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Let me set up a situation for you. Let’s say that your state is rebuilding a major stretch of highway. Let’s say this project will cost upwards of $600 million and will close parts of the main thoroughfare through your city for two years. Let’s also say that the contractors are incentivized to the tune of several million dollars to finish the work early. You’d think that the state would watch over the work fairly closely and inspect regularly, right? Not if you live in Missouri.

See, the Missouri Department of Transportation is too busy to regularly inspect the $535 million project and have left inspections up to the general contractor (or in this case a group of contractors). They would have to hire more inspectors is the argument for why MODOT has decided not to do the inspections itself. I’ll let the Project Manager speak for herself (via the St. Louis Post-Dispatch)

“This was following through with that same line of thinking [outsourcing everything],” said Lesley Hoffarth, project director for the Missouri Department of Transportation. “You are responsible for doing a quality job here, not MoDOT.”

Whoa, whoa, whoa. MODOT isn’t responsible for assuring that a quality job is being done on one of the most important highways in the state? That’s ludicrous.

I’m not saying that Gateway is doing a bad job or would intentionally shortcut items that are dangerous, but you’ve got to have oversight. I’m not a builder, but if I have build a house, I’d want an inspector after it is done to look things over to make sure everything is kosher. For this project, Gateway does the initial audit and then pays an outside inspector to do a follow up. That’s right the company that does the work is responsible for choosing and paying the outside firm that does inspections of their work. The auditor in me flashes a bright red light when I see that. Add that to the several million dollars to finish the job early and that’s an awful lot of incentive that could be abused.

When the inspections are done by the state, the results aren’t promising. The state has agreed to audit about 10% of the inspections. On the inspections they’ve done, the state has noted a failure rate of around 10% (10%!). The article says that most are paperwork snafus, but the auditor in me can’t imagine not testing more items when there is a failure rate of 10%.

So, what happens if five years down the road the highway starts to crumble? MODOT has to pay to repair it because the work only has a one-year warranty. The article notes that any guarantee is unusual for a MODOT contract. Again, I can’t believe that the contractors don’t have to warranty their work. What are we getting for our $535 million?

I have a feeling a lot of this has to do with anti-St. Louis sentiment that is a part of Missouri politics. Outstate politicians loathe the St. Louis area despite the fact that it and Kansas City are the main economic engines in the state. The current Governor (Matt Blunt who suprised everyone by not running for re-election) is from the Springfield area and had several anti-St. Louis ads run outstate during his bid for the Governorship (I heard them). He doesn’t want to spend more money than he has to in the area and this is one way to cut back funds in this district. But when it comes to public safety on a highway that has tens of thousands of motorists on it per day, I’d like to think a few extra engineers could be hired to make sure that everything is done correctly.

I’m not sure this is the message that the Obama campaign wants.

Apparently, the cult of personality that his supporters have developed around Obama isn’t enough. Now, there’s a marketing firm that actually wants them to be a cult.

Can you imagine the image of 75,000 people in an Olympic sports stadium giving a hand salute to the leader of a cult of personality? We can only hope that someone has a grainy black-and-white camera to capture the whole thing for future generations.

So, the Olympics officially kick off today? *yawn* I have little interest in the Olympics for a lot of reasons.

First and foremost, the location. I know I’ll get yelled at for bringing politics into the “Olympic ideal” (more on that later) but I can’t celebrate a country where I can’t say that the leader is an idiot. One of the things of which I am most proud is that I can stand up and say that I think President Bush is an idiot and not have to worry about thugs knocking on my door in the middle of the night. Those thugs may be police, military, or para-military, but in a lot of places they’ll come. In China, any criticism of the “Communist” Party will get you a jail sentence and beatings. Heck, this website will likely fall behind the Great Firewall of China after I put the word “Tibet” into this post. The government ruthlessly cracks down on any dissent and has even put foreign journalists behind the firewall in case they would spread non-approved news to the Chinese people.

The second is the “Olympic ideal”. The Olympics have long since abandoned the ideal of the best amateur competition in the world. Most of the athletes are paid professionals that have huge support organizations behind them. It’s no different than the NFL except for the fact that the Olympics pretends that it has ideals. Maybe if Steve Jobs ran the Olympics, the reality distortion field might work, but the Olympics can’t pull it off. It’s a big money-grubbing machine and until they admit that, I have little use for the games.

The last is the drug use. This sort of goes up with number two, but it really needs to be mentioned. The Olympics are a breeding ground for the worst kind of scum that peddle designer drugs that can elude drug tests. The Olympics does a better job than most of trying to test the athletes, but it’s an undeniable temptation for those that want the glory (and the money) that comes along with being an Olympian. While this may not be the fault of the Olympics, it certainly harms the image of the Games.

The politics is always something that goes along with the Games. One of the greatest sports moments in the history of the United States was the Miracle On Ice, when the American team beat the Soviets in hockey. You don’t think that there was some politics involved there? What about the 1936 Games where Jesse Owens showed up Hitler on his home turf? No, no politics there. And don’t tell me the Chinese aren’t seeing these Games as a prime political opportunity to show their people (and the world) what the dragon is capable of. Politics has been and always will be a part of the Games, get over it.

I’ve had my iPhone jailbroken and used for the past week or so. There’s not a lot to be said about the device. Physically, it’s a gorgeous phone. That really shouldn’t surprise anyone given Apple’s focus on beauty. The screen is a magnitude of 1,000 better than either my T-Mobile Dash or the Blackberry Pearl. Given that the screen is much larger, they have more real estate to work with and Apple has made every attempt at using that real estate wisely.

I haven’t gotten the nerve to jailbreak the new software yet, so I can’t test out the Microsoft Exchange functionality yet. The methods are still not foolproof and I’ve heard anecdotes about non-jailbroken devices having issues with the 2.0 firmware. I’ll wait until Apple releases 2.0.1 or 2.1 before upgrading. I use the Mail app to check my gmail accounts and it does a fantastic job. The e-mail is full rich HTML and works like a charm. Blackberry devices don’t come with HTML e-mail as a standard option (surprising but true) and don’t even strip out HTML markup in e-mails making it necessary to buy a separate program if you want to be able to read HTML e-mails at all. The Windows Mobile device was much better with HTML e-mails but the screen size was once again a limiting factor when trying to read such e-mails. Being able to zoom in on the iPhone really increases the usefulness of having an HTML e-mail client.

The one main issue I have with the iPhone is with Mobile Safari, the web browser on the device. If you are on a Wifi connection, Safari simply blows everything else out of the water. I used Pocket IE, the Blackberry browser, and Opera Mini on the other two devices and while Opera was leaps and bounds above the other two, Safari is so far ahead it’s scary. However, all that horsepower simply chokes on an EDGE connection (the kind you might get over the air). Opera Mini beats Safari hands down when it comes to browsing over the air. Opera has a built in mechanism to cache pages and speed them up for mobile devices. It makes browsing on an EDGE device bearable. The iPhone is a magnitude slower than Opera and it makes any kind of browsing not worth the hassle.

I did find one workaround on the MacOSXHints website. It uses the cache that Google has to speed up browsing on a mobile device. It works alright but it still isn’t as fast (or automated) as Opera. Of course, for websites that have mobile versions (such as the NY Times and this one) visiting the mobile site eliminates a lot of the graphics and fluff anyway. I basically have two sets of favorites, one for mobile browsing and one for wifi. It’s cumbersome but at least it allows me to browse somewhat better.

Another thing I don’t like about the 1.1.4 firmware is the lack of installing anything. Basically, to do anything on the iPhone you have to have a wireless signal. This has been fixed by the App Store (and I could use Installer.app on my jailbroken version) but there are times I need to waste time and don’t have a signal. I’d like to have some games or something to pass the time. Hopefully this will go away once I upgrade to the 2.0 firmware.

All in all, it was one of the best $100 I’ve spent in a while (actually after selling my Blackberry, I netted $25). I’m down to one device, which was my goal all along. I look forward to using the new firmware and really begin testing the Exchange support. My only worry is battery life, which is currently only two days without ActiveSync running and without automatically checking e-mail. I may have to disable Exchange in order to get through the day.

It’s time for the annual Scrubs rumor mill. Unlike the past few years when the rumor was this was the last year for the best damn show on television, this time Bill Lawrence, producer extraordinaire, is teasing that ABC has been responsive to a revolving cast to keep the show going.

I like that idea. The cast is fantastic, but the show has thrived when given the ability to plug in guest stars (Heather Locklear, Heather Graham, Brendan Fraser, and even Tara Reid did a great job on the show in multi-episode arcs). I think that given the level of writing talent on the show, a fresh cast isn’t going to be the same jolt that it would be on some other shows.

Hopefully, ABC won’t pull the crap that NBC did with the show. I’m not sure that the show made it a full season without changing time slots at least once, if not more times.

I’m hopeful for the season. While the “finale” with The Princess Bride motif was a little disappointing (and frustruating as NBC showed the episodes out of order) the rest of the past two seasons has been on par with the first couple of seasons of the show. Scrubs is one of the few shows that I can watch over and over and over again and not get tired with it.

Though, I did have to laugh at this exchange:

“We cried a little when Bill said he’d bring young people in,” original cast member Sarah Chalke said.

“These guys are like, we’re the young actors.” Lawrence said. “So I told them, why don’t you take a gander at the opening credits and see how young you guys all look?”

Confirmed Braff: “You think he’s kidding, but he really did that.”

Watching the early shows on one of the 58 channels that syndicate it you can really tell how they’ve grown up in the last 8 years (I guess I have as well being the same age). Especially Sarah Chalke, she looks a lot younger in the early episodes.

Even if it’s for one more year, a year with Scrubs is better than a year without.

I’ve mentioned a couple of times that I admire Missouri GOP candidate Sarah Steelman on most financial issues. Socially, I can’t vote for her because she’s right of Genghis Khan, but when it comes to fiscal issues I’m right there with her.

For several months I’ve been trying to write a piece on ethanol and its side effects. The media has focused mainly on the fact that food prices have skyrocketed as more and more of our corn supply is siphoned to make ethanol. This year one-third of the corn supply will be used for ethanol for the most part because of government mandates, according to some estimates. I’m not anti-ethanol, I just think we should take a step back and look.

Missouri, while not exactly in the corn belt grows a heckuva lot of corn. It has an ethanol mandate, which has been steadily increased to the now 10%. Fighting against ethanol mandates in this part of the country is basically political suicide. But Steelman has done exactly that, calling for an end to the mandate and even releasing a tv ad on the issue (YouTube blocked at work, will add link later).

Holy frick! Not only is she making speeches about the mandate, but the tv ad is really highlighting the view (it’s the first Steelman ad I’ve seen). A recent study called ethanol a “billion dollar mistake” (something the corn lobby disputes) and has set off a local firestorm over the benefits of ethanol. Steelman has used this to make a point, something that has allowed every other politician in Missouri to denounce her for.

I don’t think Steelman has a chance to win. The GOP machine is behind her opponent and he outraised her 5-1 in the most recent quarter. But I think we need a few more politicians like Ms. Steelman who aren’t afraid to stand up and slaughter the sacred cow if that is what they truly believe.

At least to Bombardier. Remember Missouri offering the company $320 million and a plant to assemble jets in Kansas City? Yeah, apparently that wasn’t enough as the company announced that it would build the jets in a suburb of Montreal instead.

Missouri officials are understandably upset. Maybe had we offered them the full $880 million in incentives that the State wanted initially we would have gotten them. I’m sure that will be the argument next time a company comes hat-in-hand to the state dangling a number of jobs to the highest bidder.

Apparently, the air conditioning is broken in the Illinois Governor’s Mansion (you know, the one that Blagojevich won’t stay in). The state has no budget, okay the Legislature passed an unbalanced budget to try and make the Governor cut spending instead but that doesn’t really count, so all construction spending has been stopped. Ergo, the air conditioning can’t be fixed, right?

Capital Development Board spokesman David Blanchette said the legislation only refers to certain streams of money and it’s possible the worn-out, 40-year-old compressor at the mansion could be fixed using a different funding source.

“It depends on whether it needs replacement or repair and what potential funding sources there might be,” Blanchette said.

Uh huh, so as long as it is other state projects that don’t affect the Executive branch they don’t care. But if the Governor’s Mansion, in which the Governor does not stay, has an issue they’ll “find the money”.

I say cut off the A/C to the Capitol as well and lock the legislators in there. It’s been several years since the Democrats (which control the House, Senate, and Governorship) managed to pass a budget on time. Maybe if they had to sit there and stink we could actually get a budget passed. Throw the Governor in as well, make it a slumber party. Heck, make Madigan and Blagojevich share bunk beds. Tape it like Big Brother and sell the footage…

Wait, I think I just balanced the budget.

Can I say that it amuses me to no end that ‘fanboy’ was added to the Merriam-Webster dictionary this year? Most of the rest of the words are “meh”, but I literally began laughing at the thought of someone looking up the term ‘fanboy’ in the dictionary and finding it.

I’m easily amused.

I love the Democracy in America podcast and blog put out by the Economist. Early in the primary season, I found it was the best source for covering the differences in all the candidates. Unlike US publications, the writers of the blog are clearly partisan and make no bones about letting their preferences come through.

Today, the blog reports on the Senate’s attempt at again getting a US Constitutional amendment forbidding gay marriage (yawn!). This Amendment is naturally touted as being the only way that the Federal government can truly protect marriage from the invasion of gay people that want to ruin marriage for nice heterosexual couples like me. Of course, it affects me little whether Dan and Dave can get married or not but that’s not really the point of this post. What the Economist points out is who two of the most staunch defenders of the amendment are: Larry (”I just have a wide stance”) Craig and David (”mmm…hookers”) Vitter.

Yes, because those two are shining examples of why Dan and Dave shouldn’t marry. I realize that anyone can sponsor legislation and the more sponsors the better, but come on people. Do you really want these two schmucks connected with your attempt at saving marriage?