Does he use Charmin?

Where America's Unsafe Bridges Are

The Federal Highway Administration oversees the inspection of all of the country's 575,413 bridges, and it classifies almost 20 percent of them as "structurally deficient." A structurally deficient bridge is not necessarily in danger of imminent collapse; for example, the category includes many bridges that are still safe but have vehicle-weight restrictions.

More than 80 percent of all U.S. bridges are located east of the geographic midpoint between the coasts. The skewed distribution is due in part to the way the Midwest and Great Plains states were settled--in the so-called "township-and-range" pattern, which resulted in the laying down of land parcels and roadways in evenly spaced grids; in order to maintain this even spacing, many bridges had to be built over small waterways. Iowa, for example contains more bridges than Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming combined.






The percentage of structurally deficient bridges should increase in the next ten years, in large part because tens of thousands of bridges built on the interstate highways during the boom years following the Second World War will soon be in need of major repairs. The Secretary of Transportation estimates that federal, state, and local governments will need to increase their yearly funding by almost 40 percent to meet the surging need for bridge rehabilitation.

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1994/03/troubled-bridges/306142/

Moore OK, Before and after photos

I know this is MSNBC, but it does show the devastation of this storm.


Top, a look at a shopping center before Monday's devastating tornado. Bottom, a man salvages items from his tornado devastated store on May 21


The rest of the collection here: http://photoblog.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/05/21/18400435-before-and-after-tornado-cuts-devastating-path-through-oklahoma?lite>1=43001

You hear all kinds of outrage from the right about welfare recipients but what about APPLE?

I constantly hear from people on the right how welfare is a drain on our economy, how these people are getting something for nothing and they are moochers, well you have heard it all.

So where is their outrage over the billions that Apple has failed to pay in its deliberate tax evasion practices? WHERE?

"All I want is the truth, but I will not believe anything they say"

That is a paraphrase of the GOP and their Sunday morning talk show goons.

No matter the supposed scandal, no matter what the administration says, they are out for blood and will accept nothing less regardless of facts.

Fashion companies looking for new sources for product following Bangladesh

SEMARANG, Indonesia — Bennett Model helped pioneer the exporting of garments from China in 1975, the year before Mao Zedong died, and ever since, his New York fashion company has searched for other countries, from Guatemala to Vietnam to Indonesia, capable of supplying top retailers like Bergdorf Goodman and Neiman Marcus.

The relentless search for new locations has taken on more urgency after the deadliest industrial accident in the global garment industry’s history, a multistory factory collapse in Bangladesh that left 1,127 people dead. Buying from Bangladesh, said Mr. Model, “has been politically incorrect ever since problems started there, so a lot of major players had already been looking for alternatives.”

When a senior executive from one of the largest American mass-market retailers called him last week with worries about suppliers in Bangladesh and plans for a trip to Vietnam and Cambodia to seek alternatives, Mr. Model was ready with advice: “I told him to add a stop in Indonesia.”


http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/16/business/global/after-bangladesh-seeking-new-sources.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20130516&_r=0


Too bad they closed all the factories in the United States, safe factories! Greedy bastards!

Remember when Andrew Joseph Stack flew an airplane into the IRS office?

That was February 18, 2010. A week later, the agency's scrutiny of the Tea Party began. Here's what happened leading up to the two events.



Sean Higgins of the Washington Examiner raises an interesting question.

"What kicked off the Internal Revenue Service's targeting of Tea Party groups?" he asks. "The Treasury Department's Inspector General apparently knows but the rest of us cannot. His report on the scandal includes three timelines of events, but in each case, the first item in the timeline has been redacted."

"The mystery date was apparently February 25, 2010," he concludes from reading the reports. "...The reference to February in both appendixes indicates something particularly noteworthy happened then in the evolution of the IRS's policy. What was it?"

On the theory that media reports might have been involved (since the agency says media reports led to the end of the special scrutiny of Tea Party and other conservative groups in February 2012), I went back and read through some of the national newspaper coverage on the Tea Party groups in mid-to-late February of 2010.

There was a big David Barstow piece in the New York Times on Feb. 12, 2010, examining the political aspirations of Tea Party and other groups: "Tea Party Lights Fuse for Rebellion on Right." Within the first five paragraphs, it mentions the Tea Party, the Sandpoint Tea Party Patriots, Friends for Liberty, Glenn Beck's 9/12 Project, the John Birch Society, and Oath Keepers, described as "a new player in a resurgent militia movement."

And Sarah Palin is mentioned as well, hmmm?

The rest of the article:
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/05/remember-when-andrew-joseph-stack-flew-a-plane-into-a-texas-irs-building/275887/



So yes there was a reason the Teabaggers were under extra scrutiny!!!!

Candidate Who Claims She Was Endorsed by Jesus Christ, Loses

Anna Pierre, North Miami Mayoral Candidate Who Claims She Was Endorsed by Jesus Christ, Comes in Last

A North Miami mayoral candidate who said she secured an endorsement from on high finished far back in Tuesday's election.

The top two vote-getters, Kevin Burns and Lucie Tondreau, advanced to a June 4 runoff for mayor, city spokesperson Pam Solomon said. Former mayor Burns received 2,254 votes (33.2 percent) in Tuesday's election, while Tondreau had 1,870 votes (27.6 percent), according to unofficial Miami-Dade Elections Department results.


http://www.nbcmiami.com/news/Anna-Pierre-North-Miami-Mayoral-Candidate-Claims-She-Was-Endorsed-by-Jesus-Christ-207341981.html?gt1=43001

I guess Jesus didn't want her to be mayor after all.

Don't Look Now, but Our Medicare Spending Projections Are Plummeting

Here's the story budget wonks will tell from today's Congressional Budget Office report: The deficit is poised to shrink to its lowest level since 2008. Good news? Yes, if you're a deficit hawk. Bad news? Yes, if you think (as I do) the deficit is falling too quickly, especially at a time of high unemployment and declining household debt.

Here's the story I wish more people would talk about: Our incredible shrinking Medicare projections. Since August, CBO has now revised down its projections of mandatory health care spending by nearly $500 billion, as Michael Linden pointed out. Since the 2010 CBO report, projected Medicare spending between 2013 and 2020 has fallen by just over $1 trillion ... or 16%.

Here's the graph comparing 2010's Medicare projection to 2013's ...


See why here: http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/05/dont-look-now-but-our-medicare-spending-projections-are-plummeting/275849/

2,300-year-old Mayan pyramid bulldozed