What we need to understand is why we can't build stuff.

People have looked long and hard at why the USA has so much trouble building infrastructure. The two big reasons:

1. We give property owners a lot of power to fight against proposed projects. If you propose a new piece of infrastructure, you'll be inundated with lawsuits from people who might possibly be affected in some way, and you'll need to fight them all before you can do anything. In a lot of cases, the only way to avoid the lawsuits is by altering the project in ways that make it more expensive. As an example, this is why US subway projects tend to use expensive tunnel boring machines instead of cheaper but more disruptive cut-and-cover. Part of the reason the new HSR line is in a good position to move so quickly is they were able to secure right of way in the median of I-15, preventing a lot of those kinds of suits.
2. Projects that get past the lawsuit stage tend to be treated as employment programs for construction workers at least as much as infrastructure projects. This also tends to blow up the costs and make the projects less popular with the taxpayers who fund them. Again the HSR in this case can avoid a lot of that because it will be privately owned and thus doesn't have to worry about what taxpayers think nearly as much.

https://greekreporter.com/2024...
https://arkeonews.net/italian-...
https://www.heritagedaily.com/...
https://www.sciencetimes.com/a...

Mainly the legal system protecting land owners.

US and UK have a similar legal system that is different from almost everywhere else in the world.

Isn't there that California HSR line from LA to San Francisco? Isn't it well along under construction?

What am I missing?

I suppose it depends n the authors you enjoy. Niven and Baxter have both produced excellent works in recent decades. For instance, "The Destroyer of Worlds" series is an excellent capstone on Known Space.

Baxter & Pratchett's "The Long Earth" anthology has quite a bit of wonder, but they are experience authors. Paolo Bacigalupi's newer, and there are some interesting ideas and nuggets of wonder in things like "The Windup Girl..

You can become a paramedic in 1-2 years, why does it take that long to learn how to safely cut and dye hair?

For the very reasion you stated. Safety. Do you really want someone hacking away at your hair with a sharp pair of scissors? You have ears, don't you? And that doesn't get into the issue of HOW to cut hair so it looks decent. How do you properly cut a bob? Layering? What do you do with different types of hair (straight, curly, African American, thick, thin, etc)? How do you cut a man's hair compared to a woman (not every guy gets a buzzcut)?

And those chemicals used to dye hair can cause burns to the scalp (and skin if spilled) if not properly applied. Do you want your pre-teen daughter wailing in your ear for weeks and months that her head burns and now she can't have good looking hair because the colorists burned her?

I know it seems silly to have to go through all of this, but there are valid reasons to be certified/licensed/whatever. This also gives you legal rights if something goes wrong.

Go do a parallel search for something political on Google and Yandex.

The reason is two fold. First, with Yandex being Russian, they want every political story about the West out there for people to read. They probably even promote the stories to higher rankings so they are seen. However, try putting in a query about the thoudands of Russian losses in Ukraine or Russian ships being sunk or the oil refineries in Russia being attacked or the Belgorod region being shelled by Russian forces and see what happens. I would be willing to bet you only get a few stories with little substance.

The second reason is as we all know, Google is flooded with SEO crap (like this story) and their software is unable, or unwilling, to filter the wheat from the chaff. They make money regardless of the quality of the search.

I've started reading a lot more non-fiction, mainly history.

Oddly enough, so have I. Right now I'm on a book about Aaron Burr. Before that was Andrew Jackson and before that was James Madison. Then there was the book about how the Pilgrims and Puritans screwed over the Native Americans in New England (wonderful title: God, War, and Providence) despite Roger Williams' best efforts. And who couldn't read history without delving into World War II and the German army, Panzer Battles.

That last two chapters of the book should be required reading for anyone in the Ukrainian military. Literally, in the truest sense of the word, nothing has changed in Russian tactics and actions in the past 80 years. The words written sound like they were written last year.

And there we have it. Thank you for those who marked my comment down. You proved my point admirably.

Right now the vast majority of the sci-fi/fantasy books are all Game of Thrones type, set in some medieval-style world where evil lurks around every corner.

Then you have the Kim Harrison types (which usually have fantastic cover art), followed by sci-fi itself which generally revolves around some Earth/Solar System/Universe threat which only one man (it's almost always a man) can solve.

I've tried reading various books at random, but either I've lost my ability to immerse myself in the story or the stories aren't well written to hold my interest.

I'm not sure what the answer is, and maybe my situation is unique, but perhaps publishers should take more chances on new or fledgling authors so different styles of storytelling can get out.

Fiction:

12 books from the Deverry series
The Three Body Problem trilogy
Monkey
Treacle Walker
Various books on Powershell

Non-Fiction:
Linux Administrator's Guide
Linux Network Administrator's Guide
Both OpenZFS books
Ansible
Terraform
Various books on Oracle, MySQL, PostgreSQL optimisation
C++ manuals
Various Cisco manuals
OpenPF manual

but when activists are actively against Israel policies then it's NOT OK.

For the simple reason any criticism of Israel is not allowed. Nothing. Any criticism of any kind for any reason immediately brands you as anti-semitic. No exceptions. Even when Israel does to others which was done to them you are not allowed to say a single word. If you do, you're an anti-semite. Full stop.

Texas is just awful.

They all drive around in pickup trucks with gun racks attached to the back window. The way they speak you can't understand a word they are saying, either.

The place has terrible extremes of hot and cold weather.

And they had, as you suggest, hundreds of people left to freeze and die.

And their governor is this right-wing immigrant-hating maniac who like to elicit sympathy for being in a wheelchair, in contrast with the suave, hip, articulate and able-bodied Governor of California with his artfuly styled hair and taste for fast-food restaurants paying below the prevailing wage.

If you live in California, for gosh sakes, don't even think of moving to Texas!