Building Bridges . . .

I saw on the news recently that China's Jiaozhou Bay Bridge had opened. 

Well, whatever you might think about China as a country, you have to hand it to them: Whatever they decide they need, they get off their backsides and go for it. They get their priorities right and they get things done.

I think the politicians in a lot of countries, including my own, would do well to learn one simple lesson from this: 

Stop wasting money going to war, and trying to solve other counties problems. 

That would free up an awful lot of money to provide job security, decent health care, and pensions for your own people.
Not to mention bringing our own transportation infrastructure into the 21st century.

And, you wouldn't need to be robbing the ordinary working man in the street to pay for it all, or bail out the bankers.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

The Jiaozhou Bay Bridge is located in eastern China's Shandong province. It transects Jiaozhou Bay, connecting Huangdao District, the city of Qingdao and Hongdao Island (the bridge has 3 entry/exit points. Opened on 30 June 2011, it reduces the road distance between Qingdao and Huangdao.It is 42.5 kilometres (26.4 miles) long, making it the world's longest bridge over water as of July 2011. The bridge opened at the same time as the nearby Qing-Huang Tunnel, both part of the Jiaozhou Bay Connection Project. The bridge took four years to build, and employed at least 10,000 people. 450,000 tons of steel and 2.3 million cubic metres of concrete were used in the construction of the bridge. It is designed to be able to withstand severe earthquakes, typhoons, and collisions with ships. The bridge is supported by more than 5,000 pillars, 35 metres (115 ft) wide, carrying six lanes and two shoulders, and cost more than 10 billion yuan (US$1.5 billion).