Houston Metro Rail wins

sigh. It was close, 52% to 48% :

The centerpiece of the "Metro Solutions" program authorized by voters Tuesday is the expansion of Houston's nascent light rail system to include 73 more miles by 2025. It is the largest mass-transit proposal adopted in Houston since the creation of Metro in 1978.



Voters approved a $640 million bond issue to accelerate construction of the next 22 miles of light rail, extensions to the 7 1/2-mile Main Street line nearing completion between downtown and Reliant Park. They also authorized 44 new bus routes, a doubling of HOV lanes, and extending Metro's participation in local road projects for another five years.

I'm not happy, but neither am I surprised. For the record, the light rail project will worsen traffic downtown, require massive subsidies to support, and will have exactly zero effect on traffic congestion.



The correct way to solve Houston's traffic problem was to have built heavy rail (also known as commuter rail). Light rail is a high-frequency, low speed, and low volume modality built to serve dense populations over short distances. Heavy rail however is a high speed, high volume, low-frequency solution, designed to serve diffuse populations over long distances. In other words, we need heavy rail from Katy and Sugarland and IAH and Clear Lake, coming straight down the existing I-10, US 59, and I-45 right-of-way, with train stops coinciding with the existing Park and Rides, and feeding straight into a single end terminal downtown.



There is one silver lining to the rail plan - if commuter rail is ever built in the future in Houston, the light rail system will help move commuters around who have arrived downtown. But with all federal funding being tied to light rail, what are the chances of true traffic relief?



UPDATE: I'm at odds with most other liberals on this issue, I guess. Both Charles and Byron are happy that rail passed. I think that the anti-rail forces did a poor job of educating the public - sure, they hammered the fact that the rail line will actually remove buses and won't alleviate traffic, but they didn't explain why. The distinction between light rail and heavy rail is essential to understanding why the light rail line will be so magnificently useless (unlike in Dallas, where there actually is a heavy enough population density to support it).



A commentor at Charles' site speaks longingly of having the light rail line extend out to Katy. AARGH!



I have long hoped the Katy Freeway expansion included a rail line or at least the provision for a rail line. That would be a disaster - light rail stretching out to katy would mean a commuter would need 1 to 2 hours to get downtown (Katy is a full 20 miles beyond Loop 610). It is simply not feasible to stretch a light rail line over commuter distances.



And you cant seamlessly link a light rail line to a heavy rail/commuter rail line either. The gauge of the tracks is very different because of the differences in weight and speed requirements. A heavy rail line would fall right off the light rail tracks. And a light rail car wouldn't even fit on a heavy rail track.



There is an alternate plan to the Katy Freeway Expansion project that does allow for rail - it's a great proposal and I hope it influences TxDoT. But I'm not optimistic.

Saudi values

Disgusting.







If the translation is to be believed (and frankly, I do), the advert reads (in an official Saudi newspaper):

For exchange in Ha'il:



a Dodge car model 1991 to be exchanged with a female servant (New one) serilankan or indian.



phone no# : (etc..)



Abu Fahd

(I invite corrections to the translation above). Any speculation on what is meant by "new one" ?



via LGF. No I don't link to specific enries, because the comments are indeed a cesspool. But reading the main page of LGF is indispensable.

Selective Service

Our President went AWOL from National Guard duty in Vietnam - a position he was given as a means to escape the draft by virtue of his well-connected father. Today, his Administration quietly brought the specter of the draft back to life:

The Selective Service System wants to hear from men and women in the community who might be willing to serve as members of a local draft board.

...

Local Board Members are uncompensated volunteers who play an important community role closely connected with our Nation's defense. If a military draft becomes necessary, approximately 2,000 Local and Appeal Boards throughout America would decide which young men, who submit a claim, receive deferments, postponements or exemptions from military service, based on Federal guidelines.

Of course I imagine that this rebirth of the Draft will be highly selective just as the last one was.

a PR firm, not a civilization

Arash of Afghan Voice has often left comments on my blog, but his best analyses are reserved for his own. He addresses the question, are we really in a clash of civilizations? :

First of, what does Osama bin Laden think? "This is a matter of religion and creed... there is no way to forget the hostility between us and the infidels. It is ideological." Pretty clear-cut, right? His effective melding of religious fervor, Muslim piety and a profound sense of grievances into his ideological force is an undeniable accomplishment. So does bin Laden hate Western-style democracy? Yes. Does he hate equality for women? Does he hate Jews and Christians? Does he hate American secularism? The answer is yes. But he has never said these things. Instead he has used the most selective and unpopular policies which have affected the Arab and Islamic world. The troops in Saudi Arabia, support for Israel's harsh policies against the Palestinians, sanctions against Iraq, the bombing of Iraq, the trigger happiness in attacking Somalia, Afghanistan and Sudan, controlling the Islamic worlds resources, and support for the Muslims world's absolutist kings and dictators. These are the average Muslim's and Arab's grievances against the United States. But it's not bin Laden's reason to order the mass-murdering of 3,000 Americans.

(emphasis mine) Much more - go read and comment! The basic point here is that all "clash" or "war" rhetoric is a red herring, to which regrettably many of the liberal bloggers I respect have fallen prey to. But there is no clash or war. As Arash succinctly puts it, "Islamofascism is not a civilization. Neither is Wahhabism or al-Qaeda."

posterity

I make a deliberate attempt to ego-search once in a while, just out of curiosity. But sometimes I really am surprised at what I find:

>Just remember that all those thousands of people can't do a thing more

>than the Constitution allows them to do. I obey the laws of the land,

>I support the good actions of our society and I do not fear the

>government. Tell me, just exactly what are you liberals so afraid of?



US Constitution is NOT a set of rules and limits on citizens. It is a

set of rules and limits on the actions and authority of the US

Government. It is not bound by geography; it applies for all time and

for all places to the government and its actions. Aziz Poonawalla



Peace,

Terry

I don't even recognize my own words sometimes...

7.2% - well, DUH!

Did Bush's tax custs have anything to do with teh 7.2% growth last quarter? well, yes:

"Almost any tax cut or spending increase would succeed in boosting a sluggish economy if the Federal Reserve Board follows an accommodative monetary policy. " -- William Gale of the Brookings Institution

Does this mean Bush's tax cuts have fixed the economy and spurred the recovery, that they truly were the needed medicine and sound fiscal policy? well, no:

the bulk of last quarter's growth came from a huge surge in consumer spending, with a further boost from housing. These components of spending stayed strong even when the economy was weak, so there shouldn't have been any pent-up demand. Yet housing grew at a 20 percent rate, while spending on consumer durables (that's stuff like cars and TV sets) � which last year grew three times as fast as the economy � rose at an incredible 27 percent rate last quarter.



This can't go on � in the long run, consumer spending can't outpace the growth in consumer income. Stephen Roach of Morgan Stanley has suggested, plausibly, that much of last quarter's consumer splurge was "borrowed" from the future: consumers took advantage of low-interest financing, cash from home refinancing and tax rebate checks to accelerate purchases they would otherwise have made later. If he's right, we'll see below-normal purchases and slower growth in the months ahead.



The big question, of course, is jobs. Despite all that growth in the third quarter, the number of jobs actually fell. And new claims for unemployment insurance, a leading indicator for the job market, still show no sign of a hiring boom. (By the way, for the last month there's been a peculiar pattern: each week, headlines declare that new claims fell from the previous week; a week later, the past week's number is revised upward, and the apparent decline disappears.)



And unless we start to see serious job growth � by which I mean increases in payroll employment of more than 200,000 a month � consumer spending will eventually slide, and bring growth down with it.

In other words, people had a lot of one-time cash from teh tax cuts. That led to a spike i consumer spending.



Also, interest rates are very very low, since the Fed cut rates so aggressively to combat the stock market being in the toilet. That led to a more mortgage refinancing and new home sales.



But we keep losing jobs. And thats really the main point:

it would be quite a trick to run the biggest budget deficit in the history of the planet, and still end a presidential term with fewer jobs than when you started. And despite yesterday's good news, that's a trick President Bush still seems likely to pull off.

the UNMEDIA Star Wars boycott threat gets results

from AICN, comes this tidbit from one of their sources:

I just wanted to let you guys in on a little bit of information regarding the Original Trilogy. There has been talk about George Lucas not releasing the classic trilogy in its 'original' form (not the 'Special Edition') and even more talk about the original versions not even existing anymore. Well, I finished 'Rebel Strike' for the GameCube and at the end of the game they show the end celebration scene from 'Return of the Jedi.' Except that it isn't the one from the "Special Edition." It's the original cut with the original ewok music in it's full crisp dvd-quality widescreen glory! I was surprised and very pleased to say the least. Could this mean that the rumours about the Original Trilogy being released on DVD in 2004, in it's original form are true? Could the people at LucasArts have inserted this clip as a bit of a teaser of things to come? One can only hope...."



Is it possible that ol' George may go back on his word and please the fans with the "orginal" original trilogy after all...???

another rumor site notes that "A friend of mine subscribes to Electronic Gaming Monthly and it clearly states [in the article] that the footage that is used in the new Star Wars game Rebel Strike is digitally remastered and taken from the DVD 'to be released next fall.'"



it IS possible that the original original trilogy may be released on DVD next fall! see, I knew that my Episode III boycott had teeth ;)