Minneapolis Bridge

[pasithea]

"Other logistical questions loom. The bridge carries an estimated 200,000 cars a day. That traffic will have to be rerouted indefinitely.

The bridge also was expected to be a key artery during the Republican National Convention in the summer of 2008.
"

My my. Wouldn't it be convenient if it were determined the collapse were somehow due to terrorism and demonstrates clearly that we need even more of a police state.

Comments

[emiofbrie.livejournal.com]

From what I've been hearing, terrorism has already been ruled out.

The bridge was 40 years old, and a custom design created out of convenience. It was basically a heavy slab of 8-lane concrete on top of a lighter steel frame, and was under construction in some way or another almost every summer.

[yetanotherbob.livejournal.com]

Mandatory slam: Considering how terrorism is the use of fear for personal and political gains, and one who let the bridge fall into disrepair is a member of the GOP, who has been using fear of others for personal and political gains...

[ataramos.livejournal.com]

Oh man, I forgot about the 'invasion'. See, most of us are more worried about like, football and baseball games rather that the Repubs, and how everything is going to be -fucked- and have to go to other bridges, which get just as busy during that time of the day, and are going to be hell, now.

Im personally leaning to blaming Pawlenty, the republican suckass governor we have, who's screwed the state budget in so many ways (they wanted to cut funding for fucking snowplows...we then proceeded to get nearly three feet of snow in three days as nature going 'I dont -think- so') and cut funding for road repair (potholes everywhere) and the state going 'Oh we dont have to do anything about that major bridge yet because it says it can get away with a few more years, we'll just resurface it and make it look pretty!'. It'll be interesting to see who gets the blame. It's an interstate bridge, so not strictly under the cities control, so they cant shuffle it off there.

bleh, just lucky there were as few deaths as there were. And Im impressed, it took CNN about an hour and a half to finally get around to mentioning that there was no sign of it being a terrorist act. --

[paka.livejournal.com]

So, dumb question; Minnesota seems (to an outsider anyway) like a place full of decent and sensible people, with a high regard for things like, say, having properly maintained roads and snow-clearing equipment. How did y'all wind up with a Republican as governor, or hosting the RNC?

[ataramos.livejournal.com]

He talked a real pretty show. And as forward thinking as Minnesota can be, every now and then, the strange people crawl out of the woodwork and elect people like him to office. His first, big thing was balancing the budget without raising taxes...which he did, but which cut funding to benefits and the like, and ended up forcing cities to raise taxes instead, so while the state didn't raise taxes, cities did instead, and a lot of state funded programs suffered severely for it, such as the health care system I rely on and the educational funding. This last election, though, he won by an -extremely- small margin, something like, literally 1%, so he -just- managed to hang on by the seat of his pants.

He's also a notorious republican kissass, and seems to be hunting for a Vice President spot for the next election, which likely helped influence why the RNC is going to be in Minnesota, despite it being a very, very blue state.

[paka.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the explanation!

Oh, hey, it just made the news that there was a 2005 report that said the bridge had structural problems. AOL's news story used the term "finger pointing," which after Katrina, I now understand to mean "Republicans can be directly blamed, and we want you to come away feeling that those accusations are unfair and overly partisan."