According to the Stop Baroody site, another questionable decision about security in America is on the table:

President Bush has nominated Michael Baroody – one of Corporate America’s leading anti-consumer henchmen – to head the Consumer Products Safety Commission (CPSC) – our top government agency protecting millions of Americans from injury and death from unsafe products.

Some examples they provide are alarming:

During his tenure at NAM, Michael Baroody:

Fought to allow a higher level of arsenic in drinking water: NAM claimed that negligent manufacturers would feel a pinch in their profits if forced to prevent their waste products from poisoning local communities.
Arsenic is often found downstream from negligent chemical producers and users that knowingly try to bypass EPA Regulations – thus endangering all communities downstream. A deadly poison, even in the smallest amounts, it causes shock, vascular disease and a plethora of cancers in the body.

[…]

Worked to immunize corporate CEOs from criminal liability for marketing deadly products to the public, maintaining such actions might slow “productivity.”
As an example, knowingly marketing clearly defective bulletproof vests – leading to deaths of soldiers, police and elected officials – would not be a criminal act.

The consumerist has this to say on the subject:

Baroody’s professional career consists mainly of PR work for major Republican candidates. Recently, he served as chief spokesman for the National Association of Manufacturers, a group the San Francisco Chronicle described as “an industry group that opposes aggressive product-safety regulation and punitive fines.”

The Wall Street Journal points out that he has been working against consumer security and safety since 1990, when he left the Reagan administration:

Mr. Baroody currently serves as Executive Vice President of the National Association of Manufacturers. He has been at the trade group since 1990. Mr. Baroody worked in the Reagan White House and served as assistant secretary for policy at the United States Department of Labor from 1985 to 1990.

I haven’t looked into it much yet, but I bet Baroody also was instrumental in trying to strategize against airbags in automobiles.

Reagan apparently fought along-side the automobile manufacturers and against the safety of consumers. His administration argued that airbag requirements were not going to help prevent deaths, but even more importantly (to them) they would prevent Chrysler and Ford from competing with import vehicles. Who can forget the date in history when Reagan was rebuffed and the security of Americans was upheld by a unanimous court:

1983: The Supreme Court rules against the Reagan administration and directs NHTSA to review the case for air bags.

[…]

1981: Under the anti-regulatory Reagan administration, NHTSA announces one-year delay of passive-restraint rule, proposes that it be rescinded altogether. [Transportation Secy: Elizabeth Dole]

Bush appears again to be using the spoils system to head backwards in time, at the expense of national security. This is like Bolton at the UN, Brown at FEMA, Wolf at the World Bank, Paige in education, etc.

Why is it that the Helen Petrauskas of the world rarely, if ever, get these types of appointments?

Her daughter, Laura Petrauskas of Troy, Mich., said her mother was committed to safety and to air bags and often talked about her work.

“A car is an awfully big purchase for most people,” the daughter said. “You’re producing something that is intrinsically dangerous, and you have a real responsibility to make it as safe as you can in those circumstances.”

Now that’s the kind of consumer safety champion who should earn the appointment, not just another republican party campaign manager and corporate lobbyist.

This seems like a huge blow to the company’s origins. Pretty soon, as global regions prove less likely to succumb to anticompetitive tactics and are free to make a balanced comparison versus other products (especially in the area of security), Microsoft might have to just give their software away.

Microsoft software will sell for just $3 in some parts of the world in an attempt to double the number of global PC users.

Some people call this a business strategy to out-compete hobby-ware such as Linux, or an extension of the kill-collaboration manifesto that built the Gates’ family fortunes. In terms of locking consumers in to the Microsoft philosophy, the question will become whether people are stuck with a $3OS or if they can use another OS on the same hardware.

In related news, Iowa has settled their lawsuit with Microsoft:

Microsoft Corp. agreed Wednesday to pay Iowans up to $180 million to settle a class-action lawsuit that claimed the company had a monopoly that cost the state’s citizens millions of dollars extra for software products.

The $179.5 million settlement means individuals in Iowa who bought certain Microsoft products between 1994 and 2006 will be eligible for cash. Companies with multiple copies can seek vouchers that will enable them to buy computer equipment and software. The amount that can be claimed will depend on which product and how many copies were purchased during the 12-year period.

Amazing, especially when you look at what they determined as “overpayment” per user:

For each copy of Microsoft Windows or MS-DOS, customers can claim $16 per copy, Microsoft Excel is worth $25 a copy and Microsoft Office, $29 a copy.

Anyone have the exact number of F-16 jets being downed in Iraq? I’m starting to get wind of something I was worried about many moons ago: the shift of increasingly sophisticated arms into the Iraq conflict and the weakening of US air control.

First, I often have to remind myself that the modern US attack helicopter was developed under the pretense of defending American from Russian aircraft of a similar nature. And by that measure the US Army did a marvelous job with their Apache, shredding the gunships it came up against or causing the enemy to do themselves in with tough maneuvering (like that weird incident in East Germany). However, it ironically was not meant to do a better job of handling guerrilla troops trained and armed by organizations like the CIA, perhaps because those making the final purchase decision on contracts did not see this as the role they would face.

Second, I think I have mentioned before that an old-school CIA analyst theory on the Iraq war perhaps will be that China (and perhaps Russia) are happily dragging the US into a quagmire of conflict that not only weakens America’s global position economically but also provides a testing-ground for arms against US armor and aircraft. Where do the new anti-aircraft missiles come from? Maybe I haven’t mentioned it before, but one thing is for sure, arms trade has done anything but decline since Bush and Cheney came into office on a platform that clearly said unilateral arms build-ups and sales are fine.

Ok, so with that in mind, I was reading a story by GovExec on the evolution of Iraq warfare that admits more sophisticated arms from Russia are indeed flowing into the conflict.

More threatening are next-generation anti-aircraft missiles such as the SA-16 and SA-18 now appearing in Iraq.

In 1986, the Afghan mujahedeen used advanced Stinger anti-aircraft missiles to defeat the Soviet Army by forcing pilots to fly at much higher altitudes, thereby robbing troops on the ground of the close air support that had tilted battles in their favor. The same could happen in Iraq, where workhorse helicopters used to move vast quantities of troops and materiel are as vital to American operations as they were in the Vietnam War. Helicopters already operate under strict rules to ensure their safety and prevent downed pilots from being captured by insurgents. In December 2005, a young platoon leader in Iraq told of calling for help from helicopters overhead during a firefight only to be refused because the rules precluded the aircraft from flying above enemy fighters.

Again we see evidence that things are deteriorating, not getting better, for the US. A more subtle point that never seems to make it into the news, however, is that F-16s are being downed.

Consider reports from 1991, for contrast, from the F-16.net mishaps page:

Shot down in Desert Storm from an SA-6. Combat loss number 10 in Desert Storm. The pilot, Captain Harry ‘Mike’ Roberts, ejected safely, but was taken prisoner. Aircraft was on a mission to attack the Air Defense Headquarters Building in Baghdad. Aircraft had flown 4 combat missions before being lost.

Or this one:

Pilot, Major Jeffrey Scott Tice ejected safely after travelling 150 miles inside Iraq, but became a POW as the ejection took place over Iraq. It was the 8th combat loss and the first daylight raid over Baghdad. The aircraft was struck by an SA-3 just south of Baghdad.

Or this one:

Shot down during Desert Storm by SAM. The pilot, Capt. William Andrews, ejected and became a POW, but was released eight days later after the end of the war. Reportedly had been flying too low and hit by a SA-16.

1970s era SA-3 and SA-6? And that was just two months in 1991 when the US was said to have better control of the situation on the ground! Why is it so rare now to hear about the number of pilots being shot-down and their fate, or the source of sophisticated light weapons and their potency? The mishap pages on F-16.net show some reports on crashes but they all hint that the Pentagon doesn’t admit anyone was shot down. What then? Aircraft or pilot fatigue? When I read quotes like the following one in the GovExec story, I wonder about the politics of describing guerrillas trained by a foreign intelligence agency to fire stinger missiles at aircraft.

“Our opponent uses Radio Shack as his procurement system,” said retired Army Gen. Montgomery C. Meigs, director of the Pentagon’s Joint Improvised Explosive Defeat Organization, during a September 2006 briefing in Washington.

I can’t tell if he means that as a good or bad thing. Is this an acknowledgment that there is a retail supply and distribution channel for sophisticated arms, or is the director suggesting that pedestrian or Radio Shack materials should be seen as inferior to the products of exclusive American contracts by friends of the Vice-President?

Sadly, the high cost and complexity of a control does not guarantee its superiority, especially when deployed against the wrong attack vector or when a pattern of failures are ignored.