{"id":3551,"date":"2008-10-28T08:00:52","date_gmt":"2008-10-28T13:00:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=3551"},"modified":"2008-10-27T18:57:42","modified_gmt":"2008-10-27T23:57:42","slug":"our-clairvoyant-overlords","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=3551","title":{"rendered":"Our Clairvoyant Overlords"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last weekend, JRoosh greeted the news<\/a> of the NTSB’s draft report on the 35W Bridge collapse appropriately, noting that – at least in the context of the chorus of recrimination that the likes of E-Tink and Alice “The Phantom” Hausman and Margaret Kelliher and Nick Coleman dumped on him – the Governor was exonerated.<\/p>\n

When Jeff Rosenberg at The Daily Liberal<\/em> noted<\/a> that Sporty the Dog from Clicking Stool<\/em> had “taken Roosh to task” over his piece, naturally, I had to check it out.<\/p>\n

As with most leftybloggers attempts to discuss history, engineering and other more-or-less empirical subjects, it was a big mistake.<\/p>\n

Leftybloggers, like the political and media leaders whose shrieking points so many of them so unthinkingly ape, aren’t big on getting context right.\u00a0 Sporty tries to frame the issue in the form of a doctor’s visit<\/a>, and concludes:<\/p>\n

The article in the Strib that J refers to is in the paper today. The headline? I-35W bridge was doomed from the start<\/font><\/a>. It was a design defect!<\/p>\n

We are, of course, all doomed from the start. But that doesn’t means we don’t get physicals, submit to humiliating examinations, and pay the medical profession to try to keep us healthy.<\/p>\n

In the case of the bridge, the Pawlenty administration also fingered the whopper, got the test results, and opted for the cosmetic solution.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Except that there was no “doctor’s visit” saying that the bridge, as in Sporty’s example, was terminally ill.\u00a0 To run with the (bad, misplaced) metaphor, there were merely checkups, telling the bridge, like a lot of 40-year-olds, that it was crumbling around the edges a bit; that the wear and tear of daily stress was taking its toll.\u00a0 The bridge at 40 was doing better than some other bridges – MNDoT rated the Cayuga and Lafayette bridges, among others in the metro, much worse as of July 31, 2007,\u00a0much more likely to die younger than the 35W bridge.\u00a0 Not<\/em> that it was especially more terminally ill than any other bridge of its age.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The fact is, nobody knew 40 years ago – or two years ago, for that matter – that the bridge was suffering from anything much worse than…being a 40 year old bridge.\u00a0 Yes, there were concerns – rusty gussets, suspect piers, etc.\u00a0\u00a0But the thing that killed it – mistakes in engineering calculations?\u00a0 That was a bolt from the blue – an undetected aneurism or clot or stroke that could <\/em>have been found, maybe, given one of two things:<\/p>\n