Last night there was a story on how the Pentagon secretly paid "analysts" in 2002 to leak false information to the media in order to build a case for invading Iraq. This morning there was a radio report on the enormous (future) medical cost of PTSD from Iraq veterans and then I read this article about factory safety and the rise of fatal explosions.
Dust Cloud Settles Over Industries
Georgia Blast Prompts Regulatory Debate; 13 Die, Steel Melts, Sugar Flows Like Lava
Wall Street Journal
May 2, 2008
Dust is surprisingly pervasive and lethal. Factories in industries from sugar to drugs to plastics produce combustible dust that can detonate from as little as the static electricity caused by the movement of the particles themselves.
A safety-board study found that 281 industrial dust-related fires and explosions killed 119 people and caused more than 718 injuries in the U.S. between 1980 and 2005. Preliminary safety-board figures show things have gotten worse in the past three years: There have been an additional 67 fires or explosions, killing 14 and injuring 70. Of the four deadliest accidents the board has investigated since it was created in 1998 three have been caused by dust.
Since the Imperial explosion, lawmakers have become so concerned that the House passed a bill Wednesday that would force OSHA to adopt recommendations made by the National Fire Protection Association to prevent accidents caused by combustible dust, giving OSHA 18 months to write its own regulations. Though the Senate must still vote, the White House has echoed OSHA concerns that the association's recommendations are too specific to be realistically applied to the more than 200,000 workplaces where dust is a threat.
The true impact (and price) of the Bush administration is going to be felt for years and years to come. As bad as things have been, I dont think we have any clue yet about how bad they really are.
Have you been paying attention to these stories. Every week there is another one about government incompetence, gross lack of oversight or outright collusion of agencies and the area they regulate.
If you were counting on the government to protect you or to look out for your well-being, think again.
First we had EPA and the 9/11 dust, then we had FEMA and Katrina. The SEC and Federal Reserve did little to halt the housing bubble or debt-crash. OSHA and factory safety. The EPA and oil drilling in park lands. Airplane safety and the FAA. Secretly Pentagon-paid advisers as "neutral media consultants". The FDA and poisonous drugs, tainted food and lead toys from China. One could go on and on and those are just the big stories that make the national news. Guaranteed there are countless smaller stories that we dont hear about. (Like the town that was completely buried by mine toxic tailings.)
Recently Daniel Shure did an op-ed where he commented that in his 50 years of journalism he has never seen so much government malfeasance. Ouch.
Is it a conscious unwinding of government protections or just the result of cronyism or perhaps a lot of both?
I find the whole thing really disturbing because it is just so huge. It seems that every rock is covering an unpleasant truth. It is so much, so big, I have little faith that voters can grasp it all or that a next president can do much to fix it.
At the same time as all these horror stories, things seem pretty good. For someone to come in and say they need to raise taxes to fix these problems, I think it will be a hard argument to make. The boiled frog phenomenon is alive and well.
It is like our country has become a giant Jenga tower and people are actively pulling bricks out all the time. Sure it is still standing but for how long?
