Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Five Myths about US Gasoline Taxes

A good summary article by Shin-pei Tsay and Deborah Gordon. CNN, November 19, 2011.

There is no doubt that federal gasoline and diesel tax should go to 40 cents per gallon and none of it should be used to fund transit and rail projects.

Honolulu Rail is a Rube Goldberg

Now that the comedy of Honolulu Rail is in full swing I finally found a good metaphor for it. It's a Rube Goldberg. A Rube Goldberg is (by definition) a comically involved, complicated invention, laboriously contrived to perform a simple operation or minimal work!

I must apologize to Rube Godberg's memory because Honolulu Rail also involves copious amounts of sleaze, deceit, corruption and stupidity. Politicians and professionals continue to fail the island constituencies who they are supposed to serve, and they do so for their own enrichment.