Had nothing to do with a coal mine in West Virginia and still doesn't.

If the labour unions weren't falling apart all over, you could place blame on them and be right, but now that they are - it just doesn't matter.

Your car is japanese. A labor union employee didn't work on it. You shop at wal mart, nothing you buy comes from unionized employees. The only time you see a Union electrician is by mistake, when you're looking at a home being built.

In the past decade, the Brotherhood built 80% of new homes in Colorado. Now, they are lucky to built 10%. The rest are being built by illegal immigrant labour that works for pennies on the dollar.

No criticism, its just that the day of the labour union is passed.  

Now, listen carefully - something has to take its place. Because it was a cohesive force for democracy. But those W. V. Coal miners all shopped at Wal Mart, and they're being buried in Chinese clothes and pulled out of the mine with Japanese equipment and cars. They'll be zipped up in a body bag made in china.

Clearly it was an act of god. Simple as that. Now let's have a bunch of nice funerals, heavy on the bunting, and be done with it shall we. That's what I call "new source review."

Me: Where are you from?

The protestors: North Carolina. We work in textiles

Me: Who did you vote for?

The protestors: GWB

Me: You made your bed, now lie on it.

Every action has consequences. If you carry drug into some Asian countries you get hanged. You go into Iraq or Bali you will probably loose your life. You vote for this guy knowing very well that you may loose your job or even your life..well tough luck..you yourselves are to blame!

Cruel thing to say to the bereaved if it comes to that. But, if you vote based on race, southern strategy, Gay marriages and other so-called moral values at the expense of your future welfare...you deserve your fate, whatever that fate might be.

....But this is pretty f'n callous way of looking at this ain't it?  

Gutting laws requiring two exits is pretty damned blatant, but I guess that's never stopped this administration.

Carl

Boilermaker on the other hand who goes even farther and suggests these miners got what they deserved for voting for Bush deserves a good beating. I hope he has the courage to travel to WV right now and deliver this message in person to the miners families. Of course he won't because he is a coward on the internet.

I wonder if Heinz ketchup ever used any energy derived from coal in their manufacturing process?

Whatever. I stand by every single thing I wrote. I'm not politicizing a tragedy. Nor am I blaming Bush for the mine collapse. The former would be crass and the latter would be stupid. What I'm saying is that mine safety is a serious, serious issue that Bush treats like a joke -- another way to benefit his cronies. How the Bush administration has specifically impacted this tragedy is not clear. But it is clear that they have thrown up roadblocks to regulations that could possibly have tempered this crisis.

Deregulation is code for increased profits not for market efficiency....the result of deregulation is poorer quality, questionable quality and death

Meanwhile, let's look forward to a media-generated drama as the television stations entertain us with the story of lives at risk.

When you make up stuff just to sound good it doesn't help your cause very much.

And you're right.  What matters now is the family members left on top.  They will file for Social Security survivor benefits to eat, keep their houses and keep their kids in school, just as did thousands of families did after 9/11.  

We should feel proud that we fought hard to save their benefits.  

And we should remember that Bush wanted to drastically reduce these benefits through privatization; and that the Republican Congressional leadership STILL wants to reduce these benefits through drastic program changes.

We will save their benefits and then they will repay us by voting for the GOP

Once I read the rest of your post, these thoughts occurred to me.  

1)  Whatever Bush is doing or not doing about mine safety, it seems to be working.  According to the MSHA (link below), mine fatalities averaged 89 a year during Clinton's terms, and 62 a year during Bush's terms so far, a 30% decrease.   Some of this may be attributable to a decrease in mine employment, which I know has occurred in coal mining, but even if so, since coal production hasn't significantly decreased, it means that Bush is managing to satisfy the coal needs of the country at the cost of fewer people exposed to one of the riskiest occupations in the country, and fewer people dying in it.  Looking at this from the side of the workers, obviously this would be a mixed blessing because it might be my job lost as well as my life saved.  But long-term, surely it would be ideal if the inherently risky task of digging coal out of the earth could be automated entirely, and people wouldn't have to risk their lives to do it.
http://www.msha.gov/stats/charts/allstatesnew.asp

2.  The factoid about how many compliance violations Sago has been cited for can't really support any particular proposition.  If I got 208 traffic citations last year, it would prove I was a rotten driver, but if UPS gets 208 traffic citations in a year, I would say they're doing pretty good, considering how many drivers they have and how many hours a day they each drive.   To be meaningful, that factoid would have to be comparative to other mines or to some mine operated to your satisfaction, and calculated in relation to measures such as violations per worker and violations per ton of production.  

The article from which you took the factoid says the company got 68 citations in 2004.  This could mean they got really sloppy this year counting on a reelected Bush to bail them out, as you believe, or it could mean the regulations have gotten stricter or the regulators have gotten more competent or aggressive in enforcing the safety rules, which is probably a heretical concept to your way of thinking, but even so, just might be true.

Considering that 2005 saw the fewest coal-mining fatalities in the last 105 years, someone somewhere must be doing something right.  Not Bush, of course.  That's unthinkable.  But someone.  

Which is of no comfort to the victims of this particular tragedy, or their families, or their co-workers.  

Including almost certainly their employers.  

At every level of human endeavor including political punditry, there are callous individuals who want to attain their goals, whether to make money or gain power, any way they can.  The employers in this mine may be like that, but unless and until you have some real evidence to that effect, it is a vicious and callous thing to assume it.

We all know the answer -- the Bush admin caters to Big Business, and this is what Big Business wants: little regulation, and a blind eye turned towards what little regulation there is.

You can go down to W. Virginia and tell the people there this very fact. Many (most) will nod their heads, agree, and be rightly angered at Republican/conservative kowtowing to Big Business at the expense of the little guy.

But in 6 months, they'll all be too busy being pissed at liberals for whatever new bogeyman the Right has conjured up to even remember what you told them. The only thing they'll remember is a trip W. Bush might take down there to console the families, if he even does that.

That is the problem with this country. Sorry for the pessimism, but I'm increasingly coming to the conclusion that the problem with this country isn't conservatives, the Republicans, the weak Democrats, the media, special interest groups, or anything else -- I think it's just the ordinary people and the strange disengagement with reality that has overtaken many of them.

The real tragedy is that we still rely on an incredibly dirty fossil fuel to power our lives, when nuclear is both safer and renewable if used properly.

You can find all my reasons for preferring nuclear, as well as commentary about the Chinese coal situation (6500 deaths per year) at Earth Sentinel where you will also find peak oil, renewable energy, and climate change news.

Is there no limit to what you will blame on Bush? The mining accident is a disaster, not a political statement. You should be ashamed of yourself. If there is evidence of a poor work environment, then it is an issue for the courts. If it was a natural disaster, then talk to God about it, not our Commander and Chief.

We live in the United States of America - a free country. Those unfortunate people did not have to work in those mines, did not have to live in that area if they could find no other jobs. That's what this country is about, the freedom of choice.

If they felt they had no choices, then that is the product of too many democrat years representing WV, too many social programs that suck the life out of people, and too much goverment.

Our government was formed to protect us from foreign attack, not to brainwash us into to thinking that the government owes us a living. We are responsible for ourselves and our families.

If you want to live in a socialistic society, I suggest you move. As an American, you have the right to choose, but don't expect to convert this country from its capitalism.

What I would offer to this discussion:
It is tempting to think that more workplace regulation is always in the interest of workers.  I am unconvinced of that.  The amount of time and effort and $$ wasted on OSHA-related compliance was, in the years I was involved, enormous.  BECAUSE there was so much regulation, and so much of it was picayune and (searching for a better word but can't find it) just stupid, it created a whole bureaucracy of nitpickers who could make a good civil service living by filling out inspection reports citing things like yellow lines on floors that were an inch too narrow, burned out lightbulbs in stairwells, railings that should be extended by 3 inches or raised by 1 inch, a machine guard that had one of its 6 screws loose or missing, etc.  You get the picture.  This meant that a marginally intelligent inspector could spend a couple of hours in your factory, make a list of 29 "violations", have 3 cups of coffee in your office writing his report for an inteminable period of time, and go home.  

What happens when you have meaningless regulation is that "enforcement" becomes a paperwork exercise with minimal relevance.

I guarantee you that if I had been empowered to make changes in OSHA and its enforcement processes, I would have cut WAY back on the number of regulations, perhaps the number of inspectors, too, and made the thing meaningful by having the OSHA staff focus on the several things that really MAKE A DIFFERENCE in the serious injury and death risks in various types of workplace settings.  A parallel would be this:  Do you want the one cop in town putting tickets on cars that are parked one foot too close to fire hydrants (thereby getting brownie points for generating fine revenue), or do you want him parked outside Joe's Bar after midnight observing and then tailing those who stagger to their car loaded and squeal tires leaving the parking lot?  Given the choice, the parking ticket gig is safer and less taxing.

Now --- I would do this reengineering in a way that made OSHA less onerous for "good employers", and made it a living hell for "bad employers" who had relatively little concern about their workforce.  

If you asked me what percent of the OSHA-related discussion and time and $$ I was involved in was pure BS, I'd say 70%.  So, if you gave me HALF the resources (budget and people) and asked me to focus on what really made a difference, I think I could have been a significantly better custodian of worker's interests (and employers' too, for that matter).

Maybe it's different in the mines, but I doubt it; government needs to be smarter and (mission impossible) more relevant --- not just bigger and more intrusive.

"Undoubtedly, some will criticize me for placing blame on President Bush here."

and then wrote

"If you've gotten this far, you likely know that this piece most certainly does not blame Bush for the Sago Mine disaster."

Scott Shields is either a genuine moron or thinks we all are.

Yours, Tom Perkins,
molon labe
montani semper liberi
para fides paternae patria

It would help if they actually read the post they complain about.  

And, on "meaningless regulation", a second way out of a mine would clearly save lives.  Building codes uniformly require a second means of egress from structures and rooms.  There's a reason for this.  The "meaningless regulation" save lives.

At some point, the anti-regulation voices here should show some honest desire to protect life. After it leaves the womb.

How is Bush failing these miners? In  both Pennsylvania and here it was failure to force the company to make corrections prior to the disaster. In PA it was failure to properly maintain their mine maps, hence the flood. Here is was failure to properly rock dust and maintain ventilation. (One can also check the citations for this mine on the internet). Inspectors can force compliance, and even shut down a mine until it has complied, if the danger warrents it. At Sago we have a situation in which these dangers were cited, often repeatedly and no improvements were made. The result 12 dead. This is part of a policy change by the Labor Department that emphasizes management cooperation. (This is the same approach they have taken wirh Wall Mart on their egregious labor violations).

For those who want to play with statistics here are the average deaths per thousand miners employed broken down by administrations. These statistics are not broken down according to technology or underground versus surface mining. In general there has been an on going shift in technology from room and pillar mining to longwall mining underground that exposes miners to less risk of roof falls. Second mining is safer than underground mining and there has been a shift to surface mining. Given these trends the fact that in four years Bush has had almost no reduction from the Clinton administration tells you how much this administration is loosening MSHA regulations.
                      Mean  Difference in Means
Carter             0.52
Reagan/Bush  0.43          -0.09
Clinto             0.31          -0.12
Bush 2            0.29          -0.02

How is Bush failing these miners? In  both Pennsylvania and here it was failure to force the company to make corrections prior to the disaster. In PA it was failure to properly maintain their mine maps, hence the flood. Here is was failure to properly rock dust and maintain ventilation. (One can also check the citations for this mine on the internet). Inspectors can force compliance, and even shut down a mine until it has complied, if the danger warrents it. At Sago we have a situation in which these dangers were cited, often repeatedly and no improvements were made. The result 12 dead. This is part of a policy change by the Labor Department that emphasizes management cooperation. (This is the same approach they have taken wirh Wall Mart on their egregious labor violations).

For those who want to play with statistics here are the average deaths per thousand miners employed broken down by administrations. These statistics are not broken down according to technology or underground versus surface mining. In general there has been an on going shift in technology from room and pillar mining to longwall mining underground that exposes miners to less risk of roof falls. Second mining is safer than underground mining and there has been a shift to surface mining. Given these trends the fact that in four years Bush has had almost no reduction from the Clinton administration tells you how much this administration is loosening MSHA regulations.
                      Mean  Difference in Means
Carter             0.52
Reagan/Bush  0.43          -0.09
Clinto             0.31          -0.12
Bush 2            0.29          -0.02

First, regarding the data that fatalities have gone down under Bush...the data are a big "So What?"  Mining fatalities have been on a downward trend for decades.  Fatalities were fewer under Bush than under Clinton, fewer under Clinton than under Bush I, fewer under Bush I than under Reagan, and so on.  The downward trend has a lot to do with changes in mining technology, decrease in the amount of coal obtained through underground mining, and decreases in coal production in general.  So the data don't point to culpability on Bush's part but nor do they absolve him.

Second, there has been a lot of "we don't know what caused this" sort of commenting.  We do know what caused it.  An explosion.  Mine explosions are caused by methane and/or coal dust.  I've read that the men had entered a previously abandoned part of the mine.  If that's true, it means that methane, which comes directly from the coal, was likely the cause rather than coal dust.  In either case, though, ventilation is the direct preventive measure.  It looks likely that the men entered and began work in the area without properly testing for methane and/or ventilating the area to rid it of methane.  

Third, this mine has a history of bad safety practices which is ALWAYS an indicator of poor management.  Others have pointed out that the present owners are new and have taken the new owners word that they have made improvements, at face value.  But there is also evidence that violations were occuring after the purchase.  

Fourth, there may be some safety issues that aren't immediately curable but most (not all) are "behavior based" i.e., they have more to do with what people do (and are allowed to do) while others are "resource based" i.e., the nature or condition of the equipment.  My point is that the behavior based violations (not ventilating properly, not following the roof control plan, working on equipment without locking and tagging it out, etc.) are almost immediately curable.  Managers simply go to supervisors and workers and say something like, "You either follow good safety practice or find another job.  No exceptions.  No excuses.  None.  Ever. Period."  And they provide training.  And they reward and promote workers and managers on the basis of safety performance.  And they go into the mine to see if there instructions are being followed.  A lot.  So, if bad safety practices by workers are allowed to continue, it's management's fault just as it would be if poor production practices were allowed to continue.  And not ventilating is a bad practice that's easy to catch.  (I can almost guarantee that this wouldn't have been the first time the workers and supervisors didn't ventilate.  Even if they weren't doing it regularly during regular production, the need to ventilate abandoned areas is especially important.)

Fifth, in my experience in the mines, there are managers who take a good approach to safety.  But there are many others...too many others...who have a "to hell with safety, just get the coal out" attitude.  (Most are somewhere in between.)  For these owners and managers (and for those in between, as well) you HAVE to have an external agency to enforce good safety practice.  An agency backed by laws that can send folks to jail for negligence.  An agency with leadership that supports rather than undermines the mission to keep miners safe.  Leadership that is active in pursuing that mission.  Leadership that says, "Our job is to keep workers safe."  

What happens, though, when those agencies are weakened?  What happens when Bush appoints, not someone steeped in knowledge of safety in mines, but an industry lobbyist with a history of supporting mine owners' efforts to reduce safety regulations?  What message does that send to mine operators?  How does that message affect their management approach?  Are they likely to think, "Well, the agency that used to press me to manage these operations safely is likely to be less attentive to that mission so I'm going to need to be all the more attentive?"  Or are they going to be thinking like the mine owner who told me in '79, "I'll be glad when Reagan beats Carter because he'll get rid of all these goddam safety rules."  (Trust me, that particular owner wasn't resentful because the regs got in the way of his own comprehensive safety program.)

So, did Bush directly cause the deaths of those miners?  No, but we elect Presidents to get things done.  What this President has done is repeatedly appoint people who are inclined represent the interests of the country club set at the expense of worker health and safety.  Agency directors who promulgate a culture of "profits before people". This is his culpability.