Posted on 03/04/2011 2:03:48 PM PST by george76
"U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood announced Friday that $2.4 billion in high-speed rail funding intended for Florida will be sent to other states after the state Supreme Court upheld Gov. Rick Scott's decision to reject the money..."
Why was the federal government trying to force this boondoggle on the Sunshine State? ... Who is John Galt?
...
"Atlas Shrugged" is a lengthy parable about individualism and freedom. Set in the not-too-distant future, it depicts an America whose economy is falling apart under the weight of an overweening government run entirely by people with approximately the integrity, cognitive ability and humility of a New York Times editorialist.
It is also, in part, a story about trains. Dagny Taggart, heroine of "Atlas Shrugged," is a hard-driving executive at Taggart Transcontinental Railroad. She teams up with Hank Rearden, a steel magnate who has developed a new supermetal, to build the John Galt Line, a high-speed track through Colorado. They encounter political obstacles every step of the way.
Meanwhile, great industrialists are mysteriously disappearing. John Galt, whoever he is, seems to have something to do with it, but precisely what is left for the sequels to explain. Also unexplained in Part I is the significance of an abandoned motor that Dagny and Hank find in an abandoned Wisconsin factory. It is amazingly innovative, an engine that literally runs on air.
There is one big difference between the book and the movie: While the former is set in a vague "day after tomorrow," the latter has a specific timeline: Part I begins in September 2016 and runs through the summer of 2017. Which is an odd setting for a drama about railroads, "a technology that was the future two centuries ago," as Will observes.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Why are all the Crats so all in on this goofy crap?
WHY?
Who is John Galt?
High Speed to Insolvency-Why liberals love trains.
(George Will)
http://www.newsweek.com/2011/02/27/high-speed-to-insolvency.html
To progressives, the best thing about railroads is that people riding them are not in automobiles, which are subversive of the deference on which progressivism depends. Automobiles go hither and yon, wherever and whenever the driver desires, without timetables. Automobiles encourage people to think they—unsupervised, untutored, and unscripted—are masters of their fates. The automobile encourages people in delusions of adequacy, which make them resistant to government by experts who know what choices people should make.
Time was, the progressive cry was “Workers of the world unite!” or “Power to the people!” Now it is less resonant: “All aboard!”
One of the real problems with “high speed rail” is that it is already outdated. Any technology or program that a government adopts is by its nature going to be outdated, simply because governments are not creative (that’s not their job), they are reactive.
Spending billions of dollars to construct an entirely new infrastructure for an already outdated technology is beyond ridiculous.
I’m very much in favor of rail transit, which should receive the same huge amount of money as that received by highways and auto infrastructure, but it’s got to be useful transit. In other words, it has to go to places where people actually want to go and it has to get there in about the same time or less that it would take to drive.
Standard commuter rail using existing track would probably get you from one major population point to another in Florida in less time than it takes to drive (considering the level of congestion in places like Orlando, Tampa and Jacksonville) and at about the same public cost as highways. So revive passenger rail...for which the track and infrastructure already exist.
But what the Feds really want is the insane boondoggle of investing billions in an outdated technology. We’ll probably have a much faster rail-less technology within the next 10 years, unless Obama totally kills our economy and R/D, and a combination of private/public investors could actually make a profit on it. But if we keep putting only public money into it, we’ll have the Post Office: hostile employees, no market response, etc.
[ Time was, the progressive cry was “Workers of the world unite!” or “Power to the people!” Now it is less resonant: “All aboard!” ]
Time was, the progressive cry was “Workers of the world unite!” or “Power to the people!” Now it is the more sinister: “All aboard! Or Else!”
Doesn’t anyone advocating this boondoogle realize that it is just a juicy target for terrorists that is much easier to access than an airliner? And just as soon as there is an attack, what other freedoms must we lose in the interests of public safety?
High speed rail and such produces government money -—from us taxpayers— for government unions who then donate campaign cash for the DUmmies
I finished “Atlas Shrugged” a few weeks ago. It is uncanny how a story of absurdity was being played out in the real world on the television each night as I read another chapter.
The author certainly understood the conflict between individual freedom and accomplishment and the collective dumbing down that stifles initiative and innovation.
Every Freeper should read that book.
The movie Atlas Shrugged will open april 15th (tax day)The trailer is on youtube. Check it out.
I guess in this analogy, Willie Green would be a perfect Wesley Mouch (Wee Wee Willie probably thinks Mouch is the hero of the story).
“...in an abandoned Wisconsin factory. It is amazingly innovative, an engine that literally runs on air. “
BUT....
It only runs on our WI air.
Must be the high methane concentration. Although, since the Flee Party fled south and the protesters have thinned, the air is much less fertile.
The short answer: Because he can!
They are great money laundering boondoggles for unions.
Pray for America
He was banned years ago.
Excellent list for Atlas Shrugged! Thanks.
Why? Because Democrats are hell-bent on spending this borrowed money.
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