Risk Management

Okay, I just hit CNN again, and here's another one to think about.

I work for a pharmaceutical company. We export our API's and intermediates to the US as well. The American FDA requires us to follow certain guidelines in quality control and quality assurance. This is true, even for computer systems. In the past 10 years, a term called "Risk Based Approach" has been all the buzz in the industry. Meaning, whenever you verify a process for its quality, you assess its risk. How do you assess risk? You assume the worst possible case and plan for it. In our field that means, a computer system influences a production process in a way that the product gets adulterated and is delivered to customers, who then take it as part of a medication - and die. That's the worst case. We always assume that. We do it so that American (and, no mistake, European, Asian, African whatever) patients are safe. We (partly) do it, because American regulations ask us to do so.

Back to Katrina.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff says "planners did not predict such a disaster ever could occur."

Read it again, it's juicy.

But there's more. Let me quote (without permission) from the CNN report:

[...] Also on Sunday, Placquemines Parish Sheriff Jeff Hingle referred back to Hurricane Betsy -- a Category 2 hurricane that struck in 1965 -- and said, "After Betsy these levees were designed for a Category 3."
He added, "These levees will not hold the water back."
But Chertoff seemed unaware of all the warnings. [...]
(http://edition.cnn.com/2005/US/09/03/katrina.chertoff/index.html)

So, for medications, there are worst cases. For possible terrorist attacks, there are worst cases (e.g. nuclear weapons imported into the US with malicious intent). Hell, they've got contingency plans for locust invasions!!

And they're trying to tell us, there was no prediction that such a disaster might occur? Even after Category 5 hurricanes have been spotted over and over again?

Come on!

Can they really be serious? Or is it all just part of the big charade they call "government"?

This (again, as so often) brings a line from an old Monthy Python song to my mind.

"Pray that there's intelligent life, somewhere up in space, cause there's bugger all down here on Earth!"

Common Sense? Where?

If you read my entry yesterday, you may have gotten a whiff of my anger against the US government for leaving the poor sods in the Mississippi delta area alone after Katrina beat the shit out of the country.

Well, what was the first thing coming to mind when a human being with the slightest bit of common sense would look at the situation of a) the world in general and b) the flooded regions in the US?

Yes! Get those guys out of Iraq and send them to New Orleans, to help!

Okay, it took me about 10 seconds to write that. It originally took me about 3 seconds to come up with it when I saw the first reports on how badly help was progressing in the flooded regions. (Yeah, I'm a quick one, I know.)

How long did it take Bush to come to that ingenious conclusion?

About a FUCKING WEEK!

And don't give me that "it was a hard decision to take" and "such things take time" shit! It isn't and they aren't! It's the fucking common sense thing to think of, and it's the only fucking thing to do IMMEDIATELY and QUICKLY.

But good ol' Georgie takes almost a week. Now, you may say, he's never been a quick one.
Flashback to when he was sitting in front of a class of pre-schoolers, reading to them from a schoolbook, and his advisor whispers the news about the Twin Towers into his ears... The official 9/11 Commission Report states a time of about 7 minutes until George got up and walked out of the room to "act".
If you hear the words "We are under attack!" from your advisor, WE obviously being the US, how long does it take you to jump up from your chair and go organize defenses?

Well, obviously a "couple of minutes"...

Don't get me wrong, my friends from the US, I know you're not stupid. Well, many of you aren't, but obviously - by far not enough of you. Would you have re-elected him otherwise?

There you go!

Guess The Location!

If I were to ask you, where this photo was taken, what would you say?

Yeah, sure, I know you've been glued to your TVs in the past couple of days, but if you hadn't been, if you were from some backwater European country (or worse, Asian!), you might just as well say "Sudan!" or "Congo!" or any other place where black children and soldiers in uniforms are parts of the every-day scene.

But this was taken in the good old US of A, the most powerful country in the world, the only remaining "Superpower", the blessed union of states led by the great and enlightened government of Bush. He's got soldiers in almost a 100 countries all over the world, fighting for and defending the American ideals, the freedom the world so badly needs and the oil wells the yanks so badly need.

The area where I live has been hit hard by floods, twice in the past 12 years. I know it's hurricane season at least once every two years in the southern states of the US. I know these people prepare well when the weather forecasts predict storms, and they do their best to protect themselves, but there are some things against which all protection is futile. Katrina is an example of that. And for that, contingency plans must exist. For that, quick reaction, extensive help (not just promise of such!) and money must be prepared.

I can't help myself... despite the need of the affected people and the catastrophic situation I feel some malicious joy. Not directed against the people hit, but against the government of the most powerful nation in the world, having all their resources out of the country for this or that reason, instead of INSIDE the country, where it would be needed most.

If a backwater area like the one I live in can do it, why can't the mighty USA?

The mayor of New Orleans, Ray Nagin, is right: "You've got to be fucking kidding me!!! [...] Get their asses moving to New Orleans!"

But where are they?

Yup, you're right. Not where they're supposed to be. Somewhere. Defending America against imaginary, real, or self-acquired enemies.

I've got friends in the US, real friends, and I'd hate for them to get the negative backlash of anything their stupid government does, but, fuck me running, it's an ELECTED government!

Maybe that will help a couple of guys 'n gals get their minds around to NOT voting for the guy with the biggest guns next time! I mean, (and to quote Ray again), you gotta be fucking kidding me, Wes Clarke was thrown out of the race as one of the first during the last election campaigns, and that's something I'm never going to understand, because this guy would've been GOOD! He was head of the fucking NATO, he knows how to lead people, he knows how to organize, for fuck's sake, he speaks MORE THAN ONE LANGUAGE!!!

But then again... maybe that's what gets the yanks suspicious at him.

If that were the case, I'd rest my case.