Base photo courtesy Tuba Boy

Why was an announcement about the Secret Service coordinating travel arrangements to avoid duplicating coverage of Air Marshals loaded with this disclaimer?

"Under no circumstances should the agreement with the Secret Service be interpreted to suggest that the Secret Service agents are 'de facto' federal marshals," said C. Danny Spriggs, Deputy Director of the U.S. Secret Service.

Jurisdiction? Ego? Departmental turf war?

This really is a good point. [Link via Mr. Cramer.]

Looking for Curmudgeonly & Skeptical? He's (temporarily, I assume) moved back to blogspot due to bandwidth issues.

Update on my earlier post on Government Contracting Blues.

The middleman who ordered the ~$250 worth of parts to resell for $3,400 called and cancelled his order. He told our CSR that "I don't know why, but the government just cancelled this order."

Hopefully there are some handcuffs in this guy's future.

Well, this settles it -- Tumors are scaled to fruit, hail to sporting goods, and malfunctioning lightbulbs to obscure instruments.

Broken for about a week, the lamp produced a stronger UV radiation after the protective shield was damaged, said Mark Carmon, spokesman for the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection.

'The information on the bulb container said skin rash or irritation can occur from exposure to a broken bulb,' Mr. Carmon said. 'It was out, but continues to give off UV. There's no danger from these bulbs if they are operating.'

The malfunctioning 325-watt multivapor bulb, about the size of a maraca and hanging from the ceiling, was replaced Friday afternoon, Mr. McDonald said.

Congressman Rohrbacher's webpage is currently featuring one of my graphic designs: Congressman Dana Rohrabacher's Home Page.
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They are using an older version, but it is mine nonetheless.

For reasons that I am sure are clear only to Sen. Kerry's handlers, he chose to come out last night for his victory speech to U2's Beautiful Day. I'm pretty sure he first appeared on the line in green below. Strange.

The heart is a bloom, shoots up through stony ground
But there's no room, no space to rent in this town
You're out of luck and the reason that you had to care,
The traffic is stuck and you're not moving anywhere.
You thought you'd found a friend to take you out of this place
Someone you could lend a hand in return for grace.
It's a beautiful day, the skyfalls
And you feel like it's a beautiful day
It's a beautiful day
Don't let it get away
You're on the road but you've got no destination
You're in the mud, in the maze of her imagination
You love this town even if it doesn't ring true
You've been all over and it's been all over you
It's a beautiful day, the skyfalls
And you feel like it's a beautiful day
It's a beautiful day
Don't let it get away
Touch me, take me to that other place
Teach me, I know I'm not a hopeless case
See the world in green and blue
See China right in front of you
See the canyons broken by cloud
See the tuna fleets clearing the sea out
See the bedouin fires at night
See the old fields at first light
See the bird with a leaf in her mouth
After the flood all the colours came out
It was a beautiful day
A beautiful day
Don't let it get away
Touch me, take me to that other place
Reach me, I know I'm not a hopeless case
What you don't have you don't need it now
What you don't know you can feel it somehow
What you don't have you don't need it now
You don't need it now, you don't need it now
Beautiful day

Not exactly a high energy positive, hopeful message for a campaign, especially that part at the end, "What you don't have you don't need it now," which reminds me a bit of another high profile Democrat.

The more I think about the more it seems Kerry is casting himself a bit as a saviour for the failed and miserable in society. Yeah, that's who I want to run the country, the best man as chosen by the inmates of the asylum.

Today's McNews carries what, from the Yahoo! version, anyway, appears to be a news that is completely indistinguishable from a piece of Kerry propaganda.

Gov. Howard Dean confronts the ghost of
his failed Presidential campaign

 

The Government Contracting Blues

I spent a lot of Friday being angry.

Angry about inefficiency.
Angry about blind greed.
Angry about a spendthrift system that seems to encourage both.

I find anger lurking around each corner as I delve deeper into the world of government contracting.

And I'm not that deep.

Yet.

And I really don't want to be.

Aside:

Contracting directly with the federal government often requires complex (and quite frankly commercially unnecessary) packaging & marking requirements that are beyond the capacity of small manufacturers. Basically, by adding these requirements the feds guarantee that they will pay more than the going commercial rate for many items. Arguably the federal government adds these requirements to create some greater economy for its receiving & inventorying activities.

True though that might be, by imposing requirements that small manufacturers cannot satisfy the system cut them off from many direct contracts. This has created a niche, a damn-near-zero value add layer of complexity, for broker/dealer/distributors who specialize in nothing more than searching out the price on commercial items to fulfill government RFQ’s, buying items at the going rate, marking them up, repackaging and remarking them to government standards.

These middle-men offer make their profit by doing what should be job of a good buyer, but instead of earning a reasonable salary they earn a (sometimes remarkable) margin on every item they handle selling to the government.

Though anecdotal, I provide the following real world examples, from my own personal experience. In them I show how two relatively small government contracts, one each from January and February of 2004, wasted more than my family’s entire federal income burden for 2003.

17,500 Percent Mark Up

Last month my company (for which I am a mere employee) received an RFQ (Request for Quote, an inquiry by a potential customer into our pricing, delivery and other terms) for four pieces of a small part that we manufacture and sell. The RFQ was for an out-of-the-ordinary, but not unique part number for which we rarely have sales inquiries. A semi-custom configuration of a small mechanical assembly.

We sell this part, in small quantities, for just under five dollars a piece. We had none in stock, and the RFQ was from someone we've never dealt with before, so we told them they'd have to order 55 of them to meet our $250 minimum order. It really isn’t worth it for us to make a smaller quantity, given the overhead required to set up the tooling and required outside operations.The day after we generated their quote we received an email (from an automated service) letting us know that a government contract had been awarded for one of our products -- Four pieces of the same obscure $5.00 part we’d quoted the day before were to be supplied to the government for over thirty four hundred dollars.

Over thirty four hundred dollars (>US$ 3,400) for less than twenty dollars (<US$20) worth of stuff.

As much as I’m disgusted that this clown had the nerve to submit a bid at this price, I’m flabbergasted that the feds Okayed the contract at a price more than 170 times higher than the last time it purchased any of these.

Granted, the middleman’s actual cost to buy the parts was a tick over $250, so his profit was only ~$3,100 to fulfill a need valued at most at $250. (Minimum direct acquisition cost.)

[For the record I did rat this guy out to the proper “Contract Integrity” officer. He pretty much dug his own grave when he submitted false cost paperwork showing his purchase price for the parts to be over a thousand dollars above actual cost. If I learn more about this one I’ll pass it on.]

UPDATE HERE.

The $24,000 Unsent Fax

My second example is actually ongoing right now. It involves yet another four to five dollar per each piece item, though in much larger quantities, around 15,000 pieces total.

This part, however, is one of the few parts that we do sell directly to the government. Or, at least, we did. The purchasing office to which we sell this recently put out an RFQ for its total needs over the next five years. Though it was supposed to directly notify us, and the only other manufacturer of this particular part, that this item was out for bid, we were never informed. Neither was the other company.

Instead the contract seems to have been won by a middleman who submitted pricing that includes $24,000 of markup on what he will buy from us (or our competitor) for about $44,000. The pricing he won the bid on was not only higher than what we would have sold it directly to the government for, it was a higher per item price than we had previously charged for lower quantities that we had sold directly to the government.

Also, this jackal had the nerve to try to beat me up on price, using our competitions’ now non-conforming-to-specification-part's price as a target. Sorry, a little tangent there.

We are just one small company, yet in these two example contracts cited I’ve seen the feds waste damn near every dollar my wife and I paid in federal income tax last year. Worst of all being that a careless, negligent, dirty, incompetent and/or complicit contract officer, working on a what should have been a sub 50,000 dollar contract, managed to waste 24,000 taxpayer dollars because he didn’t bother to send out a fax or make a call to current suppliers.

Some bastard wasted over 80% of my family's entire federal income tax burden for 2003 by not taking a critical step on one small contract.

Add this all up across hundreds of thousands of contracts per year. Now think about everyone in your town. All their tax money was thrown away on stuff like this.

Were I more of a conspiracy theorist I’d suggest that kickbacks were behind such behavior.

But that would never happen, right?

The Instapundit wrote:

I've noted the danger of links between extremist right-wing groups and radical Muslim extremists before, and though this sort of crossover might seem odd, I think that many of these guys are driven more by generalized anger toward society than by a coherent ideology.

It's even more general than that. You owe it to yourself to (re-)read Eric Hoffer's "The True Believer : Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements".

Hoffer, a 1940's dock worker, wrote an extremely insightful look into the process whereby disaffected persons give themselves over to sweeping mass movements. Organizational and recruiting abilities of leaders often outweighs the content of any groups "message," and converts for the next mass movement are very typically found within the ranks and ruins of prior, failed movements.

[A not to Rog for originally pointing me to this book quite a while ago.]

From John Kerry's Official Campaign Website:

"It's never too early to change the world -- women interns are our future!"

[Found via Best of the Web.]

Rare Front of Post Update:Here's the latest listing

On ebay this week: An F/A-18A Hornet that used to fly with the Navy Blue Angels. Also, here's some pictures of the restoration.
[Found on FR.]

UPDATE: Sold, for US $1,075,000.

Further UPDATE:That bidder was a fake, more news here.

The jet in question is in parts and came out of military service in 1994, according to Mike Landa, of Landa And Associates, the Washington-state brokerage that has listed it on the Internet auction service. He won’t identify the owner and only says that he came by it "legally."

"This thing obviously slipped through the system somehow," Landa said, adding that it was "released during the Clinton management era."

Normally, the Navy doesn’t just give away or sell such advanced military equipment. It either mothballs a jet after it no longer is deemed usable or leases worn-out models to museums. Only rarely can a surplus jet be sold to a third party, a Navy spokesman said. And there are policies against reselling them or shipping them out of the country.

The Navy’s official position is that it is aware of the auction and is looking into the matter.

The FBI came out to visit Landa after he put the jet up for bidding. They wanted to know "what are you selling here," he said. "They wanted to have the scoop on it."

Landa said the owner has offered the government an opportunity to buy the jet back. On Thursday afternoon the Hornet briefly was listed as sold to someone who agreed to the Buy-It-Now price of $1,075,000. That pulled the jet temporarily off eBay.

Seemed like there might be demand for this one.

Vietnam Vets Against Kerry merchandise.

Under an hour ago ramirezd0n, a less than week old ebay user, had over 400 (private) auctions running for items, mostly high end photographic equipment, totalling over half a million dollars.

I can't imagine how many fraud reports other than mine it took for all of them to disappear in about 20 minutes. Maybe ebay is actually getting serious about cracking down on fraud. Maybe.

Mayor Bloomberg, hypocritical poll-smoker.

Of the 130 who attended the Jan. 15 gathering, dozens lit up - possibly as many as 50, one party-goer told The Post.

And Bloomberg - whose smoke police have cited Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter and others for simply harboring empty ashtrays, and who boasts he regularly calls 311 to report potholes and litter-strewn lots - didn't raise a finger in protest.
...
The mayor's apparent indifference to the mass violation of the city's tough anti-smoking law - which he considers one of his crowning accomplishments - drew outrage around the city. At the Drini Café on Arthur Avenue in The Bronx, customer Jerry Ahmetaj fumed, "It makes me mad to know he's partying with smokers while the rest of us have to stand outside and freeze just to smoke a cigarette."

Nearby, at Enzo's Café, bartender Anna Gjegji called the mayor's inaction "very hypocritical."

"What a role model!" she grumbled.

At the Four Seasons in Manhattan, co-owner Julian Niccoli said, "It's the same old story - we cannot smoke, but they can. Different rules apply to different people."

Man made rules, yes. Physics, not so much.

Rog is right, this article about what Dubya's Harvard MBA tells us about him is a must read.

Let Me Put My Brother on the Phone.

A little bit of web journalism, investigating The Bush AWOL Story - From The Horse's Mouth.

Stupid headline of the day:

Toxic Metal Detected at Uranium Plant

In other news, "Dead Critters Found in Abattoir" and "Ex-Smokers Found in Cancer Ward."

UPDATE: FYI, Uranium is a toxic metal, hence the humor... (Sheesh!)

This just flat out pisses me off:

One pilot, a retired Air Force colonel and fighter wing commander responsible for multimillion-dollar jet fighters, said he was allowed to carry his pistol aboard military aircraft.

"The USAF considered me psychologically sound enough to be directly responsible for nuclear weapons," the pilot wrote. "Yet a TSA psychologist has determined I am unreliable to carry a weapon in my own airliner."

It is far beyond time for President Bush to step up to the plate and stand up to the USSS's ridiculous handling of the (non-)arming of pilots.

Cubans fail to sail to U.S. in car

"A group of Cubans who tried to sail to the United States in a 1959 Buick car fashioned into a boat have been intercepted at sea by the U.S. Coast Guard"

"They had already tried last July to reach Florida in a vessel made from a 1951 Chevy truck"

Do they try a Pontiac next?

Total Joementum aside:

The local talk radio 3PM - 6PM guy on WTIC in Hartford just joked that they'd be covering the "Joebituary" for Lieberman's Presidential bid.

Joebituary! Heh!

Instapundit would say: Indeed.

UPDATE: David Nieporent supplied me with a link to the rather funny Joebituary, by William Saletan, that appeared yesterday in Slate, likely the source for Colin's comment. Here's its finale:

Alas, Joeverconfidence felled him. He finished fifth in New Hampshire and was written off. He was Joast. Joadkill. D-Joe-A.

Yet he refused to bow out. The Joe must go on, he vowed. Critics said he was in Joenial, but he flew south, taking his Joe on the road. He faced down his lengthening odds with a certain Joe de vivre. Where would he break through? Joeklahoma? AriJoena? North DaJoeta? New MexiJoe? The Joe Me state?

Alas, he came up empty tonight. Joe-for-7. Joe-miliation.

Joe revoir, Joe. Joerivederci. Hasta Joe Vista. Somewhere conservative Democrats are laughing, and somewhere McCain independents shout. But there is no Joe in Mudville. Joe Lieberman has struck out.

As much as I hate the creeping big-brotherism that comes with highly computerized public records databases, I have to say that I like this idea.

A new state program intended to protect newborn babies runs background checks on their parents to determine whether they have a history of child abuse that resulted in termination of their parental rights.

Both sets of records, convictions and birth certificates, are public records, rightfully, so the only risk I see with this being abused is when the bureaucrats fail to properly weed out false positives.

But that would never happen, right?

I've got this idea for a John Edwards as Bob Roberts image, but I'm stuck for wording to put in place of the original review blurbs.

I'd like to stick to the trial-lawyer as candidate theme of my earlier Edwards work, but I'm not sure what to use for wording.

Please email me any ideas you might have. (Address over in the sidebar.)

Thanks!

Bruce Schneier on ID cards and the "illusion of security".

Our goal is to somehow identify the few bad guys scattered in the sea of good guys. In an ideal world, what we would want is some kind of ID that denotes intention. We'd want all terrorists to carry a card that says "evildoer" and everyone else to carry a card that said "honest person who won't try to hijack or blow up anything." Then, security would be easy. We would just look at people's IDs and, if they were evildoers, we wouldn't let them on the airplane or into the building.

This is, of course, ridiculous...