Armchair Generalist

Casual Fridays

Police Still Searching For Missing Productive, Obedient Woman

The Onion joked as to how journalism would change if Chinese companies bought out the news media. It reminds me of "Firefly" and how the Chinese will eventually dominate our future culture through their sheer numbers.

Crap Beer at White House

I just want to echo Dave Brockington's dismay over the president's taste in beer (not to mention his glacially slow pace of reform, no doubt aimed at winning issues over the long term).

Bud Lite? Honestly? Fire the staffer who made that suggestion. First of all, you're a Harvard-educated lawyer, not a blue-collar Chicago guy, no one is going to believe you actually drink Bud Lite. Second of all, it's a crap beer. Budweiser may have great Superbowl commercials, but let's not pretend that this Belgian-owned company actually brews the "King of Beers."

As for Joe Biden's non-alcoholic choice, this is all I have to say. Say what you will about Prof. Henry Lewis Gates, at least he knew which beer to choose, even if it was a last-minute switch. President Obama should have gone with the recommendation for Sam Adams as well.

Book Reviews

Right now I've got a stack of books for summer reading. I am half way through Tom Rick's "Fiasco" and have Kilcullen's "The Accidental Guerilla" on standby. I don't think I will formally review them, if only because they have already been reviewed by so many others. I will say, if you haven't read "Fiasco" and you have any doubt as to how badly the post-conflict operations were handled, you need to read this. I am still in shock.

I have this book - Gretchen Peters' "Seeds of Terror" - on my immediate reading list, since I got it from the library. I saw the author on The Daily Show a while ago, and thought this could be a good book. It's very, very good. Ends up that our intel community, the State Dept and the DEA have known about the Taliban and their drug connections in Afghanistan and Pakistan's role supporting the drug industry for about two decades. 

"There wasn't an intelligence failure," said a former senior CIA official who resigned in disgust. "It was a failure to analyze the evidence we had."

Wow, that sounds familiar. You hear a lot of bullshit about the "nexus of terrorism and WMDs." Well, let me tell you, the "nexus between terrorism and drugs" is much more well-documented and apparent. And of course, our government acted on the bullshit and ignored the real threat.

OMB Says Cut Government Contractors

The Washington Post says that the White House is getting ready to start Operation Drop Scumbag Contractors. Should I be worried?

The OMB memos flow from a March directive by President Obama that called on the OMB to assist agencies in identifying "contracts that are wasteful, inefficient, or not otherwise likely to meet the agency's needs." The OMB's guidance in the matter was due July 1, so it is running a bit late.

Obama also told the OMB to issue, by Sept. 30, further guidance covering such issues as the use of non-competitive contracts, the capacity of the government's acquisition workforce and when hiring contractors is appropriate.

Between 2001 and 2008, the years of the Bush administration, "spending on Government contracts has more than doubled, reaching over $500 billion," Obama's directive said. That includes "a significant increase in the dollars awarded without full and open competition." Reversing those trends could save billions, he added.

The OMB wants a 10 percent reduction in contracts awarded with less than full competition in fiscal 2010.

One of the big criteria for identifying the "bad contractors" is that contracting officials have to identify those who are doing "inherently governmental work." In an ideal world, government workers should do government work, and the contractors should do that work which adds value to the government's efforts but that can be performed off-site. There's a lot of contractors doing "technical assistance" sitting right next to government workers, full time on site. They're doing good work too, but they're the ones at risk.

The problem is this. In that ideal world, all the government civilians would be hard working, highly qualified people. But they aren't. In that ideal world, the government personnel offices doing the hiring work quickly and efficiently to identify the ideal candidates for government positions and get them into the jobs within a month. But they don't. In that ideal world, government leaders have time to work budgets and get all their studies completed without resorting to outside help. But they can't. 

No doubt that the Bush administration did the best they could to grow the government's power and influence without actually growing the government's manpower, because you can always fire contractors after the work gets done. If the work ever gets completed. But here's the funny thing - government agencies still depend on us slimy contractors. Some of them don't like it very much, but that's the only way that they can get all the work done that's assigned to their group, and that's the only way they can keep their budgets high. If you cut the contractors, your work goes down and so does your budget. 

So have a blast. Cut us back. The bad government agencies will suffer, and the good contractors will still find good jobs somewhere else. You don't have any real choice here.

And Then There Was One

With the Iraqi government's failure to renew an agreement with the British government to extend their lovely stay in that country, that leaves the US forces alone in Iraq without coalition partners. It's so lonely... It seems only yesterday that there were 30 or so countries with personnel working for CENTCOM. But more importantly, we have to get a new name for the formerly Multi-National Force-Iraq.

In response to a query, American military officials acknowledged the need for a name change, and said Multi-National Force-Iraq would officially become United States Force-Iraq as of Jan. 1, 2010, according to the deputy coalition spokesman, Lt. Col. Mike Stewart. “This is done to reflect the new bilateral relationship between U.S. forces and our Iraqi hosts,” he said.

Even that relationship is being redefined, as the American military undergoes the complex process of withdrawing 130,000 soldiers over the next two years while shifting much of its attention to Afghanistan. As one Marine officer in Anbar Province said recently, “We’re so out of here.”

But to be clear, the "coalition of the willing" was never that effective other than a show-piece. As Gen. Tony Zinni once said, there are "swimmers" and there are the "non-swimmers." 

The phrase coalition of the willing became widespread after it was used by Secretary of State Colin L. Powell before the American invasion, though from the start the title never got much respect. When it became clear that the United Nations was unwilling to back military action against Iraq, Mr. Powell named 30 countries that would pitch in. Nations contributing troops included Tonga, Mongolia, Nicaragua and Latvia. In all, 38 nations sent soldiers over the past six years, typically in groups numbering in the low hundreds, in rotations that were usually brief and sometimes even furtive. Japan sent a force but announced that it would not fight. Dutch troops had to be deployed just to guard it.

And don't forget Poland!

Reasons Why I'm Glad I Dropped Newsweak

This article by Gregory Levey titled: "Why Obama should make George W. Bush his Mideast envoy."

Rationale: Right-wing Israelis love GW Bush, so he's a natural choice. And why shouldn't they? He let them do whatever they wanted, and gave them $3 billion a year on top of that. Do you think that Levey knows there are also Arabs and Persians in the Middle East? 

More CB Experts Is Better, Right?

Last Friday, the U.S. Army’s Bloggers Roundtable featured an interview with Army Major General John Basilica, commanding general of Task Force 51 (also known as the second CBRNE Consequence Management Response Force or CCMRF) and Navy Captain Mike Collins, Chief of Staff of the Joint Task Force for Civil Support (JTF-CS), which currently oversees the first CCMRF. The first CCMRF is composed of active duty forces, while the second one is a mix of Army Reserve and Army/Air Force National Guard units. A third CCMRF is planned for 2011. 

I was unable to participate in the discussion, but the talkradio version is available here. The discussion was more of a status of the CCMRF development, with the two gentlemen noting their units’ development and their mission to respond in support of lead federal agencies. For some reason, the military is paralleling software coding to identify their units and their evolution, using the year of creation and the unit designation (CCMRFs 1, 2 or 3). The first CCMRF is designated 9.1, but next year it will receive “additional capability” and be upgraded to 10.1. Basilica’s force will be version 10.2, and the third CCMRF will be version 11.3. 

In response to a question as to the CCMRF’s focus and interaction with other National Guard functions, CAPT Collins noted that they don’t do forest fires or natural disasters. In relation to the ricin incident in Las Vegas last year, he observed that the state never called for federal assistance because it was such a small incident, so there was no need to deploy. It would only be if the state was overwhelmed by the incident and had to call on federal assistance that the CCMRFs would roll, such as the case of a terrorist 10-kiloton nuclear explosion in a US city. 

Yes, he had to go there. He opined that the entire nation would probably respond to a terrorist nuke scenario, and given that kind of massive response, the CCMRF would certainly be part of that response – again, in support of some other federal agency. He stressed that a lot, probably because of the “mischaracterization” of the CCMRF’s role and intentions by bloggers in the past year. If I had to guess, I’d say that Collins hasn’t done this kind of mission before, because he too easily falls into the rhetorical lines: “God forbid a terrorist nuke were to ever happen, but if it does, we certainly need to respond with this kind of a capability.” Ease up there, captain. 

MG Basilica was more pragmatic, talking about the composition of his force and the command post exercise that his group is planning for August. In this exercise, his unit will have about 400-500 people involved in a week-long drill focusing on communications and interagency coordination. Given the composition of the CCMRF, it’s important that the staff understand the unit’s mission and capabilities. He expects the second CCMRF to be tested and declared operationally ready by October of this year. He was very serious about communicating the intent to develop this force to “be as ready as we can be.” 

And that’s really what this call was about. It was to reinforce the message that the DoD has a defined mission, that it was not stepping over the posse comatitus line, and that it was on track to develop this capability. It was not to rationalize why the previous administration thought they needed three units with a combined strength of 15,000 persons to handle up to three nearly simultaneous terrorist mass casualty events, or why this current administration hasn’t slapped this concept down as ridiculous and wasteful. It was not to discuss the near-impossibility of the second CCMRF’s capability to organize and deploy in a timely fashion to any spot in the country in response to a no-notice event, considering its make-up of Reserve and National Guard units (although I could see them supporting national security special events). It wasn’t to point out that the overwhelming majority of CBRNE incidents within the United States will not require the CCMRFs to deploy at all, and in all likelihood, they’re going to be very bored people. 

On the positive side, neither man said “it’s not a question of if, but when.” Maybe they’ve recognized that statement has exceeded its life expectancy as a useful phrase.

Bad People Do Bad Things

Kotare sent me this al Jazeera article that discusses the North Korean government's chemical and biological warfare program. It's not a happy story.

"If you are born mentally or physically deficient, says Im, the government says your best contribution to society… is as a guinea pig for biological and chemical weapons testing."

Even after settling into the relative safety of South Korea, for 10 years Im held on to this secret, saying it was too horrific to recount.
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One of Im's own men later gave him an eyewitness account of human-testing.

Asked to guard a secret facility on an island off North Korea's west coast, Im says the soldier saw a number of people forced into a glass chamber.

"Poisonous gas was injected in," Im says. "He watched doctors time how long it took for them to die."

This is not a new story. With a quick search, I found this BBC article dated 2004 that basically says the same thing. That's not to say that it's credible, though. There's pretty strong suspicion that North Korea has an active CB weapons program, but not a lot of details on it. During World War II, both the German and Japanese governments did their own human experimentation, but it was more aimed at determining the agent's efficacy. The German research was pretty good, the Japanese research, not so much. 

So is this "testing" to better understand the effects of CB weapons or just state executions? Hard to say. Again, not to say that this is true or not, but this kind of propaganda isn't new and there's been no official confirmation of any such efforts. It may be just an effort to convince the US government to get tough on the regime and to impose sanctions or pressure the North Koreans more. We'll just have to wait for the regime to collapse and then find out.

Please Make Them Stop

The director of the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office, Vayl Oxford, has left that agency, but his evil plans to completely infest every port, air base, border crossing, and major town with radiological detectors continues to move forward. The Global Security Newswire has this story about a pilot program on the west coast. They want to determine if it is feasible to install radiological detectors in ports where small craft operate, because you never know when one of the 13 million recreational vessels in US domestic waters will be carrying a nuclear bomb. No, really, that's their story.

The agency's Domestic Nuclear Detection Office has launched a "West Coast Maritime Pilot" effort, based in San Diego and Washington state's Puget Sound region.

The program is slated to deploy and evaluate radiation and nuclear detection equipment, to include human-portable and mobile, or boat-mounted, systems, according to Chris Inman, the detection office director for the San Diego portion of the effort.

Program officials will develop a regional maritime concept of operations and provide naval-specific training on nuclear detection equipment, he said. It also will "identify any gaps that may still be remaining in that maritime architecture," Inman said.
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Once the West Coast maritime pilot effort has wrapped up, the detection office will deliver a "utility assessment" to state officials that will provide the results of the various exercises, the cost of maintaining the detection systems, and the price tag for securing additional devices for full deployment, according to Inman.

"If they tell us that, 'Yes, this is something we want to take on, we're committed to using and maintaining the equipment,' we will leave this [test] equipment behind" for operational use, he said.

Inman said the local jurisdictions could apply for grant funds to purchase the devices through the Homeland Security Department's Urban Area Security Initiative and other federal programs.

Ah, so that's how they're going to cost it out. It's going to be an optional program - if the states and local authorities want to pay for the employment and sustainment of radiological detectors at each small port, then DNDO will "help" them get it into place. What a great failure. This idea of a radiological Maginot Line really needs to be stopped. We can't afford it, the threat isn't imminent, and there are far better ways to head off a potential terrorist nuclear threat. Even the idea of trying to stop terrorists from using small craft with conventional explosives a la "USS Cole" is going to be a far stretch with this kind of surveillance approach. Let's get some real strategies in place, ones that focus on intelligence processes and stopping terrorists from getting fissile material in the first place.

Run Away, Run Away!

Just so you know, the hysteria isn't only within the United States. Even New Zealand has to deal with the "white powder" scares.

An Inland Revenue mail room was evacuated on Tuesday morning when staff opened a package containing white powder, which later turned out to be harmless.

Staff were evacuated and those who came into contact with the package underwent a Fire Service decontamination process, said Upper Hutt police area commander Inspector Michael Hill.

Preliminary ESR analysis suggested the powder was not a dangerous substance.

"At this stage the powder does not appear to be harmful to the public. We are conducting a criminal investigation to identify and speak with the offender," Hill said.

I tell you, it's a real shame to see all the commotion. I hope they keep the Hobbit village clean of this stuff, I still want to go visit that some day.

The Comedy Tour Continues

The comedy duo of former Senators Graham and Talent are still on the road with their famous act, "The Horrors of Bioterrorism." It's not as good the third or fourth time you watch it - all the fun of laughing at their antics is pretty much gone.

"In our commission report, World at Risk, we stated that terrorists are more likely to obtain and use a biological weapon than a nuclear weapon," states the editorial by former Senators Bob Graham and Jim Talent, respectively the chairman and vice chairman of the Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism.

... "there is an almost limitless array of disease-causing organisms and scenarios for ... nefarious use."
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"It takes 10 to 15 years and approximately $800 million from start to finish to develop one product, and 80 percent of all drug candidates that enter clinical trials ultimately fail to get FDA approval. Reducing costs and delay would position the country to make unprecedented contributions to global health," the editorial states.
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"A major part of our biodefense strategy should be based on reaching a level of preparedness that will effectively remove bioweapons from the category of WMD. This will happen neither quickly nor cheaply, but it will be well worth the investment," the editorial says.

So if there is "an almost limitless array" of BW threats, and each one takes $800 million to develop medical countermeasures, which ones should we focus on to stop this BW threat in the next five years? What can we afford - two, five, ten, more? Oh, wait, we won't have any drug vaccine ready in five years, since it takes three times that long to complete the FDA trials. This is the frustrating thing about their preaching - they offer solutions that have no hope of being implemented. But then again, the "five year" window they predict within which we'll see a bioattack is absolute bullshit, and they know it. In his testimony to the Senate Homeland Security Council, Talent described it as a "gut feeling." They just want the sense of urgency to push their report's recommendations forward. 

In addition, even if they did get a vaccine production line started, it wouldn't guarantee any improvement in responding to a bioterrorist incident. We can cover the medical surveillance and even drug distribution, but if a determined terrorist wants to get a mild BW agent into the country and release it, certainly there will be an impact. The key is interdiction, combined with preparedness and resiliency. It's not hard, but it is expensive. This effort that the two former senators continue isn't necessary - the report had a few good common sense recommendations, everyone has heard them, now they need to move on. In this economy, with conventional and irregular warfare going on in the Middle East, this issue isn't a priority for US national security. They really need to learn a new act.

I'm Shocked, Shocked to Hear

...that the placement of DHS's proposed agro-disease research facility in Kansas was a political decision that did not adequately address the fact that it was in Tornado Central.

The Department of Homeland Security relied on a rushed, flawed study to justify its decision to locate a $700 million research facility for highly infectious pathogens in a tornado-prone section of Kansas, according to a government report.

The department's analysis was not "scientifically defensible" in concluding that it could safely handle dangerous animal diseases in Kansas -- or any other location on the U.S. mainland, according to a Government Accountability Office draft report obtained by The Washington Post. The GAO said DHS greatly underestimated the chance of accidental release and major contamination from such research, which has been conducted only on a remote island off the United States.

DHS staff members tried quietly last week to fend off a public airing of the facility's risks, agency correspondence shows. Department officials met privately with staff members of a congressional oversight subcommittee to try to convince them that the GAO report was unfair, and to urge them to forgo or postpone a hearing. But the House Energy and Commerce Committee's oversight and investigations subcommittee, chaired by  Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.), decided otherwise. It plans to hold a hearing Thursday on the risk analysis, according to two sources briefed on the plans.

Of course, the answer isn't Kansas, and it wasn't Arkansas or Texas or Maryland either. They should have just proposed refurbishing the existing labs on Plum Island and avoided all the politics and costs of moving personnel and equipment to mainland location in the first place.

Crazy Insane People Talk About Nukes

A very crazy organization called the International Commission on Non-Proliferation and Disarmament is making noises about terrorists setting off a nuclear war - through the Internet. Yep, they did a study, so it must be true.

Terrorists groups could soon use the internet to help set off a devastating nuclear attack, according to new research.

The claims come in a study commissioned by the International Commission on Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament (ICNND), which suggests that under the right circumstances, terrorists could break into computer systems and launch an attack on a nuclear state – triggering a catastrophic chain of events that would have a global impact.
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While the possibility of a radical group gaining access to actual launch systems is remote, the study suggests that hackers could focus on feeding in false information further down the chain – or spreading fake information to officials in a carefully orchestrated strike.

"Despite claims that nuclear launch orders can only come from the highest authorities, numerous examples point towards an ability to sidestep the chain of command and insert orders at lower levels," said Jason Fritz, the author of the paper. "Cyber-terrorists could also provoke a nuclear launch by spoofing early warning and identification systems or by degrading communications networks."

Wow. If we were debating about the slim possibilities of terrorists obtaining fissile material and building a nuke or stealing one, I might humor it, but this idea just raises the crazy factor to another level. What do you think it would take for a Taliban or AQ terrorist to find (or develop) a talent to hack into US or Russian military networks and, without corrupting the very tough validation system for launching a nuke, convince the operators to launch? It is truly a movie-plot threat. You know, I appreciate the need by some organizations to focus attention on nuclear weapons, but honestly, let's keep it within the realm of real concerns.

Not Those Kind of Contractors

Walter  Pincus of the Washington Post weighs in on what he's interpreting as the Army's continued reliance on contractors, against the proposals of SecDef Gates to cut back on the number of contractors working within the DOD. However, I think he's missing an important nuance here. The contractors about whom SecDef Gates was concerned were the ones working acquisition programs, and in some cases, leading acquisition programs because the services didn't have enough trained acquisition professionals. Because there is the impression that these contractors are in part responsible for greatly increased program costs, Gates wants to replace those contractors with government civilians (which will of course make it so much more efficient... but that's a story for a later date).

News flash to all journalists: private security contractors are not the same as acquisition contractors. For one, we acquisition types don't carry guns, and we cause more trouble. But force protection is still a priority in the Middle East. That's why Gates is not worried about PSCs other than to make sure they don't blindly fire into crowds of civilians. In the article, Michael O'Hanlon offers his proposal for securing US military bases in Afghanistan.

With Afghan army and police officers totaling roughly 160,000, and the number of U.S. service members in Afghanistan set to grow to 68,000 by year's end, the U.S. military is moving to protect the facilities where personnel will be based. But many experts say commanders do not have enough forces.

"We don't want to waste scarce Afghan army and police, so we must be creative," said Michael E. O'Hanlon, a senior fellow and military expert at the Brookings Institution.

But O'Hanlon also said he is concerned that if contractors were to take over security at forward operating bases, they would be the first to see hostile fire, and they -- not soldiers -- would have to decide whether to employ weapons against an enemy.

Instead of hiring a private firm, O'Hanlon said, the Americans and Afghans could create a local version of Iraq's Facilities Protection Service, the modestly trained but government-paid guard force that was pulled together to provide protection for government ministries in Baghdad and the oil fields. "We should create a different branch of the Afghan security forces that has minimal training," he said.

Once again, O'Hanlon fails to appreciate the difference between Afghanistan, Iraq, and, oh, REALITY. He proposes that we ought to take Afghans who didn't qualify to be in the police force or armed forces (as low of a bar as that qualification was), give them guns and security passes, and have them guard US forces. Ahhhh.... no. Because having drug addicts and others who don't like to go on patrols as your protectors is a really bad idea. Thanks, Mikey, for the bad advice.

More Good News about Cheney

If you ever wondered about the sanity of our former vice president, consider the fact that he wanted to use US armed forces to arrest suspected insurgents and terrorists within the United States. Because he must have never heard of posse comitatus before...

Some of the advisers to President George W. Bush, including Vice President Dick Cheney, argued that a president had the power to use the military on domestic soil to sweep up the terrorism suspects, who came to be known as the Lackawanna Six, and declare them enemy combatants.

Mr. Bush ultimately decided against the proposal to use military force.

A decision to dispatch troops into the streets to make arrests would be nearly unprecedented in American history, as both the Constitution and subsequent laws restrict the military from being used to conduct domestic raids and seize property.
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Those who advocated using the military to arrest the Lackawanna group had legal ammunition: the memorandum by Mr. Yoo and Mr. Delahunty.

The lawyers, in the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, wrote that the Constitution, the courts and Congress had recognized a president’s authority “to take military actions, domestic as well as foreign, if he determines such actions to be necessary to respond to the terrorist attacks upon the United States on Sept. 11, 2001, and before.” The document added that the neither the Posse Comitatus Act nor the Fourth Amendment tied a president’s hands.

Why should it not surprise us that John Yoo's logic was behind this? How many ways could the Bush White House screw up the military? I'm losing track, there are so many screw-ups out there. How many years will it take to get our military back into its traditional roles and missions?

Casual Fridays

I tell you, any fantasy swords and sorcery game with a Marilyn Manson theme song is on my list of games to get - in October.

Unending Conflicts

If this piece of recent anthropological research is to be creditted, Iraq's been a place of conflict for much longer than we had previously thought.

Newly analyzed remains suggest that a modern human killed a Neanderthal man in what is now Iraq between 50,000 and 75,000 years ago. The finding is scant but tantalizing evidence for a theory that modern humans helped to kill off the Neanderthals.

The probable weapon of choice: A thrown spear.
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The victim: A 40- to 50-year-old male, now called Shanidar 3, with signs of arthritis and a sharp, deep slice in his left ninth rib.

"What we've got is a rib injury, with any number of scenarios that could explain it," said study researcher Steven Churchill, an associate professor of evolutionary anthropology at Duke University in North Carolina. "We're not suggesting there was a blitzkrieg, with modern humans marching across the land and executing the Neandertals [aka Neanderthals]. I want to say that loud and clear."

But he added, "We think the best explanation for this injury is a projectile weapon, and given who had those and who didn't, that implies at least one act of inter-species aggression."

War - what is it good for? Eliminating the competition, for one. Or should I say more politely, securing one's ability to live and prosper by reducing the threat of other aggressors.

Run Away, Run Away!

Florida continues to get hit with white powder scares... good thing it's going to get a second WMD Civil Support Team to sit around and look at spilled bleach.

Just after 2 p.m. Tuesday, two envelopes containing a suspicious white powder arrived at the sheriff's office in the mail, according to Lisa Burley, the sheriff's chief of staff.

Approximately 40 employees were evacuated from the first and second floors a few minutes later as one letter was delivered to each level. Once outside, department heads were busy checking to make sure all their staff members were out of the building.

Emergency responders quickly arrived on the scene and began taping the area off. The intersection of Eucalyptus and Commerce avenues was closed to traffic as investigators put on hazmat suits and prepared to go inside and remove the envelopes.

By 4:20 p.m., the powder was en route to Tampa for testing, according to Burley. Results were expected by 10 p.m. Tuesday, past Highlands Today's press time.

The threat did not disrupt 911 dispatchers or Highlands County Jail officials and operations continued as usual.

The tests came back, and not surprisingly, they were negative for anthrax. It's only taken about seven years for people to start treating these events as routine hoaxes. That's a good thing. The less disruption, the fewer forced decon showers, the better.

You Can't Protect Dick

There's something vaguely ironic about the fact that Darth Cheney has requested additional Secret Service protection past the traditional six months after the end of his term. 

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano signed an order to extend Cheney's detail on July 17th, according to the Secret Service. The Daily News says friends of the former vice president "have said he has become more concerned about his privacy and personal safety in recent years." 

Wow. Color me shocked. It's as if Cheney thinks that there might be some pissed-off Americans looking to bump into him. Or maybe he's concerned about all the detainees who were locked up without charges and without a trial for years. But I want to know - can't Halliburton get some private security for his ass?

Oh, I forgot. Republican politicians like having government health care, government staff services, and government protection. It's everyone else who doesn't get those benefits. 

Pandemic Priorities

Pundita has found a great product for the upcoming pandemic flu season that everyone is expecting this fall. It's a very smart personal mask that's being sold in the Far East, but not around here.

The mask is lightweight, comfortable, highly 'breathable,' perfectly fitting, moisture and mold resistant, inexpensive, safe for humans, non-irritating to skin, and as attractive as a face mask can be.

Oh and I forgot to mention it's also a smart assassin: 

Typical face masks (including standard surgical masks and N95s) do not kill airborne pathogens. They are based on a passive mechanical filtration design only. Thus, microbes on or inside the mask can stay alive for many hours, greatly increasing the likelihood of cross-contamination. 

The BioMask™ traps and kills bacteria and viruses within seconds of their landing on the outer layer of the mask's surface. That solves the problem for people, especially children, who fiddle with their face masks all the time they're wearing them, thereby transferring germs to their hands. 

It's that kind of problem that's caused health experts to view surgical masks, even the N95 respirator-type ones, as little use in an epidemic.
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Then why, given the mask's availability since April, isn't it sold at retail outlets in every country including here in the USA?

Oh Pundita. Haven't you figured out the bioterror priorities here? The reason is that no one will buy a mask that doesn't protect them from others - this mask just stops your own infectious coughs. Unlike the more socially-conscious Asian community, we Americans just don't care about anyone but ourselves. The government isn't going to buy these masks for the public - that would be outrageously expensive, and it's already invested into vaccines.

Heck, we have a hard time getting Americans to come and get free flu shots, and that's with a reported 35-40,000 deaths a year within the United States. Unless BioMask guarantees that no one will fall ill to pandemic flu while wearing this mask, it isn't going to sell. It's a sad thing, but that's our risk-adverse, selfish culture.