Republicans Are Losing the Electoral College

Will the GOP be able to compete in the Electoral College?

Conventional political wisdom holds that incumbent Presidents are hard to beat. But this year, Mitt Romney and the Republican Party thought they had a good chance. In their view, President Obama’s first term had been a failure: he was presiding over a stagnant economy, high unemployment, and a looming fiscal crisis. The President seemed vulnerable, and indeed, pre-election polls showed a dead heat. But to the chagrin of the American Right, instead of a victory their candidate was roundly defeated – at least in Electoral terms. What many thought would be an election decided in the wee hours of Wednesday morning (or even later), was over by the time the polls closed on the West Coast. In the end, Obama won a second term by a lopsided Electoral Count of 332 to 206, not much less than his landslide four years ago.

In these days after the election, the Republican Party and American Right probably feel like the Democrats and American Left felt eight years ago after George W. Bush won a second term. Confused about losing an election they thought they could win. They are left wondering what went wrong and what do they have to do to stand a better chance in 2016? But from this writer’s perspective, Republicans face a far stiffer challenge today than Democrats did in 2004.

This is not a political blog, and I’m not going to write in any detail about what Republicans should do to win on the national stage, but (looking from the Center) some things appear obvious. It would seem vital to attract a larger share of the Latino vote. This is a large and growing cohort of the electorate and the Republicans can’t afford to get less than 30 percent of their vote like they did this year. A more coherent and less xenophobic stance on immigration would likely go a long way. America, as is often said, is a country of immigrants. This is true and people across the globe have always wanted to come to this country. Immigration is a complex issue, and a blanket open door is almost certainly not the right answer, but neither is a closed door, and Republicans will have to embrace a more welcoming and workable position. Moderating their positions on social issues would be good as well. Abortion may be abhorrent to many on the Right, but an immediate prohibition will never happen, and stridently preaching for one doesn’t help with the larger mass of voters, especially women voters. Neither does, say, stigmatizing homosexuals, or the poor, or painting the government (and by extension government employees) as a parasite feeding on the productive private sector. And Republicans have to do better in articulating their message. If President Obama was vulnerable in this election, especially on economic issues, this argument, as presented by the GOP, clearly didn’t win over the voters. Mid-term elections are supposed to be a referendum on the incumbent, but much of the national discourse in the months leading up to October seemed to be focused not on the President’s first four years, but on the Democratic message that Mitt Romney was an out-of-touch elitist. Republicans clearly lost the rhetorical battle.Romney and his Party didn't do what they needed to do: convince Americans why they were the better choice to lead and not the President and his Party.

All of these are important, but none directly address the largest problem for Republicans, their increasing narrow path to an Electoral majority.

A Growing Electoral Reality
The President won about 50.6% of the national vote to Romney’s 47.9%. This is hardly a landslide, actually down noticeably from 2008, but the 332 to 206 Electoral count, as noted above, was lopsided by any measure. This just continues a trend that’s been evident for a generation. The last Republican Electoral landslide occurred in 1988, when Vice President George H. W. Bush defeated Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis. The Electoral count in that year was 426 to 111, the popular vote 53.4% to 45.7%. Bush 41 (41^st President) had been the eight-year Vice President under a very popular President in Ronald Reagan, the last Republican who was truly able to attract Democratic voters. And Dukakis ran a poor campaign. Since then, these have been the Presidential election results:

Inside USADA’s Armstrong Doping Report

Lance Armstrong had a great story. World class athlete is struck low by metastasizing cancer and given only fifty-fifty odds to live. He suffers through surgery and chemotherapy. He survives. And then he thrives, his body leaner and stronger, his mind and will hardened. He returns to his sport and dominates the most grueling athletic competition in the world. He stakes his claim as one of the great athletes in history and in the process inspires millions the world over with his legend of fight, survival, and triumph. He founds an organization in his name and becomes a tireless crusader in the battle to eradicate the illness that nearly ended his life. His is a hero. But this great story was too good to be true.

Rumors of doping have swirled around Armstrong since he won his first Tour de France in 1999, but like Teflon, nothing seemed to stick. Armstrong never tested positive for drugs – or so he claimed – and he was never caught with drugs or paraphernalia or anything else that could link him directly to doping. He denied ever using illicit substances and even claimed that as a cancer survivor he would never put potentially dangerous substances into his body. (You can read about Armstrong’s career here, and see my post from last spring detailing the many doping rumors that have plagued him since at least his first Tour de France victory.)

The release of the United States Anti-Doping Agency’s (USADA) Armstrong Report¹ seems to have converted rumor to fact, and it’s no longer credible to label Armstrong a great champion or a hero, at least not for his exploits on a bicycle. The Armstrong Report – all 200 plus pages of it – lays bare Armstrong’s career-long record of doping. But it goes further. According to USADA, not only did Armstrong dope but he was the leader in his team’s sophisticated doping program, a program that he was central in developing, managing, and enforcing; while, of course, repeatedly and forcefully denying it ever existed. Armstrong maintains that he has a clean record, never once failing a drug test or demonstrating any dubious spikes in performance. The Armstrong Report tears these arguments to shreds.

From the Armstrong Report:

“The evidence is overwhelming that Lance Armstrong did not just use performance enhancing drugs, he supplied them to his teammates. He did not merely go alone to Dr. Michele Ferrari for doping advice, he expected that others would follow. It was not enough that his teammates give maximum effort on the bike, he also required them to adhere to the doping program outlined for them or be replaced. He was not just a part of the doping culture on his team, he enforced and re-enforced it. Armstrong’s use of drugs was extensive, and the doping program on his team, designed in large part to benefit Armstrong, was massive and pervasive.” – Pages 6-7

The Armstrong Report also exposes Armstrong’s fundamental character flaws: his tendency to deny his actions, malign his accusers, threaten witnesses, turn on friends, and do anything to win. Even Armstrong’s ardent defenders must concede that he’s a tough man and you cross him at your own risk. It’s his character traits that make his cheating all the more believable. Indeed, it’s likely that for Armstrong doping was just one more activity he needed to master to become the best cyclist. If everyone else was cheating – or if cheating would get you ahead – then Armstrong would cheat, just like he would train harder than anyone, or become the finest tactician in the peleton.

USADA’s Specific Allegations and Evidence
The USADA has charged Armstrong with (1) use of prohibited substances, (2) possession of prohibited substances, (3) trafficking of prohibited substances, (4) administration of prohibited substances to others, (5) “assisting, encouraging, aiding, abetting, covering up, and other complicity involving one or more anti-doping rule violations”, and (6) “aggravating circumstances…justifying a period of ineligibility greater than the standard sanction”. To back up these charges they have detailed a remarkable catalog of cheating by Armstrong and his team, which includes:

Witness testimony. Much of USADA’s charges are based on the sworn affidavits of 26 people connected with Armstrong throughout his career including 15 professional cyclists and 11 former teammates. The teammates includes admitted dopers Floyd Landis and Tyler Hamilton, who Armstrong has denounced as biased and “proven liars”, but also George Hincapie, Levi Leipheimer, David Zabriskie, Jonathan Vaughters, and Christian Vande Velde, each of whom have no axe to grind, and in fact have much to lose from admitting their own past doping. Hincapie, especially, has always been close to Armstrong, referring to Hincapie as “like a brother”.

These 26 witnesses provided USADA with first-hand accounts of their doping while on Armstrong’s teams, his own doping as witnessed by them, the leadership position Armstrong assumed in his team’s doping programs, and the logistical and material support he provided for his doping and that of his teammates.

Chronology of cheating. USADA lays out a compelling timeline of specific events and activities that demonstrates rules violations, doping, trafficking, and related activities for every year from 1998 through 2005, and then again in 2009 and 2010 when Armstrong returned from his first retirement. The Armstrong Report details where Armstrong was when he doped, be it in competition or in training, who he was with, what drugs he used, and how those drugs were transported and distributed

Blood doping

Drug use and doping. The Armstrong Report includes intricate details of Armstrong’s extensive use of the blood booster EPO, testosterone, steroids, and Actovegin, to name only the major drugs. USADA shows Armstrong’s use of blood doping, which consists of getting a transfusion of your own blood weeks or months after that same blood was removed from your body for the hemoglobin boosting effects. The report includes lurid details like Armstrong having a secret refrigerator in his Spanish apartment where he stored blood (and not just his own) for future transfusions, of he and teammates going on a training ride shortly after having blood removed and being so weak they could barely pedal, and of Armstrong organizing covert rendezvous on remote European mountain passes to receive drugs or medical/doping advice from his long-time doctor Michele Ferrari (see below)

One of Armstrong’s most repeated claims is that he never once failed any of the 500 to 600 drug tests he received throughout his career. USADA demonstrates that the actual number of tests was only half as many as claimed, and in fact Armstrong did test positive on a number of occasions. Armstrong’s “B” urine samples from the 1999 Tour were tested along with many other samples by a French lab in 2004 after a test for EPO had been developed (the test results became public in 2005). Tests for EPO were not available in 1999. Six of his urine samples from the 1999 Tour tested positive for EPO. This could not be used officially against him because the corresponding “A” samples had been destroyed per standard procedure, but there is little scientific reason to doubt the test results. Armstrong tested positive for cortisone during the 1999 Tour, which he explained away at the time as resulting from a topical cream used to treat a saddle sore. In fact, the prescription for cortisone cream was written by the team doctor after the positive test (and backdated) and the actual test results were consistent with a drug injection and not a topical cream. Further, during the 2001 Tour de Suisse, one of Armstrong’s blood samples tested positive for EPO, but at the time the testing results indicated only a “probability” of doping and not a “positive” result.  Under today’s standards it would have been a positive result (more on this below).

Felix Baumgartner's Historic Fall

Felix Baumgartner ready for his record jump

Earlier today Austrian skydiver Felix Baumgartner fell from the edge of space. Or more accurately, he jumped from a higher altitude than anyone ever has, setting records for the highest balloon ascent, highest skydive, and fastest descent (watch a few minutes of video here). The successful mission was the culmination of more than five years of effort by Baumgartner and his Red Bull-sponsored team. Baumgartner had initially planned to jump a few days ago, but poor weather delayed the attempt. However, today the morning in Roswell, New Mexico dawned clear and calm. By mid morning the sky was crystal blue and Baumgartner was ready. He boarded his gondola/capsule under the colossal silver bulge of the helium balloon that would carry him to the stratosphere. At about 11:30 AM EDT the balloon was released and Baumgartner left the ground.

Prior to Baumgartner, the highest skydive was made by American Air Force pilot Joseph Kittinger who successfully jumped from over 102,000 feet as part of Project Excelsior in 1960.¹ Kittinger was brought on as a consultant for Baumgartner’s mission and was active today in walking the Austrian through his pre-jump checklist. It took Baumgartner more than two hours to ascend in his small capsule as his helium balloon expanded in the thinning air.² Mission control released some helium from the balloon to stop it rising at about 128,000, or just a bit higher than 24 miles. Baumgartner and his equipment were under constant observation from ground-based cameras and a small mission control center that gave to whole undertaking the look of a miniature NASA operation. The balloon carried Baumgartner 26,000 feet higher than Kittenger’s 1960 jump altitude, and almost 15,000 feet higher than the previous manned balloon ascent record set by Navy Commander Malcolm Ross and Lieutenant Commander Victor Prather, Jr.,³ in 1961.

Balloon and capsule leaving Earth

The project tagline as a “mission to the edge of space” is a more  marketing slogan than reality as the actual height of 24 plus miles is less than half the altitude of true outer space, which is traditionally recognized as starting at 100 kilometers, or 62 miles above the Earth. Nevertheless, the air pressure at 128,000 feet is only about five one thousandths of that at sea level, which as far as humans are concerned is a virtual vacuum. Baumgartner’s capsule and suit were pressurized and oxygenated. The view from that height reveals the curvature of the Earth and a black sky overhead. The entire mission was broadcast live on the internet and when Baumgartner’s capsule door opened and he scooted into jump position it sure looked like space with the eastern New Mexico landscape appearing as a faded brown surface far below.

Baumgartner moved onto a step outside of the capsule and I imagine he must have experienced a jolt of vertigo as he looked down farther than anyone who isn’t an astronaut has ever looked down. With a simple salute he tipped forward off of his perch and into free fall. Jumping into such a diffused atmosphere, Baumgartner met virtually no air resistance, nothing to slow his fall. At more traditional skydiving altitudes, say 10,000 to 15,000 feet, air resistance prevents jumpers from exceeding a terminal velocity, typically about 120 miles per hour. At higher altitudes jumpers can reach much higher speeds. Kittinger set the record of 614 miles per hour during his 1960 jump. Baumgartner’s stated goals included breaking the previous speed record and breaking the speed of sound. Within a minute he had, reaching a maximum speed of 834 miles per hour.  The speed of sound varies based on air density and temperature, but it has been confirmed that Baumgartner’s maximum speed, reached at about 98,000 feet above sea level, was supersonic.⁴ A little more than three minutes later Baumgartner released his parachute ending his free fall,⁵ floating safely to the dry, scrubby ground.⁶

Felix Baumgartner - the "supersonic" man

So today Felix Baumgartner has taken mankind higher and faster than we’ve ever been outside of a plane or spacecraft. I don’t know how long it might be before someone goes higher or faster, maybe it will take another 52 years (i.e., it's been 52 years since Kittinger's jump), but it was pretty cool to see someone jump from the “edge of space” and reach speeds as fast as a fighter jet. Congratulations to Felix Baumgartner and his team on his historic fall.

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NOTES:

1. I’ve written about this jump and other successful attempts by man to go higher and faster in this earlier post.

2. The balloon would expand to a maximum of some 30 million cubic feet. Imagine a spherical balloon with a diameter of almost 400 feet.

3. Prather tragically died after the successful ascent. The balloon landed in the Gulf of Mexico as planned, but during their recovery Prather lost his grip and slipped from the helicopter hoist. He was weighed down by his suit and drowned.

4. On video it was impossible to hear a sonic boom and in fact the air at 98,000 feet was probably too thin for there to have been much of one.

5. In total Baumgartner’s free fall lasted about 4 minutes and 22 seconds, which is actually twelve seconds less than Kittinger’s 1960 jump, so Kittinger still holds the record for the longest (by time) free fall.

6. The perception of floating down on a parachute is a bit misleading. A person descending under a parachute is still falling at about ten miles per hour, which can lead to painful or even injurious landings. I can attest to this as on my first and only skydive I landed in tandem with my instructor. His legs slipped and we fell hard on our butts. Fortunately, the pain was mitigated by the adrenaline coursing through my body still thrilled from the jump.

The Insidious Influence of Political Polls

Electoral votes based on recent polls

The U.S. Presidential Election is just a month away, and if you’re at all curious about how the election may go, you’re in luck, just turn your attention to the latest political polls. You can compare the national approval ratings for president Obama and (former) Governor Romney, how favorably they’re viewed by “likely” voters, and who’s leading who in swing states like Ohio, Virginia, and Florida. You can note which has the advantage on issues like unemployment, foreign affairs, and government debt. You can survey how the candidates compare among young voters, retirees, minorities, and women. You can follow how the race is tracking on a day-to-day basis. If you’re interested in just about any measure of how Americans may vote on November 6, there’s likely a poll for it. They’re all just a Google search away, knock yourself out.

Political polls are everywhere in the run-up to every major election, they’re quoted by the media, consulted by the campaigns, and, they’re bad.

To explain why this is, I’d ask that you first consider a question: Why should you, a voter deciding on how to cast your ballot come Election Day, care at all about political polls?

Polls Aren’t Science
Pollsters, and there’s a bunch,¹ will tell you that their polls are scientific and accurate. This is not true. Their argument is that their methodology ensures that a statistically representative sample of voters is used in every poll. The overall number of responders, the political leanings of those responders, the questions asked, etc., are carefully calibrated to give an outcome that is accurate within a small margin of error. This gives the sheen of science to the whole effort, as if polls are just another demographic study based on heaps of concrete data. They’re not. It’s certainly true that over the decades pollsters have learned how to better sample the population. Gone are the days when polls showed Alf Landon² beating FDR. But at the end of the day, polls are based on the responses of people, and when it comes to people and politics, you can throw science out the window.

Consider the emphasis in the following question: “Do you agree that President Obama has done a poor job in addressing unemployment?” Admittedly, this is a very simplified example of obvious bias, which is supposed to be scrubbed from all modern poll questions. An unbiased question would better read: “Do you approve or disapprove of the way President Obama is handling the economy?” But here is an actual question from a Washington Post poll from late last month: “Do you think the federal government should or should not pursue policies that try to reduce the gap between wealthy and less well-off Americans?” Would you call this question unbiased? Maybe you think it is. Or maybe you consider terms like “reduce the gap”, “wealthy”, and “less well-off” as loaded and apt to nudge responders in a certain direction. What if the question were reworded this way: “Do you think the federal government should or should not pursue policies that try to shift wealth from those Americans better-off to those less well–off?” Which wording is more biased and are they likely to elicit different responses? This shows you just how hard, and maybe impossible, it is to actually extract bias from any political discussion. If you can’t take bias out of the questions, how can you have an unbiased poll?

Then there is sampling and response bias. Most polls are conducted by calling people with landline phones, which is becoming an increasing anachronistic approach in the era of mobile communications. Consider the constantly shifting demographics (age, sex, economic background) of people that use landlines as opposed to cell phones. What groups are over- or under-represented in surveys conducted in this manner? Further, when are the surveys conducted, during what days and at what times (i.e., who is home when the calls are placed?)? How might this affect the bias of the results?

With response bias people may answer in a manner contrary to what they believe or refuse to participate at all. After all, how honest are people when talking to strangers about politics, a sensitive subject for many? What type of person is willing (and available) to participate? How representative is that person, or that aggregated group of people, of the voting population at large? These questions aren’t easy to answer or dismiss.

Here’s a good example of how these factors can combine for bad polling. Back in 2004, pre-election polling showed a very close race in Virginia between President Bush and Senator John Kerry. And this seemed to be confirmed on Election Day when exit polls indicated that Kerry was performing very well. Yet when the actual votes were counted, Bush led Kerry by a wide margin at all times (he won comfortably 54% to 46%). The networks didn’t call Virginia in Bush’s favor for many hours after the voting ended based on the strength of the inaccurate pre-election and exit polls.³

Polls are bandied about as accurate and unbiased. In other words as a useful indicators of how the public is likely to vote. But they’re often neither accurate nor unbiased. What’s the practical difference between a bad poll and the daily political spin issued by a campaign? Intentional or not, aren’t they both forms of misinformation?

Politics is Not a Spectator Sport
It’s hard not to see the same relationship between political polls and politics as we see between sports and sports statistics. Professional and college sports are one of the tent poles of the vast and growing American entertainment complex, and statistics are the drug of sports enthusiasts;⁴ the careful tracking of performance, the rankings, the orderly measure of players, teams, and leagues. There’s long been a cottage industry built around baseball statistical research; fantasy football, which is all about statistics, is one of the most popular recreational activities in America; the essence of entire sports are based on standings and rankings, and a player’s worth is determined in hard data. As a nation of spectators we love to watch sports – you could probably argue that the next Superbowl will be a more watched event than the upcoming election – and statistics give us more to talk about and discuss. It seems weightier to parse a team’s statistics and analyze performance based on numbers than to simply describe and appreciate the physical competition. It’s the data-science companion to the physical action-art.

For some, politics is the sport of choice. But of course politics isn’t a sport, it’s not entertainment. At its core politics is about how as a society we choose to live together, and it involves complex, convolved issues. Issues that are hard to fully understand yet have an important effect on everyday life. It’s hard to understand the current tax structure and the implications of changes to the tax code; health care is a confusing tangle of doctors and medicine, hospitals and insurance, regulations and paperwork; unemployment, gay marriage, abortion, education, government debt, the European financial crisis, war in the Middle East, they all dominate the headlines but none of them have easy solutions. The real societal issues of the day, the issues that make up the political landscape, all require strenuous discussion and wearisome compromise. It’s hard, not fun; it’s tedious, not exciting.

Are Americans Really Heading Back to the City?

by Conroy

Washington, one of America's fastest growing cities in recent years

The U.S. Census Bureau recently released data on population growth in American cities between the last official census in 2010 and estimates from mid-2011. The data showed that most of the central cities in America’s largest urban areas had gained population over the year, and that in many places the central cities actually grew faster than their suburbs. For instance, Washington, Atlanta, and Miami all grew by more than two percent, well ahead of the growth of their metro areas. In aggregate, the core cities of the nation’s 51 largest metropolitan areas grew faster (slightly faster) than their suburbs¹.

This data led to a slew of stories in the media reporting on this apparent demographic shift as evidence of a notion that has been bandied about for the last decade or so: Americans are beginning to eschew the spread out suburbs in favor of the dense historic urban center. That Americans are heading back to the city. Here are a couple of articles along those lines from the Wall Street Journal and the Brookings Institute. Many urban planners would argue that such a trend is an indication of shifting values with Americans putting less of a premium on the car-centered suburbs with their larger houses and yards for a more compact eco-friendly life closer to work, services, and other entertainments.² So the argument goes, but is it true?

Let’s look at the census data for population growth (2010-11) of the central cities in the 20 largest metropolitan areas in the country (rounded to the nearest 1,000).

Central City	2011 Pop.	2010 Pop.	Difference	%
1. New York	8,245,000	8,186,000	59,000	0.72%
2. Los Angeles	3,820,000	3,796,000	24,000	0.63%
3. Chicago	2,707,000	2,698,000	9,000	0.33%
4. Dallas	1,223,000	1,202,000	21,000	1.75%
5. Houston	2,145,000	2,108,000	37,000	1.76%
6. Philadelphia	1,536,000	1,528,000	8,000	0.52%
7. Washington	618,000	605,000	13,000	2.15%
8. Miami	409,000	401,000	8,000	2.00%
9. Atlanta	432,000	422,000	10,000	2.37%
10. Boston	625,000	618,000	7,000	1.13%
11. San Francisco	813,000	805,000	8,000	0.99%
12. Riverside	311,000	306,000	5,000	1.63%
13. Detroit	707,000	714,000	-7,000	-1.00%
14. Phoenix	1,469,000	1,449,000	20,000	1.38%
15. Seattle	621,000	610,000	11,000	1.80%
16. Minneapolis	388,000	383,000	5,000	1.31%
17. San Diego	1,326,000	1,312,000	14,000	1.07%
18. Tampa	346,000	337,000	9,000	2.67%
19. St. Louis	318,000	319,000	-1,000	-0.31%
20. Baltimore	619,000	621,000	-2,000	-0.32%
Total	28,678,000	28,420,000	258,000	0.90%

America’s largest urban areas did see population growth in the central cities, with only three of the 20 cities showing (relatively modest) population declines. Overall these 20 cities grew by a total of 258,000 people, a little less than one percent and nearly twice the national rate of population growth. New York City gained the most new residents, but because of its size the actual rate of growth was lower than the average for this 20-city group. That’s a crucial fact (size compared to rate) to keep in mind when considering population growth of cities and regions, and it leads directly to the overall growth of American suburbs.

Compare the central city growth from the table above to the non-central city (suburban) growth of the 20 largest metropolitan areas (rounded to the nearest 1,000).

The Long Fall of John Goodman

by Conroy

John Goodman on trial

If you’re intrigued by sensational courtroom drama involving the lurid details of the rich and famous, you’ll be fascinated by the recent trial of John Goodman, polo tycoon, founder of the International Polo Club Palm Beach, and popular playboy [1].

In the foggy dark early morning hours of February 12, 2010 Goodman was driving his $200,000 black Bentley along the quiet west county roads near Wellington, Florida. Driving recklessly in low-visibility Goodman ran a stop sign and violently struck a Hyundai driven by 23-year-old engineering student Scott Wilson. The impact was so violent that it knocked Wilson’s car from the road and into an adjacent canal. Wilson trapped in his car, drowned. His Bentley badly damaged from the crash, Goodman left the scene on foot.

He called 9-1-1, an hour later, from the mobile home of a nearby resident. The medical examiner noted that the long delay between the accident and the 9-1-1 call sealed Wilson’s fate. The recording of Goodman’s call (listen here), indicates that he (1) knew he had been in a car accident, (2) it was his fault, and (3) he sounds confused like he’s drunk but trying not to sound drunk. When he was finally arrested hours after the accident his blood alcohol level was twice the legal limit. A sensational legal battle was about to begin.

Goodman hired famed high-powered Miami defense attorney Roy Black, whose previous clients include physician William Kennedy Smith [2], radio host Rush Limbaugh, and actor Kelsey Grammer, and who’s frequently appeared on TV as a legal commentator. He pleaded not guilty to the charges of DUI manslaughter and vehicular homicide. Then, in order to shield his considerable fortune from the civil lawsuits that would surely be filed by the Wilson family, he legally adopted his 42-year-old girlfriend in the fall of 2011. He immediately gave her a portion of the $300 million trust he had set up for his two biological children. A family scrabble was bound the ensue, and sure enough his two teenaged kids filed suit in February attempting the have the adoption thrown out so they could maintain sole beneficiaries of the fortune.

Goodman's (top) and Wilson's (bottom) mangled cars

Once the trial began, Black presented the following defense. Earlier in the evening Goodman attended two events, the first at the White Horse Tavern and the second at the Players Club [3], where bar tabs show he ordered many rounds of vodka and tequila. According to the testimony of friends, including polo player Ignacio “Nacho” Figueras [4], he bought most of the drinks for others and was not intoxicated when he left the Players Club. Goodman then drove his car in search of a Wendy’s for a late night frosty. Approaching the intersection where the accident would occur, Goodman’s vehicle suddenly malfunctioned and despite his best efforts to stop the car it accelerated forward through the intersection. He then struck something, banging his head in the process. He didn’t know what he had hit and when he got out of his car to investigate he didn’t see another car or person. The accident had left him dazed and confused and his cell phone had died. So he wandered off in search of help and nursing an injured wrist and ribs. He soon saw a light down the road coming from an open barn door. He went inside in search of a phone, which he didn’t find but he did see a bottle of liquor. He drank from the bottle hoping the alcohol would alleviate his “excruciating [physical] pain”. Then he left the barn, spotted the light of a nearby trailer and called 9-1-1 using the owner’s phone. That was Black's explanation for the delay in calling 9-1-1 and the elevated blood-alcohol level.

On a believability scale with 1 representing the unvarnished as-God-is-my-witness recounting of events and 10 being a preposterously unbelievable fabrication, Goodman’s explanation of events rates at about a 13. The jury agreed and on March 23 of this year – more than two years after the accident – Goodman was found guilty of DUI manslaughter and vehicular homicide; he faces up to 30 years in prison [5]. Roy Black has claimed jury misconduct, but that charge has been rejected by the court, though further arguments on this point are set to be heard on April 30. Sentencing will likely occur in early May.

"Bus Good, Train Bad"

by Conroy

Rendering of a "future" high-speed rail train in California

Sometimes exciting ideas are bad. Take the title quote, which I read in a recent Bloomberg article by Edward Glaeser the accomplished Harvard economist [1]. These four words, according to Glaeser, sum up the accepted wisdom gleaned from 40 years of transportation economics at Harvard. And they are directly at odds with one of the long-held – and long out-of-reach – goals of many American transportation planners: true high-speed rail (HSR in planning and transit lingo).

High Speed Rail in America
For many decades (if not longer) there has been a desire among transit advocates to connect America’s cities with a web of efficient, clean, fast trains. This transit mode would act as an environmentally friendly alternative to the automobiles that crowd urban highways and dirty the air, and to expensive, polluting planes. Advocates point to the successful HSR systems in Western Europe and Japan [2] and models for a future American system. Indeed, HSR does offer advantages over other transportation modes, but only under the right conditions. Those conditions include densely populated areas along the train route, relatively underdeveloped highway infrastructure, high gas prices, existing heavy passenger rail use, and relatively short distances. These conditions are needed because HSR becomes economically feasible when ridership is high. And ridership will only be high if it’s more cost effective for people to use HSR than it is to use other modes, or borrowing terms from economics, if the combination of cost (the price of a ticket) and duration (the time the trip takes) are lower than competing modes (road and air).

In Japan, where there are 65 million people living tightly along the 250 mile corridor between Tokyo and Osaka, HSR is an ideal solution. Similarly, the densely packed corridor in France between Paris and Lyon is a prime location. In Japan and France gas prices and population densities are high, intercity freeways are less extensive, and major urban areas are closely spaced. And even in these locations, HSR like other transit modes isn’t self-supporting. It requires government investment to fund the capital expense and support the high operating costs [3]. This investment is justified because of the high value of time saved by moving so many riders.

If you look at the United States, the conditions for HSR are far less favorable. Gas is cheap [4], the interstate highway system is vast, and excepting the Northeast Corridor between Washington and Boston [5], population centers are widely spaced across the continent. Today, on a national level, only about one half of one percent of passenger trips are made by train of any sort and just one tenth of one percent are taken on intercity rail. The Northeast Corridor is the most heavily used intercity passenger train route, but Amtrak’s semi-high-speed Acela train [6] deployed on that route only accounts for about three million trips annually. A number dwarfed by automobile trips on Interstate 95, the parallel freeway.

Despite these realities, the political support for HSR has grown in recent years. In 2009, as part of the much-touted, mid-recession American Reinvestment and Recovery Act, Congress included, at the President’s urging, $8 billion for intercity rail, with an emphasis on HSR. Since then the Federal Railroad Administration and many state-level transportation agencies have been studying potential routes all over the country. The furthest down the track in these efforts is California, which rather fancifully expects to start the building an HSR line later this year. Unfortunately for HSR advocates, numerous studies (prominent examples here and here) have demonstrated the massive flaws in California’s plan. Given the huge costs and time to develop HSR, and that funding and grass roots support is largely absent, HSR is likely to go nowhere in California or anywhere else (with the lone potential exception of the Northeast Corridor).