Posted by admin on February 13, 2009 under Crime, Environment, news | 
Texas Department of State Health Services ordered Peanut Corporation of America, or PCA to “recall all products ever shipped from its Plainview (TX) plant.” (Source) DSHS made the decision to shut down the plant after find dead rodents, rodent excrement and bird feathers in an area where the air handling system could have been pulling debris into the production area.
You remember PCA right? They’re the guys that recently came under fire for shipping from PCA’s processing plant in Blakely, Georgia, peanut butter that was tainted with salmonella resulting in 501 people infected in 43 states. Addtionally one person was reported ill in Canada from the salmonella. PCA’s own tests showed that the peanut butter in question was tainted but they shipped it anyway. (Source)
The FDA website says PCA distributed potentially contaminated product to more than 70 consignee firms, for use as an ingredient in hundreds of different products, such as cookies, crackers, cereal, candy and ice cream. The FDA also emphasizes that major national brands of jarred peanut butter found in grocery stores are not affected by the PCA recall.
I just wonder who’s behind PCA and how they can do business like this? Shouldn’t the FDA do a complete examination of all PCA facilities immediately? Also shouldn’t there be criminal penalties for those who knowingly shipped tainted food? The US Justice Department needs to launch a criminal investigation.
Posted by admin on January 18, 2009 under Environment, Internet, Politics, Science |
As we bid a fond farewell to George Walker Bush, here’s a sort of retrospective. A Bush by the Numbers if you will, excerpted from Harpers Index.
Days Bush was President: 2922
Days Bush was on Vacation: 964
Minimum number of Bush appointees who have regulated industries they used to represent as lobbyists: 98
Days since the federal government first placed the nation under an “elevated terror alert” that the level has been relaxed: 0
Minimum number of calls the FBI received in fall 2001 from Utah residents claiming to have seen Osama bin Laden: 20
Percentage of the amendments in the Bill of Rights that are violated by the USA PATRIOT Act, according to the ACLU: 50
Minimum number of laws that Bush signing statements have exempted his administration from following: 1,069
Number of all U.S. war veterans who have been denied Veterans Administration health care since 2003: 452,677
Estimated number of juveniles whom the United States has detained as enemy combatants since 2002: 2,500
Minimum number of detainees who were tortured to death in U.S. custody: 8
Minimum number of extraordinary renditions that the United States has made since 2006: 200
Percent of all U.S. income gains during the Bush Administration that have gone to the top 1 percent of earners: 75
Number of Republican officials who have been investigated by the Justice Department since 2001: 196
Number of Democratic officials who have been: 890
Percentage of EPA scientists who say they have experienced political interference with their work since 2002: 60
Percent of the five directors of the No Child Left Behind reading program with financial ties to a curriculum they developed: 80
Amount by which the federal government has underfunded its estimated cost to implement NCLB: $71,000,000,000
Rank of Bush among U.S. presidents with the highest disapproval rating: 1
Posted by admin on January 8, 2009 under Economy, Environment, Politics |
Have you heard the one about the Great Depression? How it was “the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor, not the economic polices of FDR,” that got the US out of the great depression? To hear them tell it, FDR made the depression worse. Pretty funny, huh?
George Will and the other Far Right Wingnuts have been telling that chestnut on Fox News a lot in the last few weeks. The problem is they’re not joking. They’re trying to re-write history, again.
They’re using spurious arguments and outright baldface lies to attack the economic policies of President Franklin Roosevelt, the man who lead us out of the greatest depression the U.S. has ever seen.(Source)(Source)(Source)(Source)
Ben Bernanke
“Only with the New Deal’s rehabilitation of the financial system in 1933-35 did the economy begin its slow emergence from the Great Depression.”
To hear these Wingnuts tell it putting starving people back to work in meaningful jobs that built the infrastructure of modern America, was a bad idea. Regulating banks and investment companies that had gone completely off the rails, that idea was to these poor deranged souls, nearly criminal.
But why are they attacking FDR now? Why attack an American icon, the man who brought us 40 hour work weeks, Social Security, the FDIC, , what’s the point of bashing him? The reason is clearly that they want to oppose the recovery efforts of President-Elect Obama, who’s crafting a New Deal like plan of his own to rebuild our economy and save the country.
So do their “arguments” have any merit at all? Not according to George W. Bush’s Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke, “Only with the New Deal’s rehabilitation of the financial system in 1933-35 did the economy begin its slow emergence from the Great Depression.”(Source)
Daniel Gross, NYT Columnist and author put’s it this way:
“The financial infrastructure laid down by the government in the New Deal helped pave the way for the immense growth seen in America’s capital markets, banking system, credit industry, and housing markets over the past 70 years.” (Source)
George Will and the Republican political machine are using revisionist history in the most cynical way imaginable. They’re deliberately lying about the rescue plan for the economy, for their party’s own political gain. It’s so shockingly vile, that I wouldn’t have believed them capable of stooping so low.
They’re beating up FDR as a way to bash Obama. He’s too popular to attack directly, so by attacking the policies of FDR the Right Wing Noise Machine sets about undermining policies of a President who hasn’t even taken office yet.
Clearly there are no depths too low for them.
Posted by admin on December 28, 2008 under Crime, Economy, Environment, Internet, Sports, Weird, news |
In case you missed it on Dec- ember 21st a TVA levee wall burst in Oak Ridge, Ten- nessee. But it wasn’t water in the retention pond, but rather 1,000,000,000 gallons of coal ash sludge, a byproduct of coal fired power plant.
Initially TVA estimated the spill at about 350 million gallons, but had to up the spillage estimate to 1 billion gallons upon closer examination. The sludge spill roared downhill and reached depths of 6′ burying cars, porches and even downing power lines. (Source)
So what’s in a billion gallons of coal ash sludge? Well concentrated levels of mercury and arsenic, according to environmental experts. TVA experts claim there’s no danger to humans from the chemicals. This claim despite hundreds of fish turning up dead in nearby waters. (Source) Naturally many local residents aren’t too comforted by the TVA’s assurances.
The spill is working it’s way into the Tennessee River, the source of drinking water for 1 million Tennesseans. TVA has built a rock wall to try to stop the sludge from oozing in.
“You have acute problems we are dealing with today, but we’ll have chronic problems for a long time. This whole area has been devastated environmentally.” – Stephen Smith of CleanEnergy.org (Source)
