Re: [MLUG - DISCUSSION] FAA news

[Mike Miller <EMAIL:PROTECTED>]

On Fri, 4 Apr 2008, Jim Locke wrote:

> Man, that's ugly (on the MN authorities and the politics it sure sounds 
> they're playing the the convention and bridge issues and such).

I think it will hurt them in the long run.


> Conservatives generally favor saving money.  Unfortunately, this is 
> often as the expense of the public.

When they want to be fiscally conservative and save money, I'm all for it. 
When they use that as a false excuse to save money for their rich friends 
and lay a monster tax burden on our children, I'm not all for it.

There is a schism in conservatism these days with many saying that Bush is 
a reckless spendthrift and we need to return to fiscal *responsibility* as 
a primary conservative value.  What's wrong with that?  I'm all for it. 
The problem is that responsibility means lowering the defense budget, 
steering clear of nation building, higher taxes to offset mounting debt, 
etc.  It's unpleasant but it needs to be done.


> How many destroyed lives or homes are worth saving say a few billion 
> dollars?  How bad does the transit system need to get before heads will 
> roll and the sh** hits the fan?  How many more things will be build and 
> repaired in Iraq before we put the priority on this country?

Such good questions.  Unfortunately, our leadership doesn't agree on the 
answers.

Regarding the cost of repairing our roads and bridges:  Congress ordered a 
panel to make recommendations on how to deal with the situation.  The 
panel recommended an increase in the fuel tax.  This tax is expressed in 
pennies per gallon, not as a percentage (absurd? -- I think so), so that 
it *has* to be increased occasionally or it becomes progressively smaller. 
When did the panel come out with their recommendation?  On the same day 
that the NTSB came out with their (misleading) interim report.  The timing 
of the interim report was a surprise because nothing had happened at that 
time -- literally nothing new was said -- but the (false) claims in the 
report just happened to counter some of the recommendations of the expert 
panel.  This is not a coincidence.

Did anyone notice this?  Hardly.  But here where I literally watch bridge 
construction every day outside my window, it is the kind of thing that I 
think about often and try to understand.  We are being hoodwinked.  There 
is no question about it.

Did the photos of bent gusset plates from the I-35W bridge that were taken 
in 2003 make the news down there when they were discovered by NTSB and 
reported a couple of weeks ago?  It's a very big deal.  The same kind of 
buckling of the plates can now be seen on the DeSoto Bridge in St. Cloud. 
There are 464 other bridges in this country with nearly identical design 
and all of them need to be carefully inspected.  After inspection many 
will need immediate repair or replacement.  You'll be hearing more about 
this.

Did anyone mention that the supposedly flimsy 1/2" gusset plates on the 
I-35W Bridge were known in 2003 to have lost 25% of their thickness due to 
corrosion?  This is true.  But what was done?  Nothing!  So why did the 
bridge collapse?  Extreme incompetence and neglect.  It wasn't a design 
flaw that brought it down after 40 years of continuous use.

Mike

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