DISQUS

ShirleyGoodnessanMercy · 1 year ago

You forgot to mention our third world health care system which Republicans keep calling "the best in the world"!!! What a joke. And Bush replaced all our scientists at the NIH with cretins who only approve of science when it supports their anti-gay anti-abortion anti-truth agenda.

unrepentant_expat · 1 year ago

Pride Of Man... Quicksilver Messenger Service


Turn around,
go back down,
back the way you came,
Can't you see that flash of fire ten times brighter than the day?
And behold a mighty city broken in the dust again,
Oh God, Pride of Man, broken in the dust again.

Turn around,
go back down,
back the way you came,
Babylon is laid to waste, Egypt's buried in her shame,
The mighty men are all beaten down, their kings are fallen in the ways,
Oh God, Pride of Man, broken in the dust again.

Turn around,
go back down,
back the way you came,
Terror is on every side, lo our leaders are dismayed.
For those who place their faith in fire, their faith in fire shall be
repaid,
Oh God, Pride of Man, broken in the dust again.

Turn around,
go back down,
back the way you came,
And shout a warning unto the nation that the sword of God is raised.
Yes, Babylon, that mighty city, rich in treasures, wide in fame,
Oh God, Pride of Man, broken in the dust again.

The meek shall cause your tower to fall, make of you a pyre of flame,
Oh you who dwell on many waters, rich in treasures, wide in fame.
you bow unto your God of gold, your pride of might shall be a shame,
For only God can lead His people back unto the Earth again.

Oh God, Pride of Man, broken in the dust again.
A Holy mountain be restored, and mercy on that people, that people

akryan · 1 year ago

This is blown ot of proportion. yes it's the biggest sal. outbreak but it's still only a few hundred people. admittidly they wouldn't be so flip. How many millions of vegtables are eaten every year though? I think the fact that these things only happen every few years is testament to how safe the food supply is.

unrepentant_expat · 1 year ago

And uh, we should wait until a few hundred or thousand people die? There used to be a time when there we enough food inspectors to do a decent job.

tbhull · 1 year ago

Cilnatro is a fresh leaf herb used in salsa. It is not a spice.

tbhull · 1 year ago

Cilantro, that is finally. Cilantro is susceptible to samonella, just like the lettuce/spinagh outbreak a year or so ago.

scottinsf · 1 year ago

The spice coriander is ground cilantro seed.

tbhull · 1 year ago

Clinatro, that is.

WillySF · 1 year ago

Well, this country is actually not all that bad, considering the alternatives. I believe most of the produce in question comes from Mexico, where human feces can be found in the contaminated water supply – hence the salmonella bacteria. Go to your local farmer's market or insist upon buying locally grown produce. Wash your vegies, and preferably, cook them. Or do what I do, consume nothing but beer, chips, hard boiled eggs and bacon. I'm never ill, yet my vegan colleague is constantly out on sick leave.

tbhull · 1 year ago

They do not know the country of origin for this particular outbreak.

Nothing really insures that any veggies you buy are salmonella free. The best way to avoid this is to grow your own vegetables.

Fireblazes(CheetohsandCatfood) · 1 year ago

Cooked tossed salad tastes like crap. My brother in law works for the embassy in an un-named African country. You eat nothing raw, wash everything in bleach and cook the living crap out of everything.

I work for a company that delivers vegetables and chicken, on the same truck. The warehouses, trucks, pallets, blankets EVERYTHING is absolutely filthy!

unrepentant_expat · 1 year ago

Quicksilver Messenger Service.... What about Me?
(Released December of 1970)

You poisoned my sweet water.
You cut down my green trees.
The food you fed my children
Was the cause of their disease.
My world is slowly fallin' down
And the airs not good to breathe.
And those of us who care enough,
We have to do something.......
(Chorus)
Oh.......oh What you gonna do about me?
Oh.......oh What you gonna do about me?
Your newspapers,
They just put you on.
They never tell you
The whole story.
They just put your
Young ideas down.
I was wonderin' could this be the end
Of your pride and glory?
(Chorus)
I work in your factory.
I study in your schools.
I fill your penitentiaries.
And your military too!
And I feel the future trembling,
As the word is passed around.
"If you stand up for what you do believe,
Be prepared to be shot down."
(Chorus)
And I feel like a stranger
In the land where I was born
And I live like an outlaw.
An' I'm always on the run..........................
An Im always getting busted
And I got to take a stand........
I believe the revolution
Must be mighty close at hand.......................
(Chorus)
I smoke marijuana
But I cant get behind your wars.
And most of what I do believe
Is against most of your laws
I'm a fugitive from injustice
But I'm goin' to be free.
Cause your rules and regulations
They dont do the thing for me
(Chorus)
And I feel like a stranger
In the land where I was born
And I live just like an outlaw.
An' I'm always on the run.

unrepentant_expat · 1 year ago

Sorry, John ...No more copy and paste posts for a while at least. That Wonderful old poem triggered something in an old hippy.

green_libertarian · 1 year ago

Great song, haven't thought of it in decades.
Powerful lyrics, and great music too.
Think I first heard it on "underground" radio, it was way too long for commercial play.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUszp9QFmq4

debrazza · 1 year ago

Don't believe the jalapeno's, its the Florida tomatoes. They are just trying to make it look like it is coming from Mexico.

foolme1ns · 1 year ago

"The FDA has no clue..." No doubts there. This is Bush's FDA, like Bush's DOJ, like Bush's FEMA, and like every other damned agency under this administration. I am quite sure that is the understatement of the day. "The FDA has no clue, but I am completely confident that they are all loyal "Bushie's".

None of the gutted agencies has any kind of a clue as to what they are supposed to be doing. When Obama gets into office he isn't going to find the White House trashed, he is going to find that the entire government has been gutted and trashed and is in a state of complete ruin.

shanobama · 1 year ago

good post. great point. All the competent people fled the Bush administration when they had a chance.

doug · 1 year ago

It's a conspiracy from the Illuminati to kill off the masses because of overpopulation and declining resources.

Fireblazes(CheetohsandCatfood) · 1 year ago

Man, I could use some Dianetics (c) right now!

Chimpeach · 1 year ago

Our cities have turned into jungles
And corruption is stranglin' the land
The police force is watching the people
And the people just can't understand
We don't know how to mind our own business
'Cause the whole worlds got to be just like us
Now we are fighting a war over there
No matter who's the winner
We can't pay the cost
'Cause there's a monster on the loose
It's got our heads into a noose
And it just sits there watching


America where are you now?
Don't you care about your sons and daughters?
Don't you know we need you now
We can't fight alone against the monster

Sage24 · 1 year ago

I vaguely remember Bush cutting down the number of food inspectors.
Can this be the reason, why no one is able to pinpoint exactly what is wrong?
There could be some sort of cover up, which is now typical of the Bush administration. We shall only know later on when it is too late.

Sage24 · 1 year ago

Here it is. I tracked down trhe article. It seems food inspections have been cut down by the criminals in the WH, despite the various scares.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/02/26/healt...

ndtovent · 1 year ago

About a year or so ago, one of the news shows (I can't remember whether it was 20/20, Dateline, etc.) did a segment about how commercial produce is processed -- They took a hidden camera to one of the distribution stations in Southern CA (where crates of produce wait to either be purchased by the food businesses and/or picked up by the truckers for hauling to grocery stores) -- The conditions were deplorable... There were no restrooms anywhere near there, so the staff just pissed and deficated anywhere they wanted -- many times on or near the crates themselves... The produce sat in the hot sun for two, three, or more days sometimes before being picked up. It wasn't even under cover. A few crates got hosed down once in awhile by a staff member, but most of it didn't. The staff who was supposed to be taking care of it wasn't doing anything. They were handling the produce with dirty hands (as there was no place to wash them), and not one of them was observed using any kind of hand sanitizer. They were flipping cigarette ashes and butts into the crates, and also throwing their garbage into them. This was just one of many distribution points. There are many more all over the country...
God knows what goes on at a lot of them. I wish the FDA could get the funding to hire a full regimen of inspectors to shut these shoddy places down, but that's a pipe dream. It's all well good to buy local, but for us east coasters, we have shorter growing seasons and it's kinda tough to find locally grown fresh produce in the winter time.

Busboy · 1 year ago

O/T On the way back from holiday, today, I turned on "America Left Radio", channel 167 on XM satellite. The people on this blog just "think" they're liberal...just sayin...

ndtovent · 1 year ago

Busboy...
Eat a tomato!
;-)

Busboy · 1 year ago

Seriously, the people on this blog need to distance themselves from these wackos before you get lumped together with them.

Polly_Tics · 1 year ago

It's getting to the point where you can only trust what you grow yourself...and how far is that going to get the average American?

dad · 1 year ago

this is republican policy fully realized

nothing

Indigo · 1 year ago

What worries me is the rash judgment system the government is using. Rather than test the original batches of vegetables, they simply announced that the salmonella was caused by the tomatoes. There was no biomedical evidence to support that claim, it was just an off-the-shelf assertion. The truth is, in the absence of biomedical evidence which the scientists cannot find, Republicans cause salmonella.

RandyH · 1 year ago

What a disaster our FDA is. Rather than generating PANIC on every newscast, they could have just told us from the start that you need to WASH all of your vegetables because they don't know the source of this contamination. Gee, that would be so hard... But instead we have avoided buying entire strains of tomatoes that had nothing wrong with them. Salmonella can not exist inside the vegetable, just outside and it can be washed off.

And to you Organic Vegetable fans - ALWAYS wash your vegetables extremely well., as organic farming methods involve putting animal shit in the fields instead of man-made fertilizers. Animal shit is loaded with all sorts of things that can make you sick... So be extra careful when eating the organic stuff. Wash it good.

Polly_Tics · 1 year ago

I generally like to peel my vegetables and fruit before cooking or eating for those very reasons. These days you need to be especially careful of eating any "skin" off of any vegetable or fruit.

A shame since so many vitamins are in those very skins...

Polly_Tics · 1 year ago

By the way, Jalapeños are actually a "FRUIT", not a spice even though we may use them in that manner.

unrepentant_expat · 1 year ago

Fruit they may be, but just don't purée them and feed them to the baby!

munjoyfan · 1 year ago

Salmonella is commonly found on poultry, dairy products, and other food with an animal source. Factory farmed vegetables in warm climates are grown with water from irrigation ditches, which contains runoff from whatever is upstream IF the land is poorly managed--hog manure lagoons, dairy cattle drinking from a stream, giant piles of chicken manure next to chicken houses. This is what led to e coli on spinach last year, and undoubtedly is the source of the salmonella this year. Organic farmers do not use this kind of water for irrigation.

There is no inspection system that can keep up with our factory food production system. As J Edward Deming taught us, eliminate inspection in favor of quality production methods. That is geekspeek for standards and regulation. We have blown off regulation at every level of government since Reagan. And it needs to be restored (airlines, anyone?)

Meanwhile, the energy crisis is expediting the resurgence of the buy local movement, they ONLY way we can know our veggies aren't factory farmed, and our meat from animals not suffering from Mad Cow (and wait till that one, with its 20-year incubation period, hits). This means we can't have every vegetable in every season, it means we pay more, and it means our nutritional level is bound to increase. We used to have a system of trains in this country that got fresh milk to the center of every city every day. We can do it again.

Ozymandias seemed so remote when I was a teenager; now it seems like current news.

Busboy · 1 year ago

Most of the food you buy at country road stands in June is from Mexico or south america. The "country road standers" buy the stuff at the local wholesale market, put it in little baskets and act like they grew it themselves. You'd be better off with soylent green. You have to personally know the farmer to get the good stuff.

cosanostradamus · 1 year ago

.
Actually, even washing veggies in veggie wash + bleach still leaves enough bacteria to make you ill, once the food is contaminated. "Experts" who sell irradiation say it's the only thing that works. Maybe this outbreak is a pitch by them. I've been following the tomato story with, well, surprise here.
.

keyote · 1 year ago

I blame...the cilantro!

Cliantro is grown in muck. It is bunched up from the roots with a clod of muck in the middle. Ya gotta clean the muck out of it before using it, and generally it is served as a raw garnish prior to serving, when the food is in that perilous sub-145 degree incubation zone.

Tomatoes themselves are fairly acid, not great reservoirs for salmonella. Especially the frankenmatoes we've got know. Impervious, please. Jalapenos, forgeddaboutit. You put a bunch of jalapenos in a petri dish, and grow salmonella on them. Show me.

But hey, that bunch of cilantro, with that lovely clod of muck hanging on it, bring it on.

p.s., I love cilantro, and feel sad that it's going to have to clean up its act.

mark515 · 1 year ago

I seem to be the only person on this post who actually contracted salmonella, from a turkey wrap on American Airlines last week. According to the FDA, almost 500 of the recent infections happened in Texas and I was flying from Texas to Burbank. Every other meal I ate within 5 days of that was eaten with friends who didn't get sick. But on that flight, I bought the wrap, which contained turkey, lettuce, CILANTRO and mayo on a tortilla. My guess is that sandwiches made for airlines are mass produced, probably from Mexican (cheaper) produce. Anyway, Trust me, you don't want this illness. The first day, I went to the bathroom almost 30 times!!!!

Bush_Bites · 1 year ago

What's worse.

They say introducing something into our food supply would be among the easiest ways for terrorists to attack us.

You think food processing plants are secure? Do you think they do background checks on their minimum wage workers?

LOL.

Patriot · 1 year ago

Several years ago there was a shigalosis (sp?) outbreak in Minnisota and several other midwestern states. 1-1/2 years later they narrowed it down to parsley and found the source in Mexico. The tell tale sign was watching the workers coming to work in the morning carrying bottled water. Anyway, the parsley was being washed with super chilled water after being crated for the trip across the border. The only problem was that the water was coming through a broken pipe contaminated straight from a nearby irrigation ditch commonly used by the workers as a latrine. Nice. I suspect this could just as easily happen at a corporate farm in California, too. Nontheless, I have a dozen questions when the packaging for so much of my produce, via Wal-mart, says product of Mexico, Ecuador, et al.

Busboy · 1 year ago

Blame the "nafta" guy. Bill Clinton. He made borders, jobs, morality and unions obsolete in only 8 years.

WillySF · 1 year ago

I've been saying this since 1992. I'm glad somebody else can see the truth. Clinton was a total disaster. Bush & his thugs are worse, but the Bushites would never have been so successful without good ol' Bill laying the groundwork.

vwcat · 1 year ago

We also have third world health care and education. what a country. We use to be great and have fallen so far so fast and are ruled by an authoritarian idiot. Today I keep wondering what we will find after the chimp leaves office and the true destruction and how far we have fallen comes out. I have a bad feeling things are much worse then we think.

vwcat · 1 year ago

Busboy and Willie, I am also someone who did not see the 90s as a golden time. I saw Clinton as a hack. And someone who would sell out anyone for a buck or bit of spotlight or ego tripping.
I will be glad when it finally is commonly accepted that Clinton was not all that and not a great president. Alot of bush's abuses and bad policy was stuff the incompetent chimp built on from what was started by Clinton and taken to extreemes. but, Clinton was spying on us and tried to expand presidential power as well.

jr · 1 year ago

the junta has hollowed out all regulatory agencies. They don't care if we die as long as their country club pals can buy another Bentley with the money saved on safety checks

comsympinko · 1 year ago

Dude.

Ozymandias is just so grim.
Hopeless and despairing.
Eternally damning and irrevocably destroying all that came before, is now, or could ever possibly be.

Could we not be so fatalistic?

LanceThruster · 1 year ago

I guess we should just let the free market work. If I want foods without salmonella, I'll just have to pay a little extra for it as I would for no sodium/no sugar foods.

Who needs any of this pesky government oversight when we know pure capitalism is geared to giving the public what they want at a reasonable price?