Tim Pawlenty has demonstrated, in many ways and on many occasions, that he is the worst governor the State of Minnesota has ever had. The most recent proof was his line item veto of funding for the Bell Museum of Natural History, and his line item veto of the funding necessary to further develop public transit in the Twin Cities. Neither surprises me. This is the governor who gave us a creationist education director, and this is the governor who let the bridge fall down. Education and transportation are not his bailiwicks. But one has to ask, if he can't understand these two important issues (which habitually top various lists of what is important to the citizenry), when what is he good at? (See below for one possible suggestion.)
Regarding the Bell funding:
The university hoped to secure $24 million in state money for a new museum building to be built on the U of M's St. Paul campus. The current Bell Museum is in Minneapolis.
Museum Director Scott Lanyon says the governor's action is disappointing.
"The museum and its supporters have been very hopeful that the governor would get behind this project, since the museum really is about science and technology and math education. And we thought that would be something the governor would feel strongly about," said Lanyon.
[source]
Regarding the transportation project:
Slashing the Legislature's recently passed bonding bill, Pawlenty cut more than $200 million in funding for projects across the state, including $70 million in state funding for the central corridor project, which was intended to link St. Paul and Minneapolis.
Rep. Alice Hausman, DFL-St. Paul, called the cutting of the light-rail project the "tragedy of the bill."
"In my opinion, the governor single-handedly killed the central corridor," she said.
[source]
So, Governor Pawlenty, what you good for?
Huh....
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Absolutely nothin.
"this is the governor who let the bridge fall down"
Well, apparently, based on how the U of MN Board of regents is stacked with conservatives--he is also good at manipulating the college and shielding it from responsibility for things like kids on Ritalin, and bridge collapses; the college, you might have noticed, recently tried to eliminate their liability for a flawed 2001 study that maintained that the bridge was OK http://www.startribune.com/politics/state/17208701.html
He looks fairly pretty if you don't mind the vacuity. Or the smugness. Or the tightness around the mouth. Or the--okay, maybe he's not even that pretty.
And he fits the profile of the shifty demographic of America's free market religious oppressors--churchgoers who choose to change churches and go"where the money is at" when it comes to religion, according to Wikipedia: "Raised a Roman Catholic, Pawlenty converted to the Lutheran faith as an adult.[3] However, in recent years he has regularly attended Wooddale Church (a member of the Minnesota Baptist Conference) in Eden Prairie"
Story synthesizing the "U.S. Religious Landscape Survey"
http://www2.hernandotoday.com/content/2008/mar/14/ha-faith-shopping-a-s…
This is pretty much why the line-item veto is a bad thing. It removes the executive's incentive to actually negotiate with the legislature, so he can kill anything he likes.
What is needed is a line item over-ride.
Nicely done. I fired off a nasty email to him yesterday when I heard. Please join me at tim.pawlenty@state.mn.us. Several thousand irate emails couldn't hurt the cause one iota. Keep up the great work, Greg.
By the way: Go look at that picture of the I35W bridge in the state of collapse. See anything funny?
Aside from the fact that WBOB looks to be on fire and the bridge looks like it was resting on plywood? No. I must be missing something.
looks like the bridge is in the shitter...er...the shitter ios ON the bridge?
The car doors. Almost all of them are closed. People jumped out of these cars and ran away as fast as they could. But most of them chose to close the door. I would not be surprised if some of them are locked.
You know, I'm not particularly fond of Pawlenty but blaming the bridge collapse on him is abjectly stupid and demented, and makes you credible only to those in your echo chamber. The bridge was up for 40 + years through many different administrations with a poor design from the beginning and no one doing anything about it all that time (I'm sure you can find a way to pin that on George W). Any blame to be cast on Ventura(I), Carlson(R), Perpich(D) etc?
I also like how you ignore, (are you even aware or maybe purposely ignoring to score a cheap point?), the information that is out there that an important factor in the collapse was the fact that the bridge was over loaded by too much construction materials and equipment. How in the hell is that Pawlenty's fault? Probably some good union members to blame for that but, ahh never mind they vote the way you like.
People died there, and you're trying to score some vacuous, inane and bankrupt DFL points on it because you don't like Pawlenty. Unsurprising yet still nauseating.
Go after him for vetoing the Bell Museum or whatever else that has a state employee such as yourself upset, but give up the puerile and dishonest temper tantrum - most unbecoming in a man of your advanced years.
Greg, I am seeing three driver doors visibly open, two driver doors visibly shut, and the remainder with driver doors either not visible (as shut or open) or so tilted that gravity would close the door. I don't know which vehicles had passengers, so I'm not counting closed passenger doors.
The bridge sort of looks like it fell into the form of a cross. Maybe there is an image of Jesus in one of the concrete blocks?
I think the invisible ones are shut (such as the two on the upper left).
But I could be wrong.
Umm, phil, perhaps you should reacquaint yourself with the notion of accountability. When you're the coach and your team loses it is your fault. When you are in charge of the infrastructure and the infrastructure fails, it's your fault. That's called accountability.