Reality-Based Engineering: 2008/02

He mentions that Ari Fleischer has a quarter-billion dollar powder keg to blow up underneath the democrats this election cycle...it's got my curiosity up... [update] and I forgot that Ari has a section in the I Hate Republicans reader where it basically calls him out as a plain friggin liar...

Also, here's a rundown of Obama's accomplishments in the legislatures he's served in...

Labels: 2008 Elections, Ari Fleischer, Barack Obama

Gary Dodds Convicted of...soaking his feet?

Based on the linked story, it's all circumstancial evidence...this whole thing is wierd.

Labels: 2006 Elections, automobile, Carol Shea-Porter, Gary Dodds, NH-01

C&L: Olbermann & Matthews - Just Funny with the Olbermann

Labels: 2008 Elections, Barack Obama, Chris Matthews, Hardball, Keith Olbermann

Hillary Supporters Start Anti-Obama 527 Group [Update]

...The American Leadership Project...I dunno...Hills, perhaps it just time to give it your all - in a positive fashion - and then call it a campaign instead of this swiftboat-lite craptastical idea.

[update - here's the first commercial...]

Labels: 2008 Elections, 527, Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Swift Boat

Minneapolis' New Bridge

Let's actually do some engineering here on this blog...this is a Popular Mechanics article about the reconstruction of the I-35 bridge that collapsed last year, and really showed off the crumbling nature of our infrastructure...but, this new bridge is state-of-the-art. The mode of failure in the bridge was a design where the gussets used to transfer load within the truss structure were designed, or ended up, being only 1/2 the thickness they should have been. I hedge it in this way only as the NTSB was not able to find the original calcs, so while in the end its the engineer's fault, we dont know where in the design process this happened - the calcs, the procurement, or where...speaking of new beauties, check this out...oh, and here's the latest ASCE report card...

Labels: ASCE, bridge, engineering, USA

[update] Patrick Took From Obama Who Took From Patrick

Love it. Deval was accused of stealing from Obama in 2005!

[More on Feb19th] - looking at all this stuff on the day that Wisconsin and Hawai'i vote in the Democratic primaries, it just seems like the Hillary campaign is struggling with message if all they've got to throw at Obama right now are that he plagarized his national co-chair (and Mass Gov.) Deval Patrick and that he is hedging on motions last year to accept campaign financing for a general election, while she would not do anyways...

Something is not resonating here...looking around the internets and listening to XM this morning, the POTUS channel has a regular segment with Thomas Mozloom of The M Network where he discussed in detail the branding of Obama and Clinton over the past few weeks - it's quite detailed, wonky, but very interesting. To sum up: Obama has been on the air targetting population segments a week before Hillary - while staying on message, while Hillary has a disjointed messaging strategy that is late - or later in the game that Obama is.

Labels: 2004 Elections, 2008 Elections, Barack Obama, Deval Patrick, Masachusetts, POTUS08, XM

Cool Little Tool For Looking Up Blogs

They're all lefty blogs, natch, but still, it's a nice tool. Thanks to Pam for the tool, which is being freely distributed. I'll update the right side of the blog with this...but for now:

Labels: blog, Pams House Blend, tools