Don't poo-poo the choo-choos

   I have never been impressed with now-Gov. Rick Scott of Florida, and his current inaction verifies my growing discomfort.
   For starters, he did so much damage at his previous job that the company had to rename itself. Mr. Scott was shown the door as CEO of the Columbia/HCA hospital corporation after it was fined $1.7 billion by the federal government for Medicare fraud — the largest case of medical thievery in U.S. history. Although our newly minted governor was not charged with any crime while running the planet's biggest private health care operator {I mean how could he know, he was the CEO?} he reportedly did invoke the 5th Amendment 75 TIMES during his testimony on the debacle.
   And yet he managed to win the governor's mansion by attracting less than 50% of votes cast while beating back one of the most pathetic Democratic candidates I've ever seen.
   How did he do it? By spending $73 million of his own money for his campaign which earned him just under 2.6 million votes. That's roughly $28 a vote!
   But that's all background.
   Currently he's told the feds to keep their $2.6 billion designated for a high-speed rail system connecting Orlando to Tampa. It "doesn't add up," he claims, fearing cost overrun and an apparent lack of faith in his own leadership to keep those overruns down. The feds have given him until Friday to take the deal.
   In other breaking news, we have a report from Reuters that oil prices are likely going to clobber states that rely so heavily on vehicular traffic in their tourism equation, such as Florida or any of the Western states.
   That is a nasty pickle for the West and unless you want to revive trains from the 19th century to try to lure tourists to the "real old West," I'd say they are going to get whacked the worst by the unyielding cost of gas. {Now stagecoaches ... will some tour outfit actually restart classic American journeys with literal horsepower?}
   Last week, crude oil prices briefly crossed $100 a barrel and pump prices are pegged at $3.19 a gallon nationally. This morning I battled a throng at the local cheapy gas station to snag $40 worth of gas: $3.359 a gallon.
   Considering our old pals in OPEC are under siege (and it doesn't look like anything tidy will emerge from that), what will become of us when the new "standard" will be $5 a gallon, because I can see $4 a gallon coming sooner rather than later.
   Will people start "walking away" from their SUVs like they walked away from their stupid mortgages? Look for an uptick in arson involving large vehicles.
   But for Florida, and especially fanning out from Orlando, rapid, targeted rail travel makes sense.
   As I alluded to in a previous screed, the Sunshine State is chock full o' fogies and foreign tourists — many of whom should be off the road for safety reasons.
   Gramps and grandma may be more inclined to visit their offspring's offspring if they could travel from Disneyland to the beach without having to rent an unfamiliar car (or, God forbid, a minivan).
   Foreign visitors are used to riding on trains: that's how they do it at home. They would prefer to ride the rails, believe me.
   According to Visit Florida, the state's tourism cheerleader, 82.6 million tourists visited Florida in 2010, pushed by an increase from foreigners "whose number rose 13.5 percent." Nearly a quarter of the state's sales tax revenue comes from tourism.
   Are you listening, Mr. Scott?
   The looming transportation crisis for Florida (it's already a big problem) is real. How are you going to protect a quarter of your income if people can't effectively navigate a 450-mile long peninsula?
   It doesn't sound much like "today is the end of politics as usual in Tallahassee," as Scott declared after his gubernatorial victory. The dude's got a lot to prove as any kind of visionary and he apparently has always struggled with math (or at least doesn't understand the rules too well).
  One of my favorite authors, Carl Hiaasen, made this observation in his Miami Herald column: "Scott is one of those people who always thinks he's the smartest one in the room, but he will soon be educated otherwise."
   Let's hope we don't sink further into the sand before he learns a lesson or two.