Can 80% of Americans REALLY have access to high-speed rail?

"Within 25 years, our goal is to give 80% of Americans access to high-speed rail, which could allow you go places in half the time it takes to travel by car."

Wow! That sounds kewl.

But does it make any sense?

Back in 2000 about 66% of Americans lived in coastal areas—38% east coast, 16% West Coast, and 12% Gulf coast. The smallest numbers lived between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains. While the Rocky Mountain and plains states account for about half of the landmass of the United States,  34 percent of the population resides in these areas. 

Given this factual distribution of Americans we need to make an assumptions about President Obama's goal statement.

What is meant by "access to"?

Since the statement appears to seek replacement of car travel by high-speed rail travel it's reasonable to assume that "access to" doesn't include a long drive. But does it mean "within walking distance"? Or, "by taxi"? Or could it mean "by subway"? It probably doesn't mean "short bush plan ride" so Obama isn't planning to include Alaskan Americans in his high-speed rail plan.

Without being snarky, let's assume he means to include walking, biking, short taxi rides, subway, and rickshaw as "access to". This limits the distance between home and rail head to a few miles.

This then requires that high-speed rail be built to within a few miles of 80% of American dwelling places.

But, 34% of Americans are distributed (yes, I realize not uniformly) over 50% of the US land area. To meet Obama's goal, 100% of the coasters and 14% of the rest must be within a few miles of a high-speed rail depot. It doesn't count if you live next to the tracks. The train has to stop and pick you up or you don't have "access".

Further, you not only must live within a few miles of a depot but your destination must also be within a few miles of a depot. Makes no sense if you walk to the train and then it drops you off in the middle of Arizona.

So, just how likely are we to meet Obama's goal? Looks like it's only achievable if:
1. Americans are relocated to urban concentration camps.
2. Americans only travel to urban concentration camps.

Vacations would then consist of traveling from New York to Miami. Or Chicago to Boston. And when we get there we've got to stay down town.

Sure solves the problem of too many visitors to all those National Parks.

Gets rid of those pesky rural farmers and ranchers too.

Is Wiki Leaks Terrorism or just Prostitution?

Listening to Hoekstra being interviewed on Fox News this morning (30 Nov 2010) about the latest Wiki Leaks publication provides an insight into the strange world of politician thinking.

Hoekstra seems to be saying, in his Wiki Leaks comments, that since Wiki Leaks didn’t steal the data we can’t prosecute them for using the data. This is exactly like saying that since terrorists didn’t make the explosives we can’t prosecute them for using the explosives. Or, since the murder didn’t make the gun we can't prosecute him for killing his victim.

This “logic” can only be the product of a liberal or law education.

In the real world, that most of us live in, we’re less interested in the supplier than we are in the user. We don’t believe that the firearm manufacturer is responsible for the bank robbery. We don’t blame Ford for drunk driver deaths. We don’t even blame the brewer for bar fights.

Perhaps our national approach to “The War on Drugs” has corrupted our thinking process. In The War on Drugs we prosecute the drug supplier instead of the user. Well, we do prosecute Black users and poor users, but most of the effort is on shutting down the suppliers. Often users are seen as victims.

Perhaps our approach to stamping out prostitution is another example of a corrupted thinking process. Again the supplier is prosecuted while the user is, usually, not prosecuted.
This corrupted thinking is a product of prosecuting victimless “crimes”. Drug users are hurting themselves and, unless they commit crimes to acquire funding for their drug use, rarely hurt others. Johns even more rarely hurt others except by spreading disease.

In both of these examples, government efforts would be best spent on treatment, education, and monitoring rather than on user incarceration.

Politicians are not, however, likely to understand the difference between, say, prostitution and terrorism.  They are far less interested in the John than in the prostitute. They are far less interested in the publisher than in the leaker. This, despite that fact, that the leak without publication is harmless. Only the publisher has the power to harm us. Only the publisher actually did harm us. But that fact is ignored or not understood or denied.

It’s time to replace our liberal educated “over thinker” politicians with people educated by the everyday, real world.

Opt-out and Widdershins Spin - Just One Example

Wow! The left is spinning like a ten year old at Disney’s Teacup Ride. 

Tactics employed consist of the whole panoply of left wing disinformation techniques:

·         False premises (straw men) [FP]

·         Misrepresentation of opponent’s views and statements [Mr]

·         Misquotes [Mq]

·         Using biased sources as ‘authorities’ [BS]

·         Distortion of facts [DF]

·         Quoting opinions of uninformed sources [US]

·         Outright lies [L]

·         Throw away truthful statements [T]

·         Irrelevant statements that appear to support point of view [I]

·         Unverifiable statements [UV]

·         Qualified statements that actually deny statement itself [Q]

·         Assertions not supported by author [A]

Let’s tag just part of a recent article published on Live Science (Complete article here).

“Complaints about airport security recently triggered calls for a consumer-led "Opt-Out" day [T] (boycotting full-body scans) that would hopelessly snarl travel plans [FP] and force the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) to rethink its intrusive methods [T]. Airline and government officials worried that there would be nationwide travel disruptions today [unknown]. 

“According to the Chicago Sun-Times [BS], "Despite threats of protests from passengers angry at new security rules, it was relatively [DF] smooth sailing — and flying [I] — at O'Hare Airport Wednesday. Lines at ticket counters [I] and at security checkpoints were moving freely throughout the morning and early afternoon [T. 'There are no delays [UV], no lines [UV] [difficult to believe], no protests [F] that I know of [Q],' said Karen Pride, spokeswoman for the Chicago department of aviation [BS]."

“Why did the Opt-Out protest fizzle?  [A, L]

…

“Furthermore, only a small minority of passengers is asked to go though the body scanner [L, although possibly true on Wednesday]. It is not routine [L], nor required for all airline passengers [FP, DF] [exactly the opposite of TSA’s published statements]. In fact it’s likely that many of the people who might have planned on opting out in protest never even had the chance to do so[T], since they weren't among those asked to undergo those body scans in the first place[T] [Not mentioned that the actual reason is because of changes in TSA operations on Wednesday]. 

If the threat [FP] was intended to make the Transportation Security Administration back down, it failed [L]. The TSA did not discontinue any procedures [L] in response to the threatened protest [A, UV], though it reiterated its long-standing position that policies would be continually re-evaluated [UV].”

Article author was Benjamin Radford, managing editor of Skeptical Inquirer science magazine and author of six books. His website is www.RadfordBooks.com.

Thus we see that this article supposedly debunking the success of the opt-out protest  of TSA’s invasive procedures consists only of lies and distortions. While the article appears honest and filled with supported facts it is actually a typical left wing spin piece.