atlasyts@bellsouth.net wrote:

C'mon guys, this is ROTARY ENGINE Mailing list. FOCUS! Leave politics and religion out of here.
Buly
 

I don't see how religion will help anything, except to say that I do pray for you guys to be safe whenever I think about it, but politics is just the name that we give to the science of getting along with others.  Discussions of politics most definitely has a place in everything we do within society, lest we find that someone has stolen our triangular cake while we refused to talk about it.

Just as we do with our motor installations, we need to break this situation down to first principles.  These people got tangled up in a convoluted twisting of multiple webs...Social Security meets the FAA meets Disability payments.  The rules and regulations that govern each of these can be read, but not interpreted by the average American.  Even most above average Americans have a lot of difficulty, as witnessed by the flamewars the periodically fire up over some interpretation of a FAR.  Just refer to Mr. Callahan's post describing how a person could do something completely reasonable (fly the same plane that he's been flying for 50yrs), and get tangled up in the regulations.
These are not reasonable laws for sane men.  The cynical side of me says that they're a twisted joke played by sadistic daemons hiding within a faceless government.  My reasonable side reminds the cynic that nothing should be attributed to malice which can be explained by stupidity and ignorance.  What I know for certain, is that politicians, ever seeking to quiet the mewing masses, use the tangled mess to bust a few heads when it suits them to put on a show that they are doing something about society's problems.  Some years ago, it was Food Stamp fraud.  I know someone very close that was sentenced to a few years of probation and given a criminal record for filling out a confusing form as instructed by the government representative.  The mistake had no bearing on whether she would have recieved benefits, but the press was all up in arms about 'welfare fraud' and therefore heads had to roll.  Civic resources wasted so that someone doing their best just to get by can be blindsided with more heartache because they can't decipher a tangled mess of contradictory language.

Today, the big scare is anything that's related to airplanes.  Somewhere, somehow, some heads have to roll.  We got 48.  Maybe that will be enough.  Most likely not.  But law enforcement officials do get a lot of good press for busting anything to do with aviation.  The 'investigation' will need to spread so that people can feel 'safe'.  I feel no safer than I did a few days ago.  Most people won't.  Maybe tomorrow some nameless bureaucrat will light on the idea that small airplanes aren't being inspected properly.  It's just their strongly felt but uninformed opinion, but it will be decided that The Law needs to be inforced more stringently to insure the public safety.  They'll proceed to bust the head of some clueless A&P that signs off on somebody's safety wiring that has four twist instead of three.  "Deadly safety violation" is what they'll call it when they harp to the press.  At some point, they'll get around to 'protecting' that recalcitrant group of rebellious mavericks that insist on using 'unapproved' engines to fly over the poor unsuspecting public.

Politics does have a place here.