Category: Politics


Where’s the Beef?

Honestly, I don’t know how I manage to miss important news.  If you had any idea of the amount of time I spend every evening surfing the internet for information (while watching the local and national news) you’d be amazed that I missed this one too! Ok, here’s my disclaimer: If you really, really enjoy eating your hamburgers – don’t read the rest of this article. It really is gross. But for those of you who actually care about your health and aren’t afraid of making lifestyle changes to get fit – then read on! This is especially those of you who made fun of me for turning into a deer eating redneck! After this, you will likely remove the name “Bambi” from your vocabulary and replace it with “yummy.”
A few weeks ago, the New York Times ran an article regarding a practice that was put in place about 8 years ago to address the pesky problem of E. coli.  You can read the entire article at: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/31/us/31meat.html?_r=1  However, if you don’t have time – here’s a recap:
There is a man in South Dakota, Eldon R. Roth, who by his own admission is a mechanic.  I love mechanics….really, I do.  My son was a professional mechanic before he changed careers and to this day I call upon him for all sorts of routine issues with my car, tractor, lawn mowers, etc. But as deep as my appreciation for mechanics run, I don’t think I want them solving any medical or nutritional problems. But Mr. Roth did. He started thinking one day about E. coli and figured, “You know what? We need to find something that kills that germ! Hey, I know, ammonia – heck that stuff will kill just about anything!”
Ok, I have to tell you a sad story here….when I was a little girl of about 10 years, I had a kitty cat. I can’t recall what I named the kitten, but I remember how she looked. She was black and white. Well, my father apparently didn’t like kittens. For some reason, this kitty took a while to learn to use the litter box and had some “accidents.” As an adult, I now wonder if the cat was just smart enough to know dad didn’t like cats and was simply punishing him. But anyway, it made my dad so mad that one day when I was cleaning up the “accident,” he made me pour some ammonia on the kitten. I was cleaning with ammonia because not only does it kill germs, it really cleans up poo pretty good. As I was afraid of him, I complied and poured a bit on the kitten. The ammonia killed the animal within just a few days. It seemed to have eaten right through her fur and skin. It was a terrible trauma for me. Ok, back to my story -
Mr. Roth, the mechanic, decides that if he can figure out a way to make filler for beef, with a bit of ammonia in it, it will not only take care of E. coli and salmonella, it will also make the beef companies a ton of money! So he took left over fat from all sorts of animals and mixed it with a bit of ammonia, then froze the slimy concoction and shipped it to beef processors to add to their meat. Not only does the ammonia kill E. coli and salmonella, and save the processors .03 cents per pound, it also increases shelf life.  Wow.  Isn’t this great? And the funny thing is, the FDA approved it. Ok. This is where it gets a little stupid.  You know how the government agencies have a problem with communicating with one another? Similar to how the CIA and FBI failed to communicate red flags concerning a military psychologist who later went all “jihad” on a base in Texas. Also similar to how agencies failed to communicate concerns about a Nigeria man who ended up attempting to blow up a plane during the holidays last month. I could go on and on about the lack of communication issues, but when sections of the same department do not communicate – I think it’s pretty funny (aka sad).  The FDA has a sub-department that handles school lunches.  They want to make sure that what our kids are eating really is safe…and eventually they discovered that the meat treated with pink slime wasn’t so safe after all. The FDA wasn’t aware of this because they were so convinced that the added ammonia would kill E. coli that they decided it would be a waste of time to test the meat – so they didn’t. However, the department that monitors school lunch food had other information they didn’t feel the need to share with the guys in the next office. 

The cooks at a Georgia prison became concerned when they began noticing a strong ammonia odor coming from the meat when they were cooking hamburgers for the inmates – so they alerted the FDA about a possible contamination! I wish I could have seen the looks on the cook’s faces when the FDA instructed them to go ahead and feed the inmates your ammonia burgers – it’s been approved! 

Now before you think you are immune to exposure of ammonia burgers, you have to know that the company who produces the pink ammonia slime stated that 70% of all hamburgers in the United States are treated! Yuk. That includes all fast food restaurants and ground beef you purchase at the grocery store.

Where is the logic behind any of this, but most importantly, after watching a parade of commercials about FDA approved drugs with all sorts of horrible side affects, WHY am I surprised that they think eating ammonia is ok?  Have you ever read the warnings on the bottles of ammonia? Have you ever used it in a non-ventilated room and had your eyes burn? Remember what it did to my kitten? Yikes! Is it scary or is it yummy? 

By the way, the process of using left over animal body parts is nothing new. Tomorrow, I will let you in on a little secret about what is floating around in your lipstick, make-up and body lotion! 

So what can you and I do about this insanity? First, stop eating it.  You would think that would be a common sense response, but I know how it is.  You want that hamburger, you are hungry, and McDonalds is right around the corner! But stop for just a minute and think. Why do you think the occurrence of cancer is getting higher and higher? We must get serious about the link between what we expose ourselves to and our health! 

The second thing you can do is to speak up! Ask your grocer if they have any meat that is not tainted with the filler. If they don’t, walk away. The possibility of them losing your dollars is a powerful incentive to change policy! If we all stop trading our dollars for “cancer causing crap” – then the giants who feed it to us will have to listen! 

The third thing – make people aware of this. I did not know. The media doesn’t seem to think this is important enough to talk about. Everyone trusts the almighty FDA. Think about that. No agency should ever be so powerful that they become above reproach and beyond doubt. Educate yourself and those around you. Knowledge is power! 

The last thing you can do – speak up to those in charge. Make demands on the politicians who are supposed to be representing you! The FDA is corrupt – let’s find some people who care enough to clean it up! The next time you see a commercial on television soliciting people who have been harmed by approved drugs and they want you to sue the drug company – remember that the FDA should be held accountable as well. The FDA and the drug companies are in bed together and there’s a lot of money being passed between them. Prostitution is illegal – so let’s hold the FDA accountable for their crime! meat filler

Potholes and Band Aides

I don’t know if I mentioned it before or not, but I live in the boonies.  When I first moved to Ginn Hill, I learned it was called Ginn Hill after going into a local Ace Hardware store looking for help with my lawn tractor. When I told the man my name, he replied – “Oh, you bought the property on Ginn Hill.” I was flabbergasted that he said that for many reasons. First because I’d never met him before and was surprised that he knew my name. Second because I had never heard of Ginn Hill. It was my first taste of living in a small town where everyone knows a little something about much of nothing. Anyway, Ginn Hill is the most beautiful property in the entire area but it is in the boonies. As a matter of fact, just last month we got fire hydrants installed….well, Ginn Hill didn’t but the main road near us did. And that’s the reason for this post. 

When the state began installing the new pipes for the fire hydrants, they evidently disturbed the natural flow of water along the ditch on one side of the road I travel every day.  A few weeks after they installed the pipes, we developed a pot hole in the road and I noticed water coming from it. I immediately figured there was a natural spring and it was attempting to cross the road since the new pipes diverted the water. Naturally, it’s looking to find the path of least resistance – down hill, right? I thought everyone knew that.  At any rate, the workers were gone and our pot hole grew larger by the day.  Finally, a crew came out and repaired the pot hole.  They poured about 20 feet of new asphalt to cover a 2 foot hole. 

One day, I mentioned it to Mark and said, “I’ll bet you a dollar they just covered up the hole and didn’t fix the water issue.  If that’s the case, that hole will be back pretty soon.”  Sure enough….just a week later we have a huge hole again.  I wonder how much money it took to lay 20 feet of asphalt that lasted only a few weeks. And that’s when it occurred to me.  The government is in the band aid business!  This explains the entire stimulus package and the health care agenda.  Both are huge band aids over gaping wounds which need real attention and care.   bandaid

I’m so proud of the Americans in Massachusetts finally realizing they don’t need another band aid and have elected Scott Brown in hopes of sending that message to Congress. It’s time we all yell, scream, write, fax, call, picket, or whatever method will get our government’s attention! It seems every American can see that the proposed health care measures and “stimulus” packages are not the answer, except for the elected idiots in Washington.  Thank you Massachusetts for showing the rest of us how to get your voice heard – by voting! Let’s get those self-serving politicians OUT of office and elect some real public servants who will truly represent the citizens who put them there! 

Here’s a thought. Why doesn’t the government scrap all the special interest groups and the power of their money and vote, and instead form a real panel of experts to discuss the solutions to our healthcare problem. That means the panel will include doctors, a few house wives, some welfare recipients, large business owners, small business owners, nurses, people with diseases, insurance officials, an average “Joe, the plumber” who has a wife and three kids living on a moderate salary, and anyone else who can shed their perspective on the issues. Perhaps with a group like this, we can learn to think outside the box rather than just copying the failures of other countries.  Politicians who not only know NOTHING about the world of health care and but also will not be personally living under the new managed care, have no business deciding what the new policy will be! If they do, they should be forced to live under the same measures they are trying to force on the American people. 

If you agree, learn how to convey your ideas to your elected official.  And by all means, get involved! Vote.  Pay attention.  Speak up!  These are your rights and if you forfeit them, you are sending a powerful message to those making decisions on your behalf. 

Thank you Massachusetts for setting a good example!  And Scott Brown, I hope you really meant it when you acknowledged that although the honor is yours, the seat belongs to the people!  Listen to them. Serve them.  Be a statesman.

Thank you for making my case! 

Yesterday I poked fun at how the media and certain government officials are making a big whoop-ti-doo over comments made by Harry Reid which included the term “Negro dialect.” Although my intentions for the post was to say, give me a break with the “race card,” I also made the point the Americans don’t normally vote solely based on where a candidate stands on important policy. Rather, they vote as if this were a home-coming king competition!  Today, an article posted on Yahoo! made my point in case.  Check it out at http://news.yahoo.com/s/politico/20100113/pl_politico/31431.

The article caught my attention because it hailed a hopeful GOP candidate as “Our version of Obama.”  Wow.  That’s a bold statement. Since I don’t normally follow politics – I’d never heard of the newest proclaimed savior, South Dakota Senator, John Thune. So I read the article hoping to learn his stand on healthcare, immigration, national security and some of those otherwise boring issues that will affect everyone in this country. Guess what I found out in this most informative article? He is tall, handsome, under 50 years old, and a former basketball player with a “sunny demeanor.” Well, that got my vote! But wait, there’s more!John Thune

Evidently Thune has a bunch of money already saved up in case he decides to go after Obama….nearly $6 million. Everyone knows money certainly helped Obama win the election. What we don’t know is where the money came from, but I digress.  As I kept reading the article, I became even more hopeful for Thune as I learned from a GOP strategist, Mark McKinnon, that “everyone loves Thune!”

The remainder of the article was more of the same old mumbo jumbo of political buzz words that tell me nothing about the man: “the party needs to stay true to its principles” – “over turning excessive Democratic spending” – etc, ad nausea….

Then the article got back to the important stuff – Thune lives in a “regular house in a regular neighborhood” and “can pull up a chair and talk farming and football.” Wow. He’s got my vote.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not against John Thune – I don’t know anything about him, what he stands for, or how well he would run the country. But my point is, neither will those who vote for or against him, should he decide to run if this article is representative of what Americans are interested in knowing about their candidates. He’s tall, thin, good-looking, and is a good speaker.  He will probably win.  That is unless he doesn’t look or sound as good as Obama. Maybe we should hold elections the same way we run Ms. America contests! At least it would be more entertaining! I heard Obama works out – let’s see him in the swim suit competition!   =D

Where are the Statesmen?

Last night before I went to bed, a word popped into my mind.  That happens often with me, probably because I read a lot.  But sometimes, I don’t understand the word or what it has to do with anything concerning me. The word last night was “statesmen,” so I asked Mark what he thought of the word.  He didn’t have much to say about it either, especially since he was already almost asleep. I guess it’s an old fashion word, outdated, or no longer relevant. 

This morning, the idea became clearer after I read a few quotes about statesmanship. My favorite was a quote by Mikhail Gorbachev who said: “What is the difference between a statesman and a politician? A statesman does what he believes is best for his country, a politician does what best gets him reelected.”

Another good one:  James Freeman Clarke — “A politician thinks about the next elections — the statesman thinks about the next generations.”

Henry Kissinger was the Secretary of State under Richard Nixon. He won the Nobel Peace Prize (back when people had to actually EARN it) and was so well respected that many following Presidents continued to seek his opinion. Kissinger said: “The statesman’s duty is to bridge the gap between experience and vision.”  He later said, “The task of statesmen is to resolve complexity, not to contemplate it.”  Obviously, the Obama Healthcare package was written by politicians, not statesmen. In fact, one would be hard pressed to identify many statesmen in our current government. Obama claimed he had a vision, but no experience to speak of. Maybe if he had surrounded himself with statesmen, his visions would have proved productive.

It does seem that our government is run by slick politicians who are only concerned with their jobs, rather than concerned with the responsibility of guiding and protecting this great nation in such a way that it remains a great nation. But you know what? It’s our fault. We voted them in. When someone comes up and bucks against the system in a non-conventional way – we run them out of town. Look at what happened to Sarah Palin. I don’t know a great deal about her, but what I heard coming from her mouth sounded more like a statesmen than a politician. Have we really grown so accustomed to Slick Willy’s running for office that we accept it as some sort of norm? When we see a down-to-earth candidate who stands for family values, the Constitution, and civil liberties –can we do nothing more than make fun of them for not fitting in with the smooth talking crowd? Shame on us all.

I pray that more and more average, hard-working, proud American’s will wake up and begin voting with their brain and their heart! We need to replace every politician in office with a statesman! The only way that can happen is for good men and women to rise up and run for office, and the American public to take a few minutes to think before casting their vote. Remember, not voting is still voting. If you didn’t vote in the last few elections, you still voted these clowns in! Let’s all take responsibility to learn the issues, stop listening to the media and get this nation back on track!

Harry Reid, what my name is?

I’ve been really entertained by the recent hoop-la over comments made by Senator Harry Reid, the Majority Leader from Nevada.  Evidently, he noted that Barack Obama had a chance of winning election because he was “light skinned” and did not have a “Negro dialect” unless he wanted to have one!  LOL 

Obviously, since I find it funny, I’m not in agreement with those who want al2him to resign over such words. Probably because I feel he spoke the truth. Seriously! Imagine someone like Al Sharpton running for president? Would you want to look at him or listen to him address the nation for four years? No! His hair looks funny and he talks funny too!  

HOWEVER……I am in agreement with those who claim that if Harry Reid was a republican and made such remarks – he would be in a bunch of hot water!

Now before you start accusing me of being a racist, let me remind you that I am an equal opportunity ridiculer!  I made just as much fun of George W. Bush for his cowboy accent, particularly the way he says the word, “’a'mer’cun.” I don’t know how you spell it – but it sounds redneck to me.  

And haven’t we all made fun of Bill Clinton’s voice?  

Personally, I think Barack Obama is a nice looking man.  His voice is pleasant, except for the way he pauses and then raises his pitch at the end of every other sentence. Other than that – he’s ok. Do I think he should be president? NO! But does his skin color and dialect have anything to do with him being president? YES! A’mer’cuns are too dang lazy to vote on policy stance alone! Most of our politicians are voted on by popularity issues! And that includes how they look and how they talk. 

My point is: give the race card a rest.  I’m sick of it! I make fun of the way all kinds of people talk, including myself and anyone in my family who says something funny! Mark makes fun of how I say the word, salmon.  Why? Because for years I thought the rednecks around here were saying it wrong – sam’in….I pronounced it the way it looks phonetically….sal-mon.  Mark pointed out my error, but after all these years it still comes out funny when I try to say it. 

One day, Mark and I were in a grocery store and heard a black man asking a little girl, “What my name is?” We thought it was hilarious and still make fun of that!  I don’t even know that man but it’s almost as funny as the locals who are gonna “learn you sumthin”.  The ones we make the most fun of are the country bumpkins and rednecks! They are a hoot! Redneck dialect is much more comical than ebonics!  So, am I being a racists? I don’t think so.  I like all sorts of people. I voted for and liked George W. Bush – but he still talks funny to me – like most of those Texans do. But you know what? So do I!  

Leave Harry Reid alone…unless you can find another reason he should resign.  Better yet, why don’t you people in Nevada find out if you really agree with his political record and VOTE him out!  That goes for the rest of the Senate and the House! Don’t just keep the ones that look pretty and talk proper – find out where they stand on issues that are important to you. Check out their voting record. Did you know that many, many of them don’t bother to vote on much at all?  What are they doing if they aren’t representing the people?  Find out, it’s public record! Make sure the guy/gal you voted in is actually doing their job! Even if they are pretty, if they aren’t representing you – vote them out!

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