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Proposed Baton Rouge Street Car Line

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View Baton Rouge Street Car Line in a larger map

Although I no longer live in Baton Rouge, I still think about ways to improve the city, so that eventually I can make a McArthur like return.  One of things I love about New Orleans is that I can go weeks at a time without driving.  I take the Street Card into the CBD and Taxi  / Walk when I go out. 

Baton Rouge has no mass transit system, or not one that is used a lot.  Its taxi cab service is a joke.  I remember one time waiting an hour for a Taxi Cab to pick us up from a bar.  In New Orleans, I don’t think I have waited more then 5 minutes for a cab. 

I was talking about mass transit with my friend John Bullock today and we came up with the ideal that Baton Rouge should mimic the St.Charles Street Car line.  Since Baton Rouge franchises all of New Orleans restaurants,  why don’t they franchise one of the most iconic images of New Orleans (Stella!!!).  Replicate the New Orleans Street Car Line on St. Charles to Perkins Road. 

Could you imagine bar hopping from Chelsea's, the Bull Dog, and Perkins Rowe without driving.  You have to imagine, because in Baton Rouge, the states Capital, that is impossible.  The original line would use a street car like the one below that ran from Park Ave to Perkins Rowe.  We could look at expanding that based on the need.

Here is a model of the top of Car I would like.  I went to White Lights on Government Street a couple of years ago and they ran similar cars.  Run the stops on a 15 minute schedule to 3am. 

I don’t know if this would be profitable or pay for itself, but at you look at the big picture, an act like this would positively improve the image of Baton Rouge a hundred fold and maybe convince some people it is time to move back home.

Global Warming Articles

Cooling down the climate scare

Nuremberg-style war crimes trials for skeptics of human caused catastrophic global warming

One Hot Summer

I am glad that the summer heat is convincing intelligent well reasoned individuals like Pat Robinson that Global Warming is occuring.   The  Global Warming PR machine is in full force, trying to tell the global population that they have someone to blame the heat on. Personally I think that people today  need to blame every inconvience on someone else.  This is not the hottest summer on the books, nor is anywhere close.

The summer of 1930 had 21 days of temptures above 100 degrees.  That was before the global warming debate so I wonder if they tried to blame it on something or just accepted the fact that summers are hot. 

A Bit of History for Global Warmers: Look at 1930

Great new article

Read another great article about the global warming debate from MIT Professor RICHARD S. LINDZEN.

Earth is hottest it has been in 400 Years

Look, I am sorry I keep posting on Global Warming.  I know readers of this blog (if they are any) would much rather me put something up about the odds of John Stinson making it back to America alive or maybe giving up all his material possessions (again) and staying in Amsterdam.  For some reason the whole global warming debate fascinates me.  Today CNN.com published this article.   Here are some excerpts:

Study: Earth hottest in 400 years

Panel says humans responsible for much of the warming

"The National Academy of Sciences, reaching that conclusion in a broad review of scientific work requested by Congress, reported Thursday that the "recent warmth is unprecedented for at least the last 400 years and potentially the last several millennia."

"Climate scientists Michael Mann, Raymond Bradley and Malcolm Hughes had concluded the Northern Hemisphere was the warmest it has been in 2,000 years. Their research was known as the "hockey-stick" graphic because it compared the sharp curve of the hockey blade to the recent uptick in temperatures and the stick's long shaft to centuries of previous climate stability."

So we are going to begin to base policy decisions on  Michael Mann's study. Two Canadian Scientist Steven McIntyre and Ross McKitrick have extensively research methods.  Their WEBSITE contains a treasure trove of information on how flawed Mann's study is.  I think the following quote belows sums their research up:

"We showed that the PCA method as used by Mann et al. effectively mines a data set for hockey stick patterns. Even from meaningless random data (red noise), it nearly always produces a hockey stick." Full Article

Again, I am not saying that the earth is not warming.  The issue is whether man kind is causing it to warm or cool.  I don't believe we are and I would hope that if we are going to make policy decisions based on a group of scientist's research, hopefully there will be some sort of independent verification that reviews the scientist's methodology.

ABC NEWS

ABC NEWS wants you to tell them how Global Warming is effecting your life.  Click here to go to the page.  Now I have a worldwide forum to tell the world why I have trouble getting laid.

Good Article about Al Gore's new movie

I just read a great new article about Al Gore's new movie.

Click HERE to read the entire article.

This is my favorite quote.

"No; Carter is one of hundreds of highly qualified non-governmental, non-industry, non-lobby group climate experts who contest the hypothesis that human emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) are causing significant global climate change."

I doubt that any lobbying group like the Sierra Club will employ scientist that disagree with Global Warming.  If they did, they would have trouble raising money.  Its just like Jessie Jackson trying to stirup racial strife so he can get more money for his companies.

Don't buy a Truck

I know a lot of people who buy SUVS and Trucks so they can use them to move stuff around.  Well, I just want to let you know that I challenge anyone with an SUV that I can fit more stuff into my 2003 Accord.   This weekend, I have started to resod my front lawn after the Hurricane Damage.  Look at  how much grass I  fit in my car.

And checkout the trunk.

30 Years Ago the Scam Was Cooling

I think that Global Warming is a scam.  The enviroment is an extremely complex system.  We are still discovering how it works and climatologists are often wrong in their predictions.  Global Warming is now the big band wagon movement that everyone is jumping on and there is little science involved.  More Hurricanes --> Global Warming.  Its hot outside  --> Global Warming.  Craig cant get laid --> Global Warming.  Time Magazine recently came out with an issue with a Polar Bear drinking water which I guess was supposed to worry us.  I think Time Magazine is one of the big components of this type of junk science.  Believe it or not, back in the 70's the big scare was Global Cooling and again Time Magazine was at the fore front of worrying the public.  Here are some experts from their article in June 1974.

"However widely the weather varies from place to place and time to time, when meteorologists take an average of temperatures around the globe they find that the atmosphere has been growing gradually cooler for the past three decades. The trend shows no indication of reversing."

Really.  The earth is 4,500,000,000 years old and you believe that you can look at 30 years and see a trend that shows no indication of reversing. 

"Climatological Cassandras are becoming increasingly apprehensive, for the weather aberrations they are studying may be the harbinger of another ice age. Telltale signs are everywhere —from the unexpected persistence and thickness of pack ice in the waters around Iceland to the southward migration of a warmth-loving creature like the armadillo from the Midwest."

As I have always when the Armadillo's are on the run, the Apocalypse cannot be much farther away.  What evidence do they give that the armadillo migration is linked to global cooling.  Again, the earth is an extremely complex system and there could be a variety of reasons for them moving.

"Man, too, may be somewhat responsible for the cooling trend. The University of Wisconsin's Reid A.
Bryson and other climatologists suggest that dust and other particles released into the atmosphere as a result of farming and fuel burning may be blocking more and more sunlight from reaching and heating the surface of the earth."

Wait, I thought the fuel burning causes global warming.  Big Oil is causing Global Warming and Cooling at the same time.  They really are evil.

"The earth's current climate is something of an anomaly; in the past 700,000 years, there have been at least seven major episodes of glaciers spreading over much of the planet. Temperatures have been as high as they are now only about 5% of the time."

This one the most believable statement in the article.  Earth's climate is an anomaly because we don't completely understand it. 

Maybe global warming is occuring.  Maybe its global cooling.  The earth has gone through periods of  each before.  Maybe mankind will start to effect this.  Probally so, but lets put a little science and less Hollywood into our decision making process.