Airlines Closed for Maintenance

Here we have yet another example of how BushCo's "deregulation" has in reality been exposed as simple "you donate to us and we won't enforce any regulation on your industry"-style corruption.

For the fifth(? Really, who counts instances of Bush Admin corruption anymore?) time in less than two weeks, another airline cancels thousands of flight to perform inspections that had been skipped before they were exposed. Reuters: American Airlines cancels over 900 flights
Whistleblowers tell of airlines failing to perform required inspections and when the inspectors attempt to report this up the chain of command, they are threatened with losing their jobs.

John Stewart had an interesting observation:

"It’s all sort of ironic, when you think about it. When you fly, you are inspected quite thoroughly. Whereas the plane itself is perhaps occasionally vacuumed. See, with this administration, if a passenger blows up a plane, it’s a failure on the War on Terror. But if a plane just blows up on its own, eh, that’s the market self-regulating."