Bush's Chickens are coming home to Roost

Just when I think that I might be going a little overboard worrying about the food we're eating in the United States, something comes up to remind me why I should be paranoid. In another piece of good reporting the New York Times has reported that Kraft, Safeway, Frito-Lay, and B&G foods have been taking bribes from a tomato food processor called SK Foods. According to federal prosecutors the bribes were offered in order to allow SK to sell them tomatoes so full of mold and other defects they would not pass federal tests. Not that we have any kind of inspection system or anything.

This is just another case of the "chickens coming home to roost." For the last decade the party in power didn't believe that business and industry needed to be regulated and so they didn't regulate them. Because as we all know the captains of industry are the most altruistic bunch you are every likely to meet and would no more endanger the American public then drink a martini without an olive, right?

They certainly proved that in the banking industry, unregulated they made a great deal of money for themselves, not so good for the rest of us though. And how can we forget the peanut recall where the product left the farm knowingly contaminated with salmonella and sickened hundreds? Peanuts that were so disgusting that our neighbors Canada refused them entry.

The problem is that inspecting food, airplanes, banks, etc. after the poo has hit the proverbial fan or somebody has died, is like closing the barn door after Elvis has left the building. People enjoy thinking that revelations such as the ammonia in the hamburger of McDonalds & Burger King is an unusual event when in fact basically our entire food industry is self-regulated! It is becoming increasingly evident that unless you know exactly where your food came from it is a total crap shoot.

I visited Krafts website to try and find out exactly how many tomato products they have but was unsuccessful because they have so many brands. But I did find that they consider themselves one of the most trusted names in the food industry. "We've put in place strong food safety and quality systems for our ingredients and our products."

Apparently some of their food brokers didn't get the memo because one of them was recently arrested at a New York airport. Allegedly Robert Watson, a food buyer for Kraft foods, found himself $20,000 short of a fully paid tax bill. So he called his buddy, a tomato broker in California, and asked him for the money. The broker was happy to help out although, being good businessmen, told him it would have to come out of his normal "commissions."

According to the New York Times these tainted shipments involved as many as 55 companies. "In some cases, companies detected problems and sent the product back - but in many cases, according to prosecutors, they did not, and the tainted ingredients wound up in food sold to consumers." That doesn't leave me feeling warm and fuzzy about the food industry.

The good news is we have access to farmers markets. The bad news is that Redmond Saturday market doesn't start until May. In the meantime, buy fresh and local as much as you can. At least you can see if your tomatoes are rotten.

Obama Delivers a Speech about US!

Was there anybody besides myself last night who was thinking how refreshing it was to be talking about the United States of America again? I mean really, for the last eight interminable years it’s been all about evil doers, weapons of mass destruction, rebuilding places like Iraq and Afghanistan now that we’ve wrecked them, and almost no discussion of our own country. Finally Obama spells it out loud and clear – It’s time to rebuild the United States of America.

Can you even begin to imagine what New Orleans would look like today if GWB had spent even a 1/10th of the money and time spent in Iraq on our own devastated city? It would be a completely re-born city, perhaps even better than it was before. It would be one thing if Iraq had attacked us like Japan did but they didn’t. This was a war of choice made for reasons that have nothing to do with “removing an evil dictator.”

Why would we even question the motives of an oil man, whose sidekick VP is also an oil man, and whose powerful friends (more oil men) made him President despite the voters wishes? It’s not rocket science people. Over the last eight years I’ve listened to all kinds of rubbish about him going into Iraq because of his daddy or because he wanted to be a war President. Nonsense! This was about securing oil for the oil men. It was about a last big hurrah where you put Trillions of tax payer dollars into the hands of oil men and their cronies so they can retire with our money to a foreign country. That way they get to keep it all with no chance of prosecution. This was a transfer of American wealth into just a very few hands.

Unfortunately for us even though we already gave all of our money to Haliburton we still owe the money that George borrowed from China. We get screwed twice! Obama told the American people in clear terms last night that the amount of deficit that GWB created hasn’t even yet been fully defined. Since he never included the cost of the war in his budget it has also not been included in the deficit numbers. This is going to hurt people.

So basically when a Republican these days says whoa we can’t afford this stimulus package because I’m a fiscally responsible conservative and you’re just a tax and spend liberal, I want to rear back and slap them in the face. Where do they get off? What did they think they were doing the last eight years if not driving the car that has now gone over the cliff?

I feel you have to ask yourself whether the Republicans are against spending money or just against spending money on Americans in America? They didn’t scream or cry about fiscal responsibility when we were spending money on Iraq or Afghanistan. They didn’t seem remotely disturbed that they were waging a war while cutting taxes for the rich (apparently some Americans are more deserving than others are). But now, suddenly, they are horribly affronted by the amount of money that Obama wants to spend on us.

The Republican party has shown us who they are over the last eight years and when people show you who they are then you need to believe them.