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Obama Calling For $53B For High Speed Rail
Antisyzygy writes "President Obama is calling for $53B to be appropriated for the construction of high-speed rail in the United States over the next 6 years. Assuming Congress approves this plan, the funding would be spent on developing and/or improving trains that travel at approximately 250 miles/hour, as well as spent on connecting existing rail lines to new developed high speed lines."
It doesn't matter if it goes 250mph if it sits on the track for an hour waiting for right of way. Granted, this is just one experience, but from reading up after it happened, it seems to be the norm. Back in 1999 I decided to take a leisure trip out to Arizona from Indianapolis and I decided to take a train for fun. Instead of a speedy ride up to Chicago, we ended up waiting for an hour on a side track to get right of way. On the way from Chicago to Flagstaff, AZ, at one point we sat on the tracks during the day for 3 or 4 hours waiting again for right of way. On the return trip the train was 5 hours late getting back to Chicago and I missed my connection train back to Indianapolis.
Sure, you can build a high speed train, but if its run by Amtrak and exists in this countries rail system mentality, it will quickly become worthless. Fix the real issues.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEZjzsnPhnw
Very easy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantitative_easing
New Economic Perspectives
Most people in jail? USA. Most expensive military? USA. Most obese? USA.
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
High speed trains vs Airplane? With all the crap going on with airlines and privacy and charges every increasing for baggage and less and less room on the planes and higher and higher prices...yea a train sounds nice right now. Plus the jobs in can create and the decrease in commuter traffic and pollution (if it works well and people start using it) will be well worth the $ spent. Perhaps we can take a little money out of that huge defense budget and put it towards something that might be useful for the country for once?
"I hope you know how very lucky you are to know me, because I am so incredibly incredible."
Unless they can even prove it works in the Northeast corridor, where it most likely has the most benefit, why bother with anything else?
It's not exactly high speed rail. It's better than regular speed. But not dramatically. I think there are all sorts of right-of-way issues. Unless the country says: "I don't care what these issues are, just make them go away, and make this work", I don't think we should spend another penny.
Hanlon's Razor: "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."
High speed rail for the US is a dumb idea. We have an EXTREMELY functional interstate system for local travel, and for all other domestic travel we have airplanes (very efficient and low cost if tickets are bought in advance. Don't like fees? Fly southwest).
High Speed Rail would have the EXACT same security measures as airplanes, except they would be even less safe as blowing up track is easy, especially when you have hundreds of miles to choose from. I would be shocked if there weren't more deaths due to high speed rail than plane travel.
It also isn't necessary for the distribution of freight. The current rail system will continue to serve that purpose for years, as well as the large trucks that are used to transport goods and services.
High speed rail is useful in china because they don't have the built up infrastructure the US does for airplanes (or trains for that matter). If you were just starting a rail system in the US, of course you would build high speed rail. But we already have a rail system, and it works just fine.
An additional question: Where would it be efficient? Very few cities have the public transportation infrastructure to support such a train station. Remember, you're competing with driving and airplanes. To replace driving you need a public transporation system. To replace planes you need it to be cheaper, safer, and actually faster. For driving locations you ou get: Boston, New York City, Chicago, and (so I'm told) Washington DC, Portland, and San Fransisco. Is there anywhere else? Where would it replace airports?
Obligatory link to the Simpsons Monorail song! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jF_yLodI1CQ
Ok...and exactly WHAT orifice is Obama going to pull this spare $63B out of?
Unless you start cutting some spending...quit fucking trying to spend more!!!!
Bring the troops home then. Deal?
Drill baby drill - on Mars
$53 billion over six years is chump change. We need to cut spending by $500 billion per year and raise taxes by $500 billion per year to maybe dig ourselves out of this hole in two decades. We can't simply stop spending altogether until we pay off the debt, so you can't go faulting every program that costs $9 billion per year for the debt problem.
What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
How about pulling out of two very costly wars that were lost years ago? $53,000,000,000 is almost nothing compared to what has been wasted in Iraq and Afghanistan. Hell, and at least it'd be an expenditure that directly helps the American taxpayer.
Looks like you just demonstrated all three in a single post. Congrats!
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
If spent properly, $16 billion will come back as tax income directly (by spent properly, I mean "if you have a bank account in Ireland, there's no need to apply for the funds, contractor). After contractor profits and material cost, probably $10-ish billion of that will go to guys actually doing work. Those people will no longer be unemployed, making a significant dent in the unemployment rate.
On top of than that, since this money goes largely to people without money, that money will get spent quickly, meaning products will be bought, businesses will be kept afloat by those sales, and those businesses will lay fewer people off by the truckload. Hopefully someone can convince them to spend it on things with a Made In America stamp.
The investment will likely mostly pay for itself when the lines are leased to private companies to run the lines after they're built.
The American people benefit by the additional infrastructure.
This is exactly how government should spend money. But obviously that's a huge amount of money and its application should be careful, thoughtful, and efficient. That's usually where these things go awry; they let private business tell them "what they need" instead of hiring an insanely over-qualified team to actually manage the job with Uncle Sam's interests in mind.
I'm claiming "Obamarail (TM)".
Why the knee-jerk reaction? Government spending money on infrastructure is hardly the same thing as you or I shelling out $63B for a super-cool backyard train set.
Consider the following:
Building a rail line like this creates jobs, especially in the demographic that is currently stuck in the welfare loop. When these people get their paychecks, they pay taxes. Plus, they have money to spend on retail, who pay both taxes and their employees...see where I'm going with this? Granted, taxes only amount for so much, but this is a case of the government putting money into an essentially closed loop.
After construction, the rail would then be held by the government, right? I would imagine riding the rails would not be free-of-charge, so if they can get commuters to ride it, they should be able to make a considerable amount in revenue.
Beyond the direct jobs created by the construction, consider how much material would be needed. If the material could be collected and precessed in the U.S., then refer back to the benefits of the government directly creating jobs.
I am not an economist, and I'm also pragmatic about this, so I really can't say whether or not this rail system would be worth it. But I do know enough about economics to know that government spending is not necessarily a bad thing. The only time you really get into trouble is when you establish excessive free programs with little or no revenue to cover them, not when you're building lasting infrastructure.
We already have trains that connect all of our cities. They're plenty fast at delivering freight, and they are far cheaper to operate than this is going to be considering the massive upfront investment.
I ordered a part I couldn't find locally online yesterday, I checked just now and its out for delivery with the UPS guy. I just got a package from 2 states over in a fucking day for about 8 bucks extra. Yea, our system works pretty well as it is. Lets maintain it so it continues to and try to climb out of this economic situation with something actually useful, or at least actually inspiring(like a Mars mission we can just fake if we don't make it).
In December 2010, California approved the first locations for a high speed train.
1) It connects a grand total of 65 miles
2) It's being built between the towns of Borden and Corcoran. Yes, if you didn't know where that is, that's ok, most people don't.
3) No trains can run on it until some other town agrees to link up to it.
I have an idea! Maybe if the TSA stopped molesting people, air travel would be more pleasant, and you wouldn't have to spend BILLIONS OF DOLLARS on passenger trains. Just an idea, I don't live in the States so I'm not sure how much you like being groped by goons with a badge just so that you can visit your parents.
How about the US fix current infrastructure instead of creating a whole new infrastructure for which nobody has demonstrated the need? For example, air flight is already the US's "high speed rail" yet it is ridiculous burdened by two problems, a grossly inefficient security apparatus and airports with poor scheduling.
To be blunt, there's no reason that a passenger should have to wait more than a few minutes for a flight unless security screening throws up a warning sign. In fact, the only reason they do is due to insufficient screening infrastructure. You should be able to show up at the airport a half hour before the flight.
All the top airports overbook flights (in a similar fashion as the airlines overbook the actual planes), that is, they pack in more flights per unit time than can reasonable be handled. When any minor delay creeps in, then flight queues can quickly back up hours, propagating those delays throughout the air transportation system. I think a simple solution would be tiered flight service. Planes that wish to leave promptly would pay a fee for the privilege.
My view is that eliminating most of the two hour security delay and prioritizing departure traffic would go a long way towards improving existing air flight infrastructure and in the long run would be a better used of federal funds than building a high speed rail system.
...is a stable regulatory environment. It's the constant changing of the rules that keeps employers from hiring, not a lack of green technology. I'm sick and tired of Democrats and Republicans using the Treasury as a credit card for their buddies.
This isn't a troll, I would really like someone to explain the situations where a high speed train is better than an airplane or a car.
Its faster than cars and more energy efficient than cars or aircraft, and, as I understand, the stations are smaller for their capacity than aircraft making them easier to locate in convenient places and integrated efficiently with local public transit networks.
The security will be just as bad as at an airport if the government runs it, especially considering that just as many trains get bombed by terrorists as airplanes.
As apparently a large number of people have forgotten this in less than a decade (judging from the comments on topics like this on Slashdot), the event that precipitated the creation of the TSA and the intense focus on airline security wasn't airline bombings, it was hijacked airliners being used as a manned bombs against high-population targets chosen by the hijackers. This is somewhat impractical with trains which, even if they are hijacked, have very little freedom of maneuver once the hijackers take control.
Wouldn't we be better served either putting that 53 Billion into our roads and infrastructure?
High-speed rail is infrastructure and, as such, is not an alternative to "roads and infrastructure".
speed trains became a reality in europe. so much that they changed life - people regularly commute to their jobs in paris, from lyon.
http://www.wordtravels.com/images/map/France_map.jpg
you cant do the same thing in america. not even by plane. actually, with plane, it takes longer, even in france.
Read radical news here
Invented computer? USA.
Many great things have come from America. The computer was invented elsewhere. The Z3 was the first turing equivalent machine (i.e. true computer) ever constructed. In fact Zuse built two whole computers pretty much on his own before any entire *nation* caught up. It was also pipelined and used binary floating point. It even had floating point exceptions, inf and nan (well, undefined).
In other words, not only was the Z3 the first computer, it was also two decades ahead of its time in some areas.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Ha ha! I agree with you, but the point is to transfer wealth from the many to the few, not to do useful and efficient things for the many. We are in Afghanistan and Iraq because some very influential stakeholders in the US and international plutocracy are making money hand over fist. Are you going to politely ask them to stop? Good luck, Citizen.
By now it should be obvious to all that Obama is as faithful a servant to them as Dubya ever was.
Right. Gripe about Obama wanting to spend $53B over 6 years on a program that will improve our shitty infrastructure and create jobs in the process, but praise the Repubs for spending $700B on saving the tax cut for the top 2% which creates nothing except more wealth for the top 2%. Oh, and before you say it, not collecting $700B in taxes is EXACTLY the same as spending it no matter how Fox news wants to frame it.
Sometimes the light at the end of the tunnel is the headlight of an oncoming train.
I can't agree. Our overseas bases were useless in avoiding the 9/11 attacks. When was the last time they were useful in stopping an attack against our nation or defeating the attackers? You are unable to see that we are being scammed, my fellow Citizen. Bear in mind as you answer the question that 1) Al Qaeda has not yet been "defeated" in any credible or durable sense, and 2) their main financiers, the people and governments of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Emirates, are our allies in the "War on Terror." Also, Iraq was never a threat nor did it ever attack us. North Korea either, BTW. They are all bluster and no bite. Iran is not an enemy, it is a straw man to distract us from the Arab side of the Persian Gulf.
They see it as simple as this. My debt is 1000 dollars, my food bill for the year is 1000 dollars so I stop eating for a year and all my troubles will be over... eh yeah... they will.
China is not just catching up, it is not in danger of going in front, it is already there. The Chinese just build the high speed railnetworks that break record speeds over record lengths and order a new train model in the HUNDRETHS. They are re-colonizing Africa often rebuilding the same railroads the Brits used for pretty much the same reason. Get their hands on the amazing amount of raw materials they are going to need and raw materials the US will find it far harder to get.
People tend to think of the US as this superpower but forget that pre-WW2 they were nothing. America entered the war late and we all know what happened when they finally were forced to enter. They got their asses handed to them. It wasn't until the Americans got their act together and ramped up their massive potential that things turned around. And then America fell asleep again under Reagan with the same exact attitude that had led America to become a sitting duck to Japanese expansion. Except this time it is the Chinese and the Chinese need not fear the waking of the American giant. It is to fast asleep and the Chinese are pretty damn big themselves and growing rapidly.
The world is changing and America is watching the Super Bowl on its fat asses believing the bread and circusses. Saw some of it on the BBC and my god it was pathethic. Linking a silly sport with world events? How self congratulitory can you get?
The US is living in a dream world where its economy is in tatters, production is going down hill, it is involved in wars it can't win, has more people in jail then any other country only being beaten per head by ruthless dictatorships and can't even build a 2nd rate rail network...
It is truly sad because unlike most people who see China beating the USA I don't think that is good thing for anyone even people in China. The Chinese government ain't nice and we don't want to see a Chinese run Britisch empire reborn thank you very much.
So America, get of your fat asses and show some of that can do spirit. Do you really want to be known as that place where road bridges are falling apart and everything is made in China?
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
I go BOS to NYC on Acela, and it's faster than flying. Not for everyone of course, but for me who lives on the T (Boston subway) and wants to get to Manhattan, door-to-door is faster on Acela than it is in the air.
Could it be even made even faster? Sure. Keep in mind though that the Northeastern corridor is the densest part of America. The rights of way are narrow and windy, and straightening and widening them is massively expensive because of the value of the property adjacent to them. A few minutes could be shaved here and there with some straightening, banking, passing lanes, etc, but you simply can't go fast around a sharp corner. Furthermore, the corridor is crowded, and fitting more trains on the same set of tracks is a challenge., in part because of all the commuter rail which uses the same track.
As for other parts of the country, HSR between cities under 300 miles apart could beat airplane times, wouldn't suffer from the difficult constraints facing the Northeast, and setting it up frees both highway and runway from needing to be expanded, as well as provides another transportation option, thereby increasing the robustness of the system.
Support a few technologists in Washington.
1) cost
so what if if costs 500 to 800 billion dollars
we spent way more then that in Iraq - 500 billion is quite reasonable for a good high speed rail system if we can spend more on Iraq
2) Traffic congestion
true, we have to create destinations at each end, but this is doable
3) Costs
Typical dishonest right wing BS; he doesn't mention the huge huge huge cost subsidys to cars - have you ever heard of something called the mideast ? and how much we spend on the military to defend oil there ? you did any sort of honest analysis - includuding loss of public land for cars, cost to the environment to get fuel for\ cars, etc etc etc, I bet the current subsidys for cars are higher then rail
4) Cars, and everything about them, suck; they are inherently evil
see suburban nation
see people in cities who walk, like NYC, are healthier then suburbanites who drive
The Soviet rail system is vast and excellent in performance, under much worse terrain and weather conditions than in the US. If only the US had such a rail system, we'd be the envy of the world.
As for the unions, I suppose you're thrilled that you don't have to work weekends starting from age 5. But you're probably scared that your job will be outsourced to somewhere with no environmental or labor protection. Somehow you don't think "shareholders" is as bad a word as "unions".
--
make install -not war
The "first computer" is debatable, as the definition is vague.
No, it really isn't. There is a hard, mathematical distinction between computer and not computer. Turing equivalent with limited memory is a computer. Not turing equivalent is not a computer.
The "first electronic digital computing device" goes to the American ABC. But really, it's not relevant.
Quite.
. The US has poured far more funding into developing the digital age than every other nation on the earth combined,
Maybe so, but that doesn't alter the fact that the first computer happened to be built in Germany by a complete genius.
and the thanks we get for it is trendy hipster US-haters pointing out a
You are trying to make excuses for making an incorrect claim by bringing up emotional arguments. Forget thanks, how about the heaps of money that the US has acquired through its investment in computing.
Chinese blip on top500 (using American-designed technology) as somehow being indicative of the technological inferiority of the US.
Supercomputing is about who had the most money to spend most recently. Every so often some other country gets a faster supercomputer for a bit. Not really a big deal, especially as the US has mych higher spec machines on order and in the process of being built.
But that still doesn't change the fact that the first true computer was made by Konrad Zuse in Germany. Please, don't do the guy a disservice. Instead read about him and the incredible things he achieved.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Right, Germany is just so likely to get uppity again. All of the money we are wasting only serves two purposes, it increases the profits of the companies that sell to the military, and boosts the swagger of those who feel the having others people kill foreigners in their name makes them oh so big and macho.
You do realize that Obama is still trying to clean up what Bush left behind, right? Stuff that was in play during the Bush times will have effect on Obama. You don't seriously think that once Bush leaves, that any issues still going on in the country are now Obama's fault right? Odd enough, your statement makes it seem that way.
The world is how you make it
This isn't a troll, I would really like someone to explain the situations where a high speed train is better than an airplane or a car.
The security will be just as bad as at an airport if the government runs it, especially considering that just as many trains get bombed by terrorists as airplanes. So the speed gain would only show up in a few very specific cases, like maybe LA to Vegas.
Wouldn't we be better served either putting that 53 Billion into our roads and infrastructure? Or not spending it at all?
53 billion will provide 53,000 new miles of roads. Exactly where are you going to put those new miles? Could the northeast corrider or the west coast really add enough lanes to the highways to make a difference? The $1 million per mile cost of a highway also only includes construction costs, not the purchase of right of way. Face it most of the highway congestion is in and around the major metropolitan areas. The exact places were there isn't any more room to build highways.
As for bombing trains, usually that doesn't happen, it is much easier to derail one than bomb one. While that kills people, too, it is usually a lot fewer killed than people falling 35,000 feet.
A deficit is something your grandchildren will be paying off. But building infrastructure like this is an investment that your grandchildren will continue making a profit from, too. Certainly a better long-term investment than fighting an overseas war.
Switch back to Slashdot's D1 system.
We already have trains that connect all of our cities. They're plenty fast at delivering freight, and they are far cheaper to operate than this is going to be considering the massive upfront investment.
I ordered a part I couldn't find locally online yesterday, I checked just now and its out for delivery with the UPS guy. I just got a package from 2 states over in a fucking day for about 8 bucks extra. Yea, our system works pretty well as it is. Lets maintain it so it continues to and try to climb out of this economic situation with something actually useful, or at least actually inspiring(like a Mars mission we can just fake if we don't make it).
You mean like the upfront $5billion it costs to build one airport (Denver Int'l cost in 1997) or the $200million it costs to operate just that one airport for a year? In today's money, it would cost about $10billion to build that airport or 20% of the cost for the whole high speed rail proposal. For that same $10billion, 10,000 miles of rail can be put into service.
As for the rest of your example, exactly how did the UPS guy get the goods to deliver to you? They most likely came by long haul truck or air. So, in a few years, when a barrel of oil is over $200 and a gallon of diesel fuel is $8 and jet fuel even more? How much will that local UPS delivery cost you? The only reason rail isn't used more, right now, is because fuel is relatively cheap. Therefore, the efficiency of the delivery system is not a critical factor. Once fuel becomes expensive, then things like rail, which are very efficient per ton moved, will be a no-brainer. Of course, you need to build the infrastructure today, to have it ready for tomorrow.
> High-speed rail, almost without exception, relies on dedicated lines, not shared lines with freight like existing, less-than-high-speed, passenger rail in the US
To a degree, yes. But not completely. There's also a lot to be said for the convenience of transfer-free end to end service, even if it means the train has to be towed along shared tracks the last 25-50 miles to its final destination (this is common in France; they have summer TGV routes where the train runs at 180mph to the end of the line, then gets towed the last 25-100 miles to its final destination someplace where there's not quite enough business to justify the cost of building HSR all the way to the bitter end). In a place like Florida, it's *necessary* to build brand new tracks for HSR between Auburndale (halfway between Orlando and Tampa) and Tampa because the existing freight tracks are heavily used, but it's silly to build brand new 100% HSR all the way to Miami at this point because the existing tracks have barely any freight traffic (enough that eliminating it entirely would be very expensive, but not so much that good dispatching that gave priority to passenger trains couldn't overcome 99.9% of the delays that currently plague Amtrak along the same route).
For roughly the same cost as building "true" 180mph HSR from Orlando to Tampa, FDOT could temporarily scrap the electrification & HSR-only trains, build new tracks along I-4 with geometry suitable for 180-225mph trains someday, then buy and double-track the existing corridor to 110mph standards, connect it to the new HSR line north of Auburndale (along I-4) and launch Miami-Tampa-Orlando service from day one (running 80mph from Miami to WPB, 110mph from WPB to Auburndale, and 150mph along the shiny new HSR tracks for the last 40-60 miles into Tampa or Orlando). It would mean the Tampa-Orlando trains would have to be Acela-type and max out around 150mph ("true" 180mph HSR trains can't legally share tracks with freight trains, or even passenger trains legally capable of sharing tracks with freight trains), but it would also mean that Florida would end up with a useful passenger rail network instead of a largely useless amusement park ride. Move the proposed Orlando station from the central concourse of the airport to a spot adjacent to the airport (with peoplemover to the main terminal & rental car center) so trains can avoid a 5 mile detour (yeah, MCO really IS that big) and continue north to downtown Orlando after the airport station, and Florida will ALSO have a rail line suitable for daily long-distance exurban commuters to Tampa and Orlando from Lakeland. FDOT could even put additional stations between Tampa and Orlando with platforms that are "offline", so intercity trains could blast through at full speed without stopping, but commuters from the Lakeland area could have additional convenient stops to attract even more riders and business.
Another crucial element: rental cars at the major stations. Miami and Orlando have that part taken care of, and Tampa will too (as long as FDOT doesn't completely fuck up). Even better would be enabling passengers to do the rental-car paperwork on the train itself, and walk off the train with their keys in hand (or at least the codes to a wall of electronic safes containing the keys at the station) and be driving out of the parking garage 10 minutes after arrival.
One says Bush ruined the economy.. another says Obama ruined the economy.. you say that Obama is still trying to fix the economy.. and one up there goes on ranting about republicans...
You are all fucking idiots. The president doesnt have shit to do with the economy. Period and end of story. The economy is way bigger than the Executive branch.. way bigger than all 3 branches combined. Moving on, the president also doesnt have shit to do with even federal budgets.... 100% of those originate in the House.
If you are an American, than your ignorance on this matter is completely inexcusable. This isnt a conspiracy rant about big corporations ruling the economy.. that is ALSO laughable. Do you seriously think that the movement of 14+ trillion dollars annually, over billions of individual transactions, is under the significant control of an agency, or conglomeration? Seriously? Drink some fucking reality-coffee, cause the punch that you have been drinking doesnt even pass basic sanity checks.
"His name was James Damore."
My taxes also pay for roads I'll never drive on, schools I'll never attend, medicine for people I'll never meet, etc. etc.
The right to only pay for what YOU will use in your taxes is not a civil liberty under any sane political philosophy.
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
We're staring down default in 20 years and the government wants to play with choo-choo's. great.
Are high speed trains good? Yes.
Would it be bad to not have a high speed train? It would be inconvenient.
Which is more important, having a high speed train, or making sure that the U.S. doesn't default and cause a world wide depression?
ALL government funding now has to be justified in terms of:
Do the benefits of X project outweigh the massive problems that would be caused by a U.S. Default and world wide depression?
If the answer is no, then the project doesn't get funded.
And since we're running a 1.4 TRILLION dollar deficit (that's per year, kids), we have to ask that question about all existing projects.
Until the budget is balanced, we don't need shit like this.
We could have easily done that. Letting the bush tax cuts on the top 2% expire would have been worth like 700 billion.
I believe you will find that most americans that are not spoon fed pro-war propoganda from Fox News (and it's satellite affiliates) are very much in favor of that very thing: bringing troops home, and letting the middle east explode like it wants to.
The problem is that the government knows that it cannot do this while addicted to foriegn oil, and it also knows that it cannot get over its addiction to foriegn oil while the senators all make their money from oil and oil related industries. Because the senators comprise the government, the government's only motivation to bring troops home comes from the bad press they get. (They are financially motivated to keep sending american troops to die for their financial interests, while spinning it as national security. See EG, Dick Cheney and his heavy investments in Halliburton. He's a bit of a poster child for that kind of corruption, but a good portion of our currently elected career politicians also fall into this niche to one degree or another, and are culpable to varying degrees accordingly.)
The end result is that we get "Token" efforts to get away from foriegn oil (like that 50 million dollar offshore wind project), while bankrupting the country by hemmoraging money to maintain "Diplomatic" interests in the middle east (so that cheap oil keeps flowing.)
A concerted PR effort appears to be in effect to conflate lack of support of the middle eastern occupation and the managment of tinpot dictators there as a lack of patriotism, lack of national loyalty, and a lack of support of "our men and women in uniform." This is simply untrue; Many, if not most of the people that call for these forces to be recalled care deeply about the men and women that are there-- what they lack is support for the OPERATIONS that these people are deployed there to do. This distinction is almost religiously marginallized by the talking heads of this PR front, which while not started by Bush, was greatly emboldened by his cabinet and his policies. This same PR campaign tries to spin any and all outcry over the middle eastern bullshit as the rantings of un-american terrorist sympathizers, and similarly tries to paint the whole middle east as one giant terrorist training camp. [with alarming levels of success.]
Take for instance, the recent hemming and hawing of capitol hill over the imminent deposal of Egyptian president Mubarak. Mubarak has been "Our man" for decades, and has been instrumental in maintaining the imbalance of power in the middle east in favor of US and other developed countries' energy supplies, and in performing several "nasty extradition" services for our government. His deposal by citizens seeking a truly democratic regime free from foriegn interference places the policy makers on Capitol Hill in a nasty pickle because of their two-faced rhetoric, and now conflictory interests: On one hand they want to retain voter confidence, and spew pro-democracy rhetoric to get re-elected, and on the other they want to protect their financial interests so they can fund their next re-election bid. They REALLY want to retain Mubarak, and are "Very concerned" about the situation, because they would lose a key player in their investment and power strategies.
This is why the US media is trying desperately to create a connection between the (mostly) peaceful protestors and the extremist "Islamic Brotherhood", because that would allow the heads on capitol hill to decry the protestors without looking like the crooks they are-- despite the fact that both the islamic brotherhood AND the protestors deny any such connection, and have consistently done so for more than 2 weeks. The only support for such an allegation comes from an extremist islamic cleric (Khomeni sp?) who sees an opportunity to do some spin doctoring, and to derail the legitimate democratic nature of the protests there to further his own power base. These inconvenient truths aside, you will find no shortage of articles online or of televised newscasts with reporters and anchors asking loaded questions t
Small light rail travel is awesome in urban centres. Look at the skytrain system in Vancouver.
And if you want people to use a larger rail system for long cross-state trips, it's not hard.
Make it outrageously cheap in terms of distance:dollars (to the point of almost being a loss) so you would have to be a retard to want to fly or drive to anywhere that has two rail stations on it, even if the trip does take longer.
Pack the bastard with whole cars full of alcohol, food, coin op video games, internet access, bathrooms, tables, comfortable seating, and shit.. all hotel grade kit.. and make your profits off the fact that people get bored and hungry during long trips, and will gladly pay anything to solve those problems when they're completely trapped.
Then simply advertise it with catchy ad campaigns targeted towards lower to middle class people. Pay google to suggest trains, with pricing, when you use google maps. Whatever you have to do.
hope they have integration with bicycles -- if the new system is anything as good as germany's existing system, it will be amazing. in germany, they have an incredible integration of subway and regional trains, and all station platforms are level with the train - so you can roll bikes on and off the train at any stop, and it continues with bike paths.. it makes getting from A-B with bikes and trains pretty seamless. although, in america, maybe just having a place to lock your bike up at the station might be considered progress.
So, exactly how long does Mr. Obama get a pass for everything he does because he was preceded by Bush? 4 years? 8? While that might fly with the core Democrats, I doubt the independents who helped put him in in 2008 will be so forgiving in 2012. This last election should have been a wakeup call that the majority are sick of this endless spending (and yeah, I'm including the two stupid wars in Iraq and Afghanistan) and want it to stop. Seems the White House didn't get the message.
The president doesnt have shit to do with the economy. Period and end of story. The economy is way bigger than the Executive branch.. way bigger than all 3 branches combined. Moving on, the president also doesnt have shit to do with even federal budgets.... 100% of those originate in the House.
Where does the budget originate?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Us_federal_budget
The Budget of the United States Government is the President's proposal to the U.S. Congress which recommends funding levels for the next fiscal year, beginning October 1.
So who is an idiot, exactly? The people who passed civics class and realize the president sets the budget and congress says yay or nay, or you who obviously failed civics and who thinks the budget originates in the house?
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton