Do you recall the California high-speed rail project that is $80 Billion over budget and projected to be at least $128 Billion over budget before it’s ever completed? Well, the project continues to limp along due to an injection of a few more billion dollars but there are questions if it will ever get completed.
One wonders what good use all of this wasted money could have been put to. On a recent podcast, Adam Carolla and Drew Pinsky discussed how anytime there’s a wind in Malibu or Pacific Palisades, a fire breaks out due to suspended power lines falling to the ground. If these lines were buried, this would not happen. Carolla is interviewed about the same here.
Related: Spending money on DEI clearly takes precedence over competent firefighting.
High Speed (sic) rail line to be completed between Bakersfield and Shafter! … what a joke. There are 0-passengers queuing up for that ride. What an utter waste of money. Newscum should be jailed for malfeasance.
OTOH … CA voters … mostly from the newly burned areas re-elected h8m and saved him from a recall election. So there’s that tinge of Schadenfreude
Kenji, you live in California, I don’t. So perhaps you can answer something.
Californians voted for Newscum as Governor. The citizens of Los Angeles voted for Karen Bass. And it’s now LA which is burning to the ground because of her mismanagement of fire protection budgets.
So here’s the question: why should anyone have the slightest sympathy for residents of California and LA? They VOTED for these lowlifes. The census data shows anyone who can leave California is doing so for places like Texas or just about anywhere that’s not the Left Coast.
Is it a case of “Californians have not yet suffered enough from voting for socialists? In your view, will anything stop them?
the Simpsons did an episode years ago called Mono Rail …… it is exactly what is going on here
mono-rail! …..mono-rail! …..mono-rail! …..mono-rail! ….. lol, a direct result of corrupt elections for decades mixed with mountains of apathy
NEVER trust a beurecrat or a politician to oversee or manage a “project”.
They have no clue, no accountability, and no need to deliver a result or completion, more concerning is “NO RESPECT FOR A BUDGET OR THOSE WHO ULTIMATELY PAY” the bill.
New world, management by committee, and “NO ONE” is accountable. Taxpayer is disrespected and abused, they view dollars as unending, and big basket to drain, politicans refill, rinse, repeat, dip and add to.
US or Canada, or EU, all same model……NO ACCOUNTABILITY, no heads roll when projects, initiatives, other GRAND schemes fail.
Oh well, maybe next time……..if ever………not holding my breath.
Lack of competency in project management is only half the problem. The political process itself ensures failure of meeting targets. In any political process, there are a multitude of altnernatives for investing resources. To get their project approved, civil servants, elected or appointed, will over-promise in results and minimize costs. When ever a project is launched it will always deliver less than expected and take longer to implement and at greater than advertised cost.
Huh. Try living in Canada. Municipalitis and poor Provincial Provinces dream up “cost sharing” projects thinking they can tie into other peoples tax money. They’re never audited properly, so these projects are probably rife with waste and possibly fraud. We’re broke and yet they still have to try. They must have faith that the taxpayer will vote them in yet one more time. Hmm, the voting record suggesrs it might br true.
My sense on the fire is that as is typical in California, dead wood is left to pile up thus created a tinder box as no logging or clearing operations are allowed. No firebreaks either. I also suspect that the forest in question has lots of homeless residents whose concerns about fire safety are probably lacking.
rumour is everyone even remotely tasked or involved in such an undertaking were engaged in their mandated gender studies. the entire time from concept to ribbon cutting. no one audited anything. mysteriuosly all records of any nature in any medium related to the project all disappeared in the mean time. with no explanation.
oddly, everyone approached for records in their possession, had some sort of spontaneous gathering in front of city hall sharing hot chocolate and signing autographs and equally spontaneously the entire crowd burst out chanting ‘we love justin we love justin we love justin’
sound familiar?
A simple audit to follow the money should be sufficient; of course, it will never happen.
Audits do occasionally happen. The Ford government audited the Ottawa light rail transit project. The audit showed massive mismanagement by the City. Result was that the Mayor fled the country and most of Council refused to run for re-election.
The Ford government audited Laurentian University. The result was the discovery of many millions in bungled development by a succession of university presidents with the collaboration of boards of governors.
wow. you got a link for any of this? it does help with credibility.
Too bad they didn’t capture the torrential rains for the previous 2 years… Instead they spilled it, or blew up other dams for “ecological reasons”
I’ve been in the LA hills. They are very steep sided canyons. Choked with trees and dry under brush. Trying to bury power lines while not impossible would be super expensive and difficult.
Very few places have buried theirs. Some of rural Saskatchewan has buried power lines.
Nature, left to its own devices, will occasionally purge itself of an overgrown, out-of-control monoculture. This is a sad, teaching moment. Unfortunately no one is listening so nothing will be learned.