Rachel Maddow and Spike Lee celebrate the Hoover Dam in a video…
“This is a project of national significance. We’ve got those projects on the menu right now. And we’ve got to figure out whether or not we are still a country that can think this big.”
… that manages to avoid the spectacular new Hoover Dam bypass mere yards behind the cameraman.
But that was a Bush era project of “national significance.”
Much more at Ed Driscoll, (though the best part’s in the comments.)
It looks like the first camera shot in the video is actually taken from atop the bypass. How ironic is that? Or maybe there’s better word than ironic.
That’s a woman? Man-hands.
She reminds me of Rick Mercer. How ironic is that?
If the Hoover dam was to be built today, the Rachel Maddows and the Spike Lees would be the leading the charge from the Green Taliban to have it stopped because of the environmental impact.
Ahhh Rachel, plumbing new depths of ignorance & stupidity.
Because using renewable energy like water flowing down a river is an ‘environmental sin’…
My father just laughs at the idiocy of the human foiblists trying to reinvent the cave. As a hydro-electric engineer he would say:
“Don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out. And you don’t have to hit the light switch, because the turbines in your mind have stopped spinning a long time ago.”
Yeah Rachel, we get it, you’re a socialist and believe that private industry sucks … except for the private employer who puts money in your bank account of course. What a hypocrite!
Furthermore, you and your Far Left zealots are now successfully stopping all future progress throughout America. What a disgrace for a hack like you to stand there in the shadow of greatness.
He can’t close his giant mitts, they’re so awesomely manly.
Son of Gloria Vanderbilt and her is something I’d watch.
Looks like they did make another with the bypass.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjcNjTRg7wc&feature=related
I’m just wondering why MSNBC feels the need to make such a video.
Dam construction is a sore point with many of us B.C.’ers.
We have the rivers and valleys in which to build ’em, and God knows everyone needs the power, but green activists have frozen any consideration of flooding logged off valleys that are home to a few moose and bears.
So, we build windmills up North instead,and Fortis applies for an increase in rates every year. We’re quickly changing from the cheapest electricity rates in North America to “same as everyone else”.
And all our dams were,of course,built by private contractors and paid for by taxpayers. Governments can’t do much more than sign zee papers.
If there ever was a time for that dam to break….
They are still thinking big Rachel. Now it is high speed rail from nowhere to nowhere costing billions and even at the cost of flying has to be subsidized to cost more.
It’s not that there is not big thinking but it is big stupid thinking that prevails.
Victor Davis Hanson has commented that the builders of the excellent California highway and bridge system are mostly dead and gone.
He doubts that the present generation of politicians, managers, and engineers would be capable of anything remotely similar.
High speed rail, mentioned in some of the comments to Ed Driscoll’s article, was BTW tried in Canada.
For Toronto to Montreal it was a good idea, and would make considerable difference to central Canada (my Newfie geography there).
But the climate did it in. The roadbed was an issue (frost heave etc., as well as poor maintenance) as was snow clearance.
The high speed train duly acquired just couldn’t run.
I really can’t see high speed rail faring any better in the northernmost, border states than in Canada.
Bad climate is probably the reason that the USSR so greatly developed the Aeroflot service, despite their extensive rail system.
the CPR could never be built under the rules and regulations of the current Canadian System . Federal regulations and 4 provincial jurisdictions and native bands to satisfy. and building a railroad by rivers ? the horror, the horror.
What burns my tush is that the very same elements that back this “shovel ready” nonsense….are the very same that succeeded in turning the California Central valley back to a desert…because of a stupid fish…and are openly lobbying to destroy hydro electric dams to “let the rivers run free” (picture a hippy, with a goatee, wearing a tutu pirouetting on one toe).
You can’t be “the guy who builds this” … unless you have manhands like hers.
The Hoover dam – named after a GOP POTUS who was a firm believer in balanced budgets and small government – would never get past the preliminary approvals process. That (or rather If) America could not build projects of similar scale today is Almost entirely due to people like Lee and Maddow.
Built with non union labour too, if I recall correctly.
The difference between Hoover Dam era and now is that leaders in that era ever said that under their management ““electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket” or “British families have been told the shocking truth about the price of green energy. They must prepare to go without electricity for extended periods, warns UK’s top electricity boss.
Today, politician think that making life more expensive and decreasing the standard of living is virtuous.
Ah yes, non-union labour! What a concept!
The first beer company or auto manufacturer that comes out with a sticker saying that their product has been “proudly made by non-union labour” will earn my business for life.
Now to find a razor blade and some solvent to remove the Deerborn Michigan unionists sticker off the windsheild of my new F-150! I couldn’t believe this. A big, green (of course) decal on my front @#$%-ing windshield!!!
I’d love to see her try to build a dam somewhere in the US!! Good luck with that!
Back when we thought big – too big to worry about pollution or a thing called the environment, a big world free of predators (wolves!), so big we didn’t have to worry about a couple of toads or mice stopping a building project (like a dam!!), when we were big enough to each do what was needed and not depend on some nanny union…
…yeah whatever did happen to thinking big?
Nice contrast with that bridge!!
Wow look at that bridge. That wasn’t there the last time I drove through. Bush had that built? Who knew, great piece of work.
I was through there as they were installing the early pillars on the canyon walls. The thing is freaky big.
Bush had that built?
Yup.
That Dam Bypass bridge is there to prevent large truckloads of “fertilizer” driven by swarthy young guys from having “accidents” while crossing the Hoover Dam.
http://tinyurl.com/3racpqv
Daily traffic 17,000 cars and trucks.
If the Hoover dam was to be built today, the Rachel Maddows and the Spike Lees would be the leading the charge from the Green Taliban to have it stopped because of the environmental impact.
Posted by: Temmy at May 18, 2011 11:04 AM
You speak the truth Temmy. Without any study, I’m willing to concede the point that mega projects of the past probably ran roughshod over environmental concerns. That said, the pendulum has swung so far in the other direction, projects are, IMHO, held up needlessly by complying with layers of bureaucratic environmental red tape.
I recall watching a program on the construction of the the Øresund Bridge connecting Denmark and Sweden. It truly stands as an engineering marvel. Environmentalists, as they are wont to be, were apocalyptic over the impact on marine life the bridge would have. Turns out, once the bridge was built, the areas around the bridge footings, and the footings themselves were turned into vibrant artificial reefs by that very same marine life.
My point being (and I know I’m preaching to the choir), environmentalists generally don’t know squat about what they’re talking about. They’ll pull anything out of their collective arses to stall, delay, or stop a project altogether.
To Madcow & her ilk, the Government is God.
The more things change…..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corinth_Canal
Elaine’s comment for Ed Driscoll’s reportage is difficult to improve upon. Short, and to the point.
That’s okay, they originally tried to name the Hoover Dam something other (I’ve forgotten what) than Hoover. I’m surprised the present regime haven’t renamed it the Obama Dam!
I’ve deleted about a dozen comments from this thread. Don’t make me do it again, or I’ll “delete” your access to this site. ED
Nice to see that free speech is alive and well at SDA.
Phrases like “whether or not we are still a country that can think this big” are standard leftist appeals to emotion rather than reason. Individuals may think big, and should be willing to put up their own or others’ voluntarily contributed money for (hopefully) profitable enterprises. Nations cannot “think big”. “Nation-building” is another socialist cliche, or what Ayn Rand called an anti-concept.
We’ve got meteor crater size potholes on California roads, yet they use ARRA funds to build WHEELCHAIR RAMPS on street corners that already had wheelchair ramps.
There were highways already under construction, and after ARRA was passed, they just put ARRA signs on them. The funniest part is that after the ARRA signs went up, I never saw any more workers on the project. It’s been two years, and the same signs are up with absolutely no progress fixing the highway.
I thought Zero said Joe Biden was personally going to make sure that no ARRA money was wasted.
Yeah, it seems like they don’t like big trucks driving over the dam top anymore. Go figure, huh?
I watched one of those Learning Channel/Science Channel/Discovery Channel … whatever channel … shows about it a few years ago — they were talking about how they did the footing, and the challenges they had to overcome. It was quite interesting.