Even Academia Has a Village Idiot

This map outlines the prediction of an academic of what will befall the United States by 2010:

Many will undoubtedly be cheering this on as their greatest fantasy ever. To me it's simply a reminder that any of those credentialed "professors" we keep seeing on TV news shows can be just as big a moron as say ... Al Gore, for example.

The Bridge Disaster: Personal Thoughts

I don't have a TV (by choice) so I decided to go to YouTube to see some video of the bridge collapse. I have dual interests, first as a human being at the enormous tragedy of this event, but also has a professional engineer.

The videos were very interesting and the stories of the rescues heartfelt and touching. But what was shocking to me was how so many people, via their comments, were immediately using this tragedy to directly attack George Bush. I then found more of the same here.

Just like with 9/11, it's a heaven-sent miracle that so many on the ultra-left become instant structural engineering experts. With absolutely no facts at hand, they automatically discern that the bridge collapsed because soldiers are over in Iraq fighting terrorists. Amazing!

If I were to ask them what safety factors are commonly deployed on the design and implementation of U.S. Interstate Bridges, all that we would hear would be grasshoppers chirping.

News Flash: Even the top structural engineers in the world ... especially the top structural engineers ... will be passing no judgements until mountains of evidence is collected, shearing patterns in the steel closely observed, possibly with microscopes in a lab, and a whole lot of other tests performed.

Is it too much to ask that the sick, depraved, heartless, anonymous cowards who post such hate when they could just as easily shut their pie-holes, remove their fingers from their keyboards, and just allow a city and a nation to grieve?!?

Minneapolis Bridge Disaster

Here's a screen capture from Live Maps, showing the bridge that collapsed yesterday:

It's hard to believe that such a disaster could occur in modern times. It's reminiscent of the Second Narrows Bridge in Vancouver that collapsed in 1958.

Vancouver's 2nd Narrows Bridge: In Memoriam

On June 17, 1958, exactly 49 years ago, the bridge spanning East Vancouver and North Burnaby with North Vancouver suddenly collapsed in the midst of its construction.

79 workers were thrown into the water and 18 ultimately died, plus 1 diver who was involved in the search & rescue operation. You can read much more about the disaster here.

This disaster presents a special significance to locally educated engineers. Most graduate Canadian graduate engineers wear an Iron Ring on the pinky finger of their working hand. It provides a daily reminder about every professional decision they make because mistakes can sometimes have costly repercussions. Such was the case with the 2nd Narrows Bridge. A junior engineer made a mistake in the calculations for the required support during the construction. His boss, an older engineer, never caught the mistake. When the bridge collapsed they were both on the bridge at the time. Neither survived.

This bridge has since been renamed the Ironworkers Memorial Second Narrows Crossing but is still commonly referred to by its original name.