Bridge Observation

The bridge collapse got many politicians off their cots. Nothing like a disaster to bring out the best in the people and the true nature of politicians. Here is the quote of the year, so far:

``A bridge in America shouldn't just fall down,'' U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar, a Minnesota Democrat, said today at a news conference. ``We have to get to the bottom of this.''

Yes sir, there you go.

Senator Reid commented it was a "wake up call," then said it was Bush's fault because his administration's budget proposed $600,000,000 less than the Senate passed for infrastructure repair, a meaningless amount if the logic made any sense to begin with. Aside from that, the state has a $2 billion dollar surplus.

Rep. James Oberstar, the Minnesota Democrat who chairs the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, blamed President George W. Bush's administration for shortchanging road and bridge repair in a highway funding bill two years ago. [Photo above]

Bush, he said, "failed to support a robust investment in surface transportation," adding the president insisted on only $2 billion a year for bridge reconstruction when lawmakers were pushing for $3 billion a year.

Yes, Bush did it. One of those Senator types also said the bridge collapsed because of the war in Iraq. I think the pretend logic was that we (whoever that is) are distracted by war. This gibberish sounds like Reid. Its not worth looking up.

President Bush's initial response to the tragedy, by the way, was that he would pray for the families of the victims.

Of note, the bridge is the responsibility of the state's Department of Transportation, just like New Orleans belongs to La. (Its a constitutional thing. If we had more activist judges we could have a real president who can just send troops in and occupy various states with bad bridges and walls.)

There is already an attempt to blame the GOP Governor for letting the Department's boss run the department. Keep in mind, as you follow the attack on the Governor, Minnesota is one of the very blue states and has been since before the bridge was built. One should look into who the contractor was on the bridge project in 1967.

I just heard about this Daily Kos blog, as the Democratic candidates are appearing at its conference to visit the Oracle on the Isle of Internet, and read this bizarre rambling

...It's not just bridges. As the American Society of Civil Engineers Infrastructure Report Card 2005 points out, we're $1.6 trillion behind in infrastructure investment. That, by the way, is the amount of tax cuts Mister Bush tried to get passed in 2001, before he had the Global War on Terrorism™ with which to shape his legacy. Congress "compromised" and gave him only $1.35 trillion, tax cuts that writer Robert Freeman once labeled a "national form of insanity."

It is my suggestion to you, dear reader, to be sensitive to run-on thoughts where all manner of unrelated facts are stuffed in.

You will find the writer or speaker of such a jam-packed tirade to be mentally ill and, because people don't listen to their blather, they stuff as many discordant notions in a burst of words unfettered by a breath. Were there is no pause the listener can't react with a logical argument and disrupt the stream of consciousness.

If you try to react, you are dealing with five assumptions, presented as facts, none of which actually apply to the conclusion. If you actually attempt to converse, you are doomed.

Learn to avoid eye contact and back away, saying "Yeah, Yeah, Bush did it."