Blackwater is Another Term for Human Waste Water

So today let us reveiw what it's like to give congressional oversight to a company that goes by a word for what you flush down the toliet.

Biggest bombshell of the day is the fact that there's no budgetary justification for employing war contractors to replace our military's soldiers after all. One Blackwater mercenary costs America more than $400,000 while his counterpart in the US military costs only $50,000 to $70,000. Astounding.... but that get's a little lost in the cauterwailing on the Republican side of the aisle over the idea that Blackwater needs its "conduct" examined by Congress. What do we find in these murky waters?

In one incident last Christmas Eve, [b]a drunken Blackwater contractor shot and killed a security guard for one of Iraq's vice presidents[/b], and the State Department allowed the contractor to leave Iraq, the report said.



In response to questions about the Christmas Eve shooting, Prince said that the employee was promptly fired and fined "multiple thousands of dollars" but that Blackwater did not have authority to take other punitive action.

"I'm not going to make any apologies for what he did," Prince said. "He clearly violated our policies." He said Blackwater acquired an airline ticket for the employee to return to the United States "by direction of the State Department."

Blackwater shelled out $15,000 to the family of the Iraqi guard, which the State Department handed off. The made the mercenary in question pay for his own airplane ticket and then withheld a bonus, but that does not constitute a "fine." Neatly, the bonus comes out a bit shy of what they paid to the family of the guard. You can bet that $15,000 didn't come out of Blackwater profits.

Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney (D-N.Y.) said [b]the Justice Department has informed the committee that it is still investigating the Christmas shooting nine months later.[/b]

[b]Prince also was asked about an initial erroneous report that the Iraqi security guard had been shot by a drunken U.S. soldier, rather than a private contractor. Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md.) pointed to a Blackwater e-mail referring to the mistake and saying that "at least the ID of the shooter will take the heat off us."[/b]

Prince said Blackwater did not take any action to correct the account because it is prohibited by contract from engaging with the news media. "I don't believe that false story lasted in the media for more than a few hours," the Blackwater chief executive said.

He also disputed charges that Blackwater guards have killed innocent Iraqi civilians in reckless shootings while escorting convoys, but he said there have been "times when guys are using defensive force" to protect themselves or their convoys and could have killed civilians through "ricochets" or "traffic accidents."

So we have Prince testifying before Congress that never have Blackwater mercenaries ever pointed their weapons at an unarmed and innocent Iraqi and just killed them. The only civilians Blackwater mercenaries kill, are the Iraqis that they don't aim at. So I geuss they just define insurgents and terrorists as anyone they aim at? Hey- they may be better at fudging numbers than the White House.

Rep. Michael Turner (R-Ohio) said he was "a little saddened by this hearing" because Blackwater is a member of "our team." He said the committee "should not go to the extent of undermining Blackwater's ability to perform as our team."

But Rep. John J. Duncan Jr. (R-Tenn.), voicing rare GOP criticism of Blackwater at the hearing, observed that [b]Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, earns about $180,000 a year, less than half the salary of a Blackwater official in charge of a 34-member security team[/b].

The war in Iraq has produced some of the most "lavish" and "excessive" contracts in U.S. history, Duncan said. "Fiscal conservatives should feel no obligation to defend this kind of contracting. . . . In fact, fiscal conservatives should be the ones most horrified by this."

Time will tell if the Republicans send through an ammendment giving Petraeus a raise to the level of what a Blackwater official for a security team gets paid. You know, if they really valued his service. On the other hand, it's good to have clear to the world exactly what some Republican members of Congress place as the value of an innocent Iraqi life. Even lower than $15,000 it seems, if it's not worth even the slightest public embarressment for a Republican campaign contributor.

The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform released preliminary information gleaned about Blackwater's conduct.

Blackwater security contractors in Iraq have been involved in at least 195 "escalation of force" incidents since early 2005, including several previously unreported killings of Iraqi civilians, according to a new congressional account of State Department and company documents.

In one of the killings, according to a State Department document, Blackwater personnel tried to cover up what had occurred and provided a false report. In another case, involving a Blackwater convoy's collision with 18 civilian vehicles, the firm accused its own personnel of lying about the event.

....In total, the documents indicate, Blackwater has terminated 122 employees under its State Department contract. According to Prince, the company currently has about 1,000 employees in Iraq.

...Based on more than 437 Blackwater documents and "a limited number of incident reports and documents from the State Department," the Democratic staff memo said, Blackwater personnel had participated in 195 incidents in which they discharged firearms, with Blackwater firing first in more than 80 percent of them. At least 16 Iraqi casualties resulted.

Another blogger over at Pissed On Politics worked on the numbers for Blackwater a little more. Blackwater charges Regency a baseline of $815 for a single mercenary and $1,075 a day for a senior manager. How much does Petraeus make a day? $493

Let's do a little more math. Not much, moonbat's honor. So if you have about 1,000 employees in Iraq, and you have to fire 122 of them for conduct reasons, that means 17% of your employees were a problem and got caught. Let's emphasize the "got caught" part. Is anyone going to try to say that the percentage of military personal we have had to prosecute for conduct in Iraq even approaches this horrifying number?

In a June 24, 2005, incident -- reported in a U.S. Embassy memo that was cited by the committee and obtained by The Washington Post -- a Blackwater security detail in the city of Hilla, south of Baghdad, shot a civilian man standing at the side of the street as the contractors drove by. "This is the case involving the PSD [personal security detail] who failed to report the shooting, covered it up, and subsequently were removed" from the city, an embassy security officer wrote in a July 1, 2005, report.

Everyone remember what Prince said about Blackwater mercenaries not shooting civilians intentionally? Oh, did our little Prince just lie? To Congress? No you see, anyone Blackwater mercenaries aim at is de facto a terrorist, even if they are unamred and walking down the street to the bakery. Prince fired the shooter not for murdering some guy in cold blood for fun, but for not filling out the paperwork afterwards.

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Going Down for the War on Terror

So today moonbat has appeared to rant about how America is loosing the war on terror. Flat out, we must be dead last. As Bush could have been dead a few days ago, when Osama Bin Laden snuck through two security checkpoints at the APEC summit in Australia. Interestingly enough, the international security community is being allowed to huffingly brush off the incident, in reality a bunch of comedians from an Aussie t.v. show "The Chaser," as proof about how "the incident fully vindicated the strength of the events security." And we, the public, seem content to let this one side, despite the fact that real terrorists, who think the same zany way as comedians do, could have easily incinerated the "leader of the capitalist world" almost six years to the anniversary of 9-11. Perhaps the next Director of National Intelligence should be selected from the writer's staff of Saturday Night Live.. as an improvement...



Elsewhere than Iraq, the real war on terror spills over into new battlegrounds, as Al-Q continues to be left relatively unmolested by the US military. White German citizens converted to Islam traveled to PAKISTAN, where they trained in camps last year run by the Islamic Jihad Union, a Central Asian group affiliated with al-Qaeda. Young white men, not Arabs or Persians or Indians or Africans, to all of you who object to airline security so much because, by the gods, you are white.

In June, the Taliban circulated a DVD among local journalists in Pakistan that purported to show a training camp graduation ceremony. Among the 250 graduates were more than a dozen white-skinned young men. One Taliban figure in the video was identified as the leader of a small group of German recruits, according to a copy of the video viewed by a Washington Post correspondent.

Wait, who are these Taliban?? Oh, they still run a whole lot of this country we supposedly have liberated from radical Islamic forces, Afghanistan, where we are now also loosing the war against international heroin. Nothing beats an Administration that can loose two wars in the same country at the same time.

Germany's arrests arrive hard on the heels of the arrests of an unrelated Islamic terrorist cell in Denmark. Two isolated cells, both of which had acquired materials to begin cooking explosives. Cheery.

The Muslims arrested ranged from 19 to 29 years old. They came from Afghan, Pakistani, Somali and Turkish backgrounds and six were Danish citizens, Scharf said.

Mmmm... why aren't they Iraqi, do you suppose? No Iranians?

Moonbat lies awake at night often thinking about terrorism. No big surprise considering that unlike a lot of hot-air baffoons, her job entails preventing them from killing innocent Americans should all those intelligence and police operatives fail to discover and stop them in time. But the time has passed for sleepless nights. The time has come for laughter. The time of employing comedians in the ranks of our intelligence agencies, and in our congressional committees has arrived. Comedians understand the mind of a terrorist. Obviously, we can't rely on the Republicans anymore. The life of our President is clearly at stake.

Moonbat Takes On Idiot Private Security Force

So today found moonbat off to do her volunteer work at her favorite Museum, all up in her girlie clothes and girlie heels. Of course, just beyond the front door lies the private security force and their little amateur screening area, which impresses a real Transportation Security Officer not in the least bit. One key difference between TSA and this gaggle of guards, is that unlike an airport there is no same-gender screening, which means that they have a group of 30-40 year old men waiting around to screen women who set off the alarm because they were high heels. As moonbat prefers and has done for the past two years, she yanked hers off and tossed them on the x-ray belt. One of the male officers immediately jumped forward and insisted that she had to wear them through the walk-through metal detector.

Oh yeah? There might be glass. Really? Now, if all passengers who fly on airplanes are required to remove their shoes to pass through airport security at the decision of the Department of Homeland Security, one can reasonably conclude that there are no realistic legal or saftey concerns, especially since liability rests with the Museum and not the security force. So why the eager insistance? Well... moonbat could trip. What, into your waiting arms? So, moonbat insists on a supervisor, and after it becomes apparent that no one else will be allowed to enter until one is summoned, behold, when it was insisted that none were in the building, one can be found. After listening to the presented case, and looking at the growing line of scowling visitors, the supervisor relents.

Moonbat prances shoe-free through the walk-through metal detector. She slings her now x-rayed purse up onto her shoulder and begins to put on her heels. Supervisor insists that she come with him because he is going to have to file an incident report about her behavior, so that her supervisor can councel her on cooperating with security in the future. Sure. Glad to put things on paper. Not a problem. Moonbat reaches for her other heel.

Oh no, that won't do. Even though so many concerns were sighted to prevent moonbat from removing her heels for screening, it suddenly is okay for her to walk through the museum in bare feet.... because the supervisor seizes moonbat via her purse and attempt to haul her physically across the museum whilst she puts her other heel back on her foot. Oh now it was on. A good measure of steel in "take your hands off me" and he let go, all full of apologies, and made a quick retreat to his office. Another guard waddled up and with almost 300 lbs of authority told me there was no need to have an "attitude" and took down moonbat's information on a napkin. Moonbat found great amusement in forcing a choice between allowed to use her cell phone in the security area to listen to her voicemail (which even TSA allows) and being able to give the extention of her boss. Hah! So the guard had to waddle back off to look up the correct number. Now of course, for moonbat's chance to file a grievance. Only after twice insisting that complaint forms be provided for her, were such forms produced, and she was assured she could fill them out at her station and drop them off on her way out of the Museum later. Likely there was some hope moonbat would cool off and forget. Fat chance!!

Flew through the paperwork, scanned off a copy for her dear readers and also for the head cheese, and pranced right back down to drop them off. Of course, the real sticker is that this will likely result in absolutely no discipline measures against the guard, or any productive change in screening policies, like same gender or the right to remove your heels. Though people might love to whine and complain about the security screening procedures for airports done by TSA, few consider the alternatives of using private security firms to whom politicians have to curry favor in order to get campaign contributions. If Lockheed Martin did airport screening, you can be assured that your local Congressmen could never afford to investigate any real offense that occurred... but since it's all in house, it's safe to wack away at any infraction on the part of TSA. So for all those of you who like to complain that you got screened because the wire in your bra set off the walk-through metal detector, imagine instead of a female screener, an eager 30-year-old and 6 ft tall slobering hulk. And oh, yes, moonbat always wears her Victoria Secret... even today. Cheers!!

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Coulter Raises Money for Liberals

So moonbat made her first donation for the 2008 Presidential campaign in the middle of a lightening storm as deer stampeded by in a panic. Literally. As thunderstorm warnings flashed across the bottom of the television program about bad weather devestating American cities, a text message popped up on my cell phone reading: "Elizabeth Edwards took on Ann Coulter on Hardball. Hear it Now! So I texted the code back and listened to Coulter get told she's no kind of role model for kids who want to get involved in politics. True enough. Even my conservative friends consider her one of those groomed barking dogs people carry around in a gaudy purse. Of course, poison still kills even though her words taste bad for the hate. What kills are all the lies.

Look here one the fact-check verdict on Slander: Liberal Lies about the American Right, and right here for another one and another. Verdict's not good. Even the Columbia Journalism Review finds it hard too choke down her level of "accuracy." Spinsainity takes apart both Slander and a following book, Treason: Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terror. Even Time Magazine's lukewarm attempt to save itself from the fires by defending her as intelligently inspired falls flat. One lie in Slander takes the cake: Coulter claims that the New York Times failed to cover the tragic death of Dale Earnhardt at a Sunday race due to liberal bias for two days, when they ran a front page story on his death the very next day. The story Coulter then quotes completely misrepresents the heartfelt tribute of southern-born Rick Bragg as being a contemptuous sneer by a northern liberal. Lie by ommission and flat out lie.

I must confess most conservatives I talk to have too many braincells to have ever bought and read one of Coulter's books, but those I know who do tend to be young, can't remember much of what she wrote, and tend to me more affected by her ability to be skinny. Real skinny. Really really really... Anyway, they tend to not be the sort who look at her footnotes in order to figure out that ah... she lies. A lot. Most of the time. And their infatuation remains the very problem of the publishing industry and late night talk shows giving her a podium when they know she's an intellectual fraud, the ultimate dumb blonde. Because they then love us despite what she tells them to believe, rendering them unable to see us as moral creatures. And that is the first step by which liberals are dehumanized by a shrill-barking blonde.

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Texas Republican Hides 'Stench' Behind Patriotism

Moonbat enjoyed having voted for Steny Hoyer last fall, especially since he gave a royal thrashing to Texas Republican Lamar Smith, that aired this morning on CSPAN. Sweet!! At contention was Hate Crimes Bill 1592, which would "provide Federal assistance to States, local jurisdictions, and Indian tribes to prosecute hate crimes." Lamar Smith expounded at length that we as a society should expand the hate crimes bill to protect current and former members of the military, and when given the opportunity to have that ammendment added, objected to his own ammendment, my beloved southern gentleman took that skinny stick of a man out in front of the podium and the cameras and turned his good name into ground chuck roast. Out of the Judiciary Committee went 1592, on to passage through the work of 212 fine-looking Democrats. Do Hoyer proud and go visit these 14 Cowards about their likewise "stench." Oh Hoyer, if only you were a few years younger.

The New Republic runs down why the Republican Party's so-called "objections" to the bill don't hold water:

Christian Right groups claim that the bill will prevent Tony Perkins from gay-bashing every Sunday. That's doubtful. The National Review argues that "[T]here is no evidence that local law enforcement has a special need for federal resources to help it combat hate crimes." That's not true. Republicans complain that the bill wouldn't protect senior citizens and members of the military. But when John Conyers offered to add those protections to the bill, the GOP refused. NR, again, says that it could "open the door to legal punishment for harboring incorrect thoughts." That doesn't seem right, either: The bill pretty clearly states that a defendant's past statements or associations can't be used as evidence unless they "specifically relate to the offense."

Also noted that it's unsurprising Bush threatens a veto, given he believes hate crimes don't exist.

A curious conservative reaction, found via the American Renissance newsfeed. The AP story in snippets and then come the comments: "The real reason for “hate crimes” laws are to take white people’s ability to organize away from them. If white people can no longer even discuss, the effect that non-white’s have on their communities, then their ability to organize politically will no longer exist. Also, if a white person has to think twice about defending him/herself from a non-white on the street, this will keep white people in a state of fear, that will make them very easy to manage politically." {Some advice on how to prove a Jew is faking a hate crime.} How can this nation ever identify itself and fair when it singles out specific people for special protection? I get more and more disgusted by these politicians every day. I find myself starting to agree more and more with this nation’s enemies. Did I read that? "Hate Crime Bills" increase recruitment for Al-Qaeda? And I thought I had read it all.

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McCain Takes Photos, Leaves Bloodshed In Iraq

So just a few merry months ago everyone figured McCain the front runner for the Republican ticket in 2008. Till he took a little saunter in a market in Baghdad to try to fake progress in the troop surge in Iraq. McCain held a photo-op in which he mishandled the press and dodged questions on a possible invasion of Iran. McCain smiled big for the American audience and said, "things are getting better in Iraq." The next day, 21 Shia market-workers from that same market were kidnapped, tortured and murdered by Sunni insurgents provoked by his little stunt. Snipers also made an appearance to show how impressed they were with this particular candidate. McCain's definition of "improvement" entails a whole 4% drop in civilian deaths, although the insurgents should feel free to kill as many Iraqi police as they desire. America surely can find a military contractor somewhere to train more.



McCain lies about these very numbers in a conference call with con-bloggers. "One of the key elements which has given us dramatic hope is the amount of dead bodies they’re finding in the streets each morning. It’s down from 100 to as much as about 20 each day. That’s still horrible, but it’s a sign of progress." McCain also remarks on the Democratic Congress's push for a withdrawal date, that "if they want to cut off funding - fine!"


McCain defended his shopping trip with Petraeus in an op-ed to the WaPo:

"For the first time, our delegation was able to drive, not use helicopters, from the airport to downtown Baghdad.....Today the market still faces occasional sniper attacks, but it is safer than it used to be. One innovation of the new strategy is closing markets to vehicles, thereby precluding car bombs that kill so many and garner so much media attention....The new political-military strategy is beginning to show results. But most Americans are not aware because much of the media are not reporting it or devote far more attention to car bombs and mortar attacks that reveal little about the strategic direction of the war. I am not saying that bad news should not be reported or that horrific terrorist attacks are not newsworthy. But news coverage should also include evidence of progress....This is not a moment for partisan gamesmanship or for one-sided reporting."

Ah... the old, if there isn't good news, it's because the evil liberal media oppresses the good news. No good news must be a lie. Heh. For someone who claims Americans aren't getting the full picture, funny that McCain leaves out his chaperons for the day: 100 infantry soldiers, 3 Blackhawks, 2 Apache gunships and 1 bullet-proof vest. Who can say that constitutes "walking freely" through the market with a straight face?

McCain admits that he lied to Wolf Blitzer that "General Petraeus goes out there almost every day in an unarmed Humvee" after he himself tooled around Baghdad in Petraeus' armored Humvees. McCain remarks that obviously there are no unarmored Humvees, as if anyone who had believed that statement was a fool, and then absolves himself by saying: "I’m trying to make the point over and over and over again that we are making progress."

McCain then linked his presidential bid to the success of the surge strategy in Iraq. Curious. Having done so, McCain then argues for patience, as the surge will take longer than Pelosi's September 2008 end to combat funds. So McCain predicts the surge will work by October '08? November 1st, 2008? Just in time to swoop him into the White House. Now that doesn't leave much of a margin for error, and certainly, should Petraeus retire early due to stomach ulcers, McCain ends up having run for two years as the champion of failure. Nowhere will you find that McCain defines what success in Iraq will look like, aside from the complete destruction of Al-Qaeda, which can be achieved in Iraq even though the U.S. military failed in that mission in Afghanistan. Sure.

Trying to look presidential after the debacle of his press conference last week, McCain gave an extended remix of his op-ed at the VMI:

I just returned from my fifth visit to Iraq. Unlike the veterans here today, I risked nothing more threatening than a hostile press corps. And my only mission was to inform my opinions with facts. We still face many difficult challenges in Iraq. That is undeniable. But we have also made, in recent weeks, measurable progress in establishing security in Baghdad and fighting al Qaeda in Anbar province.

McCain risked nothing, because the Marines who swept the market before he arrived, and the 100 infantry soldiers in a giant ring around him, they risked it all for him. Onward. Do we really want a President who decides how the situation really is and then selects those facts that support his opinion and disregards those that do not help him out? Given that such a very mindset is regarded as how the intelligence community erroneously concluded that Saddam had WMD in the first place? Yikes. Do we want a President so openly contemptuous of the American public that he chides politicians who might "take advantage of the public’s frustration" as if we were drunk women on a date whose honor was a stake. Do we?

McCain just can't help lying again, or else he's completely off his rocker:

Before I left for Iraq, I watched with regret as the House of Representatives voted to deny our troops the support necessary to carry out their new mission.....Responsible political leaders — statesmen — do not add to the burdens our troops carry. That is what Democrats, intentionally or not, have done by failing to provide them with the resources necessary to succeed in their mission. Everyday that passes without the necessary funds appropriated to sustain our troops, our chances of success in Iraq dwindle and our military readiness declines further. We have sent the best Americans among us to fight in Iraq, at the least, we must give them the tools they need to do their job.

McCain... McCain... McCain... that would be your party that has them over there right now without the tools they need to do their job. This is an emergency supplemental spending bill, which means, it's like a moneygram to the irresponsible college kid who spent his textbook money on pizza. Yeah, Bush screwed up for 4 long years, but he was your party's candidate and you were part of the majority, and you've already wasted hundreds of billions groping around in the dark. The 2007 bill passed, and the money's there for the taking, but oh my gods... Petraeus only has a year to show us what he's got. Yeah, if he's your sunshine boy there McCain, you'd think you'd show a little love. But all Petraeus gets from McCain is doubt and backpedaling. Bush asked for one more chance. No backing out now.

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Moonbat Does Not Get Tsa Union On Her Birthday

So this morning my boss above my boss had a nice birthday present for me, which was also a consolation prize. First the prize: dried-out day old muffins in a variety of flavors, that crumbled like sawdust when you tried to split them. No butter, no margarine, no "i-can't-believe-it's-not." And what for? Bush has assured the country that he will defend it from the threat of terrorism by making sure we federal airport screeners can't dream of fair pay. Which would be specifically the right to collectively bargain at all, at which Republicans are acting like he just announced the troop surge in Iraq met with success. Democrats in the Senate have only half-chickened out, and stripped the collective bargaining for pay out of the Homeland Security Bill, while leaving in nonpay union activity and whistle-blower protections. I took a great delight in the mere symbolic act of tossing that muffin for a three-point throw.

No one seems to think that federal screeners want collective bargaining, which we do, or that for some reason we interviewed for these jobs for the sheer reason of wanting another 9-11. We are not cashiers denying free water bottles to rescue workers that fateful day. We are the ones who have to stare down that spitting and raving passenger in front of you who thinks his bowie knife should fly. Regardless of our thankless task, Republican lawmakers are sounding the drumbeat, that for some reason, the idea that we shouldn't be worrying about getting evicted will makes us ineffective or fall asleep on the job will encourage Osama bin Laden. They use meaningless propaganda about "9-11" and who remembers it most to imply that there is no possibility that TSA could be so immoral as to mistreat it's workers, because of course, 9-11 matters more than labor costs. Yet in the next breath, we can't have union rights because TSA might end up having to hire more federal screeners and labor costs might go up?

Right now, teachers are trusted more with educating children than federal screeners are trusted with protecting the public. In one breath, TSA is useless. In the next breath, TSA must be unfettered in it's eternal vigilance against the greatest threat of our time. ?? The racket being raised over merely compromising on giving us whistle-blower protection and collective bargaining but not for pay is so equal, that one begins to understand this is about worker's rights period. And why are people such cowards as to be unable to stand before Congress and raise the question... what is so unpatriotic about paying the rent?

Other cons rally around the idea thathappier screeners will want longer relationships with passengers:

And according to TSA, a collective bargaining infrastructure would lead to the closing of an estimated 250 screening lanes at airports (longer lines), poor staffing (even longer lines) and late flight departures (so you’ll be waiting when you’re done with the longer TSA line, too).

Or they are more honest and just say that unionization creates inept, incompetent fools. These con-blogs don't quote actual screeners and give no indication that they know any personally, or have even done anything more than snarl at having to "voluntarily surrender" another cigarette lighter. Let me explain this to them now: TSA managers constantly seeks ways to reduce the cost of labor even if that means reducing the efficiency and amount of screening at airports, and without a union, we screeners seem powerless to halt the slow-bleed. Perhaps moderates have just reason to despair that the American political system is fundamentally impaired, when those who could seek knowledge would prefer to cling to false soundbites instead of really wanting their country defended against terrorism.

So.. are long lines of more concern to you or the fact that you can try to board an airplane with a gun and not get arrested? Heck, you meant well, you can still even fly!

Curious language from the right: TSA managers will be "made passive" by whistle-blower protections, according to Rep. Dent (R.-PA). What does this mean: "made passive." Sounds ominous, but what does this mean? Whistle-blower protection is extended only if a criminal case is pursued against a superior, and the whole point is that a superior should [i]be made passive[/i] to punish those who testify to criminal behavior. So it's a Republican version of victory against the terrorists to protect criminals in federal employment, those easiest to target for corruption and collaboration? An intelligent question of course that doesn't have the [i]scary[/i] sounding appeal as managers "made passive" by the red-shirted workers.

Another tidbit the cons are drooling over, is a release by TSA listing Myths and Facts about what it's like to work as a federal screener. I'd never seen it before a con-blog alerted me to it's existence. I found the first one highly amusing and very personal:

MYTH: TSA does nothing to reduce injuries to screeners or unsafe work conditions. FACT: TSA cares about its workforce and has implemented a robust safety program.

I can attest to the 20.5 days of worker's compensation given for an injury. I have been injured twice on this job requiring medical attention, for the first time in my life, and the first time I missed 104 days of work. Yet my worker's comp pay cut off mysteriously at exactly 20 days. I was referred from work to a local injury medical care center, and the first thing they told me was that they were under contract not to excuse me from work as medically incapacitated under worker's compensation, that such a determination would be made by my employer. (Yeah, because I'm that stupid.) In two days, it will have been a year and my injury has still not healed. I have been waiting three weeks for approval from a private contractor hired to do my injury paperwork "automated" for a cortisone shot that the doctor was able to administer the first day he wrote the prescription. Three weeks. And as for the lifting... there has been no reduction in what is required of TSA screeners since I started in August of 2005, and TSA still may not enforce the airline's set baggage weight limit. But safety first! And I'm the Queen of England.

By the way, how many of you dear readers think a nice dose of Flexeril improves mental alertness?

Speaking of which, an iron fist in a velvet glove has been moving to coordinate all the little con-blogs on this issue: the Wall Street Journal. In a lovely "OpinionJournal" (which my dear readers should remember) article, the WSJ takes the position that TSA checkpoint screeners are trained to do federal paperwork interchangeably with real HR specialists (we are not), which means that whatever employee rights are gained will cause checkpoints to become fewer (they will not). The WSJ also advances the idea that terrorism is a constant "emergency" and is so horribly ignorant as to not even know that, yes, federal screeners are redeployed to cover evacuations through major airports during hurricanes. Screeners at my airport volunteered (and did not have to be ordered) to help in the evacuations before and after Katrina, even though that mean sleeping on Red Cross cots and not showering for weeks. Yet serve they did, no matter how much such service is dishonored by conservatives who now question their patriotism.

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