It's E. coli conservatism.
An explosion [1] wracked the area around Manhattan's Grand Central Station today, spewing asbestos, claiming one life, sending the city into a panic. The culprit? A pipe built in 1924.
We've warned here again [2] and again [3] about the decrepitude of our underground infrastructure, about what happens when a nation consecrates itself to no higher domestic goal than the cutting of taxes. New York had a Republican mayor, in fact, who now spends his days boasting that he cut taxes 23 times [4]. Cut spending, too, he's proud to say.
"Midtown is chaos right now," said one witness. "It seemed like everybody in Midtown just dumped into the streets."
"It was mayhem. Nobody knew what to do. Everyone got outside and was yelling," said another.
Maybe it's time to stop listening to conservatives, and start listening to Merle Haggard [5].
[This is what the Third Worldization of a great nation's infrastructure looks like [6].]
["'There is no reason to believe whatsoever that this is anything other than a failure of our infrastructure,' [Mayor Bloomberg [7]] said of the 24-inch steam pipe installed in 1924." How encouraging.]
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Links:
[1] http://wcbstv.com/topstories/local_story_199181340.html
[2] http://commonsense.ourfuture.org/sinking_feeling_chapter_tk_through_tk_pattern_recognition
[3] http://commonsense.ourfuture.org/sinking_feeling_chapter_xxxiii_through_liv_week_sinkholes
[4] http://www.mcclatchydc.com/staff/steven_thomma/story/16174.html
[5] http://commonsense.ourfuture.org/fightin_side_me
[6] http://movies.crooksandliars.com/Raw-Steam-07-18-07.mov
[7] http://news.aol.com/story/_a/huge-steam-blast-kills-one-in-new-york/20070718190309990001