Palin and the Main Street Media (Part II)

Recently Sarah Palin made the mistake of saying "North Korea" when she meant to say "South Korea". She quickly corrected herself. As could be expected, many in the media jumped on this as another example of her ignorance. In response, Palin wrote the following (see the link to get the links in her post):

"My fellow Americans in all 57 states, the time has changed for come. With our country founded more than 20 centuries ago, we have much to celebrate – from the FBI’s 100 days to the reforms that bring greater inefficiencies to our health care system. We know that countries like Europe are willing to stand with us in our fight to halt the rise of privacy, and Israel is a strong friend of Israel’s. And let’s face it, everybody knows that it makes no sense that you send a kid to the emergency room for a treatable illness like asthma and they end up taking up a hospital bed. It costs, when, if you, they just gave, you gave them treatment early, and they got some treatment, and ah, a breathalyzer, or an inhalator. I mean, not a breathalyzer, ah, I don’t know what the term is in Austrian for that … "

http://bigjournalism.com/taylorking/2010/11/28/media-matters-lies-about-media-coverage-of-sarah-palin-north-korea-slip/

This was followed by the media response which basically said that Palin was overstating the case and that the Palin slip-up was barely covered by the media. Ironically, that very night, Jay Leno had the following dialogue:
"Palin said that we should stand by our friend North Korea. This was followed by her stating that she was never good at geography".

Yeah, right. The media barely covered the issue.

High Speed Rail

I like train travel as much as anyone and wish that we had better service in the US. However, we just seem incapable of constructing lines properly. One project is a high speed line from Tampa to Orlando. These cities are 85 miles apart and the car trip takes 1.5 hours, Interstate all the way. I guess that a "high-speed" train, if it could average 170 mph could make the trip in 45 minutes (but estimates are that the speed will end up being around 60 mph due to slowing in urban areas, stops, etc.).

However, Tampa and Orlando are both sprawling cities. My condo in Redington Shores is about 45 minutes away from the proposed Tampa train station. Once in Orlando, there will be a 10 mile or so trip to Disney World (which requires a little backtracking to Tampa). So, driving my car 45 minutes to Tampa (there is no public transportation for this), going into city traffic, paying for parking, paying for the train, riding to Orlando, renting a car or waiting for public transportation to Disney World, then either driving or waiting for the Disney buses to get around. And then plan my departure around the train schedule.

Seems a lot more convenient, and cheaper and quicker, to just drive.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/16/AR2010111605823.html