Urban guy pisses on the farmers who make his urban lifestyle possible. Yawn.

Does this mean that they also don’t want State Highways or Interstate freeways?
Or Federal Crop insurance?
Or the Hetch-Hetchy?
Or any Rural Electrification Project?

Progress takes precedence.

Farmer guy pissed at urban guy who pays taxes so the farmer guys tax subsidies. *yawn*

Yes, Chuckie, we know very well that Zimbabweans don't take much of a liking to farming. Now go home and shit on the farmers (if any are left) in that dump.

C'mon Matt, you're smart enough to know we need as much investment in public transportation as we can get, and standing in the way of that is stupid. If it's not okay to make fun of people when they're in the wrong, when would it ever be?

Is it still "progress" if they have no fucking clue where the $68 billion to pay for it is going to come from? They're broke, remember?

@2 To relieve congestion on the roads and skies, lower pollution, and easier access than the mile high club.

Progress in Detroit?
New Detroit Farm Plan Taking Root
Entrepreneur Envisions Growing Trees on City's Blighted East Side,
Returning Thousand of Vacant Lots to Tax Rolls

@2: right. jet fuel will be available at the current price into infinity. there's no need for alternatives. those japanese and europeans are just stupid spendthrifts.

Gosh, we have trains and Stagecoaches, why do we need a national auto-trails system?
Gosh, we have a national auto-trails system, why do we need a national highway system, and a paved one at that?
Gosh, why do we need any infrastructure?

Yea not like they grow your food or anything. How is that farm repossession thing going back in Rhodesia, you know the one where your dads buddy Mugabe murdered white farmers and stole their land and gave it to his african communist buddies, then caused a famine because they didn't know how to farm. Maybe you should go back there,

I'm from farm folk. I've lived and worked on a farm. Farm folk complain about everything, and every cloud has a pitch black lining. That's just the way they are.

They'll get over it - particularly, as I suspect, if they get some money out of this.

And a high speed rail system makes a lot more sense than another stupid highway.

The main problems with the high-speed rail in CA (which I love in theory, having enjoyed the HELL out of such systems when I lived in Europe & Japan) are:
1) they sold us on the tax to build it by underestimating the cost nearly 300%, which all evidence points to being deliberate bullshit math

2) it's being started in the central valley where there's no population to support it, apparently because a senator from there sold his "yes" vote on the Affordable Care Act for a promise from the feds that construction would start in his district.

It's always more complicated than the headlines, isn't it?

Sounds good, except for the route change from Fresno to Burbank, and that it's not going to be as high-speed as promised. Building world class high-speed rail is one thing, but creating another Amtrak line for the valley is another.

>Central Valley

So it is highs-peed rail to a place where no one wants to go.

I worry about the wildlife trying to cross the darn thing.

@ 7, his point is that rural people are all stupid. The facts of this article are merely the excuse to say so, which is akin to the racist troll picking on a news item of inner city crime and saying "black to the bone."

@19 Okay, ya got a point there.

@20, 19 - Yes, Matt makes a good point.

Good Morning Charles,
I favor this project. As one mentioned, it's better than building a highway for vehicular traffic. However, I'm convinced you have a deep prejudice against rural folk. The "Rural to the bone" remark will hit a raw nerve to some and stir a tempest. I believe there fine people from the rural as well as the urban in this great country. I say that as a city (Chicago) boy.

I hope this project serves California well.

If you feel like getting depressed on this lovely day, check out the comments thread on The Seattle Times's AP story yesterday on California giving the go-ahead on the high-speed rail project. It's a real Tea Party revival meeting, and there's some real anger.

It's hard to pinpoint what it is, but there's something about high-speed rail and mass transit that pushes the buttons of American conservatives like nothing else. So California wants to get started on a $70 billion project to bring its transportation system into the 21st century and make its economy competitive? To these folks, that's just the worst waste of taxpayer money ever. Meanwhile, you don't hear a peep from the same crew about our having borrowed a trillion dollars to flush down the toilet on that little military misadventure in Iraq.

Sorry Matt, gotta take it back if Gay Dude for Rmoney agrees with me.

@#15; California’s two Senators are Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, both women, and like all U.S. Senators, they represent the entire state. Perhaps you meant House Member

#6 - the proper term is "Rhodesians".

#22 - "The "Rural to the bone" remark will hit a raw nerve to some and stir a tempest."

....you do realize that's the only reason Mudede writes these idiotic posts, right? I'm not hep to this newfangled internet lingo, but I believe it's called "trolling".

Never mind that the Central Valley already has railroad lines running the length of it. The farm folks would never benefit from a rail line for heaven's sakes, oh no. The only reason the rail lines are there is because those damn city people came in and deliberately cut farms in half, scared off the deer and other wildlife, and generally made life miserable for god-fearing tillers of the soil. Never mind that the high-speed system would be built alongside existing rail lines, mostly just widening right-of-way that's already been dedicated to rail traffic. And never mind that a fair amount of the expense comes as a result of having to engineer underpasses and other ways for local traffic to cross the rails, or the rails to rise above the roads. And never mind that if the high-speed system construction had started two decades ago, when it was already under consideration, it would have cost far, far less than it will now that the farmers and the teabaggers have managed to delay it into the foreseeable future. That's a good illustration of the self-fulfilling prophecy: It'll cost too much to build and we can't afford it. Mainly because we've delayed the building so that costs and labor have ballooned during the delaying years. The American railroad system is pitifully antiquated in comparison with the rest of the developed world because of the footdragging know-nothings who've planted themselves in front of the steam shovels every inch of the way.

@ 24, such situations inspired someone to come up with that broken clock cliche you've read hundreds of times in forums like this. (And at least it wasn't Seattleblues agreeing with us.)

Re: 23, I never get tired of reminding people that the $1 trillion in direct expenditures for Iraq/Afghanistan is the least of it.

Experts agree that we will spend an additional $1-2 trillion (as we are morally obligated to do) to provide appropriate lifetime care to all our veterans with brain injuries, amputations, PTSD, etc., and services to their families.

There is also another $500 million or more for winding down the wars and replacing the clapped-out HumVees that were never designed to handle the additional tons of armor-plating welded on in the field as [brilliantly] improvised protection against IED's ["We go to war with the army we have"—Ronald Dumbsfeld], and all the other paraphernalia we're abandoning to entrepreneurial profiteers because we don't think it's worth our time or trouble to retrieve it from the battlefields.

And let's not forget that Mittens wants to increase defense spending by 50%, even though the current visible U.S. defense budget (DoD + "defense-related expenses" in other Cabinet-level departments, not counting black ops) is approximately equal to that of all other nations combined.

That reminds me, Matt dear, whatever happened to Seattleblahs? Did his mother cut off his Internet access, or did those library fines finally catch up with him?

@ Catalina, he probably made good on his threat to permanently move to the land of pure sexual morality, Italy, where he won't have to (knowingly) rub shoulders with Sodomites and sinners. Also to avoid be sued for discrimination (he said he was planning on not renewing the leases of his LGBT tenants in order to strike a blow against faggot marriage and show everyone he wasn't going to take equality any more.)

HSR is the new transit.

The suburbs become the subags...clusters of homes on the edge of real farms providing sustenance.

The cities empty...are a terminus for turning the engines around.

This new train thingy means San Diego to LA in 80 minutes. Are you serious?! This normally takes 2-4 hours by car. Can't wait.

Farmers grow all our food, then ship a shitload to other countries. And we pay a bunch of them to grow nothing. And many of them are wasting resources growing animal protein for human consumption. Obviously there are more farmers than we need, so I don't give a shit if some of them are inconvenienced for high-speed rail.

Can this report mention the fact that tax dollars being spent increase demand, create jobs and stimulate the economy? And that stimulating the economy means a decrease in debt to GDP in the medium term (once mild inflation kicks in and reduces the real value of that debt?)

The coasts can use high speed rail--and the US is decades behind. Get on with it. Good for the economy, good for the environment.

@25, you are correct. Sorry/thanks.

Do not be too quick to fall in love with California HSR, if you don't want the future to be embarrassed.

Chicago HSR will work and will be money well-spent. It's based on sensible, incremental improvements to existing service.

California is going for the "big bang". No service while billions of dollars get spent. Then one day (the FUTURE!) we are promised service. For the purpose of this project, "the future" will happen after every public official who supported it is no longer in office.

In the meantime, a dysfunctional state government will steer the dollars. Rather than buying cheap land up by I5, the train will be sent down the old highway, full of small cities with complex ROW issues. Death by a thousand lawsuits.

The legislature understands freeway exits-- every Podunk town gets an exit and people magically get off the freeway to spend money. HSR must be the exact same thing! Make sure this goes through as many little towns as possible, stopping in each one, so that SF-to-LA commuters get off the train and buy gas.

Farmers grow the food that feeds the city.

The city creates the economy/capital that keeps the farmers able to grow.

The capital is used to provide subsidies so that the nation can have the lowest-priced food the world has ever seen.

They depend and feed off each other, each one just as important. The farm subsidy money is not just wasted tax dollars, it ensures that you can feed yourself off something like 5% of your income, a number envied by the entire world.

Knee-jerk comments that ALL spending on public transportation is good -- even if the costs are exorbitant and the resulting system doesn't meet public needs or desires -- are as stupid as those opposing ALL public transit because those libruls are trying to take away our cars.