Train derailment McKinley and Blackstone ave. Fresno

The derailment today (19jun07) at McKinley and Blackstone is another exclamation point for the Rail Consolidation struggle. These railroad tracks cut right through the heart of town. Thousands of people cross hundreds of times a day at dozens of crossings. It's only a matter of time until another tragic accident happens. And will the really big one come any time soon? I hope not because I live just a half block away.

The fact that Railroad tracks carrying over 40 trains a day run right through the middle of Fresno City College campus is amazing.

On Sept. 13 2001 Junior Puletapuai, an FCC football player was killed trying to beat the train as he returned from football practice. It was the last straw and they finally put in an undercrossing on the campus. Another young man was killed trying to beat the train just a few months ago, too. It is a nightmarish recurring theme. To put the blame solely on the people who err in judgement and chalk it up to stupidity is insensitive and selfish.

These tracks should be moved. And probably will be moved at some point in the future. According to www.movethetracks.org about $100 million of the $600 million needed to make it happen was approved in the last election. We're a long way away, but it's a start.

The loss of life. There have been so many people killed on these tracks, most by accident, some by suicide. The lurking danger day after day for everyone that crosses the tracks and for everyone that lives nearby has become unbearable.

If that tanker car would have released it's flammable gas into the air how many people would have been injured or killed?

The intersection of McKinley and Blackstone will be closed today (wed. june 20) as the crews fix the damaged road, tracks and crossing arms.

The Unraveling of the Neocon agenda

On November 7th, 2006 the American people spoke loudly to the Republicans: "Throw the bums out!" We Democrats didn't win just The House and The Senate but, also the majority of Governorships and many State House elections, too. This happened not because of a new and effective strategy by the Dems but by the corruption and incompetence of the Republicans.

In the last few months leading up to the elections, after The Jack Abramoff scandal , The Duke Cunningham scandal , The Tom Delay scandal and The Mark Foley scandal even many Republicans had had enough! It had become very clear to the general public what we Dems had known for quite a while: The Neocon (Republican) philosophy is flawed.

Many of the key points of the Contract with America that the Republicans had touted as their mandate when they swept into power in 1994 has not been enacted. In fact, since they have had near complete power for the last 12 years they have plainly done the opposite. Their main point was to clean up the corruption in government but the 109th Congress turned out to be the most corrupt in recent memory.

The Republicans have used the government to establish institutional corruption by bringing in special interest groups into the chambers and committee rooms to craft legislation to benefit those groups. In return those special interests such as, The Oil companies, The Auto Industry, Insurance, Banking, Pharmaceuticals and anybody else with a lot of money gave huge donations to political campaigns, PACs and "charities".

We couldn't have engineered this. They did it to themselves. We didn't win because we were so good, we won because they were so bad. After the exorbitant expenditure of time, effort and money in 1998 to impeach Clinton based on his lying about an extramarital affair their piety in '06 seemed so phony. They are the very epitome of hypocrisy. Nothing Clinton or the Democrats have ever done was as corrupt as the 109th Congress and their cronies.

So, it is fun to sit back and watch the unraveling of the Neocon agenda. To hear Rush Limbaugh lament at the point of tears that he "won't carry their water anymore". Even the religious folk who came to the polls in droves now see that they were just pawns used by the Neocons to gain power. Behind their backs they ridiculed them and didn't really enact their policies.
They can't stand up and say, "Vote us in, we 'll clean up Washington ". Nobody believes that anymore.

Even the one Conservative issue that makes sense to me, Fiscal Responsibility has been trashed by these Neocon crooks and morons. They went on a 12 year extravagant spending and borrowing spree that eclipses anything in the past. We will never forget "The Bridge to Nowhere ". They can't say anymore with a straight face, "Vote for us, we 'll control spending ".

I read an Op Ed piece by a Conservative leader in the Fresno Bee saying that, in the wake of all the Republican scandals, people shouldn't hate the philosophy. They should just hate those corrupt individual persons. I had to laugh. It sounds like more flawed logic. What happened to love the sinner, hate the sin? Those crooks will serve prison sentences so I don't have to waste my time hating them. It's those policies based on their ideology that enabled them to be corrupt. No, I can 't afford to get into hating every corrupt individual. It 's nothing personal. It's their ideology that is so wrong and undermines the intent of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

"People can't figure out who owns what" - Sen. Ron Wyden(D) Ore. 6-2-03 FCC rules change hearing


The other night I dreamed only 5 corporations owned every business in the world. Everything you bought you had to buy from one of them. They controlled all the media sales. Every CD, movie, book and show. Every channel I turned to was owned by one of those guys. Every channel was playing something owned by of those guys. They controlled what was played on the radio so they controlled what was sold in the record stores. They eliminated every last shred of competition till there was only 5 guys left. And you could never figure out who owned what.