1 Sweet! Surfed by. Liked your blog. Great set up. Good writing. If you want a really good laugh, read: www.horacefinkle.blogspot.com. People around the world don't get to laugh enough, here's my donation to the cause...

2 Not specific to N.C., but on-topic enough I think - I'm a writer (do NOT confuse with "journalist", no sir, and thanks anyway but no thanks); I don't have a cubicle, and I do get out and see the light of day. I talk to real live people, something the mainstream media might want to learn how to do. Fat chance. They don't want to know about real people. I have this novel idea that information and views should come from the horse's mouth. I've got this notion that an Iraqi's opinion about the war and their future is the most relevant opinion. Silly stuff like that. Likewise, Katrina people. I had occasion to interview a gentleman from Louisiana a couple of weeks ago. Lifelong Louisianan with lots of family in New Orleans. (Not anymore, they're not going back.) And lo, he had a lot to say, all of which involved *gasp* common sense. That they've all known it was coming since the '60s, that it was overbuilt beyond all imagination with insanely cheap structures, that the rest of America should NOT BE MADE TO PAY to restore the Katrina area only to have it destroyed again, which it inevitably will be. That the levees should be destroyed, the area let to go to the wetlands they're supposed to be, (natural hurricane protection) and any new building in New Orleans be done well upriver on a very small scale. He said a lot more but that's the part pertinent to this thread.

3 I wrote multiple emails to Elizabeth Edwards, then to the Housing and Trans Chairman, forget his name, he is from Colorado, explained that all of 5 people would use the damm thing.

4 Thanks, Horace, I'll be right over -- who can't use a laugh? And Laura? That's what the VAST majority of people want. If we truly had people that represented us in Congress, or that obeyed the Constitution, there wouldn't be one dime given to Nawlins. Teach, I wonder if that helped? I'm writing thank you letters now -- with hints that the same process should be involved with the requests for San Antonio's people money to be used to build another train.

5 Not sure. It kinda went along the lines of, "please do not relax the rules for the TTA Lite rail. No one will ride it. Take a look at the sections of town it goes through, and understand that most of the people in those areas will drive to work. It doesn't follow routes where people will take the bus, and heck, the bus system doesn't even do well, as it is. I have sent Senator Dole many emails, as I am sure others have, but she doesn't seem to be listening, which is why I am emailing you. Please turn this boondogle down. Thank you for your time." Something like that.

6 It's so hard to tell if writing letters have any effect at all.

7 The feds. probably turned it down because Amtrak is doing so badly. They had built a number of train lines all over the country but they kept losing money because they were not high traffic and were badly managed. Here in Florida, we passed a referendum to mandate a monorails connecting our major cities. Then we past a referendum saying that we would not build it. Silliness as usual. Still, I don't know what I would give for a decent bus system in my county .

8 Nah, this one has nothing to do with Amtrak -- we'll keep propping that money pit up forever!