Bridge over ancient waters (Berlusconi plans "Worlds Mightiest Bridge" Accross Straight of Messina)

New Zealand Herald ^ | 19.05.2004 | PETER POPHAM

[mallardx]

Has anybody seen the bridge? Where is that confounded bridge?

[Straight Vermonter]

Twixt Scilla and Charybdis.

[presidio9]

ping

[So Cal Rocket]

[xsrdx]

You'd better straiten up, mister, and check your spelling.

This could be Hugh.

[So Cal Rocket]

More pics here:

http://www.strettodimessina.it/pages/prog-e.html

[presidio9]

I made a series mistake there.

[Clemenza]

Calabria has effectively become one big ghost town filled with aging farmers and shepherds. All the young people who haven't already left for Milan, Rome or Torino are planning to leave. Whole villages have been abandoned.

This smells like another public works project for the "Mezzogiorno" (Southern Italy) that will satiate voters down there. I wish Berlusconi would at least couple this development with added pressure on local governors to crack down on corruption and encourage economic development of Calabria and Sicily. Unfortunately, old habits die hard down there, being a "family oriented" region and all.

[headsonpikes]

Hey - datsa nuts!

[Darksheare]

Berlusconi looking for a legacy?

[presidio9]

[FormerLib]

I can't find the bridge.

[southernnorthcarolina]

Reminds me of an old story...

A man was walking along a California beach and stumbled across an old lamp. He picked it up and rubbed it and out popped a genie. The genie said, "OK, OK. You released me from the lamp, blah blah blah. This is the fourth time this month and I'm getting a little sick of these wishes so you can forget about three. You only get one wish!"

The man sat and thought about it for awhile and said, "I've always wanted to go to Hawaii but I'm scared to fly and I get very seasick. Could you build me a bridge to Hawaii so I can drive over there to visit?"

The genie laughed and said, "That's impossible. Think of the logistics of that! How would the supports ever reach the bottom of the Pacific? Think of how much concrete...how much steel! No, think of another wish."

The man said OK and tried to think of a really good wish. Finally, he said, "I've been married and divorced four times. My wives always said that I don't care and that I'm insensitive. So, I wish that I could understand women...know how they feel inside and what they're thinking when they give me the silent treatment...know why they're crying, know what they really want when they say nothing...know how to make them truly happy..."

The genie said, "You want that bridge two lanes or four?"

[Snickersnee]

The Messina bridge, likely to cost at least €4.6 billion ($9.2 billion)

(Them's Kiwi dollars, pardner. US $ is more like five billion, altho it will probably cost three times that in the end. Look for the union label.)

[ken5050]

LOL......very funny..here's another variant of the same old theme..

Man, who's led a somewhat reckless life, finds a lamp on the beach, rubs it, out pops the genie.."OK..you get the usual three wishes, but because you've been an SOB all your life, there's a catch. Whatever you wish for, your WORST enemy, the person you DETEST the most on this planet, will receive TWICE what you wish for."

The guy thinks for a few moments, nods OK, then speaks:

"I'd like 10 beautiful women to satisfy all my sexual desires."

"OK, but your worst enemy will get 20 women.

"I'd like my male organ to double in size."

OK,then, but your WORST enemy, his organ will double, and double, again."

"I'd like to lose ONE testicle"

[hattend]

The Messina bridge, likely to cost at least €4.6 billion ($9.2 billion) and take six years to build, would be a Mafia business opportunity like no other. The Mafia has found it hard to get a foothold on the Italian mainland. It would be ironic if the bridge that was intended to bring Sicily out of backwardness instead enabled the gangsters to branch out into the mainland at last.

Those are some dumb gangsters. They've never heard of a boat or an airplane?

[tom paine 2]

How are real estate prices in Calabria?

[satchmodog9]

Maybe if the Europeans can do more projects like this they would pay more attention to their own homelands and get off our asses.

[hattend]

The Messina bridge, likely to cost at least €4.6 billion ($9.2 billion) and take six years to build, would be a Mafia business opportunity like no other. The Mafia has found it hard to get a foothold on the Italian mainland. It would be ironic if the bridge that was intended to bring Sicily out of backwardness instead enabled the gangsters to branch out into the mainland at last.

Those are some dumb gangsters. They've never heard of a boat or an airplane?