Senator John McCain is believed to be carrying the new Contagious Skin Cancer strand and Cindy, his wife, may sleep in a separate bedroom because she is afraid to touch his skin.

I've never heard of such a thing. Is there really a contagious cancer?

As someone who currently lives in WV, I have no doubt Clinton has a strong lead in this state. One thing that will help Obama is that a great deal of his support will be in Huntington, Charleston, and Morgantown. Most of Clinton's support is in rural portions of the state.

I think Obama will be able to rally his base in the cities and get very good turn out. This won't make up for such a huge deficit but it should help tighten things up a little.

We've also had three Obama supporters come to our door in the past week with info packets. Based on the handouts, it appears he's trying to do some damage control on the flag pin and "secret Muslim" stuff. All of the things they gave out are how he is pro-veteran and a good Christian.

So far, nobody from the Clinton campaign has called or knocked on our door.

This sounds great for Dems. It was Geraldine Ferraro's husband John Zaccaro's refusal to release his tax records that contributed to Dukakis / Ferraro getting their asses handed to them in the general election

Actually, Dukakis's running mate was Lloyd Bentsen in 1988. Ferraro ran in 1984 with Walter Mondale.

We have perpetual scandals coming from our DEQ, such as permitting carcinogenic foam insulation to substandard construction materials, fuels, emissions, pollen and airborne wastes.

From what I can determine these people may not even be Oregonians, many don't know the physical layout of the territories they supposedly over watch data for.

Imo, this is a purposeful concerted elimination of investigations as well as the erosion of public health.

Is it common practice to privatize air & water shed data collection or management?

Posted by redlightrobot at 2008-05-08 02:18

About 90 % of my company's work involves section 404 compliance work but we've done a wide range of projects. I really can't speak for Oregon, but elsewhere it's very common to use private companies for air and watershed management.

In theory, the way it's supposed to work is a big project like this is put out for a competitive bid. In general, these projects are linked to an "undertaking" that involves federal funding or permits. It's not actually the DEP/DEQ that's paying for the study (they're merely the lead-agency), it's the company that's putting in the mine, power plant, etc. that's funding it for regulatory compliance.

Numerous environmental firms will bid and it will go to the most qualified firm with a middle-of-the-road bid. Typically, an environmental firm will do the data collection/analysis and may outsource the geospatial (GIS) aspects to a sub-contractor (many firms are doing this in house now). The DEP/DEQ should be very active in monitoring the environmental firms work and provide consultation throughout the entire process. The final reports should also be reviewed by someone qualified in the field.

Unfortunately, what often happens in reality is the project often goes to the lowest bidder, who may-or-may not be qualified in the field. If the state DEP/DEQ doesn't adequately monitor or review their work, there's absolutely no incentive for the company to do any kind of decent work. It's been my experience that a poorly managed review agency often prefers short and low quality reports over long, detailed, and high quality ones.

Another problem that often arises, is in some states these reports are monitored by a permitting branch of a government agency and not actually by a qualified scientist. For example, in some branches of the Army Corp, it's not uncommon for a permitting bureaucrat to be responsible for reviewing archaeological or biological assessments related to a 404 project. Of course, when this is the case everything gets rubber stamped.

All of this leads to very shoddy work and questionable contractors. My firm has actually stopped working in several states for this very reason. We do very high quality, honest work, but many of our competitors don't do either. Since there is very little oversight in a few states, they always manage to undercut us significantly. In states with decent oversight, we do significantly better because they can't manage to get any reports through review.

As I mentioned before, these kind of problems are rampant throughout the entire system.

In the environmental area, since there is next to no private science being done, the funding is overwhelmingly government-based, and the science has become politicized to the point of not being science.

I'd really like to see your source for this data.

I've worked in environmental consulting for many, many, years. The vast majority of environmental work is performed by the private sector. Yes, a great deal of pure research is performed at universities, but this money pails in comparison to how much private work is being done.

The federal government also out sources most of their environmental work to private companies (my firm does a great deal of work for the Army Corps, HUD, DOT, FCC, etc.). Federal and state agencies then provide oversight to private companies for this work. They're the ones that review our field work and reports.

Unfortunately, the problem mentioned in this article is also rampant for many states. For example, in Appalachia, coal companies have a great interest in making sure their projects go through w/out interruption. They often "encourage" state governments to pressure the DEP (which act as lead agency in enforcing EPA requirements) to rubber stamp assessment reports. When you take the teeth from an oversight agency, drastically cut its funding, or politicize it, it just encourages very shoddy work in the private sector. It also completely negates any potential cost savings by privatizing.

This problem is pretty universal among many fields; in order for privatization to truly save money, regulatory agencies need the funding and independence to enforces their own regulations.

Nixon ran on a platform of reducing troop levels and acheiving "peace with honor" in 1968, and crushed Humphery, who was a last minute fill in when LBJ bowed out of the election.

Actually, the 1968 election was extremely close. I've always found it interesting that HHH was able to do as well as he did, given how unpopular LBJ was.

The Vietcong were obliterated during Tet. Vaporized....Gone....We chose to give up right after we did that. Unless I'm wrong, and I might be, 1969 was during Johnson's time.

If I'm wrong, and Nixon was in charge in 1969, then I, too, claim "bullshit", and losing the war should be placed on Nixons plate.

Posted by jonryker

Nixon was sworn in as the 37th President on January 20, 1969.

When my grandpa(RIP) volunteered in 1941 for the USMC they would weed out all kinds of folks. You had to be the right height, weight,size ,etc. Nowadays that would be "unfair"

Anyone with ANY kind of perceived mental issue was rejected.

I know they've lowered standards in the last several years but they always have physical and mental requirements.

Back when I worked in a recruiting office, one of the stupidest things I had to deal with was a kid who wasn't allowed to enlist because he went through counseling as an early-teen. It didn't matter that this counseling was mandatory and part of his parents divorce agreement, we couldn't get him wavered.

As of 7 or 8 years ago, it was very difficult to enlist anyone who had any kind of counseling; it didn't matter the context or how much time had passed.

Does anyone know if it's still like this?

They have a scheduled rotation...not like WWII. Back then you were there until it was OVER. Yes, sometimes their rotation is extended, but they have deployment and rotation home schedules. I saw an interview of General Giap years ago and he was asked the biggest mistake of the American Army in Vietnam. Without hesitation he responded, "The one- year rotation."

I think most people would agree that the current system, of rotating complete units in and out of Iraq is significantly better than rotating individuals in and out of permanently stationed units in Vietnam.

The maintenance of unit cohesion and comradery is one of the primary arguments for Stop-Loss. I honestly believe that w/out Stop-Loss, we'd have a lot more casualties, because we'd be forced to send send understrength and thrown together units into a combat zone.

"then let people buy the coverage they can afford"

Except of course people with "pre-existing" conditions. Those people are then screwed. They are persona non grata and are not insurable through privately obtained health insurance.

This is my biggest problem with the McCain health plan. If somebody has a pre-existing condition, an individual policy would be exceedingly expensive, and an employer-sponsored group plan is really the only option.

Personally, I think health insurance should be like virtually all other types of insurance. It should be something to prevent financial disaster and to protect against the big stuff. A modern HMO/PPO would be like Geico not only providing comprehensive/collision for car insurance but also providing a bumper-to-bumper warranty with a $10 copay for all repairs.

Part of the reason health care is so expensive is due to the sheer number of uninsured who aren't able to pay their bills. We (the insured) are the one's who have to offset it.

I would strongly support a national health plan that requires everyone to have a minimum level of health coverage (say, $200,000 policy and $5k deductible). For those who couldn't afford it (for whatever reason), it would be possible to buy into a national group plan HSA/HDHP at a pro-rated rate. A group plan with 10's of millions of people would be very cheap. In theory, eliminating the uninsured (and unpaying) would help stabilize costs.

Actually this really exposes the criminal cabal of drug pricing in America where something that could be sold for $4 is sold to insurance plans for $60.

For my health plan (Blue Cross HSA/HDHP), I pay negotiated rates for all my prescriptions. On each of my health statements, I see a breakdown of billed vs. negotiated prices. I suspect most plans work this way. For example, Rite Aid charges $36.00 for a month's supply of one of my prescriptions and my negotiated rate is about $8.00. I should also add, one of the nice things about an HSA/HDHP is that even though I pay $8.00 for the Rx, $36.00 is applied towards the deductible

I believe the only people who pay full price for health care and prescriptions are the uninsured.