Month: August 2007

Life In Baghdad

This, I guess, is what happens when your country falls apart:

Large areas in the western parts of Baghdad were without running water on Thursday, in 120-degree summer heat. Officials blamed their inability to keep the water-purification and pumping stations going for the electricity shortages.

Many Baghdad residents complain that they have water for only a few hours a day, and sometimes no electricity at all.

Bob Gates has some choice words in the same report:

"We probably all underestimated the depth of the mistrust and how difficult it would be for these guys to come together on legislation, which, let’s face it, is not some kind of secondary issue."

Well, not all of us under-estimated it. And it surely seems a secondary issue as far as Bush is concerned. He keeps pitching Iraq as a military battle against al Qaeda, when it is obviously, primarily, a civil war we have no political solution to. More discouraging, it seems to me that even Gates – a sane and sensible man – is becoming resigned to an indefinite occupation of Iraq. Washington’s caution about leaving a war zone is understandable, of course. But it does not make the decision to stay grinding through an irrecoverable civil conflict any less foolish.

Where the Bad Bridges Are

Brigesbig

Decrepit bridges are not a new story. Here’s an Atlantic archived piece from 1994 with the scary map above. The red and blue counties are the danger zones. The essay prophetically notes:

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.

           

Quote for the Day

"At the moment the public is not fully sure what you stand for. In time this will change of its own accord but it should change radically. I am convinced that so much political failure reflects weak and erratic definition.

No one should have any doubt about what you stand for, what you want to achieve, what is your plan. You need absolute clarity in this," – from a secret memo to new prime minister Gordon Brown from Labour party guru, Philip Gould (an Oakeshott student).