California High Speed Rail

I've seen a lot of articles about high speed rail in California, and how the expected cost has exploded. Conservatives can't grasp why anyone would assume this could get any passengers.  It's slower than air travel (LA to SF), and will cost more.  Why would anyone go by rail?

Let's explore...

Q: Does Congress have power to regulate interstate commerce?
A: Well, yeah, that is in the Consitution, but...

Q: Okay, so then who has power to regulate intrastate commerce?
A: The states!  That's well established in the 10'th amendment.

Q: And do the states have the power to regulate commerce in the name of environmental protection?
A: I didn't think so, but California seems to have gotten away with that.

Q: And is air travel from Los Angeles to San Francisco intrastate commerce?
A: I don't think I like where this is going, but yes.

Q: So, you concede that the states could limit or ban such commerce in the public interest?
A: WTF!  You have got to be kidding me!

If anyone knows of any reason...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2057081/Engaged-couple-discover-brother-sister-parents-meet-days-wedding.html

Clapton is 66

Yikes, that makes me feel old.

http://www.myspace.com/ericclapton/music/songs/cocaine-32368

Oysters anyone?

Cleaning up the Chesapeake Bay would be cool and everything. There is also an economic aspect to it.

"Bay pollution is not only an ecological disaster, it's an economic one, too," said Ann Jennings, the group's Virginia director.

For example, the decline of the Chesapeake oyster alone has cost Virginia and Maryland more than $4 billion over the past 30 years, the report said.

Wow! That seems like a lot of oysters. In fact, let's do the math.

$4B over 30 years is over $133M/yr. (I'll assume they're talking about current dollars.)

But how many oysters is that? Well, as of two weeks ago -

The buyers had been paying as much as $42 per bushel but, this week, they lowered the price to $35, said Danny Webster of Deal Island. And rumors are circulating that the price could drop to $30 next week.

OK, at $35/bushel that $133M is going to buy us 3.81 million bushels of oysters per year. Given that the average American eats only about 1 1/2 ounces of oyster meat per year, that ought to pretty well supply all of us.

Fields of Dreams

In the movie Field of Dreams the characters Ray and Terrence mystically pick up a kid on the road going to try out for a little baseball team in the midwest. They comment on how there haven't been that sort of league for years.

Well, yes they do exist. Here is one such team in the Northern League - the Lake County Fielders.

And the owner? Kevin Costner.

3-D plotting

This is something I thought I was going to have to write myself. A 3-D plotter that allows you to rotate the view to any angle. Thanks gnuplot!

The Country That Pees Together Stays Together

Re: the Olympic Gold Medal hockey game -

EPCOR, the water utility company that runs the fountains up in Edmonton, Canada released this graph yesterday. It's water consumption during the Olympic gold medal hockey game, overlaying consumption of the previous day. How much do Canadians love their hockey? A lot.

The first period ends. Time to pee. The second period ends. Time to pee. The third period ends. Time to pee. Consumption goes way down when Canada wins and during the medal ceremony.

Another jumper

I was hearing all of the sirens as the vehicles wnet past our house yesterday, thinking "this is not good". We had another person jump off the bridge.

The 59-year-old Newport News man who died on Sunday after leaping from the
Coleman Bridge was a prominent financial advisor on the Peninsula. Carroll
Marcus "Marc" Cooper Jr. died after leaping from the bridge into the York River.

Nuthin', Nada, Zilch

Yup, nothing posted in months. No excuse. Well, lots of excuses. That bad feeling in my chest that sent me to the emergency room Christmas Eve. Finding out one dog has cancer. A generally cold, miserable winter. Total disruption at work that meant I was employed, but had me living out of boxes of my stuff for two months. I'll try to be better.

Another Darwin Award - when will they learn?

Why won't these people learn to read?

A 28-year-old man died early this morning in Pueblo while trying to steal electrical wiring from a high voltage electrical box, the Pueblo police said.

The man, Brian Repinski of Pueblo, was brought unconscious to Parkview Hospital suffering from high voltage burns, said Sgt. Mark Duran.

He died shortly after his arrival.

Nobel Prizes

OK. the Nobel Peace Prize thing was funny, but I hadn't realized that President Obama also has two Grammy Awards.

Also, if we want to make friends with the world, couldn't the USA lighten up a little? The Nobel committee has named the awards in the six categories, with a total of 13 recipients. Of those 13, 9 are Americans, and only 4 went to the rest of the world. Quit being such hogs.

Geography of Jobs

Here is a nice animated visualization of the increase and decrease of jobs in various metropolitan areas from FlowingData.

Writing

Yesterday and today I spent a total of 12 hours writing a draft of a users manual for training people that work under me, and for another state agency. (That sounds more grandiose than it is.) A 36 page document: title page, "version" page, TOC, and 33 pages of useful stuff and appendices.

Remind me again why they cut my contract rate 10%?

How Insensitive

How insensitive can VDOT be? Well, they're all racists, and didn't even realize it.

There's a new turn in the debate over high occupancy toll lanes or HOT lanes.

A lawsuit filed by Arlington County last month claims the lanes benefit wealthy white people and discriminates against minorities. While the only rule to get in the HOV lanes on Interstate 395 is you must have three people in the car, Arlington claims adding HOT lanes would cut out poor and minorities by defacto.

'Cause you can't get three minorities in a car without... I guess I'd better stop right there.

"It is not our intention to play a race card. I think that's a very divisive approach," Favola told FOX5.

But we will, because we think there's some money in it.

The PhD Cook is in the House

Winnie has started to post some of the things she is cooking for us. Yup, we're Cooking with the PhD.

Public Humiliation is Sweeeet

Nope. I didn't do it, but here is a sign that popped up on the edge of the parking lot down the street by some local businesses. Winnie says "better them than us", as we used to find the MD20/20 bottles out in front of our house.

Can anyone tell me how to look up, for free this VA license plate? It might be nice to send her a copy.

Plate Tectonics

650 Million Years in 1 Min. and 20 Sec.

What a scam!

I got my AT&T bill today. $34.99. Out of which $2.57 was actually for 21 minutes worth of calls. The rest was "plan" fees, connectivity fees, cost recovery fees, and tax. Yes, $2.57 for the product, and $32.42 for overhead.

Damn VDOT!

You'd think they'd contact us directly before turning off our water tonight.

Work on the Route 17 project in south Gloucester will result in a water outage for customers along the northbound lanes of the highway from Lafayette Heights Road to the Gloucester Point Shopping Center and a small section of Greate Road.

The water outage will extend from about 10 p.m. to 5:30 a.m., said Martin Schlesinger, director of the Gloucester Department of Public Utilities. The work is required in order for newly constructed water lines to be placed into service.

VDOT and Transurban - Part 2

So, I have my doubts about how viable this toll road is (8.8 mi, $2.75 one-way) given that it connects together two Interstate highways, and not much else. But they may have an actual, real solution. The Airport Connector.

The original agreement with Transurban requires them to build a 1.6 mile connector to the south end of the Richmond airport. This $50M connector will save travelers up to 10 minutes of travel time!

I guess they've done a sophisticated analysis of airport user patterns to determine how all of this will work. From their advertising though, travelers going east onto I-295 will pay $1.25, and the travelers going west will pay the full $2.75.

How much does this make for them? Well, that's where you need that sophisticated analysis.

Right now RIC gets about 3.5M passengers per year. Unfortunately, the April 2009 statistics show travel was down 2.6% from the year before. Well, it's the economy again.

Yeah, and in April 2008 the travel was down 4.0% from 2007. And in April 2007 it was up 4.0% from 2006. So, I guess about the best we can say is that their passenger traffic is flat.

Even so, if half the passengers use the connector (1.75M/yr), and 50% each go east and west, then the roundtrip cost of $4.00 (average) comes out to an increase in tolls of $7M per year. Not bad! An increase of over 50% from what they're collecting now.

Except...did you notice the problem? The assumption that 50% of travelers arrive via the connector? Via the Parkway?

Why would anyone coming from east of the airport arrive that way? They wouldn't.

Why would anyone coming from the north in Henrico or Hanover come that way? They wouldn't.

Why would anyone coming from the West End come that way? They wouldn't.

Why would anyone coming from Richmond come that way? Maybe a few would, but most wouldn't.

That leaves the south end, Chesterfield, Petersburg, and the surrounding areas. Convenient for them, so they'll use it. But is it enough to pay another $50M in loans plus operating and maintenance expenses?