With the weird and slightly apocalyptic weather and flooding recently (DC is like 70 right now), I have some disjointed thoughts about conversations that look place after that bridge in Minneapolis collapsed.  Here's why:

Hundreds of homes in Nevada are entirely under water since Sunday because of a levee break.  Cold weather and ice blocked a canal, causing it to rupture.  However, Nevada Governor Jim Gibbons said the canal was not full when the bank failed:

"This indicates to me there might have been a structural weakness over the years."

I know the Minneapolis bridge collapse had nothing to do with waether, but that event did trigger discussions about state infrastructure, budget priorities, and the status of our bridges, roads, and other engineered structures.  Alternet.org (in an article that HB pointed out to me) theorized that fiscal conservatism and a reluctance to invest in infrastructure were at least partly to blame.

Is this a stretch?  The article claims that "short sighted public policy" had a hand in a number of events:

A bridge collapse in California the day before Minneapolis, the explosion of an 80-year-old steam pipe in Manhattan a few weeks before, the collapse of a section of tunnel in Boston, and lastly but most importantly, the levee failure in New Orleans.

Classic conservatism values small government and prizes cutbacks in spending.  In response to the Nevada flooding, an onsite enginner state that the earthen levees used there were “the least strong and the least expensive” of the various materials used different forms of levee construction.

Thoughts?