Free Republic

Musclebound federal agencies and their institutional biases are rendering these same agencies incapable of countering the many risks we now face. A Pink Flamingo describes a predictable event, or series of events, ignored through the bias of leadership, trapped in their institutional thinking. It differs from Black Swan events, which generally come out of nowhere and are statistically implausible. Pink Flamingos exist in a gray area where particular institutions, i.e., political, military, or economic entities, ignore intelligence, conflicting data, and ideas that directly confront established beliefs, tenets, and capabilities of their respective organization(s). Why is this important? Pink Flamingos happen...

The pink plastic flamingo, a Florida-inspired icon that has been reviled as kitschy bad taste and revered as retro cool, is dead at age 49. The pop culture symbol met its demise after its manufacturer, Union Products, of Leominster, Mass., was socked with a triple economic threat -- increases in costs of electricity and plastic resin combined with loss of financing. Production ended in June, and the plant is scheduled to close Nov. 1, according to president and CEO Dennis Plante. Union Products made 250,000 of its patented plastic pink flamingos a year in addition to other garden products. Robert...