MINNEAPOLIS A freeway bridge over the Mississippi River in Minneapolis collapsed Wednesday, sending many cars into the water, injuring 20 to 30 people, authorities tell FOX News.
Tons of concrete have collapsed and people are injured. Survivors are being carried up the riverbank.
This bridge connects downtown Minneapolis and the University of Minnesota.
The entire span of the 35W bridge collapsed about 6:05 p.m. where the freeway crosses the river near University Avenue.
Live video on MSNBC as I type this. MSNBC saying there is no suspicion of terrorism; looks to just be an engineering failure.
Posted by: Mike ||
08/01/2007 20:20 ||
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#1
On Fox, the Minneapolis TV news is reporting that the bridge was being resurfaced, and there was some sort of explosion where the construction equipment was.
Posted by: Mike ||
08/01/2007 20:31 Comments ||
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#2
What better cover to blow up a bridge than a bunch of construction work...
Posted by: Evil Elvis ||
08/01/2007 20:35 Comments ||
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#4
Strange. Modern bridges have stress indicators built into their structures, and most local administrations issue standing orders re. daily supervisory checks. I smell negligence at some level.
#5
Let me put it this way: If there weren't any Muslims in Minneapolis just about nobody would be worried about this being an incident of terrorism. Just sayin'.
#6
Modern bridges have stress indicators built into their structures, and most local administrations issue standing orders re. daily supervisory checks
that's nonsense, McZ. I've been Resident Engineer on construction of 17 bridges, concrete and steel. Yearly condition checks are the norm in California (Caltrans). Looks like progressive collapse/failure - it's 40 yrs old and should have at least a 50 year life cycle. The witnesses' statements of shaking and vibration noise changes sounds like material or design issue. Perhaps the construction work damaged it or environmental (ice/snow/salt) impact on the steel reinforcement. Stress indicators are only on relatively new structures (last 10-15 years) or recent retrofits on old "problem" bridges. Inspections over water and canyons involve articulated snooper "cherry-picker" boom trucks and are expensive, intensive. Caltrans has, I think, 2 "snooper" trucks for all of Southern California
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/01/2007 21:08 Comments ||
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#7
Train is crush under it ...
look at the video
cars and trucks in the river and crushed everywhere.
Hospitals are selectively calling up lots of doctors.
#8
Most of the bridge segments appear intact. I would expect to see crater type damage if there had been an explosion. From the shots on TV, the collapse twisted a segment on the Minneapolis side while all the other segments seem to have remained relatively flat.
In St. Pete, a ship struck a bridge pier. A couple of others were just structural failures. It remains to be seen what happened here. Fox is reporting the bridge was inspected in 2004??
#9
Perhaps the construction work damaged it or environmental (ice/snow/salt) impact on the steel reinforcement.
I gotta agree with you, Frank G. Between thermal cycling, induced corrosion and the age factor the chances were high that some serious structural degradation had occurred. As a major tranportation artery, the bridge should have had cameras continuously monitoring it for traffic congestion, if not the construction itself. Image analysis of those recordings would go a long way towards providing an explanation.
Also, crater or not, one single point failureinduced or accidentalwould not seem likely to cause such a near total structural break down. There must have been a multitude of weak points whose failure cascade avalanched into such a spectacularly comprehensive collapse.
#10
I'm surprised Zawahiri hasn't claimed it as a great al Qaeda victory, whether it failed due to material, design or sabotage. I wonder if there were any of those picky Muslim cab drivers caught up in the collapse?
#11
Fox: "stress fractures noticed a year ago....the construction was apparently only surfacing.... Last inspected in 2004"
I doubt they could/would cut post-tensioning cables or enough cables to cause the collapse. The deck structure looks thin, like girder/PT deck construction, not box-girder, although there is some twisted/ruined steel substructure visible at one end
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/01/2007 21:46 Comments ||
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#13
Frank is probably dead on. Environmental factors most likely stacked up to cause this. Thermal cycles? Check. Salt? Check check check check check. That liquid crap they use now instead of salt, you know, that shiat that will corrode stainless pronto? Checkmate I'm guessing.
I don't know what that crap is that they use now, but its nasty stuff. Even seen what dissimilar metals will do to each other when they come in contact with each after several years? like aluminum and a plain old bolt? That new crap will do that in a single winter. I think its magnesium something or other. I've personally seen it corrode a whole in stainless truck bumpers. It looks to me like it gets between a mount and the bumper and never gets cleaned off. I've also seen it rust brake shoes so bad that it cracks the lining in a single winter also.
Posted by: Mike N. ||
08/01/2007 22:48 Comments ||
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#20
Seems there were only 2 lanes open, one north and one south. Could have been twice as many cars.
Well, it's a 6-lane highway through there, plus a 4th lane on each side for on/off ramps to local roads ... so, it could have been even more than twice. I thought the "down to a single lane" was just in one direction though.
#21
That bridge is bumper to bumper every single day, twice a day.
Posted by: Mike N. ||
08/01/2007 23:19 Comments ||
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#22
There were two lanes open in each direction.
Posted by: Mike N. ||
08/01/2007 23:32 Comments ||
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#23
My heart goes out to the people of Minneapolis. Lives were lost and so was a fairly beautiful bridge. It makes me proud to see professional EMS, fire and police crews on site and doing their best without worrying overmuch about their own well-being.
Unlike SimCity where you try to build a thriving metropolis, in SimBabwe the object is to steal as much as possible while driving your once prosperous country into the ground. Bonus points awarded for getting on the UN Commission on Sustainable Development.
The government yesterday filed an appeal with the Supreme Court (SC) challenging Monday's High Court (HC) order granting ad interim bail to detained former prime minister Shiekh Hasina in an extortion case and also directing the government not to hold trial of the case under the emergency power rules.
Attorney General Fida M Kamal moved the appeal with the Chamber Judge of the Appellate Division of the SC seeking stay on the HC order. After primary hearing, the Chamber Judge decided to send the matter for hearing by the full bench of the Appellate Division and set today for the hearing.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/01/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
Oh yes please do. Its a dead letter anyway so its rather moot to debate whether Russia is doing anything by withdrawing from the treaty. Also allows us to continue research on things like a sub launched MRBM or ground launched MRBM, longer ranged ATACMs and GMLRS systems and even possibly a new GLCMs. Deployment of new systems like this allow for surgical strikes just about anywhere on the globe on short notice, and with the way things are going in places like Iraq, items like GMLRS may become the future of surgical strike artillery.
#5
Russia is attempting to do with us exactly what they did to them.
Russia's life expectancy is low. While they had a post-war baby boom like we did, it wasn't as big and more of that generation have already died because of health problems such as alcoholism.
Twenty years from now the US will be in a position where most of the baby boom is on Social Security. Our federal budget is going to be a mess. There is no WAY we are going to be able to fund a massive military buildup. BUT in 20 years from now Russia will have much less of a pensioner population and a new baby boom that they are now creating will be entering the workforce (and the military). A much higher percentage of their population will be at a productive age and a smaller portion on benefits.
Basically, the Russians are going to be able to outspend us in a military buildup because of the coming Social Security debacle when the boomers retire. Failing to bring in and legalize immigrant labor to help support those boomers will make the situation even worse.
#6
I doubt very much that there will any baby boom in Russia as presently constituted. The problems that have made for a shrinking Russian population show no sign of letting up. Maybe the few survivors will be rich enough to pay tribute to new overlords, or maybe China & Muslim nations to the south will just take it all.
#7
LOL We're doomed! All that with Peak Oil and Global Warming! I bet it breakers the interweb.
Posted by: Abu Maxis ||
08/01/2007 19:51 Comments ||
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#8
I meant Climate Change of course.
sorry
Posted by: Abu Maxis ||
08/01/2007 19:52 Comments ||
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Russia is worried over Chinese Eurasian ambitions + needing "living space", by mil force iff need be; + Muslims comprising an ever-increasing higher percentage of its armed forces over time.
#10
I think you might find Muslims comprising an increasing percentage of OUR armed forces over time too. Our armed forces generally reflect the society it recruits from. Right now in NYC, for example, the Muslim and Jewish populations are roughly equal. The Jewish population of NYC is decreasing and the Muslim population is increasing. Just one example.
#3
My oh my, isn't murtha the little warmonger, just you have a peep at his earmarks. He's a good friend to the defense contractors, wish I could say the same for our troops. He wants to spend millions on high tech gadgetry, but goes on national TV and denigrates their efforts. I don't understand this tool, he needs to drink the drain-o.
#4
And that "peace advocate" Nancy Pelosi is in for 16 earmarks total! Even Barney Frank is in for 3, and Keith Ellison is in for a "Plasma Sterilizer."
Comments anyone on our only openly Muslim Congresscritter asking for a Plasma Sterilizer? Let's hope it gets used on some select constituents of his, eh?
Posted by: BA ||
08/01/2007 9:08 Comments ||
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Nancy is in the list twice too so Nancy's count is 17.
#6
And if the White House wasn't a testicle free zone this pile of crap would be vetoed along with a very loud and public campaign to expose all the pork. C'mon, Dubya, we thought we were voting for a conservative.
Posted by: Abu Uluque6305 ||
08/01/2007 10:53 Comments ||
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On March 16, 2007, the New York Times reported that earmarks were still present under the new congressional leadership, but due to arcane definitional rules of the House were no longer known as "earmarks".
On June 14, 2007, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi said: "If I just might direct the record to another place. Why dont we just leave this room today forgetting the word 'earmark'? This is legislatively directed spending, as opposed to executive spending." [1]
On June 19, 2007, CNN.com reported that there were 32,000 earmark requests pending in the House. LINK
At this rate the Indians would have finished the carrier they're building at Cochin and started working on its sister ship before this Russian rustbucket puts to sea.
Russia's main military shipyard is at least three years behind schedule on a $1.5 billion contract to modernise an aircraft carrier sold to India in 2004, Interfax news agency reported on Wednesday.
Under the contract, Sevmash shipyard in the Arctic port of Severomorsk was due by 2008 to upgrade and re-equip the ship built in 1987 to combine the power of a missile cruiser and capabilities of an aircraft carrier.
Indian media and officials have said the ship, with a squadron of Russian MIG-29 jet fighters on board, would considerably enhance the firepower of the Indian navy and bring nuclear rival China within range.
India is the only country in South Asia that has an aircraft carrier, INS Viraat, an issue of concern for some of its smaller neighbours. Pakistan and China, with whom India has fought wars, do not have this class of ship.
Interfax quoted an unnamed "high-ranking Sevmash source" as saying that the shipyard's Director General Vladimir Pastukhov had been fired after failing to meet deadlines.
"The contract is delayed for three years," the source said. "The realistic date ... is now 2011."
India and China are the two biggest buyers of Russian arms, accounting for nearly 90 percent of Russia's overall annual arms exports of around $5 billion.
Interfax quoted the Sevmash source as saying miscalculating the amount of work needed to renovate the ship had led to problems.
"After a more detailed examination was conducted, it became clear that the ship's technological condition is awful and that money allocated for the renovation is not enough," he said. I'm no shipbuilding expert.. but is "awful" a naval or shipwright term?
Posted by: john frum ||
08/01/2007 12:15 ||
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There was a lot of criticism from the Indian left when the Indian Navy proposed to buy the LPD USS Trenton. It was an old rustbucket they said. India was wasting its money.
Today, the INS Jalasha is sailing with the Indian fleet, for less than 60 million dollars while about 800 million has vanished into a hole somewhere in Russia
Posted by: john frum ||
08/01/2007 12:35 Comments ||
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New Delhi, August 9: An upright naval commander refuses to approve a faulty weapons system in Russia. He and his commissioning team are flown back toIndia. Six months later he is killed in a
mysterious hit-and-run case.
A year after his death, the commander gets a gallantry award. People, especially those in the navy, are drawing the obvious conclusion: that an arms mafia had him killed. This is the story of Commander Nawaz Ahmed.
As the commissioning officer of the Russian-built Krivak-III class frigate, christened INS Talwar, he realised during acceptance trials in 2002 that a key on-board weapon system the Shtil-1 urface-to-air missile was malfunctioning. The Talwar was to be the first of the three stealth frigates inducted into the navy at an aggregate cost of $1 billion. But Ahmed resisted allurement and intimidation in insisting that the Shtil snag first be rectified. With penalty clauses for delays specified in the contract, the stakes for the sellers were high. They pressed for acceptance of the ship and promised to rectify the problem post-delivery. But on Ahmed's advice, the navy refused to take delivery of the warship till the ability of Shtil-I to hit airborne targets was
demonstrated. The 180-strong commissioning crew was flown back. This set the delivery schedule back by over a year. Six months after returning to New Delhi, the commander was killed near Chanakyapuri. He was on his regular morning jog when a speeding water tanker hit him near the Italian Embassy at Satya Marg on June 19, 2003. But the general belief in the navy is that Ahmed was killed by the Russian arms mafia.
Posted by: john frum ||
08/01/2007 12:43 Comments ||
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800 million has vanished into a hole somewhere in Russia
That's not a hole, it's Putty's pals' pockets.
#4
I've long held the opinion that the US should sell the decommissioned USS Kennedy to India, to jump them way ahead of China in aircraft carrier technology, but Old Patriot trumped my idea with an even better one: to also sell the decommissioned USS Nimitz to Japan.
China would lose its marbles, and probably end up spending 10 times their current naval development budget on just trying to match India then Japan. And if that didn't break their back, it would still only give them technology that by US standards is obsolete.
Overnight, they would go from hoping to be #2 in aircraft carrier tech, to hoping to be #4.
#7
I was'a hopin' for the USS Jong-Ill, with a huge wax manniquin of Elvis on front, Steve S. Maybe the USS Rumsfeld should be handed over to the Joos, just to tweek the mad mullah's noses.
Posted by: BA ||
08/01/2007 14:54 Comments ||
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The Nimitz is currently with the 7th Fleet in the Indian Ocean. The service life on the class is 50 years and she was commissioned in 1975, so I don't think she's going anywhere for awhile.
#11
In April 2005 India began building this indigenously designed aircraft carrier that will take eight years to complete. The keel laying is scheduled in October 2007. The ship is expected to enter service in 2012. The ADS is being built at Cochin shipyard.
This last design iteration shows much influence from the Italian Andrea Dorea Class carrier (currently known as the Cavour Class) in that there is much sloping of the superstructure and ship sides. The vessel will be powered by four HAL-built General Electric LM 2500 gas turbines driving 2 shafts. With a 12 to 14º ski-jump, the carrier has a STOBAR (Short Take-Off But Arrested Recovery) arrangement on an angled flight deck with 2 aircraft elevators - one before the island and one after. In the STOBAR arrangement, the aircraft lands on the angled-flight deck and is stopped by arrester wires. The air group was projected to consist of at least 12 - and possibly 24 - combat aircraft like the MiG-29K, Sea Harrier and Naval LCA along with 10 or so helicopters of the Sea King Mk.42 and/or the HAL Dhruv. Two Ka-31 helicopters would provide airborne early warning coverage.
This ship can carry a maximum of 30 aircraft and 17 of these can be accommodated in the hangar. The ship will have two runways and a landing strip with three arrester wires. The ship has a length of 252 m, maximum breadth of 58m. draft of 8.4m and a depth of 25.6m. The ship will be propelled by four LM2500 gas turbines generating a total power of 80 MW (120,000HP approximately) thereby enabling the ship to do a maximum speed of 28 knots. The ship will have an endurance of 7,500 nautical miles at 18 knots and the logistic endurance of 45 days.
Posted by: john frum ||
08/01/2007 15:42 Comments ||
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But the Kitty Hawk is due to be decommissioned soon, and would make a great addition to either the Indian Navy or the Japanese Navy. Plus, we could always work out a deal to build some new Wasp+ LHDs, and sell the Indians and Japanese the older LHAs that we replace with the new production. Over a period of 10 or so years, we could replace all 5 of the LHAs and the oldest 1 or 2 of the LHDs, which would give the Indians and Japanese 3 Harrier carriers each. Then the only problem is deciding who is more worthy of the Kitty Hawk - Japan or India?
#13
Oh, heck. I misquoted OP. He had said the Kitty Hawk.
But that was an interesting thought about giving an aircraft carrier to Israel. Maybe we could make them a deal, an aircraft carrier for free, but only on condition that that majority of its crew be Orthodox (who currently dodge military service.)
#14
This ship can carry a maximum of 30 aircraft and 17 of these can be accommodated in the hangar.
That's pathetic. Barely better than a WW2 escort or "jeep" carrier. Sell 'em the designs for the upgraded Essex class (my dad served aboard the USS Hancock, CV 19). They carried more aircraft, had angled decks (in the upgraded designs), and also had guns & missiles.
#15
They were slammed by a committee of the Indian parliament over this. They questioned the small size of the ADS carrier.
However the Indian Navy's previous carriers have been the small ones that the British build and operate.
The ADS is based on the Italian Andrea Doria class.
Only the US has experience operating large carriers.
Posted by: john frum ||
08/01/2007 18:17 Comments ||
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#16
Does the sloped front mean that it doesn't have catapults?
#19
The Indian Navy doesn't want the ShittyKitty, it's shot. They need to build their own for any number of reason. Of course I expect the Japaneese can build they're own too. Yep, shirley they can.
Posted by: Abu Maxis ||
08/01/2007 19:57 Comments ||
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The Indian Ocean tourist paradise of the Maldives will hold a referendum to decide the future role of its powerful presidency held by Maumoon Abdul Gayoom for the past 29 years, officials said Tuesday.
The main opposition party welcomed the move to hold a plebiscite next month on whether the presidency or a parliament should govern the country. The referendum will give people the choice to decide whether they want to be ruled by a presidential or a parliamentary system of government, Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) founder Mohamed Latheef said. Currently the country has an appointed body known as the Majlis which can comment on, but not change presidential legislation.
Political parties were allowed in the Maldives for the first time in June 2005 in line with reforms announced by President Gayoom who was originally elected in 1978 and is currently Asias longest-serving head of state. Home to around 300,000 Sunni Muslims, the Maldives has yet to hold multi-party elections and Gayooms opponents have accused him of clinging to power. The referendum is set to be held on August 18, Maldivian officials said.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/01/2007 00:00 ||
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Former prime minister Nawaz Sharif and his brother Shahbaz Sharif will file a petition in the Supreme Court on Thursday for their return to Pakistan, reported Geo news.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/01/2007 00:00 ||
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"The Co-Investigating Judges of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia" have charged Kaing Guek Eav, alias Duch Schultz, for crimes against humanity and have placed him in provisional detention," said a tribunal statement. The accused is said to have headed the S-21 prison in Phnom Penh when the Khmer Rouge held power between 1975-79. Suspected enemies of the regime were held here and tortured before being taken out to "killing fields" near the capital.
Due to delays, the first trials are not expected until all the defendants die peacefully in their sleep early next year.
A man with severe brain injuries who spent six years in a near-vegetative state can now chew his food, watch a movie and talk with family thanks to a brain pacemaker that may change the way such patients are treated, U.S. researchers said on Wednesday.
The 38-year-old man is the first person in a minimally conscious state to be treated with deep-brain stimulation, a treatment that uses a pacemaker and two electrodes to send impulses into a part of the brain regulating consciousness.
His awakening may change the way doctors think about people with severe brain injuries, who are largely unresponsive but still have some level of consciousness. These patients typically spend the rest of their lives in nursing homes, with little efforts at rehabilitation and slim chance of recovery.
"This is a group of patients that are really, in many ways, forgotten about," said Dr. Ali Rezai, director of the Cleveland Clinic's Center for Neurological Restoration.
"We have to do more research, obviously, but I think down the line it will change the way we are treating or even looking at people with severe brain injury."
Rezai and a team of specialists from the JFK Johnson Rehabilitation Institute-Center for Head Injuries in Edison, New Jersey, and the Weill Cornell Medical College in New York detailed the patient's progress in the journal Nature.
They used a device made by Medtronic Inc.. Like a heart pacemaker, the device is implanted in the chest under the skin, but electrodes deliver stimulation to precisely targeted areas deep in the brain.
Researchers think the electrical stimulation may be enhancing the brain circuits that are still capable of functioning.
Before his injury, the man -- whose identity was not disclosed -- loved to draw, collected comic books and fancied movies about superheroes.
He was attacked and robbed in 1999.
"His skull was completely crushed and he was left for dead," his mother told reporters in a telephone briefing.
He spent the next five years in a nursing home with no hope of recovery. He would occasionally mouth the word yes or no, but could not communicate reliably or eat on his own.
His parents agreed to try the experimental treatment in August 2005, and doctors saw immediate results.
He was alert and could move his head to follow voices.
He can now drink from a cup, recall and speak 16 words, and watch a movie.
Rezai said he is engaged with his family, playing cards with his mother and taking short trips outside the facility.
Because of years of immobility, he may never walk.
"He still has got a long way to go, but given where he was, he is dramatically improved," Rezai said.
The man is the first of 12 patients who will undergo the treatment as part of a pilot study approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
Experts believe about 100,000 to 300,000 patients with traumatic brain injury may be in a minimally conscious state. Most do not receive active therapy, but Rezai and colleagues think this may need to change.
"Judging from the results, we are very encouraged about the potential of this technology to improve the function of these brain-injured patients," he said.
AN AGEING communist guerrilla who led a revolt that convulsed Malaysia for three decades has suffered a setback in a two-year legal battle to return home, his lawyer said yesterday, but vowed to fight the judgment. He fought the law and the law won
Chin Peng, 83, led a guerrilla campaign against Japanese, British colonial, Malaysian and Thai forces over three decades, from the 1940s until well into the 1970s, when it was finally crushed. Stubborn, ain't he?
Only in 1989 was a formal peace treaty signed. Chin Peng, who now lives in Thailand, became the most wanted man in the British Empire in 1948, at the age of 23, soon after being named secretary-general of the Communist Party of Malaya.
Memories of the communists' revolt are still a sensitive topic in multi-racial Malaysia, prompting the government to ban the 2006 film, The Last Communist, which was inspired by Chin Peng's early life and legacy. Drawn by memories of his parents, who are buried in Malaysia, the ageing former revolutionary now wants to return home, but a Malaysian High Court yesterday gave him 14 days to submit documents proving he was born in the country.
However, Chin Peng's position is that the documents should be issued by the government. "This is the end of the road in the high court," his lawyer Darshan Singh Khaira said. "But we must carry it to the Court of Appeal. I will file a petition in the Appeal Court."
In his autobiography, Chin Peng: My Side of History, the former guerrilla paints a picture of a 12-year anti-colonial war he says he waged against British and Commonwealth forces in the jungles of what was then called Malaya. Darshan Singh said his client had several times asked the government for permission to return, but his requests had been rejected. Good
Posted by: Steve ||
08/01/2007 00:00 ||
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Poor old commie. Probably never even got his own t-shirt...
MEXICO CITY (AP) Mexico called on the United States to alter a plan to expand border fences designed to stem illegal immigration, saying the barriers would threaten migratory species accustomed to roaming freely across the frontier.
Nope, no irony there.
Ways of minimizing environmental damage from the fences could include the creation of cross-border bridge areas so that ecosystems remain connected and "green corridors" of wilderness without roads that would be less attractive to smugglers, according to a report released Monday and prepared for the Mexican government by experts and activists from both nations.
Less attractive to smugglers until you have a fence everywhere else.
The report also suggested "live" fences of cactuses, ...
We could do that, if only we get to engineer genetic-modified cacti with ten-inch needles that can be aimed and fired remotely ...
... removable fencing, and more permeable barriers to allow water, insects and pollen to cross the border.
No problem. Pollen? Pass. Beetles? Pass. Manuel? Stop.
Ecologists say among the species affected would be Mexican jaguars and black bears, and the endangered, antelope-like Sonora Pronghorn.
On Monday, Mexico's Environment Department said the proposed fences would seriously hurt species that cross the 1,952-mile border and that the United States needs to alter or mitigate the barriers where necessary. "The eventual construction of this barrier would place at risk the various ecosystems that we share," said Environment Secretary Juan Rafael Elvira, noting that the border is not just desert, but includes mountains, rivers and wetlands.
Mexico also wants Washington to expand its environmental impact study on the fences and will file a complaint with the United Nations' International Court of Justice in the Hague, Netherlands if necessary.
Paging Carla del Ponte to the white courtesy phone ...
The proposed fencing includes at least 370 miles of vehicle barriers and metal walls supplemented by "virtual" barriers of sensors, mobile towers packed with sophisticated cameras, strong lights, radars and sensors and other technology.
The environmental report said the fences could isolate border animals into smaller population groups, affecting their genetic diversity. The strong lights and radar could interfere with nocturnal species, and the construction and traffic along the walls could affect a wider strip of border land than just the fences themselves, activists say.
Environmentalists say construction of the fencing could wipe out endangered species like the Sonoran Pronghorn of which only about 100 still exist in the coming years.
Exequiel Ezcurra, director of research at the San Diego Natural History Museum, said the pronghorns are used to moving across the border in search of scarce grassland. The pronghorn "is without doubt the species in the most desperate situation, the number one victim of all the tension and movement on the border," Ezcurra said.
#1
Actually, they may have a point about the environmental aspects. I still say a cheaper and much more effective solution would be a forgery-proof, easily verifiable Social Security card and huge fines along with strict enforcement for businesses that hire workers who do not possess such a card. Unfortunately, the Senate won't act on that so I'll take a fence if I can get it.
Posted by: Abu Uluque6305 ||
08/01/2007 10:44 Comments ||
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#2
put the pronghorns on a reservation.
Problem solved.
#6
More believable if I didn't have day to day evidence on how Mexicans treat dogs and cats...:((
To the point: animals are considered as beasts pure and simple so why the sudden PETA-like attitude?
#7
They'll pander to any issue to get the PC crowd up here to stop this thing.
Coming up next: Mexican gay and lezbean opportunities said to be hindered by border fence.
#8
not only do we not need any more Mexicans but we also don't need thier jaguars, black bears, and any mutant antelopes. Get the picture down there!!!
#14
Anyone see the irony of Mexico screaming about a border species while their disastrous urban pollution, rampant deforestation, illicit mine tailings disposal and other illegal practices are probably killing off ten to a hundred times as many other species in their interior?
"We cannot have intact testicles on government property. As California government officials, at least the ones on our side, will attest to, Sacramento is a testicle-free zone."
Lots of really good quotes from that article. I'm hoping the guy who said the above -- Nender -- is purposefully pulling a prank, because some of what he says is just WAY out there -- but I fear it's not satire.
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
08/01/2007 00:00 ||
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LOL! I'ma bookmarking officialnewsagency.com as one site on the level of the Onion. Of course, what's sad is that we had to do more research to see if the quotes were real or not (reality seems to reflect the satire in many areas of this country, sadly).
Posted by: BA ||
08/01/2007 8:56 Comments ||
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#7
Because in California, you just never know.
Posted by: Abu Uluque6305 ||
08/01/2007 10:46 Comments ||
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#8
I live near the Capital, I have been to the Capital, and I can tell you for a fact that it is a "Testical Free Zone" for the most part.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
