Thursday, July 12, 2007

A News Story To Make You Mad

Here's a little hunk of it...

The Defense Department put U.S. troops in Iraq at risk by awarding contracts for badly needed armored vehicles to companies that failed to deliver them on time, according to a review by the Pentagon's inspector general. The June 27 report, obtained Wednesday by The Associated Press, examined 15 contracts worth $2.2 billion awarded since 2000 to Force Protection Inc. and Armor Holdings Inc.

The contracts were issued without the normal competition for government work because the military determined these companies were the only ones capable of supplying the vehicles fast enough to meet the demands of deployed troops. Yet the inspector general's report concluded otherwise.

Overall, Force Protection of Ladson, S.C., received 11 contracts from the Army and Marine Corps worth $417 million for a variety of vehicles, including its Buffalo and Cougar mine-resistant trucks. Force Protection failed to meet all delivery schedules, according to the report, and acquisition officials knew there were other manufacturers that might have supplied some of the vehicles in a more timely fashion. The report does not provide the names of those possible alternative sources.

You can read the whole story here. If you can stand it.

• Posted at 10:46 PM · LINK

Note To Self:

If you ever have the inexplicable urge to install software manufactured by the Symantec Corporation, resist. Instead, just take the computer out back and lob it into the pool. The result will be pretty much the same and you'll save time.

• Posted at 7:02 PM · LINK

Men At Work

For techie-type reasons that have nothing to do with me, this website (and my e-mail) will be down tomorrow (Friday) night for a period of up to five hours. Try not to get too upset about it.

• Posted at 6:28 PM · LINK

Notes on Nixon

Roger Ailes is now the head honcho at Fox News Network. In 1970, he was a Republican media consultant...which was pretty much the same job. Back then, he authored an interesting memo about Nixon's TV manner and they have it over at The Smoking Gun.

• Posted at 2:18 AM · LINK

Today's Video Link

Here's the end of the Marx Brothers movie, The Big Store, with Charles Lane doing what he did so well and so often: Playing a mean old authority figure...

• Posted at 1:49 AM · LINK

July 13, 2007 • Current • July 11, 2007