Stillings' Hoover Dam Bridge Photos

[don]

Check out the folios at:

http://www.bridgeathooverdam.com/#/b...20folios/ONE/1

[flintlock]

Re: Stillings' Hoover Dam Bridge Photos

Very cool pictures Don. Great photography as well as the subject matter. This type of technical skill still impresses me despite the way we all seem to take it for granted today.

[don]

Re: Stillings' Hoover Dam Bridge Photos

Very cool pictures Don. Great photography as well as the subject matter. This type of technical skill still impresses me despite the way we all seem to take it for granted today.

Nice to see we can still do it. Very nice . . . .

It wasn't built by banksters (meant to be inflammatory )

[Starving Steve]

Re: Stillings' Hoover Dam Bridge Photos

The people built the Hoover Dam. The people built the Golden Gate Bridge. The people built the Empire State Building and the Rockefeller Centre. The people built the Tennessee River Authority. The people built the Bonneville Dam. The people built the SF-Oakland Bay Bridge. The people built the Straits of Mackinaw Bridge connecting the two Michigans.

Why isn't this taught in American public schools, from day-one? This plus Spanish for fluency, plus Chinese for fluency, plus mathematics should be taught from day-one. And forget about the rest of the crap taught in school.

In the last half-century alone, the St. Lawrence Seaway was dug. The 108-story Sears Tower was constructed in Chicago. The CN Tower was constructed in Toronto. The Nelson River Hydro-electric Project was completed in Manitoba. The Eisenhower Tunnel was dug in Colorado crossing the Rockies. California completed its state water project connecting southern California with rivers in the north of the state. The Glen Canyon Dam was built on the Colorado River. And Bay Area Rapid Transit was dug and completed in the SF-Oakland Bay Area. In NYC, the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge was constructed to connect Staten Island with Brooklynn and Long Island........... So things can be done. It's called public works projects, for public good. It is socialism, at its best. Public works projects are highly de-flationary, especially in a depression because they raise the productivity of the country. And public works projects would make more sense now than additional tweeks in monetary policy coming from the Fed.

[don]

Re: Stillings' Hoover Dam Bridge Photos

Steve:

You would have enjoyed our recent get together with a neighborhood couple. They were invited over for a meal and drinks and socializing. The husband is a lifelong contractor (flooring), a business he was born into and has worked nowhere else. Despite his age, mid-50s, he enjoys in-the-field installation work to being in the office. His wife recently took a cash early-out from her Fire Rescue/Police job. They're an interesting ideological mix.

In the course of the conversation my wife and I told of our most recent healthcare premium increase. It was the amount we spend on groceries for a week. In short, quite a hit. The husband was both sympathetic and mildly pissed off. His company is getting mauled with the partial health they provide employees. His wife went off the defensive edge. She used to boast that she had never paid a cent for healthcare, prescriptions or dental work in her longtime employment with the city. She declared the reason our premiums continue to go up is because of the deadbeats in the emergency rooms that don't have health insurance.

We both said, wouldn't single-payer have been nice. To which she answered that people in Canada have to wait 6 months to see a doc. We said that bit of propaganda stretched all the way back to the 50's, answering the threat of Britain's universal health care. At that point she grabbed her coat and left.

It was a classic societal response from someone steeped in the culture of her old job. Her husband stuck around, for 4 hours We sent him home with a plate of food for her.

[Mn_Mark]

Re: Stillings' Hoover Dam Bridge Photos

We both said, wouldn't single-payer have been nice.

Yes, we can all dream of the wonderful socialist solution to the problem of meeting human needs, can't we? The government provides it for "free" to everyone - problem solved!

Cuz see, the government is so efficient at providing services, so quick and responsive, so innovative. Just take that nasty profit incentive out human society, and what you have left is utopia.

We can only hope that in addition to socialist, er, "single payer", health care, that we can some day look forward to single-payer housing, single-payer retirement, single-payer food production and distribution, single-payer clothing production, single-payer entertainment, and, heck, single-payer employment! Just get rid of that darned profit incentive, centrally-plan everything, and watch the savings roll in!

[dcarrigg]

Re: Stillings' Hoover Dam Bridge Photos

Yes, we can all dream of the wonderful socialist solution to the problem of meeting human needs, can't we? The government provides it for "free" to everyone - problem solved!

Cuz see, the government is so efficient at providing services, so quick and responsive, so innovative. Just take that nasty profit incentive out human society, and what you have left is utopia.

We can only hope that in addition to socialist, er, "single payer", health care, that we can some day look forward to single-payer housing, single-payer retirement, single-payer food production and distribution, single-payer clothing production, single-payer entertainment, and, heck, single-payer employment! Just get rid of that darned profit incentive, centrally-plan everything, and watch the savings roll in!

Oh yes, Mn_Mark, and insurance company's all pay up when there's a run.

The old gubment never has to bail them out when things go sour...

Sorry buddy - I'm all for .gov getting out of the way in productive business.

But when it comes to FIRE, I ain't defendin' the private sector, or the .gov cronies that enable them. Making money by 'inventing' 'instruments' and 'policies' with the implicit backing of taxpayers to take all the downside risk is not 'free market.'

It is, howeva', socialist. Red as the blood on Stalin's boot.

Put that in your pipe and smoke it.


BTW- here's what I was going to post:
____________________________
Hell, by your logic, let's privatize the army. Everyone can be mandated to buy 'defense insurance.' While we're at it, let's make all roads toll roads. Companies can buy 'em up and spraypaint their logos on 'em. We'll privatize all schools and let kids who can't afford it roam the streets looking for fun and adventure.

Of course, this is an absurd response to an absurd statement.

In reality, it works well to leave products with transparent prices and services and real competition to the private sector. Opaque, super-confusing, non-competitive, highly regulated 'products' like health insurance, don't really offer a whole lot of 'value' or consumer choice. You just buy what your state lets you and pray they cover what goes wrong. It's not really comparable to clothing production or entertainment etc.

[goodrich4bk]

Re: Stillings' Hoover Dam Bridge Photos

Or perhaps we can see what works better when people use government to provide a service that most people need, vs. relying on private enterprise to provide that service for a profit.

For example, which works better, government vaccines funded by taxes or private vaccines funded only by the people who will use them? Using the former, we've eliminated polio and many other diseases that used to maime and kill millions. I don't know any privately funded vaccines that did anything of the sort.

Or take a look at our freeways. No, they're not free. But which carry the most people at the least cost --- publicly built freeways or turnpikes? How about power generators? I grew up in Sacramento with SMUD, a public utility. It's rates were always lower than PG&E and remain so today. It didn't experience brownouts during the Enron-caused energy "emergency" and never filed BK.

Now let's look at healthcare. Our private/public combinations costs us about 16% of our GDP a year. Europe is about 8% on average, some as low as 6%. As for quality of care, the U.S. falls below Europe on almost every single objective measurement. In short, there is no question that on average our healthcare is inferior and costs more.

You can continue to spout ideological objections to all collective efforts, but the above post was pointing out that this issue long ago ceased to be ideologically driven. Rather, the evidence is in and there is no question that most people -- and the country as a whole --- would be better served at lower cost with a single payer. A minority of people --- the rich and those with excellent benefits (often paid for by the majority of taxpayers who do not have such benefits) would no doubt be worse off.

But you know what? I don't give a damn.

[Starving Steve]

Re: Stillings' Hoover Dam Bridge Photos

Do I have to remind you all that money had to be collected house-to-house in San Francisco for the construction of the Golden Gate Bridge? The banks refused to lend on the project.

And do I have to remind you all that the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Ferry Company refused to give-up its monopoly of trans-bay travel in order that a bridge to Oakland might be constructed? It took the New Deal of the FDR Administration to get the construction going, NOT PRIVATE ENTERPRISE.

An historical footnote here: If you wanted to leave San Francisco, you had to gather at the Ferry Building at the foot of Market Street in San Francisco, to go to Oakland or Marin County. That was the way it was in the early 1930s during the depths of the Depression. It took a rebellion of school kids in San Francisco who went door-to-door in SF to collect money for the construction of the Golden Gate Bridge in 1932. Private enterprise did NOTHING !

Class, to-day's word for our vocabulary list is: MONOPOLY . Capitalism works through monopolies, and monopolies own everything and do NOTHING except make money..... In Spanish, the word is MONOPOLIO.

[lektrode]

Re: Stillings' Hoover Dam Bridge Photos

Oh yes, Mn_Mark, and insurance company's all pay up when there's a run.

The old gubment never has to bail them out when things go sour...

Sorry buddy - I'm all for .gov getting out of the way in productive business....

SEE?
there IS stuff WE can agree on.....
;)

but its too late to get goin on this one, but i'll just state my pref in the discussion of 'single payer'
and that i think there ought to be municipal 6PACK-DETACHABLE CHAIRLIFTS IN THE ROCKIES, too.
heated, like they have at... the canyons?... would be nice, too.

[lektrode]

Re: Stillings' Hoover Dam Bridge Photos

Or perhaps we can see what works better when people use government to provide a service that most people need, vs. relying on private enterprise to provide that service for a profit.

For example, which works better, government vaccines funded by taxes or private vaccines funded only by the people who will use them? Using the former, we've eliminated polio and many other diseases that used to maime and kill millions. I don't know any privately funded vaccines that did anything of the sort.

Or take a look at our freeways. No, they're not free. But which carry the most people at the least cost --- publicly built freeways or turnpikes? How about power generators? I grew up in Sacramento with SMUD, a public utility. It's rates were always lower than PG&E and remain so today. It didn't experience brownouts during the Enron-caused energy "emergency" and never filed BK.

Now let's look at healthcare. Our private/public combinations costs us about 16% of our GDP a year. Europe is about 8% on average, some as low as 6%. As for quality of care, the U.S. falls below Europe on almost every single objective measurement. In short, there is no question that on average our healthcare is inferior and costs more.

You can continue to spout ideological objections to all collective efforts, but the above post was pointing out that this issue long ago ceased to be ideologically driven. Rather, the evidence is in and there is no question that most people -- and the country as a whole --- would be better served at lower cost with a single payer. A minority of people --- the rich and those with excellent benefits (often paid for by the majority of taxpayers who do not have such benefits) would no doubt be worse off.

But you know what? I don't give a damn.

hey - you oughta anyway.

and i really do think SINGLE PAYER for the masses' basic med services delivery system IS THE ONLY WAY FORWARD.

and by "basic" i mean all the stuff the existing system gets away with billing by the billions for.
that ought to be GUARANTEED benefit of being an American.

that said - all the 'nice to have' stuff ought to be STRICTLY rationed by PRICE, period and The Best Offer/Bid ***WINS*** with The Customer (J.Q. 6Pack) _paying directly_ out of his/her/whatevah's OWN POCKET.

and 'basic' SHOULD NOT COVER stuff like:
routine maternity
elective surgery, of _any_ kind
accident-related 'physical therapy' (if theres a lawyer involved)
and/or
occupational-related 'physical therapy' beyond certain LIMITS (of about 3 sessions, where you/yers are trained to squeeze the rubber ball yerself) more than that? pay out of pocket for as many as _you_ want and see if anybody wants to pay for 're-imbursement' which will NOT BE THE REST OF US!!!)

birth control, or ANYTHING associated with bringing _your_ offspring into the system - CUZ I RESENT HAVING TO PAY FOR ***YOUR*** KIDS, thats why - you wanna have children, thats YOUR biz and NOT mine, nor "OURS" !!)

viagra or anything even _remotely_ connected to getting it up

sex changes or _any_ 'therapy' involved, before, during or after (esp _after_ cuz if you have 'issues' once you've made up yer mind to 'change' _you_ and whovah you think you might be today IS ON YER OWN)

any kind of psycho-anything, beyond diagnosis of various 'issues' that concern protecting THE REST OF US from your wigging out - and then, YOU GO TO PLACE WITH MEN IN WHITE COATS WITH BARS ON THE WINDOWS while _you_ endure the further 'therapy'

substance abuse 'treatment or therapy' (one should be reponsible for ones own addictions/failures)

in short, LIFESTYLE ***DECISIONS*** should NOT be 'insurable' events. (family support, religion and charity can/should play into this, as it was 'traditionally' in the good ole daze, before the entitlement-industrial complex took over)

so in that regard, I'M ALL FOR 'single payer'

[oddlots]

Re: Stillings' Hoover Dam Bridge Photos

Thanks for caricaturing yourself. Saved me the time.

[cjppjc]

Re: Stillings' Hoover Dam Bridge Photos

Check out the folios at:

http://www.bridgeathooverdam.com/#/b...20folios/ONE/1

Great photo Don. Post it in the visual jukebox thread please. Then this one can go on its way.

[dcarrigg]

Re: Stillings' Hoover Dam Bridge Photos

SEE?
there IS stuff WE can agree on.....
;)

but its too late to get goin on this one, but i'll just state my pref in the discussion of 'single payer'
and that i think there ought to be municipal 6PACK-DETACHABLE CHAIRLIFTS IN THE ROCKIES, too.
heated, like they have at... the canyons?... would be nice, too.

For those who don't know what lektrode's on about:





Heated chairlifts do not inspire me so much as the photos of the bridge that OP put up there.



For Lektrode:

Hey man - all I'm sayin' is that the system didn't work before Obamacare, ahem, I mean, Bob Dole Care, ahem, I mean 'free $ for insurance companies the law'. It won't work after either. The beauty of bipartisanship in action is that FIRE wins, we loose.

The greatest lie ever told was that FIRE was 'free market.' Jefferson didn't think so - and he wrote to J. Taylor in 1816 to say as much.

FIRE is just as taxing and bureaucratizing as government - only less efficient when government takes the shackles off it and lets it run amok. It's less efficient because even the most corrupt .gov bureaucrat couldn't squirrel away Madoff money (One Madoff = ~300,000 teachers / yr).

You fear big .gov, and rightfully so. But sometimes you need the Leviathan to restrain those who push the bounds of the rule of law too far. Bellum omni contra omnes is the only alternative. Always ask yourself, cui bono? The answer is always simple: look for the fanciest people in the fanciest buildings. The truth will be, as ever, self-evident.

I'm in favor of fewer .gov programs, but more regulatory enforcement. I.E. deploy strategic tax policy rather than complicated bureaucratic programs and beef up the IRS, SEC, and Justice Dept. Let 'em loose, but police 'em good.


I digress. Read Starving Steve's post above - it's pertinent and good. Maybe some ITuliper from abroad will remind some of us 'Mericans to take a little dose of that Ol' Yankee Humility and acknowledge when someone else's idea might have merit.

We now know a priori that we are the best at everything here in the good ol' US of A. In theory we just used to know how to take what works from anywhere, make it our own, and make it better. Now we can't see past our own damned pride and prejudice. But it's nothing new:

All Europe, beneath its scum of hereditary kings and royal personages and aristocratic notions generally, is pretty thoroughly Americanized, and America, with its floating scum of fools who are fond of aping aristocratic ideas and actions, is pretty well Europeanized.

[lektrode]

Re: Stillings' Hoover Dam Bridge Photos

The people built the Hoover Dam. The people built the Golden Gate Bridge. The people built the Empire State Building and the Rockefeller Centre. The people built the Tennessee River Authority. The people built the Bonneville Dam. The people built the SF-Oakland Bay Bridge. The people built the Straits of Mackinaw Bridge connecting the two Michigans.

Why isn't this taught in American public schools, from day-one? This plus Spanish for fluency, plus Chinese for fluency, plus mathematics should be taught from day-one. And forget about the rest of the crap taught in school.

In the last half-century alone, the St. Lawrence Seaway was dug. The 108-story Sears Tower was constructed in Chicago. The CN Tower was constructed in Toronto. The Nelson River Hydro-electric Project was completed in Manitoba. The Eisenhower Tunnel was dug in Colorado crossing the Rockies. California completed its state water project connecting southern California with rivers in the north of the state. The Glen Canyon Dam was built on the Colorado River. And Bay Area Rapid Transit was dug and completed in the SF-Oakland Bay Area. In NYC, the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge was constructed to connect Staten Island with Brooklynn and Long Island........... So things can be done. It's called public works projects, for public good. It is socialism, at its best. Public works projects are highly de-flationary, especially in a depression because they raise the productivity of the country.

ya know mr steve - for one as out there, at times, as i can get (esp when blogging while 'self-medicating' at night ;) - you make a great deal of sense here.
dunno about the "de-flationary" part, but that sounds correct too.

And public works projects would make more sense now than additional tweeks in monetary policy coming from the Fed.

NOW YOURE REALLY MAKING SENSE... (esp now that its daylight) too bad the groupthink of the current occupants of DC blew most of that opportunity right straight into the toilet the past few years and are in the process of flushing whats left of it over in libya.

so now i guess the question becomes: HOW DO WE PAY FOR A SECOND CHANCE

my joe 6pack .02:

1 - close all the military bases not on our own territory with the exception of those that cover our vital/strategic interests involving supply lines and natural resources - at least until we got some new options - BRING OUR TROOPS HOME ***NOW***
and put them to work REBUILDING OUR INFRASTRUCTURE before its too late.

2 - as much as i hate to admit FDR's tactics might be the only 'funding' mechanism, i think its time the uber-rich start paying their FAIR SHARE - for one thing: THEY WOULDNT BEEN ABLE TO BECOME UBER-RICH IF THEY LIVED IN ANY OTHER PLACE OR TIME - and to make it 'fair' starting with making the social 'security' system _secure_: levy the fica taxes on EVERY LAST DOLLAR OF INCOME, no matter what the source - until the account balances, then it can be discussed how to reduce that burden on the productive - and furthermore: SEQUESTER THE FUNDS SO THE POLITICAL CLASS CANT BLOW IT SURREPTITIOUSLY like whats happened the past 30years or so - then MEANS TEST IT, because it was _never_ meant to be just another entitlement, it was meant to be INSURANCE against starving in the cold when one got to be too damn old to _physically_ work anymore and by that i mean swinging a hammer for 8-10hours a day, digging ditches or coal, bolting engines into chassis on an assembly line (pick yer fave form of indentured servitude) - anybody here remember what that 'lifestyle' is like? dont even wanna discuss the concept of class warfare here, but suffice it to say that not everybody is fortunate enuf to have a nice indoor job in an airconditioned, well-lit workplace with trendy/gourmet food in a 'company' paid dining facility - most of us still have to earn a living the old fashioned way: turning blood/sweat/tears into something that somebody wants to pay for - so social security should become what it was meant to be: insurance against being too old to work so one can avoid starving in the street AND IF YOU GOT MORE THAN SAY, oh i dunno, pick a number that most people can fathom, something in the range of 5-10grand a month of income in 'retirement' YOU DONT NEED SOCIAL SECURITY and you should feel thankful that you dont and grateful that you can help those who keep the wheels turning and the lights (and airconditioning) on so they can merely survive getting old - and hey! I DONT CARE THAT YOU Paid-in all yer life so now yer 'entitled' to collect? its simple really: you paid insurance premiums on yer house, car, boat - whatevah - yer whole life too, didnt ya?
and NO you dont get a refund just because you were lucky enuf to not have to file a claim (and then likely have to sue the bastards to get what you paid for all them years)
so suck it up and enjoy your retirement, but dont take from those who wont be that lucky, so you can just pad yer savings account, while a bunch of the rest of us starve cuz corporate amerika now defines 'old' as anything beyond 50 or so, thus relegating a lot of us to being greeters and shopping cart fetchers at walmart!

yes i know, i'm ranting again - but watching helplessly as the antics of political class wipes out yer small biz, overwhelms the medicare/caid system as yer mother croaks from lack of simple attention in an overwhelmed medical-service-delivery scheme that seems to devote most of its effort to filling up filing cabinets with evidence to defend against lawsuits, while most of them simply pass the patient off to the next cog in the machine? and then we have to listen to the DC aristocracy WHO DOESNT EVEN PARTICIPATE in their own twisted idea of 'healthcare reform' tells us that dumping another 30-40 million people into this already broken/corrupt system is GOING TO MAKE THINGS "CHEAPER in the 'long run' "

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!
it'd be a belly-roller if it wasnt so damn serious and NOTHING is as serious as wathing yer ole lady die from emphasema/pneumonia and a stroke!

so i also think, quite seriously - that single payer IS the only sensible way to address whats about to become a NATIONAL SECURITY LEVEL ISSUE, if not an ELE (for you sci-fi fans: extinction level event)

why do i say that?
picture having 70million baby boomers suddenly appear in the line in front of YOU for basic, never mind ACCUTE care (and i'm really far back in that line, and after the events noted above, i'm getting, shall we say, 'concerned')

one answer: a 6th branch of the armed services called the MEDICAL CORP

want to be a doctor/nurse, but dont have 2or3 hundred thousand to fork out for med school (and dont want to be an indentured slave to a bank) ?

JOIN THE US MEDICAL CORPS TODAY: uncle sam will pay to educate and train you and then you owe US the same number of years it takes to train you to care for your FELLOW AMERICANS.

simple, isnt it?

THESE ARE THE KIND OF SOLUTIONS WE ***REQUIRE***
not some buracratic nightmare comprised of several thousand pages of legalese bullshit that few have ever even read, NEVER MIND COMPREHEND that doesnt even attempt to address the NUMBER ONE PROBLEM IN MEDICINE TODAY:

the out of control tort system.

but then... what would you expect from the DC aristocracy, who are mostly liars.. uhh.. i mean lawyers.

anyway - its time for me to get ready for my 'therapy session' (put on my longjons, turtleneck and 'dancin shoes') and get on the 4pack detachable up at wildcat.