Free Republic

It took 410 days to build the Empire State Building, four years to erect the Golden Gate Bridge. The Pentagon took a year and a half, the Alaska Highway just nine months. These days it takes longer to build an overpass. For instance, planning for Boston’s “Big Dig” officially began in the early 1980s with a budget of $2.6 billion, but ground wasn’t broken until 1991 and the last ramp wasn’t opened until 2006. The final estimated cost: $22 billion. According to the Boston Globe, it won’t be paid off until 2038. Meanwhile, the “race” to rebuild the World Trade...

BARABOO - From straw and steel silos to emus and elk, a wide variety of crops, livestock and equipment had their day in the sun in Wisconsin agriculture. In some cases, the shift is like a swinging pendulum, with a product or technology falling out of and then back into vogue. But others are a flash in the pan. "Sometimes people believe so much in what they're doing, especially if they've got a significant investment in it, they are 100 percent convinced that they made the right choice and that there is a future for whatever it is they're doing,"...

The Taxpayers League of Minnesota has started a great feature, which highlights extravagent government structures in that state, The "Taj Mahal of the Week." Nearly every day, I drive past a stunningly beautiful and extravagent public school campus in berkeley. Perched on a prime hillside lot, with incredible views of the Bay, bridges, and mountains, the building itself features a large glassed-in atrium, the finest materials, and beautiful lanscaping on its oversized grounds. It must have cost at least 50 million dollars. To the causal eye, it looks more like an elegant corporate headquarters building than a school. Of course,...