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New No thanks; I'll drive for the duration of this descent
into pants-pissing, abject juvenile paranoid imaginings.

Took a Lot of years before Tailgunner Joe McCarthy was defrocked. Ashcroft shows no signs of ever having had explained to him what 'personal rights' might once have meant. Even the above tale of Keystone Kops wouldn't faze this guy: it's for our comfort & security.

After enough folks have started lobbying for fast-rail, pooled and rotated drivers for long trips in A/C comfort with stops for walking and breathing real air + actual food: perhaps about 2005 the decimated airline industry can start rebuilding itself. From scratch.

Who really *needs* that face-time on those bizness trips? - when ya can drive to LA from SF faster than fly. Prolly for 4: as cheap if you rent the car.. People may even learn to leave the concrete funnels and.. enjoy! what "travellers" used to deem enjoyable.



RIP Murican Airlines - no longer holding on by the skin of their teeth..


A.
New Me hopes they lose those skins on their teeth
Most of the work of government does not need to be done.
New Just don't get crazy, Ashton.
I don't have a strong objection to no more major airlines. But leave General Aviation alone. GA was never the problem, but it takes a load of heat because we don't have billions to barter in Washington with.

Owning a stake in my own business precludes me from being able to vacation with the family as much as I'd like. Soon I'll be getting my ticket (Private Pilot License) which will allow me to take the family (and most importantly the kids) on week-end trips. GA is 3-4 times faster than driving and with all the hysterical nonsense going on in the airlines these days, GA can often be a more efficient mode of transportation than flying commercial.

The real issue is that in the 70's, the average family vacation was roughly two weeks. Today, thanks to the oppression inherent in the system, the average family vacation is less than 4 days. You want them to spend that time driving?
New My bad - forgot all those non-jumbo vehicles.
And surely their role would change, if we complete the dismantling of the existing mess (which I for one, am not smart enough to write the reorganization plans for).

Perhaps, for those few situations where you rilly Want to get somewhere yesterday - air taxis! maybe Co-ops (like the fearmers') where 2-4 share a ride. Why.. small business might reclaim a small piece of the Murican Corporate pie! you know, that one heading rapidly towards

Eine Mall.. Eine Walmart, Eine McBurger - 3-6 Same logos everywhere (why travel - the street will look exactly the same?)

Hell, even I could imagine a number of branches on this tree, including the funds for maintaining lots of small planes via part-retail, part personal transport; an umbrella of small operations = no monopoly. Bet you could add lots more.



Ashton

PS - this would keep lots of kerosene out of the stratosphere too, for those who think that just might not be a good thing to keep doing up there..

(Downside = more avaiation-grade highly refined fuel needed. More cat-crackers. TANSTAAFL)
New Ashton, are you serious?
Are you really happy at the demise of commercial air travel in USA? Or am I misreading you?
New May I take this one, Ash?
I doubt that Mr. Brown is happy with the demise of commercial aviation per se. it's just that and industry so thoroughly fucked up as the commercial airline "system" is (as you ain't seen the half of it, yet), deserves to shrivel up and die from its own stupidity and largesse. Darwin at work. Now, nature abhors a Hoover, and, assuming there really is such a thing as a "free market place" , Virginia, the need for high-speed transportation will be met somehow, perhaps by high-speed rail (YAY!) or commercial aviation run by someone other than the complete morons driving the current system into the ground.

Get $10B, fire 10,000. My Ass! To hell with them and the dragon they rode in on!

How's that, Ash?
jb4
(Resistance is not futile...)
New Sorry...
After re-reading Ashton's post, I see that you interpreted it right and I did not. Will be more carefull next time. The last paragraph threw mw off.
New Yes, but not gleeful..
I recognize that my generally negative attitude towards most all Big-bizness (those well on their targeted trajectory of achieving Monopoly de facto status) directs my choice of more snidely-type adjectives.

Alas, I couldn't unravel the present mess of US Airlines (before, during and after 9/11) even if elected dictator. To me the situation looks exactly like the paper submitted to a professor, who remarked - Your work is so screwed up it isn't even wrong..

Beyond the actual overall mess of the industry, the environmental cost of jillions of these jumbos filling the air (and people breathing the same recycled air w/bugs Inside these tubes with seats) - somehow needs to be reconciled with the habits we have formed re instant travel.

No one I know if is smart enough to describe "how it Ought to be", nor do people (including me) like to be told Which self-indulgences we may.. choose. But in an overall sense, I believe we (all) 'ought' to consider choosing some means of curtailing lots of these flights.

We can get there via the Euro lead: fast, clean trains; meals at leisure - and not stuffed into a toothpaste tube and squirted onto a tray. Yeah - Euro is Not the land area of US, so let's not be simplistic here. Still, esp. in the very heavily laden corridors, I think we are (per usual) way past the time when we needed to plan longer than that @#%^&% bizness "next quarter" - that mindset which is responsible for so much that is crap in the USA.



Ashton Urban Planner
but only as Dictator, Mr. Bunny, Nicer than Most Persons
New Let's don't forget the real problem.
As you point out, Europe is not the land mass the United States is. However, let us not forget that Europeans enjoy the "time off" that only our most elite corporate moguls can manage here. That we need rapid transit is an effect of a larger problem. If the Peeple were afforded the comparatively luxurious vacation time, family leave time, time off for new babies, etc. that are common in Europe, I doubt that anything faster than steam locomotives would be necessary here - Americans could enjoy leasurely travel if they only had the time to do so.

This is a much tougher nut to crack. We pass the Family Leave Act. Wonderful, you can take 12 weeks off if your family suffers a blow, but expect a 25% cut in your annual income if you do that (which, by defintion, will come at among the worst possible times). Not much of a choice.

As long as we all live for the betterment of the McWorld, things will not much improve. Not until Muricans begin to see themselves as human beings instead of Corporate "resources" (resource: that material to be consumed), many things, including commercial air travel, will remain fouled beyond hope of repair.
New Don't knock steam loco's
Those suckers could easily get up to Amtrak's legislated limits of 79mph. Well, some of them could...most 2-6-4s and 2-8-4s were set up for speed. 100mph steam was common for the passenger corridors between NY and Chi at the height of the passenger train era, when the Broadway Limited and Twentieth Century Limited would race out of Chicago toward The Big Apple
jb4
(Resistance is not futile...)
New Wasn't trying to knock them.
Only trying to knock the insane US "time off for good behavior" policies of Corporate America. ;-)
     Stupid, stupid, stupid airline so-called security - (wharris2) - (14)
         regulations as interpreted by Monte Python -NT - (boxley)
         Obvious system improvement. - (static) - (1)
             Clearly impractical - (Ric Locke)
         No thanks; I'll drive for the duration of this descent - (Ashton) - (10)
             Me hopes they lose those skins on their teeth -NT - (wharris2)
             Just don't get crazy, Ashton. - (mmoffitt) - (1)
                 My bad - forgot all those non-jumbo vehicles. - (Ashton)
             Ashton, are you serious? - (Arkadiy) - (6)
                 May I take this one, Ash? - (jb4) - (1)
                     Sorry... - (Arkadiy)
                 Yes, but not gleeful.. - (Ashton) - (3)
                     Let's don't forget the real problem. - (mmoffitt) - (2)
                         Don't knock steam loco's - (jb4) - (1)
                             Wasn't trying to knock them. - (mmoffitt)

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