So *this* is the bridge to the 21st century

Post #290,246 by rcareaga 8/3/07 1:37:41 PM Reply	So this is the bridge to the 21st century \ufffdand it collapsed under the weight of all those chickens coming home to roost. I hesitate to make too much of this, given the tendency of many a commentator over the years to hitch his favorite hobbyhorse to the désastre du jour (you know, the type who'll claim the Columbine shootings were the result of godless Darwinism in the school curriculum), but I think the case can be made that this latest manifestation of "infrastructure rot" is in its way another instance of blowback, another hidden cost of empire. Between squandering our treasure in the sands of distant Araby and the manifest costs of indulging a civic ethos of private opulence and public squalor (only please to call this "rugged individualism," which sounds so much nicer than "divide and conquer," don\ufffdt you think?), we are beginning to learn that there are consequences to disdaining rational thinking and the long-term view when we formulate public policy. Or am I being optimistic here? cordially, Die Welt ist alles, was der Fall ist.
Post #290,250 by boxley 8/3/07 2:52:32 PM Reply	last time we wanted a bridge to the airport the entire country howled about not paying for it. Infrastructure is hugely expensive to build and once built no one wants to own maintenance costs. As a local bloviator said they had money for a new stadium, museums, bear exhibits but no money for bridge repair. thanx, bill Quantum materiae materietur marmota monax si marmota monax materiam possit materiari? Any opinions expressed by me are mine alone, posted from my home computer, on my own time as a free american and do not reflect the opinions of any person or company that I have had professional relations with in the past 51 years. meep reach me at [link\|mailto:bill.oxley@cox.net\|mailto:bill.oxley@cox.net]
Post #290,291 by a6l6e6x 8/4/07 1:17:33 PM Reply	Please, not the bridge to nowhere. $250M for bridge to an island with 50 residents. There is no shortage of land in Alaska. Move the frickin airport! The Feds need to pass on the collected fuel taxes in a state to the state w/o Congressional pork barrel back room deals. If the Feds do minor coordination and monitoring of the proper expenditure of these funds we'd get much better return on the buck. Congress is unfit to make local decisions. Alex Nobody has a more sacred obligation to obey the law than those who make the law. -- Sophocles (496? - 406 BCE)
Post #290,299 by boxley 8/4/07 6:42:12 PM Reply	move the frikken airport where? to the mountain side? Quantum materiae materietur marmota monax si marmota monax materiam possit materiari? Any opinions expressed by me are mine alone, posted from my home computer, on my own time as a free american and do not reflect the opinions of any person or company that I have had professional relations with in the past 51 years. meep reach me at [link\|mailto:bill.oxley@cox.net\|mailto:bill.oxley@cox.net]
Post #290,300 by Another Scott 8/4/07 6:58:40 PM Reply	Yeah, the geography's a problem. [link\|http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=gravina+island&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=37.462243,60.556641&ie=UTF8&ll=55.351793,-131.694489&spn=0.052604,0.118275&t=k&z=13&om=1\|Google Maps] for the proposed "Bridge to Nowhere" location. It doesn't look like a good use for the money. [link\|http://dir.salon.com/story/news/feature/2005/08/09/bridges/index.html\|Salon]'s story about it (and the other proposed bridge for Anchorage) makes it sound like a boondoggle. Sen. Stevens should have made a better case for it, rather than throwing tantrums, if it really was a good use for the money. My $0.02. Cheers, Scott.
Post #290,256 by Ashton 8/3/07 5:38:10 PM Reply	Must take issue with (And sadly, as always) we are beginning to learn ... UPS driver.. local haircutter.. other random encounters suggest that this particular %we does not appear to be increasing. Has the collective achieved Experience-proof-ness? Are they now only outliers who can still recall the phrase, guns and butter? How does one teach Not-learning, So Well? (And, was that process patented yet?) The comments thus far heard, from Profs of CE and the like - suggest that the 'points scale' to assign risk-levels of things like bridges, derives from more than a soup\ufffdon of gut-level intuition, naturally informed by experience. About as satisfying as the assignment of IQ numbers (?) Oblig in olden times ref - Thanks be to Cthulhu that, long before my arrival - the attic space was well and truly inundated with strange rock-wool looking? insulation, rendering biped-space habitable via mere fan (or on sizzlers as shall be coming more often: the breadbox-size Israeli-designed swamp-cooler box, perfectly adequate for 'personal space'.) One does Soo like to beat the system(s) Yet with one's own water-supply and waste bug-biology systems to be utterly responsible for, maintenance is never optional. Now then ... when cheap roll-out like-roofing Solar cells arrive - I see I see a garage-as-Power-plant, too. Infra-Red Structure!

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