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November 25, 2008 04:02 PM UTC

Tuesday Open Thread

  • 37 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

“No one means all he says, and yet very few say all they mean.”

–Henry Brooks Adams

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37 thoughts on “Tuesday Open Thread”

        1. Georgia, Alabama, Misssippi, etc are.  Huge swaths are dominated by people who were born in the north.   Much of Florida  isn’t exactly Confederates in the Attic country.  

          Second, I just said he is more popular than you’d think a New Yorker would be there. He’s still big with the crowd who thinks GW did a great job and that the war in Iraq was about punishing the terrorists who attacked us and defending our freedom.  That’s the type Chambliss wants a good turn out from so the choice of Guliani isn’t all that silly.    

          2. The skinny waist is sort of a dividing line.  Gainesville and north and certainly west into the panhandle is still pretty much Olde South.

            Not far south, the I-4 corridor from Tampa through Orlando is considered the swing portion of the state.  Both Obama and McCain spent a lot of time in that area.

            Farther south is a mix. You have the heavy Jewish/NY populations in Miami and nearby.  South of Tampa on the Gulf Coast is experiencing economic disaster and is swinging.  South of I-4 in Central Florida is conservative farming, sugar cane, McCain territory.  

  3. from L.A. Times h/t DailyKOS

    The High-Speed Rail for America Act of 2008 builds upon the Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement Act of 2008 which reauthorizes Amtrak and authorizes $1.5 billion over a five-year period to finance the construction and equipment for eleven high-speed rail corridors. It provides billions of dollars in both tax-exempt and tax credit bond and provides assistance for rail projects of various speeds. The bill creates the Office of High-Speed passenger rail to oversee the development of high-speed rail and provides a consistent source of funding.

    Specifically, the High-Speed Rail for America Act of 2008 provides $8 billion over a six-year period for tax-exempt bonds which finance high-speed rail projects which reach a speed of at least 110 miles per hour It creates a new category of tax-credit bonds – qualified rail bonds. There are two types of qualified rail bonds: super high-speed intercity rail facility bond and rail infrastructure bond. Super high-speed rail intercity facility bonds will encourage the development of true high-speed rail. The legislation provides $10 billion for these bonds over a ten-year period. This would help finance the California proposed corridor and make needed improvements to the Northeast corridor. The legislation provides $5.4 billion over a six-year period for rail infrastructure bonds. The Federal Rail Administration has already designated ten rail corridors that these bonds could help fund, including connecting the cities of the Midwest through Chicago, connecting the cities of the Northwest, connecting the major cities within Texas and Florida, and connecting all the cities up and down the East Coast.

    paging Ali Hasan – get us added to this please!

    1. We have a hard enough time keeping the single Amtrak line we have open.

      Also, while the goal of the RMRA is to evaluate HSR, including along the entire I-70 corridor to the Utah border, I have my doubts of the feasibility of laying out HSR along that route.  Glenwood Canyon especially presents a design obstacle.

      We would be better served pushing for a comprehensive reform of the Federal Transportation budget that allows states to consider alternate transit in allocating its transportation funds.

      1. HSR for Colorado is one option, but what this state needs is a combination of a variety of choices.

        Hopefully with Obama’s upcoming stimulus package for the states, which is rumored to include a significant chunk of road and bridge dollars, there will be an opportunity to start implementing alternate transit options in the state.

    3. The Amtrak run to San Francisco is hobbled by hundreds of miles of sub-standard rail bed in Nevada.  The trains usually run at 20mph. And we think that we will compete with nations that have bullet trains?  What a joke!

      Let’s take some of the economic rehab money and move it into infrastructure.  While the UP is private, what can we do to improve the railbed?  Perhaps we taxpayers put in money and get stock?  I’m not clever enought to figure this out, but others certainly can.  

        1. …but why not just fix some existing rail lines so that the trains can go, like, faster than an ox cart?

          Bullet trains will only exist in high population corridors, obviously.  

          I spent a snowy afternoon two years ago at the annual meeting of the Colorado Passenger Rail Association (or something like that.) One of the speaks was an Amtrak official who came to Denver on the train.  He explained that Amtrak has no leverage with the UP for their trains, and that’s how I learned of the rail conditions farther west.  No problems between Denver and Chicago.  

          Also no problems on the SP line that snicks through SE Colorado going to LA.  In fact, one might be better off railing to SF via bus to SE Colorado, Amtrak to LA and then north to SF.  

          1. From a Kerry interview:


            We ought to be doing a high speed rail system — East Coast and West Coast, at least … They are congested enough and it’s critical enough that we should be doing it.  Why should Shanghai, China have a Maglev train going from their airport to downtown Shanghai in twelve minutes, and we’re struggling in the United States just to hold onto Amtrak, which is a curvial, twisted line that’s never going to be modern.  This is absurd.

            My spellchecker does not like the word “curvial.”

            Plus, more importantly, high speed rail out of Denver is just not practical to most places. Denver to Chicago or to LA or to New York or to Seattle is still far enough that flying makes a lot more sense. Denver to Albuquerque, maybe, or Denver to Salt Lake City (if we didn’t have those #!$&ing mountains in the way) or Denver to Omaha might make sense… But why would anyone want to go there?

            1. Insofar as the cities you mention.  All those types of connections are “under consideration” and we MIGHT have some of those services by 2025!  

              The Chinese bullet train will probably connect to Moscow by then.

              My original point was on the run through Nevada to SF.  

      2. from Osaka to Tokyo very frequently.  200 mph plus, and you got from one to the other in about 2 hours.  No one there flys for distances like that because it takes a lot longer and is a lot more expensive.  Not to mention the scenery.

        1. I never had to switch trains either.  Immaculate, comfortable railcars, plenty of German beer, all as you whip through the German countryside.

          We are way behind in rail.

          UP, by the way, is making money hand over fist on their freight.  They could afford to upgrade some of their lines.

  5. I know I have been predicting John Salazar for Ag, but I am now hearing that it will be Harkin from Iowa.  I still think that John will end up in the cabinet.

    1. other than that John is a farmer? What would possibly make you think that he is competent enough and/or ambitious enough to take a cabinet position? There are lots of farmers in congress (granted, John might be more of an “authentic” farmer, but whatever). And now that Sal Pace is no longer the man behind the curtains for him, JTS has lost whatever political smarts could have put him in the cabinet — or even gotten him a decent chairmanship. I give John 1, 2 terms max before he retires home to his farm.

      1. Harkin will be named Sec’y of Ag and there is a chance that John Salazar will be named to Interior rather than Ag.  Nothing is for sure until it happens but that is what I am hearing.

        You clearly don’t like Salazar and that is fine.  I am not commenting on anyone’s ability, just what I hear will happen.

        Salazar taking a cabinet post will have nothing to do with him being a farmer.

        There are so many other things in play.

          1. and you (Roger D) are wrong about my feelings towards Salazar. I think he is a perfect rep, and a competent one, for CD-3, but after working for his office, I doubt his abilities and ambition beyond that. What’s your proof that he will be named to a cabinet post? “From what you’re hearing?” Give me a break.

              1. “I still think that John will end up in the cabinet.”

                And I agree, John will not in a million years be in Obama’s cabinet. And as Roger offers no believable evidence to support this bizarre assertion, I felt justified in slapping it down.

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