CNN on latest pork-barrel budget

[Ted C]

OK, so why don't people get worked up about this? Why does gay marriage make it onto talk radio as a hot topic while people just shrug at this shit?

I believe the psychological term for our condition is "learned helplessness". Our complaints have never had any effect in the past, so it's hard for us to get motivated anymore.

Furthermore, the news about this sort of thing is usually buried several pages behind the "Top Stories", so only a small portion of the population notices. New sources simply refuse to spotlight this kind of crap; it doesn't do much to sell ad space.

A line-item veto is probably the only thing that would eliminate such pet-project spending, and who wants to give that kind of authority to someone like W?

Do you not see wasteful spending of this kind in Canada?

[Darth Wong]

Do you not see wasteful spending of this kind in Canada?

Of course there's wasteful spending, but not so much of these kind of almost pseudo-comical shenanigans of slipping in completely unrelated "riders" on bills and then trying to rush it through before anyone notices.

[HemlockGrey]

So...what are the problems with simply banning riders?

[Sea Skimmer]

So...what are the problems with simply banning riders?

Congress will never do it. That is the only problem and a somewhat insurmountable one unless we call a constitutional convention and completely redo the goverment.

[Sea Skimmer]

The railroads were also hobbled by much stricter labor rules (when the Southern Railroad dieselized in the 1950s, the union successfully fought to preserve the fireman's position on every locomotive, despite the fact that a fireman's job is to shovel coal into the boiler). These rules, too, were loosened, and railroads became more competitive because of them.

What made that all the worse is the fact that by the time diesels became widespread a very large number of coal burning locomotives already used automatic stokers since it simply wasn't physically possibul for even two firemen to keep the huge grates of modern steam engines fed with coal.

[Sea Skimmer]

What made that all the worse is the fact that by the time diesels became widespread a very large number of coal burning locomotives already used automatic stokers since it simply wasn't physically possibul for even two firemen to keep the huge grates of modern steam engines fed with coal.

I also meant to add, that when diesels did arrive the railway unions also tried to get an engineer and fireman on every single unit, despite the fact that diesel units where designed to be linked together (and they had to be since they lacked the indiviudal power of a single big steam engine) and controlled from only a single position. That bit of insanity though was largely defeated by the railroads.

[The Dark]

There was actually a study done that showed rail to be a more efficient means of transporting bulk, non-priority cargo than truck if the distance was greater than 100 miles. This means that trains operating with efficiences of scale would be less expensive on a per-unit-carried basis than trucks. However, ~97% of all truck cargo travels over 100 miles. Thus, if the train companies can recover and become efficient bulk haulers, you can expect trucking companies to have to cut costs somehow, or lose around 90% of their business to rail. Some will remain due to the fact that the rails can't run everywhere, and it may be less efficient to truck a short distance, rail a long distance, and truck another short distance rather than truck it the whole way.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

There was actually a study done that showed rail to be a more efficient means of transporting bulk, non-priority cargo than truck if the distance was greater than 100 miles. This means that trains operating with efficiences of scale would be less expensive on a per-unit-carried basis than trucks. However, ~97% of all truck cargo travels over 100 miles. Thus, if the train companies can recover and become efficient bulk haulers, you can expect trucking companies to have to cut costs somehow, or lose around 90% of their business to rail. Some will remain due to the fact that the rails can't run everywhere, and it may be less efficient to truck a short distance, rail a long distance, and truck another short distance rather than truck it the whole way.

I wonder how much our greenhouse gas emissions would be reduced and how much of the current road maintainence budgets could be eliminated if we banned all commercial truck operations that involve traveling a route of 100mi or more? Not only that, but we could do it and, from what it sounds like, actually make the economy more efficient, not less.