Tag: Chicago

Sunday Train: An Ohio Universities Rail System, Part 1 (Southern & Central Ohio)

Well, the 2016 High Speed Rail unlock has been postponed to 2018 or 2020. When transportation policy at the Federal level is grabbed with both hands by the Oil and Gas death lobby, we have to turn to the state level. Now, in Ohio, it might not look like that offers a prospect any better …

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Black Lives Mattered

There is change in the air. Bernie Sanders didn’t fair well in Tuesday’s primaries but his presence in the race is making a difference. Not just the kind of difference that is keeping Hillary Clinton on the left of center, but the kind that is changing the down ticket races where it really counts. Voters …

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Managing Anger

I’ve been really much too angry to talk about many of recent events both here in the US and overseas. Since the bombing of the Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctor Without Borders) hospital by the US military in Kunduz, Afghanistan to Friday’s mass shooting at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs, trying to remain objective …

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Rant of the Week: Jon Stewart: Tower Record

Jon Stewart: Tower Record

Let me explain something, deep-dish pizza is not only not better than New York pizza. It’s not pizza. It’s a f***ing casserole!

Let me add this, if you can’t pick it up in one hand and have to eat it with a fork, it isn’t pizza.

Rahm Emanuel Sends Jon Stewart And ‘Daily Show’ ‘Deep Dish With Dead Fish’ After Pizza Fight

Apparently dead fish are Rahm Emanuel’s version of an olive branch. [..]

In a nod to one of his most infamous political shenanigans, Chicago’s mayor made sure the deep-dish pies were topped with dead fish (y’ know, anchovies). [..]

Yet as much as the feisty mayor wanted the last word, Stewart and company were having none of it. Their response to Emanuel’s “peace” offering? A Vine video showing a pooch turning his nose up at the delicious pie.

Sunday Train: The Proposed Chicago – Fort Wayne – Columbus Rapid Rail Service

cross-posted from Voices on the Square

The Northeast Indiana Passenger Rail Association, on 28 June 2013, announced the results of their study of a Northern Indiana / Ohio rail corridor to Chicago:

The proposed system would operate twelve trains each way per day, including at least six express schedules.  With modern diesel equipment running at speeds of up to 110 miles per hour to start, the three-hundred mile trip between downtown Chicago and downtown Columbus would normally require only three hours, forty-five minutes (express service), or four hours (local service).  Track and safety  improvements in a potential future phase would support speeds up to 130 mph and a downtown Chicago to downtown Columbus express time of three hours, twenty minutes.

Longer time readers of the Sunday Train may recognize this as a piece of the Ohio Hub project, first developed in the 1990’s. At the time that the Ohio Hub was originally developed, the Fort Wayne to Chicago link was slated to be the second connection from Ohio to Chicago, with the envisioned phasing being:

  • Phase 1: Chicago to Detroit; and Cincinnati – Columbus – Cleveland ~ the Triple C backbone of the Ohio Hub
  • Phase 2: Cleveland to Toledo, Toledo to Detroit, completing Cleveland to Chicago via Michigan
  • Phase 3: Fort Wayne to Chicago; Toledo to Fort Wayne; Columbus to Fort Wayne; Cincinnati – Indianapolis – Gary – Chicago, completing Dayton/Cincinnati to Chicago via Indianapolis and Columbus/Cleveland to Chicago via Fort Wayne
  • Phase 4: Cleveland to Pittsburgh via Youngstown, connecting with services to Philadelphia / New York on the Keystone Corridor
  • Phase 5: Columbus to Pittsburgh, connecting with services to Philadelphia / New York on the Keystone Corridor
  • Phase 6: Cleveland to Toronto via Buffalo and Niagara Falls, connecting with services to New York and Boston on the Empire Corridor

So what the Northeast Indiana Passenger Rail Association is doing is pulling out a section of the Phase Three of the Ohio Hub and proposing it as a free-standing project. This free-standing project would bring intercity rail service back to Columbus, the largest or second largest urban area lacking rail service (depending on how you count Phoenix), and to Fort Wayne, the largest urban area in Indiana without intercity passenger rail service.

This Is America Under Barack Obama

Our Forefathers would weep.

Occupy Journalists Stopped, Searched, Handcuffed & Interrogated at Gunpoint

by Kevin Gosztola

Under cover of the night around twelve police cars stopped five journalists when they were heading back to where they are staying in Chicago during the NATO summit. All five have been covering protests against the NATO summit for the past few days.

The five journalists included Luke Rudkowksi, who streams as @Lukewearechange, Tim Pool, who streams as @Timcast, Jeoff Shively (@Jiraffa), Dustin & Jess. They are known for their work livestreaming and tweeting out regular coverage of Occupy protests.

There’s more from Tim Poole

There appears to have been a conscious targeting of bloggers and livestreamers. The Chicago police, possibly with help from the Department of Homeland Security, FBI or other federal agencies, appear to be working off a list of “suspected” people or spaces where they must go “check in” on what is happening simply to ensure all is safe. Of course, this is illegal. Without a warrant or probable cause, rights are being clearly violated.

In each of these instances, the police did not inform those detained why they were being detained. The police stopped them to find criminal activity that they could then use against the journalists to make arrests. And so far they have not been able to find any justification for arresting any of these people, but they have been able to briefly frighten and infuriate these journalists and also to impound a vehicle.

LiveStream: #OWS Protest Chicago NATO Summit


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