Boston Globe today: This article will make you angry,

[yy4me]

especially if you live in the Boston area and have to use the damn tunnels, overheads and ramps. The "Big Dig" is big business run wild. 15 Billion dollars, just officially completed and falling apart already.

On second thought, it is not just New Englanders who should be angry, all Americans paid for this engineering and construction fiasco.

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/MarketTalk/Story?id=4121306&page=1

[Hissyspit]

1. Was already angry about it all day yesterday, but, hey, it's business as usual

in Bush's America.

[GreenPartyVoter]

2. So in other words, it's as magnificent as the embassy in Baghdad?

[yy4me]

9. Both equally shoddy but I think the Big Dig cost a little more.....

for now anyway.

I wonder if the same contractors were used in both projects?

[Marrah_G]

3. We've been pissed off about the Big Dig for years

[dkf]

4. I'm getting an article on Countrywide and Mozillo

Is that what I'm supposed to be reading?

[yy4me]

7. Should be the following. If not, check:

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/MarketTalk/Story?id=4121306&page=1

www.Bostonglobe.com
"Big Dig tunnel springs 237 leaks" (page one)


EDIT: I just checked the link. It did not come up as the Big Dig Story. Go to the newspaper site.

[struggle4progress]

12. I thought Mittens promised no more leaks

[struggle4progress]

5. A Handy Guide to the Big Dig Screw-Up (The Phoenix / July 2006)

By DAVID S. BERNSTEIN
July 27, 2006 8:57:51 AM

... Since 1991, state administration has been in the hands of Republican governors who are especially pro-business and anti-government: William Weld, Paul Cellucci, Jane Swift, and Mitt Romney. As a result, a succession of key appointments have gone to people with little interest in bringing scrutiny to Bechtel and other companies on the project ...

http://thephoenix.com/article_ektid18726.aspx

[struggle4progress]

6. " When work began in 1991, the Big Dig was supposed to cost $2.6 billion. But as costs skyrocketed,

the federal government got fed up and capped its contribution at $8.5 billion. Final cost: $15 billion, the rest paid by state taxes and tolls."

Boston's Big Dig Is Over
$15 Billion Highway Project Completed After Years of Controversy and Headaches
By JOHN COCHRAN
Dec. 31, 2007
http://abcnews.go.com/WN/Story?id=4070432&page=1

[struggle4progress]

8. Romney Admin. Misrepresented Big Dig Safety Review

Jul 27, 2006 8:12 pm US/Eastern
By Maggie Mulvihill and Joe Bergantino

... Romney announced in March 2005 that the Executive Office of Transportation and the Massachusetts Highway Department would conduct a safety review of the Central Artery/Project.

Bond statements issued on five separate dates starting in March, 2005 included the following language: "On March 15, 2005, the governor directed the Executive Office of Transportation and the Massachusetts Highway Department to conduct an examination of the tunnel elements of the CA/T Project open to traffic. This examination is ongoing."

That assertion was also included in August and September 2005 bond statements, as well as statements dated February 28, 2006 and April 18, 2006, an I-Team review shows.

However, the review, which focused only on leaks in the I-93 portion of the tunnel, was completed in July, 2005, said Jon Carlisle, a spokesman for the Executive Office of Transportation. The bond language, which certifies to Wall Street investors the truest picture of the state's financial condition, was never removed by administration officials, he said ...

http://wbztv.com/iteam/Governnor.Mitt.Romney.2.580322.html


Accident in Boston’s Big Dig Kills Woman in Car
By PAM BELLUCK and KATIE ZEZIMA
Published: July 12, 2006
BOSTON, July 11 — Four concrete slabs, each weighing at least three tons, fell from the ceiling of a Big Dig tunnel here on Monday night, crushing a woman to death in a car ...
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/12/us/12tunnel.html

[dkf]

10. Doesn't sound like it was built very well.

I would hate to have to use it.

[struggle4progress]

11. The mess isn't surprising: crony Republicans like Andrew Natsios handled the project

<Andrew Natsios> was chairman and chief executive officer of the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority from April 2000 to March 2001, where he took over responsibility for managing Boston's .. Big Dig

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Natsios

Big Dig to Baghdad?
Andrew Natsios leaves tunnel project in Boston to help oversee the rebuilding of Iraq. Plus: Langdon departing from IRS.
CFO Staff
CFO Magazine
June 1, 2003

... Political adversaries and some media outlets have suggested that Natsios gave preferential treatment to Bechtel Group Inc., the firm that won the contract to coordinate the rebuilding of Iraq's infrastructure. Bechtel was also one of the contractors that Natsios worked with on the Big Dig ...

http://www.cfo.com/article.cfm/3009444/c_3046592?f=insidecfo

Interview with Andrew Natsios
Administrator for the US Agency for International Development, with Ted Koppel, Nightline, ABC News, 23 April 2003 ...

TED KOPPEL (Off Camera) The Marshall Plan was $97 billion.

ANDREW NATSIOS This is 1.7 billion.

TED KOPPEL (Off Camera) All right, this is the first. I mean, when you talk about 1.7, you're not suggesting that the rebuilding of Iraq is gonna be done for $1.7 billion?

ANDREW NATSIOS Well, in terms of the American taxpayers contribution, I do, this is it for the US. The rest of the rebuilding of Iraq will be done by other countries who have already made pledges, Britain, Germany, Norway, Japan, Canada, and Iraqi oil revenues, eventually in several years, when it's up and running and there's a new government that's been democratically elected, will finish the job with their own revenues. They're going to get in $20 billion a year in oil revenues. But the American part of this will be 1.7 billion. We have no plans for any further-on funding for this ...

http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/iraq/koppel.htm

Bush agrees to special envoy to Sudan
POSTED: 7:18 p.m. EDT, September 18, 2006

... Bush's pick is Andrew Natsios ...

http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/africa/09/18/sudan.us/index.html

Natsios On Bush’s Darfur Strategy
May 30, 2007 9:15 pm

Yesterday, President Bush announced a new set of economic sanctions on the Sudanese government ... But Bush conveniently “averted” his eyes from the role of oil in the Darfur crisis. “The sanctions will do little to stem Sudan’s oil exports, which are the main source of the country’s wealth, analysts said.” ... In creating these loopholes, Bush effectively exonerated the Chinese government, which is investing heavily in Sudan’s oil industry and selling weapons to its army. Yesterday, U.S. ambassador to Sudan Andrew Natsios offered this explanation for the toothless sanctions: The purpose of these sanctions is not sanctions

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/05/30/darfur-not-sanctions/

Bush's Sudan envoy resigns

... Natsios was .. returning to his post .. at Georgetown University .. without giving any reason for his resignation ... US efforts to end the conflict have made little progress ...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20071222/pl_afp/ussudanun_071222002557