Shit parts in cars ...

Ain't as bad as putting them in airplanes. I've written quite a few times over at F&G about customers trying to save a little money by buying cheap parts and bringing them to me to install. Hey, I'll put anything (unless it's blatantly unsafe) on your car that you want, but don't come crying to me when the shit fails long before it's expected to (shops generally buy top-quality parts because they don't want to do the job again - and for free - or have to warranty shit). In the big scheme of things, it's not a big thing in a car; you don't have to worry about falling 30,000 feet when it fails.

U.S. Federal air-safety regulators are investigating how unauthorized parts were installed on at least 42 Southwest Airlines jets, the Wall Street Journal said, citing people familiar with the details.

The regulators are examining why the carrier's maintenance-control procedures failed to flag the problem, the people told the paper.

...

Of course the bottom line is more important than a couple hundred lives. The shareholders demand it! Pencil-whip them forms!

I've seen guys in the Air Force go to Leavenworth for doing that.

Great thanks to Chris for the link.

Quote of the Day - Zwei

Montag:

Drug Limbaugh marks the passing of Ted Kennedy with all the class of a shit stain on a wino's underwear ...

80% of us are Bolsheviks now ...

At least, according to AARP:

A new survey commissioned by the AARP asks respondents to what degree they support or oppose "[s]tarting a new federal health insurance plan that individuals could purchase if they can't afford private plans offered to them" -- a public option, in other words. The results are interesting, though not necessarily surprising to those who have been closely following the debate.

...

8 in 10 want a public option, and those who vote against it think they're gonna get reelected? Not if I can help it.

Great thanks to Mr. Mass Transit for the link.

The Few, The Proud, The Forgotten

The other day I got a big flat envelope from The Commandant Of The Marine Corps.

Uh-oh.

My first thought was I better brush up on my Pashto. My second thought was could I con swindle blackmail stuff him in a seabag talk Fixer into trading the blue uniform for a green one so we could go mexineer on crapcan Humvees in Afghanistan together. Maybe we could get up to some mischief...

A coupla days later I worked up the intestinal fortitude to open the envelope. Turns out it was a 12-page summary of the report of The Camp Lejeune Historic Drinking Water Project that I posted about in March of this year. I read it in between a series of short naps and highly recommend it to anyone who has trouble sleeping.

The summary had lotsa charts and graphs and big words and technobabble and I kinda got the impression that the summary was a great big whitewash since those kinda things almost always are.

Full summary here.

Conclusion and Recommendation

It cannot be determined reliably whether diseases and disorders experienced by former residents and workers at Camp Lejuene are associated with their exposure to contaminants in the water supply because of data shortcomings and methodological limitations, and these limitations cannot be overcome with additional study. Thus, the committee concludes that there is no scientific justification for the Navy and Marine Corps to wait for the results of additional health studies before making decisions about how to follow up on the evident solvent exposures on the base and their possible health consequences. The services should undertake the assessments they deem appropriate to determine how to respond in light of the available information.

The last sentence kinda puzzled me. Respond? To what? Whaddya say about 30 years of supplying contaminated water to many tens of thousands of Marines and their dependents? Say they're sorry? Say 'tough shit'? Oops? Semper Fi?

Then today I ran across this article in the LATimes and it became crystal clear:

Camp Lejeune residents blame rare cancer cluster on the water

For three decades, dry-cleaning chemicals and industrial solvents laced the water used by local Marines and their families. Mike Partain and at least 19 others developed male breast cancer.

The "how to respond" relates to LAWSUITS. Many, many lawsuits. Some in the works already, and no doubt many more now that this info is out in the open.

In 2005, Justice Department and Environmental Protection Agency investigations found no criminal conduct by Corps officials.

However, an EPA investigator told Congress in 2007 that he had recommended obstruction of justice charges against some Camp Lejeune officials, but was overruled by prosecutors in the George W. Bush administration.

The Marine Corps waited until 1999 -- 14 years after closing the contaminated wells -- to begin notifying former base residents. That effort was part of a federal health study aimed at children conceived or born at the base during the contamination years.

Figures. IOKIYAR.

There is some hope that Uncle Sam's Mutilated Crotch will be made to do the right thing:

Last month, Sen. Richard M. Burr (R-N.C.) introduced a bill (S.1518 - 111th Congress) that would require the government to cover healthcare costs for Marines and family members who were exposed to the contaminated water.

One would think that's the least they could do. The damage is done. They can't undo it. All they can do is mitigate the damage.

Partain, whose father and grandfather were Marine officers, is tall and burly, with a shaved head and black goatee. His face reddens and his voice cracks when he discusses the toxic water. He maintains a website -- The Few, the Proud, the Forgotten -- where he posts material documenting the contamination and the stories of those who say it made them ill.

It's an extensive site. Here's a sample:

The water provided by the Tarawa Terrace and Hadnot Point distribution systems was highly contaminated with various chemicals, including the VOCs (volatile organic compounds) known as PCE (Tetrachloroethylene aka Perchloroethylene), TCE (Trichloroethylene), DCE (Dichloroethylene), Vinyl Chloride and BTEX (Benzene, Toluene, Ethylbenzene, and Xylene).These chemicals are either known or suspected human carcinogens. Many Marines, Sailors, their families and loyal civilian employees have been affected by the contamination in various ways including, but not limited to: liver cancer, kidney cancer, breast cancer, bladder cancer, ovarian cancer, prostate cancer, cervical cancer, lung cancer, leukemia, non Hodgkins lymphoma, liver disease, miscarriages, birth defects (cleft palate, heart defects, Choanal atresia, neural tube defects, low birth weight, and small for gestational age),etc. Unfortunately, many of these families still have not been notified by the USMC of the danger from their exposure. In 1987 Camp Lejeune was recommended for listing as a Superfund site on the National Priorities List (NPL) by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Camp Lejeune was officially listed as a Superfund site in 1989.

I got a hunch that, short of legislation, the Corps will try to wiggle out of its responsibility to all those affected people. This is nothing new. All the services have contamination problems at all their bases, some dating back to the Civil War, no doubt. I'm sure that 90% of them qualify as toxic Superfund sites.

If somebody speaks out. The services do an excellent, if despicable, job of keeping this kinda shit under wraps.

Me? I didn't drink much water back then. I ain't gonna die from this shit.

I sure hope not anyway. Also, it'd be a great loss to the world to have my gorgeous manboobs lopped off.

Quote of the Day

I can't remember where I saw this and I have to paraphrase a little:

The right-wingers are going ballistic because their country was stolen from them by unarmed American voters.

I checked thrice ...

To make sure I wasn't reading the Onion, or Fark, or Ironic Times. It's time to call the men in the white suits for the Republicans:

Michael Steele, chairman of the Republican National Committee, this week revealed a secret Republican plan that would end up eliminating all federal farm subsidies; closing down Yellowstone and Yosemite national parks; selling off the interstate highway system; and canceling Head Start, subsidized school lunches and the entire college loan program.

...

Steele's stunning announcement brings the conservative strategy of "starving the beast" to a new level. Under the guise of protecting the elderly, Republicans hope to realize their dream of eliminating half a dozen Cabinet agencies, firing tens of thousands of government workers and ending government regulation as we know it.

Steele's op-ed was the latest salvo in his party's campaign to defeat President Obama's health-care reform effort at all costs and build public support for a Republican alternative that remains, to this day, a closely held secret. The new Seniors' Health Care Bill of Rights, however, hints at the outlines of the GOP domestic strategy.

...

The country's top Republican official also vowed to cut off all federal funding for research to determine what are the most effective treatments for heart disease, cancer, diabetes and even that new scourge, restless leg syndrome. Left unclear was whether he prefers to have such research done by the pharmaceutical and medical-device industries, but one suspects that is the case.

On the issue of end-of-life care, Steele was uncompromising: In a Republican world, no government funds could be used to pay doctors to provide information about living wills, hospices or palliative care, whether seniors and their families ask for it or not.

...

The Crazy runs strong in that one, Sitzpinkler ...

Great thanks to Cookie Jill for the link.

Ted's dead ...

He got himself elected the year I was born. Too bad he didn't live to see any sort health care reform. Let's hope his grandchildren live long enough to see the seeds of his labor come to fruition.

Update:

The best eulogy on the intarwebs. Our buddy Nucks:

...

Either way, we just lost a very influential advocate for us fucking peons, like him or not, the man did great things for us little people and I will be damned if I can come up with a name that comes close to what he did for us, maybe Fiengold can get busy.

...

Quote of the Day

The Rude One:

...

If there was a single, demonstrable instance of a correlation between threatening to power drill the nutsack of Abu al-Fuckingbadguywithamoustache and the prevention of a terrorist attack, that shit would be a new book in the right-wing Bible. It'd be the trump card for every conservative bag of fuck on every news show, in every Bush administration self-justification memoir; it'd be tattooed on John Woo's sneering lip and on Alberto Gonzales's dick. Instead, all we get is the assertion that torture worked by the people whose asses' freedom depends on it.

...

If that brain-dead scumbag Peter King ...

Hates it, you know they're probably on the right track:

...

GOP Congressman Peter King -- the ranking member of the House Homeland Security Committee -- had this rancid outburst today in Politico regarding Eric Holder's decision to investigate whether laws were broken by the Bush administration's torture ...

I saw that idiot Bill Bennett on Wolfie today (The tanner-by-the-day Suzanne 'I could be John Boner's daughter' Malveaux substituting, Carville was his usual jabbering monkey-on-crack self) getting all worked up about Holder's investigation too. Maybe I was a bit hasty yesterday. If wingnut heads are exploding, maybe this investigation might lead farther than we all think. I'll be happy to be wrong.

Update:

Larisa:

...

Hmmm. So what is Rep. King so entirely furious about again? That his beloved CIA is under fire or that his beloved party committed war crimes, which he does not want investigated? I am guessing the lat[t]er. Perhaps King knows something that he is keeping quiet and a special prosecutor would be just the right type of person to pull it out of him. Is that why he is so worried?

...

I'd drive to the federal building just to see him perpwalked inside.

Circle Of Accountability

Or "Torturers' Stay-Outta-Jail Circle Jerk". Take your pick.

Lock 'em all up. Let God sort 'em out.

Click to embiggen

And, drills with cords are soooo last century! Cordless ones probably don't have enough battery life to really do torture right, but air drills do. When yer drillin' inta a guy's skull, the noise an air drill makes will make him think he's at the dentist. A bonus 'force multiplier', so to speak. Heh.

'Toon is from YubaNet.

Sibel Edmonds' Deposition: Video And Transcript Released

Brad Blog

Long-gagged FBI whistleblower's full under-oath testimony from Ohio election case, details Congressional blackmail, bribery, espionage, infiltration, more...

There's 200 minutes of video. Enjoy.

I don't much care about the details of the "Turkish connection", and I don't care if we get the bastards for overtime parking as long as we get them.

Nutz ...

Dickipedia via our pal Montag:

...

Like her pal Palin, Bachmann is deceptively attractive. While Palin is attractive in a "if she just put down that gun, took off those glasses, and started forming complete sentences" sort of way, Bachmann has the whole girl next door thing working for her. But only if you grew up next to an insane asylum.

...

Ick ...

I just hope Spike was on top ...

Girl haters and goat humpers ...

This post stays on top today - G

I've written until I'm blue in the face about our involvement in Afghanistan. It's five or six years past our 'window of opportunity missed', when we could have done something worthwhile with that place. Unfortunately, both for our troops whose lives were/are wasted over there and the Afghan people, the conflict was merely a stepping stone for George Bush, an entry into Iraq. I doubt anybody even gave a shit at the time about the outcome (well, except for building a Caspian Sea gas pipeline). Now, with almost double the amount of troops on the ground since January (thank you, Mr. Obama), the theater commander says the situation "is serious and it is deteriorating".

So, once again, we see that going to war for the wrong reasons ("liberation", "winning hearts and minds", nation-building, oil, gas) has landed us in the middle of a "quagmire". Once again, our "American exceptionalism" has led us to believe we are able to do things other empires (British, Soviet) couldn't. U-S-A!

We've been there what, seven or eight years now? It'll be a decade before we leave (if then) because the unit commanders are talking about "turn[ing] this thing around from a security standpoint in the next 12 to 18 months." So we'll actually start to see progress in a year and a half? How long after that before we start to leave? Another year? Two? How long is that in terms of lives lost and money wasted? Just asking, being that everybody's all concerned about how much health care costs. We coulda paid for a 'public option' six times over for what we spent in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Listen. You go to war for two reasons (ideally). Vengeance and defense. Going to war for any other reason usually presages a bad outcome (not that the aftermath of war is 'good' in any estimation). Afghanistan should have been about vengeance, and you can't exact vengeance if you're worried about collateral damage. You go to war to destroy an enemy's capability to attack you anymore. It's an all-or-nothing deal because a lot of people die in war and a lot of shit is blown up. War is not about kid gloves, it's about making sure the idiot will think twice the next time he gets the idea to kill your people. Remember 9/11? It should have been a retaliation, vengeance.

Sending a couple hundred thousand Afghan souls to sit at Allah's right hand probably would have done it. Cold, yes, but that's war. Don't go to war if you ain't serious. Ask Bob McNamara's ghost how that goes. Ask a half million Japanese ghosts how that goes, but Japan has sworn off war for 60-odd years so far, so have the Germans. Wonder why? I know what happened to Germany during that war and I know no one there wants war again (no one in their right mind anyway). We should have created the situation where, for the better part of a century, the Afghans* would never dream of giving safe haven to international criminals. A situation where, after a year of burying their dead, they would say no mas. What we have now can only end badly, as it is in Iraq.

It's time for us, as we've done in Iraq, to set a timetable to leave Afghanistan before we waste more lives and money. We, like with everything we've done under Bush/Cheney, did it completely wrong, for the wrong reasons, and it's time to end the bloodshed. The "War on Terror" was an ill-conceived notion from the start, more a propaganda exercise than national defense and it's time for us to realize fighting terrorism is a law enforcement effort with a military component if needed. Sending soldiers and Marines traipsing through the Hindu Kush chasing these clowns is like eradicating an anthill, one ant at a time. We have to face the fact we've fucked up a lot over the past 8 years and Afghanistan is one of those major fuckups. It's time to go. It's time to put the "War on Terror" to bed, once and for all.

Update (Tuesday morning):

*After sleeping on it, Pakistani Waziristan should've got some of this too instead of throwing money at them. Loyalty over there only lasts as long as the money faucet is open (many times, not even then).

Aw, Christ ...

Secret Kenyan Muslim to change GW Bush Glorious Bullhorn Day into Hate America Day, writes the Amerikkkan exSpectorator’s cranky, tinfoiled sap Matthew ‘dumb’ Vadum ...

Kill me.

We'll get a few 'bad apples' ...

And the authors of the torture regime will go free:

...

Attorney General Eric Holder today confirmed what has been suspected for many weeks: he has ordered what he calls "a preliminary review into whether federal laws were violated in connection with the interrogation of specific detainees at overseas locations." Holder's decision does not amount to the appointment of a Special Prosecutor, since a preliminary review is used, as he emphasized, "to gather information to determine whether there is sufficient predication to warrant a full investigation of a matter." More important, the scope of the "review" is limited at the outset to those who failed to "act in good faith and within the scope of legal guidance" -- meaning only those interrogators and other officials who exceeded the torture limits which John Yoo and Jay Bybee approved. Those who, with good faith, tortured within the limits of the OLC memos will "be protected from legal jeopardy" (the full Holder statement is here). [em and link in orig]

...

I'm thoroughly disgusted. This just accepts as legal the precepts laid down by Yoo and those in Cheney's office who seemed to regard torture the way I regard lesbian porn. It's Yoo, Addington, and the rest who should be the first up against the wall. Instead we'll have the equivalent of sergeants and privates taking the fall again while that little twat goes on fucking up the next generation at Bazerkley.

What the fuck? Who's in charge around here?

Good blogging day, just not here...

I spent my blogging time today following up on yesterday's post over at Fixer & Gordon. Fun gearhead stuff. Go see.

See yas tomorrow.

Oh, the irony...

Ironic Times

LOS ANGELES: THOUSANDS SHOW UP TO RECEIVE FREE HEALTH CARE
And complain about socialism.

Bernanke Sees Light at End of Tunnel
But not sure which end

Obama Makes First Appointments to Death Panels
Names Lex Luthor, Cruella De Vil, Darth Vader, Ming the Merciless, Dr. No.

Baby Boomers Still Getting High
But now it's under a doctor's supervision.

Demonstrators Show Up at Obama Health Care Events
Protesting takeover of government by unarmed voters in last election.

Ironic Times is extra good today. Too many to quote. Go see.

Saturday Emmylou Blogging On Sunday

Nice slide show that I think Fixer will like.

Emmylou Harris and The Band ~ Evangeline

Thanks to Jumadurski, Brazil.

Me and Mrs. G are jet-settin' all over the place this weekend. Yesterday we rode up to Loyalton to visit our friends Pat and Rob (sounds like a mugging technique. Heh). Interestingly, Pat is from East Islip NY and filled me in on Brentwood. Nothing I didn't know...

Today we're off to Portola Railroad Days to see our friends the Storz Performance Trials Demo Team (scroll down a little). Last year, they put on their show in the front yard of the local cop shop. This year it's raining a little so I hope it's inside, but then I'm a brat. Heh. Then Mexican food and home.

I'm taking my new video camera and hope to get some good YouTube material. Look for it as soon as my desktop gets outta the shop with a new power supply.

See yas.

Quote of the Day

Comrade Misfit:

...

Intimidating people as a political tool is not democracy. It is fascism. And more to the point of this post, if you feel the need to show up at a political or public [event] while ostentatiously carrying weapons, then you are both a whiny ass crybaby with a gun and you are a disgrace to the the concepts of freedom and democracy.