Max, now that you mention it, I don't think we should call them "bacteria." It's too stigmatizing. I propose "snowflakes" instead.

WWECD?

(What would e. coli do?)

"Thank God George Bush is our president." -Rudy Giuliani

I agree that we need regulation for all industries for reasonable levels of safety standards. Some things we attempt to make safe at unreasonable costs. For example, airliners do not need floatation devices; no one has ever survived crashing into the water in a 747 etc. anyway, because the shock of the impact kills them, not to mention that an enormous steel container sinks like a rock. Yes, safety should be a concern for government. Car accidents kill more Americans every year than terrorists have in the last 60, so it is a legitimate concern. But we should be concerned with the government ensuring that unreasonable advertisement of "safety features" is not done, and that cost-effective safety procedures (such as seatbelts) are universal.

I'm puzzled. What is the relationship between DDT and BSE?

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]

Precisely parallel to the relation between BSE and the Clintons. It's all there in the Starr Report.

A distinction without a difference, no?

sssshhhhh,,,,,Don't tell anyone.  Yup [a.k.a. satire].  We'll see how many bite. <giggle></giggle>

aMike

This is satire, right? Satire so dry that I don't even recognize it as satire? Like that website about how the late Rev. Falwell was definitely, absolutely, fer-sher not gay?

I mean, how could Clinton have helped Rachel Carson? She'd been dead for years by the time he was president, right?

Our government is already quite busy enough protecting you and me from terrorism, Mexicans, and gay marriages. It cannot be bothered to make elaborate plans to fend off the occasional obscure disease or wayward hurricane.

Yes indeed.  St. Reagan sayeth, "Government is not the solution to our problems, government is the problem."  Permanent military occupations with private security contractors means permanent tax cuts.  No problem.  We'll be safe here.

Howard,

Where I'd like to see a change is the use of antibiotics not to treat known animal infections, but as growth stimulants and preventatives against spread of disease in farm animals. There is little question that this use of antibiotics is a major part of the growing problem of antibiotic resistance.

Wasn't there a movement afoot some years ago to stop companies like Ben and Jerry's from labeling their dairy products BGH-free because it would make the larger companies' products appear less safe?

Hadn't seen it, but I can believe it. Why did you bring this up? I'm out of ice cream but blocked it from my mind.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]

Are those french things over the e's?

I must say my government is doing a heckuv a job. I haven't been attacked by a Mexican in, oh, maybe several years anyway.

Hoppy in Sacramento

I've heard Chertoff requested the CIA to investigate their penetration of a key waterway and the resulting threat to interstate commerce, the San Francisco water supply ,the climate in the Napa Valley orchards and the Sierra snow pack. As a result they've been "rendered" to a ghost location(in two very wet 747s ) and are even now being prepared for interrogation by endless repetition of whale songs played on a 12 tone scale.Backwards.

It's true that no whales have been proved to have been involved in terrorism so far , Chertoff remarked , but this time we've connected the dots.

Sy Hersh reported that the waterboarding failed, so they're looking into how Stalin's men managed the great cetacean pogrom of '33.

Mmmmmm . . . dolphin meat. What can't it do?

French-Canadian, actually. I was born in New York City, but I got the accents from Québec.

There's nothing "conservative" or "liberal" about what's going on here. (And what's with the crack conflating liberalism with vegetarianism? Can we all, at some reasonable point in time, agree to stop this nonsensical "culture war" assigning of political labels to every phenomenom under the sun? Especially things that are mostly matters of very personal preference and style? The "Juiceman," as dedicated a vegetarian as you'll ever find, is, politically, a conservative. Ann Coulter dresses (in mini skirts, leather vests and Marianne Faithful hair) like a 1960s hippie -- but she sure ain't no liberal.)

The situation here is clear (at least to anyone who has ever been in business, most especially the American "food service" business). On the one hand, you have a small company that has recognized a growing market demand and thought up a way to exploit it -- with a unique selling proposition that can both differentiate their product from that of their bigger, more established competitors AND allow them to charge a premium price for that product.

On the other hand, you have some very big players in the American Agricultural Industrial Complex that see a competitive threat -- not to their business as a whole, but to the highest profit, premium end of their market -- and find it perfectly natural to turn to their collegues in the governmental half of that Agricultural Industrial Complex for help in doing what every business in the world wants to do with competition -- undermine and eliminate it.

Republican administration or Democratic administration, the Department of Agriculture can be counted on to protect the interests of Big Ag -- because there's little real difference between the two. They don't just work hand in hand with Big Ag -- they are the other hand on the same body. And protecting Big Ag's "competitiveness" is, in fact, mainly how they define their job.

No, by the Mosquito Revenge Movement, a shady terrorist group newly detected by Homeland Security. They feature biological weapons developed by the sinister A. Q. al-Gebra, master of Weapons of Math Destruction.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]

Nobody took J.E.B. Stuart's cavalry seriously when they said their song was "Look for the Union Label".

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]

My bad - you must be one of the top 2%!

Not offended at all.

Did I seem so? 

Waterboarding ? Figures.

Gotta say I love the phrase e.coli conservatism and e.coli conservatives. It is very accurate.
Recently I've had the phrase "Free Government" popping into my head. As a rejoinder to Free Markets. It can serve as a good counter rhetorical to protect liberal ideas and reasoning when dealing with conservatives. As in free governments and free markets are equal in legitimacy. Only a free government can regulate a free market. As a free government chosen by its citizens, etc....I think it has potential.

A new macrophage against e.coli conservatism.

Just to be serious about satire, I think there's something else afoot in this situation.  The first law of robotics bureaucratics. Carrying out one's charge is actually the second law - the first being protecting your job.  DoAg bureaucrats don't want anyone else doing their job due to the fear of becoming obsolete.

Here's a real life example.  In the 60s the Tohono O'odam tribe in Southern Arizona, on their own initiative, hired a range manager from Montana and set about building a tribal business as cattle growers. They were very successful, and earned handsome profits that didn't have all the strings attached that were typical with goverment programs.  But in the late 60s the Southwest suffered a terrible drought, and it impacted the Indian cattle severely.  Water and feed problems, and the cows were dying off right and left.  The Bureau of Indian Affairs held in trust quite a bit of money that belonged to the Tohono O'odam, but they wouldn't release it for the purpose of saving the cattle.  It wasn't the BIAs project, so they wouldn't help out.  It went to court, and a federal judge ordered the money released.  Ah, but the strings.  The funds could be used to buy feed, but it couldn't be used to transport the feed.  It could be used to hire veteranarians, but couldn't be used to purchase medicine.  In frustration the Indians took matters in their own hands and made it rain, which resolved the crises.

Neoboho

There is always a spoilsport, and usually they want to smear government employees.  In this case, you have chosen to take the well known to be most corrupt agency of the federal government for the last century as an excuse to smear everyone who happens to have any sort of public job.  Most public employees are decent people.  This may or may not apply to their politically appointed department heads.

If you follow the literature of bureaucracy back to Weber and look carefully, you will realize that 90% of American jobs OR MORE are part of the bureaucracy.  You smear yourself. 

Vraiment!!!??? Bet you can type the Alt-0233 with your eyes closed.

Viva Quebec et New York!

I'd like to say "I stand corrected" but I don't think you made the grade, my friend.  What's indecent about protecting one's job?  You seem to be making this claim, so explain it to me.

Neoboho

Your own allegation implied that the public employees were more concerned about retaining employment than protecting public health (the purpose of their job). 

I purposely shifted this from the employees to their politically appointed department heads (actually, in the federal government it is the top 3 to 8 layers).  My defense of public employees does not extend to these people who I also do not consider bureaucrats.

Accusing regular public employees of protecting their jobs when what is actually happening is political appointees are pursuing an agenda aimed at protecting the interests of narrow constituencies against the interest of the public at large, is disingenuous.

Using as your anecdotal empirical evidence a well known to be deviant agency is also disingenuous.

The fact is public employees deserve more respect than we normally offer them.  The other fact is that when we slur bureaucrats we likely don't realize that most of us are properly counted among those bureaucrats. 

"One way the bureaucracies get higher budget allocations is to overspend"

Having been a budget director of a very large government department, I can tell you categorically that this is a rightwing myth.   

What you are doing is morally reprehensible in that you exhibit disrespect for the ordinary people who work for government.  When you drink clean water, eat at a restaurant, drive on a street, do not have typhoid because sewage is not flowing down your driveway, etc., you should be ashamed of yourself.

I tried to find a link to Max Weber for you to show you the clear description of bureaucracy.  Unfortunately, since the republican congress extended copyrights to 75 years, it isn't available. 

The chief characteristics are organized by rules, keeping of records, and carrying out duties without passion (that is, showing no inclination to such activities as nepotism).  The fact is that any public corporation that doesn't expect all these things of all it's employees is going to face a shareholder suit and lose.  So public corporations are just as bureaucratic as the government. 

Indeed, with Sarbanes Oxley, the Not-for-profit world has also become subject to the same expectations.  Only the Mom & Pops with limited or no debt are exempt.

You can continue to argue, but it is out of contempt of public employees, not with any evidence. 

The problem with satirizing Conservative positions is that real life Rightists so often trump the satire...

I gotta say, this was a good one- I almost fell for it.

-Dave Adams-

I'm very pleased to have you as my moral compass, G4A.  Thank you.

Neoboho

Sarcasim aside, I have no trouble whatsoever speaking in behalf of public employees.  I consider it an honor.  You will find I have done it a number of times on this site and will continue to do it.