Quote of the Day 08-18-2010

Today’s edition comes from James Wigderson,

Of course, I’m just shocked, shocked, at the possibility that ridership numbers might be inflated.

Yeah, me, too.

Waukesha Carnival – No football Sunday edition

OK, this is late. Google Reader decided to quit working last night. But this is edition 50, IIRC. But let’s not rest on our laurels.

Beginning with posts on national topics. silent e has a question at silent e speaks now that administrations have changed. I can answer it. No. We’ve got at least one more year.

Dad29 opines that Obama calling out Rush Limbaugh a rookie mistake. He’s right. He only increased Rush’s audience. James Rowen has the tack Obama should take.

At Wigderson Library & Pub, James Wigderson has some points to make about living and blogging in the Obama era. That’s what I’ll try to follow. Will I criticize? Yes. But I’ll try not to nit pick. I hope my readers will never find Obama Derangement Syndrome here.

MommaBlogger at Homemaker’s Guide to the Galaxy has some info on CPSIA. I hear libraries will feel the effects also.

Dan Diebert shares at The D Spot a picture that belies the enviro-consciousness of the president’s followers.

Kyle Prast links to a thought-provoking pro-life ad at Practically Speaking.

A little bit closer to home Concernedcitizen lets us know he’s still at Skeptics Anonymous. The usual suspects are at fault for his lack of posting. It happens.

Huckleberry Dumbell crowns his Bonehead of the Day, the Oconomowoc Common Council. You can read why at The Spring City Chronicle.

Dave posts about a lunch at Sprizzo’s at Five Points Blog.

Alexander at A Little off Main has a name for Republicans who are fine with the stimulus increase government spending and want their share–RINO.

Linda Richter at Inside New Berlin notes the return of Jefferson Davis and Ted Wysocki.

The Asian Badger gives some perspective on Flight 1549 and links to FL390 where the Airbus 320 pilot who blogs there gives even more perspective.

Finally, a couple of miscellaneous posts. First, Byron Houlgrave has a nice sports shot.

At Fairly Conservative, Cindy Kilkenny links to a couple of piece’s that would be worth a read by all of us. Unfortunately, the title played havoc with my internet filter as did the title of one of the articles.

And Scott Feldstein brings us home with some nice thoughts on reading to kids.

That’s it for this edition. If you have posts from last week you think should be here, note the link in the comments. Also if you see something for next week’s carnival, place a link in the comments here.

Waukesha Carnival – Happy New Year

Welcome to the first edition of 2009.

Let’s see which posts made the cut for me.

New Year’s is the time of year when we review stories, check on last year’s predictions and predict for the coming year. James Wigderson does all three in three posts. You can find his prediction results, his look back, and his predictions for the coming year all at Wigderson Library & Pub.

On that theme, at Practically Speaking, Kyle Prast shares what she feels were her best posts of the past year.

Cindy Kilkenny is also reflective of the past accomplishments and future directions over at Fairly Conservative.

Huckleberry Dumbell, publisher, editor and writer at Spring City Chronicle, gives his opinion of what the Packers need.

Food is always popular this time of year and we have Scott Feldstein giving a thumbs-up to downtown Waukesha eating places.

We also have MommaBlogger over at Homemaker’s Guide to the Galaxy, talking about something called Iron Cupcake. No, you’ll have to click the link to find out.

As to that web site for the Wisconsin GAB that has the Minneapolis skyline on it, The Asian Badger says that’s not the real problem.

Tom Gehl at Brookfield Basics reviews the book Flowing Streams by Stuart Briscoe, minister at large, at Elmbrook Church.

Alexander at A little off Main gives us Reason # 247 to love mass transit…

Bryon Houlgrave got up early New Years morning (stayed up late?) to give us Good Morning, 2009.

Trisha (Mrs. silent E) over at DaBubbler reposts an old article entitled The Green Conservative which is still well worth reading. Her blog was formerly named “life artist,” so take note.

Speaking of silent E, he gave a report of the Bloggers Christmas Party at silent E speaks. You can see the predictions they made for the coming year and some pictures at Fred’s place.

Finally, Dad29 comments on one of those little-heard economics items, M1 the multiplier. He’s got a chart, too, and says,

The period from ‘the end of 3.2’ to 2008 was kinda ‘sticky-gooey’ economically, come to think of it…

In fact, it looks to me that “the end of 3.2” corresponds to Alan Greenspan becoming head of the Fed. Coincidence?

That’s it for this week. You can always add your choices in the comments. You can also submit a post for next week’s carnival in the comments also, or you can e-mail them to me at thoughtfulconservative [at] yahoo [dot] com.  Past editions can be found on our here.

Waukesha carnival 9/21/2008

Welcome to this week’s carnival where we look at what I think are the best posts by Waukesha bloggers or about Waukesha. Let’s get started.

In local news and events, Kyle Prast at Practically Speaking wrote about a meeting of MyCommunityNOW bloggers at the Journal Sentinel building. They got a tour of the newsroom. Cool. I didn’t get to do that when I was a Community Columnist.

James Rowen, posting at The Political Environment, wonders if Waukesha County and city governments are working at cross purposes regarding drunk driving.

Fox Head looks at rapid transit, especially RTA wanting Waukesha to get involved.

In his morning dispatch for Saturday, Spring City Chronicle editor-in-chief has a tidbit on Pete Kennedy’s piece in Saturday’s Freeman that worth reading.

Darryl Enriquez, posting at Waukesha FYI, notes the area’s first Sonic will be at Fox River Shoppes.

Dave at Yorick’s Persiflage shows the empty promise of academic freedom at many universities. I can’t resist quoting this part,

I know I should expect nothing other than liberalism from my professors but I do expect fair treatment of both sides of any debate. I expect them to be biased but I also expect them to play devils advocate with their own ideas. Examples from politics should come from all sides of the issue not just the one side the professor happens to agree with. This is true especially when the audience is a captive one and one that is easily swayed by the all knowing professors. College students are being taught to think for themselves, they don’t all know how to do it yet. Let them think for themselves and stop filling their heads with Liberal talking points.

Are there problems with the ball field at Frame Park? James at Wigderson’s Library & Pub hears something.

Cindy Kilkenny, blogging at Fairly Conservative, took part in a conference call with Wisconsin Representative Paul Ryan.

Writing at Conservatively Speaking, Sen. Mary Lazich thinks we should slow down on roundabout construction.

Bryon Houlgrave has pictures of the Marine Band at Cutler Park.

J. Gravelle at The Daily Scoff talks about campaign literature drops and the environment.

The Asian Badger takes Brookfield’s city clerk to task (following Mark Belling) for her policies which could lead to voter fraud.

Nationally. Dad29 takes a look at Fannie, Freddie, ACORN, NACA and Obama.

In more general news, Lisa at Sequentially Speaking informs on the naughty words in some comic books.

I get the impresion that Tom Gehl from Brookfield Basics likes Peggy Noonan.

Josh took a trip to Louisiana and has his thoughts with some pictures at Blog Waukesha.

That wraps up this week’s carnival. You can submit a post to the next edition by using this submission form or by e-mailing the link to thoughtfulconservative [at] yahoo [dot] com. Past posts can be found here.

Mass transit

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel thinks its time for another run at light rail. You can tell by looking at Sunday’s Crossroads section, where we see not one, not two, but three pieces and one blog post in favor of it, including the obligatory blame on Scott Walker.

OK, they had a piece against it, but that guy was the executive director of the Wisconsin Transportation Builders Association, so he doesn’t count.

The Public Policy Forum report linked to (PDF file) proclaims a crisis. It says we’re heading for disaster by 2010.

Ooooo, I love hyperbole.

We’ve heard the arguments before; it will add jobs, it will aid economic development, they tout the number of jobs within a radius of the proposed route, it’s a measurement of quality of life (funny how they don’t mention that in relationship to tax rates, crime, etc.), they point to “A subtantial number” of people in the region who are unemployed and don’t have access to an automobile, and, of course, we need to move into the 21st century.

Want reasons why people don’t want this? Try increasing crime on MCTS buses for one. Spring City Chronicle commented on the last light rail in Waukesha.

[It] went out of business because it lost huge sums of money and no one rode it. [emphasis his]

Surprisingly like the current system, save for prime routes.

Cudahy in his piece writes this gem,

In Milwaukee, our approach always seems to be a half-hearted patch-up of the same old, same old. Add more smelly buses under the guise of bus rapid transit.

And down the line will we be talking about smelly rail cars?

Cudahy, presumably, is a successful business man. He lets us know his keen business acumen early,

Common business sense would say that raising fares is like raising prices when business is bad. It is contrary to the very essence of business survival. Raising fares can be possible only with better service. And cutting routes is like discontinuing a product that’s needed but is not working right. The solution in business is to fix the product, not abandon it.

It sounds pretty sound. One wonders how many products Mr. Cudahy subsidized to get where he is today. Because as the Franzen piece points out (and readily verified for area transit companies by navigating their sites), the Minneapolis area system projects 30%-50% of operating costs will be covered by fares. Milwaukee’s is 32%.

How to pay for it? The consensus is a sales tax. Why? All the big kids are doing it.

The real hurdle for transit is convenience. As another recent report notes,

National public opinion polls indicate that 53 percent of commuters would prefer to use more public transportation if it were available near their home and workplace.

I doubt that transit will ever fully do that.

Mass transit ridership

From the Regional news in Saturday’s Milwaukee Journal Sentinel,

Although Milwaukee County Transit System ridership fell 9% last year, three suburban transit systems posted gains, as did Amtrak’s Milwaukee-to-Chicago Hiawatha line, transportation officials reported.

Among area bus systems, Waukesha Metro Transit recorded the biggest rise – 9%, to 778,845 – followed by Kenosha Transit buses, up 3%, to 1.66 million, and Racine’s Belle Urban System, up 1%, to 1.16 million. Hiawatha ridership rose 5%, to a record 617,799, while Kenosha Transit streetcar ridership jumped 18%, to 62,643.

Ridership fell on the region’s four long-range commuter bus services, although not as sharply as in Milwaukee County. Transit officials reported declines of 3%, to 91,691, for the Washington County Commuter Express; 2%, to 83,171, for commuter buses connecting Racine with Milwaukee and Kenosha; 1%, to 599,932, for Waukesha County buses; and less than 1%, to 94,702, for the Ozaukee County Express.

Authorities cited rising gas prices as the most likely reason for the gains, but could not explain the decreases. [Emphases all mine]

Obviously, the transportation officials have not been reading the left-leaning blogs. They can already explain the decreases.

Clint explains why he stopped riding the bus. If transit is not convenient for people, they aren’t going to ride it, no matter how much money you throw at it. This includes the Milwaukee (“We’ve never seen a reason for a sales tax hike we didn’t like.”) Journal Sentinel’s suggestion.

This doesn’t mean that public transit can’t work. I believe it can. I think Madison-Milwaukee is ripe for a link. With the right schedule, say, for example, rush hour times, it might work. But buses have to run when and where people need them, not where politicians think they should run.

A Milwaukee-Chicago line could be useful also, but I doubt we need both Amtrak and a separate KRM line, especially one that bypasses Mitchell Airport. It’s got to make sense, or it won’t get used to its best productivity. And the Milwaukee county executive and mayors need to agree for some use of that $91.5 million. If Milwaukee county can’t agree, how are they going to convince the suburbs?

But, hey, if Milwaukee citizens want a sales tax, it’s their money.

Milwaukee county supervisor Joseph Rice suggests there may be other ways than increasing an already regressive tax.