Nothing starts the day by being rudely awoken by an aerial assault on Milwaukee’s gypsy moth population! Hopefully we don’t need to call in the artillery.
- $2.3 Billion for a new zoo interchange on Milwaukee’s west side? Another great example of how building roads is expensive. As a region it’s time that we realize a good mass transit infrastructure is just as important as a good highway infrastructure. It’s often less expensive too. Why is spending over three billion dollars on two interchanges no big deal while a hundred million to link us to the nations third largest city evokes outrage from the right?
- This new Republican strategy of having a bunch of older white men calling a latina “racist” is totally what’s going to put the GOP back in power. It may not do much to help them with the general voting population, but it’s sure to lock up any white power voters out there who were still on the fence.
- There’s going to be a rematch of last year’s Stanley Cup Finals between the Pittsburgh Penguins and Detroit Red Wins, which the Red Wings won 4 games to 2. I’m sure I’ll be able to come up with some kind of mocking name for the Penguins before the finals start in Detroit on Saturday!
I live in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Milwaukee, WI with my wife Jen, our daughter Emerson, and sons Carter and Colton.
Dan Cody as usual you mislead people. “$3 Billion For Zoo Interchange While Mass Transit Shortchanged” even your own link doesn’t say 3 billion, it says could clime to 2.3 billion.
JeffN,
The $3 billion figure cited by Dan includes the cost of the Marquette and the Zoo Interchanges. Still, $2.3 billion is a lot of money, even in this age of trillion dollar deficits. But the Zoo Interchange handles 350,000 cars, trucks and buses daily, that’s a lot more people tranported than supporters of a rail link to Chicago could even dream of. I think mass rail transport in metro Milwaukee is a waste of time (and money). Buses make far more sense.
Thanks for pointing out my “over-dramatic!” mistake, and yes, I was talking about both the interchanges.
I’m not arguing that the Zoo interchange isn’t busy or doesn’t have a lot of traffic. But you’re comparing the largest interchange in the State that connects and directs the dominant mode of transportation in four different directions to a system that would transport people from A to F with stops along the way in B, C, D, and E.
750,000 people rode the Amtrak between Milwaukee and Chicago last year. That’s a significant number.
Hmmm. 750,000 a year as compared to 350,000 a day. So as many people use the Zoo interchange in 2 days (counting drivers and passengers) as use Amtrak in a year.
Yeah I’m not disputing that at all Smitty.
But again, I’ll point out you’re comparing the usage of an interchange to that of a line which goes between two destinations with stops along the way.
The Zoo interchange handles people going from Beloit to Sheboygan, Racine to La Crosse, St. Louis to Superior, Brookfield to Milwaukee, Appleton to Chicago, etc.. and vice versa. The Amtrak line, again, is between two cities.
That’d be like saying 10 million people travel through Chicago’s O’Hare airport every day, while 50,000 travel from Chicago to Atlanta. An interchange is like a hub. Amtrak, in this particular example, is a direct flight.(Unless you’re on Midwest Airlines of course, but I’ll get over that one of these days)
Also, Amtrak would be slower, more expensive and have fewer trains going than a KRM would. So while I’m using it as an example, the numbers aren’t 100% interchangeable.
Still, $2.3 billion is an awful lot to reconstruct a interchange. Someone in the Doyle admininistration or his cronies is going to make out pretty good.
Smitty, thanks for clearing up Dan Cody’s misleading post title. A little over drama on Dan’s part!
You make an excellent point on the amount of cars traveling that point. Far more than the rail and let us not forget that Doyle raided the transportation fund!
Dan H.
As Everett Dirkson once said: “A billion here, a billion there and the next thing you know you’re talking about real money.”
$2.3 billion opens a enormous window of opportunity for graft, waste and cronyism that our politicians, contractors and unions won’t pass up.
Whether Sonia Sotomayor is or is not a ‘racist’ is an argument that both sides of the political spectrum could debate for years without ever coming to a consensus.
However, I have no doubt in my mind that if Antonin Scalia had said “I would hope that a wise white man with the richness of his experience would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a (you fill in the ethnic blank) woman who hasn’t lived that life”, the left would have immediately brandished him as an ‘anti-female racist’. The search and destroy mission of the Moveon.orgs’ and the Keith Olbermanns’ of the left against Justice Scalia.would have far exceeded what they did to Carrie Prejean when she expressed her opinion.
Ummm, there’s no “debate” about if she’s a “racist”. There are a bunch of old white Republicans saying she is.
So what?
Who are these old white Republicans? I don’t know any GOP senators with the spine to say such a thing.
I am a young white Libertarian and from what I can see, Sotomayor favors people based on race, thinks the race of litigants has bearing on their case, and thinks she has a better view of the law based on her own race. Sounds like racism to me.
There are lots of well-qualified liberal jurists out there. I have no idea why Obama picked Sotomayor other than her race.
Obama clearly only considered minorities. All the news stations were aware of this, even though none of them said it. If you look at the “possible appointees” they listed, it was all minorities first. Then they threw in a few white females (and CNN even threw in a white male) just in case Obama threw a curveball.
Regardless of whether you think he “should” be doing this, I think no matter what your party affiliation, it’s hard to argue that he didn’t intentionally fill the spot with a minority.
When the case is about racial discrimination, the race of the litigants has bearing on the case!
In cases involving tug boats, tug boats have a bearing on the case!
Dan, I will have to disagree with you on this one. Law departs from good logic when it gets to discrimination. The good logic method of handling discrimination disputes would be to use a null hypothesis approach, where the assumption is that there is not discrimination unless there is evidence otherwise. Discrimination precedent is the opposite, where all things being equal (except race), discrimination is assumed except proven otherwise. If two people are qualified for the same job and the white person gets it, that is not discrimination from a good-logic point of view, but it is discrimination from a legal point of view, if the other person is a minority.
For legal precedent, you are right.
For sound logic, you (and discrimination law) are wrong.
But, as I said before, that isn’t for the courts to decide. Congress has to fix this legislative error.
The race of the litigants may have a bearing, but the race of those ruling on the case do not!
Dan, so you’re saying that she IS a racist. Hmmmm, nice choice for the Supreme Court!
Since I agree with Smitty and Jeff regarding additional mass transit compared to fixing freeways, I will not go into anymore detail, but I will comment on the second point of the post. It doesn’t make a difference whether an old white guy or a young black guy calls a latina or chinese person a ‘racist’; the conversation should be focused on whether or not the accusation is correct. She either is, or is not a racist. To comment/care what party affilitation or race the people making these statements are, is inconsequential.
Sean, what you’re saying is ridiculous. Of course the party affiliation matters in determining the accuracy of the racist label. Also applicable is the race of the person making the potentially racist comments. If the person is a minority, it is not racist. Also, if the comments about the minority are positive, those are race-specific comments, not racist comments. More important than that, though, is the overwhelming… hey look over there, shiny!!!!
What you’re saying is even more ridiculous, unless you are being sarcastic…you are being sarcastic?
…hey look at the Old. White. Republican. I thought they were extinct.