Jack Kelly Sunday

This hebdomad in his Post-Gazette column, Jack buffoon goes after broad pace rail. More specifically, this paragraph in President Obama's State of the Union Address:Within 25 years, our goal is to provide 80 percent of Americans admittance to high-speed rail. (Applause.) This could earmark you to go places in half the instance it takes to movement by car. For whatever trips, it module be faster than air â€"- without the pat-down. (Laughter and applause.) As we speak, routes in California and the Midwest are already underway. [Note: The descriptions of audience activity are institute in the original.]Jack, as usual, spins the drawing meet sufficiency to attain his discussion almost completely detached from reality.As context, the president's broad pace kick organisation is witting for more than meet quicker, cheaper movement times. Here's Obama a some paragraphs prior:We hit to do better. USA is the commonwealth that shapely the transcontinental railroad, brought electricity to rural communities, constructed the Interstate Highway System. The jobs created by these projects didn’t meet come from laying downbound road or pavement. They came from businesses that opened near a town’s newborn condition send or the newborn off-ramp.So over the terminal digit years, we’ve begun rebuilding for the 21st century, a project that has meant thousands of good jobs for the hard-hit cerebration industry. And tonight, I’m proposing that we redouble those efforts. (Applause.)We’ll place more Americans to work repairing crumbling roads and bridges. We’ll attain trusty this is full paying for, attract private investment, and garner projects based [on] what’s best for the economy, not politicians. [Again, audience activity is from the original]But Jack avoids some discussion of the jobs created (either direct or indire! ctly) fr om the plan. Why should he when he can study apples and (pictures of) oranges? For example:Fares on Amtrak's Acela condition cipher 75 cents per traveller mile, compared to most 15 cents for intercity dynamical and 13 cents for flying, Randal O'Toole of the Cato Institute wrote at National Review Online."New royalty to pedagogue tickets on the Acela start at $139," Mr. O'Toole noted. "JetBlue starts at $39 and Megabus averages inferior than $15."Note the examples used. Acela is the broad pace business and prototypal collection impart distinction from Beantown to DC. Jet Blue, on the other hand, is a low cost distinction and Megabus is a low cost impart bus service. Hmm...first class/business collection condition movement vs low outlay jet/bus travel. That'll inclined the numbers, doncha think?On a tangent, I loved datum this part:High-speed rail, said Mr. Obama, "could earmark you to go places in half the instance it takes to movement by car."We should verify with a foodstuff of briny such claims from the man who told us Obamacare would revilement health care costs.This from the man who intellection that Weather Underground man Bill Ayers ghost-wrote "Dreams of My Father" and that Van Jones was a communist who was arrested in LA during the Rodney King riots. The misinformation in the Van Jones article was so gross that the P-G pulled it from their website within a some days.You're welcome.So I am not trusty Jack buffoon should be throwing around the "grain of salt" metaphor. There ain't sufficiency briny in the ocean for that when you actually look at his columns.And what should we attain of this sentence?I rea! d somewh ere that Denver International Airport covers more realty than would be required to physique a kick distinction from Alaska to Miami.Curious that Jack couldn't road downbound the maker of that line, presented his research skills in the rest of the column.Luckily I could road it down. And digit minute of datum module verify you why Jack didn't meaning it. It's a article from 2002 in favor of railroading kick service. And here's the paragraph Jack remembered:If we don't physique a high-speed connector alternative, we'll hit to pay more money on highways and airports. Such renovations and additions are costing a clump in whatever of the nation's maximal cities. Renovations to JFK airport in New royalty outlay near to $10 billion. A planned renovation of Los Angeles International Airport is due to threefold that. And we're only running discover of space in which to place airports and highways. The Denver airport lonely occupies more realty than it would verify to physique a kick distinction from bicentric Alaska to Miami. [emphasis added]So I am not really seeing the relevance. Do you?Or of the entire column. Do you?