something bridge related

Today marks two occurrences, first of all me not having anything to write about and secondly (more importantly) locally the opening of a cable bridge in Waterford City to bypass the city, it is something nice to see on the sky line considering the economy tanked and Ireland hasn't had many architectural endeavors (no it's not my new word) during the past 15 or so years (no the Spire in Dublin doesn't count) which were wasted throwing money around building housing estates, at least passers by can bypass another city were businesses are closing down and people are constantly losing their jobs and blaming everybody but themselves.

However on a brighter note I found this amusing news reel from the 1940's whilst looking for something bridge related.



The Tacoma bridge is an amusing example of an extreme structural failure, or to the less grammar and politely correct an extreme fuck up considering it was opened to traffic four months earlier!

will the United States collapse?

Not long after the worldwide recession hit last October a Russian analyst predicted the decline and breakup of the United States by 2010, a map of what will happen is shown above.

I'm not exactly interested in predicting what state will go where but more interested in comparing how North America would stand compared to Russia did back in 1991.

Three of Americas five major banks fell in days, thousands of people are still out of work and currently America is bogged down in a war in Afghanistan fighting the Taliban (a dissident of the mujahideen from the 1980's) and Obama is simply pouring in more troops from Iraq (around 21,000 over there at the time of writing).

Since Bush got sidetracked in Iraq instead of continuing to finish off the Taliban after Operation Anaconda in 2002.

Now they've had less pressure and now have a chance to rebuild their forces whilst hiding in the mountains in Pakistan before striking once again.

In 1991 when the Soviet Union fell the 14 other countries that separated from Russia gained their independence and may have been poor but survived, Russia opened up to the west and Russia had become a democracy.

But the people had been more prepared than say most people in the United States, if the United States collapsed very suddenly like as fast as the financial crisis hit last year what would happen then, the way the United States run depends on the federal government to keep order so you're talking about a brief fall of civilisation.

Take New Orleans in 2005 for example, the few days before actual soldiers were sent in people were looting, killing and raping each other, imagine if that happened across the states!

Does that also mean American influence across the world would also fail, like the 14 other countries apart from Russia that fell will the 130 countries in the world that have America bases and soldiers simply be passed on to the nation like Soviet hardware was passed on to ex Soviet countries in Eastern Europe?

China is growing in power economically and militarily over the last five years while the US is slowly falling from superpower level, along with that the trillion dollar war on terror isn't showing much clear results.

Hell maybe instead of McDonalds restaurants there will be more Chinese restaurants across the world.

How a world war ends recession

This year we're entering the greatest recession since the depression that started in 1929 and affected America terribly, for ten years millions of American's were unemployed and in some cases people feared rebellion against the government, what could possible bring the country out of this financial tradegy.

A world war!

Yes almost immediately after Pearl Harbour was attacked by the Imperial Japanese Navy America found that it was going to be fighting two wars almost instantly (since Nazi Germany had also declared war by accident), what resulted was the building of a massive US war machine, almost everywhere jobs for the military could be found, America was going to win these wars and it seemed to be slowly growing richer overnight, anyone of the right age could enlist.

After victory in the Battle of Midway the US Navy instantly pushed forward to seize Japanese territories and eventually hit Japan itself, while this was going on US bombers begun to arrive in England in 1942 and 1943 and early 1944 saw heavy bombings of Germany military facilities as the RAF and USAF had substantial striking power compared to the Luftwaffe, it was only too late in the war when the V2 ballistic missile was developed, most of which were launched at London killing a few hundred.

The US Pacific Fleet however had grown to an enormous size, some 21 aircraft carriers blockading Japan while carrying out bombing raids, the Japanese made a last stand at the Philipines (the largest sea battle in history) but were defeated, Japanese Army Air Force A6M Zeroes flew kamikaze raids against US Naval vessels (see left), causing heavy damage though it only slowed down the massive US war machine.

It seemed the new US war machine was inflicting defeat in Europe, Nazi Germany had been bombed for over 12 months by USAF and RAF bombers and it was now time for the mass landings to seize back France, the Normandy landings!

On June 4th 1944 mass US landings happened in France against overwhelming Nazi forces there, 156,000 troops were landed in France ready to seize back the country from the defending Nazi forces, at the same time the Soviet Union begun to attack Nazi forces in Poland and both giants were coming down on Germany in a race towards Berlin, the Nazi's who were very strong weren't strong enough and finally overwhelmed from both sides bringing the fight into Germany itself where the Nazi's made a last stand, at the end of victory in Europe eastern Europe was under Soviet control and western Europe under American control.

But the war in Japan was continuing, heavy bombing was continuing, the B-29 (see top picture) was able to bomb from high altitude, Tokyo was fire bombed killing 100,000 in one night at one stage, Japan was falling and a land invasion of mainland Japan was sure to begin soon.

Okinawa (a large island not far from Japan) was the last major battle in Japan before the proposed Operation Downfall a proposed invasion of mainland Japan was proposed, in Okinawa 12,000 Americans were killed as opposed to 94,000 Japanese, surely an invasion of the mainland would cause many more casualties that would kill many more.

When Harry S. Truman became president it was clear the power of the atomic bomb would do the job, after testing in the Mexico Desert they prepared to strike Japan, two cities (the least damaged during the bombing raids) were nuked, Hiroshima killing over 200,000 people and Nagasaki killing 40,000 people, Truman threatened to keep nuking Japan and already its people were suffering from radiation, it was finally agreed, Japan was forced to surrender ending World War II.

America had literally fought it's way to ending the depression and instantly once again becoming the richest and most powerful nation on the planet which would last until the present day.

Of course I'm suggesting that another world war with America in the fray would pull us out of the depression since their military is still the biggest in the world and has enough power to take on both China and Russia in another world war.

I'm not suggesting World War III could solve the recession but never underestimate Uncle Sam patriotism!