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High Speed Rail?
When it comes to the environment, anyone can tell you I have a strange outlook on things. I want windmills as far as the eye can see, yet I want to build a new coal plant. I want people to drive less, yet I want as many cars built as possible. My views can be summed up simply as, I want jobs. That is not to say I don’t have a vision. I see Americans driving hydrogen cars, and our electricity coming directly from mother nature. Most of all what I want is Americans to travel throughout this great nation via high speed trains. And apparently so does President Obama.
The new plan calls for high speed corridors stretching from Boston to Florida, and improvements to the existing high speed corridors like the route between Detroit and Chicago. Part of the vision is trains traveling upwards of 150 miles per hour, similar to the Acela Express that serves the North East Corridor.
I had the pleasure of enjoying the European train systems in my young years, and one of my biggest regrets is the lack of proper train coverage in this nation. Finally we have a president who gets it. It’s important to note that this is just the beginning, hopefully someday we will see a return to train travel on a massive scale. I see state wide train service linking northern Michigan to Detroit, I-75 replaced with rail service as Spring Breakers crowd high speed trains heading to Miami. I can dream, but as Dylan said, “The times they are a changing.”
(cnn)
Obama Euro Trip Roundup
Yes We Can (Hold Babies) – European Edition
Recently President Obama travelled to Europe, Turkey, and Iraq in a his first large-scale trip abroad that resulted in massive international relations coup. His trip featured 18 bilateral meetings with world leaders – two major speeches (Prague and Ankara) – hosted two town hall meetings (France and Turkey) – six news conferences with a total of 35 questions – and traveled approximately 10,000 miles. Obama’s trip was a PR triumph, while he began the slow process of rebuilding America’s relationship with our allies across the globe.
Some Post-Trip Diagnosis
From whitehouse.org: The White House posted a great gallery of photos from the trip. These photos are interesting in that they are not the usual photo op photos, eg Obama + Foreign Head of State + Flags. They depict various behind the scenes instances that would not usually be released to the public. Also, some badass Air Force One/Marine One photos.
From Salon: Our man Juan Cole shreds conservative punditry for their negative reaction to Obama’s trip. He compares the hysteria of the right to the insanity caused by War of the Worlds radio broadcast and describes the Republican sphere of commentary as:
The weeping and trembling of Sean Hannity, Karl Rove, Rush Limbaugh and William Kristol underlined once again that the right-wingers are playground crybabies who kick and scream and faint whenever they do not get their way.
Professor Cole then proceeds to tear down every part of Republican criticism and perfectly throws their arguments back in their faces. This piece is perfect evidence that the insane arguments made by the right are easily defeated one fact is used against them.
Posted in Barack Obama, Blog, Blog Digest, International
Tagged Austria, awesome, Crazies, europe, france, Germany, Iraq, Juan Cole, obama, tom duvall, turkey
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It's not just us
Sometimes it feels like everything we ever knew is falling apart. When I was younger, my mom always assured me that the US was the best country to live in, that we were so powerful and so prosperous and so free. But as I got older and started learning more about the world around me in light of the war and economy over these past years I started to doubt my mother’s beliefs. The outlook for our entire situation is looking better, but it still frightens me. And sometimes I forget that it’s not just us. Every part of the world is enduring something similar.
+France just promised a €6.5 billion euro loan to their (similarly) hurting auto industry. The money is being split up among PSA Peugeot Citroën, Renault and Renault Trucks.Â
+Italy announced a $1.7 billion bailout package for it’s auto industry last week saying that it faced losing 60,000 jobs otherwise.
+Britain is loaning $1.9 billion to it’s auto industry as well despite most of their manufacturers being foreign owned they employ a significant number of Brits. And British company Bentley will cut all salaries by 10%.
+Even in Asia, Nissan has announced it will be cutting 20,000 jobs.
Posted in Big Three, Blog, Economy, Jobs, Places, Progress
Tagged auto industry, bailout, Bentley, England, france, Italy, Nissan, PSA Peugeot Citroen, Renault, Renault Trucks
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Picture of the Day
Bear Mace Him!
Another protestor makes a run at the Olympic torch as it attempted to make its way through Paris. Yesterday, the torch experience riots in London. Today, the torch had to be extinguished several times due to protestors.