That is how I think we should refer to light rail based mass transit.

Socialized transportation

Lois Quam is the wife of former Minnesota House Democratic Leader Matt Entenza, who just happened to try running for Attorney General before a little ethical dilema tripped him up.

A lot of hay was made over his wife’s position as United Health Care’s CEO, and the millions she made. Well she just decided to change the name that appears on her business cards.

Lois Quam, the face and personality behind UnitedHealth Group Incorporated’s strong business relationship with the senior market, is moving to Piper Jaffray & Co. as a senior executive to hunt for new investments in clean technology, including alternative energy sources, and in the health care industry.

You may not know, since the media seems more inclined to cover for them, but Entenza and his wife have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in recent years to elect liberal Democrats to office. I personally believe that it was to benefit the special interest groups Quam rolls with.

“This is a major loss,” said Sheryl Skolnick, an analyst with CRT Capital Group. Quam was an important link for UnitedHealth’s relationship with the AARP and for the important Washington lobbying amid the debate over the future of Medicare, she said.

“This is bad,” Skolnick said, referring to both departures.

As you can see, Quam is well known for her connections to lawmakers, and influence over them. I feel that may have something to do with her power player status in the Democratic party and how she belongs to the Executive Club. Her having funded many Democratic elections through 21st Century Democrats with her husband seems to really be paying off.

I bet Piper Jaffery is hedging their bets with the looming change of the occupant in the oval office.

Quam is the wife of former state Rep. Matt Entenza, who was House minority leader, and has been a contributor to state DFL and national Democratic candidates for office.

Wait, it gets better.

A native of Marshall, Minn., and a graduate of Macalester College, Quam has been with UnitedHealth for more than 15 years. In 1993, she served on the White House task force for health care reform with First Lady Hillary Clinton. For the last three years, Quam has been on Fortune magazine’s list of “Most Powerful Women in Business.”

You remember Hillary Care, right? This was the task force that pushed for Universal Health care. Single payer type health care. Socialized medicine if you will.

There is probably no bigger friend to special interests than Quam, but it seems no one cares, so long as they are leftist special interest groups. Quam is one of those millionaire CEOs who just bounces around from company to company, with out really doing anything, but where’s the outrage?

Oh, did I mention that Quam’s husband Matt Entenza now runs a ‘think tank’ in Minnesota now?

Yep, Minnesota 2020 is his baby that he just happens to run with another name that should ring a bell for news consumers, Conrad deFiebre. Only, he used to cover the news.

Ethical dilema for Entenza given his wife’s positions over the years?

Nope, he’s perfectly willing to have his think tank shill for his wife’s pay check.

I just love how the Strib is so willing to leave the dots unconnected. They write a glowing fluff piece for Quam on her next big (dollar) job, but don’t bother to give you ‘the rest of the story’.

So remember when they threw a pacemaker in my grandma when she went to the hospital for a bowl obstruction?

Well, as my family had already known it would since countless doctors warned us before, the pacemaker  ended up getting infected.

Yep, the pacemaker got infected, as we had known it would, and had previously warned other doctors. But nope, this guy probably had a quota to meet, time to kill, or class to teach, so he went ahead with out consulting the family.

How much money this stupid doctor cost the taxpayers, I do not know, but he put my Grandma in danger, and that pisses me off.

The moron M.D. is taking the pacemaker out in the morning.

Jackass!

So of course the Strib is running fast and furious with the story of the Health Commish departing, but another, much more high powered woman in the political spotlight is making HUGE waves, and well it gets nary the coverage.

More in the morning. Extra credta for anyone who can connect the dots overnight.

Trial lawyer and DFL perpetual US Senate Candidate, has doubled down on defeat in the war on terror with new ads.

I really find it hard to believe that losing the war on terror is a winning position with voters.

One of my pet peeves is how Republicans are falling prey to the anti-capitalistic movement that is bio-fuels. Be it ethanol or bio-diesel, Republicans, especially in the Midwest, feel it is their responsibility to allow the Agriculture Departments replace Energy. Pawlenty, Coleman, and on the the line, all of them do everything they can to be Green.

Well last night I linked to a Strib Editorial that seemed to trumpet what I have been saying about Light Rail being added to the 35W bridge. Today, the scientists back up my gut reactions to Bio-nonscience.

Here’s the email alerting me to it, and it is from someone friendly to the Green push on energy.

OMG, this is too much.  Now the NewScientist says you were right.  Biofuels will destroy the environment.

Forget biofuels - burn oil and plant forests instead

I can see your head swelling from here. 

This is an important argument to have, before we do the damage I fear we will. We’re refusing to burn energy specific resources and instead burning our food.

It sounds counterintuitive, but burning oil and planting forests to compensate is more environmentally friendly than burning biofuel. So say scientists who have calculated the difference in net emissions between using land to produce biofuel and the alternative: fuelling cars with gasoline and replanting forests on the land instead.

Actually I have been saying that sort of thing all along!

They recommend governments steer away from biofuel and focus on reforestation and maximizing the efficiency of fossil fuels instead.

Engines were getting more and more efficient, that is until we started mandating the less efficient ethanol and bio-diesel to be added.

The reason is that producing biofuel is not a “green process”. It requires tractors and fertilizers and land, all of which means burning fossil fuels to make “green” fuel. In the case of bioethanol produced from corn – an alternative to oil – “it’s essentially a zero-sums game,” says Ghislaine Kieffer, programme manager for Latin America at the International Energy Agency in Paris, France (see Complete carbon footprint of biofuel - or is it?).

Which is why the administrations and lawmakers look to the Ag Departments to make the sale of Ethanol and bio-fuels to the masses. They don’t make any sense on the reality scale.

What is more, environmentalists have expressed concerns that the growing political backing that biofuel is enjoying will mean forests will be chopped down to make room for biofuel crops such as maize and sugarcane. “When you do this, you immediately release between 100 and 200 tonnes of carbon [per hectare],” says Renton Righelato of the World Land Trust, UK, a conservation agency that seeks to preserve rainforests.

Go read the rest.

And let’s not forget the biggest problem with farming huge plots of land, which would be needed to make the goals set out by law and policy makers, agricultural runoff. Lakes and rivers would receive the runoff storm water from these huge farm plots. this runoff will carry pesticides and herbicides. That’s a bad thing to put in fresh water. As we increase farmlands to meet the Green push, there will be more and more runoff polluting our lakes and rivers.

When I was growing up, I remember learning how that was the biggest source of water pollution there was, now no one mentions it.

Add to this how you need more Green fuels to match the energy output, and air pollution goes up.

So in order to save ourselves from ourselves, we may end up destroying the world. Does that really seem like a good thing to do?

It is not too late to get real, and stop the Green insanity. We just need someone brave enough to do the right thing, not the politically expedient one.

In a Strib Editorial, they accidently confirm something I mention on the NARN’s Final Word yesterday.

Strib:

What is clear, however, is that routing the Central Corridor light-rail line across a new bridge doesn’t work. Changing its route would eliminate a critical West Bank station at the University of Minnesota, attract fewer riders and add time and distance to the line. That, in turn, would lower the project’s federal rating and risk its funding.

If a future rail line were projected for the Interstate Hwy. 35W corridor, a stronger bridge would make sense. But no such line is projected.

Until this bridge fell there was absolutely NO talk about light rail going on 35W. So why is that the main reason some are dragging their feet and delaying progress on the rebuilding?

Update:

Take the new RF poll on the right sidebar

The father of Tom Burnett, one of the heroes of Flight 93 on September 11th, is asking his son’s name be left off the Flight 93 memorial.

Tom Burnett Sr., the Northfield man whose son was killed on Flight 93 when the hijacked airliner crashed in Pennsylvania on Sept. 11, 2001, wants his son’s name withheld from a planned victims’ memorial because he finds the crescent design and other features offensive because of what he said are their Islamic symbolism.

The Flight 93 memorial has been a source of controversy from day one.

Burnett Sr., who was on the panel that picked the winning design in 2005, originally named the “Crescent of Embrace,” was on the losing side of the 9-6 vote to approve the design.

Here’s that original design.

You can see more on the original design here

Burnett’s father has been fighting an uphill battle trying to draw attention to the flawed design.

On Saturday, Burnett Sr. said he wants an investigation into why — two years after he raised his objections — the planned memorial will still have such things as the crescent, stars and a tower that he sees as Islamic symbols.

Burnett Sr. said that he would rather not withhold his son’s name from the memorial but that he can’t get anyone to listen to his concerns.

The memorial is definitely raising serious questions and concerns. In the story Burnett Sr. says that Rep. Jim Ramstad (R MN3) contacted him to say “he agreed with” his concerns. One would hope Minnesota’s Congressional Delegation could help get to the bottom of the memorial’s new design.

Here’s the latest sketch of the the Flight 93 Memorial.

You can find more on the Flight 93 Memorial on the official website, including more information on the new design which appears to still include a crescent.

The Minnesota Majority has a new YouTube video that is must see.

No special session!

I just saw the DFL Chair on TV this morning talking about how the debate is over, and there is a consensus on the need for more money and tax increases. Brian Melendez is trying to capitalize on the tragedy just like the DFLers he represents as their party chair. Their ideas were rejected last session, and now they are trying to force Pawlenty to calling a special session so they can just go ahead and repass everything that didn’t make it last time.

All of which are issues that they did not run on last cycle. Yep the DFL is just trying to take the tragedy that is the 35W bridge collapse and use it to blame Pawlenty and Molnau, and guilt them into abandoning their principles.

Don’t call a special session. Don’t give the DFL another chance to force Big Government nanny-state laws upon Minnesotans. There’s plenty of money to fix this bridge.

And as I noticed last night on my way home from the Twins game. there’s no room for a light rail option. Where would it go? There’s already NO extra room where the 4 lanes north and south of the river go. And the new bridge is planned to have 5 lanes each way…. so where do the social engineers plan to run the never before dreamt light rail?

Don’t let the Democrats anywhere near the taxpayer’s wallets.

Statement by the Republican Party of Minnesota on the Proposed Special Session

Republican Party of Minnesota Chairman Ron Carey released the following statement in regards to the proposed special session of the Minnesota Legislature.
“The stampede for a special session is fading away as the Democrats across the state broaden their ever-growing wish list of agenda items and spending projects. Rebuilding the I-35W bridge does not require a special session to increase taxes and pass bills that have little or nothing to do with the reconstruction efforts. Republicans are committed to reviewing our spending priorities and making sure our tax dollars are spent first and foremost on our most critical needs.”

It almost sounds like the Chairman reads ResidualForces.com.

More to come after the show and Twins game tonight.