No sweat no more
Bensblurb #578 11/12/10
All the air has blown out of my formerly bulging anger balloon. Obama is licking his wounds, Virginia is again a red state (except for two truly endangered U.S. senators), and my Texas Aggies have cleaned Oklahoma U’s plow.
Incidentally, my area is enjoying another marvelous fall color season. I don’t fret over all the leaves cluttering my yard anyway. I just crunch them with my old riding mower until winter’s winds drill them into the ground, my neighbors’ yards, or both. It’s also good to hear that a Forest Service study has found less crime in neighborhoods with big trees in the yards and on the streets, and more crime at homes with smaller trees. Besides which, in my neighborhood live many FBI, secret service and Marine Corps folks. They even scare me sometimes.
But not to worry that I’ve gone soft in my dotage. Two pieces below have tickled my fancy. You might have a similar reaction. Regardless, enjoy:
High Speed Rail? Another Washington Boondoggle.
As Robert Samuelson writes (in Washington Post): “It's become fashionable to think that high-speed trains connecting major cities will help ‘save the planet.’ They won't. They're a perfect example of wasteful spending masquerading as a respectable social cause. They would further burden already overburdened governments and drain dollars from worthier programs -- schools, defense, research.
Let's suppose that the Obama administration gets its wish to build high-speed rail systems in 13 urban corridors. The administration has already committed $10.5 billion, and that's just a token down payment. California wants about $19 billion for an 800-mile track from Anaheim to San Francisco. Constructing all 13 corridors could easily approach $200 billion. Most (or all) of that would have to come from government at some level. What would we get for this huge investment?
Not much. Here's what we wouldn't get: any meaningful reduction in traffic congestion, greenhouse gas emissions, air travel, oil consumption or imports...Congressional Research Service examined the 12 corridors of 500 miles or fewer with the most daily air traffic in 2007. Los Angeles to San Francisco led the list with 13,838 passengers; altogether, daily air passengers in these 12 corridors totaled 52,934. If all of them hypothetically switched to trains, the total number of daily airline passengers, about 2 million, would drop only 2.5 percent. Any fuel savings would be less than that; even trains need energy.
Indeed, inter-city trains -- at whatever speed -- target such a small part of total travel that the changes in oil use, congestion or greenhouse gases must be microscopic...Even assuming 250,000 high-speed rail passengers, there would be no visible effect on routine commuting, let alone personal driving. In the Northeast Corridor, with about 45 million people, Amtrak's daily ridership is 28,500. If its trains shut down tomorrow, no one except the affected passengers would notice...
President Obama calls high-speed rail essential ‘infrastructure’ when it's actually old-fashioned ‘pork barrel.’ The interesting question is why it retains its intellectual respectability. The answer, it seems, is willful ignorance. People prefer fashionable make-believe to distasteful realities. They imagine public benefits that don't exist and ignore costs that do...”
Only two more years???
As Patrick H. Caddell and Douglas E. Schoen wrote shortly before the election:
“...Obama suggested that if Republicans gain control of the House and/or Senate as forecast, he expects not reconciliation and unity but "hand-to-hand combat" on Capitol Hill.
What a change two years can bring.
We can think of only one other recent president who would display such indifference to the majesty of his office: Richard Nixon.
We write in sadness as traditional liberal Democrats who believe in inclusion. Like many Americans, we had hoped that Obama would maintain the spirit in which he campaigned. Instead...he has pitted group against group for short-term political gain that is exacerbating the divisions in our country and weakening our national identity. The culture of attack politics and demonization risks compromising our ability to address our most important issues - and the stature of our nation's highest office....No president has been so persistently personal in his attacks as Obama...He has regularly attacked his predecessor, the House minority leader and - directly from the stump - candidates running for offices below his own. He has criticized the American people suggesting that they are ‘reacting just to fear’ and faulted his own base for ‘sitting on their hands complaining.’...Obama is walking a knife's edge...”
But not to worry. No one gives him enough credit. “Barack Obama took something that was in terrible shape ands brought it back from the brink of disaster, and that something was the Republican Party.”--comedian Argus Hamilton
--Ben Blankenship
################
All the air has blown out of my formerly bulging anger balloon. Obama is licking his wounds, Virginia is again a red state (except for two truly endangered U.S. senators), and my Texas Aggies have cleaned Oklahoma U’s plow.
Incidentally, my area is enjoying another marvelous fall color season. I don’t fret over all the leaves cluttering my yard anyway. I just crunch them with my old riding mower until winter’s winds drill them into the ground, my neighbors’ yards, or both. It’s also good to hear that a Forest Service study has found less crime in neighborhoods with big trees in the yards and on the streets, and more crime at homes with smaller trees. Besides which, in my neighborhood live many FBI, secret service and Marine Corps folks. They even scare me sometimes.
But not to worry that I’ve gone soft in my dotage. Two pieces below have tickled my fancy. You might have a similar reaction. Regardless, enjoy:
High Speed Rail? Another Washington Boondoggle.
As Robert Samuelson writes (in Washington Post): “It's become fashionable to think that high-speed trains connecting major cities will help ‘save the planet.’ They won't. They're a perfect example of wasteful spending masquerading as a respectable social cause. They would further burden already overburdened governments and drain dollars from worthier programs -- schools, defense, research.
Let's suppose that the Obama administration gets its wish to build high-speed rail systems in 13 urban corridors. The administration has already committed $10.5 billion, and that's just a token down payment. California wants about $19 billion for an 800-mile track from Anaheim to San Francisco. Constructing all 13 corridors could easily approach $200 billion. Most (or all) of that would have to come from government at some level. What would we get for this huge investment?
Not much. Here's what we wouldn't get: any meaningful reduction in traffic congestion, greenhouse gas emissions, air travel, oil consumption or imports...Congressional Research Service examined the 12 corridors of 500 miles or fewer with the most daily air traffic in 2007. Los Angeles to San Francisco led the list with 13,838 passengers; altogether, daily air passengers in these 12 corridors totaled 52,934. If all of them hypothetically switched to trains, the total number of daily airline passengers, about 2 million, would drop only 2.5 percent. Any fuel savings would be less than that; even trains need energy.
Indeed, inter-city trains -- at whatever speed -- target such a small part of total travel that the changes in oil use, congestion or greenhouse gases must be microscopic...Even assuming 250,000 high-speed rail passengers, there would be no visible effect on routine commuting, let alone personal driving. In the Northeast Corridor, with about 45 million people, Amtrak's daily ridership is 28,500. If its trains shut down tomorrow, no one except the affected passengers would notice...
President Obama calls high-speed rail essential ‘infrastructure’ when it's actually old-fashioned ‘pork barrel.’ The interesting question is why it retains its intellectual respectability. The answer, it seems, is willful ignorance. People prefer fashionable make-believe to distasteful realities. They imagine public benefits that don't exist and ignore costs that do...”
Only two more years???
As Patrick H. Caddell and Douglas E. Schoen wrote shortly before the election:
“...Obama suggested that if Republicans gain control of the House and/or Senate as forecast, he expects not reconciliation and unity but "hand-to-hand combat" on Capitol Hill.
What a change two years can bring.
We can think of only one other recent president who would display such indifference to the majesty of his office: Richard Nixon.
We write in sadness as traditional liberal Democrats who believe in inclusion. Like many Americans, we had hoped that Obama would maintain the spirit in which he campaigned. Instead...he has pitted group against group for short-term political gain that is exacerbating the divisions in our country and weakening our national identity. The culture of attack politics and demonization risks compromising our ability to address our most important issues - and the stature of our nation's highest office....No president has been so persistently personal in his attacks as Obama...He has regularly attacked his predecessor, the House minority leader and - directly from the stump - candidates running for offices below his own. He has criticized the American people suggesting that they are ‘reacting just to fear’ and faulted his own base for ‘sitting on their hands complaining.’...Obama is walking a knife's edge...”
But not to worry. No one gives him enough credit. “Barack Obama took something that was in terrible shape ands brought it back from the brink of disaster, and that something was the Republican Party.”--comedian Argus Hamilton
--Ben Blankenship
################
posted by Ben Blankenship at
11:33 AM
