Surprise, Surprise: Bridge replacement gets political!

Bridge Failure Can’t Fend Off Usual Politics

Bridge Failure Can’t Fend Off Usual Politics
By MONICA DAVEY
Published: August 16, 2007
It took all of two weeks for the political unity brought on by a deadly bridge collapse in Minneapolis to unravel.

Excerpt:

Mr. Pawlenty and his State Department of Transportation have already unveiled broad plans for the new bridge, announcing the names of five possible contractors, and urging that it be open in record time, by the end of next year.

But R. T. Rybak, a Democrat who is mayor of Minneapolis; some Democratic leaders in the State Legislature; and members of the Minneapolis City Council have been loudly critical, questioning the need — and safety, given everything — of rushing to build a bridge.

Some called for provisions to allow light rail along the new span. Some called for a memorial for the victims. Mostly, they demanded: Why the hurry?

Comments: I wonder about the hurrying part myself! But the Feds will not pay for the increased cost of the light rail option. My take: Rybak and the DFL trying to score points.

Bridge Heroism Honored

Bridge Heroism Honored

Bridge Heroism Honored
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: August 16, 2007

Excerpts:

First Student, the company that owned the school bus that became a memorable image of the tragedy, held a ceremony in which they presented $5,000 checks to four adults credited with preventing the death or serious injury of about 60 children on the bus.

---------

The bus driver, Kim Dahl, who a company official said had the presence of mind to jam on the parking brake and possibly prevent the bus from sliding off the bridge into the river, made her first public comments since the collapse.

"I don't feel like a hero," Ms. Dahl said. "I think anybody in the situation would do the same thing."



Comment: Picture is of Kim Dahl! Star Tribune video

Call God 'Allah'?

Dutch bishop: Call God 'Allah' to ease relations

Excerpt:

Bishop Tiny Muskens, from the southern diocese of Breda, told Dutch television on Monday that God did not mind what he was named and that in Indonesia, where Muskens spent eight years, priests used the word "Allah" while celebrating Mass.

"Allah is a very beautiful word for God. Shouldn't we all say that from now on we will name God Allah? ... What does God care what we call him? It is our problem."


Bishop urges Christians to call God 'Allah'

Comment (The Scripture speaks plainly!):

1. 1 Corinthians 1:2, "To the church of God in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be holy, together with all those everywhere who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ—their Lord and ours:"
   
2. 1 Corinthians 5:4, "When you are assembled in the name of our Lord Jesus and I am with you in spirit, and the power of our Lord Jesus is present"
   
3. Ephesians 5:20, "always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ"
   
4. Philippians 2:9-11, "Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
   
5. Colossians 3:17, "And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him"
   

Rear view mirror

Michigan cops switching to cheaper, more efficient V6 Impalas

Comment: I think the black 2004 Impala SS would be scarier in the rear view mirror! Having had a Crown Vic (1988 inherited from my Father-in-Law in 1991), I can attest that the Impala is indeed sportier and more fuel efficient!.

Memorable Senior Moment

This is a true account as recorded in the Police Log of Sarasota, Florida.........

An elderly Florida lady did her shopping and, upon returning to her car, found four males in the act of leaving with her vehicle.

She dropped her shopping bags and drew her handgun, proceeding to scream at the top of her voice, "I have a gun, and I know how to use it!

Get out of the car!"

The four men didn't wait for a second invitation.

They got out and ran like mad.

The lady, somewhat shaken, then proceeded to load her shopping bags into the back of the car and got into the driver's seat. She was so shaken that she could not get her key into the ignition. She tried and tried, and then it dawned on her why... For the same reason she did not understand why there was a football, a Frisbee and two 12 packs of beer in the front seat!

A few minutes later, she found her own car parked four or five spaces farther down. She loaded her bags into the car and drove to the police station to report her mistake.

The sergeant to whom she told the story couldn't stop laughing. He pointed to the other end of the counter, where four pale men were reporting a car jacking by a mad, elderly woman described as white, less than five feet tall, glasses, curly white hair, and carrying a large handgun.

No charges were filed.

Comment: If you're going to have a Senior Moment, make it a memorable one!!!!! (Sent to me by a co-worker.)

Bottled tap water

More on where Aquafina is sourced (at least in St Louis):

Water intake tower

The secret is out -- bottler gets its water from the Missouri River

Excerpt:

So the water in a 20-ounce bottle of Aquafina that sells for $1.25 comes from the Missouri River.

St. Louis officials calculate that residents can buy about 10 gallons of city water for 1.5 cents.

Comment: For lunch, Wifie packs me a 20 oz thermos of cold tap water from our home! Picture is from The City of St. Louis Water Division. Meanwhile a Chicago Alderman wants to slap a 25 ¢ tax on bottled water!

Striking similarities

Learn from the fall of Rome

Excerpts:

The US government is on a ‘burning platform’ of unsustainable policies and practices with fiscal deficits, chronic healthcare underfunding, immigration and overseas military commitments threatening a crisis if action is not taken soon, the country’s top government inspector has warned.

David Walker, comptroller general of the US, issued the unusually downbeat assessment of his country’s future in a report that lays out what he called “chilling long-term simulations”.

These include “dramatic” tax rises, slashed government services and the large-scale dumping by foreign governments of holdings of US debt.

Drawing parallels with the end of the Roman empire, Mr Walker warned there were “striking similarities” between America’s current situation and the factors that brought down Rome, including “declining moral values and political civility at home, an over-confident and over-extended military in foreign lands and fiscal irresponsibility by the central government”.

“Sound familiar?” Mr Walker said. “In my view, it’s time to learn from history and take steps to ensure the American Republic is the first to stand the test of time.”

-----------
“One of the concerns is obviously we are a great country but we face major sustainability challenges that we are not taking seriously enough,” said Mr Walker, who was appointed during the Clinton administration to the post, which carries a 15-year term.

The fiscal imbalance meant the US was “on a path toward an explosion of debt”.

“With the looming retirement of baby boomers, spiralling healthcare costs, plummeting savings rates and increasing reliance on foreign lenders, we face unprecedented fiscal risks,” said Mr Walker, a former senior executive at PwC auditing firm.

Current US policy on education, energy, the environment, immigration and Iraq also was on an “unsustainable path”.


Comment: Chilling indeed!

Global warming circa 1922

Nov. 2, 1922: Arctic Ocean Getting Warm; Seals Vanish and Icebergs Melt

Excerpt:

D.C. resident John Lockwood was conducting research at the Library of Congress and came across an intriguing Page 2 headline in the Nov. 2, 1922 edition of The Washington Post: "Arctic Ocean Getting Warm; Seals Vanish and Icebergs Melt."



The 1922 article, obtained by Inside the Beltway, goes on to mention "great masses of ice have now been replaced by moraines of earth and stones," and "at many points well-known glaciers have entirely disappeared."



"This was one of several such articles I have found at the Library of Congress for the 1920s and 1930s," says Mr. Lockwood. "I had read of the just-released NASA estimates, that four of the 10 hottest years in the U.S. were actually in the 1930s, with 1934 the hottest of all."

Comment: If they just would have increased the C.A.F.E. then!

Skip the phone wait

www.gethuman.com

Hate being put on hold? There are ways to skip the wait

Excerpt:

So you need to call customer service and you want to talk to an actual person.
You dial, follow the prompts, and then wait... ten, fifteen, twenty minutes. Any of this sound familiar?

www.gethuman.com is a database of toll-free #'s for 500 companies with the key to getting "to to human". Eg for Citibank, "Press 0# at each prompt, ignoring messages"

Comment: Use the web whenver you can! Image from American National Bank and Trust Company

I35W bridge: C.C. Myers possible player

I mentioned C.C. Myers earlier with regard to the 17 day California bridge repair. Turns out his company is a possible player in the I35W bridge replacement.

Rebuilding bridge will be hard, fast

Excerpt:

"It's a major highway there -- I think it needs to be fast-tracked," said C.C. Myers, who runs a construction firm in California with a reputation for quick-turn projects after earthquakes and other disasters. "They've got to get it back open for traffic. It's a helluva inconvenience."

---------
"[After] you come up with the foundation, you could be under construction in a couple weeks," Myers said. "And once you get the thing going, you build it as you are completing your design. All you have to know is what the hell you are going to build."

---------
Myers agrees: "It's just a matter of putting the right team together and really just having the right attitude and the right people."

When a tanker truck crashed and burned on I-80 near Oakland, Calif., in April, melting the steel frame supporting the access ramp above it, Myers went right to work.

The day he was awarded the contract, he ordered steel from Pennsylvania and soon built sections of the new ramp off site. With crews on the job 24 hours a day, the ramp opened in 26 days, half the time expected. Although he bid $876,000 for the job and spent an estimated $2.5 million to build the ramp, his quick work earned a $5 million bonus.

"To do something like that you've got to have your [act] together," he said. "It takes everybody. All your subcontractors and suppliers and all that. You have to have the same goal and say, 'Let's show 'em how damn fast we can do this job.' If you don't have that attitude, you're not going to get it done."

Comment: I'm skeptical that "fast tracking" is the way to go with a project this sized! C.C. Myers, Inc.

DUI defense: Demand the source code

Doubts arise over fate of breathalyzer source code in Minn. case

Excerpt:

An attorney for a Minnesota man accused of drunken driving says he doesn't think the manufacturer of a breathalyzer will meet a court-imposed deadline of August 17 to turn over its source code.

If that happens, his client could go free.

As CNET News.com reported earlier this week, the Minnesota Supreme Court ruled late last month that source code for the Intoxilyzer 5000EN, made by a Kentucky-based company called CMI, must be handed to defense attorneys for use in a case involving charges of third-degree DUI against a man named Dale Lee Underdahl. CMI's historic resistance to such demands has led to charges being dropped in at least one case outside of Minnesota.

Comment: The Minnesota Supreme Court opened the proverbial "can of worms"!

Apocryphal Harry Potter

Memo to the Dept. of Magical Copyright Enforcement

Memo to the Dept. of Magical Copyright Enforcement
Published: August 10, 2007
Here are excerpts from the various “Harry Potter” counterfeits that have been circulating in China in the last few years, translated by The Times from Chinese.

Intro:

China has a world-leading knack for churning out copies and counterfeits, and the release of “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” last month prompted a surge of peculiarly Chinese imitations as well as a quickie unauthorized translation. Below are excerpts from the publishers’ summaries and the texts of the various “Harry Potter” counterfeits that have been circulating in China in the last few years, translated by The Times from the Chinese.

Comments: Image © www.allposters.com. Not satiated with the legit titles ... here are some more!

1943 Army Guide to Iraq

The Army Knew Iraq … About 60 Years Ago

Excerpt:

In 1943, U.S. servicemen stationed in Iraq were issued a pocket-size 41-page book entitled “A Short Guide to Iraq.” In straightforward prose, the book gave American soldiers a primer to help them through the cultural snarls and byways of the country in which they were stationed. They learned a little history, a little geography and a smattering of vocabulary and grammar.

United States Army Instructions for American Servicemen in Iraq during World War II

Comment: Am going to buy for my Son who served in Iraq w the USMC.

Virtual adultery!

Is This Man Cheating on His Wife?

Excerpt:

A week later, he asked her to move into the small apartment he rented in Phantom Island, an area of Second Life. In May, they married in a small ceremony in a garden overlooking a pond. She wore a strapless white dress that she bought at a Second Life yard sale and he wore a tuxedo. Thirty of their avatar friends attended.



Comment: These people have an unusual infatuation with each other that is, in reality, a form of marital unfaithfulness. See my earlier posting Second Life? Get a Life!

Matthew 5:27-28, "You have heard that it was said, 'You shall not commit adultery.' But I say to you that(everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart."

Pastoral Counseling and the New Technologies.

Quote: "human lusts find new ways to express themselves in every generation"

How to be a good liberal

Things to remember in order to become a good Liberal.

1. You have to be against capital punishment, but support abortion on demand.
   
2. You have to believe that businesses create oppression and governments create prosperity.
   
3. You have to believe that guns in the hands of law-abiding citizens are more of a threat than U.S. nuclear weapons technology in the hands of Chinese and North Korean communists.
   
4. You have to believe that there was no art before federal funding.
   
5. You have to believe that gender roles are artificial, but being homosexual is natural.
   
6. You have to believe that the AIDS virus is spread by a lack of federal funding.
   
7. You have to believe that the same teacher who can't teach 4th-graders how to read is somehow qualified to teach those same kids about sex.
   
8. You have to believe that hunters don't care about nature, but PETA activists do.
   
9. You have to believe that self-esteem is more important than actually doing something to earn it.
   
10. You have to believe that Mel Gibson spent $25 million of his own money to make "The Passion of the Christ" for financial gain only.
    
11. You have to believe the NRA is bad because it supports certain parts of the Constitution, while the ACLU is good because it supports
    certain parts of the Constitution.
    
12. You have to believe that taxes are too low, but ATM fees are too high.
    
13. You have to believe that Margaret Sanger and Gloria Steinem are more important to American history than Thomas Jefferson, Gen. Robert E. Lee, and Thomas Edison.
    
14. You have to believe that standardized tests are racist, but racial quotas and set-asides are not.
    
15. You have to believe that the only reason socialism hasn't worked anywhere it's been tried is because the right people haven't been in
    charge.
    
16. You have to believe that homosexual parades displaying drag queens and transvestites should be constitutionally protected, and manger scenes at Christmas should be illegal.
    
17. You have to believe that this message is a part of a vast, right-wing conspiracy.
    

GOD BLESS AMERICA!!!!

ooops.... can't say that either

Comment: Sent to me from a relative. Image from bpaul.com

Blood donation bust

Memorial Blood Center

I decided to give blood today. Turns out that it did not work out - for a stupid reason. But I will not be deterred, I am scheduled for October 6th.

1. The last time I gave blood was August 2002 at a mobile blood van at a USMC Reserves family day!
   
2. Besides "the stick" it feels good to do something! It's not much, but someone needs my O positive blood and my body replenishes that pint in 24 hours anyway!
   
3. Kathee and I took the day off for errands and fellowship with a couple from our church. We met the couple at Byerly's restaurant on Duluth. I took advantage of my "senior" status and ordered the omelet off the Senior's menu. They didn't even card me!
   
4. My blood donation appointment (Plymouth blood center - link above) was for 12:30. This is what happened:
   
   
   
   1. I arrived at 12:20 ... always good to be on time!
      
   2. Into waiting room at 12:30 ... things going fine!
      
   3. Invited into the clinician's office for the obligatory questions.
      
   4. Blood pressure taken: 118/86 .. not bad for a guy 1 week shy of 58 years. All good so far.
      
   5. Pulse: in the 60's. Again pretty good for an old fat crippled guy!
      
   6. Blood prick: They make a little prick to draw a small glass tube of blood. This is to check one's blood's iron content. I watched this process carefully. The blood tube goes into a centrifuge to separate the red portion from the clear portion (plasma). Then the column is laid on the horizon for a measurement. To donate, the red portion of the column has to be at least 32%. The longer the red portion, the higher iron content. I was 42% and good to go
      
   7. The questions: I think there must be 100 of them. One was "have you had sex with a male since 1977?". That's an easy question for me ... not since 1977 ... and not before! I understand that only 30% can pass the "questions test"
      
   8. Hang up on drug questions. I take two drugs daily. I remembered the name of one but not the other. Drug # 1 ... not a big issue. But I could not donate blood until they knew what # 2 was. I called my clinic from my cell phone to ask my Dr's nurse what that drug was ... well I thought this would take about 5 minutes, but I ended up being on hold for 25 minutes (when I gave up).
      
   9. I called Walgreen's pharmacy in Plymouth and got right through (its now about 1:20). The Walgreen's pharmacist tells me the drug name. I carefully write it down and provide it to the to the clinician
      
   10. Meanwhile I am getting a little concerned about time. Kathee's out in the lobby wondering about me. We had an appointment with a contractor at 2:00 ... I knew I had to be home on time to meet this guy.
       
   11. The clinician cannot find drug # 2 in her database. A nurse is brought in for a consultation. They call their on call Doctor for advice. Clock is ticking. The blood donation time is 15 minutes, I know I need 15 minutes to get back home from the blood center. I've been at the blood center for a full hour!
       
   12. The Dr. informs the nurse and clinician that drug # 2 is a generic drug. The original formulation name is in the database.
       
   13. I am cleared to give blood ... but now it is 1:35!
       
   14. I say ... goto go. I'll come back at 3:30. Nurse informs me that blood center closes at 3 so that's not going to work! I volunteer to come in tomorrow. They tell me I can give but only if I come in at 7:30.
       
   15. I'm interested in giving blood, but I'm not interested in getting there at 7:30 on a Saturday
       
   16. So my next appointment is October 6th!
       
   
   
5. The clinician apologizes. I say ... hey not your fault!
   
6. But I was a little disappointed that my blood donation was a bust today!
   

Meanwhile, I encourage my readers to give blood. Some cannot for various reasons. But if you can give, Do give!

Memorial Blood Center

D'Vincis Restaurant

D'Vincis Restaurant - Watertown, MN

Location

Our date tonight was to go out for dinner. We drove out to Watertown to D'Vincis. Very nice. Reasonable. Good service.

List of problem Minnesota bridges

MNDOT: STATEWIDE STRUCTURALLY DEFICIENT AND FUNCTIONALLY OBSOLETE TRUCK HIGHWAY BRIDGES

One of my readers asked for a list of the deficient Minnesota bridges. The above link is from the Minnesota Department of Transportation website.

A comment on links: Since my blog has a lot of external links, and I cannot control external sites, and sometimes an external site may delete or move content on their site; there may be sometimes that a link will not work!

Over 100 state bridges rated worse than 35W

Picture is of the Duluth Aerial Lift Bridge from E.P.A. website

White House quest: 'verges on insane'

Modern road to White House 'verges on insane,' says Gingrich

Excerpt:

"You begin to trap people," Gingrich said. "As the campaigns get longer, you're asking a person who's going to be sworn in in January of 2009 to tell you what they'll do in January of 2007, when they haven't got a clue -- because they don't know what the world will be like, and you're suggesting they won't learn anything through the two years of campaigning."

"For the most powerful nation on Earth to have an election in which Swift Boat veterans versus National Guard papers becomes a major theme verges on insane," said Gingrich, referring to 2004 campaign controversies that targeted Kerry and President Bush. "I mean, it's just -- and to watch those debates, I found painful -- for both people. They're both smarter than the debates."

Comment: He's right. The road to the White House is too long, too expensive, and too trite.

Edmund Fitzgerald life ring found?

Family finds life ring that could be from Edmund Fitzgerald

Excerpt:

Joe Rasch, a farmer from Conklin, about 15 miles northwest of Grand Rapids, said he was vacationing with his family last week in the Keweenaw Peninsula in Michigan's far north. Hunting for agates and other rocks along a remote beach, he saw an overturned tree where the beach meets the forest.


Interesting Edmund Fitzgerald links:

1. SS Edmund Fitzgerald
   
2. Gordon Lightfoot: The Wreck Of the Edmund Fitzgerald
   
3. S.S. Edmund Fitzgerald Online
   
4. Yesterday's news: November 11th, 1975