OK, a little bit of local news here, but bear with me.

Louisville is a crossroads.  We have three interstate highways that converge in our downtown, and two of them continue on across the Ohio River into Indiana.  Both of those bridges are kind of old, and are in an almost continuous state of repair.

This afternoon, one of the bridges, the Sherman Minton, which carries Interstate 64, was closed completely.  Inspectors found a large crack in one of the main supports while doing work, and Indiana’s governor Mitch Daniels shut down the bridge out of concern for public safety.  This effectively cuts I-64 in both directions.  The only detour I can think of is to get on I-65, go north about 10 miles, then cut over about 15 to 20 miles back to I-64.  Anyone who’s tried to get onto I-65 from I-64 going either direction knows what a cluster that is, and it’ll only get worse now that twice as many people are going to be trying to do it.  Did I mention that the ramps between I-65 and I-65 I-64 are one lane?

This is a huge blow to traffic in Louisville.  There now only two bridges across the Ohio at Louisville, an 8 lane highway for I-65 and a 4 lane (sort of) bridge that connects two surface streets.  Both of them are already running at capacity during peak times, and now they will have to soak up not only the local traffic but also the interstate traffic that normally flows through the city on I-64.

I’m glad the problem was found before someone got hurt, and I’m sure the authorities will do whatever is necessary to make repairs and reopen the bridge.  But until they do, this is going to well and truly suck.

Researchers are complaining that the total amount of money spent on medical research in the United States stayed steady at $140.5 billion dollars, or about 5.5 percent of money spent on healthcare. 

To put that in perspective $140.5 billion is:*

• More than the GDP of 72% of the countries on Earth.  
• More than the combined GDP’s of the bottom 18% of countries.
• About .97% of US GDP
• About .2% of the entire world’s GDP.

I’m a recipient of the products of the good research that’s done in this country, and I won’t complain about how much it cost because they make my life much better than it could be.  However, I’m not going to complain that we ‘only’ spend more on medical research than 130 of the countries on the planet spend on everything.

*Use the 2010 WMF GDP numbers

The scene:

An American family watching a Disney movie after dinner, complete with a short cartoon about storks and rain clouds:

Girlie Bear:  What’s with the storks?
Irish Woman:  That’s an old wive’s tale.  They used to tell children that storks brought babies so they didn’t have to explain the exact way that you make a baby.
DaddyBear, trying to be a wise ass:   How exactly do we make babies?
Irish Woman, without losing a beat:   You take a nap, apparently.  The rest is a mystery to you.