Billions Later, Plan to Remake the Coast Guard Fleet Stumbles(Update - NYTimes story)

New York Times ^ | 12/08/2006 | ERic Lipton

[devane617]

WASHINGTON, Dec. 8 — Four years after the Coast Guard began an effort to replace nearly its entire fleet of ships, planes and helicopters, the modernization program heralded as a model of government innovation is foundering. The initial venture — converting rusting 110-foot patrol boats, the workhorses of the Coast Guard, into more versatile 123-foot cutters — has been canceled after hull cracks and engine failures made the first eight boats unseaworthy. Plans to build a new class of 147-foot ships with an innovative hull have been halted after the design was found to be flawed. And the first completed new ship — a $564 million behemoth christened last month — has structural weaknesses that some Coast Guard engineers believe may threaten its safety and limit its life span, unless costly repairs are made.

[SauronOfMordor]

That logic is a death knell for civilized society. Unfortunately the rest of society will pay a costly price in increased crime, the deterioration of inner city neighborhoods, the costs of medical treatment and rehabilitation for drug addicts, destroyed families - wayward sons and daughters, which cause more of the previously mentioned problems...

Prior to the Harrison Narcotics Tax Act of 1914, it was legal for Americans to purchase and use opiates (including morphine and heroin), cocaine, etc. Yet US society did not collapse

Up to 1914, people had free and cheap access to heroin (which was first gotten from morphine in 1874), which was used in cough medicine. Yet society did not collapse

What was different between US society in the late 1800's (when cocaine, heroin, etc were available legally, yet did not produce huge drug problems in American society) and America in the last 40 years? Could it be that the Welfare State enabled people to more easily become heavy drug users by subsidizing the lives of people who did not work?

And don't get me started about the National Firearms Act of 1934, prior to which it was legal for Americans to buy and own machineguns and artillery (without government permission, registration, paperwork, or needing to show ID)

[Mark was here]

Imagining that our drug woes will go away if we simply ignore drug abuse is a foolish as believing that terrorism won't hurt us if we simply leave them alone.

Most of our drug woes are the result of the WOD.

The WOD is about the payroll for those collecting it. Stop the gravy train, and we could only imaging the squealing that would come from those riding the train. They would all whine "It's for the children!" No it's about those on the train.

[decimon]

“The computer broke for some reason,”

Haven't heard that excuse for some years now.

[Raycpa]

The law of supply and demand applies to everything but drugs?

[bouillabaisse]

Alcohol! Oh wait...

[ImaGraftedBranch]

Give me evidence of a single narcotic where any of the above has been prevented by attempting to interdict supply.

Well, I haven't run for president yet. Were I to be elected, my 100-day plan is simple:

Any person, foreign or domestic, caught in the act of manufacturing cocaine, heroin, crack, or other super-addictive non-medical use drug would be shot on the spot.
Any country willfully allowing citizens to create said drugs for the purpose of export, or doing nothing to stop said manufacturing, would be bombed into the stone age.

Those kinds of drugs alter the chemical balance in the brain *and* organs, and make it next-to-impossible to eradicate the intense cravings. For some of those drugs, like crack, all it takes is one time for someone to get hooked.

When people on those drugs start selling their own children's toy's, robbing their friends and neighbors, or committing other crimes to feed their need, it is evidence of one of the most nefarious, evil methods of personal destruction in existence. When a drug can cause the consideration of right and wrong to be completely concealed in a human being, it goes beyond a personal decision and becomes a matter of survival of civilization as a whole.

I don't care about the potheads that want to fry their brains, as marijuana, from everything I have read, is not massively addicting.

But I would not care about impeachment if I were President. I would act, lawfully or not.

[USCG SimTech]

Myself being a retiree contractor to the CG, not directly related to Deepwater, I see the silver lining in this.

1. The boss, ADM Allen, stepped in to fix it and not let people die in the 1st storm the vessel would be tested in.

2. All the retirees as contractors... squealed. Placed God/country/CoastGuard above money/company/promotion. Heroes every one.

3. No hiding the story. The attitude is "We're going to fix this! We acknowledge we made mistakes"

My personal opinion:

Turn every nook and cranny, 100% over to ADM Allen. No one in the country is better qualified to fix this. Keep the politicians and private companies out.

[XBob]

Government incompetence, again, and again, and again.

Why in the world do they award a boat contract to aircraft and spacecraft designers? - "Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin"

What do they know about designing boats?

And 500 million (1/2 a billion) !!! for a coast guard cutter???? An aircraft carrier, or a battleship, or a fleet of coast guard cutters, yes, but just one boat????

In fact, the last time I remember the government did something like this was when they awarded an intra-city bus contract to Grumman, and the engines promptly fell out (literally) of thousands of busses, on hundreds of city streets and the airconditioners failed to work in the South, and the windows wouldn't open.

Idiots - the government should stay out of stuff like this.