It is official, this is no longer just a pet food recall:
U.S. health officials are now looking at whether humans may have consumed food containing a chemical linked to a recall of pet foods and livestock feed, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said on Tuesday.
FDA officials said they would inspect imports of six grain products used in foods ranging from bread to baby formula for traces of melamine, a chemical thought to have killed and sickened cats and dogs.
Those six grain products are wheat gluten, corn gluten, corn meal, soy protein, rice bran and rice protein. As many as 39,000 dogs and cats may have been sickened or killed due to melamine contamination.
But wait, it gets worse:
The California Agriculture Department said separately it was trying to contact 50 people who bought pork that may have come from pigs fed food containing melamine. The state’s health department recommended humans not consume the meat, but said any health risk was minimal.
Melamine, a chemical used in plastics and fertilizer, has already been found in wheat gluten and rice protein imported from China for use in some pet foods, triggering a recall of more than 100 brands. […] Some tainted material was used for hog feed before the contamination was found, and officials said on Tuesday thousands of pigs might be affected on farms in North and South Carolina, California, New York, Utah and possibly Ohio.
The FDA is working with the U.S. Department of Agriculture and several states to investigate the now-quarantined farms and whether hogs on those farms were slaughtered for human food.
“Some of the hog operations were fairly sizable,” said Stephen Sundlof, director of the FDA’s Center for Veterinary Medicine.
And worse:
A poultry farm in Missouri also may have received tainted feed, officials added.
Mmm. Melamine… it tastes just like chicken.
And all this news comes only hours after Congressional hearings on food safety, at which the FDA didn’t bother to mention any of this at all. Typical.
Back on April 1, when I first started covering this story at length, I wrote:
Unless and until the FDA determines otherwise, one cannot help but wonder if our sick and dying cats are merely the canary in the coal mine alerting us to a broader contamination of the human food supply.
I take some pride but no joy in my prescience, and it now seems clear that from the moment the FDA first thought to test for melamine, they clearly understood the potential scope of this “economic adulteration.” A huge swath of our food supply has been compromised: any processed food containing high-protein additives, and any and all livestock, including farmed fish. And considering how widespread the melamine contamination appears to be, and the Chinese government’s indignant non-reaction, it is not hyperbole to suggest that all imported Chinese foodstuffs should for now be viewed with suspicion, as should all domestic products using imported Chinese ingredients.
This is a huge story, and I cannot for the life of me understand how the news media has let it slip so far under the radar. It is virtually impossible, given the nature of our food industry and the circumstances publicly known thus far, for the tainted foodstuffs not to have made it into the human food supply. Americans and their pets are being slowly poisoned by melamine, and quite likely have been for years.
You’d think maybe, some enterprising reporter might be smelling a Pulitzer in there somewhere?
Presumably melamine isn’t quite as toxic to humans. After all, many of us grew up eating off of dishes made from the stuff.
ArtFart,WRONG melamine. Melamine in plastic is relatively inert. Not so chemical melamine.
We were fed poisoned food on the GOP’s watch. What’s more, the Bush administration and his lackeys at the FDA don’t care. You should be angry. VERY ANGRY. We all should be.
Republicans hate government. They are determined to make government as dysfunctional as possible to make you hate it, too. You should hate what they have done to our government. And you should hate THEM for doing it. It’s deliberate.
Let us hope that, come November 2008, a tsunami wave of angry American voters will inundate polling places all over our land. That they will demand to vote on paper ballots. That they will insist their votes are counted. And that they will show up at polling locations with barrels of hot tar and truckloads of feathers, waiting for GOP operatives to show up and challenge their right to vote.
Attention, neo-fascists: We’re taking our country back! We already control Congress, and in two years, we’ll control the Department of Justice and 93 U.S. Attorneys as well. You should be afraid. VERY afraid. Because there will be investigations, indictments, and trials. We’re going to measure all of you bastards for jumpsuits. And we’re going to make you wear PINK jumpsuits. And dump you into Tookie’s cell.
Everybody and every animal has the right vote in United States elections. It doesn’t matter if they are weird rabbits or illegal aliens or have lost their right to vote because they were found guilty of having committed certain acts against the law or if they are not registered to vote.
goldy…keep after them. the FDA is a notoriously useless member of the alphabet soup part of our government. the sad reason why they aren’t “looking into this”???
they are…….they are just not about to tell anyone because it would cause mass panic.you can blame the lawyers [i wouldn’t] but it is a part of why they are so shy about being honest.
if people are worried about this…and they should be…they should not eat anything that is pre-made [i.e. bakery goods, bread etc.] and the meat they eat should only be labeled organic.
you can be pissed off all you want…it really doesn’t accomplish anything…or you can be pro-active about this situation.eat as if it was 1915…and you’ll be okay.
oh….and if you think for one blinkin’ moment that the FDA was somehow “better” during the clinton years…you have another think coming. it was worse.so before any of you yahoos [and you know who you are] start the crap about “the GOP is trying to poison us” why don’t you ask yourself one question?
“why didn’t bill clinton or jimmy carter fix the FDA?”
LOOK GUYS…THEY ARE ALL THE SAME. GROK THE FULLNESS OF IT…….
and really……if you are depending on our government [or any government for that matter] to protect you and your family solely then you are a fool and shouldn’t be allowed out alone.
and ,goldy….why don’t you do some “real” reporting for a change [instead of just tossing a bone in once in awhile] and get that pulitzer for yourself?
here’s your chance…….go for it.
and roger…..it’s in the rabbit food too which could account for your especially stupid post………..
The news media has let the everything the bush criminals do slip under the radar. Just think what they would do if Clinton had got us into the worldwide mess these fools have created. I really wonder if we can survive another 18 months of them. The idiots in the media spend weeks on figuring out who the kid of the Anna Nicole was, with our kids getting killed in Iraq. Go figure. But the fasination with the Anna Nicole story possibly explains why bush was elected in the first place.
Perhaps not as prestigious as a Pulitzer, you’ve probably wrapped a Neiwert award for Best Investigative Reporting by now.
ghost @ 5,
Have you been smoking some of Humboldt County’s finest? While your conclusions are invariably wrong, I can at least usually follow how you got there. Today, however, you are simply incomprehensible. Is the solution to the FDA’s ineptness to get rid of it and simply tell American citizens to take care of themselves? Is that what you’re trying to say? Your syntax, grammar, and punctuation suggest you got ahold of some stronger reef than usual. Go to bed. Don’t embarrass yourself.
Well the pigs have been quarantined. Christmasghost, MTR and Janet S. are included….right?
Go for it Goldy! You have my support 100%. I will also have to echo what ChristmasGhost said.
Nothing shocks me after I researched Aspartame and how it came to be approved by the FDA (hint: it involves Rumsfeld), from wiki:
Following initial safety testing, there was debate as to whether these tests had indicated that aspartame may cause cancer in rats; as a result, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) did not approve its use as a food additive in the United States for many years. In 1980, the FDA convened a Public Board of Inquiry (PBOI) consisting of independent advisors charged with examining the purported relationship between aspartame and brain cancer. The PBOI concluded that aspartame does not cause brain damage, but it recommended against approving aspartame at that time, citing unanswered questions about cancer in laboratory rats. In 1981, whilst Donald Rumsfeld was CEO of Searle, U.S. President Ronald Reagan appointed Arthur Hull Hayes as FDA commissioner
Nothing shocks me after I researched Aspartame and how it came to be approved by the FDA (hint: it involves Rumsfeld), from wiki:
Following initial safety testing, there was debate as to whether these tests had indicated that aspartame may cause cancer in rats; as a result, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) did not approve its use as a food additive in the United States for many years. In 1980, the FDA convened a Public Board of Inquiry (PBOI) consisting of independent advisors charged with examining the purported relationship between aspartame and brain cancer. The PBOI concluded that aspartame does not cause brain damage, but it recommended against approving aspartame at that time, citing unanswered questions about cancer in laboratory rats. In 1981, whilst Donald Rumsfeld was CEO of Searle, U.S. President Ronald Reagan appointed Arthur Hull Hayes as FDA commissioner. In 1983 FDA further approved aspartame for use in carbonated beverages
This article is about the chemical substance called melamine. The term “melamine” is also (inaccurately) used to denote melamine resin, a plastic material made from melamine by polymerization.
Not to be confused with melanin.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melamine
This is one thread where I’ll call him Goldy. I agree with ChristmasGhost. This is your chance Goldy.
ChristmasGhost: PelletHead’s problem is senility. The walls are closing in on him. Unlike Used Toilet Roll Stupid, I wish PelletHead a long life but his rants are getting worse by the week. He has to prove he’s still useful.
A USEFUL IDIOT!
OMG we are all gonna die!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11
Is this the same type of scare that our Governor pulled on us when the Viaduct about to collapse 3 years ago….????
Oooops, now we can wait a few more years, so they can figure out how to FIX it!!!
Obama Grabs Lead In Democratic Race
The latest Rasmussen poll, released yesterday, has Obama tied with Clinton at 32% each. In my opinion, that makes Obama the frontrunner, for the following reasons:
1. Obama has momentum, i.e. his support is growing while Clinton’s is shrinking;
2. Obama has lower negatives than Clinton;
3. Obama is stronger among independent voters crucial to winning the general election;
4. Obama is competitive with Clinton in fundraising;
5. Obama generates excitement, while Clinton gets yawns.
“April 23, 2007
“For the fourth straight week, Illinois Senator Barack Obama (D) has gained ground and he has finally caught New York Senator Hillary Clinton in the race for the Democratic Presidential nomination.
“It’s now Obama 32% Clinton 32% and former North Carolina Senator John Edwards holding steady at 17%. New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson is a distant fourth at 3%. Senators Chris Dodd and Joe Biden each attract 1% support. So does General Wesley Clark.
“Obama has been steadily gaining ground during April. Last week, Clinton had a two-point lead. Two weeks ago, it was Clinton by five. The week before that, the former First Lady was up by seven. Our last release in March found Clinton enjoying a double digit lead. …
“A separate survey showed that Obama has the highest level of core support among all Presidential candidates — 33% of voters say they’d definitely vote for him if he’s on the ballot in November 2008.
” … The current survey … was conducted April 16-19, 2007. The margin of sampling error is +/-4 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence.
“Among all voters, Clinton is viewed favorably by 50% and unfavorably by 49%. Obama’s numbers are … 59% favorable and 34% unfavorable. The two candidates are essentially even among Democrats — Clinton is viewed favorably by 74% in her party while Obama is viewed favorably by 72%. Among unaffiliated voters, Clinton is viewed favorably by 50%, Obama by 67%. …
“While Obama and Clinton are the frontrunners among Democrats, Edwards does best in general election match-ups. He leads all GOP hopefuls and is the only Democrat to lead the Republican frontrunner, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani. New results in the Obama-Giuliani match-up will be released on Wednesday. Clinton and Giuliani are essentially tied.”
http://www.rasmussenreports.co.....rimary.htm
@5 “the FDA is a notoriously useless member of the alphabet soup part of our government.”
Once again Xmasghost puts her stupidity on display. Food and drug laws were among the very first reforms adopted during the “muckraking era” that brought down pirate capitalism. If you think the FDA is superfluous, re-read Sinclair Lewis’ “The Jungle.” Then read up on the traveling “medicine men” who sold “remedies” out of wagons at the turn of the century. Then do some research on the history of the pure food and drug laws. That’s right, food and drug regulation originally dealt with impurities and adulteration because unregulated capitalism cheated and poisoned human beings to make a buck — another fucking failure of the market mechanism. The FDA was one of the first, and has always been one of the most important, federal regulatory agencies.
It’s hard to argue, though, with XG’s thesis that — under this administration — the FDA has become useless, or perhaps worse than useless. Dangerous drugs, poisoned spinach, contaminated pet food that made it was into the human food supply — all brought to you by the corrupt evil Republicans. And let’s not forget Republicans want to take away your right to sue the company that fed poisoned dog food to the chicken that sickened your child. They call it “tort reform.” I call it a license to lie, cheat, rob, and kill.
GOP = organized crime
Our country now resembles Russia, where the mob and the political party running the country are one and the same. Lucky Luciano couldn’t have imagined this in his wildest dreams.
@6 I’ll put my posts up against yours any day, and let the public decide which of us is …
[ ] a. stupid,
[ ] b. in denial,
[ ] c. a liar,
[ ] d. a sycophant,
[ ] e. all of the above.
@5 Tired Old Wingnut Cliche/Lie #13: “LOOK GUYS…THEY ARE ALL THE SAME.”
Nope. Sorry, Ghostliar, they’re not. For corruption, lying, stealing, and pure evil, Republicans are in a class by themselves.
@16 Here puddy, puddy … here puddy puddy … I have a nice CHICKEN SALAD for you … here puddy puddy … =:-D
8 While I agree with your general thesis, the Narrows Bridge is NOT longer than 520.
Narrows = 5,400 feet
520 = 7,600 feet
I’ve been asking, for some time now, WHY a bridge made of concrete pontoons costs 5 times as much as a steel suspension bridge? We’re getting ripped off.
Anyone who thinks a $10 daily toll on both bridges across Lake Washington won’t fundamentally change Seattle’s economy is dreaming. What you are talking about is adding $200 to the monthly commuting cost of anyone living in Bellevue and working in Seattle, or vice versa. Actually, commuters will have to earn $300 more just to break even, because commuting expenses (unlike private jets or yachts used for “business entertaining”) are not deductible, and most wage earners are in a 33% tax bracket (25% plus FICA).
It’s not true that Bellevue is entirely a high-priced bedroom suburb. Not anymore. In fact, there are lots of blue-collar neighborhoods and modestly-priced condos, not to mention apartment complexes, east of the lake. And not everyone can ride a bus to work, for various reasons.
In addition to its working class housing, Bellevue also now sports a very large commercial district; and not everyone working there is a well-paid manager, lawyer, or accountant. Bellevue has a large retail district staffed by modestly paid retail workers, not to mention office towers full of modestly-paid cubicle slaves.
Tell these people they have to pay $300 more to get to work, and they’ll tell their employers to go to hell.
The $4.4 billion proposed 520 bridge is nothing less than a Berlin Wall that will divide the Seattle metropolitan area into East King County and West King County, separated by a mile-wide moat. People of modest means will NOT cross that bridge to get to modest-paying jobs. Employers either will have to pony up and subsidize their workers’ bridge tolls, or give them hefty raises, or they can try busing in workers from Everett and Tacoma. Because blue collars and pink collars are NOT going to fork over $200 a month in after-tax dollars out of their own pockets on top of their already high commuting expenses to get to jobs that pay $8 to $20 an hour.
And what will happen to WSDOT’s budgets — and the bondholders — if traffic nosedives and toll revenues are far less than anticipated?
This project is deja-monorail all over again.
@12 The one that’s toxic to me is the supposedly-harmless sugar-substitute Splenda. I can’t eat ANYTHING with Splenda in it, because even a tiny dose makes me extremely ill. It must be an allergic reaction or something.
Rabbit @ 26
Wouldn’t that be $400 per month? $10 each way? $20 per day for most commuters, or about $400 per month?
There is plenty of anecdotal evidence of people with sucralose allergies. A product like Splenda could be lethal to affected individuals. That’s why we need a government regulatory agency like FDA to prohibit its use in food without clear labeling.
Now my secret is out. Maybe I shouldn’t have told the wingnuts what to bait rabbit traps with.
Probably gonna be a run on Splenda supplies in grocery stores in wingnut neighborhoods now.
@28 The toll, as currently proposed, will be unidirectional i.e. you pay in only one direction. The return trip will be “free” (in a manner of speaking).
This, of course, will encourage people to drive around the lake on the “toll” leg. More gas consumed; more auto population; more gridlock on I-405.
Yes, it would make more sense to charge 5 bucks in both directions than 10 bucks one-way. But my point is, $10 a day to cross Lake Washington is more than many workers will pay; and you will see people quitting jobs or refusing to accept work on the opposite side of the lake from where they live.
Roger Rabbit says:
@5 Tired Old Wingnut Cliche/Lie #13: “LOOK GUYS…THEY ARE ALL THE SAME.”
Nope. Sorry, Ghostliar, they’re not. For corruption, lying, stealing, and pure evil, Republicans are in a class by themselves.
Sorry rabbit. The dems took that title long ago. Hell the liberal media can’t tell the truth to save its life. History will look back on liberals the same way they look back on Nazis or their close cousins the commies.
Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!
http://seattletimes.nwsource.c.....de24m.html
roger…i am surprised by your denseness. usually you at least attempt to make some sense. hasn’t EVERYONE read “the jungle”? get a grip rog….of course they have. the FDA was a good idea that was never enforced. you don’t know what you are talking about….and sucks to be you….I DO, on this.
we do BUSINESS with the FDA you idiot……and as the saying goes ‘familiarity breeds contempt’…….
“The FDA was one of the first, and has always been one of the most important, federal regulatory agencies.”
roger, any agency is only as good as it’s enforcement capabilities and it’s DETERMINATION to police. the FDA has none.
N-O-N-E people….that’s right.
when i made the statement that anyone that relies SOLELY on the government [this or any other] to protect them ,is a fool…i meant it. personal responsibility people.
and right now everyone has the responsibility to look after their families and READ what the ingredients are in packaged food. bitching won’t do a thing about this….you are going to have to be proactive right now ON YOUR OWN.
and OHMYGOD…..some of you are actually going to have to C-O-O-K.
you want teeth in an organization? try the EPA……
okay “dan”…..then why didn’t clinton fix the FDA…because, toots…they were ALOT worse back then….
waiting on that answer now…..
please try to make it reasonable and not just another NAH NAH NAH.
why don’t you tell me how politicians aren’t all alike….and then i’ll know just how into fairytales you really are…
****Nope. Sorry, Ghostliar, they’re not. For corruption, lying, stealing, and pure evil, Republicans are in a class by themselves.******
wow…that’s just sad, man.how can you be this stupid?
So, in #5, is Christmas Ghost actually enumerating all these problems and then saying that because the FDA hasn’t adequately prevented them, it should be done away with?
By the same reasoning, then, because the authorities didn’t prevent the shootings at V. Tech, or the similar tragedy on Capitol Hill a while back, should we do away with police departments? Perhaps, since things aren’t going so well in Iraq, we should disband the military. Or because the occasional house burns down, we can do without the fire department. Some people die of heart attacks? Fire all the cardiologists!
Or is that what you really meant?
Totally brilliant post, David. Your last line… You’d think maybe, some enterprising reporter might be smelling a Pulitzer in there somewhere?… I remember back in the very beginning, Gina and I kept going “but we’re PET COLUMNISTS, why aren’t the science and political reporters on this like white on rice????” It seemed to be completely, glaringly obvious this story had immense scope, and yet you were one of the few voices outside of pet blogs/communities that spoke out on it early on. I’ll never forget when you first posted here about it – and on Huffington Post – I thought, FINALLY someone on the left and in the non-pet blogosphere is putting these pieces together.
And like you, I’m not patting myself on the back for knowing what I was looking at. I feel sick, frankly. And overwhelmed. Even after nearly six weeks of this, this last week is the first time I finally called my family members who have children and said, “I know the other day I wouldn’t even tell you what to feed your cat, let me tell you today, here is a list of things I think you’d better not feed my nephews.”
Roger @ 19, the author you’re thinking of was Upton Sinclair, not Sinclair Lewis.
The problem with phony adulterated food from Communist China has been publicized for many years. Here is an article from nearly three years ago, about how dozens of Chinese babies died due to infant formula almost totally lacking in protein:
Infants in Chinese City Starve on Protein-Short Formula
By JIM YARDLEY
Published: May 5, 2004 in New York Times
The containers were sealed in plastic, each filled with baby formula that Zhang Linwei and his wife fed to their tiny daughter. Over time, as the baby ate more formula, her cheeks grew fat as balloons, seemingly a sign of good health. Only later did her parents learn it was a sign of starvation.
Their 5-month-old baby, Rongrong, died last August after doctors told her parents that the low-cost milk powder they had been using was fake.
They and hundreds of other parents here in central China unwittingly bought bad formula, in which nutritional supplements had been replaced with starch or sugar. Nearly 200 other babies, including at least 13 who died, now have what local residents call ”big head disease.”
It is a local scam that has resonated into a nationwide scandal, a cruel reminder of how China’s problem with fakes and counterfeits extends far beyond knockoff brand clothes and pirated DVD’s. With new products filling shelves, consumer protection is often nonexistent, particularly in the poorest regions, which often become dumping grounds for cheap, unregulated goods.
…
Investigators blamed illegal manufacturers throughout China for the problem and reported that 45 brands sold in Fuyang and elsewhere were substandard. But as the government-controlled news media hailed Beijing’s response, another fact became known. Reports of the problem had been percolating in Fuyang for almost a year without any significant action being taken. A few parents like Mr. Zhang had even pressed local disease control officials to test packets of formula. His packet contained only 2 percent protein; the national standard is about 12 percent.
Yet officials here in Anhui Province did not remove the fake formula from the stores until April, after Prime Minister Wen ordered his investigation, according to local parents and national media reports. What is unclear is whether local officials knowingly allowed the powder to be sold, perhaps for kickbacks. Officials in Fuyang declined repeated telephone requests for interviews.
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/f.....A9629C8B63
It is quite easy to understand why Chinese communists would jeopardizes the lives of healths of innocent babies and household pets. China doesn’t have freedom of religion. If someone doesn’t believe in God, then they are much more likely to do evil.
U.S. Puts 15-Year-Old Taliban Soldier on Trial for Terrorism, Spying, Conspiracy, Murder, and Attempted Murder
“SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (April 25) – The U.S. military filed a murder charge Tuesday against the Canadian son of an alleged al-Qaida financier, who was captured at age 15 in Afghanistan and has spent almost five years at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay.
“Omar Khadr, now 20, allegedly joined the Taliban in Afghanistan and threw a grenade that killed a U.S. Green Beret soldier in July 2002. He was captured as he lay wounded after that firefight at an al-Qaida compound in eastern Afghanistan.
“The U.S. military charged him with murder, attempted murder, providing support to terrorism, conspiracy and spying under rules for military trials adopted last year and first used to try David Hicks, the Australian sentenced to nine months in prison after pleading guilty. … He faces a maximum penalty of life imprisonment.
“Khadr’s Pentagon-appointed defense attorney, Marine Lt. Col. Colby Vokey, said the U.S. would become the first country in modern history to try a war crimes suspect who was a child at the time of the alleged violations. The conspiracy charge is based on acts allegedly committed when Khadr was younger than 10, Vokey said. …
“Opponents … criticized authorities for subjecting Khadr to the same military trial system as adult terror suspects. In any other conflict, he would have been treated as a child soldier, said [the] advocacy director of Amnesty International. …
“A Pentagon spokesman, Navy Cmdr. Jeffrey Gordon, said Khadr must be held accountable. … The U.S. military said Khadr hurled a grenade that killed Army Sgt. 1st Class Christopher Speer, 28, of Albuquerque, N.M., and wounded Army Sgt. Layne Morris, of West Jordan, Utah. … The military alleges that Khadr also conducted surveillance of U.S. troops and planted land mines targeting American convoys.
“Khadr allegedly received a month of basic training from al-Qaida in June 2002 that included the use of rocket-propelled grenades, rifles, pistols and explosives, according to the charge sheet signed by Susan J. Crawford, the convening authority for the military commissions.
“Several of Khadr’s family members have been accused of ties to Islamic extremists. His Egyptian-born father, Ahmad Said al-Khadr, was killed in Pakistan in 2003 alongside senior al-Qaida operatives. Canada is holding Khadr’s brother Abdullah on a U.S. extradition warrant accusing him of supplying weapons to al-Qaida.”
Quoted under Fair Use; for complete story and/or copyright info see http://tinyurl.com/2ruxuj
Roger Rabbit Commentary: Where to begin? There are so many issues here.
1) It’s an unpleasant fact of our world that some wars are fought using child soldiers. The civilized world has developed rules for handling them. Whatever the protocols are, the U.S. is violating them. That makes us an outlaw nation.
2) In our civilian justice sytem, we house minor offenders apart from adult prisoners, and punish them under juvenile codes. The U.S. military has violated both of these principles in this case.
3) This kid was born into a family of Al Qaeda sympathizers. He didn’t get to choose his family. Ending up as a soldier on the other side makes him the enemy, but doesn’t ipso facto make him a criminal.
4) He was a soldier on a battlefield in a foreign country defending himself against attacking forces, and did what all soldiers do on all battlefields: Kill, or be killed. By what rationale does that become “murder?” What distinction is there between what he did, and what every American G.I. in Afghanistan or Iraq who killed an enemy soldier in combat did?
5) Since when is battlefield reconnaissance “spying?”
6) If this kid is “convicted” will his sentence be proportionate to that given Mr. Hicks, an adult, who got 9 months? Or will they sentence him to life imprisonment for doing the same thing Hicks did? If so, why? Because he has brown skin and a Muslim name?
Hey, make no mistake, this kid was an enemy soldier, and somebody gets captured in battle he’s, like, a prisoner. Usually for a good long while, e.g. the duration of the war. He can’t expect air conditioning, TV, steak dinners, or tender treatment from his captors. That’s the nature of the beast. But our military seems to be going overboard in this case. Way overboard. In fact, it looks a whole lot like old-fashioned crude wingnut revenge-seeking. And it sets a bad precedent. In addition to having become a nation that tortures people and murders prisoners, we’re now also a nation that gives no quarter to child soldiers.
Waytago wingnut fuckwads!
@39 I stand corrected. Slap that rabbit’s paw!
@40 Don’t worry, someone got shot for that.
China has real criminals, just like we do, and I can’t say I disagree with how the comrades deal with them. Being overpopulated to begin with, their approach is “if you get in society’s way, we don’t need you around.” They take them out on a military parade ground, make them kneel, and a soldier places the muzzle of an assault rifle against the prisoner’s back, directly behind the heart, and blows a big hole in the heart. The muzzle blast and bullet impact knock the prisoner face-down in the mud of the parade ground. Very straightforward. No recidivism. What they do to political prisoners is one thing; but they have ordinary garden-variety criminals like we do, and frankly, some of them have it coming.
http://tinyurl.com/36xqkl
@41 That probably explains the evil done by Republicans who pay lip service to God but worship only money.
To a Republican, religion is just another profit center.
@37 “So, in #5, is Christmas Ghost actually enumerating all these problems and then saying that because the FDA hasn’t adequately prevented them, it should be done away with?”
Something like that, yeah. She has the right idea; but since the GOP is the source of the problems, it’s the GOP, not the FDA, that should be done away with.
Here’s how it works in Wingnutty Land. You hate government, so you take over the government and fuck it up as much as you can, so you can blame your failures on the government and use them as an excuse to do away with the government so nobody can stop you from fucking everything up.
Why is Bush harboring the terrorist who blew up a Cuban airliner full of kids?
So, they’re gonna try a 15-year-old Egyptian kid captured on an Afghanistan battlefield as a “terrorist” and “spy” and “murderer” for shooting back at American soldiers who were trying to kill him; but a real terrorist who put a bomb on an airliner with 73 innocent people aboard is walking around in Miami free as a bird.
This administration never ceases to amaze us.
Or do you wingnuts wish to argue the kids on that airliner had it coming because they were Castro’s subjects?
Roger Rabbits Moat
I am not sure what would be so bad about a moat.
1. It would encourage folks to live closer to their jobs. A mad LA style commuter world is inefficient.
2. The alternative to the toll would be mass transit. Why spend $400 when you can make the trip for $$120/month?
3. If we do not have a toll, then we have tax $$ paying the bill. That emans we ALL are subsidzing suburbanism. Why should we do that?
4. There are relatively undeveloped areas N and S, maybe this is the chance for Tacoma?
5. The worst car I ever had was a yellow VW Rabbit. We called it “Hitler’s Revenge.”
Are you a diesel or a gasoline Rabbit?
Roger Rabbit
You are confusing Tourist with Terrorist, The words ound similar to rabbits but they are very different.
A tourist is someone who brings money to employ illegal immigrant workers to prepare meals, clean hotel rooms, and generally muck up nice places.
A terrorist is someone who brings bombs or other unpleasantries
to discourage legal immigrants from working or doing much of anything.
The Bush regime considers the Cuban an illegal tourist!
New Evidence Indicates 2004 Ohio Vote Was Counted On Republican-Controlled Computers
Ohio’s Official Computers Merely Routed Data to Secret RNC Computer Network
“by Steven Rosenfeld and Bob Fitrakis
“April 22, 2007
“Did the most powerful Republicans in America have the computer capacity, software skills and electronic infrastructure in place on Election Night 2004 to tamper with the Ohio results to ensure George W. Bush’s re-election? The answer appears to be yes.
“There is … ample documentation to show that on Election Night 2004, Ohio’s ‘official’ Secretary of State website … was redirected from an Ohio government server to a group of [Republican-owned] servers …. Recent revelations have documented that the Republican National Committee (RNC) ran a secret … high-tech system used to count and report the 2004 presidential vote ….
“The software created for the Ohio secretary of state’s Election Night 2004 website was created by GovTech Solutions, a firm co-founded by longtime GOP computing guru Mike Connell [who] … told ‘Inside Business’ magazine in 1999, ‘I wouldn’t be where I am today without the Bush campaign and the Bush family … and I’m loyal to my network.’
“Ohio’s Cedarville University, a Christian school with 3,100 students, issued a press release on January 13, 2005 describing how faculty member Dr. Alan Dillman’s computing company Government Consulting Resources, Ltd, worked with … Republican-connected companies to tally the vote on Election Night 2004. …
“On Election Night 2004, the Republican Party not only controlled the vote-counting process in Ohio … but … also controlled the technology that allowed the tally of the vote in Ohio’s 88 counties to be reported to the media and voters … there is abundant evidence that Republicans could have used this computing network to delay announcing the winner of Ohio’s 2004 election while tinkering with the results.
“Did Ohio Republican Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell or other GOP operatives inflate the president’s vote totals to secure George W. Bush’s margin of victory? On Election Night 2004, many of the totals reported by the Secretary of State were based on local precinct results that were impossible. … These strange election results were routed … through Ohio’s Secretary of State’s office [to] partisan IT providers and software, and the final results were hosted out of a [Republican-owned] computer based in Tennessee announcing the winner. …
” … [O]n Election Night … a national media consortium exit poll predicted Democrat John Kerry would win Ohio, [and] … Ohio returns were … showing Kerry in the lead … until shortly after midnight … when for roughly 90 minutes the Ohio election results reported on the Secretary of State’s website were frozen. Shortly before 2am EST election returns came in from a handful of the state’s rural Republican enclaves, bumping Bush’s numbers over the top. It was known Bush would carry rural Ohio. But the vote totals from these last-to-report counties … were highly improbable and suggested vote count fraud ….
“Just how flimsy the reported GOP totals were was not known on Election Night and has not been examined by the national media. But an investigation by the House Judiciary Committee Democratic staff begun after Election Day 2004 and completed before the Electoral College met on Jan. 6, 2005, was first to publicly point to vote count fraud in rural Ohio. That report … cited near-impossible vote totals, … cited more than 3,000 apparently fraudulent voter registrations – all dating back to the same day in 1977 in Perry County, [and] noted a homeland security emergency was declared in Warren County, prompting its ballots to be taken to a police-guarded unauthorized warehouse and counted away from public scrutiny, despite local media protests.
” … We found many vote-count irregularities based on examining the certified results, precinct-level records and the actual ballots. The most eyebrow-raising example … was finding 10,500 people in three Ohio ‘Bible Belt’ counties who voted to re-elect Bush and voted in favor of gay marriage …. The most plausible explanation … was Kerry votes were flipped to Bush while the rest of the ballot was left alone.
“While we have some theories about how that might have been done by hand in a police-guarded warehouse, could full Republican control of the vote-counting software and servers also have played a role? The early returns on the Secretary of State’s website suggest Blackwell’s vote-tallying and reporting system could manipulate large blocks of votes. …
“There’s more evidence the late returns from Ohio’s Republican-majority countryside were not accurate. During the spring and summer of 2006, … investigators … found hundreds of ‘phantom’ votes, where the number of voter signatures was less than the reported vote total. That discrepancy also suggests vote count fraud.
“There was other evidence … of padding the vote, including instances … where in one precinct, 359 of the final punch-card ballots cast on Election Day contained no Kerry votes, which … is improbable. In … precinct, Bush allegedly received the last 210 votes of the day. Were partisan local election workers trying to mask what was happening …?
“Ohio’s 2004 ballots were to be destroyed last September. However that fate was blocked by a federal judge, who ruled in the early phase of trying a Voting Rights Act lawsuit that accused Ohio officials of suppressing the minority vote in Ohio’s cities. …
“What’s clear … is the highest ranks of the Republican Party’s political wing, including White House counselor Karl Rove, a handful of the party’s most tech-savvy computer gurus and the former Republican Ohio Secretary of State, created, owned and operated the vote-counting system that reported George W. Bush’s re-election to the presidency.
“Moreover, it appears the votes that gave Bush his … victory – the boost from Ohio’s countryside – have yet to be confirmed as accurate. Instead, the reporting to date suggests that what happened … across Ohio’s rural precincts is at odds with the vote tally released on Election Night.”
http://tinyurl.com/2wddwg
Roger Rabbit Commentary: This isn’t the smoking gun proof that the 2004 election was stolen, but we’re closing in on the smoking gun.
There are two items of really bad news for Republicans:
1. Ohio’s state government is now controlled by Democrats, and
2. The poll books, ballots, and other direct evidence that Ken Blackwell tried to destroy has been preserved by a federal court order.
When we prove the 2000 and 2004 elections were stolen, the entire Bush administration will become one great big tort.
@53 “1. It would encourage folks to live closer to their jobs. A mad LA style commuter world is inefficient.”
I didn’t imply otherwise. Our current lifestyle — living 30 miles from our jobs and commuting 60 miles a day in gas guzzling SUVs — isn’t sustainable. If people don’t change this, nature will change it for them – by running out of oil.
“2. The alternative to the toll would be mass transit. Why spend $400 when you can make the trip for $$120/month?”
Several reasons. First, if you work where buses don’t go, you can’t take a bus to work. Second, even if a bus goes where you need to be, it may not run on the schedule you need. Third, if you have to make customer calls in the field, deliver goods, or otherwise travel about the city in your work, buses don’t work. Fourth, if you have to take tools or equipment to a job site, buses don’t work.
“3. If we do not have a toll, then we have tax $$ paying the bill. That emans we ALL are subsidzing suburbanism. Why should we do that?”
I’m not arguing against a toll. I’m arguing against building a prohibitively costly bridge and attempting to pay for it with prohibitively cost tolls. Note I said “attempting.” WSDOT seems not to understand that the demand for a toll-free bridge is higher than the demand for a toll bridge. The higher the toll, the less traffic you get. The demand for toll bridges works just like every other price-demand curve in the universe. If you need six lanes to carry the traffic you get when the bridge is free, you may need only four lanes to carry the traffic you’ll get when the bridge costs $10 to cross. Why is this so damned hard for the planners to figure out? The last thing we need is a $4 billion bridge we can’t pay for because the toll revenue is less than expected because the traffic is less than when the bridge was free. Duh.
“4. There are relatively undeveloped areas N and S, maybe this is the chance for Tacoma?”
Where? Builders can’t find undeveloped — and developable — land in Snohomish or Pierce counties, either. Realtors say new housing developments north of the King County line start at $500,000. What looks like farmland may be green belt, or in an unbuildable flood zone, or be unbuildable for some other reason.
But even if you can find someplace to put more housing, how do you get those people to jobs without expanding transportation capacity? Where do you put new roads, or more lanes? Where will the money come from for more transit? This fall, voters in Snohomish, King, and Pierce counties will be asked to impose $16.3 billion of tax increases on themselves for transportation. Those three counties contain 52% of the state’s 6.2 million population, or 3.2 million people. That works out to $5,125 per person. But the $16.4 billion is just a “down payment” (WSDOT’s words). As presently drafted, it doesn’t even contain even money to finish the 520 bridge, only get it started. WSDOT has a backlog of $70 billion of additional transportation projects. That’s another $21,875 on top of the $5,125. What our state transportation planners want the residents of those three counties to do is pay for transportation projects totaling almost $100,000 per 3.4-person average household. How the hell are ordinary people going to pay that kind of taxes, on top of the taxes they already pay? Are you going to ask senior citizens on fixed incomes like me to come up with $27,000 — plus another $27,000 for Mrs. Rabbit — for transportation projects we don’t need and won’t use? (Retirees don’t commute to work.)
I’m a solid “no” vote. I’m sorry, but I have to survive somehow, and I can’t afford this.
“5. The worst car I ever had was a yellow VW Rabbit. We called it ‘Hitler’s Revenge.'”
The best car I ever had was a white VW bug. I bought it for $250. When I got in an accident and bent the front axle, I went to a junkyard and bought a fender for $10 and a front end for $50, jacked up the car, removed four bolts from the axle and dropped out the front end, removed six screws from the fender, whole job was done in 3 hours. Car looked and drove like it had never been hit.
“Are you a diesel or a gasoline Rabbit?”
Two of the worst cars I ever owned were a VW gas Rabbit and a VW diesel Rabbit. Neither of them lasted 70,000 miles. The VW Rabbits had many design flaws, but one in particular bears mention. They had a closed and pressurized cooling system, and the coolant returned to radiator through a hose that connected to a little plastic tit molded into the plastic top of the radiator that stuck out about an inch from the radiator, very close to where the battery was. If you were puttering around in the engine compartment and bumped it, it broke off. You can’t weld plastic, and glue wouldn’t hold because the system was under high pressure. If you broke that little plastic tit — which was very easy to do — a shop had to replace the whole goddam radiator, but you couldn’t get the radiator out without pulling the goddam engine, and the repair bill for that little plastic tit was about a third of the price of the whole fucking car. As you can probably infer from my remarks, I broke that little cocksucker once, and ate such a repair bill; and considered it just cause to never buy another VW again, ever. Not in this lifetime, or any future reincarnation. Any car company that would do that to its customers doesn’t deserve to exist. I can only hope that Hitler shot the VW engineers responsible for that fiasco.
Oh yeah, and did I forget to mention, the VW Rabbits had aluminum engine blocks and both of mine cracked.
My VW Diesel Rabbit did have a couple of good points, though. First, although it didn’t last very long (I bought it new and towed it to a junkyard 60,000 miles later), my ownership of it coincided with the long gas lines of the late ’70s, and since I was burning diesel I never had to sit in any of those lines. Second, it got 50 mph, and with two 5 gallon cans of extra fuel in the trunk, could go 600 miles between gas stations on cross-country trips. And you didn’t worry about the extra fuel in the trunk because diesel, unlike gas, won’t blow up if you get rear-ended.
But if you want to see how I get around today, click here and get an eyeful of these: http://tinyurl.com/ya8knz
Not to worry, pro-choicers: If Republicans outlaw abortions, Mexico wants your business. http://tinyurl.com/2yaa8d
The lack of Christianity (or not) in China has nothing to do with whether or not they adulterate food for profit.
I’m an atheist. I would never think to adulterate food. I hold people in too much respect.
Other people I know are Hindu, Buddhist, Taoist, Atheist, Christian, Agnostic, or FSM believers. They would never think to adulterate food. They hold people in too much respect.
The FDA: People complain a lot about how it isn’t working; but no one complains when they read stories about food inspectors being cut back, funding being cut back, using private laboratories with ties to the industry being inspected being used for inspections rather than government facilities. Even the seeding of regulatory committees with industry insiders with conflicts of interest has received little or no press.
My favorite story that received no press? Right after Bush got into office, funding for meat packing plant inspectors was cut per presidential directive AND regulations were proposed to allow abcesses and tumors in meat to be passed along as fit for human consumption.
Interesting reading, even if the design of the website hurt my eyes.
Is the Office of Special Counsel investigation of Karl Rove a big deal? At least one blogger thinks so:
“Here Comes the Big One
“Posted Apr 24th 2007 3:32PM by Cenk Uygur
“The Office of Special Counsel has started an investigation into Karl Rove and political operations inside the White House. Good night and good luck. Once you open up this can of worms, there’s no looking back. …
“[T]here’s no question that the White House used federal agencies [for political purposes]. The question is what crossed the line from regular course of business to illegal or unethical activities. The LA Times explains …
‘The new investigation, which will examine the firing of at least one U.S. attorney, missing White House e-mails, and White House efforts to keep presidential appointees attuned to Republican political priorities, could create a substantial new problem for the Bush White House.’
…
“Can a person working in the White House cross the line into doing something that breaks the law by combining politics with federal government work? Of course. That’s … why the Office of Special Counsel exists in the first place. They are charged with investigating whether administration officials were ‘engaging in prohibited political activities.’ …
“But I have an open mind. Let’s see what the investigation uncovers. …
“Every administration combines some politics with policy. No one should be naive enough to think that doesn’t happen on a regular basis. But … there is a line. You can’t simply run the whole federal government as a giant political apparatus whose sole goal is to re-elect members of your own party. The … government is supposed to be doing the business of the people. …
“I don’t think this is good news for Karl Rove or the rest of the White House. My sense is that this is the one that sinks them. You don’t have to bother arguing with me because we’re going to see soon enough. If it’s above board, it’s above board. If they crossed the line — and my guess based on the information we already know is that they went way over the line and did it all the time — they are going to be in a lot of trouble. If you’re sure that they did nothing wrong, then you have nothing to worry about.”
Quoted under Fair Use; for complete article and/or copyright info see http://newsbloggers.aol.com/20.....e-big-one/
Roger Rabbit Commentary: I know how our trolls — taking their cues from Spin Central — will respond to this. It’s so utterly predictable I needn’t mention it. What I will mention is this:
1) The Office of Special Counsel is not a bunch of Democrats in Congress gunning for Republicans. It’s a bunch of lawyers in the executive branch whose duty and function is to enforce the Hatch Act.
2) Violating the Hatch Act is (a) a felony and (b) can send you to prison.
3) The chances that this White House didn’t break that law are zero.
Remember, it wasn’t guys with tommy guns who got Al Capone, it was accountants. So, go ahead and spin away, trollfucks! It doesn’t make any difference. Your opinions don’t count for shit. If Rove gets indicted, he gets indicted — and your opinions won’t change that. Sayonara, traitors.
Rabbit @ 61
That article does certainly raise a lot of interesting questions. What exactly is Karl Rove’s job title and job duties? Why do we seeing him jetting all over the country for partisan and electoral political purposes? Who did equivalent work for prior presidents, such as Bill Clinton, George Bush Sr., Ronald Reagan, and Jimmy Carter? Did those persons engage in similar partisan and electoral work, as Karl Rove has evidently done?
Clearly, the federal government has to operate in a political sort of manner — in the sense that policies that should be adopted and implemented should reflect the philosophies, platform and agenda of the elected administration and congress. And every administration will use its public employees (especially the political appointees) to manipulate policy to some electoral and partisan advantage. But at some point, there is a line that can be crossed. I don’t recall that the Bill Clinton administration was nearly so partisan and electoral in its work.
Most Republicans are really tired of George W. Bush and Karl Rove. A GWB endorsement would probably be the kiss of death in the primary nomination process. His brother Jeb Bush — who was actually an intelligent, capable and popular governor of Florida — has had extremely low polling numbers as a potential candidate among Republicans, likely because of his name and being GWB’s sibling. GWB is polling in the 30’s, instead of something lower, because most Republicans still prefer a lackluster Republican to any Democrat. Probably a matter of holding your nose and hoping for better in the future.
And the Rabbit certainly shouldn’t count on the GOP being wiped out in the future. The GOP vote went down by only a few percentage points in the 2006 elections. The GOP elected over 190 members of the U.S. House — a number higher than in any congress between 1954 and 1994. The Democrat platform appears to be mostly based on opposition to GWB. Get GWB out of the picture — the likely scenario when people are considering the 2008 election — and there is an entirely different ballgame at play.
Wabbit @ 61.
If the OSC is part of the executive branch stand by for a pre-emptive whitewash or do nothing investigation that hangs on until this administration is gone that just fizzles out.
And now they don’t want us to have chocolate, either.
@19: If you think the FDA is superfluous, re-read Sinclair Lewis’ “The Jungle.”
That might be difficult, as the author of “The Jungle” was actually Upton Sinclair.
That’s what I get for skipping over posts! (I see that someone already swatted the rabbit’s paw on that one.)
Re: Splenda: It’s made from a sugar that has been selectively chlorinated. Past experience has demonstrated that chlorinating organic compounds is rarely a good thing. I, for one, am not about allow myself to be used as a guinea pig for the chemical industry. Remember, no long-term testing on toxicity at low levels has ever been conducted (except for the people now volunteering as test subjects by consuming the stuff).
Oh, and I just want to mention – there is still nothing on this story on the front pages of the PI, Bothell Times, or NY Times web sites this morning. Still ignoring the story and it’s implications. Wouldn’t want to alarm the public or anything.
Pelosi Won’t Attend Petraeus Briefing
By JAKE TAPPER
WASHINGTON, Apr. 24, 2007— As the House and Senate prepare to vote this week on the final conference report on the $124 billion troop funding bill — which would also mandate that U.S. combat troops begin withdrawing from Iraq on Oct. 1 at the latest — Gen. David Petraeus is scheduled to come to the Hill tomorrow to brief lawmakers on the progress of the recent troop escalation.
ABC News has learned, however, that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., will not attend the briefing.
Democrats show once again how they support the troops.
The leader can’t bother to make the classified briefing..Too busy soliciting money from a Soros group no doubt…
Oh well, according to the democrat party, the best way to support the troops is broadcast to the enemy when we’ll be leaving.. Great policy.
see you in 08′
68 So the general’s going to be talking about “progress…since the escalation”, huh?
I rather doubt that Pelosi’s going to be missing much.
I’m not Christmasghost’s biggest fan, but when someone agrees with you, even when they’re on the other side of most arguments, you might want to simply acknowledge that and be thankful that they have found one small thing that we can all agree upon.
Nowhere in Christmasghost’s post did I see any mention of doing away with the FDA. It might be implied by calling it “useless”, but unfortunately, as it is currently being run, a pretty good argument for that claim can be made, and has been made by liberals and progressives for many years.
My reading of the post implied something rather surprising to me. Christmasghost supporting giving some teeth to the FDA. (If I’m wrong, Christmasghost, please correct me.) Without any real enforcement authority, we get a false sense of security. We think that there is some sort of safety net, when in fact, there isn’t.
The other part of that post, that we should be more personally aware of what we eat and feed to our pets makes pretty good sense too. Oddly enough, lots of liberals and progressives have also said pretty much the same thing.
Additionally, while I prefer to lay all of the government’s current problems on our current President, the FDA had problems long before GWB got to the White House. (Don’t get too cocky there, conservatives. “Long before” is more than just eight years.)
President Clinton should have done more to strengthen the FDA. GB the First should have done more, as should the Republican’s favorite “acting President”, my favorite peanut farmer, and we could probably go even further back. We’re talking about the nation’s food supply here.
So, giving Christmasghost, Puddybud and the other conservatives here credit for enough intelligence to understand that for some things, government is simply the best way to deal with some problems, and assuming that they don’t want to feed poison to their pets, their children or themselves, I will simply thank them for their support.
(I do expect Mr. Redneck to chime in for abolishing the FDA and claiming that there is no evidence that melamine is harmful to people or animals.)
Some things are simply not partisan issues. This is one of them.
Doesn’t anyone recall how the unprecedented disaster of hoof and mouth disease happened in Great Britain??? Tainted feed from China fed to hogs that led to wholesale slaughter of sheep, cows and other pivestock and has crippled the farming industry there. Time to get serious about this-
thank you john……..yes, i don’t ever recall calling for the abolishment of the FDA. hardly…..
but then again, we are talking about fools like roger rabbit that quotes a book but DOESN’T KNOW THE AUTHOR. so he hasn’t actually read it….just googled and shot off his mouth as usual.what a surprise!HAH!
the FDA needs to be turned into an actual enforcement agency.this is not the first time something like this has happened. they have let quite a few ‘bad’ drugs slip past them too. anybody remember these?
and for all you tools like roger that are so PARTISAN that you can’t even read staight………may i suggest that you shut up for awhile? this is going to be bad enough without idiots like you running around screaming fire in the theater. we KNOW there is a fire you fool…..NOW we have to try and stop it.and none of us can afford to wait for the government to come in and save us. god! what are you? 10 and from a socialist country? think for yourselves. start reading…..and i mean ingredients, not a BOOK written at the turn of the last century[although it’s a very good book]
our government will fix this EVENTUALLY….
in the mean time…….
only organic [they do enforce that] and that goes for meat and everything. DO NOT, i repeat, DO NOT buy any bakery goods. that goes for starbucks too you twits……..
and stay away from things that you aren’t making 100% yourself.no packaged cake mixes for instance.
this is going to be hell on vegans as it also affects the soy products.
unless you like waiting in line for dialysis……which is what i’m sure roger will be doing because he thinks this is a GOP conspiracy…….until the FDA is actually forced to become a big scary agency worthy of it’s alphabet name….we are on our own. but we are americans……..we will be okay.
and ,once again, thank you john. you think for yourself and are not partisan. a true partisan [roger] is someone who is so blinded by hatred of another group that he runs off the cliff [or off at the mouth] every time he is frightened.
and roger…you are a true partisan….and that is no compliment.
“I know the other day I wouldn’t even tell you what to feed your cat, let me tell you today, here is a list of things I think you’d better not feed my nephews.”
Holy Crap! Is there such a list? Now I’m freaked out about the formula we’re feeding my daughter.
I thought this was what the FDA was about, and all you Republican “Blame Clinton” trolls, it is happening on George W. Bush’s watch. Other things that happened on his watch:
3,000+ soldiers killed in Iraq. (No WMD found, all other justifications proven wrong, let’s just face it, they lied)
WTC buildings no longer exist. (On vacation, then at a photo op, reading a children’s book)
New Orleans flooded. (On vacation)
Torture exposed, CIA rendition exposed, Habeus Corpus stripped. (Time to start building the wall we’re gonna line your leaders up against)
You’ve got nothing to prove that a Republican can govern, spend money wisely or protect the people. Nothing. Republicans are useless and the sooner we remove them from any position of responsibility, the better.
re 33: Your comments here are absurd.
re 70; Christmasghosts message is only an excuse to say: “They all do it.”
It’s another wingnut copout.
re 68: It would only cost $1 Billion dollars to supply our troops with the 7,500 armored HumVees they need.
Why haven’t the CONS made sure this is done?
Because RepubliCONS hate the troops.
Sorry , xmasghost, but the frontier-rugged-individualism-libertarian idiocy that you advocate doesn’t work in any kind of modern society. We have to trust strangers to honestly do what they say they are doing. The only way to have a decent amount of that trust is to have well enforced government regulations. May I remind the audience that the spinach contaminated with e. coli last year was organic. The point that rabbit is making is that GWB and his gangsters are viciously hostile to any regulation of commerce and are an order of magnitude worse than his predecessors, even if those predecessors’ failures allowed Shrub to get to this point. We should be screaming for more and better regulations, not throwing up our hands and saying regulations can’t work. Grow up and join the civilized world.
frank and lucy….are you serious?
that “idiocy” as you put it keeps my family alive and healthy.what’s your excuse? don’t be a fool. the saying goes “trust and VERIFY….”
maybe, if everyone follows your “advice” we will have a very big darwin awards tryout, hmmm?
lucy, i realize your comprehension skills are way below normal BUT,even you, surely, can understand that when i said they all do it…it wasn’t an excuse. it was statement of fact. want to prove me wrong? where are the democrats on this? bill clinton/al gore were getting campaign donations up the wazoo from the chinese government. have you forgotten already? so by your “logic” maybe they sold us down the river?
no…they didn’t. anymore than any other politician.
our complacency is the culprit.
let me give you an example to think about:
have you been to the DMV lately? uh huh….now you are getting the picture. if you think for one moment that the FDA is populated with a different kind of desk monkey you are sadly mistaken. trust me.
and CHUFFY………why are you feeding your daughter formula? is there a reason that she isn’t being breast fed? if there is, there are milk banks that you can use. talk to the la leche league.
this is all common sense people. why can’t you grasp that?
Some folks may do themselves a favor by mixing up a new batch of alphabet soup. USDA may have more to do with imported glutens than FDA.
whl………they may have more to do with the importation. …but it’s the FDA that regulates what can and cannot be in foodstuffs.
for instance, in all grain products, cereal, snack foods etc. there is a certain amount of animal feces and other waste[bug parts etc.] that is allowed. i know this sounds horrible but it is just a fact of life. there is no way to prevent all the bugs, rats, mice etc. from getting into grain storage. so they developed what would be an “acceptable” level.
now…if you really want to find the person that has more teeth than a jackal…try a USDA brand inspector.there just aren’t enough MEAT inspectors, or food inspectors for that matter.
proud leftist’s harry ass @34: I asked the same question to these libtards two days ago. Yet I haven’t seen the Voice OF Calk Scratching Give-a-Thong oops… Thon on this cause! Maybe it’s silent giving. Maybe PelletHead can brag about his giving to “Operation Purple Helmet”!
Moonbat!s, you should cough up some dough so your gay bros and sis can pay their debt. Put your money where you want the legislature to go. Save the “Parade”. You know the parade where men are tweaking other mens nipples. Where they wear silver cutout thongs and shake their “booty” in front of the masses. Come on donks support the cause!
Tlazolteotl: I think PelletHead’s problem and his issues revolve around Agent Orange. He received too much exposure unloading the canisters for use in his rear eschelon location in Vietnam. You did know PelletHead served in Vietnam like John Effin Kerry right?
ChristmasGhost: These Moonbat!s drink the piss from PelletHead everyday. They determine which toilet he’ll visit. They remove the pipe and Drink Liberally. Yet, they thought they were drinking BEER> Now you know why PelletHead always states in the Tuesday Drinking Libtardly thread he’ll be a no show at the event! Never at these events? Hmmm…? I rest my case!
ChristmasGhost jogged the Puddybud mind. So a little Internet research was called for. A little search regarding some interesting recalls yielded these results.
Do you Moonbat!s remember Thalidomide given to pregnant mothers for morning sickness from 1956 to 1962 and 10K babies were affected? It took 6 YEARS to react.
I bet two Thalidomide babies are the parents of Used Full Toilet Roll Stupid!
How about Viagra and Cialis? The Purple Haze?
“Viagra was approved by the FDA in March of 1998 for the treatment of erectile dysfunction (ED) and has since been prescribed to millions of men in the U.S. and around the world. Two months after approval, Pfizer™ issued a letter warning of sudden drops in systemic blood pressure in a majority of patients taking Viagra. Doctors were advised to take their patients’ cardiac status into account before prescribing the drug.
In November of 1998, new product warning labels were placed on Viagra bottles in response to the potential dangers associated with its use. Viagra’s new warning labels mentioned the possibility of heart attack, sudden death due to cardiac complications, hypertension, and priapism, a serious disorder requiring immediate medical attention in which a man develops a painful and prolonged erection.”
Priapism – The daily issue Used Full Toilet Roll Stupid has where he loses the little blood from his pea-sized brain and he begins to fantasize over his political adversaries female siblings and wives.
How about PPA (phenylpropanolamine) in 2000?
“It was linked to increased hemorrhagic stroke (bleeding in brain) among women ages 18-49 in the three days after starting use of medication.”
Remember the recall of all these drugs?
“TAVIST-D
TRIAMINIC TRIAMINICOL
CONTACT SEVERE COLD 16 CT
COMTREX DEEP CHEST 24 CT
DEXATRIM XS W/VIT C
ACCUTRIM MAXIMUM STRENGTH
DIMETAPP DM COUGH/COLD
DIMETAPP ELIXER
SIX DIFFERENT ALKA SELTZER PLUS COLD REMEDIES
ROBITUSSIN CF COUGH SYRUP
COMTREX MULTI SYMPTOM
SINE OFF SINUS”
If you had kids did you notice their cold symptoms weren’t alleviated as well with the new formulations?
Or how about the Cholesterol lowering Statin drugs like Baycol in August 2001 and then Lipitor and Crestor and others in 2003-2004?
The FDA only seems to react under any administration when the public outcry becomes too much! Again, Moonbat!s have no memory, ONLY HATRED FOR GWB
ChristmasGhost: I noticed the FDA recalled dextromethorphan. Us old timers grew up with that cough suppressant. Apparently the people decided that taking large quantities of dextromethorphan produced similar effects like PCP! It had to be from the mind of a Moonbat!
puddy…too true, really. dextromethorphan was an addiction problem for some people. if they were to follow this logic they could also remove coffee, sugar and just about everything else from the shelves.
now you jogged my memory……….here is another tidbit for the libs here…….
if any of you are taking any statin drugs, for example lipitor….. you are INSANE.
not only has there been absolutely no connection made between cholesterol and heart disease….your body NEEDS cholesterol to heal and function properly.and what they haven’t told you? those so called “rare” side effects aren’t rare at all. and they are permanent.
the real connection is between inflammation [and stress] and heart disease/stroke….and what you really need to do is take aspirin and exercise.
you watch…the next recalls will be for lipitor and the other statin drugs.
oh, and here’s another for you. you think the splenda scam was bad? how about the tylenol scam? that’s right….tylenol. one of the most dangerous drugs you can get today. it is NOT approved to be taken if you DRINK AT ALL…much less for hangovers. it causes liver damage EVERY time you take it.
aspirin was vilified because the company that made tylenol wanted to grab the market. there has NEVER been even one shred of scientific evidence that aspirin causes reyes syndrome. in fact, no one actually knows what causes reyes syndrome as it is so rare as to be considered insignificant.
it’s called marketing…and i can only assume that the ad agency they used was, errr, shall we say, ‘quite’ left leaning. you can tell by the scare tactics they used to get aspirin out of the way.
the typical lib scare tactics…the earth is melting….fire in the theater…….ad nauseum.
they never learn………
Coward@83 Yeah, Darrell, we know Roger was a Viet Nam era soldier, unlike cowards like you, who hid behind an “owie on his knee”.
Mr FrogKisser: If you only knew. But you are not interested so…. forgeddaboutit.
BTW Frogkisser no other comments about FDA truths?
Figures!
So infant formula could be tainted and the FDA is just beginning to test it. What is wrong with this country? Instead of the FDA putting parents on alert they let the media waste our time with fodder instead of warning everybody. I don’t think an infant’s kidneys are much bigger than a cat or dogs. We need some new leadership in this country and fast.
Someone should tell the FDA that all this melamine-tainted crap causes god-fearing kids to break abstinence pledges, or that women are using it for purposes of morning after contraception.. then you bet your sweet bippy they’d be working overtime to make sure it wasn’t being sold on our nation’s grocery store shelves.
Short of that, though, I think the Crazy Christies that Bushco has installed to run the FDA aren’t likely to care all that much.