Educated Guess

I am quite sure there will be a lot of media attention on this item, which I caught over at Memeorandum. The New York Times is blaring a headline: Potential Flaw Is Found in Design of Fallen Bridge. Which is fine, the Federal Highway Administration has obviously raised a real red flag here. Here's the start of the article:

MINNEAPOLIS, Aug. 8 — Investigators have found what may be a design flaw in the bridge that collapsed here a week ago, in the steel parts that connect girders, raising safety concerns for other bridges around the country, federal officials said today.

The Federal Highway Administration swiftly responded by urging all states to take extra care with how much weight they place on bridges when sending construction crews to work on bridges. Crews were doing work on the deck of the Interstate 35W bridge when it gave way, hurling rush-hour traffic into the Mississippi River and killing at least five people.

The National Transportation Safety Board’s investigation is months from completion, and officials in Washington said they were still working to confirm the design flaw in the so-called gusset plates and what, if any, role it had in the collapse.

Still, in making public their suspicion about a flaw, the investigators were signaling they consider it a potentially crucial discovery and also a safety concern for other bridges around the country. Gusset plates are used in the construction of many bridges, not just those with a similar design to the one here.

“Given the questions being raised by the N.T.S.B., it is vital that states remain mindful of the extra weight construction projects place on bridges,” Secretary of Transportation Mary E. Peters said in a statement issued late today.

Nothing out of line here. But there is something missing and it matters a lot. What traffic load was the bridge originally designed for? There is a design criteria on file for that bridge, or someone did not do their job. The bridge was designed in the early to mid 1960's - how many cars per day was it expected to carry? What was it designed for? Reports say it was carrying 141,000 cars per day. I rather suspect that the design criteria will not project that load. There may - and quite likely is - a real problem here. But without that information it is very, very hard to judge. Taking an educated guess here, that bridge was probably not designed for the load that was on it daily (it really isn't the weight here, per se - that is limited by physical constraints - only so many cars can fit on there at one time. The vibrations of the traffic, however, do matter. Anticipated traffic speeds also matter. Weight is somewhat important since loads - especially on big trucks - have gone up. But there is a lot in play here from an engineering standpoint.) That bridge was also designed by engineers using slide rules (and healthy fudge factors). If you are reading this, you are working at a computer that engineers back then would have killed to get their hands on.

Size 12 Clay Feet

The Commission's Complaint, filed on April 14, 2003, alleged that beginning on March 6, 2000, Armstrong touted the stock of BluePoint Linux Software Corporation ("BluePoint") by posting unsubstantiated, favorable buy recommendations on the Raging Bull internet site. Armstrong posted over eighty such recommendations during the first three weeks that the stock of BluePoint was publicly traded. According to the Complaint, Armstrong praised BluePoint's investment value and encouraged investors who were experiencing trouble having their orders filled to keep trying. The Complaint further alleged that the promoters of BluePoint were secretly transferring stock in three other companies to Armstrong at prices below the then current market for those three stocks and that Armstrong made at least $20,000 by selling the shares he received from the promoters of BluePoint. The Complaint alleges that Armstrong did not disclose in his internet postings that he was being compensated for making the postings.

United States Securities and Exchange Commission, Litigation Release No. 20228 / August 7, 2007, SEC v. Sierra Brokerage Services, Inc., et al

Said 'et al' being one Jerome Armstrong in this case. That would be the pal of Markos Moulitsas Zuniga of Daily Kos fame. Co-author of Kos' book. You know, that Armstrong. Crashing the gate or scamming the masses? You decide. The SEC already has. And has a fair chunk of Armstrong's money to back them up.

(You should also recall that this was the incident where Kos circulated a demand that other lefty blogs deprive the story of coverage. They obediently complied. Funny how the left likes to charge that the right are doing that sort of thing but ignore confessions of that on their side of the aisle.)

Others having a bit of fun with this story: Riehl World View, Redstate, The Jawa Report, Hot Air, Urban Grounds,

Godspeed Endeavour

STS-118 has successfully launched from the Kennedy Space Center at 6:36 pm EDT. Shuttle Endeavour is away, carrying Barbara Morgan, who was the backup for Christa McAuliffe who was killed when Challenger exploded.

Endeavour and its crew of seven rose from the seaside pad at 6:36 p.m., right on time, and pierced a solidly blue sky. They're expected to reach the international space station on Friday.

Once Endeavour was safely past the 73-second mark of the flight, the moment when Challenger exploded shortly after the call "Go at throttle up," Mission Control exclaimed, "Morgan racing toward space on the wings of a legacy."

Immediately after the shuttle reached orbit, Mission Control announced, "For Barbara Morgan and her crewmates, class is in session."

Morgan was McAuliffe's backup for Challenger's doomed launch in 1986 and, even after two space shuttle disasters, never swayed in her dedication to NASA and the agency's on-and-off quest to send a schoolteacher into space. She rocketed away in the center seat of the cabin's lower compartment, the same seat that had been occupied by McAuliffe.

McAuliffe's mother, Grace Corrigan, watched the launch on TV from her home in Massachusetts. "I'm very happy that it went up safely," she said. "We all send her our love," she added, her voice breaking.

NASA shuttle page is here.

Socialized Medicine And The National Health Death Service

A 22-year old British woman went to her free general practitioner doctor to get free treatment for her severe headaches. She was told - for free - that her headaches were the result of stress. She kept going to the GP and kept being told - for free - that it was just stress. For eleven months she was told the same thing. The GP finally realized something might be amiss and scheduled an urgent MRI for her. 13 weeks into the wait for the urgent MRI, she collapsed and died, killed by the undiagnosed brain tumor that had been there all along.

A woman who had complained to her GP of severe headaches for almost a year collapsed and died of an undiagnosed brain tumor.

Jennifer Bell, 22, had been told she was suffering from stress but after months of illness had finally been referred to a neurologist.

She then faced a 13-week wait before a 'relatively urgent' MRI scan could be carried out.

Three days before the long awaited appointment she collapsed at home and died later in hospital.

Her parents, Colin and Joyce Bell, want to know why Jennifer's MRI referral was logged only as 'relatively urgent'.

Yesterday at an inquest in Norwich, Coroner William Armstrong agreed that an early scan would have led to much faster intervention.

Jennifer, of Thorpe End, Norwich, developed severe headaches, nausea, a stiff neck and diarrhoea in August 2005.

Her health became so poor she gave up her job as a passenger service agent at Norwich airport.

She visited her GP for the first time on November 4, 2005.

Between then and April 10, 2006, she had five GP appointments. She also had six physiotherapy sessions.

That's that "early intervention" that advocates of socialized medicine proudly tout as how all those gobs of money will be saved. That's the kind of "free" health care you can expect.

Still think socialized medicine is a ginger peachy swell idea?

Berserk Beaver Bashes Bubbe

A Swedish grandmother (or 'bubbe' in Yiddish, which is very similar to Swedish except that all the words are different) has been savaged by a beaver while taking a nice, relaxing swim in a river. The beaver beat the bubbe with its behind. No, really.

STOCKHOLM (AFP) - A grandmother taking a leisurely swim in a Swedish river ended up in the hospital after a beaver attacked her with its tail, regional newspaper Nerikes Allehanda reported Wednesday.

Police sources said it was the second time a beaver had attacked humans at the beach on the banks of the Bottenaa River, around 150 kilometres (93 miles) west of Stockholm, the newspaper reported.

"The beaver attacked the grandmother. She was seriously hit by the animal's tail and received a number of bites and scratches," an officer told the newspaper.

That is one mean beaver. Swedish authorities have finally noticed the ravaging rodents and have vowed to bring battle to the belligerent battle beavers of the Animal Uprising™.

And Still More Confused

The two Muslim men arrested in South Carolina with what authorities describe as "pipe bombs" are getting a lot of attention from the FBI at this point. And things are getting somewhat more confused as details come out. (Some readers here have pointed out that some of the things taken from the men's car could very well have been used for model rocketry - or fireworks). Some of the details leaking out are very disturbing.

TAMPA - Investigators have removed computers from the family home of a University of South Florida student accused of having pipe bombs in his car, according to Ahmed Bedier, executive director of the Tampa chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

He said the FBI contacted the parents of Yousseff Samir Megahed of 4959 Anniston Circle, Tampa, who were on vacation, and got permission to search their home. When they returned, their computers were gone.

Megahed is one of two USF students arrested near a naval base in South Carolina over the weekend.

The unsettling details? The FBI has picked up surveillance camera tape from a Wal-Mart. The older of the two suspects was arrested for shooting squirrels in a park with a pellet gun. But there's more:

On July 24, Tampa police accused Mohamed of illegally shooting squirrels in an east Tampa park. Police say he and Ahmad A. Ishtay, 19, used a pellet gun to shoot the animals in Rowlette Park.

Both were issued citations for discharging a firearm and using an illegal method of taking game, a report said. The case has not been resolved, court records show.

"He invited me," Ishtay said about going to the park with Mohamed.

Ishtay, who rents a Temple Terrace house and works at Boston Market, said he met Mohamed and Megahed through a roommate. He said he didn't know the roommate's last name, but he was from Mauritania.

Another of Ishtay's roommates, Ghassan Salhab, 27, said the man from Mauritania moved here from Canada recently and returned there Monday.

That last bit is more than a bit weird. The mystery man from Mauritania just up and heads for the border when Megahed and Mohamed get arrested in South Carolina? And nobody living in the same house with the guy knows his name? Something stinks about this.

Sober Truth

A troubling thing these days is the media's increasing use of completely anonymous sources to make lurid allegations. Seldom is there any apology if the allegations turn out to be unsubstantiated - or even proven to be entirely false. Worst of all, is that once the allegation is made - even if it is false - the meme has entered circulation. You can't stuff the genie back into the bottle. Having said all that, let's revisit the anonymous allegations of alcohol abuse among NASA astronauts.

Mike Carney over at USA Today's On Deadline has a preliminary report from the head of safety for NASA, Bryan O'Connor, which indicates that there is no evidence at all that astronauts violated NASA alcohol policies.

The head of safety for NASA has investigated every space shuttle flight over the last 10 years and found no evidence of heavy drinking, space-agency spokesman David Mould tells USA TODAY's Traci Watson.

Safety chief Bryan O'Connor examined records and interviewed astronauts, launch-pad personnel and the crews who help astronauts into their launch suits but didn't hear any reports of alcohol abuse or violations of NASA's alcohol policy, according to Mould.

He says O'Connor hopes to finish his investigation by the end of the month.

NASA chief Michael Griffin last month asked O'Connor to look into allegations that two astronauts had drunk heavily before space launches. Members of the independent panel, created after an astronaut was arrested in Florida, gave no details of the incidents except that one involved an astronaut about to launch on a Russian spacecraft to the International Space Station and the other involved an astronaut preparing to launch on the space shuttle.

There will, undoubtedly, be some who will say NASA is covering things up. NASA, however, will also realize that anything they produce here will be examined under a microscope - unlike the allegations. Those were just flung out there with nothing to back them up. I said at the time these charges surfaced that any flight surgeon who allowed a drunk astronaut to fly is unfit for his or her job. I still believe that.

The problem with these anonymous charges is that there is no way to judge whether the person making them is being truthful. It could well be a person with an ax to grind. It could be a disgruntled employee. It could be someone reporting something he heard from someone who heard something from someone else. There is no way to judge. There is also no way to put the genie back.

Going Bear On The Beach

Crystal Beach, Ontario, on the shores of Lake Erie is a popular destination in the summer months. And beach-goers there have something to look forward to: a visit from a 700 pound grizzly bear!

A 700-pound grizzly bear escaped from the ZooZ Animal Zoo on Stevensville Road in Stevensville late Tuesday night.

Niagara Regional Police have organized a perimeter near the facility, in an area where the bear was last spotted.

Over two dozen officers are currently in the area searching for the bear. However, the exact whereabouts of the bear is not known.

Employees from ZooZ and a local veterinarian are in the area assisting police. The Fort Erie Fire Department has been notified and is assisting as is The Niagara County Sheriff’s office. A helicopter is helping in the search.

Crystal Beach is not a nude beach, but it may soon be a bear beach. We here at Blue Crab Boulevard urge people not to get sucked into playing a game of beach volleyball with the bear. Grizzly bears are terrible at the game and are notoriously sore losers. They eat the winners.

The Irresolute Resolution

The Chicago Tribune has a very negative editorial about the latest United Nations "resolution" on Darfur. To call them pessimistic would be optimistic.

It's hard to be optimistic about the UN Security Council's toothless resolution — gee, why does that phrase ring a bell? — to send a peacekeeping force to Darfur. Four years in the making, the resolution calls for of 26,000 international troops who will be authorized to defend themselves or to protect civilians — but not to disarm the rebels or the deadly government-sponsored militias before they attack civilians.

The resolution dutifully promises not to disrespect Sudan's sovereignty. That's an open invitation to more stonewalling from President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, who has long railed against Western interference in the genocidal morass that he insists is Sudan's business alone.

They point to the real problem in all of this: China. That nation, Sudan's biggest trading partner, has been stonewalling any real action for four years now.

The resolution had been blocked by China, Sudan's most important trading partner, until it had been watered down enough for al-Bashir to sign off on it. China has invested billions in Sudan's oil industry, buys two-thirds of its oil and sells Sudan's army the weapons that end up in the hands of the murderous militias. For months, pressure has been mounting on China to urge Sudan to stop the killing. A campaign to boycott the 2008 Summer Olympics — which human rights activists have dubbed the "Genocide Olympics" — finally prodded China into action.

The resulting resolution is riddled with enough loopholes to suit al-Bashir (for now), thus giving China the cover it needed to join the rest of the Security Council in unanimous approval.

The latest impasse is the refusal by Sudan's president to accept any troops in the toothless peacekeeping force from non-African nations. Africa cannot possibly supply 26,000 troops and President Omar Hassan al-Bashir knows it. That has, in effect, negated the resolution before it even has a chance to do what little that could be expected from it. There is little hope that the US can push the UNSC to actually impose any sanctions over Khartoum's stonewalling. The threat of further sanctions was removed from the irresolute resolution at China's insistence.

“A Fairyland Of Health Happiness”

John Stossel is in rare form today. His weekly column is devoted to the extremely expensive "free" health care Wisconsin Democrats want to impose on the state. And Stossel says the rest of the nation should cheer them on. We need more bad examples.

As usual, most of the new taxes will be imposed on employers. Progressives believe money taken from them doesn't cost anything. Rich corporations will simply waste less on lavish perks and excess profits. But taxes on business are often paid by workers, stockholders and consumers. Businesses that can't pass the taxes on to someone else will close or move out of state.

But progressives are oblivious to this fact. They see Wisconsin becoming a fairyland of health happiness supervised by the 16-person "authority" that will oversee the plan. Socialism will work this time because the "right" people will be in charge.

Does it never occur to the progressives that the legislature's intrusion into private contracts is one reason health care and health insurance are expensive now? The average annual health-insurance premium for a family in Wisconsin is $4,462 partly because Wisconsin imposes 29 mandates on health insurers: Every policy must cover chiropractors, dentists, genetic testing, etc. Think chiropractors are quacks? Too bad. You still must pay them to treat people in your state.

Want to buy insurance from another state, like nearby Michigan, where an average policy costs less? Too bad. It's against the law to buy across state lines. Your state's Big Brother knows best.

The WSJ writes about a "last line of defense against" Healthy Wisconsin, but I say, let Wisconsin try it! Their suffering will be for the greater good.

My absolute favorite line from Stossel this week:

That's why America needs "Healthy Wisconsin." The fall of the Soviet Union deprived us of the biggest example of how socialism works. We need laboratories of failure to demonstrate what socialism is like. All we have now is Cuba, Venezuela, North Korea, the U.S. Post Office, and state motor-vehicle departments.

That is a thing of beauty. I posted about the Opinion Journal article Stossel cites here. The sick fact: the tax burden on Wisconsin citizens will more than double for their "free" health care. It is not "a few dollars more" as the left likes to portray it. It will require that more money be collected for health care alone than the current total state tax revenues. But the fuzzy thinking and economic illiteracy makes every fairyland seem possible. Maybe watching Wisconsin collapse economically will wake a few people up.

No Journalistic Omerta?

It's a little hard to figure out what is happening at this point with the "Scott Thomas" Beauchamp story at this point. I had thought that the major media outlets were going to simply ignore the kerfluffle after Howard Kurtz at the WaPo simply accepted The New Republic's assertion that their anonymous sources had backed them up. Anonymously. But lo and behold, Kurtz has written another piece.

Army investigators have concluded that the private whose dispatches for the New Republic accused his fellow soldiers of petty cruelties in Iraq was not telling the truth.

The finding, disclosed yesterday, came days after the Washington-based magazine announced that it had corroborated the claims of the private, Scott Thomas Beauchamp, except for one significant error.

"An investigation has been completed and the allegations made by Pvt. Beauchamp were found to be false," an Army statement said. "His platoon and company were interviewed and no one could substantiate the claims."

But New Republic Editor Franklin Foer is standing his ground. "We've talked to military personnel directly involved in the events that Scott Thomas Beauchamp described, and they corroborated his account," Foer said. The magazine granted anonymity to the other soldiers it cited.

But here's the thing. Kurtz is taking swipes at not just TNR. He is also writing innuendos about the Army here:

It is not clear whether investigators might have pressured Beauchamp into disavowing the articles by indicating that charges might otherwise be filed against him under the military justice code. A military official said Beauchamp had committed two violations, making false statements and not obtaining permission to publish the articles, which were written under the name Scott Thomas.

The Army statement did not specify what were described as Beauchamp's falsehoods and does not plan to make its report public. "The matter is considered to be closed," said Lt. Col. Joe Yoswa, an Army spokesman in Baghdad……

…….Mark Feldstein, a journalism professor at George Washington University, called the Army's refusal to release its report "suspect," adding: "There is a cloud over the New Republic, but there's one hanging over the Army, as well. Each investigated this and cleared themselves, but they both have vested interests."

And that is a load of grade A organic north forty fertilizer. The Army has no - none, zero, zip - business giving out the results of a non-criminal investigation about one of its soldiers - even a self-professed lowlife like Beauchamp. Feldstein may want to further muddy the waters, but soldiers have rights, too. (Kurtz has NO business making speculative statements like he did about the Army absent hard proof, either.) But TNR, as the accuser in all this, has an obligation to clear its name. It is still not doing so, merely pulling a stonewall Richard Nixon would have admired.