No Runny Eggs

The repository of one hard-boiled egg from the south suburbs of Milwaukee, Wisconsin (and the occassional guest-blogger). The ramblings within may or may not offend, shock and awe you, but they are what I (or my guest-bloggers) think.

Archive for March 31st, 2010

Shocker – the Barrett Bypass/Doyle Detour to end “early”

by @ 16:54. Filed under Politics - Wisconsin, Transportation.

The gang at the very-unofficial ScottForGov.com nailed the bullshit call on the 8-week closure timeframe trotted out by the DOT and dutifully parrotted by the LeftStreamMedia. Word has just come down that the new northbound US-45 span over eastbound I-94, which has been closed since last Friday, will reopen at 5 am tomorrow Friday morning. The Journal Sentinel’s Tom Held amazingly continues to parrot the government li(n)e that it is 7 weeks ahead of schedule.

News flash – as I noted when the old bridge was closed, the deck on the new bridge was already poured. All that remained to be done to put the new bridge into service was to let the concrete cure, put some asphalt down for the approaches, and restripe some lanes. Given the original closure limitation to nights and weekends, the original schedule of no full closure last weekend to do said approach work, and the fact it took half a weekend to pave the approaches, that delay is, depending on whether the work crews would have worked the holiday weekend or next weekend, either 4 or 11 days.

Revisions/extensions (5:02 pm 3/31/2010) – Somehow confused Thursday and Friday.

Drill Here, Drill Now Tues…er, Wednesday – Obama “allows” drilling (or does he?)

by @ 11:51. Tags:
Filed under Politics - National.

(H/T – Ed Morrissey)

The Washington Post reports that President Obama announced that he will eventually approve drilling leases well off (a minimum of 50 miles out) the southern East Coast and the Florida Gulf Coast. While it is a good start, the devil, as always, is in the details. First, let’s take a quote from Obama:

“We’ll protect areas vital to tourism, the environment and our national security,” he said. “And we’ll be guided not by political ideology, but by scientific evidence. That’s why my administration will consider potential new areas for development in the mid- and south-Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico, while studying and protecting sensitive areas in the Arctic. That’s why we’ll continue to support development of leased areas off the North Slope of Alaska, while protecting Alaska’s Bristol Bay.”

Note the word used to describe the new areas – consider. Given Obama’s track record of both shutting down various sources of energy, both oil and coal, and of issuing statements that have expiration dates, I don’t exactly see this as a full return to late-Bush-era Drill Baby Drill proposals.

Then there’s the timing involved. HotAir reader cs89 found this little tidbit in the WaPo story:

If there is enough interest from industry and if the government determines that offshore drilling does not harm the environment or interfere with military activities, the Interior Department intends to hold a 2012 lease sale for exploration 50 miles off the coast of Virginia, as well as a similar one for Alaska’s Cook Inlet.

There’s plenty of time for the “pledge” to reach its expiration date.

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