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Oh! And I'm throwing in a permanant "star" in your name on the "Little Dick" thread!

Now that hurt my lil' feelings.....

Not you, silly!!!!!

That's RW's prize for his last little piece of mischief....

That's good, I was going to say (cough cough).........






never mind

It also makes sense that they participated taking care of their old friends and contacts. Did they grow angel wings and halos because they moved into the white house? Not likely no one else ever had,

They have shut down the flow of information we did have by citing terrorist activity's. I'm sure they are hiding more under that umbrella than National Security Secrets. So it will be very difficult to find out any straight facts until much later, maybe it will be too late for us to force different action and cleaner government practices, maybe not I don't know.

Been going for generations, Sjy is what I am trying to say. Big Business and Big Government have hand in hand for many years and in many industries.

Not always to the harm of the country and its people. Gov't contracts
are still most often awarded to the best supplier, best product and best price. But the idea that pure competition will alway get you better (item, price, design) also has to fit with the manufacturing and designs abilities of the firm.

You can look back at military weapon contracts till WWII. Some were good....some were average....some were great. Competition at the
early stage was often how innovative the firm was....in thier design.
Then when put into a head to head competition with the others, Gov't would get the best pic of the lot. That is the theory.

But that is not how it works. Politics come into the game. Think not?
Boeing Corp getting a GAO review of the recent Airbus/Northrup Air tanker contract. All Boeing needed to do was to show Air Force errors on some areas of the evaulation process and the contract is held up. Congressmen from both parties chime in. White House/DoD/ Air Force are all now put into dark to when a vitally needed system will be coming their way.

Boeing considers it a win. A major competitor is held up in beginning a contract....and they still might wrangle a contract out it. But if you are flying an old Boeing tanker and if you are fighter jock coming from a hot area and need a load of gas in the future.....and if you are planning to use that new tanker in some air operations 5 years from now.....well not a good thing when politics are played on gov't contracts.

Shifting to gov't waste. It is there...when they pay large dollars for basic items like hammers and screw drivers....you know. But then they also have some very advanced systems.....like a F-22 or V-22 or B-2....
and there is billions of $ on the table. They do it with professionalism most often. On these advanced system how many times do you see kickback to Gov't officials making the buying decision with billions on the line? Few and far between, yes?

What happens is inexpereinced gov't buyers are buying hammer and screw drivers. People just learning their career and business. Those making a decision on a B-2, they have been doing it for a long while.
Like anything...the inexpereinced get bite.....while those that have had a career in the field....understand the pitfalls.

I am not saying the GWB administration did not have a relationship with big oil. Saying that just about every American that comes into
Gov't service has a relationship with an industry or business at some point in thier life. Saying that you can have a relationship with an industry and participate in it in a ethical manner that is postive to the needs of the country. Even if there are some match sticks on the table as you lay the cards down.:-)

Also saying that the left and the media have a very close relationship right now. Very kissy kissy when it come to reporting the Iraq war, the energy issues, and these little fish that have to swim the rivers of guidelines, editting, and political leaning of thier larger corporations.

God Bless You TTOM

Could you give us another hundred long posts so we can bury the last few pages???

Thank you ttom.

I think we're safe now. Want to get back to business?

Any additional thoughts on posting those wasteful government programs....the ones that could and should be cut immediately.... The truly extravagant welfare type perks that are routinely handed out to the greedy?

Actually, thank you all!

What a great crew you are.

Oh crap, he's back! Quick, somebody get me some facts and a crucifix and maybe some garlic before I scream again!

I do know Tom that the system usually works out but we have been presented with some shocking examples of cronyism and corruption at it's worst. It has worked much to our detriment in these examples of harm to our country and our people. This is what is causing me to be wanting to make some real changes.

I'm not going to post all of the articles and I'm sure Tom that you know more than I but here is what I think I know and am so mad about;

http://www.whistleblowers.org/Army_Whistleblower_Draws_Fire.htm

WASHINGTON -- In the world as Bunnatine Greenhouse sees it, people do the right thing. They stand up for the greater good and they speak up when things go wrong. She believes God has a purpose for each life and she prays every day for that purpose to be made evident. These days she is praying her heart out, because she is in a great deal of trouble.

Bunnatine "Bunny" Greenhouse is the Principal Assistant Responsible for Contracting ("PARC" in the alphabet soup of military acronyms) in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Lest the title fool, she is responsible for awarding billions upon billions in taxpayers' money to private companies hired to resurrect war-torn Iraq and to feed, clothe, shelter and do the laundry of American troops stationed there.

She has rained a mighty storm upon herself for standing up, before members of Congress and live on C-SPAN to proclaim things are just not right in this staggeringly profitable business.

She has asked many questions: Why is Halliburton _ a giant Texas firm that holds more than 50 percent of all rebuilding efforts in Iraq _ getting billions in contracts without competitive bidding? Do the durations of those contracts make sense? Have there been violations of federal laws regulating how the government can spend its money?

Halliburton denies any wrongdoing. "These false allegations have been recycled in the media ad nauseam," the company said in response to a list of e-mailed questions from The Associated Press.

Now Bunny Greenhouse may lose her job _ and her reputation, which she spent a lifetime building........

Greenhouse has known for a long time that her days may be numbered. Her needling of contracts awarded to Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown & Root (KBR) predated the war in Iraq, beginning with costs she said were spiraling "out of control" from a 2000 Bosnia contract to service U.S. troops. From 1995 to 2000, Halliburton's CEO was Dick Cheney, who left to run for vice president. He maintains his former company has not received preferential treatment from the government.

Since then, she had questioned both the amounts and the reasons for giving KBR tremendous contracts in the buildup to invading Iraq. At first she was ignored, she said. Then she was cut out of the decision-making process.
_______________________________________________________

Most people won't stand up and blow the 'ole whistle because the wrongs they see are not going to be corrected and they are not protected are they. She was courageous, tried to do her job properly even testified before congress so what happened here.

Nothing, Halliburton and KBR are close to Cheney and were awarded no bid contracts to rebuild after Katrina how's that going? They are still happily working on their contracts in Iraq bringing in the big bucks with no other whistle blowers in sight and no change in status quo.

Why Tom, why no bid contracts which allow no competition for the lowest price and best job. These are 2 of my biggest problems with this administration because I know that this is happening and nothing can be done about it as long as they are in power. This kind of favoritism does hurt us.

My expertise is more with electronics systems, technologies, and
DoD systems. I did some Gov't bid referal work for a time. And found some funny regs in doing bid referral in regards to military systems...this was in the late 90s.

So welfare is not really an good area for me.

Your oversight agencies are your biggest and best way to keep wasteful gov't from occurring in my opinion. Indy has already said....a new agency to watch the bidding process.

GAO does not do a bad job. I would hate to have them turning their flock of accountants and attroneys loose on me. That is truely a scarry thought. Combine a accoutant and attroney together and what you do you have? A pit bull that Micheal Vic had.:-)

But the problem with GAO...is their expertise in technical areas. The electronics and technolgists systems that are being designed by a Computer Scientitist, a Nuclear Physists, etc. almost take someone in the field to understand and to evaulate properly.

The air tanker contract is a good example. That Airbus/Northrup air tanker is a advnaced system. How does GAO know that the Air Force
evaulation is off? Do they have years of aviation expereince? having they been flying heavy aircraft with refueling abilites? They are looking at a complaint by a competing vendor on the evualation process itself.

We got some lightening strike here...time for me to scoot.....like calling it a day here.

Catch you all soon. God Bless......

Looks like this is winding down, see you all later. I've got to get going too. I'll look for you all soon, unless you fire me for being waaaay too long winded lately.

Heard there was some co-ed showering going on in here. Figures everyone has left.

I think I am sitting here looking at the reason 'why' those ground delays at major airports have been so long prior to take offs.

I have FAA Advisory Circular (AC) Titled "Airspace Flow Program (AFP)' in front of me. It is a recent release of a new program the (AFP). The Gov't is tricky like that they title and then use the letters in the acronm, saves inks too.

Let me give a couple of quotes and you will see what this is about.

1. PURPOSE. The Advisory Circular replaces AC 90-102 and provides guidance to customers of the National Airspace (NAS) regarding changes to the traffic management process managing flights a constrainted area with an Airspace Flow Program (AFP).

Example of constaints include thunderstorm activity, turbulence and 'periods of excess demand'. quotes mine

2. Why was the AFP Developed?
A ground delay program (GDP) is used by traffic managers to meter the flow of arrival traffic at an airport where demand exceed capacity because of weather or congestion.

They are basically saying they will keep you on the ground to keep the runways open for arriving aircraft. This is a real important safe aspect to understand here. Arriving aircraft are at the point where their fuel is the lowest. By FAA regulation they are suppose to have a 45 minute reserve. But often weather, in head winds and route diversion will cause them to eat into this reserve. So the FAA wants to give a priority to the landing aircraft over the departing aircraft that are safe on the ground. Running out of fuel is one of the leading reasons for aviation accidents.

So went it is congested this GDP program was keeping flights on the ground from doing a takeoff.

Next quote referring to the GDP. "This approach was ineffiencent because it often delayed flights that did not directly contribute to the problem and assigned no delay to other flights that tranversed the constrained airspace. Additionally, this method meant that a small subset of airports, usually those with the greatest demand, incurred a disproportionate amount of delays."

The AC goes on to explain how the APP will correct the problems cause by the GRD in our countries NAS by using a FSM that sends EDCTs to FAA's ATCs facilities..............:-)....don't you just love it!

Also that the FAA was pressured by the air carrier to modify the GRD in some manner, the AFP is what they came up with. So maybe at a airport near you, in the future....that 2, 3, 4+ hour ground wait prior to takeoff will not be occurring as much.

Also Orlando International Airport (OIA) our biggie here in Central Florida, has had about 15% reduction in flights, because the air carriers are cutting back on routes because of the fuel prices. Likely more than the AFP, this will solve the long wait prior to takeoffs that many have expereinced in the recent years. Because it is a real reduction of the congestion ....that brought about GRPs, AFPs, EDCTs,
and FSMs....:-)...which have me congested at this time as well.

Skybow...on Halliburton. I read you post. Quickly prior to shutting down yesterday. And got the drift of it. If I miss something in the
reply, do ask. My take on Halliburton and Iraq is likely different than most.

First a question to answer. Do I have a connection to Halliburton?
No. I could have when the Iraqi reconstruction was first being developed. So let me explain that first. As the invasion was winding down, and reconstruction was being discussed, I saw an opportunity to provide a geopolitical consulting service to it.

We have done reconstructions in the past.....post WWII Japan, Germany and Europe....and they are very well documented. So my idea was to use that documentation of prior reconstructions to advise
on this Iraqi reconstruction. Using the indexes of the books, I could locate just about any topic of interest for them.

I read some of the books just to get an idea of what we were looking at in the Iraq reconstruction. Realized, it was a big....a very big task that had been taken on. Let me give a few examples. In post WWII
Japan, did you know that Gen. MacAuthor had so much power in the
reconstruction phase....he was actually approving the Constitution that the Japanese were writing? Just everything that was done in Japan, went across his desk. Washington centralized the reconstruction and gave him full power over it.

While in Europe it was different. Here you had three major allies (US, UK, France) that had to cooperate to make the German and Europe
reconstuction occur. The Marshall Plan. Gen. Marchall came up with the idea to parity our dollar with the aid value given by way. He said 'a dollar of an item here in the US, should not be of any more or less in value that a dollar of a item in Eurupe'. In other words, we were not going to make money off the reconstruction of Europe. Off the contracts yes, off the suffering of the Europeans, no. So you really had two different models on how to do this. My idea was to offer them consulting services from these histories of these WWII and South Korean reconstruction programs to help answer the problems they were getting into in Iraq. I submitted the idea, but was not extended a contract on it. So no relationship to Halliburton.

end of part one
part two in a couple of hours time

CS strictly prohibits co-ed showering! See section 23:17