Links for World Trade Center Construction

Below are the links to the two world trade center movies. I will figure out how I can send out the movies in the email blasts.

World Trade Center Movie One
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZS5a7je5Vs

World Trade Center Movie Two
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fm7B1vvkXnQ

Thanks for the feed back.

All Aboard? High Speed Rail on November Ballot.

Proposition 1a, a $10 billion dollar bond will be on November's ballot in California. The SF Gate wrote a good article describing the largest public works project in California's history. The article can be found here.

There are a lot of good arguments for and against the project, but I think the good out weigh the bad. I think the best thing is the cost and the time savings. Below are some quotes from the article.

Proposition 1A on the Nov. 4 ballot would authorize the sale of $9.95 billion in bonds to help start construction of an 800-mile high-speed rail network that would send electric trains zipping between Northern and Southern California at up to 220 mph.

A trip from the Transbay Terminal in downtown San Francisco and Los Angeles Union Station would take about 2 1/2 hours, according to the state High Speed Rail Authority, and would cost about $55 one way. There would be stops on the Peninsula and in the South Bay.

The system would be the largest public works project in California history - bigger than the California Aqueduct - and would cost $32 billion for the main line between San Francisco and Los Angeles and an additional $10 billion to complete the network by adding extensions to San Diego, Sacramento and Riverside County. The state is banking on getting about a third of the construction budget from state taxpayers, a third from the federal government and a third from private investors.

I think I'm supporting this one.

Apprenticeship Matrix is Posted to Site

In the hopes of improving the quality of the content of this site, I have started to make a few resource documents. The first one is a break down of the apprenticeships for the construction trades. Download the matrix here.

One of the things that many people have sought are clear tools that describe what you need to do to qualify for apprenticeship programs.

I have posted to the site a matrix that describes each of the apprenticeable crafts, the requirements to join and the any tests that the apprenticeship program. I want to thank the San Diego County Construction and Building Trades for providing the the source data for the document.

A few observations about the requirements. Most if not all require applicants to be 18 years old. All of the trades require a great deal effort and require people to be in good physical condition. Note: Most apprenticeship programs require a drug test.

Below is the list of the trades that are in the document.

• Asbestos Workers
• Boilermakers
• Bricklayers/ Stone Masons
• Carpenters
• Carpenter- Acoustic Installer
• Cement Mason
• Drywall Finisher
• Drywall Lather
• Electrical
• Elevator Constructors
• Floor Covering
• Glazing
• Ironworker
• Laborers
• Landscape & Irrigation Fitters
• Millwright
• Operating Engineer
• Painter
• Pile Driver
• Plasterer
• Plaster Tender
• Plumber & Pipefitter
• Roofer
• Sheet metal Worker
• Surveyor
• Teamster
• Tile Setters

Adobe Acrobat Reader is required to open the document. Download it here.

Movies of the Construction of the World Trade Center

Like many Americans, September 11th is a sad day for me.

I don't really know what to say, except that it is important to keep in our hearts the men and women that were harmed and killed. Also we should remember two of the greatest buildings in the world ever built.

I found a couple cool movies of the construction of the World Trade Center.

World Trade Center Construction, Part 1


World Trade Center Construction, Part 2

Total Recall: Part Deaux

In case you did not know the California Correctional Peace Officers Association is starting a recall petition drive to remove Governor Schwarzenegger. The SacBee article can be found here.

Sigh.....

Water Update

I have not done a post in a while about water issues. So now it is time to catch up on some recent developments.

The first and the most obvious is that the drought continues. Leaders around the state are looking at many options.

The first one is the Department of Water Resources is establishing a water "bank". It is not some place where you can store water. The bank serves as a market for water so that districts with a surplus of water can sell it to districts that need more. The article can be found here in the SF Gate.

The next issue deals with the $9.3 billion bond that Governor Schwarzenegger Senator Feinstein are pushing. But like the budget, this bond proposal has not moved forward at all. Many of the Democrats in the legislature are against some of the projects including building new dams and creating a peripheral canal around the Bay Delta.

One of the proposed dams is proposed is at Temperance Flat. According to the article in the San Diego Tribune there are few champions for the project outside of the people near the dam site which is outside of Fresno. According to the supporters:

the Temperance Flat dam would create on average 100,000 acre-feet of new water annually for Friant farmers. It also would replace another 100,000 acre-feet that the Friant Water Authority has committed every year to help restore the San Joaquin and reintroduce salmon runs to the river.

Finally the Pacific Institute published a report that conservation is key. The is titled, More with Less: Agricultural Water Conservation and Efficiency in California – A Special Focus on the Delta. It makes some of the following assertions:

The new study (funded by the David and Lucile Packard Foundation and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation) finds that agricultural water-use efficiency can be improved through careful planning, adopting existing, cost-effective technologies and management practices, and implementing feasible policy changes. This analysis evaluates four scenarios for improving water-use efficiency, addressing what crops are grown (Crop Shifting) and how they are grown (Advanced Irrigation Management, Smart Irrigation Scheduling, and Efficient Irrigation Technology). All four scenarios show substantial potential water savings ranging from 600,000 – 3,400,000 acre-feet of water annually.

The report provides recommendations to overcome some of the financial, legal, and institutional barriers that can hinder farmers from implementing such adaptations and investments. For example, the state can offer tax exemptions and rebates for farmers who upgrade to more efficient irrigation systems. Courts and regulators can apply California’s water-rights laws more rationally and effectively to ensure water is being used reasonably and beneficially. Water use measurement and monitoring should be more rigorous. And misguided federal and state subsidies that encourage wasteful use of water can be redesigned to encourage efficiency and conservation.

“Water savings achieved through conservation and efficiency improvements are just as effective as new, centralized water storage, and are often far less expensive,” said Dr. Juliet Christian-Smith, senior research associate at the Pacific Institute and co-author of the report. “If we look at these water savings in ‘dam equivalents,’ the four scenarios save between 3 and 20 sizable new dams with fewer social and environmental impacts.”

The report can be found here. (Adobe Acrobat required)

Allow a Majority Budget Vote in California

George Skelton of the LA Times has a great article calling for a majority vote to pass a budget. California has a requirement to have two thirds of the legislators in both houses approve the taxing and spending plan. If we had a simple majority the budget would be in place now.

One of the surprising voices for the simple majority is one of the budget hold outs.

State Sen. Tom McClintock (R-Thousand Oaks), a hero of fiscal conservatives, long has favored allowing a majority budget vote.

"The two-thirds vote for the budget has not contained spending, and it blurs accountability," McClintock says. "If anything, in past years, it has prompted additional spending as votes for the budget are cobbled together."

Cobbled together by trading votes for pet programs and pork projects.

Amen...I think it is time to change the process.