Oil Shortages

Looming Oil Shortages and What Not To Do About Them
By Daniel G. Jennings
I’m heartened to see that the national media is waking up to the looming oil shortage but distressed to no real talk of the best alternative we have to oil based transportation, electric powered rail, in the media.
In a Rolling Stone piece about his new book, my good friend James Kunstler does write about the importance of rail. Unfortunately he misses an important point (at least in the article the book isn’t out yet), trains can easily be electrified even over long distances. The electricity the trains run on can be from virtually any source: hydro, coal, natural gas, nuclear even solar power.
This simple and very obvious fact is what could save our great nation from being reduced to the level of Brazil or India by a few years of oil shortages. We could easily electrify and expand all of our major railroad lines and build new ones. Virtually every other country in the world is doing this including Russia which has electrified the Trans Siberian railroad from Vladivostok to St. Petersburg. We could also build electric powered rail systems (streetcars, light rail, subways, monorail) in all of our major cities and create electrified commuter and regional rail service and high speed rail to haul passengers, freight and mail as an alternative to air travel. Our top competitor China is doing all of these things, unfortunately we are not.
Nor do our politicians seem to care, neither major presidential candidate even mentioned the R word last year. It wouldn’t be hard to get rail electrification going all we would need to do is change federal law so that the Department of Transportation could distribute funds directly to private railroads and state and local agencies that build rail lines. That’s how Uncle Sam currently funds highways, airports and mass transit in our cities and it works as our massive highway and airport networks and the growing number of transit systems in our cities demonstrates.
This is why it is so disheartening to see the latest syndicated column from New York Times wise Thomas Friedman.* Friedman grasps the basic problem the oil supply is shrinking at a time when demand is increasing. There is less gas available for Americans because more Chinese, Indians and Russians can afford cars and drive. Meanwhile the world’s supply is getting smaller by the day because of increased demand and no new oil sources have been found.
Friedman grasps the problem unfortunately he ignores or doesn’t see real answers. His solution is increased fuel efficiency new hybrid cars that combine electric and gasoline engines and get 40 to 50 miles per gallon. Increased fuel efficiency is a great idea but it’s only a stop gap solution denying the inevitable. The oil will still run out in a generation or so, what will happen. In other words pass the problem on to the next generation.
Mr. Friedman’s proposed solution will also hurt the poor and working class. He wants taxes to keep gasoline prices over $4 a gallon. No big deal to a highly paid New York writer who doesn’t have to drive to work everyday but something that would really hurt the working poor. With no alternative many poor people would be forced to choose between food or gas for the car to get to work a terrible choice. Nor would poor people automatically be able to run out and buy the fancy and expensive new hybrid car. They would still be driving around in high gas mileage clunkers paying the higher fuel prices. Meanwhile the increased gas tax money probably would be used to build more freeways making the problem worse.
Friedman also proposes a hydrocarbon tax designed to get utilities to move from fossil fuels to wind and solar power. Since wind and solar power are more expensive and unproven this would hurt the poor by causing raises in utility rates. Something already happening in my home state of Colorado where green do gooders got a ballot measure requiring utility companies to use solar and wind power passed.
Tommy of the Times would also have President Bush emulate Jimmy Carter he would like to President Bush lead by example by trading his limo for an armor plated Ford Escape. This would be a meaningless gesture the only people who would benefit from it would be Jay Leno and Dave Letterman who’d get lots of good joke material. The leadership by example was the disastrous energy policy of Jimmy Carter, he demanded Americans use less fuel and put solar panels on the White House roof to demonstrate his commitment to the cause. The solar panels were a hollow and meaningless publicity stunt quietly hauled down by Ronald Reagan. Friedman’s leadership by example would turn Bush into a bigger joke than Jimmy Carter.
What we really need is bold and energetic vision and action modeled after the action of another Republican President, Dwight D. Eisenhower. Ike changed the nation with a massive public works program the Interstate highway system. President Bush should announce a massive federal effort to fund the electrification and expanding of our existing railroads and the creation of high speed rail lines. This would be expensive but it would be popular, it would create lots of jobs, make our transportation system and economy more efficient and it could be paid for by reallocating existing funds we spend on airports and highways without imposing new taxes that hurt working people.
It’s heartening to see America’s opinion leaders grasping the oil shortage crisis, unfortunately it’s sad to see their failure to offer real solutions. That’s why I’m so glad to see Jim Kunstler’s doomsday scenario out there, yes it’s frightening the collapse of our country into a third world economy, but it’s what could happen if we don’t move away from oil or pretend we can solve the problem by driving hybrids. There is a good alternative out there but we’re not even talking about it.
The question is not if but when Americans will face up to this crisis. For that we should look to a great Englishman of American descent for answers: Winston Churchill. Churchill said, Americans will do the right thing after they have exhausted every other possibility. That’s what our politicians and pundits appear to be doing.
* “Geo-Greening by example,” Thomas L. Friedman, Denver Post March 29, 2005.
“The Long Emergency” James Howard Kunstler Posted on Rolling Stone Website March 24, 2005.

Leftists should learn from history

Leftists Should Learn From History
By Daniel G. Jennings
Those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it says the old truism. A prime example is the American Left or peace movement which is once more attacking those waging a war without addressing the real cause of the war.
During the Vietnam, War the Left blamed the American war effort and those who supported it for the conflict while placing the true war mongers; the Vietnamese Communists, on a pedestal. It was Ho Chi Minh and his heirs and their moronic drive for absolute power that started the Vietnam War and drove them to destroy their own country. The Communist drive for absolute control pushed the Communists to wage a total war that nearly destroyed Vietnam and dragged in the United States.
The United States was perfectly willing to live in peace with the Vietnamese Communists and let them run their little banana republic around Hanoi. The Communists wouldn’t settle for anything but total control and waged a twenty year war for that goal. A war that cost several million lives but ultimately proved meaningless. Faced with cold hard reality, the Vietnamese Communists have quietly abandoned the ideology of Marx and Ho for capitalism and made peace with the USA.
The Left couldn’t recognize the evil of Communism or even the fact that the enemy America was fighting in Vietnam was Communist. In their historical accounts leftists call the enemy nationalists or say that they were fighting to defend Vietnam’s traditional culture. Two claims that are a complete denial of obvious and well-documented historical fact.
Nor could the Left realize that Communism was the cause of the Cold War. Throughout that conflict and particularly in the 1980s, Leftists blamed American Cold Warriors for the Cold War. They claimed that the Soviet Union and its allies were only responding to American provocation. A claim that was complete nonsense, it was the militaristic state created by Lenin and Stalin that launched and waged the Cold War. The Soviet military industrial complex in its insatiable drive for expansion drove the Cold War.
When the Soviet Union collapsed and disarmed itself the Cold War came to an end. The United States quickly disarmed and demobilized much of its vast war machine. Super Cold Warrior Ronald Reagan - portrayed as a war mongering cowboy by the Left -signed groundbreaking disarmament treaties with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. The Left still doesn’t get it in their historical accounts they still blame American anticommunists for the Cold War.
Today, the Left is once again condemning American backers of wars while ignoring the real cause of the war. The wars are the War on Terror and the Iraq War and the cause of both those conflicts is the dependence of the United States and other countries on an increasingly scarce resource: oil.
Just as their parents refused to acknowledge Communism as the true cause of the Cold War and the conflict in Vietnam. Today’s Leftists refuse to recognize that dependence on oil drives the War in Iraq and the war on Terror. Oil money is financing Al Qaeda and other anti American extremist groups. Oil money props up the archaic monarchies in the Persian Gulf that promote extremist variants of Islam that fuel terrorism and block democratic reform in the Middle East. Oil money drives the Palestinian-Israeli conflict by financing the Palestinian “cause.” Oil money is financing the insurgency in Iraq, as long as insurgents are running amuck sabotaging Iraq’s infrastructure and keeping Iraqi oil off the market the price of oil will keep going up.
If this wasn’t bad enough, oil drives instability in other parts of the world including Nigeria, Indonesia, Angola and Venezuela. As oil prices go up, instability will increase and spread and wars for oil will start everywhere. In particular India and China could be drawn into such conflicts, Chinese construction companies and drilling crews are now working in the Middle East, the People’s Liberation Army can’t be far behind.
The self-appointed apostles of peace ignore the oil crisis. Just as their parents got hip for Ho, the modern leftists drive to the peace rally in their SUV with the No War for Oil sticker on its bumper. At the peace rally they listen to speakers who tell that neoconservatives in the Bush Administration were responsible for the war and that oil played no part. It is no coincidence that these leftists backed presidential candidate John Kerry who once called Communism an imaginary enemy and proposed dumping America’s strategic oil reserve on the market as a means of driving down oil prices.
Until we address oil dependence and reduce it by turning to realistic measures such as electric powered railroads and mass transit, oil dependence and the instability and war it causes will increase. Just as Ronald Reagan ended the Cold War by attacking its true cause: Communism. Unfortunately, the leftists won’t address oil dependence they’ll be too busy looking for the imaginary conspiracy of evil warmongering neoconservatives in the White House basement that caused the war and the high oil prices to do something about oil dependence.
So I suppose it will be up to the Republicans to address oil dependence just as it was Republicans who were forced to address the real cause of the Cold War. Hopefully, history will repeat itself in that instance too.

Taiwan

Give Nukes To Taiwan
By Daniel G. Jennings
There is a simple way to defuse the Taiwan crisis that will guarantee a peaceful solution, unfortunately none of leaders has the balls to implement it.
The simple solution is the same solution Ronald Reagan used in Europe back in the 1980s: deploy missiles with nuclear warheads to Taiwan. Currently Taiwan is threatened by the massive Chinese military and has little defense against Chinese aggression. Even if every man, woman and child on the island of Taiwan were armed the People’s Republic’s massive military could still easily overrun the country.
Yet if the Chinese leadership learned that Taiwan had one nuclear missile aimed at their capital the bullies of Beijing would quickly back down and talk peace. If Taiwan had just a few nukes aimed at Beijing and Shanghai the People’s Liberation Army would immediately put it’s plans to invade Taiwan into the nearest shredder, cancel all the exercises aimed at invading Taiwan and redeploy it’s troops away from invasion positions. Any Chinese general talking about invading Taiwan would quickly find himself the commandant of remote outpost on the Mongolian border where indoor plumbing is unknown. More importantly, the Chinese Communist Party would immediately recognize Taiwan’s independence and allow the island nation to join the UN.
Obviously, Taiwan couldn’t manufacture nukes overnight but we could. All the US would have to do to defuse the Taiwan crisis would be to ship a few nuclear tipped missiles from one of our facilities to Taiwan. This would take three or days at the most. There would be nothing Beijing could do about it.
There would be no Taiwan crisis and no need for a massive American military presence in the Taiwan Straights. A few technicians to man the missiles and nothing else. A few missiles manned by a few technicians could put an end to the Red Chinese menace here and now.
And history would be on our side, back in the 1980s, the Soviet Union was increasingly belligerent in Europe. The massive Red Army was bullying Western European nations, until Ronald Reagan deployed new short range Pershing II missiles with nuclear warheads to Germany. The Red Army quickly backed down in the face of the nuclear threat. A few years later the Red Army quietly pulled out of Eastern Europe and went home, the humiliated Soviet Union collapsed soon afterwards and the American missiles were withdrawn and scrapped.
The question we have to ask is why doesn’t President Bush deploy a few nuclear missiles to Taiwan to put an end to this Chinese threat? The People’s Liberation Army would be stopped and humiliated and like the Red Army before it soon collapse and bring the Chinese Communist Party down with it. The cost of doing so would be about the same as deploying a battalion of soldiers to Iraq. The risk to us would be nil, China has no weapons capable of hitting the US. Even if it did one US submarine could destroy every major Chinese city with it’s missiles meaning our retaliation would leave every Chinese leader and his family dead.
The answer is a disturbing one, the Chinese Communists unlike their Russian brethren are good businessmen. Their factories churn out lots of cheap products that make a lot of money for a lot of Americans. The Republican Party may have no fear of the Chinese Communist Party but they’re certainly scared to death of all the American businessmen who make money working with the Chinese. Republicans and Democrats alike fear the cutting off of the donation checks from those businessmen. Or worse seeing those donations flow to their opponents.
The real threat to our nation security isn’t the vast Chinese Army deployed in the provinces on the coast near Taiwan. It’s the politicians in Washington who value the cash flowing into their pockets more than their own country’s future.

Denver Police Monitor

Denver Police Monitor: Waste of Tax Money
By Daniel G. Jennings
Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper is stooping to new lows in city government, he has figured out how to do nothing about the city’s problems while still wasting our tax money.
The best example of this is the creation of the office of police monitor. Faced with a police department that is little more than a disgrace, (officers shooting an unarmed elderly man asleep in his bed and allowing a rapist to run loose terrorizing citizens for days). Hickenlooper’s answer is to create something called a police monitor.
The Wednesday March 16 edition of The Denver Post* reported that Hickenlooper would hire Richard Rosenthal, a former California prosecutor, as Denver’s police monitor. What exactly Rosenthal will do is not clear, The Post reported that Rosenthal will investigate police wrongdoings and formulate policies about them. It didn’t say how the policies would be formulated or applied. Rosenthal would also make recommendations about police discipline but he wouldn’t have any actual powers to discipline problem cops.
Yes this move sounds impressive to the journalism school crowd at The Post but in real life it boils down to doing nothing and wasting tax money. There will be a new bureaucrat downtown sitting in a comfortable office, drawing a large salary with nice benefits and issuing reports. Nothing concrete will be done to improve the police department or make the citizens safer from criminals or incompetent cops.
Mr. Rosenthal will issue a batch of reports and recommendations to the police department. The cops will quietly file those recommendations away in a filing cabinet and go back to business as usual.
Meanwhile, the police monitor’s office will waste several hundred thousand of the taxpayers’ dollars. Mr. Rosenthal being a lawyer will command a salary of around $100,000 he’ll need a secretary, another $30,000-50,000, a paralegal, a research assistant, an investigator and couple of other staff members. Not to mention a city car to drive around in so he can interview the victims of police stupidity.
These impressive expenditures will do nothing to weed incompetent, unqualified or corrupt officers out of the police force or improve the police force’s performance. Rosenthal is a lawyer not a cop, he has never walked a beat or driven patrol. How is he an expert on improving police conduct? Other than writing policies that will make it harder for citizens to sue the city over police abuse there is little he can do. Incompetent cops will still be out on the street with guns shooting innocent citizens. The innocent citizens or their heirs will still sue the city and get big cash settlements. Mr. Rosenthal will be on hand to write reports about these abuses and issue recommendations.
Now imagine what would have happened, if instead of wasting our tax money expanding the bureaucracy Hickenlooper really tried to reform the Denver Police Department. He could have used that money to hire a highly professional top cop from a place like New York to be our police chief. He could have put a measure on the ballot giving the new police chief the power to fire incompetent officers without interference from the Civil Service Commission. He could have proposed a realistic police budget that gave the force adequate manpower and resources to do its job. He could have implemented the community police tactics that Rudi Giuliani used to improve the quality of life in New York.
But no Hickenlooper didn’t do that he hired a new bureaucrat. The citizens of Denver can rest easy knowing there is a new bureaucrat on duty in a comfortable office at the City and County Building. The mother whose child is gunned down by a poorly trained and unqualified Denver cop can rest easy knowing there is a new bureaucrat she can file a complaint with. The woman who is afraid to go after dark because the streets aren’t safe can rest easy because Mr. Rosenthal is busy downtown making recommendations about the police force.
It is time for the people of Denver to demand real police reform and less bureaucracy. It is also time for Denverites to start looking for a mayor who will push for real change and less bureaucracy.

Uncle Sam

How Uncle Sam Should Finance Rail
By Daniel G. Jennings
It’s obvious that America needs to expand, modernize and electrify it’s railroad system to reduce reliance upon imported oil, reduce pollution and increase the efficiency, speed and capacity of our transportation system.
Unfortunately, there is no national mechanism for systematically funding railroad improvements in the United States. Only the federal government could provide such funding and it has no means of doing so. There is no federal agency dedicated to funding rail improvements, the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) is basically a regulatory agency and Amtrak is an operating company for passenger trains and select rail lines. There is no agency dedicated to dispersing federal moneys to railroad improvements.
An excellent model for such an agency exists in the way the federal government finances three other very successful transportation systems: highways, air travel and urban transit. The federal government doesn’t try to build or operate highways, airports or city transit systems itself, instead it allocates funds to state, local and regional governments and agencies which build and operate the transportation infrastructure.
This method has worked well: America has the most extensive and successful system of highways in the world. All of our cities are connected by excellent highways and served by first class freeways. Almost every city in America, no matter how small, has a modern state of the art airport providing air service. Virtually every American city has an excellent bus transit system and many larger cities have or are building state of the art rail transit systems. Even such traditionally auto oriented cities as Houston, Denver and Los Angeles are investing heavily in rail transit.
There’s no reason why this system shouldn’t work with rail as well. Give the Federal Railroad Administration or some new agency the power to fund railroad projects. This new agency would fund the electrification, modernization and expansion of the private freight railroad lines, commuter and regional passenger rail systems and high speed rail projects. The federal bureaucrats wouldn’t operate the trains as they do at Amtrak they’d simply allocate funds at the direction of Congress.
With large amounts of federal funds available private railroads would have an incentive to modernize, expand and electrify their rail lines because Uncle Sam would guarantee financing. State, regional and local governments would have an incentive to build new commuter and regional passenger rail lines because Uncle Sam would pay much of the bill. Private entrepreneurs and governments would have an incentive to build high-speed rail lines because Uncle Sam would pick up part of the tab.
More importantly a nationwide network of interest groups that would lobby Congress for more funds for rail would be created. Instead of a few thousand angry passengers, contractors, local governments, large corporations and others with deep pockets would be lobbying for rail funds. Congress would have an incentive to support rail because political operatives with deep pockets would profit from it.
The failure of Amtrak proves that Uncle Sam has no business running a railroad. It’s time to abandon the socialist European model of a national railroad operated by bureaucrats and apply the tried and tested American model of federal funding for transportation projects built
and operated by state, local or regional governments or private enterprise. That’s how the transcontinental railroads, the federal highway system, the Interstate system, most of our airports and most of the urban transit systems were built.
The question is will President Bush and Congress have the common sense and brains to implement such a sensible solution? Or will they keep allowing the vital national resource known as our railroads to go to waste?

Uncle Sam

How Uncle Sam Should Finance Rail
By Daniel G. Jennings
It’s obvious that America needs to expand, modernize and electrify it’s railroad system to reduce reliance upon imported oil, reduce pollution and increase the efficiency, speed and capacity of our transportation system.
Unfortunately, there is no national mechanism for systematically funding railroad improvements in the United States. Only the federal government could provide such funding and it has no means of doing so. There is no federal agency dedicated to funding rail improvements, the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) is basically a regulatory agency and Amtrak is an operating company for passenger trains and select rail lines. There is no agency dedicated to dispersing federal moneys to railroad improvements.
An excellent model for such an agency exists in the way the federal government finances three other very successful transportation systems: highways, air travel and urban transit. The federal government doesn’t try to build or operate highways, airports or city transit systems itself, instead it allocates funds to state, local and regional governments and agencies which build and operate the transportation infrastructure.
This method has worked well: America has the most extensive and successful system of highways in the world. All of our cities are connected by excellent highways and served by first class freeways. Almost every city in America, no matter how small, has a modern state of the art airport providing air service. Virtually every American city has an excellent bus transit system and many larger cities have or are building state of the art rail transit systems. Even such traditionally auto oriented cities as Houston, Denver and Los Angeles are investing heavily in rail transit.
There’s no reason why this system shouldn’t work with rail as well. Give the Federal Railroad Administration or some new agency the power to fund railroad projects. This new agency would fund the electrification, modernization and expansion of the private freight railroad lines, commuter and regional passenger rail systems and high speed rail projects. The federal bureaucrats wouldn’t operate the trains as they do at Amtrak they’d simply allocate funds at the direction of Congress.
With large amounts of federal funds available private railroads would have an incentive to modernize, expand and electrify their rail lines because Uncle Sam would guarantee financing. State, regional and local governments would have an incentive to build new commuter and regional passenger rail lines because Uncle Sam would pay much of the bill. Private entrepreneurs and governments would have an incentive to build high-speed rail lines because Uncle Sam would pick up part of the tab.
More importantly a nationwide network of interest groups that would lobby Congress for more funds for rail would be created. Instead of a few thousand angry passengers, contractors, local governments, large corporations and others with deep pockets would be lobbying for rail funds. Congress would have an incentive to support rail because political operatives with deep pockets would profit from it.
The failure of Amtrak proves that Uncle Sam has no business running a railroad. It’s time to abandon the socialist European model of a national railroad operated by bureaucrats and apply the tried and tested American model of federal funding for transportation projects built
and operated by state, local or regional governments or private enterprise. That’s how the transcontinental railroads, the federal highway system, the Interstate system, most of our airports and most of the urban transit systems were built.
The question is will President Bush and Congress have the common sense and brains to implement such a sensible solution? Or will they keep allowing the vital national resource known as our railroads to go to waste?

Uncle Sam

How Uncle Sam Should Finance Rail
By Daniel G. Jennings
It’s obvious that America needs to expand, modernize and electrify it’s railroad system to reduce reliance upon imported oil, reduce pollution and increase the efficiency, speed and capacity of our transportation system.
Unfortunately, there is no national mechanism for systematically funding railroad improvements in the United States. Only the federal government could provide such funding and it has no means of doing so. There is no federal agency dedicated to funding rail improvements, the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) is basically a regulatory agency and Amtrak is an operating company for passenger trains and select rail lines. There is no agency dedicated to dispersing federal moneys to railroad improvements.
An excellent model for such an agency exists in the way the federal government finances three other very successful transportation systems: highways, air travel and urban transit. The federal government doesn’t try to build or operate highways, airports or city transit systems itself, instead it allocates funds to state, local and regional governments and agencies which build and operate the transportation infrastructure.
This method has worked well: America has the most extensive and successful system of highways in the world. All of our cities are connected by excellent highways and served by first class freeways. Almost every city in America, no matter how small, has a modern state of the art airport providing air service. Virtually every American city has an excellent bus transit system and many larger cities have or are building state of the art rail transit systems. Even such traditionally auto oriented cities as Houston, Denver and Los Angeles are investing heavily in rail transit.
There’s no reason why this system shouldn’t work with rail as well. Give the Federal Railroad Administration or some new agency the power to fund railroad projects. This new agency would fund the electrification, modernization and expansion of the private freight railroad lines, commuter and regional passenger rail systems and high speed rail projects. The federal bureaucrats wouldn’t operate the trains as they do at Amtrak they’d simply allocate funds at the direction of Congress.
With large amounts of federal funds available private railroads would have an incentive to modernize, expand and electrify their rail lines because Uncle Sam would guarantee financing. State, regional and local governments would have an incentive to build new commuter and regional passenger rail lines because Uncle Sam would pay much of the bill. Private entrepreneurs and governments would have an incentive to build high-speed rail lines because Uncle Sam would pick up part of the tab.
More importantly a nationwide network of interest groups that would lobby Congress for more funds for rail would be created. Instead of a few thousand angry passengers, contractors, local governments, large corporations and others with deep pockets would be lobbying for rail funds. Congress would have an incentive to support rail because political operatives with deep pockets would profit from it.
The failure of Amtrak proves that Uncle Sam has no business running a railroad. It’s time to abandon the socialist European model of a national railroad operated by bureaucrats and apply the tried and tested American model of federal funding for transportation projects built
and operated by state, local or regional governments or private enterprise. That’s how the transcontinental railroads, the federal highway system, the Interstate system, most of our airports and most of the urban transit systems were built.
The question is will President Bush and Congress have the common sense and brains to implement such a sensible solution? Or will they keep allowing the vital national resource known as our railroads to go to waste?

RTD

Subway: the Next Logical Step in Denver’s Rail Plans
By Daniel G. Jennings
I’m happy to see the Regional Transportation District planning new rail lines to move people around Central Denver. Unfortunately, RTD’s plans don’t include the one option that would really ease congestion in Central Denver: subways.
On March 10, The Denver Post reported that RTD and the City and County of Denver are planning new rail lines to Downtown Denver.* If The Post can be believed, Denver and RTD officials want a rail line on Broadway connecting the I-25/Broadway light rail junction with the Civic Center and 16th Street Mall in Downtown, a line along East Colfax connecting Colorado Boulevard and Downtown, a rail line along Speer Boulevard between Downtown and Cherry Creek and a line along Colorado Boulevard between Colfax and I-25. Rail lines along those dense corridors are desperately needed unfortunately RTD’s rail plans seem like a recipe for congestion rather than a solution.
I might note that there simply is no room for train tracks on East Colfax west of Colorado Boulevard or South Broadway. Trains on Speer and Colorado boulevards would congest traffic and disrupt residential neighborhoods and businesses.
As a regular RTD bus rider I know that buses along these lines are crowded and at capacity. The 15 and 15 Limited buses on Colfax, the 83 Limited Buses on Speer and the 40 buses on Colorado Boulevard are regularly standing room only. Traffic is heavy in those areas and an alternative to buses is desperately needed if only to speed up traffic.
Light rail trains running on the street are not the answer. Street level light rail trains would create congestion by blocking streets and pose a danger to both drivers and pedestrians. Rail lines also take away valuable street parking spaces giving property owners an incentive to tear down buildings to put in commercial parking lots. Elevated rail lines or monorail would be an eyesore that would decrease property values and drive residents away.
The only answer would be subway tunnels. Not the New York or Los Angeles Subway but one like the subway in Philadelphia. That is tunnels that light rail trains would run in through crowded areas like Downtown and Cherry Creek, the same trains would run on the surface along freeways or streets outside of Downtown. That way light rail could run into Downtown without endangering lives or increasing traffic congestion. Such subways could run under Broadway from I-25 to the 16th Street Mall and under the Mall to Union Station, under Colfax from the Auraria Campus to the Colorado Boulevard or points East and under Speer Boulevard from the Platte River to Colorado Boulevard, and under Colorado Boulevard from I-70 to Hampden.
Subway lines make more sense than shuttle buses or light rail running along the street blocking traffic and putting cars and pedestrians in danger. Subway lines benefit property owners because they can move large numbers of people through a neighborhood without disturbing homes and businesses on the surface. Nor do subways require large amounts of land on the surface to be condemned and taken away from private property owners violating citizens’ rights and decreasing the tax base.
Yes, it would be expensive, but in the last decade there have been several massive construction projects in Denver that cost hundreds of millions, Coors Field, Invesco Field, the new Convention Center, the Convention Center Hotel, the new light rail line to Union Station and the New Art Museum to name just a few, yet did little or nothing for taxpayers. If our political leaders can find billions for those projects they should be able to find billions for a subway. Why not ask Denver voters for subway construction money, they might go for that it’s something that would actually benefit them?
While we’re on the subject of rail lines here, I’ve seen RTD’s plans and they seem too limited. If rail is to run all the way from Downtown to Cherry Creek why shouldn’t it run down First Avenue or Alameda to Colorado Boulevard. For that matter shouldn’t it run one the surface out Alameda to I-225 or the Buckley Air Base or Down Leetsdale and Parker Road to Hampden or even Parker? That way it could also serve all the high density residential and business areas in fast growing Aurora. Shouldn’t the train run all the way east on Colfax to I-225 or E-470? That way it could serve Fitzsimmons, historic Downtown Aurora and points farther east. Also couldn’t light rail on Colorado Boulevard run all the way to Commerce City and serve that community’s largely poor and minority population?
The next logical step in Denver’s rail expansion is subway lines under Broadway, Speer, East Colfax and Colorado Boulevard. Yes, it seems far fetched and expensive, but no more far-fetched than T-Rex and FasTracks seemed a few years ago. Voters approved both of those ambitious schemes.
The question we should ask ourselves is not whether a Denver subway is doable: but whether our leaders have the guts to put a subway proposal before Denver voters?
* "Light Rail Proposal Puts Country Club On Guard" By Jeffrey Leib, The Denver Post, Thursday, March 10, 2005.

Sins of Mel Gibson

The Sins of Mel Gibson
By Daniel G. Jennings
The shoddy treatment of a brilliant man, Mel Gibson, exposes the cheapness, pettiness, bigotry and snobbery of Hollywood and America’s intelligentsia.
Gibson’s cinematic masterpiece “The Passion of the Christ” wasn’t nominated for a major Oscar such as best director or best picture. Gibson’s picture, a profound statement of faith, is denounced as unchristian and unbiblical by the arbiters of taste known as movie critics on a daily basis. Now none of these people attacks “The Passion” as a bad movie, they can’t attacking Gibson’s movie making or storytelling abilities they’re far superior to most big budget Hollywood efforts. Unable to attack the movie on an artistic basis the unbelievers criticize it for being unchristian. Worse it is branded controversial and lumped in with Michael Moore’s childish propaganda piece “Fahrenheit 911.” Even before “The Passion” came out the media falsely branded the film Anti-Semitic. “The Passion,” which makes no political statement, is even accused of being right-wing propaganda.
Gibson’s film is being ignored and attacked because the action star turned director committed a number of what the intellectual elite considers sins in its making. The nature of these sins exposes the arrogance, disdain and contempt the snobs in the media hold for the rest of us and our beliefs.
The first sin Gibson committed was to make an honest Bible picture. Instead of a cartoonish Sunday School lessen showing Sweat Gentle Jesus wandering around a clean and sanitized Judea. Gibson gives us an accurate picture of First Century life and dares to tell the story as the Gospels actually tell us.
Gibson’s First Century Jerusalem is dark, dirty, violent and corrupt as the real Roman city was. Gibson’s Roman soldiers are vicious and sadistic as real Romans must have been, Gibson’s Jewish priests are petty politicians intent on destroying a man they don’t like and the only person in the movie besides Jesus who has a shred of nobility is the Roman governor Pontius Pilot. This isn’t the Gospel story we saw in the Sunday School books and slide shows but it’s an accurate portrayal of the Gospel story.
Gibson takes his faith seriously he doesn’t denigrate it, nor does he try to give people who lived twenty centuries ago modern sensibilities. His movie is dark, bloody and violent but that’s exactly how the Gospels depict the final days of Christ. “The Passion” is a dark and bloody tale of the son of God betrayed by a trusted ally, abandoned by his followers, falsely accused of treason by his own people and turned over to brutal conquerors to be tortured death by his people’s leaders. There is nothing sweet or gentle about the death of Christ and that’s the point.
Gibson is reminding us that Christianity is a violent religion based upon a violent story the torture and execution of an innocent man. That’s a fact that our intellectuals don’t want to think about because they want a gentle religion, they want Sweet Gentle Jesus. They’re mad because Gibson refused to depict Christ as a loopy First Century Hippy or a Marxist revolutionary challenging the corrupt Roman authorities. Instead Gibson depicted Christ as the Son of God dying for the sins of the world.
The second sin Gibson committed was to treat Christians and average Americans as serious adults. He didn’t make a cartoon, a violent action film, a superhero picture or a screwball comedy he made a serious artistic movie and aimed it at average people. “The Passion” is great art and cutting edge cinema, it’s as dark and violent as anything in the art houses and it’s extremely well made. Like most art house pictures, “The Passion” is an independent picture made outside the studio system. Historically, Oscar loves such movies, but not this one because Gibson’s audience was average people who go to church not art house snobs.
Mel succeeded in luring millions of people who normally don’t go to movies or only go to Jim Carrey comedies to a serious artistic picture. One would think he would be honored for that, no he was turned into a pariah because he proved that average people are capable of appreciating art when they agree with its message.
Gibson also broke a lot of Hollywood rules, he refused to play the Hollywood game he refused to censor his movie to make it “family friendly,” refused studio financing, and ignored media attacks. Gibson ignored all the hype about his film being Anti-Semitic and released it the way he wanted. That obviously offended the powers that be in Hollywood, as did Mel’s refusal to advertise and campaign for an Academy Award a deliberate snub of the Hollywood power structure. Mel said to Hollywood: “you don’t matter, the people out in the countryside matter.” That is an unpardonable sin in the eyes of the movie colony elite.
Finally Gibson a conservative Christian dared step out of the male action star ghetto. Conservative values are acceptable in Hollywood when they are espoused in a violent cartoon like action film or an old fashioned historical epic like Gibson’s “Braveheart,” which did win a number of Oscars. Conservative values are not to be promoted by cutting edge art pictures like “The Passion.”
In the eyes of the media elite Mel Gibson is a sinner, in reality Gibson is an honest man who tried to express his faith through his art and take average people seriously. Unfortunately, that is a sin in the warped worldview of modern Hollywood and its apologists in the news media.

journalism

Why I Failed At Journalism
By Daniel G. Jennings
One of my great ambitions when I was younger and stupider was to be a journalist, that is a reporter. I worked hard at this going to journalism school, getting a degree and working at a number of newspapers and I failed miserably at it.
I failed at journalism because I simply lack the mentality of a journalist, which in retrospect is a very good thing for me. I lack the two prerequisite personality characteristics required of a journalist.
First, I’m not dishonest, a modern journalist must be extremely dishonest. He or she must make mountains out of molehills. The journalist must exaggerate and distort all manner of everyday events into newsworthy happenings.
For example every meeting of the city council, the town board, the county commissioners, the state legislature and the school board must be covered as a newsworthy event. The truth of course is that the city council of a large city only does something newsworthy every few months. Yet, the newspapers cover every such meeting even though nothing happens there. Largely to justify their existence or the existence of the city hall reporter. No newspaper would dare print a little notice that said “nothing newsworthy happened at Monday night’s council meeting so we gave our reporter the night off.” Even if something newsworthy happened at council the reporter could learn of it by reading the minutes of the meeting at his leisure at his desk in the newsroom and write it up for Wednesday’s paper. This story would be probably be more accurate than the version written by the reporter at the meeting and just as newsworthy. Since most people wouldn’t read it anyway it wouldn’t matter.
Or take the senseless protests that go on everyday in most of our cities. No reporter would write that twenty bored middle aged leftists walked around for twenty minutes waving signs and chanting slogans then listened to a speech by a long winded college professor or some local preacher. That would be an accurate description of the vast majority of peace protests, yet the media reports on them as if they were important events. Largely because publishers and editors are afraid of all the angry letters from peace protestors and their sympathizers if they reported the silly truth of a peace protest.
Or the countless stories about the death of some important personage some writer or actor or politician the majority of the population knows little or nothing about. The death of every 1940s MGM contract player, 1960s rocker and best selling novelist is now a major news event. Even though these people’s deaths make little difference to the average person. Why I wonder does Hunter S. Thompson deserve media coverage rivaling that of the death of the Pope. Old Hunter was obviously a talented writer but he wasn’t an important person, he didn’t deserve the front page obituaries he got. So journalists have to hype all sorts of people into major celebrities so everything they do is news.
The second required journalistic characteristic I lack is a hysterical nature. I don’t run off and do things at the drop of a hat. I feel no urge to run after a fire truck or police car when it goes by with a siren on or to look at every accident or crime scene. What is so exciting about people standing around watching smoke coming out of a building or people pulling a corpse out of a car?
I can’t see how every murder, an event that occurs three or four times a day in the average mid sized city must be reported as if it were the second coming. When I worked as a reporter I couldn’t rush over to the Wal-Mart Parking lot because unemployed bum A had shot unemployed bum B over a woman in a broken down trailer. Then stand around watching for thirty minutes as police stood around and a bunch of bored yokels stood around watching the police.
I’m not a herd creature I can’t see how following politicians and policemen around is important or exciting. Or that newsworthy, how does following politicians to every speech and rubber chicken dinner give you an accurate picture of the political process or events in the nation? I can’t see it, such frenzied running around is boring. Often times the reporters chasing after the politicos miss the stories and the real developments. Remember the last election? The press thought Kerry was doing far better than he actually was because they were too busy following him around to staged events on the campaign trail. If they had gone out and talked to the man on the street they would have realized that their golden boy was a turkey.
So since I’m not dishonest, not hysterical and like to do my only thing rather be part of the herd, I don’t have the mentality of a journalist. For that I thank God everyday.

Bush, etc.

Bush and Republican Victory Explained
By Daniel G. Jennings
The reason the Republicans triumphed in last year’s presidential and congressional explain is simple: the American people want a strong and effective government.
Americans believe that the turbulent times in which we live require a strong and effective government. The issues facing us terrorism, economic upheaval, the energy crisis etc. require strong and decisive leadership.
Under President Bush the Republicans have shown themselves capable of strong and decisive leadership. President Bush has made tough decisions and stuck to them and the Republican Congress has stood behind him.
At the same time the Democrats have shown themselves incapable of strong or decisive leadership. The last two Democratic presidents, Carter and Clinton, were paragons of weak, indecisive leadership. Clinton couldn’t even get a Congress controlled by a majority of his own party to pass a policy as popular as national health care. Clinton didn’t even have a foreign policy beyond reacting to the crisis of the week as shown on CNN.
Is it any wonder the American people voted Republican in 2004, even though they were uncomfortable with Bush and company. For all its’ faults the GOP has shown itself more than capable of strong and decisive leadership. George W. Bush has given us bold and visionary leadership and taken serious risks to make that vision a reality.
The Democratic Party meanwhile has become an organized exercise in risk avoidance. The Democrats refuse to talk about serious issues or take serious risks. Instead they complain that Bush has taken too many risks. The present Democratic platform, balanced budgets, avoidance of military adventures abroad and reliance on international law to solve disputes between nations, looks as if it were written by do nothing 1920s Republican President Calvin Coolidge.
Americans today are voting for Bush and the Republicans for the same reason their grandparents voted for Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Democrats in 1940 and 1944 and Harry Truman in 1948. Americans elected FDR in 1940 and 44, not because they liked or admired the man but because they knew he’d provide the strong leadership needed to win World War II. The same Americans voted for Truman in 1948 because they knew old Harry would provide the strong leadership needed to stop Soviet expansion in the Cold War.
Today Americans have the same opinion of the Democrats that their grandparents held of the Republicans. This opinion is that the Democrats are a weak wishy-washy party dedicated to not rocking the boat and preserving a comfortable status quo that keeps an arrogant and jaded elite in power.
The challenge for Democrats then is to convince the American people that they can provide strong and decisive leadership. Unfortunately for the Democrats, the only way to demonstrate strong and decisive leadership is to actually lead. To make tough decisions and stick by them. Clinton had his chance to do that back in the 1990s and he blew it.
Democrats will only start winning again if peace and prosperity returns and Americans decide that they don’t want strong leadership. Americans don’t want a strong government when times are good like they were in the 1990s or the 1920s. So unless the Democrats can locate another Harry Truman, the Republicans will be America’s party for the foreseeable future.

European Economic Power: A Hollow Joke

European Economic Power: A Hollow Joke
By Daniel G. Jennings
Lately there has been a torrent of silly hype about the potential economic, technological and industrial might of United Europe. This is hogwash, the European Union will not be an economic giant, it’ll be an economic basket case unable to compete with the US, India or China.
Europe worshippers point to the new A380 Air Bus super jumbo jet as a symbol of European economic, technological and industrial potential. This is new airliner is not progress, it is simply bigger than other airliners. The A380 isn’t faster, more efficient, more versatile or safer it’s simply bigger. European engineers unable to deliver a real technological advance did what bureaucrats always do when they can’t deliver real progress they build something bigger. Just like the Communist bureaucrats of the old Soviet Union, when they couldn’t build better jets, tanks, or submarines than the USA they built bigger ones.
Now Air Bus is building an airliner so big that it can’t land at most airports. The A380 is introduced at a time when rising fuel costs are forcing many airlines out of business. Air Bus is like the Imperial Japanese Navy in World War II which built the two biggest battleships ever built, Yamato and Masogi. Even though they were the largest and most powerful battleships on Earth by the time they were built both super ships were obsolete. The Yamato was simply a big target for US Navy aircraft which sank her before she could fire a single shell at American ships.
Like the Yamato, the A380 is a giant that will never fly. It looks impressive but it will ultimately be a waste of time and money. The A380 can’t is so big it can’t land at most airports including most top destinations. Naturally, the A380 was only built with support from European governments.
The Air Bus A380 is a typical example of what we can expect from the new Europe. Gigantic industrial projects built by government owned corporations that will be of dubious utility or value. Such projects appeal to bureaucrats and politicians but they will not create real economic growth.
There is nothing in Europe like the technological innovation and entrepreneurship that gave rise to Silicon Valley, the Internet, and the computer revolution in America. Nor is Europe capable of the kind of low cost mass industrial production that makes China such a power house. Just ask yourself how many European products do you have in your house? In my house all I have from Europe is a couple of bottles of Italian wine.
The European Union won’t be an economic powerhouse it will simply be Japan Inc. writ large. Remember Japan Inc? back in the 1980s Japan’s planned economy carefully managed by bureaucrats would soon overtake the United States and dominate the world. Then Japan’s economy crashed and has kept sliding since. Japan’s real estate prices fell by 40 or 50 percent and most of Japan’s banks nearly collapsed. Japan’s economy is only propped up by massive government spending on useless construction projects.*
United Europe will end up just like Japan Inc. It’s bureaucratic planners will produce a short lived economic miracle or rather an illusion of an economic miracle. The Euro will in the short run shoot up in value to an incredibly high price. Then collapse to a level at pennies on the dollar when the sham behind it is exposed. Then when it becomes apparent that there is little or no market for things like the Air Bus, the European planned economic experiment will collapse too.
When this happens the sorry fraud known as the European Union will be exposed as the sham it is. Maybe then the Europeans will be forced to create a modern economy designed for the realities of the 21st Century.

Entry

America and Iran
By Daniel G. Jennings
Liberals are so used to dreaming of American defeat that they have already declared America’s defeat in a war that hasn’t happened yet: the conflict with Iran.
If one listens to the leftist talking heads on the news shows one would believe that the US military is completely powerless and helpless to do anything to stop Iran’s scheme to build nuclear weapons. The liberal argument is that the US military is overstretched and tied down in Iraq and Afghanistan so it can’t do anything about Iran.
There is a little truth to this argument: US probably couldn’t mount a full scale invasion and occupation of Iran at this time. Fortunately, we don’t have to invade Iran to shut down the Iranian nuclear weapons program. All we have to do is destroy the nuclear facilities and wrecking the Ayatollahs’ nuclear play toys would still be an easy task for our forces, especially our Air Force.
The easiest way for Uncle Sam to shut down the Iranian nuclear weapons program would be through plain old fashioned bombing. The strategic bombers of our Air Force could carry out saturation bombing of areas where suspected reactors are located this would do some damage and certainly take out the support structures needed for nuclear weapons production, power plants, power lines, water supplies, roads, railroads, etc.
If the nuclear facilities are buried or fortified our Air Force can still destroy them without resorting to nuclear weapons. The most likely method would be to simply drop a giant conventional bomb that creates a shockwave similar to an Earth quake. The British Royal Air Force used one of these, “The Grand Slam” bomb, to destroy the Nazi V-3 super gun in France in 1944 and to destroy other underground facilities during World War II. Our Air Force recently developed and tested an updated version of “Grand Slam” called the Mother of All Bombs the purpose for this weapon is obvious: to destroy underground facilities.
Beyond bombs there are missiles, some of which can be fired right into the tunnels leading to underground facilities. Missiles can be fired by planes, submarines, ships or ground forces in Iraq.
After missiles there are drones and robots, a drone aircraft loaded with explosives or napalm could be programmed to fly right into the tunnels at the Iranians’ underground facility. I imagine that would put more than a few wrenches in the works. Robots could also attack, a plane could drop a robot ground vehicle say a tank that could drive right into the nuclear facility and blow up.
Iran’s Air Force might be able to intercept a few of these attacks but our planes could easily shoot it down. The Iranian Air Force’s planes are thirty years old, many of them lack spare parts and Iranian officers and pilots haven’t had advanced training since Jimmy Carter was in the White House. They’re thirty years beyond the times and would be target practice for our pilots. That is if Iranian pilots would actually die for the Ayatollahs like the Iraqi Air Force in the Second Gulf War they might refuse to take off and get killed.
After air attacks there is sabotage and commando raids. If US and British forces could locate the nuclear facilities teams of commandos could be inserted to blow up or sabotage nuclear facilities. Corrupt Iranians might be paid to plant bombs in nuclear facilities or guide our forces to them. Iranians who dislike the current regime might also sabotage the nuclear program to give the ayatollahs a black eye.
Obviously, I’m no military expert and I can see how our military can easily attack and destroy Iran’s nuclear program. If I can see it so can the Iranian government which knows there is little or nothing it can do to stop us from destroying its nuclear program. My guess is the Iranians will make a face saving deal through Europe to quietly dismantle the program, thus avoiding a confrontation that will bring them down.
The liberals in the newsroom can’t see how America will win its conflict with Iran because they hate the idea of America winning. Of course, we’ve heard this broken record from the armchair generals in the media elite before. Remember the Gulf War tens of thousands of American soldiers were supposed to fall before Saddam Hussein’s crack army of millions of men. Saddam’s poorly trained army of conscripts armed with thirty year old Russian weapons ran away or surrender. Yugoslavia, the mighty Serbs who had defeated the Nazis would never bow to American might they surrendered after a couple of weeks of American bombing. Or Afghanistan, the Afghans had defeated the Russians and British so America could never conquer them, our forces defeated the Taliban in a few weeks. The Iraq War thousands of Americans dead in the bloody battle for Baghdad, Baghdad fell without a shot as Saddam and the rest of his leadership ran away.
Given this track record is it any wonder that I doubt the hysterical warnings of the chicken littles in the news rooms. My guess is that the predictors of American defeat will be sadly disappointed when Iran quietly shuts down its nuclear program and makes peace with the United States. Unfortunately, instead of praising American military might for defusing a crisis and ending a potential threat the media elitists will then go out and seek a crisis involving another invincible enemy that America can’t defeat. Then be disappointed again when America easily defeats that enemy too.