HoustonWade.com

Look, the security apparatus that we have in place did not fail us on Christmas day when a Nigerian dude with a bomb strapped to his junk tried to blow up a plane. The Intelligence was there, he was on a watch list. The problem was that he was let through. That he had the exact same plan and M.O. as Richard Reid, the “shoe bomber”, had–and no one was the wiser.

Not having beefy-enough security is not what failed us on 9/11 either. What failed us was the fact the FBI and CIA didn’t share information and the President never read the August 6th, 2001 memo entitled, “Bin Laden Determined to Strike within US.”

If people would just do their jobs we wouldn’t have these problems. Plus, al Qaida keeps using retards and their poorly constructed explosive devices to blow up airliners. It is hard to make a binary explosive work in a controlled lab environment, let alone an 18″ wide, cramped airliner seat at 30,000ft.

I remember being in line at the airport after the liquid bomb suspects got busted in London and watching bottle, after bottle of liquid get poured out into a trash can by TSA employees. If you are so concerned about inert chemicals that when combined make and explosive then why are you pouring them out, thus combining them in a trash can?!?!

How much physical and human damage did the 9/11 hijackers cause us? The World Trade Center destroyed; a side of the Pentagon destroyed; four airliners destroyed; and 3,000 lives lost. Somewhere in the neighborhood of $19-25 billion in damages total. We have since spent several T-R-I-L-L-I-O-N dollars and an addition 5,000 or so lives on the wars and defense and security contracts to ensure that we don’t lose $20 billion again.

We could have focused on nothing but commando raids in Afghanistan to get Bin Laden and the Taliban would still control the 80% of the nation they control today.

Think of the “War on Terror” like mortgage securities derivatives. We spend trillions and end up a headache and less than we started with.

Here in Seattle we have Coastguard boats with 50cal machine guns chase the ferries to save us from bombers. We also have security sweeps and state troopers on the boats looking for suspicious materials left behind by disembarking passengers. In the automobile waiting line, bomb dogs sniff all the cars waiting to load onto the boat. This is nothing but a gigantic waste of time, money and resources. First, no one is going to bomb a ferry. Why? Because there are no passenger ferries in Middle America that everyone can be afraid of riding. Second, the Coastguard boats are useless because if anyone is going to blow up a ferry, they are going to do it from the inside. Third, security sweeps are pointless because we are dealing with SUICIDE bombers. They aren’t leaving any packages behind, they are going to be sitting with it hoping to blow up with everyone else and get their 72 virgins.

We are spending millions of dollars and wasting everyone’s time by putting all of our efforts into “feel good” security rather than actually doing what works. Things like detective work, intelligence gathering, sharing information, nation building…

Let’s make 2010 a lot less like the last decade, and start by just doing our jobs and being efficient about it.

General Motors savior may be in it’s illegal aquisitions from 70 years ago. From the 1920s through the 1950s GM and Firestone bought up all the private commuter rail they could, including subways, cable cars, electric trollies, etc… So that they could crush it forcing people to buy cars to get around. The Supreme Court fined them botha whopping $5000 for violating antitrust laws and single handidly destroying the American metropolitan area. Today, much of that old infrastructure still exists, albeit in a dilapidated state, and GM still owns thousands of miles of rail easments in dozens of cities across America.

Obama put over $8 billion in the stimulus bill for commuter rail, why not give GM a few billion bucks to renovate and reopen the old subways and trollies? Los Angeles used to have one of the largest networks of subways and cummuter rail in the world before GM destroyed it, and most of the old tunnels still exist and only need some renovation to be functional again.

By doing this we can save GM and it’s vast capital infrastructure, help the environment by removing cars from the road and force one of the slowest-to-adapt manufacturing giants to finally diversify.

We need infrastructure improvements more than we need tax cuts. There are ten thousand bridges and overpasses in America that need replacing and refitting. Think about that. What if in the next twenty years even one percent of those bridges fail like the I-35 bridge in Minnesota? That would mean hundreds, if not thousands dead, billions of dollars in goods and services lost. how about, instead, we put millions back to work replacing and refitting these aging structures and reap the benefits of a more efficient transportation infrastructure?

We need to open domestic air service to foreign-owned carriers. Force them to meet FAA standards and not allow them to use subsidies to operate here. Along with that we need to open up small airports to national carriers. Here, in the Seattle area, Bremerton National and Payne Field in Everett should be picking up some of the slack and offer a cheaper alternative for discount carriers.

We need more colleges and universities that are not in the South and not in the middle. Students want to go to school where there are jobs and people. Washington State alone needs several more universities that offer Masters and PhD programs that aren’t located in the desert where no one wants to live. The University of Washington is bursting at the seams and yet is squashing any attempt to ease their burden by enlarging current satellite campuses and opening new institutions. When the economy is down and people are out of work they return to school to update their training. Let’s put some stimulus money into a new round of landgrant institutions.

Stimulate me

Chrysler and Gm want us to give them more money to straighten out thier finances. OK, it’s theirs, under one condition: They give us all the rail and trolly lines they bought up in the 40s and 50s. in return we give them tons of cash to renovate and reopen these integral rail systems.

Los Angeles had a huge subway system that rivaled New York in the first half of the 20th century, then GM and Firestone bought it up and tore it up. Let’s give them billions to put it back to work. Much of the concrete infratstructure is there and the easements are all owned by these few companies, we need rail desperately, and they need cash desperately. Let’s do this.

While we are at it: We need to create at least seven high-speed rail/maglev train lines in this country. Four North/South and at least two that are East/West.

The first North/South Line from Vancouver, BC to Cabo San Lucas, Baja that connects Seattle, Portland, Sacramento, San Francisco, LA and San Diego together.

The Second that starts in Winnepeg, Manitoba that goes to St. Louis through Minneapolis/St. Paul, and Des Moines. There should be a fork on this line that starts in Milwaukee and travels through Chicago on its way to St. Louis. From there it is on to Memphis and then it skirts Southwest and travels through Dallas, Austin, San Antonio, on its way to Mexico where it connects with Jaurez and terminates in Mexico City.

The third North/South Line Begins in Timmins, Ontario and terminates in Mobile, AL connecting Toronto, Detroit, Toledo, Columbus, Cincinatti/Louisville, Nashville and Birmingham.

The forth, largest, most important, and final North/South line would begin in Montreal, Quebec and terminate in Miami, FL while connecting Boston, New York, Philedelphia, Baltimore, DC, Raliegh, Charlotte, Columbia, and Jacksonville.

The first East/West line would begin San Francisco and terminate in DC Connecting Reno/Tahoe, Salt Lake City, Denver, Witchita, Kansas City, St. Louis, Cincinatti/Louisville, and Lexington along the way.

The second of the East/West lines would begin in LA and terminate in Jacsonville, FL connecting Pheonix, Albuquerque, Dallas, New Orleans and Mobile on its way.

The argument can be made for a third line starting in Vancouver, Seattle or Portland and terminating in either Boston or NY as well.

The construction of these high speed rail lines would put millions to work and imporve the economy in ways never imagined in this nationa and North America as a whole.