to be forced into electric vehicles:

"I feel like it's the early 2000s and I'm talking to some people who think that we can just have landline phones forever." pic.twitter.com/fnHXMOGdlu

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) April 2, 2024

The posters Twitchy's Brett T. collected generally made the point that choosing to do something you want is different from being mandated to do something you don't want. "Buttigieg thinks Americans should get with the program, because this is the future, whether they like it or not."  That might be; and it's of a piece with the unholy alliance of Technocratic Wisdom and Rent Seeking that gives us the likes of McKinsey.

It's also paradigmatic of the way Democrats argue.  Watch any of their "strategists" on any televised panel, or dip into any of the speeches during their national convention, and somebody will very quickly attempt some witticism to denigrate people who don't see things their way.  There are more subtle ways of saying "Neanderthal."

What's missing, both from the boy mayor's sneer and the Twitchy pile-on, is the deeper understanding of the ways in which we have that computing power in our pockets is a consequence of the government going away.

The story begins over forty years ago, when the old AT&T monopoly agreed to divest itself, the same day that the Justice Department dropped its antitrust suit against International Business Machines.  All of that happened early in my academic career ... how glorious it was to be a young industrial economist in those days!  You won't find any posts on those days on Cold Spring Shops, because there was no Cold Spring Shops until twenty years later.

JUST LET THE KIDS PLAY.

It's been the practice of the Louisiana State women's basketball team to go back to the locker room to rehydrate and brush up on the game plan during the pregame formalities, returning for player introductions.

WHY DONALD TRUMP'S "FAKE NEWS" ASSERTION HAS PURCHASE.

As Glenn "Insta Pundit" Reynolds has it, just think of the Sunday show hosts as Democrat operatives with bylines, and you'll not go wrong.  Case in point:  "Marco Rubio Leaves Jonathan Karl Spluttering As He Lays Out Successes of Trump Versus Failures of Biden."

LET THE KIDS PLAY!

The final round of the women's college basketball tournament is set, and perhaps we can stop projecting the Culture Wars stuff on the teams, last year's champion Louisiana State in particular.  After last year's title game turned into Punditry Reading Deep Significance into a couple of teams giving each other bulletin board material, the regional final again featuring Iowa and Louisiana State again turned into opportunities for keyboard warriors to focus on everything but what happened on the court.  Here I was a year ago.  "Iowa brought a team of corn-fed prairie kids, while Louisiana State were ready to go clubbing somewhere in the French Quarter, and let's say there wasn't a lot in the way of inclusive spirit on social media."

IF YOU'RE REALLY DOWN, THIS MIGHT NOT BE THE THERAPY YOU SEEK.

Amtrak offered an April Fool joke today.

Introducing the Amtrak Emotional Baggage car.

Tag a friend who needs a lift—we can handle it. pic.twitter.com/dWydQmIuh0

— Amtrak (@Amtrak) April 1, 2024

That friend might be waiting a long time for his baggage to be checked, or to arrive.

LOTS OF CHALK ERASED OVER THE WEEKEND.

They toss the basketballs up for a reason.  "The 2024 men's Final Four is scheduled Saturday, April 6, at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona. No. 4 seed Alabama and No. 1 seed Connecticut are set to square off at 8:49 p.m. ET, with No. 1 Purdue will face No. 11 seed North Carolina State at 6:09 p.m. ET."

There are limits to backward induction, undoubtedly.  That reference "chalk" makes to the old days of horse racing, though, gets me wondering if any office pools are organized as pari-mutuels.  Think about what happens if either Purdue or Connecticut win the tournament.  The larger the pool, the more likely there will be identical brackets submitted.  On the other hand, Alabama seems to have surprised some of the punters, even with that Four; and North Carolina State, whilst a program with a serious pedigree, in as an eleven, has to have been passed over in favor of Duke.  Should either of those teams win it all, does anyone having that as their winner as a singleton entry simply get a preannounced top prize?  Or do any pool operators recalculate the top prizes based on the number of surviving entries still in contention?

CONTINUING RESOLUTIONS BY DESIGN.

In Saturday's lament over the Fall of the Key Bridge, I offered a cranky observation.

In the wrangling, perhaps we see why Congress enjoys those government-shutdown-continuing-resolution follies.

Republicans are not the only critics. Some liberals are also questioning Biden’s proposal, arguing that the blame for the tragedy lies, at least in part, with the owner of the cargo vessel, which should bear some portion of the repair costs.

“Let’s be clear about the tragedy in Baltimore. That bridge didn’t just collapse. There was no earthquake. The bridge was knocked down (apparently) by a private ship that lost control. Shouldn’t they be at least partly responsible for fixing it?” said Jamal Simmons, a Democratic strategist and Vice President Harris’s former communications director.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said Wednesday on MSNBC that she expected insurance payments to cover part of the cost to rebuild the bridge.

The debate is sure to get only more spirited after Congress returns to Washington in mid-April following the long holiday break; party leaders will already be grappling with a number of radioactive issues, including an extension of the government’s domestic spying authority and military aid for Ukraine and Israel.

In that final paragraph, note a bundle of policies that have non-intersecting, noisy cheering sections.  None of them can survive an up-or-down vote.  "Bipartisanship" means assembling a crap sandwich with just enough sprinkles to satisfy each cheering section. An earmark for Baltimore's Key Bridge is one more sprinkle.

Yahoo News producer Kate Murphy, previously of al-Jazeera and Cablevision, offers an explanation.

U.S. government shutdowns didn’t happen until the 1980s when Attorney General Benjamin Civiletti, under the Carter administration, issued a stricter interpretation of the 1884 Antideficiency Act that basically said: no budget, no spending.

The U.S. Constitution gives Congress the power to come up with a federal budget, which involves figuring out how much money the government can spend over the course of an upcoming fiscal year, which starts Oct. 1. It’s then approved by the president.

Ronald Reagan once had his staff pile up the binders containing an early continuing resolution on a table in the well of the House, in order to warn Congress that he would veto any subsequent bills.  I don't know whether he made good on his threat; I know that such bills, cobbled together with insufficient time to read them, are regular features these days; and that attempts to give Members of Congress time to read them, or to limit the injection of crap sandwiches or sprinkles, depending on your perspective, through House rules, have been honored more in the breach than in the observance ever since.

LAUGHTER MIGHT BE THE BEST MEDICINE.

The Jarrett regency issued a presidential proclamation, making March 31 something called the Transgender Day of Visibility.  A quarter-millennium ago, the British parliament issued legislation we sons of the American Revolution know as the Intolerable Acts, and, predictably, the Militant Normals will be drawing parallels.  Apparently the alphabet people have made March 31 a feast day for some time, and a Culture Wars throw-down of epic proportions is under way.

Next year, for example, Easter Sunday will be on April 20.  Crossers this year, stoners and stormtroopers next year.  Was three hours of blood shed on a cross at Golgotha sufficient to take away all those future sins?

FIRST MITIGATE, THEN LITIGATE.

In the middle of last Saturday's meditation on the Baltimore bridge troubles, I mused, "I remember a concept called 'mitigating your damages' that might apply here: you shoot the jackasses clear the channel quickly and let the lawyers and underwriters sort the liability out later."  That concept surfaces, if in less colorful fashion, in James Joyner's suggestion that while the national government marshal the resources to clear the channel and build a new bridge, they also marshal the resources to recover damages.

I think this is the right instinct, although with some significant caveats. Right in that the Federal government has the ability to marshall resources quickly and that repair is vital from a national, not merely a local perspective.

On the other hand, the bridge is a Maryland state highway, and one that collects tolls, no less. It seems reasonable that they should pay part of the cost of this revenue producer. That’s especially true if a private contractor maintains the roads in exchange for a cut of the fees. (I haven’t the foggiest whether they are; it is true for many of the toll roads in Northern Virginia.)

Moreover, this calamity was caused by a private company. While the captain is rightly being lauded for quickly informing authorities, allowing traffic to be stopped and thus likely saving countless lives, if the investigation shows that there was negligence on the part of the company, then they (and, by extension, their insurance company) certainly ought to be held liable to the extent possible.

That Dali has a history of getting into scrapes is also reason to look for contributory negligence.  "My purely amateur speculation at this point is that the captain the Key Bridge incident did an exemplary job under the circumstances but that the ship was not maintained to standard."  Plus a recognition that there's insufficient redundancy to the local road network, something that's also true of the rail network as water and land carriers reroute their shipments.