(some green ACTION ITEMS for your holiday weekend! Stand up and make some noise! :D - promoted by poligirl)
I have had a number of "I'd Like For Christmas" essays over the past three weeks ... now its your turn.
To say you'd like Pedestrian/Cyclists transport infrastructure in the Infrastructure Stimulus Package, sign the Rails to Trails Infrastructure Petition and share it with your friends (as I'm doing here).
To say you'd like Rail and other Public Transport infrastructure investment, sign the Transportation for America Petition and pass it along.
And I have asked for Electric Trains (Part 1) and High Speed Electric Trains (Part 2). But I am greedy, so I want it all. What I really want is SUSTAINABLE High Speed Electric Trains.
First, it appears that Electric Trains, and Electric High Speed Trains, offer an important step in that direction already, since they offer substantial energy efficiencies ... the most sustainable Watt is intelligent design that eliminates the need for that Watt.
Second, the foundation of the nationwide Electric Train system, the electrification of STRACNET, could be the "donkey that carries its own lunch" ... there may be an opportunity to use the program to cost effectively accelerate harvesting of our nation's sustainable renewable energy resources.
So, yes, I want a coast to coast, 100mph, electric freight and passenger train system. Yes, I want the break through the bottlenecks for the Acela in the NEC, establishment of the Empire Corridor, Keystone Corridor, Ohio Hub, Midwest Hub, Southeast Corridor, Gulf Corridor, T-Bone Corridor, Front Range Corridor, Cascadia Corridor, and the CA-HSR.
For the last eight years, development of Energy Independent transport has been faced with a dog-in-the-manger administration fighting furiously to move forward into Cartopian vision of endless crude oil fueling endless road works so people can drive endless hours to actually get wherever they need to go to do whatever it is they need to do.
However, there is hope. This year, the Amtrak funding bill included substantial funding for restoring the North East Corridor to an adequate state of repair. On November 4, California passed Proposition 1A, providing $9.95b in bonds for the California High Speed Rail (HSR) and connecting infrastructure. And then, on November 19, John Kerry and Arlan Spectre introduced the a bill for funding High Speed Rail projects:
Titled the High-Speed Rail for America Act of 2008, the bill would provide money for tax-exempt bonds to finance long-stalled high-speed rail projects.
So let's look at the projects that are on the drawing boards.
Three special Federal tasks are the provision of a coast to coast system of electric trains, support for a nationwide "Rapid Rail" network, and support for inter-regional corridors providing true High Speed Rail.
If we pursue the opportunities available to use now, using existing, well tested technology, we can have a big chunk of this job finished within eight years, and can have set things in motion to see an absolute Energy Revolution in inter-regional transport in this nations by 2024.
So it may not be this Christmas, but if we hit hard on this issue, its possible for us to say, "New York, you get an electric train. Boise, you get an electric train. Detroit, you get an electric train. Atlanta, you get an electric train. Amarillo, you get an electric train. ..."
NB. New Oil links are now located at the Midnight Oil Blog
A while ago, as an off-shoot of the Beauty Platform, I set out a Beautiful Bail-Out plan.
Two key parts were: 50:50 on money going to help regular home buyers to extricate themselves from the mortgage meltdown, and on bailing out the finance sector from the mess they got themselves into ...
... and having the finance sector bail out consisting of both unloading dubious assets and issue of Senior Preferred shares with heavy strings attached.
Now, the Administration did not, in fact, listen to me, but when Senator Dodd was complaining about what banks had done with their bail out money, waddya know ... I got a perfect three out of three on what strings needed to be attached to the money:
Limits on Mergers and Acquisition
No payments of any other dividends
Limits on Executive Compensation
... until the Senior Preferred Dividend had been paid for four quarters straight ... and kicking back in if the firm in the future ran into problems meeting the Senior Preferred Dividend.
But ... does the Beautiful Bail Out model extend to the Big Three?
It is now well known around the place where I work that I not only, oddly enough, bike to work, but that I do not have a car at all. And so, one of the things that brings a smile to my face when I'm at work is the worried queries how I'll get to work when winter sets in.
I smile because last December I was biking 14 miles up to the warehouse in snow, sometimes feeling like counting my toes when I arrived to make sure they were still there. Given that, a bit under three miles to work this winter is far from daunting. But it is far from the imagination of the small town / exurban Buckeye, who view bikes primarily as fair weather recreational kinds of things.
Now, having gone through it before does not mean that I laugh, LAUGH!, in the face of the Ohio Winter, but rather that I know enough to cope with it.
Well, Modular Pumped Hydro and Bio-Coal, I reckon (and as a reminder, Bio-Coal is charcoal produced from sustainable biomass with modern high efficiency methods inside a sealed vessel ... its not that stuff you dig out of the ground, and it sure as hell ain't your granpappy's charcoal).
And, yes, this is about winning friends and influencing people.
Bio-coal ... the technology is just about ready for prime time, but we do not have the feedstock. Define soil-conserving and soil-building perennial production techniques, make sure that coppice production is in there, and establish strong soil husbandry income to entice Appalachia into coppice wood production.
You have to be hiding under a rock to be unaware that at this point in the race, Senator Obama is leading.
What I cannot for the life of me understand, though, is complacency as a result of seeing, say, that FiveThirtyEight.com has a projection of a 94.9% chance for Obama versus 5.1% chance for McCain. Because the same site says that there's less than a 50% chance of a Landslide win by Obama.
We gotta think about victory like Republicans (even as we refrain from acting like Republicans in pursuit of victory). After bare victory, with the substantial public good that John McCain is not President and had not right to come near to the "Nuclear Football", comes a strong enough victory to be seen as claiming a mandate, and after that comes a landslide, driving the Republicans into a likely circular firing squad.
Consider the possible fruits of victory. Then go out there and fight for the landslide that we need.
(on McCain and Social Security... - promoted by poligirl)
A two part answer to the question of how McCain can fix Social Security. First, Social Security is not broken and does not need fixing. Second, McCain can't fix Social Security.
Social Security and Medicare are often lumped together as "entitlements", and the threat of Social Security not paying off to the current working generation is used to try to grease the wheels of efforts to allow Wall Street to gain income from Security taxes.
Ezra Klein capably addresses the point that Social Security is not "in crisis" in Social Security as Signifier, so I'll focus on why John McCain can't fix it. But to get the basic ... look at that gentle slope in Social Security ... look at that massive explosion in Medicare ... Medicare, that's an entitlement crisis. Social Security, not.
(Palin: energy expert. Not. - promoted by poligirl)
During the Vice Presidential debate, Sarah "Energy Expert" Palin continued to demonstrate either her fundamental ignorance about energy realities or her fervent desire to mislead as many American voters as possible with half-truths and un-truths. We'll put aside the whole question of Sarah's dealings with oil companies and the national gas pipeline and the problems of clean-coal discussion at the debate, but lets take a few moments to discuss the implications of Sarah's various words about "energy independence". Remember, Sarah reminded us that energy is her subject:
"governor of an energy-producing state, and kind of undo in my own area of expertise, and that's energy."
Okay, what did Miss Energy Expert say about energy issues?
For the last eight years, development of Energy Independent transport has been faced with a dog-in-the-manger administration fighting furiously to move forward into Cartopian vision of endless crude oil fueling endless road works so people can drive endless hours to actually get wherever they need to go to do whatever it is they need to do.
A while ago, as an off-shoot of the 
Cross-posted from the new, improved, 
A two part answer to the question of how McCain can fix Social Security. First, Social Security is not broken and does not need fixing. Second, McCain can't fix Social Security.
