Corrected: Con peripheral canal: Final Exam Help for UC-Davis Delta Solutions Class

Update: I have been alerted by an astute reader that this course is from 2009, not 2010, so the premise of this post is wrong. I apologize for the mistake. I just happened upon the course website this weekend, and thought it was new. Unedited blogging has risks, see disclaimer on the side. I will leave the post up, since I think this course syllabus is insightful, and taking down your mistaken posts seems poor blogging ethics (if there is such a thing).

This post is for the unfortunate UC-Davis students have been assigned the task of arguing against the peripheral canal for tomorrow's final exam in the Delta Solutions course taught by the PPIC/UC-Davis team. You may be panicing and googling "con peripheral canal" arguments since your instructors have not prepared you for this assignment with their one-sided, self-indulgent reading list of nothing but their own reports. In fact, according to the syllabus, they have even taught you to mock anyone who questions their expert analysis, which supports the controversial peripheral canal.

1.On Mondays, 4:10-6pm, 60 minute presentation by an expert, followed by a discussion. In the discussion, students will act as members of a narrow interest group and ask the speaker ridiculous questions.

In the debate, my advice is to simply say that it is irresponsible to spend over $10 billion on a controversial infrastructure project without a proper cost-benefit analysis. If your opponents cite the PPIC study, you can add that this study did not follow established scientific methods of cost-benefit analysis, used its own unvetted methodology that is biased towards building expensive infrastructure, and contains some serious errors of fact.

If you don't receive an A, complain to the Dean.