High-Speed Rail. What Do You Think?

I don't know about you but in concept, I like it. Traffic between DFW and the "lower 48" is becoming more than just annoying. It's getting dangerous, and if the danger materializes in front of you, forget it.
Austin, San Antonio and Houston would all benefit from a closer commute to us and we from being "closer" to them. DFW Airport would benefit. Southwest Airlines must be lobbying hard against it. One suggestion: have at least one car dedicated to forklift loadable cargo. I have driven from DFW to Houston and San Antonio in the evening and it is 75% FedEx, UPS and other freight company trucks.

I also like the private company investment side of it. If a financier is willing to speculate about the future as far ahead as 2020, have at it. If it pays off big for him, he deserves it.

Downsides:

• It is speculative, so if Texas stops growing at the current rates we could have a lot of hat and no cattle. But the chances of that are small, there seems to be no stopping the movement to the southern states (or northern if below the border).
• Security concerns me with high speed rail, but the French, Germans and Japanese are dealing with it.
• I'd hate to see them go hog-wild enforcing eminent domain laws.
  

Purely personal interest: I would love to take a 1.5 hour train to San Antonio. Leave Saturday morning, come back Saturday night.

I'm just starting to hear and read about this, if you know of any definite dates and plans please let me know.

Some Things are Just Cool #2: Walking Power.

Another fly-by Yahoo news item: the knee-attached battery charger.

According to an article in this month's Science Journal, researchers at Simon Frasier University in British Columbia have developed a new technology to generate electricity from the natural motion of walking. Assistant professor of kinesiology Max Donelan and other team members say their biomechanical energy harvester promises to revolutionize the way people charge the batteries that power all sorts of mobile devices, like laptops, cell phones, and emergency rescue gear.

A like product by a Japanese company (WSJournal/March 2007) connects chargers to StairMasters, etal., so that when runners use them power is generated and not consumed.

The self generated power supply is a growing segment. My sister gave me a hand cranked flashlight. No batteries needed, of course. Crank it 5 seconds and get 20 seconds of surprisingly bright light. I know another company makes hand crank radios, a good idea for survival equipment, overseas volunteers in remote lands, etc. This is possible because power storage capacity is a increasing while decreasing in size and weight. See: the SUV hybrid. Maybe the old starter crank will come back for cars. Crank for 5 minutes and drive for 5 minutes.

Unrelated philosophizing:
Power is a commodity. The means by which it is generated is unrelated to its value, except in the sense that the environmentally minded folks place a higher value on "green" energy as an ethical value added to its value as a labor/time saver. Like other commodities, the more of it in relation to the demand for it determines power's exchange value. Why is that important? Find a safe, inexpensive way to power things and we will be less dependent on foreign-oil power and consequently safer and wealthier.

I like the hand crank idea and wind power idea, it's fun to watch.

Well . . I See We're Getting Acquainted . . .

For those of us who consider these political debates sport, it's been a fun few weeks. I and a lot of other amateur pundits considered Hillary a coast-in certainty and it appears that I was wrong. The ripple that was Mr. Obama has become one of those very big Hawaiian surfing waves.

Last week, Senator Obama had 17,000 people show for one of his rallys. 17,000. And he gets those kind of big crowds everywhere he goes. Mrs. Clinton is obviously shaken. She can't gen-up that kind of enthusiasm, and presidential politics is not about rational, calm, reflection, it's about what Senator Obama has. As Chris Matthews (MSNBC) said in response to Obama's audience and his speech, "that's show-biz."

Now, it's still a long way to November. In the next 3 weeks if Hillary doesn't go negative she will have resigned herself to a VP position which will have been agreed upon behind closed doors with the Obama campaign. If she goes scorched earth, the VP is out. I say she'll go on the offensive. This woman wants to be President.

Republicans don't have as much excitement right now. McCain was dead in the water. Almost overnight, he wins or is winning handily. That's presidential politics, it changes very quickly.

Final comment. I was ready to give the Dems this election, but I keep hearing Independents and some Democrats talking about supporting McCain. Interesting. On the other hand, I hear some Republicans talking about Obama. But I think McCain can win this.

(The headline is from the movie, The Producers, spoken by Carmen Ghia to his flirting boyfriend)