The U.S. House Members’ Gym Needs an $8 Million Upgrade

Maxx on August 8, 2007 at 11:25 PM

My collie says:

So now, you see that we have come full circle –
back to fat *sses again.

Clearly the subjective opinions of engineers and bureaucrats are not reliable. An objective set of inspection and compliance standards must be established for nationwide use and enforced with criminal sanctions for fudging inspections or repairs.

Try this during your next OSHA inspection: “Sure that ladder’s a little wobbly, but we plan to keep an eye on it.”

T J Green on August 8, 2007 at 12:06 PM

Ever hear of Federalism? Try it out. Let the States figure out their own issues. If someone wants a crumbling bridge, let them keep voting their state officials into office. If someone wants a secure bridge, have them vote no-nonsense type of people.

We don’t need more Federal Government. Good Lord! As soon as a death occurs everyone, including “conservatives” (like you), call for more federal standards and expansion.

The U.S. House Members’ Gym Needs an $8 Million Upgrade

It’s all rope-a-dope and CYA now. Just watch as professional beaurocrats stonewall this investigation. In the end they’ll just blame God.

Mojave Mark on August 8, 2007 at 11:41 AM

No… they will blame us… the taxpayers for not paying enough taxes. Even though a stroll through the budget would produce plenty of instances of pork and waste, the socialist never sleep, we will get the blame.

We spent four billion dollars on global warming research last year and the year before that and lesser amounts going all the way back to the early 1990’s. All of that money for a total fraud. How many bridges would that have built ?

How about the money we give to the useless and corrupt UN that stoled food and medicine from the women and children of Iraq through the “Oil for Food” program…. and let tens of thousands be slaughtered under it’s auspices in Rwanda. Because they were too busy, according to Kofi Annan. I think our budget to the UN each year is several billion, money flushed down the toilet, to support a pile of third-world socialist snakes that hate our guts. Maybe we should strike that from the budget too.

Not to mentions hundreds of do nothing useless programs, dozens of useless and oppressive departments and agencies. But no matter…. we will get the blame.

Have the Twin Cities become a mecca for lawyers yet?

infidel4life on August 8, 2007 at 11:41 AM

Great point !! But I don’t begrudge the people that will file lawsuits over this, they deserve whatever they can get because this kind of thing should just NEVER happen. But of course we the taxpayers will be stuck with the bill for whatever the settlements are.

This is gross negligence on the part of our public officials. Look at this mess, look at the economic loss to the Twin Cities area because this bridge is out of service, look at the number of people killed or injured, think of what this is going to cost in settlements to those people and after we pay all of that money we still have to pay even more to re-build the bridge.

All of this because government ignores its prime responsibilities, yet they always want more and more authority, more and more money. What do you suppose would happen to any private industry that got this many people killed ? Think of the swarms of OSCIA agents that would descend that business and that business would be out of business. Somebody would probably go to jail.

Do you expect any government officials will go to jail ? This is sickening and horrible and like I said before, these ninnies what to take over healthcare. If we let them, we’re nuts.

Yeah… but what does your collie say about this ?

“They expressed concerns about the bridge, but at no point, as far as I know, did anyone ever say ‘close the bridge

Perhaps the pertinent question is why the policy of officials apparently is wait until they are warned there will be an immediate collapse and they must close the bridge before they actually plan to replace it.

Tell me again how GWB is responsible for this?

apostle53 on August 8, 2007 at 11:52 AM

It’s complicated, but I’ll try:

1) the bridge collapsed because, compared to twenty years ago, Americans now have tremendous fat *sses,

2) we all have fat *sses because all of our friends have tremendous fat *asses (see HotAir thread here),

3) our friends all have tremendous fat *asses because of our “instant gratification” culture that is sadly lacking in self-discipline and is hopelessly addicted to McDonald’s french fries,

4) McDonald’s french fries that are
a) served to us by an army of illegal aliens (who drive over our bridges but couldn’t care less if they collapse),
b) made out of poisonous potatoes grown by the “the vast right wing conspiracy” of corporate farms that are the sucking-up all of the land in the world and causing real estate prices to soar, which motivated the greedy bankers to act unwisely, which precipitated the current collapse in the mortgage banking industry,
c) fried in poisonous animal fat that can be used for no other purpose than this since the greedy oil companies don’t want us using bio-diesel or any other agricultural product to power our automobiles,

5) oil companies controlled by Dick Cheney who is the cause of all warfare and terrorism on planet earth, who doesn’t give a rip about global warming, and who wants to continue making money, no-matter-what, all-the-while global temperature increases intensify at an exponental rate,

6) global temperature increases orchestrated by Karl Rove, by means of evil sorcery, the same Karl Rove that uses his evil genius and dirty tricks to steal elections from poor innocent Democratic candidates, the same Karl Rove that utters his evil incantations in order to intensify global climatic disasters (like Katrina), in order to bring calamity down on predominantly black communities and states like New Orleans and Mississippi, in order to fully satisfy his master, George Bush, who doesn’t care about black people (donchaknow),

7) which, of course, are ALL clever diversionary tactics used by Booooosh in order to keep ANYONE from thinking or talking about gay RIGHTS.

So. Now. Does that clear things up for ya’?

/sarcasm off

No need to thank me. Just bein’ neighborly.

Hey, why not. If everyone else is going to blame the bridge collapse on their favorite bugaboos, why shouldn’t I join in? So, here are the guilty parties, as noted by Ed Driscoll: Islamophobia, the Iraq War, Global Warming, and,……

Hollowpoint on August 8, 2007 at 5:11 PM

re: “lets not jump the gun” . . .

That construction was cosmetic repairs to cracks in the bridge deck, cracks that were symptoms of structural failure in the foundation.

Obvious, now that the bridge has fallen down.

Before that event, one can make any argument one desires, after the fact, you have to accept the evidence that can no longer be denied, or argued away.

Before the event, one expert’s opinion is just as good as any other expert opinion. After the fact, somebody was right, and somebody was wrong. There is no “jumping the gun” here, the [expletive deleted] bridge collapsed.

rockhauler on August 8, 2007 at 3:51 PM

Let’s not jump the gun- I’d still wager that it was no coincidence that the collapse just so happened to occur while there was construction work being done. It was inspected just a couple years ago, and the damage wasn’t deemed severe enough to warrant closing or replacing the bridge.

Still- whoever is responsible must be held to account, including those who should’ve been overseeing those responsible.

Heads should roll.

one of the bridge’s piers had “tilted to the north”

That tells you exactly what happened, and the administrating agency responsible for that bridge ignored it.

What more than that do you need to know?

When was the last river bottom survey of that pier conducted?

What did the initial river bottom survey report when the bridge was first proposed?

How many other bridges have not had foundation surveys, or bottom surveys conducted in the last 10-20 years?

On a trip across Texas in the late ’90’s, somewhere out in the sticks, traffic on the freeway encountered a detour. If you are familiar with Texas freeways, you know there is a light duty access road immediately adjacent to, and parallel with the freeway. All traffic was being diverted from the freeway to the light duty access road, and heavy truck traffic was tearing that light duty road to pieces. The reason for the detour was overnight heavy rains, and flash flood had washed away the soil around a freeway overpass bridge pier. That pier was not supporting the bridge deck, rather the bridge deck was holding up the bridge pier. This kind of problem happens, regularly, and it can not be ignored, you have to deal with it. It doesn’t matter the size of the bridge, nor the cost, you have to fix it. or one day the bridge falls down.

That bridge would still be standing today if George W. Bush had signed the Kyoto Treaty …
Queasy on August 8, 2007 at 12:41 PM

Yea, because no on would have been able to afford the gas to drive and overload that bridge. ;-)

Not that anyone is going to get fired. We just need to know so we can have a hearing.

–Your Goverment Officials

The Strib is not going to rest until they have shifted public opinion into blaming republicans or conservatives for this disaster.

coyoterex on August 8, 2007 at 1:43 PM

Of course. The Star & Sickle has yet to meet a Republican, tax cut or spending cut they didn’t hate.

Perhaps if Minnesota didn’t waste so much money on their stupid light rail line that nobody uses but the Star & Sickle drools over, they could’ve fixed the bridge. See? I can play that game too, komrades at the Red Star.

infidel4life on August 8, 2007 at 11:41 AM

There are so many vultures( lawyers) flying overhead here, it’s darkening the sky. Regarding the issue of replacing in 2020,these criteria were recommendations that were countrywide. There will be a reckoning , I’m sure, as the evidence and facts of the collapse come forth. It’s going to take alot of time to figure it out. They just ran the computer sensor data off the bridge on Monday. Here, we’re focusing on the PEOPLE that were injured and missing. We still are. It’s amazing to us how the rest of the country reacts and the story is reported. Wonder how any of the pundits would fare in the positions of responsibility of the people they are putting the spotlight on. I wonder.

Fred Thompson Right Wing Extremist STOLE My Video I Made For The Bridge Collapse & Edited The Audio!

“His” video

Video’s comments (in which he’s already taken a severe beating)

All management and workers responsible for this disaster should be terminated and marked as unsafe for all U.S. transportation work, unless they want to tote a flag and wear a vest while directing detouring traffic.

Blaming Bush is part of another coverup (like ignoring warnings about the safety of the bridge) and keeps morons in jobs crucial to public safety. Even if Bush was removed from office, you would still have stupid in the Minnesota transportation department.

Splunge on August 8, 2007 at 12:52 PM

I stand [er, sit] corrected.

Tell me again how GWB is responsible for this?
–apostle53 on August 8, 2007 at 11:52 AM

He’s not…Bridge Collapsing was assigned to Dick Cheney.