I just read that Iceland’s next Prime Minister will be an openly gay woman.

Johanna Sigurdardottir, 66, is a social Democrat who takes over from a spectacularly failed conservative led government. They’ve been ousted as a result of the severe economic crisis that Iceland is experiencing.

There were massive protests in Reykjavik, and some have termed this a “pots and pan revolution” because many of the protestors marched while banking on pots.

The Pew Research Center just released a poll showing that Denver tops the list of favorite cities.

Nearly half of the people asked said they would rather live somewhere else than where they live now. When asked about specific cities they’d rather live in the top cities were Denver, Seattle, and San Diego.

I’ve lived in all three cities, and I have to say Denver is the best of those. I love it here, and I can fully understand why everyone would want to be here as well.

There are downsides to living here though.

One of them is the viaduct that stretches through the middle of our city for Interstate 70. It is literally falling to pieces, and thousands and thousands of cars and trucks travel over it every day. I avoid it all costs, but it is central to travel in our city.

I firmly believe that if it’s not rebuilt soon it will collapse, and I fear the destruction and death that might result. The problem is that it’s estimated to cost $800 million to replace, and it’s only one of 126 bridges in our state that are rated as “structurally deficient”.

I was hoping that President and Obama and the Democrats in congress would include funding for this and other infrastructure spending in their new economic recovery package. But, alas, it’s not there, and when you see they are using plywood to fix things I think you see why I start panicking.

The entire annual budget for CDOT (Colorado Department of Transportation) bridge program is $27 million, and even that is in jeopardy of cuts because of our state fiscal crisis. We’re looking at cutting nearly 1 billion from our state budget, and all areas are looking at getting much more than a “haircut”.

Some estimates say that in order to get our national infrastructure up to par we would need to spend upwards of 3 or 4 trillion dollars.

The unfortunate thing is that people aren’t motivated by many things besides a crisis, and that crisis must be washed in blood for it to really motivate folks.

I’d just like to see some new bridges so that future generations - and even this one - might have a bit of safety as they drive to work to make money.

~ SamSez