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Aug. 2, 2007 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:23
August 2, 2007, Thursday, Hour #2
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Thanks, Johnny Donovan.
What a pleasure and a privilege it is to spend time with you and to give you the good news that though Rush is at a super secret location as we speak, he will be back here behind the golden EIB microphone tomorrow with Open Line Friday, and I know he's looking forward to that.
And I know you and I are looking forward to that.
Meanwhile, I am Paul W. Smith coming to you from the Northern Command, high atop the EIB building in Midtown Manhattan, where the overall view of everything just seems to be so much clearer.
It's the East Coast campus of the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies where there is never a final exam, but we are being tested every day.
Tested now on our very infrastructure when you consider what has happened with this bridge collapse and people still uh being very concerned about the bridges in their own backyard when you start to hear these figures, seventy to eighty thousand bridges are uh listed as quote structurally impaired, the same thing for this bridge that collapsed there, the Interstate Highway Bridge, downtown Minneapolis during rush hour traffic.
Seventy to eighty thousand bridges in the same kind of uh position.
And when it's structurally impaired, it doesn't mean get rid of the bridge, don't anybody use it.
There is in fact a designation that's even worse than that.
It's called functionally obsolete.
And we're told that there are about seventy thousand functionally obsolete bridges in this great country of ours.
Now the fact of the matter is, it's impossible to know for sure.
You can't tell me for a second that every bridge is inspected and up to date.
By the time they would gather the information, it'd be a couple, two, three years.
It's like when they paint a bridge.
They start at one end, and by the time they get to the other end, they gotta paint it again.
It's a big bridge.
Anyway, uh we want to hear your thoughts on that and more at 1-800-282-2882.
We actually had somebody call in, an architect that maybe has some specific details.
And there are those who are within the shadow of that area that has that have some uh some thoughts, and maybe from wherever you are in whatever uh topic that you'd like to continue talking about.
1-800-282-2882 for the Rush Limbaugh program.
You also get us at Rush Limbaugh.com.
Thanks to uh our engineer Mike Mamon, our chief of staff H.R. Kit Carson, uh, and executive producer Cookie Gleason.
It is uh uh another beautiful day uh in Manhattan, and I'm happy that uh I was able to come in and uh and be with you from here.
Took a couple of days off from my uh morning show at WJR in Detroit from the Golden Tower of the Fisher Building, the great voice of the Great Lakes, and proud uh carrier of this program.
And it's kind of a dad and son adventure.
My uh son Adam W. Smith uh is with me, and uh and we're doing all the we're doing all the touristy things.
We're we're going to do the uh the Empire State Building, the Statue of Liberty and and all of that.
Did the Ben Benson Steakhouse.
We're going to the Carnegie Delhi.
I mean, we're doing we're doing New York like New Yorkers don't always do.
Wherever we live, there are things around us to do that are considered touristy, and oftentimes the people who live there don't do them.
So we're doing them and we're having fun.
And we're talking about a lot of different things that are going on here.
And uh and and i it occurs to me that there are some things that bother me a great deal.
And I'm not saying it's happening yet with the Minnesota Bridge Collapse.
Please, it's very important that you hear me right now when I say, with four people killed, seventy-nine hurt, at least fifty cars going off the bridge, twenty to thirty people we don't even know still missing, and sadly you'd have to presume at this point dead.
I'm not saying that about this story yet.
But we do have a tendency to take stories like this one and run with them ad nauseum, mostly on television, because if there's video, they're going to keep showing the video, even if it's the same video over and over and over again.
And tomorrow when you wake up, they'll show it again.
And the next day when you wake up, they'll show it again.
And all of this has to do with you.
You're watching.
We're watching.
And they have overnight ratings, and they say, Hmm, did well with that story uh today.
We better do it again tomorrow.
Did well with that story last night.
Let's do it again today.
And that's why we have poor Greta Van Sustern, who I thought used to be quite good, taking a story and doing it for three months.
Every night.
Whether it's that poor missing young lady in Aruba, uh whatever it might be.
I don't even want to start pointing out stories like the Virginia Tech shooting where the campus and the people there finally had to say to the media, please leave us alone.
And and I got I have to tell you, I have to say the same thing to the institutional media.
Please leave us alone.
This is a terrible story.
We're glad it's being covered so well.
But after a while, it's time to move on here around the rest of the country.
Our hearts are out for, we uh we pray for our condolences to the families and everybody affected by this.
But we run the risk of two, three weeks from now having the same stories running and doing an individual story on virtually every individual who died in this bridge collapse.
And again, I'm not talking about this story of being overcovered now because it's a very big, important, gut-wrenching story with this bridge collapse.
I'm talking about what has happened in the past when there's a story like this that the news media, the independent or or institutional media runs with it until something else with great video comes along, and it's draining on all of us.
And with all due respect, as was the case with the Virginia Tech shooting, for example, I didn't really need to know every student that died.
I didn't really need to have a bio about them and for them to be brought to life on television.
Because maybe like you, I've got plenty of my own problems to deal with on a regular basis.
People I actually know, people I actually love, family members, friends that are dealing with their own tragedies, to bring into my home on a television monitor so personally issues involving people I never would have heard of if it weren't for this tragedy, and if it weren't for the television stations milking it and jamming it down my throat.
I wouldn't know about it and I shouldn't know about it.
Our thoughts and prayers go out if you pray, I do.
Our condolences, if there's a memorial and you want to send money, go for it.
But don't use it on television over and over again, because when you do, you're using it as entertainment.
And these tragedies should not ever be entertainment.
Now, before you think I've lost my mind, follow me on this.
I have been against reality, so-called reality TV, back when cops and 911 came out.
How many years ago was that?
A lot of years.
Why?
Why after I saw the first program, I said, wait a minute, folks, this is a bad road to be going down.
Because for the first time ever, real human suffering and tragedy was being used for entertainment purposes.
When the police went out on a call and had cameras with them, this wasn't a reenactment or a drama.
This was real people, many of them losers of society, sadly.
Drunks and drug addicts and prostitutes, And boy, we were right there, sitting on our couch watching as they got busted.
And as we had to say, oh, look at those little kids in the background.
Those are their parents.
That's her that's her mother.
That's that's their father.
That's and we sat there and we watched it.
And I thought to myself, and then said aloud.
This is not good.
This is not good.
We're not going to grow from this or benefit from this.
And then people say, well, I learned uh CPR from watching 911 or cops.
I I did not know about CPR until I watched that program.
And people say, oh boy, that program is really helpful.
That's good.
Yeah, to catch a predator.
I mean, all these programs, all these different things.
Um I must tell you, it just isn't good.
It isn't good.
You may agree with me, you may disagree with me.
I sure would love to hear from you here on this program, this opportunity to get the pulse really of the nation on this, the cutting edge of societal evolution.
And sometimes the evolution isn't so good.
Or seemingly so to me.
So I'm not criticizing the coverage of this horrific bridge collapse yet.
I did complain a lot about the coverage, for example, the Virginia Tech shooting, the Aruba missing young lady, the Anna Nicole Smith story.
The story goes on and on and on.
And part of this is personal in that I lost a colleague recently who used to fly me in to do a broadcast at Michigan International Speedway on the weekends.
The traffic is uh well, it's all been fixed.
In fact, our radio station helped fix the traffic problem, but the traffic used to be so bad that it would take hours and hours to get in and out, and I couldn't do that, so I would be flown in by helicopter to do the broadcast.
My pilot was Craig Smith.
Craig Smith was one of the pilots who died recently over Arizona covering a police car chase.
I didn't know that as I watched the footage over and over again and listened to the horrific sounds of a of a helicopter just before it went down, and the people in two helicopters, four people died.
But my friends, why were there four television stations with their four helicopters following a nobody speeding through the streets being chased by the police?
Why did we need to have that on television?
Why do we continue to have things like that?
Presented as news.
And I felt this way before Craig Smith and three other people died following their assignment to cover a non-story just because they could, just because they have cameras, just because they had video.
Am I wrong about this?
Or do you feel the same way?
Am I way off base or not?
1 800-282-2882, 1-800-282-2882, or rush limbaugh.com, because this is the Rush Limbaugh program, and I am Paul W. Smith.
It is the Rush Limbaugh program.
I'm Paul W. Smith, uh, of course, a Rush Limbaugh program now in its twentieth year of keeping you on top of what's happening every hour of every day, including these three hours of broadcast excellence with America's Anchorman Rush Schlimbaugh, back in the chair tomorrow for an open line Friday, all right here on this, your favorite radio station.
It's a pleasure and privilege to be here with you.
Uh, and you can be with us at 1-800-282-2882.
That's 1-800-282-2882, or rushlimbaugh.com.
Uh and we're talking about the news and how things go from being a story to a series, really.
Uh and uh and the and the fact is, as I look at my monitors here in the uh high atop uh this Northern Command of the EIB building In the heart of Midtown Manhattan, uh, for example, and and it will be said that I'm favoring Fox because I'm a conservative.
But the fact of the matter is, on Fox it says developing Fed database shows bridge rated structurally deficient in 2005.
On CNN, it says breaking news.
Well, my friends, uh, it's not breaking news that this bridge has collapsed.
We're i i is it just me, or have you noticed that people use breaking news now on everything?
It's really astounding.
The chief of staff uh H.R. just said, breaking news from 2005.
Uh but the fact is uh breaking news here says uh Captain Leakley passengers saw bridge collapse in front of them.
That's the breaking news.
I'm not making it up.
That's right there on CNN before me.
Paddle boat was just ten minutes from passing under the bridge.
Any number of uh stories are going to come out, and it's a sad, horrible, horrible thing that these people are dealing with.
It was just before uh uh twins game, there's uh University of Minnesota.
There are all kinds of things that we can bring into this.
I don't know how you can bring anything else in to make it worse.
It's just bad.
Now, should there be a discussion about our government's involvement in our infrastructure?
Or should there be a discussion about arguing about Republicans not accepting a YouTube offer to be questioned by a snowman?
Hmm.
Well, the only one we've really seen a lot of is the YouTube story and the infrastructure, our bridges, our roads, our water mains, all across this great country of ours are old and distressed and are going to have to be dealt with.
And this doesn't mean that bridges are falling all over the place.
That's not the case.
Most bridge collapses happen during construction or when somebody hits the bridge, like a boat, a freighter or whatever.
Still one is too many.
Moshe is in Nashville, Tennessee, and on the Rush Limbaugh program.
I'm Moshe.
I'm Paul W. Hi.
Good morning.
Hi.
I was telling you, screeners, basically with the media, it's just like a train wreck.
You just can't help but to watch it, first of all.
And second of all, I think it, you know, I agree with you in terms of the media should not use tragedies like this for entertainment.
But in a sense, it's also a reflection of us as a society as a whole, what we are attracted to, whether we want to say it or not.
This story will be covered for quite a while, even I'm sure on conservative talk shows or liberal talk shows or whatever.
Um I I just feel though, like I said, uh, it's not just the media, but it's you know, if you're it's us.
I hope you heard me, Moshe.
I said it's you.
It's me.
It's us.
They they do the ratings.
If we weren't tuning in, they wouldn't keep doing it.
Well, to be honest with you, the first time I heard it is when I was just watching, you know, uh TV, just from a regular TV show, and you know, breaking news, as you said, came in.
But me personally, for my news, I go to one specific news source that I'm very biased towards, and I really don't pay attention to anything else.
You know, but but you were you were going to that one specific news source that you're very biased to, and they didn't tell you that a major bridge collapsed?
No, because it's an I'm I'm uh from Israel and I go to an Israeli news source.
All right.
Well, so then today So today the Israeli news source is talking about this bridge collapse.
Maybe not going on and on about it, but I'm certain they're going to talk about it.
Well, certain certain ones are, others aren't.
I mean, the one that I go to is basically, you know, dealing with other matters.
What is it?
I'm I'm I'm uh I'm intrigued, Moshe.
What do you have to use a special radio for this uh news source?
Or are you just no, I go I go on the internet.
Oh, I see.
All right, okay.
You're one of those lousy internet radio listeners.
No, I'm just kidding.
I'm kidding.
Uh it's all good.
It's actually a very conservative, uh, very uh very in fact, I think it's the most conservative uh news agency in all of Israel.
Uh and uh that's why I enjoy them more than any other uh news outlet.
What is the most conservative news agency in all of Israel uh called?
Because I loved my visit to Israel several years ago.
It's it's one of those places I'd love to go back to.
In my opinion, if you're really interested in the Middle East, and especially uh if you're a conservative and have uh uh uh very, very uh supportive views of Israel, I highly recommend going to Arut Sheba.
That's uh A-R-U-T-Z uh S H E V A. And they cover the Middle East like nobody else, in my opinion, in Israel.
I I appreciate that, uh Moshe.
I appreciate the help on that.
We have to we have a hard break, as they say in the radio business.
Uh so I'm not just cutting you off.
We have to make this move, but we're coming right back, I promise you that, uh, at uh one eight hundred two eight two two eight eight two.
Uh this is Paul W. Smith in four Rush Limbaugh.
Thanks, Johnny Donovan and America's anchor man Rush Limbaugh back in this chair for an open line Friday.
Tomorrow he's at a super secret location.
I have been informed, but I had to sign many, many documents uh saying that I wouldn't say a word about where he is.
But he'll be here, back here in this chair behind the golden EIB microphone on this Radio Free America.
That's what uh that's what uh I started to call my show there in Detroit, because uh we don't need a fairness doctrine.
We are the fairness doctrine, and uh and uh you know if you leave it up to uh some Democrats who are a little upset that for once uh the people are being heard.
Well, anyway, I don't want to go into that.
I want to get to right back to you because I think someone disagrees with me on something here, and I want to hear about that.
It's to 1800-282-2882.
That's one-eight hundred-two eight two twenty-eight eighty-two, or you can also go to Rush Limbaugh.com, but I never see those, the Rush Limbaugh.coms.
You guys uh see those and feed them to Rush, I guess.
Uh to or to me or whatever.
If they go to Rush Limbaugh.com, just a point of reference here, was it come to you, uh H.R. and then and then you just bring it in to me or however that works.
If you're if you're calling calling in uh 1-800-282-2882 means I can just uh uh press the button.
Wait a minute, we uh switched.
Didn't we want to go to the gentleman who was uh disagreeing?
Scott in Sarasota, Florida.
Apparently you are disagreeing with me, Scott, and I want to hear what you have to say.
Welcome to the Rush Limbaugh program.
I'm Paul W. Smith.
Hi, Paul.
Um actually, yes and no.
I I I do agree with you about not using entertainment, you know, using this for an entertainment factor, but I also do believe there's a real thin line between news and entertainment.
I mean, you rem you know, with today's society being such a news you know, communication savvy type type world that we live in, you know, this uh latest tragedy with this bridge kind of got me thinking back to May, May 9th, 1980 when the Sunshine Skyway Bridge fell in Tampa, Florida.
And how many people there were thirty-five people that died in that and you really didn't have a face on any one of those people really as to who died.
Is it more tragic when you have a face on thirty-five people dying is pretty tragic.
It's tragic, but if you've got John, you know, you got some uh no-name person in his family, you know, knowing that they just lost somebody and that the only way somebody could pay some sort of respect is to put a face on it in a news report and to maybe um explain what this person was like.
I have absolutely no problem with that whatsoever.
I think it's respectful.
I think it's dignified.
I think it's something that uh that we should be privileged to be able to do today.
But what about the what about the five hundred people, other five hundred people that died this week, uh in any number of uh ways across our country that you don't know a thing about, and they died in horrific ways too, I'm sure.
It this is this is what bothers me.
You know, when when a woman goes missing, you know, uh, and I can't even think of one of them now because I so work so hard on my program not to cover the stories that are being covered nonstop ad nauseum.
But i you know, when one wife goes missing, the wife that's attractive and they have lots of video on is the story you hear about, and I'm always concerned about all the other wives or people or kids or whatever that have gone missing that same day that we don't hear a word about.
Well, whose fault whose fault is that really?
I mean, uh you got to look at the news media as far as to why they are or are not reporting on you know this person versus that person.
Oh, and people have believe me, people have opinions.
Uh they they base they there are many who feel I I'm not saying this is what it is, but feel that it's based on race, it's based on uh attractiveness.
Entertainment.
It's based on right.
Well, that's the problem is your Yeah, you know, Scott, you know, and I know that news used to not be in any way, shape, or form anywhere close to the entertainment division of a television station, a radio station, a newspaper uh whatever.
Right.
If we read a story in a newspaper, and we turn the page and saw an ad for something that was in that story in the newspaper, it was a wild coincidence.
Now you have to know that somebody contacted that person and said, uh there's going to be a feature story about uh Bishmers, and you make mishmoffers, so you ought to put an ad in there.
You can thank cell phones and the internet for that.
I mean, seriously, if you think about it, you know, it's a communication savvy world we live in today, and that's why we have so much stuff that's being glamorized on the news.
And that's why, Scott, we're in agreement in a sense on because it is such a communication savvy society, we have to be very careful with what we're calling these things and then how we act and react to them.
I agree.
Well, I thought you were going to disagree with me about this.
I have here that you're disagreeing.
They even slipped past you for a moment.
I said, Bring him back.
I need this man, he's going to disagree with me.
Well, no, I only disagreed with the fact of you know, you do have to put a face on some of these victims.
I I think it's fine to let us know, and it's uh if it helps in the grieving of the families, that's good too.
Right.
But to go into the history, you know, of when they were seven, they were and then they could have gone on to be president of the United States and all these other things that happen, you start to say, wait a minute, wait a minute.
Okay, I'm sad.
I'm so sad that this happened.
You don't have to gild the lily.
You don't have to make me sadder about this person I never would have heard of, never would have met, never would have known.
But now because of this tragedy, I do.
And I don't know, you know, Scott, look, if you don't have any issues or problems around where you live or in your life, I'm coming to move in with you.
I got plenty of things to be concerned about in my own life.
That are very real and every day.
To take on the responsibility of having that kind of personal connection with somebody who is now dead because of a tragedy.
It's very difficult for me to come up with a good reason for that, other than what you mentioned so clearly, Scott, and brilliantly, is frankly a manipulation of an entertainment factor by drawing it out from being a story to a series.
I think what you mentioned about you know, put putting too much information into the story can be you know, can be wrong in itself.
I I mean I would agree with that to a certain extent.
It's just, you know, you gotta blame that on the person reporting it.
Keep an eye on Sarasota, Florida.
No, no, no, wait, wait.
Don't forget what the other point you made.
We have to blame us.
Well we're the ones tuning in.
That's true.
I'm not.
Maybe you're not.
Probably most people listening to this kind of program are not.
But there are enough of them that do that uh create successful cable news networks and everything else.
Those are become desensitized, that's what it's doing.
That is right.
Thanks, Scott.
Appreciate it.
Nice to know you're out there keeping eye on Sarasota, Florida for us.
Mike is in Knoxville, Tennessee on the Rush Limbaugh program.
I'm Paul W. Smith.
Hello, Mike.
Hi, Paul.
Thanks for taking my call today.
Mm-hmm.
It's why we're here.
Hey, let me start out by saying that uh obviously this is a terrible, terrible tragedy, and and and my thoughts and prayers go out to those who are directly affected by it.
But um, I guess my my thought on this, looking at this as an engineer uh from an engineering perspective, you know, I I sincerely hope that this disaster isn't uh a Katrina part to uh, you know, we tend to want to look to the federal government for all these types of disasters, and uh the reality is the report that you cited was three years old.
Who knows how long it really took to develop the uh the report in the world.
So wait a second, so that people uh who might not have heard what I was talking about understand I I I don't cite any report whatsoever that has anything to do with this bridge collapsing because I don't have any such report.
I'm just showing how when people want the government involved with things, this is what they get.
The Federal Highway Administration has adopted as the performance measure For bridge condition, the percent of total deck area that is on deficient bridges on the NHS, and the percent of total deck area that is on deficient bridges off the NHS.
This statistic is calculated based on the total deck area of deficient bridges, whether structurally deficient or functionally obsolete, divided by the total deck area for all bridges.
Come on.
I mean, what are they talking about?
It doesn't it doesn't matter.
What matters is that these bridges are inspected by somebody, and somebody has an up-to-date idea on how sound the bridge is.
Yes, and and you know, but but let's kind of keep this in perspective.
You know, the the report was issued in two thousand four, according to what you said previously.
Uh the the fact of the matter is there are thousands and thousands of these bridges that and and you you cited seventy thousand bridges that were deficient.
Right.
They say that uh in two thousand four there were seventy-seven thousand seven hundred and ninety-six, not ninety-five, not ninety-seven, seventy-seven thousand seven hundred and ninety-six bridges uh that were found to be structurally deficient, which is an impossible it's an impossible number to come up with.
Right.
And you know, the fact of the matter is that there are that many deficient bridges, there's no way possible for the highway authority to inspect these bridges on any kind of regular schedule.
And and by the time they do inspect them, put that in some sort of a report.
That report goes to a government age agency for review and approval.
Many, many years have probably gone by, and in the meantime, that bridge has continued to decay and and be um dilapidated by the the increased volume of traffic.
So the the point I'm trying to make is that you know I think states need to take more ownership for these types of uh infrastructure issues and not look to the federal government to police them.
Uh it's just not logistically possible.
No, it mike, it's the the example I gave earlier, and I'll be even more specific now.
In your point about by the time that the study is put together, by the time it's published, it's three years old, and so many other things have happened.
I said, well, and I'll use this example the beautiful Mackinac Bridge, the Mighty Mack.
It's a beautiful bridge uh that uh i it connects the the two peninsulas.
It connects Michigan to our upper peninsula.
And by the way, there's uh wonderful uh places to go throughout all of Michigan.
Uh uh Mackinac Island just being one of them, that's very special that people all over the world know about because of uh uh somewhere in time, the film and for other reasons.
But anyway, so when the guys start painting, because I've talked to these guys, when the guys start painting the Mighty Mac, the Mackinac Bridge, by the time they get to the other end, do you know what they have to do?
Start right over.
Right.
They have to paint the other end again because it's time.
So when you start talking about what condition bridges are in by the time that issue comes out, it doesn't mean anything anymore.
And I do believe, and since you're an engineer, I'll run this by you very quickly, that we do have issues, infrastructure issues that are way more important than arguing about whether the Republicans get it or not, whether they connect or not with the internet set uh by not accepting a YouTube offer to be questioned by a snowman.
We're falling apart in many ways.
A couple of years ago, one study said that, for example, in this city where they brag about the water and rightfully so, thirteen billion dollars was needed over the next twenty years to just handle New York City's drinking water needs and the infrastructure.
Many of their pipes in this city are over a hundred years old.
And that's true in a lot of cities.
So as an engineer, wouldn't you agree?
We do have some infrastructure issues that are huge that we don't really hear much about.
Oh, yeah, there's no doubt about it.
The bridges are just one example.
The the the water system that you cited is another.
And uh, you know, the fact of the matter is these bridges were built over many decades, and uh to try to get a snapshot of their sta of their condition on any kind of regular basis is impossible.
You know, it's it's just not uh it's not feasible.
I'd say that the the data that are collected probably give you a a snapshot over a ten year period, and by the time that information gets to the people, the policymakers that control the money, it's it's too late.
The the the damage has already been done and uh the information's outdated.
I appreciate you uh weighing in and uh being a regular listener to the Rush Limbaugh program.
We uh certainly do appreciate that.
As we continue on the Rush Limbaugh program, I'm Paul W. Smith.
All righty, uh let's get back to you uh very quickly.
1 800 282-2882.
Newt Gingrich joining us in the next hour of the Rush Limbaugh program.
Paul W here.
Nice to be with you and hearing from you at 1 800 282 2882, as uh we hear from George in Fergus Falls.
Hello, George.
How are you doing, Paul?
I'm doing well, I hope you're well.
I'm doing pretty good, all things considered.
Good.
So I was gonna I have to make one comment before the uh you know the chicken liberal media go rushing around ever seeing uh the bridges falling, the bridges falling everywhere.
The uh notice they're talking a lot about these structural deficiency reports that they list on bridges.
And uh actually was part of a program.
I should clarify, I'm not an engineer myself.
I just happened to help put part of this program together that helped uh modernize some of the system of recording and viewing bridge for uh inspection.
And uh one of the things that uh comes across is a bridge deficiency can be completely all very complex thing like a uh one of the columns, structural columns actually meaning to fail, or it can be as small as uh visible minor surface damage to say a concrete pier in abutment.
So there's there's quite a bit of uh variation in what a deficiency can be.
There's no doubt that there are lots of bridges out there that are getting to a point of severe deficiencies.
Right.
Those those terms, by the way, the structurally deficient or functionally obsolete come to us from a two thousand six report from the Federal Highway Administration.
Let me ask this question, though, because you're in Minnesota.
How far away are you uh in Fergus Falls from where this happened?
About two, two and a half hours away.
Okay.
And and you've had some uh experience in keeping track of the condition of bridges.
Yeah, I built a uh a system that uh is going to update how bridge offici bridge reports are handled and viewed.
Uh a lot of the way is done, you know, as you would expect, a lot of paperwork and a lot of material like that.
And I helped put together a system that uh allows actually the people who do the inspection to now go take, you know, digital camera out and take pictures of the bridge.
You know, each and you know, every bit of it.
And there's uh help use a program that with one more step, a little bit of financial, you know, more money thrown into it could have been even available on the internet.
But with this program, you can simply go pull up an entire listing, say by county of all the bridges and pull up the whole listing of every bridge.
And then if you're curious about anything, pull up pictures.
You don't actually have to spend the day.
Is that anything that we can access or no?
This it's not up on the internet yet.
I got you.
All right.
I appreciate that.
I'm I'm cutting you off here quickly because we have to take a break, and then we're going to come back with Ken, who also wants to disagree with me or is angry with me, and we're going to run out of time, and I want to hear what he has to say.
So stay with us on this, the Rush Limbaugh program.
I'm Paul W. Smith.
All right.
I I have to tell you, Ken, in Minneapolis, uh, you have a disagreement of some sort, and I I'm uh sorry to say that uh based on when you're calling in, we have a limited amount of time because we have a hard break.
So take it away, Ken.
Um, well, basically, I'm just uh I've been listening to the show since you started today, and I mean I kind of think you sound like a hypocrite to a certain extent.
How so um you're you were saying that uh the media basically jams things down people's throats, you know, and with this bridge thing, um basically that you know, everywhere you turn, everything you look at, they're just no no let me because we don't have a lot of time.
I have to correct you right off the bat.
You weren't listening, apparently, when I said I'm not talking specifically about this bridge, because this is a very legitimate story that's less than twenty-four hours old.
Okay?
Do you understand that?
You understand what I said.
What I said was we run the risk.
I promise you that I won't be talking about this a week from now.
I can't promise you that that's not going to be the case on some of these channels uh in the uh the other media.
I can't.
I it's just not uh the institutional media will will di they'll find out how people are reacting to this and then they'll decide.
My point basically being uh that is basically that if you change you change the station to any channel on the radio or while that's talking or any type of news station right now, they're covering the story.
Ken, it's a story right now.
It's less than twenty-four hours old.
If they're still talking about it a week from now, you'll understand the point that I'm trying to make.
And that's why I said at the beginning, please listen very carefully to what I'm saying, because there's a very good chance you will not hear me clearly and understand.
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