Links and Minifeatures 03 06 Monday

Carnivals:



Carnival of Debt Reduction



RINO Sightings Recommended: Ex Donkey, Techography



Carnival of Capitalists



Carnival of Personal Finance Recommended: Million Dollar Goal



Carnival of Investing

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Looks like my local rag has decided to sponsor a blog. Here's the link. First glance, it's nothing I'd visit again, but I'm sure that it'll be successful with Legacy Media driving traffic that way.



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Another thing the local rag is trying to do is sell us on an airport in Imperial County, 100 miles east, served by a maglev train from downtown. Okay, I think maglevs are cool, but this is a boondoggle on at least two levels.



The train: There are requirements for railways - maximum grade, maximum curvature, etcetera, that roads do not have. Last I was aware, the one railroad path through those mountains is famous worldwide - the Carrizo Gorge segment of railroad is am impressive if expensive solution to a railroad's needs (by the way, it goes back and forth between the US and Mexico fourteen times). For this, those mountains are famous among railroaders worldwide. Maglevs would need to be very high speed to be popular, and I'm not certain Carrizo Gorge can be engineered thus. Therefore, much blasting, resurveying, environmental reports, border concerns. Cost: unknown but very high. Here's one estimate. I think they may be low.



The location: a long train ride for folks after they get to downtown. For people in Oceanside, John Wayne Airport is closer (33 miles) than Lindbergh (56 miles), and a large portion of the former is through the fast, free flowing freeway segment through Pendleton, as opposed to trying to inch south on I-5 (and back through the merge!). For folks in Fallbrook, Ontario is 68 miles, as opposed to Lindbergh's 59 and even going around Pendleton to John Wayne is 69 miles. Downtown is further than Lindbergh to both, by the way, and the parking situation is not so friendly. Then after they get downtown, potential passengers have an hour long maglev ride that's not going to be free. At a guess, nobody south of Miramar (where the new airport should be if they've got half a brain) would even use the Imperial County site. Folks in South County would save time (and probably money) by flying out of Tijuana. People like me make out okay if there's an east county station somewhere, but the only real winners to an Imperial Valley site are the contractors, and the unemployed in Imperial County.



What's going on? The double headed snake of political cowardice and the opportunity for graft. Nobody wants to tell the NIMBYs the truth that that's the only place to put the airport (Actually, joint use of the runways at Miramar makes even more sense, but that would irritate even more people in the high rent districts west of there.) Logistics. The Miramar location is where the space and the freeways for access are. Lindbergh is an accident waiting to happen, and has no room to add runways. We've been beating around this bush for thirty years now. It's time to stop playing games and get real.



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Justice prevails! Supreme Court Unanimously upholds Solomon Amendment. This basically says that if you want federal money, you have to allow the federal government - specifically, military recruiters - the same access to campus that you give every other employer. Harvard Law had sued because they "couldn't afford to give up federal money." Guess what? This takes it out of the realm of freedom of speech. You'd think the most prestigious law school in the country could figure that out without appealing it all the way to the Supreme Court. Want to bar military recruiters? Give up your federal money. That would be a protest that might mean something, not the mealy-mouthed "We want our cake and eat it, too!" approach. A refusal to subsidize is not the same as censorship.



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U.S. Dismisses Talk of Compromise on Iran Compromise? Iran already has everything it wants except more nukes than any other country. Not to mention they admitted they were bargaining in bad faith. Anything less than a hard line response to this situation is technically known by a common technical military term: "Surrender"



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Riehl World View deconstructs an argument between a couple of other members of the 'sphere.



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Via Argghhh!, AWST notes that the highly classified Blackstar program (two stage to orbit) may have been decommissioned, assuming it existed, on which AWST is uncertain. Nonetheless, certain peripheral facts support the suppositions, like the retirement of the SR71.



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If you're not tired of this story yet, Michael Barone (with help from Wizbang) demolishes the "Bush was warned about the levees" contention of the left wingers in Ancient Media.



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Via Instapundit, ChicagoBoyz has a good post on the childless free riders. I'm not certain I agree, but it's certainly worth reading. The childless do subsidize my daughters' education, among other things. On the other hand, my wife and I are spending a very large amount of money raising them, not just in explicit dollars out the door but also in opportunity costs and lifespan spent. Nonetheless, I'm certain we could cut their schooling costs by at least fifty percent with more competition between schools (which puts childless liberals on the horns of a dilemma!). It's hardly selfless devotion on my part, and yet we are investing in tomorrow's economy by raising children, where childless folks are not. I'm not certain how much of a "free ride" this is, however.