Snowstorm Forces Cancellation of Giants-Vikings Game in Minneapolis

The massive snowstorm that has blanketed the Upper Midwest and Great Plains has caused all manner of mayhem for transportation and now it's affected NFL plans as well.

The New York Giants were initially unable to fly directly into Minneapolis because of the weather and the game was delayed until Monday to give the team time to reach the game site - the Hubert Humphrey Metrodome.

Now, there are reports that the air-supported dome has collapsed under the tremendous weight of the snow that has fallen. That means that the game cannot be played at the Metrodome for at least several days.

That throws the schedules for both the Giants and Vikings into chaos, and it further affects the NFL playoffs as the Giants are in the playoff hunt. For those who still follow Brett Favre, the delay means that Favre may be able to extend his streak of consecutive games played as he will now have more time to recover from his shoulder injury.

UPDATE:
NFL officials and the teams are considering alternative locations because the Metrodome is unavailable. Not only did the roof collapse, but several tears in the roof mean that repairs will take some time. Alternative locations include Detroit, but outdoor locations are not likely to be considered because the Giants did not travel with their outdoor gear (they were expecting to play indoors).

It is possible that the game may end up being played at the Meadowlands on Monday night, because the league wants to maintain the schedule.

UPDATE:


The game will be played Monday night in Detroit at 7pm.

I-35 Bridge Reopens

The new I-35 bridge over the Mississippi River has opened just over one year after the truss span collapsed, killing more than a dozen people and injuring 145.

Here's a time lapse video and live camera of the bridge. The new bridge, designed and built by Figg Bridges and Flatiron Construction, was reopened three months ahead of schedule and incorporates additional lanes, is light-rail capable, and is designed to last 100 years. The company will get a bonus of up to $27 million for completing it ahead of schedule.

Palin's Fine Speech: Now the Hard Part

Like Sen. Barack Obama last week, Governor Sarah Palin delivered a fine speech tonight introducing herself to the American people and delivering a forceful argument against the Obama/Biden ticket.

Palin's selection as Sen. John McCain's running mate certainly shook things up, and got the media into an absolute tizzy, to say nothing of the frothing "progressives" who sneer at the very idea that a woman is running on the Republican ticket.

The contrasts between the two campaigns couldn't be any clearer. As Palin noted, the Democrats simply cannot come to terms with the idea of victory in Iraq and the only time the word victory comes to mind, it's only in terms of their political chances. The Democrats have put politics ahead of country, and it will be to their everlasting detriment. People are having their eyes opened to the venomous attacks on Palin's family, and she handled those attacks with dignity and grace. She poked fun at the grandiose extravaganza that the Obama campaign put on at Invesco Field.

She also provided a solid defense for the Republican ticket, noting the clear disparities in experience, judgment and character.

Still, there is much to be done between now and election day. The sprint is on to convince the rest of America - that vital segment of undecided voters and independents, that Palin was the right choice and can withstand the scrutiny. Tomorrow, John McCain will deliver his most important speech to date, making the attempt to define the rest of his campaign and to show that his vision for America is one that most Americans are simply more comfortable with. An America whose best days still lie ahead, and that change for change's sake isn't a policy. He's got to show that if you want change - to get rid of corruption and graft, to get lower taxes and a stronger economy - you need to choose the candidates who have a solid policy platform to get there.

When Anarchists Attack; Day 1 Of GOP Convention

Ah, the joys of watching organized anarchists engage in not-nearly-as-random acts of violence as one would suspect. A group of anarchists was caught throwing bags of concrete off overpasses. Lovely.

The so-called anti-war types also got in on the violent fun and games. Too bad these people aren't so much anti-war as simply anti-American. They are fully funded subsidiaries of the raving loon left.

Protesters smashed windows, punctured car tires and threw bottles Monday during an anti-war march to the site of the Republican National Convention. Police used pepper spray in confrontations with demonstrators and arrested five.

Instead of the single coherent march that organizers had hoped for, fringe groups of anarchists and others wrought havoc along the streets between the state Capitol and the Xcel Energy Center where the convention was taking place.

I guess they didn't like seeing so much plate glass windows in pristine condition that they had to break things up a bit.

And that's not the half of it. A bunch of protesters got arrested for putting together a whole assortment of goodies for use in the protests and hoped-for rioting that would follow. The police managed to infiltrate these groups and arrested a whole bunch of them and their leaders.

At least five suspected leaders of the RNC Welcoming Committee, a self-described anarchist group, were taken to the Hennepin County jail, and another was being sought, said Ramsey County Sheriff Bob Fletcher.

On Saturday afternoon, he displayed a number of the confiscated items: a gun, throwing knives, a bow and arrows, flammable liquids, paint, slingshots, rocks and buckets of urine.

"We know these things were going to be used as weapons," Fletcher said, a charge protesters and their advocates vigorously disputed.

The ACLU will inevitably claim that these people's rights were trampled. The police knew that the anarchists were going to pull some kind of stunt, and they thwarted at least some of the mayhem.

Well, while the law enforcement agencies have their hands full outside the convention venues, the convention itself is getting underway under more somber circumstances as the GOP has scaled back the celebrations with Hurricane Gustav battering the Gulf Coast. The focus will be on the storm victims, not McCain.

UPDATE:
56 arrests made thus far, and we're only getting started.

Police estimates of the crowd shifted several times during the event, ranging from 2,000 to 10,000. The crowd was clearly in the thousands. Late Monday afternoon, long after the antiwar marchers had dispersed, police requested and got 150 Minnesota National Guard soldiers to help control splinter groups near downtown.

Members of the Connecticut delegation said they were attacked by protesters when they got off their bus near the Xcel Center, KMSP-TV reported. Delegate Rob Simmons told the station that a group of protesters came toward his delegation and tried to rip the credentials off their necks and sprayed them with a toxic substance that burned their eyes and stained their clothes.

One 80-year-old member of the delegation had to be treated for injuries, and several other delegates had to rinse their eyes and clothing, the station reported.

Meanwhile, Joe Biden, who said that today isn't a day for politics, engaged in a little bit of politics (to say nothing of getting his facts wrong on Iraq). That's right folks, Sen. Biden, who had called for a partition of Iraq, thinks that it's Sen. McCain who was out of sync with the rest of the world, even as the US handed over day-to-day control of Anbar province to the Iraqi government. That, for those who haven't been paying attention (and that clearly includes Sen. Biden), is one of the most violent-prone provinces in Iraq and was home base for al Qaeda and the insurgency. The Anbar Awakening, based on US surge tactics, broke the insurgency and al Qaeda in Iraq.