The Infrastructurist has a good summation of the For and Against of high-speed rail. They also have a slough of links throughout the article that I haven't reproduced here.

You know what would really simplify and improve the American political system presently?  I'll tell you: We should all just give our money directly to corporations!  At least, that's what Glenn Beck is apparently advising his audience to do in the form of making political donations directly to the Chamber of Commerce.  Media Matters sums it up:

Nadia and Thad Comaneci looked at their child with the love the love of new parents. eyes of newborn parents. That he was 14 seemed to have no affect on them whatsoever. Timmy Johnson was their new son.

“Look at him. He always wants the hamburgers and the video games. He is so beautiful,” said Nadia Comaneci, of her newly adopted American son. “Always with the fuckaoofs.”

“Oh, Fuck off,” said Johnson.

So, the story about bad mortgages, by which I mean not simply ill-conceived loans on houses that have hemorrhaged value but loan transfers with forged or non-existent paperwork, is beginning to make it into the daily news. We're going to hear much more about it, I'm afraid.