Bushworld

Life Under An Idiot

Kevlar
So, a defense contractor turns out to have been shortchanging the Army on the kevlar they use in helmets for soldiers.

How.. scrupulous.

At the core of the investigation was the contention by two former plant managers that Kevlar woven at Sioux failed to meet the government’s “critical” minimum standard of 35 by 35 threads a square inch. When properly woven, Kevlar, a polymer thread made by Dupont, is stronger than steel, and able to deflect shrapnel and some bullets. Government regulations call for rejecting Kevlar below the 35-by-35 standard. The company “was underweaving,” [The United States attorney for North Dakota, Drew H.] Wrigley said. “That is undebatable,” he said. The factory’s own inspection records often showed weaves of 34 by 34 threads or as low as 32 by 34 and 33 by 34. Looms were “always set for 34 by 34, always,” said Jeff Kenner, who operated and repaired the looms and oversaw crews on all three shifts.

Source: Raw Story

Yeah. No wonder Bush wants to gut whistleblower protections. They can be so.. inconvenient.

"The Bush administration has absolutely not endorsed the concept of whistleblowing—they see it as disloyalty," one senior osc official told me. Bloch's tenure, echoes Sibel Edmonds, a former fbi translator and the founder of the National Security Whistleblowers Coalition, is simply "a very good example that shows that the system is broken." Helped by post-9/11 security fears, the Bush administration has worked to lock down information in all areas of government. "Secrecy has become a central axis of executive branch policy," William Weaver, the Texas professor, testified before Congress this winter.

The administration has fought disclosures by invoking provisions such as the State Secrets Privilege and "sovereign immunity"—the English common-law notion that the king can do no wrong. It has worked behind the scenes on Capitol Hill to undermine whistleblower legislation, and, in the case of the National Security Agency's domestic spying program, has launched a criminal probe to determine the source of leaks to the press. The president himself told reporters that leaking the nsa program had been "a shameful act" and said "the fact that we're discussing this program is helping the enemy." More documents than ever before are being shielded from public view—the number of classifications nearly quadrupled from 1995 to 2005, from 3.6 million to 14.2 million. The rampant classifications put whistleblowers at risk of criminal prosecution: Disclosing classified national security information to someone not cleared to receive it is a felony. In fact, in the administration's view, even members of Congress who sit on the intelligence committees and have top security clearances don't have the right to know some of the government's business. After nsa whistleblower Russ Tice made clear his intention to report the agency's warrantless surveillance program, carried out under a highly classified Special Access Program (sap), the nsa warned him that "neither the staff nor the members of the [Senate and House intelligence committees] are cleared to receive the information covered by the saps."

The courts have also not been kind to whistleblowers. Last May, in what whistleblower lawyer Steve Kohn calls "the single biggest setback for whistleblowers in the courts in the past 25 years," newly appointed Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito cast the tiebreaking vote in Garcetti v. Ceballos, a case involving a prosecutor in the Los Angeles district attorney's office who claimed whistleblower retaliation. Under the ruling, Kohn says, public employees—all 22 million of them—have no First Amendment rights when they are acting in an official capacity, and in many cases are not protected against retaliation. "What that means is for employees who are making these disclosures on the job or in any official capacity, unless they have some statutory protection, they're shit out of luck," says Jeff Ruch, executive director of peer, the whistleblower advocacy group. Kohn estimates that "no less than 90 percent of all whistleblowers will lose their cases on the basis of that decision." Members of Congress—both Democrats and Republicans—scrambled to pass broader protections but failed in the face of opposition from the White House.

Ahh, the removal of the First Amendment, Sovereign Immunity... you have to admire just how open they are about their completely unAmerican, treasonous activities.

Source: Mother Jones

Food Safety a Thing Of the Past
Yet another food contamination scare.

Gee, it would be nice if we had a functioning USDA to watch out for our food supply, wouldn't it?

HARRISBURG, Pennsylvania (AP) -- Gorton's Inc. recalled about 1,000 cases of frozen fish in 10 states Friday after confirming a Pennsylvania customer found pills in her food.

Gorton's said it ordered the recall as a precaution while a laboratory works to determine the nature of the pills. Those tests should be complete early next week.

"Obviously product alteration is a very serious matter," said Jud Reis, vice president of marketing for the company, based in Gloucester, Massachusetts "We are conducting a full investigation into the source of the problem."

Tracy Rowan of New Freedom, Pennsylvania, called police after she bit into one of the pills Sunday and found another on her daughter's plate. On Friday, Reis said the material was some sort of pill, not compressed batter or bread crumbs.

Rowan described the pills as beige and aspirin-size.

Source: CNN.com

Without the USDA, It Falls to Congress to Protect Us
Entire blurb/article:

Members of Congress say they want answers from the owner of a Southern California slaughterhouse involved in last month's massive beef recall.

Congressman John Dingell says members of a House oversight subcommittee will meet Wednesday to vote for a subpoena of Hallmark/Westland Meat Co. owner Steve Mendell. The Michigan Democrat says Mendell will be required to testify next week on Capitol Hill. Mendell was a no-show at a meeting of the subcommittee last week.

Federal officials recalled 143 million pounds of beef last month after the Humane Society of the United States released undercover video showing workers at the slaughterhouse abusing sick and crippled cows.

Nice of him not to show, btw. Respect for the law is a real fading tradition these days.

Source: Raw Story

Proxy Wars
So the US proxy in South America, the ridiculously inept, corrupt, murderous government of Columbia, invaded Ecuador without provocation and in flagrant violation of international law, to murder some of its political opponents (who, it must be said, are also murderous thugs).

The entire region is now set to go up like a tinderbox.

Warning that Colombia could spark a war, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez sent tanks and thousands of troops to the countries' border Sunday and ordered his government's embassy in Bogota closed.


The leftist leader warned Colombia's U.S.-allied government that Venezuela will not permit acts like Saturday's killing of top rebel leader Raul Reyes and 16 other Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia guerrillas at a camp across the border in Ecuador.

...

Chavez said he had just spoken to Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa and that Ecuador was also sending troops to its border with Colombia. Chavez said his Ecuadorean ally told him that Uribe had lied and that the rebels were killed while asleep "in their pajamas."

"This is something very serious. This could be the start of a war in South America," Chavez said. He warned Colombian President Alvaro Uribe: "If it occurs to you to do this in Venezuela, President Uribe, I'll send some Sukhois" — Russian warplanes recently bought by Venezuela.

Chavez is, it's worth noting for the dense, correct here. Colombia invaded a sovereign country without permission to attack people on their soil. It's inflammatory and completely outrageous.

Imagine if Canada launched a cross-border raid on some survivalist group in Upstate New York, if you want a comparison.

Source: Raw Story

Oily
Another day, another national park/monument/treasure violated for oil profits.

WASHINGTON — A subsidiary of Occidental Petroleum has notified the Bureau of Land Management that it would like to explore for oil in a central California national monument.

John Dearing, a BLM spokesman, said the agency can do nothing to stop Vintage Production from testing for oil under the Carrizo Plain National Monument in eastern San Luis Obispo County because the company has owned the mineral rights there since before President Bill Clinton created the monument in 2001.

“Because this is a national monument, there will be environmental concerns that will have to be strongly looked at,” Dearing said. “But they have a right to access.”

The monument's 250,000 acres are not virgin territory for drilling rigs. The monument is just over a hill from the oil fields of Kern County. There is a small amount of production already occurring in remote canyons of the monument.

But Vintage’s holdings are under the heart of the monument grounds, and whatever it does can’t help but affect the natural grasslands and wildlife diversity of the area. The monument contains the last remaining vestiges of San Joaquin Valley grasslands and is home to the greatest concentration of endangered species in the country.

Source: McClatchy

A Puppy and the Culture of Cruelty
This has been making the rounds since yesterday.

(CNN) -- The military is investigating a "shocking and deplorable" YouTube video that seems to show a Marine throwing a puppy off a rocky cliff.

The black-and-white puppy makes a yelping sound as it flies through the air.

"That's mean, that was mean," one companion says off-camera, addressing the alleged puppy thrower by his last name. The fate of the animal is not known.

The Marine is identified on the video and in other Internet postings as a lance corporal stationed at Marine Corps Base Hawaii in Kaneohe.

It's not clear where the video was shot, although the man who appears to throw the puppy and another Marine are in full combat gear with helmets.

What can you expect when your government turns a blind eye to stuff like Abu Ghraib and water torture?

It shouldn't surprise anyone that we're plunging toward an almost cartoonish level of villainy in society now.

Source: CNN.com
Greatscat! (original source for me, still links to a copy of the video)
The Honolulu Advertiser

The Lottery
I remember, a few years ago, reading a sci-fi short story, whose name and author escape me at the moment. It was about a future where health-care is allocated by a cruel lottery system that forces people to risk their lives in a grotesque series of games to earn basic medical care for themselves or others.

Funny how the worst nightmares of yesterday become reality under Bush.

PORTLAND, Ore. - Oregon is conducting a one-of-a-kind lottery, and the prize is health insurance.

The state will start drawing names this week for the chance to enroll in a health care program designed for people not poor enough for Medicaid but too cash-strapped to buy their own insurance.

More than 80,000 people have signed up since registration for the lottery opened in January. Only a
few thousand will be chosen for the program.

"It's better than nothing, it's at least a hope," said Shirley Krueger, 61, who signed up the first day.

It's been more than six months since she could afford to take insulin regularly for her diabetes. That puts her at higher risk for a number of complications, such as kidney failure, heart disease and blindness.

Her part-time job leaves her ineligible for her employer's insurance plan and with too little income to buy her own.

"I'm worried about it. I know it's a death sentence," Krueger said.

An estimated 600,000 people in Oregon are uninsured, according to the Oregon Department of Human Services.

Those selected in the lottery will be eligible for a standard benefit program, which was once a heralded highlight of the Oregon Health Plan.

At its peak in 1995, the program covered 132,000 Oregonians. State budget cuts forced the program to close to newcomers by 2004, but it now has several thousand openings.

The program covers their most basic health services, medications and limited dental, hospital and vision services at little or no cost.

The health insurance lottery winners will be chosen in a series of drawings that could take a few months.

"This is such a wonderful opportunity," said Ellen Pinney, director of the Oregon Health Action Campaign. "We've heard absolutely no complaints, just a lot of hope that they are the ones who will be selected."

Who's up for a stirring round of God Bless America? Hmm?

Source: AZ Central