Category: Technology

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AI Caramba — What you ask AI matters, too

Bryan Zepp Jamieson

May 21st, 2025

 

One right wing user on Facebook, annoyed by warnings of a Nazi takeover of the United States, posted the following:

Well, that’s the first time someone has made an appeal to authority to try to demonstrate that America isn’t falling into Nazism, but then, these are unusual times. And it’s also the first time I’ve had someone use an AI (A-One to any Trumper reading this) as that “authority.”

I joked that at least he didn’t use Musk’s AI and have it go off on an unrelated rant about an imaginary “white genocide” in South Africa. But then I thought, why not go to that same AI (perplexity.ai) and ask it “Does the Trump administration show Nazi tendencies?”

I gave the response below, but want to say at this time that I have never used and will never use AI in my writing, whether fiction, non-fiction, or reviews. If I cite AI, I will link the source, clearly identify it as AI, and note any problems I spot in the cite.

The response was surprising, not because it gave any response that was unexpected (“Hitler had dogs as pets, Trump has them as wives”) but because it was balanced (without falling into the trap of “bothsidesism”), accurate, and informative. I was impressed. It also clearly denoted opinion opposed to simple assertion of fact.

So here’s the perplexity.ai response to the question,

“Key Parallels and Differences Identified by Experts

  • Authoritarian and Anti-Democratic Practices
    The Trump administration has been repeatedly criticized for authoritarian tactics, including undermining the rule of law, suppressing dissent, and attacking democratic institutions. Amnesty International noted the use of government power to silence opposition, erode checks and balances, and foster a climate of fear and division
  • Dehumanizing Rhetoric
    Trump’s language about immigrants and political opponents has drawn direct comparisons to Nazi and fascist rhetoric. He has referred to immigrants as “vermin,” “animals,” and “poisoning the blood of our country,” echoing language used by Adolf Hitler and other fascist leaders to dehumanize targeted groups
  • Such rhetoric has been condemned by historians and scholars as a hallmark of fascist and Nazi propaganda.
  • Targeting of Minorities and Marginalized Groups
    Policies and executive actions under Trump have targeted immigrants, racial minorities, LGBTQIA+ communities, and others, leading to accusations of fostering white supremacy and systemic discrimination

The administration’s embrace of far-right groups and failure to unequivocally condemn white supremacist violence further fueled these concerns

  • Attacks on Press and Free Speech
    The administration’s pattern of undermining press freedom, threatening journalists, and cracking down on protestors—especially those supporting marginalized groups—has been cited as reminiscent of repressive regimes, including the Nazis
  • Use of Fascist and Nazi-Era Language
    Trump’s public statements, such as pledging to “root out” internal enemies and referencing “bad genes,” have been compared to Nazi rhetoric about racial purity and the need to eliminate internal threats

His calls for the “remigration” of undocumented immigrants also echo language used in European far-right and ethnic cleansing movements

  • Encouragement of Paramilitary and Militia Groups
    While the U.S. lacks Nazi-style stormtroopers, Trump’s friendly stance toward groups like the Proud Boys and his encouragement of the January 6, 2021, Capitol assault have been seen as attempts to threaten constitutional order using extralegal force, drawing a parallel to the Nazi reliance on paramilitary violence to intimidate opponents

     

  • Notable Criticisms and Cautions
  • Historical Uniqueness of Nazi Evil
    Even critics such as Al Gore emphasize that the Nazi regime was “uniquely evil,” and direct comparisons should be made with caution
  • The scale of Nazi crimes, especially the Holocaust, is not matched by the Trump administration, and most experts stress the importance of recognizing this distinction.
  • Debate Among Historians and Scholars
    While some scholars see strong echoes of fascist and Nazi tendencies in Trump’s rhetoric and policies, others argue that these are more about antagonizing political opponents or reflect broader trends in right-wing populism rather than a direct replication of Nazism

End of AI response.

Well, there you have it. I might normally have one of two reasons for citing an AI response, let alone quoting it at length. Either I would because it was absolutely ridiculous (“Water does not freeze at 26F; it freezes at 32F”) or, as in this case, because it actually did a good job.

So be assured that if I didn’t cite AI, then what you are reading is my own original ridiculous drivel.

Promise.

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Trumpenomics — The best way to save money is to waste it

Bryan Zepp Jamieson

April 12th, 2025

G. Elliot Morris, formerly one of the guiding geniuses behind the late, lamented 538 website, came up with this tidbit today: “According to the Hamilton Project data, the U.S. government has spent $2.17 trillion as of April 10, 2025, at 7:00 p.m. ET (the data, which comes from the Treasury, is updated in near-real-time). That is just shy of a 6% increase over spending on the same date in 2024 when the feds had spent “just” $2.05 trillion at this point in the year. This puts the US federal government on track to spend $8 trillion this year, barring other budget changes…”

As odd as that stat is in light of ElonTrump’s chainsaw ‘cost-cutting’ measures, it only tells a small part of the tale. In fact, trillions of dollars have been lost over the past two months to waste, fraud and abuse, and even though Trump had to scurry back on his “Liberation Day” tariffs in light of a potential total economic collapse, the wholesale destruction will continue.

The slashes to government programs, big and small, have been capricious, arbitrary, and often cruel. Thousands of on-going projects have been stopped in their tracks, even though the money for them had already been allocated and spent, meaning that money—hundreds of billions—has been thrown away. Just the ongoing research programs that just got torched alone were in the billions.

They’ve gutted thousands of departments by taking a very systematic and subtle approach: just fire anybody who a) is on probationary status and b) has a vowel or a consonant in their name. This meant every promising new hire who hadn’t been there two years yet, all temporary employees, and anyone who had just been promoted for doing a superior job but whose promotion came with probationary status. With no regard to capabilities or functions.

Courts have ordered thousands of employees unfired, and many of those returned to find their chairs, their desks, and their computers all gone, either trashed or dumped at fire sale prices.

Many of the most important (and popular) government programs, including the Department of Education, NOAA, NASA, Department of the Interior and Social Security are being gutted. That last one, which makes up about 10% of national economic income for the general public, is teetering and in danger of collapse. They want to privatize the Post Office, which means thousands of non-profitable rural post offices will close even as the price of sending a letter explodes ten-fold.

I’ve actually had right wingers whine that we wouldn’t be complaining if a Democrat did to the government what Trump is doing. Typical of MAGAts—they love to howl about what victims they are as they rape and bully everyone around them.

Fact is, Democrats DID cut government spending, and even balanced the budget. This was in Bill Clinton’s second term, with vice President Al Gore overseeing the government efficiency task force. It was called “Reinventing Government” It eliminated what Elaine Kamarck, administrator of the program, said was “more than 400,000 federal positions between 1993 and 2000 through a combination of voluntary departures, attrition and a relatively small number of layoffs.”

Hundreds of departments were merged or eliminated, and the savings were so great that the Clinton administration had the first (and last) balanced budget since 1968. The day George Bush Jr took office, newspapers and economists where rhapsodizing about “surpluses as far as the eye can see” and there was serious talk of retiring the national debt by 2010. Of course, Republican fiscal fecklessness and greed, serving the notion that the national treasury should be the plaything of the very rich, eliminated the surpluses and instead created record floods of red ink, which their propagandists assured the public was the result of “Democrat spending.” It was a lie, but it was repeated endlessly.

And Reinventing Government slid into the memory hole, partly because it didn’t support the fascist narrative, and partly because it worked exactly the way government was supposed to work: democratically, with decision-making and responsibility shared between Congress and the executive, and with time taken to determine what jobs and projects served a good purpose and which were just accumulated fat. It worked so well hardly anybody even noticed it.

So the next time some wankers moan in self pity that people just hate right wingers, it isn’t politics or factionalism; it’s disgust for greed, incompetence, capriciousness and viciousness. The Democrats used competence, honesty, and good faith. The difference is night and day. People don’t hate Trump and Musk for “saving money”; they hate them because they are hateful people who are destroying the country and selling it off for parts and at our expense.

Even though Trump had to back off on his massive tariffs folly, the damage is already nearly unrecoverable. Not just the incredible waste and incompetence of his “cost-cutting”; the extraneous damage inflicted.

The bond market is teetering. US bonds are the “safe haven” for investors during market crashes, something that New Deal economics took out of our lives which Reaganomics restored. Stocks tank, you invest in bonds and wait it out.

But bonds depend entirely on “The Full Faith and Credit” of the United States, and under this administration, nobody trusts that government. As far as good credit goes, the US might as well be Zimbabwe. And the bond market—nearly $30 trillion in size—relies entirely on trust in the US government.

You hear a lot about China owning a chunk of that, and it does: about $1.8 trillion. About 6%, more or less. A small but significant share. (Most of the bond market is money the US owes to itself).

Trump is going out of his way to antagonize and even insult the Chinese with his mindless bluster. If China tanks the bond market, they will take great economic damage. But the US would be ruined. It would take decades for the nation to recover, and it wouldn’t look anything like the US that we all enjoyed in the 20th century.

It’s clear Trump isn’t running the show: his plutocrats, including Musk, are. But they aren’t noticeably smarter or more competent, and often mistake greed for wisdom. Most of them have the compassion and knowledge of Charles Montgomery Burns, Homer Simpson’s boss. Two words: Howard Lutnick. And he’s not even the worst one: far from it. Trump’s Secretary of Education is talking about using that thinking computer thingie for educating the kids, what was it she called it? Oh, yes, “A-One.”

Hope she didn’t pick Hewlett-Packard for the computers. Everyone knows HP and A One are competitors.

Sheesh.

 

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Lost Signal — Even by Trump’s standards, this was dismal

Bryan Zepp Jamieson

March 27th 2025

The breaking story about the Signal chat group conversation leading up to the bombing of Houthis in Yemen was already one of the most egregious and bizarre in the annals of American history.

Accidentally inviting the top editor of one of America’s most renowned journalistic magazines, (Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic, in case you’ve been on the far side of the Moon this past week) to a group chat about a pending military attack is a bit like being in an NFL team huddle and glancing up to see the stadium announcer is also in the huddle, holding a microphone, listening carefully to the play plan and nodding thoughtfully.

Of course, to stretch that simile further, in this particular huddle there’s no assurance that any of the guys wearing your uniform are actually on the same team. You already know the coach is working for the other guys, after all.

The participants, caught out, have been throwing excuses and lies around madly in all directions like custard pies in a Mack Sennet movie. They’ve tried claiming that the transcript was a hoax, that they didn’t discuss classified information, and that Goldberg made it up because he doesn’t like Trump.

Tulsi Gabbard doesn’t seem to know what country she was in during the discussion. Well, you know how it is: you see one Asian country, you’ve seen all of them. At least one participant was in Moscow during the chat.

Speaking of Moscow, it seems that the reason the Pentagon had issued a blanket order the week before to never use Signal for any official reasons was because Russia had successfully hacked the encryption of the app. And while the Russians may not have been involved with this particular breach, it seems that the names, phone numbers, emails and passwords of all the participants in the session were available online.

About the only people who didn’t know were the American public. But by inviting Goldberg, they got that covered.

To call this a clusterfuck is a bit like saying the Fyre Festival didn’t go well. It’s damning with faint praise.

National Security Adviser Mike Waltz, the man who somehow invited Goldberg to the chat room, claims he never met Goldberg and had no idea who he was. Evidence, including photographs, says otherwise. It’s not quite clear how inviting a total stranger to a top-secret national security chat is somehow better than inviting the editor of the Atlantic. Apparently one guy there was awaiting confirmation to his government post!

But never mind all that. One person was conspicuous by his absence: Le grand citrouille, King Pumpkin, the Donald.

You seen scenes where a major military operation is underway, and they release photos of the president and his cabinet all sitting around, looking tense and serious as they rescue hostages or grease bin Laden or whatever.

Not in this case. The closest to presidential leadership is when one of the participants says vaguely that he thinks Donald approves of what they’re doing here. Evidence suggests that Trump had no idea what was going on. To paraphrase the famous Watergate investigative question: “What did he know, and does he know that he knew it?” It seems pretty clear that the President of the United States was absent simply because he had nothing to offer.

Trump himself seems to have no idea what the scandal is about, and is mostly reduced to his boilerplate deflection and denial, some of which may actually be valid. It’s pretty clear he has no idea what Signal is, but having discerned that something called Signal was involved, he has declared it defective and wants people to look into it. After all, it let that Goldberg, who was mean to him in the past, in. Something must be wrong with Signal.

He’s variously tried claiming the transcript was a hoax (that backfired: Goldberg released more to show it wasn’t) and that the Democrats were to blame somehow, and that no secrets were discussed. (Several of the participants have tried making that claim, stopping just short of saying the dog ate their homework.) He is, in a word, clueless.

He doesn’t even have the wit to address the specifics, but is just generally doing The Donald, the things he always does when he’s feeling defensive. He’s the old guy with the cane batting at imaginary insects.

He finally realized that there was something to all this confusing ‘signal’ stuff and described the event as a ‘glitch’ and boasted that it was the first glitch in the two months of his administration. A sardonically amused Rachel Maddow that evening spent a full half hour running down the glitches so far. She didn’t pad it or speak slowly. It’s an impressive pile of glitches, worthy of Inspector Clouseau.

But no worries: Trump will have Clouseau’s real-life equivalent, Inspector Hegseth, in to determine what, if anything, happened.

In addition to the blatant incompetence, malice and possible treason, public discourse needs to include whether Trump has any control over this gang of fascists, crooks and subversives or is just their little smiley face for the public. Are the lights on? Is anybody home?

The next day we learned that a) four US soldiers were missing in Lithuania and b) nobody had bothered to tell Trump about it.

If you need more evidence of how feckless, reckless, and anti-American this junta is, consider the following exchange between Congressman Jim Himes of Connecticut and alleged Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard.

HIMES: Do you think it’s responsible for you, as head of the intelligence community, to retweet posts from individuals affiliated with Russian state media?

GABBARD: That retweet came from my personal account.

HIMES: Personal account? You’re the Director of National Intelligence, not an Instagram influencer. There’s no such thing as “personal” when you’re elevating Kremlin propaganda.

GABBARD: I have the right to share information—

HIMES: Information? You mean Russian disinformation. You sit in high-level intelligence briefings, then turn around and boost the same narratives Moscow is pushing. Should we just CC the Kremlin on your next meeting and cut out the middleman?

GABBARD: This is just an attempt to smear me—

HIMES: Smear you? You lied under oath in a Senate hearing yesterday, claiming you knew nothing about classified information, while sitting in Signal chats where war plans were discussed. You retweet Kremlin-backed sources, then act shocked when people question your loyalties.

GABBARD: I’m focused on national security—

HIMES: National security? While pushing Russian propaganda and pretending you’re clueless about intelligence leaks? If a Democrat had done half of this, you’d be screaming treason on national TV.

GABBARD: This is about free speech—

HIMES: Free speech? You’re the President’s top intelligence advisor, not some random guy on Twitter. Every word you amplify has consequences. And right now, you’re handing America’s enemies exactly what they want—straight from your “personal account.”

https://x.com/Acyn/status/1904907517261705605

Speaking of Twitter, I’m a bit surprised Musk wasn’t one of the participants. I suppose he’s too busy destroying the United States, though. That can keep a man busy, you know.

Or maybe he’ll join the chat when they discuss bombing Toronto. Hopefully the Russians will leak that before it happens.

 

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World Wide Weather — In the Event Of

Bryan Zepp Jamieson

February 5th 2025

www.zeppscommentaries.online

With the events in Boulder this morning, with Elon Musk’s move to take over the NOAA headquarters, we must prepare for the possibility that NOAA may vanish, or be subsumed into a commercial weather service that puts profits and political expediency ahead of accuracy.

Below are a list of site that may survive such a purge and continue to be useful. Note that many depend on NOAA for their basic data and hopefully are scrambling to access data from outside the United States.

I’ll also included tips for security accessing sites that may not be approved of by the government going forward so you won’t be in the dark.

https://worldweather.wmo.int/en/home.html

“This global website presents OFFICIAL weather observations, weather forecasts and climatological information for selected cities supplied by National Meteorological & Hydrological Services (NMHSs) worldwide.The NMHSs make official weather observations in their respective countries. Links to their official weather service websites and tourism board/organization are also provided whenever available. Weather icons are shown alongside worded forecasts in this version to facilitate visual inspection.”

https://www.bbc.com/weather

Weather forecasts for thousands of sites around the world

https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/

“The Met Office has been keeping folks informed about changes in the weather for over a century and a half now. As the official forecaster for the UK, they know their stuff! Based in Exeter, their team watches endless amounts of data from locations all over using some high-tech supercomputers. We appreciate how the regional forecasts on their site make planning trips featured in our travel blogs a breeze. Beyond daily outlooks, they also offer specialized guidance for marine weather that even the hardiest sailors rely on. With unmatched experience studying the complex sciences behind our atmosphere, the professionals at the Met Office have a well-earned reputation for reliable predictions.”

https://weatherspark.com/

“WeatherSpark is one of the best weather sites for super simple yet effective planning. Based out of Seattle, their team has made forecasting fun with their clean interface focused on graphics over jargon. We love how their maps show easy-to-grasp color animations right on top of places featured in our travel blogs. Beyond standard precipitation and temp charts, they provide cool extras too – from “feels like” Adjusted Temperature charts to chance of snow measurements. WeatherSpark also gathers hyper-local data using sensors embedded around cities. This street-level detail comes in handy when we’re deciding between hiking trails. And it’s not just us – Foursquare users voted them ‘Best new weather app’”

[Note: while based in Seattle, they are close enough to the Canadian border that they may be able to continue operations]

https://www.windy.com/?41.248,-122.113,5

Based in the Czech Republic, Windy has a real time wind map of the globe.

https://www.sat24.com/en-gb

Global coverage by satellite in real time.

 

https://www.ventusky.com/

Ventusky (AI forecasts, so remember what happens if you ask AI if water freezes at 27F)

“This is one of the best weather websites. You see forecasts for a whole week and hour to hour too. This lets owners schedule events better. Ventusky works worldwide too. Alerts come quickly if bad weather is near. The app is neat and easy. AI helps explain what weather means. Companies doing things outside need good weather tips.

“It even learns where you are to give better forecasts. Maps and pictures show lots of weather details too. Plus fun articles teach about weather. Whether for work or play, Ventusky gives good weather so plans can happen no matter the sky.”

https://www.meteoprog.com/

Meteoprog

“Meteoprog combines weather data and technology to help countries, companies and people better address weather-related challenges. This site provides the ability to track meteorological information around the world. Meteoprog has been forecasting the weather for over 20 years. This site has own solutions and forecast models.”

https://www.worldweatheronline.com/

Weather World Online

“World Weather Online is one of the best weather websites. Weather-obsessed and accuracy-focused, we pour passion into predictions for all – from skiers to surfers. Daily downpours or weekend wonders worldwide, you’ll get reliable, up-to-date climate intel. Sports folks score with specially simulated conditions. Businesses and developers leverage our precise APIs in myriad mediums. Continually crunching complex climate data through our forecasting framework, we fuse major meteorological models for the most masterful meteorology possible.”

https://www.Weatherwest.com

I’ve no doubt Daniel Swain will keep his site going for as long as possible and is surveying sources of reliable meteorological and climatological information.

A lot of these sites depend on NOAA, in part or in whole, for their forecast models. Should NOAA go dark or be mismanaged into irrelevance, sites like these will be prepared to step in should we be reduced to being charged money for inferior information.

Security is always an issue. People should get a good VPN (Proton is free and works quite well), along with a Tor Browser (also free), use Duck Duck Go for searches (also free and they don’t track you). For untraceable communication, the ancient pre-web technology of Usenet is available. Type in “Endless September” on your internet search engine for details.

We are in unpredictable times, and access to good scientific data is under assault. Prepare now while there is time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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DeepSeek — China gets the drop on us

Bryan Zepp Jamieson

January 27th, 2025

Hey, everyone, remember the gigantic AI thing, the one that Musk wanted to raise a trillion* dollars to invest, backed by bitcoin? Trump was talking about a $500 billion that he would probably just steal from the Social Security fund. All the tech giants were in a huge race to pour money into AI, hoping to make it bigger, stronger, faster? Remember that?

Sure you do. It was all just there yesterday.

Well, funny story.

China has released something called DeepSeek. It’s their own AI platform, easily as powerful and flexible as the ones the tech bros have been dumping all those trillions into. They did it on a grand total of six million dollars budget. Pocket change for Intel, and for Musk, just part of his pocket lint.

Oh, yeah. Also, it’s open source. That means anyone can take it, play with it, use it, adapt it, all for free.

The financial bubble pop was probably big enough that it caused that earthquake in Maine. It may well be the biggest financial pop in history, even bigger than the real estate crash of ‘08.

Investors react to such upheavals with the equanimity of a flock of chickens in a thunderstorm, and as a result, the tech markets are busily tearing out their own entrails and eating them feverishly in a effort of minimize the scale of the crash.

A glance at the markets this morning shows carnage. Nvidia is down 17%. NASDAQ is down over 600 points. Marketwatch has the reassuring headline, “Does DeepSeek spell doomsday for Nvidia and other AI stocks? Here’s what to know.” The lede was interesting, as well: “That’s the big question on the minds of investors Monday, given newfound attention on DeepSeek, a Chinese AI app that has climbed to the top of downloads from Apple’s U.S. App Store. The service has become so popular that it’s restricting registration due to what it called ‘large-scale malicious attacks.’” Hmm. I’m guessing those attacks aren’t coming from Dark Web hackers. Care to guess which companies and/or countries are behind it? I’m imagining the TrumpenMusk coalition is quite busy this morning.

On one hand, it’s gratifying to see the techbros take a haircut on this scale. Most of them have accumulated vast amounts of wealth and power, which they’ve combined with a vapid kleptomaniacal libertarianism in hopes of unlimited wealth and power while the other 99.9% of us eke out an existence in an Ayn Randian hellscape.

And I was contemplating a vast bubble backed by cybercurrency, a truly frightening prospect. It’s one thing to say currency has no real intrinsic value and thus bitcoin is equal, and that’s true so far as it goes; you can’t eat gold, as they say. But regular currency has consensus value: a dollar is worth a dollar because everyone roughly agrees that a dollar has value. With bitcoin, the “consensus” lies in computer algorithms which are far more volatile and not attuned to human needs. If the lights go out, bitcoins value vanishes. Vaporware backed by pretend money really does sound a bit…tenuous, doesn’t it?

But I also feel apprehension. DeepSeek doesn’t just open Pandora’s Box; it blows that sucker to smithereens. Everyone will have access to extraordinarily powerful AI and can play with it in any way they choose.

The Trump administration will probably yell that it can’t be trusted because there’s no guessing what the Chinese have in the way of back doors or acquisitionware. You know, like they supposedly do with TikTok.

But being open source means anyone can examine the source code, line by line, making unexpected guests on board next to impossible.

The drawback, of course, is that anyone else can take that code and add all sorts of goodies and foist that off on an unsuspecting public.

I would imagine that something similar to the Linux community will spring up and monitor the various flavors of DeepSeek that emerge. While significantly more complex than a desktop OS, Deep Seek does have the advantage over Windows and other programs in that it’s ALL visible.

But if you thought AI was expanding at a fantastic rate before, you ain’t seen nothing yet.

This doesn’t bring about a smarter AI that can actually think. And it can make some really amazing mistakes. Peter Cawdron posted an in-depth, probing five-page AI-spawned review of his book “Enclave.” It was very convincing except for one little thing—he never wrote a book called “Enclave.” And I can’t imagine writing a five page review of his work without mentioning First Contact. The other day, someone asked an AI if water freezes at 27F. The AI replied it does not, it freezes at 32F, so in order to freeze the water, you would need to raise the temperature from 27 to 32. And you thought Bible-based “science classes” were ridiculous.

Right now, we’re all just blinking at the afterglow of a thermonuclear explosion. I suspect we’re in for an interesting few months, even without the Nazis in Washington.

* Yes, trillion, one thousand billions, one million millions unless you learned to count English style, in which case it’s a British billion.

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Scientific Kattenstoet — When madness organizes

Bryan Zepp Jamieson

November 19th 2024

Going clear back to the 1980s, the scientific community and millions of other educated people have been warning about global warming and its knock-on effects. For decades, people in the know have advised us that among many other things, warmer ocean temperatures combined with warmer air would result in bigger and far more destructive hurricanes.

Despite the gravity of the looming catastrophe, most people chose to simply ignore the warnings, a sense of denial bolstered by a coalition of filthy-fuel corporations and their fascist enablers in right-wing media, who assured their panting morons that “climate change” was just a conspiracy theory fostered by people who wanted us all to live in caves and hate capitalism.

To say that this caused a lot of frustration among sane people is an understatement.

An unforgettable example of this occurred as hurricane Milton was approaching Tampa Bay about a month ago. A Miami TV weatherman, John Morales, saw the numbers that suggested that the storm was undergoing “bombogenesis”–a sudden and large intensification. The phenomenon, not widely known twenty years ago, is a major factor in estimating the power and destructiveness of an approaching hurricane. Normally, a drop of 25mb in the central eye pressure in 24 hours indicates such a phenomenon is taking place. Milton dropped FIFTY millibars in that period, and Morales understood—and dreaded—the implications. He burst into tears over the damage to come.

Global warming means bigger, stronger storms. And a host of even more serious problems, but that was probably the easiest one to predict decades ago. And the American South has always been the area most vulnerable to landfalls from such storms.

So while Helene and Milton this year may have caused despair among climate scientists, they certainly did not cause surprise. And they’ll be the first to say it’s only going to get worse.

In fact, here in northern California, it’s just starting to snow this morning. A system is approaching the Oregon coast, and while not a hurricane, is developing similar intensity. The central pressure is expected to plunge about 40mb today, with central winds over 90 mph and waves in some areas 60 feet high. I’m 100 miles inland and at 3,300 elevation, and expect heavy snow for three days, and heavy rain after that. Nothing too extraordinary for us, but along the coast from the Bay area northward, it could have storm-of-the decade elements. Climate change didn’t cause the storm, but it does influence its power.

It’s not surprising that climate denialism—the refusal to accept that human emissions are having a major effect on climate world-wide—is losing popularity. When you get several storms-of-the-century or drought of a lifetime in the past decade, there is a dawning awareness that Something Is Going On Here.

Of course, this is the age of Trump, and so there’s no reason to suppose that dawning awareness is going to be constructive, or even sane.

Enter Veterans on Patrol (VOP). This outfit apparently actually did start out as a veterans advocacy group, but like so many elements in American life, it has been taken over by heavily-armed howling nuts from the far right.

Now, normal people, and by ‘normal’ I mean ‘not in the terminal stages of tertiary syphilis or convinced that their cat is telling them to assassinate Taylor Swift,’ actual normal people might assume that Helene was a pretty clear consequence of a hurricane supercharged by several trillion tons of greenhouse gases which might go where hurricanes frequently go and cause more damage than usual. Normal people might think that because, you know, normal.

But not our demented heroes of the VOP. A sample of their email conversations was in the Guardian today, and it read like this: “The US Military destroyed multiple communities and murdered hundreds by steering Weather Weapon Helene into Appalachia country, what should we do?” The answers offered were “Target military equipment and destroy the [directed energy weapons] easily accessible by the public”; “Destroy power and water lines that feed military bases”; “Locate all Top Brass bold enough to walk in public and detain them for murder”; “ALL 3 ABOVE”.

Well, that seems reasonable. After all, we all know from bad movies on the SciFi channel that one mad general, armed only with a black box the size of a shoe box and powered by a single D cell battery can steer a storm system 500 miles across and containing between 5 to 20×1013 watts of energy (200,000,000,000,000 watts) like it was a Hot Wheels toy and send it a thousand miles inland to strike Moscow.

Rather than accept that what happened is exactly what every climate scientist in the world has been warning will happen for debates, it’s easier to believe something that is nefarious, evil, sinister, and utterly demented.

But VOP has a constructive answer to this: “VOP News is openly requesting the public to provide the locations of all USMIC equipment used to control the weather. We intend to destroy this equipment in order to save lives.”

Yes, and Taylor Swift will be safe just as soon as we round up and kill any and all cats using mind control who don’t like Taylor Swift. What could be easier?

VOP is far from alone in this steadfast lunacy. Millions of Americans believe nonsense like this, and even zanier shit.

It’s not limited to America, or the twenty first century. In Europe in the thirteenth century, the Church hit on the notion that cats were evil and needed to be killed (“Kattenstoet”). The idea caught on, and most of Europe’s cat population was massacred. This allowed the rodent population, a favorite vector for the fleas that cause the plague, to explode.

There probably isn’t a culture on Earth without similar tales of mass idiocy, usually conducted with horrible consequences in their past and even their present.

Humans are all too frequently subject to conspiracy theories and similar idiocies. An uncharitable person might call them gullible, and I’m not feeling particularly charitable. They are gullible, and a lot of them are also mean and destructive and delight in the damage they cause.

The only solution is time, and sometimes even that doesn’t work. Ypres, Belgium, still celebrates Kattenstoet, although in a major victory for humanity and sanity, they now only throw plush toy cats off the belfry. See? Progress is possible, even if humans are involved.

But the madness will continue as America continues to lose its way. Climate scientists and even TV weather presenters get death threats from people who believe they are so intellectually superior they can envision D cell batteries steering hurricanes.

Oddly enough, no matter how many people they round up, the hurricanes will just keep on getting worse.

Obviously, Taylor Swift and the cats are behind that. Right?

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The Dark Age — Once again, dear friends…

Bryan Zepp Jamieson

November 6th 2024

First, I want to apologize to my readers. I really blew it on my forecast on how this election was going to turn out. I’m especially sorry to those who took my forecast in good faith—I’m sure it added to the pain you are feeling now, and I deeply regret that.

I’ve been contemplating overnight and this morning over how I—and others, including the Harris campaign—so totally got it wrong.

I don’t have any real answers and indeed, more questions than I began with. How could such a large number of Hispanics support Trump? He’s made it clear that they are one of his target groups; when he says “illegal immigrants” he’s including Hispanics born here, or naturalized. They’re part of the twenty-two million people he wants to mass deport. He isn’t doing it to “save the economy.” He’s doing it because he’s a bigot, pandering to other bigots.

I don’t understand the self-professed Christians who supported him. He is the antithesis of everything they supposedly stand for.

And most of all, I don’t understand the women who voted for Trump. In seven states, freedom of reproductive choice was on the ballot, and many women in those states voted for reproductive freedom and then went ahead and voted for the man who destroyed that right in the first place!

I underestimated the power of the aggrieved anger that the right wing media—mostly run by plutocrats who wanted to use the mob to destroy the safeguards the constitution has to protect that same mob—and there was one thing I did get right; the economy is extremely strong, but it hasn’t really reached the lower middle class and the poor, even as conditions were beginning to improve.

A friend of mine once told me that revolution and revolt was most likely, not when things were at their bleakest, but when things were starting to improve. He told me that some forty years ago, and a close look at major upheavals throughout history confirms this to be true. Not always, but usually.

I have friends in the scientific community, so I was already aware of an on-going effort to save and secure date In The Event Of. Efforts will be redoubled; some of the incoming administration regard such data as either blasphemous or economically inconvenient.

America is heading for a scientific dark age, but there’s no reason to drag the rest of the world into it.

The Ukraine will be on their own now, along with the states surrounding the genocidal Netanyahu. Trump wants to end NATO, which will give his buddy Putin license to invade much of eastern Europe, and he won’t stop there. The NATO nations need to start gearing up for a war footing NOW. There may be a general war in Europe within two years. The middle east will become a sea of flames, and before his mad reign ends, Netanyahu will have slaughtered millions. Other major nations currently not involved, such as Canada, Japan, India and China—may step in.

America is heading for a geopolitical dark age, but there’s no reason to drag the rest of the world into it.

Project 2025 is alive and well, with all its draconian plans. I was compiling data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics today for a Trump-loving client, and it occurred to me to advise him that when this annual task comes due next year, neither I nor the BLS may be around.

America is heading for a governance dark age, but there’s no reason to drag the rest of the world into it.

Putting tariffs on most foreign imports and deliberately destroying over half the agricultural production force isn’t going to lower costs or put food on the table. Destroying nearly all federal jobs is going to create a huge labor surplus. States attempting to fill the huge gaps left will have to double, triple, quadruple taxes.

America is heading for an economic dark age, but there’s no reason to drag the rest of the world into it.

Trump will pursue his mad aim to encourage profligate use of fossil fuels, dooming the already inadequate efforts to mitigate climate change. The world has already entered a catastrophic zone: America is now a major part of the problem.

America is heading for an environmental dark age, but there’s no reason to drag the rest of the world into it.

With the Department of Education gone, public schools will fall prey to the same people who have already benefited from spreading misinformation, disinformation, and slowing the spread of scientific and historical knowledge. Thousands of books will be banned “for the children” and eventually, movies and other forms of communication. Literacy will fall, both by design and through sheer incompetence.

America is heading for an educational dark age, but there’s no reason to drag the rest of the world into it.

Rights will rapidly contract and then vanish altogether. People will be told that the era between 1865 and 2025 was an aberration in American culture, and that life under our caring despots who safeguard our morals and thoughts is what the Founders really intended.

America is heading for a humanitarian dark age, but there’s no reason to drag the rest of the world into it.

Here in California, and other deep blue states, talk of secession is mounting rapidly. It may, in the end, be the only way we can protect ourselves from the libertarian and fundamentalist quagmire that Trump plans. It would mean dissolution of America, and/or civil war. A peaceful way back may not be possible.

America is heading for a dark age, but there’s no reason to drag the rest of the world into it.

To the rest of the world: help us where you can, but remember our leaders will be inimical, and this sort of madness can be contagious.

We’re on our own.

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Facebook Caprice — Meta is ever-more capricious, sneaky and unfair—or is it just incompetence?

Facebook Caprice

Meta is ever-more capricious, sneaky and unfair—or is it just incompetence?

Bryan Zepp Jamieson

May 18th 2024

www.zeppscommentaries.online

It started out simply enough. My Linux system was over ten years old and beginning to gasp and wheeze a bit. My Windows system was newer and more powerful, and I thought, well, I’ll make that my new Linux system and get a new Windows machine. Which is what I did.

I’ve done this sort of thing a lot of times during the nearly forty years that I’ve had computers, and can avoid most of the pitfalls. My work and personal hard drives are all kept carefully off line while I juggle new installs and getting software passwords and codes updated. Windows, of course, is far more complex since you have to reinstall commercial software and you better have the access codes for that or you risk paying again for a program that was barely worth it in the first place.

In an operation this complex, you’re bound to miss a spot or two. Not too long ago—three months, perhaps—I had changed my Facebook password. I had been worried that I might have made myself vulnerable to my account getting hacked—unfounded, I’m happy to say—but the PW was due to be changed anyway.

My password minding app didn’t know about the change. I’m guessing I was in a hurry, and when it asked if I wanted to update, I told it “later” and then forgot. My browser also tracks my PWs, and it did notice. Since I could still log on without any problem, I forgot about it.

Both my old browser, and the password for my browser sync file, were on the old system. Sloppy, sloppy, sloppy. What was the password? Chinese city, more than 10,000 population, but was it in Cantonese or Mandarin? Tch. What did I have for breakfast? Um, erm, food?

Well, no worries. I have double verification code set up, so all I had to do was hit “change password” and my cellphone would get a six-digit code which I would enter, and then go ahead and create a new password (I hear “password” is a good one).

Got the code, went back to the page and entered it. Facebook came up with a “This function is not available at this time.”

Eh. Facebook. Whaddyagonna do?

Well, I still had other computer tweaking to do. And other chores.

I tried a few hours later, and got the same message. “Come on, Facebook,” I thought, “Get your act together.”

So the next morning I tried again. This time the results were jarring. It told me that I was on a restricted status, followed by a list of policy violations that may or may not apply to me (and most of them didn’t apply at all) and therefore the function of changing my password was not available to me.

To say I was flabbergasted is an understatement. They had a little box giving me 500 characters to respond, so I sent a message asking what this was about, and noting that it had been over a year since I had any kind of run-in with Facebook proctors. (That was incorrect, as it turns out; the last such thing was well over TWO years ago, in March 2022.)

From experience, I wasn’t going to hold my breath waiting for a reply. So I fired up my old Linux machine and retrieved my hopefully-still-active password along with a few other odds and ends I had missed on the first go around.

I retrieved my password and fired up the ‘new’ machine. Entered password, got a “we don’t recognize this device” message and a promise to send a six-digit checksum code to my cell. Heart sinking, I checked the phone, entered the code. It mulled it over for about ten seconds, and then let me in.

No remonstrations from Facebook, and I could post at will.

Now, I’ve had my share of run-ins with Facebook proctors, and been in Facebook jail on three-day stints three times. The third one outraged me enough that I left Facebook for a while. At the time, I emailed friends the following, with present day annotations in square brackets:

As of March 2nd , [2022] I’m no longer maintaining an active account on Facebook. Their censorship has been irrational to begin with, and now it is flat-out capricious.

A few months ago, someone asked jokingly if it was legal to shoot Republicans in California. I replied that you had to get a license, which was expensive, and there was a ton of paperwork involved. Three days in Facebook jail for hate speech. [Apparently it’s hate speech to discourage shooting Republicans in California. Who da guessed?]

The last one was when a friend posted a link from Weatherwest (a blog I habituate) that gave a rather dire forecast for the rest of February, promising intensifying drought. Riffing off Shakespeare, I wrote, “First thing we do, let’s kill all the meteorologists.” Unlike the first suspension, which I was able to successfully appeal, there was no appeal. Facebook cited COVID [disinformation] as the reason. [No, I don’t get that at all. And yes, apparently, that’s hate speech, too. I don’t know if Shakespeare got banned. After all, he made mention of the weather, too.]

I discovered yesterday that I had been suspended again for hate speech. No reason was given. I thought at first it was perhaps because I remarked that for the Russian people, the best thing that could happen would be if Putin was deposed or assassinated, but that particular post was still up, so I have no idea why I was banned. [In Facebook jail on a three-day, not actually banned.]

In any event, I’m out of there. Yes, Facebook has the right to control who posts what, but when it becomes illogical and even capricious, it’s a bad business model and not a forum I want to waste time in.

A couple of weeks later, I reconsidered. There were a couple of pages where I do volunteer work, posting events and news and ferrying information between their Facebook pages and their websites. It didn’t seem fair to short them because I wasn’t getting on with the powers-that-be at Facebook.

I resumed posting. Facebook had said that unspecified limitations and restrictions would be applied to my account, and I figured that meant they would keep me on a short leash to see if I behaved. (I maintain that I hadn’t actually misbehaved, not by any sane metric.)

In fact, the opposite seemed to be the case. Not only were there not any restrictions or limitations that I could discern, but they seemed content to back off and leave me alone. I only had one minor incident, about six months ago. At the height of the “Barbieheimer” fad, a user in a private group I moderate posted a picture of a bare-chested Putin atop a bright pink horse with a servile Trump holding the reins. It was blurred “for content some might find objectionable.” I got a thing from Facebook saying that as moderator I had a responsibility to ensure that my users didn’t violate Facebook policy. I wondered in the group if it was Trump, the pink horse, or Putin’s nips that triggered some proctor. The next time I logged in, the picture was un-blurred.

And that’s been it. So I can’t explain this week’s problem.

It’s possible that my initial suspicion, that the problems could be laid to Facebook’s incompetence, was all that was going on. Incompetence, by its nature, resembles capriciousness.

But there’s one thing that leaves me wondering if it wasn’t something more deliberate. As mentioned, I used the “forgot your password” function twice, and then had to affirm my new machine with them once I retrieved my old password. I happened to look at my email queue that day I returned, and noticed that in all three instances, the code given was identical.

It doesn’t work that way. Most outfits give you a certain time to respond, and if you don’t make it, you have to reapply for a new code. And it’s always different each time. Always. It’s a security thing: the code is a back door for anyone spying on an unsecured connection.

Except In my case with FB. Am I being paranoid, or was that code assigned to me, one that says something like, “This guy’s a troublemaker, don’t cooperate.”

It’s the passive-aggressive quality that I don’t understand. Our last contrétemps was in March 2022, and I never did find out what they were annoyed about. And everything seemed normal. Until this week. Then suddenly Facebook “remembered” that long-ago incident, and levied a strange hidden punishment on me and so I’m not allowed to change my password. Maybe?

Remember, it DID let me change my password about three months ago.

Does this seem paranoid, or have others had this experience?

Facebook’s no help: I haven’t gotten a human response from them on anything in three years. Maybe not talking to me is part of their punishment, I don’t know.

But if I do suddenly vanish, don’t assume the worst. I may have broken one of Facebook’s unguessable interpretations of their own rules and received an invisible and unexplained penalty. Or I forgot my password (in Mandarin, of course).

The people who run Meta, and various other major corporations, want to run America. That’s why most of them support the GOP.

Figure that if they do get total control, this incident is a pretty good example of the ‘justice’ you might expect.

Hell, bizarre as it is, it’s probably the best you can hope for.

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Atomic Batteries — Mass Production is at hand

Atomic Batteries

Mass Production is at hand

Bryan Zepp Jamieson

January 23rd, 2024

www.zeppscommentaries.online

Betavolt, a Chinese battery company, this week announced it was beginning mass production of a battery about the size of a microdisk and about 3 mm thicker that can produce 100 microWatts at three Volts—for 50 years.

While the concept behind the battery isn’t new—the US was making ‘atomic batteries’ in the early 1960s—it is the first to meet Chinese health and safety regulations, such as they are, for mass production.

This particular battery uses an isotope of nickel, Ni-63, encased in a proprietary wafer of diamond dust as a semiconductor. According to Betavolt, the unit won’t leak radiation even if punctured or gunshot. Preliminary tests indicate that the units, intact, are at normal background levels.

The units can be run in groups, either serial or parallel configurations. So, according to Betavolt, they can be used for such things as “aerospace, AI devices, medical, MEMS systems, intelligent sensors, small drones, and robots – and may eventually mean manufacturers can sell smartphones that never need charging.” Betavolt intends to have a much beefier model available in 2025 that can produce a full watt at 3 volts.

This is a breakthrough and has a strong potential to be what the tech bros like to call “disruptive.” It packs an energy density ten times that of lithium batteries, and isn’t affected by temperatures. “Unlike traditional batteries, this nuclear battery operates safely under extreme conditions, from temperatures of 120 to minus 60 degrees Celsius (248 to minus 76 Fahrenheit), and is resistant to punctures and gunfire without catching fire or exploding,” according to Science and Technology Daily. Tesla owners in the northeast will probably be interested to hear that.

The building blocks are plentiful. Ni-63 is easy to make from Ni-62, which is very plentiful, and there’s no shortage of diamond dust, which can be found naturally or synthetically. So mass production is feasible. Ni-63 has a half-life of 100.1 years, so the 50-year lifespan of the battery assumes about a 20% loss of power over that time period. Ni-63 decays into copper.

Of course, there is a downside. While considered a “low-level” contaminant by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and thus safe for near-surface disposal, it is Class C, which is the highest level of that overall designation. The NRC adds, “Class C waste is waste that not only must meet more rigorous requirements on waste form to ensure stability but also requires additional measures at the disposal facility to protect against inadvertent intrusion. The physical form and characteristics of Class C waste must meet both the minimum and stability requirements set forth in § 61.56.”

Physical Characteristics

  • Half-life: 100.1 years
  • Emissions: Beta particles with a maximum energy of 66 keV and an average energy of 17 keV
  • Maximum Range: 5 cm in air; < 0.01 cm in tissue

Dose Rate and Shielding

  • Dose rate to the skin at 10 cm: negligible (for an unshielded point source)
  • Dose rate to epidermal basal cells from skin contamination of 1 µCi/cm2: negligible
  • Shielding: None needed.
  • Annual Limit on Intake (ALI): 9000 microcuries via ingestion and 2000 microcuries via inhalation. The ingestion of one ALI will produce a dose of 5 rem.

Detection

A wipe survey using liquid scintillation counting is the preferred method for detecting Ni-63. G-M detectors will not detect Ni-63 contamination.

Precautions:

Ni-63 contamination cannot be detected with a G-M meter, and special precautions are needed to keep the work environment clean. The regular use of wipe testing, using a liquid scintillation counter, is the only way to insure that your work space does not contain low-level removable contamination.

Radiation Monitoring Requirements: Radiation monitoring badges are not required for Ni-63 users, since the monitoring badges will not detect Ni-63.

Waste Disposal:

  • Solid Wastes/Liquid Scintillation Wastes: through the Off-Site Radioactive Waste Disposal Program
  • Liquid Wastes: through the Sewer Disposal Program. The laboratory disposal limit for Ni-63 is 3 mCi per month.

     

A paper by Chinese physicists (Effective separation and recovery of valuable metals from waste Ni-based batteries: A comprehensive review by ie Wang, Yingyi Zhang, Laihao You, Kunkun Cui, Tao Fu and Haobo Mao and curated by The School of Metallurgical Engineering, Anhui University of Technology, Maanshan, 243002, Anhui Province, China, and School of Civil Engineering and Architecture, Anhui University of Technology, Maanshan, 243002, Anhui, China) states flatly, “On the one hand, waste Ni-based batteries cause serious harm to the environment and human health. On the other hand, they contain many valuable metals such as Ni, Co, Mn, Zn, and rare earth elements (REEs). These valuable metals and REEs have very high strategic value and are widely used in high-temperature structural materials to improve their mechanical properties and oxidation resistance.”

The paper goes on to detail several methods of disposal/recycling that can be used to mitigate what otherwise would be a significant environmental and safety hazard. These vary in both cost and effectiveness.

So while this is a significant step forward, it isn’t without challenges and drawbacks. Yes, the batteries as units seem safe and effective, but in mass production present major possible problems.

Expect to be hearing much more about this.

Sources:

Princeton Environmental Health ^ Safety

https://ehs.princeton.edu/laboratory-research/radiation-safety/radioactive-materials/radioisotope-fact-sheets/nickel-63

 

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1385894722012670

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Making the Trains Run — Time for real improvement to rail service

Making the Trains Run

Time for real improvement to rail service

Bryan Zepp Jamieson

December 10th, 2023

www.zeppscommentaries.online

President Biden announced the other day that an additional $8.2 billion would be allocated toward improving Amtrak routes and service. This is a huge deal for the passenger rail service, which has survived decades of Republican efforts to destroy it by nickel-and-diming it to death.

The new funding will go to the following projects (per the DoT website):

Projects announced through the Federal State Partnership for Intercity Passenger Rail (Fed-State National) Program will advance two high-speed rail corridors and fund improvements to existing rail corridors for expanded service and performance. These investments will:

  • Help deliver high-speed rail service in California’s Central Valley
  • Create a brand-new high-speed rail corridor between Las Vegas, Nevada, and southern California, serving an estimated 11 million passengers annually
  • Make major upgrades to existing conventional rail corridors to better connect Northern Virginia and the Southeast with the Northeast Corridor
  • Expand and add frequencies to the Pennsylvania Keystone Corridor between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh
  • Extend the Piedmont Corridor in North Carolina north, as part of a higher-speed connection between Raleigh and Richmond, Virginia
  • Invest in Chicago Union Station, as an initial step toward future improvements to the critical Midwest corridors hub
  • Improve service in Maine, Montana, and Alaska

The DoT webpage adds, “At the same time, FRA is announcing 69 corridor selections across 44 states through the Corridor Identification and Development (Corridor ID) Program, which will drive future passenger rail expansion.

“Corridor ID, a new planning program made possible by President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, will help guide intercity passenger rail development throughout the country. This inaugural round of selections aims to upgrade 15 existing rail routes, add or extend service on 47 new routes, and advance 7 new high-speed rail projects, creating a pipeline of intercity passenger rail projects ready for implementation and future investment. FRA will work closely with states, transportation agencies, host and operating railroads, and local governments to develop and build passenger rail projects faster than ever before.”

Yes, that’s a big deal. It’s the biggest single investment in Amtrak in its history. America has the crappiest rail service in the developed world, and lags behind some third world nations (mostly because China invested heavily in foreign rail in order to open up trade routes). The freight lines are in dire shape because private companies are more interested in spending money on lobbyists to defeat rail regulation and ads boasting of their safety then they are on spending money on safety, 21st century technology, or even routine maintenance.

The Biden administration announced future plans to present to a Congress that hopefully by 2025 will be run by people who can work for the nation, rather than the futile, vulgar, strutting clowns that run the show now. Those plans include:

  • New high-speed rail service in the Cascadia High-Speed Rail Corridor between Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia
  • New high-speed rail service between Dallas and Houston
  • New and upgraded Midwest Chicago hub corridors:
    • Daily, multi-frequency service from Chicago to Indianapolis
    • Increased frequencies from Chicago to Milwaukee to the Twin Cities, with an extension to Madison, Wisconsin
    • Improved service and increased frequencies from Chicago to Detroit, with an extension to Windsor, providing a direct connection to Canada’s high-speed rail network
    • A comprehensive plan for the Chicago terminal and service chokepoints south of Lake Michigan benefiting all corridors and long-distance trains south and east of Chicago
  • New service between the Twin Cities and Duluth, Minnesota
  • New service from Fort Collins to Pueblo, Colorado, with intermediate stops at Boulder, Denver, and Colorado Springs
  • New service between Phoenix and Tucson, Arizona, with multiple daily frequencies
  • New service connecting Baton Rouge and New Orleans, Louisiana
  • New connections between the Northeast Corridor and Northern Delaware and Reading and Scranton, Pennsylvania
  • Expanded connections and increased frequencies within California’s extensive conventional rail network
  • Expanded connections and service in Florida’s intercity rail network between the key travel markets of Tampa, Jacksonville, Orlando, and Miami
  • New service between Atlanta and Savanah, and from Atlanta to Nashville and Memphis via Chattanooga
  • Restoration of service between Chicago and Seattle, Washington, through multiple rural communities in North Dakota and Montana that are currently not served by passenger rail

 

It’s all part of the vast infrastructure bill that was passed a couple of years ago, some $1.3 trillion dollars. Over all, that plan, the biggest in American history (yes, even bigger than Eisenhower’s Interstate bill) will revolutionize transit and trade within the United States. It includes:

  • $110 billion for roads, bridges and other major projects;
  • $11 billion for transportation safety programs;
  • $39 billion to modernize transit and improve accessibility;
  • $66 billion for passenger and freight rail;
  • $7.5 billion to build a national network of electric vehicle chargers;
  • $73 billion to overhaul the nation’s power infrastructure, clean energy transmission, and overall energy policy;
  • $65 billion for broadband development

Of course, Biden boasted about this the other day, and made one of his characteristic verbal slip-ups. He said, “Over a billion three hundred million trillion three hundred million dollars!” when he was trying to say “Over one trillion three hundred billion dollars!” Of course, the Murdoch-owned Post was all over that shit, claiming it showed that Biden was losing it. But that senile guy got the biggest “infrastructure week” ever, after repeated boasts of Infrastructure Weeks from his predecessor, whose proclamations became empty jokes. Biden made it happen, rather than vacuous vaporbills. Of course, Murdoch lost three-quarters of a billion dollars (what Biden might call $750 trillion billion million bananas) because unlike Biden, he didn’t know who the fucking President of the United States was. Or at least, had his Lord Haw-Haws claim Trump had won. So there’s that.

Biden just keeps winning. And now, our infrastructure is climbing out of the 19th century.

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