Governor Brown on high-speed rail: "I am doing the best I can to keep this train running"

Photo by Eric Paul Zamora, Fresno Bee

The Chronicle's Editorial page Editor John Diaz's recent editorial on high-speed rail shows the desperation True Believers in that dumb project are feeling:

If a valuable, needed and voter-endorsed cause is to survive, someone big needs to step up and push for it. That's why Gov. Jerry Brown's remarks in Fresno---where the first tracks are due to be laid next year---are significant. Sacramento will make the ultimate decision on whether to stick with the plan, postpone it or kill it. "I am doing the best I can to keep this train running," Brown said in a meeting with the editorial board of the Fresno Bee. His tone may sound conditional and wary, but it's still needed.

A commenter on the Fresno Bee story tells us who, besides uninformed editorial writers, supports this project: labor unions, the backbone of the Democratic Party:

[Governor Brown] is releasing convicted felons, stripping funds to K-12 education and raising CSU and UC tuitions, closing parks and senior centers, yet he is such a tool of the Unions that he will have California pay $14 billion in the Central Valley on the HSR boondoggle, which will NOT result in trains traveling on the system because $14 billion doesn't buy trains or electrification. What a waste of necessary taxpayer funds.

Here's evidence that Brown is a tool of the state unions wanting this to continue: Want to know who is the main, driving force behind this boondoggle?...Well, watch this video and public comment from the CA Sentate Transportation Committee hearing on May 3, 2011 (where State Senator LaMalfa's SB22 to defund the CAHSRA and project was being discussed).

In the OPPOSITION to this bill you can see who speaks against LaMalfa: 1. California Labor Federation (union); 2. State Operating Engineers (union); 3. State Buildings and Construction Trades Council (union) 4. California State Federation of Laborers (union) 5. State Laborer’s Council (union) 6. Contractors/Vendors standing to make money off the project (i.e. Siemens/Parson’s Brinkerhoff, etc.) The Unions support Democratic politicos, from Governor Brown, to Galgiani, etc. There is also a revolving door between former public sector Democratic politicos then going "in house" with fat "non-public" employment contracts that aren't subject to a Public Records Request for review of those contracts, so they need to make sure the boondoggle and BILLION DOLLAR CONTRACTS are still being awarded when they leave office. It's about the money, money, money...

Dan Walters gives Governor Brown a way out of the ruinous HSR project: Just say he did the best he could to keep the boondoggle going, but the money to build it just wasn't there.

Lou Gehrig: A role model for the Giants?

The San Francisco Giants have been cursed with a number of injuries, some of them seemingly minor. Maybe they should look at the great Lou Gehrig as a role model:

Set a record by playing in a consecutive streak of 2,130 professional baseball games throughout his career, despite 17 fractures in his hands, being beaned several times, having severe back pain and suffering various other illnesses and minor injuries. Gehrig's record stood until Cal Ripken, Jr. broke it in 1995.