US divided by superhighway plan

A MASSIVE road four football fields wide and running from Mexico to Canada through the heartland of the United States is being proposed amid controversy over security and the damage to the environment.

The "nation's most modern roadway", proposed between Laredo in Texas and Duluth, Minnesota, along Interstate 35, would allow the US to bypass the west coast ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach to import goods from China and the Far East into the heart of middle America via Mexico, saving both cost and time.

However, critics argue that the ten-lane road would lay a swathe of concrete on top of an already over-developed transport infrastructure and further open the border with Mexico to illegal immigrants or terrorists.

According to a weekly Conservative magazine published in the US, the US administration is "quietly yet systematically" planning the massive highway, citing as a benefit that it would negate the power of two unions, the Longshoremen and Teamsters.

Another source claimed the highway was a "bi-partisan effort" with support from both Republicans and Democrats that would reduce freight transport times across the nation by days.

Under the plan - believed to be an extension of a strategic transportation plan signed in March last year by the US president, George Bush, Paul Martin, the then prime minister of Canada, and Vincente Fox, the Mexican president - imported goods would pass a border "road bump" in the Mexican port of Lazaro Cardenas, before being loaded on to lorries for a straight run to a major hub, or "SmartPort", in Kansas, Oklahoma.

Border guards and customs officers would check the electronic security tags of lorries and their holds at a £1.6 million facility being built in Kansas City, before sending them on to the road network that links the US cities of Chicago, Minneapolis and Detroit with Ottawa, Winnipeg and Vancouver across the Canadian border.

Following the release of a 4,000-page environmental study, construction of the first leg of the Trans-Texas Corridor is reportedly due to begin next year, backed by US state and governmental agencies and a Spanish private sector company, Concessions de Infraestructuras de Transporte.

Tiffany Melvin, the executive director of Nasco, a non-profit organisation which has received £1.4 million from the US Department of Transport to study the proposal, said: "We're working on developing the existing system; these highways were developed in the 1950s and we have number of different programmes we're working on to provide alternative fuels and improve safety and security issues.

"We get comments that we are working to bring in terrorists and drug dealers, but this is simply not true.

"This is a bi-partisan effort that will ultimately improve our transportation infrastructure.

"Trade with China is increasing greatly, and the costs of our transportation system are ultimately born by the consumer.

"We do offer links to Canada and Mexico, but we are working on the trade competitiveness of America. We are planning for the future."

Eric Olson, the transportation spokesmen for the California-based Sierra Club, a national environmental awareness organisation, said the road would cause significant damage.

"There is a great need for fixing our existing roads and bridges. That needs to be a priority before we start building new massive road projects."

I'm sure you're right, I hope we live long enough to see it exposed and hopefully have a much better and just society as a result of it.
- - - - -

I think you make some excellent points. And none I really disagree with.

As to living long enough . . . probably depends on a lot of things. Our generation will. A lot of individuals won't.

These are increasingly becoming the days Scripture speaks of when the righteous hide themselves. God have mercy on us. The MSM calls evil good and good evil. The COURTS call evil good and good evil. Hollyweed has long called evil good and good evil.

And we seem to think God doesn't notice--and that's folks calling themselves Christian! The evil no longer even believe in God--or claim they don't. A lot of them believe in Him, they just think they can get away with shaking their fists at Him because no one in authority has ever stood up to their evil.

Witness this excerpt from an email forwarded by Jocko Manning:

I may have told some of you that I had a very unusual dream about Jefferson City, MO January 2005, well, it is somewhat similar to what I am sending here. I don't know WHY I was given the dream I had, nor do I know why Lloyd Day of Salem, OR was given these two, however, such dreams challenge my complacent attitude about "the world as we know it."

These are food for thought, sent for your prayerful consideration.

Watching and praying,
S.

P.S. If you are interested in my dream let me know and I will email it to you. S.

+* +* +* +*
By Lloyd Day
Beth Tefilah Messianic Congregation
P.O. Box 4189 - Salem, OR 97302
Meeting at: Shekina Fellowship
2765 Broadway St. NE
Salem, OR 97303
(503) 393-0796
http://www.bethtefilah.net/
day_tefilah@yahoo.com

... My mind shifted to here in Oregon. I had a dream recently: I heard a knock on my door and when I went to answer it, there were two men standing there. They looked like ordinary men but I had never seen them before. There was something different about them, although I couldn't put my finger on it. There was one interesting thing, however. Whenever anyone comes up on our porch and knocks on the door, our dog will start barking very loudly. This time she didn't. They told me that I had to gather my emergency things and get out of town as soon as possible. I stood there stunned for a moment. They said that God was going to bring judgment on this area. Then my mind shifted to the two angelic beings that warned Lot to get out of Sodom. I asked them if we had time to warn our family and friends, and they said to go ahead. I had my wife start calling while I went out and started packing emergency things into my pickup. These two men came out and started helping me. These men were very fast and efficient packers. Some of the things I was packing in, they grabbed and threw to one side. I could tell by the urgency in their actions that this was no time to argue with them.

As we concluded the packing of the pickup, one of the men left and came back in a couple of minutes leading my wife and dog and they both literally pushed us into the pickup. We had previously arranged with our family and members of our congregation for a meeting place in case there was ever an emergency and we had to evacuate. These men told us to head out for our pre-arranged meeting place and not to stop for anything. I always keep my gas tanks as close to full as possible so we didn't have any excuse for stopping.

It took us about and hour and fifteen minutes to get to the meeting place. We weren't sure of what to do next so we started setting up a camp. After about twenty minutes someone from our congregation came in and joined us. Over the next two hours, more people in our congregation and family members arrived. After a little while, we felt a small trembling in the ground. We all kind of just looked at each other. We turned on a small radio to see if we could find out anything.

We heard a report that a major earthquake had hit Portland and that major damage had occurred. The report also said that Bonneville Dam had collapsed because of the quake and that a wall of water was rushing down the Columbia toward Portland.

My thought now shifted to where I was above all of this watching it all take place. There was a big Gay Pride Parade going on in downtown Portland when the earthquake hit and buildings came tumbling down on all of those there. Portland was in total devastation. I'm not sure just how big the earthquake was but the number of 9.2 seems significant. There was also a major earthquake off the west coast that started a tsunami. Not too long after the quake in Portland, a wall of water from the collapse of the Bonneville Dam came rushing through Portland. A little while later another wall of water from the tsunami came up the Columbia River and it also came rushing through Portland.

Salem was also totally leveled by the earthquake. The loss of life in the whole Willamette Valley was enormous. As I looked around Salem, I saw a group of men. I think that there was about twenty of them. They all had large automatic weapons. I had the feeling that they were terrorists but I'm not sure. There were a few survivors wandering around, dazed from their injuries from the earthquake. Whenever this group of men came upon anyone wandering around, they would kill them. They seemed to be looking for anyone they could kill. There was no one to come against them. Finally, after a long while, some National Guard troops came on the scene but this gang had killed a lot of people by this time and when they saw the troops, they just faded into the rubble and escaped.

Later as I thought through this, I tried to identify something that would give us an idea of the date it was going to take place. The only thing that I could identify was that there was a large gay pride parade in downtown Portland when the earthquake hit. So I set about to try and find out when the next big gay pride parade was scheduled in Portland. The answer to that came back as June 18th, which is Father's Day.

We set about to plan a congregation picnic that day at a campground about 60 miles East of Salem. Prior to my dream, we had already had an emergency planning meeting about the place out there. We learned that the place we planned to meet was now blocked off so we selected another site nearby. We wanted to stay in that area because the two men that came to my house in the dream said that we were to go to the area we had already arranged for.

As the days clicked off, we went about our normal activities and doing some planning for the big June 18th day. One day someone called who heard about my dream and said that Detroit Lake was not a good place. We should select somewhere else. As I carefully thought about this, I realized that God had already given us His stamp of approval through the two men who came to my door. They told us to flee to our predetermined location. There was nothing said about changing locations at that time.

Just a few days ago, someone came by and said that they had done some checking on the gay pride activities at that time. They said that there were major activities as well as parades scheduled for both the 17th (Saturday) and the 18th (Sunday). They suggested that we increase our campground reservations from one day to two. This is not that easy to do. I began asking my Heavenly Father what to do. This now sets the stage for my latest dream.

A Dream of Confirmation - May 11, 2006

One thing I've learned about a dream from God, you are so actively involved in the dream that there is no way to forget it when it is over.

In this dream, there was a very strange shape being assembled. It was like a cylinder that had a very irregular shape. There were a lot of pieces on the table next to it. They reminded me of jigsaw puzzle pieces and yet they were nothing like puzzle pieces. There were no tabs or offsetting cutouts. There were no patterns or changing colors so that you could match them up with where they went. There was no way to identify any markings so that you could figure out where they went. You just had to take each piece and try it and keep trying it until you found a place it would fit. I was getting very frustrated because of the difficulty of this. Finally, in complete desperation, I cried out, "Father, what am I suppose to be doing?" No answer. Then again, "Father, what am I doing here?" After several attempts with no answer, I heard a voice say, "Shmoneh Esrei."

"Shmoneh Esrei!!!!" What am I suppose to do with that? I knew that the Shmoneh Esrei was a list of prayers that have been a part of the Jewish Synagogue service for the past 1800 years. But what am I suppose to do with it. How does it fit in with what I am involved in with assembling this cylinder?

Have you ever been involved in a research project of some kind where the material was very difficult to understand. At some point in your studies you all of a sudden "get it." You start rejoicing and dancing around. This is kind of what happened next for me. I suddenly realized that "Shmoneh Esrei" is also the Hebrew word for the number eighteen. I had been asking the Father to show me the date for this Father's Day outing. I needed to know whether it was just the 18th or both the 17th and the 18th. He just showed me that it was the 18th only.

I entered into rejoicing and praising His Holy Name when all of a sudden my bubble popped. Why did He do that? I was already on a course of obedience for the 18th. If He had done nothing, I would have continued on my course of preparing for the 18th. He must have had some specific reason for showing me. I prayed on this for some time and then it came to me. When God repeats something it is because it is determined by Him. He wanted me to tell people about this.

WHAT???????

I was trying to maintain a low key profile on this. I said that I wasn't a prophet and I didn't want to give the impression that I was trying to set myself up as one. Now all of a sudden I realize that He wants me to warn the people of the Willamette Valley with what He has shown me. My first response was, "You've got to be kidding!" Then all of a sudden Ezekiel 3:17-21 came to mind.

"Son of man, I have appointed you a watchman to the house of Israel; whenever you hear a word from My mouth, warn them from Me. 18 "When I say to the wicked, 'You will surely die,' and you do not warn him or speak out to warn the wicked from his wicked way that he may live, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity, but his blood I will require at your hand. 19 "Yet if you have warned the wicked and he does not turn from his wickedness or from his wicked way, he shall die in his iniquity; but you have delivered yourself. 20 "Again, when a righteous man turns away from his righteousness and commits iniquity, and I place an obstacle before him, he will die; since you have not warned him, he shall die in his sin, and his righteous deeds which he has done shall not be remembered; but his blood I will require at your hand. 21 "However, if you have warned the righteous man that the righteous should not sin and he does not sin, he shall surely live because he took warning; and you have delivered yourself." (See also Ezekiel 33:8 & 9).

I have long expected that someone would share such a dream, vision or word from The Lord and it WOULD come true to the letter. Whether that will be this one or not, remains to be seen. We should know within 48 hours or so.

God be with you and yours.

This is an amazing claim:

We do already have a very efficient rail system

Even if we discount our near-dead passenger rail system, "efficient" is hardly the word to speak regarding our rail system. Try just these quick returns on a search for "railroad" at Forbes.com:

1. U.S. Railroad Profits Tied To New Investment
June 15, 2006. The main cause of the rail capacity crisis is increased traffic.

2. Railroads Can Move Forward
May 05, 2006. Track improvements and intermodal freight handling can create a more aggressive U.S. rail system.

3. This Is How To Run A Railroad
February 13, 2006 The boom in global trade has made the rail business hot again. Norfolk Southern is leading the way by adding technology, marketing and customer service to a sooty old business.

The positive tone of these articles speaks for the moribund state of and absence of efficiency in our rail system. That last story is about one railroad, Norfolk Southern, that finally figured out that using 100-year old technology to route its trains ain't "efficient." The rest of the industry has years to catch up. That first article may also seem positive, but the fact that our rails operate at capacity is not good news. That's like praising highway congestion.

Our highway transportation system today is in a state of atrophy. As the railroads died to regulations and price, highways and air transit provided new options. The Interstate Highway System led to dramatic decreases in the cost of transportation and logistics, dropping from 20% of the GDP in 1980 to 10% in 1990. Since that time there's been no further decrease in those costs -- that is, no increase in overall efficiency. Our highways are where are railroads were fifty years ago: dying.

If we keep to the same-olds of gas/tires taxes of the Federal/State program and draining of those funds for "other than roads," and etc., and the general system of road-bulding-as-politics, our highways will be in danger of collapsing. The System is getter worse, not better. We need innovation in funding, building, and maintenance. The CA, TX, IL, IN, and on-coming other projects that are using market principles will invigorate the System. Just as the railroads collapsed (freight, nearly, passenger, totally) to the government-led destruction of competition (which industry likes, btw), our highways are dying of the same illness. These are necessarily and brilliant fixes.

As this thread alone illustrates, too many objections to these innovations are based upon hysterias that have little to do with transportation.

Instead of just googling for sensationalistic news headlines, or pushing some ulterior motive, or grinding some anti-U.S. Railroad axe, why not look at actual competent studies in the field, with reasoned and balanced perspectives? Oh, no, that wouldn't support the cabal's little pet project, then, would it?

Here is one such study of dramatic increases in railroad efficiencies between 1978 and 2004:

US Railroad Efficiency: A Brief Economic Overview
By Gerard J. McCullough, Ph.D.,
Department of Applied Economics University of Minnesota

Therein you will find some relevant conclusions as I have abstracted here:

The operational changes have been dramatic. The AAR Analyses show that between 1978 and 2004 revenue ton-miles per mile of road have grown from 4.5 million to 12.2 million, average lengths of haul have increased from 617 miles to 902 miles, and the percent of train-miles completed in unit trains has expanded from 7 percent to 37 percent.
Operational changes have been accompanied by various technological improvements including higher adhesion locomotives, re-engineered rails and cars, better maintenance of way equipment, and automated inspection techniques. The overall effect has been a much higher level of productive efficiency in the rail industry.
Labor output (Figure 2) has grown from 1.8 million revenue ton-miles per employee in 1978 to 10.5 million in 2004.
Fuel productivity (Figure 3) has increased from 216.4 revenue ton-miles per gallon to 408.5 revenue ton-miles per gallon.
Equipment productivity (Figure 4) has increased as well: revenue ton-miles per locomotive increased by about 250 percent, and revenue ton-miles per freight car has increased by about 450 per cent.
[All of the data are from the Analyses of Class I Railroads.]
The economic effect of these changes has been a significant reduction in railroad operating costs. These are illustrated by the bottom line in Figure 5--operating expenses per revenue ton-mile--which dropped from 2.46 cents (current) in 1978 to 2.11 cents (current) in 2004. (Operating revenue per revenue ton-mile, the top line in Figure 5, is treated below as a dimension of allocative efficiency.)
What we have reported here are “partial” productivity measures in which outputs (e.g. revenue ton-miles) are divided by a specific input (e.g. labor hours). Other “total factor” productivity measures are available which take into account not only the relative increases of outputs and inputs but the residual effect of “technological progress” i.e. more efficient combinations of factors such as capital and labor. Most recent econometric studies of rail costs show total factor productivity gains in the rail industry of about three to four percent annually. See, for example, Ivaldi and McCullough (2004). P. 6
III. US Railroads and Allocative Efficiency
The role of transportation in fostering economic growth may have been exaggerated by highway builders and others who benefit directly from transportation spending. It is analytically difficult to disentangle the extent to which transportation investment generates economic activity or economic activity spurs transportation investment.
....
Various independent studies have shown that railroads have a definite allocative efficiency advantage over other modes in providing some transportation services. When all costs are taken into consideration—internal costs absorbed by firms and external costs such as pollution and congestion--railroads often generate lower marginal costs than the other modes. An efficient economy would favor railroads in these cases.

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