The Mad Doctor

Dr. Rand Paul, eye surgeon and son of presidential candidate Ron Paul, has just won the Republican nomination for the Senate seat in Kentucky being vacated by Hall of Fame pitcher Jim Bunning.

Of all of the primaries happening this election season, Rand Paul's got maybe the most national exposure, being that he was the most prominent candidate from the self-labeled "tea party" movement. That is, he got a lot of the usual kind of attention that the mainstream national media give to politics, the silly soap opera and the "horse race" rather than actually discussing issues and substance.

So not until after Dr. Paul smokes his opponent in Tuesday's primary, and not until he asked about it by NPR's Robert Siegel and MSNBC's Rachel Maddow, does some information come out about some really disturbing views he has about civil rights. This information was printed in an editorial by the Courier-Journal of Louisville almost a month ago. It was revealed that Dr. Paul believes the Civil Rights Act of 1964 has some major flaws. Namely, he doesn't believe that a private business can be told they can't discriminate against someone due to their race, color, religion or national origin. Yes, really.

What should have been a major story about the radical views of a candidate leading in the polls was completely ignored by the media. The main storyline about Rand Paul to this point, by design of backers of the movement, is how his success is about the strength of the so-called tea party agenda. Everything else about his primary challenge was ignored.

Now Paul, being basically a Libertarian, believes this because he thinks the world is a better place with smaller government, not because he likes racism. He also has problems with the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Fair Housing Act. Dr. Paul thinks it is OK to refuse to sell your house to a black person because, hey it's your house, and that the government has no business in making the world more accessible for those with disabilities.

From the Courier-Journal (which was written after sitting down for lengthy interviews with the candidates):

For instance, he holds an unacceptable view of civil rights, saying that while the federal government can enforce integration of government jobs and facilities, private business people should be able to decide whether they want to serve black people, or gays, or any other minority group.

Of course since this story broke, the good doctor has done a major backpedaling, saying he fully supports the Civil Rights Act and doing the typical right-wing nut-job MO of blaming liberals for "distorting" his views. But make no mistake, what he really believes has been expressed many times in both interviews and his own writing, like a 2002 letter to a newspaper arguing against the Fair Housing Act.

Now, these views may or may not mean that Dr. Paul is a racist. But they most certainly do mean that he is a complete boob.

He says that the good part of the Civil Rights Act was ending "institutional" racism, by which I assume he means ridding the world of Jim Crow laws and desegregating the public schools. But if restaurant owners, private bus companies (like Greyhound) home sellers and a myriad of other private businesses were allowed to discriminate against people due to their race, what exactly does he think would have happened? I'll tell you. We would have restaurants all over the southern US where black people are not allowed to eat, blacks forced to sit in the back of Greyhound buses, whole neighborhoods where minorities are not allowed to live and an untold number of workplaces that don't hire anybody but white people.

That IS institutional racism.

And therein lies the problem with Libertarianism. (Full disclosure - I fucking hate Libertarians. Nothing more than extreme right-wing Republicans, except they are OK with smoking pot.)

Because they are such a niche (re: fringe) group, Libertarian types have basically been allowed to define themselves in the media without any real questioning by reporters. This is mostly because mainstream reporters are either too stupid or lazy to take on the task of defining what it would really mean to live in a Libertarian world. It is really easy to repeat over and over that they believe in "limited" government, but it is a lot harder to explain what that would actually do to our lives and back up those claims with real research and scholarship.

Maybe now that there is a prominent candidate that comes from this background and we actually know it in advance this time - unlike when we don't find out until after they are elected that they hold such extreme views - the press will start to ask the real questions of him.

Shouldn't we know what Dr. Paul specifically means when he says we should limit the amount of government in our lives? (Oddly enough, this limited government mantra does not extend as far as a woman's body, as Dr. Paul believes abortion should be outlawed even in cases of rape and incest. Or gay rights, he's also against allowing gays and lesbians the right to marry)

Types like Rand Paul claim if we allowed their limited government utopia to happen that people would all behave appropriately, with the power of the profit motive the only encouragement people need to do the right thing and treat others fairly.

To believe this is to have a complete and willful ignorance of human history.



His interview with Rachel Maddow (below) is fascinating, watching him try to make it a 1st Amendment issue and also trying to square what he believes with the beliefs of Martin Luther King, Jr.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Transparency Will Be Brought To You or How The Revolution Will Be Televised

WikiLeaks is one of the increasingly shrinking reasons I love the Internets (is that good syntax? Whatever). If you are a patron of this site, you've no doubt heard of WikiLeaks last month when it released a U.S. military video of a helicopter attack on Iraqi journalists, graphic images that drew a worldwide audience, as well as outrage.

But don't try to figure out where or who WikiLeaks is. For an organization dedicated to whistleblowing, WikiLeaks keeps a tight lid on its own affairs. Its Web site doesn't list a street address or phone number, or the names of key officers. Officially, it has no employees, headquarters or even a P.O. box.

The site has provoked official and corporate anxiety for over three years, and according to its sources, the video released last month is just a warm-up. Newly leaked material -- including what WikiLeaks officials describe as an explosive video of civilian casualties in Afghanistan -- is being prepared for release, part of a growing catalog of formerly secret documents and recordings that exceeds a million records.

WikiLeaks is tapping new technology and a growing list of financial backers (nonprofit foundations, private donations) to move closer to what the group says it has long sought to become: a global foe of excessive government secrecy and an enabler of citizen activists, journalists and others who seek to challenge governments and corporations.

In a culture in which "journalism" is defined by outrageous hyperbole spewed incessantly by pretty and not-so-pretty talking heads on both Left and Right 24-hour newschannels, WikiLeaks is the long-awaited messiah.

According to an article in the Washington Post, WikiLeaks has pioneered an approach that capitalizes on its secretive nature. Lacking a home base or traditional infrastructure, it is almost entirely virtual, relying on servers and helpers in dozens of countries. It is accessible anywhere the Internet goes, yet it is relatively immune from pressure from censors, lawyers or local governments. Its founders say those who submit material to the site typically do so anonymously.

The goal, says Daniel Schmitt, one of WikiLeaks's five core directors, is to make the organization unstoppable.

And while that kind of proclamation or language borders closely on corporate or closed society ideology, I have to trust that it is an almost necessary mission statement for a whistleblowing organization. Fight fire with fire, in a sense.

WikiLeaks's tactics have irritated governments around the world, with some striking back. China has repeatedly sought to block the site, and corporations have filed lawsuits, all of them without success.

Also watching closely are mainstream news outlets. At a time when newspapers and broadcast organizations are shedding jobs, the arrival of a global leak machine untethered by traditional journalistic rules of attribution and balance is inciting intense interest as well as apprehension. (Washington Post)

Information on WikiLeaks is vetted with the help of a network of hundreds of expert volunteers with specialties ranging from law to handwriting analysis and video encryption. To limit the possibility of threats or legal intimidation, only two members are public about their roles: Schmitt, and co-founder, Australian journalist Julian Assange. They, along with the three other founding members, draw no salaries.

WikiLeaks officials say they want to empower traditional media outlets by increasing their reach and investigative firepower at a time when many newspapers and broadcasters are slashing budgets.

"We're not there to take journalists' jobs away," Schmitt said. "On the contrary, our goal is to make mainstream journalism cheaper. We enable them to do things that no single newspaper can do by itself." (Washington Post)

A New Season of War

Saurabh Das/AP

Remember Afghanistan? Think hard. I know other, more important stories have taken over our attention lately: the gushing geyser of oil threatening the eco chain in the Gulf of Mexico and beyond, the pseudo civil war in Thailand, the European economy in the toilet, Rachel dating Jesse St. James of Vocal Adrenaline...

But guess what tovarich? Spring in Afghanistan doesn't just mean a fresh, new field of fiery red poppies to refine into opium and heroin. No suh, you crazy trainspotters. May means we're back in the business of war, wa-hoo! Unlike most Americans who have so moved on with this story, yours truly is obsessed with the "Central Asian Roundabout." Maybe it's because, as the namesake of You Know Who The Great who failed to annex Afghanistan to his collection of real estate, I feel the need to vindicate my brother-from-across-the-centuries and pick up the slack--pen, not sword, you understand. Hey baby what can I say... I'm a lover, not a fighter.

Or maybe it's because somwhereabouts the winter of '79 your not so humble opinion writer was hanging around a disgusting pensione in Rome, waiting for his entry visa into the United States, and befriended an old Soviet emigré who proceeded to school yours truly on the catastrophic mistake the CCCP had just made, invading Afghanistan. And ever since, this always-curious writer has been shaking his head at just how idiotically analogous to the Reds, America's meddling into افغانستان has been. Maybe not.

In any case, Spring has sprung, the roads have defrosted, and it's back to the front we go. If you haven't yet heard, Taliban insurgents launched a brazen assault on the American base at Bagram Wednesday morning, sparking a "large and confusing gun battle that left at least five American soldiers wounded and seven guerrillas dead." (NY Times)

Taliban leaders claimed that seven suicide bombers had blown themselves up at the gates of the base, clearing the way for more than 20 other fighters to get inside. The Taliban reports appeared a bit conflagrative, as they often are. But American officials confirmed that the base, one of the largest in Afghanistan, had come under an "ambitious and unusual assault." (NY Times)

An American official confirmed that the base was bumrushed by as many as 30 insurgents, but that no one had actually breached the defenses.

The assault on Bagram comes on the heels of an attack Tuesday by a suicide bomber in Kabul, who rammed an explosives-laden bus into an American convoy, killing 18 people, including five American soldiers and a Canadian officer.

That attack — and the one on Bagram on Wednesday — appeared to be part of a larger campaign directed at the capital and its environs. In recent days, the Taliban have smuggled five suicide bombers into the area, an American military official said.

A last check still has the White House muttering something about packing up and getting out only after establishing a strong, local governance. Historically speaking...good luck with that. If the Achaemenid Empire, the Macedonian Empire, the Indian Maurya Empire, the Muslim Arab Empire, the Sasanid Empire, and the Great Soviet Empire couldn't tame the baby, chances look a bit thin for our broke-ass selves. But hey, have you heard? Fox is putting on Glee after the Super Bowl next year.

In a move to head off questions about its long-simmering tensions with Hamid Karzai, last week the Obama administration rolled out the red carpet for Our Man in Afghanistan, granting him unprecedented access to Washington's top brass and royal treatment denied to even the closest of US allies.

But don't be fooled by appearances. Tensions are still boiling just below the surface. For all the pomp and circumstance of the four-day visit by the Afghan president and his posse of cabinet ministers and senior advisors, the Obama administration is working hard behind the scenes to weaken his authority by reinforcing local governance to boost elusive stability of the war-torn country.

Stay tuned. This series is slated to develop very slowly. And more than likely, never end. But you know, in the wise words of Eric Arthur Blair (aka Georgie Porgie Orwell): "War is Peace."

A salam alaikum brothers, and pass the AK-47s.

BookFaced

 
I'd like to humbly offer my reasons for deleting my profile on Facebook, at the risk (and reality) of losing touch with many good friends--some of whom write opinion here.

The answer that I've heard time and time again to my recent move has been: it's online, it's the Internet...you should assume everything is public. If you don't want your information or data made public, you should not have made a profile on the service to begin with.

Yet therein lies the issue. When I first signed up with Facebook, back in 2006-ish, I was promised complete control over information I wished to keep private. Over the last four years, Facebook has continually changed its parameters and has constantly worked to un-cover information that would then be sold to third parties for the sole purpose of marketing. Or...for, perhaps, something else.

As Facebook has relentlessly changed its functionality, privacy controls have become opt-in, rather than in place by default. As users, we have been asked to constantly maneuver through the labyrinthine field of permissions to keep whichever pieces of data we want, private.

My second issue with the philosophy that "everything is public on the web" is: if that is true (or the norm) then what is to be done about the majority of us consumers doing, for example, online banking--moving money between accounts, or transferring into other accounts held with different banks, paying off credit cards, or entering our social security numbers into seemingly secure sites/fields etc.? It is quite un-nerving when you apply that open-web thinking.

And to the people who have told me: "I have nothing to hide, they can watch me, they can have whatever they want" I say: keeping information private does not always mean one is doing something illegal. One should have the option of storing information that will not be made public (think: private, IM conversations regarding one's sexual orientation).

But more than the annoyance of having my time line clogged with incessant Farmville or Mafia Wars updates from my high school buddies, or the inundation of requests for social causes and groups working to rid the world of evil, my departure from Facebook was fueled by the culture that is being nurtured by Facebook CEO, 26-year-old Mark Zuckerberg. It scares me. These are inroads for invasion of privacy that are rapidly transformed into slippery slopes to totalitarian domination. Closed societies, if you've studied history, don't start off with a bang. They slowly and systematically take away rights and freedom. I know. I come from a country which modeled itself after Stalin's Soviet Union.

Already Facebook has partnered with certain sites whose functionality one cannot fully enjoy, unless he/she has a Facebook profile. That is not an adherence to the philosophy of a free web; that is the beginning of "world domination" so to speak. When I log into Pandora and it offers me choices based on my Thumbs-Up preferences on Facebook, I get freaky-deaky about the shared information.

Since the deletion of my Facebook profile last week, I am sad to announce that I've lost touch with a handful of good people. I have sent emails, yes, but the interaction is gone. I wonder if it's for good. We'll see.

I'm not confident enough people on Facebook really care about what's happening. The service has become beyond addictive, especially to people in my age range (late 30s-early 40s)--a fact that to this day has me baffled. Maybe, at the core, we're insufferably narcissistic. Maybe we think the most mundane details of our lives are exciting. Maybe we've been tweaked by our parents, or not given enough proper attention, to believe that we are now, suddenly, the center of the universe.

For whatever reason, I'm out.

I Hear The Train A Comin'

OK, so I'm still mulling over a diatribe about Obama's presidency so far and how I'm at this point going to have a hard time voting for his reelection in 2-1/2 years, but I haven't had any real time to think it through properly.

For now I'd like to talk about the recent distribution of money for rail projects all over the country that Obama just handed out. I'll do my best to not put you to sleep with this post, but I make no promises.

This will be a really long post it seems, so I put regions/states in bold so you could skip ahead to read what it happening by you, I know not everyone is all geeked out about the entire train network like me.

The national media has done a horrible job of describing what the projects are where this money is going. About the only thing most people know is that Obama just handed out $8 billion for "high-speed rail projects" that will come to fruition some time way down the road (and with how train travel has gone in this country for 40 years you couldn't be blamed for thinking this will all probably happen about the same time we colonize Mars).

Well, yes and no. I'm here to let you know some details that maybe you haven't heard. The first is that most of this money is not going to true high-speed rail lines and the second is that a lot of these projects will have real results a lot sooner than you think.

Now of course Obama's plan doesn't yet do anything close to what I would like to see invested in our rail network. To do that he would have had to announce a plan to convert our interstate highways to eight-track high-speed trunk lines (two tracks dedicated to freight, two local passenger tracks, two express tracks and two super-express tracks for going non-stop between large cities like Chicago to L.A. or San Francisco) and I know that's just a dream of mine that won't be happening anytime soon. But it does do some good things, even if they are not all high-speed rail systems, though the politicians love to refer to them as high-speed. Europeans must laugh heartily at us calling a train going 110 mph "high-speed."

Some of these plans that are being touted as high-speed lines will only be returning us to speeds (90 to 110 mph) that trains in America achieved on a regular basis as long ago as the 1940s. But let's not dwell on that.

Here are some of the details to some of the projects that just got funding. Note: almost all of my info comes from a news wire that is only accessible to Trains Magazine subscribers (yes, I'm that big of a nerd) so that's why there are no links to sources. At the end of the post you'll see a map of the projects.

And while I will be writing about the transportation benefits of these projects, Let's not forget that these projects, while helping rebuild our national infrastructure that is in such terrible decay that it might as well be made of sugar, will mean thousand and thousands of construction jobs as well as thousands and thousands of permanent jobs.

All aboard!

--------------------------------------------------

True High-Speed Rail Lines. Two states did very well, mostly because they both had true high-speed rail (155 mph and higher) plans in the works that had voter approval (Florida's story is complicated as the state GOP killed it several times even after voters passed it) and other financing in place.

Florida, (web site) with a huge population of senior citizens and the largest tourist attraction in the country has a major need for better public transportation, and this will be a big step forward. The $1.25 billion they got from the federal government will allow them to get to work immediately in building the first segment of their HSR system. Construction will begin in 2011 or 2012 for a dedicated passenger line between Tampa and Orlando that will have trains traveling at 168 mph, doing 16 round trips a day initially. Plans call for this segment to open in early 2015, five short years from now.

California (web site) got the largest chunk of the rail project money and for good reason. California has a plan in place for an HSR system that even the Japanese and the French would call "high-speed." Long term plans call for an 800 mile system stretching from Sacramento and San Francisco to San Diego with 300 daily trains traveling at 220 mph (!!!!!) by 2026. They will first build the Anaheim-L.A.-San Jose-San Francisco segment with completion targeted for 2020.

Once up and running, trains will make the trip from L.A. to downtown San Francisco in less than 2 hours and 40 minutes. Which kicks the shit out of the six hour drive. It also competes very well with the flying time of 1:15 considering the extra amount of time you have to spend getting to and from the airports, security screening, the longer amount of time required to board planes and other hassles. Downtown L.A. to downtown S.F. in 2:40? Try doing that on a plane and let me know how that works out for you.

Which is exactly the goal of high-speed rail. Build a nationwide network like what California is planning on building and you can accomplish a major goal of rail and transportation advocates - eliminating flights of 600 miles or less.

-------------------------------------------------

Midwest. (web site) I really though there would be more for the planned Midwest HSR. Obama is from Illinois and James Oberstar, the head of the House Transportation Committee and a big train booster, is from Minnesota. But I suppose Florida and California are much more important to keep happy with their larger number of electoral votes in presidential elections. But the Upper Midwest states didn't come up empty handed.

Wisconsin will be the one of the first places (along with Ohio, see below) that the public sees what is being accomplished with the rail funds. The fact that there is currently no train running between Chicago or Milwaukee to Madison, a major college town, is insane. That will soon end, with $810 million going to help with a planned Milwaukee to Madison extension of the current Chicago-Milwaukee route. Now this will not be a high-speed train like Florida or California, but there are plans to upgrade tracks along the Chicago-Milwaukee corridor (where there are already seven round trips a day) and from Milwaukee to Madison to give trains the capability to run up to 110 mph.

Not only will this train be great for those of us that live in Chicago and want to go spend a weekend in a great town like Madison, but gives a great transportation option for those UW students from the Chicago and Milwaukee areas, as well as giving them a direct "train to plane" transfer with a stop at the Milwaukee airport. It will also serve a large group of people in Wisconsin, with 76% of the state's population living within 30 minutes of a station on the route, giving towns without a lot of transportation options access to the national train network.

And best of all, thanks to some foresight by the state to have already ordered two 14-car trainsets from Talgo in anticipation (and to help their chances) of getting the federal grant, the Madison train will be up and running in 2013. That means in three years we will have train service where there wasn't any before.

The future of this line looks even better, as Minnesota was given $1 million to begin a study of extending it all the way to Minneapolis-St. Paul.

Over $1 billion went to a combination of Illinois and Missouri for improvements to the Chicago-St. Louis-Kansas City corridors. This will go for track improvements to bump up train speeds to 110 mph in several sections and add more trains to the now five round trips between Chicago and St. Louis and two to Kansas City.

Other funds went to a combo of Illinois, Michigan and Indiana for lots of track improvements to reduce congestion along routes between Chicago and Detroit/Port Huron/Grand Rapids. While this may be less sexy than a new high-speed line, it is no less important. Congestion on the lines kills on-time performance which in turn kills ridership levels. People will choose to take the train, even if it takes a little longer, as long as they know it will get there when it is supposed to get there. Amtrak's record ridership increases the last five years or so have quite a bit to do with their better on-time performance system-wide over that time.

Two projects that I'd hoped would receive funding but didn't are planned lines from Chicago to Iowa, one to Dubuque via Rockford and another to the Quad Cities that has future plans to also extend to Iowa City (serving a huge number of college students who live in the Chicago region) and Des Moines, and even to Omaha, Nebraska. Iowa right now has only one train going through it, the California Zephyr to the Bay Area from Chicago, and it goes through nothing but rural areas and hits none of the state's population centers. Yes, Iowa has population centers. Surprising I know. The only thing Iowa got was a little bit of money for some track improvements along their one passenger route, which will end up being a bigger benefit to freight than passengers.

But the Illinois government has committed to funding both lines, so they will happen, just not as soon as if they got the fed money.

No state with such a sizable population has been treated as crappy as Ohio by Amtrak. Four trains run through the state daily - the Lake Shore Limited eastbound to New York/Boston, the Capitol Limited eastbound to D.C. and each of those trains westbound to Chicago - and looking at the schedule you would think that Ohio had a population the size of Wyoming's instead of being the seventh largest state.

All of those trains call at their Ohio stops after 11:30pm and before 7:30am. It is even worse for Cleveland, the second largest city in the state (and the biggest metropolitan area), with all four of those trains making their stops there between 1:45 and 5:20 in the morning.

Two more trains - the eastbound and westbound Cardinal trains between Chicago and New York through a southerly route - go through Ohio. The only stop in the state is Cincinnati; they run three days a week each and also call only in the middle of the night between 1:15 and 3:30 in the morning.

So Ohio has a grand total of seven Amtrak stations, six see daily service, one sees thrice weekly service and all trains call in the middle of the night and predawn hours. That will change in just a couple of years.

Ohio Received $400 million to start rail service between Cleveland and Cincinnati, which last saw trains in 1971. It is the first line of a planned Ohio regional network called Ohio Hub, which calls for 1,244 miles of new passenger service on seven corridors centered on the hubs of Cleveland and Columbus connecting all the large towns in the state (and the small ones in-between) and reaching out to Pittsburgh, Toronto, Detroit and Ft. Wayne.

This initial line will go up quickly - a plan that has a lot to do with why they got the money, no doubt - with only six stations at first (Cleveland, Southwest Cleveland, Columbus, Dayton, North Cincinnati and Cincinnati) and three round trips a day with a target opening date in 2012. Which means Obama could be at a ribbon cutting ceremony in the middle of his reelection campaign.

Then, riders of the light rail in Cleveland will finally have a reason to use the Amtrak station stop, which has never made sense since they built it, seeing as how the light rail only runs during the day and Cleveland's Amtrak trains only stop there at night.

I wish they would get money to move the train station back to Tower City in the middle of downtown instead of way out on the waterfront. Baby steps.

--------------------------------------------------

Southeast. (web site) This region, outside of Florida at least, didn't see a lot of major projects get funded. But there were a couple things done that could set the stage for future expansion.

North Carolina scored the best in this region, getting $520 million for upgrades on the state's successful Charlotte-Greensboro-Raleigh route, allowing them to bump up train speeds to 90 mph which will shave more than an hour off the travel time from Charlotte to Raleigh (competing nicely with travel time by car), and also to buy more locomotives and passenger cars to add more trains to the schedule, adding passenger flexibility which brings more riders.

There are long-term plans to get the line's speed up to 110 mph, which would get the travel time between Raleigh and Charlotte down to about an hour-and-a-half.

Virginia got $75 million to help add a third track to a section of the main passenger corridor through that state, which is huge when you consider that it is on the main corridor that connects New York and D.C. with just about the entire Southeast and sees lots of freight traffic. They also got another $25 million to add a crossover track to help ease congestion between Richmond and Raleigh, NC.

Again, not as sexy as some other projects, but more people take the train when they know it will get there as scheduled.

--------------------------------------------------

Of course, the Southwest got almost nothing. Texas got less than $11 million to do some work on an existing line even though they had applied for $1.8 billion. That's what you get for giving the world George W. Bush, bitches.

--------------------------------------------------

Pacific Northwest. Not as much as they hoped for, but money for the Eugene-Portland-Seattle-Bellingham-Vancouver Amtrak Cascades train will be a big help for capacity and on-time improvements.

Washington got $590 million for several track improvement and grade-separation projects to ease some bottlenecks and slightly increase travel times (the state DOT is saying by 5%) and they plan to add two more daily round trips between Portland and Seattle.

Oregon only got $8 million since there are only a few miles between the Washington border and Portland (the stretch to Eugene got no project funding this time around), which will go to some minor track improvements and upgrades to Portland's Union Station.

Washington and Oregon planners have high hopes to eventually get funding to build a dedicated right-of-way that handles 150 mph trains, allowing the trip between Portland and Seattle to take only a little over an hour.

--------------------------------------------------

Northeast. This part of the country is already the best served by rail, with the Northeast Corridor trains that include the pseudo high-speed Acela service (going up to 150 mph for a mere 16 mile of the entire route between Boston and D.C., mostly running between 120 and 135 mph) as well as a ton of other routes serving the region. A total of $485 million was granted to this region, here's how it breaks down:

The Northeast Corridor service (Boston-D.C.) was given $112 million, though Amtrak also was given another $706 million from a different pot for work on this line. Most of the money will go to replace infrastructure that will probably fall apart in a few years if something is done now, including a 100-year-old bridge in New Jersey that hosts 100 Amtrak trains and 330 NJ Transit commuter trains every weekday. Some of the funds will also go to study replacing the tunnel under Baltimore and to the building of a new station at the Baltimore airport.

New York was given a big chunk of the money to increase performance on their NYC-Albany-Buffalo Empire service. Trains already run faster in a lot of sections on this corridor (110 mph) than in most of the country, but some improvements will include a second track in an area where there is only one, track crossovers, better signal systems and the like to increase reliability (do I have to repeat that thing about people taking trains if they run on time?) as well as station upgrades in Schenectady, Syracuse, Rochester and Buffalo, including work to make stations ADA compliant.

Massachusetts, Connecticut and Vermont were given a combined $160 million, all for improvements the Vermonter route, which runs from D.C. to St. Albans, VT. A beautiful train ride, it is also very slow. Major upgrades in tracks and routing - double tracking a segment in CT, new routing in MA (saving 25 minutes on the route) and lots of track work to increase speeds in Vermont - will make this train faster and more reliable, thus attracting more passengers.

Pennsylvania got $27 million to do some final small improvements on the NYC-Philly-Harrisburg Keystone service trains. They already run at 110mph on electric power, but three remaining grade crossings will be eliminated, taking away the last slower zones on the line. There is also money there for starting to plan the extension to Pittsburgh.

Finally, Maine got $35 million to extend their successful Boston-Portland Downeaster Amtrak train (one of the few trains in America to have free wireless internet) to Freeport and Brunswick. And in Brunswick there will be cross-platform connection to the spring through fall Maine Eastern tourist rain to Rockland. It has been a long time since people have been able to vacation in the beautiful state of Maine without a car, but that will be much more of an option in about two years when this extension opens. Someone will be able to jump on a train, well just about anywhere, get to Boston, jump on the Downeaster to Brunswick and take the Main Eastern to Rockland where they can grab a ferry to any of several beautiful islands.

A vacation to coastal Maine and you can read a book and have cocktails while getting there. Why the hell would anyone want to drive?

We've got a long ways to go to catch up with Europe and a few Asian countries, but this is a start. A very small one, but a start nonetheless.

(click to enlarge)

Today In Attack Ads

 
Folks, this is epic, seriously, this ad has it all: You've got farm animal imagery for unfathomable reasons (well, I guess the reason is a cheap visual gag); you've got Terry Gilliam animation; you've got rambling rhetoric; you've got dramatic music...Too bad the point gets muddled in all the excess, and who exactly this ad is aimed at isn't clear, beyond "true" fiscal conservatives...Still and all, it's a hell of a three and a half minute ride. Enjoy.

Enormous hat tip to former SEI member Anna.

More. Of. This.

 
It's being called Obama v. GOP. Doesn't matter what it's called, today Obama walked into the House of the Reps and went toe to toe with them during an Q&A session that lasted over an hour.

This is so good, I'll forgo my comment about this sort of thing being missing during the last 12 months.

Here's the Q&A session:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy