Pete Hoekstra is a meme

The most original thought I've had in a month or four is to point you to another blog.
But it's so very very worth it.

http://petehisameme.wordpress.com/

To Hoekstra is to whine using grandiose exaggerations and comparisons.

It all started with a simple, foolish tweet. On June 17th, GOP Congressman Pete Hoekstra compared the life and death struggle of Iranians trying to get their message out via Twitter to the Republican Party’s tussle with Democrats. (See quote above.) The Twitterati began satirizing Hoekstra’s tweet (see lulz below).

And that’s how the Hoekstra meme was born.

As of the moment of my typing this post, there are three pages of fun. Make good use of the older and newer entries buttons at the bottom of each page.

One more reason Cranky Cindy is grateful that she cooks from scratch

Food companies put the onus for food safety on consumers. New York Times article. (Michael Moss 5/14/09) By writing specific directions on packaged foods, businesses hope to shift the responsibility for contamination from the company to the consumer.

"In this case, ConAgra could not pinpoint which of the more than 25 ingredients in its pies was carrying salmonella. Other companies do not even know who is supplying their ingredients, let alone if those suppliers are screening the items for microbes and other potential dangers, interviews and documents show."

Photo :Hiroko Masuike for The New York Times
"Banquet pot pies sickened thousands with salmonella in 2007. The corporate parent, ConAgra Foods, and others have decided to leave the “kill step” to eliminate pathogens up to the consumer’s cooking at home."

Interesting that this article is located in the Business section, and not, say, health.

I cook from scratch because I'm a good cook, not because I choose to permit business to shift responsibility for knowing where the ingredients come from, and how they are tested and processed to me!

The problem though, is that contamination is not simply in prepared foods, so maybe my crowing prideful sanctimoniousness is premature.

The recalls of Peanut Butter a while back and White Pepper last month leave me in a quandary. And as a from-scratch cook, (with prideful expertise in chicken with peanut sauce) should I install a lab in my basement?

One cost of high energy

Mountain Top coal removal is rarely seen. You don't really see it while driving, airplanes fly over too high to see. Once in a while we hear a story about slurry leaching down toward a town or an elementary school,

...Harriman, Tennessee, where millions of yards of coal sludge broke through a dike at TVA’s Kingston coal-fired plant at 1:00 in the morning just two days before Christmas.

Hundreds of acres have been destroyed, covered in the toxic sludge and at least two of the more than 12 homes in the sludge’s 400-acre path are now deemed inhabitable.

or this photo (opens larger in new window)

"In Raleigh County, West Virginia, about 45 miles from Charleston, just over 200 students attend Marsh Fork Elementary School. Though small, Marsh Fork is important to the folks in the Coal River Valley, and not just because it's the only school in the county with high enough enrollment to remain open. No, the fate of Marsh Fork matters more because it represents all the special interests and politics that have come to define life in the shadows of Big Coal.

Not 300 feet away from where children learn and play nine months a year sits a leaking, 385-feet tall coal refuse dam with a nearly 3-billion gallon capacity. Never mind the coal dust that has been found in the school. Never mind the drinking-water contamination that has been reported. If this dam breaks, it will destroy everyone and everything within 30 miles. So why are 200-plus children still making the trip to school every day despite the constant threat of illness and even death?

Because they have nowhere else to go."

but really, except for these occasional references in popular news, you have to choose to look.


So look at the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition site here. Click on the photos for amazing high resolution photographs. Then take a stroll through the website.

Or look through SourceWatch. This will be useful if you're a person who thinks I blow things out of proportion.

The Obama EPA is cracking down. Support them from the pushback from the Coal industry.

Clean Coal ought to start where the coal starts, not just how we burn it.

Way to Go Iowa!

Not Cranky Today!

Our responsibility, however, is to protect constitutional rights of individuals from legislative enactments that have denied those rights, even when the rights have not yet been broadly accepted, were at one time unimagined, or challenge a deeply ingrained practice or law viewed to be impervious to the passage of time." The Iowa Supreme Court.

Why some people should not drink at the staff Holiday Party

A Cartoon.
originally posted here.

No Commentary Needed.

Except to point out that this is funny, but not a personal statement of any kind.
I happen to adore my boss, and working conditions here could be improved upon, but are far from frightful.















Alternative text provided for accessibility:
A drunk man standing on the punch table up sings:
"Well conditions at work are frightful,
and the boss is not delightful,
and someday we'll all be let go,
this job blows,
this job blows,
this job blows."

Caption:
Harvey's bitter, drunken version of "Let it Snow"
brought down the house at what turned out to be
his last Christmas Party.

Friends don't let Friends give socks to terrorists

Nat Hentoff reports A Brooklyn College Grad Experiences the Constitution in a Cage.

For the past year, a 28-year-old Muslim American student, Sayed Fahad Hashmi—the first person extradited to the United States from Britain to face charges of terrorism—has been held at the Manhattan Correctional Center under conditions of confinement that are the very definition of the Eighth Amendment's prohibition of "cruel and unusual punishment."

He has not been charged with being a member of Al Qaeda or for providing any money or resources to any terrorist. He is here—for a trial months away in 2009—for letting a former acquaintance, Junaid Babar, stay for a couple of weeks in his London apartment, where Babar stored several ponchos, raincoats, and waterproof socks in a suitcase.

A week ago, I was having a proud to be an American moment. But there is so much work to be done. The conditions under which he is being held, this American citizen? This is keeping me safe?

On a 23-hour solitary-confinement lockdown, Hashmi, was not allowed family visits for months. Now, he can see one person for an hour and a half, but only every other week. He is permitted to write only one letter a week to a single member of his family, but he cannot use more than three pieces of paper per letter. (I would be grateful, Mr. Mukasey, for an explanation of how these restrictions serve our security needs.) Mr. Hashmi is forbidden any contact—directly or through his attorneys—with the news media. He can read newspapers, but only those portions approved by his jailers—and not until 30 days after publication. And he is absolutely forbidden to listen to news radio stations or to watch television news channels.

You will not be surprised to learn that he is under 24-hour electronic monitoring and is forbidden to communicate with any of the other inmates. However, a merciful Justice Department allows him one hour of recreation every day—inside a cage.

There is nothing I can say to comment upon this that the facts themselves don't say.
Go read the whole article.

If only I had stock in Cafe Press

The Sarah Palin Debate Flow Chart is available on products from buttons to messenger bags. I'm sitting here wondering what I'll break down and buy.

I stayed up half the night and yelled at the tv with family and facebooked with friends and then went to sleep. These guys stayed up all night and made money.