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Old 12-04-2011, 12:45   #40
Ret10Echo
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Join Date: Feb 2007
Location: Occupied America....
Posts: 4,740
Quote:
Originally Posted by Richard View Post
I think the Golden Gate Bridge project is a great 'ambitious and imaginative' example of what a regional community effort can accomplish when they agree the need is valid.

FWIW - Charles A. Ellis was a cousin of my maternal grandmother, Helen Ellis Murray (nee Helen A. Ellis).

Richard
Richard,

Thanks for the alignment...and piece of family history. I believe the discussion leads to what is pointed out in the follow-on posts where the "community" wouldn't be able to do the things that are claimed as "needed", "necessary" or "positive" for the country to move. ANY community project will have enviro-nutjobs and lawyers flying in from across the country to make money on other peoples ideas...with the hopes of crushing those ideas in the process so they will be able to crush the next "good idea" or "regional project" that comes up (as that helps keep the country-club dues paid and the stock of granola and Prius batteries at appropriate levels) (Check out Arizona Clean Fuels, West Virginia coal...Pennsylvania wind...etc..you know better than I)

Unless of course (as Billy points out) the brain trust in DC comes up (or latches onto) an idea, in which case vast sums of money can be flushed. High-speed rail was a hot commodity in Kalifornia because the masses demand it???? Amtrak is such a model of how high the demand for rail passenger transit is...

The very government the POTUS represents is mostly to blame for the inability of such projects to take shape and succeed.

BTW - Nice to see the Seasonal Avatar return.

R/10
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