On PHF's (Potentially Hazardous Foods)

I hope all of you had a great Thanksgiving! 
I know that I did....   6 parties/meals/events, and I gained about 5 pounds. 

Now it's time for a rant. 

My employer, Jukt Micronics, threw a Thanksgiving meal/party for the employees in each shop.  Several of the employees brought additional food from home. 

The main course was something called "Carnitas", which Bing defines as "a dish of Mexican cuisine. Carnitas are made by braising or simmering pork meat in oil or preferably lard until tender. The process takes three or four hours and the result is very tender and juicy pork meat, which is then typically served with chopped coriander leaves and diced onion, salsa, guacamole, tortillas, and refried beans."

Heck yes.  These were some authentic old-school Carnitas.  No one was injured. 

Later on in the week, we had a Supervisor's Lunch.  All food was brought from home by the Supervisors or their spouses. 
Everyone who brought something brought enough to feed about 5 other people. 
It was awesome. 
No one was injured. 

A few days later, I went to Gainesville TX, for the legit Thanksgiving meal with my youngest sister, her husband, and his extended family. 
They cooked almost all of the food.  My mother (that's her with the whitish hair and blue sweater in the Supervisor Lunch picture) did the rest.  That's her again, in the next pic, on the far left at my sister's house. 
She has taught me a deep and abiding love of food, groceries, meals, cooking, plants, animals, spices, and anything else that's edible. 
Once again, no one was harmed....

Thanksgiving night, some friends of mine from a local bar threw something that they call "Friendsgiving". 
It was awesome.  100% of the food was prepared by my friends and their families. 
No one was harmed, although I DID overindulge in bourbon, and have sworn off it for several weeks. 

There was one other event centered around a west-side bar....,
And then another friend of mine threw another party Saturday night. 
Both occasions featured plenty of food from homes. 
No one had his stomach pumped.  (That's a total of 6 Thanksgiving parties, in case you're keeping score....)

So what's my point in all this? 

Here's a letter that my shop received several months ago from the Consumer Health Division of the City of Fort Worth.  It's totally unrelated to Thanksgiving.  We got the letter back in April. 
I've hung onto it for occasions when I'm in a bad mood and want to make it worse.

To: The Woodshop Manager

"Spoke with production manager (Blank Blank) and he stated that female employees do sell sandwiches, Barbacoa (that's Messican BQ) and hot dogs."

"Complaint Confirmed.  Warning issued to all 3 employees.  There was no sign of any PHF's onsite (Potentially Hazardous Foods - prepared from home)."

"One employee admitted they sell about 5 burritos a day."

"Explained to each employee that it was illegal of prepare foods @ home and sell them to the public.  If another complaint happens, a citation will be issued to the individuals selling prepared foods."

Signed - Consumer Health Specialist 

Let me rewrite that letter for you, ok? 

To: The Woodshop Manager, who at this point is now my bitch,

It's painfully obvious to anyone who thinks about it for more than a few seconds that people are quite capable of making good choices about what to eat, what to buy, and whose cooking they trust.   

However, my job gives me the right, and the responsibility, to hassle people about what foods they sell. 

Tens of millions of people consume PHF's (Potentially Hazardous Foods) prepared from home without giving the City Of Fort Worth's Consumer Health Division a kickback money for a food-handler's permit or a license to sell burritos. 

The quality and safety of the food doesn't improve at all as a result of my job, or the kickbacks licenses and permits. 

But if you complain about this visit, my buddies in other City Hall departments will hassle you about your water runoff quality, your factory's air emissions, your habit of parking in the vacant lot next door that's not zoned for parking, or any of the thousands of other niggling little things we could use to make your life miserable. 

So get out of the burrito and barbacoa business, or give me some money. 

Signed - One Of Your Many Lords And Masters

I hope all of you had a great Thanksgiving!!
 

The chicken funeral

Here's an interesting protest video. 

These protesters are from Direct Action Everywhere.   In the video, they go into a supermarket, reverently and carefully select a (dead) processed chicken, put it in a little black coffin, and then harangue the other grocery shoppers with rants and speeches that their selections "are not food, they are violence". 

Or something. 

This is the Berkeley (California) wing of Direct Action Everywhere, which should surprise no one.

A quick look at the Direct Action Everywhere Meetup page leads me to believe that they're taking their identity politics too far.  Lordy....

Anyway, here's the video. 

Why am I posting this?  Because if you look in the background at the .15 mark, and again at the 1.49 mark, you can see some wooden orchard bin displays that were made at my shop in Texas !!

Heck YEAH!  We can now say that we built the backdrop for a chicken funeral !!!!

 

Tarrant County Libertarian Meetup, Thursday Night at Fort Worth Food Truck Park !!

Food Trucks. The police harass them. Brick and mortar stores don't like them. Tax collectors are frustrated by them. And consumers LOVE them!

An entrepreneur has found a compromise by creating the Fort Worth Food Park, a small enclave that holds about a dozen of these rolling restaurants until they're finally free to drive at will about the city, committing acts of agricultural capitalism.

 So is this not the perfect spot for an Libertarian Party Meetup??? ...

The Tarrant County Libertarian Meetup is going to get together at the Fort Worth Food Park, 2509 Weisenberger Street (behind the Target Shopping center near Montgomery Ward Plaza and West 7th Street) on September 19th at 7:00 p.m.

In addition to eating some great food with great people, we'll have Robert Harris, who is running for the State House nomination for District 94 give us a quick talk about his campaign, why he's running, and how you can help.

Stay tuned to this page (or the Tarrant LP Facebook page) if we have bad weather. The Fort Worth Food Park is near the 7th Street development, and we'll go somewhere in that area if it rains.

The trucks scheduled to be there on the 19th are: Holy Frijole, Life is Sweet, Sauzy, The Que, Three Lions, and What's Cook-N Chef. Good food. Good people. Good Libertarian Party politics !! Hope to see you there.

 

 

Congressman Stephen Fincher (R-Sugar Tit)

Back in 2010, an Agriculture Subsidies Welfare Queen named Stephen Fincher ran for Congress and won.

Here's a campaign pic of the smiling Fincher family, content in the knowledge that no one will ever legislate that they be Drug Tested prior to receiving their corporate welfare check.  CPS will never show up at their home to ensure that the parents of these kids aren't blowing the money (that you sent them) on crack.   You donated to the Fincher family on April 15, tax day, whether you wanted to or not. 

Here's some of the rant I posted about his campaign a couple of years ago:

Stephen Fincher, a Republican candidate for congress in Tennessee's 8th district, favors small-government, lower taxes, and he has an appropriate disdain for Obamacare.

Good for him.
He's also a gospel singer.
He's a succesful cotton farmer.

And in one eleven-year period, from 1995 - to 2006, Fincher and his wife received 2.5 million dollars in crop subsidies from government you.

Now, just for the sheer joy of it, imagine if the Democrats dared to nominate a traditional welfare queen for Congress. Someone who sits around the house all day, collecting welfare and producing little babies who will reliably vote for Democrats. Do you think there might be an uproar?

So what is there about this form of welfare that bathes Stephen Fincher in such down-home, cottony goodness?

When our government subsidizes a particular crop, it confuses the price signals. In a truly free market, if too much cotton was produced, the price would drop. Fewer people would grow cotton. The price would then reflect what people were willing to pay for it, and what farmers would willingly be paid to grow it.

If not enough cotton was on the market, the price would rise. More and more people would grow cotton until the price dropped again.

Are Obama and Pelosi and Reid paying too many people to grow cotton? We'll never know.

But are you having to pay too much for cotton T-shirts, shirts, socks and sheets because of farm subsidies and prohibitive tariffs on cotton imports? Hell yes.

The rant continues for a few more paragraphs, explaining how Brazil was going to retaliate with tariffs on our exported cotton because of Uncle Sam giving handouts to Welfare Queens like Fincher.  We compromised by buying most of the Brazilian Cotton crop.  I swear to God, that's how we solved the problem. 
I hope you'll read the whole thing. 
Go here for it. 
I grinned several times, having forgotten most of the thing.   

Congressman Fincher is back in the news, this time because he wants to cut food stamps while maintaining his own place at the public trough. 
Hell, I'm all for feeding people, but we could easily make a lot of progress on lowering the price of food by ending the Fincher Subsidy, and then ending all the quotas, tariffs, and limitations related to what Mr. Obama allows to come through the bars of our national cage.  The Institute for International Economics estimates the annual cost of U.S. foreign protectionism at $6,027 per household.   

I think that $6,000.00 per family would make up for a lot of food stamps, don't you?  But then Mr. Fincher's farm has to be protected.  Here's what was in today's Huffington Post:

Fincher has said his farm would have shut down without the subsidies, which he argued protect American farmers from more heavily subsidized foreign competition. "We would be all for not having government in our business," Fincher told the Washington Post in 2010, "but we need a fair system."

The federal government's complex system of farm subsidies is supposed to shield farmers from some of the uncertainties inherent to the industry, but critics like the Environmental Working Group say the safety net unfairly benefits the biggest farms at the expense of smaller ones.

You think that farming has "some uncertainties inherent to the industry"???  Try building fruitstands.  Open a restaurant.  Start a used bookstore.  Open a clothing store.  Go into the carwash business.  Drive a semi-truck.  Those businesses open and struggle and crash and burn every day.
There's risk everywhere. 
But the risk in farming is just more....wholesome, right? 

And that's how Welfare Queens like Congressman Stephen Fincher (R-Sugar Tit) wind up getting $70,000 a year from the government  from you. 

I hope everyone has a great Memorial Day weekend, and that everyone pause for a few minutes to think of those who fought and died to support Stephen Fincher in the style to which he has grown accustomed. 

Too harsh.  Have a GREAT Memorial Day weekend!!!  Be safe!!  

My Unemployment Lawsuit

My family's Human Resources department warned me not to post this, but I'm doing it anyway. 

I haven't had time to post much this week because of an unemployment lawsuit.  One of the groups I hire has pressed charges against me for discrimination, hostile work environment, failure to document performance deficiencies, and everything else they can think of.  They've thrown a lot of stuff against the wall, just to see what will stick. 

It's exhausting.  Enough to make me wonder why people don't just give up and produce everything themselves with no employees. 

Here's the story....

Up until last week, I had food employment agreements in place with Kroger, Food King, and Wal-Mart.  I agreed that I would purchase fresh produce and dairy products from Kroger, meat from Food King, and everything else from Wal-Mart.  I believe that I treated all three of these groups of employees equally well. 

I gave them enough money to pay for my percentage of  their taxes, child support, and health insurance.  I think that I provided meaningful work for them at good wages at least twice a week. 

About a week ago, I went to Food King for some ground beef.  The slacker behind the counter didn't want to get off his cell phone long enough to help me.  When he finally did, he acted like I was doing HIM a favor by purchasing his time.  The meat looked ok through the clear wrap, but when I got it home it was a dark brown on the bottom.  To make matters worse, and I can't prove this, but I'm reasonably sure that the cashier short-changed me.  Please don't get me started on the Food King cashiers.  I've never met a ruder, slower, more incompetent bunch of victims in my life

This isn't the first problem I've had with Food King.  Three weeks ago, I got some steaks from them that had metal fragments from the cutting saw embedded in the meat.  My daughter chipped a tooth!  I filed some paperwork on the incident with my Human Resources department, of course. 

Back to the story....As I was leaving Food King last week, and this was before I discovered that the meat was bad, I made a huge mistake.  I told my daughter that "I'm gonna break this contract and start buying all of my meat from Kroger's." 

Huge mistake.  Three of the Food King employees heard what I said. 

When I got home, I started filling out the required forms to document the poor performance at Food King.  I took photos of the brown meat.  I called my Human Resources department, and told them I wanted to start purchasing meat from Kroger.  They were nervous about the decision, but told me to go forward if I felt strongly about the need for a change, and that it would probably take about 6 months. 

But hell, can you blame me?  I DON'T WANT TO EMPLOY THOSE PEOPLE ANY MORE !!!!  I don't want to purchase what they're selling.  Should I be punished for giving them a chance at a job? 

Anyway (sorry for the digression) I filled out the paperwork, completed all the written warning forms, and filed them with H.R., the State of Texas, and with Food King. 

That's when the storm began.  Good Lord in heaven.  The Food King cashier who wouldn't get off his cell phone long enough to sell me some rancid meat?  He happens to be Hispanic.  He claimed that I have a "thing" against Hispanics, and was able to show how, back in 2009, I filed papers to change my membership from a majority Hispanic Starbucks to a majority White Starbucks.  That was a totally different situation, plus the government wouldn't allow me to switch Starbucks locations because it would've meant moving from a majority female to a majority male coffee bar.  I should've known better than to even try during an election year. 

I swear to Jesus, I had NO idea that the kid was Hispanic.

Food King is also saying I have unreasonable performance expectations.  IMHO, all I'm expecting is decent cuts of meat at a reasonable price from a prompt butcher and a cashier who knows how to make change.  If I'm not getting that, how much hell should I have to go through before I can start purchasing meat elsewhere? 

But dang it, they have me on tape telling my daughter that I want to start buying meat from Kroger instead of Food King.  Therefore, I've created a hostile work environment for the Food King employees.  I can't believe I did something that stupid.  Neither can my Human Resources department.  There's a chance that this will turn into a huge lawsuit.  Even if I win the lawsuit and get to start buying meat from Kroger, I'll still have to pay unemployment compensation to the idiots at Food King. 

As you know, almost 1/3rd of our lives as employers is now consumed with documenting performance issues.  It exhausts me. 

If I hire someone to provide a service in exchange for money, that's all the transaction should involve.  If I give Food King some money in exchange for some hamburger meat, that should be the end of it.  I don't want to be responsible for Food King's taxes, their child support, their healthcare, their insurance, their emotional well-being, or their childcare.

I want to purchase hamburger meat, not be the overseer at an 1840's plantation.  I don't want to be a Feudal Lord & Master. 

Can you imagine how much it would help the economy if customers/employers could simply spend their money without worrying about lawsuits like this one?  I think jobs would start popping up everywhere. 

Enough of my fantasies about a free market employment system.  I won't be posting as much in the future.  This is going to get ugly. 

First they came for the Twinkies....

You occasionally hear stories of Totalitarian regimes like Iran and China charging a "Bullet Fee" to the families of executed protesters.  They prop your kid against a wall, shoot him, and then charge Mom and Dad for the bullet. 

If you step out of line in the U.S. it's not as severe.  But they'll charge you for the chicken nuggets. 

The food police at West Hoke Elementary School looked at a 4-year-old's homemade lunch, declared it to be counter-revolutionary, and made the girl eat some chicken nuggets (she ate three of them). 

Yes, you are paying for food police. 
Yes, if your child goes to a government school, they're looking at the lunch you pack for them. 
Yes, they have nothing better to do. 
Yes, the children they're harassing are going to be paying for the Food Nazi's retirement and pension programs for a long, long time. 

The little girl's family was charged $1.25 for the chicken nuggets.  Why the breaded chicken nuggets were superior to the turkey sandwich that Mom packed, well, that remains a mystery. 

While the mother and grandmother thought the potato chips and lack of vegetable were what disqualified the lunch, a spokeswoman for the Division of Child Development said that should not have been a problem.


“With a turkey sandwich, that covers your protein, your grain, and if it had cheese on it, that’s the dairy,” said Jani Kozlowski, the fiscal and statutory policy manager for the division. “It sounds like the lunch itself would’ve met all of the standard.” The lunch has to include a fruit or vegetable, but not both, she said.

There are no clear restrictions about what additional items — like potato chips — can be included in preschoolers’ lunch boxes.

I'm dealing with a similar situation at work.  The fire inspector doesn't want to see pallets stored inside the warehouse; the environmental inspector doesn't want them outside.  When I bring up the contradiction, both sides back off.  They don't want attention drawn to themselves, they want to keep serving as Civil "Service" lifers and collect their retirements at a ridiculously early age.  The system is the point of the system - not fire prevention or the environment. 
Enough of my problems.  Back to the Carolina Journal:

“With a turkey sandwich, that covers your protein, your grain, and if it had cheese on it, that’s the dairy,” said Jani Kozlowski, the fiscal and statutory policy manager for the division. “It sounds like the lunch itself would’ve met all of the standard.” The lunch has to include a fruit or vegetable, but not both, she said.


There are no clear restrictions about what additional items — like potato chips — can be included in preschoolers’ lunch boxes.

“If a parent sends their child with a Coke and a Twinkie, the child care provider is going to need to provide a balanced lunch for the child,” Kozlowski said.

Ultimately, the child care provider can’t take the Coke and Twinkie away from the child, but Kozlowski said she “would think the Pre-K provider would talk with the parent about that not being a healthy choice for their child.”

Well, I would think that the kid's lunch was non of Jani Kozlowski's freakin' business, but I'm apparently wrong. 

These people can't reliably deliver Sports Illustrated. 
They've blown every penny you've sent to Social Security. 
They're a totally owned subsidiary of a gaggle of lobbyists. 
They're spending a third of the money you give them to blow up, slaughter, and maim some brown people overseas. 
They're the object of the derisive cliche "Good Enough For Government Work". 

You're going to let them tell you what your kid should eat? 

Here's a picture of the Department Of Agriculture's old food pyramid.  Note the 6-11 servings of bread, cereal, rice and pasta that they recommended. 

Eat that for a year and let me know how it works out for you. 

You got served !!

From the greatness of Reason magazine, on how to deal with Nanny State legislators who don't know how to find their way out of a sack, but who believe they know what's best for you to eat:

San Francisco's ban on giving away a free toy with a child's meal containing a certain number of calories, salt, and other particulars is set to kick in tomorrow. McDonald's, the clear target of the ban, had a year to figure out a way to change its business practices. Seems like they used the time wisely, reports the SF Examiner.

The San Francisco ban on providing free toys to entice children to eat unhealthy foods goes into effect Thursday, but McDonald’s plans to comply with the law by charging 10 cents a toy for their Happy Meals and donating the money to the nonprofit Ronald McDonald House.

(Catch that nice bit of editorializing about what's "unhealthy" there?)

And from the SF Weekly:

In any event, it appears the fast food chain's sharpie lawyers have McTopped San Francisco's legislators. Count this city's lawmakers as the latest among the billions and billions served.

Good for McDonald's.  They got around the toy ban by charging a dime for the toy. 

 The Aggie grew up eating McDonald's Happy Meals, and has now upgraded to McDonald's Value Meals (or the WhataBurger equivalent) and she now has the body fat of a mop handle and can do enough pull-ups to qualify for Navy Seal training.  Out of 120 people who tried to make it into the YMCA's lifeguard training program, she's one of 12 who qualified, and one of only 7 who finally passed the class.  (Not that I'm proud or anything....)

There's a lot that's unknown about proper diet and health, but this much is clear:

1) The San Francisco City Council doesn't know jack shit about this topic.  The Federal Government knows even less.  Go here for a personal testimony. 

2) Michelle Obama tried to hop on the Food Nazi Bandwagon last year, releasing some guidelines from her throne for all of us who truly love our children to follow.  Go here for the pics of Barack feeding a hot dog into The Teleprompter's orifice a few days later.

3) When I was in the Literary Retail business, I sold every diet and nutrition book that was brought to market.  The new ones couldn't be kept on the shelf, they sold so quickly.  They had totally different content than the old ones published the year before.  The old ones couldn't be given away, mostly because they were old and had different contents than the new ones that were recently featured and slobbered over by Oprah Winfrey.  The only things these books had in common were dietician authors and a short shelf life. 

4) I grew up being told to eat my fruit, eat my fruit, eat my fruit.  But that stuff turns to sugar as soon as it is digested.  I don't eat quite as much fruit now.  I feel better.
    
5) All laws, rules and regulations have unintended consequences and create different incentives from the ones intended by the prophets who bring them down from the mountain.  As an example, Happy Meal toys are now cloaked in the righteousness of the Ronald McDonald Houses.  Good work, guys !

Here's the great Jonathan Edwards, doing his 1971 mega-hit "Sunshine".  (I especially like the line "Some man's gone, he's tried to run my life, he don't know what he's askin'.  He can't even run his own life, I'll be damned if he'll run mine.") 

One last thing, totally off-topic....Edwards mentions performing this at an anti-war rally.  Are we going to have any more of those rallies, or do we have to elect a Republican president first????

I want to sell muffins

I want to get out of shipping, warehousing and logistics. 
I want to get into muffins. 
Yes, muffins. 

Muffins create jobs.  They stimulate the economy.  I can dye them green in order to help fight Global Warming.  Whatever it takes, I want to sell muffins to those clowns. 
Yes, muffins. 

The even newer Food Pyramid, no, Food Plate

Or, in the words of one commenter, let's call it a Boondoggle Pizza. 

Let me explain.....

I grew up looking at this pyramid on the back of my cereal boxes:

This dietary triangle was originally developed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, at the behest of producers of wheat, bread, cereal, and rice.  Note that the government recommended between 6 and 11 servings of wheat, bread, cereal, and rice.  Funny how that works. 
If you followed the government's dietary advice, you got fat enough to have your own planets and gravitational system.  Go here to read an earlier rant about the battles fought between Dr. Robert Atkins and the USDA.  It features this glorious Atkins quote about the cause of American obesity:

There is no doubt in my mind that this increase in refined carbohydrates has been spurred by the media attention given to The Food Guide Pyramid, created by the U.S. Department Of Agriculture, which made 6-11 servings of wheat derivatives the basis of the pyramid. I believe that the Food Guide Pyramid's recommendations have directly contributed to the twin epidemics of diabetes and obesity we now face in this country.

(The food combinations that were recommended by the U.S.D.A.) are bad for your health, bad for your energy level, bad for your mental state, bad for your figure. Bad for your career prospects, bad for your sex life, bad for your digestion, bad for your blood chemistry, bad for your heart. What I'm saying is that they are bad.

Well said, Dr. Atkins.  Well said.  It was bad, bad, bad. 
Shortly thereafter, the USDA came up with a new food pyramid that looked like this:

This set of dietary guidelines didn't last very long, mostly because the illustration didn't make a lick of sense. 
The government obviously wanted to retain the "pyramid" concept, since they didn't want to back-pedal and admit killing so many Americans, but they needed something so vague that it would kill fewer people but still allow them to spend a lot of money on their pyramid scheme. 

(You'll have to trust me that this is what it looked like.  They've since scrubbed the site.)

Some of the accompanying propaganda still advocated a ridiculous amount of carbohydrates, but the percentage lowered considerably. 

For a couple of years, the USDA didn't stack any more food into triangles.
 
And then came....THE FOOD PLATE !!!

Yes, we now have a USDA Food Plate.  The pyramid has been leveled. 

Here's Ed Morrisey on the new place-setting:

Wow, what a breakthrough! And if the food pyramid had any relevance to diet selection for Americans, it might even have been worth the two million dollars the USDA spent just to design the logo.  Yes, that’s right, it cost taxpayers $2 million for someone to draw a circle, cut it into four quadrants, and then attach labels like FRUITS and VEGETABLES.  The $2 million didn’t just go into the logo design, though.  According to the New York Times, they spent part of that money doing focus-group testing on circles with two lines, and on a Web site, too — as if millions of people will thunder to it to plan their dinners.

And it's still waaaaaay heavy on the fruits and carbohydrates, but we have the Florida and Iowa primaries to consider. 
You would think that the simple matter of what to eat would be (ahem) "Settled Science" by now. 

They spent two million dollars designing a chart that looks like it was lifted from a Powerpoint slide. 
Two million dollars. 

Go here to read the USDA's bullshit about Climate Change. 

You now have the right to eat Roach Coach food in San Antonio

The Institute For Justice has triumphed over evil. 

Practiced since ancient times, street vending is more popular than ever. The Economist magazine predicted that in 2011 “some of the best food Americans eat may come from a food truck.” Vendors are the darlings of many food critics, and they even have their own reality show on the Food Network.

But El Paso, Texas, has recently made it illegal for mobile food vendors to operate within 1,000-feet of any restaurant, convenience store, or grocer. The city even prohibits vendors from parking to await customers, which forces vendors to constantly drive around town until a customer successfully flags them down–and then be on the move again as soon as the customer walks away.

Thus, while people across the country embrace mobile vendors for the vitality and creativity they bring to a local restaurant scene, El Paso has decided to threaten vendors with thousands of dollars in fines and effectively run them out of town. El Paso’s No-Vending Zone scheme is in place for one reason: to protect brick-and-mortar restaurants from honest competition. But economic protectionism is not a valid use of government power.




Someday soon, I'm going to throw out a Bon Apetit/Gourmet magazine parody post that ranks all of the Fort Worth Roach Coaches, since I'm somewhat of a fan of the concept. 
The people who operate them have to endure lots of crap from government pygmies. 
Go here if you've got time to read some old rants about other municipalities trying to shut down street vendors.  Or licensing tamale ladies. 

Keep Food Legal, The Department Of Agriculture, and Sherpas For Subsidies

There is a new political organization and website in town, and it is dedicated to something that I love dearly....Groceries. 
The Keep Food Legal group is dedicated to getting the government out of our farms, our pantries and our kitchens. 
We have one employee in the Department Of Agriculture for every eleven farmers.  The ratio of other leeches, parasites and regulators is even higher if you count the guards at our borders who make sure the prescribed quotas and amounts per nation (but no more) of food can cross the border into our cage. 

Here are some details from the Keep Food Legal site.  

We Love Food
Do you love food? If you’re like us, you do. Maybe you love particular foods. Do your tastes skew toward artisan cheeses, wines, and meats? Do you live for flavorful organic vegetables sold by small farmers and producers? Or do you prefer street foods—tacos, barbecue, and the like? How about fast food? Or maybe fine dining? Or, like us, do you love some or all of the whole range of food options available across America today?

We Hate Food Bans
If you’re like us, you’ve probably also noticed that there are too many restrictions on our right to procure the foods we love, and that these restrictions are growing. At the local, state, and federal levels, elected officials have banned or are working to ban or severely restrict everything from traditional farm products (like raw milk and cheeses) and locavore-friendly farm practices (like on-farm animal slaughter and meat packaging), are seeking to prevent chefs from using common food ingredients (like salt and trans fats), and are looking to ban others from selling a variety of foods (including soda, energy drinks, bacon-wrapped hot dogs, and giant pizza slices).

Our Mission
Does all this regulation make your stomach growl, leave your palate dull, and make your blood boil? Us too. That’s why we founded Keep Food Legal (KFL).
KFL is the first nationwide membership organization devoted to culinary freedom—the right of every American to grow, raise, produce, buy, sell, cook, and eat the foods of their own choosing. KFL’s mission is to promote goodwill, fellowship, and a sense of common purpose among those who grow, raise, cook, and sell food—and those who buy and eat it. We want to unite people in the middle of the food chain (like grocers and restaurateurs) with people at both ends of the food chain (like producers, farmers, and consumers), and to use the power of this union to create a meaningful and lasting partnership between all links in the chain. KFL will thrive and be a non-partisan force for culinary choice and freedom by coalescing the food community—food producers, farmers, food sellers, chefs, home cooks, diners, foodies, grocers, bar owners, and restaurateurs. The diversity and number of our members—people like you—will be our strength.

KFL on the Issues
What are some of the issue KFL take on? The list is too long to print here, but these are some of our most important targets:

• KFL will advocate in favor of abolishing all food-related subsidies. Government subsidies distort prices and demand, cause environmental problems, and have played a large role in creating America’s obesity problem.
• KFL will work to defeat food regulations and bans which limit our freedom to produce, cook, buy, and sell the foods we want. The government has no right to tell people what we can and can’t eat.
• KFL will advocate at the federal, state, and local levels in favor of more food choices. It is not enough to oppose bad new laws. We will work—in legislatures and in the courts—to roll back bad ones already on the books.

One thing KFL will never do is advocate in favor of (or against) any particular foods or dietary choices. We believe strongly that adults should eat what they want (or what they and their doctor think is best for them). And we also believe that children should eat what they and their parents think is best for them. Government shouldn’t tell you what to eat, and neither should KFL.

Go here for some reasonably entertaining rants about what happens to your waistline if you adhere to the Department Of Agriculture's food pyramid. 

My God, ELEVEN servings of bread, cereal, rice and pasta.  No wonder the USDA is, you know, ummm, bloated. 
Those jokers don't know any more about health, growing methods, crop rotation, or erosion than anyone who actually farms.  They are Sherpas for subsidies and quotas.  That is all.  Hit the "sugar" label below. 
Let's see if the Republicans shut 'em down.  Anybody think it's going to happen? 
I didn't think so. 

A modest proposal for Brian Schoenjahn, who wants to ban mixtures of alcohol and caffeine

From The Des Moines Register, with a fresh coat of Whitening to Hit'n'Run:

A sweeping ban on alcoholic beverages that contain caffeine is the first bill in the Iowa Senate this year.

The proposal would prohibit the sale or possession of such drinks, as well as ban transporting or distributing them. Senate File 1 was filed by Sen. Brian Schoenjahn, D-Arlington.

A violation would be a simple misdemeanor punishable by 30 days in jail and a fine of between $65 and $625. Anyone with a liquor license would have their permit revoked.

Here's more from Hit'N'Run:

The bill defines "caffeinated alcoholic beverage" as "any beverage containing more than one-half of one percent of alcohol by volume, including alcoholic liquor, wine, and beer, to which caffeine is added." Hence it apparently applies not only to drinks with a noticeable caffeine kick but also to coffee-flavored liqueurs with detectable amounts of the stimulant, such as Kahlua or Tia Maria, and any cocktails made with them, such as a Black Russian or a Mudslide. In addition to jail time and fines, violators would face revocation (not just suspension) of their liquor licenses, and therefore loss of their livelihoods—a pretty harsh penalty for following the instructions in a Mr. Boston book.

Here's some non-violent (but uncivil) rhetoric on the issue from Popehat:

“Why can’t you mind your own damn business, you nasty, officious, grasping little nanny-state twit?
.... Available press reports do not make it clear whether Brian Schoenjahn (1) only wanted to ban caffeine-enhanced canned drinks marketed to younger people like Four Loko, but was too stupid to draft a bill tailored to that end without outlawing a vast swath of traditional alcoholic beverages and cocktails, or (2) genuinely believes that it’s the rightful place of state government to ban Irish Coffee and Kahlua because Iowans are too stupid to drink it responsibly."

Meanwhile, please remember that thoughtful and important people want you to know that libertarianism is a fringe belief and that legislators are just regular folks whose service ought to be respected.

Yeah.  Well.... If the purpose of government is to protect people like me from our bi-weekly Bourbon And Coke for our own good, I have another proposal for the Iowa Senate. 

Check out these pics of a random Iowa Senate committee. 

Which individual needs to be forcibly restrained from making any more trips to the "All You Can Eat Chomp'n'Chew Buffet" in Des Moines?

Brian Schoenjahn,  the nasty, officious, grasping little nanny-state twit, has more chins than a Chinese phone book.  He wants to deprive me of my bi-weekly Bourbon And Coke, should I ever go back to Iowa for another auction. 
Therefore, I propose that the citizens of Iowa adopt The Schoenjahn Neckline Reduction And Cardiac Arrest Prevention Bill of 2011.  The rough draft reads as follows: 

This bill prohibits the manufacturing for sale, or keeping for sale, importing, distributing, transporting, or possessing of any carbohydrates intended for the gaping Statist maw of Brian Schoenjahn. The bill defines a carbohydrate as any consumable likely to in crease Brian Schoenjahn's shirt size.  Appropriations will be made at a later date to hire regulators to follow Mr. Schoenjahn from Luby's to Captain D's to McDonald's, an activity which will surely save and create jobs for Iowans. 
  A violation of the bill’s provisions is subject to the penalty provisions of Code section 123.50. A violation constitutes a simple misdeameanor punishable by a fine of at least two Wendy's Gift Certificates but not more than four WhatABurger Gift Certificates. If found in violation of this statute, Mr. Schoenjahn will also endure 30 days hard labor at a Bally's or L.A. Fitness Center on a treadmill.  The bill additionally provides that a violation shall result in the immediate revocation and surrender of Mr. Schoenjahn's Senate seat and his Cheesecake Factory Club Card. The bill will take effect upon enactment.

It's for his own good.  He'll thank me one day. 

The Washington D.C. food truck wars, with another brief rant about illegal tamales

Here's some classic protectionism for those who are fans of the genre:

From the Washington City Paper:

If anyone can understand the tension between brick-and-mortar restaurants and the mobile army of food trucks that has stormed D.C. in the past year, it’s Stephan Boillon. After he lost his job at Dino in Cleveland Park in 2008, the veteran chef sought to launch an upscale sandwich shop on Connecticut Avenue NW. His plan was to offer only cold sandwiches, which would enable him to build a restaurant with no burners, no oven, and no deep fryers.

But even Boillon’s stripped-down concept was going to cost $750,000 before the doors opened—a figure that didn’t include rent, utilities, insurance, advertising, taxes, labor, association fees, or any of the other overhead it takes to operate a business in a neighborhood that expects a lot from its entrepreneurs.

So with credit tight and investment money scarce, Boillon found a cheaper way into the gourmet sandwich business: a food truck.

For $50,000, one-fifteenth of the price to build his brick-and-mortar concept, Boillon started El Floridano, his rolling unit dedicated to home-made roast-pork Cubans and other bread-driven bites. Boillon had traded a restaurant’s higher profit margin for a truck’s lower start-up costs.

**********

If only supply-and-demand economics were so easy. The sudden appearance of gourmet food trucks that delighted so many lunch-hour consumers simultaneously horrified the established restaurant community—a deep-pocketed, politically wired bunch.

Now, like in Brooklyn and Los Angeles and every other city where mobile vendors represent new competition, the District’s inline businesses are turning to the legislative process to ease their pain. Thus when it comes to the street-food options, you may not have the ultimate say. Lawyers, lobbyists, social-media activists, councilmembers, and business owners are all working the levers of power to determine what rolls your way for lunch.

And here’s the unique D.C. twist to this traditional battle between the rolling and stationary food providers: The old-school street carts, and the powerful depot owners who represent them, don’t care much for these four-wheeled foodies, either.

In the battle for Washington’s food dollars, the mobile vendors have public opinion—and 47,000 Twitter followers—on their side. But their competitors have what might be a more powerful weapon: money.

Well-financed entities like the Golden Triangle Business Improvement District, the Restaurant Association Metropolitan Washington, the Dupont Circle Merchants and Professionals Association, and the Apartment and Office Building Association of Metropolitan Washington have all submitted proposals asking the D.C. Council to put new restrictions on trucks. Some of the proposals are downright draconian.

Go here to read the proposals, all of which are designed to keep consumers from getting what they want. 

Fort Worth has businesses doing the same thing but at a lower level.  In Cowtown, it's usually the food truck guys who are trying to stifle the competitors. 

Several years ago at Jukt Micronics, I had a Roach Coach operator complain to me about the Mexican dude selling tamales from a bicycle to my employees (which they were joyfully purchasing instead of buying the nuclear winter-proof gunk from her Roach Coach).  She wanted me to throw the bicyclist out of the parking lot because he didn't have a Food Handler's Permit, and no one knew what he was putting in those tamales. 


This confrontation took place before my political awakening, but I already had enough sense to ridicule the notion that a government-issued permit was enough to purify the contents of the bicycle tamale bin or the preservative-laden cholesterol bombs in her van. 

I don't remember how that worked itself out.  But speaking of illegal tamales....


Go here for a much later rant about illegal tamales being sold outside another Jukt Micronics location.  Something about businesses and regulators trying to stifle the tamale market gets me fired up.


Here's a video about the D.C. Roach Coach food truck operators. 




I do love me some homemade tamales.  A fresh coat of Whitening to The Agitator for the link.

The almost tragic Arizona bacon story

I'm spending about a week and a half in Arizona, filling in for another guy at the Phoenix Jukt Micronics warehouse.  Most of our Texas transplants are staying at The Marriott TownePlace Suites since the rooms are more spacious, have kitchens, and are a little easier to live in for 6 months.  There are lots of good folks working there at the TownePlace Suites, and I owe them a lot. 
Here's why:

I've worked in manufacturing for so long that I have a hard time doing anything in small quantities.  If I buy laundry soap, I get a 3-month supply.  When I cut my food, I generally slice everything on my plate and THEN start eating.  It's called "batching your tasks".  You don't have to handle your tools so many times. 

So when I cook bacon, I throw an entire package in the skillet, stir it around for about 15 minutes and then put it in a ziplock bag.  I'm through cooking bacon for the week. 

The good people at the Marriott TownePlace Suites (Phoenix) provide each resident with a couple of small skillets, but those aren't big enough for a full production run of bacon. 

The other option would be to purchase microwaveable bacon, but that's against my general philosophy.  Bacon is meant to be fried. 

That left me with only one choice.  The dutch oven. 

The Dutch Oven provided by the Marriott TownePlace Suites (Phoenix) is not as sturdy as the one shown above, but it would do in a pinch.  I opened up the meat package, sorted out the slices of bacon into the pot, and then concentrated on scrambling eggs. 

So you can visualize the next few minutes of crisis, here's what a Marriott TownePlace Suites (Phoenix) kitchen looks like:

 

If you're cooking an entire package of bacon at once, some strips will get ready before others.  You just fish 'em out with a fork, throw them on a paper towel, and wait on the slackers to catch up.  By the time an entire package is done, there's at least an inch of boiling grease in the bottom of the skillet.  Even more if you're using a small Dutch Oven instead of the traditional wide skillet. 

I was almost through with the bacon.  Maybe 2 or 3 strips weren't done yet.  All of a sudden the grease started bubbling violently and dark smoke started coming out of the Dutch Oven.  I dredged out the last few pieces of bacon just in time to see the grease go up to the halfway mark inside the pot.  A black cloud started coming out of the Dutch Oven, a cloud so big that it  looked like Israelites should be following it through the wilderness for 40 years. 

All I could think of was "what if the fire sprinklers go off?" 

I moved the pot to an empty burner, but the grease didn't show any signs of settling down, and I was afraid it would spontaneously ignite. 

So I put the lid on it. 

The grease settled down within a few seconds.  Then I tried to remove the lid so I could dispose of the grease (the room was full of smoke, BTW). 

The lid wouldn't budge.  Putting the lid on top of all that heat had created a vacuum inside the Dutch Oven.  I got a fork and tried to pry it off, but got nowhere.  

Next I tried putting some Mississippi physics to work on the problem, reasoning that if heat had created the vacuum, cold might eliminate it.  I put the whole cluster o' metal and grease in the sink and slowly ran cold water over the lid.  

I heard creaking and groaning from the lid.  The pot then pulled the lid into itself about two inches, the metal going from convex to concave before my eyes.  With all the smoke and bubbling I almost expected a Linda Blair voice to come out of the Dutch Oven, saying "THE LID IS MINE, PRIEST ! ! !"   

When the going gets tough, the tough eat their breakfast.  I sat down in my smoke-filled room....

....and ate my scrambled eggs and hard-earned bacon. 
Before I left for work, I made a point of opening the windows and leaving the vent-a-hood and air conditioning turned up to "Geronimo".  I left the satanic Dutch Oven in the sink. 

Ten hours later which I got back to the room, the bed was made, the countertops were wiped down and everything seemed normal, except the place still smelled like someone had turned a pyromaniac loose in the Chicago Stockyards. 

I can't imagine what the housekeeping crew thought when they walked into that horrific room.  I have no idea how they pried the lid off the Dutch Oven, but there it was in the drawer with the other cookware, misshapen lid and all.  I owe them big-time. 

I might invite all of them over to eat tonight.  I'm cooking lasagna.   

A brief rant about illegal tamales

For the last couple of weeks, I've been working out of a new Jukt Micronics warehouse in Richland Hills, Texas. 
Three different ladies come by every morning, selling homemade tamales and breakfast burritos. 

As best I can tell, there's not a convenience store, grocery store, or restaurant within a half mile of this location.
I've established that none of these ladies have food-handler's permits, small business licenses, street vendor authorization permits, or any of the other competition-stifling apparatus that would keep these three ladies from getting my guys fed every morning.

If there is a risk associated with eating this food, it's one that my employees and I have accepted with our eyes wide open.  Compare these tamales with the 3-day old, shrink-wrapped, industrialized fodder in a retail establishment.  The stuff that the "illegals" provide will make you throw rocks at that mess.   

If you are a city health inspector, my email address is dapfortworth at aol dot com.  Please email me, and I will let you know when the food vendors are going to come by my warehouse.  I want to photograph your sorry ass writing health violations on some of the best food provided by some of the best cooks in North Texas.
Or you could just call in sick for the rest of your "career".  No one would miss you.  Just stay home.  You're a burden on society who does nothing but add to the debt level.     
End of rant.  Thanks for listening !  

Dr. Robert Atkins vs. The U.S. Department Of Agriculture

"Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint."

-Mark Twain

I grew up on a rice farm in North Mississippi, in a family full of big-time eaters.  In addition to rice with every meal possible, we also ate a lot of bread.  Lots of spaghetti. 
When I was working on the farm, and then in warehouses, I never had to worry about weight gain.  It didn't matter what I threw in the furnace, it was going to burn. 

30 years later.....well, you know what happens.  I got up to 235 pounds.  I could feel my heartbeat in my neck without touching it.  When I was younger, my blood pressure was borderline anemic.  Earlier this year, I found out I was in danger of the problems associated with high blood pressure. 

What the heck?  I was making a point (more or less) of eating "balanced" meals, as I understood them.  I didn't eat many desserts.  I had looked at the USDA Food Pyramid on the back of bread wrappers enough times to understand how a regular healthy diet was supposed to work.  I would often sit down and knock off a mega-bowl of rice, and consider it healthy.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Pyramid, for those of you reading in other countries, used to look like this:

See those 6-11 recommended servings of bread, cereal, rice, and pasta at the bottom?  Remember this picture from the back of your old bread, cereal, rice, and pasta packages?  Why was the government advising us to eat more carbohydrates than a Chinese village?  Here's Buzzle:

During this time (2003-2004) controversy arose between the food pyramid of Harvard and that of the USDA. Proponents and supporters of the Harvard model claimed that the USDA pyramid was flawed. The argument had to do with the fact that it was the USDA, and not the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), that created the food pyramid. Ergo, the food pyramid of the USDA was prone to influence from lobbyists in the food industry.

You can go here for an interesting set of links about the sugar, beef, wheat, and tater industries scratching and clawing to preserve their places on Uncle Sam's menu recommendations.  Based on pressure from other health experts, dieters, and the fact that we were all getting fatter than the Sunday newspaper, (and we were dying a lot) the USDA eventually revised the pyramid to cut way back on the carbohydrates.  You can go here to see that they're now recommending 3 ounces of grains every day.  That's a heck of a lot less than 6 to 11 servings. 

So, back to my point..... I had to lose some weight.  I used to be in the bookselling business, so I went to the all-time bestseller, a title that spent about 4 years on the NYT Bestseller List: Dr. Atkins New Diet Revolution.  Guess what I found inside? 

* The U.S. is the fattest nation in the world.  Many of our homeless people are overweight.
* Much of this has more to do with insulin resistance caused by eating too many carbohydrates.  We consume so many of the foods pushed by lobbyists (my words, not Dr. Atkins') that our bodies don't/can't burn off any fat. 
* Our epidemics of diabetes, heart disease, and high blood pressure can be attributed to these habits. 

There has been sufficient evidence to make these assertions for more than 30 years now.  But the heavy hand of government and such powerful organizations such as the Department Of Agriculture blanketed the nation with messages about low-fat dieting from the 1970's to the present.  In fact, U.S. government statistics from this time clearly demonstrate that along with the dramatic decrease in dietary fat intake....there was also a dramatic increase in the intake of refined carbohydrates, not only sugar, but white flour. 
There is no doubt in my mind that this increase in refined carbohydrates has been spurred by the media attention given to The Food Guide Pyramid, created by the U.S. Department Of Agriculture, which made 6-11 servings of wheat derivatives the basis of the pyramid.  I believe that the Food Guide Pyramid's recommendations have directly contributed to the twin epidemics of diabetes and obesity we now face in this country. 
(The food combinations that were recommended by the U.S.D.A.) are bad for your health, bad for your energy level, bad for your mental state, bad for your figure.  Bad for your career prospects, bad for your sex life, bad for your digestion, bad for your blood chemistry, bad for your heart.  What I'm saying is that they are bad. 

So....
About three and a half weeks ago, I started doing the exact opposite of what the U.S. Department Of Agriculture recommended, and went with Dr. Atkins' approach. 
I've lost almost 20 pounds. 
I've pulled in my belt by THREE notches.  Count 'em.  Three.  Yeah.  Three. 
I've lowered my resting heart rate by almost 10 beats per minute. 
I feel much better.  The sunshine looks brighter.  There's now enough room in my pants for a Mormon family. 
I don't have anyone to blame but myself for getting up to 235 pounds.  I've always known I shouldn't eat so much. 

But is there anything, anything at all, that our government can do better than the private sector? 

One more note: go to Snopes.com for the circumstances of Dr. Atkins' death. 

John Stossel and The Food Police

John Stossel's program tonight is on The Food Police. Can't wait ! ! !

Bud Light – Check.
Mrs. Renfro’s Habanero Picante Sauce – Check.
Tortilla chips – Check.
Leftover fried corn nuggets that The Aggie left in the fridge a couple of weekends ago – Check.
Slimfast bar – Check.

Stossel started his show eating a bacon cheeseburger. I wish I had one of those, too.
The food police are coming, because you’re not eating right. They want to put taxes on things you shouldn’t eat, and they want to subsidize foods that you should eat. Stossel showed the Surgeon General stating that obesity is worse than terrorism.
NYC, Baltimore, Philly, and California have already banned trans-fats (despite their ability to keep food fresh longer.) L.A. banned the opening of fast food restaurants in “poor” neighborhoods (as if Tavern On The Green wanted to open franchises in the ‘hood.)
Numerous states have put an extra tax on Cokes. Illinois has a 6% tax on candy. They’ve even put a stop to school bake sales in some places.

Stossel brought in some highschoolers who once were allowed to have bake sales for their extra-curricular organizations. One girl argued that by the time you hit high school, you’ve decided what you are and aren’t going to eat. Temptations from the soccer team aren’t going to determine your body type.
He then asked his audience if any of them favored bans on school bake sales. No hands were raised. He expressed surprise that none of MeMe Roth’s fans in the audience stood up for their beliefs (perhaps they were overweight, and couldn’t stand easily?) Meme Roth turns out to be the first guest, and the head of something called National Action Against Obesity. NAAO was somewhat instrumental in stopping the sale of cupcakes in High Schools.

Roth said that obesity costs the country $147 billion dollars. She doesn’t want to pay the bill for this. It’s making her insurance premium go up. A national effort needs to take place to stamp out obesity. 20% of our preschoolers are overweight. 30-40% by the time they finish elementary school.
“If people refuse to do what is right…..we refuse to eat properly and take care of our bodies, we need to make it a law, or we need to (eliminate obesity) ourselves…..if we refuse to hold people accountable, we need to have government intervention.”
Roth thinks her grandmother may have been the first to get a Handicapped parking sticker because she was obese.

Good lord in heaven....the Fat Police are throwing grandmaw under the bus !

Roth thinks Girl Scouts are a great organization, but we shouldn’t be sending girls out to peddle Thin Mints. She suggest that since the girls are getting .60 per box, next time you’re asked to buy Girl Scout cookies, give the girl a dollar and tell her to leave the cookies on the shelf.
Stossel appreciated Roth trying to convince and persuade people, rather than use force. Unlike the next guest calls himself the head of The Head Of The Food Police SWAT Team.

Cut to commercial. I need more beer, and the picante sauce needs to be cut with something milder.

John Banzhaf is a George Washington University law professor. He takes exception to being called The Head Of The Food Police SWAT Team. Now we’re getting some controversy going. Banzhaf claims he hasn’t tried to stop any adult from eating whatever he wants. But he’s lobbied for full caloric disclosure on ALL foods.
He's fought against misleading advertising. WE USE LEGAL ACTION TO KICK OPEN THE DOOR !

The camera isn't kind to John Banzhaf. Professor Banzhaf might need to cut back on the cholesterol.

Roth gently interrupted Banzhaf and suggested he just calm down, and admit he’s the damn food police. Banzhaf then went into an anti-corporate rant against McDonald’s and KFC, forgetting who his audience was on this particular program. He bragged about the lawsuits won against those companies, as if the services they provide aren't voluntary exchanges. Stossel asked who this expense was passed on to…..

Mr. Banzhaf might need to spend less time reading labels, and more time on the stairmaster, because, because, ....

Banzhaf wants to label junk food. He argued that The Best And Brightest don’t need warnings, but the peons need them.
Stossel brought out a stepladder. It had 41 labels on it. Some are legally mandated, and some are there to defend the manufacturers against lawyers/vultures like Banzhaf. Stossel questioned the value of these. Banzhaf argued that the labels are effective. Banzhaf asked “Why do you think governments put warning on products?”
Stossel saw the pitch coming in slow motion from a mile away. “Because it helps governments grow.”

Roth sees this information as a “right”. Roth and Banzhaf brought out a life expectancy chart. It spikes upward. Banzhaf claimed this was because of his ban on smoking.

I’ve got to just come out and say it…..Is Banzhaf kinda fat??? Or is he morbidly obese??? Shit, physician, heal thyself ! ! !

Stossel trotted out an Onion parody headline “Hershey’s Ordered To Pay Obese Americans $135 Billion”. Banzhaf, who is full of more horseshit than the Fort Worth Stockyards, bragged about how McDonald’s “chickened out” and paid a 12.5 million dollar fine, rather than go before a jury of citizens and let them decide the issues.

Ok, here’s the libertarian point to all this….If I decide to eat at Big Botulism’s House Of Salmonella, it’s nobody’s business but mine. There is NO issue for a jury of citizens to decide, UNTIL Big B does me some harm.

I’m down two beers. Time to reload.

Eric Oliver is the author of “Fat Politics” and is a poli-sci professor at The University Of Chicago. He says the reason for our obesity “epidemic” is the arbitrary levels where our fitness professionals have placed the boundaries between “Healthy”, “Overweight”, and “Obese”. These classifications, using the Body Mass Index formula, mean that George W. Bush and Johnny Depp are overweight, and Arnold Schwarzenegger and Tom Cruise are borderline obese !
Banzhaf and Oliver went back and forth about causation for a while.

Banzhaf is probably classifiable as obese. I’m just guessing here. He needs an intervention. A full-blown Barack Obama government-must-intervene intervention into whatever the hell he's been eating. I wouldn't bring it up if Banzhaf were willing to leave us all alone. I'm just sayin'....

Oliver says that statistics suggest that, for people over 65, the people with the longest life expectancy are those who are overweight. My goal: to live forever. I need more beer, just as insurance.

Coming up next: Former Arkansas governor Mike Freakin’ Huckabee, who made every country-bred, corn-fed Arkansas student “weigh in”.

Only one beer down in that segment. Must train harder. I must train harder. Will restock during the next commercial.

Mike Huckabee lost 100 pounds by running marathons. Huckabee justified his school “weigh in” by saying the info went straight to the parents as a warning. Huckabee says you would be amazed by how many parents don’t think about their kids weight. He claims that Arkansas kids' weights started to decline after the weigh-in. All he did was give parents the info.
But the Center for Disease Control says that the kid’s weights went up.
Huckabee doesn’t want the government to be the Grease Police, or the Sugar Sheriff. (I think he’s used these phrases before.) He says that watching diets is one of the best ways to save the State a lot of money.

Cut for commercial and more beer. The chips are running low, too.

The L.A. City Council has banned additional fast food restaurants in SOUTH Los Angeles. Stossel brought in Jan Perry, a City Councilwoman to explain. Ms. Perry says that residents want more supermarkets and a diversity of food choices. Stossel wondered why, if that’s what residents want, entrepreneurs aren’t coming in.

New York mayor Mike Bloomberg has banned soda and bake sales in public schools. They’re trying to reduce salt usage. But the media has caught him eating all sorts of junk and putting salt on almost everything, INCLUDING PIZZA.

Reason magazine’s Nick Gillespie was brought in for some commentary. (He recently named Bloomberg the “Nanny Of The Year”.) Gillespie says that weight isn’t a crisis, just an excuse for politicians to boss people around. Gillespie noted that almost every guest on the show says that poor people, fat people, etc., make poor decisions and they need prodding and guidance to make the right choices. Choices like these aren’t a public matter.

The fact that we have to pay for these decisions is a GREAT example of why we should get rid of Medicaid and Medicare.
Roth couldn’t let that stand. She argued that we need to catch kids before they get too fat and do an intervention. Nick argued back that kids have parents. Parents should be the first source of info. Weighing should not be a focus for a school. An “epidemic” is a contagious disease. Salt and fat are tasty, and when people have money, they prefer foods that taste good.

One thing missing in all of this: The biggest contributor to obesity in the U.S. is corn. We have prohibitive tariffs in place against sugar, so the candy and Coke folks are forced to use corn syrup. And guess which crop our government subsidizes?

Roth interrupted some more, and said that as long as other people are paying the price, you force all of us to give an opinion on how you live your life.
Gillespie: then the solution is to get rid of socialized medicine. Brilliant.

Next up: Who gets to decide what you eat? The government, or you?
Don’t need more beer. Typing to fast too drink. Getting hungry, though.

So who owns our bodies? Government officials, or us?
Stossel ran an experiment with his studio audience. He put out two types of food: junk food vs. fresh fruits and vegetables. Many people went for the junk. What gives the government the right to decide for us? We should be responsible for ourselves.
The war on trans-fats, for instance. Scare mongers bring out the latest theories. Activists rally to get the government to ban the food. Lawyers sue to force companies to change, it's For The Children ®. Then the law is passed.
But what about those that don’t have a cholesterol problem? We’re punished. The artificial substitutes cost more.
Given the choice between government force and voluntary action, voluntary is better. End of story. Here’s some Milton Friedman:

Let government give us the information. But let it leave us free to choose what chances we want to take with our own lives.