Bridges Falling Down - Open Thread
By SusanUnPC on August 2, 2007 at 3:23 PM in Current Affairs
How many studies and articles have proven, irrefutably, that this country’s infrastructure is in dire need of repair or replacement? (A 2005 report card from the American Society of Civil Engineers gave our nation’s infrastructure an overall grade of D.) Think what we could do with the $10-12 billion expended monthly in Iraq. (In fact, for 1/12th the annual cost of the Iraq war, we could enact the ACSE’s recommended “$9.4 billion a year for 20 years to eliminate all bridge deficiencies.”) The ASCE points to the Bush administration’s deliberate starvation of federal programs: “Long-term underinvestment is compounded by the lack of a Federal transportation program.” And, a nationwide infrastructure program, in tandem with states, to repair or replace bridges, roads, and dams would also create a huge number of jobs that would pay a living wage and increase the skill sets of low-wage workers or the unemployed. Do you think the GOP governor of Minnesota will give up his tax cuts for the rich to avert more disasters and create jobs?
Also of note: Douglas Farah and Stephen Braun, the authors of Merchant of Death, which Larry just reviewed, are guests for the second hour today on the Diane Rehm show, with USA Today’s Susan Page subbing.
Via Andrew Sullivan’s blog at The Atlantic:
Not an encouraging news round-up:
A Kurdish journalist, for example, was given 18 months in prison last year because his online writing criticized leaders of the Kurdish region in Iraq. A Saudi spent 13 days in jail for online writing that warned about the power of religious extremists in Saudi Arabia. And a Libyan journalist who wrote critical articles about Libyan officials for London-based Libyan opposition Web sites was mysteriously gunned down in 2005, activists said.
[TEST POSTING - IGNORE]
It’s been reported that the war in Iraq will cost $1 trillion. What would $1 trillion buy? Healthcare for every American; support for the sciences; investment in alternative energy; support, training and equipment for first responders; more money to police our ports; more money to inspect food and ensure public safety; more money for infrastructure; enough money to buy every soldier their own body armor…
Just posting this in case it hasn’t been discussed. I’m sure Larry and many of your readers have read about it, but this is about the corporatization of intelligence and how much of the CIA’s work has been co-opted by private intelligence firms.
http://www.alternet.org/stories/57979/
$1 Billion?
That’s not what a Nobel Prize winning economist, Joseph Stiglitz, concluded. Stiglitz and Harvard lecturer Linda Bilmes concluded the total cost will be $2 Billion.
link
About creating jobs if we tackle infrastructure, from a friend:
… good quotes from Harry Reid re how one billion spent on infrastructure creates 47,000 jobs.
http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/08/02/bridge.structure/index.html
I heard two hours before bridge collapse The Heartland Institute issued a press release praising the Minn. Governor for vetoing a $350 million road/bridge infrastructure. That release has since been pulled from the website.
Here’s what I found:
http://fruitfly.wordpress.com/2007/08/02/minnesotas-collapsed-bridge-9340/
http://monkeyfister.blogspot.com/2007/08/minnesota-bridge-collapse.html
Of note: The governor was campaigning for John McCain in Iowa while all of this was going on.
gjh, that’s very important news. Think you could find it via Google since it holds old Web pages?
ALSO:
Bush Insults BBC Political Editor at Press Conference
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003619296
By E&P Staff
Published: August 01, 2007 10:50 AM ET
NEW YORK At a recent press conference at Camp David, President George Bush insulted BBC political editor Nick Robinson, the Daily Mirror reports.
Robinson, who has asked Bush pointed questions in the past such as whetherthe president was “in denial” over the Iraq war, posed a question to Bush about whether he could trust visiting British Prime Minister Gordon Brown not to “cut and run” from Iraq.
Bush replied with a dismissal: “Are you still hanging around?”
Later on, Bush poked fun at the bare-pate of Robinson, joking, “You’d better cover up your bald head, it’s getting hot out.”
The respected British reporter shot back, “I didn’t know you cared.”
Bush responded with a cool, “I don’t.” The Mirror reports that Bush then “snorted disdainfully” and “walked away to laughter.”
Is Bush going to support the Minnesota GOP with one of his cocky photo op visits to the disaster area? We all know they won’t be able to get it together up there without a visit from the “president”.
Laura’s going to be there to express her condolences to the families. And Bush is coming too. While he starves key federal agencies of the monies they need to operate efficiently and to protect the public.
I wish, during his just-televised press conference, the Republican governor could have heard me yelling, “You killed those people!” while he made excuse after excuse, parsing terminology about the condition of the bridge. After he vetoed the hard-fought bill in the Minnesota state legislature to begin addressing the dire state of their bridges.
I suppose Republican and Libertarians think the free-market system will take care of all this while they rake in the cash from their tax cuts. Idiotic. And criminally selfish.
And what about the millions of children exposed to toys painted with paint that contains dangerous levels of lead? Even from Mattel, which was thought to be very careful about oversight of its toy factory in China? (I assume you saw the news that 1,000,000 toys have been recalled — toys that toddlers have been putting in their mouths for god knows how long.)
These are the kinds of issues that government — and only government — can address. This is why federal and state agencies were created, and why they must continue to receive the budget and support they need to do their jobs.
So how many more Americans are driving over 50% bridges, bridges that have been found to be structurally deficient or “functionally obsolete”? According to a 2006 DOT report about 26% out of a total of 600,000 are functionally obsolete and ought to be replaced, such as the Minnesota bridge.
But, just as in Minnesota, I’ll bet people driving over those bridges don’t see any warning signs: “Danger, you’re driving over a structually deficient, functionally obsolete bridge. Have a nice day!”
And good old Grover Norquist will still keep preaching his anti-tax and starve government rot. Even government has to pay it’s bills, Grover.
What is the meaning of National Security if it does not include the safety of an individual as they drive across a bridge? How can this country be safe from dangerous consumer products, predatory capitalism, lack of health care and no job security?
Is National Security only a concept that applies to war and spy machines?
What has happened to “We the people”? How have we and our needs been marginalized. We from whom the power of government arises, we from whom the economy spins by the consumer who drives 2/3 of the GDP?
Where is America?
Oh, now I see it is the home of the crony who gets rich off the rest of us with the blessing of the government.
Hey, I have an idea! How about taking all that money the U.S. is spending to destroy Iraq’s infrastructure and kill Iraqis, and spending it to repair your own infrastructure, thus saving American lives.
Sounds like a win-win to me. Iraqi infrastructure is spared, Iraqi lives are spared while American infrastructure is fixed, thus sparing American lives.
Any takers?
That’s exactly what I advocated in the first paragraph.
However, I feel, as an American, morally responsible for at least getting some money to the Iraqis to assist in the rebuilding of their infrastructure. (Yes, there’s rampant corruption in Iraq, but there is in the U.S. too. Just ask Ted Stevens.)
What’s the top priority, Shirin? I’m guessing electricity, sewage, and clean water. That’s three things, but they’re all absolutely necessary for the lives of Iraqis.
Shirin,
On the NBC News Brian Williams said the collapsed bridge “looked like a JDAM [bomb] hit it.” See? We saved the cost of a bomb to collapse the bridge. By that token think of all the money we’d save if we stopped killing Iraqis and just sat back while they died of old age. And there’s a 100% kill effectiveness, too! All we need to do is give it a fancy name like, “Operation Grim Reaper,” and take it to a Neocon thinktank. Then we just wait while it works its way through the system to Bush’s speechwriters. Or we could just fast track it to Tom Friedman. It could be the subject of his next book!
You know, it might be useful to ask some questions, partly as devil’s advocate, and partly because I see various media reports jumping to conclusions before all the facts are in, and also partly because I don’t know all the answers either.
1.) Where is the conclusive opinion that the bridge collapsed due to lack of maintenence?
2.) In light of the fact that this bridge has been passing inspections, where is the conclusive opinion that it’s structure was somehow lacking?
3.) Reports abound generally RE- roads in poor condition. A good part of their condition has to do with broken pavement and potholes. This is exactly what was in the process of being repaired on this particular bridge. Whose expert opinion do we have that the timing of the repairs and the collapse are more than just a coincidence?
My own specific question:
4.) How do we know this collapse isn’t due to an un-realized condition related to something like unaccounted for vibration harmonics resulting from the changing density of a mass of wet/drying concrete in proximity with half a roadway still in use?
I have not seen or heard any conclusive structural engineering opinion specific to this collapse. Has anyone else?
– Aug. 2, 2007.
A 2005 federal study found that the bridge was “structurally deficient.”
“A structurally deficient bridge might be one not adequate for the traffic it takes, but not necessarily dangerous,” Burnett said. “But a lot of structurally deficient bridges are dangerous.”
This is one of a couple of different reports on the bridge that failed.
Yes, and it was built in 1964, four years before federal regulations for bridges were significantly upgraded due to increased traffic and weight on bridges.
We didn’t have SUVs in 1964, which weigh a lot more than ordinary cars.
However, I feel, as an American, morally responsible for at least getting some money to the Iraqis to assist in the rebuilding of their infrastructure.
What’s the top priority, Shirin? I’m guessing electricity, sewage, and clean water. That’s three things,
~~~~~~
susanunpc, agree w/ the americans have a moral responsibility to get money to rebuild, etc, piece.
the top priority? i’ll be curious to see what shirin says. i don’t know this,buti suspect it’s true, i think the bulk of iraqis desperately want americans to get the h*ll out of their country. like yesterday.
that would be my top priority.
there is also a staggeringly insightful line from a guy quoted in ricks’ fiasco. former s.f. officer. now state dept. in anbar province. says what was needed was “way more maslow, and way less milton friedman.” maslow. hierarchy of needs. base is food, shelter, security. friedman was the stupid a** conservative econ. ideas from the u. of chicago boys that bremer shoved down the iraqis throats.
Susan,
Yes, you DID advocate the same thing I was suggesting. :o}
And of course, the U.S. is morally - and no doubt legally - responsible for paying to restore what they have destroyed since 2003, not to mention what they destroyed in 1991, and in all the years during which (mostly Bill Clinton) bombed regularly, and denied the Iraqis the wherewithall to maintain, update or expand the infrastructure.
HOWEVER - any money provided by the U.S. government to Iraq must take the form not of aid, but of reparations, which are ordered and administered by a third party not allied with the U.S. Aid is simply not acceptable because 1) it always comes at a price, and 2) Iraqis and not Americans must be the ones who decide how and where it is to be used.
Assistance from private individuals and NGO’s and other groups is another matter - always welcome as long as there is respect for the fact that Iraqis, and not Americans are in charge.
Of course, Iraqis’ biggest concern is personal security, which will not begin to improve until the U.S. ends its occupation, and leaves the country. After that, then yes, electricity IS the highest priority, since everything, including water and sewage disposal and processing are dependent on that. So, first repairing what can be repaired of the electrical systems, and then once there is a reasonable level of service, water is next (not only is that more critical than sewage, sewage disposal and processing depends heavily on water), then sewage.
leslie, neil, all,
stiglitz and bilmes a while ago were at $2.2 TRILLION for the cost of this stupid a** war. this was a revision upwards from earlier #s when the iraq greet ‘em with candies and flowers party didn’t pan out as advertised.
i have no doubt they will revisit that w/i the next few months and revise that upwards, because the longer we stay, the more the costs go up. (visual to have in mind: the taxi meter from h*ll.)
richard perle is absolutely right: our grandchildren yet unborn will sing songs about us. they will curse us mightily.
“i think the bulk of iraqis desperately want americans to get the h*ll out of their country. like yesterday.”
According to surveys, around 80%, and that includes factoring in the Kurds in Kurdistan, who, while they are quite, quite fed up with the Americans by now, are not desperate to get rid of them because they have not really experienced the occupation. (I have often wished we had numbers for Kurds living outside of Kurdistan - my guess is that they would line up very close to the rest of the people living in those areas.)
“that would be my top priority.”
It has to happen before anything else does because nothing can start to improve as long as the Americans are there.
“what was needed was “way more maslow, and way less milton friedman.” maslow. hierarchy of needs. base is food, shelter, security.”
Well, of course, this assumes Setting aside the fact that what was REALLY needed was not to have attacked, invaded, conquered, and occupied Iraq in the first place, yeah.
But of course, the Iraq project never was about Iraqis’ needs, was it?
shirin, the last piece of yours — the never invade iraq to begin with — reminds me of a column i saw today. think it was norman solomon on common dreams. re vietnam. anyway, guy said media could and did debate for years if there was “light at the end of the tunnel.” then had a great line and insight imj. that the u.s. had no business being in the tunnel to begin with. (ie, being in vietnam at all.)
the world would greatly appreciate it if “the world’s policeman” would just stay home; the military ind. complex of course….not so much.
THIS IS ONLY A TEST TO SEE IF THE SERVER IS STILL HICCUPING.
Our moral responsibility also extends to our fellow Americans. The neocons have destroyed Iraq, let us prevent them from doing the same to us.
Maintenance problems are an overhang of Corporate “thinking” that predated Bush (just). In the good (or bad) ol’ days industry deemed it more important to over-estimate maintenance, as “things could be critical”. But then the penny pinchers came along and looked at restructuring that resource. So, for instance, if you spend nothing on maintenance for three years, you save the entire maintenance bill - that’s the thinking, bear with me. And as we know things are “made to last” these days (sic)
Of course, flip side is bridges can fall down, manufacturing sites can grind down to 10% efficiency, make huge losses (ahhhhemmm).
And it ain’t got nuffin’ to do with Iraq, Shirin. It is the inherent problem of the selfish nature of man. Right now profits are more important than people whether Iraqi or American.
“I don’t want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.”
Grover Norquist, Pres. of Americans for Tax (De/)Reform.
Long time ally of KKKarl Rove & Jack Abrahomoff from college republican days.
Holds weekly K St. meeting for the conservative/business GOP caucus where he passes out the marching orders and gets everybody “on the same page.” Key military principle: unity of command; the Dims don’t even have a clue on this idea.
The most important man in America, that even people in national politics, don’t know.
Gulf States & New Orleans: Mission Accomplished.
Minneapolis: Mission Accomplished.
The Conservative GOP & Spineless Dems….Coming Soon To A City Near You.
Thinker, I don’t believe anyone suggested that it has anything to do with Iraq. I DO believe that Susan and I are both struck by the irony that the United States government has spent hundreds of billions of dollars to destroy Iraq’s infrastructure while neglecting its own. That was MY point, and unless I misunderstood, I believe it was also Susan’s point.
By the way, one of my most enduring friends is a Kurd from Erbil who left Iraq for Sweden some time ago, and is now a Swedish citizen. He simply refused to believe me when I told him that in America roads have potholes that don’t get fixed, the electricity goes out regularly and sometimes takes forever to restore, and that bridges collapse.
Shirin, you summarized our mutual position very well.
That’s so amusing about your Swedish friend. Oh yeah. I remember when Howard Dean came to Seattle in 2003 for his campaign, and his remarks to his staff about the road conditions when they were driving on I-5 through Seattle. It’s truly awful … you feel like you’re driving on a washboard or that one of your tires has blown. That’s just one example of an OLD interstate that is in bad condition.
shirin, re your friend in sweden. hey mate, take it from this yank, it is happening all over our country. gore vidal, the author, lives in hollywood hills, california; a staggeringly wealthy area. installed solar panels to go “off the grid.” what prompted this was the year before, in the dead of summer, they lost power for eight days.
this bridge thing happened years ago, albeit with little loss of life fortunately, in greenwhich, connecticut. (the ancestral home of the bush family.) maybe the richest city in the richest state in the union.
last piece. in st. louis county, missouri, the local utility company, ameren ue, has had major power failures the previous two summers, and the winter before. like 500,000 people lose power for 3-5-7 days at a time. they are also responsible — ignored the warning signs — for a dam (tam sauk) collapsing and killing a few people.
and the priceless thing is this utility company wants to build a ….wait for it people……….a nuclear power plant. in fulton county, missouri, east of jefferson city, near where winston churchill gave his famous “iron curtain” speech.
send him to the link larry provided for the american society of civil engineers. show him the 4 or 5 report cards they do every other year. like 14 key areas. we get a “d” in most areas. they have been sounding the alarm for nearly a decade. to little avail.
reason for this nonsense: to paraphrase one of our famous (american) football coaches al davis of the oakland raiders, “just tax cuts, baby. just tax cuts.”
our utilities used to be excellent. i’ve lived in 9 states and overseas, with never a problem until recently. but then the god of deregulation raised it’s ugly head. and the beast the is wall st. demanded to be fed. and now utilites have 2 masters: wall st. and the public. guess who wins? ameren has literally said, rather than doing maintenance, they “operate to failure.”
create your own parody of those master card commercials.
x: (insert dollar figure.)
y: (insert dollar figure.)
moment the american people wake up: priceless.
WARNING: Wingnut Policies Can Be Hazardous To A Nation’s Health!!!
Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but for a nation to wage and win a war, doesn’t that nation have to be in peak fighting condition, with a healthy physical infrastructure and physically healthy citizens? And any policies that undermine a nation being in peak fighting condition, doesn’t this help the enemy?
Well, one Republican policy after another has undermined and weakened our nation’s capacity for waging and winning Bush’s “eternal” War on Terror, in essence, aiding and abetting our enemies.
Tax cuts for the wealthiest.
Tax breaks and loopholes for corporations.
Lower taxes wherever possible, at local, state and federal levels, but with more emphasis on the federal level the past twelve years while Republicans controlled the U.S. Congress…part of their “bleed and spend” economic policy.
(This strategy is from the Grover Norquist School of Government, with “School” representing a school of Republican sharks taking bite after bite out of our government, bleeding our nation’s tax-base as much as possible, while the corporations and the wealthy, with their tax cuts and tax breaks, drive the Dow up to record heights)
Healthcare, and the health of all U.S. citizens, attacked, leaving 45 million U.S. citizens, and countless children, without healthcare. Emergency rooms, especially in rural areas, closing because there’s not enough taxpayer money available.
Physical infrastructure around our nation falling into disrepair, once again, because there’s not enough taxpayer money available. Not enough inspectors. Bridges collapsing. Levees breaking. Underground pipes bursting. Roadways potholed. Electrical grids overloading.
The U.S. military. With so many hundreds of billions of dollars allocated for the military every year, one would think our military, wherever located, would be at peak fighting condition, sustainable over long periods of time. Nope. The Republicans have shortchanged our soldiers, whether regular military, national guard or reservists (especially over in Iraq)…while diverting billions of dollars to the private “shadow military” the Republicans have been building.
This is no way to wage and win a war. And it has been self-inflicted on our nation, primarily by Republicans, but with a few Democrats lending a hand. And all because “a few” want to profit at the expense of “the many,” thus weakening our nation, while aiding and abetting our enemies in the process.
The “few” who claim all social programs, from Medicare to SCHIPS to Social Security to public roads, public pools, public libraries, public hospitals, are “socialistic,” even though they sound more “Christian” to me, since so many U.S. citizens benefit (while the wealthy still remain wealthy, but less so), which increases the overall health of our nation…and the ability of our nation to wage and win any war thrust upon us.
Thus,
WARNING: Wingnut Policies Can Be Hazardous To A Nation’s Health!!!
2 letters to the editor (lte) in today’s (friday’s)nytimes from 2 native minnesotans. (aside: have you ever written a letter to the editor? as the tshirt from the timeberland outdoor clothing company says: front: one voice can make a difference. back: untie your tongue. 2 types of people: players, spectators; which are you?)
Tragedy at a Bridge in Minnesota
First the explosion of an underground steam pipe, tearing up a street in Manhattan on July 18. Then, closer to home, a sewer collapse in nearby St. Cloud, Minn., causing a sinkhole on a busy street, the very next day. Now the collapse of a Minneapolis freeway bridge — one that I’ve driven over thousands of times — on Aug. 1 (front page, Aug. 2).
Are we going to heed the warnings? Or will it be business as usual in America?
Talking safety isn’t sexy. Investing tax money in our aging infrastructure isn’t sexy. But guess what, our lives depend on it! So let’s stop spending our hard-earned money on conducting unnecessary wars and giving financial assistance to wealthy sports team owners, and put it where it’s desperately needed.
John Fineberg
St. Paul, Aug. 2, 2007
•
To the Editor:
Nobody wants higher taxes. Even I do not earn enough money to make that palatable. But I did believe a raised gas tax to finance the Minnesota Department of Transportation and repair our ailing infrastructure was necessary.
The Minnesota Legislature passed the measure last year and Gov. Tim Pawlenty vetoed the bill. His rhetoric supports “no new taxes,” and he proposed borrowing the money. This type of solution, while making people happy in the short term, solves nothing.
We pay the debt in spades. And as the debate continues, so does the deterioration of our roads. The question is, which is worse, taxes now or interest later, and what are the consequences while we wait?
Maybe as we prepare to cross our bridges (which is unavoidable in a metropolitan area separated by a river) signs should read “No new taxes! Cross at your own risk.”
Sarah E. Babbitt
St. Paul, Aug. 2, 2007
You know, there are bridges in Europe that are hundreds of years old, which are built better than some of the shoddy work that goes on here in the good ole USA.
I can vouch for that, Mudkitty. And by the way, I don’t remember what a pothole looks like. I guess well maintained roads and well built cars go hand in hand.
Thanks for posting those letters, WetHornet. I gave up my subscription to the NYT and miss reading the editorial pages.
I hope the people of Minnesota rise up and recall that SOB governor. His obfuscating and dissembling during his press conference yesterday was painful to listen to. AFTER he VETOED a desperately-needed bill to begin to repair Minnesota’s transportation infrastructure.
mudkitty, re bridges europe hundreds of years old. first reaction was, “yeahhhh, like built by the romans. shheeesh.” second, was i was stationed europe. they know maintenance. totally different mentality. (also reminds me, early 80’s, wurzburg, w. germany they are laying track for high speed trains. i would drive by it every day and feel a little sick for my country because i knew we had nothing like that. starve amtrack, etc.)
susan, most times you can still get the editorials & the lte’s. and the non sub. req’d. op pieces. the premier op pieces are subscription only. and the rest of the paper is free. also lte’s influence how they cover stuff even if yours never gets printed.
i FLAT OUT LOVE your RECALL idea. OMG! an idea we must bring back is that there is ACCOUNTABILITY. your policies f*ck with me and mine their will be “payback” (in a non violent ghandi your sorry a** kind of way.) as we said in the army back in the day: “payback’s a medevac.” also love the idea of giving people who are royally pissed off a healthy avenue of expressing themselves. (works for me. i’ll even drive up from st. lew to collect signatures for the recall one weekend. just did a mapquest. “only” about 550 miles. 8+ hours. for y’all coastal peoples, here in the heartland that’s a little more than spitting distance driving wise. [and not because it’s all about me, but my wife and daughter crossed the mississippi river twice, and many other bridges, the day this went down. emergency trip to chicago for a passport.])
gov. pawlenty. RECALL HIS SKANKY A**. we’ll give these bad boys a choice: poss. recall from your constituents, or tell the club for growth boys to stick it in their ear. your choice buckwheat. (adopts deep southern mississippi river delta voice) “yeah baby, dat’s what um talkin’ ’bout. hehh.”
~~~~~~~~~~~
just remembered something. i wase-3) due to collegeedjama-cay-shun. then a drill corporal with a new cycle of trainees. drill sgts. were g-d. fast forward. but under stress and in situations that i judge dangerous i “channel my inner drill sgt.” …..(said w/ a smile) not that y’all may have noticed. normally they call me “butter” cuz i’msosmooth, and i’m “gentle as a new born lamb. when i’m not riled up.
got technical difficulties. i was a “high speed” pfc. private first class. e-3. due to my college ed-ja-mah-kay-shun.
The people of Minnesota are traumatized…traumatized people don’t rise up…think Katrina. Give ‘em some time, give ‘em some support, and maybe, just maybe…
“Bridges Falling Down” - other perspectives
BTW London Bridge never fell down; at least not the stone ones. The early wooden ones collapsed from fires and floods, but the later stone ones held up real well. Of course, the 1831 version of London Bridge was taken down and reassembled in Lake Havasu AZ, financed by Mr. “chainsaw” McCulloch.
Reports are surfacing about the single-point-of-failure/house-of-cards in Minneapolis. An example is the L.A. Times’ An all-or-nothing design which starts with
Looking at the pattern of collapse, spreading from the middle on outwards, it appears the failure of any one part not only would have triggered a collapse, but in fact did.
If we’re going to advocate fixing bridges, we should also address single point of failure issues. Call me crazy, but that’s my opinion. The best policy is to always assume the possibility of human error, and then account for it in planning.
Meanwhile, what if any safety issues actually exist today with London Bridge? In an ironic twist, according to Investigation of Carbon Monoxide Exposure at the ROTARY BEACH AT THE LONDON BRIDGE LAKE HAVASU CITY, ARIZONA the main health safety hazard is both to and because of the same boating visitors.
Oh well, at least it’s not “falling down” while you’re having trouble breathing.
Yet another perspective; the false sense of security based in dependence on technology.
Bridge Collapse: Why Did Cell Phones Fail?
Like the sound of the tree falling in the forest that no one hears, what message is sent by a cry for help into a non-functioning over surged cell network. Wouldn’t it be nice if cell phones were good for something besides messages like, “hey I’m over here, where are you”?
Nothing like an open thread during lunch hour.
Cat fight in the House during the dog days of summer in August.
Two best accounts I’ve run into:
House Struggles to Restore Civility After Explosion of Partisan Rancor at Congressional Quarterly
and
Boehner seeks to smooth waves after House ruckus at The Hill
Interesting choice of moments to bang a gavel on, don’t you think? This is just my guess, not what McNulty said, but it seems like he may have estimated that if he let the close voting go on for a while more, the measure to re-commit might have gone either way, so to walk the fence, while still hedging his bet for his own party, he could have tried to end voting at a time when it was tied 214-214. Then he found out his timing was off, which then led to the very ruckus he tried to avoid.
That’s what happens when you have a contentious issue adding to the pressure of everyone wanting to go on vacation. Something’s gotta give.
The vote changing patterns also point to a couple of other things. If you believe in your vote, why change it? The obvious answer is that votes are exchanged like currency in Congress. At the last minute, some realized they no longer had “safe” votes.
BTW - as long as we’re smaccing down the Iraq Parliament for going on vacation while so called “benchmarks” haven’t been met, why not apply the same standard for our own Congress?
Some benchmarks: bring troops home, impeach Bush Cheney and Gonzales. OK, a little unrealistic and over expectant. But how about something they could actually do now, which is instead of endless hot air over non compliant witnesses, they could leave the DOJ and the stacked courts out of it, and enforce their position from completely within their own body, via Implied Contempt? Now that would be a vacation well earned.
We all depend on technology…don’t lead us down the wrong road….what you want to go back to the horse and buggy?
Montag;
The operation already has a name.
“Project for a New American Century”
So you people think that if we hadn’t invaded Iraq, that that money would have gone specifically to bridge repair - specifically that bridge in Minnesota??
You gotta get out of your mothers’ basements and breath some fresh AMERICAN air.
Graywolf, here are some facts for you to contemplate, whenever you come in from the hot Augsut sun:
Seventeen years ago engineers from the US Department of Transportation rated the I-35W collapsed bridge as “structurally deficient”; two years ago they recommended it be replaced. Perhaps it could have been replaced, except the Republican Governor of Minnesota, Tim Pawlenty, made a GOP “no new taxes” pledge, so he refused to raise the price of a gallon of gas by five cents to fix the state’s roads and bridges.
But it gets worse: In 2005, the Republican-ruled Congress passed a major highway funding bill in which the Federal Highway Administration asked for $375 billion to provide money for road and bridge repair; the GOP allotted only $286 billion. Bush even threatened to veto any increase in funding for the bill.
Moreover, when Bush took office, he had a Federal Highway Trust Fund with a $23 billion surplus that has now shrunk to $6 billion. Within two years, says the Congressional Budget Office, the fund will be in debt by $1.7 billion. The $6 billion currently in the fund is nowhere close to enough to fix the 77,000 bridges nationwide that need repair, the alarming 26 percent of America’s bridges that have been rated structurally deficient. The American Society of Civil Engineers has estimated it will cost $190 billion to upgrade and repair America’s bridges. Minnesota’s I-35W bridge was one of those needing attention, but the money wasn’t there.
BTW, 80 percent of highway and bridge repair funds to the states come from the federal government.
So, yep, if Bush hadn’t driven the country into debt from his war in Iraq and his tax cuts, there would have been money to replace that bridge in Minnsota and six Americans would be alive today who needlessly died on I-35W.
RS Janes, the Bush tax cuts are a joke. You won’t find any bridges collapsing here in Italy nor will you ever find as much as a pothole. Of course, Italians pay more in taxes for maintenance.
The “Eurotrash” also pay more in taxes for the free healthcare system, while sitting on the beach, because Italians take 42 vacation days a year while Americans take 13 and a quarter of them receive no vacation at all. For a country that can’t form a government to last longer than the soccer season, Italy makes the US medical system and infrastructure look barbaric.
Yes, Bush has it all figured out. He lauded as “truely American” some citizen who told him she had to work three jobs. But it’s so caring and thoughtful of him to fly around in his helicopter looking at bridge debris, isn’t it?
Centrocitta, you don’t have to convince me; I had a friend living in Rome for many years — he said the difference in the quality of life there was incredible. The Italians he met were much better off, not to mention that, while they ate large meals, they rarely became as obese and unhealthy as Americans do on processed food.
Yes, that’s all that Junior is good for; the “I care” photo-op. It is disgusting.
RS, Bush even tried to send his wife to Iran a few years ago after the Bam earthquake. Of course, the Iranians didn’t want her. Likewise, most Americans are sick of seeing Bush in their cities and towns. Bush and Laura should just stay home and stop forcing themselves on the people. The two of them are like annoying insects.
So this bridge, it was privately built, funded, owned and maintained? Folks were charged a fee to use it? The firm that owned it had taken out liability insurance on it?
Built with stolen money and then the thieves neglected to maintain it. Sounds about right.
I can understand why “no fingers must be pointed.” Seems the maintainence had been foregone by many administrations too. Where is Bill Clinton when we need him. He could feel the pain better than anyone I ever saw — not do squat about it. But a pain felt is better than a finger pointed I guess.
As for the cell phone systems not being reliable under stress, and the electrical grid not being reliable under stress, they are both built and maintained at the federally and state required levels not at any market required level. You get the level of reliablility you regulate to so let us not have any finger pointing when regulated crap falls down and goes boom.
So the victims participated in electing a person who promised not to thieve from their gas purchases but from someone else somewhere else to give them a modern colliseum in which they may cheer the choreography of obese men in spandex whose prime actions appear to be the fanny patting of each other every 30 seconds. In a few years, as the maintenence on this new colliseum is deferred; something bad will happen and the victims will line up again to be fleeced by another administration who will demand that no fingers be pointed and no thoughts be allowed.
The bridge is an example of state success. When there is no market allowed there can be no market failure.
Replying to some of CK’s points:
Whatever you might say about Clinton, we had a surplus when he left office and plenty of money to fix or replace bridges. Bush squandered that on tax cuts for his wealthy friends and his Iraq disaster.
The problem here wasn’t regulation, it was the Bush government not following regulations. In 2005, the DoT recommended that stretch of bridge on I-35W in Minnesota be replaced but the money wasn’t there.
In electing Tim Pawlenty, the people thought they were getting a responsible and competent governor who wouldn’t let their bridges collapse and not an incompetent Bush Republican. If you surveyed Minnesotans, I’m positive the majority would rather pay the few cents per gallon increase to make sure the bridges they drive on don’t suddenly fall into the river. (For that matter, if Bush hadn’t so badly bungled the economy, Pawlenty wouldn’t have had to veto that gas tax increase — it wouldn’t have been needed.) Privatization isn’t the answer; there are some things that are so important they can’t be left up to the whims of the market. The Edison Project’s failed ‘privatized’ public schools is one example; the for-profit prison systems around the country another; the Blackwater mercenaries in Iraq who are more trouble than they’re worth is yet another. To borrow a line from Michael Moore, would you want your local fire and police departments to have to check with a corporation to see if it’s profitable to save your burning house or your life? Next time you’re driving on a bridge over an 500-foot drop ravine, do you want to wonder whether someone cut corners to make a bigger profit for the company that owns it?
And, contrary to your implication, when a corporation fails to do its job, it is often not held responsible in any meaningful way. Just look at Halliburton’s providing shoddy services and ‘losing’ billions of dollars in Iraq; the recent Vioxx case; and the Ford Pinto’s exploding gas tank from 30 years ago. No top executive went to jail, or even got fired, and the fines didn’t bankrupt the company. Indeed, Halliburton still has a lucrative contract with our government, even though their ’services’ have been terrible.
I agree with you, though, on sports stadiums — public money shouldn’t be used to enhance the profits of a private enterprise.
RSJ:
There was a surplus when Clinton left office. It was not being used for infrastructure maintainence. For Bush to squander that surplus the congress had to help. The voice of the people spoke and the money went for purpose A instead of purpose B. That the people were conned is a fact, that the people always get conned is also a fact. Democracy does have its weaknesses.
2) My comments re built to regulation were specific to Cell service and electrical grids. The bridge was built to the existing regulatory standards when it was built. Recommendations are not regulations. The state sector can defund maintainence, because if something falls down no one is held responsible. If that bridge had been a private toll bridge and had fallen down, the lawsuits and insurance payouts would already be working. It was a state product so Minnesota gets a visit from someone from DC and all the “serious voices” go into harmony on “not pointing fingers.”
“In electing Tim Pawlenty…” refer to my comments about being conned, always.
“Privatization isn’t the answer; there are some things that are so important they can’t be left up to the whims of the market.” Mindless cant does not do justice to the rest of your response.
Various states are privatizing the freeways and bridges. Private Education produces better eductated men and women than does public education. Private arbitration provides faster and more equitable settlements among equals than does Public Law. Private mail delivery likewise compared to the USPS. There really is nothing other than aggressive war that private services cannot do better than state enforced theft and mayhem. The “whims of the market” really means the unforced decisions of producers and consumers each acting in their own perceived best interests right? So what is necessary is to replace productive people with an elite of decision makers who are not subject to whimsy; serious folk who love theft and war and misery and secrets?
Your examples are interesting, all of them relate to state enterprise or state controlled markets. Prisons, war contracting, pharmaceuticals, decrepit wharehouses for throwaway children, mercenaries. And Ford which actually had to pay a bit for its bad engineering, a governmentally determined bit.
I am not a big supporter of publicly funded police or fire departments. They appear to have done little to reduce crimes against people or the incidence of fires…certainly less than those pesky private insurance companies. Next time I drive over a bridge, I will have to wonder if some state or federal theif decided to let it rust for another year…an actual consideration not a hypothetical. A privately built bridge makes its profits from continuing to stand and transport people, so yes I think I would trust something where there is a specific vested interest in its continued successful and uninterrupted operation, than a state funded forgettable.
I am glad we agree that public moneys should not be redistributed to favoured semi public vultures. Now if we would only radically decrease that puddle of stolen money.
Responding to your post, CK:
The point is, had there been a surplus in 2005 when the bridge needed replacing, the money would have been available, and Bush and the Republicans came to office promising a balanced budget. Thanks to the machinations of the GOP, the media, and the Democrats, the people hardly were able to make an informed decision.
But the bridge would still have collapsed and the people still would have died.
“Not pointing fingers” has been a relatively recent phenomenon of government, a political fillip introduced by the Bush neocons to diffuse blame for their horrendous ineptitude. Up until recently, people in our government were held responsible for their failures. We should return to that ‘era of responsibility.’
It isn’t mere ‘mindless cant’ as you’ll see if you keep reading.
Yes, they are. Among the firms pushing this privatization are Goldman Sachs and The Carlyle Group, the latter a company from which the Bush family turns a nice profit. In Indiana, former Bush sycophant and current in-debt Republican governor Mitch Daniels recently signed a deal to sell the Indiana Toll Road system to a consortium of Spanish and Australian companies for over $3 billion dollars. The consortium will run the state’s toll roads for 75 years. Sounds good until you discover that, over that same period of time, Indiana could have realized $11 billion from its toll roads. The weakness in any privatization of roads and bridges is obvious — what happens if certain roads and bridges aren’t profitable — are they closed down or just left to fall apart? Or does the state, at great expense, assume ownership again? You may not care about this — unless it happens to be the road that runs in front of your house or is your only access to the highway.
Really. Abraham Lincoln, Mark Twain, Ernest Hemingway and Harry Truman were all products of American public schools. The current occupant of the Oval Office, and his brothers Jeb, Marvin and Neil, all graduated from some of the finest private schools in the nation. I rest my case.
Not necessarily. Would you want murderers, thieves and rapists subjected to binding arbitration?
This has yet to be proven. Certainly bureaucracy has hurt the USPS in the past twenty years, but it has operated much more efficiently in the past.
Why wouldn’t private services do that better, as well? As we’ve seen in Iraq, of course, private companies are not more efficient at making war or delivering vital services to the troops.
That is the Libertarian ‘free market’ ideal which has yet to be proven to work in any country on Earth. The ‘global economy’ is, in fact, not a free market, but a closed market, with all of its encumbering rules and fiats enforced by the WTO and various treaties; it should more properly be termed communism for corporatists.
You are talking here about the Bush Regime; past American governments, administered by smarter people, have done better.
No, they related to the privatization of a public service which turned out to be a failure when the corporation discovered it couldn’t make a profit. Our for-profit health care system is a prime example; without going into a long diatribe, suffice it to say that I don’t know of one American with good private health insurance who likes our US system; meanwhile I know of two Canadians, both of whom are insured through their jobs with American companies, who prefer going home to Canada for medical treatment.
Yet the company is still in business and no one went to jail. If a member of your family had the misfortune to be in one of those exploding Pintos would you have been as sanguine about Ford merely paying a fine for an easily-correctable problem with the car’s gas tank of which they were well aware?
Good, then should you have an emergency requiring the police, I trust you’ll hire your own private company to handle the problem, relieving the rest of us of paying for your security. Should you have a fire, and your priavte company refuses to respond because you can’t afford to pay them what they want, and the entire neighborhood burns down while you’re dickering with them on the phone, that’s just another unfortunate offering on the altar free enterprise.
Neither have private firms.
Or, if it’s privatized, you’ll have to wonder if someone cut corners to insure its profitability. That’s not a hypothetical, either.
Unless, for whatever reason, the bridge is not making enough return on its investment. We have seen, with Enron, et al, that any public service is quickly abandoned by a corporation if it is not bringing in sufficient profit. Do you want the American landscape littered with rusted-out bridges and stretches of impassable washboard roads that a corporation couldn’t make profitable? Our problem is with the government-hating neocons in the Bush administration who don’t want the government to work, except for themselves.
Incidentally, CK, have you read that Bush has been privatizing national intelligence? Read “Outsourcing Intelligence: How Bush Gets His National Intelligence from Private Companies,” by R.J. Hillhouse. That’s been working out well, hasn’t it?
I’ll say it again: Some things are too important to be left to the whims of the marketplace.
I read TheSpyWhoBilledMe regularly.
The discounted npv of 11 billion over 75 years is a lot less than 3 billion in hand today. At 6% money doubles in 12years. So either the state of Indians is as stupid financially as one would expect, or the fees for driving on Indiana’s roads will increase.
The federal defecit was still rising when Clinton left office, that there was a budget surplus simultaneously was the result of increased capitol gains tax receipts for the three years preceeding the NASDAQ bust. The USA was still spending more and when the tax receipts fell the spending didn’t.
I could go on and do a point counterpoint on your work winning some points and losing some. You have the right of it that I am a cyncial libertarian. That a legacy boy gets through Yale along side a Kerry and a Clinton says something negative about Yale just as the Pinto says something negative about Ford. But then a Gates gets most of the way through Harvard and goes out and creates something and my libertarianism gets a bit of a uplift.
Having never held a gun to anyone’s head and demanded that they fund my security, I am at a loss why I should fund theirs as well as my own. Although I do get a nice discount on my homeowners for the security I have installed. Funny thing how incentives work and force doesn’t.
CITE “Do you want the American landscape littered with rusted-out bridges and stretches of impassable washboard roads …” Want it? Not especially. Have it already? Yes.
Cite: “…communism for corporatists.” Amen. To be libertarian does not mean one believes in statecapitalism or klepitalism. Enron was yet another example of stateprotectedcapitalism.
Shirin, all.
I was refering to a paradigm shift in thinking. Noone can debate the havoc America has wrought on Iraq in recent times. The conscience of America feels that this is inexusable. There are no grounds for killing innocents for their own good [that was the justification given to bombing civilian targets - regardless of whether they were dressed as military ones]. There are no excuses, justifications, attributions for that. Only denial will suffice and placate those determined to circumvent their conscience (aka God).
Iraq has given the World, the global community, a real opportunity to consider capitalism, religion, inter relationships between global human beings. The innocents who have been murdered by the coalition of willing murderers will not have died in vain, if humanity wakes up as a result of this catastrophy. The tell tale signs are not in Iraq but can be seen in the manifestation of infrastucture - our hallowed corporations. These entities who have the rights of super humans are the root of the problem. The real menace will not cease with the end of agression in Iraq. A world without war is a world without a war waiting to happen. War is only a manifestation of a breakdown of inter relationships. Only by determining where the relationship broke down can you being to provide a surable remedy.
This, at the most basic level, far from being resolved is being aggrevated. That is why this is the second american bridge [sybolic of 1000’s of metaphorical ones] to colapse in not so many years. In time there will be many more, because those who bluster importance, provaricate the safety of their constituents are the subjects of super humans who are above humanity.
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I keep seeing people use the amount of $11billion disounted NPV as the value Indiana should have received for the toll road project.
I’d like to issue a challenge. I have the Crowe Chizek paper in my hands dated March 7, 2006 stated the NPV value of the project being $1.9 Billion, not 11billion. This paper is the one most quoted in newspapers about how the state received twice the projected value. Seeing how the state received 3.8Billion, it seems to me that it was a good deal.
Please show me how this deal was worth $11 B.
Thanks,
Jenny Barton
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