Well, This Isn't Good

AP photo by Matt Rourke - story here. A two-mile section of I-95 in Philadelphia will be shut for days, but that picture is probably very bad news on a much larger scale. Concrete that is up to specification should not do that.

It could be due to corruption, simply laziness, or just poor work performance. But with that pillar not right, I imagine they will all need inspecting. And it happening doesn't exactly give one a warm fuzzy for our government built and regulated infrastructure. I bet you can't wait until they take over health care.

A crack in a concrete support pillar to Interstate 95 is shown in Philadelphia, Monday, March 17, 2008. Repairs to the crack will require closure of both northbound and southbound lanes of the highway north of the city, Pennsylvania Department of Transportation spokesman Gene Blaum said. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

Comments

[WAHOO WILLIE]

Somehow, I don't know how, but Cheney's ninjas are responsible for this!

[IslamoLlama]

"--But with that pillar not right, I imagine they will all need inspecting. And it happening doesn't exactly give one a warm fuzzy for our government built and regulated infrastructure. I bet you can't wait until they take over health care.--"

Wait, are you implying that if we had private roads this wouldn't happen? If only the highway system was privatized this wouldn't happen because... Have you seen the inside of a Taco Bell? You really want a McRoad system? Swing by Texas some time and compare the major toll roads to the major freeways. Compare Beltway 8 and 610, or Hwy 59 / I-45 and the new Trans-Texas corridor. If you look really hard you'll discover they are exactly the same. One set of roads just happens to charge you an extra couple bucks (on top of the gas tax) to get from point A to point B.

Oh! And the toll roads have another delightful feature. Corruption! Horray!
http://www.texastollparty.com/looters_centralTexasLooters.php
http://salcostello.blogspot.com/2008/02/breaking-news-rep-dawnna-dukes-more.html
http://www.thenewspaper.com/news/22/2272.asp

No wonder Republicans are so in favor of private roads. Privatizing the profit and publicizing the expense has been a GOoPer tradition for the last quarter century.

[chris]

So, what you're saying is that Jeremiah Wright prayed for this highway to fail, right??

[seekeronos]

/shrug

Our infrastructure is failing all around. It is a matter of entropy as much as anything else. The status quo I see typically makes the government compete with private contractors to see who can do the cheapest job, and regardless of who finally gets the bid, accountabilty lies with either the Gov't. not caring enough to do the job right, or contractors alternatively gouging the taxpayers or doing truly substandard work. Or any combination thereof.

Ultimately, it is a fight against human nature to get the least amount of work for the most money: the contracting and government agencies have little motive to build something that lasts, and this translates down to a "it's good enough for government work" mentality.

That aside, I'll tell you what I wouldn't *complain* seeing my tax money used for... rebuilding heavy rail on the scale of MagLev freight and passenger travel between major urban hubs with spurs to agricultural production area.

Moving the freight to a MagLev overland transport system would reduce the wear and tear of the heavy truck traffic over much of the interstate highway system.

And revitalizing small American car producers (even if it is building licensed copies) to manufacture low-cost CAV (Compressed Air Vehicles) that are 25% of the weight of a standard sedan and require only a charge of air from high-capacity compressor tanks to run 150mi. would not only be a blessing to the AGW crowd, but a major savings on the fuel economy.

[jharp]

About one of the most ludicrous posts I have seen ever. And that's saying a lot.

Since a concrete pillar in Philadelphia is crumbling we can't adopt a much less costly health care system that is used by the entire industrial world.

You, my friend, have lost your mind.

[IslamoLlama]

"--Moving the freight to a MagLev overland transport system would reduce the wear and tear of the heavy truck traffic over much of the interstate highway system.--"

That would be a good idea in the long run. However, the energy demands of MagLev are rather significant and the change-over would be ungodly expensive - materials costs, engineering, construction, etc - so this isn't much of an immediate fix. Why we virtually abandoned the generic train freight system for independent truck shipping transport continues to baffle me. But here we are... :p

[Jna]

The Dukes thing is a scam. Did she get prosecuted? She wants him to call her sister's lawyer? It's easier to just sue them. Every vote affects everybody, including my sister? Scammers. How long was she in contracting?

[Lala]

The Mafia must have mixed in too many bodies into that concrete.

[WAHOO WILLIE]

LLama dear you must remember that it was the Reps that gave us the Interstate system in the first place (Thanks Ike). I think Dan's point what not that we should have privatized roads, but that the govt is por at best at running anything. However, that's all govet should be doing, building roads and keeping the mongol hordes off the walls. I don't know about gas taxes in baja Oklahoma, but here in what *used* to be "the good roads state" It was/is the dems who've given us the highest gas tax of any of our 4 neighbors and 2-3 in the nation. Everytime we get a few buks to fill potholes, the dem gov takes the money and throws it into the general fund.... See that's how they "balance" budgets, like when Clinton took money from Fed employee pensions and used it to "balance" the budget. Rail cargo is a smart thing, cheap too but how much of your property are you willing to give up for spurs running hither and yon?

[IslamoLlama]

"--Rail cargo is a smart thing, cheap too but how much of your property are you willing to give up for spurs running hither and yon?--"

That's a matter of give and take. I think people would be willing to give up a great deal more if they knew they'd get cheaper goods and faster transit in exchange. Does a rail line really take up more space than a highway or feeder?

"--LLama dear you must remember that it was the Reps that gave us the Interstate system in the first place (Thanks Ike).--"

And that was a good start, some 60 years ago. Nixon gave us the EPA - and, indirectly, FISA. Horray for that. Unfortunately, the latest crop of Republicans also gave us Bridges to Nowhere and Big Digs.

However, you seem to be convoluting the terms "the government" and "the people". If roads are bad, simply claiming that "the government screwed up" would be like claiming "the restaurant industry screwed up" because you got served a bad hamburger at Wendy's. If you don't like how a job is done, you need more oversight, more regulation, and more consumer freedom of choice. Privatizing an industry like the national or state highway system doesn't give you any of that. Letting a private company administer the road just black-boxes the process and makes it that much more difficult to throw bums out of power when they allow roads to fall apart or start hiking tolls to levels that are bad for business. And since you typically only have one major road running from city A to city B, you can't choose between McHighway and Luxury Lanes. Highways are effectively a monopoly industry.

[WAHOO WILLIE]

"Does a rail line really take up more space than a highway or feeder?" It takes as much as a two lane road. Dont get me wrong, there's much logic in more rail roads and more yards. I just dont want to see the extra blight of a spur running to every Walmart in the country. An exageration, but you see the point.

"Unfortunately, the latest crop of Republicans also gave us Bridges to Nowhere and Big Digs." Then say that, dont blame everything back to Reagan on them. and it aint only the reps toting home useless earmarks, you know that.

"However, you seem to be convoluting the terms "the government" and "the people"." No, I think it's you confusing the two. When we formed a representative republic, we the people gave up a lot of say. SO we must rely on your point that we use the vote to throw the bastards out. I totally agree but you and most of the folks here are no where "average" as voters. IN the city close to me they had their mayoral & council election not long ago. The incumbents have done nothing as thesewer system breaks every couple months and spill millions of gallons of raw sewage into estuaries. They've overseen and profited from rampant building which fills in swamps and drains wetlands. (Geeze I could continue.)So 12% of eligible voters turn out and vote for status quo. Why? Name recognition and voter apathy. So there's your ultimate oversight of government. You like Obama because you took time to look into what he says he wants to do. You're in the minority because most of the people who like him or either "like him" or like what he says about hope/change.

[WAHOO WILLIE]

"or either "like him" "

Should be ARE either "like him"

[seekeronos]

"--- Why we virtually abandoned the generic train freight system for independent truck shipping transport continues to baffle me. But here we are... :p ---"

I blame it in part on the unions, like the Teamsters.

As for the utility of rail, or MagLev, I see it as a matter of generally being more efficient. Several thousand tonnes of goods moving at 350kph from the coastal ports to inland areas, and then staging that from the distribution centres in major cities by short distances (say, less than a 2-hour drive) by truck would be more efficient while the train itself is expending a single great massive of energy which is less than the sum of the smaller bits of energy used to schlep the stuff to the WalMarts by hundreds of thousands of trucks.

That, and especially once you get out of the cities, a MagLev rail conceivably could be built in a fashion that eliminates much of the entropy associated with highways - in open country, it would be the matter of running the rails not terribly unlike what exits for standard gauge railway. I'll have to look up the article I had in mind, but the gist of it was that it would be far more energy efficient and generally easier to maintain than the highway network, and it would reduce a lot of the highway traffic as well.

I reckon it appeals to me since I am something of a train geek. Japan and China and Europe are light-years ahead of us in that regard.

[Philip McDaniel]

"The Mafia must have mixed in too many bodies into that concrete."
Jimmy Hoffa by any chance?

[seekeronos]

"--- (say, less than a 2-hour drive) ---"

And by that, I have in mind pretty much anything west of the MS river. Eastwards would see that reduced to under an hour or so.

[IslamoLlama]

"--So 12% of eligible voters turn out and vote for status quo. Why? Name recognition and voter apathy. So there's your ultimate oversight of government.--"

Privatization still doesn't fix this problem. You're absolutely right. Oversight only works when we use it. If no one looks, transparency is meaningless. However, removing transparency and oversight won't make the system better. It'll just allow pols and their corporate cronies to pass the buck around a little longer when the shit hitting the fan reaches politically motivating levels.

[WAHOO WILLIE]

"Oversight only works when we use it."

We're in agreeance here and probably will agree on "shit hitting the fan reaches politically motivating levels." I'm just not sure we agree on how much Americans will take before the shit gets so deep we have to step up. That's what I meant with my 12% story. I do know without doubt what will not work. The name calling and the "my rich white guy is better than your rich white guy" attitude that we've become so accustom to. It hasn't worked in the past and it will never work in the future. It's left to you youngsters to fix and so far, you're falling behind. And LLama, thanks for the discussion, it makes you likable.

[Scrapiron]

Let's see now. I 95, bud out to lowest bidder with a requirement for some % to go to minority companies. Bids reviewed by Civil service employee's (99.44/100% relatives of democrat politicians too stupid to get a real job), contract let to some senator's friend, house members friend supplied the concrete (weak) and another 'Civil service employee inspected the concrete' on delivery. The last one is the one who should be tried, convicted and executed. It, bad concrete, can't get in if the inspector and lab workers aren't on the take or under orders from congress. You have yourself a lot of political bridges that won't hold up, kind of like Hussein 'Tinker Bell' Obama's I 'never heard it' stories.

[IslamoLlama]

Scrapiron, care to back any of that conjecture up with a link? Or is this just the sort of thing you fantasize about when you're blaming America first?

Seriously, its all well and good to point out how (only Dem?) Senators and Bureaucrats game the system. It still doesn't explain how replacing all those public employees with undereducated, corrupt, incompetent private sector employees fixes the problem. Halliburton and Blackwater haven't fixed Iraq yet. The Republican White House and Congress managed to inflate the deficit far more than their Democratic counterparts in a far shorter time frame. And if the scandal-plagued GOP - my god, they even embezzled from their own NRCC! - isn't the model of efficient government, why do you keep voting for them? The "Dems are worse" argument busted some time back in '05. Republicans - in their current incarnation - don't fix any of your problems.

[seekeronos]

"--- The "Dems are worse" argument busted some time back in '05. Republicans - in their current incarnation - don't fix any of your problems. ---"

Ergo, both parties are corrupt and in drastic need of reform, or perhaps the current party system needs to be scrapped altogether.

What we REALLY need is short term limits (no more than two terms for any office) and an end to professional lobbyists (for retired statesmen) as well as opening up states' ballot access laws more widely for third parties to give their candidates a chance at governance.

I really wouldn't mind seeing a few dozen Constitution Party congressmen or Libertarians for that matter.

[Lala]

Brian McLaughlin (D) New York just convicted of,among other things, stealing from Little League.

Those 21 admissions included:
• Siphoning at least $97,000 from J Division accounts to service his boat in Tuckerton, N.J., and to make payments for his car, to a country club and to a female “friend.”
• Defrauding the Electchester Athletic Association, which primarily ran a Little League baseball program in Flushing, of over $95,000 to give money to his wife and pay rent on his Albany apartment.
• Redirecting tens of thousands of dollars of campaign finance donations to pay for renovation work on a sprawling second home in Nissequogue, L.I., for his daughter-in-law’s wedding expenses and for a $24,400 country club initiation fee.
• Negotiating with employers to hire fewer J Division workers in exchange for personal cash kickbacks.
• Creating phony staff positions at his state Assembly office in order to redirect part of the salary to himself.
•Installing an associate as director of the Commission on the Dignity of Immigrants, a task force created by the CLC to advocate for immigration issues, on the understanding that “the job would not require any substantial investment of time.” McLaughlin helped make the position the third-highest-paying job at the CLC, whose salary was paid in part from funds donated by the United Way. McLaughlin then rerouted much of that salary to himself so as to pay off credit cards, mortgage payments at Nissequogue and to pay country club dues, among other personal expenses.

[IslamoLlama]

"-- Ergo, both parties are corrupt and in drastic need of reform, or perhaps the current party system needs to be scrapped altogether.

What we REALLY need is short term limits (no more than two terms for any office) and an end to professional lobbyists (for retired statesmen) as well as opening up states' ballot access laws more widely for third parties to give their candidates a chance at governance.

I really wouldn't mind seeing a few dozen Constitution Party congressmen or Libertarians for that matter. --"

Good. Then vote for them. Donate to them. Block walk to get their candidates in office. Run for office as one of them. But if you're voting, and block walking, and donating to John McCain in the fall, you're not going to get any of those things should he - by some miracle(curse?) - win.

Everyone laughs at the Green Party because they "can't win". Personally, I think Nader did a horrible job growing a very viable potential party, and I offer them support every chance I get. It's all about getting better politicians, and that can only happen in a 2-party system when people are actively engaged in the parties - via primaries, internal rules, etc. Barring that, building a new party from scratch is more difficult but still viable. But the DKos guys don't promote voting up whatever warm body the DCCC or the DSCC or the DNC throws them. They actively try to run "better" Dems against guys like Al Wynn or William Jefferson who have a history of corruption.

If the Republicans want to reform, they've got to go down to TX-22 and CA-4 and IL-14 and run some honest people for office. While I'm rooting for the Dems today, I really don't want to live in a one party state. Someone needs to come up with alternatives before the Dems railroad the entire federal government.

Conservatives need to wake up and get back into the ideological arena.

[seekeronos]

"--- Good. Then vote for them. Donate to them. Block walk to get their candidates in office. Run for office as one of them. But if you're voting, and block walking, and donating to John McCain in the fall, you're not going to get any of those things should he - by some miracle(curse?) - win. ---"

Indeed I do. NY has some interesting rules that allows the downticket races (well, really, _any_ election) to be on multiple ballot lines through electoral fusion. So I can support say, David Grate, running for NY-22, and Kieran Lalor in NY-19 who are the NY Constitution Party's best bets for getting something close (but not exactly) to Ron Paul Republicans on the ballot line in ultra-liberal NY State. There are a small handful of others in NY as well, but their chances are pretty slim against the entrenched Democratic machine.

[WAHOO WILLIE]

A study instrumental in getting the repeal though Congress, the 1998 House Joint Committee Study "The Economics of the Estate Tax," lists more considerations:

The existence of the estate tax this century has reduced the stock of capital in the economy by approximately $497 billion, or 3.2 percent.
The distortionary incentives in the estate tax result in the inefficient allocation of resources, discouraging saving and investment and lowering the after-tax return on investments.
The estate tax is extremely punitive, with marginal tax rates ranging from 37 percent to nearly 80 percent in some instances.
The estate tax is a leading cause of dissolution for thousands of family-run businesses. Estate tax planning further diverts resources available for investment and employment.
The estate tax obstructs environmental conservation. The need to pay large estate tax bills often forces families to develop environmentally sensitive land.