11 August - Unsafe 'Regulators' and Utilities

Manipulating Mankind

Subsequent to the Jack In The Box E. coli outbreak in 1993, USDA desperately and hurriedly implemented the current Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP) protocol of deregulated meat inspection.  HACCP was originally invented by Pillsbury, focused on the production of consistently safe food for NASA and the Army.  Pillsbury's HACCP required "Kill Steps" during food production, meaning that the food had to be subjected to a kill step such as fully cooking or irradiation, effectively killing all pathogens.  Pillsbury's HACCP system was truly based in science, and creates safe food.

USDA intentionally changed the Pillsbury protocol, but of course, retained the right to classify its HACCP imposter as allegedly being "science-based".  USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) demands that all federally inspected plants implement USDA-style HACCP.  Thus, FSIS requires that HACCP be used for all raw meat and poultry, which by definition does not utilize kill steps, but still qualifies for USDA-style HACCP.

How did this absurd turn of events occur?  To answer this, we must briefly review statements made by FSIS in the 1990s as it tortured its definition of "science" in order to implement the agency's pre-determined meat inspection system desired by FSIS.

"Science" to FSIS means agency semi-retirement at the largest slaughter entities.  This is a primary reason for our ongoing outbreaks and recurring recalls.  History has proven that USDA-style HACCP is NOT science-based, but based in political science and science fiction.  This is precisely the problem to which Mark Twain referred by extracting wholesale conjectures from a small investment of fact.  USDA intentionally bastardized Pillsbury's HACCP program, while disingenuously classifying the agency's deregulated system of non-inspection as "science-based". 

DOJ Urged to Complete Monsanto Case

Monsanto has been under scrutiny by antitrust officials at the DoJ since October last year. At the centre of the investigation are questions about whether the St Louis-based maker of genetically modified seeds has legally used its cutting-edge technology to become a dominant force in the agricultural industry, or whether it has illegally used patent protections to engage in anti-competitive behaviour. 

U.S. Scientific Establishment Throws Down Gauntlet to Big Ag

 The NRC's report, "Toward Sustainable Agricultural Systems in the 21st Century,"

its conclusions represent another damning indictment of industrialized farming.

The NRC joins a growing number of leading global scientific organizations in effectively throwing down the gauntlet to Big Ag, publicly criticizing the negative consequences of industrialized farming and calling for a more holistic approach to food production in the face of increasingly scarce natural resources and the growing threat of climate change.

Drug-resistant flesh-eating germs more common with superbugs

"In the first 20 years I practiced, I may have seen one case," said Dr. Alan Bisno, a retired University of Miami expert who has lectured other doctors on this. "Within a very few years, everybody in the audience had all seen cases."

Superbugs have become more common as we've increased our usage of pesticides and anti-bacterial drugs and disinfectants for both ourselves and the animals we raise as food in factory farms. Bacteria rapidly evolve to become resistant to what once would wipe them out. Because several kinds of bacteria can cause necrotizing fasciitis, the possibility of it becoming a more common occurrence is very real.

The criminal failures that are sewer systems

Parts of the system are ancient - every now and again someone winds up digging up a colonial-era hollowed tree trunk, formerly a water pipe.  

FUNGI DIGEST PLASTIC TRASH

• With help from a little ultraviolet light, fungi can break down worrisome plastics.
• The technique might help scientists develop environmentally friendly ways of disposing of "bad" plastics.
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Socialized Medicine Sucks

No one wants the U.S. to be a backward third world country like Canada, do they?

In Canada they have long, long, long waiting lists and people just up and die waiting, right? Just ask the villagers, they'll tell you.

I live in Vancouver, BC. Canada's medical system is a single payer system as many of you know. The monthly premium for a single person is $54.

Most Americans are unaware that the United States is the only country in the developed world that doesn't already have a fundamentally public--that is, tax-supported--health care system.

The Fraud of Public Opinion

Humanity is not served by the idea of "the public." Individual freedoms require free individuals, who are not part of a colossal "public" that is formless, and ignorant. There is no public. There is only YOU. And Me. Him. And Her. And the World we live in. I can't speak for the public anymore than I can speak for God. If someone claims that he speaks for either, then he is a fraud, and should be opposed by all intelligent individuals. The two maxims of the universe are "think for yourself" and "speak for yourself," and if what you say matches reality, if you give voice to the facts on the ground, to verifiable evidence, then you stand in the right, if you don't, and you just make shit up, as the President of the United States does, then you are either lying, or ignorant, in which case, you should not be listened to, and you should not speak.

 The use of mass propaganda in the last century, and in this one has made the public not something to worship, but something to loathe. If governments, and the media can manage public opinion, then we should not follow or trust public opinion, and if we are honest individuals, we should not look to polls to form our own judgments about anything, especially something as destructive as war. "Public opinion," said Kierkegaard, "is an inorganic something, an abstraction." In the case of modern war, wherein the chief victims are individuals, the fraud of public opinion has proven to be lethal, and anti-human.

"The modern state," wrote Colombian philosopher Nicolás Gómez Dávila, "fabricates the opinions which it later respectfully collects under the name of public opinion."