Trains. Railroads. Streetcars. Sailboats. Hopefully that will help sassify the moderators. Surprisingly they haven't seemed to be too worried after 5 pages of very few comments that are railroad related.
Patrick Boylan
Free yacht rides, 27' sailboat, zip code 19114 Delaware River, get great Delair bridge photos from the river. Send me a private message
Schlimm, we don't disagree here. My first sentence was my own opinion, and I should have put it in a separate paragraph. I was not attributing it to Robert Mann. I read columns from the left and right, and both sides come up with comments that I agree with.
_____________
"A stranger's just a friend you ain't met yet." --- Dave Gardner
The message, not the messenger.
Professor Mann is and has been a strong Democrat for years, working with the campaigns of a number of Democratic pols in Louisiana in the past.
C&NW, CA&E, MILW, CGW and IC fan
schlimm Paul of Covington Please, let's not talk about Republicans vs Democrats as if there was any difference. I like Robert Mann's description of Washington politics as "World Wrestling Federation in business suits." http://www.nola.com/opinions/index.ssf/2013/10/congress_and_its_dysfunction.html We need to change back to a democracy instead of the current corporacracy. While I agree we need to get corporations out of the governing process (part of the deep state), I'm not sure Robert Mann would see the Democratic Party and GOP as equally bad, at least not the LSU journalism professor Mann.
Paul of Covington Please, let's not talk about Republicans vs Democrats as if there was any difference. I like Robert Mann's description of Washington politics as "World Wrestling Federation in business suits." http://www.nola.com/opinions/index.ssf/2013/10/congress_and_its_dysfunction.html We need to change back to a democracy instead of the current corporacracy.
Please, let's not talk about Republicans vs Democrats as if there was any difference. I like Robert Mann's description of Washington politics as "World Wrestling Federation in business suits."
http://www.nola.com/opinions/index.ssf/2013/10/congress_and_its_dysfunction.html
We need to change back to a democracy instead of the current corporacracy.
While I agree we need to get corporations out of the governing process (part of the deep state), I'm not sure Robert Mann would see the Democratic Party and GOP as equally bad, at least not the LSU journalism professor Mann.
True, but I like to read many columns from both ends of the spectrum, and there are valid points from both ends. It's the message that I wanted to bring up, not the messenger.
schlimmGeneral Butler also gained fame for whistle-blowing on the alleged "Business Plot" of 1933. He claimed he was approached by Gerald P. MacGuire, who told him that a group of businessmen (many in J.P. Morgan, others possibly including Prescott Bush), supposedly backed by a private army of 500,000 ex-soldiers and others, intended to have a coup to overthrow FDR and establish a fascist dictatorship.
Fully Detailed in this fine book:
Although this really wouldn't apply much to rail travel, except in the cases of going in to Canada...there is a Federal regulation on traveling with an excess of $10,000 cash internationally. There's procedures for reporting and such that need to be followed...and talking about people carrying large amounts of cash on them. I see many people daily in my line of work with substantial amounts of cash on them when travelling, and I'm talking anywhere from $1000 - $5000(a few have had more). There's no way in the world I would go on vacation and take that kind of cash with me, you're just inviting a criminal to mug you and potentially kill you. You can contact your credit card company and instruct them you're leaving the country and want to charge in the local currency, they will then do the conversion for you...normally at a lower rate than the cash exchange rate...but that's going outside the scope of this conversation.
Schlimm,
You've likely heard it before.
Politicians (of all stripes) are like a bunch of bananas. They hang together, they're all yellow, and there's not a straight one among 'em.
Norm
schlimm NKP guy First, how great to see Gen. Smedley Butler ("the fighting Quaker") mentioned on this website. This exemplary Marine Corps officer and patriot was adored by all Marines, including my grandfather (served 1907-1913), who was wounded at the Battle of Leon (Nicaragua) with the Expeditionary Force in which Gen. Butler played a part. Gen. Butler later played a key role in keeping the 1932 Bonus Marchers peaceable and in good temper. General Butler also gained fame for whistle-blowing on the alleged "Business Plot" of 1933. He claimed he was approached by Gerald P. MacGuire, who told him that a group of businessmen (many in J.P. Morgan, others possibly including Prescott Bush), supposedly backed by a private army of 500,000 ex-soldiers and others, intended to have a coup to overthrow FDR and establish a fascist dictatorship. A House committee confirmed parts of his story, other parts not.
NKP guy First, how great to see Gen. Smedley Butler ("the fighting Quaker") mentioned on this website. This exemplary Marine Corps officer and patriot was adored by all Marines, including my grandfather (served 1907-1913), who was wounded at the Battle of Leon (Nicaragua) with the Expeditionary Force in which Gen. Butler played a part. Gen. Butler later played a key role in keeping the 1932 Bonus Marchers peaceable and in good temper.
General Butler also gained fame for whistle-blowing on the alleged "Business Plot" of 1933. He claimed he was approached by Gerald P. MacGuire, who told him that a group of businessmen (many in J.P. Morgan, others possibly including Prescott Bush), supposedly backed by a private army of 500,000 ex-soldiers and others, intended to have a coup to overthrow FDR and establish a fascist dictatorship. A House committee confirmed parts of his story, other parts not.
So this is where the line in the Jerry McGuire film 'Show me the money!' came from?
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
NKP guyFirst, how great to see Gen. Smedley Butler ("the fighting Quaker") mentioned on this website. This exemplary Marine Corps officer and patriot was adored by all Marines, including my grandfather (served 1907-1913), who was wounded at the Battle of Leon (Nicaragua) with the Expeditionary Force in which Gen. Butler played a part. Gen. Butler later played a key role in keeping the 1932 Bonus Marchers peaceable and in good temper.
Going back more or less to the original subject, I just want to say that I find it amusing that when something terrible happens, you hear criticism of security, "Why didn't you find out about them and stop them?" Then, when it's revealed that they are collecting data, it's "That's an invasion privacy!"
Semper Vaporo You left out the "Non-attorney spokesperson" advertising goading people into "entitlements" for badgering their dorktors into prescribing the previously advertised snake-oils. I wonder if we could get some 'non-attorney spokespersons" to follow the political adverts? "Did you or a loved one lose a freedom , suffer a debilitating tax or even DIE! because they voted for Senator Porkbarrel B. Grafty? Call the law offices of Dewey, Cheatham and Howe to see if you are entited to a mere pittance of what we will get sueing in your name."
You left out the "Non-attorney spokesperson" advertising goading people into "entitlements" for badgering their dorktors into prescribing the previously advertised snake-oils.
I wonder if we could get some 'non-attorney spokespersons" to follow the political adverts? "Did you or a loved one lose a freedom , suffer a debilitating tax or even DIE! because they voted for Senator Porkbarrel B. Grafty? Call the law offices of Dewey, Cheatham and Howe to see if you are entited to a mere pittance of what we will get sueing in your name."
Nominated for best post in thread.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJMeTR227h8
Excerpt from Unsung Partner Against Crime: Harry J. Anslinger and the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, 1930-1962 by John C. McWilliams
In the federal realm of law enforcement only the Federal Bureau of Narcotics (now the Drug Enforcement Administration) can claim active and continued participation in all of the aforementioned criminal activities. Yet the Narcotics Bureau (as it became known) never has received the attention given to the FBI. Nor has its administrator, Harry J. Anslinger, been accorded his rightful place as a skillful bureaucrat and law enforcement officer. Appointed at the Bureau's inception in 1930, Anslinger remained in that position until 1962—a leadership that spanned five presidential administrations. Through his office he almost single-handedly shaped federal drug policies and built a reputation for effectiveness, efficiency, and a no-nonsense approach to the enforcement of anti-drug laws.
Anslinger's upbringing in Pennsylvania provides a few clues to his personality. He was born in Altoona, Pennsylvania, on May 20, 1892, the eighth of nine children of Robert and Christiana Anslinger, both immigrants who had emigrated to America in 1881 and settled in Altoona after brief stays in New York and Houtzdale, Pennsylvania. Robert Anslinger was trained as a barber, but he gave up that trade in 1892 to find steadier employment with the Pennsylvania Railroad.
The Altoona Harry Anslinger knew was a bustling, prospering town where the opportunity to work in the local industries was often more enticing to school-aged boys than earning high school diplomas. Harry was not unlike many young men at that time who wanted to quit school to make money, and at the end of the eighth grade he followed his father and went to work.for the railroad. Although he did not attend classes in the traditional sense, neither did he drop out of school. Beginning in the ninth grade, at the age of fourteen, he completed his course requirements as a part-time student in the morning session. In the afternoons and evenings he worked for the railroad.
Anslinger kept up with his studies and, though he never received a high school diploma, he enrolled at the Altoona Business College in 1909 and also received tutoring at nights during the next two years. In 1912 he requested and was granted a furlough from the Pennsylvania Railroad so that he could enroll at the Pennsylvania State College. There he entered a two-year associate degree program consisting of engineering and business management courses. On weekends and during vacations he continued to work for the railroad as a utility employee. While in State College, he indulged his hope of one day becoming a concert pianist and earned tuition money as a substitute piano player for silent movies in a downtown theatre.
Anslinger claimed that two incidents during his youth strongly influenced his career as a narcotics commissioner. The first was a traumatic experience he had when learning about the agony of addiction. In his book, The Murderers: The Story of the Narcotics Gangs, which he co-authored with Will Oursler, Anslinger vividly recounted how as a twelve-year-old he once visited a neighboring farm house and heard the shrill screams of a woman on the second floor. Later he learned that she was addicted, like many other women of that period, to morphine, a drug most medical authorities did not yet recognize as dangerous. Soon her husband ran down the stairs and sent him to town to pick up a package at the drugstore. Within minutes after the husband administered the drug, the woman's screams stopped and she was again at ease. Harry Anslinger never forgot those anguished screams of the woman suffering the pains of addiction. Nor did he forget that the morphine she required was sold to a naive twelve-year-old boy—no questions asked. In 1906, however, in the absence of any federal anti-drug legislation, this indiscriminate selling of narcotics was not unusual.
Anslinger's experience may well have been exaggerated, but he was convinced that there was a need for strict regulation and control over the use of narcotics. He also remained steadfast in his belief that enforcement and a punitive approach to narcotics—even though "post hoc justification"—were necessary to eradicate the problem of drug addiction. Anslinger's exposure to the kind of men he worked with on the railroad also later affected his behavior as a narcotics commissioner. Working his summer vacations away from Penn State on a "Pennsy" construction crew landscaping flower beds, he often came into contact with Italian immigrants. Occasionally he would overhear them talk, in broken English, of a "Black Hand." Although he did not know precisely the nature of the organization, he could sense from the context of their conversation that it was a kind of extra-legal society brought from the old country. The Italians did not discuss it openly or in a casual manner; rather, they spoke of it in awe. They referred to it as an invisible government that effected a mutual protection for its members and enforced it with violence and brutality.
Anslinger's work on the Pennsylvania Railroad so impressed division superintendent G. Charles Port that when the latter was called to Harrisburg by Governor Martin G. Brumbaugh to head the state police, he asked Anslinger to accompany him. In September 1916 Anslinger went to the state capital, where he was responsible for reorganizing a department and a field force of 2,500 personnel. Eventually he was appointed deputy fire commissioner in charge of arson investigations. He remained in Harrisburg a year—until the United States entered the war in Europe to "make the world safe for democracy."
Semper Vaporo Call the law offices of Dewey, Cheatham and Howe to see if you are entited to a mere pittance of what we will get sueing in your name."
Call the law offices of Dewey, Cheatham and Howe to see if you are entited to a mere pittance of what we will get sueing in your name."
I'm glad I'm not the only one who sees those things for what they are.
The Beaverton, Fanno Creek & Bull Mountain Railroad
"Ruby Line Service"
Semper Vaporo
Pkgs.
The USA has the best form of government that money can buy.
With the Super Pac's and their financiers it is being bought as we speak - if we thought the 2012 Presidential election and 2014 off year elections were bad for political smear advertising - just wait for 2016 - I pity the 'primary' states and the advertising that they will have to endure - even worse than Viagra, Cialis, Humira and all the other prescription drugs that are being advertised, only to be followed up by advertising for the general election.
Not many forums in the world where you can discuss politics without someone resorting to juvenile name-calling. So we have that going for us...
Very true.
It does seem, watchign the news now and then, that the police seem to be fighting (and not always winning) a major PR battle. How much longer do you think you can tell a child that the policeman is her friend without someone piping up?
KBCpresident I wouldn't go as far as saying that this thread is political (well, sort of...) but we are doing a petty good job of talkign about everything but trains....
I wouldn't go as far as saying that this thread is political (well, sort of...) but we are doing a petty good job of talkign about everything but trains....
It's been fun. But it isn't much fun anymore. Signing off for now.
The opinions expressed here represent my own and not those of my employer, any other railroad, company, or person.t fun any
We get the government we deserve?
No, sincere and conscientious voters get the government the nonvoters and political hacks and liars and grifters give us.
Tom
NKP guy Our government: Thanks to the same political party that doesn't support Amtrak, we Americans equate money with free speech and neither can be regulated or made equal by the Federal government because that would be heresy to them. More money equals more speech. The same party's Justices on the Supreme Court sealed our doom a few years ago with the Citizens United decision. Now unlimited money is the rule along with a 48 month campaign season.
Our government: Thanks to the same political party that doesn't support Amtrak, we Americans equate money with free speech and neither can be regulated or made equal by the Federal government because that would be heresy to them. More money equals more speech. The same party's Justices on the Supreme Court sealed our doom a few years ago with the Citizens United decision. Now unlimited money is the rule along with a 48 month campaign season.
Ah, but which party's PACs outspent the other's in 2012 (and other) election cycles? The record shows the Democrats have more fat cats, and fewer individual contributors, than the Republicans.
Democrats love 5-4 Supreme Court decisions when they go their way, as in the first Obamacare case. Then you hear no complaints about who appointed whom.
As long as anybody is spending money -- for speech -- on campaigns, how do you disqualify somebody else's? And I doubt NKP Guy would admit his vote is decided by TV money rather than by long conviction. I certainly wouldn't. To assume somebody else's vote is so easy to obtain is rather insulting to our whole idea in this country.
I'm sure of one thing, if the Founders had any idea that one day there'd be a political class in this country they'd have written term limits into the Constitution in a heartbeat! Chances are it never entered into their minds because in those days serving in the Congress or the Senate or in a cabinet position was a pain in the neck! Most served because it was an honor to have your neighbors select you to go and it would have been considered bad taste to refuse.
To serve in those early days congressmen and senators had to leave their professions either unattended or in the hands of others, hopefully competant. It was a nightmare to travel. Lodgings in the various capitals (New York, Philadelphia, then Washington) were iffy at best. The pay wasn't that great and the benefits were nil. Most men at the time did one or two terms at the most then went back to private life.
Sure can't say that's the case now, can we?
I'm hoping the young veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan get into politics, 'cause we've damn sure got a leadership deficit with the crowd that's in there now. Those young men and women vets are products of the best leadership factory going! Maybe they can turn it around. The current crowd's hopeless.
First, how great to see Gen. Smedley Butler ("the fighting Quaker") mentioned on this website. This exemplary Marine Corps officer and patriot was adored by all Marines, including my grandfather (served 1907-1913), who was wounded at the Battle of Leon (Nicaragua) with the Expeditionary Force in which Gen. Butler played a part. Gen. Butler later played a key role in keeping the 1932 Bonus Marchers peaceable and in good temper.
This state of affairs didn't happen to us overnight. Like water torture or the frog in the boiling pot, we got used to it one step at a time. Now it's too late. Nothing short of a catacylsm will change or improve politics or government in this country.
All bow down to King Money! Money is freedom! Money is democracy!
zugmann the government is us. It's not some mystical majestic force from antoher dimension.
Not to veer too deeply into the political end of this. But I really disagree in concept with what you say there. The "people" who have the most success getting elected seem to be the ones funded by big money interests. And they rest in servitude to that master once empowered.
Don't know if your familiar with an old US marine general named Smedley Butler, but he is noted for his "War is a Racket" posture where he eventually concluded that in the many campaigns he had served ...his ultimate role was more of an enforcer for Wall Street than "White Knight in service to Democracy "
edblysard zugmann edblysard The concept that the government knows better how to manage our lives and livelihood better that we know how to do so for ourselves is one of the most frightening concepts there is. But to play devil's advocate: the government is us. It's not some mystical majestic force from antoher dimension. It's made of people. And god knows there are enough regular people that can't be trusted to manage anything. Somewhere there's a balance. Was us…for the most part all we the people do is elect titular heads of branches of a self-sustaining entity. Especially those branches involved with internal security.
zugmann edblysard The concept that the government knows better how to manage our lives and livelihood better that we know how to do so for ourselves is one of the most frightening concepts there is. But to play devil's advocate: the government is us. It's not some mystical majestic force from antoher dimension. It's made of people. And god knows there are enough regular people that can't be trusted to manage anything. Somewhere there's a balance.
edblysard The concept that the government knows better how to manage our lives and livelihood better that we know how to do so for ourselves is one of the most frightening concepts there is.
But to play devil's advocate: the government is us. It's not some mystical majestic force from antoher dimension. It's made of people. And god knows there are enough regular people that can't be trusted to manage anything.
Somewhere there's a balance.
A little more than "titular." The political identification of the president can have everything to do with the behavior of the bureaucracies, our real ongoing government. Look at the actions of State, Justice, Internal Revenue and EPA under Obama. I think we can be assured they would have been otherwise with a President McCain or Romney.
Wanswheel, sort of a "Nuff said" isn't it?
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