12 Miners found alive......12 Miners found dead.

[NYCe]

Left Allanah's Tuesday night party about an hour ago (great turn out btw). Picked up a copy of the newspaper with 12 FOUND ALIVE in huge letters in the front.

Just turned to CNN and now they're reporting only 1 miner was found alive. Those poor families, I can't imagine having my emotions jerked around in that way.

(This is regarding the Miners trapped in that mine in West Virginia btw).

[chefmike]

Yeah, I've been watchin it, too. Those Appalachian communities have had to rely on that terrible way of making a living for many generations. If we have robots that can enter houses on swat missions, etc., why can't these coal mining corporations develop robotics for mining? And develop the technology in these communities, training these people to do something else. Why, because corporate welfare lines the pockets of the CEO's, it doesn't benefit workers.

[BeardedOne]

Left Allanah's Tuesday night party about an hour ago (great turn out btw). Picked up a copy of the newspaper with 12 FOUND ALIVE in huge letters in the front.

I just left our local newsstand (Wednesday, January 4 around 11 AM) and USAToday was on the shelf with the "12 Alive" headline. Damn, there's going to be a major shitstorm outta that.

President Dewey should do something about it.

[GroobySteven]

How does one make it alive when they were all barricaded together:

1. He was the youngest (?) with two young kids so the rest volunteered their oxygen to him so one could survive.

2. He killed the rest to get the oxygen from them so he could survive?

3. There was some sort of Predator/Alien/Creature from the Depths attack, after much fighting and making makeshift weapons it was left to this guy and the token black guy, we know the black guy gets it in the final reel. The creature self-destructs when he knew he was beaten.


Scripts ready to go - any producers?
seanchai

[BeardedOne]

How does one make it alive when they were all barricaded together:

1. He was the youngest (?) with two young kids so the rest volunteered their oxygen to him so one could survive.

2. He killed the rest to get the oxygen from them so he could survive?

3. There was some sort of Predator/Alien/Creature from the Depths attack, after much fighting and making makeshift weapons it was left to this guy and the token black guy, we know the black guy gets it in the final reel. The creature self-destructs when he knew he was beaten.


Scripts ready to go - any producers?
seanchai

Ooh. Cold. But I bet it makes it for a May/June release or September sweeps at the latest. :roll:

[Legend]

All news channels are a joke CNN,Foxnews,MSNBC.

[shemalejunky]

Yeah, scripts ready to go: "Seanchai is a fucking moron" That works for me.

And think about it chefmike, if these companies had robots, well, then Appalachia's economy would be that much worse with nobody having a job. It is all a matter of the geology of the area and the type of coal they are going after. In Western North America the sedimentary layers are more unifrom without all of the folding and thus it is easier to mine for coal and other minerals, but Appalachia is all folding and deep coal, and it is some of the best coal in the world to boot. With coal at such a high price these days, you do the math. These guys are paid well too.

[chefmike]

That's why I mentioned training them to help with the alternative tech, just a thought I threw out, I'm not a scientist... But I'm quite aware of how these communities depend on mining, and I don't think they are paid nearly enough. I suspect the families of those who died don't either.

[BOATER]

First off I wanna say it was really fucked up having the families emotion jerked around. Hope, rejoice, to despair.
I have a good friend for the military, who's father was a coal miner. His father passed from lung disease 3 years ago at the age of 51. His dad never smoked a day in his life, but worked the mines from age 17 till 49, when he had to stop working.
It would appear that they get good wages. But they had to fight too damn hard to get national attention to get better job conditions, health, pensions, and fair wages. All that and still have a short life expectancy.

[chefmike]

WSWS : News & Analysis : North America

Bush rubs shoulders with the Pennsylvania miners
By Bill Vann
8 August 2002


Fresh from his family summer estate in Kennebunkport, Maine, George W. Bush traveled to a firehouse in southwestern Pennsylvania to rub shoulders before the cameras with the nine Quecreek coal miners who last week were pulled from a water-filled mine shaft after being trapped for three days.

Patting one of the miners on the back and hugging another, Bush hailed the mine rescue as a symbol of “the spirit of America” and attempted to portray it as somehow linked to his “war on terrorism.” Bush sandwiched in his photo-op with the miners between an appearance before well-heeled Pennsylvania Republicans, where he helped raise a million dollars for the party’s gubernatorial nominee, and a month-long vacation at his Texas ranch.

Few American administrations have rivaled that of Bush when it comes to hypocrisy and cynicism. But even for the Bush White House, there was something particularly obscene about the meeting between the Republican president and the coal miners. Here is man who has barely performed an honest day’s work in his life, born with a silver spoon in his mouth that he has never bothered to remove. By selling his family’s name, he managed to parlay a series of failed business ventures into a multimillion-dollar fortune, much of it in payoffs from the energy industry whose interests he has so steadfastly defended.

Standing besides men who have between them spent decades doing the dangerous and backbreaking work of mining coal, he preached the importance of “responsibility” and not asking “where am I going to get my next paycheck from.”

If Bush had been prepared to speak frankly, he might have told his assembled audience: “I’m glad you fellows were rescued. But the fact remains, you and your kind have to work at dirty and unsafe jobs for a pittance so that I and my kind can live in luxury.”

The miners themselves seemed somewhat embarrassed by the event. They failed to join in the clapping at the president’s applause lines. Bush’s handlers kept them far away from reporters and refused to organize any question-and-answer period. As a pretext they cited a $1.5-million deal that Disney had clinched with the nine men to buy the exclusive rights to tell their story in both a TV film and book. It is unlikely, in any case, that the poodles of the White House press corps would have asked any embarrassing questions about the miners’ opinions of Bush and his policies.

Was the miners’ apparent diffidence at the event motivated by political considerations? It is impossible to say. One thing is certain, the policies of the Bush administration would have, in an earlier period, made a trip to the coalfields a highly dangerous enterprise.

Now, the United Mine Workers of America has virtually abandoned southwestern Pennsylvania, once a UMWA stronghold, leaving miners there to eke out a living in nonunion “dogholes” like Quecreek. Job insecurity has curbed the militancy that once characterized these miners. Ironically, those who were trapped may fare considerably better than their coworkers who escaped the disaster. While the nine survivors will have the money from Disney, it appears that some 70 others may lose their jobs.

Since coming to office, Bush has twice moved to slash the budget of agencies that are tasked with enforcing safety in the coal mines, such as the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA). These cuts have been proposed in the context of a steady rise in the number of deaths resulting from mine accidents for the past three years. Last year, 42 coal miners died, including 13 in the Brookwood, Alabama mine last September.

Bush’s proposed 6 percent cut to MSHA in this year’s budget is to be taken primarily from safety enforcement. The result would be as many as 65 fewer mine inspectors on the job, under conditions in which the agency is already falling behind on its schedule of inspections. The administration has further called for changes in policy that would allow coal operators to reduce the number of times they must test for excessive coal dust in the mines, a contributing factor in explosions and the cause of black lung disease.

Another proposal in the current budget is a 9 percent cut in funding for the enforcement and regulatory activities of the US Office of Surface Mining (OSM). The cuts come on top of the Clinton administration’s slashing of the agency’s budget and reduction of its workforce by some 25 percent.

Financed through taxes on coal production, OSM is charged with aiding states in the cleanup and reclamation of abandoned mine sites. The disaster that nearly claimed the lives of the Quecreek miners resulted from their mine shaft being flooded from water that had accumulated in an adjacent abandoned mine.

Moreover, in line with the administration’s now familiar routine of getting foxes to guard the chicken coop, Bush has stacked mine safety boards with ex-coal industry executives, whose principal concern is eliminating safety regulations and other restraints on profit-making.

These policies are by no means unique to mining. The Bush budget likewise calls for slashing the budget of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, eliminating 64 inspectors’ jobs, and includes further cutbacks at the National Institute for Occupational Safety. The administration has succeeded in blocking proposed safety rules for ergonomics, replacing them with meaningless “voluntary guidelines.”

This is the reality behind Bush’s homilies to the miners about the importance of “family,” “prayer,” individual responsibility and voluntarism. With its stepped-up drive to eliminate safety and health regulation of industry, this is about all the government would leave for American workers to rely upon.

Bush declared that the rescue of the miners demonstrated “a new spirit prevalent in our country, that when one of us suffer, all of us suffers [sic]; that in order to succeed, we’ve got to be united.” This spirit is hardly evident among the corporate millionaires and billionaires who placed him in office and whose interests his administration represents.

From Enron to WorldCom, the watchword has been: let the workers suffer—with the loss of pensions and jobs—while the top executives loot whatever assets remain. Unbridled accumulation of personal wealth at the top at the expense of the great majority below is the true “spirit” embodied in the Bush administration.

The sentiments of social solidarity and sacrifice to which Bush alluded—and which did indeed animate the rescue effort—are historically linked to a very different social layer, i.e., the working class. If one overlooks the president’s mangled syntax and clumsy phrasing, one uncovers principles enunciated long ago as “an injury to one is an injury to all,” and “in unity there is strength.” These were forged in bitter struggles over the course of a century, in which miners fought the coal operators, company gunmen, police, politicians and militia to win their rights.

While these principles of class solidarity have been under attack as the result of decades of betrayals by the UMWA and AFL-CIO union bureaucracies, they remain deeply imbedded among American miners and other sections of workers. For this “spirit” to genuinely prevail “in our country,” as Bush put it, requires a fundamental social transformation. The mines, factories and other means for producing social wealth must be separated from the parasitic and criminal elements that presently subordinate them to their personal enrichment, and placed at the service of society as a whole.

[chefmike]

Sirotablog: Bush ignored explicit warnings in 2002 about mine safety
EXCLUSIVE: Bush ignored explicit warnings in 2002 about mine safety
The tragic news about the death of 12 mine workers this week has brought up all sorts of questions about the Bush administration's record protecting mine workers. Back in 2002, I was working for the House Appropriations Committee. At the time, you may recall there was a big mining accident in Western Pennsylvania. President Bush held a big photo-op to pretend like he cared - but he never responded to the fact sheet that House Democrats put out questioning why he had made so many cuts to mine safety programs. You can view this fact sheet in Microsoft Word right here (I still have it from my time at the Appropriations Committee) It was released to the media and the administration on August 5, 2002 - the same day Bush did his big photo-op.

In case the administration claims it didn't remember being warned, check out this excerpt from the big Chicago Tribune story from 8/6/02:
"We call on the Bush administration to fully fund the Mine Safety and Health Administration to ensure that coal mines are inspected more thoroughly and that the mine act is enforced more stringently," Cecil Roberts, president of the United Mine Workers Association, said in a statement. "It would be cynical to portray himself as the hero of mine safety by simply doing photo ops," said David Sirota, spokesman for Democrats on the House Appropriations Committee.

Democrats also released a report from the Labor Department's inspector general--the agency's in-house watchdog--concluding that the Mine Safety and Health Administration was "unable to complete statutorily mandated inspections of ... mine operations," in part because of a lack of inspectors.

At a Senate subcommittee hearing last month, lawmakers were told that the Jim Walters Resources mine in Brookwood, Ala., where 13 miners died last September, had 31 outstanding safety violations that went unchecked because of a lack of government inspectors.
The mine workers union also has criticized Bush's choice of Stanley Suboleski, an executive at coal operator Massey Energy, to serve on the Federal Mine Safety and Health Review Commission. That agency judges disputes over alleged safety violations.

more
http://www.workingforchange.com/blog/index.cfm?mode=ent...

[chefmike]

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/04/01/60minutes/pri...

A Toxic Cover-Up?

April 4, 2004(CBS) Who is Jack Spadaro? He's a man who's devoted his life to the safety of miners and the safety of people who live near mines.

He's an engineer, who until recently was head of the National Mine Health and Safety Academy (MSHA), a branch of the Department of Labor, which trains mining inspectors.

But he lost that job last year, after he blew the whistle on what he called a whitewash by the Bush administration of an investigation into a major environmental disaster. Correspondent Bob Simon reports. ”I had never seen anything so corrupt and lawless in my entire career as what I saw regarding interference with a federal investigation of the most serious environmental disaster in the history of the Eastern United States,” says Spadaro.

“I've been in government since Richard Nixon. I've been through the Reagan administration, Carter and Clinton. I've never seen anything like this.”

What he's talking about is what he calls a government cover-up of an investigation into a disaster 25 times the size of the Exxon Valdez spill.........

[Felicia Katt]

Yeah, I've been watchin it, too. Those Appalachian communities have had to rely on that terrible way of making a living for many generations. If we have robots that can enter houses on swat missions, etc., why can't these coal mining corporations develop robotics for mining? And develop the technology in these communities, training these people to do something else. Why, because corporate welfare lines the pockets of the CEO's, it doesn't benefit workers.
Those workers would be the first and loudest ones to complain if their jobs were lost to robots. Minework is dangerous, but it pays well and doesn't require much education. Like every other blue collar industry before it, increased automation would benefit the corporation's bottom line interest to the detriment of its employees but organized labor unions balance the power to keep the work and wages with their members.

Its a horrible tragedy that those men lost their lives. But hundreds of miners do every year.

I'm more concerned that the mine had been cited for over 200 safety violations in 2005 - 46 of them during an eleven-week period late in the year - but had only been fined thousands of dollars. The company running the mine had over $136 million in revenues in 2004.

The Federal Mine Safety and Health Administration has been downsized by 170 positions since 2001. Congress has cut MSHA's funding by $4.9 million, in inflation-adjusted terms, for the 2006 fiscal year, compared with 2005. The Bush Administration has appointed numerous officials to the agency who have close ties to the mining industry. and who in the last five years, have rolled back a number of regulations aimed at improving mine worker safety, Congress has not held any hearings on mine worker safety since 2001.

Its a dirty job, but someone has to do it. Its a dirty shame though, that a tragedy like this is often the only thing thats brings government neglect out into the light of day.

FK

[chefmike]

Felicia, I realize how much these people need mining jobs, I was born in Virginia and my sister's college roomate came from a mining town. The idea that I floated mentioned job training in more advanced tech...I realize that it won't happen, nor will this regime be providing the public works projects that America's infrastructure and blue-collar workers would benefit from...

[shemalejunky]

Hundreds die a year? Maybe in China but not in North America. Felicia do what you do best and drag on that drag queen act. As well, there are jobs called mining engineers, they are engineers and need the education to prove it. Stupid cow.

It was only a few posts until Bush and GOP were blamed, lol.

[Felicia Katt]

Sweetie, I did the research and math before I posted. The death rate for mining is one of the highest among all industries. 27 per 100,000 workers for metal/nonmetal mine workers and 33 per 100,000 for coal mine workers. There are over 567,000 miners working in America. There are another 47,000 or so in Canada. None of the 12 men who just died were engineers, just good hard workers doing a difficult job. You are right that many more miners die in China, but dead wrong if you think these 12 are the only ones who will do so here.

I didn't assign any blame, just posted some facts about what the state of Federal mine safety regulation and oversight is presently. And I certainly didn't say anything to you personally to merit your abusive comments.

FK

[TrueBeauty TS]

Hundreds die a year? Maybe in China but not in North America. Felicia do what you do best and drag on that drag queen act. As well, there are jobs called mining engineers, they are engineers and need the education to prove it. Stupid cow.

It was only a few posts until Bush and GOP were blamed, lol.


Once again, Junky, you show what a class act you are. Crawl back under your rock, troglodyte.

[deebo]

so sad RIP

[LG]

True, mining is a very dangerous occupation. People die. Other people also die everyday at work in the US and hundreds more are killed during work outside America. Thousands more die of hunger, disease and are killed in natural disasters' or on the roads.

The twelve people died is a tragedy. But more pertinent I think are the following two facts:

1. The Associated Press and the networks dicked everyone around, bringing hope and joy to the community and to the families of the miners then causing more despair than they would have created if they had reported correctly in the first place. It was a mistake sure, but a criminal mistake to make.

2. The Government probably should have seen it coming and the mine operators and owners should have made measures to prevent this tragedy. The Mine Safety and Health Administration didn't do enough.

shemalejunky noted:


It was only a few posts until Bush and GOP were blamed, lol.

Well, don't you agree that someone must be held responsible for an accident that probably could have been avoided? And isn't everyone accountable to someone else? And up the chain of command, don't we eventaully get to George Bush, the President, who is accountable, basically, to every American, if not to every citizen of the world. Wasn't Harry Truman's motto "The buck stops here"?

How America needs someone like Truman now.

And an epilogue:

May the miners souls rest in peace. I hope their families can overcome the pain. But I also hope that something is done to prevent tragedies like this, and others, such as the one at the ice skating rink in Germany, from never happening again. Both tragedies caused by preventable accidents. Both occuring at operations where someone was reaping a profit and the local governments were turning a blind eye. In the US, Germany and everywhere, we should hold our Governments, legislators and corportaions responsible if they knowingly didn't act to prevent disasters.

People are dying. The buck has to stop somewhere.

[GroobySteven]

Yeah, scripts ready to go: "Seanchai is a fucking moron" That works for me.



er, who the fuck are youy again?
seanchai

[hwbs]

ohhh i see the naitives are restless without theur beloved pic attachments, lmfao...

[shemalejunky]

Who the fuck am I? Not a fucking moron like you, Seanchai. Stupid tit.

[shemalejunky]

Felicia, not sure your numbers translate into 'hundreds' of deaths. Do the math.

Also, check this out, though I am sure some of you will call it a Bush propaganda job. lol

http://www.msha.gov/MSHAINFO/FactSheets/MSHAFCT2.HTM

[GroobySteven]

Who the fuck am I? Not a fucking moron like you, Seanchai. Stupid tit.

Wow someone managed to get my name right for once!

Ok junkym now where is this animosity coming from - I'm a moron/tit why? How did I offend you? Could it be just being obviously happier and more content in my life than you or something deeper and more personal?
Strange boy.
seanchai

[Felicia Katt]

Shemale Junky, thank you for the link, but its not current enough, with the last year reported being 7 years ago . My numbers were for this year. I did the math. Averaging coal and non coal death rates works out to 30 deaths per 100,000. With over 600,000 mine workers in north America, that would total over 180 deaths. Saying hundreds may have been a slight overstatement, for which I do apologize, but the current figure is close to 200 per year and is a lot more than the death rate in the 1990s The 93 deaths per year average for 1990-1999 is also misleading because there were several years where the death rate was unusually lower. If you factor those years out, the average for the 90s would still be over 100 death per year. Even if its just 93, that is still a lot of dead miners. I think a tragedy like this is when we need to ask if we are doing enough to safeguard these men who go into the bowels of the earth for us.

FK

[Realgirls4me]

Maybe the lifespan of a typical coalminer would be more pertinent ? I am going to surmise that that hard life has to take its toll in longitivity.

[shemalejunky]

Hi Felicia, I would like to see your sources, but here is some additional info:

http://sundaygazettemail.com/section/News/Today/2006010327

I think you have to subscribe to this page, but here is the text:

Blast follows safest mining year
# While mine safety has improved, Appalachia still lags behind nation

By Ken Ward Jr.
Staff writer

Last week, coal industry officials were pleased. The year was ending with a record low number of mining deaths.

Nationally, 22 coal miners died on the job in 2005, down from the previous record of 27 in 2002. In West Virginia, the industry recorded a remarkable three fatal accidents, half the previous low of six, recorded three years ago.

At about 6:30 Monday morning, any joy over the industry’s safety performance was shattered. An explosion roared through a small, newly reopened underground mine south of Buckhannon.
- advertisement -
Find a job today.

Thirteen miners were trapped in International Coal Group’s Sago Mine.

From the 1950s through the late 1970s, coal mine disasters seemed commonplace. During that period, there were 35 accidents that claimed five or more lives, the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration’s definition of a mine “disaster.”

As recently as 1978, the first year that MSHA operated under a revised mine safety act, 106 coal miners died on the job across the country.

Judging by the numbers, things have improved dramatically.

In no year since 1993 have more than 50 coal miners died on the job. Since 1976, there have been 15 coal mine disasters, half the number during the previous quarter-century.

Since 2000, the mining industry as a whole — coal and metal/nonmetal — has seen a 34 percent decrease in fatal accidents. Across the country, fatality rates have dropped, from 0.0329 per 200,000 hours worked to 0.0197 per 200,000 hours worked.

But, especially in a three-state region of Appalachia, improvements in mine safety continue to lag behind.

So overall, I am still not sure where your numbers came from. Looks like the mining industry had a banner year for accidents and deaths, and profits as well. Sure there are issues, but in no way is the industry harking back to the 19th Century. Oh yes, and Seanchai, you are a moron (thanks for pointing it out time after time). No worries about my happiness, just a little of you. Thanks for your feeble attempt at humour, I am sure you found it funny.

[Felicia Katt]

I got my figures from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health for the year 2004

http://www2a.cdc.gov/NIOSH-Chartbook/ch4/ch4-1.asp

Those figures are for fatal occupational injuries. Black lung deaths were approximately 1000 for the last year for which they reported. I didn't consider those, since the worker's assume that health risk when they take the job. Every occupation has long term risks of some sort, and individuals should be responsible for taking those into account.

FK