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Roundup! — 37 Comments

  1. Given the power positions in Mexico I would argue that President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s approach to the cartels is designed to ensure he remains alive.

    I suppose there was a time when local government would spare no expense to engineer and build the most efficient and safe infrastructure option available, but that day has long passed.

    What are the odds that RFK Jr. is election trolling Biden?

  2. Engineering and politics balancing risks and costs. Engineers also have to deal with reality not Utopias.

  3. “… a study by professors Jay P. Greene, Albert Cheng, and Ian Kingsbury, found that the more education indoctrination a person has, the more anti-Semitic he is likely to be.”

    Fixed it. It’s likely though that the good professors used the word “education” instead of the far more accurate indoctrination… purposely.

  4. 1)
    AMLO is a curious character, yes the war against the cartels, notably the non sinaloa ones ended up costing 100,000 lives, and we discovered members of their estado profundo like General Cervantes, (no relation) were playing both sides, now both vicente Fox and his successor Calderon, made little progress, it’s well documented that AMLO had at least one election stolen in 2006, it serves as a subtext in Donald Wilson, (sic) trilogy of the cartels, sort of a parallel to Cormac McCarthys oevre on the Texas side. the Zetas were one splinter faction, that had their numbers and tactics, bolstered by some Mexican special forces and the most brutal Guatemalan comandos the Kaibiles, who fought their dirty war with great relish,

    he got along with Trump, in some ways because they are both outsiders, the socialist agitator and the developer, of course he was able to do much more thanks to this shambling oaf who accepts dictation, and frankly most of the possum legislatures oblige him in these endeavors, see another omnibus, that took pains to excluded the Laken Reilly rider,

    2)Shanahan, a multiple Biden Buttigeg and Gascon donor, seems to have the worst instincts, she did divorce Brin, but then again she did mary him in the first place,
    maybe her money will get him on more ballots,

  5. 6. If a tunnel was a better option in 1972, it’s an even better option now.

    Tunnel boring machines can now excavate 200 meters or more per week in soil. That’s 18 weeks to dig a 2-mile tunnel. If they go that route, they could probably have it finished in a year. (That’s assuming they forego the environmental studies.)

    If they forego the environmental studies to get the channel open, I figure a good marine salvage company could do the job in a month, maybe less. Floating those bridge parts out of the way and to salvage is a big job, but marine salvage companies know how to do it.

    This is a time for action, not contemplating what the work will do to the river’s creatures. My guess is that the Democrats, both federal and state, will insist on doing the environmental studies before doing anything. (The Greens are a big part of their base.) If so, it could take two plus years to get the port and bridge route open.

  6. }}} No surprise maritime professionals wanted a tunnel, but the government cut corners and built a bridge, now we suffer the consequences – “just a matter of time”

    Nahhh. while a tunnel may be a better idea, no argument, the only reason — the sole reason — for this event is because they were too damned cheap to spend the money needed to install protective berms.

    It really is just that simple.

    There are a number of other similar bridges on that river. Oddly, many, if not all, of them have protective berms. Go figure. 🙁

  7. sdferr

    WH spokesman: Can’t think of anything more offensive than Ben-Gvir comment (that Biden prefers the Hamas line to that of Israel)
    Damn straight John Kirby! What could possibly be more offensive than saying something manifestly true? Shame on Ben-Gvir!

    Biden doesn’t want Israel to go into Rafah. Nor does Hamas want Israel to go into Rafah. Sounds to any rational person that Biden does prefer the Hamas line.

    Guess being rational is being offensive.

  8. how much blood money did shambling give hamas, as well as the eu and other bodies,

  9. I am no bridge engineer, but am hearing that even with better protection, a bridge might not be able to survive a collision with a ship that size. An even bigger ship docked in Philly last Friday, the length of four football fields, the biggest ever in that harbor. Good thing it didn’t choose Baltimore!

    But as the ships keep getting bigger and bigger, I’m thinking that bridge should not be reconstructed. A tunnel should have been built in the first place. Saving money was the reason that it wasn’t — a false reason, as things have turned out, as now the bridge has to be rebuilt. It would have been better to build it then, but second-best would be to build it now.

  10. There nothing wrong with a bridge in that location. It was a crappy cheap bridge, poorly protected and compounded by being too cheap to require tug escorts until clear of the bridge.

  11. Jimmy J @6:54pmn,

    Ummm… https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Dig

    The Big Dig was the most expensive highway project in the United States, and was plagued by cost overruns, delays, leaks, design flaws, accusations of poor execution and use of substandard materials, criminal charges and arrests, and the death of one motorist. The project was originally scheduled to be completed in 1998 at an estimated cost of $2.8 billion (US$7.4 billion adjusted for inflation as of 2020). However, the project was completed in December 2007 at a cost of over $8.08 billion (in 1982 dollars, $21.5 billion adjusted for inflation), a cost overrun of about 190%. As a result of a death, leaks, and other design flaws, the Parsons Brinckerhoff and Bechtel consortium agreed to pay $407 million in restitution and several smaller companies agreed to pay a combined sum of approximately $51 million.

  12. I am no bridge engineer, but am hearing that even with better protection, a bridge might not be able to survive a collision with a ship that size.

    Mrs Whatsit:

    Seems so to me. OBH called me out on that opinion, but I would like to see a serious pro v. con discussion.

  13. Golden Gate, Tacoma Narrows, Severn, George Washington, Lions Gate, Dardanelles, Mackinac and many more.

  14. Also notice the huge structures around the power towers. And notice Fort Carrol, an old 3rd system fort that was designed by RE Lee.

  15. Re #6, if you want to cut costs on tunnel construction, sub the job out to Hamas, and tell them there are Jews on the other side. They’re like little baby Hortas.

  16. Jimmy J:

    It appears that you do not live in this regulatory constrained country. That bridge is not a national emergency. Stand in line and get your papers and studies started. In case you haven’t noticed the Chesapeake Bay is a pretty significant estuary beloved by many powerful constituencies.

    TBMs are impressive but they aren’t cheap, and you will have to put the spoils somewhere. How about your back yard?

  17. Did they use a tunnel boring machine on the Big Dig, Rufus T.?
    Like this one:
    https://www.bing.com/th?id=OIP.ULPl1yKm09EuYSHrV8WcaAHaEo&w=158&h=97&c=8&rs=1&qlt=90&o=6&dpr=2.2&pid=3.1&rm=2
    Nope.

    Unless there are geological issues, tunneling is pretty straight forward. I’m guessing much of the problem on the Big Dig was political:

    “The political, financial and residential obstacles were magnified when several environmental and engineering obstacles occurred. The downtown area through which the tunnels were to be dug was largely land fill, and included existing Red Line and Blue Line subway tunnels as well as innumerable pipes and utility lines that would have to be replaced or moved. Tunnel workers encountered many unexpected geological and archaeological barriers, ranging from glacial debris to foundations of buried houses and a number of sunken ships lying within the reclaimed land.”
    Hmm! 🙂

    That’s a much more complex problem than tunneling under a river in soil that is mostly river sediments.

    According to the Wiki account, full environmental permuting for the Big Dig required seven years, and that caused a lot of the cost overruns because prices had changed during those years.

    I predict that this project will also take longer than necessary and will cost more than expected. Primarily because of politics, environmental permitting, inflation, graft and corruption. I’d like to be wrong. We’ll see.

  18. TBMs are indeed expensive, om. They are a good choice when speed is important. But I’m guessing that you’re right. Speed isn’t important, and the environmental rules will be followed. And the right people will get their palms greased.

    Glad I don’t live in Baltimore. But I’ve been glad of that since the 1960s when I laid over there in a hotel where the front desk was guarded by a man with a German Shepherd and a machine gun. It hasn’t improved much since those days.

  19. I met a retired academic last night and we had a long enjoyable conversation about various BBC programs we had both enjoyed over the years. I don’t recall how the talk turned to Israel but she stated quite matter-of-factly that Netanyahu is a Nazi and that the IDF has killed over 160,000 Gazans, “mostly women and children.” I am proud I held my tongue.

  20. Via google earth, the power line was built in 2021-2022 and is well protected. The bridge has 4 bollards, two protecting each main pier (don’t think they are called bollards when they are this big). Ship must have missed the bollard.

  21. March 17, 2015
    SEATTLE (Reuters) – The world’s largest tunnel-boring machine, stuck for over a year underneath downtown Seattle, will be pulled above ground starting this week to be repaired, state officials said on Tuesday. The machine, known as Bertha, stopped working in December 2013 after digging just 10 percent of a planned tunnel to replace an aging waterfront highway, stalling a $3.1 billion project. Seattle Tunnel Partners, the contractor on the project, said earlier this month it hopes to have Bertha drilling again by August

  22. “Anti-Semitism and education are correlated. Positively.”
    NO — not education (which means to draw out in Latin root”0).
    Indoctrination.
    It’s all the rage, now.

  23. Would seem that there’s fake news…and boring news…
    – – – – – – – –
    160,000 eh?
    (Sounds like “Pick a number, any number…”)

  24. Re FSC Bridge: There is already a tunnel under Baltimore’s harbor. It is only 2 lanes each way with no significant shoulders. Trucks with certain kinds of HAZMAT loads cannot use the tunnel. There was no way to build a bridge across the Patapsco River that would not be potentially vulnerable to ship collisions. The bridge was built in the 70’s before the proliferation of today’s massive container ships.

  25. Something’s VERY rotten with the state of…Poland.
    “Poland: Lawfare Continues Against Opposition Conservatives as Former Officials’ Homes Raided”—
    https://europeanconservative.com/articles/news/poland-lawfare-continues-against-opposition-conservatives-as-former-officials-homes-raided/
    Key graf:
    ‘…Despite these worrying signs that the law is being misused for political purposes, EU institutions which regularly lambasted the conservative government for so-called ‘rule of law’ violations, are now not voicing their concerns. In fact, the EU is rewarding Poland with the unblocking of funds that were frozen during the tenure of the PiS government. EU leaders have made no secret of the fact that they favour Tusk over PiS because of his political stance and his commitment to EU “values.”….’ [Emphasis mine; Barry M.]

    Yep, ‘EU “values” sounds pretty accurate…

    File under: Anything “Biden” can do, Tusk can do better…

  26. GOD IS A SATIRIST
    … the toughest job nowadays. Events like these encapsulate a lot:

    An Arab opened fire at point-blank range at Israeli vehicles, then fled.
    It turns out that the wounded are members of a Leftie Israeli group called “Looking the Occupation in the Eyes” whose members gather to “protect” the poor, poor Palis from those “violent settlers” (cue thunder and organ music…)

    A few weeks ago their car was stolen by their Arab “allies” during one of their patrols… But instead of learning from that – they just bought another car.

    The new car was shot this morning while these bien-pensants “were on their way to assist Palestinian Arab shepherds in the area.”

    https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/387516

    One encouraging note – the organization’s Twitter about the new car indicates it was purchased second-hand… so maybe, maybe funding is drying up for these nutjobs…

  27. “. . . maybe, maybe funding is drying up for these nutjobs . . . ”

    Acknowledging your “maybe, maybe” skeptic view Ben David, I’d still point to a US $34Trillon deficit which says the printing presses will continue to roll for any and all leftist NGO’s and affiliates in Israel just as everywhere else they may blossom to reek their political destruction. We “others” have a long road to go before this ends.

    On the other hand, I shouldn’t fret! It’s Opening Day!

  28. The Bidenites wanted to avoid conflicts and frictions with other countries so they threw away all their negotiating tools. Now other countries have no incentive to take US wishes into account, and they treat the US with contempt. Whether it’s with Russia, or China, or Iran, or Mexico, the results are similar, and the world’s in a lot worse shape than it was when Biden took office.
    ________

    It’s possible that today’s container ships are a lot heavier and can do more damage than the designers of the Baltimore bridge envisaged, even though the “container revolution” was already underway in the mid-Seventies. Measures could have been taken to protect the bridge’s piers, but the government didn’t want to spend the money.

    Price was likely the main reason a bridge rather than a tunnel was built, but it’s also true that hazardous materials are forbidden in tunnels because of fears of a catastrophe if they exploded. Also, the contractors’ estimated costs for a tunnel were considerably higher than the engineers’. I don’t know if that’s a common occurence that the authorities should have been able to deal with, or if it was an unexpected shock.

    My own first thought was that maybe Baltimore’s inferiority complex might have been to blame — sure, NYC could build all these tunnels in their heyday, but we aren’t in their league — but that doesn’t appear to have been a factor.

  29. AMLO mouthing off today about how one of the dead workers in the bridge collapse was Mexican (another was Guatemalan) shows that certain US politicians shouldn’t be so hostile to migrants ties this roundup up with a nice little bow. No word yet on whether the workers were legal or illegal.

  30. Abraxas: I wondered that too.
    And sadly, with the ongoing illegal invasion, “jobs Americans won’t do” is becoming a bigger problem, since that category includes risky and important jobs, & those pushing to “let them all work” have proposed such jobs I would not hand to unvetted anyone’s!!
    Including military positions! And bridge building or repairs.
    And TBH, harvesting/prepping food is risky too. Food poisoning is easy, if you hate your host country.
    (Obviously & seriously, there’s very little real vetting capability for most of the invaders.)

  31. Barry M: “Yep, ‘EU “values” sounds pretty accurate…”
    Oh, you mean the Extortion Union?

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