*appears from nowhere*
Huh, where did that 5% margin that the polls underestimated the GOP come from, anyhow?
Oh, well then.
*vanishes into the abyss*
Zandar wrote at Balloon Juice from 2011-16. (1975-2023)
RIP Zandar, We are still here fighting the stupid, now in your honor.
blog Zandar Versus The Stupid.
Twitter: @ZandarVTS
by Zandar| 25 Comments
This post is in: Bring On The Meteor, Self-Hating Liberal
*appears from nowhere*
Huh, where did that 5% margin that the polls underestimated the GOP come from, anyhow?
Oh, well then.
*vanishes into the abyss*
by Zandar| 79 Comments
This post is in: Free Markets Solve Everything, Science & Technology, All we want is life beyond the thunderdome, Bring on the Brawndo!
The cursory math on Elon Musk’s overhyped Hyperloop project doesn’t even begin to add up. Whatever Howard Stark fantasies the guy is entertaining, he needs to go back to the drawing board.
Musk’s proposal won’t actually get riders to the downtowns of Los Angeles or San Francisco. It can only carry around 10% of the capacity of the California High-Speed Rail. Additionally, it will bypass other population centers, like Bakersfield, Fresno, and San Jose.
Building a truly workable Hyperloop, if it’s feasible at all, will be significantly more expensive than Musk claims. It might even be more expensive than the California HSR project. And Musk’s proposal leaves a lot of questions unanswered.
How did he come to his construction cost estimate in the first place? Musk argues that the Hyperloop is cheaper than HSR because it’s elevated, saving on the cost of building at grade and reducing local opposition. But bridges are far more expensive than building tracks at grade. And just because the footprint is limited to a big pylon every 100 feet doesn’t mean that the environmental impact analysis process will be any easier or that the public will be any more receptive.
Other issues, like seismic stability, are simply glossed over. He claims that by elevating the Hyperloop tracks, they will be more stable than ground-running HSR. Clearly he’s unfamiliar with the Cypress Street Viaduct. That’s one reason that the California High-Speed Rail Authority insists on crossing all faults at grade.
Musk also claims that his giant steel tube will be okay with the only expansion joints at the Los Angeles and San Francisco ends. They’ll just be really big. That’s a significant engineering issue that cannot simply be ignored, at least not if Musk is in any way serious about this proposal.
He’s not. If he was, he would have immediately thought of the most obvious cost overrun source: the cost of the land to build the tube pylons on.
Consider some of the major factors for why California’s $68 billion high-speed rail system has gone over budget. In many cases, local communities have demanded extra viaducts and tunnels added to the project that weren’t strictly necessary. Other towns, meanwhile, have insisted they not be bypassed even in cases where it would be cheaper to do so. Would the Hyperloop be immune from these sorts of political pressures and tweaks?
What’s more, California’s high-speed rail project has had to grapple with the high costs of acquiring more than 1,100 parcels of land, often from farmers resistant to sell. The Hyperloop would try to minimize this problem by propping the whole system up on pylons, shrinking its footprint, but it can’t escape the land problem entirely. As Alexis Madrigal points out, Musk’s proposal seems to assume it’s possible to buy up tens of thousands of acres in California for a mere $1 billion. That’s awfully optimistic.
I hear Hyperloop, I think “Springfield monorail“.
by Zandar| 134 Comments
This post is in: Open Threads, Bring on the Brawndo!
Well, since nobody made a Sharknado thread yesterday (because John is a crankypuss) here you go.
And yes, I was gloriously in full Joel and the Bots mode last night, laughing my ass off. (“Octoquake! Beavercano! Chickencane! Thunderhog! Bonobonami!”)
Open thread.
Inclement Carcharadon Precipitation DiscussionPost + Comments (134)
by Zandar| 22 Comments
This post is in: Bring on the Brawndo!, Democratic Stupidity, hoocoodanode, WIN THE MORNING
I’m sorry, but WIN THE MORNING pointing out that Harry Reid has 51 of 54 Democratic senators lined up for the filibuster “nuclear option” is complete hogwash.
How this all plays out will be determined behind closed doors at Senate Democratic Caucus lunch meetings, the first of which is on Tuesday. After huddling with his membership, Reid will determine which nominee comes to the floor first to face a likely GOP filibuster.
Reid has refused to answer questions on the topic even as Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) continues his campaign on the Senate floor to see if Reid will “keep his word” on not changing Senate rules in January — which Democrats are only too happy to turn on McConnell for promising “to work with the majority to process nominations.”
It’s still unclear whether Reid has the votes to change the rules, although the Sierra Club, Communications Workers of America and top Senate aides are confident Reid can marshal 51 members of his 54-member caucus to support at least easing the path for executive nominations such as Cabinet members.
There’s far less certainty on whether the caucus would like to tweak rules for judicial nominees as well.
It’s simple math. Lautenberg’s passing means Dems now only have 54 votes in the Senate. (His temporary Republican replacement can’t be expected to back rules reform.) Aides who are tracking the vote count tell me that Senator Carl Levin (a leading opponent of the “nuke option” when it was ruled out at the beginning of the year, leading to the watered down bipartisan filibuster reform compromise) is all but certain to oppose any rules change by simple majority. Senators Patrick Leahy and Mark Pryor remain question marks. And Senator Jack Reed is a Maybe.
If Dems lose those four votes, that would bring them down to 50. And, aides note, that would mean Biden’s tie-breaking vote would be required to get back up to the 51 required for a simple Senate majority. That’s an awfully thin margin for error.
Which means every single Dem other than Levin, Leahy, Pryor, and Reed could blow it. (Yes, I’m looking directly at you, Joe Manchin, Mark Begich, Mary Landrieu, etc.) The bottom line is we’ve heard all this before, and each and every time Harry Reid and the Dems gleefully blow it because they perversely benefit from the Senate’s inaction on the tough issues as much (or more at times) than the GOP does.
And no, I don’t even think Harry Reid and the Dems can even get this done correctly.
by Zandar| 435 Comments
This post is in: Foreign Affairs, I Reject Your Reality and Substitute My Own, Security Theatre
Take this as you will, from the South China Morning Post:
Edward Snowden secured a job with a US government contractor for one reason alone – to obtain evidence of Washington’s cyberspying networks, the South China Morning Post can reveal.
For the first time, Snowden has admitted he sought a position at Booz Allen Hamilton so he could collect proof about the US National Security Agency’s secret surveillance programmes ahead of planned leaks to the media.
“My position with Booz Allen Hamilton granted me access to lists of machines all over the world the NSA hacked,” he told the Post on June 12. “That is why I accepted that position about three months ago.”
During a live global online chat last week, Snowden also stated he took pay cuts “in the course of pursuing specific work”. He said: “Booz was not the most I’ve been paid.”
Kinda throws a big-ass crimp in the whole “hero” angle if this is true, yes?
Discuss.
For Reasons As Pure As The Driven SnowdenPost + Comments (435)
by Zandar| 212 Comments
This post is in: Domestic Politics, hoocoodanode, Looks Like I Picked the Wrong Week to Stop Sniffing Glue, OBAMA IS WORSE THAN BUSH HE SOLD US OUT!!, Security Theatre
From the “Oh and by the way” Department:
The National Security Agency and the FBI are tapping directly into the central servers of nine leading U.S. Internet companies, extracting audio, video, photographs, e-mails, documents and connection logs that enable analysts to track a person’s movements and contacts over time.
The highly classified program, code-named PRISM, has not been disclosed publicly before. Its establishment in 2007 and six years of exponential growth took place beneath the surface of a roiling debate over the boundaries of surveillance and privacy. Even late last year, when critics of the foreign intelligence statute argued for changes, the only members of Congress who knew about PRISM were bound by oaths of office to hold their tongues.
Reaction has been both subtle and nuanced.
Taste the rainbow. Data mine the rainbow.
Oh, and the tech companies supposedly involved are 100% flatly denying everything about this story, too.
[UPDATE] Annnnnnd there’s apparently more.The National Security Agency’s monitoring of Americans includes customer records from the three major phone networks as well as emails and Web searches, and the agency also has cataloged credit-card transactions, said people familiar with the agency’s activities.
So, outraged members of Congress will sunset the Patriot Act rather than renewing it with veto-proof margins, right?
I Cast PRISMatic Sphere On All The ThingsPost + Comments (212)
by Zandar| 80 Comments
This post is in: IOKIYAR, Blatant Liars and the Lies They Tell, Both Sides Do It!, Bring on the Brawndo!, Very Serious People
And for Marco Rubio’s next trick…
Because of course this was inevitable. Now he’ll remain Very Serious On Immigration Reform, but the bill’s failure won’t be his fault when it doesn’t meet his exacting standards, and now none of the House Republicans have to go on record when this all crashes in flames.
Additional points for Blame Obama.
Fin. Exeunt all.