How About A "NO IDIOTS LIST".

From the New York Daily News.
America needs a "no-ride" list barring suspected terrorists from Amtrak trains because of the potential threat of an Al Qaeda attack on the U.S. rail system on the 10th anniversary of 9/11, Sen. Chuck Schumer said Sunday.

He called on Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano to use the existing airline "no-fly" list for the rails, too.

"We have to be vigilant against future attacks," Schumer (D-NY) told reporters in midtown Manhattan yesterday.

When he's not busy suggesting that anyone that admits to having used a drug illegally be prohibited from owning a hand gun, he's now wants to put people on a "NO RIDE LIST" on Amtrac.  What's next buses.  
Perhaps Mr. Schumer is not aware that there is no guarantee that innocent people will not end up on the No Fly list and you are not told until you attempt to fly.  Perhaps he is unaware that at one time even Senator Ted Kennedy was on the no fly list.  Perhaps he is unaware that AMTRAC is funded with tax payer dollars and therefore not a private company such as airlines and therefore should be available to all taxpayers.
Perhaps Mr. Schumer needs to be on a "no idiots list".

Planes Bad, Trains Good.

TOH- The No Agenda Show.

Woo, Woo- Don't forget May 7th. is NATIONAL TRAIN DAY!
If you are in the New York area on that day you can join Gladys Knight at the Beacon Theatre to help America celebrate National Train Day and AMTRAK's 40th aniversity for only $65-$200.
They have teamed up with Boys & Girls Clubs of America to present the Rock'n the Rail Way concert. However your ticket price is not tax deductible (What's up with that?)

I have commented before that there is a full court press in this country for overly expensive, unwanted high-speed rail. Often cited when trying to sell this turd are the Chinese and Japanese high speed "successes". Well, not so fast.


BEIJING — China’s expanding network of ultramodern high-speed trains has come under growing scrutiny here over costs and because of concerns that builders ignored safety standards in the quest to build faster trains in record time.


Last week, the new leadership at the Railways Ministry announced that to enhance safety, the top speed of all trains was being decreased from about 218 mph to 186. Without elaborating, the ministry called the safety situation “severe” and said it was launching safety checks along the entire network of tracks.
The Finance Ministry said last week that the Railways Ministry continued to lose money in the first quarter of this year. The ministry’s debt stands at $276 billion, almost all borrowed from Chinese banks.

“They’ve taken on a massive amount of debt to build it,” said Patrick Chovanec, who teaches at Tsinghua University. He said China accelerated construction of the high-speed rail network — including 295 sleek glass-and-marble train stations — as part of the country’s stimulus spending in response to the 2008 global financial crisis.

Zhao Jian, a professor at Beijing Jiaotong University and a longtime critic of high-speed rail, said he worries that the cost of the project might have created a hidden debt bomb that threatens China’s banking system.

“In China, we will have a debt crisis — a high-speed rail debt crisis,” he said. “I think it is more serious than your subprime mortgage crisis. You can always leave a house or use it. The rail system is there. It’s a burden. You must operate the rail system, and when you operate it, the cost is very high.”

It turns out that the ticket sales are not high enough to even service the debt. In other words pay the interest on the money borrowed to build these wonderful new trains. And this is what Obama is trying to convince us we need.

Check Out The No Agenda Show

For those who still cling to the left-right paradigm please join me in the highly entertaining and informative news dissection of the No Agenda Show.

Planes Bad, Trains Good.

From The Dvorak Uncensored Blog.

The push for high-speed rail is on. While making a simple trip to the airport as expensive and humiliating as possible Obama and gang are tossing out millions to those that will spend the money on developing high-speed rail.
One of the main selling points of the rail is that you can avoid the nude scanners and strip searches. But wait I guess that Home Land Security Czar Nappy Napolitano didn't get the message. To quote her, “[Terrorists] are going to continue to probe the system and try to find a way through,” Napolitano said in an interview that aired Monday night on "Charlie Rose."

“I think the tighter we get on aviation, we have to also be thinking now about going on to mass transit or to trains or maritime. So, what do we need to be doing to strengthen our protections there?”
Napolitano isn’t the only one who’s suggested that advanced scanning machines could be used in places beyond airports.

Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, introduced legislation this past September that would authorize testing of body scanners at some federal buildings.

Boondoggle in the Motor City: Detroit's Train to Nowhere

$500 million for a light rail train to nowhere. This is the stimulus. This is the infrastructure rebuild. This is what hope and change really looks like.
Toh-Dvorak Uncensored.

Fly California

I have been following the theory espoused by the No Agenda podcast boys that we are seeing a concerted effort to get the public off airplanes and cars and onto rail.  In a nutshell it's "airplanes bad, trains good."
The latest announcement is of the California High Speed Rail Authority. Didn't know there was one, me either. And doesn't that logo look familiar?

Also if you play the animated video in the bottom left corner of the home page you will see something interesting on the side of the engine.  It says "Fly California."

The conspiracy is this: make airplane flight expensive and unattractive. (take off your shoes, images of naked passengers, shut down of entire areas of Europe for the volcano ash for long periods of time, etc.
Make tremendous amounts of  praise for the rail passenger system.  Fast, cheap, green, etc. 
We all know that the American public is not going to swept into this easily.  It will require a tremendous amount of Federal money and the push of Vice President Joe (trainman) Biden, but most of all it will take the cooperation of the media which the Obama white house has no problem getting on board.  (Pardon the pun.)