The Favre and I
It was a romance many thought would span the breadth of time and teach us all about the true meaning of love. But like all true love, one day it withered on the vine. Such is the tale of Brett Favre, fresh off his 17th retirement, and his #1 media sweetheart Peter King. Slate traces their relationship from its earliest days of smitten infatuation, to the cruel breakup amidst rumors of a Favre/Madden tryst in the back of the Madden Cruiser. Will they ever reconcile? We'll see, since Favre will never retire, King will have plenty of opportunities to fall back in love.
All the President’s Zombies
Paul Krugman decides to use the TB metaphor method of choice -- ZOMBIES!!! -- to describe the health care debate and the seeming undead rise of Reaganism in the "government is bad" arguments against health care reform. Discredited ideas that keep rising from the dead inexplicably to menace British comedy duos, the greater Pittsburgh area, and women named Barbara. Here's an idea: shoot the zombies in the head. Either get some juice behind discrediting these ideas/getting news organizations to point out that they've been discredited....or just kill anyone who repeats them. Either/or. It's really up to you, Paul.
BERNIE 'DYING' IN JAIL
Awwwww, why does cancer always happen to the good ones? Could his confession and positioning as the sole fall guy for the entire Ponzi scheme be his attempt at cleansing his soul before death? Who gives a fuck? God has smited him with a plague for his many affronts against humanity. On a lighter note, the Post also divulges that Madoff hangs out with the Native Americans in prison, partaking in their sweat lodges, and also pals around with "the homosexual posse", but that other ethnicities are trying to recruit him into their gangs. I can think of no funnier thing than Bernie Madoff weighing the relative merits of joining the Mexican Mafia or the Black Guerrilla Family with his "homosexual posse."
Healthcare insurers get upper hand
I don't want to alarm you, but it seems that heath insurers might stand to reap a financial windfall and are might be exceedingly thrilled with the way health care reform negotiations have seemed to ditch the only possible chink in their armor: a public plan. By which I mean they are going to get rich and are really happy about it. Whew! I was worried for a second that these useful pillars of American society weren't going to make out like bandits. Thank God we have people in Congress looking out for them, instead of the teeming masses of peasants who want just a touch more gruel in their bowl.
Obama’s Team Is Lacking Most of Its Top Players
Wonder how the Obama Administration is supposed to run any of the Government Department's with only 43% of it's political appointees in place? Yeah, so are a lot of people. But hey, it's just the beauty of our system, where the President is expected to run the government without our legislative bodies or vetting processes actually allowing anyone to be put in place to run the government. Marvel at Hillary Clinton going to a international forum on international development, but having no one manning the Agency for International Development. Or holding a summit for nuclear nonproliferation with no nonproliferation secretary. Remember: when America does finally collapse under the weight of its own ineffective bullshit, try to act surprised when stuff like this is brought up.
Showing posts with label profiteering. Show all posts
Showing posts with label profiteering. Show all posts
Monday, August 24, 2009
Friday, July 18, 2008
Cutting corners and electrocuting soldiers
If you had to guess whether or not facing down insurgents and al Qaeda or taking a shower and hanging around the base was more dangerous, you'd probably pick the terrorists. You might be wrong.
Shoddy wiring on US military bases has been responsible for hundreds of fires (averaging out to almost 1.5 fires a day during the most recently measured period) and dozens of deaths from fire and electrical shocks. The Army has classified this problem as the 'most urgent noncombat safety hazard for soldiers in Iraq.'
What government contractor is responsible for these mistakes of incompetence that is killing soldiers? Former Halliburton subsidiary and no-bid contractor KBR. KBR is the same company that brought you unsafe drinking water for troops, failing to protect female employees who were sexually assaulted and raped, and they overbilled the Government for their inadequate services.
The electrical problems are also electrician 101, things that any idiot who spent one day on a job site would know, things like: don't expose wiring and ground the distribution panels. But then they didn't hire skilled electricians to do the work, the hired unskilled Iraqis and pocketed the profit. KBR was warned by some of their employees about this, but their concerns were either ignored or not understood becuase the officials lacked the training.
The Pentagon also knew of these problems and did little to address them until Green Beret, Staff Sgt. Ryan D. Maseth was electrocuted in January. But even now they aren't addressing how widespread the problem is, just the specific circumstances that specifically led to Maseth's death. Unsurprisingly we also learn that there weren't enough government inspectors to do the job either.
Quite simply this is war profiteering. When you so drastically cut the level of competence and skilled labor so you can squeeze as many nickels out of the project as you can, so much so that your awful work is killing soldiers, you are committing a crime.
And when degenerate flag humping cretins like Joe Lieberman, control oversight panels that could do something about this and refuse even to hold hearings, they can also rot. But maybe Joe is too busy stumping for McCain to worry about the troops. Why should John and Joe worry if soldiers are killed in showers, they're too busy trying to get them killed in Iran.
That the policies of Bush, Cheney and the Pentagon led to this and are standing in the way of getting something done are of little surprise. When you emphasize free money for the taking and speed over competence and oversight, this is all you can expect. But, at this point, this is just another thing that's etched into their already awful legacy.
Shoddy wiring on US military bases has been responsible for hundreds of fires (averaging out to almost 1.5 fires a day during the most recently measured period) and dozens of deaths from fire and electrical shocks. The Army has classified this problem as the 'most urgent noncombat safety hazard for soldiers in Iraq.'
What government contractor is responsible for these mistakes of incompetence that is killing soldiers? Former Halliburton subsidiary and no-bid contractor KBR. KBR is the same company that brought you unsafe drinking water for troops, failing to protect female employees who were sexually assaulted and raped, and they overbilled the Government for their inadequate services.
The electrical problems are also electrician 101, things that any idiot who spent one day on a job site would know, things like: don't expose wiring and ground the distribution panels. But then they didn't hire skilled electricians to do the work, the hired unskilled Iraqis and pocketed the profit. KBR was warned by some of their employees about this, but their concerns were either ignored or not understood becuase the officials lacked the training.
The Pentagon also knew of these problems and did little to address them until Green Beret, Staff Sgt. Ryan D. Maseth was electrocuted in January. But even now they aren't addressing how widespread the problem is, just the specific circumstances that specifically led to Maseth's death. Unsurprisingly we also learn that there weren't enough government inspectors to do the job either.
Quite simply this is war profiteering. When you so drastically cut the level of competence and skilled labor so you can squeeze as many nickels out of the project as you can, so much so that your awful work is killing soldiers, you are committing a crime.
And when degenerate flag humping cretins like Joe Lieberman, control oversight panels that could do something about this and refuse even to hold hearings, they can also rot. But maybe Joe is too busy stumping for McCain to worry about the troops. Why should John and Joe worry if soldiers are killed in showers, they're too busy trying to get them killed in Iran.
That the policies of Bush, Cheney and the Pentagon led to this and are standing in the way of getting something done are of little surprise. When you emphasize free money for the taking and speed over competence and oversight, this is all you can expect. But, at this point, this is just another thing that's etched into their already awful legacy.
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