Boeing Whistleblower Raises Doubts Over 787 Oxygen System (bbc.com) 138
A Boeing whistleblower has claimed that passengers on its 787 Dreamliner could be left without oxygen if the cabin were to suffer a sudden decompression. The BBC reports: John Barnett says tests suggest up to a quarter of the oxygen systems could be faulty and might not work when needed. He also claimed faulty parts were deliberately fitted to planes on the production line at one Boeing factory. Boeing denies his accusations and says all its aircraft are built to the highest levels of safety and quality. Mr Barnett, a former quality control engineer, worked for Boeing for 32 years, until his retirement on health grounds in March 2017. From 2010 he was employed as a quality manager at Boeing's factory in North Charleston, South Carolina.
In 2016, he tells the BBC, he uncovered problems with emergency oxygen systems. These are supposed to keep passengers and crew alive if the cabin pressurization fails for any reason at altitude. Breathing masks are meant to drop down from the ceiling, which then supply oxygen from a gas cylinder. Mr Barnett says that when he was decommissioning systems which had suffered minor cosmetic damage, he found that some of the oxygen bottles were not discharging when they were meant to. He subsequently arranged for a controlled test to be carried out by Boeing's own research and development unit. This test, which used oxygen systems that were "straight out of stock" and undamaged, was designed to mimic the way in which they would be deployed aboard an aircraft, using exactly the same electric current as a trigger. He says 300 systems were tested -- and 75 of them did not deploy properly, a failure rate of 25%. Mr Barnett also says that Boeing failed to follow its own procedures, intended to track parts through the assembly process, allowing a number of defective items to be "lost."
"He claims that under-pressure workers even fitted sub-standard parts from scrap bins to aircraft on the production line, in at least one case with the knowledge of a senior manager," reports the BBC. "He says this was done to save time, because 'Boeing South Carolina is strictly driven by schedule and cost.'"
In 2016, he tells the BBC, he uncovered problems with emergency oxygen systems. These are supposed to keep passengers and crew alive if the cabin pressurization fails for any reason at altitude. Breathing masks are meant to drop down from the ceiling, which then supply oxygen from a gas cylinder. Mr Barnett says that when he was decommissioning systems which had suffered minor cosmetic damage, he found that some of the oxygen bottles were not discharging when they were meant to. He subsequently arranged for a controlled test to be carried out by Boeing's own research and development unit. This test, which used oxygen systems that were "straight out of stock" and undamaged, was designed to mimic the way in which they would be deployed aboard an aircraft, using exactly the same electric current as a trigger. He says 300 systems were tested -- and 75 of them did not deploy properly, a failure rate of 25%. Mr Barnett also says that Boeing failed to follow its own procedures, intended to track parts through the assembly process, allowing a number of defective items to be "lost."
"He claims that under-pressure workers even fitted sub-standard parts from scrap bins to aircraft on the production line, in at least one case with the knowledge of a senior manager," reports the BBC. "He says this was done to save time, because 'Boeing South Carolina is strictly driven by schedule and cost.'"
Too big to fail (Score:3)
Too big to fail
or
Too fail to permit to be big
Re: (Score:2)
Too big to fail or Too fail to permit to be big
Boeing is like a guy in the middle of a minefield, where every mine is marked with a flag, who walks from flag to flag. It's almost like Boeing as a company suffers from some kind of masochistic disorder.
Re: (Score:3)
They've had problems for a long time. Some of the more recent travails started with a tarnished CEO: http://content.time.com/time/s... [time.com] Harry Stonecipher,
who merged McDonnell-Douglas. The 787 was launched under his tenure, after Boeing was in the gutter, having had huge US Government procurement blacklisting problems.
Trouble for Boeing, in this era, is not new.
Re:Too big to fail (Score:4, Interesting)
Corporate greed and mismanagement to the rescue once again. Stonecipjher and his merry men were only capable of executing "Cost Cutting for Dummies" and didn't understand what it did to airplane design and assembly, let alone second order functions like safety.
It's a textbook example of short term greed capitalism. Weirdly, the history of the company is like a textbook example of capitalism's paradoxes -- the ability to produce a company that did some amazing things, yet is now self-immolating because greed and ego took over.
Re: (Score:2)
Stonecipjher and his merry men were only capable of executing "Cost Cutting for Dummies" and didn't care what it did to airplane design and assembly, let alone second order functions like safety.
FTFY
Re: (Score:2)
I mean it's the amazing side of Boeing -- only capitalism could have produced a company capable of making modern marvels like the 747.
Yet it's the worst contemporary instincts of capitalism that brought it down.
I wonder if the 1980s is where it went bad, where somebody figured out there was "unrealized value" in corporations that could be strip-mined away for individual executive profit. Think LBOs, Michael Milken, and then some of the ways profitable and healthy corporations were restructured to strip out
Re: (Score:2)
Stripping corporations and other types of large companies goes back a lot further then the 1980's. For example, when the railroad industry became mature there was a period where people realized they could purchase a company for less then its assets were worth, would buy them, sell the land, hotels etc and profit.
Re: (Score:2)
It's a failure of humans. We're all fallen and corrupt according to the Bible.
...which was assembled and edited by people who had a stake in making people feel like they were all fallen and corrupt. You're buying what they're selling?
I don't often laugh out loud (Score:2)
Rarely do I find something funny enough to actually laugh out loud. I normally just silently appreciate humor in my head. Thanks for the LOL.
Your post also reminded me of:
https://m.imgur.com/gallery/XR... [imgur.com]
Re: (Score:3)
Planes are extremely expensive to develop so its debatable if there is room for more manufacturers. the MD Boeing merger may have been a mistake, to have the entire US commercial aircraft industry in one basket. Maybe some of these regs are outmoded however and are part of the problem by making it cheaper to hack existing designs than do a clean sheet.
Boeing needs a new management structure with more engineers required to sit on the board, at least say 40% of the board should be engineers and 35% should be
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe some of these regs are outmoded however and are part of the problem by making it cheaper to hack existing designs than do a clean sheet.
This is what happens when corporations can buy laws. They inevitably buy laws which stifle competition, and one of the easiest ways to do that is to make it cheaper not to do a new design. Compare the laws for getting a drug approved in the USA. A new form of an already approved medication only needs to be shown to not kill statistically significantly more people than the old one, you don't have to prove that it's even as efficacious as the old one — let alone moreso.
Re: (Score:2)
You can remove all regulations from the aircraft manufacturing process and it will still not be cheaper to do a new design than to tweak an old one. In addition, a truly new design risks huge failures.
Re: (Score:2)
We need more libertarians and conservatives. They are far more responsible than leftists who are all bought and paid for.
HA HA HA!
Being a corporate boot licker is the very essence of the Republican party, and always has been.
Do you think Bernie or Warren would put up with this shit?
Re: (Score:2)
It will always be much easier and cheaper to tweak an existing aircraft design than to do a clean sheet design of a new aircraft, regardless of regulations, especially if economic risks are taken into account.
I wonder why they switched to cylinders. (Score:4, Interesting)
Weird.
Most passenger aircraft only use oxygen cylinders for the crew. To save the weight of tanks to hold enough oxygen for a few hundred passengers, the pax generally have to make due breathing from oxygen generators, not cylinders. I wonder why Boeing switched for the 787. Maybe this is a case of some new technology... a rebreathing or CO2 scrubbing system... being shipped while it's still half-baked? I wish the article supplied actual technical details.
Re: (Score:2)
I wouldn't read too much in to a reporter's understanding of the tech. My guess is that since it's roughly cylindrical and provides oxygen, so he called it an oxygen cylinder when it's actually a generator.
Re:I wonder why they switched to cylinders. (Score:4, Interesting)
I wouldn't read too much in to a reporter's understanding of the tech. My guess is that since it's roughly cylindrical and provides oxygen, so he called it an oxygen cylinder when it's actually a generator.
I googled around and found a parts list [beaerospace.com] which suggests that it's simply a higher-pressure oxygen cylinder. (Search for "pulse")
Then I used their site search and found the pulseox product [rockwellcollins.com] which apparently uses electronic control to deliver oxygen based on breathing patterns.
So no, it's not a generator. It uses tiny, high-pressure tanks, and a circuit board with sensors on it. And in classic Boeing style, it appears (from the logic board photo) to only have one sensor per passenger. And this was pretty easy to find by just looking.
Re: (Score:2)
They also list an oxygen generator on that page, so it's unclear which is used where, though there are clearly some systems using pressurized tanks for passenger emergency oxygen.
Re: (Score:2)
They also list an oxygen generator on that page, so it's unclear which is used where
It's conceivable that they support using a generator with the pulse system, but I looked for parts which said "(Pulse System)" next to them... which the generator does not. If you want the final word, though, you'll probably have to contact BE Aerospace.
Re:I wonder why they switched to cylinders. (Score:4, Informative)
Apparently it's not standard oxygen cylinders - it's "advanced technology" aka "cheaper":
The Boeing 787 will be the first aircraft equipped with a passenger oxygen system using B/E's advanced "Pulse Oxygen" technology. The Pulse Oxygen system delivers oxygen more efficiently than traditional passenger systems, and reduces overall system weight and fuel burn. The Pulse Oxygen system also facilitates lower maintenance and cabin reconfiguration costs, when compared to traditional oxygen systems.
https://www.businesswire.com/n... [businesswire.com]
Re:I wonder why they switched to cylinders. (Score:5, Informative)
We glider pilots use pulse O2 systems most of the time these days, they work very well and use much less O2 than the older constant flow system. The pulse Ox controller known as the Mountain High EDS is very popular. It runs for 50 hours + on 2standard AA batteries, and can be set to start at ground level, 5,000ft or 10,000ft automatically.its good to 18,000 with a canula and 25,000 with a mask.
Re: (Score:2)
Weird.
Most passenger aircraft only use oxygen cylinders for the crew.
Pretty much... The PAX oxygen system is mostly for show. If an aircraft is at cruise height, there's less than 30 seconds to put on an oxygen mask - and passengers really haven't trained for it...
If the crew oxy system doesn't work, there's issues... The pax one? Eh - they'll wake up again below about 15,000ft....
Re: (Score:2)
Less than 30 seconds? A healthy adult should have at least a minute or two. I can hold my breath for 30 seconds without too much trouble and zero risk of passing out. Someone who has trained for it can hold their breath for several minutes. Breathing even 30,000ft air should supply a decent bit more oxygen to the brain than holding one's breath.
Re: (Score:2)
Blood oxygen saturation is non-linear with partial pressure of oxygen so it gets worse more quickly then you might expect. At 25,000 feet you have 3 to 6 minutes before unconsciousness and will die not long after. Before losing consciousness you will be impaired very quickly.
Holding your breath at at sea level is one thing but completely different with a 10psi difference at 25,000 feet. You might as well try to hold your breath in a vacuum; it is not going to happen.
Fire and jail top leadership. (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, decapitate it. Put engineers back in charge, and in 20-30 years, maybe we'll trust Boeing again.
Even with that, I don't think the pre-merger Boeing culture will ever exist again, and that's really a loss.
There's a reason (many, actually) Douglas was sinking faster than a DC-10 with a blown door. They shoulda been left free to crater.
Is it true it was a shotgun wedding at the hands of the us gov't.? Something about not wanting Douglas to work with the Chinese?
Good job breaking it...
Re: (Score:2)
There's a reason (many, actually) Douglas was sinking faster than a DC-10 with a blown door. They shoulda been left free to crater.
Because military contracts are sexy and commercial aviation is boring. Douglas Aircraft was great until McDonnell merged with them.
To summarize (Score:2)
American Aerospace in a Nutshell. (Score:5, Interesting)
I lasted exactly 45 days at GE Aerospace. When I brought up 'bad decisions', one of the other contractors joked that "This isn't even the worst decision [he's] seen". As if that was supposed to make it better. If you don't do the work, they'll find someone else that will.
Thankfully this won't possibly kill any civilians. And, to quote verbatim the "joke" that was told on my first day, "I guess that's what they signed the waiver for", since it was a military project.
Modern aircraft not killing more people has to do more with luck and what remains of DO-178B. (Without the self certification and midlevel managers trying to work around it).
There is a safe, meticulous middleground that is not Coldfire v4e and 286 chips in 2019 or what ever the flavor of the week of JS framework. However it's expensive, requires competent engineers, and an actual a safety culture.
American Aerospace is terrifying. Even companies that have a culture of safety in their automotive divisions just see $$$ and throw it out the window for their aerospace.
From a previous post:
The Downfall of a Great American Airplane Company - An Insider's Perspective [airliners.net]
During the past several years, Boeing Commercial Airplanes has been offloading its design engineering work to foreign "design centers". American engineers and technical designers are being laid off by the hundreds while Russian engineers are quietly hired at the Boeing Design Center in Moscow. Many of the Russian engineers are not nearly as experienced as the American engineers being laid off. Engineering layoffs have cut so deeply into Boeing's talent pool that knowledge has been irretrievably lost. And the layoffs continue.
Soon Boeing may reach (if it hasn't already) a "point of no return" where irreversible damage has been done to the company's ability to design and build safe airplanes, even with its so-called "risk-sharing partners".
Re:American Aerospace in a Nutshell. (Score:5, Interesting)
My opinion of the functional safety (don't kill people) industry with my ear to the ground working and interviewing in multiple industries.
For who you should trust not to kill you, in this order:
Off the top of my head just from the interview (Mid 2018): They weren't doing any HIL testing. [dspace.com] Their 'test plan' was "put an engineer at the wheel to be an engineer and driver." When 2007 diesel emissions work was in full force a semi would have 2-3 engineers *plus* a driver to collect data and tune the emissions equipment. And none of that was even safety related. Trying to make an engineer watch their laptop to 'see' what it sees and see what is being seen ahead *and* controlling the vehicle is stupid and cheap.
They were in a race to the IPO at which point having actual product didn't mater. But given the news of layoffs [thestreet.com] my guess is they're crashing and burning internally right now.
I can't comment on Medical, but I'm going to go with ignorance is bliss and tell myself they skew towards not putting profit over lifes, right?
Re:American Aerospace in a Nutshell. (Score:5, Insightful)
I can't comment on Medical, but I'm going to go with ignorance is bliss and tell myself they skew towards not putting profit over lifes, right?
All the security holes in medical products prove the opposite. They all seem to be horribly insecure. What really busts my nuts is the many devices which run Windows. Linux is fucking free, OpenBSD same, but they're actually paying money for the least secure garbage possible.
And then of course there's the medical insurance industry, which employs people specifically to deny claims. People were worried about death panels with Romneycare — er, I mean Obamacare — when the insurance companies have had them all along.
Re: (Score:2)
Same with ATM's - why would you put Windows on a device that dispenses money? ATM companies could customize their version of Linux/*BSD or whatever, and deploy that. Saves licensing. Saves upgrading when MS decides to pull the plug on the OS and everyone has to upgrade "just because". (in the FDIC/NCUA world, if the vendor no longer supports the software, that's a regulatory no-no for the bank/CU)
Re: (Score:2)
Some of the Windows stuff comes down to support. Windows is expensive, unless you buy Linux with support (like RHEL for $600 to $800 a license). Then it is damn expensive, and even the LTS editions run out of support before the devices are certified. Getting a certification as a medical device can take 2-3 years (plus, lets say a year for R&D), and LTS support for RHEL or SuSE is like 5 years at most. Windows long-term support is in the range of 10-15 years. The original LTS support agreements for
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
In what way is Linux more secure? Because every security thing that gets in the way of release will be disabled. No SELinux. Everything running as root. rwxrwxrwx on all important files. I'm sure you'll find telnet AND SSH running (and
Re: (Score:3)
Airbus has some of the WORST designs going. Even now, they are trying hard to cover up the Airbus 220 and its major flaws. Back in the 00s, Airbus tried to get Microsoft to agree that certify windows for DO178B. Even Microsoft laughed Airbus out on that one.
Their avionics were a total disaster for the longest time. Their software is a NIGHTMARE. It is only in the last 5 years, that I would trust an Airbus cockpit.
Airbus 380 is so poorly designed that flight costs are far far worse than the 747 or
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Their avionics design is such that you are an input. It was buggy through all of the 00s. It was what caused the Airshow crash. In addition, lack of feedback is what caused the Air france
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Airbus has some of the WORST design
Plane crashes due to bad design: Airbus: 0, Boeing: 2, and counting.
Re: American Aerospace in a Nutshell. (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
You do realise that A220 is an Airbus in name only? It is was designed and manufactured by Bombardier, Airbus only acquired 50% of the program two years ago as a fuck you to Trump. And that aircraft certainly sells well, despite its flaws - mostly with its made in the USA engine.
The flight costs per passenger of an A380 are comparable to a 747-
Re: (Score:2)
So, no, you must be doing the drinking.
Re: American Aerospace in a Nutshell. (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The main reason the Airbus 380 sales are low is that it is too big for most airports - it requires expensive airport modifications including accommodations for double-deck for passenger loading/unloading, too many passengers per flight for most flight schedules, etc.
Re: (Score:2)
Boeing had a 50 year head start. Half way through to Airbus even existing some things happened in Europe that set their industry back a few years.
Boeing did nothing but sit back rake in money.
Airbus was learning.
In 2019 VW has better safety engineers than Boeing. Automotive has been going full tilt into all level of ADAS. Chip makers have ISO-26262 certified ch [nxp.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Swedish automotive?
Re: American Aerospace in a Nutshell. (Score:2)
You missed out EU aerospace - they're pretty good still...
Re: (Score:2)
German/Japanese Automotive
The VAG emissions scandal alone has been said to have contributed to the deaths of several thousand people worldwide.
Re: (Score:2)
Its all a massive crime by this power hungry greedy corporate board that runs this thing. Boeing needs to be forcibly reorganized with a new management structure without about 50% engineers, 30% floor workers and 20% finance and marketing as a percentage of the members on the board. The offshoring and outsourcing must be stopped and it should be written into a new charter that it should use American engineers only, no H1Bs, no outsourcing. This should be done as their punishment for what they have done.
Re: (Score:2)
Modern aircraft not killing more people has to do more with luck and what remains of DO-178B
I'm not sure what you intend with "modern", but it must be beyond lightning-strike levels of luck, given the actual safety record of commercial passenger flight in the last 20 years or so soundly beating the previous 20 strictly on an empirical basis let alone weighted by passenger-mile.
I could agree with an argument that this is how the trend should go, as we learn more safety should just naturally get better. I could also see how the trend would be even better if safety were a higher priority. But what
Re: (Score:2)
given the actual safety record of commercial passenger flight in the last 20 years or so soundly beating the previous 20 strictly on an empirical basis let alone weighted by passenger-mile.
Those are on 'old' designs back when it wasn't copy, paste, profit. The MAX8 has been in service for how many years and already *twice* drove itself and all the passengers into the ground?
Boeing puts such little value on life (Score:4, Interesting)
The Boeing 737 MAX 8 victims fund seems to answer this question. Each victim's family is being provided $144,500.
Now let's put the cost of a life in Boeing terms:
Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg has a salary of $23 million. The value of a life to Boeing is worth less than 0.7% of the Boeing's CEO salary.
Boeing net income was $10.46 billion. The value of a life to Boeing is worth less than 0.002% of Boeing's net income.
So, when Boeing says they believe all their aircraft are safe, that gives me about 0.002% to 0.7% increase in confidence from zero they are commitment to addressing every known issue which could compromise my life by using their product.
But at the end of the day, I reached the conclusion that I value my life more than Boeing does. The degree to which their claims are actually backed by hard numbers regarding value just is not nearly good enough. I don't expect Bernie Madoff to help make me rich and I don't expect Boeing to get me to a destination safely.
Needs engineers on the board (Score:3)
Boeings golden years were up until the 1990s. The 777 was a great plane made in the last years that Boeing had an engineering centric culture based on quality. Muilenberg is not necessarily to blame because he came in at the later stage of the 737 Max program and deserves some credit for being an engineer rather than an MBA type that created this mess. Boeing needs a new board structure with at least 50% engineers out of at least 10 members, or perhaps 35% engineers and 35% plant workers, and get rid of this cost cutting culture and get back to being engineer driven.
Re: (Score:3)
BUT, I agree with the rest of what you say. Boeing really was a company devoted to Quality. Right now, it leaves a lot to be designed because of the last 4 CEOs that we had.
Also sounds like the union (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
A recent popular phrase (Score:3)
"If it's Boeing, I'm not going"
Bias. (Score:2)
I call bullshit. There is absolutely no reason to "deliberately" fit faulty parts. Unknowingly, sure. Negligently, possible. Fitting lower cost/quality parts, perhaps. But deliberately fitting faulty parts, nope, not for a company, and only for an employee engaged in sabotage.
Re: (Score:3)
Well that is just it isnt it. Legal fictions aside companies are not single entities. Individuals working at them do not always conform to high degrees of personal integrity. Managers ignorantly or maliciously create perverse incentives.
Think about:
Upper management tells the production manager if you can reduce costs by 20% I'll give you a bonus. Okay the production manager now has an incentive to reduce costs there are probably good ways to do that, eliminate waste, schedule work more effectively to avoi
"strictly driven by schedule and cost" (Score:3)
It's called 'capitalism'. The tougher the competition gets, the more will companies resort to problematic cost-cutting approaches.
Re: (Score:3)
Communism gave us Chernobyl.
Boeing is garbage now (Score:2)
I liked Boeing and I want to see it succeed but I'm not flying on their death traps just to help them out.
The entire board should be sacked for a start. This shit ha
obviously not (Score:2)
"Boeing denies his accusations and says all its aircraft are built to the highest levels of safety and quality."
obviously this isn't true, or the whole boeing max problem wouldn't even exist.
Re:New form of insider trading (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Which is a hilarious contrast to the Trump whistleblower that everyone in the media and congress are intentionally hiding his name so people can't fact-check him or his credentials.
(And no, I'm not defending Trump. This has larger implications for the future of the country.)
The guy they're saying they believe it is? Turns out he directly worked with Biden, and his lawyer even tweeted "We're going to get him [Trump]". Looks like they've tried to adapt from the last "smoking gun" FBI accusers who they found t
Re: (Score:2)
To be clear, imagine being "okay" with a "whistleblower" working for the OPPOSING CANDIDATE for LEADER OF THE UNITED STATES.
Even if you support Biden (ugggghhh). Even if you support his politics. This is a huge conflict of interest that should have been laughed out of congress if they weren't all political hacks.
Imagine if McCain or some other GOP candidate had a "hidden whistleblower" that nobody is allowed to know about, with closed door meetings, saying that Obama did "some evil traitorous shit". Would y
Re: (Score:3)
At this point, the identity of the whistleblower doesn't even matter anymore. The amount of evidence corroborating the whistleblower's concerns shows that his complaint was well placed, no matter who he works for. And to be clear, if Obama or anyone else in the government was abusing their power and doing illegal stuff, I want it reported. I don't care who the whistleblower works for. We shouldn't stand for corruption or abuse of power in our government, no matter who is doing it.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Last year 6000 pedestrians just in the US were killed in car accidents.
How many died in a Boeing in the US? How about in the whole world?
Re:That's it. Kids, we're walking... (Score:5, Insightful)
Last year 6000 pedestrians just in the US were killed in car accidents.
How many died in a Boeing in the US? How about in the whole world?
555.. in 2018. a 900% increase.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/m... [forbes.com]
Re: (Score:2)
>555
They don't call it a 787 for nothin'!
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Last year 6000 pedestrians just in the US were killed in car accidents.
How many died in a Boeing in the US? How about in the whole world?
If they already died in car accidents, I'm assuming none of them died in a Boeing.
Re: (Score:2)
Last year 6000 pedestrians just in the US were killed in car accidents.
How many died in a Boeing in the US? How about in the whole world?
I assume it's fairly rare for pedestrians to be killed by airplanes.
Re:New form of insider trading (Score:5, Interesting)
I read this and I wonder if this guy might have shorted their stock then put in his whistle blower complaint. Suddenly I am very suspicious that Whistle blowers are operatives, wonder why.
Suddenly I am kinda weirded out by your conspiracy theory. What data do you have that shows this person shorted his stock? Alex Jones tell you?
Re: (Score:2)
As long as we are speculating, it is a common technique to 'assist' in getting out some bad news in order to sell short.Sometimes it is just a matter of getting inside information so you are the first to know about the whistleblower. It doesn't mean the whistleblower is the beneficiary.
It also doesn't mean the shortseller has any control over the events. So there are quite some variants in which shortsellers can be involved, most of them boring.
Re: (Score:2)
Do you know what the word "wonder" means?
I wonder why you take the time to wonder if I do or not.
Re: (Score:2)
I have written this random conspiracy theory generator. It still needs work but it is already scoring better than Alex Jones.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It's quite amazing that someone who spouts nothing but conspiracy bullshit gets vindicated when they accidentally and quite randomly get a single thing right. Then there's the idea that there's the idea that "The coordinated effort to get rid of him wasn't because hes a conspiracy theorist"
You know what that last line is called? A conspiracy theory.
Now quick put on the tinfoil hat before your pet frog turns gay.
Re: (Score:3)
Fun part: he was right about frogs too. Their hormonal expression was disrupted to such a degree, they developed wrong sex organs for their genome and expressed interests in their own genetic sex.
Or as some would say, "frogs turned transsexual". Both answers are correct to an extent.
Re: (Score:3)
Fun part: he was right about frogs too. Their hormonal expression was disrupted to such a degree, they developed wrong sex organs for their genome and expressed interests in their own genetic sex.
Or as some would say, "frogs turned transsexual". Both answers are correct to an extent.
And? I read the research regarding amphibian sensitivity to pollution years ago. It was right out there for everyone to read. A lot of species, including humans, can end up with genital deformations or genital ambiguity when exposed to toxins during the earliest stages of life.
Jones was hardly breaking news to anyone but perhaps his audience. Even then - he was pretty inaccurate.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
It's quite amazing that someone who spouts nothing but conspiracy bullshit gets vindicated when they accidentally and quite randomly get a single thing right. Then there's the idea that there's the idea that "The coordinated effort to get rid of him wasn't because hes a conspiracy theorist"
You know what that last line is called? A conspiracy theory.
Now quick put on the tinfoil hat before your pet frog turns gay.
You can't fool me young fella - Its conspiracy theories all the way down.
Re: (Score:2)
Alex Jones fingered Epstein over a decade ago. He may say some crazy shit, but he also throws down some truth.The coordinated effort to get rid of him wasn't because hes a conspiracy theorist.
Ah, the Alex Jones fingering Epstein non-conspiracy conspiracy!
The problem with conspiracy obsessed people is that they have to have a conspiracy to operate.
It is all brought about by a particular personality. You need a general mistrust built on confirmation bias, a peculiar form of Dunning-Krugr effect where they perceive themselves as superior to everyone else, and finally, sprinkle in paranoia.
Put all them together and you get your Alex Jones and his followers. Everything we know is wrong, Whate
Re: (Score:2)
Beautiful.
Re:New form of insider trading (Score:5, Insightful)
Error on the side of the corporation, instead of saving hundreds of lives??
It's not like we have an epidemic of false whistleblowing. We really don't need to do things like to deter whistleblowing, like investigating the whistleblower before even checking out the claims. When the pendulum swings the other way you may have a point. Why assume the whistleblower is guilty? What do we gain from that? It's better, easier, and less harmful to just cross-verify the whistleblower claims. In the worst case, Boeing's stock price may suffer temporarily, slighlty, and then recover. Again, if failing to ultra-investigate whistleblowers before verifying their claims can cause permanent harm to Boeing and its employees/stockholders you would have a point .. but it doesn't.
Re: (Score:2)
Because some basic ideas of justice our society used to stand for included things like: The right to face your accuser and innocent until proven guilty. Yes strictly speaking those are matters for the operation of law courts but they were also broader principles.
Whistleblowers should never be permitted anonymity in my option. Given protection against reprisal sure, if they have information that is true, and real evidence of a crime.
Whistleblowers should not be consider whistleblowers at all without some k
Re: (Score:3)
Whistleblowers should never be permitted anonymity in my option. Given protection against reprisal sure, if they have information that is true, and real evidence of a crime.
This idea doesn't work at all. Firstly, Whistleblowers often don't actually have the possibility to get the full evidence. Even if they've seen it, it's likely to be in specially secured systems which make it very difficult or impossible for them to export. Whistleblowing is not an investigation, it's a trigger for an investigation and that's the reason why most whistleblowing is done to an organisation which keeps it secret, such as the board of the company. In this case the Whistleblower reported the
Re: New form of insider trading (Score:2)
This is an issue that has been driving me crazy in regards to "other" whistleblowers in the news. In many, maybe most cases a whistleblower is NOT making legal accusations in a criminal prosecution, and therefore there is no requirement to face one's accuser. Otherwise every conspiracy theorist about any public official should immediately be outed.
The point of whistleblowing is to alert authorities to bad or illegal behavior. At that point it is up to the authorities to gather evidence beyond the whistleblo
Re: (Score:2)
You can't protect them against reprisal unless you allow them to be anonymous. No one is convicted by anonymous whilstleblower claims; there still has to be an investigation and a case made. The role of a whistelblower is to bring things to light that would otherwise remain hidden, to get the ball rolling when an investigation is warr
Re: (Score:2)
Whistleblowers should never be permitted anonymity in my option. Given protection against reprisal sure,
Anonymity is protection against reprisal.
if they have information that is true, and real evidence of a crime.
You have to investigate to determine whether the information is true. That's simply how it works.
Whistleblowers should not be consider whistleblowers at all without some kind of material evidence. A society where some ahole can anonymously libel/slander you is a shitty one.
And that's why we need anonymity for whistleblowers, so they can come forward to the authorities. It's already a crime to bear false witness, so there's already a process in place to punish them for making false reports.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:New form of insider trading (Score:5, Informative)
I read this and I wonder if this guy might have shorted their stock then put in his whistle blower complaint.
Suddenly I am very suspicious that Whistle blowers are operatives, wonder why.
Because you watch too much Fox News, that's why.
Re: (Score:2)
When the media are eager to call someone a whistleblower, then they're usually not, as with the Ukraine case where Ciaramella is just a CIA operative doing his unconstitutional job and being protected for it.
But I am sure Boeing is full of disgruntled engineers who think the company has been mismanaged at the expense of quality.
The choice now is between letting Boeing crash or acting on the conviction that they are too big to fail.
Re:Notice where? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
That is now gone due to GOP controlled CONgress/WH, combined with corrupt unions. Sadly, unions being controlled by mafia speaks plenty.
Re: (Score:2)
Union employees are actually interested and invested in their company.
Posting to undo mod. I missed that you were going for an obvious +5 Funny.
Re: (Score:2)
On the other hands, unions made the US great.
Cottage industry made the US great in the first place.
Deliberately delaying entry into WWII until everyone else had been bombed made the US the kind of great that people think of today.
Unions made the five-day work week. That's pretty cool, but it's not just a US thing. And what we need now is the four-day work week, but I don't see them agitating for that. Did I miss it?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
What is worse than Unions are GOP that are idiots trying to blame Unions for the work that a GOP did.