Monday June 21 – Open Thread

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OSHA was created to make the work place safer.  Instead, the Bush administration did its best to dismantle the enforcement of work place safety rules.  As a result, people died or were severely injured.

This is today’s Open Thread.  Speak up!

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84 thoughts on “Monday June 21 – Open Thread”

  3. Ironic that I am on my way to PT for a work related injury when I read this . . . Thanks for posting, Cats – The link makes work safety issues all the more real . . .

    Sunny here . . . Hoping you all enjoy the change of season :)

  5. 2ebb – yes, Summer is officially here. We watched the late evening sunset from our yard last night. The sky was beautiful. There were just enough high clouds to add brilliant colors to the sky as the sun sank below the hills.

  7. Few attorneys in California are taking Workers’ Comp cases any more. They cost more than they pay for the attorneys, thanks to herr Governator’s reforms. Injured workers receive less than they did 6 years ago for the same injury, and the employer/insurance company gets to object to every proposed treatment, delaying or denying treatment altogether, even long after – years after – the date of the injury.

    Injured workers burn through their 12 family medical leave and lose their job rights well before the are authorized for necessary surgery, for example.

    And governmental entities are the worst for when it come to making accomodations for an injured worker. They don’t. They don’t even bother to see if the person can do their job functions with reasonable accomodations. If the person is on the least bit of restrictions, s/he can’t report for work, again going through all their leave. Then s/he is fired.

    The rich get richer. The “small people” get screwed. And the Teabaggers are ready and willing to go to war to perpetuate this system.

    Have a nice day.

  8. Cats, and the nobles are particularly adept at fooling some of the people all of the time…

  9. Safety is a culture that is a direct reflection of managements view of short term vs long term costs.
    Too often statistics are manipulated and dangerous tasks are outsourced to vendors or even other countries where it is out of sight and thus out of mind.
    Healthy, uninjured employees contribute more to the long term profitability of a company than employees that are afraid to be proactive due to a toxic management culture.
    There’s a lot more at stake than is apparent on the surface and bad upper management poisons the well for more than just the workers. It affects the families of the workers and their communities.

    I have a Master’s in safety and in the U.S. safety is not readily appreciated until after something bad happens and then people are scrambling to redeem themselves by making sure that “it never happens again”.
    The U.S. does not have a proactive safety culture, they have a reactive “if you can’t fix the problem fix the blame culture”.

  10. I have a Master’s in safety and in the U.S. safety is not readily appreciated until after something bad happens and then people are scrambling to redeem themselves by making sure that “it never happens again”.
    The U.S. does not have a proactive safety culture, they have a reactive “if you can’t fix the problem fix the blame culture”.

    Corporations have deemed that, in general, it’s cheaper to settle the claims than to buy all the proactive safety equipment and implement safety procedures.

    Corporations are the problem.

  11. Sadly, the instant gratification motive that has been inculcated into our society over the past thirty years is to blame for much of this. No employer wants to waste money but investing in safety isn’t wasting, its investing in the long term profitability of a company.

    With the bean counters in charge, if a dollar spent doesn’t bring a return of $2 by the end of the day, it is wasted. Don’t worry about next year, hell, somebody’ll probably buy the company by then and it will be their worry.

  12. Anybody think there’s any truth to this?

    Rahm Emanuel Expected To Quit White House

    Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff, is expected to leave his job later this year after growing tired of the “idealism” of Barack Obama’s inner circle.

    Washington insiders say he will quit within six to eight months in frustration at their unwillingness to “bang heads together” to get policy pushed through.

    Mr Emanuel, 50, enjoys a good working relationship with Mr Obama but they are understood to have reached an understanding that differences over style mean he will serve only half the full four-year term.

    If so, will the White House continue to seek bipartisanship where there’s none to be found, try to get tougher after the midterms, or will the midterms end the Dem majority, making all this moot?

    • I wonder if there is any correlation between Rahm leaving because of the “idealism” of Obama’s administration, and Israel’s being forced by international pressure to ease the blockade on Gaza.. I know that may sound weird to suggest, but think about it. Rahm met with Netanyahu before they took out all those people on that relief ship. He has a dual citizenship with Israel. He has been a really strong supporter of anything Israel. Maybe President Obama was part of the international support for Israel to ease up on Gaza instead of supporting Israel’s actions without question.
      I know there is more to his decision that that, but just wondered on the timing of both news reports.

        • I heard someone on the radio this morning say that the oil reservoir under that disaster contains something like 2-3 billion barrels of oil, and only 3% has come out so far. They mentioned an article in the Christian Science Monitor.

          I hope I heard wrong.

  13. Rahm to leave because he’s tired of the idealism? I’m almost tempted to say a prayer for that one. The sooner the better.

  16. Whether or not it was initially 1000 barrels, having seen, in my own trade, a Waterjet machine cut 6 inch plate steel with a high pressure water stream, injected with garnet powder, I can accept that the oil, under similar high pressure, with particulate matter from the formation, could easily be making the aperture gradually larger through abrasion. After all, it has had sixty days to work at it. Having cut off the riser, I also believe we are getting a much more accurate flow rate than before, which is leaving BP less room to fudge the numbers.

  18. muse & HoR, isn’t there a song that goes something about a ‘lying sack of shit,..’

  19. Zooey, I heard something similar, but I remembered that the leak could last two years if left unchecked.

  20. RUCerious, I’ve had summer in my back yard for four weeks!

    Today is the hottest predicted high so far, it was 98, but they changed it to 97 in the last hour.

  22. “Today is the hottest predicted high so far, it was 98, but they changed it to 97 in the last hour.”

    It’s the 1º of separation, House – doesn’t it make it cooler knowing they’ve re-calibrated?

  23. Today is Amber’s next to last day at school. They’re having ‘field day’. Lisa’s helping out and I’m home on a vacation day waiting for Jayden to wake up…Daddy day extended!

  26. Is anybody listening to Hartmann, right now? This winger just went ballistic on the air because Thom was trying to stop him from filibustering an entire interview.

  27. Happy Litha, All…Thanks for the music, 2ebb…

    Cold, wet, Lab loving weather here, old witchs not so much..LOL

    NWCN reporting on the sub testing at Bayview, Idaho..Been a secret, sort of for years..I lived there for awhile..Pretty country…

    At OpEdNews.com found a music parody, pretty good….Stevegoodie03′s Black water (BP version) Gulf oil spill, Doobie Brothers Parody.

    Happy posting….P, B, & J..

  28. Every regulatory agency needs a thorough review and cleaning out. Every appointee from the Bush administration needs to go. We need to destroy the chumminess between the regulatory agencies and the industries they are supposed to regulate.

    • I absolutely agree, Kitty. I know it might be a big pain in the ass for Obama, since he’ll have to get some appointees through the Senate, but isn’t it a pain in the ass already? Might as well do it.

  29. No, it was the start of the second hour, Zooey. We need to get you sound on that computer.

    Anybody that wants to hear it, go to Colorado Progressive Talk and click on the ‘Listen’ button by 1:00 pm Pacific Time. They were discussing who to blame for the economic problems. The nut calmed down for a minute, but before the end they were both talking over each other again. I’ve never heard a talk show guest lose it like that before, only callers.

    • I’ve got sound on this computer, House, I just don’t turn it on because I’m in the front office all the time — and half of the attorneys are Republicans. :D

  30. Right on, Kitty. If they can’t be fired, transfer them to agencies that have nothing to do with the original one. And as long as we are cleaning house, any volunteers to pack Rahm’s bags?

  31. Hell, have them regulate Troll Central for all I care. I’m sure they’d have the expertise to run things over there…

    All facetiousness aside, this problem is not just found in MMS although the orgies there must be pretty damn HOT. Every regulatory agency has been undermined by industry moles and needs to be sanitized and cleansed. These agencies need to reject resumes from insiders from the industries that they are supposed to regulate. Perhaps that is drastic, but there are experts in the field that are not in bed with those industries.

    • Bush/Cheney also dug in a lot of positions that used to be appointees by making them civil servants. Unfortunately, Obama can’t get rid of them.

  32. Not exactly true, Zooey. A senior civil servant can be transfered to a position of equal value. If they decline the transfer then they can be demoted or canned.

  33. It’s sort of like the military. If one refuses orders to a new post, you are within your rights. You also get branded as a non-team player and the elevator of promotion sort of stalls at that floor. It isn’t quite as cut and dried in the GS service but very close.

    • So it’s more complicated than being able to say, “I need your resignation on my desk by 5,” but it’s not impossible.

      Oh BTW, I’ll volunteer to help Rahm pack his bags. ;)

  34. Yup. Its like saying to a top clown at MMS, “Hey, I need you to run the regional ag office out of Fargo yesterday.” If they say yes, they are in a different industry and their connections go pfft. If they say no, they get a black mark in their personnel file and are dead ended.

    Simplistic but very workable.

  38. 2ebb, cue Pat Robertson pointing out that God hates the state of Arizona because of the new immigration laws in 1,2…. oh wait Pat *supports* the new laws…. sorry, forget it.

  39. We all know the TP trolls are stupid. We all know that they are too stupid to realize the extent of their stupidity. Did you know this disorder has a name, and there has been research done to prove it?

    The Anosognosic’s Dilemma: Something’s Wrong but You’ll Never Know What It Is (Part 1)

    Dunning wondered whether it was possible to measure one’s self-assessed level of competence against something a little more objective — say, actual competence. Within weeks, he and his graduate student, Justin Kruger, had organized a program of research. Their paper, “Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties of Recognizing One’s Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-assessments,” was published in 1999.

    Dunning and Kruger argued in their paper, “When people are incompetent in the strategies they adopt to achieve success and satisfaction, they suffer a dual burden: Not only do they reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices, but their incompetence robs them of the ability to realize it. Instead, like Mr. Wheeler, they are left with the erroneous impression they are doing just fine.”

    It became known as the Dunning-Kruger Effect — our incompetence masks our ability to recognize our incompetence.

    This guy Errol Morris is pretty good. The comments are even better! This is the first of a five part series.

    • I started taunting the trolls with the Dunning-Kruger Effect a couple months ago, and Gary Herstein has picked it up too. You know how little kids will over-estimate how well they will do on something, or think they’re way smarter than their classmates? It’s a kid thing! These idiots are in grown up bodies, with the thinking patterns of children. But most children grow up.

      I think it’s cool that someone actually got funding for the studies. :D

  40. I wouldn’t be surprised if the election results were flipped. Weren’t South Carolinians voting on those unverifiable touch-screen machines?

    It’s simple…the ATM gives you a receipt…why can’t voting machines, although if they are programmed, it wouldn’t matter anyway. Does it have to come down to people keeping track of how they vote through a post-it for later counting in order to show the world how much these machines are not to be trusted?

  42. “our incompetence masks our ability to recognize our incompetence.”

    So stupid you think stupid is smart. Makes sense when you portray intelligence as bad.

  43. I like to use their claims to try to shame them into actually behaving like a reasonable conservative. We’ve had a few of them, rare and far in-between.

  44. BTW, the guy that went ballistic on Thom Hartmann is Peter Ferrera, of the ACRU. He’s their Legal Director. He writes for American Spectator.

  46. USCKitty, how can you get a debate going with one while EugeneDebs is telling them to kill themselves?

  47. Kitty, I’m very much against touch-screen voting. I’m a programmer by trade, and the manipulation and fraud in this case is way to easy to pull off.

    Personally I’m very happy with the system we have here in Minnesota. We mark a paper ballet that happens to be machine readable. So we have the speed and convenience of the electronic tally, but we have the audit trail of paper ballets. In the recent Coleman/Franken election, the paper ballets were crucial.

    No system is perfect, but I strongly recommend a system that has the voter mark a paper ballot.

    • I’ve seen many trolls say they’re debating, and many who challenge us to debates, but I’ve never actually seen one debate. I’m pretty sure they don’t know what this thing called ‘debate’ is.

  49. yeah, well I’ve talked to him in the past, and we’ve agreed that well I post how I do and he posts how he does…

    Eugene does debate and I’ve seen him do so in the most competent manner. However, when the trolls come in here spewing about how we’re morons and sheep and then cry about how when they get the predictable backlash that they don’t deserve it, when we see them playing the victim card…I don’t really see much point.

  50. zxbe, I totally concur with you. The voting machines are so easily hackable that no reasonable democracy would allow them. The very fact that ours does can’t say much for debunking the whole argument that our elections are nothing more than a feel-good exercise that gives the pretense of having power to the common folk like you or me…

  51. hoodathunk
    June 21, 2010 at 2:18 pm
    Debate? Trolls? Everyone could be calling for them to commit hari kiri and no one could and the result would be the same.

    To be fair, expecting debate from those who have only come to insult us and to disrupt things is like expecting a cat to get off your lap before she or he is done…

  53. House, I’m listening to Hartmann, on line.
    [the commercials are getting on my last nerve].

    It’s well into the second hour (or at least I think it’s the second hour)…he’s talking about Hamilton and Mfg. taxes/tariffs…

    Is the interview anywhere around here or have I perhaps missed it (I’ve been listening since 1p PDT).

  54. 2Ebb,

    It should have been right after the break at 1pm your time. Some of the ads are annoying. That’s what they can get to sponsor Progressive Talk, I guess. I listen to them every day. Some of them I have to turn the sound down.

  55. Thanks House, I was listening at that time but perhaps not paying as close attention as I should have.

    I’ll check out a re-re-broadcast later.

    I realize adverts are the life-line of radio – just got spoiled from listening to commercial-free NPR.

    How was your racing Sunday viewing?

  56. I thought you’d like that Zooey.

    Tweety is interviewing Tarryl Clark, Dem challenger for Michelle Bachmann’s seat. She said Minnesota has some of the lowest cost and best outcome healthcare insurance. My Cobra is from Minnesota. How cool. This pretty lady helped me get good health insurance (through my company’s location there). I guess I need to send her a few bucks.

  57. 2ebb,

    It was funny. I started Saturday afternoon, with the Nascar Nationwide race up Hoodathunk’s way, at Road America at Elkhart Lake. It was the first time both top Nascar divisions raced at different road courses on the same weekend. Three drivers commuted the 1830 miles between to run there and at Sears Point, one of which was the winner, Carl Edwards. He’s the one that does the backflip off the door sill of the race car when he wins.

    Had the Indy cars first on Sunday, because the Nascar race was out your way. The IRL was at Iowa Speedway, near Des Moines. The gals didn’t do very well at Iowa, Milka Duno crashed in qualifying, and her patched up car was too slow Sunday, so the IRL made her park it for safety. Simona de Silvestro had handling problems that turned out to be a mechanical failure, so she didn’t finish. Sarah Fisher spun and hit the wall, but didn’t hurt her car too expensively. Danica did decent, qualified 9th, finished 10th, but didn’t drive a spectacular race. She had a safe setup on her car but it was too slow, and she finally got lapped, late in the race. Danica’s teammate Tony Kanaan got the win so the Andretti team had a good party, post-race.

    The Sears Point race was almost as much fun as the Elkhart Lake race. Lots of bumping and banging in both. Mark Martin finished 14th so I was happy with that.

  58. You must’ve had the fridge stacked and the snacks close by all weekend! Sounds like it was a total blast for you! Do the cats feel ignored while the engines roar on the t.v. machine? ; >

    She had a safe setup on her car but it was too slow, and she finally got lapped, late in the race.

    What exactly does that mean – she had a safe setup?

  59. Safe setup = too much downforce, which makes the car easy to drive, but at the expense of top speed, due to increased drag. The car was balanced and stable, but in order to make it faster during the race, she would have had to risk radical adjustments, that might have made the car unmanageable. This track is a 7/8 mile oval, with 18 second laps, and no real straightaway. Plus, it had a bad bump in one place that bothered all the drivers. It is similar to Richmond, which is 3/4 mile, and Danica didn’t do well there either, her first couple times.

  60. Death toll at 34 in Colombia mine blast

    The exact cause of the explosion is unknown, but the mine’s records indicate it lacked a methane ventilation pipe and gas-detection device.

    Dozens die in central China mine blast

    State television said a store of gunpowder kept underground had detonated at 0140 (1740 GMT on Sunday).

    According to official figures, 2,631 coal miners died in 1,616 mine accidents in China in 2009, down 18% from the previous year.

    But independent labour groups say the figure could be much higher, as accidents are covered up to prevent mine closures.

    Most accidents are blamed on failures to follow safety rules, including a lack of required ventilation or fire control equipment.
    “Coal-generated power accounts for about 70% of China’s electricity needs.”

  63. TPM News
    Salazar creates new agency to oversee drilling
    Interior secretary swears in leader of new agency to oversee offshore drilling

    MATTHEW DALY
    AP News

    Jun 21, 2010 15:45 EDT

    Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has sworn in a former federal prosecutor as director of a new government agency to oversee offshore drilling and other oil and gas development.

    A former assistant U.S. attorney and Justice Department inspector general, Michael R. Bromwich will lead a reorganization of the agency formerly known as the Minerals Management Service.

    Bromwich’s arrival Monday coincides with a secretarial order signed by Salazar renaming the agency the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement. The previous agency was criticized for a cozy relationship with oil companies and lax oversight.

    The Obama administration plans to break up the agency into three separate entities to eliminate conflicts of interest.

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