"the train that never stops"

I had thoughts of Thomas the train engine when I first read the link (h/t Tyler Cowen). Instead, it's a Chinese train system concept that seems pretty elegant.


This is how the video is described:

1. For those who are boarding the train : The passengers at a station embarks onto to a connector cabin way before the train even arrives at the station. When the train arrives, it will not stop at all. It just slows down to pick up the connector cabin which will move with the train on the roof of the train.

While the train is still moving away from the station, those passengers will board the train from the connector cabin mounted on the train's roof. After fully unloading all its passengers, the cabin connector cabin will be moved to the back of the train so that the next batch of outgoing passengers who want to alight at the next station will board the connector cabin at the rear of the train roof.

2. For those who are getting off: As stated after fully unloading all its passengers, the cabin connector cabin will be moved to the back of the train so that the next batch of outgoing passengers who want to alight at the next station will board the connector cabin at the rear of the train roof. When the train arrives at the next station, it will simply drop the whole connector cabin at the station itself and leave it behind at the station. The outgoing passengers can take their own time to disembark at the station while the train had already left. At the same time, the train will pick up the incoming embarking passengers on another connector cabin in the front part of the train's roof. So the train will always drop one connector cabin at the rear of its roof and pick up a new connector cabin in the front part of the train's roof at each station.

This will probably work better for long distance travel where the stations are further apart rather than densely populated areas with relatively shorter distances between stations like New York City.

I can also see some constraints based on the time it takes to reach the next station from the previous one. That is, to give people time to board and disembark the shuttles to prepare for the next station.

Otherwise, it's a pretty neat concept.

what he means by "tax cuts"

An interesting meme that I've been hearing about in the last few days is how Obama has actually "cut taxes" for "95% of working Americans," or variations thereof.

(I won't even comment at the arrogance that comes across when liberals say, "They should be thanking the president for cutting their taxes instead of protesting" — something that both Bob Beckel and Alan Colmes have both implied in recent appearances on Fox News.)

Then there's the confrontation between our local Tea Party participant and the "party crasher" who kept insisting that Obama had cut taxes but couldn't name a specific one.

I had not seen any cuts in tax rates in the last two years, and, if anything, the income tax rates are due to increase when the Bush tax cuts expire.

So what is this "Obama cuts taxes" meme all about?

Well, finally, Bob Owens on Pajamas Media provided elucidation by citing this excerpt from a Wall Street Journal article written in 2008, When Barack Obama was still a candidate:

For the Obama Democrats, a tax cut is no longer letting you keep more of what you earn. In their lexicon, a tax cut includes tens of billions of dollars in government handouts that are disguised by the phrase “tax credit.” Mr. Obama is proposing to create or expand no fewer than seven such credits for individuals. …

Here’s the political catch. All but the clean car credit would be “refundable,” which is Washington-speak for the fact that you can receive these checks even if you have no income-tax liability. In other words, they are an income transfer — a federal check — from taxpayers to nontaxpayers. Once upon a time we called this “welfare,” or in George McGovern’s 1972 campaign a “Demogrant.” Mr. Obama’s genius is to call it a tax cut.

The Tax Foundation estimates that under the Obama plan 63 million Americans, or 44% of all tax filers, would have no income tax liability and most of those would get a check from the IRS each year. The Heritage Foundation’s Center for Data Analysis estimates that by 2011, under the Obama plan, an additional 10 million filers would pay zero taxes while cashing checks from the IRS.

The total annual expenditures on refundable “tax credits” would rise over the next 10 years by $647 billion to $1.054 trillion, according to the Tax Policy Center. This means that the tax-credit welfare state would soon cost four times actual cash welfare.

It's never been about tax cuts: it's always been about redistribution of wealth.

And the march continues

I don't ever want to hear another liberal claim that the Democrats are not taking over the health care industry.

Fearing that health insurance premiums may shoot up in the next few years, Senate Democrats laid a foundation on Tuesday for federal regulation of rates, four weeks after President Obama signed a law intended to rein in soaring health costs.

After a hearing on the issue, the chairman of the Senate health committee, Tom Harkin, Democrat of Iowa, said he intended to move this year on legislation that would “provide an important check on unjustified premiums.”

Mr. Harkin praised a bill introduced by Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, that would give the secretary of health and human services the power to review premiums and block “any rate increase found to be unreasonable.” Under the bill, the federal government could regulate rates in states where state officials did not have “sufficient authority and capability” to do so.

For Earth Day: George Carlin on the idiocy of environmentalism

Meta parody

via Tim Blair:

MANY of the Hitler parody videos on YouTube that have besieged the site in recent years have been taken down after complaints by the German production company that owns the right to the 2004 film.

Of course, the next step is a Downfall parody of the removal of Downfall parodies. I don't know how long this will stay up, but it's still hilarious.

"Why California is a failed state"

California Senate debates bill allowing citizens to decline delivery of a telephone book

With minor issues like a $20 billion budget deficit still looming, a California legislative committee has taken a major progressive step forward on a far more important issue to protect the entire state's precious environment.

In a stunning 6-4 vote that drew remarkably little attention outside the committee room, the state Senate's Committee on Energy, Utilities and Communications has passed an almost pioneering measure that would allow California's many millions of telephone subscribers to opt out of receiving annual telephone books, a right that many citizens may have thought they already possessed without legislative authorization.

The bill was introduced by Sen. Leland Yee of the Bay area who is, of course, a Democrat.

(emphasis added)

(via The Feed)

We have to follow the Texas model and have the legislature meet for only 120 days every two years (or better yet, two days every 120 years). These people obviously have waaaay too much time on their hands.

Iceland

Here's a clip from Jimmy Kimmel's show that made me laugh out loud last night when I saw it on Greta.



And finally:

Britain: What the f**k Iceland, why did you send us volcanic ash? Our airspace has shut down.
Iceland: What? Isn't that what you asked for?
Britain: No! No! Cash! Cash you dyslexic prat. CASH!
Iceland: Woooooo sorry....

iPad update

Finally got shipping info from Apple.

Yep. It seems like it's coming straight from the factory in China.

Bummer. Would have been faster to just pick one up in Santa Rosa.

Krauthammer on the Dodd financial regulation bill

From NRO:

I think what is so interesting about the bill that’s now proposed is that it is Congress once again voluntarily emasculating itself.

The bailout as proposed in the bill would allow the executive branch on its own — without any appropriation from Congress, any approval from the Congress – to . . . essentially seize a firm that it designates (again: unilaterally) as systematically risky, take it over, have the Treasury back all of the bad loans, and then have the Fed print the money to pay them off.

Now, when we did the Chrysler bailout, or the bailout of the TARP, which we had in 2008, you had to get the Congress [to go] along. This is an interesting and, I think, a disturbing trend where so much arbitrary power is not only in Washington, but only in the executive. There is no check, no balance.

That means you get a few powerful people in Washington — [the] secretary of the treasury, head of the FDIC. You walk into a large institution and you say we might designate you systematically risky. We want you to do "x," "y" and "z." I can assure you they‘re going to do "x," "y" and "z."

And that's the way it happens in Putin's Russia . . . It's not the way it should happen here. I think Congress ought to stay engaged, and how it's willingly giving up its balancing prerogatives is remarkable. . . .

There is a huge irony in this, pointed out by Larry Lindsey . . . He also did this analysis of the Treasury and the Fed unilaterally acting —and that is that the big institutions and the banks like this, because if you know that if you lend money to these large institutions, in the end the Treasury and the Fed will come in and guarantee all the loans. That means you will preferentially lend to these institutions and it’ll end up exactly like Freddie and Fannie. They’re going to be able to then borrow at lower rates and have a competitive advantage.

So ironically, it strengthens the fed[eral government] and it also favors the big, big institutions and hurts the smaller ones. . . . [As with] Freddie and Fannie, they have an implicit guarantee. . . .

It passes. Everybody hates Wall Street. Anything that’s against Wall Street will pass.

"Brown calls market 'dangerous'"

In an interview with the SF Chronicle:

"I’m not a person that has been trained to think only in terms of markets and cost benefits, and input output, but rather in terms of a living family wage. Which is a moral idea not an economic idea. And the moral idea is — is that everyone who works is worthy to earn enough to support a family…

"And I think that’s very relevant to the debates in Sacramento and Washington where even now, attempts to regulate the dangerous marketplace, because when it fails, it causes so such suffering. Even these modest attempts are being resisted – ferociously – by the same individuals and the same spirit I think, that has caused such havoc.

“And, so, I’m not going to evoke religion on the side of one party and one candidacy, but I certainly draw on the wealth of experience and teaching and inspiration that I’ve received, not only in going to catholic schools, but also in spending time in the seminary and also later in life spending a great deal of time with various theologians and spiritual leaders.

Reactions:

1. In some circles, isn't the idea pushed in the first paragraph called communism?
2. Hiding behind his catholic school education to claim moral superiority in redistributing wealth is somehow undermined by his unwavering support for abortion, no?
3. Bringing up catholicism when convenient is just sleazy. 
4. The Golden State will be forever tarnished if this man wins the governorship. I mean seriously. We don't need the same reactionary forces in place. Jerry Brown, full-time perpetual bureaucrat, exemplifies those forces.

Unfortunately, I don't have much faith in the wisdom of Californians, and we might as well be looking at the next governor of California.