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.