It's most definitely a response to the UK government passing multiple laws to criminalise protest. The state has made it clear that they will prosecute and harass any protest they don't like, and you'd better believe that includes climate protesters.

Yeah it's an interesting approach. "Don't care how you do it, but you're doing it."

Article says about 3% of EU emissions, which IIRC is more than the airline sector. These suckers burn really nasty fuel.

Hey, progress is progress and this is a big leap forward.

You do know that Biden put it on hold while it was reviewed, and instead the Democrats put their own version through that covered more people, right? Trump's version only covered his voting base.

It was frozen so they could assess costs and impact, and then they redid it better.

For some reason, Trump supporters always overlook that part.

Excellent work!

Yeah, production got screwed up the last few years. Lots of unemployment, etc. Fewer car sales overall, but a larger portion of them becoming EVs.

The vast majority of heating in the UK is provided by gas....which it may shock you to learn is not in fact electricity.

Almost everything reported on this project is FUD bullshit, TBH. Oooh it's slow and over budget? Weird how we never get that reporting with highways, or the massive subsidies we hand to fossil fuel providers.

OK, I think we're just arguing semantics at this point. The phases are further broken down into sections, and obviously some are going to come online before others.

> It's exploded in cost and timeframe several times over from what it was sold as when it was voted on. The system was to be operational by 2020, for a cost of about $34 billion. The price is now ranges from $88 billion to $128 billion, and even the high end estimate makes questionable assumptions.

But that's, like, every large infrastructure project. There's always stuff missed, contractors always talk horseshit to get through the bidding process, etc.

> Either of those parts would be vastly more useful for people.

....Which is why they're building those too? https://hsr.ca.gov/high-speed-rail-in-california/project-sections/

I know naysaying is an Internet sport, but I think the phase 1 delivery's getting a bit downplayed. Phase 1 is San Fan, San Jose, Fresno, Bakersfield, Burbank, L.A. and Anaheim. It's hardly nothing.

https://hsr.ca.gov/high-speed-rail-in-california/project-sections/

I dunno, I just get frustrated because people have bitched for decades about not having high-speed rail, and when a state actually does it they bitch about a 1500km long public works project being slow and expensive.

Because they should have started with the hardest part and gotten more bogged down?

Yeah, and it didn't work.

Large infrastructure project in "took longer than predicted" shocker, film at 11.

The "first section" is the longest section by a very long way, though.

End of the decade is the aim date. It's a hell of a big project.

But the Intarwebs has repeatedly informed me that Cali were complete suckers and cancelled all their high-speed rail because Musk put out a render video of a thing that doesn't exist. Turns out they were continuing to build the entire time?

That sounds kinda rad, actually. Which one?

> Dems and republicans are one and the same. They are one and the same.

They're demonstrably, blatantly not. To pretend otherwise is to promote voter apathy and enable the GOP's violent fascist rhetoric.

Are the Democrats "good"? - no, I'd like to have an actual progressive party that will do the necessary work to overturn corporate sponsorship of authoritarianism. Does that make them the same as the GOP? No. Members of the GOP are currently proposing, among other things:

• The abolition of all income taxation
• The abolition of all social spending
• The abolition of THE UNITED STATES

The Democrats may not be the party we want, but to call them the same helps only our enemies.

>Ok, that’s fine, republicans own the house. So what does that mean? We have to wait till the dems are in control of everything??

Have you been completely ignorant of GOP obstruction in the modern era? Yes, the Democrats need a majority to do almost anything because the GOP refuse to work with them. If they are not voted to a majority, you will receive no progress on anything other than enriching the rich, and broadcasting lies about fictional laptops.

Blaming the Democrats for not being able to put legislation through places where the GOP are in control is insane, and yet people do it constantly.

What would you like them to do, exactly?

> Despite Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) “making a last ditch effort” to put cannabis banking reform in the omnibus, as one senior Democratic Senate staffer put it last week, negotiations failed to produce a package that includes the measure.

Yeah, let's point the finger at the Democrats, when this couldn't happen because the GOP have the House (which you conveniently ignored in your comment).

With so many states legalising, and society somehow managing to not suddenly collapse under a hemp apocalypse, I think the inflection point is pretty near.

I mean given how absolutist and stridently incorrect you are, I'm going to doubt you voted the first time around. I listed a number of things this Congress has made progress on (because imagining that the government consists of one person is childish), but I can go through specifics if you'd like them?

Politifact's tracker shows him at 25% promises completed, 35% in progress, 32% stalled (guess why) and exactly 1% broken.

"Any".